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Hello and welcome to the show. I'm recording today's episode at my desk and the kids are home, so I expect to get some interruptions in the background if this is your first time listening to the show. The goal of the podcast is free business education. So hang around, you're in the right place. And if you get any value from it, Please remember to share, promote and talk about the podcast so that people in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle.
So how can they benefit from this? Just by subscribing Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or any player of your choice. And if you have any sales or marketing questions, you can bring them to me by calling, sending me an SMS, or send me a WhatsApp on 08064662140. Today's episode is going to be a rambling 1, so I want to apologize and that's because I had a conversation with someone recently. Let's just call him Steve. Not his real name, but let's call him Steve.
So I had a conversation with Steve about ways that he could possibly grow his business. He's kind of in the pharmaceutical space, let's say health and Wellness. Yeah, health and Wellness. So we had a conversation today and I just wanted to share with you guys the conversation that we had. And hopefully there's some useful Nuggets that a couple of you might be able to learn some stuff from. So the reason why this is going to be a somehow, somehow scattered episode is because,
you know, I haven't had the time to digest my thoughts and then, you know, make a coherent episode. But to be honest, you know, I'm behind on a bunch of stuff. There's really some podcast episodes I haven't done and there are a couple of people that I'm going to have to talk with shortly. So I won't have time to sit down and just gather my thoughts. So let me just go ahead and share this conversation with you. Then shout outs.
I haven't done shout outs in a very long time. Like to shout out Paul Nabukeke. That's a very Conch Ebo name. I guess that's a conquest name I've had to pronounce so far on the podcast. So Paul Nabu Nabukekeke, thank you very much for listening to the show. Listeners on Spotify reached out to me on WhatsApp. He's currently waiting for his UMES And you know what, just having a nice chat. And it's always, it always give me joy to come across people who, you know, school hasn't quite clicked or maybe like, you know, year 1, you know, but you're already getting the itch.
You're thinking of one or two things to do is the way forward. So Mr. Paul and others who are in that situation, there's one thing you guys ought to know. Shah because when you get into school, you know it's all fun. You get to meet lots of guys from different backgrounds, you know, lots of babes from different backgrounds as well. So that's a plus. So Mr. Paul, enjoy your uni, it's going to be fun. And then, you know, there's the course load and it can seem like a lot, you know, you come in,
you're meeting all these new people, getting all these new friends. Maybe you hit the party scene, some of you want to start blending with church or fellowship, you know, so it's it's a lot. So to now come and add hustle to it, to now add entrepreneurship to it, you are making things a little bit much more difficult. Sorry, 1 moment. Sorry about that. One of my kids needed my attention. So I was like, so one of my children needed my attention.
So I just had to pause and sort them out and now I'm back. So I think Paul, OK, it's Paul Nagbo KK. So it's going to be lots of fun and juggling school and socials and everything is going to be a handful. So if you're going to add entrepreneurship to the mix, you are going to be juggling quite a lot. So for people like you that have chosen to go down this path, just know that your focus is going to have to be on another level because someone was entered uni and we played die,
as in from day one until the last day was play, play, play, play, play. Unfortunately, you are not going to be able to have that kind of life because let's say you're going to do something as simple as Suya, for instance, because it was one of my classmates, not in my own faculty. I think it was in social sciences. And so that's what he did. Suya, shawarma, you know, all those kind of things. So when lectures finish for some of us was a matter of OK, let's bath, let's go, Jim from Jim went our female hostel, you know, but for him he was, you know, lectures is up.
You have to go and start preparing. You have to cut all the vegetable down, make sure the meat is on point, go and buy kerosene, make sure the grill is on point. What else? You know, because he had a business to run. So it's going to be a different kind of life no matter what it is that you decide to do, except if you're going to be selling credit. But even selling credit, Sha has its own challenges. But bottom line, what I'm just saying is, yes, you're waiting for you and me.
