Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Startups 101: It's Not Just Tech & Hype, It's About Solid Business Practices

Transcript

Startups 101: It's Not Just Tech & Hype, It's About Solid Business Practices · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to the show. Yesterday I mentioned an event
• 0:07
  which held recently. It's called From start up to
• 0:09
  Scale up navigating growth for start-ups in Nigeria and was
• 0:14
  part of the Huawei start up summit for 2024.
• 0:18
  Now I mentioned that I didn't speak at the event, although I
• 0:22
  would love to speak at these kinds of event.
• 0:24
  So if you work at Huawei, hope I'm pronouncing the name right.
• 0:28
  HUAWEIA Mobile Telephony Company.
• 0:32
  Well, tech company, because they also do routers and stuff like
• 0:38
  that. So yeah, so if I was asked to
• 0:40
  speak at these kinds of events I would be honoured.
• 0:44
  So even though I wasn't a member of the panel, this is the topic
• 0:49
  that I have some strong ideas on or at least I have some
• 0:53
  perspectives on and I think my own perspectives are unique or
• 0:56
  kind of different. And 1st off, what I think is
• 1:02
  that whether you are a start start up or a scale up, you
• 1:06
  don't have any unique challenges that cannot be overcome by good
• 1:09
  business development and sales principles or practice.
• 1:12
  Now the reason why I hold this opinion is because somehow
• 1:15
  people in the scale up space or in the start up space are
• 1:18
  looking for other avenues for business growth or tools for
• 1:23
  business growth. They're looking for some magical
• 1:25
  something that is going to come and cure the business problems.
• 1:30
  And for some reason it's like people in that ecosystem assume
• 1:33
  that they are immune to the normal business dynamics that
• 1:36
  the rest of us face. So it's like if you have a
• 1:40
  consulting practice, then you build your business through one
• 1:45
  set of means. If you sell bread or rice or
• 1:49
  other kind of kinds of commodities, then you grow your
• 1:53
  businesses through you know another kinds of means.
• 1:55
  But then if you're a start up or a scale up, then the business
• 1:58
  dynamic is totally different and then sales and business
• 2:01
  development principles do not apply.
• 2:03
  And I think that that cannot be farther from from the truth.
• 2:08
  Now The thing is, all these principles, sales principles,
• 2:11
  business development, principles and practices are universal and
• 2:14
  applied to all people, all times, all cultures, all
• 2:18
  industries. The thing is just that different
• 2:21
  things are applied in different ratios or in different
• 2:26
  strengths. You know, according to the
• 2:28
  context and according to whether you are a in a simple sales
• 2:33
  scenario or a complex sales scenario, that is something that
• 2:36
  I've dealt with in a pre in podcast previously.
• 2:42
  OK, OK, no. Well, yes, I've dealt with it on
• 2:44
  the podcast, but I'm actually got confused because I made that
• 2:47
  as part of my own recording for a course that I have on Sailor
• 2:52
  right now, which is on fundamentals.
• 2:55
  OK. I can't remember the title, but
• 2:57
  it's about fundamental sales fundamentals or the fundamentals
• 3:00
  of selling one introduction to selling something like that.
• 3:02
  Anyway, when the course is done, I'll let you guys know about it
• 3:06
  over here on the podcast and I'm currently at the point where I
• 3:09
  am going into the difference between simple and complex sales
• 3:14
  scenarios. Now because people in the
• 3:16
  startup and in the scale up space, I typically in complex
• 3:19
  sales scenarios where you have to be much more consultative and
• 3:23
  they assume that what they're doing is not sales.
• 3:28
  So you have to think of some fancy thing to grow.
• 3:30
  But in my own opinion, whether you're a start up or you're a
• 3:34
  scale up, there are no unique challenges that you cannot
• 3:37
  overcome by using sales principles or by using business
• 3:41
  development principles or whatever it is that you want to
• 3:43
  call it. Now of course, what is a start
• 3:47
  up anyway? Something that I've referred to
• 3:49
  over here on the podcast, you know, that depends.
• 3:52
  There are some people who say who use the older definition,
• 3:54
  they say that a start up is any early stage business.
• 3:56
  So if you look at it that way, the person who is starting his
• 4:00
  wedding photography business or archaic business, or his
• 4:04
  tailoring business or his company security business or
• 4:08
  whatever, you can call that a start up because they are an
• 4:11
  early stage business. But then there's a much more
• 4:14
  fancier or sexier definition of start-ups that is has lots of
• 4:22
  ideas around tech. So in the much more fancy or
• 4:26
  sexy definition of start-ups, you're not going to call
• 4:29
  yourself a start up unless you're doing something that has
• 4:33
  tech or digital enablement. Or in other words, you know you
• 4:36
  have a tech component that makes the whole business work.
