Mastering the Art of Complex Enterprise Sales in Nigeria

Hello and welcome to the show. Sorry I've been out of Commission for a while, but I'm back. And so let's get right back into business. Now. I've come across some of my old notes, a bunch of questions that I should have tackled on Thursday last week. So I think we'll just, I think we'll just get straight into that and tackle that for today. And So what I should have done with you guys on Thursday would have been to look at strategies that you can use to win enterprise deals.

And of course, this ties into the whole thing that we've been talking about from the episodes prior. You know what we're talking about high value opportunities, targeting high value clients, you know, blah, blah, blah, these sorts of things. Because enterprise deals are the sorts of things that should be considered high value by most people, especially if you're coming from a more artistic side of the market. You know, sort of like if you've been a wedding photographer like me before and you're now trying to sell business to business enterprise, then that seems much more high value.

So if you were a fashion entrepreneur before and you're now trying to do enterprise deals, you know, that would seem to be much more high value. So, so excuse me, the, you know, that my throat infection and everything, it's still not over yet, but I'm getting much better anyway. So yeah, so depending on where you're coming from, once you enter into the enterprise space, it definitely is something that looks like a much more high value opportunity or how much more high value target.

So hopefully today we should be able to look at, well, define a couple of terms because we're talking about strategies that you can use to win complex enterprise deals. So for those of you who are listening to the show for the first time, there are a few times here that might be unfamiliar. So one of them will be complex deals. So let's go ahead and try and define what a complex deal is. Let's see what else. OK, enterprise.

OK, Yeah, Also to define what an enterprise deal is. Although for those of you who are listening to the show for a long period of time, any length of time, you'll already know what a complex deal is. But I doubt that I have explained or tried to explain what an enterprise deal is. So we'll run through that in today's episode. Then let's see what else. OK, Hopefully we should also be able to look at some strategies that we can look at for winning those sorts of deals.

Well, which is the whole point of the episode anyway. Before I do that, let's look at the geek list. And so currently, OK, well, not currently because this is old. This is from Thursday of last week. So in between then and now, I've been listening to a whole bunch of stuff on Spotify. I'm not going to do the Netflix part because I figured that you and me, especially if you're a Netflix watcher, when I say you have me, I mean those of you are listening to the podcast right now, especially those of you in Nigeria, I suspect that we're probably listening to maybe 50%,

sorry, watching maybe 50% of the of the same stuff. You know, you take up your, your phone, you open up Netflix and it says top ten in Nigeria. You know, you run through #1 to #10 you like two or three, you watch it. So I suspect there's some overlap there. So there's probably no need for me to go on the whole Netflix thing. But when it comes to Spotify on the other hand, and the music taste, my wife says I'm a nerd, but I'd like to say I'm a man of refined taste.

And so I think it would behoove of me to share my refined goodness with you guys so that you can expand your musical palette. You know, not every time listening to, you know, Niger Afrobeats and my piano and all that stuff. There's more good stuff out there in the musical world. So just as we are expanding our pockets and making sure that we make more money, let's expand our musical palette as well. You know, 'cause after all, we refined and sophisticated folk,

You can tell how refined we are by the kind of music that we listen to. So. OK, so on Spotify, Yeah. So last week was listening to Sarah close and that's more acoustic kind of music. And because of my background, me liking guitar, usually when I say acoustic, you know, I mean guitar. So when I discover an acoustic artist and it turns out to be piano, I now remember that. Oh, OK, that well, yes, you know, acoustic is also piano as well.

And acoustic is just basically, OK, let me now go ahead and define, define that because it's not a music podcast, but that's some good acoustic music. So listen to that. If you've listened to stuff in the past like Vanessa Carlton, this really popular song that she did back when some of us were in uni 1000 miles. So if Vanessa Carlton is your thing, so excuse me, then you might like so our clothes then also listen to some Carlos Santana and that is some lovely.

