Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Mastering the Art of Complex Enterprise Sales in Nigeria

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Mastering the Art of Complex Enterprise Sales in Nigeria · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

0:01
Hello and welcome to the show. Sorry I've been out of
0:04
Commission for a while, but I'm back.
0:06
And so let's get right back into business.
0:09
Now. I've come across some of my old
0:12
notes, a bunch of questions that I should have tackled on
0:15
Thursday last week. So I think we'll just, I think
0:20
we'll just get straight into that and tackle that for today.
0:22
And So what I should have done with you guys on Thursday would
0:26
have been to look at strategies that you can use to win
0:31
enterprise deals. And of course, this ties into
0:34
the whole thing that we've been talking about from the episodes
0:37
prior. You know what we're talking
0:38
about high value opportunities, targeting high value clients,
0:42
you know, blah, blah, blah, these sorts of things.
0:44
Because enterprise deals are the sorts of things that should be
0:49
considered high value by most people, especially if you're
0:53
coming from a more artistic side of the market.
0:58
You know, sort of like if you've been a wedding photographer like
1:00
me before and you're now trying to sell business to business
1:03
enterprise, then that seems much more high value.
1:06
So if you were a fashion entrepreneur before and you're
1:10
now trying to do enterprise deals, you know, that would seem
1:13
to be much more high value. So, so excuse me, the, you know,
1:19
that my throat infection and everything, it's still not over
1:21
yet, but I'm getting much better anyway.
1:24
So yeah, so depending on where you're coming from, once you
1:28
enter into the enterprise space, it definitely is something that
1:32
looks like a much more high value opportunity or how much
1:37
more high value target. So hopefully today we should be
1:40
able to look at, well, define a couple of terms because we're
1:46
talking about strategies that you can use to win complex
1:49
enterprise deals. So for those of you who are
1:52
listening to the show for the first time, there are a few
1:54
times here that might be unfamiliar.
1:56
So one of them will be complex deals.
1:57
So let's go ahead and try and define what a complex deal is.
2:03
Let's see what else. OK, enterprise.
2:06
OK, Yeah, Also to define what an enterprise deal is.
2:09
Although for those of you who are listening to the show for a
2:13
long period of time, any length of time, you'll already know
2:15
what a complex deal is. But I doubt that I have
2:17
explained or tried to explain what an enterprise deal is.
2:21
So we'll run through that in today's episode.
2:25
Then let's see what else. OK, Hopefully we should also be
2:29
able to look at some strategies that we can look at for winning
2:33
those sorts of deals. Well, which is the whole point
2:35
of the episode anyway. Before I do that, let's look at
2:39
the geek list. And so currently, OK, well, not
2:42
currently because this is old. This is from Thursday of last
2:45
week. So in between then and now, I've
2:47
been listening to a whole bunch of stuff on Spotify.
2:50
I'm not going to do the Netflix part because I figured that you
2:54
and me, especially if you're a Netflix watcher, when I say you
2:57
have me, I mean those of you are listening to the podcast right
3:00
now, especially those of you in Nigeria, I suspect that we're
3:03
probably listening to maybe 50%, sorry, watching maybe 50% of the
3:07
of the same stuff. You know, you take up your, your
3:09
phone, you open up Netflix and it says top ten in Nigeria.
3:12
You know, you run through #1 to #10 you like two or three, you
3:15
watch it. So I suspect there's some
3:17
overlap there. So there's probably no need for
3:19
me to go on the whole Netflix thing.
3:22
But when it comes to Spotify on the other hand, and the music
3:25
taste, my wife says I'm a nerd, but I'd like to say I'm a man of
3:29
refined taste. And so I think it would behoove
3:32
of me to share my refined goodness with you guys so that
3:36
you can expand your musical palette.
3:39
You know, not every time listening to, you know, Niger
3:44
Afrobeats and my piano and all that stuff.
3:47
There's more good stuff out there in the musical world.
3:51
So just as we are expanding our pockets and making sure that we
3:54
make more money, let's expand our musical palette as well.
3:56
You know, 'cause after all, we refined and sophisticated folk,
3:59
You can tell how refined we are by the kind of music that we
4:02
listen to. So.
4:07
OK, so on Spotify, Yeah. So last week was listening to
4:10
Sarah close and that's more acoustic kind of music.
4:14
And because of my background, me liking guitar, usually when I
4:18
say acoustic, you know, I mean guitar.
4:21
So when I discover an acoustic artist and it turns out to be
4:24
piano, I now remember that. Oh, OK, that well, yes, you
4:28
know, acoustic is also piano as well.
