Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / When Should You Start Spending on Your Business Idea?

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When Should You Start Spending on Your Business Idea? · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to the show. Today I'm going to give you guys
• 0:05
  some advice on how to spend your two million naira, which is not
• 0:09
  to say I know for a fact that you have two million naira.
• 0:12
  So the reason why I'm making this broadcast episode actually
• 0:16
  is because I had a mentee, I had someone that I was bound to give
• 0:23
  some business advice. The person was part of the Faith
• 0:29
  Foundation. You'd have mentioned on the
• 0:31
  podcast that Ioffer free mentoring services to Faith
• 0:35
  Foundation. They are a, how I put it, like
• 0:39
  an NGO charity type business that is concerned with
• 0:43
  entrepreneurial development. So they're based in Lagos, but
• 0:48
  of course they do a bunch of stuff online and and with the
• 0:52
  marvels of WhatsApp and Zoom and everything, those of us who are
• 0:58
  based in Abuja and other parts of the country can also offer
• 1:00
  our services, mentoring young Nigerian entrepreneurs in
• 1:04
  whichever part of the country that they are.
• 1:08
  There's also another platform that ioffer free services on.
• 1:11
  I can't remember what that one is called, but that one is much
• 1:14
  more international based. So I've mentioned in the past
• 1:18
  that if you are interested in getting free advice, these would
• 1:24
  be the kind of resources that you guys should be paying
• 1:27
  attention to. So yes, one of my mentees was a
• 1:31
  part of the Faith Foundation program and Faith Foundation
• 1:35
  recently got in partnership with the OCIF.
• 1:38
  That's the Orange Corners Innovation Fund or something
• 1:41
  like that. I can't remember the full name.
• 1:42
  And I think the OCIF is sort of like a similar organization,
• 1:47
  kind of like the like the British Council of Denmark or
• 1:51
  Netherlands or I can't remember which country, forgive me.
• 1:54
  But if you just go online and type in OCIF Orange corners, if
• 1:57
  you just hit orange corners, the, the things should come up.
• 2:01
  Sophia Foundation has been in partnership with the OCIF and
• 2:04
  they've been running a bunch of programmes, you know, incubator
• 2:07
  sessions, you know, stuff like that for Nigerian entrepreneurs.
• 2:10
  And the fellow that I was mentoring from the 2024 cohort
• 2:15
  got a 2,000,000 Naira award. And the programme was wrapped up
• 2:21
  about two weeks ago as at the time of this recording, and
• 2:25
  there were other prize winners, people winning different
• 2:27
  amounts, you know, lots of juicy amounts in dollars and dollars
• 2:32
  and EUR and stuff like that, you know, real juicy money.
• 2:34
  You know, makes me want to call them up and say, you know what,
• 2:38
  how about cutting us a cheque as well, You know, instead of, you
• 2:43
  know, those of us who are offering the mentee mentoring
• 2:46
  services, you know, might as well cut us a cheque too.
• 2:48
  So anyway, that was that. Yeah.
• 2:52
  So my guy got a 2,000,000 Naira award to other prize winners.
• 2:56
  And like I said, all these opportunities are available,
• 2:59
  especially now that money is expensive and it's hard to come
• 3:02
  by. And this is one of the reasons
• 3:04
  why I keep telling you guys over here on the show that if you're
• 3:07
  worried about career development, business
• 3:08
  development, personal development, all these sorts of
• 3:10
  things, that LinkedIn is the place to be.
• 3:13
  So if you get on LinkedIn, connect with people, shine your
• 3:16
  eyes, open your eyes, be connecting with people who are
• 3:18
  involved with business incubators, people who are
• 3:21
  involved in venture platforms, Angel networks, those sorts of
• 3:24
  things. So if you shine your eyes and
• 3:26
  you connect with these people, you know you'll be able to see
• 3:29
  these opportunities because people say, so these things are
• 3:33
  here, money's flying around. How come?
• 3:35
  I don't know. And this is the answer to your
• 3:36
  question. You don't know because you're
• 3:38
  not putting yourself in opportunities where you can get
• 3:40
  access to these sorts of things. So please, if you're not on
• 3:45
  LinkedIn and surprisingly, a whole bunch of you are not
• 3:48
  because at the conference, the, the one that was handled by
• 3:53
  Coca-Cola, where I spoke about how you can use artificial
• 3:56
  intelligence to grow your business and to grow your
• 3:59
  career. You know, I was surprised by the
• 4:02
  number of people. I mean people my age and
• 4:05
  younger. I mean, there are some people, I
• 4:07
  mean people between the ages of 20 and 40, some people have
• 4:10
  never even heard of LinkedIn. And I was shocked.
