Closing the Right Deals: Why Everyone Isn't Your Customer

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Ayede. I solve sales and marketing challenges. I'm making today's podcast recording at home. It's the evening so the whole family is around. Expect to hear some interruptions in the background. Now, the goal of this podcast is business education. So do me a favour, spread the word so that your friends and family members in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle.

They can do that by subscribing on spotifying YouTube, Apple or any player of their choice. And if you, dear listener, have any sales and marketing questions, bring them to me. You can call, you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Now today on the podcast, I want us to look at this question. Can you sell everyone successfully? Let me repeat what we're going to look at today on the podcast. Can you sell everyone successfully?

Now, why am I talking this kind of question today is because some people feel bad when they talk to 10 people and then maybe only like 2 people end up paying and they have unrealistic expectations. There's some people who think if you talk to 10 people, you can close nine of them and get good business. There's some people who think it's realistic that if you talk to 10 people that anyhow, sure, I should be able to get money from like 5 of them.

So that's the reason why I'm having tackling this question today. Can you sell everyone successfully? Can you sell most people successfully? What realistically is the ratio that we can expect of business to close that If we're talking to 10 people, can we expect to close three? Can we expect, expect to close seven? So what really is good or bad performance when we're looking at, you know, you approach 10 people, 20 people, 50 people.

Maybe you've last year you spoke to 100 people. How do you know if your performance was good or bad based on the number of people that gave you money? At the end of the day, the answer is, are you guys ready? Here's the magic answer. The answer is it depends. It depends on your experience, how much experience you've had in the game. Somebody who is starting now fresh. Look, to be honest, you don't have the knowledge base, you don't have the business acumen,

you don't have the confidence, you don't have the stamina, you don't have the wisdom. You don't have the you understand that somebody who's been in the game like 10 years has. I mean, it is what it is. So it depends what is your experience. It also depends on your skill set. There are some people who have been 1020 years in the game, but they never bothered to upgrade their skill set. They never bothered to learn anything new, no new techniques,

no new nothing. So the way they started on day one is the same way that they've just been chilling in year 10, year 15, year 20. My first, my professional background in the beginning was in law. And I tell you that that's one thing that kills lawyers. Some people graduate from law school and never do a thing again to improve themselves. And then they start getting angry when younger people are make any more than them.

I mean, yes, you are their senior, but The thing is, since you finished, you didn't do anything. You didn't do masters, you didn't do any professional course, you didn't join Toastmasters, you've not been doing networking. If MBA organizes training, you don't go for it as you have done nothing. Of course, a youngster who has some talent, but the guy is very sharp or the baby is very sharp, very agile, Of course, there's only a matter of time before they will pass you.

So it depends how much experience do you have? What is your skill set? How much business argument argument do you have? It also depends on the particular product, the particular service or the particular industry. So let's say I was a brain surgeon and I entered into brain surgery. Now year one, may I forget it, there's no how me year one brain surgery, I will now be doing more than my OGA who's been in business 10 years is just not going to happen like that.

This is a highly specialized field and because of how we are in Niger and tenure matters and then plus this is a life and death thing, death thing. So people are afraid. Forget it. There's no how I can come and crash into it as a young brain surgeon and expect that if I talk to 20 people, I will close the deal with 20 of them. So you can see that there are lots of variables. So I honestly can't tell you 2 / 10 is good, or 10 / 10 is realistic, or 5 / 10 is what you should be aiming for.

I can tell you it depends. So the answer to that question, can you, can you tell everyone successfully? The honest answer is no, you can't. There's nobody who does 10 / 10. I'm telling you with my full chest, there is nobody who does 10 / 10. And if somebody tells you that he does 10 / 10, he or she is lying. If I have a conversation with them, I'll tell you how they are fudging the facts. Look, this is 1 common one, at least in America.

