Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Fintech Sales Strategies for Nigeria: Cracking the Code to Customer Adoption

Transcript

Fintech Sales Strategies for Nigeria: Cracking the Code to Customer Adoption · 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 look at the
• 0:05
  challenges of selling your fintech ideas, your fintech app,
• 0:08
  your fintech website, whatever it is in Nigeria now.
• 0:12
  Why am I considering this topic now?
• 0:15
  Because fintechs are popular. They are the flavour of the day.
• 0:20
  Everybody seems to be starting a fintech right now as of the date
• 0:24
  of this recording in 2024 because we are inundated all the
• 0:28
  time. You know, you hear on on the
• 0:31
  blogs, on LinkedIn, you know so and so they raised, you know
• 0:36
  2,000,010 million, this $1,000,000 and seems like a
• 0:39
  fancy idea. So I don't know if it's the
• 0:43
  greed or rather not greed, what's the word?
• 0:46
  Opportunism. So I don't know if it's
• 0:48
  opportunism like the time has come, so everybody's going to
• 0:52
  throw their hat in the ring. But regardless of whatever it is
• 0:56
  that is making lots of fintechs spring up, I figured I might as
• 1:01
  well address that on the podcast from a sales and business
• 1:06
  development perspective to give some guidance to people who want
• 1:10
  to throw their hats into the fray.
• 1:12
  So that if any of you podcast listeners are thinking about
• 1:15
  starting a fintech, then this will be a valuable resource to
• 1:19
  you. Or rather, I hope this will be a
• 1:21
  valuable resource to you. And if you know people who are
• 1:23
  thinking of starting fintechs, share this with them.
• 1:26
  Should be a valuable resource. Especially since most people
• 1:29
  when they're thinking about starting starting a tech
• 1:34
  startup, they're usually thinking about, you know, pitch
• 1:37
  deck raising funds. You know, all the sexy stuff and
• 1:42
  all the things about selling at the end of the day turns out to
• 1:46
  be an afterthought. Or maybe people are just
• 1:48
  freestyling. So dear listener of the podcast,
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  if you are an intending founder or you know intending founders
• 1:57
  or you know people who have existing fintechs with sales
• 1:59
  challenges, then please share not just this episode but the
• 2:03
  next series of episodes with them.
• 2:05
  And hopefully there's going to be some juicy Nuggets here that
• 2:07
  they can use to help address the challenges that they're having
• 2:12
  selling their fintech ideas in Nigeria.
• 2:15
  So First off, like I like to do what is a fintech.
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  I am just going to use an everyday, simple definition.
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  So I'm not this definitions that you're going to hear on this
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  podcast are not meant to be exhaustive.
• 2:29
  They're not meant to be academically correct.
• 2:31
  They're not meant to be on point.
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  They're just meant to give whoever it is that is listening
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  to this podcast, if you're an everyday guy or girl, average
• 2:38
  intelligence, just enough for you to understand what it is
• 2:40
  that is going on here. So Fintech, the way I will
• 2:44
  define it is the business or an app or an website, sorry, a
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  website or whatever bit of technology it is that the
• 2:53
  company or the people are using. But the key thing is they're
• 2:57
  going to be using a digital technology to improve the
• 3:02
  delivery of financial services. So if it's a mechanical tech
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  looks like an ATM machine, then of course we're not going to
• 3:09
  call that a Fintech. But if it is digital tech like
• 3:13
  apps that Access Bank uses or something or or pay or other of
• 3:18
  those companies, then yes, we can call those fintechs.
• 3:21
  So that's my own simple definition.
• 3:24
  The Fintech is it a business, is it the app itself, the website
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  itself, the underlying technology that they're using,
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  whatever, but it's digital tech and they are trying to improve
• 3:34
  how financial services are delivered in Nigeria.
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  So in my own opinion, you meet these criteria then you can call
• 3:41
  yourself a Fintech and they are examples of Nigerian fintechs,
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  just in case a couple of us are not clear.
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  So let's just start with the ones that are common that most
• 3:52
  of us already interface with on a day-to-day basis.
• 3:55
  So mobile payments, there are companies that do mobile
• 3:58
  payments. There's this company, PAGA, PAGA
• 4:01
  has been around for a very, very, very long time.
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  I'm not sure how long I should have checked their website as
• 4:07
  research, but I know that they've been around for a very
• 4:08
  long time. People have been using them to
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  pay for Napa to do transfers. I think at some point.
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  Is it like wire or jam payments or something?
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  I know that PAGA was used to be huge for the payment space,
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  online payment space, so people use them a lot.
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  I've never used PAGA, but I have.