• 4:13
  I just assume that at the very least everybody knows about
• 4:15
  LinkedIn, but some people just think it's not worth their time.
• 4:18
  So yeah. So I'm surprised if half of you
• 4:22
  listening to the podcast right now, you guys don't even know
• 4:24
  about LinkedIn. So one check it LINKED and then
• 4:29
  in IN next to it as one word. So you should be on this.
• 4:34
  Don't waste all your time on OK, well, tick tock Instagram.
• 4:39
  They're not a waste of time. It's all contextual, depends on
• 4:41
  what it is that you're trying to do.
• 4:43
  But please, you guys, go get a LinkedIn account, connect with
• 4:46
  people, shine your eyes, the opportunities out there, take
• 4:50
  advantage of them because these things are not going to last
• 4:53
  forever because these things come and go out of fashion.
• 4:56
  So I guess for now it's fashionable to throw money into
• 5:01
  Nigeria, not just Nigeria but Africa, because there's this
• 5:06
  whole thing that, you know, you're not really going to get
• 5:09
  outside returns by throwing venture money in the US.
• 5:13
  So people are looking for other places, India, Africa, where can
• 5:16
  we throw a couple mil, grow something big and then, you
• 5:20
  know, cash out. So that's not always going to be
• 5:23
  the case. So shy eyes, take advantage of
• 5:26
  these things while they last. So while it's fashionable now
• 5:29
  that people are looking towards Nigeria and Africa as a whole,
• 5:33
  try and take advantage. OK, so my mentee got some in
• 5:38
  house advice from a marketing person.
• 5:43
  When I say in house, I mean somebody who's part of the faith
• 5:46
  foundation framework, but the person is much more from
• 5:48
  marketing background background. And the person was like, look
• 5:52
  dude, spend this thing on marketing because we're giving
• 5:55
  you this money. What we want to see is we want
• 5:57
  to see things grow. So take this to M and just blow
• 6:00
  this thing on marketing. Now the fellow had two
• 6:03
  businesses as my mentee 1 was a game.
• 6:08
  I was still in app development and he said the advice that he
• 6:12
  was giving was to promote it because it has more upside.
• 6:15
  And the second business was a business cafe around gamers and
• 6:20
  people in the tech industry. And it has some small traction
• 6:23
  and, you know, petty cash flow because, you know, in our Cyber
• 6:26
  Cafe, you know, you people buy airtime, people print, you know,
• 6:31
  people buy drinks, somebody who buy meat pie, somebody who buy
• 6:33
  rice, you know that, you know, so it's not sexy.
• 6:36
  It's small, small, small, small money.
• 6:38
  It's not sexy, but not an attraction.
• 6:40
  So yes, in theory, the game has more upside.
• 6:44
  In theory, you know, develop this thing, promote it, get
• 6:48
  millions of people on it, advertising revenue or you know,
• 6:53
  however it is that people monetise games these days.
• 6:57
  I am not a gamer. I mean, I play chess online, but
• 7:00
  then people look at me and say, look, you're not a gamer as I'm
• 7:03
  playing chess online. It's not games.
• 7:04
  But, and I don't know what you guys are talking, I consider
• 7:07
  myself a gamer by my definition. So, but there are ecosystems out
• 7:14
  there of people playing games online, Fortnite, metaverse
• 7:20
  games, all kinds of things. So yes, in theory, there's
• 7:25
  bigger upside there. So that was the advice that the
• 7:28
  guy was given, spending all on marketing, especially to market
• 7:33
  the app. Now, this was my own advice to
• 7:38
  the guy. And by extension, this is going
• 7:41
  to be my own advice to those of you who have happened to come
• 7:44
  into some good money in 2024 and you're wondering what am I going
• 7:49
  to do with this money and how am I going to use it to promote my
• 7:51
  hustle? Now, you might not be in this
• 7:53
  situation where you have two things to consider.
• 7:56
  Option AI have this thing that is going.
• 7:58
  Option BI have this thing that is going, you know, so how am I
• 8:02
  going to spend this 2M? What am I going to do with it?
• 8:04
  So this is for those of you who might be in that sort of
• 8:08
  situation. By the way, I don't think 2 M is
• 8:11
  a lot of money. It's not going to buy you much
• 8:13
  these days because think about it with the fuel situation.
• 8:18
  I mean, now with the recent increase, every time I go to the
• 8:20
  filling station now I'm putting close to like 40K in my car and
• 8:24
  that's not me filling the tank. So run that math, doing it twice
• 8:28
  a week, multiply the weeks by the month, multiply that by the
• 8:32
  year. You see that actually 2M is not
• 8:34
  going to solve your problem. But The thing is, money is hard
• 8:36
  to come by these days. So actually, if you take part in
• 8:39
  one of these things and people drop 2M in your lap, it's it's
• 8:44
  not bad. It's not bad.
