Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Setting the Record Straight: Social Media Managers and Sales

Transcript

Setting the Record Straight: Social Media Managers and Sales · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. Today I would like to run some
• 0:06
  commentary on something I saw on LinkedIn.
• 0:09
  This is actually similar to content that I've already put
• 0:12
  out on LinkedIn in the past. It's a topic that I've already
• 0:16
  made podcast episodes about and that is on Should you hire your
• 0:19
  social media? Should your social media manager
• 0:22
  be responsible for sales? I mean, essentially, that's the
• 0:25
  whole gist. Oh, by the way, before I
• 0:26
  continue, apologies for the noise in the background because
• 0:28
  it's a weekend, so the kids are home, so I expect to hear them
• 0:31
  faffing about and shouting and then all of that.
• 0:35
  So since this has been one of those long, rambling episodes,
• 0:38
  let's just head straight into it.
• 0:40
  Now. I'm going to read out the
• 0:41
  content of a post that was written by Timmy Topper or Lou B
• 0:46
  Ray. She's a social media manager and
• 0:48
  content marketing manager based out of Ugun State.
• 0:52
  She's one of my first degree connections on LinkedIn.
• 0:55
  And this is another reason why you all should be on LinkedIn
• 0:57
  because of the quality of professional connections that
• 1:00
  you can make and the interesting career and business
• 1:03
  conversations that you can have. You know, these are not the kind
• 1:06
  of conversations that you have on Facebook.
• 1:09
  You know, I'm glad to see that the trend of Nigeria bom bom
• 1:14
  versus Ghanaian bom bom, which one is bigger?
• 1:16
  I'm glad to see that that one has passed and then the trend of
• 1:18
  that boxer being knocked out, that one has passed and you know
• 1:20
  they'll move on to something else.
• 1:22
  But bottom line, these are not, you're not going to be having
• 1:24
  qualitative conversations on a bunch of all these other
• 1:27
  platforms. So if you're listening to the
• 1:28
  show, you don't have a LinkedIn account.
• 1:30
  It's straightforward. Download the app to your phone.
• 1:33
  Go ahead, follow the instructions, get it, and let's
• 1:36
  see how we can use this to improve our businesses and then
• 1:38
  improve our careers. So I'm going to run through a
• 1:42
  copy of the text that you put up on LinkedIn, and then I'm just
• 1:46
  going to run my commentary, give some of my opinions.
• 1:50
  So yeah, so let me start off now.
• 1:53
  This is her post. And when I'm running commentary,
• 1:56
  I'll let you guys know. As a social media manager, am I
• 2:00
  responsible for sales? Trust me to give the right
• 2:03
  answer to this. As a social media manager, one
• 2:06
  of your key responsibilities is to boost visibility for your
• 2:09
  company, for your brand, for your business, not necessarily
• 2:12
  to act as the sales manager or the sales representative,
• 2:15
  especially if the company isn't carrying out additional
• 2:18
  activities to boost sales. So that's the first paragraph of
• 2:21
  her post. So now let me run commentary a
• 2:24
  little bit. So what she said here, in my own
• 2:30
  opinion, actually reflects the feeling of most content
• 2:34
  marketing professionals and most social media professionals.
• 2:37
  They really think that it's not their job to create sales.
• 2:41
  And that is the reason why I have always advocated over here
• 2:44
  on the podcast that we need to be having frank conversations,
• 2:48
  honest conversations regarding quota, regarding sales,
• 2:51
  regarding engagement, regarding everything with potential hires.
• 2:56
  That's if you're going to have one, if you're going to have a
• 2:57
  content marketing person, if you're going to have a social
• 2:59
  media person, we need to have those conversations from the get
• 3:03
  from the beginning. And it has to be our
• 3:05
  responsibility as the business owner because a lot of social
• 3:08
  media managers and content marketers feel this way.
• 3:10
  But unfortunately, I don't know why they're not very forceful in
• 3:13
  bringing this up in the early conversations.
• 3:18
  And when we're wrapping up this episode, if I'm going to
• 3:20
  recommend how I think you guys should be having these
• 3:22
  conversations, you social media managers and you content
• 3:25
  marketing professionals. So we need to have these
• 3:28
  conversations early to avoid tension in the future because
• 3:32
  clearly the business owner is thinking about how content is
• 3:35
  going to lead to greater profits or more customers.
• 3:38
  And clearly social media managers and content marketing
• 3:42
  managers in Nigeria at the very least, do not want to be held
• 3:45
  responsible for any sales targets or any quotas.
