Building a Freelance Business from Scratch: A Case Study

Hello and welcome to the show. On today's episode, we're going to be, I'm going to be bringing you guys along with an adventure that I've been having with someone who is starting his business in Nigeria as an e-mail marketer. Yeah, I think he wants to get involved in e-mail marketing. So I'm just going to bring you guys along for the adventure that I've had with this young man. I didn't take time to, you know, look at our e-mail history, our WhatsApp history, and then pull out what the salient points are just because I'm in a bit of a rush today.

So for today's episode, I'm just reading directly from the transcript of messages that we have. So today's episode is going to be a little rough, little here and there. So yes, so before I continue, I have said on the podcast in the past that there are some people that I talked to for free. I mean, of course I have a conversation with everyone because it's not as if you have to pay for every single conversation they want to have with me.

But I do have a soft spot for people who are just leaving secondary school, entering into uni, and people who are just about to graduate uni into NYSE. So yes, I do spend a bit more time with these sorts of folks and try and help them solve some of their problems. But then again, just in case you're one of those people who are thinking of calling me for free advice, like I said, I've been doing this for a while. So it's very easy to figure out who it is That is just trying to look for free, free service.

Sorry, free advice. So that's not going to work. But then for people who are in this stage, you know, secondary school people and then that, you know, like university sort of hope, yes, I'll have the conversation with you. I will try to help you, but Please note I will be giving you assignments. And that is how I weed people out because once you give some people assignment, they will just fade. For some reason, people are looking for free advice and they're looking for a magic bullet.

So just to let you guys know that it does not work. So if you call me saying, you know, I'm just finishing secondary school, I'm trying to do this, I'm trying to do that. What do you think? Yeah, we'll have that conversation, but then I'm going to give you an assignment now. OK, based on this advice, this is what you should do next. So go do this thing and then come back to me next week Friday, let's have a chat at 10:00 AM.

And that's how we people pretty much. Because you'll find for some reason that once you give somebody a concrete assignment like that, like 99% of them just feed. And just makes me wonder like, are you guys even serious about, you know, the business that is that you're trying to you're trying to pursue about what I'm just trying to say is I gave them my phone numbers at every single podcast episode. So feel free call.

I'm not going to bill you for every single conversation, especially those of you who are secondary school, university ish. Yes, no problem. We'll have the conversation. I'll be giving all of you advice. But then for those of you who are just looking for cheap free advice, like look, I already have close to 1000 episodes over here on the podcast. Just listen with a pen and paper. The answer to everything that you need is there.

Or you can just do a Google research, check YouTube, you know, you'll find all the free advice that you need. So remember, like I keep saying over here on the podcast, information is free. So implementation is what you pay for. All right, OK, so my contact details for those of you who want to reach out, like the young man who reached out from reached out to me. The phone number is 08064662140. Country code is +234 if you're not Nigerian.

And then if you want to connect with me, connect with me on LinkedIn from January 2025, that is going to be the only social media that you'll be able to find me on. I already took steps today to deactivate Abby. Yeah, to deactivate my Facebook profile. And I'm trying to deactivate my LinkedIn profiles as well because they're there, I'm not really using them. And people have tried to hack me like 3 times in the last week.

So like, I'm tired. Let me just shut those things down. Unfortunately, the process involves a like a 30 day waiting period. So basically for those of you who prefer Facebook, Instagram, OK, yes, I have to deactivate my TikTok. You know, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be on those channels anymore because I'm not using them for anything. And this one that people are trying to hack me like small me like what do I have that people even want to hack my account?

Like I don't get it, so let me just delete it and save myself the stress. So LinkedIn, that's where the other peas are going to be able to find me. So let's head straight into the history. So this fellow got in touch on 06/20/20. 4:06 is July happy. May is five. June. OK so that's June. So this guy got in touch on the 12th of June 2024, introduced himself from LinkedIn and he wanted to have a chat with me about something.

And what he had in mind was just out of school and he wants professional advice regarding how he's going to get into e-mail marketing. Now, he did a very smart thing, which is first of all, he got an online certificate in e-mail marketing a few months ago. That's as of the time of when he reached out. He had just gotten the certificate in e-mail marketing and then he was hoping to build a business. Even though he doesn't have a portfolio, he wants to be e-mail marketing freelance.

So now something that he did that was real nice. So for those of you who are thinking to get into a new business you haven't done before, all these online certifications, certificate of proficiency, this, this, that, that, that. It's nice if you can do these sorts of things, you know, just to give you the confidence that you know what it is that you're doing. Also, because we don't want to be fraudulent because there's only fraudsters that try to enter into a business thinking that they can rough it.