That is some correct, like Latin rock, some fusion, Carlos Santana, 1960s virtuoso guitarist, electric music. It's psychedelia. So for those of you boys and girls who like this spliff, you know, you like to get high. This is something that you can, you know, hook up your shisha and just relax to or or you know, take your grinder, mix it into your weed, you know, everything and just light it up and feel array. So this is that that kind of music.

By the way, I'm not recommending that any of you guys should engage in psychedelia. I do not do that kind of stuff. I'm just trying to say that if that is how you like to get down, you know, on a Friday night, you know, your boys get together and you lace up, then this is the kind of stuff that traditionally, you know, people lace up to. So if you never heard of Carlos Santana before, you know, and Popsy is still alive, you know,

talk to Popsy. If Popsy is A, and I put it like a get down kind of guy, like we used to enjoy himself back in the day. I assure you that Popsy has heard of Carlos Santana before and probably has heard of Jimi Hendrix and you know, all this kind of stuff. So Pops, you know, how far speaking to Nigerians by the way, then let's see what else. OK, Then also discovered this new band called Saliva. Interesting name. It's more rock, it's more rap,

heavy metal, that sort of thing. So it's not for everybody, don't listen to it in the house, especially if you have a popsy or mumsy or a spouse or a partner who's going to say, look, don't listen to angry music in this house, that sort of thing. So that's what's been on the playlist. And let's head straight into back into the question for today, which is strategies that you can use to win complex enterprise deals. So First off, let's define complex deals for those of you who are brand new to the show.

A complex deal or a complex sale scenario is just when we're in that kind of situation where, well, first of all is business, because we're going to talk about business here on this podcast when we're talking about something that has a complex subject matter, because some subject matters are simpler than others. And so the perennial example I give over here on the podcast is when I talk about buying a Gucci or when I talk about buying a car or buying a house.

So you see that the level of complexity rises with a Gucci is very simple. Your wife says go to the market, go and get me a Gucci. You go to the market and you know what the Gucci looks like. You're either buying one or two cups or one Moodle. If The thing is nice and white and nice and you know that color, if it's whitish, you know, to the yellow whatever, you know it's good. Everything is kind of clumpy and blackish, greyish, almost bluish.

You know that it's bad. So it's very, very simple. So subject matter is part of what goes into determining what the complex deal is. And of course it's relative. So it goosy simple. If you're buying the car, there's some complexity involved because a car is not a simple thing. I could go see if you're buying a house more complex. The last episode where we talk about, we use an example of buying accounting software. So let's say you work with, I

think the example I gave was an accountant general's office. So let's say you, your uncle works in accountant general's office and you want to talk to the DG and you think you can sell them some accounting software or some editing software or you know someone who is AGM. So excuse me or you know, someone who is AGM at Zenith Bank or something like that and you're trying to sell them new call tracking software or new accounting software or, you know, I don't know, call auditing software or account auditing software or whatever.

You can see that from a gussie to car to house to accounting software, you can see that the level of complexity is rising. So these are the sorts of things that go into determining what a complex deal is. Now you will notice that as the complexity rises, the number of parties that you have to talk to, the number of people you have to talk to, the number of decision makers that you have to talk to starts going up. So if you sell a Gucci, the only person that you're talking to is that poor old husband who has been sent to the market by his wife and the wife says, buy me a Gucci.

You're only talking to one person. But then if you don't like this a Gucci game, you decide to start selling cars. You will notice that even though you're talking to one person that is this husband that is in front of you, you will find out that husband might most likely want to talk to his wife or talk to his brother or talk to his best friend before he decides on which kind of car he has to buy. The complexity goes up, the number of parties goes up.

So if you're selling cars and you want to be wise, you realize that there's a way that you can bring Madame into the conversation early. You might as well do that. Or even if you don't bring Madame into the conversation, but you're at least trying to figure out what it is important to Madame, or when this guy is talking to his brother or his best friends or whatever the kind of issues that they are bringing up so that you can address that, you will find that your chances of closing the deal go up.

So as the complexity rises, the number of parties that you're talking to is also rising. And it's the same thing with the whole thing of let's say you know someone in Zenith Bank and you want to sell them. Call auditing software or account auditing software. It's not just going to be enough that your uncle is GM or your uncle was in the same class as the GM and is willing to give you an introduction. You have to be on good terms with GM.

