The Art of the Deal: Tailoring Your Sales Approach

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishma Aidi. I saw sales and marketing challenges and I'm making today's recording at home. It's the public holiday after former President Buhari's death. So everybody's home, including the neighbors. So there's just noise left, right and centre. So expect to hear some interruptions. Now, the goal of this podcast is not to tell you about my family situation or the politics of Nigeria, but we're here to do some good old fashioned business education.

So if you're impressed by the time you're done with this podcast, please spread the word so that your friends and family members in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle. They can do that by subscribing on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or any player of their choice. And if you'd love to connect with me, then you can call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Now, today on the podcast, we're going to have another diary session with the work that I'm currently doing with Shell,

Elise or Elsie, as some people like to call her. And Rudolph. Yeah, Rudolph, Elise and Shell, then. Oh, by the way, am I the only one who used to, you know, just run around calling anybody whose name was ELYS EE? Sorry. No, not ELYSE. Anyway, don't worry. No need to go into all that. Where was I? OK, so this is just a diary session basically. So on one of the meetings that we had during the week, let's see, what did we do?

OK, well, we did the daily check insurance because it's necessary to make sure that are we doing the daily activities that will keep us on track. Sometimes people think these things are pointless, but it's not. It's a matter of probability. And I've used the example of a football team. If you're not, if you don't have good ball position, you're not handling the ball, you won't have enough chances for short on goal. And if you don't have enough trust chances for short on goal,

you're not likely to score goals. So all the things are important. What is our ball position like? It is important. Are we doing 10%, fifty percent, 70%, it's important shots on goal. What are we looking at? You know, because nobody scores every single goal that they take. So it's normal. You, you know, you shoot some, some will enter, you shoot some, the goalkeeper will deflect. There are other circumstances that are beyond your control,

whether in sports and it's the same thing in in sales and business as well. So your own is just stick to the process. If we have agreed internally as a team, 10/10/10 every day just be doing the 10:10, so long as you're also working at being effective with the calls, working on conversions, you now see that on average some good things will start to happen by the end of your average sales cycle. So if you're in the business that the sales cycle is, you know, kind of like a month and a half, two months like back in my wedding photography days, you only just continue the activities if you've agreed that it is LinkedIn.

So I say LinkedIn, if you've agreed that it's Instagram and it's a matter of post 5, post on Instagram every day. You only just wake up every day and begin the post 55555555. Over time things will align well for you. So I wasn't good at the Instagram game. So I used to attend bridal shows. So my own was every year three bridal shows that I must attend. Brides and babies was one. I didn't like missing brides and babies, so I'd attend brides and Babies.

Then there was also Abuja International Bride Affair, although that one didn't last long. They've stopped but they're still in Lagos I think and pH. Then there was also which one, I can't remember. So for me it was very simple. Apart from social media, I have to be at these three wedding shows to get a certain number of clients a year, to make a certain number of amount of money a year. So it's the same thing. So all these things, you know,

when I say we did our daily check in, it's really, really important. I know it gets boring to be saying yesterday I did 10, the day before I did 10, the day before that I did 10. Today I'm going to do 10. Tomorrow I'm going to do 10. But don't worry, the exciting one happens, which is when you hear ping him and somebody has transferred money into your account. You know, the excitement is coming. But we have to do our daily check insurance.

So we did that part daily check insurance. Who's been making calls? Excuse me? How many calls have you made? How many conversations have you had? How many proposals have you issued? You know, you see how it happens. The same in business as in sports, swim, football, ball, possession. What's our presented short on goal? What's our percentage? How many go? What's our percentage? Each stage is a conversion. So it's the same thing.

My daily calls every day. How many did I make? The people that answered? How many conversations did I have? The people that I blended with? How many people did I sign proposal? Because it's only when you send proposal that somebody will say, Oh yeah, account number and then transfer the money. So that's how it works then. OK. We also have that conversation again about simple sales versus complex sales. If this is your first time listening to the podcast, I'm not going to repeat.

So just listen to the previous episode and you should get caught up up to speed. If it's not last episode, maybe 2-3 episodes back, but basically the number of parties in the sale, how expensive your product or service is, the subject matter itself, whether it is simple or it's complex, the time frame or the sales cycle, the length of sales cycle involved, and then the necessity for building relationships. That is what determines whether you're in a simple sale or a complex sale.

