Loading…
Auto-generated; may contain errors.
Loading transcript…
Hello and welcome to the show. Today's episode is an out and about episode, so expect some interruptions in the background for this episode. I'd just like to share with you guys my simple research stack. You know, what do I do to research people before I make a phone call basically? And the reason why we're doing this today is inspired by some conversations that I've been having with Joseph Coyote. So shout out to Joseph Coyote,
who's a listener to the show. He reached out on WhatsApp. Yeah, he reached out on WhatsApp. He didn't say what his name was. Anyway, So when I addressed him by name, I told him I had sent him a LinkedIn connection request. He was curious. I wanted to know how I figured out who he is, Abhi, who he was, who he was, who he is. And yeah, So that's what's inspiring this episode. So I just told him, yeah, I did some basic research, the same level of research that I tell you people to do and which is the reason why I keep scolding you guys.
For those of you who are going to be doing work with me in person, scolding you guys, why you don't just use some basic stuff like The thing is already on your phone, The thing is already on your computer and The thing is free. So at the very least, why not just use it to make the conversations better. So I'm going to share with you guys my simple research stack. What I use to just at the very least figure out this person's this phone number is, I mean,
who is the person behind this phone number, if nothing else? Now, the reason for this is if you do some simple basic research, you're going to be able to get some prior information on the person. When you do that, it allows you to personalize the conversation. There's one person that has on my broadcast. In fact, for her, it's just lazy because she keeps on sending these things. Good afternoon, Ma, good afternoon, Ma.
And I have to keep telling her, look, I'm not a woman. She said, oh, no, sorry mistake. I was trying to broadcast and you know, this is 2025. You know, it's basic. If you're going to be doing these sorts of things, just put in the work, separate people into separate lists. So you can confidently say good afternoon, Ma, knowing that this message is reaching only women or good afternoon, Sir. And this message is reaching only men because these are some of the what's that word?
Now? I can't remember the word. But you know, these are the kind of things that provide a, you know, disjointed experience where you're reaching out to somebody, you're trying to close the deal, but you keep telling the person, Sir, Sir, but the person is a woman. Or like in my own case, you keep telling the person, ma, Ma, but the person is a is a man. And in fact, it's one of these vendors that any I've been able to.
I think I scooted high enough. So shall save the phone number, by the way, which I think is wild. Like it actually just blows my mind. Like somebody's contacting you two or three times. You've done business with the person. You didn't even store the person's phone number. So at the very least when he reaches out, you know that oh, OK, this is this guy. Over the last three or four years, we've been doing business repeatedly.
And this person is a guy because every time I would send a message, they what's up now? We don't come again. No, sorry. Oh, it's lastminute.com, as you say. Oh, that's OK. My, we can help you. And I was like, look, you started this thing again. Seriously. Doing business with somebody. So excuse me, doing business with someone for four years straight. She doesn't store my number. And until recently, she didn't get into her head that I'm a man.
So yeah, This is why you need prior information on people. So at the very least, when you pick up the phone call or when you send the SMS or you send the e-mail, at the very least you'll be able to confidently say, good afternoon, Sir. Good afternoon, man, or good afternoon cabbie, or you know, good afternoon or version or good afternoon Mazi or good afternoon, whatever. So you can see that the more prior information that you have on someone, you'll be able to now personalize the Koval that you're going to have with this person.
And we're trying to be effective at sales. We should be trying to personalize these conversations or at the very least customizing these conversations, customizing the outreach. Some of you say personalize, customize. What's the difference? OK, this is the difference. The difference is just the level of information that you have on the person. When you personalize something, it means that it is tailor made specifically for that person.
No other person can receive it and make meaning from nothing. That is personalized. Customized means you don't have enough information on SHA. You just know some basic stuff. So this message that you're sending to this person, SHA, you can send it to other people who kind of meet the same criteria. So a message that is personalized to me would only make sense because it is received by Tavishma Aide and there are some things there that only Tavishma Aide knows that is personalized, customizes the message that he sent to me.
But it's kind of broad based. If you got, let me send this message out to Nigerian men who are over 40 but less than 60, who live in Abuja and who do this and who do this and who do that and then you send. So there are thousands of us that fit that category and we can open the message and yeah, some of it will relate to us, some of it will not relate to us, but as different in personalisation and customisation. And that's what we should be aiming for, either to personalise what it is you're sending out or to customise what it is that you are sending out,
the message that you're sending out. So that is the reason why this research is important and it's basic. Then there's this psychological thing that I tell people, those of us who have to work for Our Daily Bread, you know, Chase business, nobody's paying our salary. Sometimes we start off the day and we have to call back some numbers and you look at your phone, you only see phone numbers if you see 080 that and that is the only context you have.
It is hard to make that kind of phone call because it's just a number and you know nothing. The same thing with an e-mail address. You just look at the e-mail address. It's it's hard to know, it's hard to have conversations with these things, but if you take an e-mail address or a phone number, you do some basic information and you know that, OK, this phone number belongs to an 18 year old girl who lives in Obamosher and who studied post science.