• 8:46
  At least if you're using that two M to shock your business on
• 8:50
  one end, that's money that you don't have to remove from your
• 8:53
  pocket, you know, to start worrying about fuel and Internet
• 8:56
  and school fees and things like that.
• 8:58
  SO2M is not much, but it's it's not bad.
• 9:02
  It's an OK start. So my advice to Mementi was
• 9:06
  this, go easy on this whole marketing thing.
• 9:09
  Relax on the marketing. There's a time and there's a
• 9:13
  place for marketing. Marketing is the business
• 9:16
  function that tells the whole world I'm here, this is what I
• 9:19
  do, this is how my product and service can help you.
• 9:22
  This is how you can reach me, this is how you can buy.
• 9:25
  So marketing, everybody must get there.
• 9:28
  But there's a time and there's a place because like I mentioned
• 9:32
  for the app, the game, the app was still pretty much in
• 9:36
  development stage. That means this thing is not
• 9:40
  quite finished. Now I looked at the thing and to
• 9:44
  me it looked OK. But then again I'm a novice.
• 9:48
  What do I know? This is not my world.
• 9:51
  And when he did this off launch of the of the thing at was the
• 9:58
  Lagos Tech Summit something, something you think got some
• 10:02
  some mixed reviews. So for ordinary people like me
• 10:05
  who don't know what's up, they think looked OK.
• 10:07
  But for the people who know what's up, people who are gaming
• 10:10
  every single day, they say anything is OK, but it has some
• 10:14
  comma here, it has some question mark there.
• 10:16
  So my opinion doesn't matter. It's the opinion of the end
• 10:19
  user, the target users that matters.
• 10:22
  So if the people that are going to be using this, your thing,
• 10:26
  say anything is OK, but there's comma here, there's question
• 10:29
  mark here, then it means you are not done yet.
• 10:34
  And if you are not done yet and you throw money behind marketing
• 10:38
  something that is not quite finished, you are just wasting
• 10:41
  your money. You promote this thing, you will
• 10:44
  boost it. People will try it and they'll
• 10:46
  say it's OK, but it has comma, it has K leg, it has question
• 10:51
  mark. Because of the comma, because of
• 10:54
  the K leg and because of the question mark, they are not
• 10:56
  going to refer it to anybody else.
• 10:59
  They're not going to share it. So you will just be wasting this
• 11:02
  money because you boost something that is not ready to
• 11:04
  grow just yet. So marketing is good.
• 11:09
  Please, those of you who are marketing specialists, can you
• 11:12
  just stop advising for you who just think marketing is a
• 11:14
  solution to everything like becoming down first.
• 11:18
  Sometimes there are substantial problems that we need to fix
• 11:20
  with the business before we start throwing money behind
• 11:22
  marketing. And this is the reason why I say
• 11:26
  we should validate a business first using a sales approach
• 11:29
  because our sales people, it's not hard to go ahead and be
• 11:31
  talking to people and blah, blah, blah, and you know, all of
• 11:34
  this. So when the sales person goes
• 11:35
  out and the person keeps hearing the same thing about a question
• 11:39
  mark, about AK leg, about a comma, about something that is
• 11:42
  not blending, about something that is not driving, that is
• 11:44
  valuable Intel because our sales people will get told no all the
• 11:48
  time. It's not fun.
• 11:49
  So if we're going out and we're hearing no, no, no, no, no.
• 11:51
  And these are the reasons why then as a business owner, you
• 11:54
  don't have valuable feedback about what it is I need to fix
• 11:57
  first. So marketing people, you guys
• 11:59
  should be calming down first. Try and figure out if there are
• 12:02
  any substantial things that we need to fix before you now start
• 12:05
  telling everybody marketing, marketing, marketing, and by the
• 12:08
  way, marketing people, this is something I need to tell you
• 12:10
  guys, you business owners listening.
• 12:13
  Marketing people are paid a percentage of the total spend.
• 12:17
  So if the budget is 2 M, the market person is going to
• 12:20
  receive a percentage of this 2M. And to be honest, it just means
• 12:24
  that, you know, a marketing person just wants to move now,
• 12:26
  now, now, now, Sorry I'm bad mouthing you guys.
• 12:29
  Maybe when people are having your association meeting, you
• 12:32
  know, Nigerian Marketers Association or something, these
• 12:34
  are some of the ethical issues that you guys need to talk
• 12:35
  about. So because of that, if the
• 12:37
  budget is 2 M, people are just thinking or more budget budgets.
• 12:40
  How much is 10% of 2 M? That's the one that went into my
• 12:43
  pocket. So when you're talking to the
• 12:47
  average marketing person, please bear that in mind.
