Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Overcoming Fear and Doubt in Business

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Overcoming Fear and Doubt in Business · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. Before we continue, apologies
• 0:07
  because my my infection or whatever it is has taken a turn
• 0:12
  for the worst and so I suspect that I might be coming down with
• 0:16
  a sore throat anytime soon. So this might be a laboured
• 0:21
  episode but still let me go go ahead anyway because we are
• 0:25
  behind and I'm going to go through a couple of thoughts.
• 0:32
  A couple of thoughts on a LinkedIn post that I saw a
• 0:34
  couple of days ago. This was supposed to be a
• 0:36
  podcast episode that should have aired on the 1st of October
• 0:41
  2024, was a public over a public holiday over here in Nigeria.
• 0:45
  And I can't remember how I missed that that day.
• 0:50
  So the post that I saw on LinkedIn was around
• 0:56
  professionals experiencing fear and doubt.
• 1:00
  And the fellow who put out the post was a lawyer.
• 1:04
  And then he had a couple of comments about how to deal with
• 1:06
  that. So I figured I'd just hop on the
• 1:07
  pod real quick and then make a couple of comments around around
• 1:12
  that. Yeah.
• 1:13
  But before we continue, yeah. Stuff on the playlist.
• 1:18
  Yeah. The last time I shared with you
• 1:20
  guys some stuff on the playlist so that you guys can waiting on
• 1:23
  the debate between me and my wife, you know, whether I'm a
• 1:25
  nerd or not because she says I'm a nerd.
• 1:27
  I say I'm not. So I figured, let me show you
• 1:29
  some stuff that I've been up to. So now on the playlist.
• 1:32
  This time I'm listening to Shame Shame Bo SE that is SEINBO.
• 1:39
  And then they say is SEY, assuming that I'm pronounced
• 1:42
  incorrectly. For those of you who listen to
• 1:44
  how Stoff and it's your jam, let me know.
• 1:47
  Let me know how the name is pronounced.
• 1:50
  And she has this song that was known by Yusu Undu.
• 1:54
  So those of us who are of late 70s, early 80s kids, you should
• 1:57
  remember him from back in the day.
• 1:59
  That's Queen Nigerians. But I think he's from, I
• 2:03
  remember he's from Mali or Senegal or someplace like that.
• 2:06
  But very good vocalist. And I like Shambo because she
• 2:09
  has a really big female voice. And I discovered her because her
• 2:14
  song was the soundtrack to Rebel Ridge.
• 2:17
  That's another thing I watched on on on Netflix.
• 2:22
  Yeah, about the black guy who turned out to be a military
• 2:26
  specialist. You know, police were messing
• 2:27
  with him. They got his brother killed and
• 2:30
  it turned out to be a nice revenge flick.
• 2:33
  You know, one of those movies that inspire you to become a bad
• 2:36
  ass and let's see. OK.
• 2:39
  And then on Netflix, just done with Lisa B Yoruba, epic movie.
• 2:45
  I think production value or the movie was was dope, real good.
• 2:49
  Although I think the depictions of rape, many were graduators,
• 2:53
  so I think they could have kept that out.
• 2:56
  But yeah, those are stuff that has been on my playlist
• 2:58
  recently. So, yeah.
• 2:59
  With that out of the way, let's head straight into the LinkedIn
• 3:03
  post. So, yeah, so like I said, was
• 3:08
  written by a lawyer and was about professionals experiencing
• 3:12
  fear and doubt. And yeah, so my own comments,
• 3:16
  yeah, people, professionals experiencing doubts, not just
• 3:19
  professionals, anybody really, because in the Nigerian context,
• 3:22
  I always say professionals, typically we mean lawyers and
• 3:25
  doctors, engineers, accountants, you know, those sorts of people.
• 3:32
  But I don't say that it goes beyond that.
• 3:34
  So even wedding professionals or people who sell catfish or
• 3:39
  wedding caterers or people who do laundry services, I mean,
• 3:42
  everybody experiences fear and doubt.
• 3:44
  That's just normal. So whether you're a baby lawyer
• 3:47
  or a baby doctor, oh, by the way, in this part of the world
• 3:49
  where we say baby lawyer, we actually mean somebody who is
• 3:52
  still doing their underground part of their training or you've
• 3:55
  just recently been called to the bar.
