Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Unlocking Industrial Cleaning Clients: Your Prospecting Playbook

Transcript

Unlocking Industrial Cleaning Clients: Your Prospecting Playbook · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. Taking today's recording at my
• 0:04
  desk. So expect the usual
• 0:06
  interruptions, especially since you know, neighbors are working
• 0:09
  on his house and all that. Now, if this is your first time
• 0:12
  of discovering the podcast, don't worry, you're in the right
• 0:14
  place because the goal of this podcast is business education.
• 0:18
  So you're in the right place. So by the time we're done,
• 0:20
  please talk about the show so that Nigerians both home and
• 0:23
  abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle.
• 0:26
  They can do that by subscribing on Spotify, YouTube, Apple or
• 0:30
  any player of their choice. And if you in particular, dear
• 0:33
  listener, you have any sales or marketing questions by the time
• 0:36
  we're done, bring them to me. You can call, you can SMS, you
• 0:40
  can WhatsApp on 08064662140. Now today on the show, we're
• 0:48
  going to look at a question from Anita based in Abuja and she
• 0:53
  wants connections into the industrial cleaning space.
• 0:57
  So let me repeat, Anita in Abuja, she wants to know how can
• 1:01
  I get connections into the industrial cleaning space?
• 1:06
  Now, the answer to this question from a traditional sales and
• 1:10
  business development point of view is called prospecting.
• 1:13
  Let me repeat, if you're heading into business, you're looking
• 1:16
  for connections, you're looking for customers, you want to make
• 1:19
  stakeholders, the activity that you should be involved in is
• 1:23
  called prospecting. That is PROSPECTING.
• 1:31
  Prospecting is what we salespeople do traditionally
• 1:34
  when we try and answer the question, who might be
• 1:38
  interested in my product or my service?
• 1:40
  Where do these people hang out, whether online or in the real
• 1:43
  world? When I find them, how am I going
• 1:46
  to initiate conversations with them and how am I going to start
• 1:49
  up buying relationships or business relationships?
• 1:54
  So essentially, that is what we have to do.
• 1:57
  It doesn't matter what business you're involved in.
• 1:58
  You can be like Anita and you're trying to break into the
• 2:01
  industrial cleaning space, or maybe you want to start off a
• 2:04
  wedding photography business, or you want to create an app, or
• 2:07
  you're an architect and you want to go out and get your first
• 2:10
  customer. These are the first set of
• 2:13
  questions that we all have to have to ask ourselves.
• 2:16
  So the activity is called prospecting.
• 2:18
  The questions we should be asking ourselves, preferably
• 2:21
  with a pen and paper, we should be writing things down or typing
• 2:24
  things into our phone so that we don't forget.
• 2:27
  Because the problem with trying to do sales by just running
• 2:30
  things on your head is that you come up with some good ideas
• 2:33
  today. By the time you sleep and wake
• 2:35
  up, you've forgotten everything or you come up with some cool
• 2:38
  ideas. By the time you have with your
• 2:40
  boyfriend or your girlfriend, or you have some issues with the
• 2:42
  kids or you attend PTA meeting, you come back, you eat ever, you
• 2:46
  sleep, you wake up, you've forgotten everything.
• 2:48
  So it's nice to have a pen and paper somewhere or some notes on
• 2:53
  your phone. Whereas you're getting one or
• 2:55
  two ideas, you just be jotting everything down.
• 2:57
  So remember the questions we should be asking ourselves who
• 3:00
  might be interested in our product or service.
• 3:03
  At this case, at this stage, don't try to be fancy, just boil
• 3:06
  down, right, every conceivable person who you think might be
• 3:09
  interested in your product or your service.
• 3:13
  Because from there, you will now start trying to figure out, OK,
• 3:15
  where do these people like on a normal, normal, where can I find
• 3:19
  these people, whether online or in the real life?
• 3:22
  And then we'll now start coming up with a plan for how to start
• 3:26
  conversations with these people, business conversations with
• 3:29
  these people so we can get into buying relationships with these
• 3:33
  people. So let's flesh things out now
• 3:35
  using Anita's context. So Anita, he said she wants to
• 3:38
  get into industrial cleaning. Now, First off, let's define
• 3:41
  industrial cleaning so that everybody will be following
• 3:44
  along. You understand where we're
• 3:46
  heading to. So industrial cleaning now is
• 3:49
  different from residential cleaning.
