From Spam to Success: How to Rewrite Your Outreach for Real Results

Hello and welcome to the show. I'm taking today's episode at my desk and my neighbor is still doing his renovations, although the labourers haven't come. So maybe we might have some quiet before all the banging and the drilling and everything resumes. So the goal of this show is free business education. If this is the first time you're discovering the podcast, I'm not here to tell you about my neighbors. We're here to discuss about all things sales, marketing and generally business related stuff.

So if you're interested in these sorts of things then share, promote and talk about the show 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 Spotify, YouTube, Apple or any player of their choice. And if you have any sales or marketing questions then bring them to me. You can call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Now today on the show, we're going to do something we haven't done in a very long time and that is an outreach tear down.

Now the goal of doing all these outreach tear downs is very simple. Or by then when I say outreach tear down, this is what I mean. People are trying to do outreach. Outreach just means you are going outside, whether physically or doing things online because you're trying to draw more business. So that's what outreach means. So we're going to be looking at examples of what people do for business outreach, and then we're going to examine how other people are doing outreach because lots of people are doing outreach and they're making lots of mistakes.

So the goal is we're going to look at the outreach they're doing, the mistakes that they're making so that we do not have to repeat those mistakes. So that is the whole point of some of these episodes. And yes, it is going to be another WhatsApp episode. I know that some of you don't like it, but so long as people keep using WhatsApp for business, I'm going to keep doing some of these things. And by the way, those of you who reach out to say I like the WhatsApp episodes, you know,

thank you very much. It's nice to see that some of you are feeling me, like you understand where I'm coming from. So let's see. So there's a sample WhatsApp message I received. Let me open it and read. OK, now this is what the message said. I'm going to read everything verbatim, then I'll start making comments. So it starts off by saying good morning friend, Just wanted to check on you and show you the one habit that has changed my life holistically.

As a matter of fact, I used to be fearful quitting the job that helped me broke for 10 years. This very one habit gave me the ground to start off my business. This is the one very habit that all the ultra successful people all over the world have in common. I now inspire people on how to build this one habit in my exclusive community, Ultra Success Book Foundation. Our vision is to spark reading. Our vision is to spark a reading revolution in Africa and raise ultra successful individuals in every walk of life through training, coaching and mentorship.

Do you want to be a part of this project and turn great mess into greatness? Sign up through the link below and join our exclusive community www.youknow blah blah blah with the link. So that was the message. Of course, I tried to stay away from stuff that will give a hint as to who the person is or what the NHR. You get the drift. Now I'm not going to repeat this again. If you want to hear what it is, just, you know, skip back 2

minutes and you're going to hear the whole message. Now, the problem with this message, number one, if you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you already know what I'm going to say. The message is too long. In fact, some of you listen to the message and right now, if I ask you what is the guy selling? What's the thing about? What was the point of the message? To be frank, 99% of you listening to the podcast right now, you don't even know what the message is about.

Thing is too long, people are reading on their mobile devices. I keep saying it, it doesn't make sense when people flip through sharply on their mobile devices and you are sending messages that people have to flick 3 or 4 times to read. In fact, let me go back, let me see how many flicks is this? That's from my own phone screen. I don't know how your phone screen is going to be. Let's see. So one flick, 2 flick, 3 flick.

OK, so on my phone, this message is 3 flicks long. Remember that for you, you love your business idea. The person you're reaching out to does not give a hoot about you or your business idea. They have their own problems. They have school fees to pay. Or maybe you know the babe that isn't listening to them, or maybe she has marriage issues, or maybe they're planning for a trip, or maybe they have business problems or career problems.

All kinds of things are going on in their mind. You now send as a total stranger because these guys know my contact list. You now send this kind of message. You really think somebody's going to be scrolling, scrolling, scrolling and consume your message because you are who the message is too long. In my own opinion, whenever we come up with these things that we think are beautiful messages, always copy and paste, send it to your phone, let the thing open on your phone and then you will now see it will give you a sense of whether this thing is too long or not.

If you open this thing on the desktop, I'm sure it'll be fine because everything will fit in the screen. On a phone, my own screen ID 3 flicks. Depending on you know, how you set up your own font size or some people's phone, it might be 5 flicks or more. Because for me, since I do everything on my phone, I like to keep the font small because I'm trying to squeeze as much as possible into my own messages. So look at it on your phone first before you send.

