Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / DM Fails: Stop Spooking Your Audience & Start Real Conversations

Transcript

DM Fails: Stop Spooking Your Audience & Start Real Conversations · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. I know we're supposed to be on
• 0:06
  the challenges of selling your fintech idea in Nigeria, but I
• 0:09
  received another message today, you know, one of those kinds of
• 0:12
  messages that I usually receive. And I figured, let me just hop
• 0:15
  on the mic real quick and use this as a case study because I
• 0:20
  know that there are a bunch of you who are listening to this
• 0:22
  show right now who still try to sell this way.
• 0:27
  So this is an SOS just trying to let you guys know, OK, no, not
• 0:31
  SOSSOS is save our souls. So this is an SYS or SYB.
• 0:37
  So this is me trying to save your soul or to save your
• 0:40
  business. And you guys really should stop
• 0:43
  doing these things. And you know, there are better
• 0:45
  ways to sell. You don't even have to book time
• 0:48
  with me or use any sales guru in quote for that matter.
• 0:55
  A simple Google search or a simple YouTube search or a
• 0:59
  simple Gemini search or ChatGPT search should be able to give
• 1:03
  you a better script than you can use than what's currently out
• 1:09
  there. You know what people are
• 1:10
  advising you guys to do anyway. So let me just jump straight
• 1:13
  into it. By the way, it's not bad.
• 1:15
  So for those of you who are sending out these kinds of
• 1:17
  messages, I'm not saying this is bad and this is going to hurt
• 1:20
  your business. I'm just trying to say that
• 1:22
  there are much more effective ways to sell that you ought to
• 1:25
  consider. So I was chilling, minding my
• 1:29
  business on Instagram. Well, actually I was promoting
• 1:32
  one of the speaking engagements I have, which is for the 1st of
• 1:36
  May, the 1st of May in Nigeria is Mayday.
• 1:39
  Well, I think that's an international I, I think it
• 1:41
  should be an international thing.
• 1:42
  Anyway, we call it Mayday over here.
• 1:45
  I think it's on parts of the world.
• 1:46
  We call it Workers Day. So it's going to be a public
• 1:49
  holiday and a bunch of photographers have got me to
• 1:54
  come speak at an event. And this means a lot to me
• 1:58
  actually, because when I started off this podcast, I started it
• 2:01
  off hoping to talk to people in the photography community and in
• 2:06
  the event and wedding space because that was my main
• 2:10
  constituency. That was where I started from
• 2:12
  and that was where I cut my teeth when it comes to selling,
• 2:17
  really. Then after that, the family
• 2:19
  export business were actually both of them running
• 2:21
  concurrently. But at the time it looked like
• 2:26
  that community was not interested in what it is that I
• 2:28
  had to say because wedding photographers particularly are
• 2:31
  in love with the newest cameras, the newest computers, the newest
• 2:36
  gear, you know, those sorts of things.
• 2:39
  So it was a marriage that wasn't working.
• 2:43
  And so I decided to switch the focus of the show and start
• 2:46
  talking to wider Nigerian business community because that
• 2:50
  was the only feedback I was getting anyway.
• 2:52
  You know, people would hit me up.
• 2:54
  An architect here. OK, There was this dude that was
• 2:57
  into, well, still is into carpentry.
• 2:59
  It's just that we don't talk much these days.
• 3:02
  So was folks like that. People hit me up from different
• 3:05
  industries. And I figured, yeah, I started
• 3:07
  off this thing trying to talk to people in the photography
• 3:10
  community, event planners, you know, those sorts of things.
• 3:13
  Cake artists, well, they ain't listening.
• 3:15
  So I just went to where the ovation was loudest.
• 3:19
  And that is how the show changed what it is today.
• 3:22
  So it is a very fulfilling and kind of emotional thing for me
• 3:27
  to receive this invitation to come and speak to people in my
• 3:30
  home constituency about how they can simplify their businesses
• 3:33
  and make things better. So I'll assume that there's a
• 3:37
  growing trend that people in the arts, because those of us who
• 3:40
  come from that background, we consider ourselves artists.
