Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Closing the Deal: Lessons from the Oracles Chamber
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to the High Table, the Oracle's Chamber, the
- 0:05inner sanctuary, the Conclave of the Elders, where we talk about
- 0:09sales, marketing, money tactics, strategy, business growth and
- 0:14solving business problems. Today I want us to talk about
- 0:18advancements and scheduling. Advancements and scheduling are
- 0:24I'll put it now. OK.
- 0:25Two very important tools that we can use to maintain the momentum
- 0:30of business conversations, because lots of times we're
- 0:33having business conversations with people, we're trying to set
- 0:36up meetings, we're trying to get the deal done, but then things
- 0:41stall, you forget all kinds of things happen.
- 0:45So the way that we can maintain that forward-looking trajectory
- 0:50is if we pay attention to these important concepts, these two
- 0:53very important concepts, advancements and then
- 0:57scheduling. Now, First off, advancements.
- 1:00For those of you who listen to the podcast, you already know
- 1:03the definition, but there's someone who's just discovering
- 1:06the show for the very first time today.
- 1:10So an advancement is just when you and the other party, the
- 1:15person you're talking to, the potential investor, the
- 1:18potential stakeholder, the potential customer, the
- 1:20potential client, when both of you mutually agree that this is
- 1:25what we're going to do next. Because a lot of you, the reason
- 1:28why your business conversations aren't moving forward is because
- 1:31you have a conversation with someone and you just don't worry
- 1:33about, you don't agree on what it is that both of you are going
- 1:36to do next. So one person says, we'll keep
- 1:40in touch and another person is like, yeah, no Allah, you go B.
- 1:43And then we'll just end like that.
- 1:45But The thing is, we will keep in touch, you go B.
- 1:48No, Allah. Like that is not how business
- 1:50conversations move forward. We'll keep in touch does not
- 1:54mean we have agreed to do anything.
- 1:56We'll keep in touch does not mean we have decided when we're
- 1:59going to meet again. We'll keep in touch doesn't mean
- 2:01we have decided what we're going to talk about the next time that
- 2:03we meet. So we should be getting
- 2:06advancements every single time we talk.
- 2:09It should be clear this meeting should not end with you and the
- 2:13other party not agreeing on what it is that is going to, on what
- 2:16it is that you're both going to do next.
- 2:18If you don't agree, the chances of someone forgetting, the
- 2:22chances of the things slipping on your schedules, the chances
- 2:25of it going into ghosting, the chances of it going into or I'll
- 2:29call you later. OK, send it to my secretary,
- 2:33I'll get back to you. The chances of all these things
- 2:36just go higher and higher. So you should be securing
- 2:40advancements every single time that you talk.
- 2:43Now scheduling on the other hand, is when we have agreed on
- 2:48the advancements, when we have agreed on what it is that we're
- 2:51going to do next, what are we going to do to make sure that
- 2:53neither of us forget because things happen.
- 2:57You can agree we're going to talk Saturday, 2:30, but the guy
- 3:02that you're talking to, maybe he has to pick up his wife from the
- 3:05airport Saturday at 2:30. You buzz the guy.
- 3:09Ah, Bros Novak's, I forgot, I'm on the airport now, now, now,
- 3:12now, now, now, now you know these things happen.
- 3:15So it is by scheduling that we keep things on track so that if
- 3:20there's any issue, you have to travel to the village.
- 3:22My daughter is graduating, I want to pick up my wife.
- 3:25Oh, this thing happened. I'm going to go and see the
- 3:27president. If anything comes up.
- 3:30It is from scheduling and scheduling in advance that we
- 3:34get a chance to catch all these things happening and then we can
- 3:38come up with an alternative plan.
- 3:40So advancements and scheduling, 2 important ways for how we're
- 3:43going to keep things on track. So when we say scheduling, we
- 3:47just mean reminders. That's all.
- 3:50Now, unfortunately for most of us, now there's some of you who
- 3:54have good memories. But here's the thing.
- 3:58If you're only handling one or two deals a month, then
- 4:02scheduling with your brain is perfectly fine.
- 4:06If you're only dealing with one or two deals a month, only one
- 4:09or two clients a month, by the time you start reaching 345
- 4:14clients, scheduling by your brain will not work.