• 12:50
  That is how they're compensated or like sales people that are
• 12:53
  compensated on. We did a previous episode maybe
• 12:58
  2 episodes back about how sales people are compensated, you
• 13:02
  know, base plus performance or 100% Commission or something.
• 13:05
  So for sales people, the calculation is a whole lot
• 13:08
  different. It's more about how much did I
• 13:11
  bring in, how many people did I bring, you know, all those sorts
• 13:13
  of things. So that was my advice to him.
• 13:18
  Relax on marketing 1st what we need to do is we need to
• 13:21
  establish product market fit. We need to establish validation
• 13:26
  for the game. The whole thing behind product
• 13:29
  market fit and validation is this.
• 13:30
  We're trying to see is there demand for this thing?
• 13:33
  Do people like this kind of game?
• 13:36
  Will people play this game or the people that play the game?
• 13:39
  How many people will come back or the people that will come
• 13:42
  back playing the game? How many people will refer to
• 13:43
  somebody else or to share the links to the other people?
• 13:46
  And so I tried to get the guy so that we can come up with a plan
• 13:50
  where apart from that soft launch while reaching out to
• 13:53
  other people on his mailing list because that's also something
• 13:55
  the guy did. Well, he had a mailing list,
• 13:57
  which reminds me, I should set up my own mailing list.
• 14:01
  Yeah. So he had a mailing list.
• 14:03
  So I told him once in a while, let's release, you know, you
• 14:07
  walk on a patch, release it to another set of people, you know,
• 14:10
  do small, small testing. I told him 10 is too small.
• 14:13
  If you can be releasing it, you know, hundred hundred, you know,
• 14:15
  that would be good because for something like this, you can't
• 14:18
  just get the opinion of 10 people.
• 14:19
  And I think that you've gotten good Intel.
• 14:23
  So yeah, that's what I tried to get him to do.
• 14:26
  So you develop it, you release it, small people will play it.
• 14:29
  People who say are correct, this one is good, this one is good.
• 14:32
  All the places where people are saying this one, this is good,
• 14:34
  this one is good, keep it double down when people say this one
• 14:38
  has command, this one has K leg, this one is rubbish, Delete the
• 14:41
  command, the K leg and the rubbishes.
• 14:43
  And this is how we achieve product market fit.
• 14:45
  This is how we build something that people want and this is how
• 14:47
  we get validation from the market that all modest thing is
• 14:50
  good to go. So it's only when we're done
• 14:52
  with all of this in our business now, we can now start pouring
• 14:56
  money behind the marketing because we now know that as we
• 15:00
  are flooding the market, you know, with our app without
• 15:03
  whatever, we know that these kinds of people will like it and
• 15:07
  there's going to be room for growth.
• 15:09
  So I told the guy marketing yes is good time hasn't reached yet.
• 15:14
  There's no yet time. Take some money from this two M
• 15:18
  and put it behind product development.
• 15:20
  So right now, if you're currently doing this thing by
• 15:22
  yourself, I guess now is the time to start looking for other
• 15:24
  tech Bros and tech sisters out there.
• 15:28
  Let's see how you can spend more money on product development.
• 15:32
  Make sure that you finish this thing.
• 15:33
  You have a final, final finalized fully functioning
• 15:36
  product. So excuse me, fully functioning
• 15:40
  product before you now try and throw this thing into the
• 15:43
  market. So that was my advice #1 calm
• 15:46
  down on the marketing, do product development on the app,
• 15:50
  make sure this thing is solid first before we now start
• 15:55
  spending money behind it. Then I also advised him that
• 15:59
  look, this cafe, I know the cafe is not sexy, but to be honest,
• 16:06
  cafes is showing growth potential.
• 16:08
  So it's not sexy. But The thing is, there's
• 16:11
  validation. I assumed that in 2024, cyber
• 16:16
  cafes would be dead. That is what I assumed because
• 16:20
  back when I was 18 and we were all discovering the Internet in
• 16:22
  Lagos and things like that, there was a need for cyber
• 16:25
  cafes. If you wanted to browse, you
• 16:27
  could not browse on your phone back then, you just could not.
• 16:31
  MTN OK. There was MTN There was a Econet
• 16:36
  and I can't remember the other companies like you.
• 16:38
  You just couldn't do it. You had to go to the Cyber Cafe.
• 16:42
  You take your laptop to the Cyber Cafe, they would unhook
• 16:45
  the cable from the wall and then they would plug it into your
• 16:47
  laptop and then that's how you browse and then you pay for
• 16:50
  time. So back then we used to pay 100
• 16:52
  naira for one hour and then the Internet was slow.
• 16:57
  Auto focus as in slow as as in to check your e-mail self.