Most likely you will have to be in touch with someone who is in the audit department. Most likely you have to know someone who is in the procurement department and what else? Maybe my also need to know branch manager. So you can see that as the complexity of the subject matter is arising, the number of parties that you have to talk to arises as well. And then cost is also related to the whole thing as well. So you find that the cost of a Gucci small, the cost of a car substantially bigger, the cost of a house even bigger, the cost of the auditing and the accounting software and all these other things we've been talking about even bigger and bigger and bigger.

So you see how the complexity is rising with the subject matter. Now, of course, since we've spoken about the number of parties that have to be there, the number of people you have to talk to, you see that relationships now really, really important. So when it comes to a Gucci, you don't have to build a relationship with that hapless husband. In fact, if the husband looks like he's an idiot, he's not taking, you know, he's wasting your time.

It's OK to say, look, Olga, you're spoiling my market. Can you please move so that somebody can open market for me? You know, it's it's it's legitimate for you to say that. And people do say that, although I won't say I would recommend that you don't necessarily have to be that abrupt or you don't have to be that necessarily abrupt with folks who you're trying to do business with. But in this case, relationships don't matter.

You know, you don't give a hoot. Your own is, look, are you buying a Gucci? Then come and buy. If you're buying, you better buy two or three cups. Or if you're buying, you better buy, you know, 3 or 4 models or whatever. But don't waste my time. But then on the other hand, if it's selling cars, you have to try and be, you know, more smooth, you know more, some more finesse involved. Try and get the guy's phone number.

You call him up once in a while. You can see that you're building relationships if it's a matter of a house. In fact, it's not just the guy's phone number, definitely you also have to collect Madam's phone number because there's no way your guy is buying a house or renting a house that Madam won't come and see it or side ship won't come and see it or whoever. So you best believe you better collect those two phone numbers.

And then to the thing we've been talking about with selling software to Account Insurance office or to Zenith Bank or whatever, you better have all those people's phone numbers, e-mail addresses, excuse me, once in a while, drop by the office branch and just ah, Madam GM, how far now? Like I was around. I just seem, I agree to you, you know, that kind of thing. So relationship building becomes even much more important when we're dealing with complex deals.

And another thing is complex deals have very long sale cycles. So you can sell a goosy in 2 minutes to sell a car, which is more complex, I don't know, maybe one month to sell a house. I don't know. Let me guess, because I'm not in the real estate space, maybe to sell the house itself, maybe six months or one year. When it comes to the accounting software, maybe might be the same, you know, six months, one year. I have no idea because that's not my space.

But The thing is, I'm hoping that this is enabled, this is, you know, these criteria that we're looking at should give you guys a fair example of what it is that makes a complex deal. And this is what makes it complex because the subject matter itself is complex. When I say complex, it means not simple. You can't reduce it to one thing. AGOC can be reduced to one thing. It's a commodity. Is it fresh or is it not fresh,

doesn't look good or does not look good. You can reduce it to one thing. For a car, the number of things you can reduce it to now are going up. That is what makes it complex. It's not just a matter of is it a car? The question of is it secondhand or not? Is it accidental or not? What model is it or not? What make is it? Let's see what else is it suitable for family. If you're buying the car as a status symbol, you know, on and on the number of things that you have to juggle, keep on going up and up and up and up.

So these are the kind of criteria that you look at that determines whether you have a complex deal. Now, the second part of the equation, because we're talking about strategies that you can use to win complex enterprise deals. So next is we have to look at what an enterprise deal is. Enterprise basically just means selling to big business or selling to major corporations, full stop. You will find much more technically robust definitions,

but for the purpose of this podcast, just know if you're selling to a big business, it's an enterprise deal. If you're selling to major corporations is an enterprise deal. So let's take this definition for now. So for those of us based in Abuja, for instance, in let me see, what business can I use? OK, Grand Square. Yeah, there's Grand Square in the central district district, Central business district, Abuja. So now ground Square is a, is a,

is like a mall, Abbey, it's like a mall and like a shop. So you get to Grand Square at the bottom, ground floor left, they sell ice cream on the ground floor right, they have smoothies and stuff. You enter inside, they sell groceries, tissue paper, fruits, what else? You go to the back, they have TV's, fridge, exercise equipment. You go upstairs, there's a restaurant, you know, blah, blah, blah. So it's a pretty big business.

