The Perfume and Body Oil Business: Overcoming Customer Acquisition Challenges

Hello and welcome to the show. Apologies for the noise in the background because today's episode is an out and about episode so you're going to hear the usual distractions. Now today I'm going to share a conversation that never happened because I was supposed to have a conversation with Divine. He's based in photo. That's a worry and I was really surprised to hear that because you know, back in my uni days, the only University of Technology I knew was FUTA.

That's where it's FUTA. I guess of Federal University of Technology is at Bukuta, I can't remember anyway, so I only knew futa. I was surprised to know that there's a FUTO and there are other universities of technology as well now, divine cells, perfumes and body sense in the university community. And we were supposed to have a little chat about how to achieve his business goals. But that conversation never happens because, well, you know,

things are busy with students and then things are also busy with me as well. Now, in the past, I used to try and chase up everybody to make sure that, you know, if I promised you a conversation, we'd have a conversation. But to be honest, you know, things are getting busier. I have client work that I have to get back to and then I also have one or two other ones that I'm trying to chase. So the onus is on you actually,

if you reach out to me and you want to have a free business session, a strategy audit, sorry, a business audit, or you want to have me answer a couple of your questions. You know, sure, I'm, I'm open to talking to people for free. I have absolutely no problem with that because, you know, my philosophy is information is free and then execution is what it is that you pay for. So yeah, I'm down for a free conversation, but The thing is I

can't chase everyone. So if we agree to a time or a place, that's for those of you that I've seen in person. So if I agree to a time or to a place, the responsibility for making sure that this interaction happens is up to you and not me. The best I can do is to say, look, I'm available Friday at 10:00 AM. Send me a Zoom link and we'll have a chat. So if it's ten O 5 and I don't see any Zoom link from you, I'm not going to chase you up.

I'll just keep doing my thing and if time passes, time passes, you know, be like, oh, look, sorry, I'm busy. I'm on to something else. So for those of you who are going to reach out for a strategy session or a business audit or you have questions you'd like for me to answer, just know that the onus is on you. I'm not going to chase you up. Now the number to call is 08064662140. The country code is +234 for those of you who are not Nigerian, then that's my WhatsApp number as well.

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn the name to look for establishing my IED and then I have a YouTube channel with the same name as well. So everything that I put out is out there on on on the YouTube, including all the videos that I used to have on Tiktok. I think most of the videos I used to have on Tiktok. I've shut down my Tiktok account, but they're on the Youtubes as well. So you can go and yes, so you can go and have a look.

All right, so now let's go into this conversation that never happened. So Divine, if you're listening to this podcast, yeah, this is for you. We didn't have the conversation, but these are some of the things I'm assuming we would have spoken about if we did have that conversation. So like I said, Divine, he's in photo and he sells perfumes and body sense and he says his main challenge is reaching out to customers. Although in my own opinion, I

think he's doing pretty well. Because if I remember the conversation, because I can't find, you know, where I wrote down all the details because this conversation was supposed to have happened a long time ago. I'm surprised if it's almost like a month we should have spoken. I think it was doing maybe like around I kind 70 something 80 something K in in in profits. And in my own opinion, you know, it's not bad. I mean, you're dealing with an industry where you don't profit much on the perfumes.

Like I know someone who sells some perfumes and you know, you hear that a perfume costs, you know, maybe like 300K and you're thinking, man, that's mad money. But then when you talk to the person who sells the perfume, person like, look, yeah, this is in Miyake or this whatever. And yeah, it's 300K retail. But the one that enters in my pocket, the profits, you know, the profit, you know, you no reach 20 K, you know, that kind of thing.

So the margins are not super high. So I'm assuming if you're doing, you know, 70 to 80 K, you know, roughly every week and you're in the student community, you actually are not doing too bad, not doing too, too bad at all. But we'll have we'll talk some more about what the appropriate, what's that word expectations are to have. So he says his challenges are reaching out to customers. But then again, who doesn't have that challenge?

