Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Boosting Your Event Business: Practical Tips for Client Acquisition & Growth

Transcript

Boosting Your Event Business: Practical Tips for Client Acquisition & Growth · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. I'm chilling in the central area
• 0:05
  in between engagements. So I said let me just make this
• 0:07
  recording real quick while I have some time.
• 0:11
  Let's see. All right, now today I'm going
• 0:13
  to go into, well, today's episode is going to be a
• 0:15
  rambling episode because I haven't quite gathered my
• 0:19
  thoughts on this, but I had an interaction with a listener of
• 0:22
  the show, Mr. Joseph Carrady. He is based in Lagos.
• 0:27
  He has an event company and, you know, a couple of things here
• 0:30
  and there. And so we had a conversation
• 0:33
  about, let me see. So I'm looking at my notes here
• 0:37
  trying to gather my thoughts because I think this
• 0:39
  conversation was, I mean, maybe like 2 weeks back.
• 0:43
  Oh yeah. Anyway, there's some problems
• 0:45
  that he's trying to solve in his business.
• 0:48
  And of course, when and whenever anyone reaches out to me over on
• 0:51
  WhatsApp, you know, we chat a bit.
• 0:53
  But typically I have a standard set of questions that I send
• 0:55
  back for you guys to make voice notes.
• 0:57
  And then, you know, we look through them and we'll just pick
• 0:59
  one matter that we can work on. And that's because I have to
• 1:04
  prioritise my paid work, my paid consulting engagements, speaking
• 1:10
  engagements, you know, those sorts of things.
• 1:12
  I have to prioritise that. So whenever people do, whenever
• 1:16
  you loyal listeners of the podcast, reach out to me, the
• 1:19
  best I can do is just give you guys maybe 1530 minutes, have a
• 1:22
  conversation. Let's try and see how we can
• 1:24
  solve just one problem with your business.
• 1:26
  Let me say, I can give you some advice to move your business
• 1:29
  forward. So that's the conversation that
• 1:31
  I had with Joseph Cardi maybe like 2 weeks back.
• 1:34
  So the matter that he wanted to that we were going to prioritize
• 1:39
  for the session was to see how he can get 50 clients by next
• 1:43
  year. So if I remember correctly, let
• 1:48
  me see, OK, anyway, the goal is 50 clients by next year and I
• 1:52
  think he's doing on average 20 clients every single year.
• 1:57
  Then the business that he's involved in is he has an event
• 2:00
  management company and you know, when somebody has an activity
• 2:06
  based goal like that, you know, I want to get 50 clients, so I
• 2:08
  want to get 200 clients. So I want to get, you know, X
• 2:11
  number of clients. The first thing that we try to
• 2:13
  do actually is to see what the baseline is.
• 2:16
  We actually need to figure out what the person is doing now so
• 2:20
  that if we can, if we figure out how many clients the person is
• 2:25
  doing now and we're able to figure out what kind of
• 2:28
  activities are generating the results that he's receiving now,
• 2:32
  then we know how much effort or yeah, we know how much effort we
• 2:36
  need to bring to the table in order to get those kinds of
• 2:39
  results. Now, the way that I explained it
• 2:41
  to him is this, and I've explained it to a couple of
• 2:44
  people before, but let me just put it out here on the podcast
• 2:47
  in case I haven't mentioned it on the podcast before.
• 2:50
  Now, typically when you're starting a business of the kind
• 2:52
  of problems that you're going to have, they change over time.
• 2:55
  So in the early days of the business, the problems that you
• 2:59
  face are the kind of problems that will be solved by effort.
• 3:03
  So in the beginning, the problem is that you either not are not
• 3:07
  working hard enough or you're not working on the right thing,
• 3:10
  or you're working on the right thing, but you're not putting in
• 3:13
  the amount of work that is necessary to get things moving.
• 3:18
  So back to the people who reach out and say, oh, I did some
• 3:21
  Flyers. And that's the reason why I
• 3:22
  stress this thing enough because some of you who try going the
• 3:26
  flyer out, you have good intentions, but you know, you
• 3:29
  send out 100 Flyers and then you get discouraged.
• 3:32
  But The thing is, there is no part of the world where putting
• 3:35
  out 100 Flyers is going to be enough to get you business
• 3:39
  because Flyers is a numbers game.
• 3:41
  Which is why I say that since Flyers get cheaper the more that
• 3:44
  you produce, go ahead and pay the printer for 3000 copies.
• 3:48
  And then, you know, go and distribute 1000 or 2000 first
• 3:52
  before you saying this thing is not working.
• 3:55
  And then also for people who prefer the prospecting route,
• 3:58
  which is going to go and talk to people about their business.
• 4:01
  You know, you sit them down, you ask them a couple of questions.
• 4:03
  You now figure out that OK, they started business, but since they
• 4:06
  started, they only told Mumsy and Popsy, some uncles and
• 4:08
  aunties and then some friends. And, you know, that's not enough
• 4:11
  to guarantee results. You actually need to sit down,
• 4:14
  come up with a proper prospecting plan.
• 4:16
  Nothing fancy. It's just a sheet of paper that
• 4:19
  has #1 to #20 these are the people that I'm going to contact
• 4:22
  in January. And then, you know, January, you
• 4:25
  sit and look back and say, OK, how did this thing work?
• 4:27
  OK, this group of people, this thing didn't make sense.
• 4:29
  So in February, I'm not going to contact these kind of people.
• 4:32
  And then you drop a new list for February.
• 4:33
  And then you continue like that, even if it's something that
• 4:35
  basic. But what I'm trying to stress is
• 4:38
  in the beginning, whatever problems you're facing in your
• 4:43
  business will be solved by effort.
• 4:46
  Do more of the things that you're already doing or sit down
• 4:49
  and figure, am I doing all the right?
• 4:51
  Am I doing the right thing? And then once you figure out
• 4:53
  what the right thing you should be working on this, do more of
• 4:55
  that. So in the early days, the
• 4:57
  problems you face are problems of effort.
• 5:00
  Work harder then when things get moving a bit, when you start
• 5:05
  gaining some traction, when you get some market validation, when
• 5:08
  you get some product market fit, when you have figured out that
• 5:11
  there's a demand for your product or your service.