Now, I know for those of you who are listening to this podcast in the West, you know, you UK folks and Americans listening to the podcast, you probably will say, look, this is not, that's not really enterprise. And yes, in a technical sense, I'll agree with you. But I'm just speaking relative now to my Nigerian brothers and sisters that in this context you could say that is an enterprise deal because it is a big business.

It's not quite a corporation, but it is a big business. So if you sell solar panels and you're trying to get them to buy solar panels, inverter batteries, you know, stuff like that, you know, in a sense we could say that's an enterprise deal. So I know that you Americans listen to the podcast and say, I beg, that's not an enterprise deal. But please just allow me to speak to my brothers and sisters here. So in our own context, at least for those of us who, you know,

you're starting out, you know, you started off as self-employed, you know, but now you have four or five people working for you, you have some staff, you're trying to move, move up, you know, so before maybe you're selling solar panels to mumsy and popsy people in the neighbourhood, people in the estate, you now want to go small, you want to blow small. You can consider this sort of thing as an enterprise deal. So if you're selling to big businesses or you're selling to major corporations, then that is enterprise deal.

The example that I gave of you trying to sell accounting software to Zenith Bank, that is definitely enterprise deal because now is a major corporation. So somewhere between Grand Square and Zenith Bank, you know, and beyond those sorts of things, that would be enterprise deals. So other examples of enterprise deals that we Nigerians can relate to is like infrastructure stuff, like all these people who do business with Napa, that is definitely an enterprise deal because we're talking about power here.

We're talking about power grids, plenty of cable, plenty of kilowatts, plenty of this, plenty of that. We're talking billions and billions and billions. And of course, if you're doing business with Napa, it's not just one office you're liaising with, it's probably going to be a bunch of other offices. You also have to talk to people in the, in the, what's it called transmission company, you know, all this, all this kind of jazz.

So for those of you who are not Nigerians, NEPA is the, OK, it's not really NEPA anymore. Now they call it the PHC and that's the power holding Company of Nigeria. That'll be the power holding corporation of Nigeria. But basically they're the, they're the ones who own the power infrastructure, who make sure that we get power, make sure we get electricity to our homes and our businesses. So if you're in that space, you know, definitely you guys are in the you guys are definitely doing enterprise deals.

And yes, those people do exist. I was at home once for a friend of mine. I went to pay a condolence visit and then some people showed up and turns out that they worked with the transmissions company, transmission something company. I can't remember the people that own the power lines or manage the power lines. I'm according to really, really interesting conversations and was the beginning of me looking into that whole value chain.

So there are people who are doing it big and who are players in that space. You know, they're around us. You know, they go to the same church as us, they go to the same market as us. You just don't know that this engineer that you see, just you just see him, you're greeting him like a engineer only how far you don't know that he actually is doing enterprise deals. So those also exist then. Now let's see what else, OK,

telecoms, that is also enterprise deals. Because if you're going to try and let's say your uncle is a Minister of Finance or your aunt is a Minister of Finance and you want to hook up them with routers for Internet or something like that. And you want to get the contract for the whole, for the whole complex because the Ministry of Finance complex is, is big in Abuja, then that's definitely an enterprise deal. So you can see that we're talking complex, complex, big,

big, big. And the naira is plenty, zeros are plenty, plenty, plenty. So those are enterprise deals? So now let's go straight since we've done 20 minutes defining, let's now get to the Coco of the the the question, the strategies to win the complex deal. Now, if you've been listening to the podcast episodes where we spoke about getting high value clients, targeting high value clients, then this will come as no surprise.

