Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Turn Every Contact into a Prospect: Actionable Tips for Daily Lead Generation

Transcript

Turn Every Contact into a Prospect: Actionable Tips for Daily Lead Generation · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to the show today.
• 0:05
  I don't have a question to tackle per SE, but I'm currently
• 0:07
  going through something right now and it's giving me a thought
• 0:11
  about how a lot of people could be doing better in their
• 0:14
  businesses, but they aren't doing so.
• 0:17
  And some of the reasons why their business isn't going isn't
• 0:21
  moving forward as planned. It's not because of
• 0:23
  macroeconomic factors, but rather it's because of things
• 0:26
  that are be that are within their control.
• 0:31
  For those of you who've been listening to the podcast for a
• 0:33
  while, you know that I've currently been battling with
• 0:36
  Napa or rather the PhD And as they're called now because first
• 0:41
  of all, our Transformer was vandalized and then later on,
• 0:45
  well, currently now there's been an explosion at the Transformer.
• 0:49
  So for those of you who've been loyal listeners, you know how,
• 0:51
  you know, when we go through these episodes, I'm usually
• 0:54
  running around running up and down trying to organise things
• 0:58
  because for better, for worse, you know, I'm one of the more
• 1:02
  younger people in their state. And you know, all the other
• 1:06
  fogies are all old and retired. And you know, I have kids with
• 1:09
  me, so I have a young family. So I guess I'm more impacted by
• 1:12
  these sorts of things. But I've noticed one thing in
• 1:15
  having to run around and deal with these sorts of things.
• 1:19
  In trying to sort out transformer issues, you know,
• 1:22
  after explosions or vandalizations or whenever power
• 1:25
  infrastructure fails, I'm having to deal with lots of engineers
• 1:30
  who either work with the PHC and or who sells stuff or who have
• 1:34
  their own private con, what's it called?
• 1:37
  Contracting service. I'm having to deal a lot with
• 1:39
  these people, but from the last incident which happened maybe
• 1:44
  two months ago up until now, I've noticed that now that the
• 1:49
  transformer has gone kaput again and I'm having to call around
• 1:54
  surprisingly, now that I'm calling round all these
• 1:59
  engineers and everybody, it's like I'm having to reintroduce
• 2:02
  myself all over again now. The economic climb in Nigeria is
• 2:08
  very harsh. Granted, yes, energy prices have
• 2:12
  tripled. Electricity tariffs are going to
• 2:14
  go up, cost of raw materials are going up.
• 2:17
  So yes, I understand that lots of people are going to find it
• 2:20
  difficult to run their businesses.
• 2:22
  But let's look at this crop of people that I've been speaking
• 2:25
  to which are engineers and private contractors.
• 2:30
  So if I have worked with these people in the past and they have
• 2:34
  done, I mean from the let's look at things from their own point
• 2:38
  of view. If they have done business or
• 2:41
  provided a service to somebody else in the path.
• 2:44
  So in the past, then the normal thing that they ought to do, the
• 2:49
  normal thing that a business person ought to do, is you need
• 2:52
  to approach a lot of your business activities as avenues
• 2:58
  for lead generation. Now remember, in previous
• 3:01
  episodes I've described a lead as someone who might have taken
• 3:05
  an action in the past or might have done something to show that
• 3:09
  they might be interested in your product or services.
• 3:12
  Now, if someone has hit you up in the past because they they
• 3:15
  had transformer issues and they needed your services as a
• 3:18
  private contractor, as an engineer to solve the problem,
• 3:22
  then don't you think that person should go into your phone book
• 3:27
  or your diary or your file as a lead for the future or as a
• 3:31
  prospect for relationship nurturing?
• 3:34
  Because this is Nigeria, the state of infrastructure is
• 3:38
  unstable. So the chances are if somebody
• 3:41
  reaches out to you because they need infrastructure support for
• 3:44
  power or for plumbing or carpentry or whatever, chances
• 3:49
  are the person might need your number again.
• 3:52
  Or the person might be able to refer you to other people who
• 3:55
  might need your services. So these private contractors and
• 4:01
  engineers, their businesses could be doing a whole lot more
• 4:04
  if they just approach their everyday way of building
• 4:07
  business as a means for lead generation.
• 4:11
  So in fact, if these people were being what's the word,
• 4:15
  industrious in building their businesses when they came to
• 4:18
  come and fix the transformer the first time around?
• 4:23
  You shouldn't just have been my contact details that were
• 4:26
  collected, but perhaps contact details of other estate members
• 4:29
  as well. Especially since some members of
• 4:33
  the estate are currently doing projects like erecting houses
• 4:36
  that might need electrical fitting and then things like
• 4:38
  that. So they should have looked at
• 4:40
  how to conduct their everyday business as a as a means for
• 4:46
  gathering leads and for relationship building.
