Boosting Your Event Business: Practical Tips for Client Acquisition & Growth

Hello and welcome to the show. I'm chilling in the central area in between engagements. So I said let me just make this recording real quick while I have some time. Let's see. All right, now today I'm going to go into, well, today's episode is going to be a rambling episode because I haven't quite gathered my thoughts on this, but I had an interaction with a listener of the show, Mr. Joseph Carrady. He is based in Lagos.

He has an event company and, you know, a couple of things here and there. And so we had a conversation about, let me see. So I'm looking at my notes here trying to gather my thoughts because I think this conversation was, I mean, maybe like 2 weeks back. Oh yeah. Anyway, there's some problems that he's trying to solve in his business. And of course, when and whenever anyone reaches out to me over on WhatsApp, you know, we chat a bit.

But typically I have a standard set of questions that I send back for you guys to make voice notes. And then, you know, we look through them and we'll just pick one matter that we can work on. And that's because I have to prioritise my paid work, my paid consulting engagements, speaking engagements, you know, those sorts of things. I have to prioritise that. So whenever people do, whenever you loyal listeners of the podcast, reach out to me, the best I can do is just give you guys maybe 1530 minutes, have a conversation.

Let's try and see how we can solve just one problem with your business. Let me say, I can give you some advice to move your business forward. So that's the conversation that I had with Joseph Cardi maybe like 2 weeks back. So the matter that he wanted to that we were going to prioritize for the session was to see how he can get 50 clients by next year. So if I remember correctly, let me see, OK, anyway, the goal is 50 clients by next year and I

think he's doing on average 20 clients every single year. Then the business that he's involved in is he has an event management company and you know, when somebody has an activity based goal like that, you know, I want to get 50 clients, so I want to get 200 clients. So I want to get, you know, X number of clients. The first thing that we try to do actually is to see what the baseline is. We actually need to figure out what the person is doing now so that if we can, if we figure out how many clients the person is doing now and we're able to figure out what kind of activities are generating the results that he's receiving now,

then we know how much effort or yeah, we know how much effort we need to bring to the table in order to get those kinds of results. Now, the way that I explained it to him is this, and I've explained it to a couple of people before, but let me just put it out here on the podcast in case I haven't mentioned it on the podcast before. Now, typically when you're starting a business of the kind of problems that you're going to have, they change over time.

So in the early days of the business, the problems that you face are the kind of problems that will be solved by effort. So in the beginning, the problem is that you either not are not working hard enough or you're not working on the right thing, or you're working on the right thing, but you're not putting in the amount of work that is necessary to get things moving. So back to the people who reach out and say, oh, I did some Flyers.

And that's the reason why I stress this thing enough because some of you who try going the flyer out, you have good intentions, but you know, you send out 100 Flyers and then you get discouraged. But The thing is, there is no part of the world where putting out 100 Flyers is going to be enough to get you business because Flyers is a numbers game. Which is why I say that since Flyers get cheaper the more that you produce, go ahead and pay the printer for 3000 copies.

And then, you know, go and distribute 1000 or 2000 first before you saying this thing is not working. And then also for people who prefer the prospecting route, which is going to go and talk to people about their business. You know, you sit them down, you ask them a couple of questions. You now figure out that OK, they started business, but since they started, they only told Mumsy and Popsy, some uncles and aunties and then some friends.

And, you know, that's not enough to guarantee results. You actually need to sit down, come up with a proper prospecting plan. Nothing fancy. It's just a sheet of paper that has #1 to #20 these are the people that I'm going to contact in January. And then, you know, January, you sit and look back and say, OK, how did this thing work? OK, this group of people, this thing didn't make sense. So in February, I'm not going to contact these kind of people.

And then you drop a new list for February. And then you continue like that, even if it's something that basic. But what I'm trying to stress is in the beginning, whatever problems you're facing in your business will be solved by effort. Do more of the things that you're already doing or sit down and figure, am I doing all the right? Am I doing the right thing? And then once you figure out what the right thing you should be working on this, do more of that.

