Are You Dreaming of Growth or Actually Prospecting?

Good afternoon and welcome back to the podcast. Today we're going to be talking about why writing things down is important and also why sometimes when it comes to growing your business, how can I put it? Sometimes you're trying to grow your business and you're trying to go at it with the right level of intensity, the right level of activity, But you don't realize that, you know, sometimes you're not putting in enough work.

I mean, not as much work as you think. And that's because you're not writing things down. So the reason why we're talking about this today on the podcast is because we've been talking with someone coming up with a prospecting list, of course. And, you know, the guys like, you know, I get customers now, you know, I get boys, you know, you know, that whole feeling like you feel like there's people behind you. So that when you start this thing, when you enter into the market, there are people who are behind you, people who will support you, you know, because the guys like, I get them plenty, you know, like guys, you know, men, they're behind me,

you know, that kind of thing. And then I told the guy, write it down. And then we discovered something really, really interesting. So anyway, that's what we're going to be talking about today #1 write things down #2. When you're trying to grow your business, you're supposed to come at it with a certain level of intensity. And perhaps you're not as as intense as you think or you're not putting in as much work as you think you're putting in.

My name is Tamashima Ayede. I'm the host of the podcast. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, any player of your choice because every other day, this is what I do over here on the podcast. Also, if you'd love to connect with me, you can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140. I like when you guys reach out. It's nice to have a chat. Well, by the way, I have a series of trainings that is planned for the 12th of January 2026, running all the way onto the 23rd of January 2026.

It's going to be a 10 day training, so the weekends are off Mondays to Fridays. It's going to be a 10 day intensive, but we're going to be teaching people how to sell over the phone because whether we like it or not, we have phones in our hands. You're currently listening to me, about 8090% of you listening to this podcast right now. You're listening to these things on the phone, so you might as well learn how to use the phone to grow your business, learn how to make phone calls and build relationships.

Learn how to make phone calls, send text messages, send emails, you know, do whatever so that you can advance the business relationship forward. So these are things that the training is going to be aimed aimed at. If you want to get some more details so we don't turn today's podcast into another infomercial, then reach out to me 08064662140. Now back to what I said is the main question that we're talking about today. So like I said now, because you know, people reach out, I give my phone number at the beginning, at the end of every episode.

One guy reached out and the guy was like Bros, you know, we suppose young. I said, OK, no problem. I like talking to people. But then I asked him, so how come you're reaching out? Like what do you have in mind? You have a question, you have a comment, you have a query or you have a collabo in mind because you know, it's no secret. I'm looking for money. That's the reason why I do this podcast. So if any of you, you don't have any collaborations like I'm down, there are those of you who call me up and say, look, I have this uncle, I have this auntie.

I know this minister, I know this Palm SEC, I know this person and you know, we could use a couple of trainings in the office, blah, blah, blah. Let's partner up. The only show will be this. The only show will be that. I mean, I'm down to for those kinds of arrangements. So as the guy like what's the plan? Question, comments, inquiries or collaborations And the guy said question, I said OK, I was like that. No, then just send the question here.

You know, when I'm free, I'll respond. Now the reason why I took that approach is because currently because of the training that is coming up on the 12th of January 2026, I'm spending a lot of time on the phone getting to know the candidates for the training. Because when you work with me, everything is custom, everything is tailor made. I don't have pre recorded videos that I'll just play for you. The only you play. I'll ask you one or two questions.

When you answer and I give you certificates, say you don't do training. No, that's not how I do it. I'm here. I'm available over on WhatsApp. What? Mostly on WhatsApp. I know some of you like e-mail, you know, Novex, I'm more WhatsApp kind of person. So I'm here available for questions and I want to make sure that the things that we discussed are tailored to you guys. Now, the only way that I can do that with a great level of specificity, and sorry about that.