- 4:19You now end up in those situations where you call
- 4:21somebody and the person like ah bro, bro, I beg no vex at the go
- 4:25airport na na na na na or the other way around.
- 4:29Somebody will call you. A person will like ah, you still
- 4:32asleep. Are you not the one who even
- 4:34said 9:00? Then I end up looking like a
- 4:37fool. So by the time we have 3456
- 4:40people that we're dealing with, I beg, scheduling is no more a
- 4:45mental something you don't schedule in your head.
- 4:50You need to put the reminder somewhere that is objective.
- 4:53When we say objective, we just mean outside to you that other
- 4:57people can verify. So for those of you who are old
- 5:01school and like to keep Diaries, no problem.
- 5:04Diary so long as you are in the habit of checking your diary
- 5:07every day. Because if you check your diary
- 5:09every day, you can open your diary today and say, OK, I
- 5:13scheduled something five days a week or more that you know, work
- 5:16again. You now know that OK, you should
- 5:18call the person and reschedule. Or you will open your her diary
- 5:21today and say, eh, I showed you meeting for 4:00 PM today.
- 5:25Ah, it is already 2:00. Let me start to prepare.
- 5:31So diary, no problem. But because all of us listen to
- 5:38this podcast now we all have smartphones.
- 5:40Obviously it's more recommendational.
- 5:44Use your phone. Use your phone.
- 5:49Set the reminder, use Google Calendar, put a notification,
- 5:55use the alarm. Use something to vibrate, to
- 6:01ping, to buzz you ahead of time. That these are the commitments
- 6:05that you have for today. These are the commitments you
- 6:08have for two days. These are the commitments that
- 6:10you have for one week. Whatever it is, use something.
- 6:16Especially if you have a smartphone, use a smartphone.
- 6:18Now, ideally you should be using your CRM to do that.
- 6:22The CRM customer relationship management tool, the tool that
- 6:25you use to track conversations that you're having with people.
- 6:28Who am I talking to? How many people am I supposed to
- 6:30talk to? What is the stage of the
- 6:33relationship that we're at? What am I supposed to do next to
- 6:36move the deal forward? What are they supposed to do
- 6:38next to move the deal forward? When is our next meeting?
- 6:42Where is our next meeting? Is it supposed to be a phone
- 6:44call? What is it?
- 6:44What is it that we're supposed to discuss?
- 6:46Your CRM helps you track all of these things.
- 6:52But if you don't have the CRM, honestly speaking, but you have
- 6:55a smartphone, an Android phone or an iPhone, Google Calendar,
- 6:59Apple calendar, it will do. Just using your contact list and
- 7:03then using your calendar, it will do.
- 7:06So remember, the reason why we're scheduling is we're
- 7:09putting up reminders somewhere external to us that we can find
- 7:14at a later date. In fact, if you have a
- 7:16smartphone, you're putting it somewhere so that your
- 7:19smartphone will remind you at a later date so that we can
- 7:23maintain the initiative and maintain the momentum to get
- 7:26this deal closing. Because remember, now you define
- 7:30money, now you define market. If you take your food off the
- 7:33gas, honestly speaking, the other person isn't bothered,
- 7:38except if it's a pressing emergency.
- 7:41If you're slack, the other person will slack.
- 7:43That's how it works. And when both of you slack, for
- 7:47now, you don't think it's a problem.
- 7:49But then you wake up two months from now and you're broke.
- 7:52And the reason why is because two months before, you're
- 7:54supposed to talk to someone who might bring in some money, but
- 7:57you didn't, and so now you're broke.
- 8:02News flash by the way it happens to everybody.
- 8:04I was going through my calendar if I'm ashamed to admit this,
- 8:10but let me just tell you guys. I was going through my calendar
- 8:12yesterday and lo and behold I was supposed to have been in
- 8:16touch with someone 8 weeks ago but I missed it so I'm going to
- 8:22call the guy up. I'm going to fall on the sword
- 8:25like hey what's up Bengar how you doing now?
- 8:29I'm beg Novix. I should have been in touch
- 8:30about social sound so but I totally forgot.
- 8:34It's my fault. I take responsibility for it.
- 8:37I beg no vex. You think we can put this up on
- 8:40the calendar again? Or are you still are you still
- 8:43interested in so so so and so or nothing that we're discussing?
