The Math of Failure: Lessons from a Consultant’s Notebook

Today on the show, we're going to talk about how some of you are not setting yourself up the right way for business success. And the reason why we're doing this today is because, of course, you know that we've all just gone past 2025. We're into 2026. And I've been doing a little bit of cleaning, you know, just looking through old notes, you know, tossing stuff away, you know, old consulting notes, old podcast episode notes, you know,

things like that. And I've seen a bunch of stuff that at the time I thought would have made good podcast episodes. But somehow it all just got lost in the, you know, just got lost in the heap. And one of them was from this situation that I had with an entrepreneur. It didn't turn out to be an engagement. We had a couple of meetings. We spoke about a couple of things. And at the end of the day, he didn't set himself up right for he didn't set himself upright for success for his business idea.

I think he he was just coming at it from the wrong angle or starting from the wrong basis. Anyway, let me just go into some detail and then you'll you'll see what I mean. So this is your first time listening to the podcast. My name is Tavishima Ayede, I'm a former lawyer turned business consultant and I try to help businesses grow and thrive, but I always start off from a sales and business development perspective. Just in case you hit me up, I

want to see if I can help you solve a couple of your business problems. I'll always start from the sales and business development perspective because that is what I know. That's my area of specialty. So of course, you have an accounting problem. If you have a business management problem, I'll have to refer you to someone else. Now, if you love the sorts, these also things that we talk about over here on the podcast, then subscribe on Spotify, on Apple, on wherever it is that you listen to your podcast so you can get this good business goodness that we talk about every other day on the podcast.

And yes, if you're discovering the show for the first time and you're scrolling and scrolling and you're thinking, man, this guy has a lot of episodes. Yeah, you're correct. He's over 1300. And that's because I've been doing this for almost 6 years now. All right, so let's get straight into the meat of the podcast for today. Oh, yes, the usual apologies, I'm out and about. I'm just I'm in the parking lot, you know, as usual.

So I said, let me just make this recording real quick before I move to where I'm supposed to be. So let's see. OK, yes, So with this particular guy now we we tried that for a while and there were a couple of problems that he had that I don't think he was said allowing giving himself the best chances for success. Let me put it this way. So First off, the guy was limited in human resources, so poor staffing, you know, is just him.

And for his business idea, unfortunately he needed quite a bit of stuff. You know, there are some of you that have some business ideas that you don't need too many people to run this thing in the beginning. So I know some of you are trying to be lean, but unfortunately there's some business ideas that you're trying to start or some there's some business models that you want to pursue, unfortunately that require a couple of people to get things working.

So this guy had poor staffing, had limited manpower, and then the business model was poor because the unit economics was poor. Now, unit economics is something I've spoken about over here on the podcast for those of you who are listening to the show for the first time. Unit economics just means when you're selling multiple items, how much are you selling per one? So that when you collect the money, there's enough for you to throw back into the business and there's enough for you to flex.

If the unit economics are poor, it means that every single time you sell a unit, pair one, sorry, it's not as if you're trying to make the profit on one single item. But the idea is by the time you sell, you know, the average number of units that you sell, you know, in a week, in a month or whatever, and you take all those small, small coins, your profit and add everything. It will be nice, it'll make sense. So that is the reason why how I

put it, OK, like a friend of mine who tried doing the rice business, although at the time, you know, I was, I was new in the game, so I didn't quite understand how some things worked. And he did his first run and I think he said he made like 5K or maybe 7 K on each bag of rice. In my mind I was thinking, you know, what the hell? Like I can't survive doing that. But of course, I lost sight of the fact that, you know, when you sell rice for a living,

you're not trying to make your profit on that one single bag. So if it's like you're making 55K on top one bag, you know, the goal is, you know, hopefully you're selling, you know, hundreds of bags, something like that. I don't know whether you sell hundreds of bags in a month or in a week or whatever. Boscha, you're expecting to make up your money on volume. So all these kinds of questions, how much are you selling your bag?

How much are you selling your earphones? How much are you selling your this? How much are you selling your that? So this doesn't apply to, you know, those of us who do services, obviously. So because we're not selling units of something, what we're selling is our time. So for those of you who sell physical products, the unit economics, it got to be there. You have to sell it at a certain price so that by the time you remove the profits, sorry, is it profit.