So if you know that you want to provide the best service possible to your clients, it would help if you go in and, you know, do some things here and there to make sure that you have some sort of specialty in what it is that you're supposed to be doing. Now, from a sales perspective, one reason why we're supposed to try and get some sort of specialty, some sort of training, some sort of something, some sort of practice and whatever it is that we're going to be doing is because it is very hard to sell something that you don't know, that you don't like, that you don't appreciate that deep down inside your chest you feel as you feel as if you're not really, your leg is not strong yet.

So subject matter expertise is the beginning of being very good in sales. If you feel as safe, your leg in fashion is not strong. It's going to limit the way that you go out and you talk to people, whether in church or whether in your office or whether in your family. They say, look, come and sew your wedding and with me. Come and sew your Christmas clothes with me. Come and sew this with me. You'll be having those conversations because you, you know that as far as fashion is concerned, my leg is not strong.

So you won't be going out and talking to people. So subject matter expertise, absolutely important. So just like this young man went to go and do online certification, you. Yeah, I mean, go on, go and do something. So if it's fashion in Abuja anyway, there are those schools that do fashion courses and things like that. You can go take one of those. It doesn't have to be that fancy. There are some people who want to get into these things and they go to a place like for people who are not that, what's the word?

Okay, let me not say it anyway. But bottom line is the fashion designers or tailors or people who are OK with you saying that, look, I want to learn or let me come and shadow you for three months, you don't have to pay me, I'll be here, I'll do everything you want. I just want to get exposed into the business. There's some people who are OK with that, like, OK, sure, no problem. They look at it as they're getting free labour or they're getting an intern or something and you look at it as a learning opportunity.

But there is something that you can do to expose yourself and start getting subject matter expertise in the field that you're going to move into. So it doesn't have to be a paid thing. It doesn't have to be like this internship thing that I'm talking about, like in the fashion sense, you can, there's also YouTube free resources. But bottom line, what I'm saying shy is go and do some background study and make sure that you have some sort of knowledge that you can use to get into the space.

So that's what the guy did. That was great. And my advice to you guys, especially if you're like this guy, you finish secondary school, uni hasn't clicked yet. You're thinking, what can I do in the meantime? This is not a bad way to go about it. Now, I already made a podcast episode about his question, which was how can he build a portfolio without experience? And in the podcast episode that I made, I said that there is no such thing as a portfolio without experience because a portfolio, precisely what it means is this is what I have done.

Now, the reason why I know that is because I started off as a wedding photographer. And so for those of us in that space, fashion photography, you know, we carry around the portfolio. The portfolio, OK, well, people don't carry them now, but back then a few of us, because like 15 years ago, that's when the iPad started to rock. So lots of people were starting to migrate to iPad. But for me, I had physical portfolio and I know some fashion design people who still had physical portfolio and you know a book with pictures and stuff like that.

So that's the essence of a portfolio. This is what I have done. So I told the guy that look, this whole thing of portfolio without experience, it ain't going to happen. The best you can do is go ahead and get some experience and then you will now have the confidence and you will now have the case studies or the results to back up some of your claims. Because some of you want to get into e-mail marketing And you say, you know, book now to three X 3X your business, something,

something 300% growth, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, all that is just talk. But if you come to someone and you say that, look for 2023, I worked with eight clients. Of the 8 of them, six of them I was able to double their business. The other ones I wasn't able to double their business because they didn't follow my advice. I mean, like in this case, that's a different conversation. You're coming to say this is what I have done in this particular industry and for these kinds of individuals.

And in fact, of these six individuals, three of them say no problem that they can use me as reference. So if you want to call any of them to have a chat to see what the experience of working together was, was like, no problem, I can give you their phone number. Now you see that that's a different kind of conversation that you coming in fresh saying I will now 3X your business or now double your business or I'll achieve is how I'll achieve that.

So my right said the guy was go get some experience. Forget this whole thing of portfolio without experience just doesn't work. And I'm going to repeat it again because I see some stuff like that on the Internet and it's particularly young boys who are talking these kind of things. Please stop this whole thing of portfolio without experience. It does not work, does not exist and it ain't going to happen. And if you try to get a portfolio without experience,

whatever that means, you come across as a fraudster. And it doesn't help because as young men, people already expects us to be sharp and to cut corners anyway. So let's not try and build into that, that stereotype. So my advice to the guy was go get some experience. And then he wanted to, he agreed. He said he would try and do some stuff on FIFA and Upwork. And I told him FIFA, Upwork, that's cool. But to be honest, FIFA and Upwork and all those sites where you go and register and to sell your expertise, how do I put it?

500 and Upwork, they are part of the the gig economy. Yeah, that's what it's called. So people who have extra capacity and extra skills, you just go and list yourself on that website. Like, oh, I'm good at copywriting, blah, blah, blah. If you want to work with me, this is my rate. Give me a call. Let's discuss. So I'll stick with the guys that 500 and Upwork is cool. But The thing is, 500 and Upwork are heavily populated.

