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Hello and welcome to the podcast. Today we're going to look at the sales perspective on OK, how will I put it? OK, there are a bunch of you who are trying to juggle 3456 lives at the same time. And so we are going to look at things from a sales perspective today to figure out why this is a bad idea. You know, for those of you who are trying to juggle 23456 things, you know, you want to be a painter and you want to be a musician and you want to be a bricklayer and you want to be a consultant and you want to be this and that and that and that.
So we're going to look at things from a sales perspective, why you should stop trying to do that and whether this is even possible. Now, the good thing about sales when you're trying to focus on growing your business, growing your sales is sales is very is very practical. So sales keeps us focused on revenue. And so because of that, we don't have time to fool about. We don't have time to fuss about. So we have to focus on activities and we have to focus on things that will actually move the needle, things that are actually going to get us revenue.
Oh, by the way, apologies for the noise in the background. I'm making today's recording out and about and as usual, I'm in the parking lot. So I figured, let me just make this podcast recording real quick and then I'll head off to my next engagement. Oh, by the way, my name is Tavishma Aidi. I'm a former lawyer turned business consultant, and I tried to solve business problems by looking at things from a sales and business development perspective.
So if you reach out and you have a problem, but it looks like your problem is an accounting problem, I will have to send you off to someone else because I'm not an accountant, I'm not a finance expert, I'm not a human resource expert. I only know sales, especially personal selling, so sales, business development, that's kind of like my thing. So if you like these sorts of issues, if you have these sorts of issues in your business or you know, intellectually you're just curious about these sorts of things, then subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, on YouTube,
Apple, any player of your choice. Also, if you'd love to connect with me, you can call, send me a text message or send me a WhatsApp message on 08064 662140 So you can reach out if you have any questions, you have any comments, you have any queries or you want us to collaborate on a project or two. So back to what we're trying to do today. So we're looking at things from a sales perspective on why you should stop trying to juggle 3456 things, 6 lives at the same time.
So a lot of you who are thinking about these things, sometimes you guys are looking at this thing from, you know, your true self, your authentic self, your best self, you know, all these fancy, really fuzzy, funny ideas. So you want to live your best self. You have 456 talents, you don't know which one to focus on, you know those sorts of things. But when we start looking at things from a sales perspective, sales and business development,
at the end of the day we're only concerned about revenue. So when you start looking at things from the angle of sales, you know, selling these ideas, building businesses around these ideas, you really have to start focusing down on which one is going to bring in revenue. Where can you get the most level of traction, the quickest level of traction, the greatest level of returns, you know, things like that. So that's the benefit of looking at things from a sales perspective because it helps to get you focused.
So all of the people who reach out and you know, you say I like, I love idea AI, am talented at idea B, and I feel like my true calling is idea C, You know, what should I do or how can I do all of them? So from a sales and business development perspective, the answer is always simple. The answer is always pick one. Now, the reason why you have to pick one is because you can't do it all yet. Let me repeat, if you love idea A, you're talented at idea B,
you feel like your true calling is you should be doing C with your life, what you should do is pick one because you can't do it all yet. Eventually you'll be able to. Do you know how many business ideas you want to do, especially those of you who are inspired by people like Dan Gote and you know others who have 3456 businesses. But the truth is you can't do it all yet. And this is the reason why number one is diluted effort,
because when you're looking at things from a sales perspective, when you're looking at things from a revenue perspective, when you're looking at things from a money perspective, there are a couple of things you have to do. You have to go out and prospect. Prospect is looking for people who might be interested in your product or service, talking to those people, trying to build relationships with those people. Ultimately, we're trying to get them to buy.
Then you also have to be pitching people, making proposals, making presentations, and then you also have to try and close one or two deals. Now The thing is, if your energy is split between 345 things, you cannot prospect effectively every single day. Let's be practical. I'm recording to this podcast on a Tuesday. So let's say you have 4 ideas that you're trying to pursue. OK, it's Tuesday morning, it's 9 O clock. Now, what are you going to do?
