Bridging the Gap: From Tech Support to Wedding Planning - The Power of Multidisciplinary Skills

Hello and welcome to the show. Today I was going over my old notes and I discovered that I had a conversation with someone that I wanted to share over here on the podcast. I think this must have been a month or maybe two ago, but somehow it got lost amongst my paper shuffles. In fact, this is the reason why most of you who are considering being self-employed, involved in business or taking a sales role. This is one of the reasons why I'm going to recommend that using sheets of paper, post it,

notes, things like that are not a very good way to track your commitments and to plan for the day. So really, I should be taking my own medicine and being not just more proactive, but then also using much more robust tools for managing my work flows. So instead of just using scraps of paper for this, I should have used a calendar or some sort of project management software, online diary, you know, things like that. You just pick whatever it is that suits your fancy.

Anyway, so, so the conversation that I was going to share was a conversation that I had with someone called Kelly when I first met her. I called her Kelly and she corrected me that it's not Kelly like R Kelly Kelly, but more Kelly, which is Kelley. And since I met her, I've come across another Kelly as well. Although this Kelly happens to be a guy, so I guess the name is unisex. Now, how I got in touch with Kelly was because back when I

was based in Lagos as a wedding photographer. For those who've been listening to the show, you know my story. So you know that after a while, after being married, my wife in Abuja, me in Lagos, the shopping didn't kind of make sense. So I made the move eventually. And now I'm in Abuja and I've been here for how long? 12 years. Yeah. So I've been here for 12 years. So of course, while I was coming to Abuja, I was making well, at the time I didn't realize that I

was doing good sales practice and personal selling. But I started making some phone calls because I figured if I was going to leave Lagos and move over to a new city in Abuja and try and do business here as a wedding photographer, I was going to need a whole new list of contacts, people to call, people that I could do business with, get referrals from, get introductions to other stakeholders in the industry, those sorts of things.

And when I did my research, I came across a company I was called Lily's Concepts. I, if I remember correctly, I think I came across Lily's concepts first because Kelly is important, is in partnership with another lady. She's in partnership with two other people, actually. So there's Kelly, there's Jumai, and then there's a Silent partner. I keep forgetting her name. So between the three of them, there are like 4 businesses that kind of roll within the same ecosystem.

So there's Lily Concepts, I think Lily's Concepts. I think that's the flourish term of the business. And Kelly is the planner. And so I think there's they have a a venue in Wuse too that they rent out for bridal showers, small birthday parties, things like that. So between the three of them, four businesses can refer business back and forth. I can't remember which of the businesses that I found online, but eventually I put out a call to.

I think I'm trying to read you my but actually I got in touch with Kelly and that is how I got introduced to the whole bunch. I've never met the silent partner, but you know, of course I've heard people. I've heard people talk about her. In fact, I hear some people say that the third partner is Lily in the Lily's concepts. Anyway, so if you remember, there was a time maybe 2-3 months ago when I was talking to other people and discussing about all kinds of things,

business sales, business development related, marketing related and then sharing their insights over here on the podcast. And so that's what the whole conversation with Kelly was about. So I found the conversation with Kelly, even though we're shorter than most, it turned out to be a good example about how having a multidisciplinary background is good for business, how it gives you certain kinds of interpersonal skills that you can party into future endeavours.

Because that's something that I've spoken about on the podcast time and time again. Some people think that because you have a degree in chemistry then it puts you at a disadvantage in business and I say that it's it's it's not the case. So your first degree might have been in zoology or in chemistry or in law or whatever. But The thing is when we have multiple disciplinary backgrounds and approaches, it actually informs the way that we do business for the better.

We come with a whole new way of thinking, different frameworks, different skills that we bring to the table and it helps inform our future endeavours. And Kelly is one of such examples because in her previous career, I think back when she was in America, she was involved in the tech and in the software space, and she worked with a company that handled car diagnostics. So for those of us who drive fairly modern Toyotas, you know,

those of you who are driving Toyota models, you know, 2017 and up, you know, sometimes you have a problem is there's something flashing on the dashboard. You take it to the mechanic, they take this fancy thing, looks like a retro kind of pad. They take it, they plug it under the hood and then the thing flashes and says this is the problem. And then mechanics start solving the problem. So car diagnostics, how do you know what's going wrong with the car?

