Loading…
Auto-generated; may contain errors.
Loading transcript…
Hello and welcome to the show today. The question I'd like to tackle is what tools you can use to automate repetitive tasks in sales and in business. Better yet, let me just stick to sales because if we say business, we're going to open up the door to a host of all kinds of things, you know, maybe like accounting software and things like that. But I don't want to tackle any of those things because it's not my area of specialty.
So let me just stick to the things that I know. So tools that you can help to tools that you can help make your life easier when it comes to automating stuff. Now, First off, let me tackle the main question, at least the one that really, really jabs me whenever we, you know, we're at events and things like that and people are talking about automation, especially with the advent of AI. Now, what I'm about to tell you is a minority opinion, but it's my own opinion and I think it's the most, I think it's the best most considered opinion at the moment.
So First off, should we even be automating in the first place? In my own opinion, automation is not helpful when it comes to sales. Let me repeat what I said again. Should we even be automating? In my own opinion, automation is not helpful when it comes to sales. Now, of course, I know that a bunch of you that would like to pick holes in what I've said, So now let me explain the fuller context. When I say ultimate, I mean technically speaking, when you've set something and then you forget it, like what marketing people like to do.
You know, marketing people like to come up with e-mail sequences, you know, promo sequences, things like that. They just design it and then they just press play ma'am and then they leave it. And then today the first e-mail triggers and then you know, next week Wednesday, the next e-mail triggers and the thing just go to trigger, trigger, trigger, trigger. And I know that for marketing people, for e-mail people, this is supposed to be the ultimate dream.
You know, do all the work on January 1st, press play ma'am or press send and then just leave it. And then for the rest of the year, the thing will just be running on its own. So for marketing people, I'm not going to join issues with you. You know, that's how you guys like to roll, so let me just leave it. But for sales, on the other hand, yes, you can take templated approaches. In fact, it requires templated approaches because there are lots of things that you're going to do, people that you talk to,
responses that you're going to give that are going to be very similar across different contexts and different scenarios. However, when it comes to sales, there is this thing about personalizing and adapting it to the situation and to the person. So for sales, it's a huge turn off. When I'm here minding my business, I think I have a good flow with the business or something. And then I receive a message and you know, clearly the message I
should have gone to Mrs. Ogdenbey, for instance, is the one that shows up on my phone. From a sales perspective, you know, when me and the salesperson, we seem to be vibing well and I think that my business is important to the people, it, it doesn't feel pretty good. And these are some of the kind of mistakes that can happen when you come up with an automated mindset, which is set it and forget it. You fail to contextualise things depending on the relationship,
depending on the context, depending on the scenario. And that is the reason why I say that when it comes to sales, please do not automate but rather templatize. Let me repeat, do not automate, but rather templatize. What does templatizing involve? Well, first of all, it involves using a template. So let's do what our marketing people do, which is we sit down on January 1st and then we design everything, you know, design, you know, sharply.
These are the customers I have. These are the kind of scenarios, these are the kind of messages I want to send them, you know, happy Christmas, happy Salah or whatever, or follow up messages to be sure that people are doing OK and you know, all kinds of messages. Sit down and design everything. No problem. I'm with you at that level. But rather than taking this text, loading it into MailChimp or some automating thing and then you just press send and then you try and do I think they call it a personalization at scale.
That's what they call it. Or really personalization. Personalization at scale just means you're getting the name correct. Just to make sure that the e-mail that is supposed to go to Tavishima, that's me doesn't show up with dear Misses Ogdenbe, you know, as the as the as the greeting. So that's what we call personalization at scale. Well, however, personalization goes beyond that. Now, for those of you who are disciples of marketing, you guys do one too many.
You're always thinking about how you can broadcast, how you can send one message and scale it across 1000 people, across a million people. You know, that's your thing. But then for those of us who are in sales, we take the relationship down a notch. I'm usually talking to one or two people, you know, within an organization. And when I'm having a conversation with someone, I want the person to know that they have my own divided attention.
So whether it's behind the keyboard on them to know that look, right now as I'm clacking away and you're pinging back, it's you and me. We're involved in a conversation. And that's the reason why I think automating is not a good idea. So templatizing means, yes, sit down, create all those templates on January 1st, but then store it somewhere maybe like Google Docs or Google Keep or whatever it is that you use Evernote,
whatever. And then when the time comes, and This is why I keep telling people, particularly those of us who like working from our phones, because I do everything from my from my phone, get an external keyboard. Although some people say it's an external keyboard, not necessary. Phone screen is too small. I'd rather just do what's it called? WhatsApp Web? Yeah, WhatsApp Web is where you hook up your WhatsApp to your computer.