You know that basic context, the background, that humanizing it makes it easier to just pick up the phone and then call her and then confidently ask, oh, hello, am I speaking to our team? OK, it's different then when it's just a basic phone number. You call and you're kind of waiting for the person to talk first. So you know, whether you say good afternoon Sir, or good afternoon, ma, but then you do some research else from prior information, it's a warm confident call.
You can call and say hello, is this a tunica, say a tunica speaking, how may I help you? And then, you know, go into the conversation or if you want to be too forward, you know, like me, I just call up and I say, oh, good morning a tunica, how are you doing? And I continue from there. So these things make a difference. It is hard to talk to just random phone numbers. If you just see on your sheet of paper or on your e-mail inbox that somebody reached out to you and the person's phone number is 080123456, you have no context.
But if you take that 123456, plug it into these basic research pattern, and then the thing comes up that the guy's name is Kohli Afolayo and that he's 60 years old and that he lives on Lagos Island. And now you have some basic context. So like if you're selling solar panels, for instance, that kind of now you feel confident. Oh, OK. He kind of looks like my ICP. He's almost 60 years old. He lives on VI. Oh, and he's a, and he works with Standard Chartered Bank.
OK, I can confidently call him because he's an Ed there. So yes, we'll be able to have some fruitful conversations, that kind of thing. I cannot speak up the phone. I say, oh, good morning, Mr. Collier Flyer. How are you doing, Sir? He says, oh, I'm, I'm fine, who am I speaking with? Oh, my name is Tunde. You reached out to social and so solar yesterday you wanted enquiries about social and so, so. Oh yes, yes, yes, I remember.
And then you continued. The conversation sees a different flow than when you just see the number. And then you call, I say hello. You're waiting to now hear the other person say hello before you now know to say OK, good afternoon. So good afternoon man. So let's do this research. Anyway, the stack is so simple that those of you who are listening to this right now for the last 8 minutes, you'll be knocking yourselves on the head that why didn't I think of that?
It's this simple #1 Truecolar. They. I see no reason why Nigerian business people do not have Truecolar installed on your phone. It doesn't have to be your default answering because I don't like apps hijacking my phone. But The thing is, it's on my phone. I will open it, copy and paste the number inside, and then I'll see some basic information. You see the person's name. Once you do that in Truecaller, you see the person's name, copy that name, Just paste it into Google.
Bam. Once you do that, Google will throw up lots of information. Google will show you that person's Facebook profile. It will show you that person's Instagram profile. Well, it might cause some people. The Instagram handle is, you know, convoluted. It will show you the person's LinkedIn and then it might also show you the person's business if the number and the name is linked to the business. Oh, sorry about the noise in the background.
I'm in the parking lot. I have to go and meet somebody in like 30 minutes. So I said let me just do this recording real quick. And what was I? So you guys get the scope now. So number one, True Cola, every single Nigerian business person, please, you need True Cola on your phone. It doesn't have to be your default, but just have it there so that it can copy and then you paste or just leave it open in your, what's that thing called?
Web browser. So you can copy and paste in your web browser. But Nigerian business people, we need Truecaller. Copy and paste the number in Truecaller, a name will show up. Take that name, paste it in Google. You will now see the person's Facebook profile, Instagram, LinkedIn website, boob where you see everything. If you click underneath images, you will now see pictures of that person because lots of us actually have been putting, you know, some of our pictures here and their profile picture on LinkedIn, this picture on Facebook, this picture on this.
You'll even get to see what this person looks like. And it makes a world of a difference when you know that it's not just 080123456, but you now know that, oh, this is Bodo Adeji. This guy looks like he's in his 70s, OK. He lives in Aubama Shore, and he's a retired person who used to work in CBN. You know that basic sketch. It makes it a whole lot more easier relatable to just pick up the phone and call this person than you're just looking at 080123456.
So if you do this basic search, you're going to get some basic information. You will know the person's sex. Is this a man or a woman? You will know their location. Are they in Nigeria or Canada perhaps? Some people put lots of details there. You might even be able to find the person's house address. You know, I don't do that. I don't put that kind of information out there on the Internet. But some people do. You know that location, you know the occupation.
Because like I said, Google is going to show you their LinkedIn. If they're on LinkedIn, that's where you'll be able to see that. OK. This guy retired from CBN, you know, six years ago. You'll be able to get a sense of whether the person is employed or a business person. You might also be able to you kind of gauge the person's age based on the picture and based on some of the things that you see. Like if he says that he's retired from CB and you know,
obviously you know that he's not 45, obviously he's not 50, he's not 55. And you'll be very confident calling with all this information. So this is the reason why I say this is a simple basic reset stack that every single sales person, every single business person in Nigeria needs to have Truecaller. Download it to your phone, paste the number there. You will now get the name. Paste the name in Google, all this will come out.