4:30
And acoustic is just basically, OK, let me now go ahead and
4:35
define, define that because it's not a music podcast, but that's
4:37
some good acoustic music. So listen to that.
4:40
If you've listened to stuff in the past like Vanessa Carlton,
4:44
this really popular song that she did back when some of us
4:46
were in uni 1000 miles. So if Vanessa Carlton is your
4:50
thing, so excuse me, then you might like so our clothes then
4:55
also listen to some Carlos Santana and that is some lovely.
5:00
That is some correct, like Latin rock, some fusion, Carlos
5:05
Santana, 1960s virtuoso guitarist, electric music.
5:10
It's psychedelia. So for those of you boys and
5:13
girls who like this spliff, you know, you like to get high.
5:16
This is something that you can, you know, hook up your shisha
5:19
and just relax to or or you know, take your grinder, mix it
5:26
into your weed, you know, everything and just light it up
5:28
and feel array. So this is that that kind of
5:31
music. By the way, I'm not recommending
5:34
that any of you guys should engage in psychedelia.
5:36
I do not do that kind of stuff. I'm just trying to say that if
5:40
that is how you like to get down, you know, on a Friday
5:42
night, you know, your boys get together and you lace up, then
5:45
this is the kind of stuff that traditionally, you know, people
5:47
lace up to. So if you never heard of Carlos
5:49
Santana before, you know, and Popsy is still alive, you know,
5:54
talk to Popsy. If Popsy is A, and I put it like
6:00
a get down kind of guy, like we used to enjoy himself back in
6:02
the day. I assure you that Popsy has
6:04
heard of Carlos Santana before and probably has heard of Jimi
6:07
Hendrix and you know, all this kind of stuff.
6:10
So Pops, you know, how far speaking to Nigerians by the
6:13
way, then let's see what else. OK, Then also discovered this
6:19
new band called Saliva. Interesting name.
6:22
It's more rock, it's more rap, heavy metal, that sort of thing.
6:25
So it's not for everybody, don't listen to it in the house,
6:29
especially if you have a popsy or mumsy or a spouse or a
6:34
partner who's going to say, look, don't listen to angry
6:37
music in this house, that sort of thing.
6:38
So that's what's been on the playlist.
6:40
And let's head straight into back into the question for
6:43
today, which is strategies that you can use to win complex
6:46
enterprise deals. So First off, let's define
6:49
complex deals for those of you who are brand new to the show.
6:53
A complex deal or a complex sale scenario is just when we're in
6:57
that kind of situation where, well, first of all is business,
7:01
because we're going to talk about business here on this
7:02
podcast when we're talking about something that has a complex
7:06
subject matter, because some subject matters are simpler than
7:10
others. And so the perennial example I
7:12
give over here on the podcast is when I talk about buying a Gucci
7:15
or when I talk about buying a car or buying a house.
7:18
So you see that the level of complexity rises with a Gucci is
7:22
very simple. Your wife says go to the market,
7:24
go and get me a Gucci. You go to the market and you
7:26
know what the Gucci looks like. You're either buying one or two
7:29
cups or one Moodle. If The thing is nice and white
7:32
and nice and you know that color, if it's whitish, you
7:36
know, to the yellow whatever, you know it's good.
7:38
Everything is kind of clumpy and blackish, greyish, almost
7:43
bluish. You know that it's bad.
7:44
So it's very, very simple. So subject matter is part of
7:48
what goes into determining what the complex deal is.
7:52
And of course it's relative. So it goosy simple.
7:56
If you're buying the car, there's some complexity involved
7:59
because a car is not a simple thing.
8:01
I could go see if you're buying a house more complex.
8:05
The last episode where we talk about, we use an example of
8:09
buying accounting software. So let's say you work with, I
8:13
think the example I gave was an accountant general's office.
8:16
So let's say you, your uncle works in accountant general's
8:18
office and you want to talk to the DG and you think you can
8:21
sell them some accounting software or some editing
8:25
software or you know someone who is AGM.
8:29
So excuse me or you know, someone who is AGM at Zenith
8:34
Bank or something like that and you're trying to sell them new
8:38
call tracking software or new accounting software or, you
8:42
know, I don't know, call auditing software or account
8:46
auditing software or whatever. You can see that from a gussie
8:50
to car to house to accounting software, you can see that the
8:53
level of complexity is rising. So these are the sorts of things
8:56
that go into determining what a complex deal is.
8:59
Now you will notice that as the complexity rises, the number of
9:04
parties that you have to talk to, the number of people you
9:06
have to talk to, the number of decision makers that you have to
9:09
talk to starts going up. So if you sell a Gucci, the only
9:13
person that you're talking to is that poor old husband who has
9:16
been sent to the market by his wife and the wife says, buy me a
9:19
Gucci. You're only talking to one
9:20
person. But then if you don't like this
9:23
a Gucci game, you decide to start selling cars.
