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Hello and welcome to the show today. I'm not in the booth, so expect to hear some noises bleeding in from the background. And before we begin, I have been, there's a couple of listener shout outs that we haven't gotten to. So let me see. I will pull up my aha. Yeah. So let me have a look at LinkedIn. So listener shout outs First off to Afiz Adigo. He's a managing director in Lagos. He reached out on LinkedIn, says it's a pleasure to be a part of my network.
Let's see. Okay, found me on the podcast and he's thankful for the insights and the experience that I share with you guys. So yeah, thank you very much, Afiz Adugu for listening to the show and for reaching out. And so for those of you who are also just discovering the show right now and you think you're getting valuable Nuggets from the show, please share to other people so that they can tag along and also get some good stuff.
Then there's also a message from Digital Yousuf. Interesting name. I'm assuming that Digital Yousuf is not his real name. I'm assuming that's a professional Monica or something. So let's see. OK. I also came across profile because of the podcast and is thankful for the value that I deliver on the show. It says keep up the good work. And Yousuf, thank you very much. And by the way, in case you guys can't tell, I'm looking forward to meeting and chatting with more of you because this is also how I get questions for the show.
That's for those of you who reach out and who have questions because I'm currently having a chat with Faith Ed Edo. Is it Edo or Edo? I can't remember. And she just finished from University of Ibadan. I think about to go for NYSE soon. So we're having a chat, trying to figure out a bunch of things that we can do to get her, excuse me, to get her more and more business up and running. But that's going to be a podcast episode for another time.
By the way, lot of warning because I'm interacting with a bunch of folks and I noticed that, you know, a couple of them are students, you know, yeah, three entering year 4, you know, that kind of thing. People are about to graduate and blah, blah, blah. And I'm helping people pro bono. It does not mean that I am here to do for the Christmas. So there actually is a business. And yes, I do have ways of sniffing out those of you who are looking for free advice.
So yeah, reach out, let's have a chat. I try to help as many people as possible, but if it looks like you're just trying to get free advice, you know, we're adults, so we have to sit down and have the conversation. But yeah, I'm not going to chase away the faiths and Zainab and who else? I can't remember the other lady's name, the one from University of Port Harcourt. Yeah. So I'm not going to chase you guys away. So reach out.
Let's chat then. OK Victor Agawa as well is a content marketer. OK. I didn't get where he. I'd have to check his profile for that. He's a content marketer. And. OK, same through the podcast and was impressed that not many people send messages after connection requests. And so you can see, here's a live testimony. You reach out to me, you definitely will hear from me, even for those of you who don't send messages first because I
send messages to everyone. So let's see what else? Oh, and by the way, that is proof, like I've been saying that I respond to everyone, you know, even if it takes me 12 hours or 24 hours, eventually I'm going to get your message. So with those shout outs out of the way, let's head straight to the topic for today. So today on the podcast, we're going to look at how to win high value deals. This is not a question that I've been given in the past.
This is something that I just think we ought, we should consider here on the show. And I want to bring a different perspective just so that a whole bunch of us realize that high value deals are more accessible than we think. Because for the average Niger kid now I'm assuming that when they hear high value deals, they're thinking big, big, big, big, big, you know, fintech, you know, that kind of thing. Raise like 10:00 AM and all that suite money that we hear on the excuse me on the podcast and on the blogs.
You know, when you hear that. So, so, so start up did funding round and they collected 10M in seed and seed round, you know, something like that. So 10 M dollars, probably not a lot of money, but then you do the conversion rate and you know, it's looking like some sweet cash after all. And then of course, people who are part of the incubators, like the last time that I spoke about, one of my mentees that I'm working with who is going through the OCIF, that's the Orange Corners International Fund or something like that.
I think that that's for the Kingdom of Netherland and they finance some programs through Faith Foundation Lagos. And so people who are going through that program, that's people who qualify at the end of the whole thing, what they receive is A2M. But at 2 million, unfortunately it's not dollars, it's 2,000,000, you know, naira. But still it's not, it's not bad. And the point I'm just trying to make is when most people hear high value deals, this is what they think of.
They're thinking big, big, big, big, big, big. They're thinking $10 million, two million naira. And they're thinking, you know, fintech startup and all these sorts of things. So just to let you guys know that high value deals are more accessible than you think. But First off, before we even get to that side of what how our high value is accessible, we have to figure out what is a high value deal. So a high value deal over here on the podcast, we like to keep definitions nice and simple,
which is not to say that if you go and check your business textbooks, you'll find much more robust definitions. So let's go my own simple definitions for now. So high value deal just means business transaction that has big, big revenue and big, big profit. Now for all these businesses that have huge revenues or huge profits, they are characterized by a couple of things that we should keep an eye out for. For those of you who've been listening to the podcast for a very long time, judges me, you will see that none of these things come as a as a big surprise because we've been hearing it from from time immemorial since I've been podcasting over here.