Yeah, with a great level of specificity is if I ask questions, I need to know you. I need to know what you're facing. I need to know your business. I need to know your motivations, where are you taking the business, what are your goals for 2026 and all those sorts of things. So that when we now sit down in the classroom, we will now be going practical. Very, very, very practical, Very tactical. Yeah. No theory, no fluff.

We're getting straight to the root. So because we're currently preparing for those trainings, I'm spending a lot of time making phone calls every day and talking to the people who have confirmed participation or people who have enquiries or, you know, people who want to register. So spend a lot of time on the phone. So that's why I couldn't chat with this guy. So the guy said question. I said, OK, give me the question.

Then after a couple of days, he said, don't worry, I've gotten the answer. I was like, oh, good, good, good. I'm glad you've gotten the answer. But still, I would like to know what the answer is, even though I don't have the question. Oh, by the way, for those of you who reach out, don't be surprised. You know, it happens. You think you have a burning question, you're ready to send it to me. What? You listen to an episode or you think through things and eventually you come through an answer that is kind of workable.

You know, it's normal. It's OK, but still I want to make sure that you reach out to me that Shah, whatever answer you've come up with is the right one. So that's the reason why I come to you. No problem, you have the answer but still let me know what the answer is. Even though I have the question and the guy's answer was on point. These XYZ are the kind of services he wants to promote so he knows that he needs to start reaching out to friends, family members and associates.

When he said it, my heart was glad I said correct. I don't know what the question is, but your answer is correct. For most people, Friends, family members, associates will be the beginning. You want to be a wedding photographer? Friends, family members, associates. You want to do graphic designs? Friends, family members, associates. You want to do chicken re talk to your friends? Oh boy, what's up? I've started a new hustle chicken business.

I beg, I need your support. You know, Christmas is around the corner, New Year's around the corner. You know, will mumsy take like 2 broilers. It's not expensive. You know, friends, family members, associates, people at work, the same thing. Oh, I'm starting broiler business. That is it in the beginning. Friends, family members, associates. Not because it's the ultimate, but because these people, you really have a relationship with it with, with with them.

There is a, there's already a prior context, there's already a prior background. So these people already trust you somewhat. So these are easy conversations to have to say. I'm getting into business. I want to do something guy, I beg. I need your support, big sis, I beg. I will appreciate your support. Uncle, I beg buy from me. These are easy conversations to have now. By the time you talk to friends, family members, associates, you now talk like 20-30 of them.

By the time it is time for you to talk to total strangers, you go don't get some kind confidence because it's not your first time. So when you're talking to a stranger now, you will fumble. A lot of you are trying to get into business. You bypass friends, family members, associates. You want to go straight to strangers. And then you wonder why am I fumbling? Why am I stammering? Why is my mouth dry? Why am I shaking? Why am I sweating?

That's the reason why. So for a lot of you, it's just a very practical thing. You're getting into the business. Friends, family members, associates, in that particular order. Friends, family members, associates. Do I need to repeat it in case somebody still hasn't gotten the point? Friends, family members, associates. Now, of course, this guy had, you know, three or four other business ideas. And those of you who listen, you already know my take on this sort of thing.

Now look, it's OK to have 3-4 ideas, but The thing is, you can't push 3 or 4 ideas effectively at the same time. So what you need to do is pick one. Then. Friends, family members, associates, from talking to people, from trying to sell something, you'll be able to figure out which one is viable, which one has traction, which one has demand, which one are people willing to pay money for, and enough money so that you can plow back into the business.

And also there'll be something remaining so that you can flex. But I don't want to overwhelm the guy. But for those of you who have 3-4 ideas, that is it. Basically, take it listed in any particular order and then start with the first one. Friends, family members, associates. Eventually you will get all the answers you need. Now this is a stupid idea or this is an idea that works. That is how you select among the four.