- 8:47You know, chance still day. So I have to make that phone
- 8:50call. What is the thing?
- 8:55If I had used my tools judiciously and I had called the
- 8:58guy 8 weeks ago now would have been making progress.
- 9:01Oh and by the way, for those of you who haven't figured it out,
- 9:03eight weeks just means two months.
- 9:06So yes, not proud to admit, but I skipped a phone call actually
- 9:13I made two months ago. So I'm going to have to bring
- 9:16bring that back on track today. But what I'm just trying to say
- 9:19is the reason why some of you are broke today is because 8
- 9:22weeks ago you were supposed to have called somebody you didn't
- 9:24call. Or three months ago you're
- 9:28supposed to have gone for site inspection, you didn't schedule
- 9:31it. Or five days ago you were
- 9:35supposed to have sent somebody a proposal, you didn't send it.
- 9:42So advancements in scheduling very, very important.
- 9:44Maintain the initiative, maintain the momentum.
- 9:48So we have to plan ahead. We have to call ahead.
- 9:51When we do that, it is then we start getting better outcomes in
- 9:54our business. Now let's go into how to
- 9:57schedule a call because I say this and lots of people don't
- 9:59know how to schedule a call. So let's get granular.
- 10:04First of all, for those of you who have CRMS, customer
- 10:07relationship management tools in your CRM, there's a place where
- 10:10usually they say like call log or call history or something
- 10:14like that. Now, honestly speaking, in my
- 10:17own honest opinion, this call log or call history, this is the
- 10:22best feature to use in your CRM. You hear me?
- 10:26If you ignore anything else but use this call log, call history,
- 10:29and then you use it to schedule, you're still OK, you're still on
- 10:34course. So what you do is this after you
- 10:38have a phone call with somebody, after you have an online meeting
- 10:40with somebody or after you have a, you know, site visit
- 10:44inspection or you know, whatever, whatever, whatever,
- 10:47you just go into that place that says log and then you log in
- 10:50there that you had a meeting or so, so so date or you had a
- 10:54phone call on social so and so date.
- 11:00Now what you're going to do is in that call section or in the
- 11:02log section or in the section under meet minutes or meetings
- 11:06or whatever, you're going to put some small notes in the notes.
- 11:11There's no need to write too much grammar, OK, Because
- 11:16remember, this is your tool. So if you use some shorthand, so
- 11:20long as you can understand the shorthand or there's enough
- 11:23information there so that if your business partner or your
- 11:25colleagues or your spouse or whoever runs the business with
- 11:27you, if the person comes and picks up the thing, they'll be
- 11:30able to figure out that, oh, OK, this is what happened the last
- 11:32time. This is what we're supposed to
- 11:33do next. So what you would do is this
- 11:37first thing you write is who did you talk to?
- 11:39You write it down there. You're also going to write what
- 11:42you spoke about. You're also going to write down
- 11:45what was agreed. Then you write out what you're
- 11:50supposed to do next. It's that simple shorthand.
- 11:54The story doesn't have to be much.
- 11:56So you go to that log section for me, I'd like to do phone
- 11:59calls, so let's pretend it was a phone call.
- 12:02So I'll write it there. A phone call today, 1st of
- 12:05January, spoke to Chief Ogdenbe. We spoke about the building
- 12:15project. It was agreed that the next step
- 12:18is site inspection in Umar here in three weeks time on January
- 12:2728th. I'm just restarting by the way,
- 12:30on January 28th. So that is just what I will put
- 12:34in the CRM. Simple notes as in short, short,
- 12:36short phone call. Chief Ogden today discussed
- 12:44building project. Agreed.
- 12:47Inspection in three weeks, January 28th.
- 12:52That is what I'll put in notes. Then you now go to your
- 12:57activities tab or scheduling tab, or you know, whatever tab
- 13:01is called in your CRM. You now press plus.
- 13:05When you hit on that plus, it will give you the options to
- 13:08create another activity, to create a call or create a
- 13:13meeting or to create a zoom or create or whatever.
