Beyond the Pitch: Using Your CRM to Close More Deals

During my last podcast recording, if I remember correctly, I spoke about how if you're looking for a perfect sales person, you need to find somebody who is process oriented. And that's because to be effective at setting, to be effective at persuading people, to be effective at getting people along with your agenda, you need to have a process that you follow rigidly. Yes, I said the word rigidly, slave slavishly all the time because that's the only way that we're going to stay on top of the stay on top of it and not lose focus, not be derailed and also carry out best practices.

Now I've also, I've spoken about on the podcast a lot about how we all should be using CRMS in our business and the CRM is a customer relationship management tool. OK. So I'm sure some of you are familiar with CRM from a technical point of view. But the way that I like to explain the CRM for every single person, whether they have a technical background or not, is the CRM is just that tool. It's just that repository. It's just that thing where you keep the contact details of everybody that you've spoken with in the past, people that you intend to speak to, the things you've spoken about, the things you hope to talk about,

the particular lines of discussion that you are currently having at the moment, The stage of the relationship, the stage in the relationship that you guys are at, the thing that you need to do next to move the relationship forward and what else? Anyway, those sorts of things. So the reason why I talk about it this way is because I started off as a lawyer. For those of you who are long time listeners of the podcast, I'm a former lawyer, now turn to business consultant.

So back in the law days, you know, the starter of legal practice back when, you know, tech was not really a thing per SE, you know, in Niger, you know, back then early, early, early, you know, Abacha or Basandra or, you know, that kind of era. So I haven't done well law in a while. So I don't know how things run now in legal circles in Niger because I've been out of it. But back then we lived and died by our Diaries. There was an office diary.

The chamber manager would have a diary, all the lawyers would have Diaries, all the partners would have Diaries. When we have conversations with clients we will note it in our Diaries. When you go to court, you note it in the diary. When you come back, you talk to the practice manager. Significant things will be put on the Diaries. We lived and we died by our Diaries because that is how we made money. So the contact details of people, our clients are there,

the people were supposed to talk to the what we spoke about is there. The next course of action is there. So by following our Diaries rigidly, we would stay on top of things and would end up making money. You do not use your diary. You forget to call specific people, you forget to show up for specific meetings, you forget to do certain things that are supposed to move the deal forward. So I define CRM tools this way just so that anybody who's listening to this podcast, if you're not from a tech background and you're still in an industry where that diary,

then they use, you know, diary and filing cabinet and stuff like that. So long as you have something that exists beyond you, you're not running it from memory, bam, just take it. That's your CRM. So to be an effective salesperson, you need something whether and a diary, whether and a post it notes, whether or not Google Calendar, whether CRM tool, whether, like whatever it is, so long as there is a system that exists outside your head,

you follow it because that is where the money is. You don't do that. You'll lose track of appointments by losing track of appointments. You'll lose track of deals by losing track of phone calls. You'll lose track of deals by losing track of phone calls and meetings and things like that. That is where you your business will start falling apart. Now I was working with a salesperson recently who's a newly hired person who's responsible for selling solar and let's just call her Michelle, not a real name.

Now Michelle is brand new to the job and to give Michelle kudos. I like her vigor as in should know the rest you understand as if she showed up OK, I'm done with today's tasks. Why I give me work. Nobody's giving her work. She will go and start looking for work to do. So she ended up calling some old clients that were not on her list. And because of that, I clap for her. So if you're a salesperson working on behalf of somebody else, that is a good thing to do.

Some of you say, why would I bother? No, be salary. Well, yes, it's salary, but it's directly tied to your commissions. And then apart from that, by taking this kind of attitude, you are deliberately setting yourself up to be a real badass babe, a real boss babe in the future because you are imbibing some habits. You are imbibing some disciplines so that when you start your own business and you're ready to step into your calling as a boss babe, you for don't learn certain kind fundamentals.

So the level of your game will be up and above your contemporaries. So when you do things like this, it's not just your guy you're helping, you're also helping yourself because you're effectively becoming a badass babe, a boss babe. So she called somebody now and we ran over the the conversation. But then and I realized one thing that she didn't too check the CRM before she called like she checked the CRM recent reports, but she didn't scroll from the bottom and read to the top.

Now with this example, some of you will see the reason why the CRM is a very important tool and you have to use it effectively. And you know, if you use it effectively, that's where the money is now. Because for me, because I don't know this contact, I scrolled to the very bottom of the company's CRM and I started reading back from last year, 2025, when they started contacting this customer. So this customer was not her own customer.

