Solve Your Business Problem with the AI on Your Phone

Today on the podcast, it's going to be a random session and that's because we're not going to be looking at one topic but two rather. So we're going to be looking at network marketing and let's see what else Network marketing and then some ideas around scaling communities. So network marketing because you know, Nigerians are always looking for a new hustle. So any way that we can find an extra bit of income, you know it helps.

So network marketing has been one of those things that every single year, you know, people are trying to do to put some extra money in their pockets. So that's why we're going to look at network marketing. Then scaling community because some of you in your businesses, you try to grow it with a community LED strategy. And yesterday I spoke at the SME V Con and even though it was not my session, because I was supposed to talk about selling in a screen first world, you know, which I did and I'll make a podcast episode as a summary after this.

But the speaker who spoke prior to me, the person who took the stage before I did, he addressed a number of issues. And so see, these were some of the questions that he was asked around network marketing and scaling community. So I started off my session, you know, before going into selling in the screen world. I started off my session by answering some of those questions. Just coming at it from a uniquely sales and business development perspective.

So that's the reason why we're having this random episode where we're we're talking about these two topics that, you know, necessarily not enjoying them, but sharp. It was a nice conversation. So I figured, let me just share that today. My name is Tavishima Ayede and I'm the host of the podcast. If you'd love to connect with me, then call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140. And if you like these sorts of things, you know, what is network marketing?

How can I improve our network marketing? What other ideas can I use to get some extra income? Should I use a community LED strategy to grow my business? To grow my consulting practice? How do I get more people into my community? How do I find more customers? If you like these sorts of issues, then subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or any player of your choice. Because every day this is what I do. OK, well, not every day, let's say every other day, more like.

So network marketing. Oh, before I go into network marketing, I was having a chat with someone on WhatsApp and the guy said something that I figured, let me just come and address here in case there are a couple of you who have the this impression as well. So the guy came at me and asked me a couple of questions and you know, I told him, have you have you checked Google Gemini? And, you know, he ran off, He checked and some of the things made sense and I told him, OK,

now we have some answers, go ye forth and apply. And then the guy came back asking me some more questions and I told him, did you check? Did you check Google Gemini? And then he went and he did. And he showed me what the results was. And I said, OK, there's some good stuff here, so go ye and apply. Then the guy hollered me a third time. Just oh boy, how far I'm having this trouble, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And of course you guys already know what my answer was. My answer was, did you check Google Gemini? And then the guy just responded, it's as if you like Google Gemini now. I freeze because honestly, I was angry. I had to call the gun and blasting. But I say, you know what? I just responded. I said, no, I do not like Google Gemini and I do not like AI tools per SE. However, there are useful tools that we can do research and we can use for ideation, and these tools are free Fr EE.

So I responded to the guy, it's not as if I like these tools, but they're there. They're already on your phone and we can use them for free to do research and to come up with ideas. And so I think everybody should be using it. Now the reason why I was vexing is clearly some of you who listen to the podcast because give because I give my phone number at the beginning and the end of every episode. Some of you feel as if you can just call me up anytime or text me up anytime and be asking me for free advice.

When you have not invested any time or any effort yourselves to go and do some small research to try and figure out what the solution to the problem is. Now sit back and think a little bit. Do you guys think that is respectful to me and respectful of my own time, that I'm supposed to be here giving you guys free advice all the time? I answer questions on the podcast and I like to give value to every single person who comes across my way.

So yeah, genuinely, when I run across you guys dying the bind, I will always try to help you guys out because not everything is about the money. But then you, especially young men, you always up to yourselves to take advantage of the free tools, the free opportunities, the public resources that we have available now. You always opt to yourself to try and solve your problem first before you reach out to someone else. That is the reason why for some of you, you asked me some kind of questions and my response will always be, did you Google the thing?

Did you check ChatGPT? Did you check Google Gemini? What did you find? Because the proper thing to do when someone is making his time available to help you sort out your business issues, the proper thing to do is to make sure that you have tried to solve the problem first yourself with whatever means, whatever tools that you have available. So that when you come back to this person, you can say good morning Sir, I have some problems with my business.

This is the problem. In particular, I tried solving it by doing ABC and XYZ. Now the place where I come hang is in this particular aspect or as I moved forward on 123I now enter busy. I beg Sir, what is the way forward? That kind of person I'm willing to engage in a conversation. You have tried to solve the problem by yourself with information that is freely available over on the Internet and The thing is already on your damn phone so forgive me for swearing.