But it is your first time listening to the show then yeah, still listen on. But still, once you're done, then go back and listen to the episodes about high value clients, high value opportunities, things like that. So excuse me. So the strategy for winning over complex deals is quite simple. You have to come into this with a mind frame that you're going to do some consultative selling. That's the whole thing. When I say pretend that you are a doctor and don't pretend like you are selling groundnuts because if you're selling groundnuts, it's about the pitch.

Like Orga, this is my groundnut is fresh. We made it today. Do you like it? Goodbye. Well, we're coming as consultative, coming as a doctor. A doctor tries to understand people's needs. Where is he paying you? Where is he not paying you? You have to ask all these questions because organizations have pains as well. So if you're selling this thing, if you're selling solar panels to Ground Square or if you're selling account auditing software to Zenith Banking, so you understand what's going on,

you need to understand ground squares power requirements. How many times does Napa take light? How many times do you have to own Gen. When you own Gen. how many hundreds of 1000 naira of diesel are you spending? Because there are some businesses that actually don't mind spending the hundreds of thousands of naira every week. I mean, it's all it's all relative. So I mean, for someone like me, even if I'm spending, OK, I

don't have a Gen. and I've never owned a Gen. so I don't even know the economics of that. But let me just assume that I had a Gen. If I had a Gen. and I was spending 100,000 naira in fuel every week, that one will pay me. I would like that would really, really be painful. And it might be a significant factor in deciding whether I buy a solar panel or not and an investor system. So you need to figure out these big enterprises, these big businesses, these corporations,

what are their pain points or what are their visions? What are they trying to move towards? So in consultative settings, we're trying to understand the buyer's needs or their pin points or their vision. So that can involve doing some research. You can hop online and try and find out. What are the biggest concerns that bank MD's have to worry about these days? Before you try and hook up a meeting with the MD or with a branch manager or whoever to start discussing, you need to get a sense of what their priorities are.

Let's see what else talking to stakeholders might also be a good way of understanding the buyer. So like in the case, let's say where your uncle went to the same or your auntie was the classmates of the branch MD you know of, of, of the Zenith Bank branch on your street or something. You know, having a conversation with your uncle about what possible priorities the bank branch might be having or even getting a sense from your uncle or your auntie, like how you might brought this conversation,

you know, that is so excuse me? That's also a way of you doing research. You try and understand the buyer. So when you're doing consultative selling, understanding the buyer is number one priority. Now, the reason why it is your number one priority is because if you do not understand the buyer, your sales pitch is going to be ineffective and it's not going to be tailored. It's not going to be relevant because there are times that people come and make a sales pitch and the sales pitch falls flat because you can tailor it to the person.

So for those of you who've been listening for a while, I remember the story of the time when I wanted to buy trousers. I just wanted trousers that don't split down the middle because I'm a big guy. Every single thing I wear, the thing splits down the middle is is basic and I'm just tired of that. So I like to wear nice baggy trousers so that I'm I'm free and The thing is not going to split. But wifey says that when I wear that, that I'm dressed like a Ghanaian school teacher.

That is not attractive. It's not flattering. It's not this, that, that. So she wants me to wear things that a bit more snug. Quite frankly, I think all the things she wants me to wear are tight. But then she says tight. What do you mean you have no sense of style? What was I? Yeah. So I was talking about sales pitch being relevant. So there's a time when I wanted to buy the trousers and for me buying, OK, I won't say how much your trousers cost.

I don't want you to guys to think I'm too expensive. And then for those of you who are into fashion, I don't want to call the amount. And you now see that look, this guy is too cheap that you should have just bought the damn thing. We ended up buying it anyway. So for me, my main concern was, look, this thing seems expensive and will these things split down the middle? Well, the guy kept on going on about how this is the later something it is Wrangler, it is this is this is UK is blah,

blah, blah. Now for my wife, who knows what's up and I believe that she knows what's up because I've seen the difference whenever she buys stuff for the cheese and she says, look, this is a good brand. This is a good brand. I've seen the difference. If she says it's a good brand, you buy it. We use it for like 2-3 years, hand down to the next child. And then even after that, sometimes mom sees like these things are still good.

