Funding Your Nigerian Business: Leveraging Global Networks & Grants

Hello and welcome to the show. Today's episode is being recorded at my desk. The home is being cleaned and the kids are home, so expect to hear some noise in the background. Now the podcast is a well listener. Participation is strongly encouraged on the podcast. So please call SMS, send a WhatsApp message to 08064662140 in case you have any questions or you want to explore some strategy sessions or do an audit with me.

Now today we are going to do a it's going to be a two in one. I'm going to look at OK, so we're going to explore opportunities in grants. That's for those of you who want to get financing for your business because since I made the episode about how to finance businesses, especially women owned businesses, and then I made the, I went on radio and spoke about the same thing. I've been receiving lots of inquiries about that sort of thing.

You know, this is my business idea. Financing is a problem. I'd like to raise some funds, you know, blah, blah, blah. So this is going to be one of those episodes that will explore some more in that. So that's all we'll start off with. We're going to be looking at grants exclusively how you can be creative when it comes to looking at grand ideas to finance your business. Then I'm also going to look at rather we also going to look at dealing with inbound inquiries.

Now, inbound inquiries just means you're there, you're in the house, you're in the shop, you're whatever, and then people come in to you. So the two philosophies when it comes to generating business are outbound and inbound. Outbounds means that you go out and start chasing people down. Inbound means you're chilling under your AC in your office and then people start sending you DMS, People start calling you, people come into the office.

Of course, whenever we touch on topics like this, people want to ask which is the best? Should I be doing outbound or inbound? You know, it depends. It depends on the nature of the business, the nature of the product or the service. It depends on your skill set. Ultimately, every single business should be doing both. You should be doing some measure of going out to chase people, and you should also be trying to set things up, whether in the real world or online, whether it's advertising or whether it's putting out content marketing or whatever.

You should be doing stuff that also gets people to come in to chase you. So it is both inbound and outbound. It is not a matter of which is better because people engage in all these debates all the time. So you should be doing both. But of course, I have my preferences. So with anybody that I'm going to be working with, I will always start off with seeing how we can get some outbound motions going because it is the easiest to do and is the most.

It is the one that is most within your control. Let me put it that way because yesterday we did the podcast episodes on content marketing and I'm sure you guys are going to see how much work goes into content marketing and you're beginning to understand why it will take like one year before you start seeing results. You know, six months, one year before you start seeing results. And the average business person does not have six years, sorry,

six months or one year to sit behind the keyboard and start hoping for results, which is why I advocate that for most people. Let's start without bound because to go and talk to someone in church, in the office, in the mosque, talk to your neighbors. It's an easy way to just get things going, get one or two sales and you know, you just feel like you have some momentum going and you're getting some progress. So these are some of the things that we're going to be exploring today.

How can you use grants to finance your business? And then what is the proper way to deal with inbound inquiries? Because there's some of you who are receiving inbound inquiries. You're just chilling. Somebody sends you a WhatsApp message. There's some of you who are not handling those WhatsApp messages the right way. And that's the reason why your business is not where it is supposed to be. So before we get into the meat of the matter, I'd like to shout out two people.

First, we're going to shout out Tess dot Afy, of course, obviously not her real name. She's a listener of the show on Spotify. She commented on the podcast on Spotify, the episode that I heard about finding your ICP. That's your ideal customer profile, the people you're supposed to be running after. And then of course, whether you're going to be doing outbound or inbound ways of developing your business, you need to have a strong sense of who your ICP is.

You need to know who you're chasing after or you need to know who you're trying to attract before you start doing any kind of outbound or inbound motions. So ICP really foundational is something that we cannot ignore. So in that particular episode, I mentioned that one way of determining your ICP is to look at your trading history and then try and get a sense of who are the people I've done business with in the past? Of the people I've done business with in the past, who are the people that paid me the most?

Who are the people that I enjoyed working with? And who are the people that when I work with them, they think just lightens my soul. Because if you're working with people who every single time they call or they buzz or you go to their house, they come to your office, you know, you feel enlivened, you feel excited. On top of that, they pay you good money and then they pay you on time. They're not only you, they don't give you stress.

