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Babbling vs. Brilliance: Effective LinkedIn · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. Today I'm out and about, I'm in
• 0:05
  the car park as usual so expect to hear some interruptions in
• 0:08
  the background, you know people jisting and cars driving by.
• 0:12
  Now today what I want to look at is not a listener question, but
• 0:17
  it's a semi rant. I want to look at how not to
• 0:21
  evangelize your start up on LinkedIn.
• 0:24
  Now obviously the reason why I'm talking about this today is
• 0:27
  because I'm receiving lots of pictures from folks.
• 0:30
  Not really pictures per SE, but you know, people who are working
• 0:34
  on this, working on that, you know, you have a start up, you
• 0:36
  think your idea is interesting and so you're talking to as many
• 0:40
  people about it as possible and that is good.
• 0:43
  That is the kind of behaviour that I encourage over here on
• 0:46
  the show because you are not going to be able to grow your
• 0:51
  business until you get people to know who you are, that you
• 0:54
  exist, what it is you do, the problems you solve and how your
• 0:58
  product, your service, your app, your whatever can solve people's
• 1:01
  problems. So by all means, you know, I
• 1:03
  encourage it, but there are two things I've noticed.
• 1:06
  Number one is, I'm assuming, I mean, now that I've started
• 1:11
  getting some notoriety because of the podcast and you know, I'm
• 1:16
  kind of visible on LinkedIn and I'm receiving lots of these
• 1:19
  messages. I'm, I'm assuming that lots of
• 1:23
  you folks are speaking to people who are available.
• 1:28
  I'm not necessarily looking for people who should be the right
• 1:31
  people that they should talk to because I'm receiving lots of
• 1:36
  not really pitches because nobody's asking me for money.
• 1:38
  But of course, you know, try this out, try this out,
• 1:40
  subscribe to this, download this.
• 1:43
  So I really think you guys should be, First off, you should
• 1:47
  be looking at people's profiles. You should be trying to
• 1:50
  determine who is the ideal customer profile.
• 1:52
  Who is this? Who is this thing going to be
• 1:54
  relevant for? And try to reach out to those
• 1:56
  people rather than just trying to reach out to people just
• 2:00
  because they are they are available or, you know, they're
• 2:06
  public or they're easy to be found.
• 2:09
  Because I've mentioned time and time again that there are some
• 2:12
  of these things that I received that quite honestly will make
• 2:15
  more sense if it was my wife who received them.
• 2:17
  But The thing is, you know, my wife, not a I'm not a public
• 2:21
  figure, at least not yet anyway. But allow me to just use that
• 2:25
  term. So my wife is not a public
• 2:27
  figure and I'm a public figure in quote.
• 2:31
  So I receive a whole bunch of this stuff when actually make a
• 2:33
  whole lot more sense for people to send stuff like that to her.
• 2:38
  So pay attention to people's profiles, you know, before you
• 2:43
  start hitting everybody up about your startup or about your new
• 2:47
  business idea on LinkedIn. Well, like I said, if you're
• 2:50
  excited about your app, excited about your business idea,
• 2:53
  excited about your everything, then that is very, very, very
• 2:57
  good. And if you're a talkative person
• 3:00
  and you're willing to talk to as many people as as possible, it
• 3:03
  is very, very good. And it's a recipe for success
• 3:06
  because most people would be shy, they'd be reticent, they
• 3:11
  would second guess themselves. And that's, that's something
• 3:18
  that needs to be worked on, especially as a, you know, for
• 3:23
  those of us who for those of us who are self confess introverts,
• 3:28
  you know, that's something we definitely need to work on
• 3:30
  because nobody's going to nobody's going to sling your
• 3:34
  market for you, you know, apart from you, at least until you get
• 3:37
  to the point where you can pay other people to sell on your
• 3:39
  behalf. So for those of you who are
• 3:41
  excited and talkative, you know, that's good.
• 3:43
  It's a recipe for success. So yeah, keep on blabbing about
• 3:47
  your business idea and tell it to as many people as possible
• 3:50
  because that's the way to move forward.