• 3:43
  And maybe that's the disdain. That's the reason why people in
• 3:46
  this space have a disdain for sales, because you figure I'm an
• 3:49
  artist, let me do my art. People will see it, people will
• 3:52
  like it, people will come. But unfortunately, it's not that
• 3:55
  simple. So I was on Instagram to promote
• 3:58
  that when somebody hit me up in the DMS and the message went
• 4:00
  something like this. Greetings, I love your page and
• 4:05
  I love what you do. Oh, by the way, this is me
• 4:07
  summarizing because the message was longer than this.
• 4:09
  And of course, you guys know that I've been staying in here
• 4:13
  on the show at nauseam. Keep the messages short.
• 4:16
  I scrolled through because I'm interested in sales and business
• 4:20
  development, so whenever I get any form of outreach, I read the
• 4:25
  whole thing. Partly out of sympathy, but then
• 4:28
  partly out of the fact that I'm trying to do some research to
• 4:31
  see what kinds of what the latest trend in SMS marketing,
• 4:39
  DMS, social selling, blah blah blah.
• 4:42
  I'd like to know what the latest flare is.
• 4:44
  And unfortunately, The thing is, something starts because maybe
• 4:47
  some guru said something, and all of you just copy.
• 4:50
  So the messages all sound alike. So yeah.
• 4:55
  So if you do this sort of thing, you know, keep the message
• 4:57
  short. So this is me summarizing the
• 5:00
  message meant something like this.
• 5:01
  Greetings. I love your page and what you
• 5:04
  do. I think you need more followers.
• 5:06
  This will help you boost your credibility.
• 5:09
  I can help you with followers at a more affordable rate.
• 5:12
  Are you interested? Let's talk business.
• 5:14
  So this is me summarizing the message.
• 5:18
  This person expresses thing in several paragraphs, but you can
• 5:21
  see how I summarize this thing into four sentences.
• 5:24
  So what this person sent us five or six blocks of texts really
• 5:28
  should have just been 4 short sentences.
• 5:30
  You know what's up? I love your page on what you do.
• 5:33
  I think you need more followers to help you boost credibility.
• 5:36
  I can help with followers at an affordable rate.
• 5:38
  Are you interested? Let's talk business.
• 5:40
  You see, short. You can keep it short and
• 5:42
  simple. It doesn't have to be a wall of
• 5:44
  text. I read it because it's me.
• 5:47
  Most people you're sending these messages to do not read.
• 5:50
  What they do is they select highlight and then they block.
• 5:56
  Some people who have some sort of privacy settings on might
• 5:59
  even be able to just move you to spam or block or what's that
• 6:03
  word there's on Instagram. There's something that you do
• 6:05
  where if you highlight that thing, your profile won't be
• 6:08
  visible to that person anymore. So I guess it's a kind of option
• 6:12
  than blocking or spamming the person, but the option is still
• 6:15
  there nonetheless. So this was the message.
• 6:18
  Now, the message has a bunch of problems.
• 6:20
  If you've been listening to the show, I'm sure you can't figure
• 6:22
  them out already. So like I said, it was too long.
• 6:25
  I summarized it into four or five sentences.
• 6:27
  The guy should have kept it shorter.
• 6:29
  Another problem, this message has too many assumptions.
• 6:33
  The guy's assuming too many things.
• 6:35
  One, yes, I did confirm it's a guy.
• 6:38
  Then what else #3 the message should be staggered.
• 6:44
  You guys are trying to do social media, selling SMS outreach,
• 6:48
  stuff like that, and cramming too many things into one
• 6:52
  message. So let's tackle these things one
• 6:55
  at a time. How you can reduce the number of
• 6:58
  assumptions that you have here, how you can actually build a
• 7:00
  conversation, and how you can stagger your outreach.
• 7:05
  So number one, he made the assumption that ticks me off the
• 7:08
  most. He assumed that I need more
• 7:11
  followers. Everybody that hits me up trying
• 7:14
  to sell social media services and blah, blah, blah assumes
• 7:17
  that I need more followers. It's not just me.
• 7:21
  Any other business person, whether you sell pajamas or
• 7:24
  whether you sell crayfish or whatever it is, everybody hits
• 7:28
  you up assuming that you need more followers.
• 7:30
  But The thing is this, for those of you who are selling social
• 7:33
  media management services and all these kinds of stuff, not
• 7:37
  everybody is looking for more followers.
