The Indispensable Duo: Why Sales and Marketing Drive Business Innovation & Value

Hello and welcome to the show. For today's episode, I'm recording in the living room and the kids are home or they're actually in the room doing some mine crafty kind of things or roadblocks, Abby, roadblocks or something. Anyway, so expect to hear some interruptions in the background. Now, the goal of this show is free business education. So please share, promote and talk about the show, especially if you think you've been getting value from it, so that people in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle.

And if you have any sales and marketing questions, please call SMS or send a WhatsApp to 08064662140. The country code is +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian. Now let's see. OK, today on the show, I'd like to look at the question, is there such a thing as a product or a service that sells itself? Because there's still this myth that is out there that or if I make this perfect thing, people will just be rushing me and I'm not going to have to sell anything.

I still keep running into people who have this opinion and I've made some podcast episodes about it in the past, but I'm going to make another podcast episode about it today with a difference because I want to give my usual answer, which is that no, there's no such thing that can sell itself. But however, I'm going to assume that, OK, let's say there's something that can sell itself. You know, what are the implications?

Let's explore the question. And yeah, so let's look at things from that angle, you know, is that sort of thing that can tell itself. Let's assume that the answer is no, and let me give you the reasons why. And if you say that the answer is yes, let's still explore and let's see any implications, if it has any implications at all for how Anyway, let's just explore from both angles. Let me just put it that way. Now, before we continue, I'd like to give shout outs.

Oh, OK, I had to in mind, but I didn't OK, I can't access the other one because, you know, obviously it's still on Spotify. I didn't write it down. So for. Shout out to Emmanuel Carnaby and his colleague Eunice. OK, Emmanuel is a listener of the podcast. The Eunice is not just had a strategy session not long ago. So yes, Emmanuel, if you're listening to this episode, yeah, after I was done with you guys and I made this recording, so I

will make a podcast episode, you know, talking about some of the interesting stuff that Emmanuel and I spoke about. Emmanuel is the manager, Unisys responsible for sales, I mean sales and business development. And they both work with a tech company that is a reseller for for auto. Yeah, auto is the free CRM that I've been speaking about on the podcast. I've mentioned the time and time again, that's all those episodes that we talk about.

CRMCRM just means customer relationship management tool. Now the CRM is just a tool is something is a place, is some location, is something where you put all your customer data because it makes no sense. That's I'm also trying to build a business and while small business people and we don't have this place where we can refer to where we can find out OK, missing kitchen. When did we start doing business with her? How long have we been doing business with her?

How many times did she buy? Did we mess up in the past? How did we resolve it? What projects is she currently working on? What is important to her? What is not important to her? What's her husband's name? Does she have children? What are her children's name? Just like simple basic stuff, all these kind of random things that someday become important when it comes to relationship building and establishing commonality with someone and greater rapport and also all looking for opportunities to upsell and cross sell.

You know, the only way you're going to know now that it's time to call Madame Kechi and try and talk to her about your new product or whatever is precisely if you have somewhere or something. I was going to say someone, but someone would be a bad idea. Because the problem with the someone thing is, you know, people leave. So my brother and I, we used to be in business and for some reason my brother had this knack for remembering all kinds of things that he would just call me and say, hey today.

So, so his birthday I'll be I was like, I don't know, I'm not sure, let me check. And then I check and his business birthday, then I can call and say, Hey, what's up? How you doing now? Happy birthday, How's Madam blah, blah, blah. And they say, oh, Tavishima, you remember everything, you know, Meanwhile, I don't remember everything was my brother who just wake up. I remember that. Isn't today somebody's birthday? So you shouldn't be a someone that should be acrm.

What should be something, a book, a diary, an excel sheet, an app, a software, a something where you keep all this kind of information. So that is where CRM comes in. And the reason why I was had been talking about audio on other episodes is because since lots of people don't know that they need ACRM and I'm able to educate you guys that you need one. I like to look for free and readily available solutions so that nobody will come and tell me that look, yes, I want to do this one, but I can't pay in dollars, so I can't afford it.