• 4:39
  So if you're a wedding photographer, a regular wedding
• 4:41
  photographer, you know you go out, you shoot, you know blah
• 4:43
  blah blah, then they won't call you a start up.
• 4:45
  But then if you have some fancy tech component or aspect of the
• 4:51
  wedding photography business that requires you to raise a
• 4:57
  huge bunch of finance, grow insane valuations and then IPO
• 5:02
  later on, that is where you put your business on the stock
• 5:06
  market so that other people can buy shares in your business.
• 5:08
  So if you're able to achieve that, then people will call you
• 5:11
  a startup. So those are the two different
• 5:14
  consumptions of startup #1. Any early stage business and
• 5:18
  that will cater to most people. You, me, your uncle, your mum,
• 5:22
  your dad. Then option 2 will be something
• 5:25
  that has a tech component to it or some digital component to it,
• 5:30
  something that requires venture funding or to get some external
• 5:35
  financing. So it's not something that you
• 5:37
  can finance by yourself or with money that you collect from
• 5:39
  Mom's Epopsy. Then you also need to have an
• 5:43
  IPO in view. You want to put it on the
• 5:47
  Nigerian Stock Exchange or the New York Stock Exchange or, you
• 5:50
  know, Kenyan Stock Exchange or whatever country you're in so
• 5:53
  that people can buy a whole bunch of shares in your company.
• 5:56
  And so you can be rich and you're trying to grow really
• 5:59
  huge business valuations. So that's also, those are the
• 6:03
  two different ideas about what a startup is or what a startup
• 6:06
  should be. Now what do you think?
• 6:08
  I'll leave you guys to pick whatever definition that you
• 6:11
  prefer. But whatever definition that you
• 6:14
  prefer, whether it's an early stage business like your mom
• 6:16
  trying to start a catfish thing in her backyard or whether it is
• 6:22
  option 2, which is maybe your younger cousin coming out of
• 6:26
  university right now has this big tech idea about an app.
• 6:30
  They have to raise funding, they meet banks, they meet venture
• 6:33
  capital, they want to grow these things.
• 6:35
  So it's a 50 billion naira company and then they're going
• 6:39
  to sell shares in it in 10 years time.
• 6:42
  So whether you're dealing with these two, they are very simple
• 6:46
  ways that you have to navigate business growth, whether you are
• 6:50
  the early stage catfish business or whether you are the beyond
• 6:55
  guy or girl coming out of university who wants to build
• 6:57
  this 50 billion naira business. So how you should navigate
• 7:02
  business growth, I think the road map is very, very simple.
• 7:05
  Number one, you have to validate the business idea.
• 7:09
  You need to be able to show that there is demand for this product
• 7:11
  or service, that there is interest and that people are
• 7:14
  willing to pay for what it is that you have.
• 7:16
  This is where the tech people, the tech Bros and the tech
• 7:19
  sisters, this is where they talk about product, market and fit.
• 7:22
  It's just a fancy way of saying are people interested this
• 7:27
  product that you have, There's a market over there.
• 7:30
  Is there a marriage between the two?
• 7:32
  If there's no marriage, if there's no demand, if people are
• 7:35
  not signing up, if people are not paying money, then there's
• 7:37
  no point with going ahead. So whether you're a fancy tech
• 7:41
  business or whether you're going to sell Catfish in Mom, C's
• 7:45
  backyard, we all have to go through the stage.
• 7:47
  We need to validate the business idea before we move forward.
• 7:50
  In fact, for those of you fancy tech people, if you don't
• 7:53
  validate the idea, you're not going to get investment because
• 7:57
  people don't want to throw money behind something that is not
• 8:00
  going to work. So there is some sort of
• 8:02
  validating the business idea, showing some demand, showing
• 8:06
  some interest, showing some product market feed, showing
• 8:09
  that there's a marriage, whatever it is that you want to
• 8:11
  call it, there has to be that stage of trying to show that
• 8:14
  this thing can't work before you get more customers or before you
• 8:18
  get investors to throw more money behind it.
• 8:21
  Then the next stage is the prospecting stage where you go
• 8:25
  out and acquire more customers, whether online or offline.
• 8:29
  So if you're going to do this catfish thing at the back of Mom
• 8:33
  Sees backyard and of course that means you're talking about
• 8:36
  offline, as in talking meeting people, real world.
• 8:39
  But then for this fancy app, you know, for your niece or your
• 8:43
  nephew who has come out of uni, maybe it might be an online
• 8:46
  play. But the bottom line is there's
• 8:48
  still that stage of prospecting which is going out and looking
• 8:51
  for more people who might be interested in the product or the
• 8:53
  service and trying to get them on board, you know, to sign up,
• 8:56
  to use it, to pay, to buy to whatever.