If it is more than one flick, you have work to do. Tone it down too long #2 don't pretend to be anybody's friend. The guy started off the message by saying good morning friend or something like that. Abby, let me scroll, let me check. See, I have to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to it. Yeah, good morning friend. That's how we started off the message. In fact, in Niger, we all know that if somebody starts off the message good morning friend, we know that they are not our friend, especially when we don't have the person's number stored on our phone.

So don't pretend to be anybody's friend. It is disingenuous and it is off putting. It is also another reason for the potential customer not to read the message because you listening to the podcast right now, the moment you see a message that says good morning friend, you will hit delete because you know they are not your friend. The only reason why I read it is because I'm in sales and business development and I'm always trying to keep an eye out.

What are people doing nowadays? What techniques are raining? Because for some reason it's like there's somebody who keeps teaching certain kinds of techniques. So one person learns it, another person learns it, and you know the next set of messages that I received like this, I'm surprised if they follow this template, good morning friend, blah, blah, blah. Because some influencer somewhere has said online that if you want to be effective,

start off your message by saying good morning friend. Then everybody will start copying and be writing good morning friend. So if the message isn't tailored to me and unique to me or relevant to me, when I say Mina, I mean all of you to the potential customer. There's very little chance that the potential customer or the potential client is going to read it. Don't pretend to be anybody's friend. Let's be real with our messages then let's see.

Aha. He also said I'm just reaching out to check up on you now. Do not send messages to check up on anyone, especially if you're a total stranger. It's creepy. You're checking up on me, asking who are you? How do I know you? You know, checking up on me, I do not prescribe to people sending check up messages because they don't add value. But however, even the course of doing business, we become friends. There's no problem in calling somebody up to say, hey man, I'm busy.

How how you doing? How are the children? It's been a while I ever heard from you. I just seem I agree to you. I just called to check up on you. So in the Nigerian context, I guess that's OK, but I still don't think we should be doing that. More on that in another podcast episode. Then the guy reached out. He said the goal is to check up on me, Abby. Next thing he goes into a sales pitch. That is very poor technique. You don't reach out to someone and say I just say may I greet you and the check up on you.

Then you go in the sales pitch. If I come and I'm busy and I say Madam busy, how you day, blah, blah, blah, has the family, I just say may I greet you or oh, but I'm busy. By the way, 50% off. We have new products. We have new this, we have new that. How do you think Madam busy is going to feel? I got to say, I just seem I agree to you. Let me check up on you. Next thing I'm trying to say Madam BC bye now. That is not an effective way to sell.

If you're going to check up, check up. If you understand conversations, there are more effective ways of starting sales conversations. You can't go from checking up and then go into a sales pitch. It is very poor sales technique. Before you give somebody a sales pitch, you need to warm the person up. You need to finesse this thing. It's the same as in any kind of relationship. You finesse, you smooth things over, you toast before you go in and ask for, you know, for your ask.

So how do you want people up? I keep on talking about how to warn people up all the time, and I keep talking about Tom Hopkins. I know some of you are tired of hearing Tom Hopkins, but I'm not going to stop. Tom Hopkins, American real estate professional and sales trainer, currently retired. Yes, I know his stuff is from 1976 or 1986, but it doesn't matter. The principles of business and sales will always remain. The contextual application will change over time, but the principles will always be there.

So pick a person. It doesn't matter if it's me or Tom Hopkins or Brian Tracy or Grant Cardone or you know, whoever it is, just pick one person. Discern what the principles are, apply the principles to your context. So all these people that were talking sales and business development in 1967, 197719871997 the principles still apply today and will still apply in 2027. The application will change over time. Where are you, which country,

which industry, what product, what service, what relationship do you have to the potential buyer? You know, what is the cost of the thing? Those are the things that will determine how it is that you apply these principles. So Tom Hopkins, not a bad place to start, especially since for Tom Hopkins, he says that whenever you're reaching out to a total stranger, their guard is up. Everybody just lock up. They don't want to talk to strangers.

Nobody wants to be sold to. So the first thing you do is that level of resistance. You tap it down, get them cool, calm down that resistance first when they relax and then their casual with you, you now have an opportunity to sell. So that's one reason why I recommend Tom Hopkins because it's a, it's a realistic way of looking at things. So this is what Tom Hopkins says. He says, first of all, you guys establish trust.