• 4:30
  I've had to use OP and that was back in.
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  They started with, what's this guy's name, the last CBN
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  governor, last Central Bank of Nigerian governor, Emilia.
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  So under Emilia and Buhari there was this whole cashless policy
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  thing. They didn't want Nigerians to
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  carry cash. You were limited to getting
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  20,000 at a time from ATMs 5000 per transaction, only one
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  transaction per day though. We're trying to change the old
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  currency to new 1000 notes and the the whole thing was just was
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  just a mess, caused a lot of headaches.
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  But trust Nigerians in our entrepreneurial spirit, there
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  were lots of companies that rose up to fill in the void because
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  back then, trying to make transactions through Nigerian
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  regular banks was a nightmare. You know, the infrastructure was
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  not up to speed, payments, bouncing, hanging, you know, all
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  sorts of things. So all sorts of companies were
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  up on the scene. And that is where I first heard
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  about Opie. And I've been using their
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  services since then. In fact, when I go to the, when
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  I go to the regular markets, you know, just like neighbourhood
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  markets and the other vendors there, you know, I prefer to
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  deal with the people who have Opie ATMs because.
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  So I know ATMs, all those things called POS.
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  Yeah, POS machines. So I've tried to do with the
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  people who have the OP POS machines because we haven't had
• 6:00
  any issues with them and stuff like that.
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  So for mobile payments between PAGA, OP and the others in this
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  family, there are lots of Nigerians, you know, who are
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  like you and me who are still boots on the ground who have to
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  interact with these people on a day-to-day basis.
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  So that's it. Those are example of fintechs
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  that we interact with every day. OK, Well, maybe not every day
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  for some of us every week because you know you have to go
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  to the market at some point or maybe you have to buy fuel and
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  it's an OP ATM. So that's them, that's Nigerian
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  fintech. And then of course online
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  banking because traditional banks also have their own
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  payment platforms, their own apps, you know, things like
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  that. Those are also fintechs.
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  Although nowadays when people say fintechs, you know they mean
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  people in the start up space. So they're not talking about
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  people who are allied with Zenith Bank or Axis Bank or any
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  of these other banks, Nigerian banks over here.
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  But still that is also a kind of fintech.
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  Then there's also Robo advisors, you know Robo short for robot.
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  So robot advisors. And these are basically just
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  automated, how will I put it, automated platforms, more or
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  less automated investing, you know, robots, computer scripts,
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  you know, things that are supposed to just either give you
• 7:18
  financial advice or help with portfolio management.
• 7:22
  OK, well, when we say portfolio, how do you define portfolio now?
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  OK, let's just say, let's just pretend that our portfolio is
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  just a briefcase of money and all the things that you have are
• 7:32
  valuable. So all your assets.
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  So let's just say, yeah, that portfolio is your assets.
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  So how much do you have in the bank?
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  How much do you have in shares? How much do you have in real
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  estate? How much do you have in, you
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  know, you get the point. Let's just pretend that if
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  everything could be put in an actual portfolio, you know IE
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  the suitcase. You know for those of us who are
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  late 70s, early 80s kids, you know those briefcases that our
• 7:53
  fathers and well sometimes our mums used to carry around.
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  So if you could put everything into that, that's your
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  portfolio. So we have there are some of
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  these platforms that offer you know like trading platforms for
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  instance that will put in an order automatically depending on
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  market conditions or to help you balance your portfolio so that
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  the ratio of cash to gold to stock to I want to say stock, I
• 8:20
  mean shares, company shares, you know stuff like that.
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  So the whole idea behind Robot Advisors is that basically just
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  set the program and you forget it and then the robot continues
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  to monitor the performance of your portfolio and economic
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  trends and just align things accordingly.
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  So that is also a kind of a fintech.
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  I do not know any Nigerian fintechs that are robot
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  advisors, but my wife is in securities regulations.
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  And you know, when we just, you know, we hear about these sorts
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  of things, that's people who are involved in the security space,
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  some companies who are involved in security space and have robot
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  advisors, whether proprietary or not.
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  Then there's crowdfunding. That is when you use online tech
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  and stuff like that to connect people or businesses to other
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  people who are looking for finance or people are looking
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  for a large pool of investors. So in Nigeria there's fund all
• 9:17
  and I think I've heard of Thrive at Greek.
• 9:19
  I haven't done any research into them, but yeah, I'm sure you
• 9:26
  guys have heard of crowdfunding. Anyway.
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  Then there's the the the newest kids on the block.
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  That's a blockchain. Yeah, the blockchain boys and
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  girls, those are the new ones. So blockchain, OK, blockchain,
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  OK, I'll define this now. OK.