• 3:53
  But if you can't adjust to what I'm saying, I'm trying to say
• 3:55
  that some of you, you're outreach, your promotions are
• 3:57
  irrelevant. They're not tailored to a
• 4:00
  particular audience, They're pushy and they are
• 4:02
  inconsiderate. And when you're outreach matches
• 4:07
  all of these criteria, you know they're not relevant or they're
• 4:10
  not tailored, they're not pushy and is inconsiderate, then that
• 4:14
  is a bad idea. And it is because your outreach
• 4:16
  is going to be ignored. So I guess that is the danger
• 4:20
  that I'm trying to help steer you guys away from those of you
• 4:26
  who are really, really excited about your business idea.
• 4:28
  So are you excited about your startup?
• 4:30
  That's good. Are you talking about it or that
• 4:33
  is good, but only talk to people who are interested or who have a
• 4:39
  want or a need around the problem that your startup is
• 4:42
  solving and people who have a sense of urgency around those
• 4:45
  sorts of issues. So for those of you who've been
• 4:48
  listening to the podcast in the past, and we'll be talking about
• 4:51
  qualification discovery, you know, things like that want,
• 4:55
  need, afford, blah, blah, blah, you can see how it ties into
• 4:59
  lots of business focus things that we do.
• 5:02
  So if you're promoting your startup, you're not necessarily
• 5:04
  asking for a sale per SE because some people in the startup phase
• 5:08
  are just at this level of try this thing out, let me know if
• 5:11
  it works, download for free, share with your friends, 30 day
• 5:17
  trial, blah, blah, blah. So you're not at level of
• 5:19
  collecting money yet, but still, we should be paying attention to
• 5:23
  these sorts of things. We should be pre qualifying, we
• 5:26
  should be having discovery conversations.
• 5:28
  The goal is to make sure that you're only blabbing to people
• 5:31
  who are interested, who have a want or a need around the thing
• 5:35
  that your startup solves and who have a sense of urgency around
• 5:39
  the problem. Now, if you do that, then all
• 5:42
  the talkative behaviour on LinkedIn is going to be very
• 5:45
  good. So let's use a case study.
• 5:49
  And by the way, this case study is a live case study because
• 5:53
  it's the outreach that I received recently.
• 5:56
  So there's a start up. It's really, really interesting.
• 6:00
  This is really matter because this fellow has a start up and
• 6:04
  the start up promotes start-ups in Ebado, the Ebado tech
• 6:09
  ecosystem. This is a true case.
• 6:12
  I mean, that is really, really matter.
• 6:13
  We have a start up and the point of the startup is to promote
• 6:16
  other startups. So I'm really curious, you know,
• 6:19
  to see how that works out. Now the fellow put the link
• 6:24
  there and he put free download something, something available
• 6:29
  for whatever, whatever days. And I was curious, I just
• 6:33
  clicked on it and the link was broken.
• 6:35
  So by the way, those of you startup founders, you know,
• 6:38
  you're starting something new, you know, you startup people,
• 6:40
  fintech, web 3, blah, blah, blah.
• 6:42
  That seems to happen a lot. You guys are blabbing.
• 6:46
  Your pitch, first of all, is irrelevant, is not tailored to
• 6:49
  the right person, is pushy and it's inconsiderate.
• 6:52
  And then on top of it all, the link that you even put in the
• 6:54
  thing does not work. It's not just this guy.
• 6:57
  It happens a lot because I'm involved in the sales and
• 7:00
  business development space. You know, I'm curious and
• 7:03
  sometimes I do want to give genuine feedback to help
• 7:06
  people's, move people's businesses forward.
• 7:09
  But then, you know, the link is broken.
• 7:11
  So at the very least check with your guys or with your girls,
• 7:15
  with your software developer, with your whoever to be sure
• 7:18
  that this link that as you're going around blabbing and and
• 7:22
  touting and promoting, at least make sure that the link works.
• 7:25
  So anyway, the link was broken. So I just, I just actually I
• 7:29
  just, I just left it because I've noticed that you anyway,
• 7:33
  let me just let me feed that one.
