The Faster Way to Test if People Will Actually Buy Your Product

Today I would like us to look at how to use community as a sales tool. Now, the reason why is because someone reached out to me recently and I've noticed that rather than trying to sell his services as a writer, he is trying to create a community and to see if he can sell his writing services that way. And even though he is the most recent person who has come to me with that idea, it's something that I see all the time.

You know, someone has an idea he has a product or a service that he wants to market or she wants to market. But rather than taking the traditional direct routes of approaching people 1 by 1 to say, would you buy my thing, they think, oh, I'll create a community of 100 people, over 1000 people of, you know, XYZ number of people. And hopefully from there, some of those people in the community will end up buying my thing.

So that's what I want us to look at today. I want us to see whether this is a viable business strategy, whether this is something that can work, and let's see what level of work, what level of thought, what level of execution is required to make this kind of thing work. Now, before we get into the meat of the episode, if you'd like to connect with me just like this writer did, you can call me, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140.

If you would like me to audit any part of your business, then call me or WhatsApp me or text me on the same number 08064662140. And if you'd like to join my WhatsApp channel, then WhatsApp me on the same number and I'll hook you up. So the first question or the primary question, can you use community to avoid selling to people? The answer is yes. I would prefer that you actually pick up the phone or go to some people's offices or go to somebody's house or try to get people to come to your office and transfer your writing services directly, at least in the beginning.

But if you don't like all that jazz, yeah, you can build a community and you can get people to buy your services from that community. So yes, it definitely can happen. However, this is one thing that you community type people, you want to sell your product or service through a community. Here is one thing that you people forget that you people don't pay attention to or maybe you don't even know. Nobody has told you. So let me come on the microphone and tell you today, yes, you can sell anything through a community.

Absolutely anything. Anything you can sell through community. However, it is a much longer way to sell. Let me say that again, in case some of you didn't get it, you can sell anything you want through community. If you say let's come create a community of, you know, audio files so that we can start selling headphones or yeah, sure we can. We can do that. Definitely can happen, it is just a longer way to sell because community right as a tactic or as a strategy is a medium to a long term thing.

In fact, I would prefer to say community is a long term thing through and through, but for the sake of arguments let's just say it's medium to long term. Now. Short term is anything that can click in less than one year. Medium term is anything that can click, let's say one year to three years. Long term is anything that requires 35 and above to click or to work. Sorry for those of you who are not Nigerians. You know, in this part of the world, when we say something clicks, you know, it means you know it's worked or it has started giving results.

Let me repeat. So traditionally, if people say something is a short term tactic, it means that this thing can pop off. Excuse me, this thing can work. This thing can blow. You can execute well on this thing. You can get results between 0 to one year. That is short term. Some tactics work short term. Then some tactics are medium term. That is, it will take about one year to maybe three years for the thing to pop off. That is considered medium.

I know some of you will be saying that's long term. No, that's not long term or that actually is medium. Long term is 357, you know, 3 and above, right? Three to five. In fact, some people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vaynerchuk says if you've been pushing something for five years and The thing is not clicking, OK, maybe you need to review. Maybe actually suck, maybe you're not good, maybe there's a problem with the product.

Community is one of those things that will not give you any sale in less than one year. Now, of course, yes, there are people who have managed to make it work in a short amount of time, but those kinds of people, they are unicorns. They are the exception. That is not the normal way that you know those things pop off. So because you know, one person who tried a community strategy and it works in less than one year is no guarantee that it's going to work for you.

Please just know those people are outliers. That's not the normal, the normal way. The thing happens the normal way. If you ask me, I'll say communities long term. In other words, we're talking three to five years. But for the sake of argument, some people will say now medium term to OK, no problem. We'll include medium term. Washa, you want to sell your writing services, You are not going to get customers in less than one year.

The reason why is because you need time to build a community. You need time to aggregate these people. It's not as if you will start your podcast or start your blog or start your Facebook group or whatever it is you want to. It's not as if you will start it today and then next month 100,000 people magically will just show up on it. No, be like that. You need time to aggregate an audience. You need time to cultivate an audience.