Everybody does. Then the things has tried previously in the past included putting our posters on campus and then WhatsApp sending DMS to people, broadcast messages. Then oh guys, sorry, it's a windy day here, just in case the microphone is picking up all this wind. Then let's see what else. Okay, then another challenge that he's not clear on his ICP. If this is your first time listening to the show, the ICP just means your ideal customer profile, your customer avatar,

the main people you're supposed to be chasing, the juiciest people you like to work to, the people that give you life, the people that give your bank account life. You know, you understand what I'm saying? Those people, those are your ideal customer profile. Now, the idea behind the ideal customer profile is this. That's some people that yes, they give you money, but then they drain the life out of you. If that's not your ideal customer, then avoid those people because they give you money, but they give you a shit load of stress and then at the end of the day, the money no go make sense again.

So we need to answer ourselves these questions. Who who are my ICP? So when I wake up in the morning, I know who I'm chasing. I just face what I'm supposed to be facing and, you know, get my stuff done. So what people that I love working with, what are the people that pay me right? You know all these kinds of questions and although I recommend also looking at your trading history to try and figure out who are the people that you've ended up doing the best business with or the most business with.

So all these sorts of questions that we need to answer these sorts of questions, then let's see what else. OK, I mentioned that the strategies he has tried so far as he has done OK, QR codes, I didn't mention that putting up QR codes to send people to his website. OK, I mentioned that he has been putting posters on photo the Warrior campus. Then what else? OK, share Flyers. I mentioned that. What else? What else? OK, he doesn't want to waste money when it comes to promotion because he doesn't want to.

And I put it, he doesn't want to squander Monisha, you know where he wants to put money where he thinks it's going to be a sure thing. And we discussed, we would have discussed that then. OK, yes. Then another challenge is that he doesn't know his UVPUVP just means unique value proposition. Unique value proposition is the answer to the question, why do people do business with me? You need to know why people are doing business with you.

Because if you know the main, the main reasons, then oh, sorry, a notification has come up on my phone. Oh yeah, sorry about that. What was I? So if you know the main, the main reasons why people are reaching out to you, then you know what it is to put in your marketing collateral, you know what to say in conversations, things like that. So know your UVP, your unique value proposition, why people do business with you, what problems do you solve?

All those kind of things. If you know them, it makes it easier for you to close the sale. So some of these questions, you know, sounds sounds like theory, but when I, when you reach out to me and then I ask you some of these questions like what's your, you know, UVP? There's a reason why, right? So I'm so some of you, when you reach out to me, because the process is this, you reach out. This is a standard set of questions that I send everybody.

I send those questions, you answer them based on the answers. You know, we'll now know how this conversation is going to flow then. Yeah, some of the questions there might seem strange, like ICP and then UVP. But anyway, I'm asking them for a reason. So let's get into the conversation. That never happened. So on this whole thing, now that Divine's challenge is a customer acquisition, OK? What I would have told him, and what I'm going to tell everybody is that, look, this is just a normal part of doing business.

So just embrace the challenge, all right? There's a normal part of doing business. There's nobody. OK, Well, there are some people, but there are few. There are very, very few, but there's very few people wake up and say my problem is too many customers. What am I going to do? Those people are very, very few. And by the way, if you're somebody who is in that situation, the answer to the question is raise your prices. Let me repeat, there are very few people who are in that situation where they wake up and say, hey, God, I have too many customers today, I won't die.

What am I going to do? The answer, if you're one of those people in that situation, is raise your prices. You can hire more people so that you can deal with the excess orders and things like that. But you know, hiring people is something that takes time. You need to interview, make sure you hire the right person, train the person, make sure that the cultural fit is right, you know, things like that. That's if you're a self-employed person.

But the quickest thing you can do is raise your prices. And some of you will say, yeah, if I raise prices now, people will fade, people will disappear. Yes, some people will disappear, but then you'll be left with people who are willing to pay the price and it will make it worth your effort. Now, there's a mathematical model for this thing. Of course, you know math is not my thing. But for those of you who are good in math, you know you can figure it out.

You know, if you're dealing with 100 customers and each each of the customers are paying you, I don't know. OK, let me keep it simple. If you're dealing with 100 customers and each of them is paying you 5K, then at the end of the day your money is what's your money self. That's 5000 * 100. How many zeros is that? That is 3. And then +2 that is five. So that should be 500 Ki. Think if my math is not correct. Please do not crucify me.