• 7:41
  You need to find out what the person wants and then try to
• 7:44
  sell to what the person is interested in or else you are
• 7:48
  not going to get any interest from the gate.
• 7:52
  There are some people who are doing this whole Instagram thing
• 7:55
  because for them it is purely a brand play, brand positioning,
• 7:59
  not necessarily followers. Some of you might say what's the
• 8:02
  difference? There's a small distinction, but
• 8:04
  we can get into that later. Then there are some people who
• 8:07
  are doing this from a lead generation play.
• 8:12
  So it's not exactly just followers, but they want to get
• 8:15
  leads. It's not just followers they're
• 8:17
  looking at. There are some people who are on
• 8:19
  Instagram just because they want to use it for relationship
• 8:22
  building with other influencers. In fact, for now, I think that's
• 8:27
  the chief benefit that I have from having from maintaining the
• 8:30
  Instagram accounts because I let it die.
• 8:33
  But I kind of picked it back up because now that I'm speaking in
• 8:37
  some circles, not everybody's linked.
• 8:40
  I spend most of my time on LinkedIn, but everybody's a
• 8:42
  LinkedIn person. So just like the way that I'm
• 8:45
  using my LinkedIn to keep some relationships alive and keep me
• 8:48
  top of mind, it is now finally nice to have the Instagram
• 8:52
  handle to keep those relationships alive and keep me
• 8:55
  top of mind as well. For instance, there's this lady,
• 9:00
  what's her name? I'm trying to remember the
• 9:04
  Instagram name and I can't remember anyway, but I happen to
• 9:06
  share a stage with her. Ida Hosa.
• 9:10
  Reb Reb Ida Hosa. Yeah.
• 9:12
  So I shared the stage with Reb Ida Hosa.
• 9:15
  She is not a LinkedIn person. She is a So I should yeah, she's
• 9:19
  not a LinkedIn person. She's an Instagram person.
• 9:22
  And you send her a message anywhere else, she might not
• 9:25
  reply. If you send her a message on
• 9:27
  Instagram. Now if you send it to her at one
• 9:31
  O 3, she'll reply at one O 5. So she lives on Instagram.
• 9:35
  So for me now, one of the chief advantages that I have for my
• 9:39
  Instagram handles that is helping me maintain
• 9:41
  relationships and visibility with those sorts of people who
• 9:45
  don't run in my kind of circles online.
• 9:48
  So that's another thing that people can be looking for.
• 9:50
  We have looked at followers, brand lead generation,
• 9:55
  relationship building. Some people use Instagram purely
• 9:58
  as a portfolio because back in my wedding photography days,
• 10:01
  that was all my Instagram account was.
• 10:03
  It was a portfolio. I did nothing else with this.
• 10:06
  I put pictures up, I didn't promote them.
• 10:07
  The whole point was first having a conversation with the bride.
• 10:10
  I wanted to send her a link to say this is My Portfolio.
• 10:13
  This is what I've done. And then since I'm a podcaster,
• 10:18
  I'm using the Instagram to try and promote the podcast.
• 10:23
  So you can see that depending on who you're talking to, there are
• 10:27
  lots of reasons why somebody might be trying to maintain an
• 10:30
  Instagram account. It is not always followers.
• 10:34
  You need to have the conversation with the person.
• 10:38
  Even if you think that followers are the solution.
• 10:40
  It is only when you understand where that person is coming from
• 10:43
  and when the person feels heard, seen and understood that you
• 10:47
  cannot bring it back to that follower thing.
• 10:50
  So if somebody says, look, followers is not my cup of tea,
• 10:53
  I want leads, I want leads, I want leads.
• 10:56
  If in your professional opinion you believe that getting more
• 10:58
  followers is the best way to get more leads, it is only when you
• 11:02
  see, understand and listen to that person like oh OK I get it
• 11:05
  you're on Instagram for the leads that you can now bring it
• 11:08
  back and say look bro the way to get more leads is to get more
• 11:12
  followers. I hope you guys get where I'm
• 11:14
  coming from. But bottom line is stop starting
• 11:17
  the conversation assuming that the person already needs what it
• 11:21
  is that you have. So don't be walking up to total
• 11:27
  strangers trying to sell your registration for crypto exchange
• 11:33
  if you are not even sure that the person is interested in
• 11:35
  crypto in the 1st place. I hope you guys get where I'm
• 11:38
  going. So whether it's crypto or
• 11:41
  wedding photography. In fact, as a wedding
• 11:42
  photographer, I wouldn't just assume that any lady that I see
• 11:46
  that doesn't have a wedding ring is looking for a wedding
• 11:48
  photographer. It's not like that.