Now, the reason why we looked at this thing again, simple sale versus complex sale is this. The implications are different when you're in a simple sales. You can't rely on charisma, personality. The reason why I bring that up is because there's one member of the team who likes to do precisely just that. You know, talk to people, influence people, get mind, share, persuade somebody, finesse somebody. You know, what I think is it works in simple sales scenarios,

but not necessarily in complex sales scenarios, because in complex sales scenarios there are lots of moving variables. There are other considerations beyond personality. So when you're in a complex sales scenario, you have to be process driven. So if I'm saying selling something simple like you know, this small computer games that have Tetris on it that look like Game Boy and that is still selling. Now if you're selling that kind of thing, you can finance somebody.

Now you can say Bros is, you know, you just buy this thing for these children. Now, how much is it now, Bros and only 10K, you'll begin at 10K. Just carry this thing. That's a simple sale. It's a toy for a kid you can't finesse and you say, ah, my brother brotherly how No, you don't take how are the kids now a public holiday and do something for the children now should be it's just this common game that he wants now and I

have no problem. You say you don't have 10K or I bring 8K bro, you're bigger than this thing. Just bring AK collect this thing for the children that will work in a simple sale. That is not going to work in a complex sale. You cannot finance anybody or romance somebody to buy financial products like insurance. It's not going to work. That's a complex health situation. Now this team that's selling solar products, you can't finance anybody into buying solar.

That's lots of money, 5101520M for a system. You can't finance somebody into doing that kind of thing. You can't. And even if you do, the person will feel like you're fool, feel taken advantage of. They will never come back to you. And whenever they see you, they'll rubbish you. They'll say that guy scammer, stay away from him. So even if you can, I'm begging you, please don't. If it's a complex I'll situation, even if you know how to finesse people, you know how to do charisma, you know, you smile, you put on your charm.

If it's a complex I'll situation, I'm begging you, please don't. Those things are backfire. So the implications are this. If it's a simple sale, then please, by all means, go ahead. Use your charisma bath, freshen up, wear perfume, smile well, whiten your teeth, try and convince somebody. Go and read 48 Laws of Power. Go and read 48 Laws of Seduction. Go and read all of those books and then put your game on and then finesse somebody, seduce somebody into the sale if you're dealing with a simple sale scenario.

So deal with the complex, complex hill scenario. Now, my friend, you'd need to be process driven. You need a framework and you need to be consultative in your approach. Now, remember on this podcast, I keep saying every single time you hear a consultative, I mean, let's pretend that we're a doctor. A doctor is not worried about finessing you. A doctor is not worried about charming you. A doctor is not worried about smooth talking you.

A doctor is not worried about trying to jazz you, trying to charm you, nothing. The doctor will say, young man, how can I help you? You ask you a couple of questions. You ask about your family history. You'll run some tests and then he will tell you straight up. Now, Bros, based on what I've looked at right now, you have gonorrhea and these are the next step forward. You either take this medicine or take this medicine or take this medicine, and then he'll keep quiet and leave it up to you.

It is you who will now say this medicine is too expensive. Do you have a cheaper version? The doctor's only just. He's there, he's consultative. He will let you know these are the options. And then you know, it's up to you to take action. It's the same approach when you're in the complex hill. You only just to sit down, be nice, be professional, ask questions, try and figure out what the problem is and then say, OK, based on what I've heard, Mr. and Mrs. Customer,

these are the problems we're trying to achieve. Abby, OK. So based on that, any of these options are from AB and C should be able to solve the problem. Each of them could cross between this and then this and that. Does that look like it's a reasonable investment? And then you wait and hear what it is that they have to say. The answer will determine what the next way forward is. But either way, in complex sales, have a process, be consultative, have a framework that you're following that will guide you the kind of conversations to have and the kind of questions to ask.

So in the complex hill, that is what you do. People think price is the most important thing. It is not the price. Any of you who have been in the medical emergency know what it is that I'm talking about. You have a medical emergency and they say Doctor Trukudi is the guy. Then even if Doctor Trukudi is more expensive than 5-6 other people, it's a matter of look, let's raise the money and go and do this thing. Nigerians do it all the time.