That is the ideal person that you should be running after, at least in the beginning because you'll make your life easy. No stress. Well, easier, let me put it that way, because there's no business that does not have stress. So make your life easier. So Tess wanted to know what do I do if I don't have any trading history? So what I did was I told her that, well, unfortunately you have to use some common sense to try and answer the question who might benefit most from my XYZ,

from my product, from my service and then take the conversation from there. And then plus you can also use AI to do some ideation. So I put my phone number there and test AFY. If you're listening again, hit me up on WhatsApp. The number is 08064662140. Country code is +234. Hit me up, let's have a chat some more because I'm, I would love to show you especially the AI bit, how we can use AI to come do some sharp, sharp ideation about who our target audience might be.

But then Tasafi just behind my sha, that ideation is just half the thing. We can come up with the perfect ideas about who the target audience is, but then if we do not take any actions to start chasing these people down, we would have wasted our time. So coming up with the strategy or with the idea is one thing. Executing on the idea is another thing altogether. So Tessafi, reach out to me when you get in touch. Just bear in mind the main thing is going to be not coming up with the ideas, but then with executing.

Then shout out also to Israel Echo or Backwall law. Sorry, I'm not pronouncing your name correctly. I know that for sure. And of course, he says he's reaching out from the ancient Benin city and he mentioned that he binge pod. He binge listened to my podcast last Sunday. So of course, thank you very much for the kind words. It's always nice to meet a podcast listener. And I must say that those of you from that part of the world, you know, Israel echo a back bottle or you guys have the most interesting names, you know, you Midwestern people.

So every time I'm chatting with someone and, you know, it's obvious they're from Aquamar or they're Asia or they're Bini or from Organic Body or Auchy and, you know, from the Midwest, maybe even down to like that Delta side. Like you guys have the really, really, really the most interesting surnames. Let me just put it that way. So it's a pity that in Nigeria, the curriculum that we do is, you know, Hausaibo, Yoruba, because there are lots of tribes, there are lots of other people.

You know, it's a wonderful country, lots of interesting people, lots of interesting tribes. So it'll be nice. Hopefully, maybe sometime in the future, our educational curriculum will be broadened a little bit to recognise the fact that, you know, there's a whole lot more than just Hausaibo, Yoruba, you know, different tribes, different regions, different parts of the country so that we can be exposed to other people and other cultures.

OK, so now straight to the meat of the podcast now. So the first thing we're going to be looking at is our grants to financial business. Now the reason why I'm coming up with this is because there's a friend, an old friend as I went to university together, but she's currently no longer in the country, now based abroad. Mum, she's back here running a school. Don't worry, I know if you're listening, you'd be wondering, you know, is it you?

Yes, it actually is you. But I'm not going to use your name because everybody needs to know, you know, your personal business. But I just thought that in the conversation that we had, we shared a lot of useful stuff that some people could also hear as well. Also some interesting perspectives when it comes to FFF, as she put it, because she called FFF the Bank of friends, families. And I can't remember FFF. There were three FS, there was friend, there was family.

I can't remember what the other F is. So anyway, just some interesting perspectives about how you can finance your business. So anyway, half of her siblings, UK mom C still in Niger, and they have a family school that they're running. But then of course, with the way that the country has gone recently, you know, with the hyperinflation and you know, with the increase in school fees and then hyperinflation, so the cost of running the school just went up.

I mean, really, really, really went up. You know, all of a sudden teacher salaries are inadequate. What else? School fees have to be raised. And then they also had to hurry up and move to the permanent sites because, you know, rent also was increased. So it was just a perfect trifecta of, you know, things to just make things really, really difficult for the business. So house rent goes up. So when I say house rent, I mean the rent that they had to pay on the premises that the school was occupying.

So quickly, let's rush to the permanent site, put it in place, let's rush to the permanent site. So they had to move. And then you also have to review teacher salary. Teacher salary has to go up, you review school fees, school fees go up. But then of course, when you increase school fees, what happens? Some people leave the school and then you move to a new location as well. So there's distance. They already had the school bus,

but then the cost of petrol has gone up. So the cost of fueling the car has even gone up. Then you have to now raise the prices again. Anyway, bottom line is there are some schools that have been caught in a really, really nasty situation with the whole with the way that the economy has turned recently. So because of that now, and since it's a family business, they've been knocking heads together to see how they can come up with a fund injection to inject funds into the business.

Because now that they are the permanent side, if you can, to shop the cool, the school, clean it up, you know, walk on the packaging, help with operational costs, you know, things like that. It might provide some runway, you know, and give time, you know, for sales and marketing efforts to to what's the word, you know, to stabilize. So they start getting a new set of students coming in. And also, you know, trying to explore the fact that they're in a new location now.