• 11:50
  I needed to look for other kinds of cues that would give me a
• 11:52
  sense of, OK, this is a potential bride or not before I
• 11:56
  start trying to have the conversation.
• 11:58
  So you guys need to be doing the same sort of thing online
• 12:02
  whether you sell social media management or not.
• 12:06
  So that's the first problem. Do it assumed I need followers.
• 12:09
  And thing is, I can't really be bothered.
• 12:12
  In fact, for me, I think I track my reach on Instagram more than
• 12:17
  the followers because I've noticed that it's like the more
• 12:20
  reach I get on Instagram, it's like the more followers I seem
• 12:24
  to be having on the podcast. Now I'm not tech savvy enough to
• 12:27
  to test if there's a correlation, but it's kind of a
• 12:32
  coincidence that when I started gaining more reach on Instagram,
• 12:35
  the subscription to my podcast started going up and up and up.
• 12:39
  So I can't really be bothered that I only have 1200 followers
• 12:46
  if it looks like the more my reach grows, those are people
• 12:51
  who actually see the post. The more my reach grows, the
• 12:53
  more subscribers I get. And in fact, my call to action
• 12:57
  actually, when I'm proposed promoting my stuff on Instagram,
• 13:00
  actually is to get people to listen to the show and to
• 13:03
  subscribe to the show. So that is the first mistake he
• 13:07
  made. He assumed that I needed
• 13:08
  followers. Have a conversation with me,
• 13:10
  have a conversation with whoever and figure out what it is that
• 13:14
  the person needs before you now know what it is that you are
• 13:18
  going to sell. So stop assuming.
• 13:23
  How do you stop assuming you do that?
• 13:25
  By actually engaging in the conversation to figure out what
• 13:29
  this person deeds. When you know what the person
• 13:32
  needs, then you deliver the sales speech.
• 13:35
  Like I said, my own needs, trying to promote the podcast.
• 13:40
  I'm trying to leverage social media for paid speaking
• 13:42
  engagements like the last one that I did, which was the
• 13:46
  Nigerian Bottling Corporation. That's the Coca-Cola people.
• 13:49
  The youth engagement, sorry, not engagement.
• 13:52
  The Youth Empowered seminar. Yeah, because I was able to get
• 13:57
  that because I leveraged social media connects back from my
• 14:01
  wedding photography days because I ignored Instagram.
• 14:05
  But I'm now using Instagram Deli deliberately to see how I can
• 14:09
  transition my wedding photography history.
• 14:14
  I mean, out of that era. Let me just put it like, OK, no,
• 14:18
  that was not very articulate, but you get my gist on
• 14:21
  Instagram. I still, for a while, I still
• 14:24
  had that thing as the wedding photography guy, but I've not
• 14:26
  been the wedding photography guy for a while.
• 14:29
  So instead of ignoring the profile, I'm using the profiles
• 14:32
  and trying to transition the reputation away from photography
• 14:35
  into something else. And the NBC Youth Empowered
• 14:39
  Speaking Engagement was an example of that.
• 14:42
  So now, if you're going to engage in conversation with
• 14:46
  people, you need to stagger your conversation flow.
• 14:49
  When I say stagger, what I mean is break it up, chunk it up.
• 14:54
  Most people are sending putting too many things in one message.
• 14:57
  It's a whole block of message, a whole block of messages.
• 15:00
  The reason why that is ineffective is because you put
• 15:02
  too many things in there. And then which thing exactly is
• 15:06
  the prospect supposed to reply to if you put too many things?
• 15:12
  5-6 things. Like remember what this guy
• 15:13
  said? I broke it down into five
• 15:17
  statements, I think. OK.
• 15:19
  Yeah. So those greeting part.
• 15:20
  Love your page and what you do. I think you might need more
• 15:23
  followers to help boost your credibility.
• 15:25
  I can do that. An affordable rate.