• 3:52
  Now, for those of you who've been listening to the podcast
• 3:54
  for any length of time, you guys know those days where I say
• 3:58
  sorry or there'll be some noise, the house is being cleaned.
• 4:01
  That is residential cleaning. I pay someone to come to the
• 4:04
  house to just do you know, normal, normal, sweep, cobwebs,
• 4:09
  mopping, toilet, what else make the bed wash, gas cooker, you
• 4:14
  know all those kind of things. That is residential cleaning.
• 4:18
  Now there are some people who require industrial cleaning.
• 4:23
  They need cleaning specialists to come in because they have
• 4:27
  specialised spaces or non residential spaces.
• 4:33
  For instance, my sister-in-law, she's a Baker and she teaches at
• 4:37
  the school where she's the one that teaches them baking and you
• 4:42
  know, or whatnot. So at the end of the day, she
• 4:46
  gets the students to clean the kitchen.
• 4:48
  That's a normal training. Of course, you know that the way
• 4:50
  the students will clean will not be, you understand, they won't
• 4:55
  cut everything and those ovens that they use in the kitchens
• 4:59
  and the cookers and everything are huge.
• 5:02
  So of course you know that once in a while bread will fall at
• 5:05
  the back, milk will fall at the back, this thing will fall at
• 5:08
  the back, you know, and then grime will build up, oil will
• 5:11
  build up all these things. So after some time, you need
• 5:14
  people to come in with a professional touch and just
• 5:16
  flush everywhere, fumigate everywhere, clean everything.
• 5:20
  All the crumbs carry everything, all the oil, all the grease, all
• 5:23
  the, you know, clean everything. Those people that you call in,
• 5:29
  those are the ones that you call industrial cleaner.
• 5:32
  So the person that comes to my house just do carpet, toilets,
• 5:36
  gas, go car, they can't handle that kind of cleaning.
• 5:40
  So when people have specialized spaces, these are the people
• 5:47
  that you call in industrial cleaners in your local market in
• 5:49
  the abattoir. If I go there and look at
• 5:52
  abattoir, you see that that place has never been cleaned
• 5:54
  since the open down market. Honestly.
• 5:57
  I mean the last time I went to buy meat I was looking at like
• 6:00
  like what the hell is going on? I even saw the rats running up
• 6:03
  and down and you know 1 cat, you know, a couple of lizards and
• 6:06
  stuff like that. I say hey, see where we buy our
• 6:08
  meat from. So in places where people have
• 6:13
  sense that kind of place, once in a while you call in an
• 6:15
  industrial cleaner to come and do a proper cleaning, hose down
• 6:20
  the whole place, clean everywhere.
• 6:21
  So those are industrial cleaners specialized the clean spaces
• 6:26
  that have specialized use or non residential use.
• 6:30
  So people who clean factories, people who clean warehouses,
• 6:35
  people who clean offices, people who clean power plants and
• 6:40
  because power plants get very dirty.
• 6:42
  If you don't believe me and you're one of those people that
• 6:43
  live in gated communities in Lagos, you know, maybe one day
• 6:48
  you just take a walk outside your estate.
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  As you're walking past your peep inside the powerhouse, the
• 6:53
  amount of engine oil, fuel, grime, grease, everything on the
• 6:57
  floor, it will shock you. So that kind of cleaning is not,
• 7:01
  is not somebody like you know me that will come and clean.
• 7:03
  It is a professional cleaner. Don't come and clean the the
• 7:08
  power plants, the diesel, the place where you keep the diesel
• 7:11
  engine and all that. Also large scale cleaning any.
• 7:17
  So essentially when you say industrial cleaners, that is
• 7:19
  what you mean And Anita wants to get into the business and to be
• 7:24
  honest or to be, I became a wedding photographer, one of my
• 7:26
  clients actually was an industrial cleaner.