So if any of you hit me up by asking me questions and my response is always did you Google it or did you check ChatGPT? This is the rationale behind me asking you. Did you Google it? Did you use Gemini? Did you use Chanchi PT? We should stop looking for saviours. I'm not a saviour, I'm not a guru. I'm just a signpost. I've learned a couple of things about sales and marketing and I'm here as a signpost to my brothers and sisters who are on the same path.

I am not your guru and I am not your saviour. The responsibility for solving your business problems is yours. Now if you want me to do all the thinking for you then best believe you better pay for my time or please start taking responsibility for solving business problems by yourself. And what I'm telling you guys is not far fetched when I started off as a wedding photographer years ago. How do you think, me and my peers, how do you think we started?

Those of us who tried to enter wedding photography 2000 and seven, 2008, two thousand and nine, 2010, how do you think we started? If you know one or two people, you ask. If you don't know, what did we do? We went on Google. Now you Google, how do you become a wedding photographer? And then list of articles and blog posts and stuff would come up and then you'd note down a couple of things and then you try applying. It's what I did.

It's what a lot of my contemporaries did. There was no school in Nigeria that you could go to to go and learn wedding photography or event photography or event video. There was no school. So Google and YouTube, that's how we all got into the game. I'm only asking that you guys do the same thing. So no, I'm not in love with AI tools. But like I said, these tools are very good for research, they're very good for ideation, and they are Fr EE free.

So use them, especially if your question is something simple like what are good marketing ideas for me to use for X? If you come to me with that kind of question, it's not the best use of my time. So if you saw catfish, my question is, what are the best marketing ideas for selling catfish? That's not the best use of my time. Even if I have that conversation with you, I can't use that to to create good content for the listeners of the show.

But if you call me off and say I sell catfish, I researched marketing ideas and tried 123456. Number one and #2 worked very well #5 and number and number six, when I tried it, I woke. Please, can you help me unhook? I can have a conversation with you. It'll be something interesting. It'll be a problem I've not come across before. And when I make a podcast episode about that, my listeners over here will be happy that they listen to that particular episode.

So please, I give my phone number and at the beginning, sorry, at the beginning and at the end of every episode. But I expect that if your question is I sell mobile phones, give me good ideas for selling mobile phones. You know, those, those are not the kinds of questions that if you send me those kinds of questions, if that's your question, really you're not, you're not taking full advantage of me. So any of you who reach out to me, you say I'm a bookseller and I sell antique Christian Bibles.

What are marketing ideas? My response is going to be did you Google it? I'm a fashion designer. I just opened the shop. What are the what are easy marketing ideas I can use to grow my business? I'm going to respond to you. Did you Google it? Did you Gemini it? Did you ChatGPT it? What have you tried? What worked? The onus is on you and it's sorry about an 11 minute rant. So I will like when I saw that I think you know, my blood boy small.

But anyway, I try not to be rude when I'm talking with guys on phone. So and forgive me for venting over here. So like I said, now network marketing and then scaling community. So I was there at SMEV Con to talk about selling in the screen first world. But then the person who had the session before mine, just before he got off, somebody asked him a question around network marketing. And so I decided to contribute to the to the discussion by saying that, yes, you know,

Nigel, we're always looking for hustle now. So people want to get involved in network marketing. And so people have problems with trying to figure out which is a reliable, I mean, what is an authentic network marketing opportunity. And so this is what I advised the house and I'm advising you guys in case there's anybody here who is also thinking about network marketing. When you are having conversations with people who are representatives of any MLM

scheme, you know, multi level marketing scheme, you know, whatever, try and source out what the focus is on. Some people talk a lot, a lot about the recruitment structure. That's what people call pyramids. Some people talk about the recruitment structure. Bring in one person, one person will bring in two, two people will bring 4/4, will bring 88, will be 1616, will bring 3232, will bring 64, and you'll be taking a 2% Commission off of everybody's sales.

And so because of that, at the end of the year, this is how much you'll expect to make. If people are focused on pyramid, pyramid, pyramid recruitment, recruitment, recruitment, then my own opinion, do not join that network marketing group. It's more or less a pyramid scheme or consumption chain. The focus is on the numbers. It's not as if they're doing anything illegal. It's just that essentially what you're joining is you're you're joining a recruitment agency and recruitment is hard.

So if you if you're down for if you're down for the hostel, then yeah, by all means go ahead. But then if you go there and they keep talking about products, products, products, this is a wonderful product. So this is how the product works. These are the benefits of the product. The product is magical. The product cures cancer. The product is the product. So if it's product, product, product, good, then you can join those people because that is a genuine sales based organization.