I didn't tell any of you that I'm good at mathematics, which is why I married a very intelligent woman who is good at mathematics and who knows how to calculate stuff. So whenever I need to know, you know, like, oh babe, if we have this amount of money and we fix it at this interest, how much is the money going to be? I just know that I just sent that thing to my wife and then she tells me, OK, we fix it at this rate.

This is how much we make. So if you're not good at numbers, marry a woman who is good at numbers. Where was I? I lost my train of thought. And so if it is 100 customers now each of them you're charging them. Try. I should have written this down and it hmm. Anyway, whatever it is that I said sure. If it is 100 people at 5K that is 500,000. OK so 500,000. Now if you're worried that if you raise your prices, let's say you double your prices now you make it 10K.

The thing is, even if half of those people disappear, you will still be making the same amount of money, but you will not have more time on your hands because you're servicing half the people that used to service before. So you can see that if you double your price and a half the people disappear already. There are some benefits, the stress will go down, the money will still be the same. But The thing is, it gets now gets to a certain level that after a while you can even make more money with less number of clients.

I know it sounds strange. The first time I heard it, me too. I was also thinking no, that that is not right. But I've seen it in practice. You're charging somebody 5K, you're worried about doubling it to 10 because you think people will fall away. But then after a while you realise that OK, now I'm at 20 K and yes, 80% of the people faded. But even at that I'm still making profits and now I even have free time. So basically that's what I've told Divine that nobody wakes up saying Father, Lord, I have too many customers.

Very few people get to that stage. When you get to that stage, the solution is raise your prices or hire new people or may I prefer raising prices, anything we can because you know, inflation on this and this, that and that. The easiest thing to do basically is just raise your prices. So if you have too many customers, raise your prices. Everybody else, welcome to the club. That's what we do every day we wake up and we and we try to bring customers in through the door.

In fact, Peter Drocker, American management consultant, business consultant, and he says that business has two functions, marketing and innovation. Innovation. All of us already know innovation. Innovation does mean changing your product, changing yourself is making things better. But then marketing. Marketing is the business function that answers the question, how am I going to bring customers in through the door? Peter Drucker says marketing is the most important function.

And I will tell you whether you want to agree or not. That is absolutely correct. The reason why I know is because I was born in ATV production slash journalist, you know, household. And when we were small, my father bought Beta Max Beta Max is one of the formats for watching video. But then there was another technology called VHS. Everybody says, I mean the technical people who are like my father. And then my father's colleagues,

like engineer medicine was also part of the technical team. And all of them, all of them said that Betamax was the best, But for some reason, VHS was better at marketing. At the end of the day, it is VHS that captured the whole world. So if you're listening to this podcast now, maybe you're 1516, eighteen years old, you have no idea what I'm talking about. Want to talk to your parents and ask them have you heard of VHS

or VHS? As I used to watch film on when I was small. Then I asked them, have you heard of Betamax? You'll say Beta What? They have no idea of Beta Max, even though Beta Max was the technically superior product. So marketing innovation, the most important business function is marketing because people can have the technically superior product, but they will get out marketed by their competition. And back in my photography days is something that people used to complain.

A lot of people say, look, this guy is photo no for himself, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Customers are stupid. They don't know this. It's not that the customer is stupid. The other guy is better than you at marketing. So shut up, don't complain. Go and learn your marketing game. Go and learn sales. That's how that's that's that's how you're going out flank the competition. So too many people are innovating. So back then, you know, people will go and be buying money on Photoshop courses.

You know, you travel abroad, go and study, go to international, you know, New York Film School, go here go, go and Dublin School of Arts and travel, travel, travel, travel, travel, then come back and then be complaining that you're an award-winning photographer while some local chap is making more money than you. The local chap is making more money than you because even though you are technically better than him, the guy is better than marketing or the baby is better than marketing.

So you have two business functions, marketing and innovation. Please learn. I'm not saying ignore innovation or so we must be learning our craft and we must be innovating, but marketing is a superior 1. So challenges in customer acquisition, that is what we're supposed to do on a daily to wake up and to see how can I bring more customers in through the door for the customers that are coming in through the door, How can I make sure that they pay more overtime for the people that are coming through the door?