So number one, large contract value. So that means you're dealing with huge sums of money and it requires a big financial commitment from the client, the person paying. On the other hand, then another thing is characterized by his long term relationships because there's no how you're talking big money that it doesn't imply a sustained business partnership, whether it is clean business, because whether it's clean business or whether it's even if it's illegal business,
even if you're doing drugs, you know, it has to be sustained long term partnerships. There's no big money that comes to short term partnerships just doesn't happen. So if you're looking for that kind of thing that you want to hammer, but then you don't want to, you know, you don't want to schmooze and you don't want to do none of that. Just perish your thought. It doesn't, it doesn't work, at least not in the beginning.
If you want to be like this guy, Rick Rubin, you know, legendary producer and and Prince and the rest of them, in the beginning, you know, they had to schmooze when they now became Rick Rubin and Prince. You can now do that solo thing and blank everybody and mind your business. But in the beginning you have to schmooze. We can't we can't get around it. Then it's also going to involve complex negotiations because when you're talking big money and you're talking complex deals, know how know how you're going to be talking to multiple stakeholders, different people's and then the Times Now become intricate.
So there's some complexity there. We can't run away from it. There is no simple subject matter, simple thing that brings big money by itself. I will going to the different circumstances where that can happen then these things also have to be high impact solutions. They address critical challenges that people are facing, which is why right now a lot of the big money seems to be chasing the startups and the fintechs and the AI and the everything.
Because right now that is where you point some money and you get, you know, big results, big changes, big impact, and then you can charge accordingly when you get into the market. So for those of you who've been listening for to the podcast for any length of time, you will see that what the rest of the world calls high value deals. That is what those of us in sales and business development disciplines, this is what we call complex sales scenario.
We talk about these things ad nauseam on the podcast. In fact, I mentioned it, if not every week, every other week. And I've been waiting for someone to actually say, dude, you talk about complex sales scenarios too much, can we move on? I'm glad that nobody has said that because complex sales scenarios are actually the Coco of what we're doing over here on the broadcast. If we want to make that creamy money, that good moolah, you know, it doesn't come from doing the simple stuff.
It's the complex stuff. Or we do the simple stuff, but then we ratchet up the volume. But by the time we ratchet up the volume, you trans, you'll see that some complexity has started entering the whole thing. So yeah, so high value deals is just the same thing as complex sales scenarios. What we talk about over here on the podcast or if you check your favorite YouTube or whatever, all the same thing. So if you've been following people talk about high value deals, no problem.
You've been following people talking about complex sales scenarios. No problem, you're on course. So if you, like I said, if you want to do a simple sales scenarios, then if you want big sums of money, then you need big trans. I mean, huge volume of transactions. So volume, volume, volume. So if you're doing a Gucci, that's my favorite example to give on the podcast because it's relatable. So if it is a Gucci, that's a commodity good.
It's low, low price. It is not a complex subject matter. It does not involve complex relationships because if I go there, it is me and the woman reprise. I pay, I collect my money and then I leave. And because of that, long term relationships are not desirable. So if you're going to be a in the Ugusi market and you want to make money here, you have to think of volume of transactions. So you have to try and sell as many cups of Ugusi at 3000 naira as possible.
It's volume, volume, volume, volume as you move your cups. If you can be selling 100 a hundred cups a day, you know, that's that's good, that's not bad money. But then if you want to pursue high value deals in the agusi market or in the agro commodities market, those sorts of things, we have to think bigger, not just volume, but we have to go larger in scale. So we have to think of a large contract value. So in this case, oh, by the way,
apologies, you know, for the sounds in the background. The munchkins are just are just doing their things, you know, just me and rascals. Where was I? OK, yeah. So we're thinking large contract values now. So instead of thinking in terms of cops of a Gucci, you don't have to start thinking in terms of bags. If you're moving bags, that's significant weight. That's better profit margins. In fact, instead of thinking bags of a Gucci.
So for those of you who are involved in the business, I don't even know if you sell a Gucci in bags. This is just me freestyling because when we did, me and my brother did the aggro exports and things like that. That's how we used to do it. You know, bags, 25 KG, 50 KG, you know, that kind of thing. So yeah, 2550 KGI think 50 KG was the largest bag we did. Now it's for soy and charcoal and things like that. But I'm not sure how you people transport a Gucci.