What is working, what's not working, what is overheating, what needs to be replaced, You know, those sorts of things. And in her previous career, she was involved in tech support and customer care. So we don't have those sorts of industries in Nigeria yet. I guess the time will come because like I said, now your car has a problem. It's stalling, it's not working. Something on the dashboard is flashing. You take it to the mechanic, the mechanic hooks up the diagnostics computer, You know,

they run it, they read it, and then they start trying to diagnose the problem. But for in Kelly's previous role, she handled tech support, customer care. So the mechanics who are doing those sorts of job will be able to call in to her to try and figure out exactly what was going on. In case they're not, they're not able to get an adequate reading. And I know because I've been in that situation by myself where the what's it called the airbag function in my car was flashing the airbag and seatbelts and that made me uncomfortable.

I went to the mechanic and we tried. We need one person couldn't interpret. We, I think we ran through three or four different interpretations and then the consensus became that the airbag, what's it called, the airbag sensor was malfunctioning. And so the best way to not cause a problem in the future, you know, like you're driving and then the airpag just deploys was actually to disable the the airbag safety thing. So the seatbelts work quite fine, but we had to disable the airbag thing and that's that was on my phone marker.

I'm not, I'm not saying that that's what you guys should do if you run into that kind of problem. It's just the reality of being in Niger for now. Now when you have that sort of problem, the mechanics are trying to do diagnostics, but we don't have people in tech support and customer care that we can call up and say this is flashing. What exactly does this mean and what is the next, what is the next point of call, What is the next point?

Call to action and stuff like that. Besides, it's not like in Nigeria we have authorised what are they called, repair shops and things, things of that nature. So yeah, that was her job, she was on tech support and she was on customer care. And I remember I said at the time I met Kelly in Abuja, she was in planning and all things events and you will see that as we continue with this conversation, you will see that the experience that she got running tech support and customer care for a tech software platform came in handy.

So excuse me, absolutely came in handy when it came to weddings and events and this is an example about how having a multi descent area background, a different background apart from events and weddings brought to it a certain level of interpersonal skills which translated very well to future endeavours in wedding planning. So don't think that because you studied zoology or agricultural economics or Yoruba history or whatever, don't think that you are at a disadvantage for going into any kind of business.

Now of course, if you're going to be a financial analyst or you know those sorts of things, then there's going to be a certain level of continuing education that you have to do. Maybe take your CFA, take your stockbroking exams, you know, blah blah blah, those sorts of things. So that you can at least be competent and show some kind of professional credibility when speaking to to potential customers. Because at the end of the day, I

can learn all this stuff on my own. But the person who does have some certifications when it comes to these things, you know, finance, analysis, trading, stock picking, those sorts of things, it will give the person a certain area of credibility over me, at least just in the beginning anyway. So personality. Honest. No. She would describe herself as a people person and she said that, yeah, she describes herself as a people person.

Before she was involved in tech support and software, she was also, she had also done some work in retail and human resources. And she says that all those kind of roles that put you in the customer, customer facing functions, customer care functions, those sorts of things that they help you beef up your EQ and your EI. So EQ is emotional quotient, EI emotional intelligence kind of the same thing. Now to understand what EQ is or EI is, just look for previous episodes where I where I

dedicated entire episodes to the whole thing of IQ that's Intelligent Quotients, Emotional Quotient, which is more important. And then also this new term that people have been flashing around these days, which is Tech Quotient. But in summary, emotional quotient is just your ability to understand your own interpersonal dynamics. You know, who am I? How am I feeling? Am I good? Am I properly regulated? Am I jazzed up? Then you understand the emotional environment external to yourself.

My boss, my customers, my kids, my wife, my boyfriend, girlfriend, everybody else. What's the external environment like? How's everybody feeling? You now understand the interrelationship between these two environments. How am I feeling? Am I jazzed up? Plus, how is everybody feeling? And then that interrelationship that is going on, how is that either furthering a positive emotional environment or furthering our ability to get work done to get relationships moving forward, You know, those sorts of things.

So that's what emotional quotient is all about really. So you have some sort of emotional mastery or understanding about yourself and getting a sense of people's emotional health and interactions, you know, out there in the environment, trying to figure out how the interplay between both and emotional environments work and how you can navigate that to be able to get work done. So you can navigate that to build relationships, to get work done, to close the sale, to solve a problem and whatever it is.

So she said being involved in all those roles, tech support for car diagnostics, working in retail, working in human resources, it gave her a good dose of EQ and EI training and it helped with being able to maintain relationships with clients, whether it's on the official level or on a personal level. So you guys are seeing how multiple disciplinary backgrounds, how that helps. So you take someone who did tech, who did retail, who did human resources and you see you later on see how it makes her a real stand up wedding professional.

So the reason why she can be an absolute star in the wedding planning and the event planning business is recycling. Because she had mastered certain kinds of skills. Sitting behind the screen and answering phones as a tech support, as a software support person in the tech industry And also learning how to navigate, being in front of people one-on-one, doing retail and then also handling human resources where you are the interface between the employees and management or or the corporation at large.