And then there's some other things that you can do. Like if you have a Google Chromebook, you can sync your Chromebook to your phone so that you can do just about everything on the keyboard on your Chromebook. Anyway, apart from answer calls, I don't think you can answer calls on Google Chromebook. But for those of you who have Mac computers, yes, you can answer the the phone call from your Mac, even though your phone is lying, is lying down in your room or you know, whatever, or maybe your wife is using your phone to play Candy Crush.
You know, you can be doing your work over here. The call comes in. OK, no, you know what, let me not say that it's been a while since I used the Mac, so let me not just scratch that what I said. But yes, you can mirror depending on what you use. You can use your laptop to mirror your phone. And so some people say I'd rather just do that instead, but whatever, pick your poison if you're going to, if you have a Google Chromebook and you want to mirror your phone through that, that's fantastic.
If you have a MacBook and you want to sync your iPhone to it so you can do most of this stuff on it, that's fantastic. But if you want to work directly from your phone, just like me, get an external keyboard. Now, templatizing means when you want to send a message to Mrs. Ogdenbe or you want to send it to Mr. Tavishima, what you do is you copy the template and then you paste it in the box. Then you edit it the place that it says dear customer.
You delete customer and you put Madam Ogdenbe or you put Mr. Tavishima, but you know, personalize it even more. If Tavishima is the kind of guy, then when you call him, you say bro, what's up? You know, maybe you start the message like that. Instead of saying dear customer, you say, bro, what's up? And then you continue to tweak. If Mr. Ogden, where is the person that when you talk to her in person, you say sister in the Lord or mother in the Lord, then you copy and paste the part where it says dear customer,
delete that. And then you type in mother in the Lord, you know, so she sees it and she knows that oh, it's you is my people. She knows it's not a bot and she knows it's not mass market, whatever. And these are the reasons why, even though this is more work, I can assure you that you're going to get more responses doing things this way. So you start off with that whole marketing thing customized at scale. So I knock yeah, customization at scale.
And you know, brah, you send it out to 2500 contacts on January 1, and then you're wondering why you get a 0.0 point 0.01% response rate. You know, this is the reason why because it shows up in Misses Wogenenbee's inbox as dear Misses Wogenenbee or something. And there's, there's a way you have to keep these things generic. And she just knows that it's an e-mail blast and said she doesn't bother. But then if he shows up in her e-mail or shows up in her WhatsApp and it's a dear mother in the Lord, she now knows that,
oh, is that cheeky fellow that I meet in, in church all the time and she can respond, my dear, how are you, blah, blah, blah. But this is, you know, a whole lot more work. Now when it comes to sales, we are not worried about being efficient. Marketers like to be efficient. How can I reach 2500 people in one day? That's what marketers like to do, sales people, they like to be effective. We want to know that if we reach out to 200,500 people, no matter how long it takes, we hope that we're going to get a huge percentage of those people responding to us in return.
So let me repeat, marketers or people coming at this with a marketing mind view, they like to be efficient. Was I able to reach 1000 people, 2005 500,010 thousand one M the bigger the better. If marketer can sit down now and do something on e-mail and reach 10 million people, they will beat their chest that yeah, correct, I did work today. But for sales people who have worried about effectiveness, it's not that we reached 10
million people. Of the 10 million people that we reached, how many of them took the next step to do exactly what it is that we wanted them to do? So that lasts last, whether it's two months, three months, one year, the percentage of them are going to end up buying from us. So templatizing, sit down, create the template, use your computer, use hook up your computer to your phone or use a keyboard just like I do. Copy and paste and then edit.
You put in the person's name. Don't do DSL or DML except if when you talk to the person you that's how you refer to the person cell or MA. So just blend it, edit it, type it like you normally talk it. The whole idea is let them see this thing and know that it is from you. It's not a bot, it is not some massive e-mail, something. So put the name as you address them, put the trap particulars of the transaction, put the date.
What else is address necessary Address might not be necessary, but you, you get the idea. You're trying to personalize it with all the details that you've gotten from the rapport building phase, the commonality phase of the discussion when you guys are early in the relationship. And that's also another reason why people know that these things are mass market because it's written in a broad general sense that can apply to anybody.
But when this thing shows up in Misses Ogdenbe's phone and it says mother in the Lord, and then maybe you make reference to maybe you know that her God, her godchildren or her grandchildren are home for the holidays and you ask them how are the grandchildren or something. She knows that this is not a bot. And then this is the kind of thing that you will respond to and this is the kind of thing that will help move your thing forward.