Are you going to prospect for one business idea from 8 to 10, Prospect another one from 11:50? Prospect another 1 from 12 to two? Another 1 from 2 to 4? Is that how you're going to organize your day? Let's be realistic. Are you that disciplined and can you live like that every single day? Look, it's hard, so it's best to just pick one thing and you know that. You know what? Today I'm going to go out all this week or you know, for the next quarter and what you try and validate this baking idea or what you try and validate this dancing idea or what you try and validate this content production idea or whatever it is that you're trying to do.
It's just you. You're just one person. You have diluted effort so you can prospect, you can pitch, and you can't close effectively. If you're trying to split yourself across three different industries, 3 different business ideas. Now another thing, your branding is going to be confused, especially things nowadays, you know, everybody's worried about branding. So if you're using LinkedIn for marketing or Instagram for marketing or Twitter for marketing, how are you going to anchor yourself in somebody's mind if you're posting all over the place?
Today you post about this, tomorrow you post about that, next tomorrow you post about that. How is somebody supposed to know that you are this guy and you are this girl so that if there's any problem, they reach out to you? So for me, the only thing I do is I talk about sales. That's all. Once in a while during the podcast, I might talk about relationship issues or some politics or something. But every single person who comes across my stuff, they know that all I do is talk about sales.
And so I get those questions where somebody's like, that was an idea. I beg you, do marketing and be I say, yeah, I do. And then we discuss maybe something I can help and I send them off to some to someone else. But The thing is, everybody who knows me knows that if it's kind of a sales and kind of a businessy, kind of a marketing thing, they know to call me first and to get my opinion. Now that would not be possible if on LinkedIn, on Monday I
write about sales and then on Tuesday I write about relationships and then on Thursday I write about religion and then on Friday I write about sex. And then on Saturday I write about astrology and then on Sunday, you know, I write about, I don't know, whatever. So don't confuse your branding. Don't confuse your positioning. Don't confuse how people store you in their minds. You should be able to put out your stuff, organize yourself and your activities such that people have a very convenient envelope that they can slot you into in their minds.
So that if somebody thinks architecture, they think of you. If somebody thinks of tailoring of fashion, they think of you. If somebody thinks of small shops, they think of you. So we need to be able to anchor ourselves in people's minds. And this is one of the reasons why you can't do 3456 things at the same time. Now, another reason why we can't do it all yet is because of a bandwidth problem. Bandwidth just means, you know,
the amount of time, the amount of tension, the amount of focus that you have. And the truth of matter is this. We don't have all the focus in the world and we don't have all the hours in the day to be able to scale 3456 different business ideas or different interests at the same time. Now, the reason why I'm talking about this today is because I spoke with a podcast listener recently. I mean, we already have this conversation, but I'm not going to share her identity.
I just want to share the benefits of this conversation over here with you guys so that some of you can benefit from it because I still get these sorts of questions. So this podcast listener is a caterer. That is her business. She does catering, but then in school she studied performing arts. But then it turns out that her lifelong goal is to be an aspiring screenwriter. I repeat, this lady is a caterer. She studied performing arts, but she's an aspiring screenwriter.
So you can see that I'm not just talking theory here. This, this, this is practical. This is live. This is someone in Niger. And I get it all the time. I get it all the time. So now let's use as an example catering, cooking, whatever it is you want to call it because after legal I was in events for a while, I was a wedding photographer. So I know this world and I can tell you that catering is one of the most time consuming jobs on earth.
Catering takes time. In the beginning you're the one who's cooking everything yourself. After a while you hire some people, some people to buy for you, some people to cook for you. Then you spend all your time supervising these people who are cooking because if you don't shook your idea, things will happen. Rice will start to disappear, meat will start to disappear, palm oil will start to disappear. So this is the kind of thing that you have to be on ground,
you have to be on site. If you try yourself and you stay there for one hour, go and sleep for three hours and then come back, it will shock you. You think that you will meet, it will shock you. So catering is time consuming. She has to be there. Now if you're going to be doing catering all the time, that is involved because you're doing it yourself or because you're supervising people and you're trying to make sure the quality is high and you're trying to minimize theft.