So in the early days, the problems you face are problems of effort. Work harder then when things get moving a bit, when you start gaining some traction, when you get some market validation, when you get some product market fit, when you have figured out that there's a demand for your product or your service. People like what it is that you do and they're willing to pay at a price that is enough for you to, you know, take care of yourself and also reinvest something back in the business when you reach that stage.

The problems that you face now are problems of scale. What scale means is in the early days, you are the one who was doing everything. You've now gotten to the point where you need to find ways of multiplying yourself or multiplying your effort. So in stage 2, it's a matter of scale. How am I going to find other people to sell on my behalf? Or how am I going to get someone to do XYZ function, which is pivotal on my behalf?

So that will be the next stage. So the first stage, remember, effort will solve all your problems. In the first stage, I need to work harder. I need to do more. I need to figure out what it is that is working. The one that is working. Let me do more. Let me do more. When you got into stage two, OK, People like this thing. People are willing to pay the unit. Economics makes sense. I can put some money in my pocket. I can buy small credit.

I can fill my car. I can Internet. I can, you know, it looks like there's like there's hope beyond the horizon. Solving your problems now are problems of scale. We're trying to get this thing to grow beyond us, which is where we'll now start looking at this whole thing of, you know, standard operating procedures, making sure that you have a selling framework, you know, things like that, so that you can now begin to train people.

So even if it's just you and your wife, you can now start training your wife that. OK, my dear, this is how we talk to customers. These are the kind of people that we look for to be our customers. You know, this and this and that and that or the other way around. If it's you wife who's the business person, you can now start training your husband. Michelle, my dear, my loving husband, I appreciate your support. But my dear, you know, this is not how you talk to customers.

This is how you talk to customers, blah, blah, blah. And believe me, it happens because there's a business. Well, I will not mention them now honestly speaking, the husband was a total idiot. You know, so anytime I was calling, I was praying that please let it be the wife you don't pick up because the wife was a man being but the husband was was crap. So please spouses, they were trying to support yourself. Please a line according to what your husband or your wife is telling you because you're bringing the family business down and you don't, you don't even know.

So anyway, I was like, so the next stage, now scale, that's going to be the problem scale. How can we multiply this thing beyond us? What are the systems that we're going to put in place to make sure that this thing is growing beyond me? How am I going to recruit a team? How am I going to train the team? Excuse me, what am I going to be training the team on? So Stage 1, effort will solve all your problems. Stage 2 scaling will help you solve your problems.

Now Stage 3, which is the big one, we pray that we all get there. For Stage 3, it is strategy that is going to help you achieve breakthrough. So OK, we have now established in stage one that this thing works, there's a demand and people are willing to pay for it at a price that allows us to take something home. Then Stage 2, we have recruited the team, we have created standard operating procedures. We have set everything in place.

Accounting systems are in place, selling systems are in place, marketing systems are in place. Everything is running nice and smooth. We've been running smooth for like 3 or 4 years. And now we want to take the next step. Now it will be a matter of strategy. Now all those big questions of should we try new customer segments? Should we branch into adjacent markets? Should we consider opening new locations? You know, all those big, big,

big strategic questions. You know, that's stage 3, by the way, a problem with a lot of views that people are trying to do this thing in reverse. You haven't started anything. You're really asking yourself strategic questions like what kind of strategy are you doing? There's nothing on ground to strategize on. So it's good to be thinking high level strategy. This, this is that that. But some of you are doing this thing in reverse in the beginning.

What strategy are you strategizing? There's nothing to strategize over. The primary question is, do people even like this thing? OK, they like it. Can I sell the damn thing? OK, I can sell it. Can I sell it in such a way that by the time you settle boys and girls, or you pay for supplies and they do this thing, there's going to be something in my pocket. So I can pay school fees, I can do house rent. I can do this. I can do that.

Those are the first sorts of questions. It's only after you answer the first set of questions and then you create standard operating procedures and then you have a team and then you put everything in place that now you can now sit down, start thinking strategic, right? So please, dear listeners of the podcast, you should stop thinking strategy from day one. You know, day one, you should be thinking much more practical.