It's my prayer that this thing is going to click and that you are going to have fun in the next stage of your life, university. But just know, Sha, that if you're going to do this hustling thing, you can't be relaxing. And I'm not saying you don't have fun. Don't catch trips. Catch trips, yes, but just know that you're putting a lot on your plate. So you're not going to be able to live as the rest of your classmates. Just be OK with that and you'll be fine.
So yes, I have. So my conversation with this guy, Steve, not his real name. So Steve is one of these people who reached out to me live on the radio show. And of course, that's sometimes when I need more details, so I tell people to just hit me up WhatsApp so that we can talk some more. And it turns out that he's in the health and Wellness space. He already has a bunch of stuff that is being sold at H Medics. H Medics is one of the big pharmaceutical chains in Abuja.
Then he also has some stuff in hospitals. They've done some sponsored programs, you know, things like that. He has some things in medical labs. And then they're also using user generated content to promote the business because he's in health and Wellness space and he happens to have one of those drugs where people take it and they say that, you know, this thing is a real deal. So they're sending him testimonials. And I think that's fantastic because the first time I need to see what kind of testimonials he got, he sent me like 26 videos.
I'm like, now for this guy, when you come and send me 26 videos, but I mean, 26 of 26 customers sending you video testimonials on solicited like you didn't beg them. And once I say, man, this testimony, I have to share this testimony. Well, I guess it's a it's a good thing. Any I'm assuming they're not paid actors anyway, because he didn't sound like a fraud and the videos looked all right. But even if you don't have that level of success in your own business yet, when I say success, I mean people really liking your product.
Just know that it's possible. I also had a call with another entrepreneur, but she's based in Lagos. That was yesterday. I'll share some of the details later. For that one, I definitely have to go over my notes, but I'm not saying it is possible that people can love your product that much that they will say, look, I just have to send you a video to say thank you and stuff like that. So he promotes the business by using user generator content then because he's in the health and Wellness space.
In the beginning, they had a mission to keep the cost low, but you know, we're in Nigeria now. So that was this thing called hyperinflation. You know, the cost of production is going up. So right now, sometimes they have to sell a bottle maybe close to like that kind of tanky. So sometimes they can take maybe seven or five. But yeah, then let's see what else. They also had offices in Kano, but they had to shut down operations in Kano because the Abuja office was basically financing the Kano operations.
So they shut that down. You know, these are some of the difficult decisions that you have to go into as default decisions they have to make as a business owner. So like back when my first son was really, really little, I had a studio space. But I just thought about it. I was paying like 30 K every month. I mean, now 30 KA month is is is nothing. So some of you will be laughing. Just know that this was a while ago. So 30K every month in just to maintain the studio space.
And I was spending a lot of time, you know, either with him or you know, how baby's going to be now, you know, they get sick, it's time for immunization, blah, blah, blah. So I know how to shut down the office space. So, you know, these are some of the difficult decisions that you have to make in business. You have to allocate scarce resources. You know, it's not as if you're a Khashoggi. It's not as if you have all the money in the world.
So you have to determine where can I put this money effectively. So they shut down, Stephen had to, Steve had to shut down the account office. Then let's see, they've been running this business in Abuja 10 years. That's real commendable. I hope those of you who are new in this space and get to see the level of effort and dedication that has to go into this thing. So he's not like he entered something and then he changed and then he changed and then he changed and he's been running this game for like 10 years.
And you'll make sense now when you now understand that they're doing as on average 3 M in profits monthly. You know, so it's not it's not beings it doesn't just start like that because the whole bunch of you, especially guys are you guys are too impatient. So you start crypto today, you do crypto from January to March and then crypto is not popping off. Then next thing you know you're doing real estate real estate. You do real estate from July to August and then real estate is not popping off and then you now say you're doing multi level marketing.
Multi level marketing will not carry you from, you know, September to maybe like February next year. Then The thing is not working. And then because of Valentine's Day, you notice that people are really buying cards and gifts. And then now you're in the gifting space. I mean, like, you know, calm down. You're running too much from left, right to all over the place. You're not giving this thing time to grow. So lots of business people, the average entrepreneur, I mean,
they actually have to give this in some time to show that you're building something. So he's been this, Steve has been in this in this for 10 years. So of course they have Lagos office or office and it looks like they're not doing too bad on the Flyers end. That's also something he's been using to promote his business. They printed about 20,000 worth of Flyers and then they did this really interesting thing I see with people, some people where the flyer is front to back.
