Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / How one student built a real business during his service year

Transcript

How one student built a real business during his service year · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to the show. Today's episode is going to be a
• 0:04
  noisy one because I'm making the recording at home.
• 0:06
  It's a weekend and everybody's home.
• 0:09
  Now. Today we're not discussing any
• 0:11
  particular topic per SE, but rather I'm sharing a message
• 0:14
  that I got from a listener of the podcast.
• 0:16
  He sent it to me yesterday evening, but I didn't get to see
• 0:20
  it until this morning and it made my day.
• 0:23
  So I figured, let me just share it over here and then as usual,
• 0:27
  I'll run commentary on a couple of things and hopefully there'll
• 0:30
  be a couple of things that we can learn from a sales and
• 0:32
  business development perspective.
• 0:34
  That's for the rest of you who are listening to the podcast
• 0:38
  right now. So there's a message from OK,
• 0:42
  let me call him Ogon Dimeji. And that's because I haven't
• 0:46
  gotten permission to use his real name.
• 0:49
  And by the way, Ogon Dimeji is not a real name because the way
• 0:53
  was explained to me, Ogon Dimeji means Ogon is to and Ogon is the
• 0:58
  God of Thunder. And and there was one of my
• 1:01
  flatmates when I was in apart from my Wallowa University, I
• 1:04
  was in Awo hall. I think I was block 7, room 2O2.
• 1:09
  So if you're listening to this and you're currently in Awo and
• 1:12
  you're in block seven, Yeah, that's, that was my block.
• 1:15
  I was on the same block as you, so room 2O2.
• 1:17
  So there's one of my guys then Demeji.
• 1:21
  And I can't remember another person's name, Ogo.
• 1:23
  And you know, some Yoruba people, they do this thing where
• 1:26
  if you are named after a local deity, you try and change the
• 1:29
  name to Olua, you try and change to God.
• 1:32
  So because I was trying to tease both of them, because they did
• 1:35
  that whole Christian thing, I started calling Demeji, Ogun
• 1:38
  Demeji. And Ogun would always correct me
• 1:40
  that look, Ogun cannot be Demeji because Ogun is 1 anyway.
• 1:45
  So that's where the name came from.
• 1:47
  So this was called him Ogun Demeji.
• 1:49
  So the message from Ogun Demeji. So Ogun Demeji says good evening
• 1:53
  Sir, I trust you're doing fine. This is Ogun Dimeji, the CV guy.
• 1:58
  And of course, I remembered him because when he started
• 2:00
  listening to the podcast, he reached out to me.
• 2:03
  He was doing ACV business, I think then he was doing his NYSE
• 2:08
  and he was in the business of writing a curriculum, VTS for
• 2:11
  people. And sometimes it expanded into
• 2:14
  giving them advice about, I can't remember if it was career
• 2:21
  advice, any advice about how to package your CV, sham, stuff
• 2:24
  like that. So that was the business that he
• 2:27
  was involved in. And when he reached out to me,
• 2:30
  it was concerning how to get more, more clients.
• 2:35
  And at the time, we discussed having to redo his unit
• 2:39
  economics because the thing, the unit economics, you know, at the
• 2:42
  time, you know, makes sense because it was a good price and
• 2:46
  it was an affordable price. In fact, let me not say it was a
• 2:50
  good price from the customer's point of view would have been a
• 2:52
  good price because it was very affordable.
• 2:55
  But then when you factor in the, when you put in the fact that he
• 2:58
  spends hours on people's CVS. And then even at the time he had
• 3:02
  already employed some members of his family to, you know, to, to,
• 3:08
  to work for him. I can't remember who was members
• 3:10
  of his family or some, you know, some associates, I think a
• 3:12
  cousin and some associate or something like that.
• 3:15
  At the end of the day, you know, the price didn't make sense.
• 3:18
  So yes, he agreed that he was going to review his price
• 3:21
  upwards. So I guess that's the first
• 3:23
  lesson that we can learn today. There are a lot of you who have
• 3:26
  come into the market because at the time you came in, you didn't
• 3:29
  know any better or you knew better and you were considering
• 3:32
  a market penetration strategy. Now market penetration just
• 3:37
  means I'm going to come in, nobody knows my name, so I'm
• 3:41
  going to come in very cheap so that I can get a hold in the
• 3:46
  industry. Then after a while I can start
• 3:48
  raising my prices, you know, small, small, small.
• 3:51
  This is a hard strategy to pull off market penetration.
• 3:54
  Because The thing is, when you come in with a market
• 3:56
  penetration strategy and people know you for being cheap, by the
• 3:59
  time you start raising your prices, actually what will
• 4:01
  happen is that people will just fall off as they will fall away
• 4:04
  hard. And the people who are looking
• 4:07
  for cheap stuff different set of people than the kind of people
• 4:12
  who pay for much more pricey, much more expensive stuff.
• 4:15
  So you find that as you're raising your prices, you're not
• 4:18
  really talking to the same kinds of people again anyway.
• 4:21
  So yeah, lesson #1 market penetration strategy, very, very
• 4:25
  hard. It's not something I recommend.
• 4:27
  It's very difficult to get out of.