For people who say they close 100%, usually what happens is they have a junior member of the team who does pre qualification. Pre qualification is when you have conversations with somebody to try and figure out who they are, what they need, what the problem is, whether you can help them, whether there's agreement on price and all those sorts of things. So after the junior person does pre qualification, they will now send that person up to Orga and Orga can now close the deal.

Of course, in that kind of situation, you can close 10 / 10 is because somebody else has done the work of trying to filter through to make sure who is serious to talk to and who is a time waster. And they make sure that time wasters don't get to your to your table. So please do not be deceived by anybody on the Internet saying that they're closing 10 / 10. It is not possible. Now for people who say they close 10 / 10, there's one person in particular in America.

I've heard from other people that that's the thing, somebody else junior in the team is doing qualification and discovery. So the person has already been vetted before they send you to Orgas office. So of course in that case they'll close 10 / 10. In fact, me that given that kind of setup, if there's somebody doing pre qualification for me and I don't close 10 / 10, I'm a bastard. But just no, nobody closes 10 / 10 is not possible.

There's nobody on this earth that will talk to 10 people and close everybody or business. And this is the reason why, by the way, I heard this from Brian Tracy, not everybody that you talk to wants what you have. Not everybody needs what you have. Not everybody affords what you have, and not everybody has a sense of urgency over what you have. It is just not possible that if you run into 10 people one after another, that each of them want what you have, need what you have, afford what you have, or have a sense of urgency around it.

Take people, these people you know, around the park. That's help your water. Everybody wants a drink, right? But does everybody that the guy or the girl will meet in the park? Does everybody need to have a drink at a particular moment? If it is really hot in the dry season, maybe everybody wants it, maybe everybody needs it. But you know, times are hard in Nigeria. So even though it's only 59, there actually are some people who right now like man, that 59,

let me just hold it. You never know. You know, everybody has a 15 hour to buy the pure water and some people want it needed. I can afford it. But then they don't have a sense of urgency. They think I'm already at the park. I'll be home in like 1 hour's time. Why should I use this 50 naira? Buy pure water? Now if I hold this 50 naira and tomorrow I add another 50 naira, if I combine it like that, who knows, at the end of the month I

should be able to use it and buy rice or a Cara, buy 200 naira Cara or something as a treat. So The thing is something even as basic as water, pure water in the garage that everybody needs. If you sell pure water, not everybody will want it, not everybody will need it, not everybody can afford it, and not everybody has a sense of urgency. So even for pure water, you cannot do 10 / 10. Not possible. That is the reason why there's nobody who does 10 / 10.

I repeat, nobody wants. Not everybody wants what you have, not everybody needs what you have, not everybody can afford what you have, and not everybody has a sense of urgency around what you have. So with that knowledge in mind now, please stop putting yourself under pressure. Just calm down. Relax. 10 / 10 is not happening. We know that now. So step one is relax. Breathe. If you're doing 2 / 10 and you want to go to three, you want to go to four, that is good.

We should always aspire, we should always aim to improve. It is good, but don't be giving yourself high BP that you're not doing well. So relax first, just calm down, breathe. Then if you want to now know what is realistic, you need to do 2 things. Number one, start checking your records because sometimes it feels as if you are doing 2 / 10, but by the time you sit down and you look at your WhatsApp message, you see that maybe in reality actually what you're doing is 4 / 10.

This thing happens. I just had a conversation with my wife earlier because I was not too happy with the way things are going with the consulting business and also on the media side with the documentaries we've been doing. I was not too happy. But anyway, sha, I just opened my invoicing app. By the time I looked at the figures and I added up everything, I went to go and beat my half. I said, babe, actually from October to this year, this is how much we've done.

And she was like, wow, I'd like, yeah, this is what we've done. And we laughed. You know, it's still not what I want, but it's not as bad as what I thought because in my own head is feeling somehow. So my wife said, oh, OK, Actually The thing is because we've been doing a lot, we moved house recently, we bought this, we bought this, we fixed this, we fixed this because the money has been coming. I will be using it to do things.