There actually is something that these people are selling and they're trying to move market. And those kinds of institutions, those kinds of network marketing groups will be teaching you guys things about sales, teaching you things about marketing, teaching you things about distribution. They'll be organizing training. It's not just about how much merchant as you can buy or you can use. So that'll be a good way to start because even if you think doesn't work out, you would have learned quite a bit about sales and marketing that you can take to apply to your next endeavour.

So if they are focused on the number of people that you bring into the system, then don't join them except if you're ready to play the recruitment game. If they are focused on a physical product, good, join them. Even if it doesn't work out for you, you will learn some things. And even if it doesn't work out for you, at least the products that are there, typically they are products that you can use anyway, whether it is soaps or creams or you know, whatever.

So worst case scenario you have a bunch of stuff, it will take you a year or two to finish using up all the things that you bought and you'd have learned some things about sales and marketing. So that was my contribution when it came to network marketing. Now, another reason, another thing to consider for member limbs in Niger, you know, a lot of them have this recruitment thing, but even if they don't have the recruitment thing going on and you know, they actually have products that they're trying to sell, this is one thing I need to point out.

Whatever multi level marketing company you join, whatever network marketing company you join, play by the rules because the rules have already been set up in such a way to maximize sales. So it doesn't help when you come in and you start trying to change the rules. You know, it's like, it's like a business franchise. When you buy a business franchise, do exactly what the franchise or says, exactly what the person who introduced you to the franchise, who told you about the franchise, do exactly what they say.

And that is how unfortunately network marketing works. This is not an air for you to flex your creativity. One of my cousins joined one of these network marketing groups and in the group, the way it was set up, you just attend the meeting. Your job is just to invite somebody else to attend the meeting. The person who chairs the meeting is the person who is the most skilled salesperson and that is the person who is responsible for drumming up sales.

Yours is just invite somebody for the meeting. That is just how that network marketing thing was set up. My cousin decided was going to be smart and say you know what, let me branch out and do this thing by myself. Let me buy some of the stuff and let me you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And guess what? My cousin ran into trouble. If the way The thing is set up is invite people for the meeting and then they had closer the head market marketer, the head,

whatever is the one responsible for drumming up sales, then all you need to do is invite people for the meeting and let the system take care of itself. Don't come in and try and be too smart. People who come up with genuine network marketing and multi level marketing schemes have already figured this thing out. You've taken a long time to figure it out and they've figured it out in different markets. Whether they start from India or they start from Europe or they start from America, they have figured it out.

Just go in and trust the process. Of course, shine your eye. Like I said, make sure that you're going into a very legit something and I've given you guys one simple test. What are they talking about all the time? Are they talking about levels, levels, levels coming at level 1, Invite somebody at level 2, invite somebody at Level 3. If each person is bringing to two people, by the time you get to level 10, you be a millionaire.

You know, all that kind of talk. Then just escape, weave, runaway quick. But then if you come in and they're talking a mix of level, level, but then they're also talking about the products. This product is good. This product works like this. This is how you sell this product. This is this is the ideal customer for this kind of product. You know, if they're talking product, product, product, good, stay, take a chance. So if you must join the network marketing group, whatever it is they say you should do, just do.

Sorry, when I say whatever they say you should do, just do. What I mean, of course, is, you know, within ethical bounds. I'm not saying, well, enjoying the cult. Oh, and yes, by the way, if you're sitting down any of these things and you've you're getting cult vibes, trust your into your intuition. If this thing feels like a secret cult, get out immediately when you come outside, you can now stay outside and try to reason.

The thing was that really a cult was that not really a cult. Don't stay in there and begin the reason one or two things. So excuse me, protect yourself. If you're feeling called vibes, come out straight immediately from the very first meeting. If you feel like you're getting cultish vibe, just say I had a calm arm piece. As you go outside, crank up your car and drive. Move immediately. So outside of these extreme concerns, you know, secret call vibes, pyramid scheme, just go ahead and do whatever they say you should do.