• 17:02
  You're surprised that you have to buy like 2 hours just to
• 17:05
  respond to common Yahoo e-mail? Back then there was no Gmail.
• 17:08
  So. So it was a Yahoo.
• 17:11
  I think it was Hotmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and I can't remember
• 17:14
  which one. So you spend like 2 hours just
• 17:17
  to respond to your e-mail For those people who had emails, I
• 17:20
  mean that's another story. I refuse to open an e-mail
• 17:23
  account. So what was I?
• 17:26
  So there was a time when you needed a cyber cafe, you wanted
• 17:30
  to print, go there and print. You want to browse the Internet,
• 17:34
  go there. But now that we're in the, you
• 17:37
  know, we're in 2020 something, everybody has Internet on their
• 17:40
  phone, blah, blah, blah. I just assume that if anybody's
• 17:42
  going to Business Cafe, it's just to go and print.
• 17:44
  That's all. Because that's what I do.
• 17:46
  Pretty much all my invoices are submitted online, but there are
• 17:49
  some people who require physical invoices.
• 17:51
  So I just go there, print the invoice, put it in an envelope
• 17:54
  and then drop it off at the client's office.
• 17:57
  So I assume that cyber cafes will be dead.
• 18:01
  But this guy has an interesting thing going on here.
• 18:04
  The cafe is built around because this guy's a gamer and he's a
• 18:07
  tech person. So he knows how them them, how
• 18:10
  they all behave and how they think.
• 18:12
  So he has set it up nicely. It's nice, it's homey.
• 18:15
  It's, you know, it's for gamers, it's for tech people.
• 18:17
  It's not the kind of place I will go to.
• 18:19
  But The thing is, for those kind of people, oh, they go there,
• 18:23
  they do movie nights, eat popcorn, have business meeting,
• 18:27
  do this, do this, do that, networking.
• 18:30
  So The thing is making traction, small, small, small traction.
• 18:33
  But it is not sexy. Fintech is sexy, app is sexy,
• 18:39
  website is sexy. Web 3, anything Web 3 is sexy,
• 18:44
  you know, so everybody chasing sexy, sexy, sexy.
• 18:47
  But The thing is, this Cafe, well, it's not at a loss.
• 18:51
  And the money is, you know, small, small, small.
• 18:53
  So imagine what you can do if you come up with a marketing
• 18:55
  plan around this one instead. So that was my advice.
• 19:00
  Get product market fit validation for the game.
• 19:04
  The cafe is already showing signs.
• 19:06
  It's showing small traction. You are not running at a loss.
• 19:09
  And you started this in several months ago or more.
• 19:11
  It's a good place to be in because a lot of people open up
• 19:14
  the cafe and they start losing money from day one and losing
• 19:17
  and losing and losing because they can't get people in.
• 19:20
  Then my advice again was, yeah, two M is small, but say you can
• 19:23
  spread that money over two years if you can, because money is
• 19:27
  expensive and money is scarce. So if you get money from these
• 19:31
  sorts of programs, it doesn't mean you're going to get this
• 19:34
  money again next year or the year after that.
• 19:37
  And if you want to go and get from the bank, or if you want to
• 19:39
  go and get from a Loan Shack, in fact, from a bank, there's no
• 19:42
  guarantee you'll write business case tier then from Loan Shack.
• 19:47
  They'll give you the money. The interest will be crazy and
• 19:50
  then before you know it, they'll start sending text message to
• 19:52
  your uncle, to your father, to your pastor, to your girlfriend,
• 19:55
  to your in laws. As in to everybody to say that
• 20:00
  Chukudi came and took a loan from us and he owed us and he
• 20:03
  hasn't paid as in to harass your life.
• 20:05
  So money is scarce and money is expensive.
• 20:08
  So in my own opinion, spread this over as long as possible.
• 20:11
  If you can do this thing two years, we can see how.
• 20:14
  One year spend 1M next year spend 1 M.
• 20:16
  You know will be good because you gain you they'll give you a
• 20:21
  runway for the cafe. It gives you time for the cash
• 20:26
  positions on the cafe, the cash, the cash flows on the cafe to
• 20:30
  stabilize and to go up because it's making money.
• 20:33
  It's just small, small money. It's not it's not it's not
• 20:36
  shawarma money. We're just making like ground
• 20:38
  nuts money. So give it time to for a cash
• 20:44
  flows to mature. And the reason why I said spread
• 20:48
  out over time is because he was talking to some other marketing
• 20:51
  people, another big marketing firm and they were talking about
• 20:55
  a three month ad campaign. And what they were promising was
• 20:59
  brand exposure. You marketing people.
• 21:04
  Anyway, sometimes I want to break your heads.
