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Hello and welcome to the show. Today we're going to continue with the current discussion that we're having on objections, handling objections in sales, objections in business. Now remember an objection is anything that someone says, any reason that they give you for not wanting to go ahead with the sale, with the business relationship, with the agenda. That's for those of you who work in corporate Niger. Or maybe you work in the civil service and you're trying to put forward this campaign.
Maybe you work at anyway. That's the National Orientation Agency. They are the parastatal, the government arm that is responsible for educating the populace on all things national development, civic education, you know, all these sorts of things. And you think it's a good idea to promote a program on sanitation, for instance. And you've spoken to the head of department, the health department thinks it's a good idea. You're pushing it forward in a couple of meetings.
You're getting resistance from some people. That resistance that you are facing, whether at work or in business context, that is what we call objections. And yeah, so that's what I've been tackling the past couple of days now. For those of you who this is your first time of listening to the podcast, there's something that I pointed out that I would like to reiterate again, because they're a bunch of people who are very, what's the word?
They have the right motivation and they're very persistent. And so they're going to continue and continue and continue until the deal clicks or whatever it is that they're trying to pursue works. But we have to realize that there's a distinction between objections and conditions. So objections, if you ask enough questions, you'll be able to figure out what it is that is really going on and you might be able to reframe your proposal,
make a new presentation, that sort of thing. I get the deal going through. However, there are situations where what you have is not an objection, but what you have is a condition and a condition is where there's a prerequisite that has has to be met before you move forward. Now the example that I have given on the podcast in the past has been sale of alcohols to minor. So if you're in the alcohol business, more certain recreational drugs like vaping and things like that because vaping is becoming a thing in Nigeria.
So if you're talking to someone about alcohol or vaping, the person says, oh, when I'm 15 years old, you know, you stop because that is not an objection to be overcome. So you don't, you can't say oh you're 15 and so 15 year olds do this, you know, go ahead, just take a hit, you'll be fine. So no, the person says I'm 15. You stop. You stop the vaping composition because the person is a minor. You stop the alcohol conversations.
The person is a minor. So that is a condition that is a prerequisite that has to be met. And we need to be able to be smart enough or descending enough when having conversations with people to realize whether we're dealing with an objection that can, that we can deal with, or whether it's a condition or a prerequisite that we just have to press. Full stop. Now, the objection that we're going to be looking at today is when people say we're happy with our current supplier.
In the two episodes prior, we dealt with money objections. So we looked at situations where people say, I can't afford it, you're too expensive. Do you want to build house? Are you mad? How much did you say it was? You know, those kinds of money objections. And then we also dealt with, let me see, OK, you're too expensive. That was one that we did. We did a second money objection. You're too expensive. OK, yes. The second one was we don't have any budget allocated for it yet.
So that was the one that we did yesterday. So that are the two money objections that we have handled. Now today's objection is not a money objection and that's when people say look, dude or girl guy like I heard what you said sounds impressive, but we are happy with our current supplier. And so because of that we're not doing business with you. So where do these kind of situations arise? Now they happen where someone already has reliable performance with the vendor that they're currently doing business with.
So if you sell corporate cleaning services, you go to Zenith Bank and the Zenith Bank person says that hey look what you what you're doing seems legit, seems 21st century, everything is on point. Well, to be honest, the people that clean for us, like we haven't had any issues. They clean very well before the branch opens. Nothing has been stolen everywhere, smells nice and fresh. Like we really don't have a problem. We're happy with our current supplier.
So that's one situation. Now it also happens where people are involved in current long term relationships. So let's say you sell medical supplies, medical equipments, drugs, you know, that sort of thing. You get to the hospital and you think because yours is the latest and the greatest and the best because you have the best medication from. Let's say you have the best medication from. Let's see, OK, let's say you have the best generics from India and Russia and they save a bunch of money and so because of that you think you might be able to sell into existing Nigerian hospitals.
So you approach them, but if they have existing relationships with the other companies like JSK Gluck, is it Gluck, the Gluck School, Smith Kline, Beecham or something. So if they have relationships with AGSK or with this other Indian company that makes medicine, what are they called? I can't remember, you catch it. If they already have long term relationship, they would just say, Oh yeah, these drugs, yeah, they look on point, blah, blah,
blah. But to be honest, we're already doing business with GSK. So I'm like we're good, we're happy with our supplier. Then sometimes some people just have strand strong brand loyalties. So you're trying to move in, you're the newest in the market. But The thing is the other person, everybody knows that person, they have a stronger brand and some people are just more comfortable sticking with that brand because nobody gets punished when you stick with a brand that everybody knows.
