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Hello and welcome to the show. Sorry, I've been available for the last two or three days and that's because the midterms threw me off my recording schedule. And so why if you wanted us to do something real cool for the kids. And so we've been going out to bed and that has thrown me off basically. But anyway, I'm back here now and I'm going to pick up from I found a bunch of notes and this was a conversation I should have shared with you guys a few days ago.
But let's just get straight to it, OK, The usual apologies because the kids are at home and then the neighbor is having some work done on their house. So expect to hear some interruptions in the background also because I'm not in my recording space. So OK, this is going to be a conversation that I had with Coach OG or or Jugo. I've been told I don't pronounce the name correctly. I just call it Ojugo because, you know, I went to school with a couple of juggles and so I run into any of them, I just say Ojugo.
In fact, I used to think it was OJUGO, but Coach Ojugo corrected me that I haven't been spelling her name correctly and I haven't been pronouncing incorrectly. So Coach Ojugo is a friend of mine, a professional colleague in the Abuja startup ecosystem. She's more of a systems, she's more of a back end kind of person. So if you want to learn about how to systemize your business processes, all the tech things related to it, you know, she's she's your girl.
She's the person to go to and she has a podcast as well. And so she figured why don't we collaborate on the podcast. And so she invited me over on her own podcast where we discussed a bunch of things related to sustainable business. So for Coach Ujugo, she likes her podcast to be real nice and polished. So she's going to take her time. She's going to edit everything, remove the coffee and remove the arms and the ARS and, you know,
introduce the music and make sure everything is nice and clean. So while we're waiting for Coach Ujugo to Polish up everything and when she publishes on her own podcast, I'll also share the audio over here so you guys can get the conversation first hand. I figured I'd just come over here and share some of the things that we spoke about, or rather some of the things that we had hoped to talk about during that episode because you know how these things can be,
you know, you come for a meeting and you decide to talk about some things and then the conversation gets carried off into other avenues. So it turned out to be really a wonderful conversation. So I'm going to talk about things that we had intended to talk about and hopefully I remember to talk about some of the things that actually did go into the podcast episode. So before we explore some of the ideas behind sustainable business marketing practices that Coach Ojugo and I
discussed, let me show what I'm listening to on Spotify. A couple of days ago. I was listening to Ruben Morgan, and he is a gospel singer. More of that Hillsong kind of music, you know, with songs, you know about Calvary, the Cross, the Creed, you know, that sort of thing. So if you've been listening to my musical recommendations and you have not been feeling the things I've been saying from a religious point of view, for those of you who are Pentecostal Christians, then Ruben Morgan is definitely something you should be able to listen to.
So, you know, nice worship music over there. Then I'd also like to give a shout out, listener shout out. And today I'm going to be shouting out Playmaker HDI don't have his real name because he listens to the podcast on Spotify. And he also made some comments on Spotify. I think Playmaker, I think he's the fellow who said that he was happy coming across the podcast again because initially he thought the podcast was aimed at photographers, but now he can see that the podcast applies to anybody who's trying to get the business off the ground.
And yes, Playmaker HD, thank you very much for listening to the show and thank you very much for commenting on Spotify. Because those of you who comment on Spotify comment on YouTube. You guys are giving my stuff algorithm juice. And so it lets the algorithm know that people find this content to be valuable. And then the algorithm starts sharing the content with other people. So for those of you who are listening on Spotify, commenting on Spotify, listening on YouTube, commenting on YouTube,
thank you very much because you're doing loads to drive the growth of the podcast. Now back to the stuff that Playmaker HD said. Yes, in the beginning, if for those of you been listening from day one, you already know this. But for those of you who have discovered the older episodes, you will notice that in the beginning, yes, I was talking to photographers, wedding planners, videographers, MCS, cake artists, what else?
