Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / The 4 Pillars of Business Success: Lead Generation, Inbound, Conversions, and Retention

Transcript

The 4 Pillars of Business Success: Lead Generation, Inbound, Conversions, and Retention · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. Today we're going to be looking
• 0:04
  at training programs that can improve your sales skills and
• 0:07
  improve your sales knowledge. And the reason why we're looking
• 0:10
  at that today is because I've had a couple of questions from
• 0:14
  from some people. OK, let me see.
• 0:17
  The first question that I can remember, first person rather
• 0:20
  that I can remember receiving the question from was from a
• 0:24
  listener of the show. I think his name is Alozi and,
• 0:28
  and he, he asked questions about where to get sales training
• 0:33
  opportunities in Lagos, Nigeria. That's sorry, in Nigeria for
• 0:37
  people who are just starting out in the work environment now.
• 0:40
  He left his comment on Spotify. He's a listener of the podcast.
• 0:44
  Oh, by the way, shout out to Alosia.
• 0:46
  Thank you very much for listening to the show and thank
• 0:49
  you very much for your comments. In fact, while I'm here, I might
• 0:51
  as well shout out the second listener of the show that is
• 0:54
  Nolez. That is NOLEZ.
• 0:59
  I think this must be some sort of a nickname anyway, so shout
• 1:02
  out to Knowledge who is based in Benway and she is in the
• 1:05
  business of selling perfume, whiles she's starting that as a
• 1:09
  side gig. So I should be chatting with her
• 1:11
  soon about that. Anyway, so folks like Alosi have
• 1:16
  been asking about sales training opportunities in Nigeria,
• 1:19
  particularly for people who are about to begin their career.
• 1:22
  And so I figured we're going to make that the topic that we're
• 1:25
  going to address today. So what kind of training
• 1:28
  programs are available? I can help you to brush up your
• 1:30
  sales skills, brush up your sales knowledge.
• 1:33
  Now before we go into the training programs that are
• 1:35
  available, I can only talk about programs that are available with
• 1:39
  me because to be honest, looking at the landscape, I can't say.
• 1:43
  I know a host of other sales training professionals out there
• 1:46
  in Nigeria because, OK, well, I know of Paul 4, but Paul 4 is
• 1:51
  based in the UK. So I mean, if you want to, you
• 1:56
  know, if you have that UK money, then yeah, you can hit them up.
• 1:59
  But block out here on ground. I don't know to many folks who
• 2:02
  are doing the sorts of things that I'm doing.
• 2:05
  But before we start looking into specific kinds of training
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  programs, before I start making any kinds of recommendations as
• 2:13
  usual, whether you have any training program, what kind of
• 2:16
  training program you're going to take, it depends on what the
• 2:19
  source of the problem is in your business.
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  Because not everybody has the same problem.
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  So you can't really say that there's one kind of training
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  program that is fit for everyone and for all businesses in all
• 2:33
  kind of contexts because everybody has different business
• 2:36
  problems. Now, there are some people who
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  their business problems is lead generation.
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  Now, for those of you who've been listening to show for any
• 2:43
  length of time, you will remember that the lead is just
• 2:46
  anybody who has raised his hand or raised her hand.
• 2:49
  They have done some sort of activity to show that they might
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  be interested in your product or your service and they have given
• 2:56
  you permission to reach out to them.
• 2:59
  Now, those people are typically contacts that we have, you know,
• 3:02
  on some list or on our phone or whatever.
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  Maybe we'll get them through some kind of Instagram campaign.
• 3:07
  But these sorts of people, these are leads.
• 3:10
  And so some people have problems with generating leads.
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  That is getting people to raise their hand and they say I am
• 3:16
  interested in your product or your service and they hand over
• 3:19
  their contact details. Now the example that I gave in
• 3:22
  the past when I made a podcast episode about this lead
• 3:25
  generation was to show how lead generation doesn't have always
• 3:28
  have to be done online. I spoke about the chap who
• 3:31
  showed up at my son's school with Flyers and handed to me and
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  a bunch of other parents because they were selling back to school
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  things, you know, bags, clothes, textbooks, all those sorts of
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  things. Now, handing off Flyers is also
• 3:44
  an opportunity for lead generation because when you hand
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  out Flyers, well, First off, lots of people ignore the
• 3:51
  Flyers. But if you hand out enough
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  Flyers, because remember, when it comes to Flyers, it's a
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  numbers game. So you can't say that you've
• 3:58
  handed out 200 Flyers and then you've done work.
• 4:01
  You have to hand out more than that.
