The Fintech Sales Labyrinth: Conquering the Challenges of Selling Intangible Solutions in Nigeria

Hello and welcome to the show. Today we are still on the challenges of selling your Fintech ideas in Nigeria, but of course the principles that we're going to discuss applying in whatever client that you are, whether you're in the US of A or in New Zealand or wherever. Now this is your first time of listening to the show. We have had two or three episodes before this one as an introduction. So when you're done listening to this particular one, it would help if you skip back two or three episodes, listen to the prior ones, get caught up to speed.

He'll give you the background and context to what it is that we're talking about. So since we've had quite a lengthy introduction already with the prior episodes, let's just head straight into the question for today. Challenges of selling your Fintech ideas in Nigeria Now, the primary challenge that you're going to face, especially if this is your first time trying to sell anything, is that you are dealing with abstract,

complex, and you're dealing with things that are intangible and complex. So for someone like me who started off his business journey as a wedding photographer, you can see that there's a mix of part service, but then there were also part deliverables. There's going to be albums, there's going to be frames. That's kind of easy to understand. My brother and I were in partnership. He handled the videography, I handled the photography.

There were service components, but then physical delivery components. A lot easier to explain, a lot easier to sell. Later on we would be involved in an agricultural commodities export business where we would export sesame seeds, charcoal, things like that. But then again, you get the picture. We're dealing in things that are physical things that are tangible. So for charcoal, you can quibble about the grade or you can quibble about the size.

Is it blocks, is it ash, How many centimeters, how many millimeters? You can quibble about the moisture content, how moist or not moist. So when it comes to selling things like fintech ideas, especially for those of you who are trying to sell some web three thing, you guys, well, you might think you're at a disadvantage in the beginning because you're trying to sell something that is an abstract concept, it is not tangible, you can't touch it and then it is complex.

There are lots of things to sell. So theoretically speaking, selling physical products should be easier than selling intangibles or complex. But this is not a case of whether one class of things is easier to sell or not. It's just that we're dealing with two different contexts of a sale, and each context of the sale has its own, So excuse me, has its own, what would I say, its own rhythm, its own framework, its own philosophy,

you know, its own nature that you have to follow. So when you're selling physical products, if you're a wedding photographer, you're selling charcoal, you're selling sesame seeds, you're selling roasted fish. There's a whole framework, the process and philosophy that you follow, which is different than if you're selling intangible services that are complex. So if you're selling Web Three, if you're selling insurance, if you're selling what else?

What are the intangible thing is out there, wealth management. So wealth management, insurance, web three, you're selling those sorts of things then we're now in a different kind of context. So there's a different sort of philosophy orientation that we ought to follow. So it's not that one is easier than the other. You just need to recognize which kind of context are you playing in already and then embrace all the Valhalla that goes with it.

If you embraced all the Valhalla, all the trouble that goes with it and you try and learn what principles, what philosophies, what best practices are supposed to get you through from one stage to the next, then you should be fine. So you boys and girls who are thinking of starting fintechs, so excuse me, don't think that you are at a disadvantage because you are not selling fish or selling charcoal or selling sesame seed.

Right. So it's not a disadvantage, it's just a different game altogether. So embrace the fact that you're in a complex sale. Embrace the fact that you're in a complex scenario. Embrace the fact that you're in a complex situation, you're in a complex context. Just embrace it and you'll be fine. Now these are the things that you have to embrace in order for you to sell your fintech ideas. Your web three, your payment solution, your whatever it is that your your fintech is going to be about.

One of the things that you have to embrace is this. When it comes to intangible and complex things, you are dealing with a long sales cycle, full stop. You can't rush it. It is just not possible. A sales cycle is what happens is the length of time that happens in between that first time that your customer says good morning or you say good morning Sir or good morning Ma and all the way to the close where somebody transfers the money into your account.

The gap in between that first meeting and then deal close, that is what is called the sales cycle. You have to embrace the fact that if you are selling intangible and complex things, you're going to be dealing with long sales cycles. So don't rush it when you're dealing with intangible complex things. These things are sold in weeks. These things are sold in months. Sometimes these things are sold in years, so you can't rush it.

I'm not saying that selling your web three idea or whatever fintech thing you're going to do is going to take years. I'm just trying to say that don't think you can talk to somebody on Monday and then collect the check on Friday. It doesn't work. Let's look back to my earlier examples for wedding photography. It was possible that I could speak to somebody on Monday and collect my money on Friday. For the Agric export business,

it's a little bit of complexity involved, but it's possible for me to talk to somebody January 1st and then to collect my money January 30th or maybe February 14th. You know, you get the picture. But if you have these kind of expectations when it comes to intangible and complex things, you're putting yourself in for a long jump. So where was I? Yes. So it's a long sale cycle. Embrace it, don't rush. How long is it going to take?

