Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / The Customer-Centric Approach: When BANT Elevates Your Sales

Transcript

The Customer-Centric Approach: When BANT Elevates Your Sales · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Ayede.
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  I'm focused on solving sales and marketing challenges through
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  business education. And I'm making today's recording
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  in church because the kids are having cat kism classes, so I
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  expect to hear some noise in the background.
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  Now, if you're impressed by the time we're done with this
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  podcast, make sure you spread the word so that your friends
• 0:21
  and family members in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the
• 0:25
  questions that we tackle. They can do that by subscribing
• 0:28
  on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or any player of their choice.
• 0:32
  And if you'd love to connect with me, you can call SMS or
• 0:35
  send me a WhatsApp on 08064662140.
• 0:41
  Now today on the podcast is also going to be another diary
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  episode series of conversations that I've been having with
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  Rudolph, LC and Shell, who are sales people that sell solar
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  installations, inverter batteries, you know, all that
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  good stuff. Now for those of you who've been
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  listening for the last 2-3 weeks, you know you're already
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  familiar with the diary session. So let's just get into it.
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  If this your first time listening to one, don't worry,
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  you get caught up to speed. It's just me talking to people
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  who are who make up the sales team for one of my clients.
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  And then I come over here once in a while and I share some of
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  the things that we talk about in the hope that some of you
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  listening to the podcast will be able to pick out one or two
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  helpful things from it. And also so that there's some
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  audio or less in audio footprints, audio recording
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  audio, something so that they can listen members of the team
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  can listen back to later on. So this is one of the meetings
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  that we had. Let's see.
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  Let me see. OK, this was meeting on the
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  first day. OK.
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  Yeah. So we have been talking a lot
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  about qualification and discovery.
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  Now these are very technical sounding terms when it comes to
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  sales and business development, but in a very, very simple
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  sense, qualification and discovery just means one thing.
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  OK, Well, a few things. It refers to the part of the
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  business relationship where you're trying to have simple
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  convos, simple conversations with the potential customer that
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  you're talking to at the moment and you're trying to figure out
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  a few things. Who is this person?
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  What are they about? What are they interested in?
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  What are they running away from? What are they running towards?
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  What's the problem? What's the vision?
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  Is this something that I can fulfill myself?
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  Do I have to bring in an extra squad?
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  You know, whatever it is, Shah But you just ask questions.
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  You try and figure out the extent of the problem and who
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  they are. And that is important because
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  this is where you will get all the information to be able to
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  give an appropriate quote. So that's one of the reasons why
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  we do it. However, I'm trying to get the
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  sales team to understand that share Go LC and Rudolph that if
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  you do this part of the sales process very well, you'll find
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  out that you you will shorten your call times as your
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  conversations will be sharp, sharp, sharp because you quickly
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  get to the point. And also because you find out
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  that you're spending more time with people who are likely to
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  end up becoming customers at the end of the day.
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  Because one of the demoralized, demoralizing things in business
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  is that you're talking to so many people.
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  You make like 50 phone calls in one week.
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  At the end of the day, only, you know, 5 people buy now five
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  people buying. You know, that's all right.
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  But The thing is that remaining 45, you just feel as if you are
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  wasting your time. So if you get into the habit of
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  handling qualification and discovery very well, you find
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  that you are now spending less time with all these all serious
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  people work up as people. I was just curious people, you
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  know, people chat, you'll spend time with people who are going
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  to be wasting your time. So you shorten call times, you
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  will remove curious people quick, quick or people you have
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  no time, no reason to spend time with and you're not going to
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  privatize people who are likely to become customers.
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  So that's the reason why this is important.
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  Now I had introduced them to a qualification method I think the
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  week prior called band, which is a budget authority need and
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  timeline, and I made a podcast episode about that.
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  Now Budget authority, need and timeline band.
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  What that means is you need to be engaging people, excuse me,
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  engaging people early to try and figure out what their money
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  expectations are. Because some of you wait until
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  the end and it's absolute BS to spend 4 weeks talking to
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  somebody and then at the end of the four weeks they will say,
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  ah, your price is on the high side.
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  Now The thing is, if the price is on the high side, it is best
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  to find out in week 1 after you've had one or two
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  conversations with the person rather than you wasting time
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  relationship building, you, you say you're, you know, trying to
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  build rapport, everything. Then in week 4, they will now
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  say you're too expensive. The thing is, if you're too
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  expensive, excuse me, you've always been too expensive, you
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  are better at finding out in week 1 than wasting 5 weeks
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  talking with somebody. So I believe in getting straight
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  to the point. Now for some of you, it's a
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  little too direct, but that's not a problem.
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  Just keep listening to the podcast.
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  You'll find out the different methods that I try and teach
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  people about how to broach the conversation quickly.
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  But either way, money conversations, budget
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  conversations, let's have this early authority conversations
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  that's all about trying to figure out decision making.
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  Who is responsible for making the decision?