• 4:31
  And for the big boys and girls who played, they're usually
• 4:33
  talking in terms of scale. So, you know, when people like
• 4:37
  was the strategy that airlines used to do in the past, they
• 4:39
  don't really do that now, you know, forge your prices, blah,
• 4:42
  blah, blah, become the cheapest. The game that was market share,
• 4:45
  have 90% market share. So, you know, in that case now
• 4:48
  if you have 90% market share because you are the cheapest and
• 4:52
  you forced everybody out, even if you now increase your ticket
• 4:54
  price by $1.00 or $10 or whatever, you know, because of
• 5:00
  what's this thing called something of scale, I can't
• 5:04
  remember anyway. But The thing is, what's the
• 5:07
  thing called against of anyway, you get the point.
• 5:11
  If you're able to do this market penetration, I think you corner
• 5:13
  90% of the market. So you're the undisputed king.
• 5:16
  Even if you now raise your price small, you know, $5 for one
• 5:20
  person, $1010.00 one person, you take that $5 or $10 and then
• 5:24
  multiply it by, you know, the millions and millions and
• 5:27
  millions of people that are your clients, then it will make
• 5:29
  sense. So this whole thing of market
• 5:31
  penetration strategy, yes, it makes sense when people are
• 5:34
  coming in and they're playing with economies of scale.
• 5:37
  Yes, that's what it's called. So you can go and do some
• 5:39
  research on that. So it only makes sense when
• 5:42
  people come in and they want to do economies of scale.
• 5:44
  But you as a wedding photographer or you're writing
• 5:47
  CVS for people or, you know, you sell solar panels or something,
• 5:51
  you want to come in and start playing these games, you know,
• 5:53
  you know, go ahead. Which I like the fact that he
• 5:56
  realized that he was going to have to raise his prices.
• 5:59
  So yeah, that's lesson #1 So you listening to the podcast, please
• 6:02
  realize if you came in, you didn't know any better.
• 6:05
  Turns out you're very cheap people.
• 6:06
  They rush you right now because you're cheap.
• 6:08
  Please know that you have to raise your prices.
• 6:10
  You have to stay in business. We're in a position of when the
• 6:13
  situation of hyper, hyperinflation, the cost of
• 6:17
  materials, the cost of Labor, the cost of living gets higher
• 6:20
  and higher and higher. So we do have to raise our
• 6:22
  prices. It's an economic necessity.
• 6:27
  So yeah, yeah, that's it, at least on that part.
• 6:32
  CV business. Oh, and yes, by the way, for
• 6:35
  those who are currently serving, can you see that there are lots
• 6:37
  of businesses that people can you can't be doing just to put
• 6:40
  body and soul together. So I know that for those of you
• 6:43
  in NYC, that 75 K that they're giving you is not anything to
• 6:47
  write home about, but there are ways that people can put, you
• 6:50
  know, one or two things together.
• 6:52
  So Ogundi Meji was doing CV, you know, people want to apply to
• 6:57
  Shell, they want to apply to Chevron, they want to apply
• 6:59
  wherever they call Ugundi Meji. And then he packages their CV
• 7:03
  for them. And I think one of the ways that
• 7:06
  we discussed about acquiring customers at the time was for
• 7:09
  him to do presentations at the, what's it called?
• 7:13
  You know, when coppers meet coppers, I think they're meeting
• 7:17
  this meeting that people do every Thursday.
• 7:19
  I mean every Wednesday. Well, the coppers come together,
• 7:22
  you know, your zonal meeting and all these sorts of things, you
• 7:24
  know, so networking there, making presentations there, then
• 7:27
  that would be a good way for him to get clients.
• 7:29
  So we discussed all these sorts of things.
• 7:33
  Then I think there was also another person who reached out
• 7:36
  at the same time from a different, what was it called?
• 7:43
  I was going to say cantonment, but can't you remember?
• 7:45
  Because it's been a while since I did NYSE, A different batch, a
• 7:48
  different state, a different zone.
• 7:50
  And I think she was in the business of registering
• 7:53
  companies. Yeah, CAC registration.
• 7:56
  And just like Ogun Dimeji, she also was very, you know, if you
• 8:02
  tell her one thing, she'll go quickly and she will apply.
• 8:05
  And she also sent me a message just like Ogun Dimeji did.
• 8:08
  But ours was several months later.
• 8:10
  And she sent it to me after she had achieved 3 or 4 months
• 8:14
  successively of doing at least 100,000 naira in revenue.
• 8:18
  And like I said, that's 75 K that they give those of you who
• 8:21
  are doing NYSE, those of you who are doing your copper, yeah,
• 8:26
  there's nothing to write home about.
• 8:27
  But you can shine your eyes and there are things that you can
• 8:30
  do. So for those of you who studied
• 8:31
  law in your place of posting CSE registration is something you
• 8:35
  can do. Helping people with their CVS is
• 8:38
  something that Ogundimagi was doing.
• 8:41
  So back to his message. So he says this is Ogundimagi
• 8:44
  the CV guy, it's the first time I'm reaching out to you so happy
• 8:48
  new year. Then he moved into saying, OK, I
• 8:52
  won't read the word for word. So next thing would image he
• 8:54
  said that he wanted to thank me for all the things I've been
• 8:56
  doing on the podcast even though he doesn't text me and keep in
• 9:00
  touch from time to time, but that he listens to the podcast.
• 9:04
  He has set it to auto download, so he listens every single time
• 9:07
  he has the chance to do so. Now I'm not being self-serving,
• 9:12
  but actually this is the best way to listen to the podcast
• 9:14
  because I actually spoke to somebody today.