• 3:48
  So let's go back to the text of our post.
• 3:50
  So this is my lady friend again. Continuing, I find it amusing
• 3:56
  that some employers or clients expect you to generate
• 3:59
  engagement and sales for them while they sit back doing
• 4:02
  nothing to make it better. However, I wouldn't entirely
• 4:06
  blame them. This often comes down to how you
• 4:09
  conducted the on boarding process.
• 4:11
  So let's pause how I would do. OK summary.
• 4:16
  She says that well, for her it's amusing.
• 4:19
  She thinks that employers and clients, sorry employers, the
• 4:24
  business owner sits back and does nothing and expects you,
• 4:26
  the content marketer basically to do the healthy most of the
• 4:32
  the lifting. Now this is my own commentary
• 4:35
  now I'll put it OK, yes, you're correct.
• 4:40
  This whole thing about engagement, generating
• 4:43
  engagement should be the first step in the sales process.
• 4:48
  This is me taking a step back. Now I know that you content
• 4:51
  marketers and you social media managers, you think your job is
• 4:54
  generating engagement, but I want you guys to understand
• 4:57
  something that generating engagement actually is the first
• 5:00
  step in the sales process. So if social media managers do
• 5:04
  not want to be responsible for a sales target, a sales quarter,
• 5:10
  you need to come up with some sort of plan at the very least
• 5:14
  maybe for pre qualifying customers before you call in the
• 5:17
  business owner to say, look, business owner, I put out this
• 5:21
  post, there has been some engagement.
• 5:23
  There are a bunch of people in the DMS, you know, come and take
• 5:26
  over this conversation, you know, that sort of thing.
• 5:28
  The other handover to the business owner or handover to a
• 5:31
  salesperson proper? Because if as a business owner,
• 5:36
  I'm paying for content and I'm paying for something, I'm paying
• 5:39
  for social media assets, assets online and then nothing is
• 5:43
  generating engagement. But that engagement does not
• 5:46
  turn into qualified conversations that end up with
• 5:50
  me making money. Then, you know, put yourself in
• 5:54
  their shoes. They're wondering why the hell
• 5:56
  am I throwing money behind this thing?
• 5:58
  Because from the the point of view as of a business owner,
• 6:01
  engagement for engagement sake equals 0 engagement should be
• 6:07
  people are engaging, there's potential customers, there's
• 6:10
  potential stakeholders, there's potential XYZ, there's potential
• 6:13
  investors, there's potential whatever.
• 6:16
  And that should lead to some upside of money in the future,
• 6:20
  customers in the future, that sort of thing.
• 6:24
  So content marketers, just look at it from that angle.
• 6:26
  Yes, your job is generating engagement.
• 6:29
  But from the angle of the business owner, if I'm seeing
• 6:31
  engagement and engagement does not equal customers or does not
• 6:35
  equal potential profits or does not equal potential
• 6:38
  partnerships, then essentially what I'm doing is 0.
• 6:42
  Now, this is the reason why you social media managers, you
• 6:46
  content marketers, can you see why you guys, can you see the
• 6:50
  main reason why your business is actually struggling?
• 6:52
  Because you guys think if you generated engagement, everything
• 6:56
  is done, everything cool, you know, everything is fine.
• 7:00
  But for business owners who are throwing money behind these
• 7:04
  things, yes, the money is not much.
• 7:05
  You know, they're paying you, I don't know, 50K for, I don't
• 7:09
  know, 10 post or 20 post or whatever.
• 7:10
  So the money is not much, granted, but as far as they're
• 7:13
  concerned, every month I'm throwing 5050 K, 2020 K, hundred
• 7:17
  100K. However it is that they're
• 7:18
  throwing and the only thing that you're telling me is engagement,
• 7:22
  engagement, engagement. 500 likes, 200 DMS.
• 7:27
  And you know, as a business owner, liking and DM is not
• 7:30
  equal to money in my pocket. You can see the reason why
• 7:33
  they're sceptical and you can see a reason why lots of people
• 7:37
  say rather than hire a social media manager, let me just call
• 7:40
  my cousin. You know, my cousin just
• 7:43
  finished Jam school is not resuming until November.
• 7:48
  In the three months, let him come and be helping me or let me
• 7:50
  call my younger sister or you know, my niece is there in the
• 7:57
  village. She's not doing anything.