You're a stranger. Nobody knows you. Why would I calm down and be signing up on your e-mail something or be listening to you when you are a total stranger? I don't know you. So Tom Hopkins says establish trust first. From establishing trust, try and figure out their needs. In this process of establishing trust and figuring what people need, that is when people calm down and say, oh, OK, I'm dealing with a reasonable human being here.

Then they're able to talk to you. It is then you can now show them this is how my product or service can help and it is then you can enter into Sales Beach and try to get them to take action. So Tom Hopkins, what he says is fast Fest, establish trust. After that, figure out their need. What do they need? Show them this is how they think as a help and then bam, sales speech. Tom Hopkins frameworks. Go on YouTube. You know, you'll find more about his stuff.

His frameworks work best in situations where people are having multiple conversations. Because the guy that sent me this message, honestly, the guy thinks that he's going to send this message to people and then people will just click and join his group. Yes, some people will click. But remember I keep saying that it's not about being efficient. As per I sent the message to 1,000,000 people. It's about being effective.

How many people signed up or took the next step at the end of the day? So in my own opinion, the person that sent 1,000,000 messages and only six people signed up, and then another person that sent 10 messages and six people signed up, in my own opinion, the person who sent 10 messages and six people signed up, that person is better. Because do the math, if the person sends 10 messages and six people take action, by the time he sends a million, how many people will take action?

Meanwhile, the person that is sending 1,000,000 and only six people took action, You can see that the conversions, they are very, very poor. So let us stop focusing on the number of messages or the number of people we can reach, but let us focus on how effective that we are for every five people that we reach, for every 10 people that we reach, for every 20 that we reach, how many people take action. It is not a matter of I sent 1,000,000 messages today.

It is for the for the message that I sent, how many people took action and think of it in percentage terms. So Tom Hopkins framework, it works best if you're having multiple meetings, multiple conversations, but assuming that you're like this guy and you want to get straight to the point with your message, you want them to sign up, you want them to join, no problem. The idea is this. First off, you can't do this in one message if you want to be effective.

Perish the thought. I almost sent him a message saying, you know, guy, what's up Alpha, Is this thing actually working? The guy laughed and he said, well, you know, you have to try your luck. If you don't try, you never know. And that's how me and the guy, we left the conversation. So even him, he knows that this thing is not working. I'll be surprised if that day I was the only person who replied to him. And even then, I didn't sign up.

So where was I? So if you insist, you want to get straight to the point and you want to do this thing with messaging, first of all, just perish the thought. One message will not do it. The goal is to draw somebody into a conversation because remember, you are a total stranger. And what in the world makes you think you're going to send these things to total strangers? And then lots of them will just say, oh, let me go ahead and click on this link.

Even though I don't know who this person is, even though I don't know if this is a virus, even though I don't know if this is phishing or scam or spam or whatever, really, you guys should wake up people who say business is hard. It's not that business is hard. You're doing things in ways that don't tally up, that don't measure up. It doesn't measure up. It doesn't follow. I don't know you. I would like click on that link anyway.

So try and draw people into a conversation. It is only when you drop people into a conversation, remember, Tom Hopkins, that you will establish trust that somebody was either. Oh, OK, This person actually is a certified stockbroker who knows what he's doing and seems intelligent and something, something, something. It is only when you draw someone into a conversation that that can happen. Establish trust, figure out if there's a need, show them how you can help.

Then you now throw in your sales speech. And even at that, it doesn't mean this is 100%. Now everybody will feel you and everybody will take action. So as I may want to use messages, I want to get straight to the point. Your first message is not to get them to click on the link or to get them to buy. Your first message is to confirm if they're interested or to confirm if they have a problem. Lots of people will ignore the message.

That is just normal because nowadays everybody they spam and broadcast up and down. So most people's default response is to ignore or to delete the message. So don't worry, now is just the future of our time. So you send a message to see if they're interested or they have a problem. Let's say to 80% of them ignore. Yeah, no problem. For the ones that respond, good news. You have now been able to draw them into a conversation and now your prospects for closing the deal are going up.

For those people who are willing to converse with you, you're supposed to go into need analysis to try and figure out what they want, what they need. Because there are some people who even though they are interested your product or service cannot help them. There is no point in telling the person, click on the link, join the group by this thing if they will not get any good results, because if they join and you're not matched, you're not properly suited for each other, they don't get any results.