But you're going to say I have 4 ideas. Which one should I pursue? And then your thinking and meditating and planning and ruminating and considering, look, that is how you'd be considering from now December of 2025 into March of 2026, you haven't started one business at all. So it's very simple. Take your business ideas 1234 list it then friends, family members, associates. Start talking to your boys, start talking to your girls,

start talking to your uncles, start talking to your aunties. Talk to your mumsy. Talk to your Popsy is impressive. It's important. Mumsy will be able to introduce you to a couple of people. Popsy will be able to say, OK, go and see Chief. So so so and so these things they help again, friends, family members, associates. So even though I don't know the guys question, his answer was correct was one point. Then as we're talking now, the guys say that no, that he has support.

Now that the guy get men that there are people in his corner that know how know how you know people pull up for him. The guy gets support. He has a support base very strong. And I said sure, I understand. I feel you. I feel you understand that you have a squad and you know your squad is always behind you. But I told him, look, when it comes to sales, sales practice, what we do is we come with a prospecting list. So excuse me now.

Prospecting is the practice, the discipline, the strategy of trying to figure out who might be interested in your product or service. Then as the name goes, it's a list. It has to be a physical list. OK, an office guy going to be a virtual list. Add a sheet of paper with names written number one, number two, number three, up to number, You know, whatever #10 #50 #200 it's up to you by shy physical list or something on your phone,

number 1 to #50 number one to number 99, whatever. And as you're talking, you'll be scratching people off. Now, this is the reason why I'm not trying to be unnecessarily stubborn or to put obstacles in your path to business growth, but the truth of math is this. If you don't write this thing down, this was going to happen. You start today and talk to a couple of people. You call Cooney, you call Mike, you call BMP, and then you call Shadrack and you have some good conversations.

You wake up tomorrow and also speaking. You won't remember who you spoke to yesterday. You remember that you spoke to Shadrack and B Pay, but you won't remember who else. And because there's no list, there's nothing guiding your activity. It won't be ordered, it won't be disciplined, it won't be well thought out, and then it'll be haphazard, you know, forward, ever back, whatever. Sorry, not sorry. I mean, what did they say?

You know, 2 steps forward, one step back. You know that kind of motion. So that's the reason why it has to be a list so that if it's #1 to #50 And you wake up and you see that yesterday you spoke to Bing Bing, Shadrach, Conley and Adam, you now know that OK, today, Tuesday, if yesterday I spoke to four, OK, maybe today I can speak to four again. Who's number 5 on the list? Who's number six? Who's number seven? Who's number 8?

And then you begin to go through it in order you guide it. So that is actually the main reason why we come up with the prospecting list is beginning is the, it's the beginning of making sure that you have a sales process that is well thought out and that is organized and orderly. So please don't be annoyed if you meet someone like me and the person is saying where is the list I want to see from #1 all the way to #10 the person is not being an idiot.

The person is actually trying to help you because we've all been through it. You say I know the people I'm going to call. I know. And then it's just in your head. And then you wake up at the end of the week and you realize that honestly speaking, you only called like 5 or 6 people. There's no way that you're going to build a business and get it to grow if at the end of the week you've only spoken to five people. It's just facts.

It is facts. Your business will move. Think about it. Let's say you say cakes. You sell cakes or chin chin, or you're an architect. Good. Let's say you're an architect. You're only talking to five people a week. How do you think your architectural practice is going to grow? How? Talking to five people a week means you talk to 20 people in a month. Talking to 20 people in a month does not mean that all of those 20 will have a need for your product or your service.

Anyway, let me get back to the story. Oh, sorry, one moment I'm making this days recording at home so my wife is trying to call my attention. Let me just sort it out. I'll be back. OK, sorry about that. I don't think I mentioned at the beginning that I'm currently at home in Benin Estate, you know, went to the villa to, to spend Christmas with Mumsy and, you know, uncles and aunties and everyone and the kids are having absolute fun.

And the problem with, for those of you who listen to the podcast, even when I was home in Abuja and it's just me, wifey and the kids, finding a quiet time to record was stress. But now that everybody is around, trying to find a quiet time to record is seriously, seriously, seriously. It's a serious challenge. Anyway, wifey and I was supposed to go out. So yeah, that's the reason why she was buzzing. So let me wrap this up quick and let me go for my date.