• 7:58
  After all, I have a baby here. So let her come and be helping
• 8:00
  me with the baby and let her be managing the social media
• 8:03
  handle. This is the main reason why you
• 8:06
  social media managers actually are not making money and content
• 8:09
  marketing folks, because people don't see the value you pay 5050
• 8:14
  K, 2020 K hundred 100 grand every month.
• 8:17
  At the end of the day, people just say engagement, engagement,
• 8:20
  engagement and it doesn't equal to money.
• 8:24
  So yeah, that's the reason why. But by the way, I just want to
• 8:28
  say one more thing. This whole thing of business
• 8:31
  owners not doing anything. Yeah, I know how that feels like
• 8:35
  business owner hasn't done anything.
• 8:37
  But actually business owners, they do quite a bit.
• 8:40
  I mean, they handle product development.
• 8:41
  They're the one that came up with the product or the service.
• 8:44
  The business owner handles fulfillment.
• 8:46
  If you do anything and the engagement happens to turn into
• 8:49
  business, they're the ones who actually have to make sure that
• 8:52
  product is delivered, service is delivered.
• 8:54
  They are the ones who are who have the responsibility for
• 8:58
  nurturing the relationship, creating referrals and repeat
• 9:01
  business. So the business one actually
• 9:03
  does quite a bit. So for those of you who create
• 9:05
  content, yeah, it looks like you guys are doing all the work.
• 9:08
  But The thing is, creating the content and creating the
• 9:10
  engagement is just one part of the conversation.
• 9:12
  Taking the engagement, squeezing out customers out of that,
• 9:15
  making sure the customers are happy, making sure that they
• 9:17
  come back again. That is the brunt that is borne
• 9:20
  by the business owner or the salesperson.
• 9:23
  So now let's go back to her talking.
• 9:28
  I might discuss the steps you need to take before signing a
• 9:30
  contract with any client someday, but let me quickly
• 9:34
  address today's topic. Sorry, one moment.
• 9:37
  I think I have skipped something because this one, now we've gone
• 9:41
  straight to contract. OK, let me continue.
• 9:46
  Although I think I skipped something, let me continue.
• 9:48
  So yes, I may discuss the steps you need to take before signing
• 9:51
  a contract with any client someday, but let me address
• 9:54
  today's topic. When you were introduced to the
• 9:57
  brand, what roles and responsibilities were stated?
• 10:00
  Did you sign the contract? What was written in that
• 10:03
  contract? These are some important things
• 10:05
  to keep in mind as a social media manager.
• 10:08
  So that is our talking now. Let me run my my commentary.
• 10:11
  So the advice I'd like to give folks as a former legal
• 10:14
  professional is this, stop relying on documents to do the
• 10:18
  heavy lifting for you. Stop relying on contracts to
• 10:20
  sort yourself out. You should be entering into
• 10:23
  business conversations with terms and expectations that are
• 10:27
  key to you, and then discuss those things first in the
• 10:30
  conversation. As in discuss these things
• 10:33
  verbal, one-on-one. I'm looking at your eye, you're
• 10:36
  looking at my eye when I picked up the phone.
• 10:38
  I'm talking into your ear. You are talking into my ear.
• 10:41
  You discuss all those things first.
• 10:44
  Those key terms are now what you use to inform the final
• 10:48
  document. So it's not a matter of you have
• 10:50
  some documents, you guys seem OK and then you now say, OK, what's
• 10:53
  in the in the, in the contract, and then you guys start
• 10:55
  quarrelling. The process of redlining a
• 10:58
  contract can take a long time, you know, 2-3 weeks, one month,
• 11:01
  depending on how complex what you guys are talking about.
• 11:04
  But if you pick up the phone and you have these key terms and you
• 11:06
  start having this conversation from the get, you don't need to
• 11:09
  waste three weeks with redlining.
• 11:11
  You have a 20 minute conversation and know that or
• 11:13
  more. There's no room here.
• 11:14
  And then you guys just part ways.
• 11:17
  So my own opinion, social media managers are content marketers.
• 11:21
  You guys start off the meeting by saying this or start off the
• 11:24
  phone call by saying this. Most business owners expect
• 11:28
  social media managers to bring in sales.
• 11:31
  Is this the kind of thing you are expecting?
• 11:34
  And then keep quiet and hear what the person says.
• 11:37
  If the person says, now, if I'm paying you as a social media
• 11:40
  manager, you're not bringing in sales, then what am I paying you
• 11:42
  for at that point? Please, dear social media
• 11:45
  manager or content marketer, end the conversation.