Caterers, you know, people in the event and in the wedding space. So initially that was my target audience, but after more than a year of doing the podcast, I realized that most of my audience were people coming in from other industries. In fact, I was not hearing from wedding photographers at all, one or two wedding planners. But I started hearing from a bunch of folks, must use architects, agriculture people. And I was like, well, it looks as if I'm trying to speak to this category of people, but then the people that are deriving the value from the podcast seems to be anybody but people in the event space.
And that is when I made the transition. So for those of you who listen to the older episodes, maybe like this one, and then you find the younger episodes and it seems like I'm talking to wedding photographers, you know, that's, that's the disconnect. That's the disconnect right there. However, I do want to point out one thing to Playmaker HD and those of you who are who have listened to this episode, excuse me, and maybe who discovered some of the older episodes.
And what I'd like to point out is this. It's part of a core tenet over here on the podcast that I've been saying that sales and business development and marketing principles are universal, but the application changes according to the context. So in the future, if you run into another podcast and you're having sales and marketing problems and let's say the podcast is about sales and marketing, but let's say the The thing is targeted towards plumbers, for instance, don't say that because you are a Carpenter and this is a podcast that is aimed at plumbers, then there's not going to be any business advice that will be good for you.
Actually, it is. All you have to do is listen to the podcast, even though you're a Carpenter and the podcast is aimed at plumbers and ask yourself this advice that they are giving to plumbers. Does it apply in the carpentry business or how can I apply it to the carpentry business? And I can tell you guys this for a fact because one of the podcasts that I actually listen to is one that is a sales and marketing podcast, but it is aimed at plumbers.
And one of the really interesting things that I've gotten from that podcast so far is because the fellow who runs the podcast, the trainer over them, this is his own take, but he's in America, This is his own take. So his own take is, look, all of us are plumbers as far as our customers are concerned, all of us are the same. We dress the same, the overall is the same. The only difference is just the colour. The trucks that we use is all the same.
The difference is just packaging or branding. What are we selling? We're selling toilets on block, drain, tap, water heater, Everything is the same. So for him, the key thing about how you can differentiate yourself or distinguish yourself as a plumber selling in the United States of America is to go real hard on the service aspect. You should use the service aspect to distinguish yourself and then get referrals. So you can see how even though that particular podcast is aimed at plumbers in America, somebody who is a wedding photographer in Nigeria can listen to that podcast and learn a thing or two because you're learning how to distinguish yourself on the service based level.
And then also to get repeat business and referrals as always the same that even though it is a podcast that it is aimed at plumbers in America, a Nigerian architect can listen to that and get some sense or a Nigerian hospital manager can listen to that podcast and still make some sense. So Playmaker HD, thank you very much for listening and we're glad you're back. But future listeners, don't think that there's any disconnect.
You know, if you're a masseuse and you haven't had me talk about mass uses or however it is you guys call yourselves, just listen and figure out the principles that we and practices and tips and tricks that we discuss over here. How can that apply to somebody in my own business? And then try and apply it accordingly and you'll be fine. Well, of course, if you find a podcast that is dedicated exclusively to those of you who are masseuses and those of you who are in the hospitality space, then yes, maybe it might make more sense to leave this podcast and go there.
But in the meantime, we can hang out here, we can be friends here, and you can find useful things that will help boost your business. So last week with the listener shout out Playmaker HD Thank you very much. Thank you for commenting. Thank you for listening. I hope to catch more here in the future. Then let's head straight to conversation I had with Coach Odugo. Now for Coach Ojugo, both of us, we got over on our podcast because we wanted to discuss sustainable business marketing practices and the reason why these kinds of topics are important obvious.
And that is because marketing is the business function that is concerned with creating a customer. And so because of that, marketing actually is the most important thing that a business owner is going to do. So whether you're a plumber or you're a wedding photographer or you're a business consultant or you export charcoal, the most important function of your business actually is to create a customer where a customer didn't exist before.