9:25
You will notice that even though you're talking to one person
9:28
that is this husband that is in front of you, you will find out
9:31
that husband might most likely want to talk to his wife or talk
9:34
to his brother or talk to his best friend before he decides on
9:37
which kind of car he has to buy. The complexity goes up, the
9:41
number of parties goes up. So if you're selling cars and
9:44
you want to be wise, you realize that there's a way that you can
9:49
bring Madame into the conversation early.
9:51
You might as well do that. Or even if you don't bring
9:55
Madame into the conversation, but you're at least trying to
9:57
figure out what it is important to Madame, or when this guy is
10:01
talking to his brother or his best friends or whatever the
10:04
kind of issues that they are bringing up so that you can
10:06
address that, you will find that your chances of closing the deal
10:10
go up. So as the complexity rises, the
10:13
number of parties that you're talking to is also rising.
10:16
And it's the same thing with the whole thing of let's say you
10:18
know someone in Zenith Bank and you want to sell them.
10:21
Call auditing software or account auditing software.
10:23
It's not just going to be enough that your uncle is GM or your
10:27
uncle was in the same class as the GM and is willing to give
10:29
you an introduction. You have to be on good terms
10:33
with GM. Most likely you will have to be
10:35
in touch with someone who is in the audit department.
10:38
Most likely you have to know someone who is in the
10:40
procurement department and what else?
10:45
Maybe my also need to know branch manager.
10:48
So you can see that as the complexity of the subject matter
10:52
is arising, the number of parties that you have to talk to
10:55
arises as well. And then cost is also related to
10:58
the whole thing as well. So you find that the cost of a
11:01
Gucci small, the cost of a car substantially bigger, the cost
11:05
of a house even bigger, the cost of the auditing and the
11:08
accounting software and all these other things we've been
11:10
talking about even bigger and bigger and bigger.
11:13
So you see how the complexity is rising with the subject matter.
11:17
Now, of course, since we've spoken about the number of
11:19
parties that have to be there, the number of people you have to
11:21
talk to, you see that relationships now really, really
11:24
important. So when it comes to a Gucci, you
11:26
don't have to build a relationship with that hapless
11:28
husband. In fact, if the husband looks
11:30
like he's an idiot, he's not taking, you know, he's wasting
11:33
your time. It's OK to say, look, Olga,
11:35
you're spoiling my market. Can you please move so that
11:37
somebody can open market for me? You know, it's it's it's
11:40
legitimate for you to say that. And people do say that, although
11:44
I won't say I would recommend that you don't necessarily have
11:47
to be that abrupt or you don't have to be that necessarily
11:53
abrupt with folks who you're trying to do business with.
11:57
But in this case, relationships don't matter.
12:00
You know, you don't give a hoot. Your own is, look, are you
12:02
buying a Gucci? Then come and buy.
12:04
If you're buying, you better buy two or three cups.
12:06
Or if you're buying, you better buy, you know, 3 or 4 models or
12:08
whatever. But don't waste my time.
12:11
But then on the other hand, if it's selling cars, you have to
12:15
try and be, you know, more smooth, you know more, some more
12:17
finesse involved. Try and get the guy's phone
12:19
number. You call him up once in a while.
12:21
You can see that you're building relationships if it's a matter
12:24
of a house. In fact, it's not just the guy's
12:27
phone number, definitely you also have to collect Madam's
12:30
phone number because there's no way your guy is buying a house
12:32
or renting a house that Madam won't come and see it or side
12:36
ship won't come and see it or whoever.
12:38
So you best believe you better collect those two phone numbers.
12:42
And then to the thing we've been talking about with selling
12:46
software to Account Insurance office or to Zenith Bank or
12:49
whatever, you better have all those people's phone numbers,
12:54
e-mail addresses, excuse me, once in a while, drop by the
12:58
office branch and just ah, Madam GM, how far now?
13:01
Like I was around. I just seem, I agree to you, you
13:03
know, that kind of thing. So relationship building becomes
13:05
even much more important when we're dealing with complex
13:08
deals. And another thing is complex
13:12
deals have very long sale cycles.
13:14
So you can sell a goosy in 2 minutes to sell a car, which is
13:17
more complex, I don't know, maybe one month to sell a house.