• 9:17
  His name is Lekon. So shout out to Lekon.
• 9:19
  Hopefully Lekon and I are going to start work pretty soon
• 9:23
  because he's in the Arctic space.
• 9:25
  So Lekon says that what he does is whenever he's in trouble,
• 9:27
  then he now runs to the podcast as I had to tell him that
• 9:30
  actually, you know, it's not like that.
• 9:31
  Like it doesn't matter whether it's my own show, I'm sorry,
• 9:35
  excuse me, or it's any other person show.
• 9:37
  The best way to actually use podcasts is to learn by osmosis.
• 9:40
  So you just keep listening regularly so that when there's a
• 9:45
  problem, you now remember that. Oh, OK, there was this
• 9:47
  particular episode. Let me see if I can find it.
• 9:49
  I listened to it last week. I listened to it last month and
• 9:52
  then using that episode then plus fooling around, which are
• 9:55
  GPT and stuff like that. You might even be able to self
• 9:58
  diagnose yourself out of a problem.
• 10:00
  By the way, don't use these tools to diagnose yourself when
• 10:04
  it comes to genuine health issues.
• 10:05
  Because when it comes to genuine health issues, if you try and
• 10:08
  self diagnose and you use the wrong medication, you die.
• 10:13
  But if you're trying to self diagnose in a business
• 10:14
  situation, the worst thing you do is you lose one or two
• 10:17
  customers or you lose money. So it's not exactly the same
• 10:19
  thing. So if it's a genuine medical
• 10:21
  emergency, please as a medical situation, please go to the
• 10:24
  hospital. If it's business, OK, you can
• 10:27
  now try and self diagnose one or two things, especially if it's
• 10:30
  sales. If it is accounting related, I
• 10:32
  beg, do not try and self diagnose anything.
• 10:34
  Go and talk to an accounting professional, I beg, because you
• 10:38
  put yourself in some serious trouble if you if you don't get
• 10:42
  that thing sorted. So I'm glad that Uganda Major
• 10:46
  listens all the time. And that's my advice to you
• 10:49
  guys. It doesn't have to be my own
• 10:50
  podcast. I'm not everybody's cup of tea
• 10:52
  or some of you who'll be like, I don't like this guy, he's not
• 10:54
  serious. Go and listen to somebody else.
• 10:56
  But sure, it's the same thing. Make sure you listen regularly
• 11:00
  as you know, whenever you have the chance to do so, try and
• 11:02
  learn by osmosis. So you're at the gym, be
• 11:05
  learning, you're driving, be learning, you're the boss, be
• 11:09
  learning, you're doing laundry, be learning whatever it is, you
• 11:12
  know, be learning osmosis. That's the best way to go about
• 11:15
  it. So the reason why Ugundi Meji
• 11:19
  was reaching out was because, OK, he's celebrating a milestone
• 11:23
  in his business because his business, SOG Career Solutions
• 11:26
  is 1 year old today. That's at the date of this
• 11:29
  making me making this podcast. So he had started working with
• 11:34
  someone before then, but he adopts the 28th of February as
• 11:39
  the birthday of his business because that was the day that he
• 11:41
  decided on the business name and the logo and stuff like that.
• 11:45
  So his business is now 1 year old.
• 11:47
  So Ugundi Meji, not his real name.
• 11:50
  Remember, congratulations on clocking one year in business as
• 11:56
  my prayer that you're going to clock many, many more.
• 11:58
  And I pray that God is continuing to bless the work of
• 12:01
  your hands. And I know that you'll be
• 12:02
  successful because you're someone who like you're looking
• 12:06
  round, you're trying to learn. And then whenever you learn
• 12:09
  something, you, you, you apply and you apply quickly.
• 12:12
  So that is very, very good. So I know that you will go far.
• 12:16
  Now, I know that Ogundimeji thinks that my podcast is, has
• 12:20
  been important in his business growth journey and his personal
• 12:24
  development journey. But see, the honest truth is
• 12:26
  this Ogundimeji, I come across people like you all the time.
• 12:30
  Now I'm glad that it happens to be my podcast that is a part of
• 12:34
  your business development growth journey and your personal growth
• 12:38
  story. But honestly speaking, because
• 12:41
  people like you are looking for what you can learn and you
• 12:43
  apply. The thing is, you would have
• 12:45
  been fine whether you found my podcast or not.
• 12:47
  Whoever it is that you found would have been instrumental.
• 12:50
  You would, you would think the person would have been
• 12:52
  instrumental to you, to your growth, but actually the reason
• 12:56
  why you're growing, my brother is all you is because you're not
• 13:00
  just listening. You're listening and you're
• 13:01
  doing, you're researching and you're doing and you are pushing
• 13:04
  it. In fact, as I continue to read
• 13:06
  the message, it was a very long message, you'll see that
• 13:09
  actually he's he's a doer. He's not just somebody that just
• 13:11
  listens for listening sake. So Gondi Meji, I'm glad all the
• 13:15
  nice things you said, but honestly speaking, your growth
• 13:19
  that you've achieved in the last one year and that you will
• 13:21
  achieve in the years to come, it's all you, my brother, it's
• 13:24
  all you. So even if I kill this podcast
• 13:27
  today, I kill it right now. You never listen to another
• 13:29
  episode. It doesn't matter.
• 13:31
  You will you, you will do very, very, very fine.
• 13:34
  Very, very fine. So don't get me wrong, I still
• 13:36
  want to be a part of your journey going forward.