But if you go with this brand new brand and the thing just the small comma inside yoga will be upset, your spouse will be upset, other people in the department are going to be upset because you're the one that said let's take a chance on these new people and then something happens. They don't live up to the promise and everybody's going to be angry. So at times like that, you're the one who's responsible for the purchasing, you're the one who's responsible for signing off.
You just tell the people that you know what, we're happy with our current supplier. But then actually what's behind your mind is you have a just you have a strong brand loyalty to some other brand. Then other reasons why people say this is because there's going to be an implementation hassle, especially for those of you in the tech space for me to stop using. Let's see what's Nigerian company? OK, I can't think of a Nigerian company anyway, but let's just say in the tech space you've been getting all your Internet needs from MTN so far.
You have MTN routers in the whole building, and then you get approached by what these people, this guy that owns Twitter, what's his name together once? Twitter. I can't remember. There's this billionaire that bought over Twitter anyway. So whatever his name is, his new company, Starlink. Yeah, I think that's Starlink. So a Starlink representative comes, It's just going to be a huge implementation hassle and disrupting workflow.
Like everything has already been set up with the MTN routers and everything. If we're going to switch over to Starlink, we don't have to put a satellite dish. We don't have to rip out a bunch of cables. We have to line up some things. We have to change IP, OS, IP. Is it IPO? No, not IPO. Or is it IPP? Well, I'm not a tech person, but those of you who are tech people, you get the drift. So your IP addresses might change.
Like there's lots of things that you have to implement, lots of things that will change. It's going to be disruption to workflow because, you know, maybe you have to shut down the whole system first and then upload, you know, fix all the styling things that need to be fixed. By the way, I'm not a tech person, so I'm just restyling here. I don't know how it really works. And then maybe you need 24 hours before everything can now come back online.
So that's a disruption to work flows. And then another reason why people say we're happy with our current supplier is because there's this thing of risk aversion. You know, in Niger we say the devil you know is better than the Angel that you don't know. So some people might stay there, they listen to you and like, oh, cool, sounds really nice. But in their mind they're thinking, yeah, this sounds too good to be true. Let me just stick with the devil that I know.
So the devil that I know is better than the Angel that I don't know. So these are tons of reasons why people can say we are happy with our current supplier. And I hope you guys are beginning to appreciate why this whole thing of listening, acknowledging, showing some empathy and then asking questions is important because we've run through a number of different reasons for why people are saying we're we're happy with our current supplier is until you know exactly what it is that they're saying that you know how you're going to deal with the whole thing.
If somebody says we're happy with our current supplier and you ask a bunch of questions, I realize that what they're worried about is disruption to workflow. They're going to be able to say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, Madam, don't worry. It's not a problem. We can come in Friday, 8:00 PM at night after office has closed, and then we'll start work by Sunday morning, 9:00. Everything is already done. And then by 11:00 your IT people can come in between 11:00 and 6:00.
We'll now run troubleshooting to be sure that every single thing is working. So that Monday morning, 8:00 AM, everybody comes into the office, everything is working smoothly and nobody will know that anything had happened. You're not going to be able to make that sort of presentation except if you asked in the 1st place, if you asked a couple of questions to try and get to the root of what it is that is going on. So asking questions really,
really important. Now the typical industries that face these sorts of things, I've already hinted at those of you in the tech and in the software space, especially when you're doing AB to B thing. B to B that's business to business. So if you're selling IT to big companies, you want to hook up Zenith Zenith Bank branches in Abuja. You know those are the some of some of the issues that you might face. We're happy with our current supplier.
Let's say you have human resources software you want to sell to Ministry of Finance. You know, let's face it, OK, well, I don't get Ministry of Finance, so I have no idea. But my guess is, I'm sure Ministry of Finance probably has some human resource software that they've been using to manage their payroll, their discipline issues, their time tracking their payments, their or whatnot. I'm sure that they already have someone.
So most def if you show up and you say, oh we have this new greatest human resource solution, payments and processing this and blah blah blah blah blah and data management, whatever, I'm sure mini show of finance already has someone. So tech software space, you know they'll say, yeah, we're happy with our current supplier. Then if you're supplying equipment, office supplies, equipment in the business to business space.