There are lots of people there. So before people will give you the time of day, it will take time because excuse me, somebody will check fiver, somebody will check up work and the person will see that there are maybe 2000 professionals listed there. And of the 2000 professionals listed there, maybe, I don't know, maybe 500. And Nigerian, of the 500 that are Nigerian listed there, maybe 300 of them have been doing it for like 5 years or more and have experience with 10 clients each.

And then you, you're just fresh. I mean, think about it, who are they going to pick, the other guys who have like three to five years experience or you? So that's why I told him that forever on up work. Yeah, keep your profile on on all these things. But if you're waiting for experience to come from there, you will wait for a while. So I told him that, look, it's best to go out and then try and see how you can get work from people.

And my advice to him now people do not like this advice, but I'm giving it anyway. You have no obligation to follow this advice. In fact, those of you who come from the creative space, photographers, graphic designers, you people will curse me right now from what I'm about to say, but I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to this young man that I was talking to. And he was OK with the idea. So This is why I told him there are lots of people out there who want to improve their business using e-mail marketing, but they don't know what to do or they don't think they don't have money.

Reach out to these people and level with them. Look, it's my situation. I'm in between secondary school and uni. I'm trying to get into this business. This is my certification. These are the skills that I have. Why don't you let me in? Let me have a look at your business. Let's see what it is that we can improve. Let me see how I can grow your business in exchange. All I ask is for the profits that I bring, for the business that I bring, for the improvements that I make.

You give me a Google review, you give me a testimonial, you give me a referral, you know, all those sorts of things like you know, that that kind of conversation. So I said that this is where those of you who are doing graphic design and photography will shoot me in the head because back when I was starting back then, for some reason, people in that space, they say no, no, no, no, no, that people must pay for absolutely everything that they get from you.

And I agree, but The thing is the market is rough. In the beginning you don't have a reputation. In the beginning you have done nothing. At least try and say you can do something small. So that was actually how I got into the wedding photography game. I shot 8 weddings. One of those weddings is the one that I charge 50K for that I keep talking about. Of course my brother's wedding that was for free. My friend in Scotland at the time when we're because we were just finished uni, that was free, but you know, small, small weddings like that now you know,

50K here, 100K here, all those small, small things. I did eight of those and I used that to compile My Portfolio. So I took those eight weddings, divided them into 4 sections and then created the book. So I had only done 8 weddings like I said, but if you take 8 weddings, you break it into 4 sections. That is 8 * 4 is that is is that is that 32 Abby 8816881632 So that's 32. So My Portfolio now had 32 sections, 1 section couple portraits, 1 section decorations, 1 section makeup,

one section, you know like that like that shop, but 8. So now My Portfolio looked like it was full. Anybody looking at it and seeing the pages be like this guy has experience. But actually it was just 8 weddings. I just took 8 weddings and I chopped it up into four sections so that everything will now look full. And that was My Portfolio. So that was the same scope that I was giving this guy. Like I said, photographers,

graphic design people, software design people. I know you. If you see me, you shoot me in the head. Well, you know, you don't have to take this advice. Well, for those of you who are brave enough to try it out, it's not a bad way to get some sort of a portfolio and then move on quickly. So let's see. Obviously, the first assignment that I gave him was to come up with copy for sorry, I'm looking at the messaging. And so that was the first assignment that I gave him.

So OK, if you're OK with this idea, Create an e-mail now that you're going to start sending to business owners to see how we can get some of this kind of work from them. And this is what he came up with. So he wrote, this is his own advice. Let me see. Sorry. So I'm looking for the text. Like I said, I'm scrolling through plenty of stuff. So this is what he came up with. As a burgeoning e-mail marketer, I am excited to offer my services at no cost while I

build a robust portfolio with training and passion for crafting compelling e-mail campaigns, I am ease. I am eager to apply my skills to real world scenarios. In exchange, I seek testimonials and the opportunity to showcase results of my work in My Portfolio. This mutually beneficial agreement will help you enhance your e-mail marketing while allowing me to demonstrate my abilities. So that's why he crafted. And of course, for obvious reasons, I thought, no, this is not good because first of all,

it's too worthy and it's not direct. But I'm not going to do a full breakdown about how he should have done this message. Oh, sorry, there's a concluding paragraph. If you're interested in leveraging this opportunity, please reach out. Let's create something impactful together. Best regards. And then he put his name there now. So that's it. So I didn't think it was going to work. That's what he drafted. And he wanted my opinion.

So I just told him, I, look, dude, it's all right, but he needs some work. But instead of going through the whole thing because, you know, coaching takes time, I just told him, like, look, use Char GBT and rewrite it. What do you think? And then he said, OK, what do you think? He's lacking, Sir, I'm going to work on it. I said, OK, no problem. So I told him I gave him a prompt to use. And so I told him that look, take this draft that you've written, all right, you're now going to put it in Char GBT and ask Char GBT to help you to rewrite this thing.