And since, you know, the cost of school runs has gone up because of fuel and everything, now that you're in a new location, it also provides an opportunity because lots of people are looking for opportunities to make sure that their children school local so that you don't have to, you know, you don't live in one part of the city and then send your kids to school in other part of the city. Like for those of you who are based in Lagos, you know, if you live in Oba but your children's school is on Allen Ave. for instance, you know, that's kind of a stretch.

So The thing is, if you live in Oba now people are trying to see, OK, how can I send my children to schools within Oba So I'm not spending too much on fuel. So that's just the situation basically. So we started discussing a bunch of stuff and she told me about some people that they were talking to possible financiers, but they were mindful of the fact that it's a family business. They want to keep it family owned. And so they're kind of running away from anything that sounds like equity investments.

But you know, at the end of the day, we had to come down to that hard conversation. And look, when it comes to raising money, there's either bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is not an option here because the unit economics are still in flux. Then there is raising loans. You go and borrow money from the bank. Unfortunately, interest is there, equity. If anybody's dropping millions and millions know how, know how, you know, they want to have a say in how the business is wrong and they'll think of themselves as partners.

So in my own opinion, I was like, you know what? I think Grant is the best option for now. But in the discussion with her, a couple of things came up since they're based in the UK. And this is something that I totally forgot because I've seen another business do this as well. The children are based in the UK, Mumsy is here in Niger and Mumsy is the one who is operating the farm with one of the younger siblings. So what they did was people in the UK were able to raise a bunch of money, a couple of 1000

lbs. And then with the forex, whatever, you know, the, the rate of forex now you raise money in pounds or you raise money in dollars, you send it back to Mumsy and your brother over here in Niger. Then you service the loan in America over, you know, 12 months, 15 months, whatever. But you know, because of how those societies are organised, you know, you have a steady job, you should be able to pay back the whole thing on a monthly basis, you know, from a salary.

So stuff like that. So that is one level of financing when it comes to FFFI. Can't really remember the last F friends, family and something else. So that is one level of financing that I've not explored at all either on my radio show or over here. But just so that you guys know that, you know, these possibilities are there for those of us who have family members abroad. Yeah, it's something that can be done. Like you guys are abroad.

We're here in Niger, we're trying to plug this business. Look, this is the problem. We need a cash injection also. So, so, so, so if you guys can raise the finance, you know, pay it off, you know, will give us breathing space and then over time, this is how we settle you guys back. So those sorts of conversations can be had. Well, of course, I told my friend that look, when it comes to FFF, you know, friends, family and whatever the last F

is. The thing is we have to be very clear on these conversations because these things can get messy. So like I said, if you're collecting money from Momsy and Popsy, or maybe it's just you, you're collecting from your older brother or your older sister, after a while, big sis can say, you know what, just just actually forget as in, yeah, I gave you the money, but don't worry. No, I'll you know, I'll freed and happens across different cultures because I was listening to marketing school by these two Indian shops.

I can't remember their name, but they're multimillionaires now. And you know, the fellow was talking about how one of his earliest businesses was like that. He entered into the business, one of his big cousins and they answered some busy and we're about to wind up. So by the time they wound up, everything was after they paid everybody. He now realized that they settled everybody, but they didn't settle because so now called because and it's like because and how far now I

noticed that with the money we gave everybody, we didn't give you back. And he said no, no, no, no Allah, you know, I'm at a different stage in life. I can shoulder the burden and these things happen. And they went on to do other businesses and other businesses succeeded. So if you're just one family member and both of you are cool, these sorts of things can happen. You know, they won't understand, they'll forgive a loan, they'll let the money go, you know,

something like that. But if you're going to start talking to multiple FFFS, multiple family members, multiple friends, then these things needs to be very, very clear. I'm raising money from you. How much am I raising? Is it dash or is it loan? I mean, you want to be own and share in the business and it's not easy managing all of those individual, all of those individual conversations. So if you're trying to raise money for your business like that, you know, just bear in mind, sha, these are sort of the things that you need to take on board.

Now, I've already made a podcast episode where I went into all these in depth, the sort of issues that you should be looking at, whether you're considering loans or whether you're considering equity financing. So I'm not going to repeat that here. So that was just a new angle of the FFF financing debate that I have not explored over here that yes, because of the way that currency and exchange issues are right now, an easy way of financing the business might be for you to talk to your siblings who are in the UK who raise it or in America who raise it.