• 15:27
  Are you interested? Let's talk business.
• 15:28
  There's a bunch to respond to. You put some flattery there
• 15:33
  about loving the page. You know, he could respond to
• 15:36
  that. There's the credibility thing.
• 15:39
  Let's see, what else? Followers.
• 15:41
  OK, you know what? Let me just slow it down.
• 15:44
  Let me take my own advice and show you guys how I think it
• 15:46
  should actually work. I think the first album that
• 15:49
  this guy sent sent should have been the greetings and then the
• 15:52
  flattery. Hey, what's up?
• 15:54
  I've seen your page. I love what you do, especially
• 15:57
  this post, this post, that post, man, the thing really jibe with
• 16:01
  me like big up. I like what you do Well done,
• 16:04
  nice job. You know, flattery, whatever,
• 16:06
  pick your own words and then a bunch of people are going to
• 16:09
  respond. Oh, thank you very much.
• 16:12
  We're going to take that as permission now to assume that we
• 16:15
  can engage in a conversation. Then that's where you're going
• 16:19
  to start asking questions about. I notice that even though you've
• 16:23
  been doing this thing for the past four years, you only have
• 16:25
  1200 followers. Do you think it hurts your
• 16:28
  credibility in any way? Question mark, leave it there.
• 16:32
  A bunch of people will ignore. That's not a problem.
• 16:35
  We're not worried about the people who ignore.
• 16:37
  We're worried about the people who engage.
• 16:39
  And some people will say, Oh no, actually it works perfectly fine
• 16:41
  because I use Instagram for this, this that.
• 16:45
  You continue with the conversation, you might find out
• 16:46
  if there's a problem there or not.
• 16:49
  A bunch of people might engage and say, yeah, actually, I think
• 16:51
  it's really costing me credibility to you.
• 16:54
  I think people don't take me seriously when they look at my
• 16:56
  Instagram handle. Now, can you see that you guys
• 16:59
  are in a conversation? You've exchanged like 5 or 6
• 17:02
  messages. You're not that weird stranger
• 17:04
  who showed up and then put a block of text in the DM.
• 17:08
  You're not having a conversation with an actual person.
• 17:12
  And then you now get to that whole thing of how you can help
• 17:14
  with followers or another assumption at an affordable
• 17:18
  rate. Social media managers, why do
• 17:20
  you assume that everybody's looking for affordable rates?
• 17:24
  Nobody has said anything about price already.
• 17:27
  You're trying to set yourself up at the lower end of the spectrum
• 17:30
  and then later on you come and say now that business is
• 17:32
  difficult. How would it be difficult when
• 17:35
  the key thing you're trying to do every single time you
• 17:37
  communicate is to set yourself apart using a pricing strategy?
• 17:41
  That's just stress. I mean, sometimes it's
• 17:43
  necessary, like you're broke, you know, you need to buy fuel.
• 17:48
  I understand. We all get there.
• 17:50
  Like no more I need to buy fuel. Anything comes along, I'll take
• 17:53
  it or school fees is coming up. Anything that comes along, I'll
• 17:57
  take it because you know, last last as in 100K is better than
• 18:02
  0. So I get it.
• 18:04
  But don't start off with that whole affordable rate thing.
• 18:07
  You don't know who you're talking to.
• 18:09
  What if I'm Dangote's daughter and money is not a problem?
• 18:13
  You never know. Have the conversation first.
• 18:16
  Know who you're dealing with. Know what problem they have.
• 18:20
  Get a sense of how your product or service might solve that
• 18:23
  problem. Get a sense of the benefit that
• 18:25
  the person is going to get on the other end.
• 18:28
  Because after all, if you're able to work your magic and the
• 18:30
  person is concerned about lead generation and even though the
• 18:34
  person pays you 500 K, the person is going to be able to
• 18:37
  get 2.5 business at the end of it Then I mean, what are you
• 18:41
  talking lowest price for? If the expense is worth it.
• 18:46
  So that is how you start at the conversation.
• 18:48
  You get into somebody's DM, it's just one short message question
• 18:53
  mark, the person respond, another short message question
• 18:58
  mark, the person responds. The whole goal is using this
• 19:02
  guy's playbook. Get in there, flatter them,
• 19:06
  they'll be pleased. Everybody loves flattery.