• 5:13
  People like what it is that you do and they're willing to pay at
• 5:17
  a price that is enough for you to, you know, take care of
• 5:21
  yourself and also reinvest something back in the business
• 5:24
  when you reach that stage. The problems that you face now
• 5:27
  are problems of scale. What scale means is in the early
• 5:32
  days, you are the one who was doing everything.
• 5:35
  You've now gotten to the point where you need to find ways of
• 5:37
  multiplying yourself or multiplying your effort.
• 5:41
  So in stage 2, it's a matter of scale.
• 5:45
  How am I going to find other people to sell on my behalf?
• 5:49
  Or how am I going to get someone to do XYZ function, which is
• 5:53
  pivotal on my behalf? So that will be the next stage.
• 5:57
  So the first stage, remember, effort will solve all your
• 6:00
  problems. In the first stage, I need to
• 6:02
  work harder. I need to do more.
• 6:05
  I need to figure out what it is that is working.
• 6:06
  The one that is working. Let me do more.
• 6:08
  Let me do more. When you got into stage two, OK,
• 6:12
  People like this thing. People are willing to pay the
• 6:15
  unit. Economics makes sense.
• 6:17
  I can put some money in my pocket.
• 6:19
  I can buy small credit. I can fill my car.
• 6:22
  I can Internet. I can, you know, it looks like
• 6:25
  there's like there's hope beyond the horizon.
• 6:30
  Solving your problems now are problems of scale.
• 6:32
  We're trying to get this thing to grow beyond us, which is
• 6:36
  where we'll now start looking at this whole thing of, you know,
• 6:38
  standard operating procedures, making sure that you have a
• 6:41
  selling framework, you know, things like that, so that you
• 6:43
  can now begin to train people. So even if it's just you and
• 6:47
  your wife, you can now start training your wife that.
• 6:49
  OK, my dear, this is how we talk to customers.
• 6:51
  These are the kind of people that we look for to be our
• 6:54
  customers. You know, this and this and that
• 6:56
  and that or the other way around.
• 6:58
  If it's you wife who's the business person, you can now
• 7:00
  start training your husband. Michelle, my dear, my loving
• 7:03
  husband, I appreciate your support.
• 7:05
  But my dear, you know, this is not how you talk to customers.
• 7:08
  This is how you talk to customers, blah, blah, blah.
• 7:10
  And believe me, it happens because there's a business.
• 7:13
  Well, I will not mention them now honestly speaking, the
• 7:17
  husband was a total idiot. You know, so anytime I was
• 7:19
  calling, I was praying that please let it be the wife you
• 7:21
  don't pick up because the wife was a man being but the husband
• 7:24
  was was crap. So please spouses, they were
• 7:29
  trying to support yourself. Please a line according to what
• 7:33
  your husband or your wife is telling you because you're
• 7:35
  bringing the family business down and you don't, you don't
• 7:38
  even know. So anyway, I was like, so the
• 7:43
  next stage, now scale, that's going to be the problem scale.
• 7:47
  How can we multiply this thing beyond us?
• 7:49
  What are the systems that we're going to put in place to make
• 7:53
  sure that this thing is growing beyond me?
• 7:55
  How am I going to recruit a team?
• 7:57
  How am I going to train the team?
• 7:59
  Excuse me, what am I going to be training the team on?
• 8:02
  So Stage 1, effort will solve all your problems.
• 8:05
  Stage 2 scaling will help you solve your problems.
• 8:10
  Now Stage 3, which is the big one, we pray that we all get
• 8:14
  there. For Stage 3, it is strategy that
• 8:19
  is going to help you achieve breakthrough.
• 8:22
  So OK, we have now established in stage one that this thing
• 8:27
  works, there's a demand and people are willing to pay for it
• 8:31
  at a price that allows us to take something home.
• 8:34
  Then Stage 2, we have recruited the team, we have created
• 8:38
  standard operating procedures. We have set everything in place.
• 8:41
  Accounting systems are in place, selling systems are in place,
• 8:44
  marketing systems are in place. Everything is running nice and
• 8:47
  smooth. We've been running smooth for
• 8:49
  like 3 or 4 years. And now we want to take the next
• 8:52
  step. Now it will be a matter of
• 8:54
  strategy. Now all those big questions of
• 8:57
  should we try new customer segments?
• 8:59
  Should we branch into adjacent markets?
• 9:02
  Should we consider opening new locations?
• 9:05
  You know, all those big, big, big strategic questions.
• 9:07
  You know, that's stage 3, by the way, a problem with a lot of
• 9:11
  views that people are trying to do this thing in reverse.
• 9:14
  You haven't started anything. You're really asking yourself
• 9:16
  strategic questions like what kind of strategy are you doing?
• 9:18
  There's nothing on ground to strategize on.
• 9:22
  So it's good to be thinking high level strategy.
• 9:26
  This, this is that that. But some of you are doing this
• 9:28
  thing in reverse in the beginning.
• 9:30
  What strategy are you strategizing?
• 9:32
  There's nothing to strategize over.
• 9:34
  The primary question is, do people even like this thing?
• 9:37
  OK, they like it. Can I sell the damn thing?
• 9:39
  OK, I can sell it. Can I sell it in such a way that
• 9:42
  by the time you settle boys and girls, or you pay for supplies
• 9:45
  and they do this thing, there's going to be something in my
• 9:47
  pocket. So I can pay school fees, I can
• 9:49
  do house rent. I can do this.
• 9:50
  I can do that. Those are the first sorts of
• 9:53
  questions. It's only after you answer the
• 9:55
  first set of questions and then you create standard operating
• 9:58
  procedures and then you have a team and then you put everything
• 10:01
  in place that now you can now sit down, start thinking
• 10:03
  strategic, right? So please, dear listeners of the
• 10:06
  podcast, you should stop thinking strategy from day one.
• 10:09
  You know, day one, you should be thinking much more practical.
• 10:13
  Is this thing workable? Do people like it?
• 10:15
  Can I sell it? Can we put a team around it?