• 9:00
  Then ultimately we get to the stage where we need customer
• 9:03
  feedback because that is what is going to help us to determine
• 9:09
  how we change our product to our service, how we change, how we
• 9:13
  improve our service delivery. Then we also need the customer
• 9:16
  success functions. You know are people happy and
• 9:21
  successful with the product? You know, when they use it,
• 9:25
  customer service functions, that's when their problems or
• 9:30
  their hiccups at using the product or the service.
• 9:32
  How do we, how do we deal with those sorts of things?
• 9:35
  Now the reason why customer feedback, customer success and
• 9:38
  customer service and frameworks are important is because that is
• 9:41
  what helps us to get repeat business and referrals.
• 9:44
  Because whether it's a catfish thing or whether it's the fancy
• 9:47
  tech thing, if people don't come back again and again and tell
• 9:51
  their friends, their family members and associates and bring
• 9:53
  other people, then there's a problem.
• 9:55
  So back to the fancy thing, Zuckerberg.
• 9:58
  If lots of people hooked up to Facebook but didn't tell other
• 10:01
  people about Facebook and didn't get other people in their
• 10:05
  networks to be on Facebook, then the whole thing wouldn't have
• 10:07
  taken off. So the reason why these ideas
• 10:10
  take off is because somebody comes today and they love their
• 10:13
  app so much that they sign up. They come back to open the app
• 10:16
  again tomorrow, next tomorrow, the day after, and eventually
• 10:19
  they tell their friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, uncle,
• 10:24
  auntie, mom, colleagues at work, and then all of a sudden
• 10:27
  everybody is on the app. So whether it's Catfish or
• 10:31
  whether it's a fancy super app, the process is the same.
• 10:35
  We need to be worried about customer feedback.
• 10:37
  What are people saying? Are they interacting with this
• 10:40
  whole thing? That would help us to determine
• 10:42
  how it is that we're going to improve the product, improve the
• 10:45
  service. Customer success, is everybody
• 10:47
  happy? Customer service, when there's
• 10:49
  Yahwah, how do we resolve all the problems?
• 10:51
  And the reason why we're doing all this is because we want
• 10:53
  people to come back again to buy our catfish again or to use the
• 10:57
  app again. You know, that's where the tech
• 10:59
  Bros and the tech sisters, as well as where they talk about
• 11:02
  monthly active users or daily active users.
• 11:05
  That's just a fancy way of saying are people coming back
• 11:07
  again and again? How many times did they come
• 11:09
  back in the month? How many times did they come
• 11:11
  back in the day? You know, those sorts of things.
• 11:14
  And then referrals. So how many people buy Mumsy's
• 11:18
  catfish and then tell other people that Mumsy's catfish is
• 11:22
  the bomb? Or how many people use our app,
• 11:25
  love the app, come back again and then tell other people, guy,
• 11:28
  babe, you guys to sign up to this app and yeah, so that's it.
• 11:33
  Those are the business functions that we need is help us to
• 11:37
  improve the product, the range of offerings that we have and
• 11:40
  then the delivery. So whether you are a startup in
• 11:45
  the simple sense selling Catfish or in the fancy sense huge
• 11:50
  business app, online app thing that you want to grow to 50
• 11:55
  billion naira, navigating business growth challenges the
• 12:01
  same. First off, validate the idea,
• 12:04
  are people interested in this thing in the 1st place and
• 12:06
  prospecting, going out and getting more people on board.
• 12:09
  And then we need to be looking at customer feedback, customer
• 12:12
  success, customer service. That's all will determine
• 12:15
  whether people come back, whether they will start talking
• 12:17
  to other people about us and get this idea, whether it's Catfish
• 12:22
  or the business app to grow. So tomorrow we're going to look
• 12:26
  at some popular ideas on the matter and different
• 12:30
  perspectives on tech startups. So we'll just look at what
• 12:33
  popular opinions are on these sorts of things.
• 12:36
  And then I'll give my own. I'll give my own two cents about
• 12:41
  this whole thing about how do you grow, whether you're a
• 12:44
  startup or whether you're a scale up in Nigeria in 2024.
• 12:48
  But in my own opinion, it's all the same.
• 12:51
  The way that we're going to grow, it's all the same.
• 12:53
  The difference is just going to be what principles do we apply
• 12:57
  in what ratio and are pending depending on what kind of
• 13:00
  context. So that's it.
• 13:01
  Pretty much. So thanks for listening to this
• 13:03
  episode. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 13:05
  My name is Tavish IMA Ayedi. I'm the host of the show.
• 13:08
  You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link.
• 13:10
  We're currently listening to this episode.
• 13:12
  Also Connect with me on WhatsApp.
• 13:14
  The number is 080, 64662140. The country code is +234.
• 13:22
  For those of you who are not Nigerian.
• 13:24
  Thanks for your time and attention.
• 13:25
  I'll catch you guys at the next episode.