So I'm trying to be precise so that, you know, those of you who studied accounting won't come and roast me because I made a mistake in using the wrong terms before. But sure, The thing is, by the time you remove the revenue on top and you know, whatever the accounting is, you want to be sure that the thing that remains is enough to invest back into the business and is enough for you to flex because business is not going to move on to you invest back in it.

And then of course, nobody wants to do Jackie work indefinitely. So if you're doing Jackie work, you know, three years or five years or seven years, 10 years, you know, depending on the agreement that you have with yourself or with your spouse and you will are not flexing, it will affect the level of motivation that you have. So you need to make sure that the unique economics make sense. Then for those of you who are going to try and employ other people, because remember I said that this is my guy unfortunately had limited manpower and poor staffing.

You need the right incentives for business development efforts. Summary What I'm trying to say is this, when you tell somebody, whether boy or girl, sales boy, sales girl, marketer, whatever you call them, go and sell on my behalf. If the package no makes sense, you know, at the end of the day or at the end of the week, at the end of the month, they look at the one that enters their pocket and the thing does not make sense.

They will bounce, they will leave and you will have high. What's that thing called high? Is it turn out? I'll be turnover. You have high turnover, as in you hire salespeople, you hire marketer January 1st, then by February 3rd they don't show up to work again. Then February 15th you hire a new set and then by March 6th they stop coming to work. Then by March 28th, you hire a new set and then by, you know, June 1st they will show up and work again.

You understand? So that's what human resource people, those of you in human resource management, IB people, resource management or whatever, that's what you guys call high turnover. Turnover will be high because the incentives don't make sense. So if you're starting off your business now, it requires people to to sell people to hustle on your behalf. The people you know, get the ones that you don't have the incentive is not making sense there.

On top of that, the unit economics, the money, the pricing of the something, the pricing now no makes sense. How, how are you giving yourself a chance to grow? You know, but you know now Niger, you know, my God is an awesome God, you know, blah, blah, blah. I will succeed. I will prevail. And yes, you will prevail. You will prevail. But just try and start the whole hustle in a way that your chances for succeeding will go up.

You prevail no doubt. Just make your job easier. So what was this guy doing? Now what he was doing was he was selling colored sand. Some of you are wondering coloured sand. Oh yes, coloured sand. For those of you who are wondering is because you don't have kids yet. And I was selling coloured sand to schools, educational institutions and the whole idea, see when I saw it, because you know me, I have kids. And I remember what back when the kids were little, you know,

nursery school and all of that. I remember all the different exercises that schools do nowadays, you know, to get kids to, I think they call it a fine motor skills or something. I'll be gross motor skills or something like that. You know, you want the kids to be able to write well, to be able to, you know, write well, run well, jump well, throw well. So I don't like the the the good old days. OK, don't mind me. I'm saying good old days as if as if I'm old.

But I mean, during my own set education wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't really fancy. You know, you'll show up, you'll do your writing exercises, you'll do your reading exercises. You do 2 * 1 two 2 * 2 four 2 * 3 six, you know, and the heads of states are what against States and capita, Abya, Omaha, Adamawa, yo la Aqua bomb. So those are the stuff we used to do. But it's like in Niger, they become wise that that's not how you teach kids because when you try that, you bore the hell out of them.

So they started making school interesting for kids. And so for like doing my own kids, you know, they'll, they'll play with clay, they'll play with what else, Clay, sand, you know, like all kinds of things. So like when it comes to writing number one, number two, number three and all these sorts of things. So back in our own day now you would trace it into the, into the book. But then in some schools, you know, you actually have the children out, you know, it's play time.

And so they're playing in the little sandbox and then the teacher is there and then in the sand, they'll now be scratching one. Now scratch 2, now scratch three, scratch four. And The thing is, you know, since it's playing with sand, they, they are learning certain skills, learning, learning certain concepts and they're using play, you know, to learn. So when I saw that guy, I understood for those of you who don't have kids, you won't get it.

But when I saw it and was time for the meeting, like bam, I understood straight because at that time I was in that stage of life, playing with sand, playing with clay, playing with this, playing with that. So coloured sand is a way that you can use coloured sand as an educational tool, you know, creativity, cognitive skills. Yes, because I was talking about, you know, how you write 1234. I mean, think about it, children are playing in the sand.