That's the reason why you are feeling as if things are not moving. It's just that, you know, things have been happening, sharp, sharp, sharp. So money is flowing. So believe me, it happens to everybody. Sometimes you don't think you're making progress, but by the time you sit down and you look at your records, you see that, Oh, OK, I'm still, I still have not arrived, but I'm doing better than I thought. So go and check the WhatsApp messages you've been chatting with people.

Go and check all the statements, bank transfers that you've been receiving charges, check, look at your Instagram DM, your inbox or whatever. These are the things that will give you a real good sense. Some of you think you're doing 1 / 10. If you go and sit down and check and review, you see that oh, OK, actually maybe I'm doing 3 / 10 or 4 / 10, so it might not be that bad. Go and review step one. Step 2, you have to go and review with your peers, talk to other people in your industry before you know what is realistic or not.

Because I have this client, they were doing e-mail campaigns and I think he was upset that you are doing 10%. When he told me, I was like, ah, you guys are doing well. He said, well, what do you mean? I told you I look global average. If people do 2% opens, they feel as if that is average. You you're doing 10% opens. Come on, it's not bad. The only thing we need to do now, yes, is of course we need to see how we can improve.

The fact that you're doing 10 doesn't mean you should stop there. If you can improve and get to 12% opens, 15% opens even better. And then we even now need to work on conversions because for the people in the world, 2% opens, that means those are the people that are trying to get business from from the 2% that open. If you are getting 10% opens five times the amount, we need to work on conversions as in like hard to make sure you can convert because lots of people are opening the emails.

We need to make sure that you can convert well. And I heard of another case where somebody even had 30% opens and the person thought what he was doing was bad. So why don't talk to your peers first? When you talk to your peers, that's when you now get a realistic sense of what it is that is going on and what rates are normal. Like I said, it also depends, you know, on the industry, on the product, on the service, you know, things like that.

But from reviewing what you have on ground and talking to other people, you now get a sense of what is realistic. Now, I'm not saying do this so that you can console yourself concerning yourself is is useless because to be honest, if you're not making progress, you're not making progress. If you're not where you where you want to be, you're not where you want to be. The reason why I say go and do this exercise first is so that we can establish A baseline.

Establish a baseline just means I'm walking somewhere. I need to know where I'm starting from. When you review and you see that, OK, actually you're doing 3 / 10. And then if you talk to your other people and they say that, oh, industry average is 5 / 10, no problem. Now you know your baseline that me, I'm starting at 3. First step is let me see if I can get to 5 / 10, that if I talk to 10 people that close 5 deals. When I get to that stage, I will now know that OK, I have met industry benchmark and that's my new baseline and there's a matter of raising my baseline again.

But The thing is we cannot say we're going somewhere or want to improve performance when we have not even established the baseline where we don't even know where we are. So when it comes to this closing thing, do those two exercises, Go and check your WhatsApp messages. Just check all the people you are chatting with. Last week, OK, last week I was chatting with 20 people, all the 20 people that I was chatting with, how many people ended up closing?

Just, you know, some simple things like this. We don't want something, you know, it doesn't have to be exact exact. We just need something to give us just the general, you know, just a general feel like where am I? It doesn't have to be exact. Then talk to your colleagues, establish a baseline. When you know your baseline, you will now come up with a plan to increase your conversions. I didn't say increase the number of leads.

The number of leads is increase the number of people that you talk to. So there are some businesses where let's say you're closing 8 out of 10. You know, if you want to make progress, I guess the next thing to do is actually to make sure that you speak to 20 people next week so that if you're doing 8 out of 10, but next week you speak to 20, you will close 16. But before we get to that level where leads are the problem for now, let's say we can increase our conversions.

Oh, by the way, I'm assuming that we have some steady deal flow. If you're somebody that to be honest, you know, last month you only spoke to two people. OK, that's a problem. That's that's too low. Your problem, first of all, in this case is you need to find more people to talk to. So conversion is not even your problem. The problem is that you actually need to get the lead flow up. You need to increase the number of people that you're even talking to.