So you see why I say when it comes to sales, it's harder, but I really think templatizing is the way. Create the template that you think will apply to, you know, 80% of your customer base, but then you will copy and then you will paste and then you will edit it to suit this particular person that you are talking to. Because in sales we don't get marks for just doing the work. In marketing. If you're able to show that the message delivered to 10 million people, you know, your guy will say well done, good and faithful servant as a salesperson, your guy is not going to be impressed.
If you say the message went out to 10 million people, but out of that 10 million, you know, you didn't get up to 1000 sales, your guy is not going to be impressed. So different mindset. So create your templates for text messages. Let's see what else follow up messages. Create templates for product and delivery updates. You know the message that says thank you very much for your order, It was sent out at so, so, so and so expect delivery within seven days.
If there any problem, call me on so, so, so and so, so for that sort of thing instead of sending out the generic, you know, message will be nice for me. So getting wait to receive the message in a WhatsApp that says mother in the Lord comma. Mother in the Lord comma. Thank you very much for supporting my business. And OK, now how will I put it? OK, Mother in the Lord comma, I really appreciate you supporting my business.
This is just to let you know that the order for your so, so, so and so has been, has been recorded. We're sending you by dispatch. It should be with you by Wednesday morning. So, so, so and so time, you know, that sort of thing and then we will see it actually. So thank you very much, my son. Well, thank you very much. My daughter, she will reply, but if he's one of those mass market something automated, whatever, you know, scene, she will see it as per scene and then, you know,
click off and then that's just it. No emotional. What's that word? Is it resonance? Is that what I'm looking for? No emotional resonance with all the messages that you guys are sending back and forth. So create a template, but remember to look at the template and then tailor it to the particular customer, tailor it to the particular stakeholder, tailor it to your associate or to the investor or whoever it is that you are communicating with.
Even if you insist that you want to automate, because I run into people who want to automate now, now, now, now, now. Let's let's just automate, automate everything. WhatsApp, automate this, automate that, automate. Especially now with AI, if you want to automate everything, you're going to end up with some very, very embarrassing situations. And even if you must automate, for the people who insist on automating, especially those who was in the SME space, sometimes I think you guys are just too early, as in, relax.
First, make sure you've been in business a couple of years. And if you dealt with a few dozen, maybe a few hundred, OK, maybe 100 is too much. Make sure you've dealt with dozens and dozens of clients and then it would now even give you a sense of, OK, these are the groups of people we deal with. These are the kind of comma that shows up in the interaction. These are the kind of issues that we can anticipate. And then you can now start planning effectively and coming up with decision trees for everything.
Because when you want to automate, you have to do decision trees algorithms. If the customer says this, then do that. If the customer says that, then do this. If the customer does this, then do that. That's for those who want to automate message is you want to use bots. So don't start your business like that. Do business or small first. Deal with a couple of clients first. I don't know how many, but by the time you do a few dozen, I
don't know, 365070, you now get a sense of, OK, typically this is how the conversations go. Typically these are the problems that arise and typically these are the solutions that work. Now you can use AI and program the chat bot to automate this and automate this and automate that. However, there are some things that can be safely automated, and I have no problem recommending that you guys go ahead and automate all that stuff.
So for social media management tools, all those ones can be automated, can be automated very well because they require no personalization, they require no context. So you take your this buffer, this Hoot Suite, the Sprout Social Hoot Suite used to be free. And so because of that, I thought I'll just, you know, create an account and start using Hoot Suite in conjunction with my LinkedIn. But apparently now is only paid.
So if you are one of those people who you know Hoot Suite back when it was free, you just assumed it would always be free. I hate to tell you that the other option is off the table. So who suite is now paid. So buffer, who suite Sprout social, this is CRM tool. I user Zoho. There's also Zoho social that you can use to schedule stuff. So just use all those things to be scheduling your posting. So you carry your contents, you put it there, you program the whole thing.
So that Monday at 8:00 AM Instagram post will just go out. Wow. And then Tuesday at 6:45, your LinkedIn post will just go out and Wednesday at whatever time you schedule. So the, the contents will just be flowing like that. Flow, flow, flow, flow, flow. And the idea would be that, you know, at the beginning of the week or at the beginning of the month, you sit down, you create all the content, you load it up into these tools, and then you set the time that you want the thing to roll.