• 13:39
  If our Gundy Major says that when his finances improve, he
• 13:42
  wants to do paid consulting sessions, yeah, I look forward
• 13:45
  to that time. But honestly speaking, just know
• 13:47
  that it's all you. It's all you.
• 13:49
  The growth you're experiencing now, it's all you.
• 13:51
  It's not me. It actually it's you.
• 13:56
  So, yeah, he says that my podcast has made the difference
• 13:59
  to him. Then he said that people have
• 14:02
  started getting impressed when he when he talks to them, when
• 14:08
  he's talking about business in general, and then also when he's
• 14:10
  dealing with his clients. And he says it's because the
• 14:13
  fact that he listens to me regularly.
• 14:15
  Thank you very much, Gundy Meji, for saying that.
• 14:17
  And I must admit, it's one of the goals that I had for
• 14:19
  starting this podcast because lots of business people in
• 14:23
  Nigeria have very little or no sophistication and, and no
• 14:28
  business argument. And that is bad.
• 14:32
  We actually should try and get a sense of sophistication around
• 14:35
  ourselves. We actually need business
• 14:36
  argument so that when you're talking to somebody, they will
• 14:38
  know that I'm talking to a human being.
• 14:40
  I'm talking to a somebody. Because the thing really pains
• 14:42
  me when people look down on people, you know, because they
• 14:46
  have more money or something like that.
• 14:47
  The thing effects is my spirit. Remember, reminds you of the
• 14:50
  time when I had this gig and I was working with one guy and
• 14:56
  then let me say his name, let me just call him Chukudi.
• 14:59
  So I was working with Chukudi and I told Chukudi that, look,
• 15:02
  when you get there, you know, call the guy 'cause he was a
• 15:05
  military guy. I told him when you get there,
• 15:07
  you know, call the guy that you're at the gate, explain to
• 15:10
  the guards. And then, you know, just like
• 15:11
  walking, like walking, you have to, I'll.
• 15:16
  I put it, I can't remember what I told him, but we have to start
• 15:19
  behaving as if like we belong. You understand, we're human
• 15:24
  beings too. Yes, these people have more
• 15:26
  money than us, but that doesn't mean they can look down on us.
• 15:28
  You behave as if you belong here.
• 15:30
  You show up, you greet the security guards, you know.
• 15:32
  Good morning, gentlemen. I'm here for Major.
• 15:34
  So, so, so, and so. And then you call Major from the
• 15:36
  gate. They open the door, they let you
• 15:37
  in, and then you walk in. We have a job to do.
• 15:39
  Do your job. Then when I finish, I'll come
• 15:42
  and join you. We'll finish.
• 15:43
  We wrap up, we get paid and then that's it.
• 15:45
  And then of course, later on he was telling me about how, you
• 15:47
  know, they didn't want to let him in.
• 15:49
  They were doing this thing. They were doing this thing.
• 15:50
  And at the time now look Chukwudi, like we can't continue
• 15:54
  to like we, we, we can't do this.
• 15:56
  We can't. So in our business journey, you
• 16:03
  know, I beg, we suppose clean up to shop, clean yourself.
• 16:09
  Now one or two things become more sophisticated, get a sense
• 16:11
  of business argument, become confident in who you are when
• 16:14
  you enter the space, you know, don't enter as if you're a
• 16:17
  houseboy. You understand people should see
• 16:20
  you. And as you know that, yeah, I'm
• 16:21
  talking to a professional, whether you're ICV or whether
• 16:24
  it's photo and video that you're doing, no matter what it is,
• 16:27
  people suppose, I suppose respect you, suppose for you.
• 16:32
  So yeah, it's part of the reason why I do the podcast.
• 16:34
  And there's also part of the reason why a lot of the examples
• 16:37
  I used to use in the beginning of the podcast were simple,
• 16:39
  simple stuff, you know, selling catfish, what else, you know,
• 16:43
  selling catfish, wedding photography, you know, things
• 16:45
  like that, you know, simple, simple stuff.
• 16:47
  Because I want, you know, for those for people who are like
• 16:51
  leg on who reached out, he's in the Arctic space at that level,
• 16:54
  they're already playing at the level of, you know, collecting
• 16:57
  dollars, dollars, dollars, you know, 3000 dollars, 5000
• 17:00
  dollars, $6000. So those ones you know already,
• 17:03
  you know, they're, I don't you understand, They've been around,
• 17:06
  they've seen a couple of things. So it's easier for people like
• 17:10
  that to feel as if they belong. So one of the reasons why I was
• 17:13
  using simple, simple like examples is because whether
• 17:19
  you're doing something small, CSE registration, you're writing
• 17:21
  CV, you're doing social media management, you're selling
• 17:24
  catfish, you know, whatever, still still you belong there.
• 17:33
  You belong there. So yeah, anyway, so I'm glad
• 17:39
  that podcast has made a difference.
• 17:44
  Then apart from how people see him, he also says that some of
• 17:47
  the things that he has learned are OK, like how to be
• 17:50
  professional with customers. OK, good, good, good.
• 17:52
  Yes. Because honestly, it's one thing
• 17:54
  that kills Nigerian businesses. We have, we have this one kind
• 17:57
  attitude, like if they're interested, they will buy.