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  When you hear blockchain technical terms, you think of
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  distributed Ledger. Now what this means Distributed,
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  OK. When you hear distributed jobs
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  think different people. That means not one person.
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  Now when you hear Ledger think a store of record or a store of
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  information. So the old school ledgers, you
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  know, back when some of us were in secondary school, the old
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  school ledgers, you know, before competing were popular in
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  Nigeria. You know, you would actually
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  have, let's say your father used to sell stuff like my father
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  used to sell cement, don't actually have to be someone who
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  would actually write down, you know, 5 bags of cement sold at
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  so, so, so and so price. And you know, all those things
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  are books of records that the the, what do you call them,
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  bookkeepers that the bookkeepers would look at to reconcile
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  accounts. So those are ledgers.
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  Well, those are physical ledgers now.
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  Right now, computers are on the scene, things are moved on.
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  Some people still handle pen and paper, but you don't have to.
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  And so blockchain is just a way of keeping ledgers, keeping
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  records without using pen and paper.
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  But The thing is different. People are the ones who are
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  going to be keeping this same record.
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  And this is just to make sure that transactions are authentic.
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  You know, people are trying to authenticate the transactions.
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  So back in the day, my father selling cement, maybe your own
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  father, if you're listening to the show selling spare parts, or
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  maybe your own mother selling, what's it called, Ankara
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  wrappers or whatever. So back in those days, you know,
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  30, 3030 years ago in Nigeria, you know, somebody sitting down
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  writing out on paper, times change, Maybe somebody writes it
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  on Excel or store it on the phone, but that's the whole
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  idea. So blockchain is just
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  essentially A distributed Ledger.
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  You have lots of people keeping a Ledger about transactions that
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  have been happening and everybody's trying to make sure
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  that the transactions are legit, transactions are authentic.
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  So there are some Nigerian startups that I've been making
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  noise here and there, you know, people trying to use the
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  blockchain to improve financial services and other kind of
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  services. Now there's been this crew that
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  I've come across. I was chatting with their
• 12:05
  founder on LinkedIn. I think is is Kawai or something
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  like sorry, no, is it Kawai or Akawai or something like that
• 12:13
  Akawai or Kawai? I can't remember.
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  But then what they're doing is they're using blockchain to
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  authenticate academic records so that your transcripts can be
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  available on the blockchain everywhere.
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  Now of course, for Nigerians that makes lots of sense.
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  It's not a fintech per SE, But you know, in Nigeria we have
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  some unique challenges. You know, when you want to
• 12:33
  jackpot or you want to go for your masters, you know, jackpot
• 12:36
  is, what's the word, emigrating immigration.
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  So people are running out of Nigeria, they're trying to get
• 12:43
  to Canada and other places. So you're trying to jackpot or
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  you want to go abroad for masters, depending on the school
• 12:48
  that you go to. Because my own school, the best
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  university in all of Africa, or BAFA, ME at World War
• 12:54
  University. Unfortunately, ABAFA ME at
• 12:56
  Holloway University is not as progressive when it comes to
• 12:59
  technology. So back then, trying to get your
• 13:02
  transcript from OAU to Harvard or to whatever it is you want to
• 13:06
  study could be a nightmare. We would have to go there in
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  person because in OAU they wouldn't let somebody else pay
• 13:14
  on your behalf or initiate the process on your behalf.
• 13:17
  So you would have to leave where you were.
• 13:19
  I was in Kano at the time, doing my youth service.
• 13:21
  So you would have to leave Kano, go all the way to OAU, make the
• 13:26
  application pay, and then they wouldn't give you the
• 13:29
  transcript. I guess for security reasons,
• 13:31
  they wouldn't give you the transcript, They would send it
• 13:33
  to the university. So you would not have to wait
• 13:35
  for OAU validate. I mean, drop the records,
• 13:39
  process your payment, and then send it through registered
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  Nypost or whatever to Harvard. Nuts.
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  If you apply to Harvard. And then all the while your
• 13:47
  heart is beating your chest. Like, I paid for this thing two
• 13:49
  weeks ago. Harvard hasn't gotten it.
• 13:52
  I paid for this thing four weeks ago.
• 13:53
  Harvard hasn't gotten it. I'm away.
• 13:56
  Here's my transcript missing, as have they chopped my money.
• 14:00
  You know what's going on? So having a startup like this
• 14:05
  just makes a whole lot of sense. Because now I'm funny enough
• 14:09
  actually, when I was chatting with the guy who was on his way
• 14:11
  to OAU, that's my university and he got them to sign up for the
• 14:15
  idea. And I was impressed because back
• 14:17
  when I was in OAU, we didn't think or Bafim at Willow
• 14:21
  University was a forward thinking university.