- 13:19When you do that, you select OK, like now in this case, since the
- 13:25meeting is supposed to be in inspection, is supposed to be in
- 13:28three weeks on the 28th. I can't wait until 28th before I
- 13:32start buzzing this guy because we'll be somehow because
- 13:34remember, in this example, now we're supposed to travel to
- 13:37East, we're supposed to go to Moya.
- 13:39So I will set a reminder for two weeks out.
- 13:44So let's say 2 weeks out will be, let's say that's let's say
- 13:46like January 14th. I think I'm just restarting
- 13:50here. So I will set reminder for
- 13:52January 14th and that will be called.
- 13:54So I'll go to activities tab and now click on plus and now select
- 13:57phone call and now put date January 14th.
- 14:01Then I'll now put reminder, the reminder I'll put reminder for
- 14:04maybe 24 hours before so that on January 13th, my phone will do
- 14:11ping ping. By the time I look at my phone,
- 14:13I will see the reminder. It will say call Chief Ogden Bay
- 14:18ahead of Umuahir inspection. Then under the call, I'll now
- 14:23put agenda in the note section. I just type agenda and I will
- 14:28just on the agenda, I'll put a confirm Umuahir inspection so
- 14:36that on January 14th, I'll call him chief that oh, chief has
- 14:45business, blah, blah blah. She thought we haven't forgot to
- 14:48know that I was supposed to see in Umua here on the 28th.
- 14:52He said, oh, OK, that's true, that's true.
- 14:54That's OK. Thank you very much for
- 14:55reminding me. In fact, Chief, I want to book
- 14:57my ticket. No, no, no, no, no.
- 14:58I just want to be sure that we're still on course.
- 15:00He said no problem now go ahead and book.
- 15:01OK, no problem Sir. So be seen on the 28th now.
- 15:04OK, cool, got the call. Now, for those of you who have
- 15:09listened to all the episodes where I talked about scheduling,
- 15:11of course you will know that this is not the end that I've
- 15:15set a reminder at the halfway point.
- 15:17I'm going to set another reminder one week before,
- 15:21another reminder 3 days before, another reminder on the day off.
- 15:24Because I'm making sure I need to make sure that chief will be
- 15:27negotiable for this inspection. Because after all, me, I've
- 15:29booked ticket. So if I show Inuya ticket plus
- 15:33hotel and Chief doesn't show, I've wasted my time, I've wasted
- 15:37money, and I'm not closer to sealing this deal.
- 15:43So anyway, keep on listening to podcast episodes.
- 15:44I talk about these things over and over and over again.
- 15:47But you see what I'm saying is your CRM has many, many, many,
- 15:49many, many functions. If all you do is call log,
- 15:53meeting log and then activities tab, schedule, reminder, if that
- 15:57is the only thing you touch, honestly speaking, you are
- 16:00better than 80% of your competition because your
- 16:03competition is not even touching nothing.
- 16:08So if the CRM looks complicated, you don't even know where to
- 16:12start. Just be using call log only.
- 16:16You make a phone call, do call log.
- 16:18You do meeting log the meeting under the put notes.
- 16:23After that, set reminder in the reminder put agenda.
- 16:26If you just do that and then just be following it, small,
- 16:28small, small, small, you'll be OK.
- 16:30You'll be all right. So for those of you who don't
- 16:34have CRMS, the philosophy is the same.
- 16:37You finish the meeting with Chief Ogden Bay.
- 16:40You now open immediately. You caught the call.
- 16:44You now look under. For those of us who use Android
- 16:48phones, when you open contact, you know, you see the place
- 16:52where you dial, you see the place for message and all that.
- 16:54Continue to scroll, scroll, scroll.
- 16:56At the very bottom you see a place that says Notes.
- 16:59I think it says notes or something like that.
- 17:01Now click on notes. Some phones you can just click
- 17:04on notes and then you can start typing.
- 17:06For some other phones, you have to go and you see something that
- 17:09looks like a pencil on the top right hand corner next to the
- 17:12person's name. So for some phones you have to
- 17:14click that pencil so that you can now edit the contact.
- 17:16You go down into notes. Then it is in notes that you can
- 17:20write it to say meeting with Chief Ogdenbe, discuss building
- 17:26project inspection. Agreed.
- 17:28More here. January 28th.
