Are You Wasting Your Time on the Wrong Leads?

Hello and welcome to the show. Today the question that we're going to tackle is how you can qualify more leads or rather qualify leads more effectively so you can shorten your sales cycle. So it sounds a little techy, especially if you are a newbie listening to the show. This is your first time, so let's hop right into definitions so that you can get a better scope of what all these fancy jargon is about. Now, First off, how can you qualify leads?

We need to know who or what a lead is. Now on the podcast, my simple definition of a lead is anyone who has raised their hand or who has done something to show that they might be interested in your product or your service. The oldest example that I give on the podcast is someone who goes to a school and who hands out what are these things called? Flyers, leaflets to promote the bookshop that he has or the shop that he or she has where they sell back to school, supplies,

pencils, socks, shoes, bags and those sorts of things. So anybody takes the flyer, that person is a contact. Any of those contacts sends you Adm or comes by the store. That person now becomes a lead because the person has done something to say I might be interested in your product or in your service. So that's a simple definition of a lead. So yeah, how can I qualify a lead? OK, It's not qualified. Obviously, when you're qualifying a lead, you are doing something to the lead or you're engaging in something with the lead.

So what does qualification mean? Qualification is just the part of the sales process, the part of the business relationship where you're trying to be sure that you're talking to the right person. Why should you bother if you're speaking to the right person? Because if you're talking to the wrong person, it doesn't matter the amount of time that you spend with them, the chances of you having a good deal go down because you are not talking to the right person.

You're not talking to someone who might be interested, someone who might have a need or someone who might be able to use it adequately or whatever. So qualification is really, really important. We want to be sure that we're talking to the right person because too many of us in the SME space and in the nano space, you know, those of us who are small business owners or nano business owners, we're just happy that anybody has entered into the DM or that anybody has come to the shop.

So we keep spending time with person hoping it turns into a sale. But the primary thing we're supposed to do is to qualify is to figure out is this even the right person? And then do discovery. Can I even help this person? Is it a problem that my product or my service can solve? So the whole point with qualifying people is want to spend time with the right people, the people who have the authority to purchase. Let's see what else?

And then people who have a problem that you can solve, because if your product or service cannot solve the problem, then the prospect of a close sale keep going down, down and down. So back to the school thing. Let's say the you handed out the Flyers at one of those, you know, one of those RPC type schools, you know, one of those expensive type schools. And let's say for instance, people that come to this kind of school unfortunately are the people who like the expensive stuff, the upper class stuff or whatever.

But then in your own store, part of your unique value proposition is that you want to help Nigerian parents save money. So you don't stock top of the line stuff. So maybe you stock textbooks that are made in Nigeria, You don't buy all those textbooks that are made in the UK or made in Canada or let's see what else. Or you stock good quality shoes that are made in ABBA instead of Italian shoes that have been made by, what do you call them?

People that make shoes, what are they called? Whatever they're called anyway, you don't stock all that good stuff, fancy stuff from Italy and fancy stuff from, I don't know, Bahamas or whatever it is that people make fancy shoes. So now qualification, If you're not spending time with the right person, or rather you hand it out at that sort of school when these people come to your shop, there's obviously a mismatch. If you're looking for Nigerian parents who are worried about saving a buck, then obviously you guys are in the wrong place.

You're better off just referring them to another store where they can get what it is that they need. Because even though your price is right, these are not people who are worried about price or they're worried about price in the inverse. They actually are looking for the expensive stuff so that they can have bragging rights to say, my son has this, my daughter has that. And yet it still happens nowadays because I had that conversation with my son recently and there was this kid in his class who was who was just going down on another kid because they didn't have the right brand of bags.

So it's my wife who usually buys this sort of stuff. So I don't know what brand is raining now and things like that. But you know that different names of bags and, you know, apparently the cool kids use some kinds of bags. And if you're using another kind of bag, you know, then you come from a poor family and, you know, you're not worthy of respect or whatever. So, yeah, some of that dynamic also continues over into parenting as well.

And so, yes, you might be thinking, let me sell bags that are good quality, affordable, made in Nigeria, made in Ghana, that sort of thing. But then the people who come by your store because of the school where you handed out the Flyers, they actually are looking for the expensive stuff. They want to buy the bag that is made in Canada, the bag that is made in USA, the bag that is made in Mauritius or wherever it is that expensive bags are made.

