From Strangers to Sales: How Data Enrichment Helps Nigerian Salespeople Build Rapport & Close Deals

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishma Ayede. I'm the host of the podcast that I'm making today's recording at home. So I expect to hear some noise in the background because kids at home and everybody's home. Now, the goal of this podcast is solving business problems. So if you're having problems with customers, marketing, side hustle, something holding your business back, then this is the show for you. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube,

Apple, or any player of your choice. And if you'd love to connect, then please call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Today we're going to be looking at data enrichment again. And that because in the last episode that I made on data enrichment, even though I think I explained properly what data enrichment is, I wanted to come at you guys with some very practical examples about how this thing works live and direct. So I think I explained that data enrichment is when we have a contact, lots of us, excuse me,

in trying to grow our businesses or make a sale. So excuse me. So a lot of us just have contact details in the beginning. We just have some raw data and we need to make sense of that data. Now, let me break it down. So back in my wedding photography days, I go to an event, I'm standing at a booth. Some people come, we have a chat, they drop their phone numbers, but some people only drop phone number and nothing else. Some people drop phone number and maybe first name, nothing else.

Some people drop a phone number, a first name and a surname and nothing else. And maybe I forget to make some details. You know, the bridal fair finishes on maybe Sunday, maybe Monday. I said let me rest and then maybe Tuesday me and my girlfriend, maybe we go out or something. By the way, we're married now. Then Wednesday I wake up and I say OK, Oh yeah, let me call. What I now have is a sheet of paper with a list of 55 names.

OK, let me say with a list of 60 phone numbers and only 55 of them have names. Let's say only 50 of them have names. Either way, I'm faced with nothing but raw data. It is time for me to make a call. Now the problem is lots of you just think and let me freestyle it. Let me call, no Allah, no problem. Let me use the same script from anybody. So that's an OK approach that is going to work. But The thing is when we have raw data, the more sense we're able to make out of the data,

the more profiles we're able to pull out of that data, the more productive sales conversations we're going to have because we know something about that person before we make the call. Let me repeat, If I just wake up on Wednesday, it is time for me to move my market. I have 64 numbers on the sheet. Only 50 of them have name. Whether for the ones that have name or the ones that have name and number, I still need to try and make some sense of the raw data that I have.

I need to be able to build some sort of profile for me to be able to have productive conversations. Now, if I don't have any data at all, any other extra information, I will still call. But The thing is, if there's an opportunity for you to make your job easier, why not go ahead and make your job easier. Now, the reason why I'm doing this with you all today is because I just had a coaching session with one of my clients.

And even though I've been telling them since data enrichment, data enrichment, they've not been doing it. But today that we did call monitoring, I was taking everything step by step. So I look before we call was the number, give me the number. We do my own process of data enrichment, which is absolutely free. We come up with some extra information. They make the phone call. At the end of the day, excuse me, we have the conversation,

you see, You see how the whole thing flowed. It flowed because before you picked up the phone, you knew something about Madam before you called. Psychologically, you know, one or two things. Your body will just be calm when you make that call because you somehow to just pick up, you just call 08064 dot dot dot dot in KG agent. You don't know anything else. Again, there are too many variables now. No wonder you're you're nervous all the time when you're making phone calls.

You've not been doing data enrichment. Look for some extra sources of information add to the profile so that you know in KG agent is he a sexy year old woman or is he an 18 year old girl. Even the extra bit of knowledge your body will calm down small because you know how to approach the call. So today I want to look at some examples so you can see that this is not just anyhow anyhow theory. So excuse me, that we're talking about things that are real relatable things are happening every day.

Now on the last episode where we spoke about data enrichment, I mentioned that there's paid options like Apollo dot IO and you know the rest of them. But I don't like you. Everyone say, you know, I don't, you know, I'm broke, I'm broke, I don't have money. So I always on this podcast, I always and only talk about things that are free so that nobody can come and give me an excuse say, oh, I didn't have money. I only talk about free tools on this podcast, by the way.

You know, there's no kickback, so nobody's paying me any percentage. So I'm talking about all these things just because, well, First off, they're free and then I've used some of them myself and so I can talk to some of them first hand. The one that I have not seen or used, I will tell you. So Apollo, I tried using it on the free package, but one of my clients is going to do some work on it with the paid package. So I'll be talking some more about my experiences with that,

you know, later, maybe in two months time after we're done with my clients campaign. So anyway, I have some examples of data enrichment here. So you will see that I'm not just making things up. So call monitoring now call monitoring, that's when you sit down on the phone. I'm there with you. And the goal is let's make sure that as you're making this phone call, you know, you started off well. While you're having the conversation, you hit a couple of points and before you end the conversation, you know, you hand it on the right note.