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  Because there's no point in spending five weeks talking to
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  somebody only to discover that you are talking to the houseboy
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  and the houseboy has no authority to write a check or
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  that you are talking to the PA and the PA has no authority to
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  write a check. Now, there are some
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  organizations where the PA has a spending limit, like, you know,
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  for every single purchase that is below 150,000, go ahead and
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  pay before anything that costs, you know, 200K OP, you know,
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  reported to Olga. But The thing is we need to be
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  having those conversations early before we invest time into the
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  process. So that's what authority
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  conversations are about also so that we make sure that we're
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  speaking to the right number of people because sometimes 2345
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  people are required to make a decision.
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  If you don't believe me, for those of you who are selling
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  highly complex sales, or even if it's even if you think it's a
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  simple something, but let's say now, OK, because I'm here in
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  church, let's say you want to sell into church and you think
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  no problem, so long as I speak to the parish priest is OK.
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  That might not be the case. There are some churches where so
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  long as you speak to the parish priest, you're good to go.
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  But there's some other parishes where you need to speak to the
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  parish priest. The parish priest would need
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  approval from finance. The finance guy is going to
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  receive instructions from the parish pastoral committee.
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  So you need to figure this thing out early so that you now know
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  that OK, in the beginning you're coming up with a strategy for
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  talking to the parish priest and make sure that you have a hook
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  up with one or two people in the parish pastoral council.
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  That way you will get your deal closed.
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  So it's the same thing. You know, in highly complex
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  sales, let's say like now you want to win government contract.
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  If you want to win government contract, you can't say because
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  you're talking to the governor that the deal will close.
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  You know, it would be nice to be talking to governor, it would be
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  nice to be talking to somebody in Ministry of Works, another
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  person in Ministry of Finance, no one or two people in their
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  house. That is essentially what
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  authority is about. Who is going to cut the cheque?
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  How is payment going to be made? Who are the relevant parties?
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  How can I bring them into the conversation?
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  Then what else? Budget authority and need.
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  So of course, that's the part where, you know, most of us do
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  OK, because you're trying to figure out what the person needs
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  so you can deliver adequately. So let's not dwell on that.
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  And then timeline, that is one place where most Nigerians
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  stroke. And in fact, when I brought up
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  timeline questions, it's something that Shell in the team
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  particularly liked because you realize that if you're asking
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  questions about timeline, you are going to be able to weave
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  out people who are serious, some people who are unserious.
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  And for me, this is one of the things that I do.
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  So I ask, OK, if I understand you correctly, you wanted this,
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  this, this, this, and you want that, that, that.
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  By the way, how soon do you need this?
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  The person who says, oh, we need it for next week Thursday.
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  I now know that I have a serious client on my hand.
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  If somebody says, oh, no, no, no, it's not like I needed to.
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  I was just asking then, you know, at least now I know.
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  And I'm not going to be following up endlessly with
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  people. So lots of people don't get into
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  the habit of asking timeline conversations.
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  And you should be having these sorts of conversations.
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  You know, how soon do you need this by?
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  When do you like us to? Would you like us to go ahead?
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  How soon do you want us to start?
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  Who are we going to deliver to? Can I have the phone number for
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  the person who's going to be accepting delivery?
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  You know, is from asking things like that, that somebody say,
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  Oh, no, no, no, I was just asking you.
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  My cousin's sisters aunty is getting married in two years
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  time. So I said, let me just do some
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  research. That kind of person.
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  There's no point hanging around that sort of person for too
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  long. So that's the band criteria that
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  I introduced them to. And I suspect I made a podcast
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  recording about that before. If I didn't, then this is just
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  sort of like a recap now, since I've already spent close to 10
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  minutes on bands, let me just stop here because I've noticed
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  that a whole bunch of you who listen to the podcast, a lot of
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  you stop at like minute 10 or so.
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  Now there's some diehards who listen all the way to the end
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  and the diehards. I really, really appreciate you
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  guys. But I figure, you know, let me
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  relax. Let me stop being so hardcore
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  because I guess it's a lot to take in for the other people.
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  So I'm going to stop here now on band because the summary that I
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  want to share with you guys today actually was not about
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  that. It's about spin.
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  And spin is another qualification framework.
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  So if you enjoyed listening to this episode, just hang on.
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  The next one that we're going to move into is going to be about
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  spin selling. Now spin selling is not not
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  spin. You know, like when Americans
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  say spin, you know, they mean you don't like Fabu.
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  Like you go on, you know, you sharp mouth, you sweet mouth,
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  you know, you dazzle somebody, you just spin the thing you
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  understand. So it is not about Fabu, it's
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  not about lying, it's not about tweaking the truth and none of
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  that. So just hang on.
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  And in the future episode, in the next episode, the very next
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  episode, we'll get into spin selling.
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  So that's it for now. Yeah.
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  So that's it. And that's all for today.
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  Now remember, if you'd love to connect with me, you can call,
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  you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140.
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  Thank you very much for your time and attention.
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  I'll catch you next time. Same place in your headphones
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  and in your speakers.