So you should spend most of your time qualifying when people come to the store so that you know whether this is a person worth spending time with. So if it is clear that your your unique value proposition, the value provide is good quality, affordable, but this person is looking for the expensive stuff, you're better off just saying. Oh, Olga, mummy, Madam, oh, I'm sorry, this and this and this is what I have here. If you're looking for this brand, this brand, this brand,

you're better off going to Chukudi store. Just go out, turn left, go to shop B6 and Chukudi will take good care of you. Then after that, you have a conversation with Chukudi. I say Chukudi also, those people I sent to you, how far? Where's my 10%? You know, that sort of thing. So that's the idea behind qualifying and discovery. Make sure that you spend time with people who are likely to buy. Now the last thing we need to define that I think is sales cycle because the question is how to qualify leads more effectively to shorten the sales cycle.

Now my simple definition of a sales cycle is this a size, a sales cycle is the length of time that happens between when the person says good morning, good afternoon, how are you, you know the greeting and the deposit. So the length of time in between. Good morning Sir. And please can I have your account number so I can transfer? That is the sales cycle. Now, the reason why we should be paying attention to the sales cycle, how long it closes to sorry, how long it takes to close the deal is because time kills deals.

If you're stretching things out unnecessarily, you are increasing the probability that something might happen and something might happen and then the deal is not going to pull through. So we actually want to make our sales cycle as short as possible. We want to reduce the time between. Good morning, Sir, and this is my account number. You can make the transfer here. We're trying to shorten that length of time that it takes to close the deal because apart from the fact that time kills deals, that's if you're wasting too much time before you close the deal, something can happen.

There's also this thing of the opportunity cost of a long sale cycle. If I'm spending three weeks chasing somebody up and down and blah, blah, blah, and I don't end up the we don't end up closing the deal. This is the problem. The problem is the three weeks that I spent chasing all these people that never could buy means that there was an opportunity cost. I could have been using that time chasing other people who could have most likely have turned out to be good customers.

So that's the thing, time queues deals, so make sure your sales cycle is as short as possible. Then there's the opportunity cost. If you shorten the length of time you're spending with any one person, you can spend that time more profitably elsewhere. So now if you look at these definitions that we've come up with so far, what is a lead? How do you qualify? What is a sales cycle? We can see now that the question we're trying to answer ultimately is how do you deal with only serious buyers in quote, because back in my wedding photography days in Abuja, people used to say that a lot.

Oh, she's all serious, he's all serious, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's where I learned that expression. It's not a flattering expression. But anyway, let's just make do with it for now. So how do you deal with only serious buyers so that you can spend time going after more profitable clients? So the answer is kind of assumed in the question. And the answer is you need to qualify quickly and you have to do so around your unique value proposition or around your use case scenarios.

Now I know that's technical jargon, so let me just break it down. This is what it means. Unique value proposition is what's the main reason why people buy from you. So back to the school example and the Flyers and everything. If you are that guy or girl that people call you because they want to buy that shoe that is good quality, that is made in Nigeria and Ghana and your children will use it for two terms. If that's the reason why people call you up, then that's your UVP, your unique value proposition.

But on the other hand, if you are that person that people call you when they want the latest that has just dropped in Paris or dropped in the UK, because yes, there are those parents too. They want the uniforms to come from Marks and Spencer. They want the shoes to come from who makes good shoes anyway? I don't know. I'm not into fashion, but they're those parents. They want the uniforms to come from the latest, the latest collection from the UK or latest collection from America.

They want the shoes to be the latest whatever with the Italian leather, they want the bag to be the latest one in the market, not the one that was raining last year, so that their child will have the only bag in the class. So, you know, there are some people who that is their unique value proposition. So yeah, the UVP unique value proposition. Why do people buy from you? And then use case scenarios just means when people buy your product for your service, what are the things that they typically use it to do?

So there are some people that have particular use case scenarios that are different from others. Let me see what can I think of, OK, let's just say Toyota, Toyota, Mercedes, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz. So use case scenario for Toyotas, Those of us who Dr. Toyotas is very simple. We want something that is fuel efficient and that we can use for a couple of years and then by the time we're done using it for maybe 3-4 years, we can sell it and still get something, you know, it has resale value.

But the person who buys a Mercedes-Benz, the use case scenario is different. You're buying the Mercedes-Benz so that, you know, you can flex. Also at the social capital and one of my friends who is a lawyer, we were at a kids party, one of our kids parties like two or three years back. And then my guy pulls up in this wonderful Mercedes-Benz. I have not seen this kind of car since and I've not seen it, you know, after it was a wonderful car, keyless entry.