And then you just hit play or hit enter or hit send or hit whatever it is that you're supposed to hit. And then you just go about and live your life. So you can be doing all the normal stuff. You do market runs, quarreling with your boyfriend, trying to improve your relationship with your spouse, helping the children with homework, going for night video, you know, whatever. Just believe in your life and the content will just be posting on its own.
Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam. Yeah. So for those ones, social media management tools, by all means, ultimate no problem there. No, no embarrassing situation can can result. Now let me see, OK, this one is not really automation. Shah OK, what can we call this automation? That's appointment scheduling tools. That is where people try to automate booking meetings and things like that. Because you know, for those of us who are old school minded,
I'll call you up and I'll say what's up, how far. You know, there's this thing with this agenda. We haven't done this, done this, done this. Are you free? Monday, 8:00 AM. Let me just come to the office. Let's let's finish, let's finalize this name shop shop. So that's how I like to do it. I pick up the phone and I call somebody. But now because of online tools, people like to send scheduling links like Calendly, there's Acuity Doodle, what?
Again, all these kinds of things. People like to send all those links that whole, yeah, here's the link to my, here's a link to my calendar. Pick the time that works for you. And then the person just picks. And anyway, so people don't have to do the back and forth. So yeah, it's it's good using those appointment scheduling tools that integrate with your calendar so you guys can fix meetings without the back and forth.
However, and this is where I think sales is a contextual thing, I don't think it is a good idea in the Nigerian context to use these sorts of tools. Because in Nigeria, there's this idea of now you define something and if your One is chasing something in this context is a bit somehow that I am chasing you for the meeting because I want your business, because I want you to be my client. And then I'm now sending you calendar link and I'm telling you, pick any time that fits your, your fancy.
It's a bit somehow in this part of the world because like I said, in Niger, there's this idea of now you define something. Now when you are the one who is chasing, you're the one who's pursuing. The other person is the valued entity. The other person is the babe that you're trying to toast. So you can now be trying to toast a babe. And you now tell the babe, call me, if the babe has sense, she'll look at you, she'll say you want me to be your girlfriend and I'm the one that I should be calling you.
No problem. I will call you and then you won't hear from her again. So just like with the babe, for those of you who are guys and are doing the toasting, doing the chasing, so just like then that the onus is on you to pick up the phone and call. So it is in business as well. I want the other person to be the client. I want the other person to end up in the business relationship with me. I'm the one who's supposed to be doing the portion.
I'm the one who's supposed to be doing the chasing. So this whole thing of here's my calendar being pick any time that works for you. It's a bit somehow we are not that modern yet. The I don't want to put it, I don't want to say status dynamics or power dynamics or the relationship dynamics are not quite there yet. So in my own opinion, don't do it. However, if the social status is reversed and you are the one being sought after now it's a different thing.
You can use these tools. So if you're chasing after Tinumbo or whoever is the president at the time, you're listening to this podcast because you want this one president, you want that from the president and the president says, here's my calendar link. Pick any time that works for you that is different. You are the one who is chasing. So you know the person, the person wants something now. And if you say this is how you're going to get access through me, sorry to me by going through this tool, you will go ahead and do the thing.
So when social status is reversed and you're the one who is top dog and everybody's trying to chase you and everything be sending out calendly link anyhow that Oh, OK, sure, no problem. I'll take the meeting. Here's my calendar link. Pick whatever works for you. Why don't you reach that stage, please? I would strongly recommend. Let's not let's let's tap down on the appointment scheduling things for now, please Nigerians and I'm talking to Nigerians now.
I don't know how things work in Ghana or how things work in the UK or in the USA or in Netherlands, but for Nigerians, we are not at that stage yet. You are the one who is chasing after something. Don't sit there in the comfort of your office or your house and then be sending out currently link, you know, anyhow, pick up the phone, call the person and you know chase after the person. OK, Are you free Monday at 10? OK, Monday at 10 doesn't work.
How about this? How about that? It's time consuming. But for now, this is Nigeria. You're the one who is chasing something. Go ahead, go along with it. When you become a big boy, when you become Odugu, when you're a big girl and a player in your space and then everybody is chasing you, just be sending out calendar link anyhow, like OK, here's my calendar link. If you see it marked in red, it's not available. If you see it in green, it's available.
