Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

Open and fun conversations don't make you money, eventually you have to bring in the snails! If you are a snail trader that is. We have to learn to transition from open and fun conversations into conversations about our products and services.

Should you start off your business journey by making sure you have all the logos and branding done right? You shouldn’t do also this until you have validated that you have a product or service that the market wants. Besides that, having sales conversations with real life customers in the market is going to give you all the data and intel you need to craft the perfect logos, colorist, and brand pos...

Should you register your business before you begin? Only after you have a verified and validated business idea capable of bringing in income. If you don’t, you might find yourself liable for tax and other liabilities on a corporation you did nothing with after registration.

what makes a successful marketing, advertising, or promotional campaign?

You don’t absolutely need a business plan before you start in business. However having one or skimming through one is useful because it will get you thinking about the marketing, customer and growth components of your idea which are critical for success. So if you don’t have one, start skimming through some documents and focus on the headings are signals for what you should be paying attention to.

How to define your product idea or refine the scope of the “killer business” you are about to launch? There’s no substitute for approaching the market and seeing how people respond to your product and your pricing. Beware of brainstorming your idea to death! That is not the path that will give you the greatest traction.

If your business is location specific, then you shouldn't be chatting to people on the internet who aren't close enough to do business with you. It might not amount to anything if the nature of the opportunity requires that both of you be in the same city to pull it off. Do some basic research on the profile or the bio by at least making sure you are in the same city

Social media is important in creating awareness which leads to more opportunities for initiating sales and buying conversations with potential customers. However! Not as many people are seeing your organic updates on social media as you think!

One of the benefits of using social media is that it helps you promote your business more affordable by letting you spend TIME and EFFORT instead of spending MONEY in the early days of your business.

What benefit has social media had for you? If you spend all your time in personal frivolous stuff or maybe doom-scrolling, then maybe no benefit. If you take a business orientation in how you use social media, then the benefits of social media to you could be huge!

We get monster clients because we didn't ask all the questions we were supposed to. Without all the information, we don't know all the signposts and goals we have to hit. Take a breather and ask some questions before you take on a client or a delivery.

It is a good idea to appraise your business because it is going to show the health of your business and what your business is actually worth. However one factor that will weigh heavily in how your business is assessed is your cash flows. healthy cashflows come from healthy sales and recurring revenue. This is another reason why having a good and robust sales system and framework is essential to a...

Customer service processes and framesworks are handy in the business because they are the “lay up” to ensure that we get repeat business and referrals from happy customers.

We have to empower our customer service reps to be able to do more than just apologise and take down notes. If those are the only functions they have authority to undertake, then they are hampered and are not going to be able to function appropriately and do what needs to be done to make the customer happy.

When handling customer service complaints, ask questions about the initial goal the customer had for your product or service. This will give clues about where you need to look to solve the problem.

Getting reviews, repeat business, and referrals is an important part of the sales process... however before you pursue testimonials and those other things after the sale, you want to make sure the customer is happy and there are no unresolved customer service issues.

Customer service is essential to growing a business except if you’re a monopoly or a public utility. The first step to solving the problem is asking questions to figure out what the customer is unhappy about.

Good customer service begins with accepting responsibility for the problem. Accepting responsibility isn’t the same as admitting FUALT for a bad customer experience. It just means promising that you’ll do all in your power to rectify and redress. Take responsibility for solving the problem NOW and we can worry about fault later.

...because the chief beneficiaries of the podcast seem to be folks beyond the bounds of the wedding industry. The focus will still remain the same about how simples sales principles and conversational tactics can be applied to the Nigerian context and challenges of building a business. Thanks for listening over the last 3 years, and here's to 3 more!

Figure out what the competition is up to by talking to your customers and the potential clients who hit you up. This way you’ll get more relatable information about what is out there, at what price, features and services that work, and also the approaches that the market dislikes. This will give you better and more usable information than snooping around at your competition’s websites.

Feedback is good because it leaves clues about what we should do to improve the customer experience and our business. It also tells us what to avoid that could be costing us business. Because feedback is this important, we should be proactively seeking out feedback from our customers.

If someone calls for a product or service that you don’t offer, qualify the situation and then make an appropriate recommendation or referral. It’ll be good business karma and set you apart as a useful business resource

To keep your customers coming back, make the business about them and not you. Your progress as a business person or influencer might be appealing for now, but it won't keep people over the long haul if that doesn't translate into value for them - audio from my Instagram Reels and TikToks.

Will bootstrapping frustrate your business ideas? or should you go the fundraising route to increase chances for success?

What’s important in business development and growth is not just our minds but our bodies as well. Learn to take care of your bodies too - audio from my TikTok and Instagram Reels.