• 17:59
  And we don't have a sense of professional ethics and things
• 18:01
  like that. And so, so excuse me, I'm
• 18:05
  recovering from a cold. So it's one way that lots of
• 18:07
  businesses set themselves apart. So I'm a former lawyer now a
• 18:13
  business consultant. But while I was dabbling in
• 18:15
  other things, I just realized that, man, it makes a small
• 18:17
  difference. You believe I went to one place
• 18:20
  and the way somebody does this was for photography and video.
• 18:24
  So someone said, oh, here, come and meet Mr. So, so, so and so.
• 18:28
  And the person said, this guy is never late.
• 18:30
  There's always one time. And person was like, eh, oh,
• 18:32
  really? In my mind, I'm thinking,
• 18:34
  interesting. So Nigeria has gotten to the
• 18:38
  level where if all you do is you show up on time, all things
• 18:43
  being equal, all you do is you show up on time, then people
• 18:47
  look at you differently, people treat you differently.
• 18:50
  It's a reason for somebody to collect your phone number just
• 18:53
  because you show up on time. Nigerians have been bad at being
• 18:58
  professional for such a long time that seriously, some of the
• 19:01
  small, small professional courtesy that we do, some of
• 19:04
  those small, small things just set us apart.
• 19:06
  So please, let's be professional in all our dealings.
• 19:09
  So I'm glad that Ogundimeji has learned about being professional
• 19:13
  then, OK. Having ACRM has helped him to
• 19:18
  really grow in the business. Yes, that's also a problem that
• 19:20
  Nigerian businesses have. Everybody's running their
• 19:23
  business. From memory, you don't have CRM,
• 19:26
  you don't have a place, you don't have a book, you don't
• 19:28
  have an app, you don't have a website, you don't have a
• 19:32
  whatever. Something that's going to keep
• 19:34
  you in track. Who are the potential customers
• 19:37
  that I'm talking to right now? Who am I supposed to call
• 19:39
  tomorrow? The people that I called last
• 19:40
  week. When am I supposed to call them
• 19:42
  again? When I call them, what are the
• 19:44
  things that we're supposed to discuss for the matters that are
• 19:46
  still open and pending? What am I supposed to do to try
• 19:50
  and move the deal forward for the people that I'm negotiating
• 19:52
  with? Where did we stop?
• 19:53
  When is the next meeting? We don't have anything for
• 19:56
  tracking all these things. That's because that people are
• 19:59
  losing money. People are losing serious money,
• 20:02
  serious money. You have a good meeting with
• 20:04
  Miss Ogdenbe on February 14th. Miss Ogdenbe says no problem,
• 20:09
  I'm travelling to the village, call me back February 28th.
• 20:12
  You say no problem, Ma, but then you don't write it down, you
• 20:14
  don't set a reminder. It's not living anywhere on your
• 20:17
  phone, it's not living anywhere in the cloud, it's not living
• 20:20
  anywhere in the diary. So there's nothing to remind
• 20:22
  you. And then you wake up and then
• 20:24
  the 7th of March and like, yeah, I didn't call Miss Ogdenge.
• 20:27
  By the time you call her, she says, oh, sorry my dear, that my
• 20:29
  son brought another architect or somebody in my office said do do
• 20:34
  this, do this or somebody decided to do it for me for free
• 20:37
  or something. And that's how people are losing
• 20:38
  money. We all need to have ACRM
• 20:42
  customer relationship management tool.
• 20:44
  I've made lots of episodes about that.
• 20:45
  So I'm not going to stress it today.
• 20:49
  So yeah, he's been getting lots of compliments and he said it's
• 20:51
  because of stuff he's learned from the podcast.
• 20:53
  And I'm glad to hear that. So he has finally registered his
• 20:56
  business with CAC in January this year, 2026, and he's going
• 21:01
  to take it very seriously going forward.
• 21:04
  Now, this is also another thing I want to on to how I put it
• 21:11
  now. OK, there's something I've been
• 21:15
  saying and I think maybe some people understand it out of
• 21:18
  context. I've always been talking about
• 21:20
  how when you want to get into business, first of all you
• 21:23
  validate the business idea. You make sure that there is
• 21:25
  demand for the idea. You make sure that people are
• 21:28
  willing to pay the price. That makes it OK for you to stay
• 21:32
  in business. And then you also make sure that
• 21:34
  you're able to sell this idea that you create a selling system
• 21:37
  first. Now, what I've always
• 21:39
  recommended that is after you do all this, that you go ahead and
• 21:42
  you set up the company. Because typically what we do in
• 21:44
  Nigeria is we have an idea, we think the idea is wonderful.
• 21:48
  Then we'll go to CSE, we register, then we'll pay for
• 21:50
  logo, we pay for brand design, we pay for website, we'll pay,
• 21:53
  we'll pay for everything. Then after doing all that, we
• 21:56
  now realize that this idea is not going to work or I don't
• 22:01
  even like this kind of business anyway.
• 22:02
  And then we've wasted time and we've wasted money.
• 22:06
  So the approach that he did actually is what I recommend.
• 22:09
  So I'm not saying that you should evade taxes and I'm not
• 22:12
  saying don't register your CSE business, your business in CAC.
• 22:15
  What I'm just saying is take some time to validate this thing
• 22:17
  first and be sure that it can actually work.
• 22:19
  So you see, he started this thing while he was doing his
• 22:22
  service here. He used service here to be sure
• 22:25
  that this thing can work. Now that he knows this thing can
• 22:27
  work, now that he has raised his prices, now that he knows people
• 22:31
  are willing to pay him enough for this thing to make sense.