• 10:18
  You know, and then anyway, where was I?
• 10:23
  So if I haven't said it on the podcast, I'm saying it now.
• 10:28
  So usually that is how we're going to tackle some of the
• 10:31
  problems that you guys are facing in your business.
• 10:33
  So #1 effort #2 scale #3 strategy.
• 10:38
  So for Joseph Caridy, of course, that is where we went to effort.
• 10:43
  So the goal is to try and figure out what is Joseph Caridy doing,
• 10:47
  what is working from what Joseph Caridy is doing.
• 10:50
  And then we'll now know what to multiply so that we can get to
• 10:55
  50 clients a year. Oh, by the way, I don't think
• 10:58
  it's a bad goal that if you're doing 20 clients a year, you aim
• 11:00
  for 50. See what?
• 11:02
  Because you know how everybody says, you know, aim for the what
• 11:04
  do you say? Is it aim for the stars?
• 11:06
  If you miss, you hit the moon. I'll be something like that.
• 11:09
  I'll be in for the sun. If you miss, you hit the stars
• 11:11
  or something. I can't remember what it is, but
• 11:13
  that's the scope there. So you try to double your
• 11:17
  output. It's not a bad idea.
• 11:19
  It's not a bad idea at all. Whether you make it or you
• 11:24
  don't, it's it's besides the point.
• 11:26
  But The thing is, you need to give yourself an audacious goal.
• 11:31
  So let's see, what was I, Hannah?
• 11:33
  So now we're trying to figure out what it is that he was
• 11:35
  doing. So he in the past, he had done
• 11:37
  some social media campaigns. He had also done some direct
• 11:40
  sales by meeting people in the church.
• 11:43
  And I hope you guys are seeing a pattern here.
• 11:45
  You know how I've been talking about how I've mentioned on the
• 11:50
  podcast in the past about how when you're thinking about
• 11:54
  networking and things like that, you know, it doesn't have to be
• 11:56
  anything fancy. You can start where you are.
• 11:58
  So if you're a church boy and you're with the church
• 12:00
  community, then you know, by all means continue.
• 12:04
  So I want my wife idiot just came apart next to me.
• 12:07
  Let me wind up the window and block this *** out.
• 12:15
  Sorry about that. These are some of the these are
• 12:19
  some of the challenges or or the beauty of, you know, recording
• 12:23
  things live. Where was I?
• 12:30
  I lost my train of thought. So I was trying to say that you
• 12:34
  start where you are. So of course, some people like
• 12:39
  to get adventurous. You know, you want to start
• 12:41
  networking, you want to start doing direct sales and then you
• 12:43
  start coming up with some grand plans.
• 12:45
  Let me join Lagos Chamber of Commerce.
• 12:46
  Let me do this. Let me do that.
• 12:48
  Now, those big ideas, yeah, it's OK.
• 12:50
  They're not bad. But The thing is, if you start
• 12:52
  with where you already are, so in this case, like Joseph Karadi
• 12:55
  and then this other guy, drummer boy, Steven.
• 12:58
  Steven the drummer boy, I can't remember his real name, but
• 13:01
  that's nickname I I came, I gave to him.
• 13:03
  So if you listen to Steven the drummer boy episode, because
• 13:05
  Steven was also a church boy, there's not a problem with
• 13:08
  starting with your church crew. The benefit of doing that is
• 13:11
  it's an environment that you're already familiar with.
• 13:13
  So when you start here and you get comfortable here and you
• 13:17
  build skills here, it is now the skills you have built and the
• 13:21
  confidence that you have gained that will now make it easy for
• 13:24
  you to now go. And do you know Lagos networking
• 13:29
  at Lagos Chamber of Commerce or or some other environment.
• 13:33
  So it's good that he has done some direct, tried to do some
• 13:36
  direct sales and networking in church.
• 13:38
  Then he also had a prospecting company to go and get e-mail
• 13:43
  addresses, names and phone numbers and they were able to
• 13:47
  get details for 100 companies. And I found that really
• 13:51
  interesting because to be honest, most people don't think
• 13:53
  about spending money in any way in the beginning.
• 13:55
  So I'm glad that he was kind of brave to do that.
• 13:59
  And I'm glad the direction with which he went that he was
• 14:02
  thinking of reaching out to a company so that he can start
• 14:07
  planning company events because he said that he had maxed out
• 14:11
  church. Like, OK, everybody in church
• 14:13
  already knows what he does. And he wasn't satisfied with the
• 14:16
  results he was getting on social media campaigns.
• 14:18
  Social media campaigns. Sorry, you you guys can see that
• 14:21
  today's episode is disorganized. It's because I didn't take time
• 14:23
  to gather my thoughts. So I'm just looking at the
• 14:25
  scribbles that we had during the conversation.
• 14:28
  So please just bear with me. You know, things have been up
• 14:31
  and down at home. The people that owe me money.
• 14:35
  The thing is entering another level now because it's like 3
• 14:38
  months. No, it's like four months now
• 14:40
  being chasing these guys. One day, mom, she came, you
• 14:42
  know, she's been around so full house and stuff like that.
• 14:45
  So things have been a little scattered.
• 14:46
  I haven't had time to gather my thoughts.
• 14:51
  Where was I? Yeah.
• 14:53
  So for social media campaigns now, he wasn't happy about the
• 14:55
  results he was getting with his social media campaigns.
• 14:57
  And yeah, let me talk about that real quick because there's some
• 14:59
  of you who are doing social media when you're not happy with
• 15:02
  the results. And this is going to be why now
• 15:05
  he put some money behind advertising on social media and
• 15:09
  then he wasn't happy with the results.
• 15:10
  And most people think social media doesn't work.
• 15:13
  But the problem is it's not that social media doesn't work.
• 15:16
  It's that there is a way that you have to optimize things for
• 15:20
  social media advertising to work.
• 15:24
  Now, The thing is. Oh, OK, Yeah, the.
• 15:27
  Yeah, the bugger has left. Let me wind down the window.
• 15:30
  Sorry about that. OK, Now, so I was saying there's
• 15:39
  a way that you optimize things to work on social media.