You say what is what is 3 + 3? If they have nice colourful sand, they can actually scratch it in the ground 123 and then one 2-3 and then count it 123456. So you can use it as an educational tool and then also for creativity. And that was the part that I also really thought was cool, although I thought it was the downside of the product because they had sand or different colour. So in other words, if you take red sand and then you take yellow sand and you mix it together, for those of us who are adults, you know what I

mean? You already know you get orange, but then this is a nice way that you teach children. You take red sand and you take yellow sand and then you mix it together and wow, orange, you know, so cool. Like I'm mixing different colours. But then that's also a drawback because once you mix red sand and yellow sand, it's not as if you can now separate the red from the yellow, you know, you understand. But anyway, beautiful product,

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful product. Now as you're hearing this thing and how we can use this product for art, how we can use this product for science, for math, how we can use it for, you know, different things, excuse me, Obviously in your mind you now know that we want to sell this product. It's not going to be anyhow anyhow, schools that you sell it to. You understand what I'm saying? Because I went to, first of all,

I went to IRA nursery and primary school. I was in Abuja. After that I went to Jabi. From Jabi I went to I went to festival Rd. then from festival Rd. I went to Woosen one primary school. So that's why I finished my primary school. Now don't ask me why I went to 5-6 primary schools. I have absolutely no idea. I've asked my mom say my mom says like you know to be honest, we can't remember why. So that was it. I went to all those schools yes only me 5 primary schools.

It wasn't fun. If I remember one day I got lost in that's why we I just got to festival Rd. Popsy had just dropped me off in school. I went to class, there was break time, I went out to play with some kids and after a break now I got lost. I couldn't find my way. And so I was, and I felt like blasting, if you understand what I mean. They did not use bad language on this, on this podcast. So I felt like blasting now and I didn't know what the toilets were.

So I just went to the Bush and as I had to do my thing, they handled my business. Then when I finished blasting, now there's a problem. I didn't have tissue paper, so all I use now and I had to use my undies and then roll it up. But then that was not enough to finish blasting. Then I saw one leaf. I decided to use the leaf to, you know, you understand now sanitize myself. And I learned the lesson of my life that it is not all leaves that you can use to to sanitize yourself When you are, you're done with your business.

So anyway, yeah, that that was it. Those are those are fun days. How did I enter that one? Now? I can't remember how I got here. OK, yes. So if you're going to sell this kind of product now, it is obviously not local government schools they're going to be selling this thing to. It is not what they want. Primary school. They're going to sell this thing to it is not the primary. What is it called? You know what all these government schools, it's going to be private schools that you sell this thing to.

You need to reach out to the right kind of schools. You I researched the school. Well, the schools of a certain class of a certain cada, because local government schools, you know, they don't care about which one is gross motor skills. They say gross motor. What, like, will you sit down there and start reciting your multiplication tables? They're not going to use sand, They're not going to use Montessori teaching method or,

you know, blah, blah, blah, all those fancy modern stuff. So excuse me, I have a bit of a cold. So to get this thing going, we need to identify the right kind of schools. And it had to be certain kinds of schools in Abuja, you already know. So let me not stress that. Then, of course, we have to build relationships in this school. You're going to have to build relationships with school administrators. You know, teachers also like therapists.

Yes, therapists are needed, unfortunately. You know, the good thing about modernity now is, you know, before now, there were stuff going on with some of us. Well, not me anyway, but you know, some kids in class learning difficulties, things like that. But back then, you know, we didn't know. You just said that this child is a non Ludo. But now, you know, kids struggle and this help. So the good thing is that we have therapists for for for kids now.

It's just unfortunate that they're expensive, really, really expensive. But anyway, athletes, they're here. So we have to build relationships with teachers and with schools, with therapists, you know, things like that. Then to sell that kind of product, whether you like it or not, you'd have to do lots of personalized presentations because you have to go to school. You will talk to the principal, you will talk to the class, the class teacher, the art teacher,

the math teacher, making presentation or showing how this thing works, maybe provide free samples, you know, things like that. So all these sorts of things would have been part of a sales strategy. Excuse me. And you can see, not already. This is going to be quite a bit of work. Unfortunately, the intrapreneur in question thought that this thing will go big and it will go big fast. But have some bad news for you. If it's just you, you can't make the thing grow big fast.

