How to Turn Speaking Engagements Into Business Growth

Hello and welcome to the show. Before we begin, the usual apologies, The kids are home, there's going to be some noise. And then my neighbour is also doing that. That grass, that lawn, what's it called? Lawn trimming, whatever thing, you know, nothing with the long stick that just hacks up the grass. So nothing makes a lot of noise. And anyway, so those are some of the interruptions that we can expect to hear bleeding in through the microphone today.

Now, today, we're not going to tackle a listener question or an audience question. I'm still running through a list of things that I think are important and that we ought to pay attention to. So we've gone through the content stuff. If you're new listening to the podcast and you want to hear things around content marketing, content marketing strategy, let's see what else copywriting, direct response marketing, you know, things that you can do today and you hope to starting business results, you know, next week, next month.

Then look at the episodes that I recorded, I'd say a week ago, I'll say now should be about a week. So just look back four or five days and you will get some some of that good stuff. So today I want to look at how we can host events and use that to grow our e-mail list and our contact list. How to either host the events or to take part in the event the in the events and use that to grow your e-mail list and your contact list.

So why is this something that we ought to be talking about over here on the podcast? And that's because looking for people to talk to actually is our primary reason for being in business. That's our primary function rather for the primary function in the business because some people when you're coming into business, you think that you're primary reason for getting into business or your primary function is the thing that got you passionate about it in the 1st place.

So for those of us who started off as wedding photographers, we assume that the primary thing was supposed to be doing in the business is taking the photographs. Or for those of you who love coding, we assume that the primary thing you ought to be doing in the business is to do the coding. But actually the primary thing is supposed to be doing in the business is to look for people to talk to, to get them to know you like you, trust you know who you are, know what you do know,

how your product, your service, your code, your photography or whatever can help them. Because if we don't do that hard work and talk to these people, nobody's going to pay US money. If nobody pays US money, then we have no reason for being in business. And that is the reasoning that shows why actually looking for people to talk to is the primary thing that we have to do in our business. So please change your focus. Yes, you like cakes or the primary thing you're supposed to do in your business is not bake cakes.

The primary thing actually is to wake up on a Monday. Look for people to talk to, wake up on a Wednesday, look for people to talk to, wake up on a Friday, look for people to talk to or whatever cadence it is that you fancy. But please don't let it be once a month. Don't just wake up and think once in a month, I'm going to go out and do this and do this and do this. And it's going to give me enough people to talk to that will sustain my business for the whole year.

So pick a cadence that works for you monthly. I don't think monthly is a good idea, at least for people starting off in the SME space. And you know, you're starting off and you're still a small going concern for now. So the primary thing you have to do in business. So look for people to talk to, look for strangers to talk to because that is what gets people to pay us. That's what keeps the light on. And that's what also helps us find future customers.

So if you love code, coding is not the main thing you're supposed to be doing, which is the reason why Mark Zuckerberg no longer does code, because the primary thing Zuckerberg is supposed to do in his business, actually it's look for how they can get other folks like me, my kids, my children's children, how to get them on Facebook. That's the primary thing. So that's why he has, what's that word, delegated the coding activities to some other folks.

So excuse me. So let's get our perspective right, Looking for people to talk to. Primary reason for us being a business, that's the reason why hosting events, trying to go to your e-mail list and your contact list. That's the reason why this is something that we ought to be talking to. Now. If we don't look for new people to talk to, like I hinted at, we are not going to have a business over the long term. The reason why is this, You currently have some customers.

So you've opened up your cake thing, your photography thing, your coding thing, your web design thing, your branding thing, your carpentry thing, your plumbing thing, your catfish thing. So you currently have some customers, God forbid, but this actually is the truth. Some customers die. Apart from that, some customers move. You might have a very good customer. Let's say you're a catfish person. You have a customer who is buying like 300K worth of catfish every month from you and business is good, but things happen.

She might decide that, oh, you know what, I'm all right now. I can't keep staying away from my children. My children are based in Lagos. And so she leaves Abuja, She moves to Lagos, Customers move. Some other customers have changing circumstances. Like I said, your greatest customer must be thinking about life in retirement. And so she moves to be away with her children. Some people have changing appetites. Somebody might wake up today and say, oh, the doctor told me I'm not supposed to be eating so much catfish.