How do I make sure that we're getting good quality people walking through the door? Because remember I told you guys at the top of the hour that there's some like some people pay you money, but they drain your life. And at the end of the day, you're like, I this money that I collect yourself, is it worth it? So we need to make sure that the right kind of people are coming through the door. So bottom line is, yeah, divine,

it's OK Welcome to the club. That's what we all do. We wake up every day and we think, how can I get more customers, better quality customers? How do I get them to pay more? It's just the nature of the game. So welcome to the club then. Posters and Flyers, Yes, you've been doing Flyers. If I'd had the conversation, I would have wanted to make sure that you understand that when it comes to posters and Flyers, it is a numbers game.

The problem that people have when it comes to Flyers is somebody will go and print 500 Flyers and then you share 500 and then you say, oh, Flyers doesn't work. Like you only printed 500. Like, what are you thinking? It is a numbers game when you have posters. When you have Flyers, you're supposed to blanket everywhere. Look at presidential contenders, whether it's APC or PDP or whichever party, when the election time comes, do you think they go and print 500

posters and then put in? No, they print millions of posters and blanket everywhere and get the word out. Unfortunately, if you're going to use posters, that is just what the nature of the game is about numbers. So that I wanted to make sure divine they're not one of these people that went to go and print 500 Flyers. The thing with printing Flyers and posters is the more that you cheap, sorry, I said the cheap, the cheap, the more that you print, the cheaper it gets, you know, per unit.

So you will find out that if you're paying 10,000 naira and they give you 500 Flyers, you might find out that if you don't want thousand Flyers, all you have to do is you know, maybe pay 15 Ki mean the price, the prices. I'm not sure about what it is now because it's been a while since I printed Flyers, but the unit economics on Flyers, the more you print, the cheaper it gets. So don't want to be printing rounds of 500 in my own opinion.

Why I'm printing rounds of 11000, 2003 thousand, maybe even 4000. So you're in the university community if you have 4000 Flyers and sorry, one moment, sorry one moment. OK, anyway, I'll call the guy back. So if you have 1000, if you have 2003 thousand Flyers and the goal is to distribute them over the course of one year, it's not bad, it's realistic, it's doable. It's just that when you're holding the 3004 thousand Flyers in your hand will look like it's massive.

But you know, if you look at it, you're distributing, you know, 5051 hundred every day before you know it, the thing we'll finish. So it's an numbers game. Don't worry. Share 500 and think you've done something. No, at the very least get 1000. And then when it comes to posters and Flyers, there's plenty of leg leg work. So get ready to walk. You know, don't use your brand new shoes. Just wear palms. You know, be comfortable because you're going to walk.

Walk up and down. Take flowers to the student union building in if you know where you are, finished the student union building. We had Surya, we had gym, table tennis, sports arena, some Hangouts, things like that. Carry flowers there. Go and be sharing walking up and down. Go and share your flowers then in if we had a Booker. So I know that universities definitely and I don't know about now Shah, but back then most universities Unilac where you we had bookers.

You had the fancy bookers, the new bookers, the, you know, modern, nice, clean places. Then you had the old Booker where you sell Amala. You go and stay on that zinc and eat. So in my own opinion, Shah, you know, go to the Bookers, but I think you should avoid the old Booker. There's all those places that have, you know, like Mami Market with zinc and you understand those places now you know, you're eating and then cows and chickens are walking all over the place.

So in my own opinion, if you have places like that in photo, ignore those places. Go to new Booker. Go and be shiny or flyer. Go to the hostels. Go to the hostel entrance. There are some schools I hear that you can't enter a female hostel. But no problem if you can't enter a female hostel. Nobody stops you from staying at the gate of female hostel. And as they're entry, you'll be giving them flyer. But the old sister, you want perfume, correct perfume blah blah blah.

You know, be handing out your your your posters. Then let's see what else? Lecture halls? Yes, lecture halls before the lecture starts go in hand the flyer or stay at the front door. As people are entering be giving them your flyer library entrance. You can't talk in the library, but you can give your Flyers outside land library entrance then off campus student housing. Because like in if back then there was this hotel, Mayfair Hotel where big boys and big girls, they should stay there.