• 7:28
  I had no idea that this thing is even a business at all in any
• 7:33
  place of the world. Not to even talk of Nigeria.
• 7:35
  But yes, there are people who make a comfortable living doing
• 7:40
  that kind of cleaning because I remember talking to the groom,
• 7:44
  me and his wife, we got on really well.
• 7:46
  He was not in Abuja at the time. He was in KD doing some work and
• 7:50
  then he came in and never got clean.
• 7:51
  I was like, oh, so Barbara, what do you do?
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  He said I'm a cleaner. I said it with a straight face.
• 7:56
  I was like cleaner. I say, I mean industrial
• 7:59
  cleaning. I was like, oh, OK.
• 8:00
  Because when he's a cleaner, where my mind went to was, you
• 8:03
  know, the normal cleaner that we know you'll come sweep, mop,
• 8:06
  clean toilets, you know, clean gas worker, you know, that kind
• 8:09
  of thing. Remove cobwebs.
• 8:11
  So he is an industrial cleaner and their own specialty was
• 8:15
  post, what is it called? Post construction cleanup.
• 8:19
  So if somebody goes and builds an estate, you know you build
• 8:22
  the whole estate fresh. By the time you finish now
• 8:25
  cement will be everywhere, paint buckets will be everywhere,
• 8:28
  nails will be there, asbestos, you know all kinds of things.
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  So you need to call in a professional to come and clean
• 8:35
  up the whole space. So that's what the groom was
• 8:38
  into, industrial cleaning, excuse me, but his own era
• 8:42
  specialty was post industrial cleanup.
• 8:44
  And by the way, this is your first time we're listening to
• 8:47
  the podcast of your opinion. See some of the benefits of
• 8:49
  listening to these kinds of material Because there are
• 8:52
  Nigerians who are making a living and I'm making a killing
• 8:55
  doing all kinds of things that some of us never even found from
• 8:58
  going school. So it's good they get exposed to
• 9:02
  these sorts of things. So you see what's going on, you
• 9:04
  see how people are moving and shaking, you know how people are
• 9:08
  getting things done. So not everybody has to do a
• 9:14
  nine to five. And if you've decided you're not
• 9:16
  going to do a nine to five, I mean, just by looking and seeing
• 9:19
  what's in the environment, figuring out what other people
• 9:21
  are doing, you might also get some ideas about what options
• 9:26
  are available to you anyway. So that's the special industrial
• 9:29
  cleaning. It's not an intellectual
• 9:31
  something, it's not an oyibo something.
• 9:34
  People are doing it live in Nigeria right now.
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  People are making a living off of doing it.
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  If you don't believe me, think about it the next time you go
• 9:44
  into your local Zenith Bank or Access Bank.
• 9:47
  Who do you think cleans the building?
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  I mean, the building will have office staff that come and clean
• 9:55
  once in a while, but that annual, you know, spring
• 9:59
  cleaning will clean everything plus fumigate plus every.
• 10:02
  I mean, who do you think does that?
• 10:04
  Industrial cleaners, that's what they do.
• 10:07
  So for Anita now how do we tackle it again?
• 10:16
  OK, yeah, I think we tackled it from like a three or four prong
• 10:19
  point of view. So First off, the first thing
• 10:21
  that I recommended to her was networking.
• 10:23
  You have to do some networking. Then I also touched on some
• 10:27
  ideas about LinkedIn and social selling.
• 10:30
  Then we also discuss some ideas around direct outreach.
• 10:36
  Because that is the kind of thing I would do anyway, because
• 10:39
  those of you who've been listening to the show for a
• 10:40
  while, you know that that's my typical way of doing things.
• 10:43
  You know, I prefer let me go and see somebody, let me go to
• 10:46
  somebody's office, let me shake somebody's hand, let me have a
• 10:48
  physical conversation, you know, after that, collect the person's
• 10:51
  phone number and then after that you'll be following up with the
• 10:53
  person. So that's, that's what my own
• 10:54
  style, direct outreach and then referrals.
• 10:57
  So that was how that was what I recommended for Anita.
• 11:02
  That was the three pronged approach.
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  I'll be 4 prong, I'll be easy 5 Anyway, so that's what we did.