I don't know because I don't know what idea you're trying to sell. I'm not in your particular context. If I was advising on it and we tried a couple of motions, you know, visit a couple of people, talk to a few potential customers, I'll be able to get a sense of, OK, this thing might take X number of weeks or X number of months. So right now, I can't say, but don't think in terms of days and weeks. Think in terms of if you want to think quick, think in terms of weeks, months.

Definitely not days or one week. Now since it is going to be a long sales cycle, this is the proper orientation to take to sell your web three idea, to sell your crypto idea, to sell your blockchain idea, to sell your fintech, to sell your whatever. You're going to be taking prospects or stakeholders through different stages. Since it's going to be a long sales cycle, you are not going to have one meeting and then close the deal.

So don't assume that you will show up to somebody's house on January 31st and then that same day you're going to collect your money. That's not how it works. Assume that you are going to visit Al Haji or visit Al Aja or visit Oga or Madam or whoever. Assume that you're going to visit this person multiple times. Each visit that you go through, you're going to have one particular agenda that you want to achieve to move the sale forward just one step forward.

So each meeting you are thinking one primary goal. If you go for this meeting, you achieve that primary goal that is good. Give yourself a part on the back. When you get home, you kneel down, you pray to God, you say thank you very much, you bless my going out and you'll bless my coming back in tomorrow, bless my going out and bless my going in as well. And then be happy about that. And then start planning towards the next visit where the goal is to move things another step forward.

So it's a long sale cycle. You are going to be taking your prospects, your stakeholders, the investors, whoever it is at your meeting. You are going to have multiple meetings, each meeting one agenda. You achieve the agenda. Good. You're one step closer to closing the deal, then the next meeting another agenda. Now the multiple visits that you could be that you'll be taking can be around different sets of things. First of all, I would recommend that you have to confirm that somebody's even interested in the damn thing in the 1st place.

Because if you go to Al Haji or Al Haja or Madam or Oga or whoever, and you're talking web three, wave of the future, disintermediation of markets and blah, blah, blah, and all that big grammar. But Al Haji is not in that headspace. Al Haji is not in that headspace, chief. So, so, so and so is not in that headspace. If they are not in that headspace and there's no interest, you are wasting your time. You cannot take somebody who is disinterested or who doesn't have a problem or a need into a closed sale.

I mean, of course, if the person have tons of cash and they're like this person is my friend's son, let me just help them, then of course, yeah, they might help you, but it's just helping. It's not as if they're interested. So first visit, you should even be trying to figure out, is this person interested in the 1st place? Do they see that there's a problem here? All right, so confirm that they're interested. That is one visit.

Another visit could be to confirm the extent of the problem. Because when you confirm that somebody is interested or it looks like there's room, the next thing is you fix an appointment where you go into discovery, where you start having conversations to try and figure out who they are, what their context is, the problems that they're facing, the financial problems that they're facing with their current payment provider or with their current, you know, whatever it is that you're trying to do that is some financial related.

You need to figure out the core problems that they are facing. Where is there a gap in payment processing, or where is there a gap in validating something, or where is there a gap in executing something? You need to figure out all these things. So in the first meeting where you confirm interest and it looks like everybody is on board, they see a vision here. The next thing is you ask for a meeting so you guys can talk some more.

The next meeting is where you're going to do discovery, where you're trying to confirm the extent of the problem because it's possible that somebody might be interested. This looks like a cute idea, but at the end of the day, yeah, it's not a problem that is worth solving. Like OK, yeah sure, our current provider, they process payments, but they don't process it too fast. It takes 3 hours to reconcile accounts instead of globally it happening in 3 minutes, you know?

Yeah, so that's a big problem, but you never know. Maybe in the Nigerian context, people are OK with processing in three hours or whatever. By the way, you know, this is not my space, so I'm just making things up the top of my head. But I'm just trying to say that you have to figure out if there is a problem that is worth solving or not. So that could be meeting #2. So you already see now we're looking at two meetings.

Then we're also eventually going to start talking about financial implications later on. Like, OK, this problem that you guys have, how much is it costing you in manpower? How much is it costing you in? Let's see what else Manpower lost hours, penalties, you know, whatever. And then you also try and get a sense of money, expectations, whether budgets have been allocated to solving these problems. You know, all those sorts of things.