So that's the whole point of call monitoring. So anyway, of course, the call monitoring, you know, we do it after there's some people who try to signal sales reps when they're live on a call. And I think that that's rubbish because it's hard enough to try and handle a sales conversation when somebody's in the background trying to signal. You do this, do this. Now The thing is very hard. And to be honest, you know, when I first started in radio and that was the thing I found the hardest, like I'm trying to anchor the radio show.

Meanwhile, producer, you know, would he give me hand signals, you know, about time and about this and stuff like that. So now I'm used to it. But in the beginning, it's really overwhelming when you're on the phone, you're trying to handle somewhat a conversation that somebody's not giving you a signal. So for me, I let the call play out. When you're done, we'll now say, OK, this one was good. This one could have been done better.

Next time, do it like this. All right, so there's one call that we're going to call. Before we called, I said give me the phone number they gave me. I threw it in Truecaller. The name came out as, OK, the name that I have here doesn't match the name on your record. They say, OK, yes, it matches. That's very good. And now take that name and I'll throw it into Google. And Google showed me a bunch of profiles. And The thing is, to be honest,

I couldn't find much about this woman, but at least I knew she was married. You know, I don't know why, but for some reason that's one thing that really, really stood out, that this woman was married. So I saw time to make the call, but I let the guy know that look, you know why, Nigel, you can't see this woman's picture. You know that she's married From her face, we can engage what her age is. I say this is the kind of person that I will start off the conversation by saying ma or Madam.

She's the one who will now say later on that, oh, come, come on, come off it. You don't have to be so formal. Call me Grace. Then I'll say, oh, OK, Grace, how can I help you today? But The thing is, based on what I'm seeing, I'm not going to use my own mouse. I call this woman and say hi or call her straight by her name because it's the name that she gave me. You know, you have to pick up some cultural stuff. So I said this woman, she's in Madame start to call like that.

If Madame is too much, she will let you know. And then you downstep it so you can see how data enrichment comes in handy. Some of you pick up the phone and because you say hi to everybody, you call this woman and you'll be hiring her. And already there's some was the word incongruence in the conversation because as far as she's concerned, who is this small child calling and saying hi? These are small things that we pick up when we do data enrichment.

Because in her own case, I didn't see anything else, but I saw she was married. And then I saw her picture and I could see that, you know, she's of a, how will I put it of a setting age. Let me just put it like that. So I told the guy this call is a ma or a Madam, not a hi, maybe a hello, but not a hi. I had to let him know because he's a high person. Then we moved on to the next person. I said, what's the phone number?

They gave it to me. I threw it in Google. The name came up. I said, OK, the name you have on your system doesn't match. So yes, they match very good. And after reading Google and then a couple of things came up based on social media profiles, the guy's an engineer and he's a member of Korean. That's the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria. The guy lives in Leckie phase, phase three. Let's see what else.

Then I think he's like, is it director or project manager of some companies? Something something, something like, you know, the profile already, what we saw on social media already gave us a certain idea about what this kind of person is like. So looking at the small that we've seen, it really looks like this is the kind of person that's going to be able to afford these services that we're selling. So this kind of person is the kind of person that I will call comfortably, especially since he's all, I put it like, anyway,

let me just leave it like that. So you can say that if nothing else, this small data enrichment that we did, we now know the guy. We now know where he works. We now know where he lives, where he lives, and we now know his company. He gives us a sense of, OK, he's our ideal customer, ideal target audience or ideal customer or not. And he gives us a certain measure of confidence before we even pick up the call that this is somebody that we can help.

Now, the reason why we know this is because I did, or rather I forced the team. We will do data enrichment on every single call. Even though the thing will slow us down. It will slow us down, but we'll be having more qualitative conversations and more confident conversations. So it's not because I'd also a number 080, blah, blah, blah. And then name Kingsley, take the number, do the search, get some extra information and then you'll be cool.

Now there are sometimes that you come up with nothing because there was one phone number. I say give me that number they gave me. So what's the name you have there? They told me I ran the thing in in true color. The thing that came up was fortune wasn't even fortune was FOR then space TUNEI say ha, no wow. So it does happen that there are cases like this. You'll be able to get any information at all, but the fact that you're not able to get information at all on a couple of people doesn't mean you shouldn't try this whole process through with every single prospect.

Because on the ones that you do find some information, you'd be surprised how much extra information that you get and they will help you. In fact, there was another particular customer, another contact. We took the number, we threw it in Truecaller and these guys as in what? What came back was gold. Gold. Who said this guy has 2 master's degrees? We're able to figure out the universities that he went to see and this is just from looking at what came up in Google.