• 15:41
  And this is how now what Joseph Cardio was doing and a bunch of
• 15:45
  other people you know that I work with, what they do is that
• 15:48
  you put this advertisement out on Instagram or you put the
• 15:52
  advertisement out on Google, but then you send people to your
• 15:55
  website or you send people to the to the homepage.
• 15:58
  Unfortunately, your homepage or your Instagram handle has not
• 16:04
  been optimized to close a sale. So for advertising to work, for
• 16:10
  online advertising to work, what you do is when you advertise,
• 16:14
  you don't send people to the hub, you don't send people to
• 16:18
  the website, you don't send people to the Instagram handle.
• 16:22
  You send people to a channel that makes it easier to do
• 16:25
  conversions, which is why I mean telling you people now for those
• 16:29
  of you who do QR code, stop doing QR code to website.
• 16:33
  Let the QR code send people into WhatsApp because from WhatsApp
• 16:40
  the person, the person can now engage in a conversation that
• 16:45
  are you available? Do you have it in size 42?
• 16:48
  How much does it cost? Can you deliver to Cameroon that
• 16:53
  kind of channel? Now you are increasing the
• 16:56
  chances of closing a sale because a communications channel
• 17:00
  like that makes it easier and is much more properly optimized to
• 17:04
  close a sale. So when you're running social
• 17:07
  media campaigns, one destination can be WhatsApp.
• 17:11
  If it is a social, if it's going to be online advertising like on
• 17:15
  Google and you're not sending people to WhatsApp or you're not
• 17:18
  sending people to e-mail, you can send them to a landing page.
• 17:22
  A landing page is properly set up with much more material will
• 17:25
  answer a couple of questions and you know, things like that will
• 17:28
  move people along. But if you take if you advertise
• 17:32
  and then you send somebody to a hub, just a general space.
• 17:34
  The problem with general space is people don't know what to do
• 17:37
  next. So if you're an event planning
• 17:39
  company and you put out an advert, advertisement on
• 17:43
  LinkedIn, so I say LinkedIn, Instagram, just like he did, but
• 17:47
  he just sent it back to the Instagram page.
• 17:49
  People will go there and you know, they might be looking at
• 17:52
  your pretty pictures and then maybe they get distracted or you
• 17:55
  know something. So what you have to do is send
• 18:02
  it to some asset that makes it easier for you to convert
• 18:09
  opportunities and to close the sale.
• 18:12
  So the advice I gave to him was, next time you do that, maybe you
• 18:15
  have created a specific post that I don't know, maybe a
• 18:20
  specific post that has an invitation to try out an offer
• 18:23
  or to schedule a meeting or something like that.
• 18:25
  So the advertisement, you send it to that particular post so
• 18:28
  that once they open that particular post and they're
• 18:30
  interacting with that particular post, the next step will be
• 18:34
  something that can further a sales conversation along.
• 18:38
  So that's how it works. For those of you who have tried
• 18:40
  social media advertising and say it doesn't work, the problem is
• 18:43
  not that it doesn't work. The problem is that you didn't
• 18:46
  do it the right way. You are advertising and sending
• 18:49
  people to a general hub. Don't advertise and then just
• 18:51
  send people to your Instagram page in general, advertise and
• 18:56
  send it to one particular Instagram post that you have
• 19:01
  done your thinking and your planning so that that particular
• 19:03
  post can move the conversation along.
• 19:06
  Or advertise so that people end up in your your WhatsApp inbox
• 19:12
  so that you can start the usual conversation.
• 19:13
  How much do you charge? Are you based in Lagos or Abuja?
• 19:17
  Can you deliver to Abakaliki? And do you have it in size 32?
• 19:21
  Do you have it in color pink? Do you have it in color purple?
• 19:24
  OK, so that's how it works. And he took that that advice
• 19:29
  well so that if he's something he's going to try again in the
• 19:32
  future, at least he has been properly guided.
• 19:34
  So for those who say social media advertising campaigns
• 19:37
  don't work, they work. You just did it the wrong way.
• 19:40
  And this is one of the ways how. But if you're still curious, you
• 19:44
  know, hit me up. The phone number is 08064662140,
• 19:49
  country code +234 in case you're not Nigerian.
• 19:52
  And that is my WhatsApp number or connect with me on LinkedIn,
• 19:56
  the name to look for establish my IED.
• 19:58
  So if you have questions on that, let me know.
• 20:00
  Let's have a look. Like I said, we'll try and
• 20:03
  schedule like 15 maximum 30 minutes conversation, but we'll
• 20:07
  only pick one issue because I have to prioritize, you know,
• 20:09
  things actually, you know, things that pay the bills for
• 20:11
  me. And let's see if we can help you
• 20:14
  get sorted on that. That's your social media
• 20:16
  advertising issues. Then, OK, so I was saying that
• 20:22
  he picked a company to help with prospecting.
• 20:24
  They came up with a list of 100 and I thought that was
• 20:26
  beautiful. That was really, really
• 20:27
  beautiful. Now, the problem that we're
• 20:29
  facing is this. Whenever he tried to reach out
• 20:34
  to any of these companies, he found that the he was getting
• 20:38
  into maybe like customer service, e-mail, you know, that
• 20:41
  kind of thing. Basically he was just getting
• 20:43
  into that whole, thank you very much for reaching out, we will
• 20:47
  get back to you. All those kind of things.
• 20:49
  So the thing went nowhere. So or he would send, excuse me,
• 20:56
  or he would send a proposal to those e-mail addresses and then
• 20:58
  people will not read the proposal.
• 21:02
  So this was the advice I gave to him.
• 21:04
  Now what he's trying to do in recent times, people call it
• 21:07
  account based marketing, but actually there are sales
• 21:10
  principles and tactics around these sorts of things that
• 21:12
  people have been doing for decades.