Because unfortunately, when it comes to catering, there is plenty of theft. Plenty. I'm saying it again, plenty of theft involved. So please don't try yourself. You want to be in the catering business. You go and buy 70 kilos of meat because they're catering for a wedding and then because you trust those people, you give them the 70 kilos of meat. You tell them that they should power boil it. After that they should roast it,
then they should grill it and then you say you want to go and have your bath quick. Then you will come back, try yourself 1 bath and come back. What you see it will surprise you and of course nobody will know where the meat has disappeared to and where was I? OK, so catering is really, really time consuming. So you can't be doing all this catering, whatever. And then on the side you're trying to break into the film industry.
How will you do that? If a wedding is Saturday, then cooking basically will be like Friday into Saturday morning. Now if cooking is Friday, that means like, you know, preparations and buying things that will be like Thursday, Wednesday. So I mean, like, can you do anything realistic trying to break into the film industry with just Monday and Tuesday? How will you do it? I understand that you guys are trying to live your best lives.
Well, by the time you sit and look at things from a very practical point of view, especially sales point of view, because sales now is all about that value, is all about that money. So you're trying to get revenue from this catering thing. You're also trying to see how you can, you know, cash some cheques from breaking into the film industry at the end of the day, how you push it. You can't sell all these things right now.
You can't. And that is why, unfortunately, you have to pick one. Now. What I've been telling lots of people who I come across and I've been talking about on the podcast is how the people who you love and respect, who are serially entrepreneurs, they didn't start everything at the same time. They did one first, validated the idea, achieved significant cash flows, scaled the business, and then they moved on to something else.
So Dangote, according to some Gist started off as a started off in haulage. So he had a bunch of we got some money from his rich uncle and he bought a bunch of trucks and started the haulage business. When haulage business was settled, then they started doing trading, trading cement from the Gist ahead. If any of you have read his autobiography, I beg let me know because I'm giving people fake gist. Let me know, you know, because it's nice if I've read the Danguted book.
It's just that I served in Kano and you know, Dangut is a bit of a legend in Kano. So people talk about him and his starting and stuff like that. And boy, you know, sometimes gist cannot be 100% correct. So from trading in cement later on open cement factories and you know, on and on and on and then spaghetti and then sugar. And then, you know, he tried the juice company. The juice company didn't work. Now he has the refinery.
The refinery seems to be doing OK and he's going to open a business port, a shipping port, zinc, Calabar also. But he didn't start off saying I'm going to do transport, then I'm going to do trading, then I'm going to do manufacturing, then I'm going to do petrol refining and I'm going to have a port. He did not decide to do all of those things at the same time who are step by step by step. Look at any of your favorite serial entrepreneurs.
That's how they did it. You cannot be a caterer and an actress and a screenwriter at the same time. Pick one. So because sales training, looking at things from a revenue, revenue perspective forces you to start thinking in these terms, which one can I build a business around? How quickly can I build a business around this? How quickly can I scale this? How quickly can I get traction around this idea? Because sales forces you to think in this kind of way.
This is the reason why I believe that sales training is for everyone. Everybody needs training in sales because at the end of the day, sales is not just about closing deals. It focuses you on what's really important and then it helps you It it also forces you to learn people skills because whether you're a caterer, whether you're an actress or whether you are a screenwriter, you're going to have to learn how to pursue your agenda while working well with other people.
Sales is also going to help you, is also going to force you to focus because when it comes to sales, we're always about that next step. Whether you're trying to build your business as a caterer or you're trying to blow as an actress, or you're trying to get into the screen writing game, we always have to be focused on the next step. Who is the next person I need to talk to? Who is the next meet? What is the next meeting that I
need to secure? Now that I've secured the meeting? What is the next step to move this relationship forward? So summary, we've already been here 15 minutes, then not take up too much of your time. What I'm just trying to say basically is if you want to be effective, stop juggling. And some of you are juggling too many things. Even this lady that she's not juggling too many thing. She picked the hardest things to come and juggle because trust me, you can't build a screen writing career or an acting career.
You can't do that overnight. It's not something you do in two weeks. So pick Elaine, build a momentum and get the results. So that's all for today. Sorry about the noise in the background. Some tractor is just driving through. In fact, it's a good idea. Maybe I should just wrap it up now. So thanks for listening. I'll catch you all some other time.