But what I'm just saying is instead of thinking in cops now start thinking in bags. And if you're thinking in bags, if you're thinking in bags to sell to multiple traders or retailers, then you can even think in truckloads. You know, the larger the scale, the better. Then of course, once you start going up, up, up like this, instead of thinking 1 cup of Gucci or a dozen cops a day, you're thinking, how can I move bags of a Gucci in this local government or trucks of a Gucci in this municipality in, in Abuja or in this LGA in Lagos or or this senatorial district in the east.
You start thinking big like that. Then long term relationships now start to matter because know how know how you're going to need relationships with truckers, relationship with distributors, retailers in Abuja. You're going to have to know people in Abuja market board, municipal task force, what else? You know, all these kind of people. So you're going to need to know all these people. You're going to have to have long term relationships with them and you're going to have,
you're going to need, so excuse me, you're going to need to, you're going to need that number on, on speed dial, you know, to move this relationship forward. If nothing else, at the very least so that when your boys are driving through Abuja and task force hold your truck, at least you will know who to call to say, oh boy, I know I've paid my dues, release my guys. Then negotiations are going to be complex because like I said,
you know, there are multiple partners now, different stakeholders. So it's in it's negotiations minefield, you will talk with the local traders, you will also talk with the market board, you will negotiate with truckers, what again municipal don't need their own court to you know on and on. So plenty of negotiations. And then the thing I said about high impact solutions, well, this is definitely high impact because The thing is, it looks very simple to us, tomato and Gucci.
But The thing is, if the marketing boards can't get supplies of commodities and staples, then what happens is that the market no longer becomes viable. And we've seen these sorts of things in Abuja happen where there's a market, it opens up like this place next to Utaku, what's it called? There's this place next to Utaku market. There's a community next to Utaku Market. I don't know if the market is beginning to revive now, but it's one time that they opened it everywhere nice, everywhere fresh, you know, international market as we say in Abuja.
But if you try one or two times and certain things are not there, after a while, you know, you and your wife, you just stop going there or you and your spouse, you know, you just stop going there because you know, you go there, you can't find half the things that you need. So these things have caused markets to dwindle. So I've seen markets dwindle in Abuja, my guess. And then maybe markets don't dwindle in Lagos because in Lagos, the whole world is there.
I hear that there's like 15,000,000 people in Lagos, at least I've seen million. So maybe any market in Lagos is going to be vibrant. What I'm trying to say is that tomato a goosey getting things there on time actually is a high impact solution because if you can't get commodities there on time, the viability of the market is going to be threatened. Sorry about that. Apart from my throat issues, I've had a long day being on the phone and you know, funny when you enter into some lines of business, you know, some people don't tell you the what's it called, the health and safety aspects of it.
So I had no idea that when it comes to consulting and public speaking and coaching and things like that, that your voice is a tool. And so you have to pay attention to your voice. So I used to laugh at people who would say, oh, I need to take care of my voice. I mean, back when I was in OAU and I wanted to join the choir, you know, people who say, you know, drink warm water, mix it with lemon, do vocal exercises, you know, this and this and that and that.
And I used to laugh at them like, I beg, you know, the voice is the voice. It'll be fine. It'll be cool anyway. But now I'm saying that, yeah, you need to pay attention to these sorts of things. So if you're going to be a consultant, if you're going to be speaking for a living then and you're still in school now, yeah, talk to people in the choir. They will teach you about voice care routine, how to use one more time lemon and everything and get your vocal cords working all nice.
All right. So how was that? OK, so basically what I was trying to show with the Gucci thing is just that we can get to high level deals just by thinking in terms of a larger skills. So if you're thinking a Gucci cop, start thinking a Gucci sacks. If you're thinking, if you're already operating at level of sacks, start thinking of level of trucks. If you sell cars, OK, because we also did some car sales examples I think last week.
So if you're thinking cars, but you're doing retail, you're selling 11 Toyota every month. You know, think in terms of fleet sales. You know, like how can I get Zenith Bank in Maitama branch to buy, I don't know, 10 cars for marketing stuff or something. You know, thinking in terms of fleet, fleet, fleet, fleet, fleet rentals. So now, OK, we're done 15 minutes. Let's see how we can bring this to a close. So if you want to land a high value deal, the step by step is pretty simple.
It's the same basic stuff that we've been talking about over on the podcast. So no need to overflog it. So first of all, you have to identify the ideal client. You have to look for the market opportunity and you have to be asking yourself the simple questions that I advocate here, especially when I did that podcast episode on how to start your business in three easy steps. And step one was you have to ask yourself, is there money in this thing?