They settle the thing over, you know, a year and a half or something like that, or maybe 2 years. But The thing is, for the business here back at home, you'd be surprised that because of the way that the currency is, they might raise some small money there. You know, really like 5000 pounds, 7000 pounds, 10,000 lbs, by the time you collect, you convert it to Nigeria is millions and millions and millions and those kind of things, they help to put the business afloat or help with whatever project it is that you're working at at home.

So yes, the Bank of FFFI can't remember the last F. There's friends, there's family, there's something else. So please, if you remember the last F, let me know. So yes, the Bank of FFF, apart from bootstrapping, you know, that is another way that you can finance your business. But anyway, because of where the family is with the business, I just thought that OK, FFF, yeah, that's cool. But I really think grants would be a much more tidier way to go.

Just my own opinion given some of the circumstances because, you know, we're discussing in detail. Like I said, I've known this lady since university, so this is a relationship that like it's like 20 something years we've known each other. So we're really talking in detail about the ups and downs. So my recommendation was, you know, look, there are lots of grants that are built specifically for these purposes. It's just turns out that I've been talking a lot about women owned businesses.

So that's if you're going to explore grants, you know, with some creativity, you can see that you can apply to different kinds of grants. And these are some of the categories that we came up with. Because it's a school, then obviously we can be looking at educational grants to fund. Or by the way, if you're listening to the show for the first time, a grant just means not dash them, dash you as in the people dash you the money,

the money is came, it's free, you don't have to pay back. But even though you don't have to pay back, there are some restrictions and there are some conditions that are applied. So like in this case, now if they collected a grant from somebody, educational grant for let's say 20M or 50M or 100M or 200 M, the people who are given the grant, they want to be sure that at 200 M that you collect, you take it and you use it for school purposes only.

Now that you take it and use it to go and do BBL or you take it and use it to buy land or you take it and use it to marry second wife. So even though grants are free and have basically they're free as you're not going to repay back, there's no interest and then they don't own your business. There are some monitoring requirements. So you will have to be getting in touch with them from time to time. The money that we took from you,

this is how we've been using it. We have done this like this, we have done this like this, we have done this like that. So there are those obligations. So I told him that yes, it looks like it's free money, but there will be obligations there, eligibility, eligibility criteria that you have to meet. Sometimes it's age, sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's location. So there's some grants that are only available to people in the UK.

So if your school is in Niger, you know nothing for you. Or there's some grants that are only available to people who are in Nigeria. So if your school is in the UK, nothing for you. So all those things, eligibility and then reporting obligations. So one way we could look at it was educational grants. Another way we could have looked at it was women owned businesses because the last time I had to advise a family member on this sort of thing, When you say women owned, it doesn't have to be 100%.

It can be majority owned. And then this is a family business where you know, of course mom sees a woman and then three daughters and then one son. So that is 4 to 1. So you know there are some grants that we recognize that as a woman owned business. Then since the school is North Central, there are also grants that are available for educational institutions in the North Central. The school also happens to be well the proprietress is Catholic and so the school is being run on Catholic principles.

So there are some grants that are also open to Catholic institutions. Then unfortunately, this right of mine, mom sees a is a widow and I lost pops here a while ago. So there are also business grants that are available for businesses owned and managed by widows. So you can see that when it comes to grants, even though you are one business or one institution, there are ways that with some creativity, you can see how you can apply to different kinds of grants and broaden the chance that you know something might click.

So it's one school, but you can see now we're able to flesh it out five different ways. Educational grants, less apply. Grants for women owned businesses less apply. Grants for schools in North Central, let's apply. Grants for Catholic institutions, let's apply. Grants that cater to businesses owned by window widows, let's apply. You know, God willing, something will kick. So with ChatGPT, with Gemini, with Google, with Bing, with,

you know, whatever, we can sit down, we can search and we can start applying. But like I've said in previous podcast episodes, if you're going to go the ground route, just know that it's going to be plenty, plenty, plenty of writing because the application is very, very formal. So it's not like you can call somebody up and then say how far and then you know, it's not a matter of man, no man. Although if you try, I know one or two people in the in the organization wouldn't be a bad idea.

And I've made episodes about that, how you can do multi threading. That's how you can know multiple people within the organization. And for people that I've advised to try grants before, I have also recommended once in a while, like let's say you're based in Bedroom state or Maiduguri or whatever and you're applying to some grants that's supposed to come through some government agency. It's not a bad idea. Once in a while, at least from the e-mail, you know the name of the account officer or the regional office or the whatever.

