Closing the Deal: Lessons from the Oracles Chamber

Hello and welcome to the High Table, the Oracle's Chamber, the inner sanctuary, the Conclave of the Elders, where we talk about sales, marketing, money tactics, strategy, business growth and solving business problems. Today I want us to talk about advancements and scheduling. Advancements and scheduling are I'll put it now. OK. Two very important tools that we can use to maintain the momentum of business conversations,

because lots of times we're having business conversations with people, we're trying to set up meetings, we're trying to get the deal done, but then things stall, you forget all kinds of things happen. So the way that we can maintain that forward-looking trajectory is if we pay attention to these important concepts, these two very important concepts, advancements and then scheduling. Now, First off, advancements. For those of you who listen to the podcast, you already know the definition, but there's someone who's just discovering the show for the very first time today.

So an advancement is just when you and the other party, the person you're talking to, the potential investor, the potential stakeholder, the potential customer, the potential client, when both of you mutually agree that this is what we're going to do next. Because a lot of you, the reason why your business conversations aren't moving forward is because you have a conversation with someone and you just don't worry about, you don't agree on what it is that both of you are going to do next.

So one person says, we'll keep in touch and another person is like, yeah, no Allah, you go B. And then we'll just end like that. But The thing is, we will keep in touch, you go B. No, Allah. Like that is not how business conversations move forward. We'll keep in touch does not mean we have agreed to do anything. We'll keep in touch does not mean we have decided when we're going to meet again. We'll keep in touch doesn't mean we have decided what we're going to talk about the next time that we meet.

So we should be getting advancements every single time we talk. It should be clear this meeting should not end with you and the other party not agreeing on what it is that is going to, on what it is that you're both going to do next. If you don't agree, the chances of someone forgetting, the chances of the things slipping on your schedules, the chances of it going into ghosting, the chances of it going into or I'll call you later.

OK, send it to my secretary, I'll get back to you. The chances of all these things just go higher and higher. So you should be securing advancements every single time that you talk. Now scheduling on the other hand, is when we have agreed on the advancements, when we have agreed on what it is that we're going to do next, what are we going to do to make sure that neither of us forget because things happen. You can agree we're going to talk Saturday, 2:30, but the guy that you're talking to, maybe he has to pick up his wife from the airport Saturday at 2:30.

You buzz the guy. Ah, Bros Novak's, I forgot, I'm on the airport now, now, now, now, now, now, now you know these things happen. So it is by scheduling that we keep things on track so that if there's any issue, you have to travel to the village. My daughter is graduating, I want to pick up my wife. Oh, this thing happened. I'm going to go and see the president. If anything comes up. It is from scheduling and scheduling in advance that we get a chance to catch all these things happening and then we can come up with an alternative plan.

So advancements and scheduling, 2 important ways for how we're going to keep things on track. So when we say scheduling, we just mean reminders. That's all. Now, unfortunately for most of us, now there's some of you who have good memories. But here's the thing. If you're only handling one or two deals a month, then scheduling with your brain is perfectly fine. If you're only dealing with one or two deals a month, only one or two clients a month, by the time you start reaching 345

clients, scheduling by your brain will not work. You now end up in those situations where you call somebody and the person like ah bro, bro, I beg no vex at the go airport na na na na na or the other way around. Somebody will call you. A person will like ah, you still asleep. Are you not the one who even said 9:00? Then I end up looking like a fool. So by the time we have 3456 people that we're dealing with, I beg, scheduling is no more a mental something you don't schedule in your head.

You need to put the reminder somewhere that is objective. When we say objective, we just mean outside to you that other people can verify. So for those of you who are old school and like to keep Diaries, no problem. Diary so long as you are in the habit of checking your diary every day. Because if you check your diary every day, you can open your diary today and say, OK, I scheduled something five days a week or more that you know, work again.

You now know that OK, you should call the person and reschedule. Or you will open your her diary today and say, eh, I showed you meeting for 4:00 PM today. Ah, it is already 2:00. Let me start to prepare. So diary, no problem. But because all of us listen to this podcast now we all have smartphones. Obviously it's more recommendational. Use your phone. Use your phone. Set the reminder, use Google Calendar, put a notification,

use the alarm. Use something to vibrate, to ping, to buzz you ahead of time. That these are the commitments that you have for today. These are the commitments you have for two days. These are the commitments that you have for one week. Whatever it is, use something. Especially if you have a smartphone, use a smartphone. Now, ideally you should be using your CRM to do that. The CRM customer relationship management tool, the tool that you use to track conversations that you're having with people.

