Texting Your Way to Success: WhatsApp for Business Growth

Hello and welcome to the show. Today we're going to wrap up the conversation about how you can use WhatsApp for business purposes. I think in the last episode I was I wrapped up talking about how you can use WhatsApp to foster relationships and trust. So we'll just give a few words on that and then we'll wrap up that series. OK. Then also WhatsApp can be useful to use it to qualify clients. For those of you who are newbies listening to the show, I'm going to define what qualification is later on in the episode.

So OK, WhatsApp on fostering relationships and trust. Now of course, WhatsApp is a direct communication channel and that's what allows you to be much more personalized, much more personal, much more friendly when compared to e-mail and SMS. And that's why over here on the podcast I've been talking about the hierarchy of communications and why I would, in most situations, prioritize WhatsApp over e-mail and SMS. Now of course, e-mail is necessary to tidy things up,

keep things nice and official, but there's nothing that says that if you don't, if you have the other person's WhatsApp number, there's nothing that says you can't do most of the chit chat, most of the back and forth on WhatsApp. And then when you want to get things nice and tidy, nice and formal, then you send the e-mail with all the IS dotted and all the TS crossed. So it's not a bad way to facilitate business communications.

And that is how, personally, I prefer to do things. So yes, you can e-mail things back and forth perpetually and spend weeks to try and get things done, but I prefer to just pick up the phone, try and see how we can wrap up this conversation sharp, sharp, or maybe arrange a meeting. I go to the office, they come over to mine. We just talk it over sharply. That's not possible. Then there's e-mail, you know, sorry, not e-mail and WhatsApp.

You chat back and forth and you have WhatsApp calls back and forth. And then when you're ready to make things nice and tidy and formal, you know, reduce everything to writing, then we get back to SMS. So WhatsApp, that's how it fosters relationships, expedite to business and helps to build trust because it a much, it's a much more direct communication channel. So let's see what else? Oh yeah. So of course since it's a much more personalized channel, it's going to allow you to do things like have personalized greetings, you know people already taking advantage of that using emojis and GIFs or GIFs.

You know, however it is that you pronounce pronounce that then let's see what else stuff like that. Basically, that's all the kinds of personal and personalized things that you can do in WhatsApp that you can't do over e-mail. Then it also allows you to provide valuable information directly and timely, because we're trying to do things over e-mail. You know, that whole thing when you send somebody the invitation? Sorry, not the invitation.

You send someone the information and you send it on a Monday. But The thing is, people don't usually check their e-mail hourly or every day for some people. So you send on the Monday and then they check the e-mail on the Wednesday, but by then it's too late because you need that the information on Tuesday. But if you do WhatsApp, on the other hand, you know people, most people respond to their WhatsApp messages shopping.

So you can send someone the WhatsApp message by let's say 8:00 in the morning. And even if they've had a really, really rough day, they probably get back to you by 6:00 PM that evening or something like that. So you can use that to provide valuable information directly. Then because of that whole personal and direct thing, then sharing updates with people. Not a bad idea if you're going to use WhatsApp for that. Also people keeping people up to date with promotional offers and things like that, you know,

keeping you top of mind. For those of us who are guys, married or in relationships, we see a lot of that working. When Easter comes round or Christmas comes round, or our children's birthdays come round and then Wifey is receiving messages from vendors that she's done business with in the past. You know, happy birthday for your son, happy birthday for your daughter, blah, blah, blah. We're now offering, you know, this percent on children's shoes or 70% off on this or on that and that and that.

So all that magic for building business is possible because we have WhatsApp and we can use it for business purposes. Now the second part that I said I was going to do some explaining on, especially for those of you who are newbies, this is your first time of listening to the podcast. I mentioned that you can use WhatsApp as a tool to qualify clients. Now qualification is a part of the sales process that involves sorting through contacts.

Now whenever you are OK, sorry about that noise. That's the alarm. OK, yeah, we've done 5 minutes. I want to make sure that today is a short episode. OK, so I was on qualification. Yes, that's sorting through contacts. Because in business, you're going to be having conversations with lots of people. Lots of people who hit you up on Instagram, DM, or who come to your shop, or you meet people at networking sessions, or you get a referral to someone else, you know.

Bottom line is you're having conversations with people all the time and you're trying to figure out who you should be spending the most time with. Because if someone is merely curious, if someone is curious versus interested, then obviously I would say you should be spending much time with the interested person because the curious person can be a Waka pass. You know, you just come like, OK, oh, you have this, how much is this?

