Listen, Engage, Close: The Social Selling Formula for Hat Businesses

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm currently chilling at my desk making this recording. And some of the neighborhood kids are around, you know, they're teenagers. So right now they're just a bunch of juveniles. And you know how those boys, Gambino, you know, you're just discovering what it means to be a man, you know, in your own way of seeing the world. So they just, you know, come out every evening, you know, shoot this shit, just pram you late and just generally even what teenagers do.

So if you hear any gisting, any laughing, you know, that's them. That's the teenagers in the background. And yeah, of course, the kids are home too. So you might hear some noise from there. Now today I want us to look at social selling and how to use it to promote your business. Now, some of you may have heard of social selling in the past. Maybe you heard it like 2-3 years ago. You definitely have not heard of it on the podcast.

And to be honest, it's not something that I'm a fan of. I don't talk about it because sometimes I think people are looking for any excuse not to do any selling. People say I don't want to be tacky, I don't want to be pushy, I don't want to be an irritant. I don't want to be this, I don't want to be that. I don't like selling, you know, talking about money makes me feel one kind, blah, blah, blah. So I think people are looking for excuses all the time and influencers in quotes, you know,

business gurus always come up with one thing after another thing after another thing to give you the excuse that it's OK, that you don't have to talk to anybody. You can sit behind the keyboard and use this magic, this magic script or this magic prompt or this magic whatever, and then money will flow into your account. So for those of you who are running away from actually having conversations with people you want to sit behind the keyboard, my advice to you is,

well, you know, keyboard game can't work. But eventually we always get to the point where we have to talk to someone. So we can be doing our sales funnel, this hacking, this marketing, this dot dot dot dot. But eventually we get to the point where we're either chatting with one person face to face, Abby, no, not face to face chatting with one person in box or inbox or emailing one person, you know, one e-mail to e-mail or somebody picks up the phone and calls us.

And we had better have the requisite skill that we need to be able to handle that conversation so that if there's a problem, we resolve the problem and we make the person a happy customer. And we make sure that they come back and buy from us again. Or if there's no problem, but they're unclear about one or two things before they transfer the money to us, we make sure that we handle those concerns adequately so that they become a customer.

And we also try to get them to come back and also refer business to us in the future, bring their friends, their family members and their associates. So my own opinion, you can be a keyboard warrior all you like, last, last, eventually, one day, one day, not one day, you will have to talk to someone. So I might as well learn. So social selling, how does it fit into all these yarns that I'm just saying right now? Done right, social selling does not run away from the fact that you have to talk to someone.

Social selling just focuses on certain kinds of techniques that you can use online to connect with people online and to nurture people online, to nurture contacts online. You know, do all the sweet stuff online, the knowing, the liking and the trusting so that when the time comes and somebody slides into your DM or when somebody picks up the phone, you can now close the sale effectively. So that is what social selling is.

You're going to be doing a bunch of stuff online to connect with people, to nurture relationships, to nurture contacts. You do plenty, plenty things online, whether it's LinkedIn or whether it's Instagram. Social selling is just all those techniques and all those skills that you're using to connect with people and then to nurture them so that one day when they are ready and they slide into the DM. Because once it's sliding into your DM, it's no longer an online thing again.

I mean, well, technically speaking it's online, but you know, once they slide into your DM, you know it's personal. Now this is me having a chat with you. So it's personal. You will now be able to close the sale off of the socials, off of the network, off of the whatever. So from what I've said so far, now social selling, you've seen on that the core concepts are relationship building or trust and rapport essentially.

OK, well and rather not all. So you're trying to do relationship building online. So let's say you only have an LinkedIn presence like me. It will be building relationships with people online. I'm trying to establish trust and trying to establish rapport. Rapport means we are flowing, we are vibing, I know some stuff about you, you know some stuff about me, and we feel like we are alike. We feel like we did relate. That is what rapport is.

So yeah, that's all social selling is about. How can we use Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, what else? Everything sharp, but where? How can we use all of that to build trust, build rapport, and engage in meaningful conversations? Now when we say meaning or valuable, there's something I've said on the podcast. I should not have to repeat it, but I will because there's some people who are here for the first time.