Who am I talking to? How many people am I supposed to talk to? What is the stage of the relationship that we're at? What am I supposed to do next to move the deal forward? What are they supposed to do next to move the deal forward? When is our next meeting? Where is our next meeting? Is it supposed to be a phone call? What is it? What is it that we're supposed to discuss? Your CRM helps you track all of these things. But if you don't have the CRM,

honestly speaking, but you have a smartphone, an Android phone or an iPhone, Google Calendar, Apple calendar, it will do. Just using your contact list and then using your calendar, it will do. So remember, the reason why we're scheduling is we're putting up reminders somewhere external to us that we can find at a later date. In fact, if you have a smartphone, you're putting it somewhere so that your smartphone will remind you at a later date so that we can maintain the initiative and maintain the momentum to get this deal closing.

Because remember, now you define money, now you define market. If you take your food off the gas, honestly speaking, the other person isn't bothered, except if it's a pressing emergency. If you're slack, the other person will slack. That's how it works. And when both of you slack, for now, you don't think it's a problem. But then you wake up two months from now and you're broke. And the reason why is because two months before, you're supposed to talk to someone who might bring in some money, but you didn't, and so now you're broke.

News flash by the way it happens to everybody. I was going through my calendar if I'm ashamed to admit this, but let me just tell you guys. I was going through my calendar yesterday and lo and behold I was supposed to have been in touch with someone 8 weeks ago but I missed it so I'm going to call the guy up. I'm going to fall on the sword like hey what's up Bengar how you doing now? I'm beg Novix. I should have been in touch about social sound so but I

totally forgot. It's my fault. I take responsibility for it. I beg no vex. You think we can put this up on the calendar again? Or are you still are you still interested in so so so and so or nothing that we're discussing? You know, chance still day. So I have to make that phone call. What is the thing? If I had used my tools judiciously and I had called the guy 8 weeks ago now would have been making progress. Oh and by the way, for those of you who haven't figured it out,

eight weeks just means two months. So yes, not proud to admit, but I skipped a phone call actually I made two months ago. So I'm going to have to bring bring that back on track today. But what I'm just trying to say is the reason why some of you are broke today is because 8 weeks ago you were supposed to have called somebody you didn't call. Or three months ago you're supposed to have gone for site inspection, you didn't schedule it.

Or five days ago you were supposed to have sent somebody a proposal, you didn't send it. So advancements in scheduling very, very important. Maintain the initiative, maintain the momentum. So we have to plan ahead. We have to call ahead. When we do that, it is then we start getting better outcomes in our business. Now let's go into how to schedule a call because I say this and lots of people don't know how to schedule a call.

So let's get granular. First of all, for those of you who have CRMS, customer relationship management tools in your CRM, there's a place where usually they say like call log or call history or something like that. Now, honestly speaking, in my own honest opinion, this call log or call history, this is the best feature to use in your CRM. You hear me? If you ignore anything else but use this call log, call history, and then you use it to schedule,

you're still OK, you're still on course. So what you do is this after you have a phone call with somebody, after you have an online meeting with somebody or after you have a, you know, site visit inspection or you know, whatever, whatever, whatever, you just go into that place that says log and then you log in there that you had a meeting or so, so so date or you had a phone call on social so and so date. Now what you're going to do is in that call section or in the log section or in the section under meet minutes or meetings or whatever, you're going to put some small notes in the notes.

There's no need to write too much grammar, OK, Because remember, this is your tool. So if you use some shorthand, so long as you can understand the shorthand or there's enough information there so that if your business partner or your colleagues or your spouse or whoever runs the business with you, if the person comes and picks up the thing, they'll be able to figure out that, oh, OK, this is what happened the last time.

This is what we're supposed to do next. So what you would do is this first thing you write is who did you talk to? You write it down there. You're also going to write what you spoke about. You're also going to write down what was agreed. Then you write out what you're supposed to do next. It's that simple shorthand. The story doesn't have to be much. So you go to that log section for me, I'd like to do phone calls, so let's pretend it was a phone call.

So I'll write it there. A phone call today, 1st of January, spoke to Chief Ogdenbe. We spoke about the building project. It was agreed that the next step is site inspection in Umar here in three weeks time on January 28th. I'm just restarting by the way, on January 28th. So that is just what I will put in the CRM. Simple notes as in short, short, short phone call. Chief Ogden today discussed building project. Agreed. Inspection in three weeks,

January 28th. That is what I'll put in notes. Then you now go to your activities tab or scheduling tab, or you know, whatever tab is called in your CRM. You now press plus. When you hit on that plus, it will give you the options to create another activity, to create a call or create a meeting or to create a zoom or create or whatever. When you do that, you select OK, like now in this case, since the meeting is supposed to be in inspection, is supposed to be in three weeks on the 28th.