• 4:51
  Because I think it's appalling that in 2024 we have Nigerian
• 4:55
  business people or people who are suffering and who want to
• 4:58
  increase their level of sustenance and their level of
• 5:01
  income. That you can't even do the most
• 5:03
  basic thing, which is somebody calls you because they need your
• 5:07
  service and at the end of the service you don't even store the
• 5:10
  person's phone number. How will you reach out to the
• 5:13
  person in the future to say, I hope we were able to solve the
• 5:17
  problem satisfactory? If you have no problems, do you
• 5:21
  have another person that you can refer me to so that we can
• 5:24
  rewire the house or so we can solve this infrastructure
• 5:28
  problem, or so that we can solve this building challenge or that
• 5:31
  power challenge or this plumping challenge?
• 5:34
  I mean, this is 2024. We all have mobile phones.
• 5:39
  The mobile phones are capable of storing thousands of phone
• 5:43
  numbers. This is not like back in the
• 5:45
  day. You know, back when some of us
• 5:47
  were in uni and MTN just rolled out and back then you can only
• 5:50
  store phone numbers on a scene and on the same you could only
• 5:53
  store 200 digits. Now I don't even know how many
• 5:57
  you can store, especially now that you can hook up your Google
• 6:00
  account and in theory, I don't know, you could go maybe.
• 6:04
  My guess is maybe you can do 4567, maybe even 8000 phone
• 6:09
  numbers. It's not going to cost you
• 6:11
  anything to just use your smartphone.
• 6:15
  I mean after all it's called a smartphone.
• 6:16
  The smart thing to do is to save the number of people you've done
• 6:20
  business with in the past and try to get prospective leads to
• 6:25
  talk to in the future. Now, a lot of you listening to
• 6:28
  the podcast these this is just one of the basic reasons why
• 6:32
  your business is not making as much progress as it should.
• 6:35
  You've done business with someone in the past.
• 6:38
  You didn't think it was a good idea to store that person's
• 6:41
  phone number or to call the person back to be sure that they
• 6:44
  enjoyed your product or service, or to find out if they could
• 6:47
  refer you to someone else. If you are a private contractor,
• 6:51
  a business person, a self-employed person, or even if
• 6:54
  you're employed but looking for avenues of extra income, it's an
• 6:57
  indictment on you that somebody has done business with you in
• 7:01
  the past, the person calls you up now and you have absolutely
• 7:05
  no idea who that person is. It's an indictment on you and
• 7:10
  not the president. If you're one of those people
• 7:13
  who believes that the president has ruined the economy, I'm not
• 7:16
  saying one way or the other. I'm just saying it's an
• 7:18
  indictment on you, not the economy, not the president, not
• 7:23
  the Village People for stalling your business.
• 7:25
  It's an indictment on you. This is one of the reasons why I
• 7:28
  started. I started the podcast back in
• 7:31
  the Good luck Jonathan era. You know, just before COVID was
• 7:36
  because some of these things should be common sense.
• 7:40
  But for some reason it is not common sense.
• 7:43
  And lots of people don't realize that these are the simple things
• 7:45
  that you can do to grow your business.
• 7:47
  You've done business with someone.
• 7:49
  Save the person's phone number. Call the person once in a while.
• 7:53
  Be sure that the problem hasn't reoccurred.
• 7:55
  If the problem has reoccurred, good, you might be able to make
• 7:58
  a sale. If the problem has not
• 7:59
  reoccurred, good, you might be able to get a referral.
• 8:03
  Because let's face it, you're a contractor in the power space in
• 8:07
  Nigeria. I mean, think about it, who does
• 8:12
  not need support for wiring houses or for buying cables or
• 8:18
  for buying a generator or for. So I mean, let's let's face it,
• 8:22
  I live in Abuja, There are development projects going up
• 8:25
  all over the place and I'm sure for those of you in Lagos and
• 8:28
  some parts of the East, it's the same as well.
• 8:31
  Anyway, sorry about this rant, but bottom line is, if you're
• 8:36
  ever in that situation where somebody calls you and the
• 8:39
  person says this is so and so and you respond, who?
• 8:43
  And the person says this is so and so Now you did this for me,
• 8:45
  this for me, this for me. And your response is after you
• 8:49
  finish that phone call, if you end up doing business again,
• 8:52
  what you need to do is to get on your knees.
• 8:54
  You need to ask God for forgiveness because you've not
• 8:57
  been sharp in growing your business.
• 8:59
  Because after all, every day we, Nigerian Christians especially,
• 9:03
  we say, God bless the work of our hands, We need to use our
• 9:06
  hands diligently and we need to use our mobile phones
• 9:09
  diligently. So next time somebody calls, you
• 9:11
  don't know who the person is, but the person insists.