Valuable, value, driven value, whatever just means you're giving helpful information and you are addressing the needs that your audience has. So when you're going online to say I am the greatest, I am the best, I am the this and the that, that is not valuable. In fact, excuse me. In fact, after a while, people will tune you out and they will stop listening to you or stop reading you or stop liking or tweeting or sharing.

Because after a while it gets old when all you say is I'm the greatest, I'm the best, I'm the this and the that. But if you're giving helpful information, if you're trying to address their concerns, address their whatever, you know, that is why all those posts that say 90% of people who you know, 90% of people who do this and this, that and that have social problem. Do you have those kinds of problems? I mean, that is valuable to a particular kind of audience.

And of course they'll read it if that is a problem that they have. So the things that you have to put up on social media have to be value driven. And remember, value is not from your own point of view, value is from the audience's point of view. What it, what is it that they like, what it is that they need? What is it that they find to be helpful? Then of course, social selling, it wouldn't be social selling if you're not using social platforms.

So when I see people face to face or were networking or you go to Abuja trade fair or Lagos food and drink fair or a Noogu makeup fair, you know, that's not a social selling even though that's excuse me, even though that's a social situation. But remember when we're talking about social selling, we're talking about social platforms, online social platforms. And then you cannot do any direct selling online when you do social selling because you know, it just comes across as tacky.

I don't know you, you don't know me. This is the first time we're meeting and you're saying I should buy headphones from you or I should buy real estate from you. As in how, like how do we know ourselves? So the whole point is actually to engage in conversations and to build relationships online so that people love you, they trust you, they have some rapport so that later on, if the person slides into your DM to start talking about the headphones,

you're open to having the open to having the conversation with them. Or the other way around, if you, the customer slides into the person's DM, you guys can now have a fruitful conversation. So let us try and apply all this grammar now to the fascinator, to the heart and fascinator business. Now, the reason why I'm doing heart and fascinator business is because the last case study that we did, if I remember correctly,

was the lady who wants to start a heart and fascinator business. And I said to try and Max it out as much as possible. I'll continue using her as an example until I come across somebody else who has a much more interesting business or a business that we've never spoken about on the podcast before, because this is the first time we're talking about hats and fascinators. So this heart applies to hats and fans fascinator business.

So if you're going to engage in social selling and you're this lady who wants to get into, I think her name is Bulu. Yeah, Bulu. So if you're Bulu and you want to start your heart and fascinator business and you're considering a social selling strategy, the first thing you have to do is to define your target audience or to define the niche. The number one question we have to ask ourselves, who are we running after, who they pursue?

You have to ask yourself that question because the answer to that question, who are we pursuing? That is what will determine which social media to use. If you are trying to pursue, I don't know, Nigerian market women who are fabric traders, maybe you should not be on LinkedIn. I'm not sure, but my guess is maybe those people don't hang out on LinkedIn. I suspect they hang out on Facebook and they hang out on what's the other one, Instagram.

If you're trying to reach out to, I don't know, let's see born again teenage, no born again millennials who attend high Pentecostal churches or something like that, then maybe you should not be on Facebook. Maybe those kind of people spend more time on TikTok or on Instagram. I don't know. I'm just guessing, but you get what I'm trying to say. We need to know what niche are we going after or who's the audience we're targeting.

That is what is going to determine where we're going to start running after people so that we can choose the right platforms. So since you are like Balu and you want to be in the heart and fascinator, excuse me, Fascinator business. By the way, if this is your first time listening to the show and you're a guy, the fascinator is just these fancy caps. So this guy, Diana's bueno. Prince, Prince Charles. King Charles, yes.

Now King of England. So he's his son. The first boy is married to what's her name now, Katie. Abby. Katie something Katie Winslet have it and I can't remember her name. So those kind of fancy hats that kids wears. You see something when I had like a semi circle, then maybe 1 Peacock feather and then maybe it has 1 golden sash running across it or something like that or maybe a Gray net. Those are the things that are fascinate us.