So the front is the Wellness products for women, the back is one of Wellness products for men. Some of you might be saying 20,000 Flyers, like what? But remember I told you that Flyers is a numbers game. So if you can afford to print 20,000, it's all good. Because think about it, if you have 20,000 Flyers and you have 4 locations like him, there's Lagos, Abuja, Des Abe, is that 3 or 4? Abuja, Lagos and weary, if you only split it, that was only like 7000 Flyers, you know, for each city.
So if you look at it from that point of view, 7000 Flyers per city, yeah, it's not that much because 7000 Flyers were finished, you know, shop, shop. By the time you call your sales associates, your sales boys, your sales girls, you know, you send them out, you give everybody, you know, 556600 Flyers. I mean before you know, it's 7000 Flyers not finished. So don't look at it as if it's that big. If you can afford it, make sure no problem.
Then other things that he has been doing to promote his business. Oh, sorry. By the way, the reason why I'm running through all these things, what he has been doing to promote his business is because the reason why he reached out was because I'm they've been having problems with patronage, as he called it all growing sales. And typically when we're trying to solve these kinds of problems, the first thing I like to do is I like to say, look,
let's sit down and let's try and figure out what is it that is currently working or what has worked the best. Because when it comes to expanding your sales, the first port of call actually is to figure out what have I done in the past or what is working now? And then let me double down and do most of that thing. Because in the beginning, we want to make sure that we're doing the right thing. After that, we want to make sure that we Max out our effort.
It is only after that that we can now start worrying about scale. So Please remember the challenges that you will face in the beginning and the early parts of your business are problems of effort or problems that can be overcome by effort. What am I doing? Am I doing the right thing? Oh OK, I have figured out the right thing. I figured out something that works. Let me now multiply this thing. Let me do it as much as I
possibly can. Then next will be scale. Now I have figured out what it is that is working. How am I going to remove myself from this situation so that I do not become a bottleneck? How can I train 5 or 6 other people to sell as me so that instead of me, instead of it being my own effort, bringing in all this money, let me take other people's effort. It is now effort times 5. That's why we now start talking about scale.
So scale is now we're talking about people or talking about systems or protocols. So whatever it is, that is when you now start thinking, OK, let me get a team, let me train up a team or what tech thing can we do here? Or how can we gain leverage here? You know, So that's the second level scale. After that, your problems will be problems of strategy. That is where like in Stevens case, they will now start thinking, OK, we've been in the health and Wellness space.
We've been doing this for 15 years. Looks like we've maxed out our our profits. Should we enter a new city? Should we start a new product, you know, or should we partner with this person or whatever? You now start thinking strategic things. So that is the trajectory. Now, the reason, another reason why I'm repeating that today is because lots of you are getting this thing twisted. Some of you start and you're thinking man ought to be strategic extract like stop the strategy thing.
There's no strategic nothing. Now your reasoning things backward, especially for young men right now is a matter of figuring out what is the right thing to do. Where should I be spending my time that is going to yield results? In the beginning, results just mean instruction. Traction just means customers are coming in or deposits are entering the bank account. That's why you should be looking for are customers coming?
Are people calling? Are people entering the shop? Are people coming through? Are people sending me DMS? That distraction then of course, you know how much money is entering the bank account is the money entering daily is he entering weekly is he entering monthly? Is it entering in the amount that I like it those are the kind of things you should be worried about so we should be thinking about the activities that we're doing and whether it's yielding those results so effort first after effort, then skill after skill, then strategy.
So young man listening, stop coming into this thing thinking I'm going to be strategic from the beginning. It doesn't work like that. The time for strategy will come, but of course I'm also going to switch off your brains. So the reason why I'm running through all these things, you know, he's in age medics, he's in hospitals, he's in medical labs, They've done sponsor programs, they're doing UGC is the ground sponsored ads is because I was running.