• 22:33
  Now he has registered with CAC, now he has registered with
• 22:36
  Inland Revenue, then February, March or whenever it is that his
• 22:40
  taxes are supposed to kick in, he will now start paying taxes
• 22:42
  and everything. So I'm not saying don't register
• 22:45
  your businesses and I'm not saying don't pay your taxes.
• 22:47
  I'm just saying validate the business idea before you begin
• 22:51
  to avoid situations where you start a business and then you're
• 22:54
  like, I don't even like this thing anyway.
• 22:58
  Also, because when you go ahead and you register with CAC and
• 23:00
  you do all the everything, OK, I don't know about the new tax
• 23:04
  code, but before you know, your tax liabilities start running,
• 23:07
  except if you can argue for is it parallel status or something
• 23:10
  like that? I can't remember.
• 23:13
  So validate your idea first before you begin, which is
• 23:16
  exactly what he's doing. So now that he has registered
• 23:18
  with CAC, he knows that this is a business, like I'm making
• 23:21
  money. So he's continuing.
• 23:23
  And like he said, I intend to take it very seriously going
• 23:26
  forward. I'm quoting him.
• 23:29
  It's because in the past he has seen that this thing can work.
• 23:32
  Now he's going to take you forward.
• 23:35
  So he has moved to Acura on those states.
• 23:37
  He used to be based in pH in Port Acord.
• 23:40
  He's chasing a masters in construction management in FUTA.
• 23:45
  That's a federal university of ABI.
• 23:48
  Is it Federal University or I can't remember what FUTA stands
• 23:52
  for Anyway, Acura, Asha, I could anyway, but they have some very,
• 23:57
  very like that's the school for, you know, book people like very,
• 24:00
  very intelligent people, very smart people.
• 24:02
  So congratulations on getting into the program.
• 24:06
  As somebody who went to OAUI will not admit that future
• 24:09
  people are very smart, but let me just leave it like that.
• 24:12
  So he wants to practice in the construction industry, but he
• 24:15
  believes that the things that he's learning now are going to
• 24:18
  be important when the time comes for him to switch.
• 24:21
  Good. See, it's also something I've
• 24:24
  been talking about, the benefit of inter interdisciplinary
• 24:28
  pursuits. Like you studied one thing but
• 24:30
  you're doing something else. All these things blend.
• 24:33
  So all these things he's talking about now from the CV business,
• 24:36
  learning how to make presentations, learning how to
• 24:39
  make proposals, chasing people using the CRM, what else?
• 24:48
  All the things that we've spoken about, when he gets his master's
• 24:51
  in construction and he decides to kill the CV business and go
• 24:54
  all in on the instructional thing, do you really think that
• 24:56
  all these things that he has learned will be a waste?
• 24:58
  It won't be a waste and in fact, it will make him even start up
• 25:01
  the construction business on a higher level because he's coming
• 25:06
  in with some learnable skills. He's coming in with some
• 25:09
  advantages in terms of human capital.
• 25:10
  You know, the guy go down, mature, become more robust
• 25:14
  because he has learned some things from the CV business and
• 25:19
  those practices are going to carry over when he moves into
• 25:21
  the construction business. So for those of you who you
• 25:24
  know, you studied law, but now you're doing fashion design or
• 25:26
  something, don't worry. There's a way that these things
• 25:29
  work themselves out. Right now you're just trying to,
• 25:32
  you know, you're just trying to get by, you're just trying to
• 25:35
  pay some bills. You don't want to be idle, You
• 25:37
  know, whatever it is, don't worry, just just be continuing.
• 25:42
  These things work themselves out.
• 25:45
  So the fact that you're doing the fashion thing now is not
• 25:47
  going to stop you from being senior advocate of Nigeria
• 25:50
  tomorrow. You won't.
• 25:52
  Or like one of our seniors, I can't remember the guy's name,
• 25:56
  is it Baba lacking? Is it Baba lacking?
• 25:58
  I can't remember if he's Baba lacking anyway.
• 26:00
  But as one of our seniors where who always wanted to be in
• 26:02
  construction, but he grew up in a family of senior senior
• 26:06
  advocates and they say he must study law.
• 26:08
  No problem. He went ahead and he studied
• 26:10
  law. He also became a senior
• 26:11
  advocate. But then later on, he moved on
• 26:13
  to now do construction and his construction firm was
• 26:16
  responsible for the contracts that they got for MMM 2IN Lagos.
• 26:22
  MMM 2, I can't remember if they worked on MMM one and then I
• 26:25
  think the Federal Secretariat here in Abuja.
• 26:28
  So is this Stablione? I can't even remember Stablione
• 26:32
  something, something I think was anyway.
• 26:34
  But if you go and check it, you'll see that the company that
• 26:37
  handled those constructions, the new Federal Secretariat in Abuja
• 26:41
  and then MMM, 2 Muttalah Muhammad Wing in Lagos, the
• 26:46
  airport, you'll see that it was a firm that the, the head of the
• 26:51
  construction firm was somebody who actually was the senior
• 26:54
  advocate of Nigeria. So I don't know how true this
• 26:57
  just is. But you know how like when
• 26:58
  you're in law school now, you be hearing just about your seniors.