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  So for networking, I recommended to her that she should join the
• 11:13
  Chamber of Commerce. And the reason why I recommended
• 11:16
  the Chamber of Commerce for her in particular, while my mind
• 11:19
  went straight there was because if we're looking at industrial
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  cleaners as people who clean factories or people who clean
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  warehouses or people who clean offices or power plants or large
• 11:32
  scale buildings, I just thought that is precisely the kind of
• 11:36
  place where she will find those kind of associations.
• 11:40
  I mean, those, those kinds of connections, those kinds of
• 11:42
  people, those kinds of potential customers, because back when I
• 11:46
  was based in Lagos and my brother and I were in the export
• 11:49
  business for our family, those are precisely the kinds of
• 11:52
  people that we were meeting. So we went in the Chamber of
• 11:56
  Commerce in Lagos General, but then the Chamber of Commerce
• 11:59
  Lagos had some small, small subcommittees and then we were
• 12:03
  in the, what was it trade, I'll be export, export subcommittee
• 12:07
  or something like that. And those were the kinds of
• 12:10
  people that were meeting there, people who had factories because
• 12:14
  they were exporting, they were producing things to be exported.
• 12:18
  People who had warehouses so that they will store something
• 12:22
  as a halfway point before exporting or so that you store
• 12:26
  something as a halfway point when you are importing the
• 12:29
  thing. And then people who owned big,
• 12:32
  big businesses, you know, the whole building, that's their
• 12:35
  whole office, people who are doing things on a large scale.
• 12:41
  So I just remembered based on my experience of being a member of
• 12:45
  the Lagos Chamber of Commerce, the Export Subcommittee or the
• 12:50
  export, I can't remember what was called back then, export
• 12:53
  group or export, whatever. I just remember that.
• 12:56
  Oh, OK, The kind of customers that Anita is looking for, they
• 13:00
  are in those places. Now you see why part of
• 13:03
  prospecting begins with us asking the question who might be
• 13:08
  interested, because by the time you start writing this thing
• 13:10
  down, OK, I'm looking for people who own factories, people who
• 13:14
  own and operate warehouses, people who own and operate large
• 13:18
  buildings, or people who own and operate power plants.
• 13:22
  It is then you can now start coming with ideas.
• 13:24
  Or let me think about this place.
• 13:25
  What about this place? What about this place?
• 13:27
  What about that place? So that is why the first
• 13:31
  question is who might be interested.
• 13:33
  Get a sheet of paper, pour everything down.
• 13:35
  Just write, no idea is too big, no idea is too small.
• 13:38
  Just throw everything out first. It is when you now see
• 13:41
  everything, you now know that OK, this one is touch area, this
• 13:44
  one won't make sense. This one is a big cue.
• 13:46
  OK, let me be leaving these ones.
• 13:47
  Let me be deleting these ones. But first of all, just brain
• 13:50
  dump. Get a sheet of paper, get your
• 13:52
  phone, just pour everything out and then Step 2 where they will
• 13:55
  hang out. It is from doing those sorts of
• 13:59
  things that we now know where to look.
• 14:02
  If I didn't go through this exercise or thinking where can
• 14:05
  she find people who might be interested, Chamber of Commerce
• 14:08
  would have never come to my mind.
• 14:12
  So networking, Chamber of Commerce.
• 14:16
  Then after that I recommended the Cleaning Practitioners
• 14:19
  Association of Nigeria and that is the CPAN.
• 14:24
  Now some of you will say she's coming into the business, why
• 14:28
  are you recommending how to join Association of Cleaners?
• 14:31
  How would she find business from there?
• 14:33
  And this is the answer. Well, First off, as a general
• 14:37
  rule, it's always a good idea that when you come into a
• 14:39
  business, you hook up with other people who have been doing the
• 14:42
  business before you. You learn one or two things.
• 14:45
  You learn one or two things to do.
• 14:47
  You learn one or two things not to do.
• 14:49
  And you might also find one or two good Samaritans there who
• 14:52
  put you through on one or two things.
• 14:54
  Don't look at child's competition.
• 14:56
  They'll just help you aspire. You're new in the field.