We're running through a list of every single thing that he has done because we're trying to figure out what is it that works. Because if it turns out that being in pharmacies like age Medics is the one that works for your business, then he's a no brainer. My advice to you will be OK instead of age Medics, how can we go and add 234567 pharmacies in Abuja and scale this thing? So you figure out what works first the one that is working,
just pour kerosene on it and then light fire and then you know blow start burning. So that's how that's how we go about this. And it turns out that H medicine was not a good thing for him the pharmacy. And I'm not surprised because this is the problem with retail for those of you who want to do stuff like this, because like one of my friends, he's, he and his wife, they're doing soap. And you know, it's nice. It's just that the problem with retail is this.
You take your, your merchandise, the soap or the, the banana chips, the plantain chips, the whatever it is that you've made the change in, you now give it to the shop. And this is what the shop will tell you. The shop will tell you, sure, no problem, you can put it here. But honestly speaking, the shop is going to pay you when the goods have been sold. And apart from that, their standard terms are like 30 days or 60 days.
So in other words, you will take your chips to the shop January 1st and the person will collect it from you January 1st. But honestly speaking, you won't see any money from that chips until March. And the sad thing is sometimes you can even show up in March and they will tell you that look or the chips that we collected were only able to sell half. So this remaining inventory, take it back. Isn't it just taking up shelf space?
So when it comes to this retail thing, man, that's a rough game. Rough game, especially for those of you who are starting off the first time business. So as much as I want to tell my friend, like, you know, but I say, well, let me, let me allow them, you know, maybe they'll be able to figure out something out. But just for those of you who want to start business, you just know that selling through retailers is tough, is really,
really tough. Their payment terms are not nice at all. First of all, you have to chase them a lot to put your consignment in the shop and then they will agree, OK, bring 100 cartoons. You bring 100 cartoons and you start celebrating. They will not pay you for the 100 cartoons. Please, I'm repeating again, most retailers are not going to pay you upfront for the goods that you are bringing to the shop. They'll keep it in the shop and they'll say when we sell it,
we'll give you the money. And even at that payment terms is going to be net 60. Sorry, net 30 or net 60. That's how they call it net. I don't know why they say net, net 30, net this. I'm like, what are you netting? So those are the payment terms for just know you're going to do retail and you drop 100 cartoons of your potato chips at the shop January 1st. Just know, realistically speaking, except if you're maybe dealing with a church member or something and he says he wants to support your hustle, you're not going to see anything from that batch until like February,
March. That's when you start seeing payment for it. So because the payment terms are unfavorable, Steve is thinking about discontinuing his, his partnership with this particular pharmacy. Because for labs and for hospitals, you know, it kind of makes more sense because for the labs and the hospital, it's sort of like on demand because then health and Wellness space and, and they sell stuff that can be used in using IVF or in place of IVF.
So that one is on demand. You know, the hospital will call you and say, oh boy, we have 15 clients, we need 30 bottles and then they'll just send it to the hospital. So that one is, is different. So for those of you who've been listening to the show, especially episodes where I talk about sales channels, you can see now why the choice of sales channel is important because some channels work better than others. Some channels pay faster than others, some channels have more headache than others.
So you have to be strategic about it. So anyway, that's the reason why I'm asking all this question on question like, OK, all these things you've done, now which one works the best? And then let's double down. Then they also have done some seminars and symposium Abbey symposium symposia, symposiums, whichever is the plural of symposium. OK, I'll be symposium is the plural. OK, so single singular should be simple symposia.
I think English grads, please let me know also. So seminar symposium lectures, presentation at churches, you know things like that. But I must admit I like Steve. I like his I like his gumption. I like the gospel as anyhow shall I will make this thing work and the margins on. Medicines, pharmaceuticals, you know, stuff like that. The margins are small, except if you're in the, you know, doing like in the beauty space.