I didn't have to click a single link. I know his advanced degrees, I know where he schooled. By the way, remember rapport. You think it was me handled the conversation. You don't think I would drop somewhere that I finished from University of Aberdeen as well because one of his schools was not far away from where I graduated? You don't think I'll drop that too as building rapport, data enrichment is important. Too many of you are just taking the sheet of paper and just calling, calling, calling like do small like basic research Truecaller, Google from Google,

you see plenty of things that would inform how it is that you make the call. Now my clients have, excuse me, have noted that I'm rather direct sometimes on the call and I told them that this is the reason why I can't be direct. I've seen this guy. I was in his profile. The guy is just another version of me, basically. So definitely I can pick up the phone and say, you know, hello. Am I speaking to Benjamin? Yeah, this Benjamin speaking,

You know who, You know who's speaking? And I introduced myself, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then just enter straight because I've seen that this is a correct guy. Me and him were practically the same. I can be direct with him, you know, not a problem. It's not just only where he went to school. We also saw where he currently works. We saw some of his previous jobs. What else and Richard was just a prime candidate and then some simple things like the sales team I was talking to don't know different curious about names like the first lady that we called, I said give me her name.

They called us how this a Ghanaian name and the person said these are the things that just make me lose my SHID. With those of you who are in sales, we are in Nigeria. Most of the people we talk to are Nigerians. If a contact happens to be Ghanaian, you don't think to build rapport at some point you can mention that oh sorry, my this your surname, I've never heard it before, are you Ghanaian? So I know actually I'm Nigerian,

I married a Ghanaian. This is how we build rapport. I don't know how lots of you are making phone calls and you're not curious about basic things like names. Like at some point there was another person that was now time to call. Even before we did data enrichment, I had the son in my side is a chief person. You know, the person is Steve. I'm Steve. If it was my own call, this is something that I would have brought up in Building Rapport.

But The thing is, lots of you are just making phone calls. You're not doing data enrichment, You're not looking for other signals, You're not looking for information that can be out there. And then some of the basic things that you will find, you are not even curious about it. You don't even use some of that to build rapport or to warm up the conversation. It costs you nothing. So you know that is a tee name. You don't speak Teeve, but at least you know tea.

People say oh panda, you try your best. You will F up. The person will laugh at you. He will try and correct you. You see how people are building rapport? Small, small. Or if it turns out the person is not a deep person. So sorry. Forgive me, I thought you were thief. No, not evil. I'm actually from River State. Then you also joke small. River State is close now. River State, Benoit State. People are near each other. You joke small.

Small rapport. Conversation is moving. Can you see how data enrichment are? Being curious about what you can find is moving conversations. But The thing is, it's hard to discuss these things in a very prescriptive manner because I can't tell you ahead of time what data enrichment is going to show you. I can't until we do it and started executing on it. Small, small. Then there was another person that they told me, Oh, I've called this person before, but the person was saying that and she wants her daughter to be involved.

She wants her daughter to be involved and were kind of being frustrated. I say no problem, give me the phone number. They gave me the phone number. I threw it into Truecaller. A name came up. I said this, the name doesn't match and say yes, it matched as a very good and I took that name. I threw it into Google and then without clicking on the single link from everything that came up and also that this woman is of a certain age in quote.

I'm trying to be polite. You know the age of my Big Sisters and this woman works in UNILAG and that she's a member of non academic staff. Now I'm trying not to sound somehow, but you know that non academic staff, you know, for those of you who schooled if if you need lag about all around those areas, you know, non academic staff, you know, we you know, we know our people. Let me not say anymore because I don't want to insult anybody.

By the way, I believe that all human beings are equal. So I don't look down at some people because of their lack of money or because of their lack of education. I don't because all human beings are created equal with equal dignity in the eyes of God. So I treat everybody with respect. All I'm just saying is when I saw this, my big sister and that she's part of unilog non academic stuff, it now made sense. I says, look at this profile Now it is clear why this kind of woman will say she wants her daughter to weigh in on this thing.

Now her daughter is abroad. Unfortunately, she said daughter is coming back and so so, so so time to be honest, it's not something we can rush. We have to play it out. We have this kind of woman in our families. As far as she's concerned, she no to no book, but her daughter is properly educated so she will not decide on anything until her daughter has checked. You can't rush this thing. Now if anybody had done data enrichment before calling this man the first time, you would have had an idea.

Now OK, this is probably how this thing is going to go. Or that if she was overwhelmed and she mentioned her daughter, you my you will lean in. Now. Yes, of course, my understand it's a little complicated. Yes, I understand that you would like to make this decision in line with, you know, after he comes up with someone that you trust. So this your daughter when she coming back, you know, like you try and hook up a meeting with the daughter, the whole thing of the daughters abroad will come up.

What really my is it work or is it work or school? Always work. Ah, congratulations, my your daughter has a very good job. I've got to do it for also even me some I'm thinking of Japan. This country wants to kill me. You see, side talk, small talk. You're now building rapport. She will now say, my child, don't worry, God will do it for you. You will have building rapport, small, small. Eventually we get to the point of when is the daughter coming back into town.