So it's like their headgear was shy. It's not really a hat, but it's kind of a hat. You know, it's high fashion. So that's what a fascinator is, in case you're a young man listening to this and you're wondering what are they talking about? So we have to choose the right platform. So my guess is that since you're doing hearts of fascinators, is this kind of like a visual components with? So I think you're probably looking at Instagram, probably Pinterest or probably Facebook to start building your community and then to start interacting with people because I suspect that women went to those sorts of things.

That is where they hang out. If I'm wrong and you're in the business, you know, please let me know that. Hey Mr. Tavishima, I actually am in the heart and fascinator business and you gave us wrong advice here. This is what it should be instead. The number to reach me on my WhatsApp number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, that's my WhatsApp number. So give me any feedback there.

Then you also have to create quality content so that you can start engaging conversations online because if your conversation is not quality, people will not like, people will not share, people will not comment. So for those of you who've been liking and sharing, excuse me, sharing the podcast and promoting it on other platforms because I received a screenshot. I think like last month somebody was like, yeah, I saw your stuff in my community and you know, I

was tripped. I was mind tripped because from this end, all I see is number of downloads and maybe people commenting on Spotify, people commenting on YouTube. So it's nice to see me showing, showing up another plat. I mean, there's no way I can track that Some of you are sharing it in your groups. So for those of you who do, I appreciate the love and please keep doing that so we can reach more people. But bottom line, what I'm saying is you have to create quality content if you're in the, if you're starting any business and you want to use social selling.

So if you're in the heart of fascinator business. Now, one thing I want to point out, especially since I have my background was in events and I used to handle photography and video. When a lot of people hear quality content, what they think about is equipment. They think about light, they think about backdrop, they think about camera that cost like 2.5 M, you know, all that sort of thing. That's what they think about when they think quality or production value.

Now I'm here to tell you that that is not that's not the only thing to think about when it comes to equipment, sorry, when it comes to creating quality content. So, so long as you pay attention to the scripting or the messaging, what am I trying to say? What am I trying to say to what is the best way to say it? If you pay attention to scripting ahead of time, you pay attention to some simple lighting and contrast. You know, like if you're going to create a video of you wearing a fascinator, but you're standing in a dark corner of the room this problem, but at least you sit or stand facing the window so that the window light is beaming in on your face.

You know, that's a good thing. So pay attention to lighting in that sense. It doesn't have to be fancy. Good lighting is going to give you a background. Sorry, contrast. You make sure that the background is clean. Don't, don't want to record when the children's bathroom towel is hanging, you know, at the back, you know, just look for nice clean background and then focus more on composition and styling. So composition basically just means how do you put yourself in the frame?

So for those of you who sell hats and fascinators, when you open up your phone and you do that reverse screen thing and you want to start making a video of yourself of your head wearing the hat, you can turn on something on the phone. It's called a grid. Now what that will do is it's going to put some, it's going to put 1234, it's going to put 4 lines across the screen. 2 lines are going to come from the top to the bottom and then two other lines are going to go from the left to the right at the same distance.

So what I will do is it's going to break up your screen into that's how many now that's nine. It's going to break up the screen into 9 segments. Now the safest way to do this thing is to carry your face and put it in that middle square. Let me repeat what I said. When you put on turn grid on your phone, it is going to now draw, it's going to draw 2 lines from top to bottom, 2 lines from left to right. That will now divide your screen into 9 equal parts to be safe.

And the most traditional thing is to actually put your face, your smiling face, that's your eyes, your nose, your mouth. That part must fit inside the middle square. So those are just some of these basic things I'm talking about. So if it's well lit, you're in front of a window, you're receiving good lighting, your face is in the middle of that thing, then you know there's enough for people to see your facial expression.

People can see the clean background people, there's enough room for people to see the fascinator on your head. You've paid attention to descripting or what it is that you're going to say or the story. So that should help with time. You can buy the million naira lights, the 4 million naira camera, and you know all of that with time. But for now, you do not need to start that way. Then what else? OK, Make sure you engage and build relationships online.