• 3:56
  So that's what baby lawyer means.
• 3:58
  Well, at least back when I was still in school anyway.
• 4:01
  If anybody's had baby lawyer or baby doctor, that's what they
• 4:03
  would mean. Because I went to school in
• 4:07
  above my Wallow University, the greatest school on the African
• 4:10
  continent, and we had a very vibrant legal faculty and
• 4:15
  medical faculty. So of course there's a whole
• 4:17
  bunch of us baby lawyers and baby doctors running around the
• 4:19
  place. So baby doctors, baby lawyers
• 4:22
  who all experience fear and doubt is just normal.
• 4:26
  We all experience fear and doubt and rejection when dealing with
• 4:30
  people. Consultants, newbie consultants
• 4:33
  experience fear and doubt. Even seasoned consultants also
• 4:36
  experience fear and doubt because eventually you move into
• 4:41
  a new client base or start solving some kind of problems
• 4:45
  that you haven't solved before. So that's just normal.
• 4:48
  Baby photographers go through it, Fashionistas go through it.
• 4:51
  Everybody goes through fear and doubt, especially when it comes
• 4:57
  to being rejected because you're talking to clients.
• 5:02
  So it's just, it's just normal. So step one, if you're going
• 5:05
  through these sorts of feelings, just know that you're not alone.
• 5:08
  Everybody has been through it. In fact, in your house, look at
• 5:11
  your wife or look at your girlfriend, she's been through
• 5:13
  it. You're female.
• 5:14
  Look at your husband who's been through it.
• 5:16
  Look at popsy Momsy. They've been through it.
• 5:18
  Colleagues have been through it. So it's just normal.
• 5:22
  Now, what the lawyer recommended was a community driven
• 5:25
  initiatives that can build confidence.
• 5:28
  Oh, sorry, this is not the post I was written by a lawyer.
• 5:31
  This is the post I was written by by a communications
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  professional based in Lagos. Yeah, by a communications
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  professional based in Lagos. Now when we say communications
• 5:43
  professionals is just an umbrella term that can mean all
• 5:47
  kinds of people like public relations, advertising, what
• 5:52
  else? Content marketing, like all
• 5:54
  kinds of stuff, basically the marketing function of the
• 5:57
  business. So this is one I was written by
• 5:59
  a communications professional. So the one that was written by a
• 6:03
  lawyer, I'm going to make comments about that one earlier.
• 6:06
  But anyway, that doesn't affect all the things that I've said
• 6:10
  prior. So the person spoke about
• 6:13
  community driven initiatives to build confidence, obviously,
• 6:18
  because the person who was writing the post has one of
• 6:22
  those communities that can help professionals deal with these
• 6:26
  sorts of things. And yeah, it's something I would
• 6:31
  recommend, you know, joining our community because, you know,
• 6:34
  when you're with like minds, you guys talk about your problems,
• 6:38
  you can get some good support, some good encouragement and
• 6:41
  getting through it. So the fellow spoke about
• 6:45
  different kinds of communities, like communications
• 6:49
  organisations like the one that he has.
• 6:52
  Sorry that she has then. OK.
• 6:58
  Beyond that, these are some other kinds of communities that
• 7:01
  I've heard about in the past in Nigeria.
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  We have etiquette schools or etiquette classes, finishing
• 7:07
  seminars, finishing schools, all these sorts of things.
• 7:10
  That's also another way that some professionals have tried to
• 7:16
  get around their fear and doubt when dealing with customers.
• 7:21
  So, you know, like if you're a lawyer, you go to one of these
• 7:24
  etiquette places, learn how to speak right, learn how to dress
• 7:27
  right, not your tie, right. What's the difference between an
• 7:31
  American knot, the British knot? How do you not your tie
• 7:33
  properly? When should you use a real tie?
• 7:36
  When you use a long necktie, when you use a bow tie, you
• 7:40
  know, blah, blah, blah, all these sorts of things.
• 7:42
  So there are institutions like that, OK institutions, that's
• 7:46
  the bigger word. There are any cash adrift, the
• 7:52
  organizations like that based in Legos that I know that you can
• 7:55
  go and get this kind of education.