So the primary thing that we have to do is to wake up every day and think about how we solve the marketing challenge. Because if you do not, if you do not solve the marketing challenge, then there is nobody over which you can exercise your XYZ function. This is what I'm trying to say. If you export sesame seed or charcoal to Ghana, but you do not create customers in Ghana, when you wake up in the morning, there is nobody for you to exercise the charcoal too.
You just have an expensive hobby. You're there in the office, you're chopping AC, but you do not have customers in Ghana. The same thing with the wedding photographer. If you do not figure out how to create customers for yourself in your city or on Instagram or on Google, then you have rented your camera or you have bought your camera and the lights and your studio space for nothing. You just have an expensive hobby. You're sitting down shopping AC,
but you do not have any customers. And it's the same thing with the architect. You can go to Unijos, finish first class, and then from there go to the Netherlands, finish first class with your masters and then come back. All you just have is an expensive hobby. You're sitting down in your studio space in Lagos shopping AC, but there's no customer. So the primary thing that we're supposed to do is to create a customer.
And that's the reason why marketing is the primary function of a business that all of us should be cracking our heads on every single day. Marketing. Now when we say marketing, it covers different things. It covers advertising that a whole bunch of you know, it covers public relations, everybody knows that. It covers branding. People knows that marketing also covers sales. That's the one whole lot of people don't know or don't like.
And since sales is like the forgotten stepchild, that's the reason why I keep talking about these things over and over and over again. Because when you say advertising, everybody's there. Branding, everybody wants to do it. PR everybody wants to do it. Positioning, packaging, whatever you call it, everybody wants to do it. When you hear sales, everybody runs away. But the all these things, advertising, branding, public relations, marketing,
positioning, sales promotion, whatever it is you want to call it, all of those things are children of marketing. And that is why I say that we are all marketing communications professionals, whether you're a branding person or APR person or an advertising person or a sales person, all of us, we're all the children of marketing. So marketing is the most important thing that we have to do in our businesses then. OK. So yeah, that's one of the things I need to talk about.
And one reason why I wanted to talk about that was because we have a lot of people, particularly in culture, you go space, you know, people who are technically inclined. You know, you went to school, you studied mech engine, you studied artificial intelligence, you studied this, you studied that. You figure yourself to be a cerebral person. And because of that, you think of yourself primarily as a scientist or primarily as a technician or primarily as a something.
I'm like, that's not the case. You're just deceiving yourself. So yes, you studied mech engine or yes, you studied quantum engineering or something like that. But so long as you are not in somebody's office collecting salary, I mean, you've created your own office, you're sitting down, you're chopping AC, You are a marketer first and foremost, because if you don't do your marketing, well, there's nobody over which to exercise your quantum engineering degree.
So for those of you who are cerebral minded, those of you who are really, really smart, you went to school, you studied medicine, you graduated first class, you studied accounting, you graduated first class, you studied law, you graduated first class. Please be humble a bit and realise that yes, even though you're cerebral and you're smart, you actually are a marketer first and foremost. Because if you don't do any good marketing, there's nobody over which to exercise your fancy first class degree in law.
So even though you're a lawyer and you've been called to the bar, think of yourself first as a marketer and get you a bunch of clients, then you can exercise your lower degree. So let's see, the next thing was to define sustainable business marketing. The reason I wanted to make that clear is because whenever people hear sustainable business nowadays, what they think is about promoting your business in a way that is environmentally responsible or socially responsible.
So nowadays young people say sustainable business. That's what they mean. However, I was not talking there to talk about the environment and about social responsibility. When we say in sustainable business, we mean the much, much older meaning of the term. Sustainable business just means business that you can do faithfully over time. Sorry, sustainable marketing practices are just marketing practices that you can do faithfully over time.