So that is why I spoke about the free audio Cos it was free, the free versions of Zoho. Let's see what else. And then even if you just check CRM in your, what's it called, excuse me, in your Google Play or whatever, you know, you get to see all kinds of alternatives that you can use. But bottom line is I don't want money to be an excuse for most of you guys. Joshua, start with something anyway. So we'll talk about more about that later.

But where was that? I just wanted to say shout out to Emmanuel. Can you be basically, thank you very much for listening to the show, Eunice. Now, I hope you're a listener to the show because you weren't before, but after, since our session. I hope you are impressed enough with the value that I delivered. And I hope you're now listening to the show. I hope you're now an advocate and I hope you're going to talk to other people about the show as well.

So now back to the main question that we're going to tackle today. Excuse me. Now the question is, is there such a thing as a product or a service that sells itself? Now for those of you who've been listening to me, I mean since the beginning, you know that my answer is capital NO with exclamation mark and another exclamation mark and seven other exclamation marks. The answer is no because everything in business involves sales and marketing.

Marketing is the business function, at least according to Professor Professor Drucker, Peter Drucker is the marketing function. That's that tells people who you are, tells people that you exist, tells people what you do, tells people the problems you solve, tells people how you can help and tells people how you can engage. So the business function that does all of this tells your friends, your neighbors, your family members, your countrymen,

your whatever, your ideal audience, the business function that tells people, this is who I am, this is what I do, This is the problem I can solve. This is how much I how much I cost. This is how I can help. This is how you can engage with me all that, that is the marketing function. Now, the marketing function is exercised through a number of departments or a number of sub sub disciplines. So, marketing is exercised through advertising because advertising tells the whole world this is who we are.

We've rolled out, we've launched, we are here, we're in Inugu, we're in Asaba, we're in Abuja, we're in Sokoto, that's advertising. Then there is sales that also exercises a marketing function. Sales is where people like me go and start talking to people one-on-one to try and figure out what their problem is or the vision that they're trying to reach so we can see if their product, so the product that we're selling or the service we're selling can help them solve that problem.

So advertising is a marketing function. Sales is a marketing function. For those of you who want to argue, you know I beg, I'm not in the mood to argue. Just go back to uni. Go and talk to anybody who's in uni right now studying bizarre mean if I even go to secondary school. For those of your people who are doing business studies, go and check your, your cousins, your book, your niece's book. You see there that marketing is the mother.

All these other things are children because people keep people just keep on going on and on. Which is more important? Which one came first? Look, the the thing has been settled and it's been settled for a very long time. Marketing is the mother, sales is the child, advertising is the child. Branding and public relations is a child is also part of a marketing function. Promotions is also the child of marketing. So just take it.

That's the way it is. So it's no matter of which one is better, which one is worse. Marketing, want to know to let the whole world know that we exist. These are the other functions that we do it advertising, sales, brand, PR, promotion, blah, blah, blah. There are plenty. So in the summary, no, because any business that you want to do is going to involve any of this function. There's no business that does also involve you shopping from the rooftops.

This is who we are. We are launching, we are brand new. We are now here. We are now in your city, 20% discount. You can come and meet us in a suburb. These are the people that we help the most. This is the best way to use our product. I mean, whatever the messaging is, there is no business that is not putting out any kind of messaging whatsoever. So the answer is capital handle, full stop, end of story. However, for the sake of argument, let us agree.

OK, yes, there's a product that sells itself. How is that product going to sell itself? Especially for people who are coming at you from that angle, People assume that you can make a product that is so remarkable. The thing is so innovative, The thing is so sci-fi, so futuristic, so Gibbs, so everything that people will just rush the moment they see it. OK, I agree with you. It's possible. Yes, we can create that kind of special product, not mythical product.