• 7:58
  So if you're a lawyer, bank accountant here, you can go to
• 8:00
  that place and learn. Should you be wearing a blue
• 8:02
  suit or black? Should you be wearing pinstripe
• 8:05
  or not? What is the right type to wear
• 8:07
  before a customer meeting? Shoot your shoes, match your
• 8:11
  belt buckle, you know, and all this other stuff.
• 8:17
  Then of course other community driven initiatives out there
• 8:22
  like Toastmasters, because people join Toastmasters, they
• 8:24
  figure if I go there and I learn how to speak well and I'm really
• 8:27
  eloquent, then that should help with confidence.
• 8:29
  Every single time I'm giving a public presentation or when I'm
• 8:33
  trying to close the deal, I'm in front of a particular client.
• 8:36
  So no matter what you're going to try and do, I think all these
• 8:45
  things are not bad ideas, you know, and all ideas are, are
• 8:48
  welcome. But I do have one concern when I
• 8:51
  come across these sorts of posts.
• 8:53
  And the concern that I have is that they get you, the
• 8:58
  professional, the business owner, they get you in an
• 9:01
  insular frame of mind and they get you to focus on you and they
• 9:04
  get you to focus on your deficiencies, which is a very
• 9:08
  difficult hole to climb out of. So let's say you are the Yoruba
• 9:14
  guy or the Yoruba girl and you have a nasty age factor as you
• 9:19
  open your mouth and it's just HHHH factor up and down.
• 9:23
  Dealing with that age factor is going to be a problem.
• 9:26
  If every single time you head into a meeting or you head into
• 9:30
  a negotiation or you you've been rejected, you think it's because
• 9:35
  you sound Yoruba because of age factor.
• 9:38
  So it's hard to overcome the age factor going into every single
• 9:44
  engagement thinking about the age factor.
• 9:51
  So that's the reason why all these insular things, I think
• 9:54
  they can be, they can be very difficult.
• 9:58
  And yes, I do know people who go and join Toastmasters.
• 10:01
  And the goal of joining Toastmasters is to get rid of
• 10:03
  your Yoruba age factor or to help you pronounce better
• 10:06
  because maybe you think it's anti boutique or something.
• 10:09
  Or maybe you're a Teeth chap and you think maybe you sound too
• 10:12
  local. So you want to clean yourself up
• 10:14
  so that when you start looking for clients in Lagos or Abuja,
• 10:17
  you know, you sound like like your age.
• 10:20
  So that's my concern that these things are too, they're too
• 10:24
  insulin. So I rather try to get people to
• 10:30
  amplify their industry experience.
• 10:32
  I think that's a really good idea because you have a nasty
• 10:39
  age factor, but people can't escape the fact that you're the
• 10:45
  very guy or you're the very girl when it comes to engineering or
• 10:48
  taxation or whatever. Then regardless of the edge
• 10:51
  factor, people just have to deal with you.
• 10:53
  I mean, just it is what it is. It's like Nigerians on our
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  engagement so far with people, you know, in the Chinese
• 11:01
  community. So I mean, they open their
• 11:04
  mouth, they sound funny, but The thing is, if this engineer is
• 11:07
  the issue, then he's the issue and that's it.
• 11:10
  Simple as that. So when people talk about
• 11:13
  amplifying industry expertise, I think, yeah, that's a much more
• 11:17
  helpful idea. But realise that knowledge
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  sometimes is never really the main issue.
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  The main issue sometimes is that you feel you're not competent,
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  so you don't have a practical application of what the things
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  are. So go and get the knowledge, but
• 11:39
  focus more on the hands on expertise, the hands on doing
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  the practical part to help boost your sorry, excuse me, to help
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  boost your, your confidence. Then the lady in the post also
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  spoke about fear of self emotion.
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  Now that's a problem. And yes, it's, it's possible
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  that that might be a problem, especially for those of us in
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  the Nigerian context. You know, we're all taught to be
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  in this part of the world anyway.
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  We're taught to be polite and we're taught not to talk too
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  much about ourselves. You know, don't be too far,
• 12:21
  don't be too big for yourself. You know, this whole Niger, like
• 12:25
  even the UK kind of have that vibe about them.
• 12:28
  And I've heard about, I mean, Denmark, you know, the thing
• 12:30
  about the tall puppy, like if you're too tall, you know, the
• 12:33
  tall puppy, if you're trying to show yourself other people, you
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  know, cut you down South, there's some more of that thing.