You know, the rest of us who are normal people will go and rent house outside. But some people you know will pay to stay in the hotel. So if you guys have something like Mayfair Hotel, then yeah, just stay outside the gate. Now no security guard will disturb you as people are driving in just be giving them the flyer or go to the car park and then be dropping the flyer on their cars. Then restaurants and eateries, because in university communities, you know, like EFA

and UNILAC, you find out that the university like dominates the economic landscape. As in when school is dry and students has have gone home, all the other business businesses just dry up. So restaurants and eateries, plenty of students are there. So just go hand out your Flyers, then transport hubs, yeah, people that are trying to get into school, hand out the Flyers. The bus stops, hand out your Flyers, garage, people going back home, people landing to go to school, hand out your Flyers.

So it's plenty of legwork, but just print, print a good bunch and then make sure that you distribute them well. But realise that when it comes to Flyers, this thing is a numbers game. So if in fact any of you people that I'm talking to, if it's a physical meeting and you tell me that you tried Flyers and I say how many, you say you printed 300, I will knock you on the head. That's the first thing I will do before we continue the conversation.

I give you a correct knock on the head. Flyers is a numbers game. It is a numbers game. Don't say you try 500, the thing didn't work. At the least do 1002 thousand. And then you say, OK, I tried the thing, didn't work. And then distribute everything because it can be tiring. Give yourself a goal. If you go out and say every single day I'm going to be distributing to 200 Flyers and you do that faithfully every day, you'll wake up and after six months you'll see that you've made progress.

And then from the number of people who'll be calling and be pinging you, you'll see that oh truly, you have made progress. So just give yourself a goal. I don't know what goal is realistic Bashar. Every day I'll go and hand out X number of Flyers. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday I'll go to female hostel and relax with my girlfriend. Then Sunday I'll dedicate it to the Lord. And then next week, Monday I

will start again. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I want you to distribute to 200 Flyers. So you do that every single week. You'll find that by the time January finish, OK, now when? Where we know when, March, by the time March finish you would have distributed 2200. That's one K-1234, you'd have distributed 4000. I'll be, am I correct? 200 * 5 is 1004 weeks in a month, so 123, OK, 4000. And so you see what I was saying, if you printed a batch of 4000, you can see that if you're distributing two 200 per day, one month, you finish 4000

Flyers. It's not that hard. It's just that when you receive that delivery and you carry 4000 Flyers, like man, this is much. But really, really as in realistically speaking, 4000 flowers is not much to 200 every day. You'll finish it in one month. So that's what I would have told Divine, sorry, let me consult my notes. Let's see what else QR codes. Now he said he had QR codes and he's sending people to the website. Now.

This is my own take. When we're doing some of these things, the goal is conversation. Sales is a conversation. So let us stop assuming that the website can sell for us or that Instagram handle can sell for us or things like, I mean, these things help if that is how people discover us. But in my own opinion, if you're creating QR codes, stop sending people to WhatsApp and sorry to website and then Instagram. When you do QR code, in my own opinion, the goal is to have a conversation with somebody because it's from conversations or interactions that you can increase your, what's that word conversions.

Conversion does means if I talk to 10 people, how many people did I close? If I talk to 100 people, how many people did I close? If I talk to 1000 people, how many people do I close? So the goal is always to increase your conversions that if you're talking to 10 people and doing business with three, the goal is over time, let's be getting to 5, let's be getting to seven. You will never reach 10. If you ever reach 10, you know that your product is too cheap.

And what did I say you're if you have too many customers, everybody's doing business with you. Raise your prices, raise your prices. So where was I? So for this QR code of a thing, because him, he's doing QR codes sending people to websites. I've seen somebody who was doing QR code and sending people to Instagram, like what the hell, Send them to your WhatsApp now so that the best you guys can start having a conversation.

If I if you know how to do the QR code thing, you know, you scan it should open up on the website on your WhatsApp. And then maybe if you have one of those WhatsApp automated messages, you know, thank you very much. How can I help you today? And you guys can figure that out. But the gist I'm trying to say is when you do QR code, stop this website thing. I beg send them to your WhatsApp or send them to your e-mail or send them to phone number or send them to somewhere where they can start talking to somebody so that we can have a conversation and increase and give us a chance at conversion.