Is this thing workable? Do people like it? Can I sell it? Can we put a team around it? You know, and then anyway, where was I? So if I haven't said it on the podcast, I'm saying it now. So usually that is how we're going to tackle some of the problems that you guys are facing in your business. So #1 effort #2 scale #3 strategy. So for Joseph Caridy, of course, that is where we went to effort. So the goal is to try and figure out what is Joseph Caridy doing,

what is working from what Joseph Caridy is doing. And then we'll now know what to multiply so that we can get to 50 clients a year. Oh, by the way, I don't think it's a bad goal that if you're doing 20 clients a year, you aim for 50. See what? Because you know how everybody says, you know, aim for the what do you say? Is it aim for the stars? If you miss, you hit the moon. I'll be something like that. I'll be in for the sun.

If you miss, you hit the stars or something. I can't remember what it is, but that's the scope there. So you try to double your output. It's not a bad idea. It's not a bad idea at all. Whether you make it or you don't, it's it's besides the point. But The thing is, you need to give yourself an audacious goal. So let's see, what was I, Hannah? So now we're trying to figure out what it is that he was doing. So he in the past, he had done some social media campaigns.

He had also done some direct sales by meeting people in the church. And I hope you guys are seeing a pattern here. You know how I've been talking about how I've mentioned on the podcast in the past about how when you're thinking about networking and things like that, you know, it doesn't have to be anything fancy. You can start where you are. So if you're a church boy and you're with the church community, then you know, by all means continue.

So I want my wife idiot just came apart next to me. Let me wind up the window and block this *** out. Sorry about that. These are some of the these are some of the challenges or or the beauty of, you know, recording things live. Where was I? I lost my train of thought. So I was trying to say that you start where you are. So of course, some people like to get adventurous. You know, you want to start networking, you want to start doing direct sales and then you start coming up with some grand plans.

Let me join Lagos Chamber of Commerce. Let me do this. Let me do that. Now, those big ideas, yeah, it's OK. They're not bad. But The thing is, if you start with where you already are, so in this case, like Joseph Karadi and then this other guy, drummer boy, Steven. Steven the drummer boy, I can't remember his real name, but that's nickname I I came, I gave to him. So if you listen to Steven the drummer boy episode, because Steven was also a church boy,

there's not a problem with starting with your church crew. The benefit of doing that is it's an environment that you're already familiar with. So when you start here and you get comfortable here and you build skills here, it is now the skills you have built and the confidence that you have gained that will now make it easy for you to now go. And do you know Lagos networking at Lagos Chamber of Commerce or or some other environment.

So it's good that he has done some direct, tried to do some direct sales and networking in church. Then he also had a prospecting company to go and get e-mail addresses, names and phone numbers and they were able to get details for 100 companies. And I found that really interesting because to be honest, most people don't think about spending money in any way in the beginning. So I'm glad that he was kind of brave to do that.

And I'm glad the direction with which he went that he was thinking of reaching out to a company so that he can start planning company events because he said that he had maxed out church. Like, OK, everybody in church already knows what he does. And he wasn't satisfied with the results he was getting on social media campaigns. Social media campaigns. Sorry, you you guys can see that today's episode is disorganized. It's because I didn't take time to gather my thoughts.

So I'm just looking at the scribbles that we had during the conversation. So please just bear with me. You know, things have been up and down at home. The people that owe me money. The thing is entering another level now because it's like 3 months. No, it's like four months now being chasing these guys. One day, mom, she came, you know, she's been around so full house and stuff like that. So things have been a little scattered.

I haven't had time to gather my thoughts. Where was I? Yeah. So for social media campaigns now, he wasn't happy about the results he was getting with his social media campaigns. And yeah, let me talk about that real quick because there's some of you who are doing social media when you're not happy with the results. And this is going to be why now he put some money behind advertising on social media and then he wasn't happy with the results.