• 12:41
  But if it's, if it's a fear of self promotion that we're
• 12:47
  dealing with, then the solution I think is not really community
• 12:53
  and all the other stuff that we've been talking about.
• 12:55
  But we should stop thinking about our business activities in
• 13:01
  terms of promoting ourselves. We should think more in terms of
• 13:05
  delivering value. And that's the reason why I keep
• 13:08
  on harping on about how educational content, I think is
• 13:10
  the way to go. Because with educational
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  content, you're not necessarily saying, look at me, look at me,
• 13:16
  I'm the biggest, I'm the best, I'm the brightest, I'm the
• 13:18
  smartest. But you are showing off your
• 13:23
  expertise in a very valuable way, in a very subtle way, and
• 13:26
  people kind of get the message. So you've been listening to this
• 13:29
  podcast for a while, particularly those of you who've
• 13:31
  reached out to me for engagements.
• 13:32
  You want me to come and coach your people?
• 13:36
  Well, you want to help. You want me to help you solve
• 13:38
  particular business problems. It's because I've been showing
• 13:42
  off in quotes in a very tasteful way, in a very classy way, which
• 13:46
  is making content here on the podcast that highlights my
• 13:54
  expertise, my knowledge base, the use case scenarios that I
• 13:59
  can work with might be of help, you know, things like that.
• 14:03
  So yes, in a sense it is showing off, especially since now I have
• 14:06
  over 950 episodes, but he's doing so in a classy, tasteful
• 14:10
  way. So you can listen to the podcast
• 14:12
  and say I'm being braggadocious. Now for those of you who think I
• 14:16
  am, I'd like to have a look at your LinkedIn handle, especially
• 14:19
  those of you who when you post on LinkedIn, the only thing you
• 14:22
  say is, well, I just got promoted.
• 14:27
  My daughter just made it to this school.
• 14:30
  I bless God for my life. Now you make the picture
• 14:32
  standing in front of your Lexus Jeep and you know, blah, blah,
• 14:36
  blah and all that. But hey, don't mind me, that's
• 14:38
  just personal beef I have with with some other folks that need
• 14:41
  not concern you guys over here. So don't think in terms of self
• 14:47
  promotion. Don't wake up and think, how can
• 14:48
  I promote myself every day? Wake up and think, how can I
• 14:52
  educate the market? How can I educate my potential
• 14:55
  customers, my potential partners, my potential
• 14:57
  stakeholders, my potential XYZ? So where can I think about ways
• 15:01
  that you can educate the market? Well, that's why producing
• 15:07
  content online or speaking at seminars or whatever.
• 15:12
  And this is the very subtle difference between being
• 15:16
  excessively self promotional and not.
• 15:19
  So that's the reason why you may have attended one business
• 15:22
  seminar and one guy or one girl stood on the stage and was
• 15:26
  masterful for 30 or 45 minutes, but then you just thought no
• 15:30
  more. This person is just promoting,
• 15:32
  promoting, promoting like this is absolute rubbish.
• 15:35
  And then you have an encounter with another speaker who maybe
• 15:40
  you've seen them 10 times and each time they seem just as
• 15:44
  masterful and they may even speed longer.
• 15:48
  Maybe each time is an hour or two or something.
• 15:52
  But you've seen the other person more, but they don't come across
• 15:55
  as self promotional. But the other person that you've
• 15:57
  seen lesser than, they come across as self promotional.
• 16:01
  And this is just the minor tweaking emphasis that makes all
• 16:07
  the difference. If one person is trying to
• 16:10
  educate the market, the stakeholders, potential
• 16:15
  customers, educate everybody out there.
• 16:17
  It's different than standing up on stage saying I graduated
• 16:20
  first class, I'm the best and I'm the brightest, and This is
• 16:25
  why it should work with me. So summary, let me see.
• 16:35
  And so summary my solution basically is don't think of
• 16:39
  promoting yourself, rather just go out and deliver value.
• 16:43
  Also, don't start with your deficiencies.
• 16:45
  Don't worry about your age factor.
• 16:46
  There's a time of trying to get rid of your age factor or your
• 16:48
  ebotic accent or if you come from banner state like me, you
• 16:52
  know, we have a way that we pronounce some words funny.
• 16:56
  Don't don't worry about that. To be a time to get with that.