• 27:00
  So that's the gist that we used to hear that he actually was a
• 27:03
  construction nut, but the family say called construction what you
• 27:06
  must study law. He said, yes, Sir, he studied
• 27:08
  law. But of course, when you study
• 27:10
  law and you're good enough in law to become a senior advocate
• 27:13
  of Nigeria, you're learning a couple of things that will come
• 27:16
  in handy. So that on the day when you say,
• 27:17
  Oh, yeah, I'm done, let me enter this construction, you went on a
• 27:21
  different level. So yeah.
• 27:25
  Ogundi Meji. Yeah, my prayers are with you.
• 27:27
  So, yeah, keep on, keep on, keep on.
• 27:30
  So let's see. OK, then his focus is that he
• 27:36
  wants to build a team that will work with him in the second year
• 27:39
  of building the business. OK, good.
• 27:40
  Now now comes to the matter of scaling, scaling and business
• 27:44
  growth. Now, when it comes to growing
• 27:46
  your business or scaling your business, you can't scale it so
• 27:48
  long as it's just you. Because when it's you, you're
• 27:51
  limited by your time, you're limited by your effort, you're
• 27:54
  limited by your skill sets. So serious growth only comes
• 27:57
  when you now bring in somebody else.
• 28:00
  When you hire a sales team or when you hire, you bring in
• 28:03
  business partners to complement your skill sets.
• 28:05
  You know, when you bring in other people, bring in other
• 28:07
  systems, bring in other technologies, then you can start
• 28:11
  growing beyond you. So yeah, good image.
• 28:13
  You're on the right track that you're thinking that by year 2,
• 28:16
  you suppose start bringing other people in.
• 28:19
  So that's good. So he said he would like to go
• 28:24
  for pay coaching options and that's good.
• 28:25
  Whenever you're ready, we'll have that concession.
• 28:29
  By the way, that's why I give my phone number out very freely.
• 28:32
  So if you want to reach out just like Ugundi Meji did, then you
• 28:36
  can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on
• 28:39
  08064662140. I'm OK with three advice.
• 28:44
  Just let me know that that's what you're looking for in the
• 28:46
  very first call, and I'll answer one question.
• 28:49
  But if we need a deep dive, then we have to set aside some time
• 28:52
  so we can have explore paid consulting options so we can go
• 28:56
  in depth. So of course, whenever he's
• 28:58
  ready, I know he'll reach out again.
• 29:00
  But The thing is, even if he doesn't reach out because he
• 29:02
  applies, I know that he's going to do very, very well.
• 29:06
  Then he says that it's a challenge combining work with
• 29:08
  his academics. And it is true.
• 29:11
  It is very, very true. It's something I've said on the
• 29:13
  podcast, those of you who reach out to me, level 2, somebody,
• 29:18
  this lady from can't remember her name, I think she's level 2,
• 29:22
  level 200 Uni Ben, I think studying law and all that.
• 29:26
  I know it's, it's, it's hard, but you're going to be better
• 29:29
  off for it. At the end of the day, the thing
• 29:31
  you just do is you know that you can't fool around like the rest
• 29:34
  of your colleagues. So like for me, I didn't have a
• 29:36
  business when I was in school. So it was very, very simple for
• 29:39
  me. After classes, I go and eat.
• 29:41
  After eat, I enter gym, after gym I bath.
• 29:44
  And then I enter female host up. It's time to enjoy my it's time
• 29:47
  to enjoy my life. So for those of you who in this
• 29:50
  situation, you might not have these liberties, you know, so it
• 29:54
  is maybe you bath, you eat, you go to library.
• 29:56
  OK, no, no library. Maybe you bath, you eat, then
• 29:59
  you do your business and then you know, maybe you now do
• 30:03
  library like from 10:00 at night to maybe like midnight, you
• 30:05
  know, before you sleep. But anyhow, sure, you have to be
• 30:08
  disciplined and you can't make it work.
• 30:12
  So when people are playing, don't follow them and be playing
• 30:14
  or your own life is different. You're trying to do academics,
• 30:16
  you're trying to graduate first class, you're also trying to run
• 30:18
  the business you earn. It's hard.
• 30:20
  And then of course, you know, when you're in uni, you know,
• 30:24
  I'll like put it as a young man, you can't be in uni and let me
• 30:29
  not say too much. I don't anybody should accuse me
• 30:31
  of being a homogeneous. You can't be in uni and say you
• 30:35
  won't be looking for your missing rib.
• 30:37
  You understand. So it's all part of the package.
• 30:40
  So study, do your business. But then missing rib day, you
• 30:43
  know, you have to be looking for who you're going to settle down
• 30:45
  with at the end of the day. Then of course, vice versa too.
• 30:50
  So you know, women as well, you know, keep your eyes open.
• 30:53
  Although statistically speaking, if you're in uni as a woman and
• 30:58
  you are dating somebody in uni, the first time my teacher told
• 31:01
  me this vex, I was angry, but I saw that the guy is telling the
• 31:05
  truth. Statistically speaking, as a
• 31:08
  woman, anybody that is toasting in uni, chances are that that's
• 31:12
  your husband. Anyway, let me stop here.
• 31:15
  Let me not say something or put me in trouble.
• 31:17
  So let's see, OK? Then he gave me permission to
• 31:22
  show this message to my wife and to my mom because I keep telling
• 31:25
  you guys on the podcast that, you know, my wife and my mom,
• 31:28
  you know, see, finish. You know, when I say something,
• 31:31
  they look, they just do me, IMO. They look at me because, you
• 31:33
  know, it's me because, you know, both of them, they see me naked.