Let's assume you even have it right now. Now this is my question to you. How will people know that this thing exists before they start to rush? Why you answer me? You really think you will make this magical thing leave it in your house, in your bedroom, in your living room, in the store of your shop, and then somehow people will just know it exists and they will rush to it? Answer me that question. The answer to the question is,

even when you have this remarkable product that everybody will rush, that everybody needs, that everybody wants, that is going to solve every single problem, you still have to tell everybody that this thing exists and how they can get it and where they should come to and how much it can cost. And this is how you are going to use the product. You still have to tell them somehow. Hope you're catching my drift now about when I say that there's no way you can get rid of the sales or the marketing function even when you have this magical thing people talk about,

oh iPhone, Steve Jobs, blah, blah blah blah blah and or what not. Like what do you, what the hell do you think he did? You don't call that marketing. Standing on the stage, dressing up as a fine boy running advertising campaign. The world will never be the same again, blah blah, blah, 1986. The world is for visionary something. So what do you think all of that is? That's the marketing function. They now stand on stage and you say, oh, today the revolutionary, the something,

you know, unveiled the thing, music, lights, everything. And then you now say 1000 songs in your pocket. What do you think he was doing? Not in sales and marketing. The next person that runs up on me and tells me about that Steve Jobs thing, he didn't have to say, I will knock you on the head. And I'm being straight up. Yeah, let's not be children here. And I don't worry. I'm not going to physically assault anybody. I'm knocking on the head.

Don't mind me. The thing just gets to me. But there's no. Anyway, let's go back to the whole thing. Yes, you can create a remarkable product, but The thing is people only rush you when they know that this thing exists. So you have to start figuring out some things. You're on your Co founder or you're on your wife, or you're on your husband, or you're on Popsy and Momsy or you're on your investors, you're on your stakeholders.

You guys have to start asking yourself some questions. We have this remarkable product, this innovative thing is here. It's in the house, it's in the store, it's in the shop, it's in wherever. We still have to decide, OK, how are we going to tell the whole world that we exist? What is the best way to go about it? Are we going to be going online or offline? Are we going to go on NTA or are we going to go on channels TV or are we going to use Radio Nigeria?

What channel are we going to use when it comes to rolling these things out? Are we going to sell it in our shop or are we going to try and partner with Ground Square or partner with, you know, some shopping channel or something? I'll be, are we going to put this thing on Jumia? I'll be, are we going to put this thing on Amazon? OK, Now that we've decided how we're going to tell people on the channels that we're going to use, what kind of words are we going to use in the copy?

What kind of color, what kind of font? What kind of this, what kind of that? I hope you guys are feeling me now from the implications of this question that I'm asking. I hope you guys are feeling where I'm coming from. What distribution channels are we going to use? What kind of partners are we going to use? I hope you guys are feeling me now where where I'm coming from. I do not deny that what you're working on is remarkable and it's going to change the whole world.

And if people knew that they were rush it. But The thing is, right now, nobody knows all these strategic imperatives, all these strategic questions, all these things that we're talking about. That is the crux of sales and marketing. And that is the reason why there is no product on this earth that you can avoid the sales and the marketing equation. You can't because even if this thing is so revolutionary, even this thing is going to change the world.

And even if this thing is oh, if everybody knew they were rushed, but people still have to know about this thing. So once you and your Co founder or your brother or your sister or your mom or your pastor or your imam or your investor, once the one you will start sitting down to start asking yourself this question, how are we going to launch? When are we going to launch? In fact, people like saying all these, what do you think it launches?

I was talking about going to your younger sibling or your niece who is still doing business studies in secondary school. Go and check now. Go and open her textbook. Even if the text was written in 1986, go and check there. If you won't see, launch there. Anyway, I think I've answered the question assuming that yes, even if your product is revolutionary, what are the kind of things you still have to think about? Can we still consider those things as marketing and selling?

But for those of you who are still not convinced, because some people will say I'm not convinced, it is possible. I can make this remarkable thing and the thing will sell itself and I don't have to do anything. It will sell itself. OK, no problem. You can't convince everybody, so I give up. I want to argue with you guys. However, this is what I'm going to beg you people. Ask yourself this question. Should you be using selling tactics for your revolutionary product even though you think there's no need to sell or market this thing?

No problem, I agree with you, the thing will sell itself. OK, I accept you have one. But will there be other benefits of using sales and marketing tactics even though this thing can sell itself? The answer is the capital YES with an exclamation mark and another and 12 other exclamation marks after it. Even if this thing was held itself, you should still be using good sales statics, good business development principles and frameworks.

