Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / The Opt-In Advantage: Building Trust & Engagement in Business Outreach

Transcript

The Opt-In Advantage: Building Trust & Engagement in Business Outreach · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to the show today.
• 0:04
  The question I'd like to tackle or rather the issue that I'd
• 0:07
  like to tackle, are mistakes that people make in business
• 0:10
  outreach that make other people think that they are being
• 0:13
  intrusive. Now when we say business
• 0:15
  outreach for the purpose of this episode, we are just referring
• 0:18
  to any tips, any tactics, any strategy that involves you
• 0:22
  reaching out to other people. So whether it's you trying to
• 0:25
  hand Flyers to people, whether it's you trying to send WhatsApp
• 0:28
  messages, whether it's you visiting people's homes or
• 0:31
  offices or sending emails or LinkedIn connection requests,
• 0:35
  Instagram, DMSSMS, whatever it is that you're trying to do,
• 0:39
  there are certain categories of actions that some of you take
• 0:44
  that make people look at you as being rude and being intrusive.
• 0:48
  And in fact, this is one of the reasons why the average business
• 0:51
  person doesn't want to do what they perceive to be sales
• 0:54
  because they're afraid of being thought of as intrusive and
• 0:57
  being thought of as a pest or as a bother.
• 1:00
  So when we say people are intrusive, what do we mean?
• 1:05
  Intrusive just means when you're going forward, when you're
• 1:10
  trying to build a relationship without good 'cause or without
• 1:13
  permission. Now remember that qualifier when
• 1:16
  you're trying to build a relationship without cause or
• 1:18
  without permission. So for those of us listening to
• 1:20
  the show who are guys, remember back in the days, secondary
• 1:24
  school maybe? Yeah, Secondary school, junior
• 1:27
  secondary school, Senior secondary school.
• 1:29
  There's this babe that you like and you know you wanted to be
• 1:33
  your girlfriend. Now you were intrusive.
• 1:37
  If you're trying to go forward and build that relationship
• 1:40
  without cause or without permission, you didn't have
• 1:43
  'cause to think that she liked you and you didn't have
• 1:47
  permission from her to keep following her all all over the
• 1:50
  place or to keep pestering her. So that's the sort of thing that
• 1:53
  we're talking about. Now, these dynamics also apply
• 1:56
  in business as well, whether you are male or female.
• 2:00
  If you're trying to build a relationship with a potential
• 2:02
  customer, with a potential client, and you're trying to
• 2:06
  advance the relationship, you're trying to go forward, but you
• 2:09
  don't have good 'cause for doing so.
• 2:11
  Nothing has happened that makes you think the person might be
• 2:14
  interested or is interested. You haven't gotten any green
• 2:17
  lights, you haven't gotten any permission, then you will be
• 2:21
  thought of as being intrusive. The thing is just that the
• 2:24
  average Nigerian is a very nice person.
• 2:26
  The average Nigerians are very polite.
• 2:28
  So instead of them shouting at you or swearing at you down the
• 2:32
  phone, it has happened to me. Well, actually the first time it
• 2:35
  happened to me, I was back when I was in Scotland and the job
• 2:37
  that I had to do involved me being on the phone, so I got
• 2:41
  shouted at. Well Andy, that's the story for
• 2:44
  another day. And then back in Nigeria in my
• 2:46
  wedding photography days, when I was calling wedding vendors to
• 2:49
  try and do business with them, I also got shouted at again.
• 2:52
  So it does happen. But The thing is, the average
• 2:55
  Nigerian is such a nice person that what they'll do is they'll
• 2:58
  listen to you and they will just ghost you or they will block
• 3:01
  your phone number or delete or whatever.
• 3:03
  But they're not going to shout at the phone and tell you to F
• 3:06
  off. So if you are going forward and
• 3:10
  you don't have any cause to think that the person might be
• 3:12
  interested, you haven't been given any green lights.
• 3:15
  Nothing visibly has happened that might give you an idea that
• 3:19
  this person might be interested in you, your product, your
• 3:22
  service, Then you are being intrusive.
• 3:25
  Now let me come up with one example about how this can
• 3:29
  happen. Even though you might be well
• 3:30
  meaning there's a loyal podcast listener who has my contact
• 3:37
  details. Well, that's because I give them
• 3:39
  out after every single episode. And by the way, in case you
• 3:42
  haven't figured it out, the reason why I give you guys my
• 3:44
  phone number is because I actually do want you guys to get
• 3:48
  in touch to say I've listened to these episodes.