You need time to toast an audience. You need time to build an audience. You need time for community moderation because that's what make communities pop. Somebody has to be moderating the community. Moderating community just means watching the conversations that go on there, making sure the interactions are valuable because the people just show up and it's a bunch of people doing self promotion. There's no value. Nobody's adding anything to ecosystem.

People just show up and people will leave. That's the reason why for those of you who are on these WhatsApp groups, you know, for your secondary school or university or things like that, that's one of the reasons why you leave those WhatsApp communities because you do not find anything valuable there for you. You're just there and you're wasting your time. Or you wake up in the morning, people are complaining about the country and then you check in on the group again, people are complaining about this, they're complaining about that.

Next thing you know, they're fighting about this politician or about this influenza or about this or about that. And after a while, like man, this, this, this sucks. And then you leave the community. So if you don't have good community moderation, your community is going to fail. Your community is going to die. That is the reason why you can't sell anything in a community in less than one year. These are some of the reasons why selling in a community is a long term strategy.

So for those of you like this guy who wants to sell a writing service, but then he wants to do community, this actually is the reason why I say please just go outside and start talking to people because prospecting is a lot easier. You have more direct control over prospecting. If you're a writer and you want to sell your writing services. Well, first of all, you have to be clear what kind of services you're selling because there are different kinds of writing.

You know, there's academic writing, research writing. What else? OK, can I include ghost writers? Then there's also technical writing, you know, different kinds of writing. But once you decide what kind of writing you're going to do, let's say you're going to do the academic research kind of writing, it's a lot easier to say, OK, I'm an academic writer, I'm a research writer. Let me start looking for people who are in university communities and let me see how I

can sell my service. So in that sense is it's it's easy to come up with a plan. OK, this is the kind of writing I'm going to do. These are the kind of people that I'm going to target. Where can I find these people? Excuse me. So now you don't know whether you're going to start, let's say you live in a university town like EFA. OK, now you know whether you're going to start handing out Flyers on campus or maybe you're going to start joining some WhatsApp groups or some Facebook groups or something, or, I don't know, showing up to symposium.

Symposium, Abby, Symposium is single. So symposium. And you get my point. What I'm just trying to say is if you start thinking in traditional terms about prospecting, you can decide, OK, this is the kind of writer I am. This is where these people hang out. Let me go and start approaching them. It's a lot easier and you have more direct control over your results. In other words, if you're taking a prospecting route and you wake up today, I say this week I'm going to talk to 100 people.

OK, Good, good, good, good, good, good. If you talk to 100 people and you're having the right kind of conversations, you know, all things being equal, you should start seeing some good results soon within the short term. Remember, short term is less than one year. So let's say you talk to 200 people in January, 200 people in February. All right, it's almost assuming you're not doing a bad job, it's almost guaranteed that something has to kick.

You will see some money. That's why I say prospecting is a lot easier. I know it scares the hell out of most of you, but honestly speaking, it's a lot easier to just prospect than all these roundabout strategies that people come up with, like creating a community. Another reason why I'm prospecting is better is because it allows you to validate the business idea right here, right now, very quickly. If you start talking to people,

let's say you're able to talk to 20 people in January, maybe 35 in March, and then maybe 15 in April, you will kind of get the sense that, OK, you know what? In this country or in this town or in this locality or in this culture or in this whatever, people don't seem to value academic writing. Or you get the sense of, OK, Chachi PT is now popular and so because of that, people don't value academic writers anymore. But shall by talking to actual people and trying to sell something, you will get some qualitative insight, some qualitative data about whether this thing works or not.

If you are creating a community, how will you know? You will label and label and label and build a community for two years. Then you try and launch your product. You will try and sell something and then you will now find out that this thing doesn't work after you have invested 2 to three years of your time. We're prospecting. You learn quick if this thing is working or if this thing is not working. Are people interested to in in paying for this product?