You have certain kinds of medical emergencies and people say look, for this one, we can do it in Nigeria, but best bet is go to India and people do it all the time. They call it medical tourism. The people who leave Niger go to India. The people who leave Niger go to Saudi. The people who leave Niger go to Egypt. The people who leave Niger go to America, go to the UK. There's one very popular Nigeria right now that all of us knows.

He leaves Nigeria and he goes to France every couple of weeks to go and sort himself out. And we all know him and it's called medical tourism. So when is a complex something and the stakes are high, people don't always look at price. So if it's a simple sales scenario, you're selling toy toys for children, you're selling Game Boy Knockout for children, then yes, price is an issue. You can bamboozle the guy and then you tell him, OK, you know,

or bro, since you have three children, instead of buying one at 10,000, just carry one at 8000. You now pay 24K. Yeah, that's a simple sales scenario. You can smooth talk someone and you can make price a big issue. But then when it comes to complex sales, price is not the only determining factor. I'm not saying price is unimportant, I'm just saying it is not the only determining factor. So for complex hills, we need to be process driven and we need to be consultative.

I'm not saying don't package, but please, by all means, you know, package, bath, brush your teeth, use perfume, do teeth whitener, comb your hair, you know, whatever it is where your perfect black suit or wear a lucky red dress or whatever. Yeah, by all means do all that. But just realize that all those ones is extra. It's not as if those are the main, the main, the real things that are going to get you to close the deal.

So that's why we discussed a simple and complex sale scenario, just to realize that it has implications for how we sell. Then there was also a question about when to involve leadership on the sale because one of the sales people show rightly pointed out that, look, if relationship building is important and credibility is important, then we should be able to get extra resources from the company to close this deal. And I said, guy, you're correct.

Now what kind of extra resources are we talking about? Because I was going to say brochures from the marketing department and things like that. And then he said, actually, it's not just a matter of brochure and everything, but once in a while, we suppose call Auger CEO or maybe Olga CEO to follow us to close the deal. I wanted to know, like was, was the way forward? When can we pull in CEO or CEO to close the deal? And by the way, for those of you who are owners of the company listening to this podcast, I

know some of you don't want to sell, but actually it does make sense. There are times when your sales team will say Olga like man, like I don't try like I pushed it like this, like this, like this. And I think at this stage, you are the one that would tip this thing over for us to close the deal. So once in a while, if your sales team call calls you, you know, just, you know, based on faith, just go ahead. If it was a wrong call after you close the deal, you now sit down at the office and you now tell them, I look this and this and this is what you did wrong.

Next time wait until like this, like this, like this before you involve me because this is something you could have closed on your own. But be in the habit as an auger, the owner of the business to be in the habit of. Be ready to always volunteer yourself when the sales team come and says auger, I'm working with a high profile something, the profile somebody. I don't feel as if I have the social cache to close this thing.

But you, you know, as per CEO to CEO, if you come in this situation, I will be able to close this thing, collect good money. So once in a while, go ahead with your team. So that was the question that we now discussed. So we agree relationship building is important. We need to add credibility to the sales process. So once in a while, I should be able to go back to the business for extra resources. And sometimes the extra resource can mean head of account.

Please follow me. Let me close this meeting or COO follow me. Let's close this meeting. The CEO is chief operating officer or CEO, chief executive officer. Follow me. Let's close this meeting now. This is what we arrived at. I told the team firstly show that we have to do qualification and discovery, proper qualification and discovery first before we involve senior members of the team. Because senior members of the team, they're much more preoccupied with strategic issues and typically they have their hands full.

So if they follow you for a 2 hour meeting, it takes a lot out of their day. So I told him that you need to make sure that it is worth the time of your chief operating officer or your chief executive officer or your line manager or your whatever. And then we do that is by making sure you do proper and thorough qualification and discovery. That is the part of the sales relationship where you will engage in conversations and you're asking them questions to be sure you are spending time with the prospect.

Who is likely to become a paying customer? There's no point in pulling orga out of a meeting or pulling Orga out of a holiday or pulling Orga out of time with his family or her family. If this is not a customer who is going, who is likely to become a paying client? So qualification and discovery, we're asking questions. We're trying to figure out do these people have a want or a need for our product or service? Can they afford the product or service?