They will badmouth you or they will leave a negative review or you know, all kinds of things. We don't want any of that drama. Then nobody come and spoil our good reputation about working hard to build. So First off, draw people into a conversation, then going to need analysis. When you've done that and looks like there's a match, then you can now go into your call to action. Join my online community. So with that now let me try and rewrite these guys outreach.

So in my own opinion, I will start off by saying good morning. None of that friends, none of that, whatever you know, anybody's friend, do not pretend to be your friend. And then for the average person at this stage, they're even wondering who is this? How did you get my number? So I keep saying on the podcast, it is one thing that we have to tackle straight from the get. It doesn't matter whether how I put it, it doesn't matter how satisfactory the answer is, but the fact that we're trying to give an explanation is something.

But of course, the more relevant or the more closer it is, the better. OK, Put it this way, if I send a message saying hi, I got your number from Auntie Sylvia, I mean, that's different. The person is like, oh, OK, is my auntie. That gives person the number. The person is cool and calm and ready to talk to me. But you see that I started off with answering those basic questions, who am I or where did I get the number from?

But in this case, you can't realistically say I got your number from Anti Sylvia or I got your number from Trukudi because clearly this is a broadcast message. The guy wants to send this to millions of people. So what you do is, good morning, I got your number from an online business directory of people who are possibly interested in starting or growing a business, to be honest. I really think that's how this guy got my phone number because I did my usual copy paste Truecaller as in nothing gomos.

There's no connection. The guy clearly found my number from a business directory. So that's the reason why I'm putting it here. And remember about don't pretend to be anybody's friend like we're adults here. Don't bullshit anybody. Just be honest and go straight to the point. If you must do this messaging thing, be honest and get straight to the point. We're adults here. Good morning. I got your number from an online business directory of people who are possibly interested in starting or growing your business.

Do you have, sorry, do you have a side hustle or are you thinking of resigning your job? Question mark send. By the way, I'm borrowing from the messaging that he used and then you send. That is your first message. Very simple. Can you say that this message is not even 1 flick? It's half a flick because on my own phone it is. This is 2 paragraphs. It's never up to half of the screen. So except if you're dealing with somebody who's a diary and who is blind and who is using the biggest font possible, there's nobody who will get this message that has to flick.

Once they open it, they can see, skim, digest and they know if they're interested or not. The person who will ignore or delete is good. Let him delete at this stage. But for the person who is interested, you see where I ended it, how I ended it. Do you have a side horse or are you thinking of resigning your job? The person who is willing to be drawn into the conversation, the person will take it up from here. So this is your number one message in a sequence.

So for those of you who must keep doing this thing, start thinking in terms of sequences. It is not one message that you will send and then the person will buy or that you will send and the person will join your group, but rather you will be sending a sequence of messages, 23456 messages, one after the other. And the whole point is to engage people in a conversation or to move them along certain steps, certain stages.

Stop thinking in terms of one message. Think in terms of sequences. The goal of this number one message is you're trying to see who is interested. You're also trying to start a conversation instead of just broadcasting or talking at people. Some people will ignore no problem. Some people respond. For the people that respond, the next step will now be something like, oh, by the way, whatever they say, engage with it. If you don't engage, don't now feel as if they're talking to a bot.

And in Nigeria in 2025, for now, the whole bot thing hasn't really caught on. Lots of people don't like talking to bots. When I reach out to GTB and they start that, the whole bot, whatever, I just closed it down and I said, look, I'm going into the bank tomorrow. Same thing with my wife. I and you know, my other family members. I haven't met any Nigerian who likes chatting with the bot. Maybe you guys exist. If you do, I've given my phone number at the beginning of the podcast.

I'll give it again at the end. Reach out to me, let me know why do you like talking to bots. And for those of us who don't, who don't like talking to bots, let me know why do you think we're backward or we're behind the times? So engage whatever they say. After you engage, the next step will now be this. My partners and I have a free community of entrepreneurs in Africa who are in the same situation as you are, and they support the willing to support themselves every day to find a way out.

Would you be interested in learning more? Question mark send Can you see that this message is not even A1 flicker. It is 1/2 a flicker on my own phone. It is also two paragraphs and it is is this, should I say quarter the third? Maybe it's a third of the screen. The person that will ignore, let him ignore and delete. But for the person who gets it and who is willing to engage in the conversation, we're drawing them in one step more.