• 3:51
  I liked episode 456 and I hated episode 678.
• 3:56
  I don't understand episode 9/10/11.
• 3:59
  What did you mean by this? Is this that?
• 4:02
  And the reason why I would like to hear from you guys is because
• 4:05
  that is what will make this podcast even much more valuable
• 4:09
  to you guys. So the person that I'm going to
• 4:12
  talk about in this podcast episode, let's just call him CJ,
• 4:15
  this is not his real name. So CJ finds the podcast to be of
• 4:21
  value. Other people who've been
• 4:23
  following on LinkedIn, reaching out to me on WhatsApp, they find
• 4:25
  these things of value. Imagine how much more valuable
• 4:28
  this thing will be if you guys actually reach out to say, I
• 4:32
  heard you say this, I don't agree or I don't like this.
• 4:35
  And then we can have a chat about this and I can make it a
• 4:38
  podcast episode or you guys can say I understood this, but I
• 4:41
  followed you up until this point where you just confused me.
• 4:44
  What did you mean by that? So I give my phone number out
• 4:47
  because I actually want you guys to connect and I want to hear
• 4:50
  from you guys. So back to the example of how
• 4:53
  you might be going forward with a business relationship in an
• 4:57
  intrusive manner. So CJ is a loyal podcast
• 5:01
  listener, but he misapplied my contact details and he put it
• 5:05
  into his marketing motions, his WhatsApp marketing motions.
• 5:09
  And so because of that, I started receiving some WhatsApp
• 5:12
  solicitations from CJ Oh, by the way, at this point, I didn't
• 5:16
  know that CJ was a podcast listener.
• 5:18
  So I sent a message, the same sort of thing that I always do
• 5:22
  because when I started receiving unsolicited messages from
• 5:24
  people, oh, by the way, unsolicited.
• 5:26
  That's just a fancy word of saying uninvited.
• 5:28
  I hope you guys are getting a theme here from today's episode
• 5:32
  that things would work better if it was invited, permission was
• 5:38
  given, or it was asked for in some particular way.
• 5:42
  For some reason, people are wed to this whole idea that this
• 5:44
  week I sent out 500 messages. There's no point in sending 500
• 5:49
  messages and then only closing one deal.
• 5:53
  How about you taking the time to only send out messages or do
• 5:57
  outreach that people actually want to hear from you and then
• 5:59
  maybe you send out 500 and then 200 and 250 people respond and
• 6:04
  all of those 250, you end up doing 10 business deals.
• 6:09
  So it's not about the volume of the outreach, but that you're
• 6:13
  doing. It's about how effective and the
• 6:15
  level of engagement. If you're sending out 500 and
• 6:18
  only one person is responding, that is not very that is not
• 6:23
  very good. So don't beat yourself on the
• 6:25
  chest to say this week I sent out 500 messages or this week I
• 6:29
  made 1000 outreaches. It's not just about the volume
• 6:33
  of outreach, but how effective. So I received C, JS, WhatsApp
• 6:36
  solicitation for his Facebook advertising product.
• 6:40
  So I sent a message, you know, who is this?
• 6:43
  Either I get your phone number. And then last time, me and CJ
• 6:46
  got chatting and I got a little familiar with him.
• 6:49
  Oh, by the way, like I said, CJ, not his real name because I
• 6:52
  didn't give get his permission to refer to him in the episode.
• 6:56
  But since he's a loyal listener, I trust he's going to listen to
• 6:58
  this anyway and I know that he's going to get the point.
• 7:01
  Now this is the mistake that CJ made.
• 7:05
  First off, there was an error of misapplication.
• 7:09
  So he applied the message or rather he applied my contact
• 7:15
  wrongly. So that is one mistake that a
• 7:17
  lot of people make. Instead of you going and
• 7:21
  applying segregating people one way or another, you should allow
• 7:27
  people to self select. You should allow people to opt
• 7:31
  in and then that way they can be, they can be tagged or
• 7:36
  categorized appropriately and people are going to receive the
• 7:40
  messages that they gave you permission to send them.
• 7:44
  It is always much more effective when you have some cause or some
• 7:48
  permission to reach out to them. So trying to apply people
• 7:54
  correctly or allow people to opt in could be any number of
• 7:57
  things. You can send a message by that
• 8:00
  very same WhatsApp saying hi, I got your contact details from
• 8:04
  XYZ and then you ask the question, do you run Facebook
• 8:07
  ads in your business? Because remember CJ is selling
• 8:11
  Facebook ads. This is a very short message.