• 7:34
  Let me feed that thing. So it's a startup promoting
• 7:37
  startups in the Ebadon tech ecosystem.
• 7:40
  Now my guess since I don't know much about this thing is that if
• 7:45
  you are going to be promoting this sort of thing, right, my
• 7:48
  guess is perhaps you should be reaching out to Yoruba people or
• 7:52
  people who are currently resident around Lagos or go or
• 7:57
  your you know that that kind of area.
• 7:59
  That's my guess. If you think if your thing is a
• 8:02
  startup that promotes startups in the Ibadan ecosystem, the
• 8:07
  reason why I'm saying Lagos and Ogo is because I'm thinking if
• 8:10
  the thing pops off in oil state, then you might as well
• 8:14
  eventually try and expand to Lagos and OGO.
• 8:16
  I'm thinking that's the most rational thing, maybe learning,
• 8:21
  I'm not sure. You know, I left over you in a
• 8:24
  while ago so I can't remember the geography of that area.
• 8:26
  But so yeah, that's my guess. If you pop off in New York, you
• 8:29
  might want to now stretch enter or go enter Lagos and you know
• 8:35
  environments, then you should also be reaching out to people
• 8:38
  in the startup ecosystem and perhaps you should be reaching
• 8:42
  out to people who are in the Angel space, Angel investors,
• 8:45
  people who are in the VC space. Let's see, you know all those
• 8:49
  sorts of networks. So without knowing more about
• 8:51
  the idea, my guess is if that is your own startup, a startup
• 8:56
  promoting startups in Ibadan, my guess is those are the kinds of
• 9:01
  people that you should be reaching out to.
• 9:04
  Now, for those of you who listen to the podcast, you guys know
• 9:07
  that I am neither of these things.
• 9:09
  I am not Yoruba. I am not resident in Lagos, Hugo
• 9:13
  or your alluring environs. I am not in the startup
• 9:17
  ecosystem. I am not an Angel.
• 9:19
  I am not so an Angel investor. I mean, I might be an Angel, you
• 9:24
  know, as a husband, you know, although some people disagree.
• 9:27
  I have some ex girlfriends who say I'm a devil, but for my
• 9:29
  wife, I'm an Angel. I'm not a venture capital
• 9:33
  person. And you know, I don't flew in
• 9:35
  all those networks. So if I'm neither of these
• 9:39
  things, I see no reason why somebody who's trying to promote
• 9:42
  this sort of thing should be hitting me up in my inbox trying
• 9:46
  to promote that kind of thing Now, because social media,
• 9:51
  e-mail, all these things have made it easy to access a wider
• 9:54
  audience. We just believe that we should
• 9:57
  be accessing why the widest audience possible just because
• 10:00
  we can. And I'm here to tell you that
• 10:03
  you should not. The goal is to send out things
• 10:07
  that are relevant and properly tailored and targeted to people.
• 10:13
  I keep saying it, there is no point in reaching out to
• 10:16
  1,000,000 people and only have two or three take action.
• 10:20
  You are better off reaching out to only 50 people and then 10
• 10:23
  people take action. I hope you guys see the math
• 10:28
  that I'm trying to hint at. It's not about how many people
• 10:31
  did I reach, it's about how many people took action.
• 10:34
  So some of you send out these things like, oh, I sent out 1000
• 10:37
  messages this week. You give yourself a pat on the
• 10:40
  back. What's the point if you send out
• 10:42
  1000 messages this week but then the link that you put there,
• 10:45
  only 5 people now clicked. We did not be better that you
• 10:48
  take your time, make this thing, your outreach targeted and
• 10:52
  relevant. And even if you only send it to
• 10:55
  10 people, in fact, if you send it to 1000 people and only 5
• 10:58
  people take action, I think it's better that you had sent it to
• 11:02
  only 15 people and then five people take action.
• 11:05
  At the end of the day, the number of people that take
• 11:06
  action is the same, right? But the level of attrition level
• 11:12
  of people who ignored or whatever is way better.