They already thought through everything but now try and make some more detailed episodes about this in the future. OK, I spoke about network marketing that is done with an emphasis on product and that is the reason why on this podcast, I will always always, always, always continue to heal Mary Kay. Now some people like my wife, my wife says Mary Kay products are no good and I have no, I have no idea. She says that Mary Kay actually do not make products that are good for how will I put it now,

you know, women of darker skin. Let me just put it that way. That's what my wife says. Whether it's true or not, I have no idea because I don't use makeup, obviously, but I'll always applaud Mary Kay because that is network marketing. One O 1, the Mary Kay woman. She thought it would be a good idea for female empowerment. Gather all men together. Teach them a couple of things. About sales and marketing, about merchandising, about presentation, about packaging,

about branding. Teach them one or two things. Empower them, give them soft small loan, let them be able to buy the makeup. Teach them how to organize makeup parties. Because The thing is built around this whole makeup party. Something. You go to somebody's house or somebody's the host, the person invites one of their friends. You will sit down, you know, there's, you know, small snacks, there's good music. People are pampering yourself.

Everybody's doing manicure, pedicure or do lipstick, do eyeshadow, do everything, everything. Everybody's looking nice, everybody's looking fresh, The person that is interested, the person that will buy, you see setting up a very nice atmosphere under which you can entertain people and then sell makeup in the process. And they are teaching women how to sell, sell a friend for themselves. Essentially, Mary Kay was creating a sales force and then creating distributors for her product that is network marketing One O 1.

So I'll always forever salute Mary Kay, even though some of my sisters say that Mary Kay product is not good for darker skinned women. Let me just leave it like that. So if you find yourself in a Mary Kay type establishment, oh please, by all means go in there because like I said, if it works out good, there's opportunities for making money. If it doesn't work out well, you have some makeup on your hands that eventually you finish using the makeup.

But most importantly, you would have learned some things about selling, about marketing, about presentations, about how to package yourself, about how to host meetings. And those skills, transferable skills will apply well in any of our endeavour that you decide to do. If it's politics, the skills will apply well. If you start another business, it will apply well. If you decide to retire and become a deaconess in your church, the skill will still apply.

Well. So those are some of my ideas around network marketing. They're now around scaling a community. The question was, what do you do when you have a community? And as the community grows, it leads to a loss of connection. Now, I can't remember what the person who took the stage said, but by the time, you know, I, I took the microphone, I told them that, look, it's just normal as a community. He grows at least to a loss of connection.

But that always happens whenever you don't really when you never really had a community in the 1st place. Because in Nigeria, when people say community, they just mean a group of people gathered together. But it's not a group of people gathered together that are a community. And the example that I gave them was this podcast. So right now on Spotify, there are over 3500 of you that are subscribed. On iTunes. There's a couple thousand that are subscribed in other places.

I don't know how many of you are subscribed, but I can't say that I have a Spotify community. I don't because it is me talking at you guys or talking to you guys. So what we have here is an audience of 3500 people. It's not a community. Lots of Nigerian business people think you have a community of 10,000 because you have a podcast that has 10,000 subscribers. No, you don't have a community. You have an audience of 10,000.

You have an audience that is 10,000 strong because a community is when people are beginning to liaise and interact with each other. That is what defines a community. So if I had some other forum where the 3500 of you who are listening on Spotify would help each other out, interact with yourselves, get to know yourselves better, that would be a community. So if you're trying to grow your business here in Nigeria and you're thinking of using community LED approach, my honest opinion is that I suspect what you have is an audience of people that you are talking to.

You have a receptive audience, but you do not have a community. So some people spoke about how you can use content to build a community and, you know, things like that. And so I had to tell them that, look, content is not the problem because content will always be you, the community founder or whatever, talking at or talking to people. And remember, you talking at people, talking to people is not a community, that is an audience.

So if I keep on creating more and more content, yes, my listenership base will grow to 3, from 3500 subscribers to 5000 to 10 to 15 to 20, hopefully one day, maybe 100,000 subscribers. But it will always be an audience, not a community. So I told them, and this is 1 trick I've seen from construction groups because I tried to learn from as many, many other industries as possible. So American boys in construction, you know, lots of them tried to grow their grow their, their training, you know,

using the community LED approach. And I noticed that what they do is they do lots of Q&A and case study where the head of the community will just put up one case study, say, and boys today we're going to use as a case study. Abdul Rahman. Abdul Rahman has won a contract to build Rd. from from local jet to Ibadan. He has secured it at a loan of 20%. Something something, something he has started and now he has, who cares, run into problems.

What is the way out for our brother? Just put it up there in the group case study. Now people begin to respond, people begin to brainstorm. You can see that that is a community. People are talking to themselves. You may have sparked the conversation, but you are not primarily there as the driver and then Q&A. That's when people have problems. You know, they come up and say I better go, I'm doing this business, I have this problem,

what should I do? Community members will now start putting themselves forward and say, Oh no, do it like this, run them like this, do it like this. Have you tried this? That is a community because people are talking to each other. So if you're going to take a community LED approach to grow your business, just know that it's not about the content you produce and it's not about how many times you talk at people while trying to look for ways to get people in the community talking to themselves.