I hear that the margins on beauty products and perfumes and things like that are wonderful as in the margins make more sense, but health and Wellness is not. So we can charge that much. So, but I like his, I like his, his view. Like anyhow, anyhow, who make this thing work? So he's he's also in the thing and so big ups to Steve and other people who are in Steve's situation. So some of the ideas that he was talking about trying out now was he said that some people who are doing drop shipping of their products both at home and abroad.
But the reason why he doesn't want to go down that route is because the drop shippers are not really moving market like that like that. Like it's not really moving fast, fast, fast. So they are looking for people that will be distributors. And he described his idea and I told him, and this is something that I want to let you know in case you're in a similar position as Steve is. He's looking for people who are willing to invest time and money.
So people will raise, you know, a couple grand, maybe like 100K, you know, buy a couple of bottles and then sell. And then he will give them margins of like 2K or 1/5 on each bottle. And yes, that kind of thing makes sense. You know, he works in different circumstances, but I just told him like, hey, Steve, sure. You know, like why Niger? The moment anybody hears this thing, they will say you're doing multi level marketing,
they'll say you're doing network marketing. He said, yes, I know, but it's not network marketing, blah, blah, blah. And I told him like, you know, my guy, I'm, I'm with you, I feel you. I know it's not multi level marketing. I'm just telling you that when you start explaining like this, people will start saying this is multi level marketing. So part of your sales process in getting people to come on board as distributors, you guys need to think hard and fast.
How are you going to overcome this multi level marketing challenge? Because Irish Nigeria will hear this thing. I will say, ah MLMI beg me, I don't want to do 419 This is this not about that. So you have to think about that. Then I also told him that the distributor play, that the reason why it works in other industries is because the distributors can see that the owner of the intellectual property, the person who owns the brands typically has invested a lot of money in sales and marketing.
So it gives people comfort that even though I'm buying merchandise from the owner of the company, I'm buying maybe like 2 million worth of product, they have confidence that OK, the thing will move, I'll be able to sell because of the advertising that people are doing. So the example that I gave him was NBC, that's Nigerian Breweries Company, Abby, Nigerian Breweries Corporation, any NBC shop. Those are the people that do Coca-Cola.
I think they also do star that star beer, Coca-Cola, Fantas Pride star, you know all of that. So for those of you who live in Lagos, you know when you want to enter a Laosa from our Wall Rd. So depending on where you're coming from, by the time you get to what's this place now? I, I think it used to be catch a city mall. I'd be catch a country mall. I can't remember because I've been in Lagos for a very long time. So by the time you pass, you catch a city mall, you now turn right.
That's if you're coming from Nepal side, where you're coming from Allen Ave. junction and that'll be before you get to the mall. You now turn left. So NBC, that's where they are. So Fanta coke star and everything. So those people, this is the model that they do. So if I am a seller of star, I will go to NBC and I'll say NBC or I give me 100 crates of star and I will pay NBC upfront for the bottles of star and then I'll collect my 100 crates.
It is now left to me to sell my 100 crates of beer, add my own markup, and then now settle myself and everything is cool. The reason why people do that no confidence is because they see that NBC is putting up billboards, star, Sunshine Bubble, putting TV advertisements, Sunshine Bubble, putting advertisements for Fanta, for sprites, for I think the one Marinda as well, Abby and let me also do 1. I don't know. But The thing is NBC is advertising all over the place.
So I can go there with some confidence and say give me 100 crates of Star, give me 500 crates of Coke, give me 200 crates of Fanta and pay them because I'm seeing advertisements. That has given me some comfort that anyhow, sure, I will sell this thing because I can see the marketing that people are doing. So I told him that look is something you guys have to factor into the equation. Do people see that you guys are investing into promoting this thing?
Then they might feel more secure. Like OK, 200,000 is a lot of money, but the way these people are pushing this thing, this is going to blow or give me 500 boxes. So we had that conversation. And so if you are in that space and you're thinking of recruiting distributors that way, these are two challenges that you need to know. I'm not saying don't use it. I'm not saying just know that Nigerians will say, Bros, you're doing multi level marketing, I'm out.