• 21:07
  You see someone in this sort of situation and your honest advice
• 21:10
  to him is brand exposure in three months?
• 21:14
  Really. I'm here to tell you guys very,
• 21:18
  very. I say unto thee, there is no
• 21:20
  meaningful brand exposure that you can build in the short term.
• 21:25
  It is just not possible. It can happen.
• 21:31
  Meaningful brand exposure is built long term and it's
• 21:36
  expensive. It takes a long time and takes a
• 21:38
  lot of money. So the example that I give to my
• 21:41
  mentee was like this. I took one step back.
• 21:45
  Everybody knows Amazon now, Amazon big boy in the retail
• 21:50
  space, online retail space. So we did some research and it
• 21:56
  turns out that Amazon to get the kind of brand exposure, if we
• 22:00
  can call it that, Amazon was the biggest advertiser, I think on
• 22:04
  Google. I can't remember for over a
• 22:06
  decade. So this is how long it takes.
• 22:09
  Amazon don't want to be big boys in the space.
• 22:12
  They come up with advertising campaign and branding campaigns
• 22:17
  that lasts over a decade. They did not do anything in
• 22:22
  three months and then become Amazon.
• 22:24
  It's just not done. Then we took another step back.
• 22:27
  Let's leave Internet, let's go back to TVI say Johnson and
• 22:31
  Johnson's, you know Johnson and Johnson's.
• 22:32
  Of course, my guy doesn't know Johnson and Johnson's because he
• 22:34
  doesn't have kids. I have kids.
• 22:36
  So anybody who has kids, we know Johnson and Johnson's, you know,
• 22:40
  diapers, baby wipes, Vaseline, you know, you know, hair cream,
• 22:46
  shampoo, all those sorts of things, all the stuff that you
• 22:48
  need when you have babies. So Johnson and Johnson's, they
• 22:51
  were able to build theirs because of more than two decades
• 22:56
  of advertising on TV when TV happened to be the new
• 22:59
  technology. So I hope you guys are here.
• 23:01
  What I'm saying. Amazon a decade, Johnson and
• 23:07
  Johnson's 2 decades. If you go back and do some more
• 23:11
  research into the radio era, you will find that it's, it's my
• 23:16
  guess, you'll find that it's also possibly the case.
• 23:20
  So these are the kind of investments in time and money
• 23:22
  that are required for significant and meaningful brand
• 23:27
  exposure. Marketing people, please stop
• 23:32
  talking to young entrepreneurs and telling them that in three
• 23:35
  months you're going to get them to blow or that you'll build
• 23:38
  brand equity, brand, whatever, whatever, whatever.
• 23:41
  And please, you guys be shining your eyes.
• 23:44
  There is no meaningful brand exposure that you are going to
• 23:46
  build in three months. And even if you build it in
• 23:49
  three months, it is doubtful if you have the capacity to be able
• 23:53
  to execute on that because there are some people who run some
• 23:56
  campaigns and the thing pops off, it blows.
• 23:58
  And then lots of inquiries come in left, right and centre.
• 24:01
  But The thing is you haven't beefed up your manufacturing
• 24:03
  capacity. So you have 1000 people placing
• 24:07
  orders, but realistically speaking, you can only serve
• 24:10
  maybe 100 people a month. That one is Walhalla because
• 24:13
  you're just wasting a lot of money.
• 24:15
  What's the point of having 1000 people knock on your door when
• 24:18
  you can only serve 100? It's a problem.
• 24:22
  So where was I? So basically I was saying spread
• 24:27
  this money out for as long as possible.
• 24:29
  This whole thing of three month ad campaigns is not going to
• 24:31
  work. And then my final advice that I
• 24:33
  gave him was this. If any marketing person or any
• 24:38
  salesperson or any other business vendor is if they ask
• 24:44
  you for money, this is how much it's going to cost.
• 24:47
  But they did not ask you detailed questions about you,
• 24:51
  your business, your product, where you're coming from, where
• 24:55
  you're going to. I told them run because they're
• 24:58
  after your money and your money only.
• 25:01
  In fact, if it's for marketing people, I've told you how they
• 25:02
  are paid. They are paid a percentage on
• 25:05
  the total sum. So when you give them the two M,
• 25:08
  the first thing that they will do is to calculate their 10% or
• 25:11
  15% or 25% or whatever it is and deduct that thing first.
• 25:16
  They'll settle themselves before they now go and spend money
• 25:19
  someplace else. Please marketers, don't be
• 25:21
  annoyed, please don't be annoyed.
• 25:23
  I'm not saying all of you are you know, pieces of I'm not
• 25:27
  saying that. Like I said, next time you
• 25:29
  marketers, next time we'll have your meeting.