I'm supposed to eat a Croker or something. And then sometimes people get upset with you and they won't tell you why. Actually, most of the times you're not going to be smart enough to figure out that somebody else, that somebody has disappeared. One of your regular customers has disappeared. And so you're not even going to be able to feel figure out what the problem is. But these are the many reasons why we have to look for people to talk to because the current transfer of customers that we have is going to get whittled down over time.

So if you start off 2024 and you have 600 customers buying from you, you think our business is good. Last year I had 600. This year I have 600. There's no guarantee that next year you're going to have 600 because God forbid, like I said, we don't wish death on anyone. But The thing is, some people die, some customers will die, some customers will move away, some customers will have changing life circumstances that will cause them not to buy from you again.

Some customers will have changing appetites, trends change all kinds of things. Some customers will get upset, they will enter into ghost mode. And these and many more are the reasons why. If you have 600 customers in 2024, it's not a guarantee that in 2025 all 600 are going to be there. So it's normal that over time people fall away from us, fall away from our product service, fall away from the ecosystem, fall away from our sales funnel,

fall away from the however it is that we want to put it. So filling up the roster of people that we have to talk to is essential. So even if you have 600 customers today in 2024, it's essential that you should still be making our time. Pick your cadence, whether it's daily or weekly. Once again, I think monthly, it's not a good idea if you're in the SME space, if you're a small person trying to get up and coming, you're still trying to get the business running.

Monthly, it's not a good idea. But we'll have to figure out that thing that we're going to be doing every Monday, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday or every two, two weeks or every whatever, so that we have a new set of people to talk to who will end up becoming our next set of customers for next month, for next quarter, for next year. Now, one way that is available to us to do that is to host events or to look for ways to speak at events that other people are hosting.

Now, this is a tactic that some people already do in the, well, how I call it, like financial product space, like in the insurance industry for instance. Yes, yeah, People in the insurance industry and people selling financial products, products that require a certain level of sophistication because selling an insurance product is not the same thing as selling bread because you want to go and buy bread. Your choices are is it white or brown?

Is it? Yeah, is it white or brown? Is it wheat or or not? Let's see, what else? Does it have saccharine? Doesn't it have saccharine? So those are the kind of things that the average Nigerian person will look at when they go to buy bread. Of course, the price. So they will go especially now the price that in Abuja, a loaf of bread currently at the time of this recording goes for about 2000 era. I still have been able to find one of those 15 loaves of bread.

But yeah, I've seen 2522, sorry, I've seen 2002 two. But who knows, maybe next month bread is going to be at 25 and then we're going to end up like. Anyway, let me not go into my rants for today. Yeah, but bottom line, what I'm trying to say is people who are selling insurance products or financial products, it's not like buying bread because if you go to go and buy bread, those would be your questions. Madam, how much does it cost?

This one is too white to give me the one that is brown. The white one did not cook very well. Give me the one that is brown or Doctor says I should not be eating all this one. Madam, you don't have wheat bread and then they give you wheat. And then you ask, Madam, sure, there's no saccharine in this thing. You know, saccharine causes cancers. No, God, there's no saccharine. You buy your bread, you go for insurance products and financial products.

It requires a little bit more sophistication. So you can't just run up on someone and say buy my house insurance, buy my fire insurance product, this is the best, blah, blah, blah, take it, buy it, I'm the best. It requires more nuance. It requires some sophistication. It requires more of a consultative approach and an education approach to sell these kinds of products. So what insurance people do is they either host events or look for ways to speak at events.

For instance, I've tried selling financial products in Abuja. So I know of one or two who that is one of their tactics. So what they do is the insurance firm shows up at a retirement seminar for civil service, for civil servants. So let's say NYC, that's the National Youth Service Corps. For those of you who are not Nigerians, they are the people who organize the, it's one of these national unity kind of schemes that we've had since the 70s.

The whole goal was to make Nigeria united. And so it has different elements. There's a paramilitary element. So, you know, physical service, PT, that's physical training, all that kind of jazz. Then there's also a, oh, let's say like, like a social component. So folks like me that studied law, we get to teach in schools or work in health centres or whatever class. For those of you who study medicine. Well, the whole point of this scheme is we're trying to make Nigeria a better place and make people united.

So we get people who grew up and were educated in different parts of the country to go to other parts of the country, offer national services, sorry, national service, and then make the communities better and as a whole make the whole country better. So the NYSE is, is the organization that was set up to administer this whole program. Now, like every other kind of government program, every year we have a bunch of people who are about to retire.

