Pricing Power: Leveraging Quotes in Your Sales Process

Hello and welcome to the show today. I'm not an audio booth, so expect to hear some interruptions in the background. And today I figured I'd take a break from the the thing about closing high value deals and maybe instead we can talk about my proposal process. And that's because in the previous podcasts, I think I even mentioned it yesterday, I've been talking about how your proposal letter, your quotation, your whatever document it is that you submit should actually be the last stage of your sales process.

You shouldn't be the first. You should be more of a formality and you should try and get agreement in principle whenever you're talking to someone, you know, just use the conversations, get agreements and principles, you know, before you reduce everything to writing and then you submit the document. And the reason why I've been pushing that approach, not just on you guys listening to the podcast, but also a client I was working with yesterday, that was because I think in this part of the world, you know, because of how we're brought up in Niger,

you know, you go to primary school writing skills on points, learn how to write your essay on points. You know, your handwriting is correct, all the margins line up, everything, you know. So because of how we've been brought up in this part of the world, we expect that the proposal, the document, the PDF, the whatever is going to do the selling for us. And so we put a lot of time and effort into making sure that that thing is fire so that we close the deal.

And I'm just trying to get some of you to switch your mind frame a little bit. It's not as if there's a problem with how that thing works, but I mean with that process of making sure that the proposal is fire in itself so that people just see the PDF and they're like, wow, we have to hire this person. So that approach also works. But I think you should take the responsibility of selling yourself, your product and your service and let the document itself be, let it be supporting Striker.

You should not be the main thing. So today we're going to talk about my proposal process and I'm going to give an example of how I work it into practice to show you how I leave the document itself to the very last thing. And I tried to make it just a formality. I tried to close the deal in me having conversation with the other person, with the other stakeholders. I tried to make it a done deal so that by the time we get to the issue of proposal, I'm just sending this thing, you know,

just just for the level of OK, so I'll send it. So when are we starting that sort of thing? All right now, before we continue the geek list, currently on Spotify, I'm listening to Scott Biram. Mr. Scott, forgive me if I'm not pronouncing your surname correctly. He is an American artist. He is more of a country acoustic Blues kind of singer. And for those of you who want to check him out, I have to warn you guys now, this is strictly grown folk music.

This is for big boys and big girls only. So if you're walking around and, you know, your boxers are dragging on the floor and stuff like that, you know, maybe this might not be the kind of stuff you listen to except if you're one of the disciples of Post Malone. Because Post Malone, I mean, he's truly a correct guy. Because I listened to some of his hip hop stuff and then I saw Post Malone on YouTube playing some Blues leaks and some real aggressive electric guitar.

And I was impressed. I was like, OK, this young man is versatile. And so he has dropped an album now that is that has departed from the rap thing. I've heard gist that the album is mostly country, Blues, rock, you know, that kind of thing. And so I want to listen to it because I'm really, really impressed that, you know, Post Malone and you know, all these all these boys now, you know, that little Wayne thing like dirty face, dirty hair, tattoo up and down, just cover your body in rubbish and stuff like that.

And you know, with the drugs and drinking and everything. So I'm also impressed that there's some people that have range like that that are real versatile. So if you're a disciple of Post Malone and you know, Post Malone from the hip hop days, you might not be happy with this new album. But bottom line, there's some good stuff out there that you guys should listen to. Good acoustic music, good Blues music, good country music.

There's good, good stuff out there and it doesn't even have to be an Weibo thing, because if we look at the West African continent, we also have the equivalent of these kinds of music. So we have our brothers and sisters in Sudan, Mali, Angola, you know all those areas, people who are members of the Tyrek tribes. They're putting out real good music. There's this group that I used to listen to when I was in Aberdeen, Tinari, when, well, I,

I don't know how to pronounce them, but it's Tinariwen. And basically it's almost like Fulani people doing electric rock and jazz. I know it sounds strange, but you have to hear this thing to believe it, as in this correct stuff that is going on, on the going on in, in West Africa. Real, real, real, real good things. But of course, you won't know that if all you do is listen to regular radio. So that's what's going down on my Spotify playlist.

Scott Biram, Acoustic country music for big boys and big girls. Only if you're a small boy, if you were born in the year 2000 and something, maybe this might be a little too much for you. Then on Netflix, I finally finished House of GAA. It's really impressive. I did some research. The guy's a historical figure and that is really, really, it's cool. I'm impressed that now now your cinema has moved to the point where we're exploring historical figures in our movies.