And this is the prompt. Now remember, for those of you who have listened to the episodes where I spoke about using Charge GBT to promote your business, I spoke about the anatomy of a prompt. A prompt is just an instruction that you give to Charge GBT or to a computer program, you know, to do something. It's a command that you give to a computer software. That's what a prompt is. So this is what I told him the prompt should be.

I am an e-mail marketer. Sorry, hold on, where am I? So I have one more where's my prompt? So forgive me. Rewrite it as a prompt, paste into ChatGPT. OK, yeah. So I told him to just copy. OK, we need to even come up with a with a prompt. Sorry for that with a detailed prompt because I can't remember if I was tired. What happened? Yeah, OK. I need to teach this guy how to prompt anyway. No problem. So I just told him to copy that thing, paste it and then put an an instruction at the bottom and then that would be a prompt.

So this is what we wrote. This is the instruction to chat TPT. I am an I'm a new e-mail marketer. I'm excited to offer my services to businesses in my neighbourhood at no cost while I build a robust portfolio. With training and passion for crafting compelling e-mail campaigns, I'm eager to apply my skills to real world scenarios. Here's what I can offer customized e-mail campaigns, segmentation, analytics, and reporting.

In exchange, I seek testimonials and the opportunity to showcase the results of my work in My Portfolio. This mutually beneficial arrangement will help businesses enhance their e-mail marketing while allowing me to demonstrate my capabilities. So that's 1/2. Then the instruction that we give to ChatGPT was use this information above to create a draft prospecting e-mail that will entice businesses to want to work with me.

So you see now how I didn't teach him how to prompt, but you can see how copying and pasting what he said. Now giving ChatGPT the instruction, use this information above to create a draft prospecting e-mail that will entice businesses to want to work with me. That was the instruction. And then I told him, whatever he gives you, let's see what he gives. And then this is what your GPT gave. And you see that this one made a bit more sense.

Oh, by the way, for those of you who are wondering what does prospecting mean? Yesterday's episode was precisely about that. So once you're done listening to this, skip back and listen to yesterday's episode. If you're a newbie, if this is your first time on the podcast, listen to that and then you'll find out what prospecting means and why that is important. That also was based off an interaction with the real world person, a Lozier, who listens to the podcast and who made a bunch of comments on Spotify about where he can find sales training, the kind of sales training that would be necessary for him to move his business forward as a newbie in the space.

So yesterday's podcast episode, and I think the three or four that came before that, what devoted exclusive to those sorts of things. And so we spoke about what prospecting is. So now this is what Shaggy PT said. He took this guy's e-mail. Let's just call this guy Big Pawn. Yeah, so this one Big Pawn. So he took Big Pawn's e-mail and this is what he responded. Oh no, that's not a good name. Sorry. Let me look for something else.

OK, let's call him Shadrack. OK, good. So he took Shadrack's e-mail and he gave a response and this is what the response was. It says hi bracket business owner slash manager name. I hope this e-mail finds you well. By the way, I don't mind ChatGPT always puts. I hope this e-mail finds you well. Please delete whenever you try that and ChatGPT puts I hope you find this. Just delete it. Everybody knows that that is ChatGPT speak and in the Nigerian context, just fluffy.

Just waste your time. Well, let me just read it anyway. Hi, I hope this e-mail finds you well. My name is Shadrach and I am a passionate e-mail marketer eager to collaborate with local businesses in our community. While I'm building My Portfolio, I'm offering my e-mail marketing services at no cost. Here's what I can bring to your business. Customized e-mail campaigns tailored with your brand voice and goals designed to engage and convert audiences to do business with you #2 segmentation.

Targeted messaging to your to the right customer base to make your business appear more relevant and effective. Then the three analytics and reporting clear insights and performance metrics so that you can understand the impact of your campaigns and Dr. future revenue. In exchange, I seek your testimonial and the opportunity to showcase the results of my work. This mutually beneficial arrangement, you know, blah, blah, blah.

If you're interested in boosting your e-mail marketing efforts. So let me surprise you, if you're interested in boosting your e-mail marketing efforts, please reply to this e-mail or call me at 080, blah, blah, blah. I look forward to the possibility of working together. So it's still a bit too long for my liking, but basically, we can take that thing, cut some of the sentences in half, and I think we're good to go because it came out with a clean structure saying hi, I'm a passionate e-mail marketer and I want to work with local businesses for free.