13:22
I don't know. Let me guess, because I'm not in
13:24
the real estate space, maybe to sell the house itself, maybe six
13:27
months or one year. When it comes to the accounting
13:31
software, maybe might be the same, you know, six months, one
13:35
year. I have no idea because that's
13:36
not my space. But The thing is, I'm hoping
13:39
that this is enabled, this is, you know, these criteria that
13:43
we're looking at should give you guys a fair example of what it
13:46
is that makes a complex deal. And this is what makes it
13:48
complex because the subject matter itself is complex.
13:51
When I say complex, it means not simple.
13:53
You can't reduce it to one thing.
13:55
AGOC can be reduced to one thing.
13:57
It's a commodity. Is it fresh or is it not fresh,
14:00
doesn't look good or does not look good.
14:01
You can reduce it to one thing. For a car, the number of things
14:06
you can reduce it to now are going up.
14:08
That is what makes it complex. It's not just a matter of is it
14:11
a car? The question of is it secondhand
14:14
or not? Is it accidental or not?
14:16
What model is it or not? What make is it?
14:21
Let's see what else is it suitable for family.
14:25
If you're buying the car as a status symbol, you know, on and
14:30
on the number of things that you have to juggle, keep on going up
14:34
and up and up and up. So these are the kind of
14:36
criteria that you look at that determines whether you have a
14:38
complex deal. Now, the second part of the
14:42
equation, because we're talking about strategies that you can
14:45
use to win complex enterprise deals.
14:48
So next is we have to look at what an enterprise deal is.
14:52
Enterprise basically just means selling to big business or
14:56
selling to major corporations, full stop.
14:59
You will find much more technically robust definitions,
15:02
but for the purpose of this podcast, just know if you're
15:04
selling to a big business, it's an enterprise deal.
15:07
If you're selling to major corporations is an enterprise
15:09
deal. So let's take this definition
15:11
for now. So for those of us based in
15:13
Abuja, for instance, in let me see, what business can I use?
15:22
OK, Grand Square. Yeah, there's Grand Square in
15:24
the central district district, Central business district,
15:27
Abuja. So now ground Square is a, is a,
15:32
is like a mall, Abbey, it's like a mall and like a shop.
15:36
So you get to Grand Square at the bottom, ground floor left,
15:40
they sell ice cream on the ground floor right, they have
15:44
smoothies and stuff. You enter inside, they sell
15:49
groceries, tissue paper, fruits, what else?
15:53
You go to the back, they have TV's, fridge, exercise
15:57
equipment. You go upstairs, there's a
15:58
restaurant, you know, blah, blah, blah.
16:00
So it's a pretty big business. Now, I know for those of you who
16:04
are listening to this podcast in the West, you know, you UK folks
16:07
and Americans listening to the podcast, you probably will say,
16:11
look, this is not, that's not really enterprise.
16:13
And yes, in a technical sense, I'll agree with you.
16:15
But I'm just speaking relative now to my Nigerian brothers and
16:18
sisters that in this context you could say that is an enterprise
16:22
deal because it is a big business.
16:24
It's not quite a corporation, but it is a big business.
16:27
So if you sell solar panels and you're trying to get them to buy
16:32
solar panels, inverter batteries, you know, stuff like
16:34
that, you know, in a sense we could say that's an enterprise
16:39
deal. So I know that you Americans
16:41
listen to the podcast and say, I beg, that's not an enterprise
16:43
deal. But please just allow me to
16:45
speak to my brothers and sisters here.
16:47
So in our own context, at least for those of us who, you know,
16:51
you're starting out, you know, you started off as
16:53
self-employed, you know, but now you have four or five people
16:57
working for you, you have some staff, you're trying to move,
17:02
move up, you know, so before maybe you're selling solar
17:05
panels to mumsy and popsy people in the neighbourhood, people in
17:07
the estate, you now want to go small, you want to blow small.
17:11
You can consider this sort of thing as an enterprise deal.
17:14
So if you're selling to big businesses or you're selling to
17:16
major corporations, then that is enterprise deal.
17:20
The example that I gave of you trying to sell accounting
17:22
software to Zenith Bank, that is definitely enterprise deal
17:27
because now is a major corporation.
17:29
So somewhere between Grand Square and Zenith Bank, you
17:33
know, and beyond those sorts of things, that would be enterprise
17:39
deals. So other examples of enterprise
17:42
deals that we Nigerians can relate to is like infrastructure
17:44
stuff, like all these people who do business with Napa, that is
17:48
definitely an enterprise deal because we're talking about
17:51
power here. We're talking about power grids,
17:53
plenty of cable, plenty of kilowatts, plenty of this,
17:56
plenty of that. We're talking billions and
17:58
billions and billions. And of course, if you're doing
18:00
business with Napa, it's not just one office you're liaising
18:02
with, it's probably going to be a bunch of other offices.