• 11:17
  Almost in OK, well, I was going to say infinitely, I guess it's
• 11:20
  not infinitely better, but it's, it's way better that even though
• 11:25
  in either scenario there's only 5 people that take action,
• 11:27
  there's a lot better that you reach out to 15 and five take
• 11:29
  action, then you reach out to 1000 and then five take action.
• 11:33
  Because algorithms are paying attention, you know, e-mail
• 11:38
  deliverability and all these sorts of things.
• 11:40
  I mean, this is a key factor. If Google notices that you're
• 11:44
  sending out emails to 1000 people and only 5 are taking
• 11:47
  action, I mean, don't you think you're going to be penalized at
• 11:50
  some point? But then if Google notices that
• 11:53
  you're sending out in batches of 15 and then every 15 you send
• 11:56
  five people, take action. I mean, what do you think your
• 12:00
  stuff starts seeming more relevant or more useful Now, for
• 12:05
  those of you who are good at math, try and do the math.
• 12:09
  You send out to 1005 people, take action.
• 12:11
  What is the rejection rate? I'm not good at matter.
• 12:15
  I'm not going to bother at least.
• 12:17
  At least I'll need pen and paper to do that.
• 12:19
  Then you send it to 15 only if I have to take action.
• 12:21
  What is the rejection rate? All these algorithms are paying
• 12:25
  attention. Then there's also another thing.
• 12:28
  Because we have access to a wide number of people, somehow we
• 12:31
  assume that the sum total of people that we can address is
• 12:35
  infinite. The truth of the matter is it is
• 12:37
  not infinite. If you are blasting out 1000
• 12:41
  people every week by the time you get to the end of the year,
• 12:46
  I mean, think of the amount of bond bridges that you would have
• 12:51
  accumulated. When I say bond bridges, it's
• 12:54
  not as if you're going to make anybody angry.
• 12:55
  But let's face it, I keep saying it on the broadcast that for
• 12:59
  those of us who are listening, who are business people, we are
• 13:01
  not like everybody else. So because I'm in sales and
• 13:04
  business development, you know, I click and I open and I check
• 13:07
  and once in a while I give feedback.
• 13:09
  But that's because I'm your brother.
• 13:11
  I mean, it's thing with you. So that's the reason why I
• 13:14
  check. You know, I don't know if it's
• 13:15
  guilty complex or you know, like, or maybe I should just
• 13:18
  support my people. But the average person does not
• 13:21
  give a hoot. If you don't believe me, next
• 13:24
  time you're with your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your husband,
• 13:26
  your wife, just check. See as they're going through
• 13:29
  their inbox. My wife blocks like she's
• 13:32
  savage. The same thing with my mom.
• 13:34
  My mom blocks anyhow, if I one day somebody gave her a cold
• 13:38
  call to which she tackled the person had not told after
• 13:41
  afterwards I told her like, mommy, that was harsh.
• 13:43
  Now this person is trying to do business just like me.
• 13:45
  I'm trying to do business. And my mom was like, oh, OK,
• 13:48
  yeah. And then she she calmed down.
• 13:50
  But The thing is, normal people, average people are savage.
• 13:54
  So you're sending out all these things and people are just
• 13:57
  blocking you. Block sent to spam report,
• 14:03
  sorry, report flag, flag as suspicious.
• 14:07
  Let's see what else. You know, all the numerous
• 14:09
  options that are available, what people are doing and you're
• 14:13
  burning bridges anyhow. And these things take a toll.
• 14:18
  Well, not on you because it's not going to happen to you
• 14:20
  directly, but they take a toll on our deliverability and and
• 14:24
  the the ability of our messaging and our outreach, you know, to
• 14:28
  grow. So it's not infinite.
• 14:33
  You don't have access to an infinite audience.
• 14:36
  You're reaching out and trying to spam and trying to hit
• 14:41
  thousands of people up every month.
• 14:43
  You know, after a while, to be honest, you've, you've run
• 14:46
  through your, you've run through a whole host of people and then
• 14:51
  you have to start over again and it's not good.