- 17:30You can put that in notes, but let's say you don't want to be
- 17:35typing back and forth. You don't want to be looking at
- 17:36notes, You don't want to be looking at calendar.
- 17:38No problem. You can just do it in calendar,
- 17:41only Google Calendar. What you do is you go to Google
- 17:43Calendar and then at the bottom right hand you see a plus.
- 17:49That's if you're using your phone.
- 17:50You click on that plus and then it will you give you the option.
- 17:54It will now say, sorry, I'm doing this thing from memory.
- 17:56So because I'm using my phone, I don't want to tap out.
- 18:00It will give you the option to create event, create reminder or
- 18:04create something I can't remember.
- 18:06There's usually three options, but when I'm using Google
- 18:11Calendar, I just use leave the default as a event.
- 18:14I just always leave it as event. Then later on in the notes, I
- 18:16can now say phone call or meeting or whatever.
- 18:20So you just go to Google Calendar, click on plus, select
- 18:25event. There will be a place for
- 18:27subject. Inside subject you will just
- 18:29write Chief Ogdenbe. That's it.
- 18:34So in the CRM, if it's CRM you're using, you'd have created
- 18:38contacts. But in this case, you're using
- 18:39your calendar. You just put Chief Ogdenbe.
- 18:43The name will never change. It will always be Chief Ogdenbe.
- 18:46Every single time you see that calendar entry, every single
- 18:48time you see that notification, that reminder, you'll be like,
- 18:51oh, Chief Ogdenbe because the title is Chief Ogdenbe.
- 18:57Then you now select because the meeting was today and because I
- 19:03want to set a reminder for two weeks time, I will now go to
- 19:07date and then time you will now select and then push the time
- 19:12forward to I think it's January 14th.
- 19:14We said January 14th. Good.
- 19:17Then I'll now tap on reminder and I'll now set reminder for
- 19:20one day before so that my phone will do Zim Zim on the 13th of
- 19:26January. OK, good.
- 19:29Then that one is done. I'll now go to details and I'll
- 19:33put today's date. So let's say I had that meeting
- 19:35today and I'll put today's date in notes.
- 19:38January 1st meeting with chief, phone call, Zoom call with Chief
- 19:44Ogden, BPA and lawyer were present, spoke about building
- 19:50project, agreed inspection in Omwaha.
- 19:54January 28th agenda then I'll put a bunch of stuff in agenda
- 20:00so. Whether CRM or no CRM, you're
- 20:05using CRM good. You're using Google Calendar
- 20:09good. But either way, there's
- 20:11something objective that is a reminder outside of you that
- 20:15will boss on your phone the day before.
- 20:18You will see Chief Ogden, you will click on it.
- 20:21And because you entered in these small notes, remember, short,
- 20:24short, short, who did you talk to?
- 20:26What did you talk about? What was agreed?
- 20:29What are you doing next? That's it.
- 20:31Short, short, short, short, short.
- 20:34It's not a story when you keep it like this and you see, you
- 20:39say, oh, it's true. You now call Chief.
- 20:42So advancements and scheduling, you and Chief are agreeing ahead
- 20:46of time. This is what we need to do.
- 20:48Every single time you do the thing you're supposed to do,
- 20:50you're moving closer. If Chief shows up for this site
- 20:53inspection, you're moving closer.
- 20:56The next meeting will agree to he shows up, you're moving
- 20:58closer the next thing as in that's how you close the deal.
- 21:02One step at a time, one step after another after another.
- 21:05And then scheduling is what you will use to keep all of this on
- 21:10track. So ideally you should have CRM.
- 21:13If you don't get CRM, but you get diary, no problem using the
- 21:16diary. But then diary only works.
- 21:18So for those of you who check your diary every day, if you're
- 21:22somebody who checks your diary only on Sunday, only on Monday,
- 21:25Mahala go day because you'll check your diary on Sunday.
- 21:29And then you now see you're supposed to have called Chief
- 21:31Ogadenbee on Wednesday. And in fact, the meeting you're
- 21:34supposed to have, you're supposed to have had it, let's
- 21:36say Sunday at 9:00. But you're checking your diary
- 21:39now at 5, don't you? Now call Chief Ogadenbee.
- 21:42You think Chief Ogadenbee will think you're a serious human
- 21:44being. Maybe people agreed.