You guys should pray for me that it goes very well because you know, since we go here now, how will I put it? You know, those of you who live in Lagos, you know, Lagos now you will have sights, you have sounds, you know in Lagos, there's activity, there is you know, and I'm a wife, physician. So even before you reach our village, you enter Beni, you know, in beneath town, beneath city, you understand now there is options.

You know lifestyle, music, food. You know those of you who are from Plateau, you know your city, you know, you get culture, you get vibes. You know those of you from pH Port Alcott, you know how your city is. But unfortunately you know your boy is from Ben Way State. And you know Ben Way State is a little, you understand, Let me not say too much, let me not abuse my people. But you know, we know ourselves. It's not as if it's not as if we have.

Anyway, let me leave it like that. Let me know it's not my people. And so pray for me that this date goes well. Let me not take out. And I should be like, hey, is this what you're bringing me? Life is like this. I should have stayed. I should have married in Benin State where we have, as I say, Benin State. I should have stayed at home in the adult state and marry a Benini boy where we have where we have places that if you say you're taking your, your babe out, at least you carry a house somewhere Anyway, Yeah.

So pray for me that my day goes well. Now to wrap up this thing. Now I've already told you guys why you drop a list. So now this guy said that you know he has he has a squadron people behind him. He gave men we go supporter. So I said hey, you have up to like 10. The guys I know when I passed 10 I said no problem. I said show me the list. Guys say no problem. After all I see some messages. The guy they laughed. I said why you laughing?

What happened? The guy said you know I started writing this list and guess what happened? I said waiting up on the guy said you know those my men I was talking about to say yes. He said there's only four I could think of. Let me repeat in case you didn't hear me correctly. The guy said he has Quadron, he has men behind him, people that will support him when he's on the move. I said up to 10. He said I know he passed 10, but when he came to sitting down you could only write 4.

This is the reason why we write lists. In your mind, you're actually thinking the prospects that you have, the people that will support you, people that you can reach out to, You know, your network. In your mind, you're seeing it big, big, big. Excuse me, but in real life it's not as big as you think. So it's not uncommon for somebody to think why when I start this business, there are 20 people I can talk to easily. By the time you sit down, you start writing, you see that you're struggling to reach 5,

even though for some reason in your head you are thinking it should be like 20-30. So it's normal and I was not surprised by the end of the day, he could only write 4 because honestly speaking, even though, you know, we have thousands of contacts on our phones, you know, we went to primary school, we went to secondary school, we have loads of friends. You know, realistically speaking, when push comes to shove and you're about to get this business off the ground,

you know, the people who are in your corner, let's, let's face it, let's be realistic. Or the people who might actually have the legitimate need for your product or your service, You know, let's face it, you know, don't, don't be that many. They won't. So this is the reason why we write a list. It helps you to face the facts. And for those of you who think I came at this with the right level of gospel, but what happened?

This is the reason why in your mind you're thinking you're talking to a truckload of people. But if you sit down with the prospecting list or you track your actual activities, you will see that for in the month of January, you only spoke to four people or five people. That's the reason why your business is not moving. These are the many reasons why writing this thing down is important. Write it down. Now. I told him, good that you have 4.

But I also told him one thing. I told him, look, make sure these people are at least 10. And when you hit 10, let me know. Some of you wonder why. Why is this guy fascinated with the number 10? I'm not fascinated with the number 10. I'm just being realistic from a sales and business development perspective. And this is the truth. There's something that we deal with in sales called rejection. Rejection just means when people are not willing to buy, when people are not willing to support, when people are not willing to go ahead with your agenda, when people are not willing to be a part of the program.