Remember, we are thinking in terms of a sequence. There is no one master message that will close the deal. I mean, of course you will get there. You always be lucky and get one or two. But remember, the goal is let us not send 1,000,000 messages and get 6 people. Let us try and send 20 messages and get 6 people. The conversion on that is better. It means you will make money with less effort. So some people are going to get drawn into the conversation.

They're also beginning to be be drawn into a relationship. They are beginning to feel you, to flow with you, to trust you. You're beginning to get an opportunity to show expertise. So for the people who respond, engage with what they say so that they know that you're not a bot as you're engaging. The next step is now this. This is where you will now try the buy now, the sign up to the community. So the next step will now be our vision is to spark a reading revolution in Africa.

By the way, I'm using his own words, so if it was me, I would word things differently. So our vision is to spark a reading revolution in Africa to raise ultra successful individuals in every walk of life through training, coaching and mentorship. If you'd like to be a part of this project, you can sign up through our link prop and you now put the link there. This is how you stand the chance of getting people to download your book, buy now, join your community, take advantage of 50%

discount, you know, blah, blah, blah. Think in terms of sequences. You are trying to get people to be engaged in a conversation. Through the conversation, we are trying to establish some trust, establish some credit, some credibility. We want people to know that we are the very guy or we are the very babe, that when we talk about XYZ, we know what we are saying. And again, I am not endorsing this guy's approach. For those of you who listen to the show, you know I'm not a fan of all this kind of behaviour because I think outreach can be done more effectively.

I'm just saying that if you must do it this way, that is how you should do it. Stop looking for this master message. In fact, this is one thing that if I ask people. So for those of you who are looking for this master message that you send once in January and then your millions will now flow, you're trying to save time, you're trying to be effective. No problem, I agree. But The thing is right now, how busy are you anyway?

It's not as if you're busy, you don't have time, blah, blah, blah. So like, what's all the shortcut, shortcut, shortcut, Stop with this shortcut thing. Eventually business will grow. You become very busy and then it'll be important to hire APA or start looking for ways to be efficient, efficient. And you're like, for now, just sit down and do the work. You want to just send one message January 1st and January 31st you become a millionaire.

Like how? Calm down. I have given you a three message sequence out of this. So instead of sending the message to 1,000,000 people on January 1st, why not just calm down? It's a three message, a three person sequence. Why not take your time, start copying and pasting and you know, sending like that, You don't have to send a message to 1,000,000 people January 1st. You send a message to 50 or 100 people January 1st, the next day, another 50 or 20 the next day is still OK, but we should put in the work and make sure that we are converting.

If you send a message to 50 and then 20 people ignore, sorry, 20 people respond. It's good. From the ones that respond, you know you continue to convert, continue to convert. So stop all this busy thing. It's not as if you know your, your time is not valuable right now. This is the beginning of your journey. Actually, you have nothing to do, you have nothing to do, so just sit down and do the work anyway. So if you have to go about things this way, remember we're trying to start conversations.

The goal is not to broadcast. It's not about how many thousand people you send the message to. It's about how many people read and how many people take action, conversions. That's the main thing. Action, that's the main thing. Then stop looking for the easy button. Please do the hard work. If there was a way to broadcast and to make millions, we would all be billionaires by now. Because even me too, I would have broadcast January 1st I

made a million, broadcast February 1st, made a million, broadcast March 1st, get a million. And by the way, as I'm getting this million, I'll take them and put them in open market funds earning 13% each, so that by the end of the year I probably would have put 10 million in these instruments and get, you know, get 1013% on that. If I was not even January 1st, I'll do, I'll do it. January 1st, January 7th, January 21st, January.

I mean, you catch my drift? If this thing could work, we'll all be billionaires by now. Sometimes you have to slow things down to make financial progress quickly. Don't rush. Take this masterful message that you've come up with. Break it down. Think in terms of a sequence. Send the sequence, buy yourself a Bluetooth keyboard, do copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and paste, be typing, be engaging with people or do what most people do, which is do what's it called WhatsApp,

WhatsApp desktop or something. So you can be typing from your computer screen from your desktop. All right, so that's it with the with the WhatsApp tear down. But before we go, I want to do another movie review because I had fun. I don't know if you guys had fun with the last one where we're going to look at the Netflix movie and then see what lessons we can get from sales and business development. So the from a sales and business development perspective.