• 14:23
  So I'm surprised that they're part of the pilot of this
• 14:26
  program. So right now, you can have your
• 14:29
  academic records on blockchain validated and instead of going
• 14:36
  through the hassle of what people like me had to go through
• 14:39
  a couple of years ago, which is travel back to your school, go
• 14:42
  to Senate office, pay the money and then start, you know,
• 14:46
  pursuing them, start hassling them, you know, have they sent
• 14:49
  it? Yes, they sent it on night Post.
• 14:52
  Where is the tracker? Tracker is not working.
• 14:54
  And then you're wondering, ah, it's been one week, it's been 2
• 14:56
  weeks, it's been 3 weeks. My school has not received my
• 14:58
  transcript. You know what's going on.
• 15:00
  So with all this, this easily would remove a certain amount of
• 15:05
  stress involved in the process because you just pay or use
• 15:08
  already on the platform. I don't know how this thing is
• 15:10
  going to work. Let me guess, maybe Harvard or
• 15:12
  whoever is on the receiving end has to be on the platform as
• 15:15
  well. You open up a file.
• 15:18
  You know what? Some of these things are beyond
• 15:19
  me because I don't even know how you view things that are stored
• 15:23
  in the blockchain Ledger. But bottom Ledger is these are
• 15:26
  supposed to be authentic academic records that have been
• 15:28
  issued by the Nigerian university and can be accessed
• 15:31
  by the western universities on the other end.
• 15:36
  So even though this is not a fintech per SE because they're
• 15:40
  not really solving problems in the financial sector, but you
• 15:46
  get the gist. People are using blockchains.
• 15:49
  Nigerian boys and girls are using blockchain to try and
• 15:51
  solve some interesting problems and hoping to build businesses
• 15:55
  out of them. So this is just a small overview
• 16:00
  of what the fintech space is like in Nigeria now.
• 16:05
  If there's anything that I've left out, please connect with me
• 16:08
  on WhatsApp, on LinkedIn and let me know that this episode you
• 16:11
  did was pretty cool, but you left out this, this, this and
• 16:14
  that or this is working in Nigeria.
• 16:16
  I've seen this kind of fintech in Nigeria.
• 16:18
  Shed some light on that as well. I'd love to do that so that
• 16:21
  people who are listening to the podcast get a good breath of
• 16:25
  what it is that is going on out there.
• 16:27
  What are young boys and young girls doing these days?
• 16:29
  You know, what are they? What are the fintech start-ups
• 16:32
  that are out there? So connect me on WhatsApp.
• 16:34
  My phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234.
• 16:42
  For those of you who are not Nigerian.
• 16:44
  Then on LinkedIn, my name is Tavishima Aidi I'm the host of
• 16:47
  the show. You can confirm the spelling of
• 16:49
  my name from the link. We're listening to this episode.
• 16:52
  Then you can use the spelling of my name and hunt me down on
• 16:54
  socials. So send me invites on LinkedIn
• 16:57
  or whatever. So we're not, yeah, LinkedIn,
• 17:01
  Instagram, anywhere. You know, I'll accept.
• 17:03
  But to be honest, I'm on LinkedIn every day.
• 17:06
  So that's your best bet on Instagram.
• 17:08
  Yeah, I pop there maybe once a week, so.
• 17:10
  But if you want to catch me for a timely response, WhatsApp,
• 17:14
  LinkedIn, you'll get me. So thanks for your time and
• 17:16
  attention in tomorrow's episode. Since we're already at 20
• 17:20
  minutes, we'll start looking at the challenges of selling your
• 17:23
  fintech ideas in Nigeria. So we've gone through the
• 17:25
  overview. Let's assume that you want to
• 17:27
  start one of these ideas either in mobile payments or you want
• 17:31
  to hook up something on online banking for your banks, You want
• 17:36
  to start a robot advisor, you're doing some crowdfunding thing,
• 17:39
  or you have some fancy idea quite like this Akoi startup or
• 17:43
  Kawi startup. I can't remember the name.
• 17:47
  Yeah, looking for ways that you can use blockchain.
• 17:49
  Blockchain in your in your fintech.
• 17:55
  Yeah, so you've gotten the idea, you started raising funds.
• 17:58
  You're having problems selling the vision or selling the idea
• 18:02
  itself. So tomorrow and a couple of
• 18:04
  episodes after that, we'll start looking at how you use sales and
• 18:07
  business development skills to solve those problems.
• 18:09
  So thanks for your time and attention.
• 18:11
  I'll catch you guys at the next episode.