And most people think social media doesn't work. But the problem is it's not that social media doesn't work. It's that there is a way that you have to optimize things for social media advertising to work. Now, The thing is. Oh, OK, Yeah, the. Yeah, the bugger has left. Let me wind down the window. Sorry about that. OK, Now, so I was saying there's a way that you optimize things to work on social media. And this is how now what Joseph Cardio was doing and a bunch of other people you know that I

work with, what they do is that you put this advertisement out on Instagram or you put the advertisement out on Google, but then you send people to your website or you send people to the to the homepage. Unfortunately, your homepage or your Instagram handle has not been optimized to close a sale. So for advertising to work, for online advertising to work, what you do is when you advertise, you don't send people to the hub, you don't send people to the website, you don't send people to the Instagram handle.

You send people to a channel that makes it easier to do conversions, which is why I mean telling you people now for those of you who do QR code, stop doing QR code to website. Let the QR code send people into WhatsApp because from WhatsApp the person, the person can now engage in a conversation that are you available? Do you have it in size 42? How much does it cost? Can you deliver to Cameroon that kind of channel? Now you are increasing the chances of closing a sale because a communications channel like that makes it easier and is much more properly optimized to close a sale.

So when you're running social media campaigns, one destination can be WhatsApp. If it is a social, if it's going to be online advertising like on Google and you're not sending people to WhatsApp or you're not sending people to e-mail, you can send them to a landing page. A landing page is properly set up with much more material will answer a couple of questions and you know, things like that will move people along. But if you take if you advertise and then you send somebody to a hub, just a general space.

The problem with general space is people don't know what to do next. So if you're an event planning company and you put out an advert, advertisement on LinkedIn, so I say LinkedIn, Instagram, just like he did, but he just sent it back to the Instagram page. People will go there and you know, they might be looking at your pretty pictures and then maybe they get distracted or you know something. So what you have to do is send it to some asset that makes it easier for you to convert opportunities and to close the sale.

So the advice I gave to him was, next time you do that, maybe you have created a specific post that I don't know, maybe a specific post that has an invitation to try out an offer or to schedule a meeting or something like that. So the advertisement, you send it to that particular post so that once they open that particular post and they're interacting with that particular post, the next step will be something that can further a sales conversation along.

So that's how it works. For those of you who have tried social media advertising and say it doesn't work, the problem is not that it doesn't work. The problem is that you didn't do it the right way. You are advertising and sending people to a general hub. Don't advertise and then just send people to your Instagram page in general, advertise and send it to one particular Instagram post that you have done your thinking and your planning so that that particular post can move the conversation along.

Or advertise so that people end up in your your WhatsApp inbox so that you can start the usual conversation. How much do you charge? Are you based in Lagos or Abuja? Can you deliver to Abakaliki? And do you have it in size 32? Do you have it in color pink? Do you have it in color purple? OK, so that's how it works. And he took that that advice well so that if he's something he's going to try again in the future, at least he has been properly guided.

So for those who say social media advertising campaigns don't work, they work. You just did it the wrong way. And this is one of the ways how. But if you're still curious, you know, hit me up. The phone number is 08064662140, country code +234 in case you're not Nigerian. And that is my WhatsApp number or connect with me on LinkedIn, the name to look for establish my IED. So if you have questions on that, let me know.

Let's have a look. Like I said, we'll try and schedule like 15 maximum 30 minutes conversation, but we'll only pick one issue because I have to prioritize, you know, things actually, you know, things that pay the bills for me. And let's see if we can help you get sorted on that. That's your social media advertising issues. Then, OK, so I was saying that he picked a company to help with prospecting. They came up with a list of 100

and I thought that was beautiful. That was really, really beautiful. Now, the problem that we're facing is this. Whenever he tried to reach out to any of these companies, he found that the he was getting into maybe like customer service, e-mail, you know, that kind of thing. Basically he was just getting into that whole, thank you very much for reaching out, we will get back to you. All those kind of things. So the thing went nowhere.

So or he would send, excuse me, or he would send a proposal to those e-mail addresses and then people will not read the proposal. So this was the advice I gave to him. Now what he's trying to do in recent times, people call it account based marketing, but actually there are sales principles and tactics around these sorts of things that people have been doing for decades. So it's nothing new, but then we just use the modern term in case there's someone listening to this podcast now who wants to go and do further research.