These are the benefits that I can give you, customized e-mail segmenting and then analytics so that we can target people better. In exchange, I would like testimonials and to be able to showcase the results that I got with you. If you're interested in working with me, reply to this e-mail or call me at this number. I'm looking forward to the possibility of working together, signed Shadrach. So that was so basically I wanted him to edit it so that he would just be short, short,

short like that. And of course I told him that he must fit his personality like in editing it, he should talk the way he talks. So that was it. So let's see in his own professional opinion, he said the thing was too long because since he's I'm not an e-mail marketer, so I don't know the rules of the game, but the guy because he has received because Shadrach has received professional training. He said that the the e-mail should be around 50 to 125

words. I was like, oh, OK, cool. If that is what they taught you guys in e-mail marketing school, by all means, you know, make sure it is 50 to 125. You can even use ChatGPT to cut it down. Then let's see what else So he did that. Let me not, OK, this is almost 30 minutes. So he did it. A shorter version of the e-mail came up. I'm not going to read that just to save time. But bottom line is we arrived at something that met his criteria.

That for me was direct saying this is me, this is what I want to do. These are the benefits. In exchange, I want to be able to use you as a testimonial and for referrals. If you're interested, call me at this number or reply to this, respond to this e-mail. And then he wanted it to be between 50 and 125 words. So we found something that met the that met both of our criteria. Then I told him that, OK, now, now that you've finished this first assignment and we have the draft assignment 2 is begin.

Just start send this e-mail. All you have to do is go online, look at business directory, business directory Nigeria, business directory, Lagos business, you know, whatever. And we'll give you a list of businesses, the office address, their emails, their phone number. And then you can start hitting up these people and then see what happens. And then I also told him that you can also do physical in the flesh, like you can come out, go out of the estate of your house.

That's because he lives in Lagos and Lagos is built differently than Abuja because for Lagos, once you go out of the corner of your street and you get to the main road, you have businesses to your left, businesses to your right. That was how Lagos is. Abuja, it's a bit different. So I told him you can go outside. Once you go outside your estate, just look to the left, you will see 10 businesses to your left, you will see 10 businesses to your right and that's it.

That's your prospecting base there. My side was going to do the online thing. So I told him that is what you do just to take it slow so you don't get overwhelmed. Take this e-mail, make sure you are emailing 5 people per day. Are you comfortable with that? He said he is and so I told him why I go forth begin start sending the emails. Another reason why I was telling him to do this is because in doing this it is part of him eating his own dog food.

The proof is in the pudding. I'll be how do they say the the taste is in the eating? Whatever that parable is, by him doing this, he is using e-mail marketing to get into the business of being an e-mail marketer. Also wanted him to use it on himself, get a feel of it. It would also make him feel confident if he's going to use these techniques that he has learnt from the school to promote his own business by himself. When he's employing these techniques to other people, he would even feel much more confident, much more competent,

much more capable running after executing for other clients. So he started sending the messages to people and he called me back in about two days saying that two people had two people had agreed to it and he was very happy. And then of course, I'm always happy when I give you guys an assignment, whether you're a paid client or we're talking for free. If you happen to be like this guy, you finish secondary school, uni hasn't clicked in the meantime, you're saying,

what am I going to do? So I'm always very happy. So I was like, hey, thumbs up. I was happy for the guys, like see, no problem. So just go ahead. Remember, keep this thing limited. You can't be working for free for somebody for six months because, you know, realistically we have bills to pay. So at your first meeting, you guys decide on how long this thing is going to be. I'm going to be here for three weeks, for two weeks, for whatever amount of time, we'll try out this idea, we'll try out this idea, you know, blah, blah,

blah. I also told him that since he's working for free, some people wouldn't mind covering TP as in transport to come into the office. Well, that's what I think anyway, because back when I was in Kano and let me not start a long story, but basically some people are open to that, that yes, I'm doing this thing, I'm working for free. But let's be realistic, you know, at least TP for the times that are coming to the office.

By how much is transport? Where do you live? Take transport. That won't be a problem. So let's see. What else? What else? So excuse me, I have to scroll. Like I said, message history was plenty. Plenty, plenty. OK, so that was it basically. And I congratulated him and he was on his way. Then six months later, he reached out again, reintroducing himself. Well, of course, I remembered him once I checked message history.

And by the way, for those of you who are reaching out to me on WhatsApp or LinkedIn, especially those of you on WhatsApp, whether you're a paid client or not, this is the reason why I say do not delete message history. A bunch of you have this whole disappearing message thing on WhatsApp, as in disappearing message for what? Leave the message history there so that you can always go back time and time again to remember,

oh, this is who this person is. This is what we discussed, you know, blah, blah, blah. So because he didn't do the disappearing message thing and some of you who even run business itself, you have disappearing messages. That's the one that absolutely blows my mind. You are a business. This person is a paying client. You guys have done quarrelling over WhatsApp, negotiating over WhatsApp, discussing trade terms over WhatsApp, and you now go and put disappearing message timer 90 days.