I can't wait until 28th before I start buzzing this guy because we'll be somehow because remember, in this example, now we're supposed to travel to East, we're supposed to go to Moya. So I will set a reminder for two weeks out. So let's say 2 weeks out will be, let's say that's let's say like January 14th. I think I'm just restarting here. So I will set reminder for January 14th and that will be called. So I'll go to activities tab and now click on plus and now select phone call and now put date January 14th.

Then I'll now put reminder, the reminder I'll put reminder for maybe 24 hours before so that on January 13th, my phone will do ping ping. By the time I look at my phone, I will see the reminder. It will say call Chief Ogden Bay ahead of Umuahir inspection. Then under the call, I'll now put agenda in the note section. I just type agenda and I will just on the agenda, I'll put a confirm Umuahir inspection so that on January 14th, I'll call him chief that oh, chief has business, blah, blah blah.

She thought we haven't forgot to know that I was supposed to see in Umua here on the 28th. He said, oh, OK, that's true, that's true. That's OK. Thank you very much for reminding me. In fact, Chief, I want to book my ticket. No, no, no, no, no. I just want to be sure that we're still on course. He said no problem now go ahead and book. OK, no problem Sir. So be seen on the 28th now. OK, cool, got the call. Now, for those of you who have listened to all the episodes where I talked about scheduling,

of course you will know that this is not the end that I've set a reminder at the halfway point. I'm going to set another reminder one week before, another reminder 3 days before, another reminder on the day off. Because I'm making sure I need to make sure that chief will be negotiable for this inspection. Because after all, me, I've booked ticket. So if I show Inuya ticket plus hotel and Chief doesn't show, I've wasted my time, I've wasted money, and I'm not closer to sealing this deal.

So anyway, keep on listening to podcast episodes. I talk about these things over and over and over again. But you see what I'm saying is your CRM has many, many, many, many, many functions. If all you do is call log, meeting log and then activities tab, schedule, reminder, if that is the only thing you touch, honestly speaking, you are better than 80% of your competition because your competition is not even touching nothing.

So if the CRM looks complicated, you don't even know where to start. Just be using call log only. You make a phone call, do call log. You do meeting log the meeting under the put notes. After that, set reminder in the reminder put agenda. If you just do that and then just be following it, small, small, small, small, you'll be OK. You'll be all right. So for those of you who don't have CRMS, the philosophy is the same.

You finish the meeting with Chief Ogden Bay. You now open immediately. You caught the call. You now look under. For those of us who use Android phones, when you open contact, you know, you see the place where you dial, you see the place for message and all that. Continue to scroll, scroll, scroll. At the very bottom you see a place that says Notes. I think it says notes or something like that. Now click on notes. Some phones you can just click on notes and then you can start typing.

For some other phones, you have to go and you see something that looks like a pencil on the top right hand corner next to the person's name. So for some phones you have to click that pencil so that you can now edit the contact. You go down into notes. Then it is in notes that you can write it to say meeting with Chief Ogdenbe, discuss building project inspection. Agreed. More here. January 28th. You can put that in notes, but let's say you don't want to be typing back and forth.

You don't want to be looking at notes, You don't want to be looking at calendar. No problem. You can just do it in calendar, only Google Calendar. What you do is you go to Google Calendar and then at the bottom right hand you see a plus. That's if you're using your phone. You click on that plus and then it will you give you the option. It will now say, sorry, I'm doing this thing from memory. So because I'm using my phone, I

don't want to tap out. It will give you the option to create event, create reminder or create something I can't remember. There's usually three options, but when I'm using Google Calendar, I just use leave the default as a event. I just always leave it as event. Then later on in the notes, I can now say phone call or meeting or whatever. So you just go to Google Calendar, click on plus, select event. There will be a place for subject.

Inside subject you will just write Chief Ogdenbe. That's it. So in the CRM, if it's CRM you're using, you'd have created contacts. But in this case, you're using your calendar. You just put Chief Ogdenbe. The name will never change. It will always be Chief Ogdenbe. Every single time you see that calendar entry, every single time you see that notification, that reminder, you'll be like, oh, Chief Ogdenbe because the title is Chief Ogdenbe.

Then you now select because the meeting was today and because I want to set a reminder for two weeks time, I will now go to date and then time you will now select and then push the time forward to I think it's January 14th. We said January 14th. Good. Then I'll now tap on reminder and I'll now set reminder for one day before so that my phone will do Zim Zim on the 13th of January. OK, good. Then that one is done. I'll now go to details and I'll put today's date.