• 11:49
  There's no point in arguing that this is the value of a social
• 11:52
  media manager, this is the value of a content marketer, blah blah
• 11:55
  blah blah blah. This person, on the other hand,
• 11:58
  of the phone thinks social media manager equals sales.
• 12:03
  If you do not do social media manager equals sales, then end
• 12:07
  the conversation. You say, oh, sorry, Sir, sorry,
• 12:11
  Ma. We'll, well, I'm glad that we've
• 12:13
  gotten that out of the way, that this is what you expect.
• 12:15
  But unfortunately, those are not the services that I provide.
• 12:18
  I can't guarantee sales because of this, this and that, that my
• 12:21
  own view of social media is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 12:23
  Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?
• 12:24
  The person say, of course not. Why would I be spending 100K
• 12:27
  every month if I'm not going to be seeing any profits?
• 12:29
  And then you end the conversation there.
• 12:30
  You guys remain friends. So that's how you do it.
• 12:34
  Don't excuse my French. Push your foot around all these
• 12:37
  issues only to start sending contract back and forth and the
• 12:40
  whole thing takes 2 weeks and then you guys are annoying each
• 12:42
  other. Pick up the phone on day one or
• 12:45
  when you're in the guy's office on day one, the Madam's office.
• 12:49
  Start off the conversation that way.
• 12:51
  And this is a simple formula. Madam.
• 12:54
  Most business owners expect social media managers to bring
• 12:57
  in sales. Is this a fair idea?
• 13:00
  Is that a fair idea for you? Is this what you're expecting?
• 13:03
  Is that the reason why we're having this conversation today?
• 13:05
  I mean, however you want to craft it, craft it like that and
• 13:07
  then just keep quiet when the person responds.
• 13:10
  You now know whether you're going to sit down and continue
• 13:13
  or whether you're going to move. So if you start off
• 13:16
  conversations like this on day one, you're cutting to the heart
• 13:19
  of the issue and then you can move on day one.
• 13:21
  Day 2, you've moved on. Instead of you submit CV, you
• 13:25
  have phone call, you go to the office, you face interview
• 13:29
  panel, you review professional references, blah blah blah
• 13:32
  universe 2 weeks and then the whole thing ends in quarrel.
• 13:35
  Just broach this thing head on straight.
• 13:39
  Don't wait for the contract, Don't wait for the contract.
• 13:42
  Do the heavy lifting yourself. This first meeting, this first
• 13:45
  phone call, just get straight straight into it.
• 13:49
  OK, now let's get back to our LinkedIn post.
• 13:54
  If you've signed up to generate sales for them, then you have to
• 13:57
  deliver. But if you didn't, your main
• 13:59
  focus is boosting their visibility and not for people to
• 14:02
  trust them and buy from them. I hope this helps.
• 14:06
  So that was how she ended the article and I like the way she
• 14:10
  summarized it. So all social media managers,
• 14:14
  aspiring content marketers, pay attention to the warning that
• 14:17
  she gave you here. If you signed up to generate
• 14:19
  sales, then you have to deliver, right?
• 14:24
  That is the key thing I want you guys to take up from this.
• 14:27
  If you signed up to generate sales for them, then you have to
• 14:31
  deliver and then listen to broadcast like this and other
• 14:34
  kind of content so that you know that even though you're a social
• 14:37
  media manager, you're a content marketer.
• 14:39
  You know how to engage people in conversations, you know how to
• 14:42
  qualify people, you know how to run discovery, you know how to
• 14:46
  figure out if there's a match and you how you know how to run
• 14:50
  the the sales process. So that's just the warning.
• 14:53
  Basically, if you sign up to generate sales, you have to
• 14:56
  deliver. Let's see what else.
• 15:01
  OK, she gave it. PS Join other social media and
• 15:05
  community managers who are doing amazing work and learn the best
• 15:07
  strategies to excel while having fun along the way.
• 15:11
  So OK, yeah, yeah. So that's how she ended up.
• 15:16
  Well, of course, everybody has to put a call to action on their
• 15:18
  post. So be sure to check her out on
• 15:20
  LinkedIn for access to her community and then her other
• 15:23
  sources. Sorry, let me scroll up again.
• 15:24
  Let me get her name again. Yes, her name is Timmy Topware,
• 15:28
  Olubi Ray, the social media manager and a content marketing
• 15:32
  manager. Tammy Tuckware, you guys know
• 15:34
  the spelling. OK, Well some of you are not
• 15:36
  Nigerian. So Tammy Tuckware is TEMITOPE or
• 15:40
  Lubiere, if I pronounced it correctly, is OLUBIIRE.