• 8:15
  Most likely it's going to be 3 or 4 lines, so it'll be easy to
• 8:18
  read and it's going to be straight to the point.
• 8:20
  It's going to give the person the contacts of how they got
• 8:23
  your contact details. And of course in Nigeria we know
• 8:26
  how 419 is prevalent now, so lots of people are nervous from
• 8:31
  the get when they receive messages from strangers.
• 8:36
  So this way they know for sure how they got, how you got their
• 8:41
  phone number. And it's a simple question about
• 8:43
  whether they run Facebook ads in their business.
• 8:46
  So imagine I received the message saying, hi, I got your
• 8:51
  contact details from the podcast.
• 8:53
  I'm a loyal listener. I've been listening for the last
• 8:55
  six months. Do you run Facebook ads in your
• 8:57
  business? Would have turned out to be a
• 8:59
  different, much more promising conversation.
• 9:02
  Now of course, I wouldn't have bought Facebook ads, but you can
• 9:04
  see how from the beginning I wouldn't have thought of CJ as
• 9:08
  intrusive. That's before I knew who he was.
• 9:11
  And so it's the same with all your potential customers.
• 9:13
  Hi, I got your contact details from Nina.
• 9:16
  Do you run Facebook ads in your business Now?
• 9:20
  Let's not worry about the people who say no, or the people who
• 9:22
  ignore, or the people who ghost. We're only going to deal with
• 9:25
  people who engage positively. You want the people who will say
• 9:29
  something like, yes, I run Facebook advertisements.
• 9:32
  Why are you asking? So there you can have positive
• 9:35
  conversations. Ignore the rest.
• 9:39
  What we are trying to do is we are looking for engagement.
• 9:43
  So we send out these messages, we ask for permission, we give
• 9:47
  people a chance to opt in, we try and see if people are
• 9:51
  interested and then we deal with those people who are engaging
• 9:55
  positively and then we ignore the rest.
• 9:58
  So when you do these kinds of things, then the perceived
• 10:00
  intrusion goes down and people's guards are not up.
• 10:06
  Because like I say time and time on the podcast, I responded and
• 10:09
  I said who is this? How did you get my contact
• 10:10
  details? My wife, on the other hand, will
• 10:13
  block you instantly. The same thing with my mom,
• 10:17
  sorry, with my mother-in-law, My mom on the other hand would
• 10:20
  normally block you. My mom would do report to spam
• 10:22
  and blah blah blah. And that is how people's
• 10:25
  accounts get into trouble. You find out that your WhatsApp
• 10:28
  number has been flagged for spam.
• 10:31
  You know, you call somebody on Truecaller and the person say
• 10:34
  it's not you guys calling me like this.
• 10:35
  You say, yeah, it's me, I'm calling you, but then the person
• 10:38
  shows you on True Call and say look now he says flagged as spam
• 10:41
  by 153 people. That is how it happens, from
• 10:45
  outreach like this, from emails like this.
• 10:49
  So we actually should be looking for permission, gaining OPT in,
• 10:55
  keeping our messages nice and short straight to the point so
• 10:58
  that people can figure out who you are, how you got their phone
• 11:01
  number and why you are reaching out.
• 11:04
  So these are just some general guidelines that I'm sharing over
• 11:07
  here on the podcast, not just for the benefit of CJ who has
• 11:10
  found the podcast to be useful and I'm hoping that he's going
• 11:12
  to find this segment to be useful as well.
• 11:15
  But for all your other dear listeners out there who also use
• 11:19
  WhatsApp as a way to grow your business, because I do, I'm
• 11:24
  sending out unsolicited messages all the time.
• 11:26
  But I am trying to get some permission and I'm trying to get
• 11:30
  people to opt in. And when people are not
• 11:33
  interested, I do the needful. I take them off my SMS list, my
• 11:38
  emailing list, my everything list.
• 11:40
  When somebody says leave me the hell alone, then please, by all
• 11:44
  means, leave them alone. I'm in Abuja.
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  Abuja is a big city. Last time I checked, they said
• 11:49
  about 30 million people in Abuja.
• 11:52
  It's it's a it's a big market relative to me is big and almost
• 11:55
  infinite. So if someone says leave me
• 11:59
  alone, then by all means leave them alone and go look for the
• 12:02
  next one. So as a general guideline,
• 12:05
  confirm that the person is interested.