• 17:00
  The focus should also always be on our potential audience, what
• 17:03
  their needs are, and when we're looking at factors outside of
• 17:07
  ourselves, we should do just fine.
• 17:10
  I got the confidence that we can, that we need to move things
• 17:14
  forward at one step at a time. So whenever you're face to face
• 17:17
  with someone or face to face with an audience, don't be
• 17:20
  thinking about your age factor or how you will take you up or
• 17:23
  how you're from a small town. You're a small town boy, you
• 17:26
  know, from Benoit State or Taraba or whatever.
• 17:29
  You should be focused real sharply on who are you talking
• 17:31
  to, what are the problems that they have, what visions are they
• 17:36
  working towards, what is their level of expertise?
• 17:40
  You know, that is necessary because that determines the kind
• 17:43
  of information or the kind of solutions that you're going to
• 17:46
  discuss with them. And if you keep things on that
• 17:49
  level, even though you have a nasty age factor, you know,
• 17:52
  people might chuckle, but if you're the guy, you're the guy.
• 17:56
  And if you're the babe, you're the very babe.
• 17:59
  And they can't run away from that.
• 18:01
  So this is the kind of focus that is going to inform the
• 18:05
  social media content that we put out, the proposals that we send
• 18:10
  to customers, the presentations that we make before our
• 18:13
  audience. This kinds of thing will also
• 18:16
  determine, you know, inform our style, whether we're going to be
• 18:20
  formally informal or casual, what else?
• 18:24
  So also going to inform the media that we use.
• 18:26
  Should we go live on stage? Should we do this thing online?
• 18:29
  Should we create APDF? Should we create an audio?
• 18:31
  It's going to inform our tone. Are we direct or subtle?
• 18:35
  The way we dress, you know, so, so is that paying attention to
• 18:38
  all these things first? Who are you talking to?
• 18:40
  What's the problem? What's the goal?
• 18:42
  What's their level of expertise? What are the possible questions
• 18:44
  that they may have? Let that inform all the changes
• 18:46
  that we need to make. And then don't start off with
• 18:51
  your fears and your doubts and trying to overcome them, but
• 18:56
  focus, focus on getting more experience.
• 18:59
  I can't stressed out a lot because confidence comes from
• 19:03
  doing. There are too many people who
• 19:04
  are trying to wield themselves or manifest confidence and just
• 19:11
  it's not it's not going to happen.
• 19:12
  It's not going to happen. You know, I started off as a
• 19:15
  wedding photographer and true of the matter is like shooting a
• 19:19
  wedding is scary. It's you and the camera.
• 19:21
  OK, of course you have your guy there or you have your your
• 19:24
  baby, your second shooter. But as you guys standing for 12
• 19:27
  hours trying to deliver good stuff and like, if you're
• 19:34
  fumbling, you can form you, you're fumbling you can, you can
• 19:37
  be forming confido and everything, but trying to wheel
• 19:41
  yourself into confidence, it's it's not going to happen.
• 19:45
  There's a natural confidence that comes after you shot a
• 19:47
  bunch of weddings. So by the time you've done 10/20
• 19:51
  weddings, you face a number of scenarios.
• 19:53
  Maybe Brach was oblate or your flash gets damaged.
• 19:58
  That's happened to me. Or your lens falls and almost
• 20:02
  cracks. That has happened to me.
• 20:05
  Let's see what else? Let's see what else.
• 20:10
  There's a meltdown. The bride starts crying.
• 20:13
  I've been in those sorts of situations and you're now
• 20:15
  wondering, OK, great, she's crying.
• 20:17
  The makeup is messed up. How are we going to do the
• 20:20
  portraits? But I'm just trying to say is
• 20:23
  somebody who has built up some experience because person has
• 20:25
  shot 1012203040 weddings, there's a natural confidence
• 20:31
  that comes with it because the person has been in those
• 20:33
  situations. So the person truly knows like,
• 20:36
  yeah, no need to fret, the couple is running late.
• 20:39
  OK, no problem. What's the backup?
• 20:42
  Where's the venue? Are there any good locations
• 20:44
  there? Where can we pull them?