Whenever people respond, whenever people make a comment, please respond quickly whenever they make comments or whenever they make mentions, which is what I do on the podcast. I try to make sure that I respond to everybody that same day. If you have made a comment on my YouTube channel or you've made a comment on my Spotify, you can be a testimony to the fact that I respond to everyone that same day. It's easy for now because I'm not getting dozens of comments every day.

I'm at the stage where I'm getting, yeah, you know, maybe if it's a busy day, maybe I'll receive 3 comments in a day if it's busy, so I can still respond to people. But then when the podcast blows up and I have millions of Nigerians listening, you know, maybe that might be an issue. But for now, I'm responding to people every day and it is part of social selling, it is part of building rapport, it is part of building trust.

And that's the reason why some of you feel like you know me, apart from the fact that you're listening to what I'm saying right now. You make a comment, I respond that day. We won't ping two or three times. For some people, we even now end up hopping on the phone call. You feel as if there's there's some known I can trust there. You feel like you know me. That is what makes it easier for us to swing into a sales conversation and I can start coming up with proposals about how I can help your business.

Then for social selling, let's see what else. OK, I have collaborations. Yeah. So you have to collaborate as well. If you're in the heart and fascinator business, you have to look for other fashion bloggers, fashion stylists, event planners. They have to collaborate with and put out useful content. Now, there's one skill, I must admit I am very, very bad at this, but it's something you should do. And that is called social listening.

Social listening is when you're looking at social media and you're just trying to see what's going on. You know what's out there. You'll be looking at industry trends, maybe even check your company name, see how they're mentioning your competition. They're just trying to figure out like what's going on in the industry. That gives you a sense about, you know, where to move, whether to move here, whether to move there, whether to be designing like this or to be designing like that.

As if you're doing social listening, social listening. Just open the app and then you begin the look or lurk. As people say these days, lurking is when you're looking but you're not commenting. So you begin the look or you begin the lurk and you're just checking what are people saying about me? What are people saying about the competition? What are people saying about fascinators in general? What are people saying about this design?

That design or talking marking one war fascinator. What are people saying? Are they praising it? I'll be there blasting her. This person war fascinator, this person wore hard. You know, you just look and look and look like this lady Iniedo. Oh, by the way, I heard that Iniedo has done a has done bum bum job and she has done boob job and she has done lip job. That's why I heard though, but I haven't seen it anyway. So for those of you who follow that kind of thing, you know,

let me know if that's true. So I had that in your dose. Popsy died down and I saw some photos and man, those people really wanted to like take over your because sorry if you're from your sorry, forgive me. My eye says I'm pronouncing the town name wrong. Forgive me, I'll learn the real pronunciation. So going to shut down your now and come and see designs like Tokyo Mackinwell showed up in a private jet. So some people are wearing fascinator or some people are wearing Gilly.

Some people are wearing different things. So you know, this is all part of social listening if you're in the business now. So in the Edo's father's burial, you will not be looking. You will not be checking now. Oh, see the comments, or people commenting on her corset, or people commenting on the fascinator, or commenting on the Gilly. So looking at these things, you just, they listen once in a while, just they lurk. You'll now be getting idea, now be getting inspiration.

You now see what's up, you know what's popping, what's hot, what's not. You know, these things also inspire you where to move the business and what kind of designs to do later on. So that's social listening And that's one thing I don't do. I don't do social listening because for me I can say and let me just come, let me just look Instagram small. Before you know it, three hours are passed and I'm on Instagram real. What did I do with my life?

Nothing so that's one reason why I deleted all those apps so social listening I don't do but please, you should do it. Just exercise some self-control. So you you will say that let me just do TikTok small and then you open TikTok at 630. Before you know it, you you look up you said that time is now 1130. You wasted the whole day bath. You never bath chop, you never drop and you've, you know, ignore the whole host of things you should be doing.

So OK, I've said a lot. So let me just try and round it up now. The bottom line is what all these things that I've been saying, what is the whole point of all these things? We're just trying to use social media to show our expertise. People who see your, your hats online, who's your fascinators online, who see your profile, they should see that this babe, Bolu, I remember your name correctly. So Balu wants to start the heart and fascinator business.