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  For people who want to try Flyers, my own recommendation
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  is, you know, at the very least you hand out 1000 Flyers before
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  you can start complaining that it worked or it didn't work
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  because handing out 50, you're handing out 10 or handing out
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  100. It's just absolute rubbish.
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  You know when you get much return from that?
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  So this young man outside my sons school gives me a flyer.
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  Give a bunch of people some Flyers.
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  Now let's say one of those parents looks at the Flyers and
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  like okay, I like this kind of bag.
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  Or wifey has been saying that the children's bags are old.
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  We need to get these kinds of bags.
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  And let's say the person now calls you because your nobody is
• 4:37
  on the flyer to say, hey, what's up?
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  Took your flyer. You outside my son's school.
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  I beg. Do you guys have this kind of
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  bug? Do you guys have Ben 10 bug or
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  do you guys have Superman bug or Spider man bug or whatever?
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  So this person has done something to show that he might
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  be interested in your product or your service.
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  And by calling you implicitly, he has kind of given permission
• 5:00
  that you can get in touch. So by handing out Flyers now you
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  have generated a lead because somebody has raised his hand or
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  raised her hand to show I might be interested and has given you
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  contact details. So there's some people that this
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  is where their business is running into problems.
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  They just don't know how to generate leads.
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  So if lead generation is your problem, you're going to have
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  some kinds of trainings that will be different from other
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  people who are trying to build their business by doing inbound.
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  Now inbound is when you're staying there in your office, in
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  your shop, in your house, in your wherever and you do a whole
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  bunch of activities, whether online or offline.
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  And the whole idea is you're trying to get people to be
• 5:45
  attracted to you and let them start chasing you, let them
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  start calling you in. So all the stuff that we do on
• 5:52
  social media, you know, you put, you do your Instagram videos,
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  you do your everything because you're hoping that the whole
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  thing will trend. And when you trend, lots of
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  people will now start calling you or sending DMS, you know,
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  stuff like that. That's basically the idea behind
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  inbound. Although nowadays when people
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  say inbound, what they mean is mostly online, but arguably
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  advertising, you know, old school advertising, when you put
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  the advertisement on NTA or put the advertisement on radio, you
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  know, TV, radio, that sort of thing.
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  It's also another way of generating inbound.
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  So there are two business philosophies that I'd like to
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  talk about on the podcast for generating business.
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  One of them is outbound. Another one is inbound.
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  Outbound is when you go and you start chasing other people
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  because they're trying to draw more business.
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  Like the fellow who went outside my son's school and started
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  handing out Flyers, you know that is outbound.
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  And so inbound is when you're there chilling wherever you're
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  chilling and you're trying to generate interest so that you
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  know that damn good, they rush you.
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  That's the whole idea with inbound.
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  So the person who has problems with lead generation, your own
• 6:58
  training is different. The person who has problems with
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  generating inbound, your own training is different.
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  There are also people who their business problems stem because
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  they can't handle conversions. Now what conversion means
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  basically is you're just trying to get people to take the next
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  step because business is business is like normal
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  relationships. Nobody consummates a
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  relationship on the first day, except if you know, you're in
• 7:25
  some countries and you happen to be in some contexts, maybe like
• 7:29
  you're in the club or something. You know you're feeling the
• 7:31
  babe, or you know the guys feeling you and you guys think
• 7:34
  everything is everything. And then you know, somehow,
• 7:37
  somehow, you know, you guys end up at home.
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  You know that kind of thing. But apart from that,
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  relationships usually go one step by one step by one step.
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  You say, hey, babe, I like you talk your own.
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  And then you start having a conversation and then from
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  there, you know, on and on and on.
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  So it's the same thing with business conversion, small,
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  small steps. The example that I've given lots
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  and lots of times before from my wedding photography days was I
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  would go to a bridal fair and I'm there because I'm looking
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  for customers. Somebody will come to my table
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  and say, wow, I like this album, I like this frame.
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  How much? And then that's how we start
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  talking. After that, I'll try and hook up
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  a meeting so I can go to the person's office or so they can
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  come to my studio and we'll look at albums.
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  And you can see that everything is one step, one step, one step,
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  one step, step one, go to the show, collect their phone
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  number. Step 2.
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  Fix an appointment for samples. Step 3, fix another appointment
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  for negotiation, you know, and then on and on like that.
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  So we close business by taking small steps, micro steps along
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  the way. So for those of you who think
• 8:43
  that business is about, you just show up one time and then you
• 8:46
  say some magic words and then you collect 500K from the
• 8:49
  clients like that in one sitting.
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  It's possible and it happens, but that's not my area of
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  specialty. I can't teach you that.