18:05
You also have to talk to people in the, in the, what's it called
18:09
transmission company, you know, all this, all this kind of jazz.
18:14
So for those of you who are not Nigerians, NEPA is the, OK, it's
18:18
not really NEPA anymore. Now they call it the PHC and
18:21
that's the power holding Company of Nigeria.
18:23
That'll be the power holding corporation of Nigeria.
18:26
But basically they're the, they're the ones who own the
18:28
power infrastructure, who make sure that we get power, make
18:32
sure we get electricity to our homes and our businesses.
18:34
So if you're in that space, you know, definitely you guys are in
18:37
the you guys are definitely doing enterprise deals.
18:42
And yes, those people do exist. I was at home once for a friend
18:47
of mine. I went to pay a condolence visit
18:49
and then some people showed up and turns out that they worked
18:52
with the transmissions company, transmission something company.
18:56
I can't remember the people that own the power lines or manage
18:58
the power lines. I'm according to really, really
19:00
interesting conversations and was the beginning of me looking
19:04
into that whole value chain. So there are people who are
19:08
doing it big and who are players in that space.
19:11
You know, they're around us. You know, they go to the same
19:14
church as us, they go to the same market as us.
19:16
You just don't know that this engineer that you see, just you
19:19
just see him, you're greeting him like a engineer only how far
19:22
you don't know that he actually is doing enterprise deals.
19:25
So those also exist then. Now let's see what else, OK,
19:31
telecoms, that is also enterprise deals.
19:34
Because if you're going to try and let's say your uncle is a
19:37
Minister of Finance or your aunt is a Minister of Finance and you
19:40
want to hook up them with routers for Internet or
19:44
something like that. And you want to get the contract
19:46
for the whole, for the whole complex because the Ministry of
19:49
Finance complex is, is big in Abuja, then that's definitely an
19:55
enterprise deal. So you can see that we're
19:58
talking complex, complex, big, big, big.
20:00
And the naira is plenty, zeros are plenty, plenty, plenty.
20:04
So those are enterprise deals? So now let's go straight since
20:08
we've done 20 minutes defining, let's now get to the Coco of the
20:12
the the question, the strategies to win the complex deal.
20:18
Now, if you've been listening to the podcast episodes where we
20:20
spoke about getting high value clients, targeting high value
20:23
clients, then this will come as no surprise.
20:25
But it is your first time listening to the show then yeah,
20:28
still listen on. But still, once you're done,
20:30
then go back and listen to the episodes about high value
20:33
clients, high value opportunities, things like that.
20:37
So excuse me. So the strategy for winning over
20:41
complex deals is quite simple. You have to come into this with
20:45
a mind frame that you're going to do some consultative selling.
20:50
That's the whole thing. When I say pretend that you are
20:52
a doctor and don't pretend like you are selling groundnuts
20:55
because if you're selling groundnuts, it's about the
20:57
pitch. Like Orga, this is my groundnut
20:59
is fresh. We made it today.
21:01
Do you like it? Goodbye.
21:03
Well, we're coming as consultative, coming as a
21:06
doctor. A doctor tries to understand
21:08
people's needs. Where is he paying you?
21:10
Where is he not paying you? You have to ask all these
21:11
questions because organizations have pains as well.
21:14
So if you're selling this thing, if you're selling solar panels
21:17
to Ground Square or if you're selling account auditing
21:22
software to Zenith Banking, so you understand what's going on,
21:25
you need to understand ground squares power requirements.
21:29
How many times does Napa take light?
21:30
How many times do you have to own Gen.
21:32
When you own Gen. how many hundreds of 1000 naira of diesel
21:35
are you spending? Because there are some
21:37
businesses that actually don't mind spending the hundreds of
21:41
thousands of naira every week. I mean, it's all it's all
21:43
relative. So I mean, for someone like me,
21:46
even if I'm spending, OK, I don't have a Gen. and I've never
21:52
owned a Gen. so I don't even know the economics of that.
21:55
But let me just assume that I had a Gen.
21:56
If I had a Gen. and I was spending 100,000 naira in fuel
21:59
every week, that one will pay me.
22:01
I would like that would really, really be painful.
22:03
And it might be a significant factor in deciding whether I buy
22:06
a solar panel or not and an investor system.
22:10
So you need to figure out these big enterprises, these big
22:13
businesses, these corporations, what are their pain points or
22:16
what are their visions? What are they trying to move
22:20
towards? So in consultative settings,
22:22
we're trying to understand the buyer's needs or their pin
22:25
points or their vision. So that can involve doing some
22:28
research. You can hop online and try and
22:30
find out. What are the biggest concerns
22:32
that bank MD's have to worry about these days?