You need to know how to have that conversation with them. Then the second thing is you also need to be able to, part of the risk mitigation will be to let them know that this is how much we're investing in promoting the brand. This are the, these are the plans that we have for promoting and marketing the brand in the future. And this is our track record in the past. This is what we're going to in the future. This is why it's going to make sense for you to put some time and some effort behind this.
So there's one problem I had in particular with Steve. And the problem is, well, of course, you know, Steve's been doing this for 10 years. He's done a whole lot. He's tried a whole lot. So trying to figure out the one that is actually working 1 is actually popping off was kind of like a problem because he's done a lot. So excuse me. My advice for, you know, people like this, like your vein, your ginger is, is high and you're moving here, moving there,
trying to make things work. Always try and be keeping records, be writing down things here and there, you know, small, small, small, small so that one day after six months or one year, you can look back and say, Kai, isn't that I tried. Did this thing even work? OK, What? How well did it work? So you can make decisions because in the future, if you're going to call a consultant and sit down with a sales consultant, we need to see some of these things that OK, you did Instagram ads.
How much money did you drop? OK, after you drop money, how many customers came? OK, You tried Flyers? How much money did you drop from the money that you drop? How much customers came? OK, you deal billboard. How many billboards did you buy during that period? How much food traffic did you get? How many people came into the office? How much, how many customers did you get? We need to ask these questions because that's what's going to be able to help us figure out the, what's it called?
ROI? I mean the return on investment. That's what's going to be able to help us figure out all these things. How much money did you drop? What were the results? How quickly did the results come in? It is then we'll be able to say you know what, this flyer thing, double down on the flyer. This is the one that makes sense. Or you know what, this billboard thing that I want to make sense pass while I double down on that.
Or you know all the seminars you've been doing, that's where the money is. So instead of doing 1 seminar a month, let's say how we can be doing like 4 seminars every month. So we actually need these things. So as you're perambulating, as you're doing this, as you do also up and down, just be writing things down. Now, I know it's hard because that's why I'm not very organized. So I have lots of books that I keep when I'm just being writing, writing, writing,
writing, writing. So that back when I still used to work with my accountant, so that at the end of the year, my accountant needed any information. I mean, it was hard work, but the thing was, at least I had everything. If my accountant asked for anything, I'll be able to say, you know what? I don't have the information. But here, take all these receipts. If you check all these receipts, you'll be able to figure it out or, OK, I don't have all the information you're looking for now, but all these papers I have here like this, should I check all these people?
You find everything. I mean, the poor guy used to give me stress, but should I be writing things down here, here, here, here, here? Let's try and figure out what it is that works. So remember that as you're trying these things, as you're trying billboard flyer, this, that. Should I just be writing things down? This is how much I spent in Flyers from this period to this period will not be able to go and check your invoices, check your Excel sheet, check your wherever, where you track where you're selling.
And I'll be able to figure out that OK, in this period that we spent X amount, this is what came in. OK, maybe this is always responsible. So yeah, that was my difficulty. But I told him that look, since you already have 20,000 Flyers lying around, we might as well because The thing is just lying down there. Why waste it? We've already spent the money, so let's start pumping the Flyers out. So we had to come up with a plan.
Then the next part was having conversations to try and figure out the ICP. So we came up with women 20 to 2245 for that particular product because the even though it's health and Wellness, it deals with specific reproductive issues. So consumption heavy, heavy flows, delayed period, you know, all these sorts of things. And then of course, Abuja is doing good, although he says most of the money comes from Lagos, but he is based in Abuja.
So I said, OK, no problem, you're based here. So we want to see how we can beef the Abuja market soon. Walla. So women 22 to 45, you know, Abuja, we got a sense of the occupation, the typical people that buy from him. We had to figure that out. And this is how I explained it to him. So I explained to him like this, you know, when we're running Instagram ads, there's a place in the Facebook ad manager. What do you think will ask you to sign train information?