So stop giving them extra work. If somebody has scanned the QR code, that is work. Don't add an extra step in the process by letting that QQR code go to the website. It is kind of the QR code. If you send them direct to your phone, that is how we're going to close more deals. You're chatting, you're pinging, you're emailing somebody direct from your phone. Now Divine is also doing what's our broadcasts and well, if you've been listening to the show for any length of time, you already know what my opinion on these things are.

When it comes to blanket broadcast broadcasting, everybody, the answer is capital. And no, no, don't do blanket broadcast. It is intrusive and it's hurting your deliverability because it is intrusive. Some people like me because I'm trying to be nice, I'll just ignore you. But there are other people who are not in business, like my wife, my mom, my in laws. You know, they're tired of seeing 200 messages in the inbox every day.

So what they do is a message comes in. I don't know this person or this person is being a pest. You just start doing block, block, block, block, block. Now the algorithms are picking up this kind of behavior and they're OK. This person sends out 5000 messages in the month of the 5000. He sends 4850 people block him. These are the things that you do and you now hear that oh, WhatsApp suspended my account or Facebook suspended my account or this or this.

That is how it happens. So in my own opinion, all this blanket broadcast, broadcast, select all, select everyone, No, stop it. It's intrusive to people. It is hurting your deliverability. It's making it even harder for people who even want to hear from you to hear from you. So what do you do? My own opinion, build a contact list and then use an opt in strategy. Opt in just means you ask somebody, you ask for permission.

It's not hard for you to send message to people one-on-one or when you're meeting them, you don't ask them, would you like to receive updates on our latest perfumes and our offers in WhatsApp? And then the person says, Oh yes, I don't mind you. Now add that person to a separate broadcast list that you have created on your phone. It is only the people that said yes that you broadcast to them only because at least they have told you, yes, you can send to me.

It doesn't mean some people won't block you. Some people will still block you on that list because, you know, people forget or maybe your message has become too much. But at least the number of people that block you from that list will be lower. So this is how you cure it. Just build a contact list, ask people, would you like to receive updates? Would you like to receive offers? Would you like to receive promos? Would you like to receive usually or say, Oh yes, then add them to the list.

That's it. Those are the people that you broadcast. Now on broadcasting, let's make sure that our calls to action are very clear. Call to action is what do you want the people to do next? The reason why I'm highlighting that is sometimes people just send messages for the sake of messaging. You know, Happy Easter, happy Valentine's Day, Ma, your favorite perfume as we remember you all the time. Have a wonderful year, blah,

blah, blah. You know, all those kind of messages. My opinion, those messages are, you know, useless. OK, Well, they're not useless, but don't send them too much pointless messages. Your messages should have a point You're trying to educate them on something, you're trying to let them know what is new. But either way, put clear calls to action. One call to action can be visit the shop. If you're part of the university community, it might make sense to actually have a shop in in the school market because if your students, you know is vibrant, you find out that the cost that students have to pay will be lower than other people.

So you can get a shop for cheap. I'm not sure what over it is like, but in OAU anyway, the students union is very, very vibrant. So they will make sure that, you know, even if outsiders are paying, I don't know, maybe like 25K for a shop. You find out that maybe students are paying maybe 5K or 10K for a shop or something like that. So you can have a shop there. And one call to action when you're sending all these broadcast messages will be visit shop B2IN Owary Ultra modern students Union Market.

Another call to action can be reply to order, you know, say yes to order or reply 1:00 to order the latest EC Miyake. Something, something, something. By the way, I'm not a perfume person, so I don't know if EC Miyake is a perfume or a design. If EC Miyake is a designer, then please, you know, no vex. But I know sure that during my time in school, some people used to do EC Miyake. That's whatever EC Miyake is. Then let's see what else, OK,

visit the shop, reply to order, then another call to action. Share with friends who love perfumes. You know, so, but what I'm just trying to say is don't be sending all those pointless messages of dear valued customer. Thank you for patronizing us in 2024. We look forward to being a part of your life in 2025. Happy New Year or Happy Valentine's Day or something. And then you just leave the message like that. You know, one or two of those is OK, but your messages should have a clear point.