• 21:14
  So it's nothing new, but then we just use the modern term in case
• 21:17
  there's someone listening to this podcast now who wants to go
• 21:20
  and do further research. What you should be researching
• 21:23
  is account based marketing. So one of the principles of
• 21:28
  account based marketing is this. When you're doing account based
• 21:31
  marketing, you're not going, you're not just going to try 1
• 21:34
  channel. That's not how you break into a
• 21:35
  corporation. That's not how you break into a
• 21:37
  business. So the example that I gave
• 21:39
  Joseph Carraday is this. So for my TV show that I'm
• 21:42
  trying to put in the TV show, sorry that I'm trying to put on
• 21:45
  air, what I did was I was able to figure out one officer who
• 21:49
  turned out to be the head of accounting.
• 21:50
  Now, of course, head of accounting, that's not really
• 21:52
  relevant to what I'm trying to do, right?
• 21:55
  But it's not a problem. At least now I have one person
• 21:58
  on the inside as I called up head of accounting and I called
• 22:02
  in and I went to have a meeting with her.
• 22:05
  So it's from Justin with head of accounting now that I was able
• 22:08
  to figure out who are the relevant people that I'm
• 22:10
  supposed to be talking to ahead of accounting.
• 22:13
  Thoughts. This your idea sounds tight and
• 22:16
  it's even something that we even discussed during our last board
• 22:18
  meeting. By the way, you will be
• 22:20
  listening now. Can you see how when I say that
• 22:22
  luck is inherent in business and sales that this is what I'm
• 22:25
  talking about? There is no way I would have
• 22:27
  known that the TV station that I picked at the last board meeting
• 22:32
  was interested in creating business content similar to what
• 22:34
  I have in mind. So all these people who like to
• 22:38
  argue and say, oh, it's hard work, it's hard work.
• 22:40
  There's no short thing as luck. Look, there's hard work that is
• 22:43
  involved because I did the reaching out and I did the
• 22:45
  contacting and I drove to the office and I've been having the
• 22:48
  meetings. But sometimes there's a certain
• 22:49
  level of luck involved. Luck just means that there's
• 22:52
  some things you could not have planned for.
• 22:54
  How would I have known that? The day I went into our office
• 22:58
  last week, they had just finished board meeting and these
• 23:00
  are some of the things that they had discussed.
• 23:03
  All right, So for all you people who keep discussing hard luck,
• 23:06
  hard work, I mean, luck versus hard work, grace, grace of God,
• 23:11
  you know, it's all, it's everything.
• 23:15
  It's everything. If God wants to bless you with
• 23:19
  divine Providence, but you sit down in your house, you know,
• 23:21
  the Providence is not going to, you know, provide, it won't
• 23:23
  click. So you still have to do your own
• 23:26
  bit. But still, it's not everything
• 23:27
  you can plan for. So anyway, so that's the example
• 23:30
  I gave to Joseph Caddy. I went in to talk to head of
• 23:32
  accounting. Head of accounting is like this
• 23:34
  is the kind of thing we've been discussing about.
• 23:35
  If I come, come, come, let me take you to head of production.
• 23:39
  So no head of operations, no head of programming.
• 23:43
  Then from head of programming, it's like this is actually a
• 23:45
  very good idea. But I'm thinking we should have
• 23:47
  done it this way because I would have liked this thing for for to
• 23:51
  work online. But Charlotte's going to talk to
• 23:52
  head of operations. So that's how I go introduce the
• 23:55
  head of operations. Then from head operations, OK,
• 23:58
  this looks good, blah, blah, blah, come up with a pilot.
• 24:01
  I came with a pilot. OK, now let's go out and meet
• 24:03
  head of production. So this is the example that I
• 24:06
  gave him. I went in to talk to one person,
• 24:10
  but I kept it multimodal. I didn't rely on one channel.
• 24:12
  I didn't rely on e-mail. I started off with a phone call
• 24:16
  and straight, I moved to physical and person meeting and
• 24:20
  then I made sure I got everybody's phone number so that
• 24:22
  we'll be on that phone call and WhatsApp level one-on-one
• 24:25
  direct. And then in fact, I am avoiding
• 24:30
  e-mail deliberately because e-mail is over what's the word?
• 24:35
  Everybody's e-mail is full basically.
• 24:37
  So I don't want to get on e-mail level.
• 24:39
  Everybody. I'm happy with the way things
• 24:40
  are. And you see, this is the reason
• 24:42
  why for me, I prefer face to face.
• 24:43
  I know you, I call you, I know your office, I go there.
• 24:47
  It's it's expensive, yes, because you know, you're burning
• 24:50
  fuel, you're burning TP, but it's not a bad way to move
• 24:53
  things forward and then move things along quickly.
• 24:57
  And then it's also a good way to pally up with everybody in the
• 24:59
  corporation. Because think about it.
• 25:01
  Every single time I visit, let's say I go to Z, head of
• 25:04
  production by Josh Branch and I agree, head of accounting, you
• 25:07
  know, I get to meet somebody else and I'm becoming a member
• 25:10
  of the family and I'm becoming all cool.
• 25:13
  This is what is called multi threading and it makes it easier
• 25:16
  to close the deal. Multi threading means you don't
• 25:18
  just rely on one person within the corporation.
• 25:20
  You're trying within the business account.
• 25:22
  You're trying to talk to as many people as possible.
• 25:26
  And by the way, nothing is perfect.
• 25:28
  I've also given the example about the incubation hub and I
• 25:32
  was trying to do some business for.
• 25:34
  I went there and the CEO was from Benoit State.
• 25:37
  So I quickly entered into that whole team boy thing like my
• 25:40
  brother, blah, blah, blah. You know that whole team angle,
• 25:42
  like you know where village people work barrack ball.
• 25:46
  And then I got in through the head of programming.
• 25:49
  And then from there I got introduced to, I can't remember,
• 25:56
  I can't remember the the ladies title, but I knew three people
• 25:59
  within the organization and I thought all was well.
• 26:01
  I thought all was cool. Unfortunately, within one month,
• 26:04
  CEO Jabba, head of programming, relocated to Japan.
• 26:09
  And then the third lady now resigned and moved, went to go
• 26:12
  and work in another corporation. So these things happen.
• 26:17
  I mean, nothing is perfect you know, but still you, you try a
• 26:20
  lock, you just try and put the odds in your favour.
• 26:24
  Anyway, where was I? So multi threading, that's what
• 26:27
  we're trying to do. We're trying to talk to
• 26:28
  different people within the corporation.