You know, you get close to the car, the thing senses you're around and Choo Choo the things opens up and it lets you in and then the ignition is on the what's it called? The ignition is on the the the gear. You know the gear stick, but it's a thumb. It's a thumbprint. No, sorry, fingerprint activated. So I can sit in the car and I can touch my thumb to to the thing, but it's not going to start because my fingerprint is not registered.

But of course you can register the different fingerprints and you know, it was never like was it was a bad ass car was really, really impressive as a correct Mercedes-Benz. And and I'm like, you know, dude, like this thing costs a lot of money. You know why now? And he's like, you know, guys represent because you know, when you're with clients and blah, blah, blah, you know, this whole packaging mentality and you know, I can't fault the guy because it actually does make an impression.

It's a it's an impressive car. So use case scenario, totally different people who buy Toyotas typically do XYZ. So if you're a car salesman, you can be qualifying around that asking questions because you're trying to figure out are they worried about budget? Are they worried about fuel efficiency? Do they travel home a lot? Like, OK, if it's the chief person like me, you know, asking questions like how often do they travel to Marco D, you know,

blah, blah, blah, all those sorts of things. So because you know those are those are important, you know, whether you're going to show them the Mercedes-Benz options or whether you're going to show them the Toyota options. So you need to be having all these conversations around your unique value proposition. Why do people buy from you or the use case scenarios when people buy your product, what do they do next? So asking all those questions around that.

Now, the mistake that lots of people make when it comes to these sorts of questions, qualifying conversations, discoveries, questions where you're trying to find out about the person or find out about the, the problems that they have or the visions they're trying to solve is they waste too much time in, in a building commonality and building rapport. Now, commonality and rapport is really, really important, but we shouldn't make that the focus of what it is that we're doing, you know, establish rapport quickly and then move on.

So like in my own case, what I advise people to do is once you establish two or three touch points, you know, that's good. You can't head straight to business once you both establish that, you know, you both went to OAU, you just about the good old days and then quickly slide into business or you discover that you're both from Orca, you know, establish that and then get into business or I don't know, whatever it is, you just figure out some commonality and then head straight into business.

So go direct into need analysis and then discovery. Do that quickly. Now, another reason why I recommend that is because let's face it, you're going to build commonality and rapport anyway because it is very, very hard. Except if you're a robot because there are some people who actually are flat and have no character whatsoever except if you're a robot. The thing is, your your personality and your whatever is going to come through as you guys are yawning.

So don't worry too much about rapport and commonality. Just establish commonality on the couple of things, 2-3 things and then move on. Oh, your children like Bluey? My child likes Bluey, ha ha, ha, blah, blah, blah, you know, parenting. And then yeah, let's get down to business. So don't waste too much time. You're not here to make friends. You're here to actually sell something. So yeah, going to needs analysis and discovery quickly.

So an example that I would like to use is a very old one as the fellow who sells chicken feed. I haven't done the chicken feed for a while. And the last comments I got on the podcast on Spotify was somebody saying that I like catfish too much. So let me leave the catfish example. Oh, by the way, the reason why I use these examples, chicken feed person and catfish person, is because I want to show that the principles that we discuss over here on the podcast can apply to whatever businesses you're doing, whether you have a fintech or whether you sell catfish, whether you sell chicken feed or whether you sell Mercedes Benzes, these principles apply.

And then plus, I try to stay away from all the big, big, big sounding ones because not everybody's running a fintech. They actually hire a couple of people here who run chicken feed companies or who do catfish or one of my favorite. OK, well, what I said my favorite people, but I can't remember her name now, you know, Novix, but part of the UI crowd and what she's into is that she sells more money. So yeah. So that's the reason why I use some of these examples.

So now to the chicken feed company. Now if I remember correctly, the chicken feed guy part of his unique selling proposition or is a unique value proposition, what he thought was valuable about his stuff and is this whole thing of disease and mortality amongst chickens. So for those of you who you run a poultry or mom she ran a poultry or your grandma ran the poultry, you know that chickens, you know they die anyhow. Anyhow, like you make a mistake,

you mess up once she can get sick, before you know it the whole batch is sick and in who knows, maybe in two weeks you lose like, you know, 20 heads of chicken or something. So these sorts of things happen. Now Mr. Chicken feed, his thing was that putting, Sorry, it's not. Is it probiotics or something? So forgive me, I'm not in the aggregate space and I'm not a doctor, so I don't know how this thing works. So I would just say probiotics,

but if I'm wrong, for those of you who know also, please send me a message and say no, The thing is not called probiotics. The thing is called something, something, something so that I can take dressing for the future. So animal feed for the chicken that has probiotic, whatever that improves the chickens gut immunity, gut meaning stomach, so gut immunity and makes them more immune to disease. So that was part of the guy's unique value proposition, Buy my chicken feed.