- 21:46You're the one that even suggested the time you say
- 21:48Sunday at 9. He was saying Sunday at 9 is
- 21:50inconvenient for him. But you know, you put for Sunday
- 21:54at 9. You now open your diary at 5:00.
- 21:58And now we feel like, hey, oh God, what is this?
- 22:03So diary only works if you check it every day.
- 22:09I'm a former lawyer back in the day, like it was standard.
- 22:15Once you enter our office, you open your diary.
- 22:16So within that kind of culture, office culture, law diary is OK.
- 22:21It works because know how know how you enter into the office
- 22:24every day. You check your diary every day.
- 22:26It's just, it's just standard. You enter office, you're, I
- 22:32think it used to be called practice manager.
- 22:34I can't remember. Practice manager will start, you
- 22:36know, assigning tasks for the day or reminding people that,
- 22:39look, Chuku, you're supposed to be in High Court.
- 22:41You're supposed to be here. You're supposed to be here.
- 22:43What about this? What about this?
- 22:45You know, you guys check your diary.
- 22:49If you're not a diary person, CRMCRM is too complicated for
- 22:54you or you don't know what CRM is Google Calendar or Apple
- 22:59calendar, calendar. The reason why I'm saying Google
- 23:02Calendar or Apple calendar is just because they're free,
- 23:05they're ready on your phone and also if your phone gets stolen.
- 23:09In fact, This is why I tell people Android because you know
- 23:11nowadays times are times are harsh.
- 23:16Your phones don't they cost to find a good phone.
- 23:19Now 150K is problem. So now This is why I tell you
- 23:23Android phone, it was one of my guys.
- 23:29He's into game, game games, accessories, yeah, and stuff
- 23:33like that. So one day he wanted to enter
- 23:36Okada just quick, quick and his iPhone that he uses.
- 23:39So you know, he doesn't go on the Okada.
- 23:42As we're going out, the phone just fell.
- 23:44As the iPhone fell, the iPhone was bouncing on the ground and
- 23:49the finale Rd. my guy got off the Okada.
- 23:53He knew that I have finished and then he looked at his beloved
- 23:56iPhone and the screen was cracked.
- 23:59Any which way guy buy a new phone now they say he doesn't
- 24:04have money. This is what I tell people that
- 24:06look just be realist to cut your coat according to your size.
- 24:11If you know at that level, let you know at that level.
- 24:15But for those of us that use Android, any small mistake like
- 24:18that happens anyhow. Anyhow, anyhow, anyhow, like
- 24:24share you can raise even if it's, I don't know, 120K to go
- 24:29and buy one of those cheap Android Go phones.
- 24:31Yeah, at least you'll be managing.
- 24:34But once you sign in, all your contact history, your calendar
- 24:40entries, your everything will just be there.
- 24:43So if you're an iPhone user, please make sure you always
- 24:46budget your, I hear iPhone 17. Last time I had somebody told me
- 24:49I was like 4 million or something.
- 24:51So if you're an iPhone user, please make sure you have 14,
- 24:53I'll say 14. Make sure you have 4 million in
- 24:56the bank so that if your iPhone should just back up, you'll be
- 25:02able to get a new one. And they don't mind me.
- 25:04I like taking shots at iPhone people.
- 25:08I was like, OK, anyway, the main point thing I want to spoke
- 25:12about today. Well, I guess you guys have got
- 25:13the point. Advancements and scheduling,
- 25:15That's how we're going to keep the business deal on point.
- 25:18I think I have two or three other things I want to talk
- 25:21about when it comes to advancements and scheduling, but
- 25:23we've already done about 25 minutes.
- 25:25So I'm going to bring today's episode to a close.
- 25:29So if you'd like to get in touch with me, you can call, send me a
- 25:33text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140.
- 25:39If you're interested in the sale audit or you want me to look at
- 25:42some of your business processes, you can WhatsApp me on the same
- 25:44number 08064662140. Or if you're shy, you can just
- 25:51join my WhatsApp channel. And so yeah, there you will see
- 25:55all the updates and things that I'm working on.
- 25:58So you just send me a message at the same number and I'll hook
- 26:01you up. So thank you very much for your
- 26:03time and attention. I'll catch you all some other
- 26:06time.