• 14:55
  Anyway, I guess the point of what I'm trying to say is this,
• 14:58
  in promoting your startup or your business idea or whatever
• 15:02
  on LinkedIn, spend time messaging only people that look
• 15:10
  close to the ICP, the ideal customer profile or to the ideal
• 15:14
  audience or to the ideal whatever of what you're trying
• 15:18
  to solve. So for someone who is in the
• 15:21
  startup space, creating a startup that promotes other
• 15:25
  startups in Ibadan, I really don't think you should be
• 15:30
  wasting your time sending messages to folks like me.
• 15:35
  You should be looking to people who are Yoruba or who are
• 15:38
  resident in Lagos, Hubo or Europe around that, that kind of
• 15:43
  site. Look for people in the startup
• 15:45
  ecosystem. In fact, if you want to go
• 15:49
  beyond the geographic boundaries that I've given and you say you,
• 15:54
  you still insist you want to reach out to people in Abuja, at
• 15:56
  the very least reach out to someone in Abuja who is in the
• 16:00
  eco startup ecosystem. So on the podcast, I've spoken
• 16:03
  about the different startup hubs that we have here.
• 16:06
  There's Avon hub. There used to be box office, box
• 16:10
  office closed down I think maybe 2-3 years ago.
• 16:13
  Let's see what else Avon box office.
• 16:18
  OK, I can't remember their names, but you know, they're,
• 16:21
  they're a couple. So just use your LinkedIn, you
• 16:26
  run a search based on the names. In fact, go to ChatGPT or Google
• 16:31
  Gemini and say give me a list of start up ecosystems and business
• 16:35
  incubators in Abuja. Pam, you hit send.
• 16:38
  It's going to give you a list. You take that list, you now run
• 16:41
  to LinkedIn and then do a search based on that, on what came up
• 16:48
  there on LinkedIn. You search for the organization.
• 16:51
  The organizations will come up. You now follow those
• 16:54
  organizations on LinkedIn. After you follow you now click
• 16:57
  on the people tab on the business, on the business page
• 17:02
  on on the people tab. You want to see people who are
• 17:04
  employees of that organization and you'll be there, you know,
• 17:06
  15 employees in sales, one person who is ACEO, another
• 17:10
  person who is an account or whatever.
• 17:12
  Then follow those people. Then you can now start sending
• 17:15
  these messages individually to those people because at least
• 17:18
  they are in the startup ecosystem.
• 17:20
  So this is how you should be doing the thing.
• 17:23
  Sit down, do some small brain work, try and figure out who
• 17:26
  should be my ICP, who should I be targeting?
• 17:29
  If you need help, that's why I keep talking about artificial
• 17:32
  intelligence. Use charge GBT, use Gemini and
• 17:36
  ask it. It will help you.
• 17:38
  You say I am a startup founder in so so so so so so this is my
• 17:42
  startup idea. I'm trying to do outreach to
• 17:44
  people on LinkedIn who are the kind of people that I should be
• 17:47
  targeting. Pop send and then some options
• 17:51
  will come up. You know, follow the advice.
• 17:52
  Some will make sense, some won't make sense.
• 17:54
  For the ones that don't make sense, ignore, delete.
• 17:58
  For the one that makes sense, try it out, execute on that and
• 18:02
  you'll be fine. So somewhere what I'm trying to
• 18:05
  say is let us try and increase our odds when we're reaching out
• 18:09
  to people. If you're excited about your
• 18:11
  startup, excited about your business, and you're the talk of
• 18:14
  the type, the promotional type, oh, very good.
• 18:17
  By all means, lean into it. That's the only way you're going
• 18:19
  to grow your hustle. Nobody will grow it on your
• 18:21
  behalf, at least until you can employ other people.
• 18:25
  But in your excitement, if you're going to talk about it,
• 18:28
  make sure you talk about it only to people who are interested or
• 18:32
  who have a want or a need around what your startup is solving and
• 18:36
  who have a sense of urgency around it.
• 18:39
  Obviously just means people are ready to take action now if
• 18:42
  there's a sense of urgency around it, that's the reason why
• 18:44
  somebody will now click on the link.