So House of God, watch it. But you know, if you have kids, you know, there's, there's small, small nudity involved. So if you have kids, just be mindful of that and let's see what else some violence in case you don't, you don't like the kids seeing stuff that has violence in it. But overall, not a bad attempt. And I like movies that explore this whole thing of pride comes before a fall, you know, don't let your eye tear too much.

Don't be too greedy. So watch it and you you'll get the gist. So I'm really glad that we're exploring historical figures in Nigerian cinema now. So Bolani, Austin Peters, I I carry bum bum for you as an I dove my heart. That's that's a nice one. So I guess I will look for more movies in that kind of area to watch then. If there are any of you who are in that whole Netflix Nollywood kind of space, please can somebody do a movie about Afonja and the slave revolt?

I think that was maybe about 1870 ish, if I remember my, my lessons from history back when I was in secondary school, because this was one of the things that led to the decline of the oil empire. You know, if you're not familiar with all the stuff I've been saying so far, that's Lisa B, that's the movie that I spoke about maybe two or three days ago. And then House of God, it's all about the oil empire. That's, you know, basically Yoruba folk.

So one of the things that led to the decline of the oil empire was Afonja's slave revolt. And you know, through him the they were able to encroach into the empire. So the Muslim jihadists were able to come in and sack Iloring. And that's part of the reason why even though Iloring is your country, you have some people in the Loring who think that they're part of Ariwa. But anyway, that's a conversation for another day.

But my own opinion, if you're from Iloring, stop deceiving yourself. You are not Ariwa. Because when push comes to shove and Ilar boys and girls decide to stand together, they'll look at you and they'll be like, who are you? What are you doing here? Can you go to your father's house, please? Yeah. Sorry. Excuse me. The code is still there. So yeah, House of God, correct film. And I definitely, definitely recommend. But the violence, the nudity,

bear that in mind if you're going to be watching it when the children are around. So now back to my proposal process and how is going to work in practice. This whole thing of don't be too quick. You know, any small thing, you talk to somebody and then next thing you're flashing proposal, flashing quotation, flashing this, you know, what's your e-mail address and then you send them a quotation, you know, be coming down.

Don't let your quotation sell for you. Don't let your proposal sell for you. Don't let your PDF sell for you. You should learn how to sell by yourself. So I'm going to give an example of how I'm putting that in practice. Now there's a prospect that I'm currently talking to. Oh, by the way, when we say prospect, we mean somebody that might be a potential customer. Also, when we say contact, it means any phone number or e-mail address that you've gotten that if you talk to and it seems like they're interested, then that person that becomes a prospect.

But for the purposes of this podcast, whenever you hear me talk about prospect or contact or potential customer or lead or whatever, I usually mean the same thing for the purposes of the show. But just remember that when you start flowing in much more refined or academic circles, they, they will try and correct you and say that no, they all have different meanings, that a contact is not a prospect, a prospect is not a lead, a lead is not necessarily a potential customer.

But for the purposes of the show, I use them all in the same way. So there's this potential prospect, potential customer that I'm talking to, and they are in the entrepreneurial development space. It's an international NGO and they do work in the north, northeastern part of Nigeria. So basically what they're doing is they're going all over the northeast because, you know, now that North Central, NE north, you get the picture.

Those parts of the country have been having significant issues with regards to farming, food security, insecurity, education, poverty, you know, all those sorts of things. So there are some international organisations that come in and only work in that particular segment of the country, which is not to say that the rest of Nigeria is not having problems because you know, problems are bound left, right, centre, by the way, that's just where they do the work.

So the conversation that we're having is regarding the documentary work because this year we've done, I've not, I've never really focused on documentary work. I've always focused more on live events, that's for the media of the business. So live events, corporate events, all sorts of things, live streaming. But the documentary gig came up. I figured let me take a crack at it because after all, I always wanted to produce something, you know how some actual production to my credit.

So we've tackled one or two documentaries this year and this one has come up. So I figured, well, let's just take a look at it. So this job is going to require lots of on location shooting, shooting on location across Kano and multiple other locations. We're going to have to talk to people who are part of a business incubation program that was organized by the client. I don't want to say who the client is. Maybe if we get the deal then and I talk about it in the future, I'll now call the client organization by name.