She just joined the company brand new. It was another person's customer, but the person is no longer with the company. So she has picked up from where this person off. So remember Michelle, she's responsible for selling solar. Now for this particular account, the old salesperson had come up with a case study for how they can help this person review, reduce, sorry, their electricity bill by 9.6 M every single month. 9.6 M Hold that in your mind. 9.6 M So that was buried in the CRM.

Now, if you show up and OK, it's your own case, but you're not reading the old details, the old details in your CRM or you just join the company new, but you're not going through the CRM, you'll be missing details like this that you can use to start a valuable conversations with potential customers and prospects. When we say valuable, remember valuable is not from your own point of view, but valuable is what from the customer, from what the end client will feel is important or valuable to them.

Now remember that when we talk about value on this podcast, I talk about Victor Antonio's value Trinity. There are other ways of talking about this, but Victor Antonio's value Trinity is very easy to understand. So first of all, he calls them the four FS, sorry, the three FS, even though they're not three FS, but that's what he calls them anyway as a joke. So Victor Antonio talks about things like this that people buy or people get involved or people whatever, when it comes to commercial relationships, when they see three kinds of benefits, when you see a physical benefit, when you see a psychological benefit or when you see a financial benefit.

So you see the joke, you know, three FS. Meanwhile, none of them are F. It's just that, you know, financial, OK, F is financial. OK, yes, so financial, that's an F. But then the other two is PP. So physical benefit, psychological benefit, and then financial benefits. So Victor Antonio says that that's how people get on board. So when you show them that, look, if you buy this my product, this is what you will enjoy in your body.

This is how your skin will shine. This is how you will glow. This is how you will grow taller. This is how you will get BBL. This is how you will do this and have physical benefits, then they'll be on board. Then financial benefits. If you get on board, you buy this product, you buy this service, you will make this amount of money or you will save this amount of money or whatever. Sit down this financial benefit then psychological benefits.

If you take this thing, you go feel good. You know babes go, they like you, they go they rush you. You know you will be popular in your circles. You know whatever you have all your power, you will attract the laws of the universe, you know blah, blah, blah. So those are the main benefits physical, financial, psychological now buried within this CRM. Now that Michelle looked at to her credit she looked at it, but she didn't scroll to the bottom.

So note to those of you who are using the CRM, always scroll and start from the bottom just to refresh your mind. Even if now you right hand, just know that you forget things from time to time. Scroll from the bottom, read everything, then your mind will not be allowed and be refreshed. You now as a creative somebody, now as a salesperson, you now know, oh, OK, this is how I'm going to tackle this particular conversation.

So always so buried deep in there, like I said, was a conversation by somebody from the team who spoke to the potential customer. And in the year before, year prior, in 2025, the person had done some quick, quick numbers to just show that. Look, right now you're currently doing about 13.8 million annually. So I can't remember who's annually or monthly. You're doing about 13.8 million, OK, Let's just say annual you're doing about 13.8 million in electricity costs.

Electricity, diesel, D dot dot dot dot dot if we implement this kind of plan for you, we could be saving you. We could be bringing your something down to 4.2. That's the mathematics that they did for the guy. Now, of course, me coming in now as a business consultant, just to make the thing simpler, I say let's just extract the value. So 13.8 -, 4.2, that comes down to 9.6 M So I told her that is the conversation. Now that is the conversation that when you reach out to the guy will be a matter of, hey,

how are you doing, Sir, this is Michelle. So so, so company, one of my associate was in touch with you last year. He had a couple of discussions. He's no longer with us. And I've been charged with the responsibility for making you a happy customer, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, that kind intro, early gist and then from there to have a valuable conversation. It will be a matter of my colleague Boniface when he spoke to you last year said that we could save you up to 9.6 million naira cash every single month if we go with you.

OK, sorry, I said annual. I can't remember whether it's annual or monthly, 9.6 million naira annual on your current utility bills. Are you still interested in that conversation that you started with Boniface last year? And would you like to know how we can help you do this in your factory, Sir? Question mark, you ask question, you keep quiet. Now you see how she who's going to be able to start a valuable conversation that way.

Now the reason why we're discussing this particular case, let's just call the guy Johnny Bravo, the client. Let's call the client Johnny Bravo. So the reason why we're talking about Johnny Bravo now was she reached out to Johnny Bravo. She tried to start conversation. Johnny Bravo said you know, send me quote, send me estimate and then he was not answering. So I was now telling that oh you know what, if you had gone through the CRM, if you had looked through the CRM, you had seen the history, you could have picked up some good ideas for how to start this conversation.