So if I make another podcast episode about that, if you check your WhatsApp message and you only spoke to two people last month, OK, it's, it's a different problem and and we'll get to that. So we need to come up with a plan for increasing conversions. Once you know your baseline conversion just means how many people took the next step. So back to my wedding photography example that I always give, I give it not because all of your wedding photographers, but I think it's easy enough to understand.

So back in the day, for me and my partner, what we used to do is we used to go to bridal shows like Brides and Babies, which used to hold in Abuja. So the goal was go to the bridal show and try and get as many people as possible to come to the table. So we go to the show, maybe we get 50 brides to come to the table and we talked to all of them. Out of those 50 brides, maybe only 30 of them dropped name for number, e-mail address.

That is a conversion. People came to the table. That is one step from the 50. Only 30 dropped their name, That is a conversion. That's another step. Now of the 50 that dropped, name for number, e-mail address, because bridal shows usually happen Thursday, Friday, Saturday, sometimes Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning, but you start calling them. The goal is how many people are you going to be able to get to agree to a meeting?

You go to the office or they come to the studio and then we'll look at samples. So that's the next step. So Monday morning, start calling on all of them. That first week, maybe we call the 30 of them and then we only get 15 to agree that they'll come to the studio or that we will come and meet them. Maybe the other 15, they ghosted us. So that is another step conversion. People have taken one step. That is a conversion.

So this is what we mean by conversions. Of the 15 that now come to the studio, how many people are impressed for us to start talking numbers and then we issue proposals. Maybe out of the 15, we only issue proposals to seven. That's another conversion. The other 8 maybe they decide to go stores from that eight that we gave proposal to maybe 6 pay deposit. That is also another conversion, taking the next step. So in sales, whenever you hear conversions, it just means taking the next step.

Who is taking the next step? 50 people show how many people can we get to take the next step. 3030 people show how many people can we get to make the next step. 1515 people showed how many people can we get to take the next step. 7-7 people showed how many can we get them to pay the deposit. 55 people paid, so we started talking to 50. We ended up with five at each step along the way, people are taking the next step with us.

That is called a conversion. So when you know your baseline, what you start working on now is conversions. If I'm talking to 10, how many people do I get to take the next step? When the people take the next step, how many do I get to take the next step and the next? That is how we close deals, by walking people along through different stages. That's how we close deals. Now, let's just say something for the sake of argument,

because I have said that no, you cannot close 10 / 10. But for the sake of argument, if we wanted to say that yes, it is possible, you can do 10 / 10. What needs to happen now? Listen carefully. What needs to happen is that you're targeting has to be 100% correct. Targeting means when you decide who you're going to chase. So that means back to the wedding photography example, I need to be able to just look at somebody and I know that this babe, this is the kind of babe that can pay and then I bring that person direct to the table so that we can start talking.

I don't even bother talking to people that I know that they will end up doing business. I think about it, are you God? Do you know everything you don't? The best we can do is in our minds, we have a sense of our ICP, the ideal customer profile. We have a sense of, OK, this person might buy, this person might not buy. We have a sense that shall we try our luck? That's just being human. We don't know for sure. So for you to close 100%, your targeting has to be 100%,

correct? You see this person, you just know this is my customer. You grab the person, bam, you start the conversation, and then you're on your way to closing. Your targeting has to be 100%. You need to know for sure that this person wants what I have, this person needs what I have, this person can afford what I have, and this person has a sense of urgency. And then those are the only people that you talk to. That is step one.

For it to be 100%, then now Step 2, you now have to be worth it. You need to have experience to deal with all possible kind of scenarios. And your business acumen has to be on point so that you can flow with absolutely every single person who comes your way. So if you are that kind of person as in you have all the experience in the world, all possible knowledge in the world and your business acumen is impeccable. Like you can't flow with every single person in every single business scenario.