You'd note it in your diary. Of course, you still have some questions. What exactly is, you know, confusing you or what do you think your daughter would like to talk about? You note it down. After that, it's a matter of trying to plan for when the daughter is going to be back in town. But in this case, there's no need to rush or to do excessive follow up because we have done data enrichment that gave us some ideas based on the conversation that we're having.

We can see how everything blends. So you can see how small data enrichment, small data enrichment with free resources or Truecaller and Google absolutely free, you can see how you can be making progress. Oh, by the way, the only problem with Truecaller, the free version is that by the time you do 2 searches or start showing your kind of advert and you know, unfortunately not all the adverts are suitable for work. Let me just put it that way.

So that's just the only thing before 1 advert to come up. Your line manager will say, ha, Julius, why are you watching this kind of video in the office? You say I know our guy is true color is true color and I was just using Truecaller. These have a just came up Julius in my office you're watching you know, so just be careful before free version of Truecaller will land you in trouble anyway. Let's see what else? OK, I've spoken about the thief man.

Then there's also another person, these guys in Imo State data enrichment. Now from the data enrichment. Now I didn't do this one. The salesperson went ahead and did it on their own and discovered a bunch of stuff about where this guy works, the line of work and everything. And during the conversation beautifully, the guy draws wove it in because you know, they were getting to that stage where they had discussed the requirements.

They are now wrapping up the call and the salesperson I was coaching, I don't know. I just said, oh, by the way, Sir, how's business coming along these days? I noticed that you work with so, so, so and so. The guy laughed and said, my brother, that we are flat. So yes, Sir. What do you mean say we are flat now? It's only the people who are close to, it's only people who are close to those in government. Those are the only people that are buoyant.

The rest of us are flat. And then, you know, side conversation about anyway, that's way they be. But God willing, God willing, national cake ritual of us, you know, that kind of side talk. This is how you are building rapport and This is why data enrichment is necessary. I cannot tell you ahead of time what the benefit will be, but over time, the more that you do it, it is going to help you in having effective conversations,

comfortable conversations. The only reason why that sales, the sales engineer, the person that I'm coaching could divert and enter that kind of level is because he did data enrichment. That's why he could ask and the passengers, you know, conversation flow with a build rapport small, small. This is how these things move. Some people say is because as somebody went to school, this has nothing to do with how much schooling that that that you did nothing to do with how much schooling it is either you know these tips and tricks and techniques or you don't.

So somebody who went to school who speaks fine, who doesn't know about all these things and doesn't use these kinds of techniques. Well, it's not as if you come to North, but anyway, Shaq, somewhere, what I'm trying to say is data enrichment. Data enrichment. You reach one day when I'll knock somebody on the head and I'll say that look, I'm teaching people these things. You don't want to apply, but for your own good. See, a lot of these things that I talk about is not theory, is not textbook.

This is real life. The moment you start doing some of these things, you'll see that you'll be making your job, sending your products, moving your market, getting investors. You know it will make your job a whole lot easier. It adds small time to the process because this whole thing will take like 2 minutes, but just do it. Don't worry about paid options. Be using the free version. Now the free thing of Truecaller and Google.

When you become a pro at mastering Truecaller and Google and you say you know what I want something more advanced like Apollo dot IO that will show me every single thing about the customer from the day they were born and predict the day they were going to die or something advanced and no problem. Then you can pay for something advanced because you have become you good at using the one that is basic and using the one that is free.

So summary. The reason why I came here to harass you guys today is just to tell you that look, data enrichment, data enrichment, data enrichment. For those of you who have to call contacts, it is something that we will do when I start working with you and this is the reason why it is important. And like I said, I cannot predict how this thing is going to help you. But knowing that this woman is some illiterate and wants to rely on her children, as in seeing some of these things ahead of time before you call,

it will help you seeing that this guy is Steve or the same tribe as you, or a tribe close to you. It will help you seeing that the person went to a school that is close to yours or has as many degrees as you do, or that you will have the same interest. It will help you to start off the conversation on the right note, to start off the conversation confidently and comfortably, and also help with building rapport. So please try and be doing small data enrichment.

Truecaller is free. Google is free. Well please, for those of you who work in the office, I have told you true Colour will show advertisements and you have no control over the kind of advertisements that they will show. So anyway, just just not sure that they'll be sharing all kinds of random adverts. So take that into consideration then put it that way. Take that into consideration when you are using True Colour and maybe look for the mute,

mute button and her mute button on your keyboard so that when those canvas start showing you quickly mute it and you close the screen before colleagues will see you and they'll say that you came to the office and you're watching, you know. And by the way, if you're one of those people who likes to watch all those kind things in the office, I mean, come on, relax now, be mature now when you go home. We can watch it by the office.

Offices is working time, working hours. So that's all for today folks. Remember if you'd love to connect, you can call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.