22:34
Before you try and hook up a meeting with the MD or with a
22:38
branch manager or whoever to start discussing, you need to
22:41
get a sense of what their priorities are.
22:45
Let's see what else talking to stakeholders might also be a
22:49
good way of understanding the buyer.
22:51
So like in the case, let's say where your uncle went to the
22:54
same or your auntie was the classmates of the branch MD you
22:59
know of, of, of the Zenith Bank branch on your street or
23:03
something. You know, having a conversation
23:06
with your uncle about what possible priorities the bank
23:11
branch might be having or even getting a sense from your uncle
23:14
or your auntie, like how you might brought this conversation,
23:17
you know, that is so excuse me? That's also a way of you doing
23:23
research. You try and understand the
23:25
buyer. So when you're doing
23:26
consultative selling, understanding the buyer is
23:29
number one priority. Now, the reason why it is your
23:32
number one priority is because if you do not understand the
23:38
buyer, your sales pitch is going to be ineffective and it's not
23:42
going to be tailored. It's not going to be relevant
23:45
because there are times that people come and make a sales
23:47
pitch and the sales pitch falls flat because you can tailor it
23:50
to the person. So for those of you who've been
23:52
listening for a while, I remember the story of the time
23:55
when I wanted to buy trousers. I just wanted trousers that
23:57
don't split down the middle because I'm a big guy.
24:00
Every single thing I wear, the thing splits down the middle is
24:03
is basic and I'm just tired of that.
24:06
So I like to wear nice baggy trousers so that I'm I'm free
24:11
and The thing is not going to split.
24:13
But wifey says that when I wear that, that I'm dressed like a
24:17
Ghanaian school teacher. That is not attractive.
24:19
It's not flattering. It's not this, that, that.
24:20
So she wants me to wear things that a bit more snug.
24:25
Quite frankly, I think all the things she wants me to wear are
24:28
tight. But then she says tight.
24:30
What do you mean you have no sense of style?
24:34
What was I? Yeah.
24:36
So I was talking about sales pitch being relevant.
24:38
So there's a time when I wanted to buy the trousers and for me
24:43
buying, OK, I won't say how much your trousers cost.
24:45
I don't want you to guys to think I'm too expensive.
24:49
And then for those of you who are into fashion, I don't want
24:52
to call the amount. And you now see that look, this
24:54
guy is too cheap that you should have just bought the damn thing.
24:57
We ended up buying it anyway. So for me, my main concern was,
25:02
look, this thing seems expensive and will these things split down
25:05
the middle? Well, the guy kept on going on
25:07
about how this is the later something it is Wrangler, it is
25:10
this is this is UK is blah, blah, blah.
25:13
Now for my wife, who knows what's up and I believe that she
25:17
knows what's up because I've seen the difference whenever she
25:19
buys stuff for the cheese and she says, look, this is a good
25:22
brand. This is a good brand.
25:23
I've seen the difference. If she says it's a good brand,
25:26
you buy it. We use it for like 2-3 years,
25:28
hand down to the next child. And then even after that,
25:31
sometimes mom sees like these things are still good.
25:33
We can take them and give them to people back home in the villa
25:36
and things like that. And so I've seen that, Oh yes,
25:39
there's a difference between some brands and some brands.
25:42
So if you're talking to someone like my wife, then yes, trying
25:46
to say something like this is Wrangler, this is UK, this is
25:49
Canada, this is whatever, this is France, this is Bangladesh,
25:53
whatever, you'll be communicating something.
25:55
But a guy like me who's just thinking, look, I want this
25:58
thing in a big size. I don't want you to cling to my
26:01
body and I don't want this thing to split down the middle.
26:03
If you're talking, this is the latest, this is the greatest,
26:06
this is what young men are wearing nowadays.
26:08
That kind of pitch is irrelevant to me.
26:12
So you make sure that your pitch is relevant to the person that
26:15
you're talking to. When you understand the person,
26:18
understand their needs, understand what problem it is
26:20
they're trying to solve. That way you can speak to their
26:22
own terms so that if you're standing in front of a guy like
26:26
me who has the fashion sense of a Ghanaian school teacher,
26:28
you'll be able to say that look, boss, we have this thing in size
26:32
16, size 18. So size you're covered.
26:36
Look at, check the inside. Look at this thing while I got
26:39
here, pull it. Can you see this thing here?
26:42
We call this thing reinforced stitching.
26:43
It's double stitching. Because of this double
26:45
stitching, this thing will not tear even if you do splits.