Sorry. Oh yeah, my neighborhood and they started work. That's the banking that is going on there. So when I say banking, I mean hammer banking. I don't mean the other, you understand, if you thought about the other one, they need Jesus. So so the movie to review now. So it's called Kandisamy's the baby. Kandisamy's Kan DAS AM Y apostrophe S can the sammies the baby. Now this is the outline for those of you who watch Part 1.

You already know about me. I didn't know there was a Part 1 is by the time I finished the movie, I realized that OK so this Part 1 OK let me go and watch part one too. So I watched Part 1 later. So this movie is the Part 2. So here a young Indian couple is about to have a baby. They are based in Mauritius. That's where they live, that's where they work. Now their mothers, the mom sees now are coming for omugo. The mum sees that's now grandparents, they're coming for omugo.

Omugo is all I put is hi, how I just define omugo. OK. It's like a omugo is an evil word, but it's a tradition. Not all cultures have it so surprised to see the Indian people do omugo. So basically the wife has given birth and then the mothers come and they colonize the house to help with the with the wife, with the raising the babies. So the cultures are different. Some people come for a few weeks and go. I've heard in some places that moms you move in for like 3-4

years. You know what? Anyway, different cultures, different strokes, different folks. So the parents are coming now, Yes, my daughter has given birth, my son, they've given birth, don't come and see their grandchild. But as they land, no, there's yawa everywhere because everybody has different ideas. One person says are you breastfeeding the baby? Why are you doing breast? You should do breast and bottle. Another person will say no, no breast.

You should do exclusive. Another person will say exclusive Bao has it Jaws anyhow shot the thing was just cause all kinds of issues. People had different ideas. How do you feed a baby? How do you raise a baby? Are you pampering the baby? What about hospital issues? What about religious? As in all kinds of issues were coming up. So it was interesting to see that in the movie because I didn't realize that what happens here in Niger.

I didn't realize it happens everywhere because that's what happens here. You know, we had five pregnancies, but two children. So, you know, you give birth, people descend on the House, and then voila, everybody has a point of view about what you're doing well, what you're not doing well. So in my own opinion, I think it's a wonderful movie about family and how to move on from making mistakes. Because to be honest, everybody,

we all make mistakes. And everybody was annoying everybody. The father of the child, the guy was vexed. The monster who had given birth, she was vexed if actually he was even suffering from excuse me, excuse me, have a little cold. He was suffering from prenatal was a prenatal depression or something like that be post Natal. Some kind of depression shot the grandparents. They realized, OK, they were being too Ford, so they had to calm down.

And it was a wonderful movie because it shows how, you know, our children embody our hopes and they embody our dreams. So the grandparents, you know, they're vibrating. They're vibrating, but really, really they just want you to be all right. Don't want you to not make mistakes and don't want the baby to be OK. So excuse me. So it's hard, you know, when you've had a baby, everybody descends on your house and everybody's putting out and everybody has an opinion.

But really everybody just wants you to be all right. Don't want the baby to be all right. And because of that, I think so, excuse me, because of that, I think was a good movie. Now some of you are asking, what's the business angle? I don't have a child, I'm not married, blah, blah. This is the business angle. There was a succession plot in the movie. Succession just means I have a business. The business is doing OK. I'm old, I'm going to die one day.

I want somebody else to take over the business for me. So now the mother of the wife and the husband, they run a multi $1,000,000 round Abby, multi million round company in South Africa because the parents are based in South Africa. So what they want to do is they want to give as a gift like, OK, you're a mommy now. We were old, you know, we're we're retiring, remain small, we'll die. So now this big, big company international that we have built or I take this company around with it.

This is our gift to you. But then it was clear that the mother of the child and her husband, they had different ideas. They like Mauritius, they want to continue living in Mauritius. They don't want to go back to South Africa. They are, it's an Indian family, but they built a life in South Africa, They want to continue living in Mauritius. The problem was they never discussed succession with the children. They just assumed that, look,

you're my oldest daughter, when I die, you take over the business. And funny enough, it is the same thing that Nigerian parents would do. I'm an ADOCO, I built a big business. I have seven sons. What are you telling me that none of you would take over this business? All of you mad after all my work, sweat and tears, none of you take this over this business from me. You know, the same sort of thing that happens in Nigeria.