Your chickens will stop dying because the chicken, this food is enriched with vitamin this enriched with this and this and this and that compound so that when the chicken eat it, they become more healthy and they become resistant to disease. Tested and trusted, vetted by NAFDAQ and Nigerian agricultural blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, that whole, that's the whole spiel, that's the whole sales pitch, you know, from the guy's angle.

So that's the unique value proposition or that's the unique selling point for him. And then there was also the thing about fluctuating feed prices, because for those of you who are in this business, like when I was talking to the catfish guy, the guy who runs the catfish training school. So there's this thing about how you can go and buy feed today and it will cost extra amount, but because of hyperinflation, you go and you come back and then you now discover that it is now X * 2 or whatever.

Because there are different, different, well, any, I'm, I'm not, I'm not in the field, but I hope you guys understand what I'm trying to say. But there are different factors that affect the cost of animal feed. And so the price keeps going up. Price keeps going down. And then it turns out that some of the companies that are going to make it, making it imported. And that is what also affects the, affects the price. So if you're Mr. Chicken Feed and this is your unique value,

your unique value proposition could now be this whole disease mortality thing. That's number one. And then #2 fluctuating prices. So the unique value proposition, the unique selling point in your case might be, look, this thing is made here in Nigeria with totally Nigerian ingredients. So I can guarantee you that whatever price you buy at today is going to be the same price for the next three months. You don't need to worry.

So if you buy it now at 15,000 naira per 3 kilogram sack, if you buy it in January, if you come in February, I can guarantee you that that is still going to be the same price. So let's say that's our unique value proposition. So now we're talking about qualifying leads, having conversations with people who have indicated they might be interested in your chicken feed discovery. Sorry, commonality. Just do small commonality.

You know, maybe you guys are both capital or you're from the same local government, you know, establish that, then move on. Then go straight into the discovery questions. You need to know. You need to find out the mortality rate of the chickens. Because if somebody has a low mortality rate, then what's the person going to buy your own whatever for? If the person only has one chicken that is dying per hundred, then sorry, forgive me,

I'm not in aggregate space where I don't know. I don't know if one chicken dying per 100 is good or if it's bad, but my own guess, since I'm a layman, is that if only one chicken dies per hundred, I guess your mortality rate is good. So if someone has a good mortality rate, only one or two chickens die per hundred, then why would a person buy from you? Absolutely no need. Because remember, your unique value proposition is that feed my chickens with your stuff,

your chickens will stop dying. But then if you run into somebody who 30 chickens are dying per hundred, aha, see, now that is something different. You can see they can have a profitable sales conversation because this person has a problem, a big problem, and you have something that promises to solve that problem. If someone who has 30 chickens diet per hundred, of course, you see how that affects the profit margin because you end up feeding and investing in the whole batch of 100 by the end of the day, you're only able to sell 60 because thirty died.

So that's a 60, sorry, 70. No 60 because 40 died or 70 because thirty died. Sorry, forgive me, math is not my thing. Then you can see how that affects your your profit margins at the end of the day. So go straight into discovery. If you're not talking to somebody that has a high mortality rate amongst his chicken, then stop wasting your time because the person who one chicken is diaper 100, he doesn't have a big problem.

Really, you don't have a problem, Person doesn't have a problem that your product can solve. So just move on. If you have the regular stuff, sell the guy the regular stuff and then just move on and start looking for people who have high mortality rate amongst their chickens. Then the thing about fluctuating food prices, if somebody is a genuine big boy or big girl and they don't care about the price of feed, they want to buy the best for their chickens and they'll buy whatever the current market rate is, then don't waste your time talking to them because really they don't have a problem.

So if you have the regular stuff, the imported stuff, sell them the imported stuff, that's what they came for, sell you them, let them move. Then go and look for people who actually have that problem. Look for people who plenty of their chickens are dying, you know, 20 per 130 per 100. And then the people who are worried about feed prices, then you're going to be able to have profitable conversations with them. So that is how you should be running your qualifications process.