• 12:08
  Those should be some of your early questions before you start
• 12:10
  broadcasting them to say these are my services, so confirm are
• 12:14
  you interested in blah blah blah.
• 12:17
  Do you have a problem with XYZ? Ask simple questions like that
• 12:24
  in the first set of messages before you go into the lengthy
• 12:27
  WhatsApp message that you send to say this is who I am, this is
• 12:30
  what I do. This is how I can help you grow
• 12:32
  your sales. This is how I can improve your
• 12:34
  business, this is how I can improve your love life, this is
• 12:36
  how I can improve your blah blah blah.
• 12:38
  So apart from confirming interest, you should also allow
• 12:41
  for opting and the simple message like if you would like
• 12:45
  to be included in my WhatsApp group, if you would like to be
• 12:48
  included in my channel, if you'd like to be included in my e-mail
• 12:52
  list or my broadcast or my whatever, please text yes or
• 12:57
  please text 01. I've seen some people say please
• 13:02
  text hit reply to this message and text let's go exclamation
• 13:06
  mark. You know, something like that.
• 13:08
  But you have asked people to carry on some action that gives
• 13:14
  you 'cause, that gives you signal to show that they might
• 13:17
  be interested and it gives you permission to keep in touch with
• 13:19
  them in the future. So if you follow these simple
• 13:22
  guidelines, then people are not going to feel spammed.
• 13:25
  And this is my message today to loyal listeners like CJ who are
• 13:30
  listening to the show and who are using WhatsApp and e-mail
• 13:32
  for business outreach. These are the simple ways that
• 13:35
  we can improve on our outreach to make sure that the
• 13:39
  engagements on the things we put out go up and the number of
• 13:43
  business deals that we close at the end goes up.
• 13:46
  And most importantly, that the number of people that we're
• 13:49
  reaching out to who think we are spammers, who think we are
• 13:52
  scammers, who think we are intrusive and who think we are
• 13:56
  bothersome, those number of people will go down.
• 14:00
  Because if you're doing good business by sending 500 messages
• 14:05
  and you're doing business with maybe 10 other people, but then
• 14:09
  490 think you're a spammer, you're a scammer, you're a
• 14:12
  cockroach or whatever. It is not going to be good for
• 14:14
  you over the long run. Because believe me, there are
• 14:18
  people who have been in that situation where you're talking
• 14:20
  to someone and you're like, yeah, let me send you my phone
• 14:23
  number. Now that's in the purely social
• 14:25
  context. You get the person's number, you
• 14:28
  call, the person has through colour, and then The thing is
• 14:31
  flashing across the person's screen and it says 253 people
• 14:35
  report as spam. That is not a situation that you
• 14:38
  want to be in. You're in a purely social
• 14:41
  context or you're in the business context.
• 14:44
  You're trying to get to know someone.
• 14:45
  You're trying to get to build trust.
• 14:47
  It will not help when you're in front of this guy.
• 14:50
  You're in front of this girl, you exchange phone numbers, you
• 14:53
  flash and then the person sees X number of people reported as
• 14:57
  spam. So let's try and reduce the
• 15:00
  number of people who think we are being intrusive.
• 15:03
  So that's all for today. Remember to connect with me on
• 15:05
  WhatsApp. The phone number is 0806466
• 15:10
  2140. The country code is +234 for
• 15:14
  those of you who are not Nigerian.
• 15:16
  And by the way, if you reach out to me, yes, I will reply, send a
• 15:20
  few messages, try and figure out who you are, what business
• 15:22
  you're involved in and if you have any questions for me.
• 15:25
  And also if there are any things you want me to clarify from the
• 15:27
  podcast episodes. I also be making the podcast
• 15:30
  episode about that if you reach out because we have to increase
• 15:34
  the love. That's the whole point of this
• 15:36
  podcast anyway, that we share the learnings with the community
• 15:40
  in general. Also, connect with me on
• 15:42
  LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayede.
• 15:45
  I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of
• 15:48
  my name so you can search correctly on LinkedIn.
• 15:50
  If you just use the link where you're currently listening to
• 15:53
  this episode, the correct spelling of my name is there.
• 15:56
  My e-mail address is there. Some other details that you
• 15:59
  might be interested in are there as well.
• 16:01
  So thank you very much for your time and attention.
• 16:02
  I'll catch you guys at the next episode.