It will require lots of time because it's just you. If you want to shorten the time, you need to invest in the money and hire other legs and other hands and scale beyond yourself. You have, you need manpower to push it. But what I'm just saying is you need other people or you need time for all these ideas that we're talking about. Because if it's just you, how many schools can you see in a week? How many teachers can you see in a week?

How many of these relationships can you manage in a week? So you have any lots of time or you need lots of people and unfortunately it was just this guy. He was thinking he could get one salesperson and get it moving and of course he will work. He's just like he wanted anything to be big and he wanted anything to be fast. And unfortunately for this kind of product and for the kind of sales ideas that are needed to make this thing work, it's not going to happen.

Not as quick as you want. Then he was also thinking about wholesale distribution, that is you take the product and then sell to other distributors and you know, it takes a while to recruit distributors and then bring them on board. And then then of course, this is where unit economics comes into play. Now the sand that was going to be selling, by the way, the packaging was beautiful, by the way, really nice creative bottles.

So the, the, the pricing now you know, unfortunately the thing was not priced how I put it now understandably so, eh the guy no one price I'm premium because it's sand. So if you say come and buy this sand, one bottle of sand is you know, 7K8K10K people will look at you and say what coloured sand I should buy 1 bottle 7K8K10K12K. There are how many children in this class? How much sand are we going to buy? So I guess it was some of the realities.

So and if you know our price and premium and then you say you're going to use distributors, what would be the cost for the distributor every time they sell one bottle? OK, you say you want to use Commission salesperson, you want to hire one person. What would be the cost of the person every time he sells 1 bottle? And you know, I tried to do the math for the guy. I said, I look at the price that you're selling this thing.

I mean, somebody will have to sell, somebody have to sell multiple hundreds of bottles in a month. Just make a decent living. And realistically speaking, like, is that possible? I mean, of course it's possible. But to say that somebody will agree to work 100% on Commission and he's taking X percentage of something. But then if he wants a living wage, this was a long time ago by the way. So let's say by then at that time, I think if you are earning like 200 KA month like was was OK, he'll be all right.

So the person wants to earn 100K200 KA month. You don't want him to work for anybody else so that his time will be devoted to you. But then for him to make that 100K in a month, you know, he has to be personally responsible for selling, you know, 203 hundred 405 hundred bottles. But because I mean to understand trying to see the picture that I'm painting now about how some of you. You want to start this business, but you're not setting this thing up in a way that will make it easy for you.

It's a lot of work. One person alone will do prospecting. He will go to different schools. He has to research those schools. He has to network into those schools. Meeting with proprietors, meeting with head of academics, meeting with this, meeting with that, He has to try and figure out the priorities of the schools because not all schools are this fancy. I mean there are some schools that you know, yes, might be big men's school, but they are more Nigerian attitude, their own is you know, what is all this Montessori like when you sit down there and go and do your 2

* 2 four, 2 * 360 times, you know, no, not all expensive schools are into this new age kind of stuff. So then of course, you have to do lots of presentations, you know, physical demonstrations. Then of course, you know that plenty of follow up is required because it's not as if you go to school today, see the principal today, and then talk with the teachers today. And then all of a sudden you now buy, they will now buy, you know, 100, you know, 100 cases of colored sand from you.

So anyway, what was I trying to say? Look, the main point I'm just trying to say is this business is hard. Yeah, selling is hard. So you adopt yourself that if you're going to start this journey, just try and pick the easiest, the easiest path possible. Make the thing easier for yourself. You know, perhaps maybe product selection was also a problem in this case. See, The thing is you never even work together. So I don't even know if I was able to validate the concept that in Nigeria people would buy colored sands for schools.

Well, for those of you who have kids and you know, your kids go to school where they play with coloured sand, then, oh, I guess, I guess the thing actually works. You know, it's a product that the Nigerian market was ready for. But you know, right product. You also need to make sure that unique economics are correct. You need to make sure that your business model is correct. Just make things easier for yourself because excuse me,

because selling and business, it's it's hard. So whatever business that you want to get involved in, please make sure that you check. Is this something that one person realistically speaking, or maybe two people, you are one sales boy. You are one sales girl. You are one marketer. Is this something that realistically speaking, two people can push and you will hammer ask around. I'm trying to figure it out. The unique economics.