You have to have all those conversations now. It is only after you've done all these steps that you're going to be able to get people to a proposal. And by the way, the proposal should be a separate meeting on its own, like you show up. And that's the only thing we're doing today. Oga, Madame Hajia, Chairman, Whatever. This is the proposal, item one, Item 2. This is what we're trying to achieve. This is how we think is going to help you.

What do you think? OK, we're in agreement, OK? And the next step is you pay the deposit and blah blah blah. So you can see now that me freestyling off the top of my head, we've seen how we're trying to take people through multiple stages with multiple visits. First of all, are they interested? Does it look like this thing makes sense? OK, they think it makes sense. Let's fix a meeting where I fixed the meeting. Are they facing any problems that my product or service can solve?

How bad is this problem? OK, then fix another meeting. We now start looking at finances. We're running into the financial implications. Do they have a budget? All these sorts of things. It's only after we have done all these meetings that we can now say, Olga, are you free? I'm going to be in town December 26th. Maybe I should just pass through the office and show you the proposal. Then that's also another stage. And then after that, you try and close the deal.

So off the top of my head, these are just some multiple stages that you can run through and it's the same whether you're a prospect or whether you're dealing with an investor. When you meet with the potential investor, first of all you're trying to confirm interest. Is this person interested in my Web 3, blockchain, fintech, whatever idea. Now in the previous podcast episode, I give an example of how you might be related to the richest man in your village who is a billionaire.

So because of that, Popsy or your mom can give you easy access. You have a meeting with the guy. He'd figure out if the person is interested. He might be the richest guy in your village and he might be a billionaire. But maybe he made his billions selling palm oil and maybe his extent of education was secondary school. Now, even though he is a billionaire, the fact is he made his money selling something tangible, which is palm oil, and the extent of his education was secondary school.

Might he be sophisticated enough or interested enough to understand the promise or the challenges of raising a fintech? You never know. You have to go and have that conversation first. Because it's possible that yes, he didn't go past secondary school, but you know, with his kids and with podcasts and things like that, he's interested. He's been up to date on stuff, things like that. But first of all, you have to confirm if this guy is interested.

Because if you're going back multiple visits, trying to sell him on the idea, trying to sell him on the idea, you want him to invest, you want him to invest. But he's not interested. He doesn't even understand the concept. The chances are you're not going to be successful. So you can see that the thought process is the same even when you're looking for investors. Multiple visits, each visit, one goal, one agenda. Achieve the agenda.

Give yourself a pat on the back, kneel down your room, pray At the end of the day, thank God, ask for grace for the next step and then you continue. Eventually you get to the close. You receive your investments. Now, because I have outlined 5 or 6 stages does not mean that in your own case there is going to be literally five or six visits or five or six stages. It depends the whole thing of confirming interest. You never know, it might take two or three meetings.

You might show up, you guys yarn a bit and then the guy received his phone call. He has to go and he has to go to school. Maybe his son was playing football and fell down and smashed his two front teeth. The guy has to leave. You know, these things happen. Meetings get caught short. So confirming interest, you might find out that you guys had two or three physical visits and maybe five or six phone calls. So don't say that because I

listed off 5 or 6 stages. Now you think you can close everything in, so excuse me, in five or six visits. So in reality, it's more messy. It's much more complicated because you can't confirm interest, confirm the extent of the problem, talk about financial implications. But by the time you get to the proposal, you now realize that there's something that is fundamental that OCA or investor or Madame or Deaconess, AFUBERO

or whoever you're talking to did not understand. And then you now have to go back to Stage 1 to start clarifying things. So it's not a linear thing. Sometimes it can be. It can be cyclical. So it doesn't have to be literally only six visits. Now, another thing that you have to embrace when you're trying to sell your fintech idea, your Web three, your financial services, your whatever it is that you're trying to sell is you're going to have multiple decision makers.

For my wedding photography business, it was simple. I'm talking to the bride. I have to convince her. But sometimes the person who pays is the groom or the groom side of the family. You can see that last last I'm dealing with two or three decision makers, tops for the commodities business was different. We're dealing with one decision maker, usually the business owner who is in the Middle East or wherever, who wants charcoal from Nigeria for Shisha or for powering combustion machines or whatever.

So usually we were dealing with one person and that one person will decide this is the price, this is the whatever, this is the payment terms, let's do business. So you can see in this case we're dealing with limited decision makers for the weddings, yeah, 2-3 tops for the. Charcoal for the commodities the person wants to buy, Sesame for the for the confectionery products or whatever. One person. So you can see we're dealing with limited small number of decision makers when it comes to your fintech, your Web 3 or whatever.