We can take them and give them to people back home in the villa and things like that. And so I've seen that, Oh yes, there's a difference between some brands and some brands. So if you're talking to someone like my wife, then yes, trying to say something like this is Wrangler, this is UK, this is Canada, this is whatever, this is France, this is Bangladesh, whatever, you'll be communicating something. But a guy like me who's just thinking, look, I want this thing in a big size.

I don't want you to cling to my body and I don't want this thing to split down the middle. If you're talking, this is the latest, this is the greatest, this is what young men are wearing nowadays. That kind of pitch is irrelevant to me. So you make sure that your pitch is relevant to the person that you're talking to. When you understand the person, understand their needs, understand what problem it is they're trying to solve.

That way you can speak to their own terms so that if you're standing in front of a guy like me who has the fashion sense of a Ghanaian school teacher, you'll be able to say that look, boss, we have this thing in size 16, size 18. So size you're covered. Look at, check the inside. Look at this thing while I got here, pull it. Can you see this thing here? We call this thing reinforced stitching. It's double stitching. Because of this double stitching, this thing will not tear even if you do splits.

There's no how this thing won't tear. I give you guarantee if you take this thing now and this thing tears in less than three months, come back here, I'll give you your money back. You know, So you see that that's kind of a sales pitch that should work with someone like me who has the fashion sense of a getting young school teacher, then someone else who now has refined sense of good garments, like what is good quality, you know, stuff like that.

So if you're talking to my wife, I'm talking to my mother, then you cannot be saying things like, oh, this one is Wrangler or this one is Mamas and Papas or this one is Calvin Klein or this one is Bangladesh. And Bangladesh quality is better than China quality and all those sorts of things. So we need to make sure that our pitch is effective, need to make sure that it's tailored. And that is how we are going to do it is only when we understand the buyer.

So that when you're face to face now with the Bank MD, the pitch that you're going to make for the software that you're selling or for your solar panels is going to be you talk about it in terms of what they are concerned, what they are concerned about. Because if Bank MD, his own concern is, look, we need solar panels in this place because we're wasting too much money on diesel. But then you go down, you start talking about sustainability and ESG goals and stuff like that,

you just won't be making sense. So you speak to people in terms of what it is that they need to, what they need to hear. And you only do that by understanding what the bad needs are by talking to people, talking to stakeholders. Excuse me doing some research then part of your strategy has to involve building relationships and rapport because there's no how you're going to close this deal if you're only talking to one person.

If your uncle and your, your uncle or your auntie and the branch MD were best friends or you know, whatever, it's not a guarantee that you're going to get that deal. You need to be talking to more people within the organization depending on what it is that you're you're selling. So the example that I gave earlier, if I remember correctly, I think I said okay, if he's auditing software, okay, there's one person I left out it.

So you also should be speaking to you speaking to the MD and you also should be speaking to branch manager. Apart from branch manager, you also need to be talking to facilities manager. Apart from facilities manager, it will help if you're talking to IT director or IT manager because after all, what you're selling is going to involve integration with their current accounting software, their current the software that current that software.

So you can see that you should be building relationship with all these other people and that's part of your strategy of making this deal move through. There will be some situations that if you have access to the Orgac Patapata that will close the deal. So like if you go to is it North Korea? So if you talk to, if you go to North Korea now, for instance, and you're, you're in touch with the organ himself, chairman of the party and on, it's a different deal because chairman can say, shut up, who are you?

I have decided this is all we're buying. Go ahead and implement. So if you can hook up with chairman in that kind of situation, then it's a done deal. But outside of those sorts of situations where you have a, what would I say? Now you have a, what's that word, tyrant sort of situations where you have tyrants running the organization. You have to build relationship with some people here and there. If you still don't believe me,

remember the episode where I talk about how I was trying to do some business. We're going to provide media coverage, event and media coverage for one of the oil and gas firms that has a headquarter here in Abuja. And the person that destroyed my deal was a secretary, as in a common secretary. I'll talk about that again in a future episode. But for those of you who've been listening for years, I mean, you already know that story about how a secretary was one that was standing in between me and my ability to pay my children's school fees.