• 18:47
  There's some people who try to manufacture urgency just like
• 18:50
  this guy by saying, you know, click now.
• 18:52
  Free for 25 days. Something, something, something,
• 18:54
  something. Well, it works, but I really
• 18:58
  don't think it's the best. You know, I think I'll make a
• 19:01
  separate podcast about that. How to use urgency.
• 19:04
  Yeah, let me make a note about that urgency.
• 19:07
  Hold on. Let me even check my list.
• 19:08
  So I think I have. Do I can't find, I think I have
• 19:16
  a note somewhere about urgency I should tackle how to use urgency
• 19:22
  to get people to take action. So anyway, just try and work
• 19:26
  with people who already have a sense of urgency around it and
• 19:28
  let somebody click in not because 25% free for now,
• 19:32
  something, something let them click in because they have a
• 19:34
  sense of urgency. They're genuinely interested and
• 19:36
  this thing might solve their problem.
• 19:38
  So yeah, that's a summary pretty much.
• 19:43
  So for those of you who want to evangelize, please don't just
• 19:46
  evangelize to people on LinkedIn because they are available and
• 19:49
  they have public profiles and you know, stuff like that.
• 19:52
  Take time, do some research, make sure it is tailored, make
• 19:57
  sure it is relevant to people. And yeah, are they interested?
• 20:02
  They haven't want to. A need is their sense of
• 20:04
  urgency. So do it that way.
• 20:05
  You'll be fine. It is all about increasing the
• 20:09
  odds in your favour. If you are sending out 1000
• 20:14
  messages and only 5 people respond, you are not increasing
• 20:17
  the odds in your favour, you are decreasing the odds in your
• 20:20
  favour. You know, I'm sure that is a 90
• 20:23
  something percent rejection rate.
• 20:25
  Unlike if you send out to 15 people and then only 5 accept.
• 20:33
  In that case I suspect it's closer to what's the rejection
• 20:36
  rate there? Is that 75%?
• 20:40
  And I don't know. I don't know the math, but make
• 20:43
  the odds in your favour. Yeah.
• 20:45
  So that's what I can say for today.
• 20:47
  So thank you very much for listening to the show.
• 20:50
  Follow me on. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 20:53
  My name is Tavishma Aiuddin. I'm the host of the show.
• 20:55
  If you check the link where you're listening to this
• 20:57
  episode, you see the correct spelling of my name.
• 20:59
  So you can search for the right person on LinkedIn.
• 21:02
  Sometimes it takes me a while before I respond, but definitely
• 21:05
  24 hours. You definitely will hear from
• 21:07
  me. I'll accept your connection
• 21:08
  request, I'll shoot you a message because I like chatting
• 21:11
  to everybody who's a podcast listener for now.
• 21:15
  I mean, right now that the podcast, even though we're
• 21:18
  growing, realistically speaking, it's still small.
• 21:21
  I mean, they're podcasts, like I said what I said and the honest
• 21:24
  bunch, you know, those just podcasts that they drop 1
• 21:27
  episode and they get 10s of millions of listings and views.
• 21:31
  You know, I'm not at that level yet.
• 21:33
  So for those of us that were chilling right now, you know
• 21:35
  hundreds, you know thousands, I can still respond to you guys
• 21:40
  even if it takes a while, even if it takes me 24 hours, but you
• 21:42
  get to hear from me. Then also you can connect from
• 21:45
  connect with me on on. What's that thing again?
• 21:50
  WhatsApp. Yeah, on WhatsApp the phone
• 21:51
  number is 08064662140. The country code is +234 for
• 21:57
  those of you who are not Nigerian.
• 21:59
  So thank you very much for your time and attention.
• 22:00
  I'll catch you guys at the next episode if I can find my notes
• 22:04
  where I wrote about urgency because that came up in a
• 22:07
  training that I did two weeks ago.
• 22:09
  And then we will run through that as well.
• 22:11
  So that for those of you who are promoting your stuff on
• 22:13
  LinkedIn, you can use urgency in the right way.
• 22:18
  So I'll catch you guys at the next episode.