And is there a sense of urgency around their problem? Urgency just means are they ready to take decisions anytime soon? The best way that I explain it is using my experience as a wedding photographer. I can meet a bride who wants my wedding photography. She loves my wedding shooting style. She can't afford it times 2. But the problem is she doesn't have boyfriend. It has happened to me before. Somebody called me up. She's a friend of mine and she was like oh that for next year blah blah blah.

I bet give me a quote. And I was like congratulations, I beg to everyone, no, no, no, please, just let's forget that. Let's just discuss. I just thought she was embarrassed that she didn't want to tell me who her boyfriend was because I'd be on her case for a while. She used to work with her Sigma pensions and I did some stuff with them. So I was always on her case like, you know, if I can get you, don't suppose marry.

So I thought she was embarrassed. And then we spoke about everything. This is where her village is Abuja here like this, like this, like this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I dropped the quote and I sent it to her. And I said, our boss, seriously, now who's the lucky guy? She said he hasn't proposed yet. I said he said, yeah, he hasn't proposed yet. I'm just trying to be prepared. In other words, I wasted two hours of my life.

Well, not a waste because she's my friend, so not really a waste. But let's pretend that this person is not your friend. There are situations where you can waste two hours of your life talking to somebody and preparing a proposal. Meanwhile, everything is not properly on ground. That is what qualification and discovery means. We want to make sure that everything is on ground. There's a want or a need for the product or the service.

The person can afford it. Then there's a sense of urgency. We know they're likely to take action sometime soon. And as a wedding photographer, if you're spending all your time talking to people that boyfriend has not proposed, you're wasting your time. Or if boyfriend has proposed but the family has not met, you're still with. Well, it's not really. Is it a waste of time? OK, it's not really a waste of time, but it's not proximate.

It's not now, now, now. The person who they have proposed to share said yes, the family has met and the family has said the wedding is going to be December 2025. That those are the kind of people that you spend time with because you see that there's a want, there's a need they can afford, There's a sense of urgency. The family has said December 25th. In fact, it is even best when. The family has gone ahead and they have booked a specific wedding hall for the reception.

Those are the best people to spend time with because you can see that there's a sense of urgency. You can see that some things have happened that are time bound. So now back to the solar thing now or whatever it is that you're selling. You want to involve CEO, chief operating officer. You want to involve CEO, chief executive officer? You want to involve your line manager? Excuse me, you're head of admin or you're head of procurement or you're head of accounting.

You want them to come in and help you close that deal. You make sure that the meeting you're calling them for there's a want or there's a need for your product or service. You make sure you have discussed budgetary concerns with these people and it looks like it looks like they're ready to shake body. And then you want to be clear that is a sense of urgency. If you call your secretary officer here for a meeting, the people have money, looks like they're interested.

Well, then they say, well, you know, currently in 2025, we are assessing opportunities. We're thinking that this is something we'll likely take action on in the third quarter of 2028. By the time we leave that meeting, your guy will knock you on the head. I can assure you. He will say, really, my public holiday now I'm supposed to be spending time with my, my wife and my children or my husband and my children. You pulled me out for, for, for this meeting.

For what when 2025 they said I'm not ready to take action until 2029. You have to call me out of my holiday because of what? So that's how you know when to involve the senior brands within your organization. Make sure you have done good qualification and discovery. This whole thing of want need, afford an urgency. It's something that Brian Tracy talks about in his old material because now Uncle Brian Tracy, you know Brian Tracy, you know,

in all the old. So nowadays he's talking about some so very, you know, spiritual, metaphysical, you know, new age something, something I'm like now. Now what happened to Uncle Brian Tracy now, So any his old stuff is very, very practical. If you follow his new stuff is almost like law of attraction type things like manifest it and it will appear kind of whatever if you have manifest in person. Yeah, you can be listening to Uncle Brian Tracy of today, but left to me, just pay attention to Uncle's old material.

Brilliant stuff, especially the old material. So Brian Tracy of, you know, 1970 something, 1980 something, 1990 something, correct stuff. So let's see what else? OK, then we also looked at effective phone conversation openers because there are some members of the team who start off a conversation by saying something like this. They will call someone Broom, broom personal answer. They will now say, oh, good morning, Sir.