Are you educating them? Are you letting them know of the latest offer or something? And then after that, make sure you have calls to action, visit the shop, reply to order, share with people, blah, blah, blah. Now let's see what else? OK, what's up? Broadcast now. Now we now have to be real. What's the word? Is it dicey? No, not dicey. Any timing is an issue. Sure, that's what I'm just trying to say. Don't be pinging people late at night.

But then again, you know, this is you're like in a student community. So just trying to figure out when are students online whenever they're online, that's the best time to send that message your messaging. Then let's see what else He doesn't want to waste money. Sure, no problem. You don't want to waste money. Good boy. You need you need to reframe the way you're thinking about it. It is not that you don't want to waste money, but rather you're trying to optimize what you spend on business promotion or you're trying to find the most effective ways to promote your business.

The reason why I'm saying reframe is because this is business is normal. There's no way you won't waste money. It happens. We can't avoid it. What we can do is just to make sure that the money that we spend, the effectiveness keeps going up and up and up, but they will always be waste is just normal. The reason why I'm saying reframe is because people who are focused on waste end up not doing anything at all. Some people say I don't waste money on Flyers and then because of that they never try.

Some people say I don't want to waste money on Instagram advertisements because of that, they never try. Some people say I don't want to waste money physical prospecting and the, you know, I'm wasting money on fuel and boss and so they never try. And you're shrinking your frame of operations. We should be trying to expand the frame of operations. The goal is let me try this thing within reason or this one didn't work.

I will never do it again. Let me try this one within reason. OK, this one worked only 5%. OK, let me try it again. Let's say we can make it work 10%. So that is the proper way to look at things. So it's not about I don't want to waste money, or rather it is the money that I'm spending. I'm trying to make it much more effective. I'm trying to optimize my business promotional costs because waste is normal. Let me give you one example.

My client right now was a shop in also student community. They sell what's it called digital accessories. The first time he tried Instagram advertisements. And there's the reason why I tell you people that whenever you hear of somebody who succeeded out of the gate, just know that it happens, but it's not typical. So the first 50K he spent on Instagram ads, guess how much he made back? He made over a million, close to 2 million because he ran the thing campaign cost 50K.

But then the two customers that he got bought gaming consoles and you know, so that was close to two M in sales. But then the second one, 50K that he ran, guess how much business he got from it? Zero, you see, So it does happen. It is possible that the first time you drop 50K, you make close to 2M, but those results are not typical. But either way, you can see that there was some waste. So the first one drop 50K, get close to two M, you say, ah,

that's good, that's good, that's good. The second one drop 50K got zero. Would you say it's a waste? Maybe. But me, I prefer to say, let us look at these things in aggregate. Let us look back and say in January, this is how much I spent, how much did I make? In February, this is what I spent, how much did I make? So let's look at these things in aggregate and then we'll be be able to make much more better decisions. So yeah, there will always be waste and there'll be ups and downs.

We're trying to optimize. We're trying to spend E trying to spend effectively now to reduce waste and to make things effective. What we're trying to do is we need to work on targeting. Are we sending messages to the right people? Because we're sending messages to the wrong people already. We're wasting money. The wrong person is not going to be your customer. So targeting, am I sending to the right person? Messaging, I'm sending it to the right person, but am I using the right kind of words that resonate with them or that would appeal to them or that I'll make it easy to convince them?

And then conversions, I'm sending it to the right person. The message that I'm using is correct. What do I have the skill to get them to take the next step? When you work on these three, targeting, messaging and then conversions, the amount of money that is wasted will be going down and down and down. But do not deceive yourself that there's nobody who does not waste money when it comes to business promotion. Some of your advertising naira will be wasted.

Some of your poster naira will be wasted when you pull fuel in your car and you drive out and you visit 10 people, some of that money will be wasted because there's no how that you go and visit 10 people and you do business with all 10. So there is waste. We're just trying to reduce the waste. We're trying to optimize the effectiveness. So don't want those people who wakes up and says I don't want to waste money. If you don't want to waste money, you find out that you're one of those people who stays in the house 247, you're posting on LinkedIn, posting here, posting there.