So, yeah, so I'll repeat that again. Multidisciplinary backgrounds. Really, really, really impressive. Right Now you might not know how your Yoruba history degree is going to parlay into success in business, but just hang in there. There are lots of things that look a lot clearer when we look back in hindsight. One day you look back in hindsight and you say, oh, OK, I spent four years studying Yoruba history or studying agricultural economics, and I thought it was a waste.

But now, with hindsight, looking at where I am now, I can see how these experiences and this education helped to inform my business success. So how did she get into the planning space? She insists that she has always been a planner because whether in Niger or in America, she's always been that girl, you know, people, you know, the one that is planning the birthdays or this office celebration, this office thing, that office thing,

Grandpa's birthday, people's get together. And so she said she has always been a plan. So her being a people person, plus the listening skills that are needed to plan all these stuff like this, whether it's grandpa's birthday because, you know, trying to plan family things, you know, is not easy. Everybody has their own opinion. In fact, I find it real frustrating trying to deal with families. You know, you're trying to organise a collection or you're trying to do a party or something.

Solely frustrating dealing with families, strangers. Yeah, I can handle that. But for some reason, her family members just ticked me off. When we have a thing that needs to be planned, so you take that plus a previous work experience, and that is what informed her being a very good wedding planner, because listening skills absolutely essential. Eventually she partners with her best friend and then Lily's concept is born.

And the hall rental space. And the florist business, the planning business, I can't remember the 4th, 1:00 and yeah, everything pops off really. So of course I had the usual questions about whether it being a hobby in the beginning pose any difficulties, but she said no, it doesn't. I mean, the fact that it started off as a hobby makes it much more fulfilling now and it doesn't feel like work. But she does admit that is hard work.

So a couple of lessons that we can take away from this, starting from the top multidisciplinary background. Do not despise where you are right now if you're studying European history. One O 1, that's what you studied in university. Don't worry, seems like it's useless now. It's going to pay off in the future. You're going to be able to look back and say oh OK, how I what I learnt and the experiences that I had, you know, contributed to where I am today.

So don't worry about that. Interpersonal skills really, really important. Especially because in the personal skills, pally into different endeavours. And I've made podcasts about that in the future. So you can take your interpersonal skills into becoming a pastor, into becoming a father and mom, to becoming a businessman, into becoming a politician. You're going to need it. Oh, sorry. That was my alarm. OK, so 15 minutes.

So let me wrap this up quickly. Let's see what else. OK. And then the whole thing about work and hobbies. So don't be one of those people who assume that because they think I started off as a hobby that you're going to enjoy it all the time and it's not going to feel like work. So because because she has said here that it doesn't feel like work, because maybe for her work is suit and tie, somebody else calling the shorts, you know,

blah, blah, blah. But she does admit that it is hard work. And because remember I said that between the three of them they are responsible for four businesses. So it's not easy. You know, you and your friends trying to get a florist business. I'm up and going, trying to do hall rentals and equipment rentals and then the wedding and the event planning. So it is hard work. So it may have started off as a hobby, but it is going to be hard work then.

OK. So with this, with me finding the notes from Kelly's conversation, I can now let you guys know finally once and for all. Now this is going to be the last conversation portion that I'm going to begin sharing over here on the podcast. Because trying to schedule these conversations and trying to schedule these interviews and try and gain the insights to share over here with you guys was becoming quite mature. You know you have to manage other people's.

What's it called? Schedules. Because we're all on different timelines, you'll have different things to do with our day. So I have put that part of the podcast to the rest. Currently we have over 805 podcasts over here right now and the majority of them will continue to be solo based episodes where it is me talking about all things sales, marketing, especially personal selling related ideas and principles, frameworks about how you can use these kinds of skills to grow your business.

So I'm grateful to Kelly. I'm also grateful to Amina, Tokumbo, Banu, then Adiniki, Adigbita, who else? You know all the wonderful people who agreed to speak to me for the podcast, especially the ladies, because I believe that we don't have enough of female representation when it comes to business, education and those sorts of things. So I'm really, really glad for the people who agreed to speak to me over here on the podcast so that we can.

So it won't really speak to me, so I could share the insights over here on the podcast. So yeah, that's it. Thank you very much guys for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next recording. I'm your host. My name is Tavishima Agade. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Confirm the spelling of my name and my e-mail address in case you want to reach out from the link. We're listening to this episode. Then also connect with me on WhatsApp.

The phone number is 08064662140. Country code is +234 if you're not Nigerian. Thanks for your time and attention, and I'll catch you guys at the next episode.