Is this thing viable? And then of course, you have to ask yourself, am I capable of pulling this thing off? Because quite frankly, there's some things that pass my power. There's some things that pass your power and you need to know before you can enter. So in the photography and in the video space was one of the problems I had because I don't like managing large production crews. And by the time you're doing some jobs and production crews like 15 boys, 20 boys, you know,
this whole thing of making sure did this person show up on time? Did this person show up on time? Where are we with this deliverable? That kind of thing just passed my power. You know, there's some people that are suited to that. And so if you're thinking high value opportunities in that space and you don't mind that kind of headache waking up at 5:00 or 4:00 in the morning and then you start chasing people that where is Kunle you see on the road yet?
Who is at the client's house? Where is the mixer? Where is the crane? Where is this? Where is it that you know, if it's within your power, then cool, no problem. So you have to ask yourself the right opportunity, identify ideal clients. Then of course you need to understand the pinpoints, understand the business objectives, understand what people are trying to solve. You also need to research the decision making, progress, sorry process.
This is something that I talk about a lot and people just don't feel me. They don't understand why this thing is important. If you don't have an idea of these people's financial capabilities, how much bad they have, or their decision making process, how it is that they will, how decisions get made, then how are you? How are you going to determine who you need to talk to, who to build relationships with, who to pursue, where the bottlenecks are, you know, things like that.
So you need to know what's up. You can't just say, oh, Agusi people are millionaires in the Agusi market. Let me just enter. If you do not understand the decision making progress, people's financial capabilities, their different interests, you won't know who you should approach, who you should toast, who are the right stakeholders, you know, things like that. So we'd ask ourselves all these questions as well. Do some small research.
Also build strong relationships, network extensively within the industry. Yes, it might be a good a goosey and tomato, but there's also networking that is going along there. Even if it's abattoir business and you look at them, they're smelling because they've been, they've been drenched in goat blood and cow blood and everything. They're still networking that is going on there. I mean, why do you think they, they do election within the markets and in the abattoir section, they're they're hustling to see who is, who will be become a chairman of the abattoir section, chairman of the market overall, you know,
things like that. So you need to know what's up. You need to know who is who, network extensively, attend industry events, attend conferences. Yes, even for a goose here, tomato people, they have events and conferences. It might not be a touché and it might not happen in Hilton Hotel, but best believe that they're having their meetings because there's no industry that is not coordinated. So you need to know what's up.
Who are they? Where do they meet? Is he every five market days or whatever. Know your thing, do your thing, do the networking. Then of course, there's the whole thing of having value proposition, and that is when I spoke about Victor Antonio and his three FS. And let me say it again in case some of you think I'm illiterate, you know, it's just a running joke on his podcast. So when he says the three FS, they're not actually FS, they're actually two PS and 1F.
So value proposition is physical and then financial, physical, financial, and then psychological. So that's his three FS. It's a joke. They're not FS so physical. If you buy my product on my service, how will you improve? How will it how will you do you in the body? That's the physical benefit. Then financial. If you buy my product on my service, how is it going to do you in the pockets? How will your bank account reverberate?
That's financial. Then psychological. You know, you buy my product or service, you know, how is it that you're going to feel? And the example that I have given time and time again on the podcast is back in my wedding photography days, the chief benefit who are selling basically was just psychological. You know, I'm a waiting photographer. The pictures will be glam. You know, you will slay. You'll be the top of talk of the town.
Your your photographs will trend on social media, blah, blah, blah. Was all the psychological stuff. And then for some of you, what you're selling is financial. Buy my product or my service and you will triple your revenue or you will save costs by 50%. If you save costs by 50%, then your margins will double. You know, that whole thing. And then physical, the one that I mentioned I think maybe two or three weeks ago that I had another sales trainer talk about and that was on I think was.
Yeah. Erectile dysfunction dysfunction yes. So your husband having erectile dysfunction dysfunction take this, use it no erectile dysfunction again. And I guarantee you that in three months you'll be pregnant with twins. So, yeah, So that one physical, OK, it's not just physical. There's also some psychological benefit there. So those are the three FS for drafting a compelling value proposition. Again, the fellow's name is Victor Antonio.
So checked out his. Check out his podcast, Real nice. Real nice as well. Then, of course, you also need to learn how to master the sales process that involves building a team because at a certain level, selling is a team sport. You can't do solo all the way. Then let's see what else. Yeah, build a reputation, be trustworthy. OK, We've already spoken about focusing on focusing on long term partnerships. What else? You know, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know exactly what it is that you have a sense of all these things that I'm talking about South.