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  It's very, very hard to do that. The rate of rejection in that is
• 9:01
  very, very high. I can be very soul crushing.
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  So it's not for everybody. It's not for the faint of heart.
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  So for the rest of us, the focus is to try and close the deal.
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  Small, small, small, small, you know, one small step, another
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  small step, another small step. And then that's how you seal the
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  deal. So the person who is having
• 9:17
  problems with conversion, your own training is different.
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  Then let's see what else, OK. And then I have customer
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  retention or client retention. Now the goal of business, a lot
• 9:33
  of people forget this all the goal of sales, the goal of
• 9:35
  business that a lot of people don't pay attention to is this.
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  We're trying to get people not just to buy from us once, but we
• 9:42
  are trying to get the people to buy from us again and again and
• 9:45
  again because that's where the main money is.
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  So think about it. If you're selling something,
• 9:50
  let's say Indo me, yeah, let's say you sell Indo me.
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  Indo me is now like 1212 K cartoon.
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  Maybe your profits on that Indo me is 1K.
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  If somebody comes to your shop and buys one cartoon of Indo me
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  and you know pays 12 K, the only thing you have profited on that
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  person is just that 1K. However, if you get the person
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  to come back and buy Indo me from you every two, two weeks,
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  then there are 52 weeks in a year.
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  That means the person will come 104 times in a year to buy from
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  you. Now 104 times we have said that
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  the profit on the Indo me is let's say is 1K.
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  So if my math is correct, that means if you do a good job and
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  the person comes back again and again and again, the actual
• 10:34
  value of that customer is 104 K 104,000.
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  So that's the goal in business. You get the person to come back
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  over and over and over again because that is where the most
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  money is made. Just like this babe no less, who
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  reached out on WhatsApp and who dropped a comment on Spotify.
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  That's how no less is going to make the most of her money.
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  If you get somebody to buy a perfume one time for her and on
• 11:02
  that she made 10K but the person never comes back, that's not a
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  good job because you've only made 10K and then that's it.
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  However, if you get the person to buy one perfume from you in
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  January and buy another perfume in July and buy another one in
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  November and each time profit margin is 10/10 K, you can see
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  now that is beginning to make sense that from 1 customer you
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  squeezed out 30K. If you can stretch the
• 11:26
  relationship out for you know, 5-6 years and of course, you
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  know, people, never, most people don't stay in the same place.
• 11:33
  You know, their taste will change, their purchasing power
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  will change. So the kind of perfume that the
• 11:38
  person will be buying from you will go up and up and up.
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  So you see that that's the whole goal when it comes to customer
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  retention, client retention. It's all about repeat business
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  and referrals because verily, verily I say on TV, it does not
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  pay you when you do all this hard work.
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  You go and drop flyer, you go and create Instagram views, you
• 11:55
  go and advertise, you go and do this, you go to trade show and
• 11:59
  all these sorts of things. And then you get let's say 100
• 12:02
  people to do business with you in 2024.
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  And then next year in 2025, out of that 190%, let's say 95% of
• 12:12
  them just miss, you know, they go and they start doing business
• 12:15
  with someone else. Then you know how to start 2025
• 12:18
  looking for a fresh bunch of customers.
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  So that is what essentially customer retention or client
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  retention is about. We're trying to figure out how
• 12:26
  many people are staying with us, how many people are remaining
• 12:28
  with us. So the kind of sales training
• 12:32
  that you're going to get, it depends on what the nature of
• 12:35
  your problem is. Is your problem lead generation?
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  Do you have a problem with getting people to raise their
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  hand and to say, oh, I might be interested in what you have?
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  What is the problem inbound? Are you having a problem trying
• 12:46
  to arrange things so that people are rushing you, sending you DM,
• 12:52
  calling your phone, stuff like that?
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  Or is the problem conversion? Let's say you're good at lead
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  generation, you're good at inbound so that the EV at any
• 13:00
  given point of the week, let's say you have maybe like 80
• 13:04
  people send you e-mail, calling your phone, sending you DM.
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  But then the problem is conversion of the 80 people that
• 13:10
  I send you DM, you're not able to convert all of them into
• 13:13
  customers. You're not able to get them to
• 13:15
  take the next small step that makes them become customers
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  eventually. So is conversion the problem or
• 13:20
  is customer retention? Is client retention the problem?
• 13:23
  That you're good at lead generation, you're good at
• 13:25
  inbound, you do your thing. 80 people hit you up in January,
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  and out of that 80, your conversion is good.
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  You're able to make 76 for them to be customers.
