The Art of the WhatsApp Reply: Turning Links into Leads

Hello and welcome to the show. Today's episode is going to be a very brief one. It's because I'm a member of the WhatsApp group and I saw something that happened on the group and really blew my mind. And I know that there are a couple of business owners or self-employed people listening to this podcast who fall into the same mistake. And I know because I fell into those same kind of errors years ago. So I figured, let me just make a podcast recording real quick.

So I'm a member of a WhatsApp group. I think it's called Alumni UKI can't remember what it's it's it's an initiative by the government of the United Kingdom. And it's supposed to connect every single person that has an an an advanced degree or an undergraduate degree from a university in the United Kingdom. And I think it's a smart move that the government of the UK is doing because if you connect people like this who are alumni's, I be alumnuses of UK

schools, then you know, these networks by themselves become profitable. Because if people band together, if they're networking and they're networking precisely around their UK degrees and it looks like it's a helpful community, then it also gives the social signalling of that to be a holder of AUK degree is something valuable, something to aspire for or something like that. Anyway, sorry, forgive me, it's hard to explain that part.

But I guess what I'm just trying to say is that the UK government, I mean, they're definitely thinking when it comes to selling their degrees. And when you consider the amount of money that is spent on UK tertiary education. And I think especially the fact that I think recently it was, was it the Commonwealth scholarship? I think they showed that 30% of people in the UK educational system, obviously 30% of the applicants or something like that anyway are from Nigeria.

I mean, that's a very high number because we have 100 and is it 90 something countries. And so the fact that we Nigerians make up 30% of their educational, how will I put it, OK, educational sector is not correct, but you get what I'm trying to say. So 30% of us make up all the people who are over there. So that's a high amount. And I think the UK government, they're doing a really good job in promoting, in selling the educational institutions to the rest of the world, particularly in Nigeria.

Anyway. So that's the background. I'm a member of this WhatsApp group. And of course, people come on this group because they're trying to promote their businesses. And I've made podcast episodes about how you should promote your businesses on WhatsApp group. So I'm not going to go into that. But if it's something that you're interested in, then when you're done listening to this episode, just go to YouTube because all my podcasts are there.

Type in Tavishima and then type in WhatsApp. And then every single episode that I've made about how to use WhatsApp for business purposes is going to come up. Then listen with a pen and a paper, make some notes, especially things that you can apply tomorrow morning at 9:00 when you start your working day and, and yeah, you'll be all right. But here's going to be one more thing to add to that. So I'm a member of this group and people come to promote their business.

And somebody put a post a long time ago about the cleaning service that she runs. And then somebody today, you know, did that thing where you slide and, and then reply to the message. So the person comes into the group, does the reply sliding thing and it's like, oh, how much does it cost? And then the business owner slid and responded to the message and said something like, oh, if you had checked the message, you would have seen that all the costs are there.

Apart from that, the cost will change depending on the amount of cleaning services that are required and something, something, something. And either way, if you're interested in the service, please DMDM us to continue the conversation further or something like that. And 1st off, I was, I was shocked. We get into business, we create these promo materials, we put them out into the world. We hope that somebody's going to interact with these things and then people eventually interact and then we handle things poorly.

Doesn't make sense. So you put this thing weeks ago, nobody responded. Then I would think that if somebody responds today, your first response would be like, oh, as in our thank God, God has done it for me, I'm getting an inquiry or, OK, this WhatsApp thing works and you handle the inquiry differently. Instead, you start off by saying that, oh, if you had checked the flyer, you'd have seen that the responses are there.

And of course, you know how things are when you respond via text. I mean, you can sound somehow like you are dissing the guy or maybe putting the guy in his place that, look, this post is there, the information is there. You didn't even read it in the first place. And then you now cap it off by saying, if you're interested, DMS and let's continue the conversation forward some more. Now that is the wrong approach to take for these sorts of things.

Personally, this is what I would have preferred that the business owner had done and I think you should do, given the circumstance. If somebody responds to that kind of thing, instead of responding in the group chat, maybe you can heart or love or whatever that emoticon is. And then swiftly get into that person's DM and start having this conversation one-on-one and treat it as if you are there in your shop, in your store, in your studio, in your whatever and a potential customer walk in, pretend that's what it is that happened.

So in this kind of situation where somebody does that sliding thing, so like how much you had it? And so 1 moment I will respond to you in DM. In fact, me, I won't even just DM, I'd actually call the person and start having the conversation now. Oh my notice from the UK group that you responded to, you know, blah, blah, blah. So you might be interested in cleaning services. So I just called you up so that we can have a quick chat about it.

What you know, and then start asking the questions that you need to to know whether it's my house or whether it's office or anyway, those of you who are cleaners, you know, the kind of questions I need to ask before you issue a quote. But bottom line, what I'm saying is somebody responds to that sort of thing that you put out on the WhatsApp group, slide into DM straight pretend that this person just walked into your store and handle it as such.

And then be careful about text. It can be interpreted any which way. The way we interpreted it was like this thing is here, the information is here, you didn't even bother to read it if you're serious, send me a message. That's the way I mean, I interpreted the message, but The funny thing is this lady might not have intended it to sound that way. Well, that's the problem with text. So that's one reason why I would have even called the guy They say, hey, what's up got your message Alumni, UK group.

I said, let me just call you, let's just talk about this thing real quick and then just have the conversation. So the, I guess the main reason why I'm making this broadcast episode is just to say that look, we spend a lot of time and money creating these Flyers, these brochures, designing this download link, design this thing, design that thing. And we rarely get responses from these things and we'll put it out. I mean, trust me, I know this for a fact because I put out stuff on LinkedIn every single day.

And the people that click through to listen to the podcast very, very low, I mean, compared to the stuff that I'm putting out there. So if somebody does respond, make it respond in a timely manner, respond in a personable manner. And I guess what I'm just trying to say is that if you're in this situation where somebody responds to this thing that you put up in your WhatsApp group, please slide into the person's DM straight and have a conversation pretending as if the person just walked into your store.

Because if someone walked into your store, you wouldn't say, oh, the price was already there. If you had paid attention and read it, you would have already seen the information that you need. By the way, when you're serious, come back. Let's continue talking. That is not how you respond to that sort of thing. So be careful about how you respond to these things in text. Slide into the person's DM, if possible, WhatsApp called the person.

Maybe send a message first so that the person knows that. Oh, yeah, I think that's what you should do first. Send a message first so the person knows who it is that is buzzing, you know, so you like you had the thing you say. I'll, I'll respond in DM shortly. Then you send Adm message saying oh hi, this is Susan. So from the alumni UK group. I noticed that you asked a question regarding our cleaning services. I'll call you back in a couple of minutes to discuss your needs some more.

And then you, you know, click send. Then you put your name there, you know, Chugudi bracket the cleaning guy bracket close and then when you see blue tick means the guy is red. So, OK, OK, yeah, now the guy is expecting. Then 5 minutes later you can now call the guy up and then carry the conversation. So that's how you should handle the thing. And yeah, so that's what today's podcast recording is about. That is how you should handle WhatsApp inquiry.

Don't. Anyway, let me know if I stress it, but yeah, that's it. So if you've been having problems with trying to drum up sales using WhatsApp and you would like a second opinion about some of the stuff that you're doing and hit me up. The contact details are 08064662140. Country code is +234 in case you're not Nigerian. Also, you can connect with me on WhatsApp. The name to look for establishing my idea. If you use the link that you're currently listening to this episode, you'll see my name there.

Highlight it, copy paste and LinkedIn. You'll see my profile come up, send me a connect request and we can be having the conversation. In worst case, 48 hours. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys in the next episode.