• 14:58
  So as a as a young somebody, as my junior brother, as my junior
• 15:01
  sister, let me just guide you on one or two things all those kind
• 15:05
  of things, they really, really help.
• 15:07
  But one of the benefits of joining these sorts of
• 15:10
  associations, in this case, if you're an industrial cleaner,
• 15:13
  why it might be a good idea to join the Cleaning Practitioners
• 15:16
  Association of Nigeria is because you're going to get
• 15:19
  partners for commissioned referrals.
• 15:21
  Because sometimes some people are doing business and they're
• 15:24
  doing business very well and they have too many jobs that
• 15:28
  they cannot fulfill. They need somebody that they can
• 15:31
  trust to say yo Anita, you're from my village, I regard you as
• 15:35
  my sister. I don't want somebody who is
• 15:38
  still one of my clients. But look, this is a very
• 15:40
  important client. I have two jobs for this day.
• 15:42
  I beg go and help me sort this one.
• 15:45
  By the time you're done, this is how much I will square you.
• 15:47
  I'll give you 10% or I'll give you this or I'll give you that.
• 15:52
  People are looking for those kinds of opportunities.
• 15:55
  People are looking for those kinds of how will I put it?
• 15:59
  Should I say partners, You know, business partners, if you can
• 16:02
  call it that, so that when things are busy, somebody you
• 16:06
  can trust to say, look, guy, I trust you.
• 16:08
  You're my very person, I beg Orgasso.
• 16:10
  So, so and so is one of my main clients, but I cannot be there
• 16:13
  right now because this is going on or I have another job.
• 16:16
  I beg, help me take care of this thing.
• 16:18
  By the time you're done, your own share is 25%.
• 16:21
  You know, that kind of thing. So that is not a bad place to
• 16:26
  learn to meet other stakeholders in the profession and then also
• 16:30
  to possibly get commissioned referrals at the end of the day.
• 16:33
  So that's why for networking, I thought of those two Chamber of
• 16:36
  Commerce and then the CPAN. Some of you ask, how the hell
• 16:40
  did I find CPAM? I found it on Google.
• 16:43
  And that's the advantage of Google and ChatGPT and Google
• 16:48
  Gemini and Claude and all these AI tools.
• 16:52
  When you're looking for ideas, you can type in, you know, some
• 16:55
  stuff and you can find one or two things.
• 16:57
  Because to be honest, I had no idea that the association
• 17:00
  existed. I can't remember the exact
• 17:01
  prompt that I used to find the association, but SHA, from
• 17:04
  fooling around, I was able to come up with some useful
• 17:06
  information, which is why I recommend that if you have a
• 17:10
  smartphone and you're in Nigeria in 2025, let's just say if you
• 17:17
  use your mobile phone only for Netflix and TikTok, I think you
• 17:21
  are. I think you're wasting your
• 17:25
  time. You could do better.
• 17:26
  These ones are powerful tools, so use them accordingly.
• 17:30
  Use it to build your life and use it to develop yourself.
• 17:34
  So that's all on networking. But of course, you know, the
• 17:37
  more you think, the more you brainstorm, the more you talk to
• 17:40
  people, the more you fool around with all these AI tools, you
• 17:42
  might come up with other and better opportunities for
• 17:45
  networking then for LinkedIn or social selling as some people
• 17:50
  call it. First off, you have to create a
• 17:53
  linking account, optimize your LinkedIn profile.
• 17:56
  You have to look good, look sharp, look professional for
• 18:00
  potential clients when they see you, they look like it looks
• 18:03
  like you're somebody who knows what's up, not as if you're just
• 18:07
  a tacharya individual. You know, a cherry wedding as in
• 18:10
  an anyhow, anyhow kind of person.
• 18:13
  Then the goal here, OK, well there's also a bit of networking
• 18:17
  is you also want to start sending connection requests to
• 18:20
  professionals not just in your industry, but also other target
• 18:25
  industries. So if you're a professional
• 18:26
  cleaner, I think it might help if on your LinkedIn you're
• 18:31
  following people who are chairman or head of operations
• 18:36
  or whatever of factories, warehouses and you know, people
• 18:41
  who have large scale operations, you know, follow people who are
• 18:47
  head of operations. Let's see what else head of
• 18:50
  operations apart from head of operations who again, I don't
• 18:56
  know. Well anyway, but at least
• 18:58
  definitely you should definitely follow anybody who is head of
• 19:01
  operations at Target organizations.