Are people interested in paying for this service? The people that are paying for it, are they willing to pay the amounts that I desire? Because that's also another thing we have to consider. If people are willing to pay for it, but I will the only way to pay money, then why am I wasting my time? Because I need good money? Because the economy is harsh? These are questions that you're only going to be able to answer if you start prospecting.

Not doing community building now. This is also another problem. Community building. If you try and sell your services too soon in a community, the community will figure you out and communities can be wicked. Then we bail. They will call you a sellout. If people come to a community because they think they are here to learn about writing, to become better writers, to achieve their unique, you know, their best self, whatever,

whatever, express themselves, you know, and achieve creative writing Nirvana and you know, all kinds of stuff. If that's what they think they're there for and they come to the community and they're piling in, then they now realize that oh really, you are just gathering them because you wanted to sell something to them. They will leave. They will evaporate trying to sell your services too soon or too obviously, or you know, or or too, or too harsh.

You know, every single post you're now put in, every other post, you're now trying to sell something. The community will figure you out and the whole thing is going to crash. And then you'd have wasted a whole lot of time in building this audience, cultivating this audience, community moderation, community management. You've been doing it for 2-3 years and then the whole thing crashes because as far as the community is concerned, you've sold out.

You want to sell out. So even if you're going to do this community thing, the way that you sell on the community, it's a more, I put it more restrained kind of selling. Let me just put it that way. Now, one of the reasons why there's well, let's say now confusion over community and how community can help you sell is because people don't even know what the community is. People assume that when you're able to aggregate people that when people gather, that's a community.

No, there's no everywhere that people gather, there is a community. No, no, no, no, no. So I currently have 4500 and something subscribers alone on Spotify. Some people say I have a community era. No Babu, that is not a community. My 4500 and something subscribers on Spotify, another community. The few subscribers that I have on YouTube, another community. I don't know how many subscribers I have on Apple. That is not a community.

That is not a community because when people come and they listen to me on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, you know what else? Podcast addicts, Whichever podcast player you're listening to right now, they are showing up to listen to me. What I have is an audience. I'm on a stage and I'm talking and people are listening. It's not a community, it's an audience. With an audience, the dynamic is different. We can directly try and monetize things.

I can try and sell my services. I can try and sell courses, I can try and sell training and consulting, I can do endorsements, I can do advertisements, you know, whatever. The dynamic is different. They are an audience. I am talking to them. They kind of expect that at some point I'm going to try and sell something. When you have a community, on the other hand, people feel like our near it is US, this is our place, this is our home.

We are comfortable here. It is US. They relax. They're not in the frame of mind for somebody coming to try and sell them something. Remember audiences, me talking to a group of people when I'm on stage, that's an audience. If from the stage I say buy my book. Nobody go vets because they know that I'm on stage for a reason. If, on the other hand, I say I am building a community, people assume that they can come here, they can lay their head down and they can start talking to each other.

In fact, that's how you know a successful community. When people within the community start talking to each other, then you have a community. If I create a WhatsApp group, a Facebook group, A whatever group, but I have to keep coming in every day to fuel conversations, to get things going, that is not a community. What I have is an audience. It is still built around me. Communities when you are not even in the room and the people are still talking with each other.

That is why you can say something like this lady what's her name? The Harry Potter lady. I can't remember her name. JK Rowling ABI ABI is not the is not the guy from Ghana. JK Rowling JK Rowling JK Rowling. OK, let's just assume that JK Rowling is the right name for the podcasting lady and not the former president of Ghana. So sorry, Ghana has no vex, you know, I haven't done current affairs in a while. And you know, even then that guy was I mean, I was a kid then I

was in primary school. So forgive me if I mix things up. And then the names are kind of similar anyway. So that's the reason why now for Harry Potter, people can talk about JK Rowlings and her, her community of so, so, so and so readers. Because whether she chooses to engage with those communities or not online, those communities exist where people are talking about Harry Potter by themselves with no moderation. They're coming up with fan art,

drawing Harry Potter in different ways. They're coming up with alternative storylines, drafting storylines on their own, like the community is thriving. Even if she dies today, the community, God forbid that she dies anyway. I'm not wishing her bad. I'm just trying to show you that she is not really important in the picture anymore. The community, don't they grow it, think they it thrive. Whether she talks or she doesn't talk, The thing is moving.