So the client has done some work in Kano and other parts of Northern Nigeria where people have gone through a business in creation program and have graduated and have grown their business. So the point of the documentary will be to show how incubation and entrepreneurial support services can grow good businesses in the North. So that's the whole point of the documentary. They make the documentary, you use it across your social media,

I don't know, maybe put it on TV or something, but it helps people to, for people to see what your organization is doing. You can use that for fundraising because you show your people who gave you money that look, these are the projects that we organized in Nigeria in, in 2024. And it also helps to advance the the gospel that in parts of the country where things are rough, we actually can improve things just by taking young people,

young boys, young girls and trying to show them this is how you take your business idea. This is how you bring it to market. This is how you sell. This is how you promote, this is how you build a business beyond you. And by doing that, we can use private enterprise to uplift the community and uplift Nigeria. So that's what the documentary is about basically. Now this is the Coco of what I'm trying to say. Most of the media professionals will have a phone call with this professional, with this client and they will ask questions about the location and they will ask questions about the interviewees.

They will ask, OK, where are we shooting Kano? And they'll write it down. Then they will ask how many people are we interviewing? 20 will write it down. What is the time frame that we're going to interview these people? Two weeks, they'll write it down and then the professional will say, the media professional, someone in my own position will now say, OK, no problem, I have all the information I need. Give me your e-mail address.

I'm going to send you a quote. And of course the other person is going to say, OK, thank you very much and then end the call. You will now take this information and then you will now make a quote. The quote will be something like this, interviewing people, blah, blah, blah. Two weeks, there'll be transportation costs that they'll be there. You also put number of microphones that you use, number of cameras, the number of assistant shooters, gaffers,

lighting professionals, editing. What's it called? This one where you write text at the bottom of the screen subtitling everything. You now drop that whole thing, that document, and of course you make it look fancy. You put your logo there and you know, you make it look real nice. And they now send the e-mail. You now send the e-mail to them that your bill is 5.6 M You now send it. So that is what the average person does.

They're hoping that this fancy, glossy, nice, you know, whatever proposal is going to do the selling, you send it, it's 5.6. Now the problem I've been trying to let you guys know is that when you send a document like this without any kind of context, when the person receives it at the other end, the only thing the person is seeing is 5.6 M. The person is not seeing all the value add that you think you're trying to sell in the middle of the document.

You know the part where you say you're going to use six gaffers and 20 microphones and seven HD cameras and and two subtitlers and you will not only subtitle in English, you subtitle in Hauser. The person is not going to see all of that value add in quotes that you're trying to sell. The person will just go to the bottom and see 5.6 and then he'll put it in a pile. And of course if he sees your own 5.6 and then there's another person in the pile and their own was 3.2, you can see how already you're beginning to lose the plot because all this person is looking at is a number figure at the end of the document.

And this is the reason why I say don't let this document sell for you. The document cannot sell. People will look at it and the only thing that they will see is the money, the zeros at the end. That is all. If there's any value add, any upselling, any value thing that you're trying to do, it has to be you that is doing it and not the document. And this is the reason why I say let the documents be the last part. I'm not saying drop your money.

You can still keep your bill to be 5.6 or 10.2 M or 40M or whatever it is that you quote at the end of the day. But I'm not saying let the document be the last bit. So that is what other professionals do. And unfortunately, when you do it like that and the other person receives the e-mail, you call them and you say Abdul Kadir. Oh, no, this is the fellow you spoke to last week. So. Oh, OK, OK. Yes, yes, yes. Mr. Jude, I remember I've sent you the proposal.

I honestly know if you've had a look at it. Oh, yes, yes, yes, I've had a look at it. I will send it to MD. And don't worry, we'll get back to you. We'll get back to you. And then that's how you enter ghost meal. And then you start following up and following up and following up and then after six weeks, you're wondering why are these people not responding? My phone call, I thought me and Abdul Kadir had a good conversation.

And then you now become depressed and you say Nigerians don't know what they want, Nigerians don't know quality, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that is why that approach doesn't work. Now, my own approach is this. Two or three days ago on the podcast episode, I said that whenever we come into these things, let's not come in like groundhut seller, let's come in pretending to be a doctor. A groundnut seller is the person who says how many cups of groundnuts do you want?