• 20:46
  Sharp, sharp to do a quick portrait here, quick portrait
• 20:48
  there. You know, that kind of
• 20:51
  confidence, overcoming fear and doubts, you know, just comes
• 20:54
  with experience. So we should be focusing on
• 20:57
  getting more experience because truly, truly, I say on TV,
• 21:02
  confidence comes from the doing. So it's nice to try and manifest
• 21:07
  confidence, but you know, manifesting and morning
• 21:13
  affirmation and community something something all the love
• 21:16
  and all the rah rah everything. Now please stop, stop giving
• 21:21
  yourself all that false confidence.
• 21:22
  Just go out and try and get us most experience, as much
• 21:26
  experience as possible, which is the reason why I also say
• 21:30
  sometimes don't just launch in straight.
• 21:33
  So as the wedding photographer got a second shoot for it.
• 21:36
  Well, yeah, you want to be your own boss, but second shoot for
• 21:39
  somebody. Pick two or three people that
• 21:41
  you respect that we're going second, shoot for them.
• 21:44
  By the time you second shoot for photographer A6 weddings,
• 21:49
  photographer B4 weddings, photographer C 3 weddings, you
• 21:53
  know that's 15, that's 1215 weddings under your belt.
• 21:57
  When you're not handling your client, you're going to be cool,
• 22:00
  you're going to be calm because you've walked through a bunch of
• 22:04
  things. There are one more thing that
• 22:06
  I'd like to point out is let's all realise that expertise is
• 22:12
  contextual because for the professional, remember that this
• 22:16
  is aimed towards communications professionals.
• 22:19
  For professionals. One of the reasons why we're
• 22:21
  scared is we don't want to come across as frauds.
• 22:24
  You don't understand on stage and come across as the
• 22:27
  authority. Meanwhile, you just graduated
• 22:30
  from Mark Unilac marketing department exhausted months ago.
• 22:35
  You graduated so you don't understand on stage and come
• 22:38
  across as a fraud. So that's, that's normal.
• 22:43
  In fact, it's good that you feel that way.
• 22:46
  But then excuse me, just realized that expertise is
• 22:51
  contextual. If you think of it that way,
• 22:54
  you'll find that you're more than qualified to talk to the
• 22:58
  current audience, people that you're actually talking to.
• 23:01
  So if you've only graduated from marketing department UNILAG two
• 23:05
  months ago, you're currently doing NYC service.
• 23:10
  Let's say you're serving in Kano and you're invited to Bairu.
• 23:19
  Have we Kano? Is that Bairu?
• 23:22
  I can't remember. I can't remember.
• 23:24
  Anyway, you invited the university there to go and talk
• 23:26
  to the marketing department. If in the three months since you
• 23:31
  graduated, you've actually been doing some PP, some private
• 23:35
  practice on your own, I mean with another person, you've
• 23:38
  worked on marketing projects, then that's absolutely fine.
• 23:41
  It's not like people are calling you to give your presentation in
• 23:44
  front of Illuminou and Dangote and you're now espousing on how
• 23:48
  to promote African and market African enterprise.
• 23:53
  You're somebody who has finished the degree, you did that three
• 23:56
  months ago and you have three months work of experience.
• 23:59
  So now that you're speaking to people who are still in school,
• 24:02
  who are not yet where you are, you do have the expertise to
• 24:07
  talk on the things that you're talking about.
• 24:10
  South expertise is relative, and that's the reason why I can
• 24:14
  stand here in front of you guys and say the things that I say,
• 24:18
  because expertise is relative. That's why I don't talk about
• 24:22
  billionaires and stuff like that over here on the show because
• 24:26
  I'm not there yet. When I get there and I'm rolling
• 24:29
  in the billions, yeah, you'll start seeing those headlines of
• 24:31
  how to make billions of naira in 2027 or whatever.
• 24:37
  But I'm not there yet. So I'm being honest about where
• 24:40
  I am. I'm keeping it true, keeping the
• 24:42
  contextual where I am. And that's the reason why none
• 24:45
  of you can stand up and say, hey, young man, you're a fraud.
• 24:47
  Get off that stage. That's why you can't do that
• 24:51
  because expertise is relative. Expertise is contextual.
• 24:55
  And for now, I happen to know more than you, dear listener,
• 24:59
  listening to the show. And that's what gives me the
• 25:02
  right to stand here with this megaphone and say the things
• 25:05
  that I say. An example that you guys should
• 25:12
  remember for those of you who've been listening to the podcast
• 25:14
  for a while is when I was invited by the good folks at
• 25:17
  NBC, that's the Nigerian Bottling Corporation.