Now? Who should I show this advertisement to You're on That will now decide. So I told him all those things that you enter into the Facebook ad manager, we need that information as well. It's not only online that you do it like that. In the real world, we actually, we actually need this information as well because it determines where we are going to go. So if we're going to go and drop Flyers and we have information that says women 22 to 45 living in Abuja, most of them are civil servants.
One idea that came up was to see how we could enter. What's this place? What's this place called? I think I skipped my mind. It's in central area Federal secretariat. So new secretariat, old secretariat, you know, was an idea, just hashed it out. Oh, by the way, one of the reasons why I'm considering when I see people who want to do the flyer game, why I think of ideas like this, is because doing Flyers, sending out, handing out Flyers can be very hard work.
So if you're going to do it like how people are doing it in Abuja, real estate, people in Abuja, they stay at traffic lights and then they give off Flyers. The problem with that is you're just making the work unnecessarily hard because not everybody will collect traffic starts and stops. They won't have to be there for a very long time. But if you go to a place where cars are already parked, let's say 2000 cars are parked.
Oh, that's easy. Four or five people can walk around in 45 minutes, one hour and conveniently drop Flyers in every single car in the parking lot that has, you know, 2000 cars. OK, no, let me not say one hour, maybe say maybe like 2 hours, 3 hours. So it will be worth more of your time. So that's why I was thinking these sorts of things. But anyway, because of some particular reasons why we decided to scratch that idea.
So it made more sense based on his relationship with churches to go down the churches route, you know, presentation in churches and then dropping the Flyers at the car parks in churches like that one seemed like you can make more make more sense. Then remember I said I've been doing billboards and billboards in Abuja is like 300 grand. That's what he said. The last time he did it was 300 K. And this also another reason why if you're talking to a consultant, you know, just like me, will be asking you some kind information because it's when we know exactly the time or the amount that you've invested in something, we might have a sense of where it might be, how to put it.
We'll get a sense of where best to reroute these resources that might have more impact because Steve is very knowledgeable. So this is his life. He's been doing this thing for the last 10 years. So you know, infertility, what else? Infertility, PCOS, hormonal issues. But I mean, like, that's his thing. He's obviously very knowledgeable and he's obviously very passionate about the thing. I even forgot to ask him like, how did you get involved in all this?
Because it's, I mean, apart from people who went to school to study, it's you know, like medicine, medicine, medicine. I don't know of ordinary guys who just carry this thing on their head like that. Anyway, so he's your passionate. And so while we're talking, it also got to me now look, instead of dropping 300K on billboards, you're better off routing that thing through radio and then going through a content marketing strategy.
And at that point he said that's actually the reason why I called into the show. I was like, oh, OK, fantastic. We're on the same mind then. And so that's the plan that we came up with and that is how we ended the meeting. We hashed out the plan for the churches he's going to execute and then I hooked him up with somebody else who is in radio because Radio Maria is a not-for-profit. So Radio Maria does not do this kind of thing.
You can't go and do advert advertising on Radio Maria, especially since it has some kind of connection or implication. Some time to IVF is not something that even if Radio Maria was not a Catholic station, they wouldn't even collect the money. So I hooked him up. I know someone who's in the marketing team at some other radio station and then I hooked them up and this is what we agreed. So I told him that this is the play.
I'll try and get you on radio and I'll try and get you on radio so that you will be the only person on the show. Because he told me that he has done radio in the past, but he was a panel of four. And I said, Oh no, no, panel of four does not make sense. The attention is diluted. So I'll try and get you on radio. You'll be the only person on the panel because this your charisma, this your vision, this your knowledge, it has to come through, especially if it's a calling thing where people can call in and ask questions.
So you'll be the only one that will be there. And so I told him when you get there, don't sell. And he agreed his of course, I'm not going to sell on air. See, this is also some people need to learn. Sometimes those of us who are trying to move markets, we try and do it in a very what's that word in a very like if we're trying to sell too hard, people will know and you know they'll, they'll just because nobody likes being sold to.