So let's say I had that meeting today and I'll put today's date in notes. January 1st meeting with chief, phone call, Zoom call with Chief Ogden, BPA and lawyer were present, spoke about building project, agreed inspection in Omwaha. January 28th agenda then I'll put a bunch of stuff in agenda so. Whether CRM or no CRM, you're using CRM good. You're using Google Calendar good. But either way, there's something objective that is a reminder outside of you that will boss on your phone the day before.

You will see Chief Ogden, you will click on it. And because you entered in these small notes, remember, short, short, short, who did you talk to? What did you talk about? What was agreed? What are you doing next? That's it. Short, short, short, short, short. It's not a story when you keep it like this and you see, you say, oh, it's true. You now call Chief. So advancements and scheduling, you and Chief are agreeing ahead of time.

This is what we need to do. Every single time you do the thing you're supposed to do, you're moving closer. If Chief shows up for this site inspection, you're moving closer. The next meeting will agree to he shows up, you're moving closer the next thing as in that's how you close the deal. One step at a time, one step after another after another. And then scheduling is what you will use to keep all of this on track. So ideally you should have CRM.

If you don't get CRM, but you get diary, no problem using the diary. But then diary only works. So for those of you who check your diary every day, if you're somebody who checks your diary only on Sunday, only on Monday, Mahala go day because you'll check your diary on Sunday. And then you now see you're supposed to have called Chief Ogadenbee on Wednesday. And in fact, the meeting you're supposed to have, you're supposed to have had it, let's say Sunday at 9:00.

But you're checking your diary now at 5, don't you? Now call Chief Ogadenbee. You think Chief Ogadenbee will think you're a serious human being. Maybe people agreed. You're the one that even suggested the time you say Sunday at 9. He was saying Sunday at 9 is inconvenient for him. But you know, you put for Sunday at 9. You now open your diary at 5:00. And now we feel like, hey, oh God, what is this? So diary only works if you check it every day.

I'm a former lawyer back in the day, like it was standard. Once you enter our office, you open your diary. So within that kind of culture, office culture, law diary is OK. It works because know how know how you enter into the office every day. You check your diary every day. It's just, it's just standard. You enter office, you're, I think it used to be called practice manager. I can't remember. Practice manager will start, you know, assigning tasks for the day or reminding people that,

look, Chuku, you're supposed to be in High Court. You're supposed to be here. You're supposed to be here. What about this? What about this? You know, you guys check your diary. If you're not a diary person, CRMCRM is too complicated for you or you don't know what CRM is Google Calendar or Apple calendar, calendar. The reason why I'm saying Google Calendar or Apple calendar is just because they're free, they're ready on your phone and also if your phone gets stolen.

In fact, This is why I tell people Android because you know nowadays times are times are harsh. Your phones don't they cost to find a good phone. Now 150K is problem. So now This is why I tell you Android phone, it was one of my guys. He's into game, game games, accessories, yeah, and stuff like that. So one day he wanted to enter Okada just quick, quick and his iPhone that he uses. So you know, he doesn't go on the Okada.

As we're going out, the phone just fell. As the iPhone fell, the iPhone was bouncing on the ground and the finale Rd. my guy got off the Okada. He knew that I have finished and then he looked at his beloved iPhone and the screen was cracked. Any which way guy buy a new phone now they say he doesn't have money. This is what I tell people that look just be realist to cut your coat according to your size. If you know at that level, let you know at that level.

But for those of us that use Android, any small mistake like that happens anyhow. Anyhow, anyhow, anyhow, like share you can raise even if it's, I don't know, 120K to go and buy one of those cheap Android Go phones. Yeah, at least you'll be managing. But once you sign in, all your contact history, your calendar entries, your everything will just be there. So if you're an iPhone user, please make sure you always budget your, I hear iPhone 17.

Last time I had somebody told me I was like 4 million or something. So if you're an iPhone user, please make sure you have 14, I'll say 14. Make sure you have 4 million in the bank so that if your iPhone should just back up, you'll be able to get a new one. And they don't mind me. I like taking shots at iPhone people. I was like, OK, anyway, the main point thing I want to spoke about today. Well, I guess you guys have got the point.

Advancements and scheduling, That's how we're going to keep the business deal on point. I think I have two or three other things I want to talk about when it comes to advancements and scheduling, but we've already done about 25 minutes. So I'm going to bring today's episode to a close. So if you'd like to get in touch with me, you can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140. If you're interested in the sale audit or you want me to look at some of your business processes,

you can WhatsApp me on the same number 08064662140. Or if you're shy, you can just join my WhatsApp channel. And so yeah, there you will see all the updates and things that I'm working on. So you just send me a message at the same number and I'll hook you up. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you all some other time.