• 26:30
  So I told him that the problem was they picked 1 channel, which
• 26:33
  is e-mail and they decided to hang everything on e-mail.
• 26:36
  I know that's not how it works. We're going to try multiple
• 26:38
  channels, we're going to try emails, we're going to try phone
• 26:41
  calls, we're going to try visiting people.
• 26:44
  But when you try, you know, whatever it is that makes sense
• 26:46
  to you, to your contacts, to your likes, to your dislikes,
• 26:49
  we'll try it all. And then when we're just going
• 26:51
  to focus on one person, You can't say you want to do
• 26:54
  something with Channels TV and then you only have one e-mail
• 26:57
  address. Nothing is not going to fly.
• 26:59
  Now, even if you want to do an e-mail strategy, try and get
• 27:04
  like multiple e-mail addresses, try and get the e-mail address
• 27:07
  of the head of station, head of programming, head of operation
• 27:10
  head. You know, one e-mail is not
• 27:11
  going to cut it. But please, for those of you who
• 27:15
  e-mail, e-mail, e-mail, please, you should stop that thing.
• 27:17
  It's a bad behaviour in the early days of the business.
• 27:21
  It's every, every, if you can do face to face.
• 27:24
  I know it can be scary, but please, just, you know, it can't
• 27:29
  be scary. Wake up, say your prayers, get
• 27:31
  your spouse to pray over you. You know, talk to your parents,
• 27:34
  you know, tell them this is what I'm trying to do.
• 27:36
  Your parents will pray for you because they want your success.
• 27:38
  And then just go boldly, well somewhat boldly in knowing that
• 27:44
  the love of your friends and your family members are behind
• 27:47
  you and that you said your prayers and that God would bless
• 27:49
  the work of your hands and just give it a best shot.
• 27:52
  So that's why I told him this is what we need to do.
• 27:55
  So unfortunately or other fortunately, the list that he
• 27:59
  got over 100 companies that was from a year ago.
• 28:02
  So that is not a problem. I told him, look, there's no
• 28:05
  need to go and pay anybody and get new, a new list that you
• 28:09
  reached out to these people one year ago.
• 28:11
  Nobody will remember that you reached out to them again.
• 28:13
  So you can, you can go and go again.
• 28:16
  But I told him that look, don't go and send a proposal.
• 28:22
  Don't go and send an e-mail proposal and expect that
• 28:24
  something will click. We're trying to do account based
• 28:27
  marketing. We have decided the company.
• 28:29
  We now need to figure out who are we supposed to talk to
• 28:31
  within the company. Now my next question to Joseph
• 28:35
  Kardi was what kind of phone do you use?
• 28:37
  He said he uses Android. Who's an Android guy like me.
• 28:39
  That's OK, no problem. On your Android phone, go and
• 28:42
  check your Google folder and there is something there called
• 28:46
  Google Gemini. He said I'm aware of Gemini.
• 28:48
  I said OK, very good. When I want to use Google Gemini
• 28:51
  to figure out who we should be talking to in this company and
• 28:54
  to know who we're supposed to target.
• 28:58
  So for my TV show, I wasn't quite sure who I was supposed to
• 29:01
  talk to, but at least I got one phone number.
• 29:04
  I just made sure that I'll go there, Me and woman will sit
• 29:07
  down and I'll try and figure out what the priorities of the
• 29:09
  station are. And then I'll ask her who should
• 29:12
  I be talking to? And it's something that worked
• 29:15
  and now I know four or five people within the TV station and
• 29:19
  hopefully, God willing, you know, before the end of the
• 29:22
  year, my TV show should be on the air.
• 29:25
  So same thing. So I told him, now what you do
• 29:29
  is you take Gemini. I realized that when I've been
• 29:32
  talking to you guys about AI over here, I've always been
• 29:34
  talking about creating a prompt and some of you are having
• 29:39
  difficulty creating a prompt. So let me show you a different
• 29:42
  strategy. Now instead of creating a
• 29:44
  prompt, what you can do is you can engage in conversations with
• 29:47
  child GBT and just keep asking questions as you're curious and
• 29:50
  it will bring things to light. So in this case, this is how I,
• 29:56
  this is how we're able to arrive at who the kind of people that
• 29:59
  we should be talking to. Now one of the companies that
• 30:02
  Joseph Carrier would like to do business with this money point.
• 30:05
  So we went on Gemini and then we said Gemini, what do you know
• 30:10
  about money points enter and then money points.
• 30:14
  So I said money points Gemini by the if you use char GBT or
• 30:17
  whatever is the same process. It's part of the information or
• 30:21
  it's a company based in Nigeria, Africa.
• 30:23
  Something is that that that this is what they do.
• 30:25
  These are their services, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
• 30:27
  blah blah blah. The next question now remember
• 30:30
  Joseph Carodi is in events. The next question was now was do
• 30:33
  companies like money points plan events and what kind of things
• 30:37
  they plan events for send And then Germany responded, yes,
• 30:42
  they plan events around this around that around blah blah,
• 30:46
  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 30:48
  And then the next question was for these kinds of events that
• 30:52
  Moneypoint plans, who is responsible for event
• 30:57
  management, event design and event decoration?
• 31:01
  And then it gave a list of options.
• 31:04
  Oh, by the way, for Moneypoint, when we ask the kind of events
• 31:07
  that Moneypoint organizes. That's why some of these tools,
• 31:10
  especially these tools that connect to the Internet, This is
• 31:12
  why the reason why I recommend them.
• 31:13
  So Google Gemini is connected to the Internet.
• 31:16
  I think ChatGPT, the free version is not.
• 31:18
  So this is actually one of the reasons why I recommend Gemini
• 31:22
  because it's connected to the Internet.
• 31:25
  So Gemini said that Money Point no money plans end of year party
• 31:29
  and they drop some links. It also said they do award and
• 31:33
  recognition and participation events.
• 31:36
  It put something there. It also said that Money Point
• 31:39
  has done community engagements in the past around low income
• 31:44
  neighborhoods to try and promote financial literacy and then put
• 31:47
  some links there. And then it also showed that
• 31:50
  Moneypoint has done internal events like end of year parties.