And then you tell them six cups of groundnuts. Then they'll reply back, OK, six cups of groundnut. That is currently 2500 naira and you say what, 25? You guys price back and forth, but bottom line, you get your groundnuts for 2000, you get 6 soap of groundnuts and then the person leaves. If you listen to the previous episode, you will get more about this whole thing of when I say that for high value deals you actually should be a doctor,

more like a doctor approach and you should be taking a consultative approach. So come in here, don't be like a Groundhog seller. What do you need? OK, this is what you need. Why I take the quote? Buy or don't buy. Take a consultative approach. So come in and ask questions about the project, but don't just limit yourself to the usual questions people ask, which is where are we shooting? How many people are we interviewing, How many weeks for the shoot?

And they now send a quote. Ask questions about the project. So what's the project? Who is the target audience? What is this thing supposed to be for? Are you using this because you want to promote what the NGO is doing or are you hoping that you can achieve this but then also use that in part of future fundraising efforts? What are the goals of the NGO? OK, how does this align with other projects that you have going on in the Northeast?

You start asking all these questions. You can see that before you even sent a quote, you already sound like a professional because you sound different. Other people just said how many people are we interviewing, 20? Where are we going to Kano? How long for the shoot? Two weeks via Take my bill. The bill is 10.2 M And then you all sound the same but you come in, you ask different questions just like I've been asking these questions.

I can assure you I already sound different to the other people, even if the fellow doesn't store my number the first time around. I mean, when I call, you'll be like, oh, OK, is that interesting guy from Abuja that I spoke to already, I'm standing apart already. I'm sounding different because my first set of questions basically was, OK, this is the organization was this project about. What are you trying to achieve with this documentary and how does this tie into the overall goal of the NGO, especially now that we're wrapping up 2024?

So what plans do you guys have for 2025 and how does this documentary aligned with all these other things? You can see that I'm already sounding different. You can see I'm already sounding professional. You guys see I'm ready sounding like a correct guy. Other people would just ask a simple question. 20 people can't know two weeks, send a quote. Another thing, as we're having these conversations with these folks and we're talking back and forth, don't you think or can't you see that I'm getting an opportunity now to build rapport?

I'm getting a chance to know, let's just say the guys Jude. I'm getting a chance to know Olga Jude. Olga Jude is also getting a chance to know who I am. These are the reasons why at the end of the day, if I call or if my name flashes like oh, is that interesting guy from Abuja, these are the reasons why they'll pay attention to me more than the other people. So ask questions about the project, also ask about the participants and the businesses.

It's not just a matter of how many people are we going to interview, 20 shooting time, two weeks, ask questions. How people are we going to shoot 20? OK, cool. So it was part of the business incubation program. Oh yes. When was it held? So, so, so, so OK. What communities did you get them from? Of course, I'd ask a question like that because I've actually lived in Kano, in Rano local government and also in Kano City. So, you know, that's small rapport building there because anyway, you never know.

Rano local government is a big local government. So I won't be surprised if one or two of the people came from my local government. But it's not really my local government. But since I lived there for a while, I called it my local government. So small rapport building. But The thing is I'm asking questions about the participants. So which local governments, OK, what sectors, what industries are the businesses in? Something, something, something.

I'm already sounding like somebody who is interested in the project. And most importantly, when I ask all these questions, it will help me to come up with a treatment. I prefer to even submit a treatment first for the documentary before sending a quotation. A treatment is that document that says, how will I put it? The treatment is the part of the document that says that. OK, from the information we've gathered so far, this is the creative direction that we can go in from the documentary.

So we can go in this direction, we can shoot like this, we can explore this thing, we can highlight this kind of theme. With me submitting a treatment first, can you see that I'm already sounding much more professional and standing apart now from the other person who just says how many people 20, how many days, two weeks, you now send a bill 10.2. These are the things why sometimes some people you submit the code 10.2.

You now find out at the end of the day, the person that won the contract, he submitted a bid for 40 M and you now say ah, that they deceived, they deceived the person that Nigerians, it was funny that they use or something. It is not funny. The person is better at the sales process than you. It is not jazz and it's not funny. So you can see at this point now these are the conversations that I'm having and can you hear and can you see that I have not submitted a quote.

I have not submitted proposal. I have not submitted any kind of presentation. I have not submitted nothing because I am selling myself. I am selling my expertise and I am doing needs analysis, qualification and discovery around this project. If you don't understand what any of those terms mean because this is your first time listening to the show Noah Allah, when you're done, go and check YouTube. I have a channel there.