Now funny enough, that is when you can relax because you don't feel the pressure to be in the group every day to try and spark conversation. When you have a true community, you'll find out your life will get easier because The thing is growing because people are talking to and engaging with themselves. So Please remember that there are lots of you listening to this podcast right now who if anybody asks you, you say I have a vibrant community of 7500

people. You do not have a community. Most likely what you have is an audience of 7500. When you find a way to get those 7500 people, whether they're on TikTok or Telegram or so. So I say Telegram, but then on Facebook groups or WhatsApp groups or Telegram groups, once you get them talk to each other, then you have a community. Yeah. So that's it. Not just with my random ideas. So summary, Nope, I don't like AI tools. None of them have paid me money.

I wish they would because I talk about Google Gemini a lot. But the only reason why I talk about it is because you have the responsibility for growing your business. So look for free and publicly available tools and resources to grow your business. So Google Gemini, it's already on your phone. For those of you who are Android users, because most of you listening to this podcast, Android users, it's already on your phone.

Use it for research. Use it to come up with ideas. The thing is free. Then try and apply those ideas that you see there when you hook, when you now run into trouble, come and ask me when I start having some interesting, exciting conversations that I can come back over here and share on the podcast. But if you decide that you want to be lazy, you want me to think of everything for you from beginning to end, then no problem, you hit me up.

We just know that look, this is going to be a paid thing from beginning to end. You pay me money and I'll become your second brain. Aside from that, the responsibility is all yours. Network marketing, shine your eyes before you get in scaling a community, make sure that you have a community and not an audience. So that's it, that's all. Also like to say a special thank you to the people who engage with me during SMEV Con.

So thanks to Ayesha. If you happen to be listening to today's podcast shows, the network marketer, and he's a network marketer and I think that's where the question came from, then I can Charles. I'll always remember Charles because my father's name was Charles. My father's lady is no longer with us anymore. So I can Charles thank you very much. As a community manager, who else does? Also, Professor, Doctor, the former, I was in the room.

We have been chatting before the event, so it's finally nice to put a voice to the name. Let's see. Uki was also in the house, asked a couple of questions. Uki was in digital marketing and who also is in the AI space and then who else? You know, not too many people, let's let's say maybe like 70 people. But sharp, you know, was nice to engage with. Yeah, it was nice to engage with everyone. So if you have an event, you know, physical, online,

something like that, you're looking for great speakers. I'm always available. Some things to note, I do not do PowerPoints. I don't do slides. So if you're looking for speakers who prepare beautiful slides that don't call me because I don't do slides, I just don't. I keep it live and I keep it practical and I keep it, what's the word spontaneous? Now, now, now, now, now I get on stage or I take the screen, we're talking and we're solving very specific problems and I'm asking people in the audience questions and I'm getting their input and we're brainstorming solutions together.

So if you're OK with that kind of approach, they sure call me for your events. But if you want beautiful PowerPoints and slides and stuff like that, I am not your guy. Although for one particular group they insisted and I had the PowerPoints made and I didn't use it. But to be honest, I felt like a fraud because like, what's the point of I got you the PowerPoint, I gave you the PowerPoint, you put up the PowerPoint, but I'm clearly not following through.

I'm using the the the PowerPoint. So I felt like a fraud. And I just said, you know what? I'm just not going to do that again. If they want PowerPoint, I'll just say sorry, I beg Yeah, not to do PowerPoint. So yeah, for your events, I'm available. And that's the reason why I give my phone number at the beginning and at the end of every single episode. So if you'd love to connect with me, you have a question, you have comments, you have queries,

Yes. You want to discuss collaborations or you want me for your event, whether live or online, then call, send me a text message or WhatsApp message on 08064662140. So thank you very much for your time everyone. I will catch you at another time. Oh, by the way, in case you have some noise in the background, I'm recording my podcast at home. Most of the times I record my podcast at home more on the go. So there's always interruptions in the background.

So that's where that extra noise came from. Especially this is your first time listening to the podcast. But don't worry, I try to make sure that the things we discussed over here are top notch and are valuable and are practical. So even if you can hear chickens and cows in the background, or crying babies, or I don't know, even if the heavens are falling, you know, if the audio is crappy, don't worry. I can assure you the things we talk about won't be crappy.

So I'll catch you next time.