So let's say you sell stationary to schools, you want to supply textbooks and things like that, Chances are the school has been in existence for a while. They already have someone who supplies them, paper pencils by rose tissue paper textbooks. So that whole thing of we're happy with our current supplier or we have a supplier, nothing is there. Then financial services, how many people in financial services because people have established relationships with banking.
I've mentioned over here on the podcast that even though a lot of the fintech ideas you guys are coming up with sound absolutely fantastic, I'm just not comfortable dealing with anything that is 100% online. I want a branch where I can go to first thing in the morning and grab someone and shout at them and say what happened to my money. This whole thing of this thing is totally online. I can't get to a building, you know, makes me uncomfortable.
So of course, if you're having a conversation with me, I would say, Oh yeah, I'm cool, I'm cool with Zenith Bank. Yeah, I know that your service is better, but I'm actually happy with Zenith Bank right now. I'm happy with Axis Bank, even though I might not be. So now let's see what else. OK And then, yeah, there's one more category, telecom and utilities. So, OK, well, I used to have an MTN line. I ported over to 9 Mobile,
thinking of porting back some some point. But The thing is, if you come up with a new line right now and you're trying to sell your new whatever in Nigeria, you know, most people, you know, lots of folks might not be early adopters, adopters. So they might want to wait like, OK, I'm happy with my MTN and they just leave it like that for utilities like Napa. That's not a problem in Nigeria right now because even though it has been privatized in quote and is now the PHCN, it still feels like it's the same old organization.
So whether we call it PHC or we call it Napa, for Nigerians, it's like, yeah, it's the same thing pretty much maybe on the incorporation papers, on the legal documents, things have changed. So that might not really be a problem in Nigeria, but in the UK for instance, where they have alternative power suppliers, it's a thing. So you can show up to a building to try and sell your utilities, maybe work with UK gas and you get there.
The people already take all their gas and their power from Scottish Gas, and for them will just be too much of A hassle to implement the whole thing, disconnect the gas, hook you up, change the meter and all these sorts of things. So in telecoms and utilities, people get those sorts of objections. We're happy with our current suppliers. Then of course subscription services, you know, like DSTVI really think one of the main reason why DSTV is still the king of the market or the queen of the market is because well,
of course, you know, they have the rich menu, but nowadays everybody has access to the whole menu. So Cartoon Network is everywhere. That's for the kids. Nickelodeon is everywhere. What else? What do you call this thing, this football thing? UFL League and the premier, The premier, Premier. What's it called? Premier or something? And I'm not a football person, so let me not be trained by ignorance. Let me stop there. So they're available on all of them sorts of things.
But I think the reason why DSTV is still the king or the queen of the market was just because they were here first. So they have lots of other people. And so people don't want to hear about the local alternatives. And like we're happy with DSTV, you know, even if it might be cheaper to switch. So how do you deal with this myriad of issues that we've spoken about here so far? Because remember all we've spoken about when people say we're happy with our current supplier, they're afraid of different things.
There's risk aversion. The devil, you know, they're worried about disruption to work flows. Implementation might be a hassle. You're a brand new brand. I'd rather stick to the old brand because at least if I'm with the old brand, you know, nothing will happen if I move to this new brand. And then their service gets disrupted. Your wife will now look at you angry saying that, look, we will DSTV all this. Well, that service was never suspended the last 10 years.
You've moved us to this new company now and it's like half the time they're not even on, you know, So you now start quarreling with your spouse and all that and how do we deal with that? So first of all, we have to acknowledge because like I said, nobody wants to feel like they're an idiot or they're just making up stuff. So you have to acknowledge that it makes sense and you empathize with people like, yeah, I understand, Yeah, you're happy with the current supplier.
It looks like they're doing the totally, you know, it looks like they're doing a very good job so far. And this is where you now transition to asking questions and listen intently because you're trying to figure out the person who you're talking to, You're trying to figure out their needs and their priorities. And then it also helps to understand why they're so happy with the current supplier, because why they're happy with the current supplier might show that you have a superior USB.
They might say, oh, we're happy with the current supplier because they get back to us within two weeks. This is the best I wish I've always experienced, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the point where you be able to say OK, two weeks, well two weeks for Nigeria, you know, that's good. But you know for the service that we provide, we get back to our people within three days, you know. So in that case you can see that for priorities, speed for instance, speed of response and things like that, that you have faster times.