Just type my name, type any of those terms. I have over 950 free resources there up on YouTube. So any of the resources that I've made around these topics, the thing will just show up, listen to it with a pen and paper so that you can write down things that you want to go and execute on and you get caught up to speed. So let's say like now I said qualification. You don't know what qualification means in the sales context.

As soon as you're done listening to this, go to YouTube, type in Tavi Shima, that's my name, and then type in Discovery. Hit enter. Every single podcast episode that I've made over the last 950 episodes where I spoke about Discovery, it will be there. So you learn what Discovery is, how you can apply to your particular business. So let's go back to the kind of conversations and the kind of questions that I'm asking then.

OK, well, let me just rush it up because it's 24 minutes now. The whole point where I'm trying to get all this information is because I'm trying to get the people to commit to a treatment. Let me get all this information. Let me send you a treatment. After I send the treatment, we can now discuss outlines, we can now discuss project deadlines, and we can now discuss money. Because before I even ask all these questions, how do I even know what code to submit?

And this is how some of you run into trouble. You quickly send the quote. 10.2 you send it and then it is approved and then you collect the money. But then when you hit the field, you realize that those two weeks that are budgeted is not going to cut it. We actually are going to spend 3 1/2 weeks in the field. And of course, if you gave a quote based on two weeks in the field, 10.2 the money sounds big, but you're paying a crew of seven boys that are showing up every day.

You've rented camera, you've done this, you've done this, you're paying for food and all that. By the time you run from two weeks to now 3 1/2 weeks, of course, your profit matching is now cutting and cutting and cutting. You not be angry. You say that the client is stingy. The client is not stingy. You did not do your work properly before you submitted this bid. And this is how we run into problems. And This is why I keep telling you people that qualification and discovery, all this early talking, talking, toasting stage is the most important part of this sales process.

A whole lot of us, this is where we fumble the thing. So I'm getting them to come into the treatment. The treatment is the document that is going to outline the whole thing. Now, OK, this is what we've discussed. This is why I think the project should go. This is a story format. I think we should approach. I think we should do it like this. I think we should do it like that. These are the deadlines. And this is how I propose that we execute this project because by the way, the client will say two weeks of shooting, what do they know?

They are an NGO, they are not the professional. It is you who are the professional that will be able to tell them that. OK Bros, based on what we've discussed this, your two weeks, whatever is unrealistic is not going to work. So you don't just listen to the client and whatever. That's why seller is not being groundnut seller, Groundnut seller person who shows up and says what do you want? OK, I'll give it to you. This is the price.

Be a doctor, go in, ask questions, and then flex your professional muscle. Based on what we've discussed, I think this and this and this is how we're going to go. This your plan, you know you can't work or to make it work. We need to do this, we need to do this, we need to do that. Then also, if you take this approach, like I said, you're going to have lots of opportunities to build rapport because there's going to be plenty back and forth, many conversations.

You're building credibility. You're sounding professional. The other people see, to be honest, the other people might be more professional than you, but The thing is, all they did was they sent in a quote immediately. That document is not going to show how professional you are. It is when people talk back and forth that you now know that OK, this guy knows what's up. This is a professional. By the way. Can you see all the reason why I

also say this whole thing of SMS back and forth? What's up back and forth not it's hard to pass across your expertise by pinging back and forth, But if you pick up the phone and listen is a conversation, 20 minute conversation though after you drop the phone, the car, say this girl, she knows her stuff. Yes, she's more expensive, but clearly this girl knows her stuff. She's better than everybody else. So yeah, that's it.

If I submit anything written first, in this case, it's the treatment. Because the treatment is a valuable document itself. It's value adds, gives me a sense to distinguish myself from the competition. After I send the treatment, I get on another phone call and the goal of the phone call, is this OK? You've had a look at the treatments you discussed with members of the board. What do they think? Where are we leaning? What direction are we looking at?

OK, so if I have captured your vision adequately to achieve this, we could be looking at a production budget of anything that is between XYZ and 123. Remember Me, I'm always in habit of giving a range because I'm trying to fill them out. I'm trying to know where they are. So I will not just say budget is 5.2 or is 10.6, I will come and say based on what we've discussed so far, this thing can fall anything between 10 M and seven M.

Is that doable? And then I'll keep quiet or how does that sound to you? And I'll keep quiet or how does that compare to other bids that you have? And I'll keep quiet because let's face it, this is Niger. I'm not the only person he's talking to. He's definitely talking to two or three other guys. So it's a fair question to ask. How does this compare to other beads and now keep quiet? In fact, there's one guy, well, a woman actually.