That is a community. Now when the community is there, people are comfortable. They're feeling like, oh, this is our home. This is our safe place, you know, You know, now start trying to come over sale. Anyway, I've spoken too much. It's almost 20 minutes. Let me bring this thing to a close. So yeah, I know that applying these things can be tricky to your business. So if you need me to help you look at your own particular circumstances, that's not a problem.

Call me, send me a text message or WhatsApp message on 08064662140. If you're interested in a sale audit or you want me to look at any part of your business processes, just reach out to me. Connect with me 08064662140. You gonna join my WhatsApp channel? And please, it's a channel. It's not a community. In fact, the WhatsApp channel is a one way thing. It's not a two way thing. You'll only be seeing updates that I put up and things like that.

It's not a community. So hit me up on WhatsApp, the same number and I'll hook you up. So the point what I'm trying to say here today is this using community because you think selling is icky, selling is tacking, selling is this, selling is, you know, selling is not your thing. Selling is sleazy, selling is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because you think it is one kind to sell, you're looking for other strategies to do roundabout selling.

Honestly speaking, sometimes you're better off just biting the bullet, getting ready, get your loins and just go and do the direct selling. It will take you to the promised land quicker than all these roundabout things you're doing. So if you are an architect, you want to sell your architectural services where roundabouts are trying to build communities of people who love avant-garde housing, you know, in cosmopolitan Nigeria or whatever, trying to build a community there.

From there, you now get your sales and you can't work. But The thing is, if you need money now, now, now, now, now you need to pay school fees. Now, now, now, now, now you to fix your car. Now, now, now, now, now. This community strategy. No go help you at all. If you have a long time frame, I'll build this community. I'll monetize it. Well, you know, you have a long time frame. You have that kind, you know, five years, 10 years.

Oh, yeah, sure. No problem. Go ahead. It's like this lady, what's her name, Goop, went off patrol. You know, with a build community, with a build community with a build community because you know, she was blogging, blogging, blogging and all that and they do your community building after a while, you know, drip by drip by drip. After that kind 10 years, 15 years, you know, she don't they drop recipe, drop this recipe,

drop this book, drop this product, drop this thing and then sales, sales, sales. She don't they cash out. She didn't cash out from day one. See, but I was because she's Gwyneth Paltrow, she's an actress. So actress money is paying the bills. Meanwhile, should they do community building? Let me repeat in case you didn't get it, she's an actress. So all that Hollywood money, where should they chop and should they use pay bills now?

Should they use pay school fees now? Should they use buy fuel? They're on the side should they build community where the community don't grow? You understand, she now get momentum in our community and she just begin to drop beauty product sales book, sorry, beauty product, food recipe, you know all those things. Just they dropped out small, small, small, small, small. I think her her product line is called goop. I think GOOP or something.

Just check it. Gwyneth Paltrow. I know she know the rain anymore, but some of you might know who she who she is, especially if you're like around that kind 3540. You should know who Gwyneth Paltrow is. Just go go GOOP. So that's how it works. Community does not work in the short term. If you need money in the short term, go and look for another strategy. If you want to take my own personal advice, like if I was going to talk to my own brother,

it's just I didn't have the heart to tell this guy when he was saying all he's good ideas. So I don't like shooting people's ideas down too much. You know, be as if I'm a killjoy. I don't want to be a killjoy. So anyway, by the way, it's not as if I was paying for my advice. So I buried him out. I just made sure he was kind of aware that this is not a short term thing. I hope he's able to read in between the lines. But for those of you who are listening to this podcast,

please do not read in between the lines. I'm telling you now. Oh ha. I'm telling you now wholeheartedly. You're better off just going and trying to learn how to sell that thing in the 1st place instead of going through a roundabout strategy. So that's it for today. If you got value from this episode, then connect with me, call me, send me a text message or WhatsApp message on 08064662140. Thanks for your time and attention.

I'll catch you all some other time.