How much is this? But they were never, sorry, excuse me, but they were never really going to buy in the 1st place. But now someone who has a genuine interest, a genuine need, the person who has a problem that they're trying to solve, a division that they're trying to move forward with, I think that you're better off spending time with those people. Well, immediately. That is right now. So if the person is interested, spend time with them right now.

If the person is curious, then put them in the list for relationship nurturing. You can always get back to them later saying, OK, yes, we have this, we have that. What are you interested in? You know, blah, blah, blah. And keep them, what's the word? You know, just keep top of mind and stuff like that. So that if they change their mind and they become really interested because they have a specific thing they're asking after a specific problem that they're trying to solve, then you can move them up the communication queue then, OK,

yeah. So how do you use WhatsApp to do that now? Because WhatsApp is a direct communication channel where you can have real personalized conversations, provide information directly, it allows you to have these sorts of conversations where you're trying to figure out who is this person, what are they about, How did they hear about you? What's the problem that they have? What's the vision that they're trying to solve? You can usually do this on WhatsApp, pinging back and forth, but remember, back to the communications hierarchy.

I prefer and I advise that you pick up the phone and have this conversation sharply. Now if you're worried about credit, that's not a problem because in Nigeria anyway, cost of keeping in touch has gone down a little bit. That's because for WhatsApp, we now have the call feature. I remember that when WhatsApp first came out, we didn't have the call feature, was only text. But that was a long time ago, maybe like a decade ago we didn't have the call feature.

So now we have a call feature. You don't have to use WhatsApp for texting. Only then when it's time to call, you know, pick up Skype or I can't remember what we used to use back then, back when we were in school, there was Skype. Skype is the American company. Then there was another alternative, but I can't remember what that was called. So now we have WhatsApp called, we have video calls. So you can just call the person up, WhatsApp call, and have a cost effective conversation where you're trying to figure out who they are, what they're about, what they're interested in trying to solve, you know,

things like that. So my son's birthday passed recently and if you're a cake vendor, you're speaking to someone in these sorts of circumstances, then WhatsApp is going to be a very good tool for qualifying because you can be pinging back and forth, you know? Oh, congratulations, Ma. How is he? How old is he going to be? OK, what are you guys looking at? Six inches, 8 inches, 12 inch cake. How many layers? 234, What flavours does he like?

Strawberry, Vanilla, blah blah blah. What are his favorite superheroes? Or what are her favorite? This and that? And what else? Do you have a party planned? What's the dress code for the day? When do you need it delivered? You know all those sorts of questions. Now these are qualification questions because when you ask them, you're sorting through our contacts. You're trying to figure out who is worth spending time with if you speaking to the woman and his congratulations.

When is the birthday? You guys are chatting at me and she says, oh, the birthday is in September. You know, the difference between March and September is, let's see, 396. So that's six months. So the difference is, you know, it's six months away. So yeah, you can respond, but The thing is the mom see who has hit you up now for a birthday party in September? Well, could be that she's much more thorough and much more prepared than other mothers, but she may also just be curious.

I'm trying to get a sense of what's the market like, who is out there, what are prices, things like that. She might be doing her preliminary research. So you see how once you start asking these sorts of questions in business conversations over WhatsApp, you can get a sense of who is more serious, who is more pressing, that I have to pay attention to now, and who's the other person that I can kind of, well, you never want to ignore anyone because you don't want to risk risk insulting anyone.

And also because we also don't want to risk losing out on business opportunities just because we're lazy. But The thing is we have limited time in the day. We're chatting with lots of people, so we have to find some way of prioritizing some sorts of some people. So there's some sorts of conversations that you're going to continue now, now, now, continue chatting right now or pick up the phone to call right now because they're really interested.

They have a definite need and you can use WhatsApp to handle those sorts of conversations. So like I said, doesn't have to be done over WhatsApp. Left to me. I'd say face to face. Face to face is not possible. Then let's have a phone call to sort that out. And luckily we can make phone calls over on WhatsApp. OK, 10 minutes. So let me wrap this up quickly. Let's see what else. OK, yes, advancements. Now advancements is also something that I talk about over here on the podcast.

And that's how you know that you're moving forward. In a business relationship, an advancement is when you guys finish a call, you finish a meeting, you finishing whatever, and you have a clear sense of what it is that you're going to do next. So back to the Mumsy example. So you're chatting with the Mumsy and it's like, oh, congratulations, when is the best day okay? It's in two weeks time. What are the favorite characters?