These are the kinds of conversations that you should be having, you know, asking questions around the mortality rate of the chickens, how many of them are they dying, So how many of them are dying. Questions around how much they spend on feed, whether they like the imported kind or whether they're willing to consider home grown Nigerian varieties for stable prices. Oh, by the way, you also need to find out who produces chickens commercially.

Because if I'm doing this thing from my own backyard and it's not really for business purposes, maybe it might not pain me. If I bought 10 chickens and then five died, maybe it might not because after all, I was going to use them for Christmas, I guess, you know, slaughtering my own Christmas or something. So we also need to have that conversation whether this person is doing this thing residential small scale or this person is doing these things commercially.

So with chicken feed, if you are Mr. Chicken Feed or Madam Chicken Feed, and that's AUVP your unique value proposition, your unique selling point is mortality amongst chickens and then the price of feed. Then you should make sure that you're having conversations and you're only spending time with people who have a high number of chickens who are dying, who are spending too much on imported feed and who do this as a business.

So that's the whole point about qualifying people quickly so that when you are talking to somebody whose chickens are not dying much, the person doesn't mind buying imported feed and the person is just doing it as a hobby or maybe because he wants his children to have pet chickens or whatever. Then obviously this is not a person you should be spending time to refer them to someone else who caters to that sort of a thing.

And then you run along and start looking for other people who match this description. Who does this chicken business for real? Seriously, not a hobby of the people that do this thing commercially, who are the people that plenty of their chickens are dying and they're spending too much money on imported feed? So I'm sure you guys get the get the point. So those are the kind of questions that you should be asking and that is how you qualify effectively to shorten the sales cycle.

You pretty much have a good idea about who your ideal customer is and you're just asking questions to try and figure out if this person is the ideal customer. If the person is, then you can quickly go to the proposal or presentation stage, which is, you know, where you say, you know, that whole thing of probiotic food, whatever in my feed, improved chicken immunity, improved bio immune, gut response something, what else?

NAFDAQ certified, ISO blah, blah, blah, you know, Ministry of Health certified, all that thing. So you quickly go into the presentation and then from there you can attempt to close the deal. So in summary, that is how we have qualified qualifying conversations with leads. Yeah, that's how we have conversation with people basically so that we can shorten the sales cycle. So remember, the whole point of this thing is we're trying to figure out quickly, is this guy my ideal customer?

Does my product our product or service? Can it solve their problem? If you can, let's see if we can close the deal now. So if I spend 3 days talking to the guy and I close the deal Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then I now have Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Except if you're, you belong to the Church of Latter Day Saints, you now have Thursday, Friday, Saturday that you can go and chase after other people. So if you make your business by,

let's say you, let's say OK, between Lagos and Ebano, I know that there used to be a bunch of people that used to run those kinds of businesses in, you know, the lands, you know, in between. So maybe you spend your time driving from one local government to another local government, checking out these people. Then you see how speeding up your sales cycle means that you get to talk to more people. So if you're spending three days a week talking to one person,

then roughly you might you be able to be able to close 2 deals a week. But if you're spending one week talking to one person, you know, then what's the best you can do? The best you can do is 4 deals in a month. But for the person who is able to shorten the sales cycle to three days and you're talking to two people in a week, sorry, if you're closing 2 deals in a week, then that's four times. Sorry. That's 2 * 4. That's 88.

I really hope my math teacher doesn't listen to this because she'd be ashamed. She'd be petrified. OK. Yeah. So you can see the difference is the difference between closing 8 deals every month and closing 4 deals every month. If you're closing 4 deals every month, do the math. You know what your profits is going to look like at the end of the year. If you're closing 8 deals every month, do the math. You know how your profit is going to look like at the end of the year.

So that's it in a nutshell. Yeah. One more thing. I know that sometimes the examples that I give overtly simplify these sorts of things. And to be honest, yes, in real life it can be a little bit more complicated, but it's a problem that's solvable. You can sit down, we can tweak, we can experiment, we can try things wrong way, try things in another way. But eventually it might not be as simple as I'm making it sound, that, you know, in 2

minutes you can narrow this thing down and then double your profits immediately. But all these things are workable problems. So that's all for today. Thank you very much for your time and attention. Please connect with me on WhatsApp for tips, insights, questions, queries. The phone number is 08064662140 and the country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, then connect with me on LinkedIn the name to look for establishing my IED.

Can confirm the spelling of my name from the link. We're listening to this episode, so send me a connection request, the personalized request for those of you who know how, just so I know that you're a listener to the show. And Yep, might take me 2448 hours, but eventually I respond to everyone's messages. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.