• 25:31
  If you guys have Association of Nigerian Marketers, Association
• 25:36
  of Nigerian Web Expertise, something something, these are
• 25:40
  some of the ethical issues you guys need to discuss.
• 25:43
  So OK, obviously today's a rant or one of those rambling
• 25:51
  episodes. By summary, these opportunities
• 25:54
  are out there. There's money that is being put
• 25:58
  about in entrepreneurial development.
• 25:59
  If you don't know what's up, please make sure you're flowing
• 26:02
  in the right circles. Part of that means you should be
• 26:04
  on LinkedIn incubators be following them, venture
• 26:08
  platform, be following them, enjoy networks, be following
• 26:11
  them. In fact, if you see something
• 26:13
  like let's say you're based in Ibadan and you join LinkedIn and
• 26:17
  then you see something that says Ibadan Venture Capital
• 26:20
  Association, if you see that page, follow that page.
• 26:24
  UNAS has seen updates on your timeline.
• 26:27
  Apart from following that page, you will see part of the tabs.
• 26:32
  There you see people, you see jobs, you see something,
• 26:34
  something you're looking for a job in the industry, then you're
• 26:36
  sure fine, click on jobs, whatever is there, apply, but if
• 26:40
  not, look at the people tab. You'll find people who work in
• 26:45
  that organization or who work in a similar field.
• 26:48
  Start following those people one-on-one.
• 26:50
  This is how you now start curating your timeline so that
• 26:53
  when there's anything that is relevant in Ibadan, you know
• 26:57
  programs in Ibadan, grants coming up in Ibadan or whatever
• 27:05
  share useful stuff coming up in Ibadan.
• 27:07
  That's how you start seeing it on your LinkedIn.
• 27:09
  You open up your phone and you'll just be seeing
• 27:11
  opportunity after opportunity after opportunity.
• 27:14
  It takes a while to train the algorithm by the way.
• 27:16
  So I'm not saying that if you join LinkedIn today and you
• 27:18
  carry out this advice today, tomorrow you start seeing
• 27:20
  opportunities. You know, it takes a while.
• 27:22
  The algorithm has to has to learn your preferences.
• 27:29
  Then when you come into this money, be mindful about how you
• 27:32
  spend it. Money is scarce and money is
• 27:36
  expensive. Don't just blow it on one
• 27:38
  campaign. I beg.
• 27:40
  Then before you throw money behind something, make sure that
• 27:43
  you validate the thing. Make sure that the market likes
• 27:45
  it. Make sure that there's demand.
• 27:48
  Make sure that people want it. Make sure that people need it.
• 27:50
  Make sure this is something people want to pay for.
• 27:53
  They can start throwing money behind it if you have two
• 27:56
  options. One option is a, you know, has
• 28:00
  plenty of upside. Plenty of upside is good to
• 28:03
  pursue those things. By my opinion, plenty of upside
• 28:05
  is a gamble. It's not a problem.
• 28:09
  It's just that if you must gamble, be a professional
• 28:11
  gambler. Professional gamblers only
• 28:14
  gamble with money that they know they can lose.
• 28:16
  Like all these venture capital people and, you know, VC people,
• 28:19
  Angel, you know those ones, they're professionals.
• 28:22
  They only drop money that they're willing to lose for us.
• 28:25
  You hear 2M10M, it sounds big. And yeah, it's a big deal for
• 28:30
  us, but for them, they're professionals in the space.
• 28:35
  They have done their math. They're only dropping money that
• 28:37
  they can afford to lose. If the two M doesn't come back
• 28:40
  to them and say, oh, well, to write it down as a loss, on to
• 28:43
  the next one. Which one is going to hammer
• 28:45
  which I'll make us blow like the Facebook thing.
• 28:49
  The people who invested successfully in Facebook
• 28:52
  definitely lost money on other things.
• 28:54
  So they're professionals. They know the game.
• 28:57
  If you must gamble, then just do so with money that you can
• 29:01
  afford to lose. So if this kind of money, this
• 29:04
  kind of two M is you know it's nothing for you.
• 29:07
  You can afford to lose it no problem, then go ahead.
• 29:10
  But if you have a choice between plenty of upside in your left
• 29:13
  hand and then small traction in your right hand, my own opinion,
• 29:18
  let's just be gassing up the one that has traction and see how we
• 29:21
  can get it to grow the plenty of upside one.
• 29:23
  Let's pursue the upside when you know your legs are strong and
• 29:29
  you know that if you throw money here, you lose it.
• 29:32
  No, a Hala, you won't cry. So that's it.
• 29:36
  That's my take for those of you who have happened to come into
• 29:39
  some good money this year in 2024, and you're wondering how
• 29:43
  am I going to spend this money between option A and option B?