So they're happy with two weeks, then imagine how thrilled they will be if you can promise three days. So that's the reason why we need to ask questions to try and figure out what are the needs, what are the priorities, what are they happy about? And sometimes it's good to figure out what they are unhappy about with their current supplier. Just gives us ammunition. Why would anybody tell you that? It depends. If you do a good job of executing your sales framework and you did a good job of building rapport in the beginning, you know, people loosen up and they tell you all kinds of things, especially when there's no pressure.
Because when you say, yeah, I understand, this makes sense and you empathize, there's no pressure, it feels like you're not going to force them to buy anyway. Also, people might just loosen up. So if people clamp up, Noahallah, just, you know, move on to the next person. But don't worry, follow your process. You'll be able to get all the data that you need to be able to improve your future selling efforts. So it's only after you ask questions and you listen to people that you can now argue for differentiation to say, OK,
yeah, you're happy with this, but actually we were better because we do this, we deliver this, we have superior value because of this. It's only after you ask questions in the beginning. If you don't ask questions, then you just start trying to argue here and there and say this and say that you're guessing and you'd be annoying the other person 'cause you're the person that has told you that, Look, I'm happy with my current guy,
with my current girl, so why are you just going on and on and on? But if you ask questions, you figure out where they're happy and show how your own value is superior, your timing is superior, your quality is superior, then you know there's there's way for you to step into the whole situation. Then you can also use case studies and testimonials from people who have switched, like, OK, yeah, you're happy with your current provider.
I understand you've been using Interswitch. There hasn't been any problems. Or this is what you value. That is what you value. Well, actually, even though Interswitch provides this, this, this, this, we provide that, that, that, that. And we also do it in half the time. In fact, on my phone right now, I have the phone number of the GM of this bank. We spoke to them, they switched over, they left inter switch and this is the reason why they love us.
This is what they told us. So Madam, I'm not lying like this is the phone number here. If I if you want, I can give it to you so you can call GM in the other bank and he will tell you straight up, you know. So that's a case study. That's a testimonial. Then let me see what other things are possible. But you guys get the juice anyway because we're close to 20 minutes. I don't want to make this another 30 minute episode.
We should always be doing re qualification and rediscovery. When we're talking to people and we have objections re qualification. That is, when we're talking to the person, want to be sure that we have the right person, Do they have a problem we can solve? That's what discovery is about. Once we're sure that we're talking to the right person who has a need with a problem that our product or service can call, can solve and there's room to meander, You know, there's room to take a step back and make another proposal.
Now there's an alternative approach which might be less direct in case you are afraid of confrontation. So if you're afraid of confrontation, you can try this approach. The alternative approach, the more lay back approach can be like Oh yeah, I understand you're currently happy with your current with your current provider. Yeah, sure, no while no problem, I get. And then you just ask a simple question, like is it OK if I'm your #2?
Just in case your number one guy messes up, your number two girl messes up? That is also an option. In case you don't you think the things I said earlier are too confrontational. This is a much more laid back approach. You're happy? Oh no problem, I'll get off your hair. I won't disturb you. But is it OK if you just consider us as #2 if the person says, and why not? It's business now. Business is all about options now.
So if I have your digits, if I have your material, it's not a problem then cool. What you now do is you put the person is in a relationship nurturing sequence. The goal of putting someone in a relationship nurturing sequence is this. You're sending emails, WhatsApp messages, SMSS. Once in a while you drop by the office. The whole point is you're trying to remain top of mind. So it's not just that you drop your flyer, you never come back.
Drop your flyer. But the person should still be seeing you somehow. So follow the person on send a connection request on LinkedIn. Follow the person's Instagram drop by the office maybe every once in two months or something. We're sending them emails with insights and education about the product or service, the problems that are being solved in that space, you know, things like that. The whole point is to remain top of mind.
So you're building credibility so that the day that their current provider, FSOP, you know, the guy messes up or the girl messes up, they'll say this Chukudi guy or this Chinaya girl, she's been hanging around, Let me just buzz herself, let me see what they have to offer. So that's an alternative approach that is more laid back if you're tired of being confrontational. So 20 minutes on the dot, let me bring you to a close.
Connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140 and the country code is +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian. And then connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayede. I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link. We're listening to this episode, so thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.