Bottom line, just pay attention to the podcast and you'll be cool. You'll have enough guidance. Then final thing, landing high value deals, it takes time and it takes persistence. There is no high value deal that comes quick. It doesn't happen. If you're in a position where a high value deal falls into your lap, then thank God. But just know that that's not the the norm. You know, if I defeat lands in your lap two or three times,
just know that you're a Unicorn. That's not how business life is going to be all the time. Usually it takes time, usually takes persistence, hard work, relationships, all those sorts of things. So like I said at the top of the show, the usual examples of high value deals is when people are talking about large scale software, which is why people are trying to start fintechs in Nigeria. Because if you have a fintech that does some revolutionary thing when it comes to Nigeria bank payments infrastructure,
even though it is only collecting 11 cable on top people's transfers or something. But The thing is 11 cable on top business transactions, that is like billions of transactions. You know, it amounts to a whole lot. And that is how a lot of these companies make their money. So whether it is Remita or whether it is OPA or whatever is this whole thing of they're taking one, One Cup or 11 naira from a few million of us and they're doing that several thousand times a day for 365
days of the year. So usually in Nigeria when you hear high value deals, that's what people are talking about and that's what everybody's trying to raise money from America. So you can do your fintech because the payout is huge to be collecting 11 naira or 44 naira or five, five naira, you know, from each person. I mean, it's, it adds up. It really does. Then of course, high value deals in Niger, people also thinking infrastructure projects, you know, things like that, like this whole thing of down with his refinery that he's not getting oil.
You know, he's been in the news that he can't get crude. And I know you guys know the gossip, so no need for me to go into details here. But yes, high value deals, people are thinking of those kind of big things, you know, down with him. Then people also think high level deals like enterprise level consulting projects. Like I saw on TV today this guy, Bismarck, Bismarck Rouhani financial, financial something I can't remember the name of his company, but who was someone that I got the chance to work across as a young lawyer.
I was with the firm. The firm was providing legal services who are negotiating joint, joint negotiating heads of agreements between Shell, one other company and some Italian company. And yeah, so Bismarck, Ronnie was there and he was providing consulting services from the financial end. And, and one thing I remembered was when I got there for the meeting, you know, when we left and Olga picked up the check, my Olga picked up the check.
So as we're leaving, you know, we're just talking, you know, about his plans because he was a youngish man at the time. I don't know. My guess is maybe he was in his 40s. So something about what's going to do with the money and things like that. I was impressed with the whole thing. And so he tried to give me some perspective. He spoke about how the cut that he he made from that was 7.5 M and back then 7.5 million was,
was, was good money. Now 7,000,000 can't really do you anything because in Central Central district in Abuja, we know, we know how much house rent is in this part of the world. So anyway, so seven M back then was money 7M right now is, is just getting back. So I was surprised that he he collected 7.5 and he was like the young man, you don't know anything that how much do you think Bismarck is called is collecting that Bismarck is probably collecting like 10
times what it is that we're collecting. And I was like, wow, I can't wait to be like that someday when I'm called in and I sit at the table and I gave my sage business advice and I hope you package the deal and everything. And by the time I'm leaving there, I'm leaving with multiples of 1,000,000. So yeah. So in this part of the world where you hear high value deals, those are the sorts of things that we think about large scale software infrastructure projects or high level consulting.
So as what most people think about. But I'm just recording this broadcast episode to let you know that even if your industry is a goosey or tissue paper, you can get high value deals as well if you are not big consultant space. That's good if you have that oil refinery money, you know is cool if you can do that, that startup thing is also good as well. But even if you are the Agusi level, at the tissue paper level, this is fine.
You can still do it because The thing is you are selling tissue paper to the roadside Malam as a low value deal. But if you're able to put in the work, build the relationships up your game and you can start supplying tissue paper to Hilton Hotel on a weekly basis and you get an annual deal, you can see that it's high value. So it's not just a matter of tissue paper. Each one is 250 naira or 400 naira or whatever. So it's not big.
It just depends on the level of scale. So wherever it is that you fall in the industry, if you're in the consulting space, all well and good. If you're born into the right family or you've done the work and you know, at the level of Rd. contracts and everything, all well and good. But if you're still at the level of Egusia and tissue paper, all well and good. We, you know, we're going to make up this way that we cannot hustle it.
So that's all for today. Thank you very much, guys, for listening to the show. Please connect with me on WhatsApp, phone number 08064662140. The country code is +234. Then connect with me on LinkedIn like the others have done. The people that I shouted out at the top of the episode, my name is Tavishima Ayede. You can check the link where you're listening to this episode for the correct spelling of my name. So you know who you're searching for when you get on LinkedIn.
My e-mail address will be there in case you want to shoot me an e-mail. So thanks for listening to the episode and I'll catch you guys at the next recording.