• 31:53
  Now this was a very useful exercise for Joseph Carraday
• 31:56
  because until we got to this point, Joseph Carraday was only
• 31:59
  thinking about end of year parties.
• 32:02
  In fact, as we did it, I realized that, OK, that's a
• 32:04
  mistake that me I made back in my photography days because in
• 32:07
  my photography days, the angle I was coming from when talking to
• 32:10
  corporate people, I was only talking about end of year
• 32:13
  parties. It didn't click in my brain that
• 32:16
  corporations actually do parties around other things like award
• 32:21
  and recognition, like community engagement.
• 32:24
  It never crossed my mind. And so because of that, back in
• 32:28
  my photography days, I never tried to chase community
• 32:32
  engagement projects. So it now gave him ideas of
• 32:37
  other things that he can now be chasing with other organizations
• 32:41
  that he's talking to. It doesn't just have to be end
• 32:43
  of year events. So when we asked Gemini who they
• 32:47
  should be talking to in who we should be talking to in this
• 32:50
  events, Gemini said you should be talking to people in
• 32:52
  marketing and communications department, You should be
• 32:55
  talking to people in events and sponsorships department.
• 33:00
  You should also be talking to people in admin and operations
• 33:03
  department. You should also be talking to
• 33:05
  people in creative and design team and then you should also be
• 33:08
  talking to people in human resources department.
• 33:12
  Can you see now it has given us a list of people that we should
• 33:15
  be looking for. We should be looking for
• 33:17
  marketing and comms, event and sponsorships, admin and
• 33:20
  operations, creative and design, and then human resources.
• 33:24
  I now told him now, OK, now that we have this title, this is what
• 33:27
  we'll do. Remember, I'm fan of free
• 33:31
  resources because we need to figure out how we can use all
• 33:33
  these free things very well before we now start worried
• 33:36
  about paid stuff. LinkedIn is free.
• 33:38
  You don't go to LinkedIn. Go and search in LinkedIn.
• 33:41
  Moneypoint and go and search events and sponsorship.
• 33:44
  So I told him to go to LinkedIn and pull up the money point
• 33:47
  page. On the money point page they'll
• 33:49
  have a tab there that says employees.
• 33:51
  When you click on employees, you should be looking for anybody
• 33:54
  that has any of these headings in their title.
• 33:57
  Marketing and comms, Event and sponsorships, admin and
• 34:00
  operations, creative and design, human resources.
• 34:03
  Any of these people will be a good person to send a DM2 if
• 34:09
  you're able to get their phone number to send a phone call to
• 34:12
  to go into the office and have a conversation with just like I
• 34:17
  did. This inside person is the
• 34:19
  beginning of how you now start spreading your tentacles within
• 34:21
  an organization and giving you a chance of closing a deal.
• 34:25
  I also told him that when I was trying to do some stuff with GTB
• 34:28
  Bank and I needed to find out people in executive positions
• 34:31
  that I didn't even use Google. I tried my SO, I didn't use
• 34:34
  LinkedIn. I tried my luck with Google and
• 34:36
  surprisingly, I found a lot of information available on Google.
• 34:40
  I found the person's name, I found their branches.
• 34:43
  I didn't see phone number, but I found name and branch.
• 34:46
  But think about it, heading into AGT branch and he walked
• 34:49
  straight to the desk and he said, well, I'd like to see Mr.
• 34:52
  Cooley Ademi, please, or I'd like to see Cooling Human
• 34:56
  Resources. That is a much more solid way to
• 34:59
  walk into a bank than you walk in there.
• 35:01
  And clearly you don't even know who it is you're supposed to be
• 35:04
  looking for, who you're supposed to be talking to.
• 35:05
  Nobody will take you seriously. But if you walk in there and say
• 35:09
  I'm supposed to pick, I'm here to see cooling Human Resources.
• 35:12
  He expecting you? No, he's not.
• 35:14
  But it's concerning this, this and that.
• 35:16
  And here it's part of his portfolio.
• 35:17
  And is he available? You know, I'd like to see him.
• 35:21
  You know that I'll put it heading in to talk to a specific
• 35:25
  person about a specific something.
• 35:27
  You can see how you can now get past security guard.
• 35:29
  You can get past receptionist. I might be able to get into the
• 35:32
  lobby to see the guy. Whether you get the meeting that
• 35:35
  day or not, that's not important thing.
• 35:37
  The most important thing is that you found an intelligent way to
• 35:39
  get into the building today and you'll be a polite somebody as
• 35:43
  you're going in. Greet everybody, hail the
• 35:44
  security guard, greet the people at customer service desk.
• 35:47
  You know, be nice, be friendly, because when you come back next
• 35:50
  week or you come back tomorrow, you know, it helps that people
• 35:52
  are like, oh, that's that nice guy.
• 35:53
  It helps. So yeah.
• 35:57
  So that's how it works, pretty much.
• 35:59
  So with what we did in with Gemini, you can do the same with
• 36:07
  Copilot. You can do the same with
• 36:08
  ChatGPT, the paid versions that have access to the Internet.
• 36:13
  You can do the same with Bing because Bing also has elements
• 36:16
  of ChatGPT in it. So Bing, Microsoft being the
• 36:19
  search engine, you can do this kind of exercise with it.
• 36:22
  So with this now, and I was holding now look with account
• 36:24
  based marketing principles that we discussed, this is how you're
• 36:27
  going to pursue this thing. You will go to LinkedIn research
• 36:31
  money points or use Google research money points.
• 36:34
  You will find the name or the phone number or the branch of
• 36:38
  one particular person and you will try to e-mail that person,
• 36:42
  call that person. Although me, I prefer to
• 36:45
  actually go in there and talk to the person.
• 36:47
  It is from talking to that person, let's say you're able to
• 36:49
  get through to someone in human resources department.
• 36:53
  If you get there and you're able to get a sense of what their
• 36:56
  plans are for the year, what the initiatives that they're working
• 36:59
  on is. From there, you're going to be
• 37:00
  able to get introductions to other people who might be in
• 37:03
  marketing, comms or events and sponsorships or admin.