• 19:04
  So that's on the LinkedIn end. Now direct outreach, like I
• 19:08
  said, that is the one that I like to do.
• 19:12
  That is where I start. That is my default.
• 19:15
  And of course, we also have to start up this process by having
• 19:21
  a pen and paper. Remember, pen and paper
• 19:25
  absolutely important because like I said, life happens.
• 19:28
  You come up with a brilliant idea now, then you want so Gary,
• 19:32
  and then from there you go and poop.
• 19:33
  And then by the time you sit down, you can't remember what it
• 19:36
  is you are thinking about before.
• 19:37
  So just get a pen and paper as the ideas are coming.
• 19:40
  Just be writing because life happens and you forget.
• 19:45
  So for direct outreach, the approach is the same.
• 19:47
  We're going to draw up a target list of companies.
• 19:51
  So let's say you're doing your Anita, you're doing industrial
• 19:55
  cleaning, you happen to be in Abuja, unless you happen to live
• 19:58
  in this estate, is it a Batcha estate in zone 5?
• 20:03
  I'll be zone 5 or zone 4, I can't remember.
• 20:07
  You live in that estate and you now think, OK, let me go and do
• 20:10
  banks so. From that estate, if you stroll
• 20:13
  small, like 10 minutes, you will get to Zenith Bank.
• 20:17
  From Zenith Bank, if you push up small, you enter Echo Bank.
• 20:22
  From Echo Bank, if you walk down small, like 30 minutes,
• 20:24
  eventually we get to GTB. And then from that GTB, if you
• 20:28
  stretch like 10 minutes, you enter Access Bank.
• 20:32
  So if the goal now is direct outreach, direct just means face
• 20:38
  to face as in I came to come and see you.
• 20:42
  This one is direct is not social media, is not e-mail is not
• 20:48
  WhatsApp is in as in is like is direct.
• 20:51
  I carried my 2 legs and my car. I drove there and I came to see
• 20:56
  you. That's what we call direct
• 20:58
  outreach. So First off, you have to now
• 21:00
  come up with a do some small research, come up with a target
• 21:04
  list of companies. So if these banks are going to
• 21:06
  go and visit someone like Anita, you actually have to sit down
• 21:10
  and write it. Zenith Bank zone 4E bank.
• 21:17
  So, so, so, so Access Bank this as in write everything down.
• 21:21
  You drop a list. Then you also need to do some
• 21:25
  thinking because we have to identify the right person that
• 21:30
  we have to talk to when we go there.
• 21:31
  You can't just roll up to a bank, enter inside, you say you
• 21:36
  want to do direct outreach. Then when you enter the bank,
• 21:38
  you don't know who the hell you're supposed to see.
• 21:41
  So part of the process also involves thinking.
• 21:44
  Sit down and think, when I entered this bank, now who is
• 21:47
  the right person I'm supposed to be talking to?
• 21:50
  So I drew up a list of some possible people.
• 21:54
  OK, one more freestyling. I said head of operations.
• 21:56
  So head of operations, because some banks have head of
• 21:59
  operations. Like I met somebody recently who
• 22:01
  is head of operations for Zenith Bank.
• 22:05
  I didn't know that they have head of operations because I was
• 22:09
  always thinking, you know, branch manager, executive
• 22:11
  director, you know, that kind of, I didn't know that these are
• 22:14
  operations. So head of operations for the
• 22:18
  branch, that might be one person, write it down, facility
• 22:22
  manager. And that's the one I forgot.