The reason why that part sustainable faithfully over time is because whenever you do marketing, one step forward, 2 steps back. It doesn't work. If you do marketing or sales or whatever Monday, Tuesday and then you go to sleep Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and then you wake up next week Monday hoping for business to come in. That's not how it works. If you go fully in January 1st, do marketing from January 1st to January 31st, and then you go to sleep all of February, March,
April and May and you expect business to come in, that's not how it works. Marketing, sales communications, marketing communications practices, they work best when you do these things sustainably over time. So if it's that every single Monday is marketing day, what you're doing marketing day every single Monday for 52 weeks of the year straight now we can expect to see progress. Now that you do it on Monday of the first week and then you go to sleep for the rest of the month and then next month you wonder how come I'm not getting business?
That's the reason why because you're doing these things in a manner that is not sustainable. It is only sustainable when we do it faithfully. When we do it faithfully over time, you pick a cadence and then you stick to it. So what is the right cadence? What is the what determines which marketing practices are sustainable? You know, it depends on the number of factors, the number of contextual factors. It depends on your personality,
depends on your habits, your industry or the price points or whether you're dealing with a simple or a complex sale. There are some personalities. There are some people that are all in like, OK, I've, I've chook my head inside and I'm not going anywhere. OK, no problem. If you're one of those people, then sure, no problem. Deciding January 1st, that is what we're going to do for all of 2024-2025 is not a problem for you.
So in that case, faithful or contextual sustainable marketing practices might be you doing certain kinds of activities every other day. So you do it Monday, Wednesday and Friday every single week for the rest of the year. So it depends if you're one of those people that you can't shook your head inside and remain there, maybe you might try and look for things that you can cope with, which is that whole thing of some people saying, OK, today is Friday,
Every Friday is a marketing day. By the way, I don't agree with that kind of running your business in that way, You know, where you pick one day of the week and say, OK, today is marketing day or today is social media day or today is advertising day or something like that. But I'll talk about that in future episodes. But The thing is, even if you pick it like that, like OK, marketing Monday, every Monday is a marketing Monday, no problem.
You'll be better than somebody who is doing Start, Stop, Start, Stop. But this is provided you do marketing Monday, every single Monday for the rest of the year. Then also sustainable practices. Also, it depends on the industry. There are some things that are unsustainable in some particular industries. Let's see what else. Price points, OK, I mentioned on price point, OK, I'll explain this, OK. The reason why price point is important is this.
If you're selling something that is a cheap product, it limits the kind of marketing practices that you can do. So if you sell TomTom, for instance, I think TomTom is now 10 naira for one. I don't know what the profit margin is. May say maybe the profit margin is five naira per one. You probably can't go and do online advertising because those margins are small. Because if you do online advertising, my guess is maybe you'll be paying more than 5
naira to attract the customer. OK, well, I'm just guessing. But what I'm just trying to make is there's some things that the price just doesn't make sense. So it limits the kind of activities that you can do. So maybe in this case, if you're selling TomTom, instead of looking for online advertising, maybe you're better off looking for a distributor, somebody who will buy maybe like 10,000 TomTom Suites and then maybe they will now resell to market women in Abuja or in Lagos or something.
So that's how you make your money. So in this case, sustainable marketing might mean going out to big, big marketplaces in Abuja or in Lagos or in Sapele or wherever you are. I'm trying to look for distributors, retailers who will now buy from your hand. So that's where price comes in and that's why you start looking at things like CAC. That's the customer acquisition cost. How much does it cost for you to acquire a customer?
And then CLV, that's customer lifetime value. When you actually do find a customer, how much is it, how much do they spend? So if you look at all the marketing things available to you, whether it's Flyers or advertising online or going to go and meet people, and you see on average that you're spending maybe 7 K to acquire 1 customer. If you're spending seven K to acquire 1 customer, but last last, by the time they spend and do business with you, they end up spending maybe like 1.2 M or something.