It's not a bad idea that you're passing through Abuja. You just pass through the office, you say I just make, I agree to you. You know, that kind of thing. By the time you see somebody one-on-one face to face, you have one or two phone numbers, you know, stuff like that. It makes it easy to build relationships within the organization and to follow up on your application and then particular things. So lots of writing is going to be involved.

So get ready for writing and editing and trying to make a case for why you should receive the grant through. I'm just saying there's going to be plenty of signing documents back and forth. And then of course it's lengthy. It's a lengthy process because this kind of thing doesn't happen in one week. Because of course thousands of people are looking for these grants. The organization will receive thousands of applications and it will take their time to review,

review everything. And unfortunately, grant giving organisations don't, are not very good when it comes to customer service. So they won't even send, most of them won't even send you a message to say, oh, thank you very much, we received your application. We'll get back to you before November next year. They won't even tell you that kind of thing. So you just be sending grant applications. I'll be wondering, are these people receiving it?

How far are we listing? Are we making progress? You know, so these are just some of the drawbacks when it comes to trying to get some grants. So, OK, 20 minutes. So let's move on to the next one now dealing with inbound inquiries. OK, Now the reason why I'm looking at this is because there are lots of you who are doing a lot to build a business. You're marketing and you're doing all kinds of things. Well, then you don't have a very good game plan for when people reach out to you over the phone to try and get them to do business with you.

Now, the reason why I'm bringing this up today is, is is this, I want to make some personalized T-shirts because I want to see if I can use that to promote the podcast. I'll talk about that later anyway, but it's just some idea that I had. So of course I called up my houses. I'm late. What's up and how you did? I'm good, how's work, blah, blah, blah. She's an artist, so she has an installation coming up. How's are you planning for the installation?

Oh, we're good. We're good. We're good, you know? So by the way, those are your T-shirts that you made for me that time. Yeah, I remember. I beg I ought to do something similar to promote my podcast. Oh, really? Let me send you the guy's number. OK. Thanks. She sent me the guy's number. So I messaged the guy and I told him, hey, what's up? I got your number from blah, blah blah. Concerning this is this. She said you're the person to talk to.

You believe the guy's response. You will not believe this guy's response after all this story that I said hello, I got your number from, blah, blah, blah concerning this, this, this. She said you're the person to talk to. He responded, yes, good afternoon, full stop. Some of you might be surprised, but OK, let me put it this way, some of you are not surprised. You are not surprised. Let me put it this way, if somebody gives you all this story and your response is yes,

good afternoon, you are seriously waiting for the other person to continue to be chasing you to get the business. I don't know why some of you have not realized that the responsibility for guiding the conversation rests with you, who is the business owner. You should be taking the initiative and guiding the conversation. It is very irresponsible that somebody reaches out to you saying I got your number from this, is this.

She referred me to you. She says you're the person to talk to because I'm doing this and this and this and this and this and this and this project. And then your response is, yes, good afternoon. And you don't say anything else. But anyway, I'm not who's looking for something else. So of course I can't be pushing the conversation along. But that's because me, I'm a motivated buyer. Motivated buyers are just people who know exactly what it is that they want.

They know the goals they want to achieve, and so they will do whatever it is that they can to make things work. But not everybody's a motivated buyer. That's the reason why you should take responsibility for guiding the conversation along because let's face it now, if you're dealing with an average person and your response was just, yes, good afternoon, let me tell you what will happen. Chances are the person would have sent messages to three or four other vendors.

You responded, yes, good afternoon. For the other three people that they send messages to, two of them will have brain and two of them will have a plan for guiding the conversation along. Who do you think the conversation is going to continue with? The conversation is going to continue with the other two people who are most responsive. So at the very beginning, because you didn't have a plan for continuing conversations,

you have shot yourself in the foot. You didn't even have a chance for closing the deal. So if you're going to be doing all this hard work, paying for Instagram ads or doing a good job and having happy customers because my half sis is a happy customer, which is the reason why she sent me to this Bros, what's the whole point of creating referrals that you're not in a position to now maximize to take advantage of at the end of the day anyway, 30

minutes. So let me just wrap this up now. This hand should have handled it. I've said it time and time again on the podcast. I'm going to say it here again. If this is your first time listening to the show, if anybody ever reaches out to you and they mentioned somebody's name, before you respond, go and check your CRMCRM is customer relationship management tool. That is where you keep all your information on who your customers are.