If there's a problem on day 96 and you want to refer back to the chat, how will you see the chat business people listening to this, please? It's, it's, it's asinine, it's insane. Can you just turn off disappearing messages on WhatsApp? It does not make sense. Leave it there. It's not as if you're paying for anything. These things are free and they're stored in the cloud. Leave it there, Especially for those of you who don't have ACRM.

Leave the message there so you can refer to it in the future. So sorry, forgive me for that round. So I know, of course I shared message history. I remember who he was. And yeah, this is where the story doesn't end up too well. So he told me that for those two people, once they started talking money, they they faded. And of course they faded because if you tell people that something is free, they actually expect that The thing is going to be free.

So if you tell somebody free and you now start talking money, of course they will fade. And his justification was that, well, they needed to pay for one or two things. It's not as if the money will go to him. The money will go to for website hosting and blah, blah, blah, and things like that. And then I asked him, I asked him, what did they ask him? Again? I can't remember what I asked him, but basically response was,

well, people have to pay for a domain name. They have to pay for web hosting and have to pay for e-mail marketing platforms like MailChimp. And yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that makes sense. OK. Then they also need to pay for online security. SMTPI think that's some sort of security protocol. And then DARMZ, those of you who are in this space, you know, I'm sure you know what it means, but for me, it just means a whole bunch of I don't know, I I have no idea what this means.

And there's also another reason why I keep telling you people here now when you're talking to customers, leave out your professional jargon. It means nothing to the average human being. For someone like me, I thought I was getting a free service. I'm only paying your TP, your transport fare. Next thing you're telling me I have to pay for SMTP. What the hell is SMTP? Or I have to pay for DARMCI? Don't know what DARMC is.

So some of you are destroying your business opportunities because you're using jargon that the person does not understand. So please, when we're talking about these things, potential customers or clients, let's leave out all this fancy technical stuff. Yes, when you're drawing up the, the contract, you can put the technical things there to specify, you know, just for clarity's sake. But at the beginning, keep this thing as common sense, as easy conversational as possible.

But it depends. If you're talking to somebody else who is also a specialist in that area, then of course it is not a problem. So one e-mail specialist talking to another e-mail specialist, you will are talking SMTPDMDRIMC domain hosting some you will understand each other, it's not a problem. But if you're talking to an ordinary person like my mum for instance, and you say, oh Madam, you need SMTPDRMIC web hosting where you've lost mumsy.

Now of course my mumsy is kind of my mumsy is she's bold. So she would say look young man, slow down, what is SMTP? So she will slow you down. Now you will walk her through the whole thing. But the average Nigerian will just say OK, OK, let me think about it. And then that is where you enter ghost, ghost mode. People will start ghosting you. You start entering e-mail, nobody's you start entering, you understand nobody's responding your messages.

So leave all that technical jargon, but what was I? I lost my train of thought. Uh huh. So this is all the things you were saying that you should pay for. And I agree with him that OK, yeah, actually, it does make sense. Somebody has to pay for all these things. So of course the guy has to pay for it. But now what I told the guy was this. Instead of telling him all these things, SMTP hosting something, something, something, and then giving them exact estimate and then they're not responding to you.

I told him that next time don't tell them, but rather frame it as a question, because these things are prerequisites for all the prerequisites. You don't dictate, you just frame it as a question. So I told him the next time put it like this. Before we start working together, you need to have a few things in place. It's OK to ask you a couple of questions so we know whether you have all the prerequisites before we can start.

Of course, the other person will say, Oh yeah, sure, sure, sure. What do I need? You not ask the personal question. Do you have a website? If the person says, oh, no, I don't have a website, you now say, oh God, if we went to the e-mail marketing the way that I want us to do it, you actually need a website. The governor said website, OK, what are the implications? Then you guys start talking. If the person says, yes, I have a website and I say, oh, cool,

cool, no problem. Do you have security protocols on it? The girl said, wait, what is security protocol? So, OK, look, e-mail marketing, people are trying to steal your data. People are trying to do this. We want to do that. Security protocol just means something you put on the website to make sure nobody can steal your data. Do you know whether you have security protocol? The guy is going to answer honestly like most Nigerian owners that well, I don't have a website security protocol, I

have no idea. Let me ask the website guy and then you can now say, OK, ask the website guy, let's walk in on Friday. Although me, what I prefer to do is I prefer to say, OK, sure, no problem. Your website that you have the phone number, say, yeah, I have caller's phone number. So OK, no problem, give me caller's phone number. Let me call the guy because for me, I believe so in one moment I'll be back. OK, sorry about that.

I'm back. The house was being cleaned, so I needed to need to attend to something. Yeah, where was I? So I'll say like in my own case now I prefer in taking a lot of the initiative so that this things can move on quickly. Because if you tell the guy that, OK, go and talk to your website guy and get back to me, let's talk again on Friday. You might finish that conversation and then something else happens, either business or personal.