What you should be researching is account based marketing. So one of the principles of account based marketing is this. When you're doing account based marketing, you're not going, you're not just going to try 1 channel. That's not how you break into a corporation. That's not how you break into a business. So the example that I gave Joseph Carraday is this. So for my TV show that I'm trying to put in the TV show, sorry that I'm trying to put on air, what I did was I was able to figure out one officer who turned out to be the head of accounting.

Now, of course, head of accounting, that's not really relevant to what I'm trying to do, right? But it's not a problem. At least now I have one person on the inside as I called up head of accounting and I called in and I went to have a meeting with her. So it's from Justin with head of accounting now that I was able to figure out who are the relevant people that I'm supposed to be talking to ahead of accounting. Thoughts.

This your idea sounds tight and it's even something that we even discussed during our last board meeting. By the way, you will be listening now. Can you see how when I say that luck is inherent in business and sales that this is what I'm talking about? There is no way I would have known that the TV station that I picked at the last board meeting was interested in creating business content similar to what I have in mind.

So all these people who like to argue and say, oh, it's hard work, it's hard work. There's no short thing as luck. Look, there's hard work that is involved because I did the reaching out and I did the contacting and I drove to the office and I've been having the meetings. But sometimes there's a certain level of luck involved. Luck just means that there's some things you could not have planned for. How would I have known that?

The day I went into our office last week, they had just finished board meeting and these are some of the things that they had discussed. All right, So for all you people who keep discussing hard luck, hard work, I mean, luck versus hard work, grace, grace of God, you know, it's all, it's everything. It's everything. If God wants to bless you with divine Providence, but you sit down in your house, you know, the Providence is not going to,

you know, provide, it won't click. So you still have to do your own bit. But still, it's not everything you can plan for. So anyway, so that's the example I gave to Joseph Caddy. I went in to talk to head of accounting. Head of accounting is like this is the kind of thing we've been discussing about. If I come, come, come, let me take you to head of production. So no head of operations, no head of programming. Then from head of programming,

it's like this is actually a very good idea. But I'm thinking we should have done it this way because I would have liked this thing for for to work online. But Charlotte's going to talk to head of operations. So that's how I go introduce the head of operations. Then from head operations, OK, this looks good, blah, blah, blah, come up with a pilot. I came with a pilot. OK, now let's go out and meet head of production. So this is the example that I

gave him. I went in to talk to one person, but I kept it multimodal. I didn't rely on one channel. I didn't rely on e-mail. I started off with a phone call and straight, I moved to physical and person meeting and then I made sure I got everybody's phone number so that we'll be on that phone call and WhatsApp level one-on-one direct. And then in fact, I am avoiding e-mail deliberately because e-mail is over what's the word?

Everybody's e-mail is full basically. So I don't want to get on e-mail level. Everybody. I'm happy with the way things are. And you see, this is the reason why for me, I prefer face to face. I know you, I call you, I know your office, I go there. It's it's expensive, yes, because you know, you're burning fuel, you're burning TP, but it's not a bad way to move things forward and then move things along quickly. And then it's also a good way to pally up with everybody in the corporation.

Because think about it. Every single time I visit, let's say I go to Z, head of production by Josh Branch and I agree, head of accounting, you know, I get to meet somebody else and I'm becoming a member of the family and I'm becoming all cool. This is what is called multi threading and it makes it easier to close the deal. Multi threading means you don't just rely on one person within the corporation. You're trying within the business account.

You're trying to talk to as many people as possible. And by the way, nothing is perfect. I've also given the example about the incubation hub and I was trying to do some business for. I went there and the CEO was from Benoit State. So I quickly entered into that whole team boy thing like my brother, blah, blah, blah. You know that whole team angle, like you know where village people work barrack ball. And then I got in through the head of programming.

And then from there I got introduced to, I can't remember, I can't remember the the ladies title, but I knew three people within the organization and I thought all was well. I thought all was cool. Unfortunately, within one month, CEO Jabba, head of programming, relocated to Japan. And then the third lady now resigned and moved, went to go and work in another corporation. So these things happen. I mean, nothing is perfect you know, but still you, you try a lock, you just try and put the odds in your favour.