They're just this one is a hack. This one is a Hulkster. So sometimes you're just giving value, just giving value, just giving value. People be coming forward who's OK, I'm interested or I want to learn more. And it is when you're now having one-on-one interactions with people that you not have a chance to sell. So I told him when you're on the radio, don't sell anything. He said, of course not will be a matter of discussing all these issues.
PCOS, What is PCOS? How is it caused? How do you know if you have it? What are the symptoms? What are the signs, what are the things healthy living that you can do to help out with this and to that and to that and blah, blah, blah. And then the call to action at the end of the radio show now will be if you would like to learn more about any of these things, call me on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's the scope.
Some of you might be saying this sounds a lot like your podcast. Yeah, you'll be correct. It is the scope. So he said yes, yes, yes, that no problem. So we've agreed. And by the way, this thing I say about call to action, you see why I say it's very, very important because there's some of you who go on radio, because I see it a lot on LinkedIn. Oh, I was called to do this, this on this radio station or this TV station.
And they have a nice segment, but at the end of the day, there's no call to action at the end of the segment. I mean, it's OK, It's good for branding, but for sales is not entirely good. I mean, if I'm talking to the producers, it's of, of like if I ever get invited to be on Channels TV, it's something I'm going to talk about with the with the producers. We got to introduce a call to action there, even if I'm not the one that's going to say it.
I mean, at the very least while the segment is going on, like can my website be flashing at the bottom of the screen? Like I will talk to the producers like we got to put something there anyway, So those has to be a call to action. If you see me, you like you sound interested, then call me on this number. So that's how we ended the meeting. And I'm hoping that from my rambling so far that you guys might have been able to take one or two things.
I should be able to help you in your own, yeah, in your own situation. But I guess the big thing that I just want to stress from all this is we, we, we spend a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of effort in trying to promote our businesses. We should be trying to write down something somewhere on your phone, in your sheet of paper, in an Excel sheet, in something. Just try and get a sense of what am I trying, what is working,
what is not working. It is then you'll be able to know that for your business or for your city or for your circumstances that Flyers is rubbish. All that for your business, for your circumstances, for your customers, that Instagram advertising is awesome or for your circumstance, for your context, for your industry, that being on TV or radio is rubbish. It is only if we are writing down our keeping records that we'll be able to know.
So if you're writing and you notice that, oh, every single time I go on radio, I receive 50 phone calls and out of the 50 phone calls, I closed two business. You can now do some math in your head that OK, to be on that radio show, I had to pay 100 grand. But those two customers that I got gave me a profit of 650. You can now do the math in your head, OK, I paid 100 grand. I came out with 650. So if you might not say that means I made 550K profits, is it worth it?
I think it might be some people might say, I know you only gave me two customers, it's not worth it. So you know, it depends. So let's brighten all these things down so that after a while, after 1/4, after a year, after six months, after every month, we can sit down and be looking. I will now be able to decide, OK, you know what? This was not worth my while. I will never do this again. Or this was worth my while and I'm going to do more of it.
So that's all for today, folks. Hopefully the next podcast episode I'm going to make will be much more organized. So thanks again to Paul. Now book KK. Like your son knew. It's really, really solid. Yeah. So we're hoping and praying with you that the UMES will turn out well and you'll get admission and you're going to go on to better, brighter, much more beautiful things. Welcome to the world. Welcome, Ish to the world.
Because between secondary school and university, it's not say university is the real world job, but you're still taking a step closer to us. So welcome. We're here. We're waiting to embrace you and to support you in any way that we can. Now, for those of you in school, continue with your hustle. I know it's not easy, but shall I try and make it work? You can graduate first class. Please, by all means, graduate with the first class.
I'm not one of those people who tell you that first class is rubbish. No, first class is not rubbish. First class is good. If you can't get that first class, get that first class. You know when we're talking one-on-one, I'll tell you the benefit of the first class. It's not what you think. So that's all for today. If you've got sales and marketing questions, then bring them to me. You can call, you can SMS or send me a WhatsApp on 08064662140.
Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you, dear listener, at the next episode.