• 29:46
  And by the way, just to dissuade your opinions, 2M sounds big,
• 29:51
  but it is not a lot of money. Like I've told you guys.
• 29:54
  Just think about what I said about the fuel.
• 29:58
  You're buying fuel 3040 K. You buy fuel twice a week,
• 30:02
  Multiply that by 4, That's what you get in a month.
• 30:06
  Multiply the monthly thing by 12.
• 30:08
  That's how much you spend in a year.
• 30:10
  There are people who are spending just two M on fuel
• 30:13
  alone in Nigeria. Standard SO2M.
• 30:19
  It's not really that big. It's a conversation I have with
• 30:21
  my boys right now because my sons will hear something.
• 30:24
  We had like 5 million an hour. Like, whoa, that's a lot of
• 30:27
  money. And I have to calm them down.
• 30:28
  And look, 5 M sounds big nominally.
• 30:33
  If you look at the zeros, the zeros are plenty.
• 30:36
  But purchasing power, what can the five M buy you?
• 30:40
  You will see that it is small by the time you do some small math.
• 30:45
  How much school fees? How much is fuel?
• 30:48
  How much is house rent? How much is Internet?
• 30:53
  How much is a bag of rice? How much is meat?
• 30:59
  By the time you Add all those things, you will see that that
• 31:01
  five M this house big and the zeros are plenty, but it's not
• 31:06
  going to buy you much. So if you don't happen to come
• 31:10
  across this money, you get 2 M, you get 5 M, you know whatever,
• 31:13
  Thank God you know it's good. Put it to good use.
• 31:16
  But don't assume that your container has landed.
• 31:18
  Your container hasn't landed just yet.
• 31:19
  We have high plant inflation in the country.
• 31:22
  And so that you know that money ain't going to do you much.
• 31:25
  So don't floss. Don't flex like you have
• 31:28
  arrived. You haven't arrived yet.
• 31:29
  Spend it wisely, spend it judiciously.
• 31:32
  We still have a lot of work to do.
• 31:33
  We still have to grow the business.
• 31:35
  The time will come when we can relax and when we can flex and
• 31:40
  let's see what else. Yeah.
• 31:42
  If you're going to engage any kind of consultants or
• 31:44
  specialists or things like that, just make sure that your, what's
• 31:49
  the word? Make sure that your motives are
• 31:52
  aligned and your interests are aligned.
• 31:54
  And please don't be do business with people who draw up a
• 31:57
  proposal and they didn't ask you any question.
• 32:00
  They just say, Oh yes, Oh yes, this is what we can do for app
• 32:05
  development. This is what we can do for this
• 32:07
  is what we can do for that. You spend money here, spend
• 32:09
  money here, spend money here, spend money here.
• 32:11
  Then they give you a proposal, but they didn't ask you for your
• 32:15
  app. Who is the target base for this?
• 32:20
  Who is the ideal customer profile for that?
• 32:24
  What projections are you trying to achieve for this?
• 32:27
  You know, they didn't ask you all these kind of detailed,
• 32:29
  detailed questions. Then please avoid those people.
• 32:33
  And yeah, finally, marketers, I beg Novix, I'm not throwing
• 32:36
  shade at you guys. It's it's normal.
• 32:39
  Even in the sales community, there are some of us who are
• 32:41
  charlatans. So that one is, is normal
• 32:43
  charlatans, whoever lead the that one is, is standard.
• 32:46
  But marketers, I beg, don't be annoyed, Novix.
• 32:49
  I'm not abusing you guys. So that's all for today.
• 32:51
  If you happen to come across your two M, these are some ideas
• 32:54
  about how you can make it achieve something for you in
• 32:57
  2024. So thanks for your time and
• 32:59
  attention. I'll catch you guys at the next
• 33:01
  episode. Phone number 08064662140.
• 33:07
  The country code is +234. If you want to connect with me
• 33:10
  phone call WhatsApp. Just hit me up if you have
• 33:12
  questions queries, if you want some tricks insights, whatever,
• 33:18
  just hit me up let's talk then LinkedIn.
• 33:21
  The name to look for is Tavishima Aide.
• 33:24
  That's my name. I'm the host of the show.
• 33:26
  You can confirm the correct spelling of my name from the
• 33:28
  link where you're listening to this episode.
• 33:29
  So highlight, copy, paste in LinkedIn.
• 33:32
  You'll see my handsome face connect.
• 33:36
  And well, even if you don't want to connect with me, definitely
• 33:41
  be taking advantage of LinkedIn. These opportunities are out
• 33:43
  there. Educate yourself, put yourself
• 33:45
  in the right space so you know what's up.
• 33:48
  So that's it. I'll catch you guys at the next
• 33:50
  episode.