Anyway, where was I? So multi threading, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to talk to different people within the corporation. So I told him that the problem was they picked 1 channel, which is e-mail and they decided to hang everything on e-mail. I know that's not how it works. We're going to try multiple channels, we're going to try emails, we're going to try phone calls, we're going to try visiting people.

But when you try, you know, whatever it is that makes sense to you, to your contacts, to your likes, to your dislikes, we'll try it all. And then when we're just going to focus on one person, You can't say you want to do something with Channels TV and then you only have one e-mail address. Nothing is not going to fly. Now, even if you want to do an e-mail strategy, try and get like multiple e-mail addresses, try and get the e-mail address of the head of station, head of programming, head of operation head.

You know, one e-mail is not going to cut it. But please, for those of you who e-mail, e-mail, e-mail, please, you should stop that thing. It's a bad behaviour in the early days of the business. It's every, every, if you can do face to face. I know it can be scary, but please, just, you know, it can't be scary. Wake up, say your prayers, get your spouse to pray over you. You know, talk to your parents, you know, tell them this is what I'm trying to do.

Your parents will pray for you because they want your success. And then just go boldly, well somewhat boldly in knowing that the love of your friends and your family members are behind you and that you said your prayers and that God would bless the work of your hands and just give it a best shot. So that's why I told him this is what we need to do. So unfortunately or other fortunately, the list that he got over 100 companies that was from a year ago.

So that is not a problem. I told him, look, there's no need to go and pay anybody and get new, a new list that you reached out to these people one year ago. Nobody will remember that you reached out to them again. So you can, you can go and go again. But I told him that look, don't go and send a proposal. Don't go and send an e-mail proposal and expect that something will click. We're trying to do account based marketing.

We have decided the company. We now need to figure out who are we supposed to talk to within the company. Now my next question to Joseph Kardi was what kind of phone do you use? He said he uses Android. Who's an Android guy like me. That's OK, no problem. On your Android phone, go and check your Google folder and there is something there called Google Gemini. He said I'm aware of Gemini. I said OK, very good. When I want to use Google Gemini to figure out who we should be talking to in this company and to know who we're supposed to target.

So for my TV show, I wasn't quite sure who I was supposed to talk to, but at least I got one phone number. I just made sure that I'll go there, Me and woman will sit down and I'll try and figure out what the priorities of the station are. And then I'll ask her who should I be talking to? And it's something that worked and now I know four or five people within the TV station and hopefully, God willing, you know, before the end of the year, my TV show should be on the air.

So same thing. So I told him, now what you do is you take Gemini. I realized that when I've been talking to you guys about AI over here, I've always been talking about creating a prompt and some of you are having difficulty creating a prompt. So let me show you a different strategy. Now instead of creating a prompt, what you can do is you can engage in conversations with child GBT and just keep asking questions as you're curious and it will bring things to light.

So in this case, this is how I, this is how we're able to arrive at who the kind of people that we should be talking to. Now one of the companies that Joseph Carrier would like to do business with this money point. So we went on Gemini and then we said Gemini, what do you know about money points enter and then money points. So I said money points Gemini by the if you use char GBT or whatever is the same process. It's part of the information or it's a company based in Nigeria,

Africa. Something is that that that this is what they do. These are their services, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah. The next question now remember Joseph Carodi is in events. The next question was now was do companies like money points plan events and what kind of things they plan events for send And then Germany responded, yes, they plan events around this around that around blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah. And then the next question was for these kinds of events that Moneypoint plans, who is responsible for event management, event design and event decoration? And then it gave a list of options. Oh, by the way, for Moneypoint, when we ask the kind of events that Moneypoint organizes. That's why some of these tools, especially these tools that connect to the Internet, This is why the reason why I recommend them.

So Google Gemini is connected to the Internet. I think ChatGPT, the free version is not. So this is actually one of the reasons why I recommend Gemini because it's connected to the Internet. So Gemini said that Money Point no money plans end of year party and they drop some links. It also said they do award and recognition and participation events. It put something there. It also said that Money Point has done community engagements in the past around low income neighborhoods to try and promote financial literacy and then put some links there.