Then in that case, you can see that spending seven K to acquire somebody who's going to spend 1.2 M. Over the next two years, that's not a problem, it actually makes sense. The question now is how can I raise that 777 K so I can go and look for more people? Because by the time 1 clicks, the person ends up spending 1.2 M over the course of three years or something like that. So this is how price determines what is a sustainable marketing practice, What is sustainable,
something they can do that you can replicate over time. Then the industry also determines what marketing practices that you can do sustainable over time. For instance, those of you in the tech space, all of you who are trying to set up fintechs and things like that, you guys talk about growth hacking, you guys talk about metric driven growth, you guys talk about the PLG product LED growth, You know, all these other ideas.
I'll make a podcast episode on those ones later. But you know, those are some things traditionally that people are doing in your space. And so, you know, if all your colleagues are doing this thing, then it makes sense. You guys hanging out together, learning about these things. You might be able to do it easily. Over time, there might be motivation to do it because after all your colleagues, that is what they're doing.
And then in some industries like real estate that we mentioned maybe 3 or 4 episodes ago where they use Flyers and things like that, That's the episode I made while I was talking to the real estate guy about how we could increase his lead generation. So in that case, you know, using Flyers, you know, that is something that can be done sustainably over time. You know, you go out on Monday, share like 200 Flyers, go out on Wednesday, share like 200
Flyers, go out on Friday, share another 200. So you do it like that and you know, by the end of the month, maybe you'd have been able to share, you know, close to 2000 Flyers or something like that. So these are some of the factors that determine what is sustainable marketing practice or not. But just remember it is contextual. So you should be considering all these things, you know, what are your personalities? What do you like?
What do you not like? Now, some of you that don't like to walk around in the sun, if you don't like to walk around in the sun, then I guess this flyer thing is not a good idea. Or maybe you're going to share the flyer first thing in the morning, you know, go around maybe like that kind of eight or maybe 10 when the weather is still cool. So by the time it starts getting hot at 11, you know, you cut out, you know, you leave.
But you have to pick whatever it is that works for you. Well, this is one thing that you're going to have to bear in mind if you are involved in a complex sale. And remember that a complex sale is anything that is expensive and that is complex, that involves many decision, many decision makers, and that you have to build relationships with people. So if you're involved in that kind of thing, just remember that whatever marketing you're going to do has to be multimodal.
You can't pick just one thing. So for those of you who are doing fintech ideas, you can do PLG, yes, you know, that's good. But then you also have to try other things as well. There might be flyer involved, there might be PR involved, there might be branding involved, there might be prospecting involved. Go and visit somebody in the office. There might be content marketing involved. Put out things on the Internet that will generate interest and engagement so that people can look at the content and then start coming into you with questions and DMS and emails and things like that.
So if you're involved in the complex hills, it has to be multimodal. You're going to have to do lots of things. You can't just pick 1. So if you sell cars, for instance, OK, cars, some people say cars are not complex, but I like to say selling cars is kind of complex because compared to other things like wedding photography, because with wedding photography, that's why I started, I would be dealing with either the bride or the groom.
Worst case scenario, I have to start talking to mumsy and popsy because mumsy and Popsy are the ones that are going to pay the bills. But you can see that primarily I'm getting in touch with one person who is the guy getting married or who is the babe getting married for the car sale. Now it's a little bit more complex. I'm talking to the guy. OK, now let me not do Carl, let me say house. So you're talking to the guy or guy, but Madame's opinion is really, really important as well.
So you have to make sure that Madame is involved in this deal. Let you not be that. Or guy thinks it's a good deal when it's now time to transfer money or something like that. Madame will now say she doesn't like the size of the kitchen and then everything has been torpedoed. Or you're talking only to the Madame. You best make sure that our guy is involved in the conversation as well before when it's time for money to change house,
change house now or guy will now come and say, you know, whatever it is that the husband is going to say in this case. So multiple decision makers, you know, things like that. And housing is complex. The price point is high because there's no house that you can buy for, you know, 100 grand or maybe 2 mil or three mil, you know, or talking big sums of money here. So when you're involved in complex sales scenarios, you have to be doing lots of other stuff.