When you did business, how long you did business, how much was the amount? You know all their personal things. Go and check the referral source or go and check your WhatsApp messages to try and remember who this person is. So if somebody is out, you say, hey, what's up? I got your number from my half sister Cheney Lu. By the way, that's not my sister's name. I'll get a number from my half sister Cheney Lu. Quickly go and check your CRM.

Go and check your WhatsApp. Go and check your whatever, check your receipt, check your everything because it's an opportunity for building rapport and commonality so they can respond and say, Oh yeah, I remember Chinilo, how is she doing now? You see, you start the start the thing on the very you're already assuming that you know, we're cool or like we're family or like we're friends. Start this conversation on some rapport or some commonality.

It's not just yes, good afternoon. So Oh yes, I remember Chinilo. How has she been doing? I haven't even heard from her in a while. It's true after they suffer when I'm ping her and so is it because of that job that I did with her? That's why she sent you to me, Abby. OK, So what about that job did you see that you liked in particular? OK, OK, I know Allah. So this particular one that you're working on now. OK, so tell me more about this project now.

How can I help? You can see that this is a much more fruitful way of carrying on this conversation. See, The thing is this is not a very structured podcast episode and apologies for that, but I'm just trying to say that you should have a plan for carrying on conversations. We can't keep doing this thing of yes, good afternoon. The thing is, it's not just me because because I'm involved in sales, you know, my wife also shows me her messages and surprisingly there are lots of Nigerian vendors who that is all they do.

Somebody will send a message, your response will just be yes or good afternoon. Some people even write good PM like when did that start? Can we stop being lazy please as business owners? Which one is your? You're replying to somebody right? Good PM you don't even have the decency to type out good afternoon info. You will need to have a plan for carrying out conversations. Referral business is the easiest business to close.

Because there's already some assumed level of trust for my half sis because I've already seen the thing she made the T-shirt for me. For me to like this thing. There's really a certain assumed level of trust. So when I call in, when somebody's calling you up or D Ming you or something, it's these kind of things are a lot easier to close than when you're going to look for business fresh and the person is a total stranger.

So please, you should have some sort of CRM on your phone, whether it is notes you're keeping on your phone or whether it's that under the contact name you now write notes underneath the contact name or whether you check your WhatsApp, Bosch, if somebody's calling in and it looks like this thing is a referral, before you respond to that message, go and check. And then start off this conversation with some level of familiarity, with some level of commonality and try and build some rapport.

It will not be hard to say. Oh yeah, thank you very much for reaching out. I remember Choma, always been a while. How is she doing? And then, of course, you want to know why Gemma referred you. So that whole question of, oh, is it because of this is ID for trauma and that's why you get in touch. Oh, you saw that. OK. What is it that he liked about it? OK, no, Anna, no problem. So this project that you're doing now, what is it?

OK, how can I help? And then you go into needs analysis. I find out exactly what they need so that you have all the information that you need to be able to make an effective proposal and presentation. And by the way, after you're done with this, you know, pick up the phone and, you know, now go back to the person who referred, you know, go back to Chummer. You now call Chummer up. Chum, how far? Happy New year. It's been a long time, so I

haven't been in touch you. Your brother just called me up. And Chummer, I really appreciate the support. I really appreciate how you been promoting my business, you know, blah, blah, blah. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you. That conversation goes a long way. The person who has made the referral, she now feels good. In fact, sometimes it's the only way that we can pay these people back because of some of these people who if you reach out and say thank you very much for the business, I beg, what's your bank account, they will feel insulted.

There are some people who will be insulted if you try and give them something. So in most cases, the only way you can even say say thank you, you actually used to call them up and say, oh, thank you. Your cousin called me, your sister called me, your brother called me. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the support. Then maybe once in a while, since giving money back is a tricky thing. Maybe once in a while you you drop a free something like in this case, since it's a matter of T-shirts and you've already done business with Sharma in the past and you know the kind of thing that Sharma likes.

Maybe might not be a bad idea that when Sharma's birthday come round, you now tell your delivery guy just want to drop one free shirts, the free T-shirt that you designed for her in her house. And by the way, this is the reason why every single business should have ACRM, the customer relationship management tool. There should be somewhere in your business that you're keeping all this data that I did business with drama.