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  But then client relation is poor. 76 people buy from you,
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  but out of that 76, maybe only two remain with you.
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  The remaining how much is that now?
• 13:43
  74, The remaining 74, they just fade or they just ghost you.
• 13:46
  Is that the problem? So these are the things that are
• 13:50
  going to determine the kind of training program that you have
• 13:55
  to do for sales, business development, business knowledge,
• 13:59
  you know, things like that. So there might be other problems
• 14:03
  that lead to a loss of business revenue.
• 14:05
  But from my own perspective, these are just the main things
• 14:07
  that we ought to be paying attention to, especially those
• 14:10
  of us who are in the SME space. When I say SME, I just mean, you
• 14:13
  know, you're starting out like our sister Nolas who reached out
• 14:17
  on Spotify and then later on on on on WhatsApp.
• 14:22
  So these are the major problems that we have to be paying
• 14:25
  attention to. So the training that we're going
• 14:27
  to do will depend on the kind of problems or the kind of
• 14:31
  combination that you have. Because sometimes it's not just
• 14:34
  one problem, sometimes it's a combination of problems because
• 14:37
  you might find that somebody is poor at lead generation but is
• 14:42
  good at converting the number of people that they get.
• 14:46
  And then let's see what else. And then maybe the person is
• 14:49
  poor at inbound, you know, so it's possible for somebody to
• 14:52
  have two problems. Also, looking at this list, if
• 14:55
  you have 3 problems, I think that's a huge, that's serious
• 14:59
  wahala. When we you get the whole point.
• 15:01
  It's not as simple as you have one problem or another problem.
• 15:05
  It's usually a combination of all kinds of problems.
• 15:08
  Oh, by the way, apologies, today's a noisy episode.
• 15:10
  I'm not in the audio booth as usual.
• 15:12
  And then the kids are home. So that's why we have noise in
• 15:17
  the background. So summary, before we move on to
• 15:20
  the kind of training programs that are available, all the
• 15:22
  kinds of training that you should be paying attention to,
• 15:24
  just remember that it depends on the kind of problems that you
• 15:27
  have. Is your problem?
• 15:29
  Is your problem lead generation? Do you have a problem with
• 15:33
  getting people to indicate interest?
• 15:35
  Do you have a problem with getting permission from people
• 15:38
  so that you can have a conversation with them, so you
• 15:40
  can talk to them? Or is it that the list of people
• 15:44
  that you have to talk to isn't big enough?
• 15:47
  Those are lead generation problems.
• 15:49
  And then there's inbound problems, or some people call it
• 15:52
  attraction marketing. They're trying to market and
• 15:54
  attract people to you. So is your problem attraction
• 15:56
  marketing? Is your problem that you don't
• 15:58
  know how to get people to come to your store or you don't know
• 16:01
  how to get people to come into your, you know, digital
• 16:03
  ecosystem, your LinkedIn, your Twitter, your Instagram, your
• 16:07
  Pinterest, your whatever? Or is your problem conversion
• 16:11
  that if you talk to 10 people, you're only able to get one
• 16:13
  person to be a customer? Or that if you talk to 100,
• 16:16
  you're only able to get 50 to be a customer?
• 16:18
  You know, is that the problem? You don't know how to make
• 16:20
  people take the next step and to make them become a customer.
• 16:23
  Or is the problem customer or client retention?
• 16:28
  You have a problem with getting people to come back or you're
• 16:31
  looking at the list of customers that you have for the year and
• 16:35
  too many people are leaving, too many people are ghosting and you
• 16:38
  don't know why. So these are the major problems.
• 16:42
  I think what I'll do is I'll make a podcast episode 1 after
• 16:46
  another to give a sense to Alosia and any other person who
• 16:50
  is curious to know the kind of training programs that can be
• 16:55
  created depending on the kind of problems that you are having.
• 16:59
  So with that, let me bring today's episode to a close.
• 17:01
  If you're curious and you want to connect with me to see what
• 17:04
  we can explore, then hit me up on WhatsApp or you can call me.
• 17:09
  The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234.
• 17:16
  For those of you who are not Nigerian.
• 17:17
  And if you want to connect with me, connect with me on on
• 17:19
  socials. You can connect on LinkedIn.
• 17:22
  My name is Tavishima Ayede, I'm the host of the show.
• 17:25
  So thanks for your time and attention.
• 17:27
  Please remember to like, share, subscribe.
• 17:29
  The show is available on Apple iTunes, what else, Spotify and
• 17:36
  on YouTube. So thank you very much for your
• 17:38
  time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next
• 17:40
  episode.