• 22:24
  Facility manager. Facility manager is the person
• 22:27
  who makes sure everything is clean, lights are turned off at
• 22:32
  the right time, security lights go on at the right time, all the
• 22:35
  video cameras are working, the toilets been cleaned, is the
• 22:40
  canteen area well taken care of, you know, all those sorts of
• 22:43
  things. So facilities manager, so head
• 22:45
  of operations, facility manager, procurement, you can also speak
• 22:49
  to procurement because procurement are the people who
• 22:51
  pay for products and services that the business is going to
• 22:54
  use. So every single time that
• 22:56
  Zenni's bank or Access Bank or you know, whichever organization
• 23:01
  is going to buy something, they want to buy tissue paper or
• 23:03
  they're going to buy soap or they want to buy staplers or
• 23:06
  whatever. And then everything has to go
• 23:08
  through procurement. Another person you can speak to
• 23:11
  could be the branch manager. So you see now that sitting down
• 23:16
  with a list, we've already come up with some names.
• 23:18
  Head of operations, we'll put it there.
• 23:19
  Facility manager, we'll put it there.
• 23:21
  Procurement, we'll put it there. Branch manager, we'll put it
• 23:24
  there. Now since I am not involved in
• 23:27
  the business, I cannot tell you exactly who the best person is
• 23:31
  to go and meet if you're into industrial cleaning, but I would
• 23:34
  recommend that we always take a multi threaded approach.
• 23:38
  Multi threading just means when you're trying to break into any
• 23:41
  account, you don't just focus on one person.
• 23:45
  That is the thing that causes stories that touch you.
• 23:49
  Try and connect with as many people as possible because you
• 23:52
  don't know which way the deal can click.
• 23:54
  And apart from that, it is a feature of modern business now
• 23:58
  that when businesses buy, it is not just one person who makes
• 24:01
  the decision. So yes, when we were children
• 24:05
  back in the day, yes, if dog at the top said this is what we're
• 24:08
  going to do, that's what the whole organization will do.
• 24:10
  But things are changing. Decisions are now being
• 24:14
  increasingly made by consensus. The old guy at the top want to
• 24:18
  see what a Commission of so, so, so and so things.
• 24:21
  They also want to see what head of so, so and so things and what
• 24:25
  this person in this department thinks and then they'll sit
• 24:27
  down, then they'll come up with a decision.
• 24:30
  So it helps if in trying to push for your contract, push for your
• 24:34
  bid, push for your whatever. You have been talking to 2345
• 24:39
  people who are concerned. There's no how you capture
• 24:42
  everybody. Well, there's a decision making
• 24:44
  committee and there are five people who are important to make
• 24:47
  that decision and at least you're in good terms with three
• 24:50
  of them. It's not a guarantee that the
• 24:53
  deal will be yours, but you can see how you are taking the steps
• 24:56
  to make sure that things move in your favor.
• 25:00
  So when you drop this list now, those are the people you should
• 25:02
  be trying to hook up with. I don't know who the best person
• 25:05
  is, but in my own opinion shall try and party up with them.
• 25:08
  All facilities manager know who the person is, get their phone
• 25:11
  number. Procurement, try and get the
• 25:13
  number of somebody in procurement.
• 25:14
  If you know the branch manager won't be bad.
• 25:16
  If you know, operations manager won't be bad, in fact, to be a
• 25:20
  good idea when you walk into the establishment and you know,
• 25:23
  people know who you are, like, hey, Anita, she's coming again.
• 25:25
  And these are how now how you do, how work, you know, blah,
• 25:27
  blah, blah. You know, good times with
• 25:29
  everybody. That's the kind of vibe, that's
• 25:31
  the kind of atmosphere that'll make it easier for you to push
• 25:35
  forward your deal at the end of the day.
• 25:37
  And then you also have to come up with a plan for initiating
• 25:40
  contact with these people. Since we're close to 30 minutes,
• 25:43
  I'm not going to go into too many more details.
• 25:46
  And then another source of business is referrals from
• 25:48
  existing customers because Anita is not a jam bite in this
• 25:52
  business. So she has been doing this thing
• 25:54
  for a while. It's a good source of business
• 25:56
  to reach out to people you did business with in the past.
• 25:59
  Hey, what's up? How you day?
• 26:01
  Hope you like that job shadows. No problem.