Just embrace the fact that you're going to deal with multiple decision makers. This is not talking to one or two people. There are multiple people that you have to consult. There are different key people that you need to consult. First of all, there's going to be the technical user. That's the person who is the desk officer or the account officer, or the person who is going to be using your web three this, your blockchain, this your fintech, whatever, whatever.

To execute the transaction you need to get buy in from those people because you can talk to all the people on board. But if at the end of the day the technical people think it's a bad idea, they will blow up your whatever because Oga will say this is what we're doing and they'll say Oga. This will not work because of this protocol, because of that protocol, because it has to integrate with this other software that we have or it has to integrate with this other payments process that we have is not integrating here, it's not integrating there.

So just know you're going to be talking to technical users, you cannot avoid it. Who is the person that's going to be responsible for taking your web three thing and implementing it? Or downloading the software and implementing it? Or? Do you know putting the add on on the website and integrating it across the different platforms? You need to be talking to the technical users, to the technical people. You also have to be talking to the economic person.

That is a mistake that a lot of people make. They assume that OK, Orga Orga Chukudi is the head of the organization. So once I talk to Orga Chukudi and he decides that is it is not that simple. Yes, Orga Chukudi is one that is going to pay the money at the end of the day. So that's why you have to speak to Oga Chukudi or Madam Chica and get her own buy in. But if Madam Chica says let's go ahead but all the technical users say ah Madam this will not work, It's not integrating here,

it's not doing this, it is not compliant with this, anything will work. So as you're talking to technical users, yes also be talking to Madam Chica and get her on board the other people that also have economic and economic stake in the whole thing. There's also procurement department if technical users and Madam Chica, I think let's go ahead but people in procurement or finance, I don't know maybe they don't like your face or something.

It's going to make it hard for this deal to go through. So I hope you guys have been need to get a sense of how many decision makers that you have to talk to to get this. Your fintech idea to fly the desk officer, the account officer, the technical person, the IT person. You're talking to somebody. You have an inside person in the department Madam Shika Orga Chukudi who owns the business. You're talking to the person,

the people in procurement, you know one or two people there. You know BC who is there. You have a phone number so you call her once in a while. The finance person, you know Alhaji Gariba who has the finance department, you have his phone number, you know you have him on WhatsApp. You guys, you should be chatting the department head. You also need to be in touch with the department head. You know you need to be in touch with all these people.

The bottom line is multiple decision makers. You have to take a multi threading approach for weddings it was simple. I will start and try and enter with the bride if it doesn't work. Sometimes you enter through the groom and of course sometimes it's the parents who are paying so. But you can see it's a simple something. Bride groom parents bridegroom parents. Simple for this one. Now multi threading, who is the technical person?

Who is the accounts person? Who is the branch manager? Who is the CRO? Do I know somebody in procurement who is in finance department? You know, blah blah blah, multi threading, you're talking to tons of people to get this deal going. So in case you haven't figured out, networking is going to be essential, relationship building is going to be essential. Yeah, all those are soft intangible skills. Now let me bring this episode to a close here because you know this is plenty talk we can keep on going on and on and on.

But suffice to say we have finally gotten into the nitty gritty of the challenges of trying to sell your fintech ideas in Nigeria or Canada or New Zealand or wherever it is that in the world that you are based. So let me see. OK, I'll have to gather my thoughts and then tomorrow we will take it up from here. So in the meantime, connect with me on WhatsApp. Phone number is 08064662140, the country code is +234 and connect with me on LinkedIn.

The name is Tavi Shima Ayade. I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name from the link from the website that you're listening to this episode. My e-mail address is there also in case that's your cup of tea. Yeah, I'm also available on Instagram, but LinkedIn you get a proper response. So thank you very much for your time and attention. We will be back tomorrow where we continue with the challenges of selling your fintech ideas and I hope you guys are now beginning to get a sense of how,

yes, somebody might raise 2M3M dollars for the fintech idea, but you're starting to see how these things can fall apart. So it's not as simple as you raise three M for your business, your fintech idea, therefore it's going to work. You can see the nitty gritty, the small, small that we have to be doing to make things successful. The problem is people are trying to run all these things using common sense, and it's not always common sense.

When I started off as a wedding photographer was the same thing. I was trying to run this whole thing using common sense, but it's not common sense. You need to learn and that their frameworks, their principles, their processes that go with all these things, you need to learn them. You don't have to pay a coach, you don't have to engage me. There's YouTube, there's podcast, there's all sorts of things, but it makes a lot, a whole ton of a difference if you start thinking about these things in a holistic, holistic,

what would I say like framework oriented way of thinking. So if you think in those terms and start approaching it in those terms, then your odds gradually increase, they go up. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.