You're not seeing results because you're shrinking. We're trying to expand out here. So expand, see what works, optimize and take feedback, reiterate, and then keep moving. So that's how we get a greater yield on our advertising costs and our business promotion costs. Work on your targeting. Make sure it's going to the right people. Work on your messaging. Make sure that you're using words, phrases, slang, whatever that these people understand.

Work on conversion so that when they call you, they e-mail you and you start the conversation. You now know how to move this conversation through to a close sale. Now he doesn't know his UVP unique value proposition. This is the final one. Yeah, that happens to everybody. The solution actually is you ask people why did you do business with me? Why did you buy this specific fragrance? Why did you decide to go with this versus that is from having all these sorts of conversations?

I mean, of course, after the people have paid you money and everything, you now call them up. Oh, thank you very much. I really appreciate your purchase. I hope you are enjoying the perfume, the everything, you all what not hope you made you smell nice and fresh at the last club party and these things and that. Yeah, Bros, I beg Novaks. I just have a couple of questions, you know, just help me move my ministry forward.

The girl said you're my guy. You're my guy Arsenal. And then you ask you start asking those questions, you know why you do business with me. Why did you buy from me? Why did you pick Isimiaki instead of Calvin Klein? Oh, by the way, I don't know if Calvin Klein makes perfumes, you know, because I'm not really a clothing person. I just know sure that when I was in secondary school, those are the things that were used to rock Isimiaki, Calvin Klein, Tom Ford.

Who again Tom Ford? Who again? Who again? Who again this guy that Tommy Hilfiger had? Those are the things that are raining. But I think back then Tommy Hilfiger was just clothes, not perfumes. But now Tommy Hilfiger has perfumes. So let's see what else? So just ask people. That's how you know you're UVP. Now, like I said at the top of the episode, the reason why you ask, I'm trying to figure out your UVP is because whatever people say, that is what becomes your market messaging.

Remember, we're talking about targeting people and making sure that the messaging is the messaging is on point. It's based on what people say. That is what your market messaging is going to be. As it is actual words and phrases that customers are telling you, you will know that it will resonate with other people in the market. So that's why we need to know UVP. So let's see what else, OK, it'll help you to inform your market messaging.

Let's see. Let's see. I also give you good ideas for problem based openers. Problem based openers, okay, no need to go into that. I've spoken about that in previous episodes so I won't go into that again. Then like I said, it will also make it easier for you to convert because if you are, if you have a good idea of your ICP, the ideal customers you're supposed to be talking to, and you have a clear sense of your UVP, why people are buying from you, it makes it easier to close the deal.

Because from looking, just from looking and interacting with people, you will now know that, OK, is this my guy? Is this my babe? Am I talking to the right person? OK, I'm talking to the right person. This is how I should handle the conversation. You, you just be able to figure outlook, the ICP is wrong. This is not my person or the EVP is wrong. You know, my value proposition doesn't apply here. So let me move on and let me go and talk to somebody else instead of wasting time with somebody who will never buy.

So now this conversation that never happened with Divine. If you would love to connect with me for a strategy session for a business audit or you have questions you'd like for me to answer again, the number to call 08064662140, country code +234. That's my WhatsApp number. Yeah, that's it. Or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm not on any other socials. The name to look for is establish Shima IED and then also have a YouTube channel,

same name Tavishima IED. So thank you very much for your time and attention. Remember, if you do get in touch, yes, I will give you a time slot, but it's up to you to make it happen. You know, if you miss it might try to charge you one or two times, but I'm not going to chase you basically. And yes, I will end up making a podcast episode about the conversation that never happened. So even if we don't talk, don't worry.

Listen to the podcast. Eventually you hear the episode where I dedicated it to your questions. Well, the reasons why I like to make sure that we're having a conversation is there are some other questions that I would have liked to ask to be sure that I'm addressing the right problem and giving the right solutions. Abby. Yeah. The right. Yeah, the right recommendations, you know, to actually solve whatever problems it is that you're facing.

So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys in the next episode.