• 25:20
  Now, those are the people who are the franchisees is a
• 25:26
  franchise, a big franchise, or the people who own the franchise
• 25:29
  for distributing Coca-Cola and all those other products in
• 25:33
  Nigeria. And I was invited to talk about
• 25:35
  artificial intelligence, about how you can use that to improve
• 25:39
  your career and improve your business.
• 25:42
  So the reason why I could stand on that stage and talk with a
• 25:44
  full chest is because even though AI is not my air of
• 25:49
  specialty, it's not my thing. As a sales and business
• 25:54
  development consultant who uses AI everyday to run their
• 25:57
  business and also solve problems for clients, I could speak about
• 26:01
  my experience in doing these sorts of things.
• 26:04
  Even though I don't have a coding degree, no engineering
• 26:06
  degree and blah, blah, blah. It's contextual.
• 26:11
  Now for those of you been listening to the show, of
• 26:12
  course, you remember the time when I spoke to my mentee from
• 26:16
  University of Aberdeen because that's where I had my second
• 26:19
  degree and we're talking AI issues and my guy is an
• 26:23
  engineering graduate and the guy just launched off into his Holi.
• 26:26
  I think he assumed that me and him, we know like on the same
• 26:30
  level. I had to calm the boy down,
• 26:32
  like, hey, I've reached that level, yet I'm still on the
• 26:35
  level of LLMS, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, you know, basic stuff.
• 26:44
  I don't know all the coding, I don't know all the
• 26:48
  infrastructure, I don't know all the back office, every, every.
• 26:52
  So I, I told the guy, can't talk about that.
• 26:55
  This is the extent of my knowledge.
• 26:58
  So if your organization calls me to talk about how I can use
• 27:02
  artificial intelligence to improve the state of your
• 27:05
  business, oh definitely, I'll go on that stage and I'll do so
• 27:08
  confidently and talk with the food chest.
• 27:11
  But if the Nigerian Engineers Society coming to talk about AI,
• 27:17
  now that's a different thing. That kind of conversation, Oh
• 27:21
  yes, I will respectfully decline.
• 27:23
  Except if the engineers, they want to know about how they can
• 27:27
  use AI to build their businesses, then yeah, sure I
• 27:29
  can. We can have that conversation.
• 27:31
  But just remember that expertise is relative, expertise is
• 27:37
  contextual. I guess what I'm trying to say
• 27:39
  is to get confidence and to avoid your fears.
• 27:42
  Overcome your fears. Stop looking inwards.
• 27:46
  Looking inwards. It's possible, but it's hard.
• 27:48
  Rather, look at words. Look at your audience.
• 27:54
  What tasks are they trying to solve?
• 27:56
  What challenges are they working through?
• 27:58
  What opportunities are they chasing after?
• 28:03
  How can you get more experience? How can you practice more?
• 28:05
  How can you build competence? You take that path and you're
• 28:08
  going to be just right. So that's pretty much all right.
• 28:11
  So let me stop wheezing in your ears because it's almost 30
• 28:13
  minutes Connect with me on WhatsApp, phone number
• 28:16
  08064662140 country code is +234 and connect with me on on
• 28:30
  LinkedIn, the name to look for establishment IED.
• 28:33
  I'm the host of the show. You check the link while you're
• 28:38
  currently listening to this episode and I liked copy and
• 28:42
  paste. You see my handsome face and you
• 28:45
  can holler. I will continue with the
• 28:47
  conversation. In fact, listen, a shout out
• 28:50
  today is to Jim Jurowitz wits. Jim Jurowitz, sorry if I'm
• 28:57
  mispronouncing your name. He is with Omni Channel Global
• 29:02
  and he's based in Minneapolis, USA, and he's in the digital
• 29:06
  transformation space. Thank you very much for
• 29:09
  listening to the show and thank you very much for for reaching
• 29:13
  out. Yeah.
• 29:16
  So that's it. So just like Jim did reach out,
• 29:19
  let's have a convo and let's see how we can build better
• 29:22
  businesses, improve our lot. So thanks for your time and
• 29:25
  attention. I'll catch you guys in the next
• 29:27
  episode. Hopefully.
• 29:28
  I should be feeling much better there and stop wheezing
• 29:31
  painfully into your ears. So you all have a wonderful day.