Does it make sense? Does it make sense? Because trust me, no marketer, no sales board, no sales whatever, even if the person is your own relative. And I saw something like that as those one guy that I knew and I just called him to say what's up. And he said that he had to take off food, that he left Abuja and he had to flee to, to to Lagos. And you know, understand, you know, you're here with your relative, you're trying to help out.

But if the thing no make sense, it did not make sense because even if person is your relatively person who think it like myself, I want to marry one day, I want to build house one day. Can I stay here and be collecting coins? Let me go where you know, let me go where the land is greener. So every new person is your relative. Eventually person will person will tear, the person will cut out. So unique economics has to make sense.

The incentives have to make sense for the people who are selling, right? Let me stretch this one now for Nigerian business owners, there are some of you that are wonderful, some of you are really, really wonderful, like one guy based in Lagos, I would say what business that they're involved in. But the guy used to pay his staff well, the sales and the chief sales engineer was collecting 750 per month. So there are some of you who do well Nigerian employers, but the rest of you unfortunately some of you are not being realistic at all.

But you're not being realistic at all. See how this economy is harsh. So as the economy is harsh, then you now tell somebody to work for you, right? Let me say the one that I know, this guy was a video editor. He was, he was working in a church, I won't say with church, but it's one of those big churches. And then at the time they were giving him 50K in a month. I didn't want to use my mouth and tell him so I started asking him some questions and then he saw the light by himself.

They'll give him 50K per month and so one day I asked him 50K then how much do you spend on transport? The guy said 35 KA month that's how much he was spending on transport. 35 Ki didn't say anything then. I now told him that oh I know this guy, I know this guy. Sometimes they need other video editors just to do work, you know, sharp, sharp, you know, like give this guy a call. So he gave the guy a call. And then I think he did one job for the guy and then he collected 20K.

And after a while, I spoke to him and I said how far he said he had quit from the job. And in my mind, I was rejoicing. I said thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord. Well first of all I was actually ashamed that actually is that that he had churches that's back then who are taking their video editors and then paying them 50 KA month. And he asked the guy so why did you resign now? He said that he just thought of it that even if he stays at home and he's only able to get 2

editing jobs outside 20K20K that is 40K that's staying at home and not spending anything on transport and any 40K was better. Now for him hustling every day to go to the church to do this editing thing and then collect 50K of which we spent 35 on transport and then it's only 15 that remain. And unfortunately for the guy, you know, things are off at home. So he was helping out his sisters. So of course by the time you send your sister 5K5K, like honestly what are you left with?

So that's it. He resigned and then he started doing editing work. That's how the guy left, left employee status and now joined those of us in the in the in the hustler side of the market. Because back then I was a wedding photographer. I just stopped doing law and the civil service work. So to be honest, some of you employers, you are honestly not paying people enough for them to even hang around and turnover is very, very high.

And you guys are being small minded or short sighted that in the beginning, you know, whether it's church or whether it's coloured sand or whether it's whatever, you're just not doing the math right. You're really not doing the math right. I know this guy was a video editor, not a salesperson, but especially for salespeople, you know, what we want is the money, apart from the challenge is money that we're looking for.

So if you take somebody whose money operated and then put him in a job role and then the money he's not ever seen, what do you expect? The guy will leave. You're being short sighted because you're creating more headache for yourself. And I'm telling you that is exactly what will happen because the person is desperate. In January, he will say, yes, give me this job once he collects his salary January 28th. And then he realizes that this thing does not make sense.

February 2nd, February 3rd, you will see him in the office again and then he won't be answering his call. And then you say that, oh, sales people in Nigeria are unreliable. Well, yeah, there are some reliable, you know, lazy ones. But you think you're not setting stuff up the right way. Anyway, 30 minutes. So let me just bring this to a close. So thank you very much for listening. I'll catch you all some other time. Remember to subscribe to the podcast if you love these sorts of things.

And then if you want to connect with me, you can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140. So that's it. Thank you very much for listening. I'll catch you all some other time.