• 26:04
  My staff did not steal anything. We didn't break anything, you
• 26:07
  know, blah, blah, blah. If you're happy, I'd appreciate
• 26:10
  you can make a recommendation, make a referral, you know, blah,
• 26:13
  blah, blah, help improve my ministry, you know, all that
• 26:16
  small talk, but I'm sure you get what I'm trying to say.
• 26:20
  You reach out to previous customers, be sure that
• 26:22
  everybody's happy, there was no outstanding problems.
• 26:25
  Then see how you can get referrals or get introductions
• 26:28
  to other people that might be customers, that could be
• 26:34
  customers. Then let me see.
• 26:37
  Let's see if I made another note for Anita.
• 26:41
  OK, I think I made a note here about WhatsApp.
• 26:47
  OK, I made a note here about WhatsApp, but to be honest, I
• 26:49
  can't remember what I meant when I wrote down this comment on
• 26:53
  WhatsApp and hopefully I'll remember when I do.
• 26:55
  Maybe I'll make another podcast, another podcast episode.
• 27:00
  But anyway, the main thing that I wanted to pass across today
• 27:03
  basically is this. When you're getting into
• 27:06
  business new and you're like Anita and you're thinking I need
• 27:10
  connections, I need patronage, I need customers.
• 27:13
  Too many people make the mistake of just freestyling.
• 27:15
  You wake up on Monday, you begin the freestyle, you wake up on
• 27:18
  Tuesday, you try on freestyle. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
• 27:21
  you're freestyling. The problem with freestyling is
• 27:24
  that is not a plan. You're running from pillar to
• 27:26
  post. You're trying, not some ideas
• 27:28
  that don't make sense. What you actually need to do is
• 27:31
  before you hit the ground running on Monday from last
• 27:35
  week, Friday or Saturday, you need to sit down 1st and engage.
• 27:40
  Come up with a plan for prospecting and remember
• 27:43
  prospecting is where you ask yourself some serious questions
• 27:46
  or you sit down with your business partner or you sit down
• 27:48
  with your wife or with your boyfriend or whoever and you ask
• 27:52
  yourself some questions who might be interested in this
• 27:55
  product or service. At this stage, don't be picky.
• 27:58
  Write everybody down you think might be interested.
• 28:02
  It is when you have written it, you can now look and say Oh no,
• 28:05
  this one doesn't make sense. Delete by the beginning.
• 28:07
  Don't be picky, write everything.
• 28:09
  The next step will now be all these people have written, where
• 28:12
  do they hang out? Where do they hang out in the
• 28:16
  real world? Where do they hang out online?
• 28:20
  Then you now have to ask yourself, how am I going to
• 28:22
  initiate conversations with these people to start the buying
• 28:25
  relationship? So this is the start of the
• 28:28
  process. You sit down, pencil and paper
• 28:31
  or get your phone or you're a laptop person, sit down with
• 28:34
  your laptop, open a Word document and then start typing
• 28:37
  out this thing. This planning is absolutely
• 28:41
  essential, absolutely essential. For those of you who listened to
• 28:45
  yesterday's podcast where I spoke about the importance of
• 28:47
  having frameworks to reduce the amount of stress you're going
• 28:52
  through in your business. You can see that if you front
• 28:54
  load all these thinking and you plan properly and on Monday you
• 29:00
  already have a sense of this is what I'm going to see.
• 29:02
  I'm going to Access Bank. And then from there I will enter
• 29:05
  Zenith Bank to see how I can do. I can start selling my
• 29:10
  industrial cleaning services. You can see that some emotional
• 29:13
  stress is taking off because Monday morning you already
• 29:17
  decided two or three days before or one week before what it was
• 29:21
  that what it was that you're going to do.
• 29:23
  So please, all these planning, planning stages when it comes to
• 29:27
  sales, when it comes to marketing, they are very, very,
• 29:31
  very important. Don't wake up and be
• 29:33
  freestanding in your business. All right, So that's just the
• 29:37
  major thing that I wanted to pass across.
• 29:40
  So that's all for today, folks. Remember, if you have any sales
• 29:43
  and marketing questions, you can call, you can SMS, or you can
• 29:46
  WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thank you very much for your
• 29:52
  time and attention. I'll catch you at the next
• 29:54
  episode.