And this is the reason why for your remarkable product to become a hit or for you guys to become billionaires off of this thing, you have to learn how to maximize cost of my lifetime value. It's a big word, but it's just what it means. It just means that the big money comes when people buy from you again and again and again and again. So for the iPhone, the reason why the life of the iPhone people, there's people who shareholders an iPhone company,

the reason why their life is sweet. It's not because somebody bought one iPhone. I didn't come back. That was me, by the way, I bought one set of iPhones, one for me, one for my wife. And The thing is, I never came back. So they didn't make money from me. Apple makes money from people like one of my cousins who has bought every single iPhone whether she needs it or she doesn't. As it's coming out, she's buying. If it's 500K, she's buying.

If it's 800K, she's buying. I don't know if it has ever reached 1,000,000, but every single episode she's buying. So Apple makes money from my cousin but not from me 'cause I bought one for me, I bought one for my wife. We enjoyed it. But after a while we say, you know what, let's just stick to Android and then that's it. So I wouldn't make gain from me because you sell your phone, I don't know, $600.00 or something or $500.

Production cost was maybe $200. You only make, you know, 300 on top. You know, that's, that's not really big money, but the person who is coming back again and again and again and again, that's where the money is. Now, unfortunately, you don't get to maximize customer lifetime values without sales and marketing. So the iPhone was truly this revolutionary thing that sells itself, Steve Jobs there. But they would have only done that first whatever and then release the headphone and then they wouldn't have bothered.

But This is why they do this whole song and dance every single year a new one is coming out. You leak the press, you leak the news, something is coming out. You do small mock up. You know, this, this, this, not that, that. And then there's the release. People like you in for days and you know, the whole thing becomes a spectacle. So they do this spectacle every two, three years or every year, however long it takes to release an iPhone.

And they engage in all these things because this sweet money is coming from maximizing customer lifetime value. It's not from the person that bought once, it's from the person that comes again and again and again. So this thing is revolutionary to sell itself. People will rush it, but people will not rush it in perpetuity. So you will still have to think about selling tactics, selling frameworks, marketing frameworks, marketing principles, so that we can get people to come back again and again and again.

And not just to buy for themselves, but also to refer, you know, for their friends, their family members and their associates to come and buy as well. So for my cousin, yes, every single iPhone, she must buy. After a while, hobby started buying too. So you can see that for me and my wife, there's not much money. We buy only one set of iPhone. And after a while we say, look, it's not worth the stress. We never buy again of my cousin and for her husband, you know,

every single iPhone, you can see that that's where the sweet money comes. And we're not putting, we're not going through all the stress of creating a business so that we can so we can make sweet money. So it's not one of purchase. It's about people who keep coming back again and again. All right then. So that's one reason why we need to still think about sales and marketing. Then another reason why we should use good selling practice is because it is sales that owns the relationship with the customer.

It's an individual sales person who is talking with the customer who knows exactly what it is that this customer likes or what this customer does not like. So because sales people own the relationship with the customer and are having conversations with the customer all the time, it is sales people who know when something is working and who knows when something is not working. The last people who know that is a problem is the people in the boardroom if there's a problem with Apple or Apple products.

Is the people what do you call them? Is it innovation manager? I'll be something the people, the sales people on on the on the floor in the Apple shop, those are the first people who know that man something is wrong with this app or with this battery or with this design or with this whatever it is, people on the ground who know what's up, not people in the boardroom people in the strategy room. So you still engage in good sales and business development practice because since you're in touch with the customer, you can do need analysis.

You know how things are working in the field. That is where you get all the data that you need for product innovation. Because The thing is this remarkable product that you're working on, this whole thing, this thing that is revolutionary, that will change the world, you will still have to change it. I mean, nothing is perfect. You can't start with a bang, but still next year, 2 years, three years, five years, 10 years.

You have to change one or two things because nothing is stagnant in life. The only way you will know for good reason what it is that you need to change is if you have good sales practice, you've been keeping in touch with your customers. And so because of that, you know what is working, what is not working, what is breaking, what is not breaking, what they like, what they don't like. Because sometimes you go into business assuming that people will like this thing and then surprisingly, do you think you thought they would like is not what they like.