26:48
There's no how this thing won't tear.
26:49
I give you guarantee if you take this thing now and this thing
26:52
tears in less than three months, come back here, I'll give you
26:54
your money back. You know, So you see that that's
26:56
kind of a sales pitch that should work with someone like me
26:58
who has the fashion sense of a getting young school teacher,
27:01
then someone else who now has refined sense of good garments,
27:05
like what is good quality, you know, stuff like that.
27:08
So if you're talking to my wife, I'm talking to my mother, then
27:10
you cannot be saying things like, oh, this one is Wrangler
27:13
or this one is Mamas and Papas or this one is Calvin Klein or
27:17
this one is Bangladesh. And Bangladesh quality is better
27:21
than China quality and all those sorts of things.
27:23
So we need to make sure that our pitch is effective, need to make
27:27
sure that it's tailored. And that is how we are going to
27:30
do it is only when we understand the buyer.
27:32
So that when you're face to face now with the Bank MD, the pitch
27:37
that you're going to make for the software that you're selling
27:39
or for your solar panels is going to be you talk about it in
27:42
terms of what they are concerned, what they are
27:46
concerned about. Because if Bank MD, his own
27:51
concern is, look, we need solar panels in this place because
27:53
we're wasting too much money on diesel.
27:56
But then you go down, you start talking about sustainability and
27:58
ESG goals and stuff like that, you just won't be making sense.
28:04
So you speak to people in terms of what it is that they need to,
28:08
what they need to hear. And you only do that by
28:11
understanding what the bad needs are by talking to people,
28:14
talking to stakeholders. Excuse me doing some research
28:19
then part of your strategy has to involve building
28:22
relationships and rapport because there's no how you're
28:25
going to close this deal if you're only talking to one
28:27
person. If your uncle and your, your
28:30
uncle or your auntie and the branch MD were best friends or
28:35
you know, whatever, it's not a guarantee that you're going to
28:38
get that deal. You need to be talking to more
28:40
people within the organization depending on what it is that
28:43
you're you're selling. So the example that I gave
28:48
earlier, if I remember correctly, I think I said okay,
28:52
if he's auditing software, okay, there's one person I left out
28:55
it. So you also should be speaking
28:58
to you speaking to the MD and you also should be speaking to
29:02
branch manager. Apart from branch manager, you
29:04
also need to be talking to facilities manager.
29:07
Apart from facilities manager, it will help if you're talking
29:10
to IT director or IT manager because after all, what you're
29:13
selling is going to involve integration with their current
29:16
accounting software, their current the software that
29:18
current that software. So you can see that you should
29:21
be building relationship with all these other people and
29:23
that's part of your strategy of making this deal move through.
29:29
There will be some situations that if you have access to the
29:31
Orgac Patapata that will close the deal.
29:33
So like if you go to is it North Korea?
29:37
So if you talk to, if you go to North Korea now, for instance,
29:40
and you're, you're in touch with the organ himself, chairman of
29:43
the party and on, it's a different deal because chairman
29:45
can say, shut up, who are you? I have decided this is all we're
29:48
buying. Go ahead and implement.
29:50
So if you can hook up with chairman in that kind of
29:51
situation, then it's a done deal.
29:54
But outside of those sorts of situations where you have a,
29:57
what would I say? Now you have a, what's that
30:03
word, tyrant sort of situations where you have tyrants running
30:08
the organization. You have to build relationship
30:11
with some people here and there. If you still don't believe me,
30:13
remember the episode where I talk about how I was trying to
30:16
do some business. We're going to provide media
30:19
coverage, event and media coverage for one of the oil and
30:23
gas firms that has a headquarter here in Abuja.
30:25
And the person that destroyed my deal was a secretary, as in a
30:28
common secretary. I'll talk about that again in a
30:31
future episode. But for those of you who've been
30:33
listening for years, I mean, you already know that story about
30:36
how a secretary was one that was standing in between me and my
30:41
ability to pay my children's school fees.
30:42
So, yeah, relationship building really, really important.
30:47
When you come, when we start talking about these sorts of
30:50
deals where the money is big and the zeros are plenty, then you
30:55
also need to have a compelling value proposition.
30:58
Basically, what that just means is you need to have a strong
31:00
reason for why people do business with you or the value
31:03
that you're bringing to the table when we are talking about
31:06
enterprise deals. Now you have to be able to
31:08
quantify your benefits, saying this is the latest, the
31:12
greatest, the best is not enough.
31:14
What if you say, look, Olga, you install this solar panel, we're
31:17
going to be able to provide you with 20 kilowatts of power every
31:20
day, 20 kilowatts of power at current Nepal, whatever means we
31:24
will be saving you 50,000 naira per day.