• 15:46
  That's the name to search for on LinkedIn and she's based out of
• 15:49
  Ogun. And let her know you heard about
• 15:51
  her on the podcast and I'm sure she'll take good care of you.
• 15:54
  So whatever community she has, be a member of that, you know,
• 15:57
  stuff like that. But my final word on the matter
• 16:02
  is this. This is me now talking to social
• 16:06
  media managers and content marketers, business owners.
• 16:10
  This is something I want you social media managers to
• 16:12
  understand. Business owners and people at
• 16:15
  the helm of the business community, they view social
• 16:18
  media as a tool for lead generation and for social
• 16:22
  selling. Social media managers, let me
• 16:25
  repeat this. If you're a social media
• 16:27
  manager, you're a content marketer, you're talking to a
• 16:29
  business owner. As far as that business owner is
• 16:31
  concerned, social, social media content.
• 16:38
  The purpose of social media content is #1 lead generation #2
• 16:42
  social selling. Well, I'm sure there's 3456, but
• 16:47
  that is what business owners primarily think.
• 16:50
  So if you're going to agree and collect these guys money or this
• 16:54
  girl's money, you should come up with some sort of protocol, some
• 16:57
  sort of arrangements, some whatever for creating content
• 17:01
  and then handing off engagement back to the business owner or
• 17:04
  back to a sales person. So maybe you social media
• 17:07
  managers or content managers, you would need to start
• 17:09
  functioning as BDRSABDR is a business development Rep.
• 17:13
  Basically, there are people who just try and set meetings, set
• 17:15
  appointments, but they don't have any quota responsibility.
• 17:18
  So if you look at yourself as a BDR, you know, it might be a
• 17:21
  good way to begin. So that is my final word on the
• 17:25
  matter to those of you who are social media managers.
• 17:28
  Now let me talk to business owners.
• 17:30
  Those of you business owners listening to the show, social
• 17:34
  media managers do not like being responsible for sales.
• 17:39
  Dear business owner, if you didn't hear it, let me repeat it
• 17:41
  again. Social media managers don't like
• 17:44
  being responsible for sales. So because of that, the onus is
• 17:49
  on you before you hire this person, have the conversation
• 17:53
  with them directly from day one or else this thing is going to
• 17:57
  end in heartbreak. There's no other way that this
• 17:59
  thing is not going to end. If you marry your social media
• 18:02
  manager, you bring her in, you bring him in, You guys have
• 18:05
  started a nice business relationship and you are
• 18:08
  expecting sales. What this person is thinking, my
• 18:09
  job is visibility and engagement.
• 18:11
  This thing will end in heartbreak.
• 18:13
  So dear business owner, bring it up and the conversation from day
• 18:16
  one because for some reason, even though social media
• 18:19
  managers know that is what people think somehow how they
• 18:22
  don't bring it up. So bring it up from day one.
• 18:25
  Don't go through the whole thing of interview, check the person's
• 18:28
  websites, do references, you face panel, you do this, you do
• 18:32
  that, you send proposal back and forth, you red line contract and
• 18:35
  then next thing two months down the line, you guys are
• 18:38
  quarrelling and calling each other names.
• 18:41
  So just have the conversation on day one.
• 18:44
  If you call the person up on Friday, you go directly into
• 18:46
  this conversation by Saturday morning, you know what's up?
• 18:49
  Like, man, let me move on. This is not my guy.
• 18:51
  This is not my girl. So yeah, that's it.
• 18:54
  That's my final word on the matter.
• 18:56
  Social media managers, this is what business owners are
• 18:59
  thinking. If you're not down for that, say
• 19:01
  it. Business owners, this is what
• 19:03
  social media managers are thinking.
• 19:05
  If you're not down for that, say it.
• 19:07
  So connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140.
• 19:13
  The country code is +234. For those of you who are not
• 19:16
  Nigerian, also connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 19:19
  The name to look for is Tavishyama Ayede.
• 19:21
  I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the the spelling
• 19:24
  of my name from the link. We are listening to this
• 19:26
  episode. Let's see what else?
• 19:28
  Yeah, just connect with me. Questions, queries, comments,
• 19:30
  tips, tricks, whatever. Let's let's chat.
• 19:34
  I might not respond to you guys immediately, but 24 hours last
• 19:37
  last 48 hours. I respond to everyone.
• 19:39
  So thanks for your time and attention.
• 19:40
  I'll catch you guys at the next episode.