It's something else apart from for your product or service that they're actually feeling. So yes, we still have to use good sales tactics even if our product can sell itself. Now, this is the final reason. And with this, if you're not convinced, I'll leave you to yourself. Not only will I leave you to yourself, I'll even ask you that please start this your business with your revolutionary product and you know be giving me updates.

I always give my phone number at the beginning of the show and at the end right is my phone number again 08064662140. So please take my number store it be sending me updates because I want to know and I want to see this product that truly, truly you just create this and then you see back the thing will just begin to sell itself. I really want to see it. So if we just find out one, if you're not convinced there, no problem.

Just keep my phone number, be showing me the updates, be peppering me and prove to me that I was wrong. Eventually you start something that is remarkable, that is innovative, that is groundbreaking. Nobody has seen this thing before. One in town, best in class. Of course, people will say iPhone, but you know, I still disagree. Touch phones existed before iPhones. The thing is just that. What's his name? I was about to say Zuckerberg.

What's his name? This guy, an Apple guy, OK, Jobs, Steve Jobs found a better way to sell it. People who had touchscreen before, they didn't do a good job of selling. So in the beginning, you're groundbreaking. Eventually this is what happens. If this thing can sell itself. And if you're making lots of money, you think your neighbors are idiots or just sit down. You think don't wake up and say, look, Tavi Schumer started this thing is selling like crazy or more or less copy this thing.

Everybody will copy you If this thing is so groundbreaking, so remarkable, so innovative, yes, you can use intellectual property protection, you know, use legal means, try and protect yourself. But these things don't last forever. The law allows you certain kinds of limitations and protections only for a while. Eventually the IP, IP protections, you know, are going to fail and and people are going to be able to copy you, although find clever ways to copy you.

When people start copying you, this will help. This will not be the problem. Now that there are other things in the market that seem to be as remarkable, that seem to be as innovative, that seem to be as groundbreaking because whether they like it or not, you know, there's that debate that which one is better, Samsung or iPhone? In fact, I use the Xiaomi and I think that these Chinese phones are mad. I think they're wonderful.

So eventually it's not just you anymore, the other people out there in that space. The question now becomes, how are you going to distinguish this revolutionary product that you have? That is the reason why you're going to have to use sales and marketing principles and frameworks and discipline because eventually we all get to the stage where we have to distinguish ourselves. Nowadays, commoditization not a problem. I mean, think about it now.

Somebody reached out to me yesterday saying they love the podcast. This is the first Nigerian business podcast that have listened to, you know, where have you guys been? I'm so glad that you have. Oh, sorry, 1 moment. OK, sorry about that. That is the beauty of recording podcast live. So that was just one of my kids coming to tell me that, you know, don't watch TV, they're hungry, blah, blah, blah, you know, the usual.

So then I'll sort them out. Let me just round up this thing real quick. Well, that's true. I won't have a meeting to get to soon, so I should be getting ready to leave the house. So I was talking about any last, last. Yes, there will be competition. So we'll have to distinguish ourselves because everything becomes commodity. Commodity also would commodified. I'd be commodified, I'd be commoditized. So whatever the word is, you know what I'm trying to say.

So eventually we are going to have to distinguish ourselves. We can only do that through sales and marketing. So I hope with this few points of mine, as you should say back then, the Debaters Club, I hope I've been able to convince with these few points of mine, Fellow debaters, Immaculate time keeper, panel of judges. I hope I've been able to convince you with these few points of mine. That is no such thing as a product which sells itself, but that even if there were a product that could sell itself eventually would have to use good sales and marketing principles.

I hope I've been able to convince you. If I haven't been able to convince you, I give my phone number at the end of every episode and I'll give it again so that if you're that success story, please send me the messages, let me know how you're doing. You know, pepper me, show me that I was wrong. So that's all for today, folks. If you've got sales and marketing questions or you want the region, get outreach in touch with me to tell me that,

look, I have this perfect product and I don't sell it at all. This is how well I'm doing. Then reach out, call SMS or WhatsApp on 08064662140. The country code is +234. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.