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

Whether you are dealing with total strangers or with people that you know intimately well, you should always be asking questions to be sure that you understand the problem that they have or the creative vision that they are trying to achieve. If you don’t understand the total parameters of what you are working with, you might come off looking totally unprofessional if things don’t go according to...

It’s easy to feel betrayed and overwhelmed in personal service industries when it seems like you went over and beyond for a client and the whole thing backfired. The solution isn’t to blame the client for being selfish but to realize that you had a hand in setting up the whole experience! If you had done a better job of setting expectations, then the whole affair could have gone differently. Ask q...

Conversation outlines can also be used to foster trust. One of such ideas is expressed by Tom Hopkins in his selling approach. The idea behind this is to establish rapport by showing commonality in your conversations. You should also try to show some credibility and competency to show yourself as the trustworthy alternative.

This is a response to a question that I got over the weekend about who I am, what I do, and the nature and the purpose of this podcast.

Talking to clients can be unnerving for both you and them. You can make this problem easier by having a simple conversation outline to direct the conversation. This will help both of you arrive at a clear agenda and what the next step should be. This can be as simple as having an appropriate greeting, and then moving straight to the intent behind your call. After that you should ask some questions...

The POGO framework is another conversation prompt that is built around questions. To be effective at this you should ask questions about the Person, their Organization, their Goals, and the Obstacles that they face. You’ll find that this is a simple and useful framework for carrying on with social conversations and in networking circles. The spirit behind it? By being interested in other people, w...

The 3 “why” conversation framework is a handy tool for driving conversations when you are trying to get to the root, and the most important problem that your client is trying to solve in buying your product or service. It only when you have “hit the spot” that you’ll have a happy client at the end of it all.

The “W” conversation framework is a simple conversation outline that’ll come in handy next time you are talking to a prospective client, or you’re at a networking session. For conversations with clients this will help you tease out what’s most important to them and the key things that you have to hit with your service delivery. At networking sessions this framework will help you sort through the d...

"In person selling", "relationship marketing" and "customer experiential marketing" are euphemisms that have been created to talk about the dirty word “sales”. Whether you like it or not, there are benefits to getting on the train!

Yes it is possible to “freestyle” with clients and when you’re mingling at events, but that is a more stressful approach because of the mental exertion required every time you’re in a new social context or conversation. Also there’s the problems of scaling your sales and marketing efforts when you “freestyle” because you can’t teach everyone to “do it” like you. So freestyle at your peril! Or temp...

The phone is a useful tool because of the time saving it affords, the level of rapport it allows you to build, and the prompt feedback you can get while discussing business opportunities. This episode fleshes out examples using a phone conversation with the brain behind Love Weddings NG and Wedding Vendor 101. The conversation was around content collaborations for celebrating the International Pod...

When it comes to ease of communication, the ability to build rapport, guaging nuance in conversation, and getting prompt feedback on all discussion points between you and the client, the telephone is king! Email and other text based media are mere vassal states!

Talking to strangers in a business context or a networking session can be scary because we’re worried about what to say, and we’re worried about being rejected or snubbed. The solution to the problem is to realize that it’s not all about you! Focus on the right kind of questions to ask to get the other person talking, and realize that even when you have been “rejected” it not personal. They are on...

Having been in the podcasting game for over a year now and close to 200 episodes, I get the question a lot from enthusiasts who think podcasting is fun and they’d like to get in on the action. The podcasting “how” isn’t as much important as the the “why” and “who”. Figure out who you’re talking to, what you have to say, why your point of view is unique, and the rest of the podcasting journey shoul...

It’s not just hustle and muscle, rest and recuperation is part of the deal as well. For high performance disciplines like sports and the military, they know that it’s not just about time spent on the field, but time spent in rest and rejuvenation that makes the ultimate sportsman and the ultimate soldier. As salespeople and business owners we are in a high performance scenario... so the same princ...

Whenever we have agreed to key terms and important obligations between us and our clients, it pays to have it repeated multiple times over the course of the engagement. We cannot trust that if we say it once, then the client has heard and will remember. Every one leads busy lives... including our clients.

It’s not the client’s fault if they don’t have proper expectations about the delivery of your product or service. This is something you should have laid out in conversations multiple times. We can’t just put it in a contract or proviso document and hope that they’ll read it. We have to be proactive about this and take full responsibility for setting expectations upfront about what the experience o...

Sometimes you’re unavailable because of personal commitments or difficulties you can’t work your way around. It’s enough to simply say you can’t make “so and so time” because of prior commitments that you have. No need to go into details! Life gets difficult for everyone. Spare your clients the details.

It’s okay to be a “know it all” so long as you are open to situations where you get to be the student and learn things. Humility and grace may be good personal qualities to have, but eventually they’ll parlay well into business and other high stakes situations.

It is a cardinal tennent of growing your business to be trustworthy and reliable. This is only possible when people feel that you will meet your commitments. Even when there are circumstances beyond your control that make meeting your promises difficult, you have to find professional ways to stay in touch, service the relationship and redress the situation.

Name dropping is a handy skill to establish your competence and credibility. However it can backfire if not done right and make you seem off putting, proud and haughty. Name drop with finesse using storytelling conversational techniques, and always ask questions to be sure who you’re talking to, so you know which names to drop. It’s not every high profile name that is going to impress everyone.

Sometimes we have significant heath challenges on the job. We need to find professional ways of communicating this and rescheduling our commitments when we’re under the weather. This affects how our potential clients perceive us, and whether they’d be comfortable referring us in the future.

Up selling doesn’t have to be unethical if we have our client’s satisfaction and their goals in mind. The trick is to be “other” focused, not tack on too many items, and to be sure that the up-sell is related to the chief item that they have come to you for.

The key to having folks come back with friends, family and associates is to be sure that our services were “on point” in the first place and helped them achieve their goals and desired outcomes. This is not just good business practice for people in the start up and software space, but it is surprisingly employed by roadside mechanics as well!

Sometimes we’re quick to say YES or NO to an offer before we have all the details. The idea behind qualification is simply to ask all the relevant questions so we can assess if we can help the prospective client, and if this opportunity is worth our while or not.