• 37:06
  It is only after you have spoken to these people and you know
• 37:09
  what they're planning and you know what their priorities are
• 37:12
  that you now drop the proposal. And then by doing that, the
• 37:16
  chances of you getting business from them goes up.
• 37:21
  If you just look at the list and then you start blanket emailing
• 37:24
  all everybody on the list and you same proposals, like the
• 37:27
  chances of you getting a deal through that are very, very low.
• 37:32
  Oh, by the way, I also mentioned to him that when you go in, you
• 37:34
  also try to be off value add. So if you go in and the scope is
• 37:41
  I'm an event planner, been seeing what you guys have been
• 37:43
  doing around this that that I really admire what it is that
• 37:46
  you do. I'm just here to be a valuable
• 37:48
  resource. I want to figure out what it is
• 37:49
  you guys have been working on and whether I can use my skill
• 37:53
  sets to help you guys achieve your corporate goals.
• 37:56
  If you're coming like that, nobody's going to say no.
• 38:00
  Nobody's going to say get out. The reception might be fuzzy,
• 38:04
  but the answer is not going to be get out, I'm busy or drop
• 38:07
  your company profile or whatever.
• 38:10
  So we need to look for ways to be value added here.
• 38:14
  Well, anyway, I'm close to 40 minutes, so let me just round
• 38:15
  this thing up. I guess the main thing that I
• 38:17
  wanted to communicate with Joseph, my interaction with
• 38:20
  Joseph Card, is this in your early days, it's a matter of
• 38:24
  effort. Am I doing the right thing?
• 38:27
  Have I figured out something that works?
• 38:29
  OK, this thing works. Let me continue to blast the
• 38:31
  hell out of this thing until it stops working.
• 38:33
  That's what you do in the early days.
• 38:35
  Strategy is what will come at the end.
• 38:36
  Stop trying to think strategically in the in the
• 38:38
  beginning, there's nothing to strategize over.
• 38:41
  There's only way you have a working concept that you now can
• 38:44
  start worrying about strategy. So first effort.
• 38:48
  When you now have validated the business idea, then next thing
• 38:52
  is scale. Hire a team to sell around you.
• 38:56
  Try and multiply your efforts. However it is that you want to
• 38:59
  multiply your efforts. Then if you're doing social
• 39:02
  media, don't send people to a general hub, send people to a
• 39:06
  place that increases the chances of having a conversation and
• 39:10
  increases your chances of getting some conversions.
• 39:13
  WhatsApp I think is not bad. Phone call I think is not bad.
• 39:17
  e-mail. I don't really like e-mail, but
• 39:20
  you know, e-mail, yeah, maybe it's not bad.
• 39:23
  But if you send people to the websites, generally to the
• 39:25
  Instagram handle, generally you're not going to close the
• 39:28
  deal. Then then if you're trying to
• 39:30
  break into a corporation, into a business like money point, the
• 39:34
  strategy you're going to use nowadays, people call it account
• 39:36
  based marketing. What account based marketing
• 39:39
  means is you're trying to blanket the whole organization.
• 39:43
  You're trying to multi thread, you're trying to find different
• 39:45
  people to talk to who might be related to the problem that the
• 39:49
  problem that you solve or the product or the service that you
• 39:51
  have. You're trying to talk to
• 39:53
  multiple people and you're trying to use multiple channels,
• 39:56
  multiple avenues. So this one is not, I prefer
• 39:59
  e-mail. This one is I will do whatever.
• 40:02
  Is needed to get the job done. If it is face to face, I will
• 40:06
  face to face. If it is phone call, I will
• 40:07
  call. If it is e-mail, I will mail.
• 40:10
  If it is SMSI will SMS. If it is WhatsApp, I will
• 40:12
  WhatsApp. If it's drive to the office, I
• 40:14
  will drive to the office. Oh, and by the way, Joseph
• 40:16
  Karadi said that some of these corporations, he was targeting,
• 40:21
  some of them I won local government.
• 40:23
  So he said he would target that local government 1st.
• 40:25
  And I said beautiful, that makes sense.
• 40:27
  Especially those of you in Lagos, you know where traffic is
• 40:30
  crazy. So it makes a lot of sense to
• 40:32
  say, OK, you know what, today I'm going to target this week,
• 40:35
  I'm going to target 12345 because all of them are in a
• 40:38
  lausa. So it will make sense that you
• 40:40
  drive to a lausa and then you start your moves and you know
• 40:43
  that, OK, first and second week in January is a lausa.
• 40:47
  It makes a lot of sense now to do a LAUSA today and then
• 40:51
  tomorrow you're on Lagos Island and then after that you're in
• 40:55
  the OPEC estate. I mean, you'll be stressed just
• 40:58
  driving back and forth and you know, you'll mess with your,
• 41:01
  you'll mess with your vibe. And then this air tools are
• 41:05
  really, really versatile. You can use it to figure out the
• 41:09
  officials or the departmental heads or the whoever they're
• 41:12
  supposed to be talking to within these organizations.
• 41:15
  So that's just it pretty much. Is there anything else?
• 41:21
  I think that is all. I think that is all.
• 41:25
  OK Yeah, I promised him that I would do.
• 41:28
  I would think about how to enter new churches because we forgot
• 41:30
  that whole church angle. Yeah, we got carried away with
• 41:32
  account based marketing. Anyway, I already gave him
• 41:36
  enough useful advice, so I think that's enough.
• 41:37
  So thank you very much for your time and attention.
• 41:40
  If you'd love to connect with me for a strategy session for a
• 41:42
  business audit, the number to call the number to WhatsApp or
• 41:45
  the SMS is 08064662140. Country code is +234.
• 41:53
  Then connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 41:55
  The name to look for is Tavishima Ayede.
• 41:57
  I have a YouTube channel by the same name, Tavishima Ayede.
• 42:01
  I have over 1000 videos there. Free resources that you can take
• 42:05
  advantage of to learn about business, learn how to move your
• 42:09
  hustle forward. So thank you very much for your
• 42:11
  time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next
• 42:13
  episode.