And then it also showed that Moneypoint has done internal events like end of year parties. Now this was a very useful exercise for Joseph Carraday because until we got to this point, Joseph Carraday was only thinking about end of year parties. In fact, as we did it, I realized that, OK, that's a mistake that me I made back in my photography days because in my photography days, the angle I was coming from when talking to corporate people, I was only talking about end of year parties.

It didn't click in my brain that corporations actually do parties around other things like award and recognition, like community engagement. It never crossed my mind. And so because of that, back in my photography days, I never tried to chase community engagement projects. So it now gave him ideas of other things that he can now be chasing with other organizations that he's talking to. It doesn't just have to be end of year events.

So when we asked Gemini who they should be talking to in who we should be talking to in this events, Gemini said you should be talking to people in marketing and communications department, You should be talking to people in events and sponsorships department. You should also be talking to people in admin and operations department. You should also be talking to people in creative and design team and then you should also be talking to people in human resources department.

Can you see now it has given us a list of people that we should be looking for. We should be looking for marketing and comms, event and sponsorships, admin and operations, creative and design, and then human resources. I now told him now, OK, now that we have this title, this is what we'll do. Remember, I'm fan of free resources because we need to figure out how we can use all these free things very well before we now start worried about paid stuff.

LinkedIn is free. You don't go to LinkedIn. Go and search in LinkedIn. Moneypoint and go and search events and sponsorship. So I told him to go to LinkedIn and pull up the money point page. On the money point page they'll have a tab there that says employees. When you click on employees, you should be looking for anybody that has any of these headings in their title. Marketing and comms, Event and sponsorships, admin and operations, creative and design,

human resources. Any of these people will be a good person to send a DM2 if you're able to get their phone number to send a phone call to to go into the office and have a conversation with just like I did. This inside person is the beginning of how you now start spreading your tentacles within an organization and giving you a chance of closing a deal. I also told him that when I was trying to do some stuff with GTB Bank and I needed to find out people in executive positions that I didn't even use Google.

I tried my SO, I didn't use LinkedIn. I tried my luck with Google and surprisingly, I found a lot of information available on Google. I found the person's name, I found their branches. I didn't see phone number, but I found name and branch. But think about it, heading into AGT branch and he walked straight to the desk and he said, well, I'd like to see Mr. Cooley Ademi, please, or I'd like to see Cooling Human Resources.

That is a much more solid way to walk into a bank than you walk in there. And clearly you don't even know who it is you're supposed to be looking for, who you're supposed to be talking to. Nobody will take you seriously. But if you walk in there and say I'm supposed to pick, I'm here to see cooling Human Resources. He expecting you? No, he's not. But it's concerning this, this and that. And here it's part of his portfolio.

And is he available? You know, I'd like to see him. You know that I'll put it heading in to talk to a specific person about a specific something. You can see how you can now get past security guard. You can get past receptionist. I might be able to get into the lobby to see the guy. Whether you get the meeting that day or not, that's not important thing. The most important thing is that you found an intelligent way to get into the building today and you'll be a polite somebody as you're going in.

Greet everybody, hail the security guard, greet the people at customer service desk. You know, be nice, be friendly, because when you come back next week or you come back tomorrow, you know, it helps that people are like, oh, that's that nice guy. It helps. So yeah. So that's how it works, pretty much. So with what we did in with Gemini, you can do the same with Copilot. You can do the same with ChatGPT, the paid versions that have access to the Internet.

You can do the same with Bing because Bing also has elements of ChatGPT in it. So Bing, Microsoft being the search engine, you can do this kind of exercise with it. So with this now, and I was holding now look with account based marketing principles that we discussed, this is how you're going to pursue this thing. You will go to LinkedIn research money points or use Google research money points. You will find the name or the phone number or the branch of one particular person and you will try to e-mail that person,

call that person. Although me, I prefer to actually go in there and talk to the person. It is from talking to that person, let's say you're able to get through to someone in human resources department. If you get there and you're able to get a sense of what their plans are for the year, what the initiatives that they're working on is. From there, you're going to be able to get introductions to other people who might be in marketing, comms or events and sponsorships or admin.