This one was for Lagos and it was for this Swedish NGO. I think it's Swedish IDEA for something that they were doing in Lagos around legal. What's it called? Legal aid where lawyers come and give people advice for free. So I called up and I said, look, Madam, this is what we've discussed. This is what this is what this project is looking at is looking like. Between this and this, is there any point of submitting a bid at this point?

I asked that straight up, I should say no. Now we cannot pass more than so, so, so and so, so can you see, now you take this sort of approach, you don't even end up submitting a bid and then start following up with people endlessly and wondering when are they getting back to you? Why are they ghosting you? The reason why the woman is ghosting is because she wants to be polite. You submitted a bill and the bill was twice of what the budgeted for.

She doesn't want to be rude so that's why she's not answering your phone call. But if you ask these questions upfront, you even know before you submit the bid you know where they are. Like this isn't all case asked. Is there any point of submitting the bid? She said no. They people are beyond everything. And then I now think, OK, if we can make it work with what it is, let you have suggested even though it's not going to be my crew because of travel and everything, a crew that is local to Lagos, Would you guys be willing to pull the trigger at that point?

I should say yes, but please time is going. If you're going to do that, we have to be able to know that by Thursday morning. Now, can you see that we're having constructive conversation because I'm using a budget, a range of budgets to qualify. I have said based on what we have this discussed so far and what we've outlined in the treatment, we would need a production budget of between this and this and the shooting time of that, that, that, that,

that. How does that sound? And then I keep quiet. All these kinds of conversations let me know whether this is an opportunity that is even worth pursuing. Should I even submit this invoice invoice by the time I submit the invoice or the price quote or whatever, Should I even waste my time following up with them? Most importantly, and this is what I'm trying to get you guys to understand, I am not relying on the document.

I'm not relying on the proposal, I'm not relying on the PDF. I'm not relying on the whatever it is I produce to do the selling for me. I am the one who is selling myself, selling my expertise on this project. And that is why I say you guys should be coming down. It's not just information, information, information. Send price quotes, slow down. There's an add to this whole sales thing. Also, one more thing, by the time you're having these kinds of conversations, you kind of have a sense whether the project is your own or it belongs to somebody else by the time you submit the quote.

So that is how I run my process. That is how I do qualification and discovery. That is how I use ranges to further qualify people. I get people to opt in. I get a sense of, you know, where they are before I will submit the quote. And that is how I know whether if I submit this quote and I continue to chase this thing, whether it might click or whether it might not click. So OK, let me just wrap up 30 minutes. If I get the contract, that is good.

Glory be to God, I'll flex and I'll pay some bills. If I lose the contract, no Allah, glory be to God. You know, it doesn't matter. Another job will always come. God will always sort you out. Don't worry, don't be too scared. But if I lose the contract, I'll pick up the phone and I'll call the guy and we'll run debrief. So I'll got you now. Now. Oh my God. Here from Camion Procurement. How far now? I thought this was a done deal.

What happened? And of course, our graduate will laugh and we'll have the conversation about what part of my treatment was off. Was this thing a budget issue? Or is it that creatively I miss this or I miss that? We will have the conversation. We will keep it casual. It might just seem like gist, but me, I know what I'm doing. I'm trying to debrief. I'm trying to figure out this contract that I thought was a good deal that I didn't get.

Why did I lose it? The reason why I need to know is so that for future people in this space who call me, I will now take this learning that I got from here. I'll take dressing, and I'll use that to improve my sales processes in the future. So if you get the contract, glory be to God. If you lose the contract, glory be to God. Run a debrief and figure out what went wrong then. Because I didn't get this job with Orga Jude, assuming I

didn't get this job with Orga Jude's company. Now I'm still going to ask about the future projects that they have going on and the goals of the company going on. Because if I know that I lost this one in where, where we know we are in is this September, October, we're in October 2024. So if I lost the one of October 2024, but I know that in March of 2025 another one is going to come up, I now know that by December 2024, I can pick up the phone.

I start healing Auger Jude so that by January, February, I start toasting him about the one that is coming up in March. So you ask all these sorts of things because it gives you a sense about how you're going to run your relationship, building your follow up sequence or whatever it is that you want to call or call it. Well, by the way, This is why SRM is useful customer relationship management tool. By the time I finish this conversation, I will go back to my CRM and I'll put it there.