So you can't say you're in retail, so in real estate and then you're only going to drop flyer. So in the morning you can drop flyer, but then 1011 you're back to the office. Then maybe you can work on some content marketing that you share on LinkedIn or on something. And then maybe later on in the afternoon, you check with your digital guy to be sure the advertisements that you guys are putting out online to be sure are the advertisements being seen, What is the reach?
What is the conversion, all these sorts of things. But this is just an example to say that if you're in a complex sales, you can't you have to be doing it has to be multimodal, different things at once. So in the morning, you share flyer, you get back to the office, you produce content. Then you now talk to your digital, your digital advertising guy. And when you're done, maybe you can now go out and then you start visiting people's offices.
Maybe you decide that you're going to visit the all the banks in on Amado Belle and we'll say to it's like going from one bank branch to another bank branch. So that's how you run it multimodal. If it's a complex sale, if it's a simple sale, then yeah, single tactics work. That is why people like some retailers, you know, can just can just rely on price discount, price discount, price discount. And that's all they do.
Every single year you bring stuff in new things from the UK and then you put them in the store and then you wait November, December price discount and then people rush. So the more simpler the sale is, you can rely on one tactic, but the more complex the sale is, there's no you have to do different stuff. So how I we wrapped up the conversation. OK, sorry, let me look at my notes. This was a bunch of a couple of days ago, so I cannot remember.
Let me say 1 moment, let me see, let me see, let me see. OK. I can't remember how we actually wrapped up the conversation, but bottom line is when it comes to figuring out what is the best sustainable business practice for you or sustainable marketing practice for you, it helps if you can discuss with a professional. So you call someone like me or you call someone like Coach Jugo, I should be able to put you through, OK, based on the kind of business you you've been in, how long you've been in business, the kind of customers that you have, the kind of industry that this is.
And your personality is like the thing you're willing to do, the thing you're not willing to do. Perhaps you should try this, this, this, or you should try that, that, that and then tweak it as it goes. Let's see what else. Of course, pay attention to useful material like this over on the Internet, over on YouTube, over on the podcast. It helps you figure out new marketing ideas that you can try out then. And don't forget AI.
You can also use AI to discover what kind of marketing ideas you can try out. Because I told someone and she tried it and she was impressed and I told her go ye forth and execute. And then when you've learnt a couple of things, you can come back and then we'll talk some more. You don't necessarily have to pay for my services now. But of course, if you guys give me your money, Yeah, I don't mind. I will take it. I'm money operated.
I love money. So yeah. So that's it pretty much. This is what we discussed. So when Coach Odrugo has the finished and the polished episode available with nice clean sound and with music and everything, I'll share that over. I'll share that over here on the podcast. So that's all. Thank you guys very much for listening. If you're having sales challenges, you don't know what is something sustainable. You don't know what the sustainable sales and marketing practices are for your business,
for your industry, in your particular context. Then please reach out and let's see how we can get you sorted. The contact details to use my phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. If you're going to call on WhatsApp, please send me a message first before you, before you call because a lot of criminals these days on WhatsApp, I don't know what's happening and you know, people hacking WhatsApp profiles. So I tend not to answer WhatsApp calls if I don't have your number already stored.
So shoot me a message first. We'll chat one or two times and then we'll agree when we can be on the phone and then call. But if you're a regular phone call, make sure no problem, just call. If I don't answer, send an SMS and I'll boss you back as soon as I can. Then you can connect with me on LinkedIn. The name to look out for is Tavi Shima Ayedi. That's my name and the host of the show. If you're concerned about the spelling, then just check whatever link you're listening to right now.
If you're listening to your podcast, then check there. You see my name on my e-mail address. If you're on YouTube, just look at the bottom right, so bottom left of the video. You see my name there. Highlight it with your mouse and then copy paste it in LinkedIn and then my profile will come up and then you can get connected to me that way. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.