It is only after you have spoken to these people and you know what they're planning and you know what their priorities are that you now drop the proposal. And then by doing that, the chances of you getting business from them goes up. If you just look at the list and then you start blanket emailing all everybody on the list and you same proposals, like the chances of you getting a deal through that are very, very low. Oh, by the way, I also mentioned to him that when you go in, you also try to be off value add.

So if you go in and the scope is I'm an event planner, been seeing what you guys have been doing around this that that I really admire what it is that you do. I'm just here to be a valuable resource. I want to figure out what it is you guys have been working on and whether I can use my skill sets to help you guys achieve your corporate goals. If you're coming like that, nobody's going to say no. Nobody's going to say get out.

The reception might be fuzzy, but the answer is not going to be get out, I'm busy or drop your company profile or whatever. So we need to look for ways to be value added here. Well, anyway, I'm close to 40 minutes, so let me just round this thing up. I guess the main thing that I wanted to communicate with Joseph, my interaction with Joseph Card, is this in your early days, it's a matter of effort. Am I doing the right thing?

Have I figured out something that works? OK, this thing works. Let me continue to blast the hell out of this thing until it stops working. That's what you do in the early days. Strategy is what will come at the end. Stop trying to think strategically in the in the beginning, there's nothing to strategize over. There's only way you have a working concept that you now can start worrying about strategy. So first effort. When you now have validated the business idea, then next thing is scale.

Hire a team to sell around you. Try and multiply your efforts. However it is that you want to multiply your efforts. Then if you're doing social media, don't send people to a general hub, send people to a place that increases the chances of having a conversation and increases your chances of getting some conversions. WhatsApp I think is not bad. Phone call I think is not bad. e-mail. I don't really like e-mail, but you know, e-mail, yeah, maybe it's not bad.

But if you send people to the websites, generally to the Instagram handle, generally you're not going to close the deal. Then then if you're trying to break into a corporation, into a business like money point, the strategy you're going to use nowadays, people call it account based marketing. What account based marketing means is you're trying to blanket the whole organization. You're trying to multi thread, you're trying to find different people to talk to who might be related to the problem that the problem that you solve or the product or the service that you have.

You're trying to talk to multiple people and you're trying to use multiple channels, multiple avenues. So this one is not, I prefer e-mail. This one is I will do whatever. Is needed to get the job done. If it is face to face, I will face to face. If it is phone call, I will call. If it is e-mail, I will mail. If it is SMSI will SMS. If it is WhatsApp, I will WhatsApp. If it's drive to the office, I will drive to the office.

Oh, and by the way, Joseph Karadi said that some of these corporations, he was targeting, some of them I won local government. So he said he would target that local government 1st. And I said beautiful, that makes sense. Especially those of you in Lagos, you know where traffic is crazy. So it makes a lot of sense to say, OK, you know what, today I'm going to target this week, I'm going to target 12345 because all of them are in a lausa.

So it will make sense that you drive to a lausa and then you start your moves and you know that, OK, first and second week in January is a lausa. It makes a lot of sense now to do a LAUSA today and then tomorrow you're on Lagos Island and then after that you're in the OPEC estate. I mean, you'll be stressed just driving back and forth and you know, you'll mess with your, you'll mess with your vibe. And then this air tools are really, really versatile.

You can use it to figure out the officials or the departmental heads or the whoever they're supposed to be talking to within these organizations. So that's just it pretty much. Is there anything else? I think that is all. I think that is all. OK Yeah, I promised him that I would do. I would think about how to enter new churches because we forgot that whole church angle. Yeah, we got carried away with account based marketing.

Anyway, I already gave him enough useful advice, so I think that's enough. So thank you very much for your time and attention. If you'd love to connect with me for a strategy session for a business audit, the number to call the number to WhatsApp or the SMS is 08064662140. Country code is +234. Then connect with me on LinkedIn. The name to look for is Tavishima Ayede. I have a YouTube channel by the same name, Tavishima Ayede.

I have over 1000 videos there. Free resources that you can take advantage of to learn about business, learn how to move your hustle forward. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.