When people see you on Instagram, they should know that this very babe, as in this babe, she's the very babe. She's like, she's the bomb that when you when you want to spell fascinator, you spell fascinator. BOLU. The ones you see Balu, you see fascinator. That's what you're trying to show. Then also try and take advantage of shuffle posts. Now, I must confess, especially since I have left to talk that look, this is something that's passed me by, but apparently there's something called the shoppable post.

You're able to do something to your post so that people can click directly and then go to your shopping store and then buy. So Balu, if that's the case, I better go and do some research so they can say you can hook up your TikTok handle so that people are browsing your TikTok and they see some that they like, they can click and then from there, you know, direct, they can now buy your stuff. I hear that shoppable posts are also available to some people in Instagram.

Abby, I mean, it depends on the country. But anyway, don't take this thing as gospel truth. Just go and do your own research. Then what we're supposed to be doing, in case I haven't figured out, when it comes to social selling, is essentially we're just doing social activity online and we're trying to do paparazzi online. That's the whole point of social selling. Do social activity, do paparazzi. You are not trying to close any sales yet, but then you might be asking if I'm only going to be doing social activity all the time and then it's paparazzi every day, how will I make money?

It's very simple. What you do is as you're having conversation with people, because there's some people that will say, oh, I like this, I like that. Oh, I like this. This was good. When you style this person, this was that, you know, all those conversations, you know, use what we call trial closes in sales. Trial close is anything you do or anything you say that tries to gauge, is this person interested? Is there any sense of urgency?

Urgency just means, you know, time bound. Is there any reason why they need to make a decision today? Is there any possibility here? Is it possible that this person might end up becoming a client? So that's what a trial closes. Anything that you say, anything that you do, anything that you hint at that tries to gauge interest, tries to gauge urgency and tries to gauge plausibility. Now your trial closes have to be questions and conversational because that's just what average human beings do.

So open-ended questions, who, what, why, when. So as you're interacting with people online, as they're commenting on your posts and things like that, you should be asking, you know, asking some kind of simple questions. And you can use these questions to transition into sales or initiate sales conversations. And that is how you take things offline as we ask a question like how does this blah, blah, blah sound to you? So I'm not a fascinator person,

but you know, fascinators will have different kinds of features, for instance, like those ones that I make with a Peacock hat. So let's say you've been somebody has been commenting on a hat that was made with, OK, OK, let's say Guinea fowl feathers. I don't know if you can make a first fascinator with Guinea fowl feather, but let me just pretend that you can. So after a while you ask the person, So how does this sound to you?

Are you leaning more towards Guinea fowl feathers or Peacock feathers for fascinators that you would like to use? See, that's like a trial close question you're trying to gauge. Is this person really interested? Is there a sense of urgency? Is it possible that this person might be a customer? It is when you start chatting like that in the comments section that is easy to say, oh, let's slide into DM and they can now close in the DM, another trial close.

Can you see how this will fit your blah blah, blah, blah blah? Let's say you've been chatting back and forth. The lady mentioned that sister is getting married. Can you see how this thing will fit in your sister's bridal train? That is a trial close you're trying to gauge. Is this person interested? Is there any sense of urgency? You know, things like that. How does this measure up to what you're looking for or how does this measure up to your sense of style or how does this measure up to your, you know, blah,

blah, blah? That is also a trial question. Do you have any questions about XYZ? Do you have any questions about our leopard skin fascinators? Do you have any questions about, you know, blah, blah, blah? Sorry, forgive me. I do not make fascinators, so this is just me making stuff up. Those of you who are in the business, you will know how to use the proper thing accordingly and then you can also ask how do you feel about price, how do you feel about delivery options, you know, stuff like that.

So all those questions, depending on the answer you get will determine whether you are ready to move to a selling situation with this person or not. For those of you who keep thinking that if you sit behind a keyboard your life will be simpler, have you noticed the amount of work that you will have to do? If you have not noticed, rewind to the beginning of this episode and start listening again. Have you noticed the amount of work that is involved in social selling?