It's just normal because you can't work forever. I think in OK, well, let me not guess, but there's a retirement age anyway. So whether the retirement age is, I don't know, 60 or 65 or 30 years in service, but every year there's a bunch of people who have hit 30 years in ServiceNow. Understand that and every year there's a bunch of people who hit 60 or 65. Now understand that. So a bunch of people have to retire. They just have to, whether they like it or not.

Of course, people go and swear affidavits and they say, oh, I'm not really 60 years old. I just heard from my grandfather in the village and my grandfather said I was born on the second moon or something, something. So I'm not actually 65, I'm actually 57. So that might buy the person some more time. But anyway, what I'm trying to make is insurance people who sell retirement products, they know that every single year know how know how somebody in Abuja has to retire.

That one is definite. That person is a potential customer. So they attend retirement seminars. So if you hear that National Youth Service Corps is arranging a retirement seminar for members of staff, 2004 Cater directors, blah, blah, blah, going to retire, what you do is if you have someone on the inside, you try and get on the agenda so that you and your boys and girls, part of your insurance team can come and make a presentation to the whole group.

Now the goal of you guys being there to sell annuities and to sell retirement products. The goal of these products are just to make sure that retirees have stable incomes after they leave the civil service. So you have to organize the event yourself and say those of you who are going to retire from NYSE and from the Ministry of Finance, we are social insurance company. Out of the goodness of our hearts, we are organizing this program.

All of you come and learn about how to hook yourself up in retirements to make sure that you have all the money you need to live or you try and show up. If NYSE or Ministry of Finances want to organize the program, try and speak. So you look for those programs where people are retiring this year or where people are going to retire next year. During the seminar, somebody from amongst your team will stand up and give just a general talk.

You know, this is what the retirement benefit system looks like. These are the different products that are out there. You can do this to make sure you have income for life, or you can do this to make sure that the quality of income you have will not fall below this level. You can do this, you can do this, you can do that. Some of them also have, what's it called, life insurance benefits. Like, oh, if anything even happens to you and you die,

we'll cover, you know, X amount to we pay to your beneficiaries, you know, basically to your kids, if anything happens to you, blah, blah, blah. So the person will just give a general gist like that on the stage. And as the person is about to walk off, he will say that, look, you know what, out of all these different products that we've mentioned, you need to talk to someone to find the right plan for you. Because everybody's situation is different.

Those of you who are requiring a retiring, a deputy director who have X amount that are planned and you want to leave at so, so, so income level and still leave maybe like 2-3 M to your children when you die, your whole plan will be different. Now for somebody else who's retiring at this level with only this number of children and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So if you would like to learn more and if you would like us to help you advise on which plan is the best for you after this seminar, just go to the back of the hall.

You will see my colleague over there. There are two of them. The fine girl on the right, her name is Chingiri. The handsome boy on the left, his name is Chukudi. You can speak to either Chingiri or Chukudi. Just put down your contact number, put your name, your e-mail address, your phone number. And then from next week Monday, somebody from the office will call you so that we can book a meeting and we'll speak to you.

We'll help you figure out what is the best package for you and help you to make the right decision. But don't worry, don't feel scared that if you put your number now, we'll force you to buy. Don't worry, it's not by force. We at so, so, so and so insurance firm. We're here to make sure that we help people find best solutions that are for them, even if it means they don't do business with us. So don't worry, don't be scared.

Won't force you to buy. So if you're interested, don't speak to Ching Area or speak to Chukudi. Put your contact list down. Either of us or somebody else from the office will call you from Monday morning. Thank you very much. Everybody who stands, no clap. They will give a standing ovation and then they leave. Hopefully about 5 or 600 people might drop their contact list with you guys. And then next week Monday, you and Chukudi and Chingieri and other people in the firm, you now have a list of 600 people,

500 people that you can start talking to that might become potential customers. It's not a guarantee that if you got 500 names, you will do business with 500. But you can see how we are creatively looking for more people to talk to. So essentially what we're doing is we're using events for lead generation. Who is a lead? A lead is anybody who might be interested in your products or services. Another warning, usually when I

give definitions here on this podcast, the definitions I give are very simple, but these words have more complex definitions, but I'm just using the simple definitions because I want you guys to remember without writing anything down. If you remember, you can always pull it out from your head. You'll be able to go ahead and put it into practice. So for the purposes of this podcast, a lead is anybody who might be interested.