• 31:37
  So as far as they're concerned, I'm just a normal human being.
• 31:40
  So whenever people send me messages like this, I was
• 31:42
  stressing that, look, people read to me.
• 31:44
  Oh, I will show you. I will show you these messages
• 31:46
  anyway. So he gave me permission.
• 31:48
  So yeah, I'm going to show. I'm going to show my wife.
• 31:50
  Thank you very much for that permission because I treat all
• 31:56
  the communications that I have with you guys.
• 31:57
  I treat it confidential. So yes, I fool around and I fuff
• 32:00
  around, but if you tell me something, it stays private
• 32:03
  between us. I'm not showing anybody, so
• 32:08
  let's see what else. So thank you very much so that I
• 32:11
  can use this message to brag that people rate me very highly.
• 32:14
  Thanks, I really appreciate it. Then he also says he's been
• 32:17
  telling other people about the podcast.
• 32:18
  He mentioned the names of a couple of people who have
• 32:20
  reached out. The guy who I played chess with
• 32:24
  apparently came through him at the time.
• 32:26
  I didn't know then, you know, some some other people like
• 32:29
  that. So thanks for sharing the
• 32:30
  podcast. So if you've been listening to
• 32:32
  the podcast for any length of time, just like Ogun Demeji, the
• 32:36
  only way you can repay me is, you know, honestly speaking,
• 32:41
  whether you pay me for coaching or not, the only way you can,
• 32:44
  one of the ways you can help me greatly is just by sharing the
• 32:47
  podcast with other people so that this thing grows and so it
• 32:49
  reaches other people who need to hear it.
• 32:52
  So for like Lecom who is in the ad tech space, we're going to be
• 32:57
  working together soon. You know, the reason why he has
• 33:00
  discovered the podcast is because people share it, people
• 33:03
  talk about it, the algorithm is perceived that this thing is
• 33:06
  doing well and then the algorithms promote the podcast
• 33:09
  and then that's how people find the show.
• 33:11
  So keep telling people about it. Tell people that look, we have a
• 33:14
  good podcast here in Nigeria. We have good podcast here in
• 33:17
  Nigeria, especially Business Focus Podcast.
• 33:19
  This is one of them. I think you should take a listen
• 33:22
  if you can't send a specific episode, that would be nice.
• 33:25
  I listened to this particular episode about XYZ and I think
• 33:28
  it's going to work well for your business.
• 33:30
  So yeah, have a listen then. That's it pretty much.
• 33:35
  So there's a bunch of other things he said, but you know, he
• 33:41
  prayed for God's blessings on my life.
• 33:42
  Thank you very much. I really need that.
• 33:45
  Then again, regards to my family.
• 33:47
  Happy new month. You know, all that usual jazz
• 33:51
  and and yeah, it was really nice.
• 33:52
  It was really nice. So Ugundi Meji again, not his
• 33:55
  real name. Thank you very much for reaching
• 33:58
  out to me. It was really, really nice to
• 34:00
  wake up in the morning and see this message.
• 34:03
  So I didn't respond because the night before I was trying to
• 34:08
  chill my boys. We were watching, we're watching
• 34:12
  Ultraman. We just decided to use just
• 34:15
  waste the whole day on Netflix. So we watched Ultraman.
• 34:18
  We watched this movie if that's the one where they had some
• 34:23
  monsters in it. Then we also watched what again,
• 34:26
  Sharp, We just declared that, you know, yesterday was Netflix
• 34:29
  day, assuming it was born with my boys.
• 34:31
  So that's the reason why I didn't see the message.
• 34:33
  But it was really nice waking up and seeing this kind of message.
• 34:37
  So thank you very much for sending me the message.
• 34:40
  For those of you who are getting value from the podcast, you
• 34:43
  know, whether it is that I know you or not, I truly appreciate
• 34:46
  you. And people who reach out like
• 34:47
  Ugudi Meji just to say thank you or just to say this is valuable
• 34:52
  or just to say keep up the good work, you guys.
• 34:55
  You know, the kind of buzz that you create when you do that.
• 34:57
  I really appreciate it. You guys are very, very all, I
• 35:02
  put it very nice and very decent human beings.
• 35:05
  People are very, very decent human beings because sometimes
• 35:09
  it's easy to get jaded because after doing this podcast for a
• 35:12
  while, I just realized that whenever anybody reaches out to
• 35:14
  me, it's because they want something.
• 35:17
  They think I can give them money.
• 35:18
  They think I can give them connections.
• 35:20
  They think I can give them influence.
• 35:21
  They think I can, you know, move their own whatever forward.
• 35:24
  So, you know, after a while, it's easy to be jaded.
• 35:27
  So it really is a nice thing when I wake up and then people
• 35:29
  like go go on the image in my inbox.
• 35:31
  And then they say all these nice things and, you know, they don't
• 35:34
  want anything. They just want to say God bless
• 35:36
  you, it means a lot. So thank you very much.
• 35:40
  It's been 35 minutes. Let me bring it to a close if
• 35:42
  you want to connect with me just like Ogun Dimeji did again, not
• 35:46
  his real name Carl. Send me a text message or a
• 35:49
  WhatsApp message on 08064662140. So thank you very much for your
• 35:56
  time and attention. I will catch you all some other
• 35:59
  time.