And then the guy forgets. And then you call him again on Friday and it's like, oh, sorry, you're I didn't call that my website guy again. Something happened. I beg no Vex, let me call him now. Let's talk on Monday and then you call him on Monday and then it's another, oh, my children had PTA meeting. Something, something, something, blah, blah, blah. I'm sorry. Let me talk to the e-mail guy. Let's talk again on Wednesday.

And you can see how comma starts entering the whole thing. So I prefer to take a lot of the initiative. So in this kind of situation, I will tell the guy, oh sure, no problem. Just hand me his phone number. Let's let me talk professional, professional. We can finish this conversation in like 5 minutes. I'll figure out what kind of security protocols you have and what facilities that you need. And if we have been having a nice trusting relationship so far where we built rapport, the guy should have no problem handing me over his website person's phone number.

I'll now call the guy and then because it is you e-mail marketing specialist talking to website specialist, you can now start telling asking the person, do you have SMTP? Do you have DARMC? Are you Niger security compliant? What about EU? Something something all the technical things you can ask him at the gaol level with you because both of you, it is your thing. You're in the business. But if you're trying the SMTP, the business owner, you have lost him because he has no idea what that means.

And I'm sure 90% of us listening to this podcast right now have no idea what SMTP means or DARMZ. So I tell him that's how you introduce it. Next time don't give the person a bill. You told the person that this thing is free and the person says, cool, when shall we begin? The next e-mail you send them, you're giving them bill, itemized bill of, you know, a couple, ten 10s of thousands. Of course they will say this guy's a scammer and they'll block you.

Rather make it a conversation. Oh, by the way, he responded by e-mail. And this one reason why I tell you guys, please, it's easier to move conversations along over the phone. If at some point I've gotten the phone number, it's easier to have a phone call and say, oh, Sir, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to us starting next week. But before we start, there are a few things I need to, a few questions I need to ask.

I want to make sure that you have something set up before we begin because before you start e-mail marketing, Sir, there are some things that need to be in place. So are you free for us to talk now? Who say, yeah, cool, we're already on the phone. Continue, young man. And then you will now ask the question, Sir, do you have a website? You answer, OK, the website. Do you have do you have security protocols in place? Do you have e-mail marketing platform?

You say which one is e-mail marketing platform? I'll tell him that, Sir, for us to do e-mail marketing, we cannot be running the emails through your personal e-mail account because of this reason or that reason. We need to host it in a professional something because of this. Because of that, you'll explain how all these conversations over the phone. When you have this conversation over the phone and you're taking it this way, like you're trying to ask him that, Sir, we need a few things in place before we begin.

You won't come across as a scammer. You just come across as a diligent young man who's trying to go ahead and deliver the value that you promised. So I told him that this is how you start the conversation. But the main reason why I wanted to make today's podcast episode was not just to share this adventure with you and share some of the learnings. So excuse me, Hammer Tan. So my voice is beginning to suffer. So some of the learnings that we we've, we've been through along the way.

But I wanted to point out one thing, especially since yesterday's episode, we were talking about prospecting and the episodes before we were talking about prospecting and this guy, the journey that we had together was precisely about prospecting even though he was not going to charge any money from them. But essentially this is a live case study you can see about how you go about generating prospects for your business.

So this is prospecting one-on-one live and in the flesh that somebody has done secondary school student. So please, those of us who have finished university, we have finished master's degree and we have worked for a few years, you know, 10 years working experience, you know, blah, blah, blah. We have absolutely no excuse to say we cannot engage in prospecting activity. Our younger brothers, like this guy, we call him Shadrack, not his real name.

Our younger brothers and sisters like Shadrack, them and the ladies who reach out to me from UI, they're already doing this thing. So those of us who are more educated and who have some work experience, we can do this thing too. I understand that it's a little somehow, like this thing is beneath me. I have a master's degree in so, so, so and so, and I have worked in so, so, so and so. How will I start chasing and pursuing people?

I understand. And if you have those hang ups, yeah, let's talk. It's not something I run away from. It's just part of building business. You must chase. You have to. Except if you're building a luxury brand, I have no idea about luxury brands cause for luxury, that's the whole thing. If you're a luxury brand and you're chasing people, then you won't seem that luxury anymore anyway. But this bottom doesn't. These are the main reasons why I'm sharing this is prospecting.

Anybody can do it. No matter your situation, whether you've just finished secondary school or whether you have masters and you have 10 years work experience, anybody can do it. You have to do it. Is that is the way to get the wall rolling. But this is one problem that the guy ran into that a lot of us are going to run into that we don't kind of anticipate. My guy got 2 responses and guess what he did? He stopped prospecting.