You follow the insurance people who follow this kind of strategy and they leave the event. They have a list of 500 people who might be interested. Can you use this in any kind of business? Let me just say I haven't seen. OK, well, if you like Carpenter, I don't see how you can make it work. But with some creative thinking, I'm sure you can apply to most businesses. So I thought of a scenario just to get you guys going.

Like I mentioned, my munchkins are currently home for the holidays and people have really started asking me, hey bro, I don't know your children are they're not doing lesson blah blah blah. You know, people who are lesson teachers and the signs are going up all over the place. Are estate gates, different kinds of estate gates. You go into a shopping mall, you start seeing the Flyers, people who advertising what's it called?

Extracurricular activities, summer club. I don't know why they keep calling a summer club because in Nigeria we do not have summer. So can you guys stop calling this thing summer club? You know we don't have summer. We have rainy season, we have dry season, we have whatever. Well, come up with another name. Please stop this whole. Anyway, where was I? OK, Yeah. So basically lesson teachers, they know that now is the time to make market because the children are on holidays.

So how this kind of strategy would apply to people in that spaces before the school goes for holiday. Before the school goes for holiday. You can arrange it five or six schools in your neighborhood so you don't have to walk around too much. Speak to somebody there, the admin manager, maybe you know somebody in accounting. You try and hook something up so that you can address the PTA. What you would do is the scope will be you will now give the PTAA seminar and you will talk to them about children's learning styles, different learning styles.

You'll also talk about the benefits of extracurricular activities and how these activities can get children accepted into Oxford or into Cambridge or into whatever, whatever, whatever. You'll be trying to lean in on this whole thing of jackpot. You know, Nigerians are really nervous, especially with the way the economy is going these days. Lots of folks are now worrying if things are rough like this. For me, I think it's going to be this rough for the kids when they're ready to enter into the job market.

So yeah, you can play on some of those nervousness, Abby. Nerves. You can play on some of those nerves of Nigerian parents who are anxious about getting their kids out of the Nigerian education school system because they think there are great opportunities abroad. And right from when I was a kid in the 80s up until now, it's been an annual thing that people are trying to use education as a way to get the kids out. So in other words, your child now enters primary 6.

If you're able to do that whole thing and they pass the, the what's it called? They see the A levels or something, you know, But if you can't afford it, you get them into secondary school abroad from secondary school in the UK, they entering university. Between secondary school and university, they've done 10 years or I'll be 15 years or whatever. They should be eligible to what's it called? Is it something resident? Is it permanent residence?

If they get permanent residence from there, they should be able to get citizenship. If the guest citizenship, then hopefully that's the beginning of your kid sorting themselves out without having to come back to Nigeria. Now for those who are listening to the show, I am not saying this is what you should do if you're a Nigerian parent. I'm not saying do this. I'm just saying that if you are a lesson teacher, these are the,

these are the kinds of messaging that I mean this, this is the scope that you'll be using. Essentially, you'll be talking about children's different learning styles, the benefit of extracurriculum activities and how to use that to get your children into much more prestigious institutions abroad. So it's a sales pitch, it's a value pitch. So that will be your whole seminar. You'll be telling parents that look, Nigeria is going to,

Nigeria is going to blazes. Nigeria is going to help send your children abroad. No, no, no, no, no. What you will say is you'll be talking about children's learning styles. For those of you who have boys between the ages of this and this, this is how they learn. If your child, if your daughter likes to do this and color this and do that, how learning style might be like this. These are the extra kind of curricular kind of activities that you can do to help them be greater at English, greater at math, greater in dance, greater in physics, greater in this,

greater in that, and blah, blah, blah. And if you do this, these are the opportunities that are available both home and abroad. So that's how you do the presentation. You know, keep it nice and polished. Don't try and sell using fear. You can sell using fear. But anyway, that's a podcast for another episode, but I don't recommend using fear to sell. So you just give that seminar like that and then the scope is going to be the same.

At the end of the seminar, you will tell the parents after they give you standing ovation. Thank you very much for your time questions. After you answer the questions, you tell them, OK, my colleagues are here and if you look at the back of the hall with me, I have Zachary standing on the left of the hall and then I have Zainab standing on the right of the hall. They're my associates. If you guys have any more questions, then feel free to stop, talk to Zainab or talk to Zachary and leave your contact details with them.

Leave your phone number, your WhatsApp phone number, your e-mail address and, and yeah, we'll be in touch. So for those of you who want to discuss your child's individual learning style, because what I've spoken about is very, very general. So if you want to know particular learning style for your children or the peculiarities and whatever, how we can use extracurricular kids to beef up math performance or English performance or all these sorts of things, No problem.