OK, he likes this and this and this, but I'm not quite sure. Maybe I should discuss with my husband and I'll get back to you. And then you say, OK, cool, no Allah, no problem. So you're going to discuss with your hobby. So will you be able to get back to me? Let's say like around that kind 9:00 AM tomorrow. And then woman says OK, yes. Yeah, 9:00 AM tomorrow then. Cool, no problem. You end the chat. Now that is an advancement because you now have a specific commitment for 9:00 AM tomorrow for the business relationship when we move forward one step and that one step is you're now going to know the buying criteria, what it is that they find, what they think is essential in the cake.

So it's moving forward one step that is an advancement. Now the opposite of an advancement is a continuation and that is where you leave a meeting, a phone call and engagement or whatever it is and you don't have a clear sense of what the next step is. So if you're a mom, C have been chatting back and forth and everything and she hasn't given you a clear sense of what the flavour should be, what the character should be or whatever.

And you guys end the chat by you saying, oh thank you very much Ma, it's been nice chatting with you. I'm looking forward to serving. You guys enjoy the rest of your meeting, Ma. And then the lady responds, Oh yes, I had a wonderful time chatting with you. You sound very, very professional. I look forward to working with you and you say goodnight. She says goodnight. Some of you might think that that was a good conversation.

Are you making progress? Because it sounds polite. But The thing is, it sounds polite. It sounds friendly, but that is not an advancement. You guys ended the phone call. Mumsy didn't say how she wants to work with you, what the next step is supposed to be. You didn't propose anything. You guys just left it like that. And those are those situations where you pick up the phone you want to call or you want to send a message and even thinking like, what should I say self?

What kind of message should I send? You can't think of anything to do because in the last conversation you guys didn't make any advancements. You didn't get a clear sense of what the next step is. So in those sorts of situations now if you're following up, you're just following up for the sake of following up, you send her a message and you say, oh, good afternoon, ma'am, How preparations, She said preparations are coming along fine, full stop and then she will send.

I mean like, what are you supposed to say after that? You know, So we should always try and secure advancements. And we can use WhatsApp to secure advancements by using WhatsApp to schedule meetings, to schedule appointments, can use that to confirm orders or to confirm specifications. Like in this case where I said, OK, you want to talk to your husband, Ma, no problem, It makes sense. After all, he's the father of the child too.

So you know, he deserves to say so. Like what time do you think you guys will be done chatting? So like by 9:00 AM tomorrow, that means that cool. And she says, OK, you have confirmed an order, you have confirmed the specification. So those are ways of securing advancements. Then you can also use WhatsApp for customer satisfaction and customer success. Since WhatsApp is direct and it's much more personalized, it's OK for you to have a conversation with someone like,

oh, you like this? You didn't like that. Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Ma. Oh, I can't believe that somebody did this and this. Please, Ma, can you send me the screenshot? Oh my God, I can't believe that my staff member did this. I'm terribly sorry. Blah, blah, blah. You know, there's more nuance and there's more detail. You can't have that that kind of conversation over on SMS or over on WhatsApp. But SMS, I'm sorry, you can't have that conversation over on SMS or e-mail.

But WhatsApp being much more personal, you can have those kind of conversations and you'll be able to quickly get down to the root of whether somebody's happy or not, whether they're angry or not, or whether they feel like they got a good deal or not. And of course, getting testimonials and referrals is a lot easier on WhatsApp because people can chat. They talk their mind away. And of course you ask, you know, I hope you don't mind if I

screenshot this and use this on Instagram. There are a couple of people that will say, Oh yeah, please do that, but please blow up my name. And there's some people that will say no. But The thing is, at least if you're having those honest conversations over on WhatsApp or you're trying to handle customer success, customer satisfaction, customer service issues, people are speaking their mind. But at least if you ask 10

people and three people say yeah, sure, you can use it as a testimonial, just blow my name out. It's not bad. At least that is 3 testimonials more than what you used to get. And of course WhatsApp. Very good for follow up. You can send birthday messages, work anniversary messages and things like that. Other ways of following up, personal milestones, work milestones, those sorts of things. So summary WhatsApp good for qualification is going to help you, asking more questions about what they need, their budgets,

the pain points, the vision that they're working towards and those sorts of things. So with this, especially since we're over 15 minutes now, I can bring this to a close about how best we can use WhatsApp for business and purposes. So if you're one of those people who's been using it for entertainment and gossip and things like that, just know that you can be using WhatsApp for a whole lot more. So please connect with me on LinkedIn.

My name is Tavishma Ayede. I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link We're listening to this episode. And then also connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next recording.