We just call all of those ones. Rejection and rejection is a staple part of business life. The reason why it's a staple part of business life is simple is because not everybody, not everybody who wants your product or service, not everybody who needs your product or service. Not everybody can afford your product or service, or not everybody has a sense of urgency around your product or service, meaning there is no time bound reason why people should take action soon.

And even if you're not talking to prospects, you know, not everybody is willing to support you. Some people are willing to support you, but you know, right now they're going through some stuff. Maybe your homeboy wants to support you, but maybe his marriage is on a rocky ground and, you know, right now he actually just wants to take Christmas season and, you know, spoil his life a little bit. You know, so people go through stuff.

It's just life. So not everybody's going to be willing to support you now because of this rejection, because they're going to be people who are not going to be on board. This is the reason why you need at least 10 because there's no how. If you have a list of four people on it, there's no how all four people be interested. You might talk to all four and all four of them are not interested. All four of them don't want to buy.

All four of them don't want to support. Then what next? You now start feeling demoralized. So let's increase the odds that things will work in our favor. Come up with a list of 10 at least. Worst case scenario, at least one person will you buy. At least you know one person will try and support you. There will always be rejection. So that's the reason why when people come and meet me, I say at least 10. But left to me, the more we can come up with, the merrier.

If you come up with a prospecting list, people that you want to approach who could be users, buyers, samplers of your product or your service, If you come with a list of 50, oh, I'm glad, Good. We have more people to work with and we're going to get a lot of data out of the experience because from talking to people, from trying to sell your stuff, we'll figure out if there is demand, We'll figure out if there's the right price.

And we'll also, because we're going to have lots of tons, lots of reputations talking to 50 people, we're going to be able to come up with a robust selling framework, A robust selling process that we know that when we start approaching total strangers out in the field who know it will work. The reason why we know it's going to work is because we tried this thing on 50 people. However, if you try something on four people, your sales process,

you only tried it on four people before you start meeting strangers. You can see now how your sales plan, your selling process, your selling framework might not be too robust, might not be too strong. So if you ask me, let the list B10 if you can give more than 10 good big ups to you. Anyway, let me not stretch this thing for too long. I hope I've been able to convince you guys that writing this thing down, whether on paper or on the phone, is going to help you have a much more structured, orderly, robust selling process, selling framework.

And also to show you the reason why even though you think you've been putting in work, you know, perhaps you haven't been putting in that much work. If you had written things down from the beginning, you'd have realized that even though you think you have a squad of like 50 boys behind you, really there's only been four boys in your corner, or 4 customers in your corner, or 4 relatives in your corner. So write it down.

Let's make this list clear. Let's make this thing orderly. Let it be at least 10 because there will be rejection. And then let's start our business journey together. Let's see how we can make 2026 very fruitful and a very prosperous year. There's no magic involved. Hard work will be involved. So for those of you who are also going to reach out because you're interested in the training that is coming up on the 12th of January to the 23rd of January 2026, please, Hard work is involved.

I'm not going to tell you anything magical that will change your life or double your business. You know of nothing. The magic has to be you. We will discuss some things, note it down. We will come up with some ideas. Note it down. When we come up with ideas that are specific to you, to your context, to your business, to your situation, please go and practice. Nothing. If we sit there and we talk about ideal customer profile and we come up with a list of 10

candidates that might be good for you, but then tomorrow morning you actually don't talk to any of them, The fault is yours. The fault is not mine. The most I can do is to give you the information and try and hold you accountable and scold you to make sure that you get it done. But if you don't do it well now, you do it yourself. Anyway, let me run. Pray for me that date goes well. And for those of you young ladies who are not married, you know, maybe you should marry somebody who comes from a much more, you know, exotic place.

You know, like negotiations so that by the time you go on for Christmas, you know these places that you guys can go to, don't go out and marry a small town boy. All right, so that's it. Thanks for listening again. If you'd love to connect, that's my name. You can find me on LinkedIn. The phone number is 08064662140. And yeah, subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, any player of your choice. And that's it. I'll catch you all some other time.