And honestly speaking, this is how you should have started the convo NASA, based on what I see on file, you and Boniface, when already done, the yarn and Boniface talk saying will help you remove 9.6 million of savings on your electricity bill. So are you still interested in continuing that conversation? That is a very valuable way of bringing somewhere to the table. Because you know that when somebody says semi proposal,

semi quote, send me this, you know what's going to happen. You send the e-mail and then ghost or you send the WhatsApp and then ghost because it will take your proposal compared to two or three other people and then go for the cheapest or go for whatever they think is the most professional. But either way, I guess the point of what it is I'm trying to say today is that this R.E.M. is a very good tool for unlocking sales in your business.

This is only going to be possible if you have good data hygiene. Data hygiene means you're putting in all the relevant information that you need to be able to move the deal forward. So be putting in there. I spoke to Johnny Bravo today. This is what we discussed. This is our next step. You know, this dot dot dot dot dot, you put all those things down there so that sometime in the future when you're out of ideas, I open the CRM, you see the whole history.

You will now know, oh, OK, I can try it like this. I can try it like that. Or if you leave the company and somebody else comes new, the person who's coming after you will say, oh, OK, I can run it like this. I can run it like that. So that's some of just what I wanted to say today basically. So if you'd like to connect with me, you can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064 662140. If you'd like to have a 15

minute sale audit, call me WhatsApp me on the same number 08064662140. Or if you'd like to join my WhatsApp channel, WhatsApp me on the same number and we will hook you up. But whether you do reach out to me or not, just remember the CRM is an important tool. The CRM doesn't always have to be tech, OK? Doesn't always have to be tech, doesn't have to be high tech. Remember I started off when lawyers were using Diaries.

So it's the same thing. You just joined the firm, You're the baby lawyer, you're the youngest of staff. Before you go and see the client, Madam Ogadingbay, take the diary, take the case file open to the beginning and then scan all the way through to the end. It will give you a sense of OK. The person that started talking to Madam Ogadingbay last year, this is where they talk, this is where they stop. This is where they hook.

These are depending matters. If I want Madame Ogadenbay to become a client of the firm, then maybe I'll try this idea. Maybe I'll try this idea. That's how it works. So if you're an architect, I don't know if architects are high tech in Niger now, but let's just assume that Niger architects are not high tech yet and you are still using diary. You're an architect and using diary. It's the same thing. You join the the the firm brand new.

Then you're supposed to go and see Mr. Johnny Bravo. You will take the file and you open it. You will start from back skim all the way through. This is Johnny Bravo. This is what he does. This is what he needs. These are the proposals that were on ground before. This is where the conversation stopped. OK, this is how I might revive the conversation and get things going again. So whatever it is, Google Calendar, a proper CRM tool,

diary, whatever it is, please use your tool and remember that to be a professional salesperson, we have to think of ourselves like medical doctors and remember the old school medical doctors. Well, you know, when we're children and we used to go to hospital, the doctor will say, how are you doing? And as you are talking, what's the doctor doing? The guy is going back into the file. The guy is scrolling from the beginning and reading everything just so that he has a general knowledge of every, every.

So whatever your profession, you will definitely have some sort of CRM, some sort of repository of customer information, recording the history of the interactions. Whatever it is, avail yourself of it. There is money that is lurking in there, and there are ideas for how to push these conversations forward. And remember the value Trinity people buy when they see a benefit. Victor Antonio says value Trinity. He says physical, financial,

psychological, if you can show them that look do business with us, psychologically, you go do you like this bam, that is value. If you can say benefit financial do business with us, this is how much you will earn, bam, this is value there. Or if you say physical do business with us, you go do you for body like this bam, that is benefit there. And it applies no matter the industry that you're doing. So beauty and skin care, there's physical benefit, there's psychological benefit.

If you're a lawyer, there is psychological benefit because you give people Peace of Mind. Yeah, you, you know, be them Peace of Mind or give them revenge or whatever, or you help your people make money. If you are an architect, there is, there is psychological benefit. Abby, you see the building, the build work will move smooth. What are that benefits? Again, they could be cost savings. Like if you're designing a factory, your factory design might help them achieve, I don't know, 15% savings, you know, on the factory belt or something.

So no matter your industry, just look at it from that point point of view. So Value, Trinity and then the CRM 2 random things I just wanted to talk about today. So remember, applying these things can be tricky. If you need help, you want me to look at your particular circumstance, just connect with me, call me, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140. Thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you all some other time.