That you'll be showing up everyday online and be doing social activity and be doing paparazzi, but yet you're not trying to close business because it's too tacky? Have you noticed the level of work that is involved for this level of work? Please. And because of the dynamics online, do not expect short term results. Do not assume that you open your handle in January and then in March, you know you're already counting your millions.

It does not work that way. There are some industries, I'll be there, some products where that works like human hair and you know, stuff like that. Because to be honest, people are looking for human hair on Instagram. Then a different mind frame. Maybe 8% of the time they're just looking at designs. But, you know, eventually shy, something happens. Small money comes in at work or maybe, you know, something shy clicks. Or, you know, my birthday is coming.

Let me just treat myself. Let me just buy one week, you know. So yes, in those kinds of things, like baby diapers and like human hair, Yeah. You can start in January and by March you can expect to be counting some. So good morning. But for other people, do not expect short term results. Now, this is the reason why I personally recommend old school prospecting because I think it's easier and it's quicker because Balu, if you are paying attention to the first episode where I was recommending much more traditional things like going to church, talking to some of your babes, going to the office, talking to some of your babes, like, oh, this fascinating thing we've been talking.

Why don't start to have started the business, You know, support your girl now from all those conversations. You can start talking to somebody January 1st and then by January 15, January 16, the place like two or three others. It's possible. That is good for momentum and that is good for motivation that you started talking to people January 1st and then by January 21, some people have transferred money to your account.

It feels good. You feel like I'm making some, I'm doing something, you know, you feel like you're on the right path, like you're going somewhere. You'll be feeling confident. You'll be feeling like you know, what if this thing continues in like 3 months, I can quit my job. Like I say bye bye to that my useless manager. But then if you're sleeping on Internet doing social selling, I mean the time will come, but it's medium to long term.

Don't expect any short term results. And please if you must do social selling, do not resist the urge to to try and close people here and now. The goal of social selling is to show your expertise online. Be doing social activity, be doing paparazzi, show that you are the expert. Be engaging in small small conversations. Use trial close to figure out who is interested. From trial close you will now slide to DM and that is where you try and close the deal.

But building trust online, building know like and trust online. Unfortunately my brothers and sisters, it actually takes time. So don't think you will do social selling January and then by March or April you are now counting good money. It doesn't work that way for most people. It doesn't if you're selling baby diapers, you know, yes, it works because I mean, who doesn't need for parents who have newborn kids, who doesn't need the diapers?

I mean, they do. And like I said, for human hair and maybe Ankara people will lurk 80% of the time, but then eventually they get ready to pull the plug because they have some extra money, like the Ankara thing. OK, I haven't bought Ankara in years. But the last time I bought Ankara from this lady online, she's based in Lagos. One fabric, I think like 6 yards was, I think it was like 3-5 or so. I mean, some of you will be laughing now, you know, you know, that I haven't bought Ankara in a long while.

So yeah. So it's like that now, yeah, we're looking at designs, looking at designs and eventually some money comes through and your wife is like, instead of looking at just buy now. So OK, which, which one do you want? This, that, that, that, that, how much is it? 35.1? OK, call the babe. Let's negotiate, transfer the money, pick up the delivery. You know, anyway, so summary, that's just it. That is what social selling is.

And I probably am not going to talk about social selling much because I'm trying to get you guys to engage with people, shop, shop really, as in life, direct talk to someone, pick up the phone as quickly as possible. That's the reason why I don't talk so much about all this social selling stuff. So thank you very much for your time and attention. If you have any questions to ask or any contributions or you want to have a strategy session or a business audit, the number to reach me on is 08064662140.

Again, 0806466 2140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, that's my WhatsApp number. And please do not call me at, you know, ten, 11:30 at night like that one guy did you know? Well, at the very least send a message first before you start trying to call me at after 10 at night. It's just common sense and it's just being polite, particularly in the Nigerian context. You don't just hit up people late at night like that.

So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys in the next episode.