It was over this. This was the amount, this is how many copies that she bought. These are the things that she likes. This is her birthday. This is her husband's name. This is her husband's birthday's name. These are number of children. Well, OK, maybe that kind of information is becoming too much, but we need to have some store, storehouse of data somewhere, which is why I keep talking about having a CRM for your business.

If you don't want to pay for a dedicated CRM tool, you can just use your phone. The note taking function is OK. There are some people that that is how I store their phone number. So let's say I store the number Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. By the way, I don't know her. She's a famous author, but let's just say I've done business with her. Maybe for one of her books, maybe marketing plan. All righty there, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie when she got married, it wasn't the news.

I'll put it down the in my in my notes under her name got married. So, so, so of course, since I have a direct phone number, I don't have you to I'm just saying if I did, I would have called her. Of course, the whole world would be congratulations. So she wouldn't have answered, but I record and then sent a message that we've seen. Oh, thank you, congratulations. Is the Lord doing you know, she's she's a family, so I would have teased her like it is the Lord doing the God has elevated your profile.

You know that kind of thing because you know, when you want to make families angry in a playful way, that's how you as are you stroke them smaller. You're getting married. Finally, we start the whole conversation over here. What do you mean, you idiot? Are you saying that before I was married, I was not a woman or I was not complete, you know, but I just how some playful ways that you just move conversation forward. By the way, you only do that if you're a friend, if you're a total stranger and you're trying to crack some kind jokes and we'll come across one how somehow, which is why trying to use humor to build relationships is is dicey, is dicey.

Anyway, I'm just saying that I need to have something like that on my phone so that if I have done business with him, Amanda and Garcia DJ, it will be there on my phone. This is when we did business. This is what I did for her. This is the marketing campaign that we came up with for her books. This is how many units we think she showed she sold. I think I was able to book on XYZ number of shows. She has gotten married also.

So, so, so did she now has a child, blah, blah, blah, you know, all that sort of thing. These are things that make relationship building and relationship nurturing easier. Anyway, I have strayed too far on what it is that I wanted to talk about, but basically summary what I wanted to say is this. For those of you who have businesses, the Bank of FFF, friends, family and whatever, if it's an option, particularly if you have siblings abroad, they can raise some money at relatively lower interest fees than you can over here.

By the time you convert it to NIRA, it's millions and millions and millions, even though what they took was hundreds or maybe thousands. But if you must do that, please be having very clear conversations with all these people that are collecting money from sources that this brought, this cousin, this anti this. I'm collecting £200 from you. You have to be very clear. The 200 lbs, is it dash or is it a loan? Ambition wants to invest in the business.

It needs to be very clear. So for Uncle Kunle, I collected 2800 lbs from you. You need to be very clear. Did Uncle Kunle dash you 2800 lbs or did Uncle Kunle loan you 202,800 lbs? And when he pays back, when you pay back, he's expecting that you should pay back 3100 lbs. Or is it not Uncle Kunle's 2800 lbs? He's collecting it. He now expects that he's a 5050 owner for the business or for the school. Be very clear about these sorts of conversations.

If you're going to be a grant, you can take the grant and split it different ways. So like in this case, the school, we could do educational grant, women owned grant, North Central grant, Catholic grant, or business owned and run by widows because those are the different contexts under which we can slot the school. And therefore, those of us who are dealing with inbound inquiries, please have some sort of plan for how to carry on the conversation saying yes, full stop, That is not a plan.

Saying yes, good afternoon, that is not a decent way to get the conversation ongoing and saying yes, good PM or yes, good AM, please stop being lazy. Come up with some sort of plan, any kind of plan. But the most important thing is you, the business owner should take the initiative for moving the conversation forward. Stop saying good afternoon, full stop. And you expect that the other person should now lead the conversation.

Let's be real here, everybody's talking to three or four different vendors at the same time. Even is just yes, good afternoon. The other person that says, Oh yes, good afternoon. How can I help Even a small extra yes, good afternoon. How can I help? Can you see that the other person is taking the initiative small to move the conversation forward? Even just adding how can I help question mark is better than just saying yes, good afternoon.

Yes, good PM, Yes, good AM. Business owners, let's get serious about this thing, please. You know, all mature people. Let's not behaving irresponsibly here. All right? Yeah. So that's it. If you would like to connect with me for a strategy session for a business audit or you have questions you'd like to answer, the number is 08064662140, country code +234. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.