Thank you very much for taking my call. I realize you're very busy and this is a follow up call to find out where you're at with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The moment I heard that, I say, no, you cannot start a call like that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Once you call somebody, I say thank you for taking my call. You're thanking the person for taking your call you now. So I realize that you're busy. Something something when you do that man, you're already on the back foot on the defensive.

You are now assuming lower socioeconomic status and I told you in Nigeria is important and we'll pick up the phone. We have to sound like I am that person's equal. I'm not saying you should sound rude or brash, but you don't always have to sound like a sales, like a houseboy or a house girl. No, that is not helping you. It is hurting you. So yes, nobody has more money than me. But if I'm on the phone, we're done with it.

I will hold a decent conversation. I don't have to sound like a houseboy because he's a billionaire and you know me. I'm still counting money in hundreds of thousands. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So this is what we agreed. When you're calling somebody and it's a stranger, the person is usually thinking who is who is this person calling me? How did they get my number? Why are they calling me? So your introduction should just answer all these questions.

So you just say good morning. My name is adequately I'm calling you from XYZ company. We handle this is da da, da, da, da. And the reason why I'm calling is then you go straight in that way you are not losing social standing. You call you go straight into into the conversation. If the person is busy that ones I'll now tell you, oh young man, I have a lot on my plate right now. I'm busy, and if you've listened to the podcast episode from last week, you already know how to handle this.

OK, Sir, it's perfectly fine. I understand that you're busy. When would you like me to call you back? That is one option. Although me, the one I prefer is OK Sir, no problem. I can call you back. I'm available tomorrow morning between 8:00 and 10:00. Can I call you back by then? But when it comes to rescheduling the call, don't say OK Sir, I'll call you back. Then you cut the call. They now try and reschedule the meeting.

After you've got the call or more you enter into ghost mode or what Americans like to call text tag, which is I send you a text, you text back, I send another text, you text back or e-mail tag and send an e-mail the e-mail back. You e-mail them, Sir, what about tomorrow this other time and say no, I'm busy. You send another one, Sir, what about this other time? They reply, I'm busy. It will get things that get very, very complicated and tiring after that.

So you reschedule the meeting or you reschedule the call right now that you have the person on the phone. So the woman says, young man, I'm busy, please call me back. He said, OK ma, no problem, I'll call you back. Does Wednesday 8:00 AM work for you? I mean here what she has to say. Nope, I'm going to be in transit on Wednesday. How about Thursday or Friday? I'm available for both days. It doesn't have to be an exact time, but if you're able to narrow it down to a specific day for me, I think that's good enough.

If she says well sometime on Friday but she can't come into a time, no problem, then you say OK, no problem ma Friday. Is it OK if I call you back on Thursday or call your PA on Thursday to confirm our meeting? You know, so that's the scope, but you try and reschedule while you have this person on the phone, while you have this person on the Zoom call, while you have this person on the Microsoft team meeting, while you have this person face to face in the conference room, you will reschedule.

Now you will say, OK, no problem, we'll reschedule. And then when they leave, you're now trying to reschedule by text or by e-mail. So let's see what else? OK, But on effective phone conversation openers, I just told them that look, my own personal preference anyway, this is what I do. Not everybody's comfortable with that. I don't bother with my name, my company and blah, blah, blah. I call and I try and confirm who I'm speaking to.

So I will call and say hello, am I here speaking to adequately gold? So yes, this is adequately gold speaking. And then I'll go straight into our prior context. Oh, I met you last week at the AM VCAS and we exchanged numbers while we were talking about your property investments in Lecky and adequately gold will say, Oh, I remember, I remember Brohan how you did. I'm good. I'm good, man, I'm good. So you know that thing we're discussing now.

So and then from there, just continue because quite frankly, my own opinion, people don't care your name or your company name. So I just assume that the person hasn't stored my phone number and I call, confirm I'm talking to the right person, going to the previous context, and then continue the conversation. So that's my own approach. But anyway, more about that in future podcast episodes. OK, It's 12:10 and I have to be somewhere soon.

So that's it. And that's all for today. Remember, if you'd love to connect with me, then you can call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.