• 9:13
  You guys have done some work together.
• 9:15
  It's an indictment on you. Store that person's phone
• 9:17
  number. Create something in your phone,
• 9:20
  your diary, your post it note or whatever.
• 9:24
  Or tell your wife to remind you in the future or your husband to
• 9:26
  remind you in the future that this is a potential lead that I
• 9:30
  should be following up with at some point.
• 9:32
  Pick a cadence, whether it's one month or two weeks or six months
• 9:36
  or whatever. Lead gathering, really
• 9:40
  important. Relationship nurturing,
• 9:43
  relationship building, really, really, really important.
• 9:47
  So that's the reason why I've gotten on the microphone today
• 9:50
  to make today's round. At the next podcast episode I am
• 9:54
  going to be sharing my ideas on navigating growth for start-ups
• 10:01
  in Nigeria. Now the reason why I'm going to
• 10:03
  be tackling that is because there was a Huawei Startup
• 10:06
  Summit recently, that's this year, 2024.
• 10:09
  And who are we? That's the the telephony
• 10:13
  company. You know, they make mobile
• 10:14
  phones and stuff like that. I hope I'm pronouncing the name
• 10:17
  properly. That's Huawei.
• 10:22
  I've started paying attention to these sorts of companies ever
• 10:24
  since I got my Joming phone because I have the Joming 12 C
• 10:29
  and I think it's a real handy phone.
• 10:31
  So I've been paying attention to all these Chinese companies
• 10:34
  anyway, so I didn't speak at that conference that they had
• 10:38
  navigating growth for startups and scale UPS in Nigeria.
• 10:42
  But it's a topic that I have some ideas on.
• 10:44
  So in the next podcast episode I'll be sharing that.
• 10:47
  But before I leave, another reminder.
• 10:49
  If you are one of these people, you are a self-employed person
• 10:53
  or your employee and you're looking for other ways to grow
• 10:55
  your income. If someone calls you up, you
• 10:57
  don't know who that person is, but you don't business with them
• 11:00
  in the past. It's an entitlement on you.
• 11:01
  There are lots of things that you can do to improve your
• 11:04
  income and #1 is to take your everyday business transactions
• 11:09
  and look at them as methods for lead gathering.
• 11:12
  So if you are these technical minded sorts of people, someone
• 11:16
  calls you up for technical specs when you go there and you're
• 11:20
  done, collect the person's phone number, use your eyes, size the
• 11:23
  environment. There might be possible deals,
• 11:27
  opportunities for these business deals in the making, size the
• 11:30
  environment, get some more phone numbers, hand out some more
• 11:32
  business cars, put out more Flyers, you know, whatever.
• 11:36
  And then relationship building, relationship nurturing, call
• 11:39
  back two weeks, one month, three months, whatever cadence that
• 11:43
  you're comfortable with and then find out are you happy, did the
• 11:47
  problem reoccur? How can I help you fix it?
• 11:49
  Do you know anybody else who needs my product or my services?
• 11:52
  So with just this application of simple common sense, you will
• 11:55
  find that actually it's very, very possible to increase your
• 11:59
  business in 2024 by 30, forty, 50%.
• 12:03
  Just these simple things can improve your business and help
• 12:08
  your business grow. Regardless of whoever is the
• 12:11
  president, whether it's AC or PDP or the Democrats or the
• 12:16
  Republicans, These are the simple things that you can do to
• 12:19
  improve, improve your lot in society.
• 12:23
  Now of course, yeah, elections are important.
• 12:25
  Vote elections coming up with Americans.
• 12:28
  So please go ahead vote. I think Nigeria will still have
• 12:32
  a few ways to go. Is it 2027 or something?
• 12:35
  But yeah, when the time goes, comes vote.
• 12:37
  But in the meantime, lead generation, business.
• 12:43
  Sorry. Relationship building,
• 12:46
  Relationship culturing. So thank you very much for your
• 12:49
  time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next
• 12:50
  episode. My name is Tavishi Mahidi.
• 12:53
  I'm the host of the show. Please connect with me on
• 12:55
  LinkedIn. You can confirm the spelling of
• 12:57
  my name and my e-mail address from the link we're listening to
• 13:00
  this episode. Also, connect with me on
• 13:02
  WhatsApp. My phone number is 08064662140.
• 13:08
  The country code is +234. I'd like to hear from you guys,
• 13:12
  especially if you guys have any questions, comments or things
• 13:15
  that you disagree with, Hit me up, let me know.
• 13:19
  Let's have the discussion, let's flesh it out, Let's help our
• 13:21
  community grow, and let's help share the knowledge and help
• 13:26
  grow our businesses. So thanks for your time and
• 13:28
  attention. I'll catch you all at the next
• 13:29
  episode.