Just put down your contact details. And then from Monday next week, either me, Zainab or Zachariah or my other associates, they'll be in touch with you so we can come up with a tailored curriculum for your child for learning throughout this holiday period. So just fill a sheet, book a time and we'll be in touch. So well, thank you very much. And then you exit stage and hopefully you do that. Hopefully you get 10/15/20

numbers from that particular school. You do this in five schools in your neighbourhood. Hopefully. If you've been getting 2020 per school, you now have 100 numbers that you can talk to, except if you're a crap salesman. If you're talking to 100 parents, I'm assuming you should be able to get at least 10 that you'll be able to start organising lessons from. But anyway, if you talk to 100, you're able to get 10. Noah Allah, that's a different conversation.

We can have that conversation for a future podcast episode, but that is the scope. So you can see how insurance people use it. You can see that other people with some creativity. We can't make it work. So lesson teachers, you don't have to keep putting your phone numbers on people's gates and trying to talk to people random. Well, anyway, let's do everything. So yes, put your phone number on the gate. Also put your flyer in the supermarket, but then still try and do this thing of trying to talk to PTA.

Oh, by the way, PTA is Parents Teachers Association. Well back in my day was Parent Teacher association. So every time I say PTA, my son has to remind me that no, that is not PTA, it's PTC. So parents teachers conference. So I think yes, in Abuja, I think it's PTC now, parent teacher conference. So lesson teachers trying to talk to PTA, trying to talk to PTC. See how you can hook up these sorts of things? More avenues for talking to people.

Now you're going to ask. Now back to the insurance example. You get 600 names, but out of that 600 names, maybe you only get 2020 clients. Or back to the teaching thing, you get 100 names. Out of the 100 names, you only get 10 clients. What are you going to do with the other 80 something percent of people who didn't buy from you? You now take those names and phone numbers. You put them into an e-mail list, into a broadcast list,

into your WhatsApp list, Get permission from them to be sure that you can keep in touch with them. And then you're going to be sending future emails, future WhatsApp messages. So for the lesson teachers who speak to the PTA or to the PTC, your future messages to the people are going to be more messages around the things that you guys already spoke about, learning styles, curriculum, extracurricular activities, learning exchange programs abroad.

You know, this program between Nigeria and the UK or this program between Nigeria and Indonesia or Nigeria and Kenya or whatever. You can also send messages about new developments in the Nigerian educational space. You know, curriculum is changing again. We're no longer doing 6334, we're now doing 66, you know, two or whatever, things like that. The whole point of keeping people in this list and sending out these messages over WhatsApp or over e-mail.

So excuse me is to keep you top of mind so that they don't forget. If you had a brilliant presentation in these five schools, you want these people to always remember, OK, this is that sharp guy or this is that sharp girl who addressed us at the end of third term last year. We want to remain top of mind. We also want to be able to build expert positioning and authority. The whole point of remaining top of mind and propping yourself up as an expert, as an authority,

is it leaves room for more conversations in the future. Because you never know, somebody didn't buy. The person might never buy, but the person might have a friend who is worried about the children writing. Is it GSAT or something? I think is it GSAT, AB GMAT. Anyway, I don't know all these examples, but whatever it is, the person wants the kids to go to secondary school in the UK, blah, blah, blah. You know, if you're on top of my person can say, oh, OK, I know this person spoke at our school,

blah, blah, blah. This is the guy's phone number, Chingier. This is our phone number. Take your call, Tavish and my this person's number. Just take your call. These are how we leave rooms open for more conversations in the future. Now, are you listening to this podcast right now thinking of how to get more people to talk to using this particular strategy And maybe for want of creativity, you don't know how you can hook this kind of thing up.

Now connect with me and let's have a chat. That is the reason why I give my phone number at the end of every single episode. So connect with me on WhatsApp, the name is oh sorry, the phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian and then connect with me on LinkedIn, my name is Tavi Shima Ayede. I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name because you have to get the right spelling to find me.

And you can also get my e-mail address from the link where you're currently listening to this episode. Thank you very much for sorry. Thank you very much for your time and attention. Sorry about that. The sore throat. Yeah, it's getting better now for those of you who are concerned. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode. And I hope you guys have gotten some ideas about how we can host events or take part in events that other people are hosting and then use that to grow our e-mail list, our WhatsApp list,

and our contact list. So I'll catch you guys later.