Pick any of the times that work in green that work for you. So just be patient. The time will come for you guys to use appointment scheduling tools. Then let's see what else? Automation. Automation. OK, I mentioned AI at the top of the episode. I had transcription AI tools now AI transcription tools. Beautiful. Use these ones. That is a wonderful example of automation, Auto dot AI. So you take your auto dot AI, you hook it up to your Zoom, or you have the auto dot AI running on your computer, on the laptop,
on your phone while the meeting is going on. It's perfect. Auto will now just be recording the minutes. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. You have everything there of, you know, who said what, Although I think for Otter, I think Otter will say, is it Speaker one? Speaker two, Speaker three or something like that. I can't remember how it's Otter, but it's one of those tools that that's how it it puts it and it consistently matches all those things.
So later on, you're the one who now look at it and know that. Oh, OK. Speaker A was when Speaker one was when Mrs. Ogden Ngby was talking. So every time I see Speaker One, that's Mr. Ogden Ngby. Speaker 2 was when Al Haji Ahmed was talking. So every time I see Speaker 2, that's Al Haji Ahmed, and then Speaker 3, that was every single time that Kemi was talking. And so so every time I see speaker three, that's Kemi. Well, this is a perfect example about how you can automate open the thing, let you just run in the background.
I don't know if the feature, I don't know how much time you're giving. That's if you, if you have the free auto dot AI account, because I think for transcribing audio material, you're limited to I think one hour every month. I think that's like 90 minutes every month. I'll be no, 90 minutes is one hour, 30 minutes. Math teacher, please. I hope you're not listening to the podcast or by the way, I passed my math exams by the way,
So where was I? So with the free tools, there's a limit on how much time you can do for the transcribing, but you're open and let it run in the background. This is a perfect example of automation and it will save you the stress of having to write every single thing down during the meeting. Then if you're not done with auto AI, there's a Google transcribe. Google Transcribe is wonderful. I've heard from some other people in different parts of the world that they have to pay for Google Transcribe.
And I find that strange because here in Niger, it's it's free for us. You just whip out your phone, it's not downloaded, it's not already on your Android phone. So this is one that you have to look for Gemini is on your phone already. So no need to look for Gemini. But Google transcribe you download it and it's it's quite good. I mean Google transcribe knows what Nigerians sound like. So just keep talking. The thing will keep writing your minutes and your note taking is taken care of.
So that is one example where I think automation that's pretty good. So that's my opinion. Basically, remember this is really, really limited just to a sales and business development perspective. And I say that we should not be automating when it comes to sales, but rather we should have a templating mindset. Create the template, take the time, sit down, create the template and now start editing the template according to the different context, to the different scenarios, to the different personalities.
Do that you will get a better response rate and you will get better follow through on whatever agenda you're trying to push through. But yes, template approach will take time because even though it's copy and paste, copy and paste actually does take time. And then the editing part does take time. So don't worry about efficiency for now. Let's worry about effectiveness. But you market as yeah, you guys like to reach 1000 people in one blast.
So continue blasting people according to the thousands and 10s of thousands. So that's a different department. You guys keep doing your thing. I'm talking to sales people. Let's do our own thing different then. OK, so where you can automate safely all that social media scheduling, social media management tools or what not? Yeah, use that one. But Please remember as though things are posting, posting, posting and people are engaging,
engaging, engaging, people are commenting, retweeting and all those things. Please remember to go in and do the hard work of, you know, responding to people's messages. Oh, thank you very much for your opinion. But actually what I meant was so so so and so well, thank you very much for the comment. If you want more information, check this link. Or you notice that maybe somebody has been re sharing, re sharing, re sharing every single post from Monday last week up until now.
You know, hop into the person's DM and send the person a message. Oh, thank you very much. I notice you've been re sharing all the content we've been posting through last week, especially pieces on this and this and that. I appreciate the support. I appreciate the whatever, you know, thank you very much. That kind of thing. So even though that automation thing just is running on its own, you still have to come back. Please.
I'll be doing the manual stuff then what else? OK, appointment tools. I've already told you guys, appointment tools. Not now. We will get there, but not now. Then what else? OK, AI transcription tools, 100% go ahead and do that, but just bear in mind that the free tools have a limit. So if you have Alter AI and you're in the habit of having 4 hour meetings, just check whether Alter is going to cover you for the four hours that you're going to have the meeting.
So that's it pretty much for today. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys in the next episode. Connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayedi. I'm the host of the show. The correct spelling to look for. You can find it from the link where you're listening to this episode. If you're on LinkedIn, that's bottom left. You see my name above the title then if you're listening to the podcast, you can find that if you go to where else about details more depending on which podcast player that you use,
most likely my e-mail address will be there as well. In case you want to reach out by e-mail, then you can also connect with me on WhatsApp. That's for tips, insights, questions, queries and the phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian. So that's it for today. I'll catch you guys tomorrow.