So, yeah, relationship building really, really important. When you come, when we start talking about these sorts of deals where the money is big and the zeros are plenty, then you also need to have a compelling value proposition. Basically, what that just means is you need to have a strong reason for why people do business with you or the value that you're bringing to the table when we are talking about enterprise deals.

Now you have to be able to quantify your benefits, saying this is the latest, the greatest, the best is not enough. What if you say, look, Olga, you install this solar panel, we're going to be able to provide you with 20 kilowatts of power every day, 20 kilowatts of power at current Nepal, whatever means we will be saving you 50,000 naira per day. You can see that that's a different thing. You're now having a conversation with the chairman saying that look, you installed this, I'll be saving you 50,000 naira per day, so 50,000 naira per day.

The guy can do the quick math. That 50,000 naira per day, The branch is open five days a week. That's 250,000 naira a week. That means that at the end of each month we'll be saving one M, and if we're saving one MA month, then we should be saving 12 M every year. You see that that's something that the guy can do the math sharp, sharp in his head. And that is how you should be having these conversations. What is the value proposition?

Go straight to it and try and quantify it. So saying this is the latest, this is the best, this is the that might not, might not really help. Then of course, try and work with the with the sense of urgency that the organization has. That's my own recommendation. So this whole thing of saying buy 2, get one free and by now before January 15th to get 20% off, I really don't think we should be playing all those kind of games when it comes to the enterprise deal.

We should look for the the the urgency that already applies there. Then another part of the strategy involves the kind of tech that we're supposed to use to pursue this kind of deals. So when you're trying to pursue this kind of opportunities, CRM is really, really important. CRM is just customer relationship management tool. So even if you can't afford ACRM or you don't know where any of the free tools are, you can use your phone to do that.

But basically the reason why we need ACRM tool is just for this whole thing about scheduling, because it is impossible, and I repeat, it is impossible to run this kind of deal from memory. If you're talking to MD, you're talking to head of procurement, you're talking to head of IT, you're talking to facilities manager, you're talking to five or six people within this company. If you're trying to run this thing from memory, you will forget that branch MD said do this or the facility manager said OK, come and see me Monday at 8 O clock.

You will forget. So you need something that's going to be pinging you from time to time to remind you to say that send branch MD this or you have a meeting with the facility manager at 8:00 AM or something like that. So you need something for scheduling, something for pinging, something to remind you and that is just what the CRM is. Well, CRM is more than that, but, and those are the functions that we're concerned about now.

So CRM, you need that tech just because of scheduling. You don't have CRM, no problem. You can do these things with your phones, the note taking, the scheduling, the notifications, the reminders, the scheduling, the everything because you cannot run enterprise deal from memory. So please do not try to do that. Then you also need patience. Patience is part of the well. Patience is not really a strategy, but you need patience because the sales cycle is going to be long.

You can't say you call branch chairman today and then you're going to close the deal next week. It doesn't work like that. So you need to be patient. So there's plenty of more that we can say about that, about these sorts of things, but we've gone over 30 minutes. Let me just bring it to a close. So this is the mindset or these are the strategies that you need to adopt. There's plenty that can be said, but these are the things that are good to consider for now.

And so that's all I'm going to say for now when it comes to strategies for winning complex enterprise deals. So I hope I've been able to convince you guys that you need a couple of things to make this work. You need to be consultative, you need ACRM, you need a bit of patience, and I hope you now understand what a complex deal is and what an enterprise deal is. If you're still having problems with that, hit me up. one-on-one.

Phone number is 08064662140. Country code is +234. If you call and I don't answer, send a text message, send a WhatsApp. You definitely will hear from me in a couple of hours. Also, hook up with me on LinkedIn. The name is Tavishima Ayede. I'm the host of the show. If you want to confirm the name, confirm the spelling of the name, just look at the link where you're listening to this episode. Highlight my name, copy it,

paste it. My handsome face will pop up and then yeah, accept and I'll accept. Sorry, you send me the connection request, I'll accept and then we can chat that way. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.