So I want to give some thoughts on how to deal with succession planning because about 3% of you who listen to this podcast are between the ages of 45 to 60 and, and you know, it's practical because some of you between 45 and 60 already getting to that stage, like my cousin who is a senior advocate, you know, you put a lot of effort into it. One day. What just Justin, I was talking about when the boys take over and I was like, calm down, calm down, Jerry, calm down.

Like when they take over how? And my cousin was like, what do you mean? After all this suffering, you're telling me that none of them will get involved in this business? You must be joking. Whether they like it or not, they will run this business. I'm like, Jerry, calm down now. Can't you see as they like computer, computer, maybe they might want to say, Terry, forget that thing. They will take over this business. They'll become lawyers anyways.

So that's how we left the conversation. So these things happen. So 45 to 60 and you're thinking you want the children to take over from you. When you're running the business, this is what you do #1 start early, plan systematically. It's a process. It's not an event. You can't just wake up one day when somebody's now 28, 3035 years old. I now tell the person or I'll come around the business. It doesn't work that way. It's a process.

It's a stressful process. So begin planning decades in advance so that we can make a gradual trade adjustment. So First off, you need to think of a timeline. When do you want this thing to happen? Figure out roles and responsibilities. You have to figure out ownership transfer. This is something that you have to talk with the lawyers about. Is it gift? Is it selling shares or you're going to create a trust. I mean, for those of us who studied law, these are some of the practicalities I'll be looking at.

So make sure you get professional advice. Start talking to your accountant about it early. To your lawyer, you know, your financial advisors, they're the ones that will be giving you ideas of, OK, this is how we start, this is how we go about it. Then you have to prepare the next generation. Don't make it look like it's by force, by force. If it is by force, by force, especially the boys. The boys begin to resist. Like, what do you mean like pops, you can come and oppress me.

Just make it look like an option. Let their mind be open. Let let them be flexible. So the goal is 1. To make sure your children, are they interested. They don't want to lead the business. Don't force somebody to come and take over the business and they're resentful. That can lead to poor performance and eventually the business will fail. Then also start exposing people early to the business, introduce you to them from a young age,

like my father when he was building his because he used to build houses and sell and he used to sell cement once in a while I used to follow him to depot. Once in a while likes to follow him to sight. Small, small, small, small, small. That's I get people interested. So one of my pubs, his friends, that is how his daughter got involved in construction is from all these small small things. You enter depot from depot you enter site from site.

You go to client house. That is how small, small, small the girl now enter construction. So expose them early internships, holiday jobs, meetings, you're going to go and meet clients, you know, stuff like that. Carry the children along, informal discussions when you get home. We're talking about one or two things right from when they're small. That's how you begin to introduce them. You know, small, small, small, small, small.

You can also be doing formal trainings, some mentorships, you know, all kinds of things, hands on experience. Let them work in the business. Let them come and do one or two things. It's how you start getting them interested. You can see that it's a process, it's not an event. So this whole thing of waiting until you're 70 and then you now gather all your children. I say children old in years. The Bible says that we have two scores and 10.

If we are strong it is 4 scores and I'm currently 70. So if I'm healthy I'll be here until I'm 80 something. So it is time for my children. The business is yours. You have the the shock of your life. So this is how you start preparing people. Small, small, small, small. So summaries don't spring surprises on anyone. It's not good in any part of business. Also, like I said yesterday, when you're watching movies, keep an eye out.

What's the business problem here? How would I solve this business problem? Are there any principles that we should be looking at to solve these kinds of problems? Those are the sort of things we should be looking at. But then back to the first guy who now sent me that. What's that message? If you've been trying to draw more business that way, please just know that this thing is not going to work. There's no magic message.

Think of a sequence of messages that I aimed to draw people in the car into conversation. When you draw people into conversation, it will give you an opportunity to display your credibility, your professionalism. It will give you an opportunity to build some trust that will allow you to ask questions, figure out what their needs are. If you have something that meets their needs, you'll be able to propose it to them. Make yourself speech.

Get them to sign up, get them to download your book, get them to whatever. Or Please remember, the focus is we're not trying to broadcast to as many people as possible. We're trying to send some messages and we're trying to get people to take action and join our community or buy our ebook or buy our product or attend our webinar or whatever it is you're trying to get people to do. So that's all for today, folks. And remember, if you have any sales and marketing questions,

bring them to me. You can call, you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you, dear listener, at the next episode.