• 19:09
  Then start asking more questions.
• 19:11
  You're trying to figure out who are they?
• 19:13
  What do they do? Do they have a problem that you
• 19:15
  can solve? So that's how you break it up.
• 19:17
  So first, like I said, greetings, I love your page.
• 19:21
  I love what you do, especially this post, that post you stop.
• 19:25
  Some people will say thanks when they say thanks, you say, oh,
• 19:28
  you've been doing this for so, so, so and so.
• 19:30
  I think you should have more followers by now, don't you
• 19:32
  think so? Or you only have 1000 followers.
• 19:35
  I think that is not that's not enough to boost your
• 19:38
  credibility. What do you think?
• 19:40
  Well, I think you only have those also followers.
• 19:43
  Is that enough to help promote your business?
• 19:45
  Isn't that costing you business? I mean you just well different.
• 19:50
  So whichever way it is that you choose to express yourself,
• 19:52
  that's the flow of the conversation that you should be
• 19:56
  having. And then that whole thing of
• 19:57
  helping with more followers eventually have to get there.
• 20:01
  But don't start off the whole thing at an affordable rate.
• 20:04
  Perhaps you should be looking at.
• 20:06
  The returns that you can get, I'm sure that if you do this as
• 20:10
  a business, you have case studies, you know, clients that
• 20:13
  you've worked with in the past, how you were able to grow their
• 20:15
  following from maybe 1001 thousand, 2 followers to maybe
• 20:19
  5006. And then when they jump from
• 20:22
  5006, instead of monthly income being 50K, their monthly income
• 20:26
  was now 250K or something. You can point to those sorts of
• 20:30
  things. Well, it's hopefully you can
• 20:32
  point to those sorts of things. So those are some of the
• 20:36
  mistakes that this fellow made in his outreach and that I think
• 20:40
  you guys should stop doing. If you're doing it when you get
• 20:44
  into somebody's DM, stop with the five or six paragraphs.
• 20:48
  Keep it short. Most people are not paying
• 20:50
  attention. In this case, I could reduce his
• 20:52
  message to four or five sentences.
• 20:54
  Greetings, I love your page. I think you need more followers
• 20:58
  to boost credibility. I can help with more followers
• 21:00
  at an affordable rate. Are you interested?
• 21:02
  Let's talk business. That'll be four or five lines
• 21:05
  and the message is passed across.
• 21:08
  Stop making too many assumptions.
• 21:10
  Figure out exactly what it is that they need.
• 21:13
  Don't try to sell people followers if what they're
• 21:15
  looking for is relationship building.
• 21:19
  Don't sell people lead generation if what they're
• 21:22
  looking for is brand building. Hope you guys get where I'm
• 21:25
  going to and don't sell people crypto exchange if what they are
• 21:29
  interested in is stock investing or real estate investing.
• 21:33
  So engage in a conversation instead of sending one message
• 21:37
  and giving yourself a part on the back.
• 21:39
  Send one message today to maybe 20 people and then log out.
• 21:46
  Come back tomorrow. Of those 20 people, how many
• 21:48
  people responded? Engage with those that responded
• 21:52
  and then log out. Come back on Wednesday, engage
• 21:56
  some more and log out. Come back Thursday, repeat the
• 21:59
  process. You look for prospects This way,
• 22:02
  you stack out your artery, your outreach.
• 22:05
  You're going to become much more efficient in managing
• 22:07
  conversations with people. And I've already gone 20 minutes
• 22:10
  over this rant, so let me just bring it to a close here.
• 22:12
  Connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140.
• 22:18
  The country code is +234 for those of you who are not
• 22:21
  Nigerian. And please don't spam me if you
• 22:23
  do, you're going to end up as a subject of a future episode.
• 22:27
  Then also connect with me on WhatsApp.
• 22:30
  Sorry, not WhatsApp, LinkedIn where I spend most of my time.
• 22:33
  My name is Tavishima Aidi, I'm the host of the show.
• 22:36
  You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link we're
• 22:38
  listening to this episode. My e-mail address is there for
• 22:41
  those of you folks who prefer e-mail.
• 22:43
  Thanks for your time and attention.
• 22:44
  I'll catch you guys at the next episode.