31:26
You can see that that's a different thing.
31:28
You're now having a conversation with the chairman saying that
31:32
look, you installed this, I'll be saving you 50,000 naira per
31:34
day, so 50,000 naira per day. The guy can do the quick math.
31:38
That 50,000 naira per day, The branch is open five days a week.
31:42
That's 250,000 naira a week. That means that at the end of
31:45
each month we'll be saving one M, and if we're saving one MA
31:48
month, then we should be saving 12 M every year.
31:51
You see that that's something that the guy can do the math
31:53
sharp, sharp in his head. And that is how you should be
31:55
having these conversations. What is the value proposition?
31:59
Go straight to it and try and quantify it.
32:01
So saying this is the latest, this is the best, this is the
32:04
that might not, might not really help.
32:08
Then of course, try and work with the with the sense of
32:12
urgency that the organization has.
32:15
That's my own recommendation. So this whole thing of saying
32:17
buy 2, get one free and by now before January 15th to get 20%
32:23
off, I really don't think we should be playing all those kind
32:25
of games when it comes to the enterprise deal.
32:27
We should look for the the the urgency that already applies
32:33
there. Then another part of the
32:35
strategy involves the kind of tech that we're supposed to use
32:38
to pursue this kind of deals. So when you're trying to pursue
32:41
this kind of opportunities, CRM is really, really important.
32:44
CRM is just customer relationship management tool.
32:47
So even if you can't afford ACRM or you don't know where any of
32:51
the free tools are, you can use your phone to do that.
32:55
But basically the reason why we need ACRM tool is just for this
32:58
whole thing about scheduling, because it is impossible, and I
33:02
repeat, it is impossible to run this kind of deal from memory.
33:08
If you're talking to MD, you're talking to head of procurement,
33:12
you're talking to head of IT, you're talking to facilities
33:14
manager, you're talking to five or six people within this
33:16
company. If you're trying to run this
33:18
thing from memory, you will forget that branch MD said do
33:22
this or the facility manager said OK, come and see me Monday
33:26
at 8 O clock. You will forget.
33:28
So you need something that's going to be pinging you from
33:30
time to time to remind you to say that send branch MD this or
33:34
you have a meeting with the facility manager at 8:00 AM or
33:38
something like that. So you need something for
33:40
scheduling, something for pinging, something to remind you
33:42
and that is just what the CRM is.
33:44
Well, CRM is more than that, but, and those are the functions
33:48
that we're concerned about now. So CRM, you need that tech just
33:51
because of scheduling. You don't have CRM, no problem.
33:54
You can do these things with your phones, the note taking,
33:57
the scheduling, the notifications, the reminders,
34:00
the scheduling, the everything because you cannot run
34:05
enterprise deal from memory. So please do not try to do that.
34:10
Then you also need patience. Patience is part of the well.
34:15
Patience is not really a strategy, but you need patience
34:17
because the sales cycle is going to be long.
34:19
You can't say you call branch chairman today and then you're
34:22
going to close the deal next week.
34:23
It doesn't work like that. So you need to be patient.
34:26
So there's plenty of more that we can say about that, about
34:29
these sorts of things, but we've gone over 30 minutes.
34:32
Let me just bring it to a close. So this is the mindset or these
34:36
are the strategies that you need to adopt.
34:38
There's plenty that can be said, but these are the things that
34:41
are good to consider for now. And so that's all I'm going to
34:46
say for now when it comes to strategies for winning complex
34:50
enterprise deals. So I hope I've been able to
34:52
convince you guys that you need a couple of things to make this
34:55
work. You need to be consultative, you
34:57
need ACRM, you need a bit of patience, and I hope you now
35:02
understand what a complex deal is and what an enterprise deal
35:06
is. If you're still having problems
35:07
with that, hit me up. one-on-one.
35:09
Phone number is 08064662140. Country code is +234.
35:16
If you call and I don't answer, send a text message, send a
35:18
WhatsApp. You definitely will hear from me
35:20
in a couple of hours. Also, hook up with me on
35:22
LinkedIn. The name is Tavishima Ayede.
35:25
I'm the host of the show. If you want to confirm the name,
35:27
confirm the spelling of the name, just look at the link
35:30
where you're listening to this episode.
35:31
Highlight my name, copy it, paste it.
35:34
My handsome face will pop up and then yeah, accept and I'll
35:40
accept. Sorry, you send me the
35:41
connection request, I'll accept and then we can chat that way.
35:45
So thank you very much for your time and attention.
35:47
I'll catch you guys at the next episode.