And then your targeting has been 100% correct, as per you only called people for a meeting or visited people or sent emails or whatever to people who only want what you have, need what you have, can afford what you have, and who have a sense of urgency. Yeah. And that's all you need to do to make 100% happen. But by the way, this is something I learnt when I was in photography, at least in America. The wedding photographers in America, they say that if you're talking to somebody, if you're talking to 10 people and you end up closing 8 or 9, you're too cheap.

Let me repeat. The wedding photographers back when I was in the game, especially the American school, they used to say that if you're talking to 10 people and you close it, you're too cheap because this is what is happening. They see your walk and they're like, man, this guy is talented, die. And they're thinking the way you open your mouth, you will say $20,000. Then when they ask you how much I say $5000, they'll just keep quiet.

They'll just keep quiet. You just pinch, just pinch your wife that she should keep quiet. She should keep quiet. And the guy will just transfer the five quickly because he knows that if they went outside, they'll be pricing 2025. So that's the dynamic in the photography space. If you're a wedding photographer, if you're a fashion designer, those kind of things. If you're talking to 10 people and you're closing 8, you're closing 9, you are too cheap.

Raise your price. You're leaving money on the table. People are looking at the quality of what you can provide, and they know that, hey, if I don't pay this thing now, I'll go outside and I'll pay through my nose. That's the only reason why people are doing with you, dealing with you. And for those of you in other spaces, you're not in the creative space like an artist or a wedding photographer or a fashion designer or something.

Please, I beg you, adopt that mindset as well. A lot of you are leaving money on the table because you end up doing business with eight out of 10 or 9 out of 10. Your work, your skill set, your professionalism, your everything. It is such a steal that people are just closing their eyes and their pain. That is also another advantage of talking to your colleagues. You know when I say talk to your colleagues to figure out your baselines?

When you're in touch with your colleagues, the senior ones, they'll be telling you what's up. They'll be guiding you. Yes, there's some people who don't want to train the competition, but don't worry, that is just normal. But there's always one or two seniors who say come here, come here, come here. This is 1 or thing, one or two things you need to learn. So like back when I was in law, it's something that happens a lot.

Some seniors don't give you the time of day, but once in a while somebody will see you. Like maybe they will see you in court. As a young man, will you handle that brief impressive. But you know what? Next time like this, like this, like this or before, when you are researching, why didn't you research this and this? Do you know another argument you could have come from was like this, like this. So young man, you tried, you go places, but next time pay attention to these sorts of things.

That's some people that do that just out of the goodness of their heart. So always be talking to your colleagues, the people that don't want to train competition and they don't tell you anything, no problem. Leave them. Leave them that they're thinking small. They will never arise and meet you. Don't worry, The people that God have said they'll come your way and open your eyes to one or two things. So we should always be talking to our seniors in the field.

You learn one or two things anyway, so let me stop there. Summary. Don't worry yet that you're only closing 2 out of 10 for now. Don't worry. Don't give yourself BP first. Sit down, get the baseline. If you're only closing one out of 10, OK, Yeah, you have a serious problem because everybody should be closing at least 2 / 10. You know, if you're doing 0 / 10, OK, Yeah, it is. There's there's a big problem. Big, big, big, big problem.

But just get your baseline and let's come up with a plan. But just know that there's nobody, and I repeat nobody who sells everybody successfully. It does not happen. I'm the one that is saying it. If you find somebody who said that doing 10 / 10, please, I gave you my phone number at the beginning. I'm going to give you my phone number now I bet. Call me. I want to talk to this person and after I do, I'll come on here and I will say people what I said was incorrect.

But I can assure you by the time I talk to the person, I'll be able to figure out what the truth is. 5 minutes, I'll know what the truth is. So that's all for today folks. Remember, if you have sales and marketing questions, bring them to me. You can call, you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140. So thanks for your time and attention. I will catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.