He stopped sending out emails before he because he got two good responses. No, that is not how it works. Prospecting has to be an ongoing thing as we have to be doing it on the steady. So if two people answer you today, no problem. Start running conversations with those people and say how you can close the deal. But then when you're done having conversation with those people, you continue with your prospecting. Think of it, if you're running emails, sorry, advertisements on TV, you don't want the advertisement.

You get one deal and then you stop with the advertisement. No, that's not how it works. You continue to run the advertisement so that you keep on getting fresh leads because you're not going to get one customer and work with the customer for life. So whatever it is that you're doing prospecting, continue to prospect on a daily or on a weekly, whichever 1 is comfortable for you. If it's advertising that you're doing, continue to run the advertising on the daily, on the weekly or monthly, you know,

depending on what you do or how much money that you have. Because we need to keep deal flow coming up. We have to keep talking to two people. So two people agreed that let's go ahead six months ago and then he stopped prospecting and he's worried about all this thing is difficult and blah, blah, blah and all or not. The problem is not that it's difficult. The problem was that you stopped prospecting two months ago after two people said yes, let us go ahead.

And then those two fell through the cracks. And that's also another reason why we keep prospecting because it's not everybody who answers and says yes that you end up doing business with. So if you're prospecting and then in one week 10 people reach out to you continue to prospect out of that 10, it doesn't mean you would do business with 10. Out of that 10, you might only do business with two. But The thing is, after you do business with the two this week,

next week you need to be talking to fresh people because you need fresh deals to close. So prospecting always has to be a constant. There has to be something unsteady. So it's not that the economy is hard and it's not that the business is hard and stuff like that. The problem is actually that he stopped prospecting. So that's why I'm making today's episode, please. All these things we've been talking about prospecting,

chasing business, mining for gold, you know, try and put some money in our account. We have to keep prospecting because if you stop, eventually the well runs dry. The problem is when the well runs dry, people assume that the problem is the attainable economy. The problem is not attainable economy. The problem is that Shadrack, again not his real name, stopped prospecting 6 months ago after getting a yes from two people.

So get a yes, rejoice, try and tie it up, but then continue prospecting immediately tomorrow, next tomorrow. Because if he got two yeses after sending out five emails every single day and he did it for, I think was it 4 days? Think of the opportunities that he could have had to work with people over the six months that have passed. If he did, if he carried out this advice for the first, let's say one month and did free work from for, I don't know, let me guess.

Let me just say if he did free work for maybe 10 people in two months, it's possible that from now free work, they could have even transitioned into paying clients. There's some people who have gotten into businesses like that. Let me come in here. I'll do this thing for free. We should be able to achieve these results. And then you say, oh, Olga, our time is up. Or just like like, like we agreed. And some people say, oh, look,

no, no, no, you've been fantastic. You've been this, you've been this. If we want to continue this in a paying relationship, how much would the thing cost? And then you guys start talking money. So please, whatever it is that you're doing, whatever prospecting plan you come up with, whichever way you're trying to get deal flow, even if it's advertising or whatever, continue to run this thing steady. Don't start, make some progress and then stop.

If you do, you will be like Shadrach who will reach out again six months later to say the economy is harsh, blah, blah, blah. This thing is not working. It's not that this thing is not working. He stopped prospecting. So don't prospect. If this is your first time listening to the show, you don't know what the EFF prospecting is. You want to know what's up, listen to the previous episode and then after that, listen to two or three episodes before you will get caught up to speed.

You know what prospecting is all about. And of course, subscribe to the podcast wherever it is that you found it because this is the kind of good stuff that we talk over here about on the podcast. So we can see how we can improve our businesses and we can improve our lives and put some good money in our pocket and also have some change so that we can flex. Because the fact that Tinobu is in control now doesn't mean that we should not be flexing again,

doesn't mean that we should not live our lives. Yeah, it's a bit rough. It just means we just means we need to work hard, work harder because most of us have already been working hard. So that's all for today. If you'd love to connect, the phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, you can WhatsApp me on that number to connect with me on socials. Look for Tavi Shima Agidi,

that's my name. Look for me on LinkedIn. I love meeting you guys, love chatting with you guys. For those of you who are just looking forward to give free advice, I already told you guys, there's close to 1000 episodes of this podcast here already recorded. Go ahead listen, knock yourself out. If you're using YouTube, use the search function so you can search for particular topics within the podcast. If you just search Tavishima Prospecting, every single thing that I've released on prospecting will just show up there in YouTube.

Start listening with your pen and your paper. That's all the free advice that you need. If you still try to call me, I'll be able to fish you guys out. Don't be a cheap Sobi mean pay for it. Well, information is free, implementation is what you pay for. So just payless implement and let's make progress here. So that's all for today. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at tomorrow's episode.