Orga Jude conversation had so, so, so date 8th October 2024 failed bid, reasons why treatment was off on so, so so and so budget exceeded by blah blah blah blah blah. Future project in Anambra for March of 2025. And then I'll now use the calendar function and I now schedule the and I'll schedule December 26th. No, looking more like December 27th. And I'll just leave you there. So December 27th, I'll call graduate up and guess what the agenda will be.

I'll get you what's up now, how you did, how did that project go? Said anything was good. All right, Noah Hala. So half hour this Christmas now has the family, blah, blah, blah. We're looking forward to a new year. I'll be so how the new year go be OK, blah, blah, blah. God do bless us. God bless our families. God do bless our businesses or you're a correct guy. Jude, we'll be talking next year now or I greet your wife for me later.

End the phone call. You see touch up relationship building, blah, blah, blah. When I'm done with our conversation, I will now go back to the calendar function in the CRM and I will now move. OK, so December, OK, this is December 27th. The next date I will now schedule will be something like maybe, OK, based on discussion, OK, let's say the last time the discussion that we had took six weeks. And this documentary is going to be shot in March.

I will now take March 1st and I'll do six weeks back. So that will take us to February something. So for padding, maybe I'll do another four weeks back. So basically maybe the next scheduling now will now be January, I don't know, January 6th or January 7th. And when I call January 6th or January 7th will be the same thing. Happy New year. We've seen a new year. Nothing will happen to us this year. Our business will succeed, will not be fine.

The children will do well, you know, blah, blah, blah. And hey, I'll get you that thing we're discussing last year about that Anambra project in in March. So how far now, like when are we rolling on that or when are you guys taking bids on that? And then I've started the conversation. So this is also another reason why CRMS are important. You don't have ACRM and you're not mapping out your deals like that using the CRM tool or using the scheduling functions on your phone.

This is how you lose track of deals. So where folks like me say use the CRM or this is how to use your phone as ACRM, it's not just academic is the reason between is the difference between your company growing or dying and this is how people's businesses die. Small, small, small because you're not scheduling anything. You finish the conversation or graduate and you think, OK, there's something coming up in March. I will call him next year.

And then you forget, Christmas will finish, New year will finish. And you're just chilling with your wife or your boyfriend. And in your mind, The thing is just nagging. Like I know I'm supposed to be calling somebody about something. I just can't remember who that person is and I can't remember who that project is. But for me, I don't have to bother myself because whether I get the deal or I lose the deal, I plot all these things in my CRM.

I'm just minding my business. And then maybe I might even be driving my phone do ping him. By the time I get to location, I check, I open my phone and I see the ping there. December 27th, call Orga Jude and then the deal is back on track and it is 40 minutes. So let me just bring it to a close somewhere. What I've been trying to say basically is don't let the documents off for you. Don't let the PDF sell for you. Don't let your whatever it is sell for you.

But yes, create all these nice fancy proposals. In fact, if you can't take it, spiral, bind it, make it glossy, emboss it, put your letterhead. Yeah, do all of that. But don't let the document solve for you. Sell the whole thing by yourself. Don't rush to give a quote. Ask some questions about the client, about the project, about their goals, with the extra information that you have. Use that to come up with a tailored outline of what it is that you're trying to achieve.

Without outline. Confirm from them that your plans and their own plans are In Sync. If they're In Sync, then give them a range. You can cost anything between this and this. How far is it worth continuing conversation at this point? If they say this, your other price is kind of pricey sharp. But anyway, submit. You now know that if you submit that there is hope. And if the person says no five M how other people have been telling me 2.5, you already know that this project is not something you're going to have been able to win at all.

So that's it all. So that's it for today. As usual, connect with me on WhatsApp or on LinkedIn for insights, quick tips, questions, comments, queries, especially for those of you who disagree with what it is that I'm outlining here. I'd really love to hear from you guys that would also inform future episodes about the. About these sorts of topics so my phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234 then OK yes LinkedIn.

My name is Tavi Shima Ayede. I'm the host of the show use the link. We're listening to this episode. Whether you're listening to this on Spotify on apple or on YouTube. You see my name there, just highlight my name and copy paste it in the search function in LinkedIn. And then you see my handsome face come up, send me a connection request. I respond to everybody 24 hours. Worst case scenario, 48 hours. But I do respond to everybody for now.

By the time my container arrives and I'm a big boy like Dan Gote, you guys will be hearing from me again, I guarantee. So yeah, that's it. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.