It's the same through e-mail address. If you just take the e-mail address and paste it in Google, all these sorts of things will come out. Oh, by the way, the chief benefit of this Truecaller thing, by the way, is sometimes you see a number, you copy and paste in Truecaller, you now see the thing flashing red. 236 people have recorded this number as spam. I will now know that OK, I should not call this person back. I'll go back to my number history and then I'll just click block immediately because I
know, I now know that this is a most likely A41 Nineer. And then some people, you notice that they didn't put their real name, They just stored it as maybe EDM or a BXZYABX, those kind of people. Whenever I call them back, the conversation is never fruitful. So I'm beginning to suspect people who are at the very least, when they go to MTN office, when they go to Glow office, when they go to AT slot office. And on the form they're supposed to register their names, they don't put their real names.
So I'm beginning to feel sketchy about these sorts of people. And if it continues after a while, whenever I copy and paste and I see that the number is stored as FFRRLMDLX, you know, I'll just ignore all those delete. I don't waste my time on those people. So is this process, is it perfect? The answer is capital NO because it will surprise you. But some people are ghosts online. I don't know how they do it. There's this guy that I was chatting with, that's before I
got my show on the radio. The guy is an actor. He has appeared in some Nigerian movies. Well, no movies like series, more like he has appeared on some series that's aired on TV and is currently on Netflix. And he played one of the bad guys in this thing. He was, he was, he was the he was the, he was the boss as used to call you back in a day. That's what I used to call villains in Indian movies when we're growing up, the boss, the bad guy.
So he played the boss now. So he's not just an and he's not a workout person. Let me just put it that way. This guy also does voice acting roles. So he has been on some advertisements and he is the general manager. I think he's like the GM of Cool FM and Nigeria Info correct guy. But the first time that somebody gave me his phone number and I pasted it into Truecaller and I did my Google thing Zero. I did not find any information on the guy.
The only info that I got was when I asked the person who gave me the phone number like oh, I tried to say this guy didn't find anything. So I was like, who is he? And then I got some basic info so that now when I called the guy, I can now say, hey, hello Chukuti, how you doing? I got your number from Kelechi. By the way, that's not his real name. But you can see how if you have some basic info and you're calling the person, you can see how it flows a whole lot smoother to just go and say,
Chukuti, how you did. I got your number from Kelechi. The conversation is off to a different start. Rather than you calling hello, you're now waiting. Let me hear the person answer first. Then based on how the person answers, and I don't know whether I will say good afternoon, Sir, or that I will say, hey, bro, how far or whether I will say good afternoon, Ma or something. Conversation is off to a different start. So yes, there are people like this that are ghosts.
And I was wondering like, you know, guy, you're an actor, so is this wise? He's like, no, that is how he wants to live his life. When he's doing his work, he's doing his work. Outside of that, he doesn't want anybody to know who he is. And to be honest, I respect that. One day I'll ask the guy how he achieved that because I don't know how you stay invisible in 2025 that nobody can find anything on you on the Internet.
But these people exist. So this thing is not perfect. There are some people that are ghost online. You can't find anything about them. In that case, just ask around. If it's a referral, you just do what I did. I called the guy back. Sorry. The person I gave me the number, I called and I said, hey, Kalichi, what's up? This guy, they said I should talk to him. I need to do some small research before before I call him, but I
couldn't find anything. So like what's up with the guy now? Like apart from this voice acting, you know, what does he do? Like, you know, what's the 411, you know, basically that was that was the whole scope. Then I use that background information now to now have a warm conversation with the guy. And it's because of individuals like that and connections like that, that I was able to secure my radio show. So you can see that, you know,
it's not just direct sales and selling that this thing comes in handy, but also when it comes to networking, building alliances, you know, stuff like that. So that is the simple research stack that I would recommend that all of you use and it's absolutely free. Even if you don't have any social media like I do because I've deleted all my social media. The only thing I have left is LinkedIn. Still, you'll be able to see the person's Facebook.
You'll be able to see the person's Instagram. You'll be able to see the person's TikTok. At least you'll be able to click on it and see you won't be able to scroll because by the time you scroll two or three times, the thing will now force you to download app. I mean, I'm not downloading these apps again. I'm tired. I've given up. Even LinkedIn itself, I'm really counting down, you know, by the time the podcast reaches a critical mass, I'm not really sure what I, what I would say critical mass is, but there's,
there's a way that the podcast will become healthy and I'll just even the LinkedIn itself, I'll just delete it anyway. But that's a topic for another day. So that's a simple stack, true colour, copy and paste, get the name, copy and paste, put it in Google, look at Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn website, look at all the information and then click on the picture. You can see the person's face. Humanizes the person, makes it a whole lot easier.
How much time should you spend in this? Because there's some people that spend time in researching somebody. I say some basic research. Somebody will say, oh, I'm researching the guy. OK, how long have you been researching? And maybe like the last one hour, like forward, like it's a simple phone call. If you're researching 20 minutes, thirty minutes, one hour, you are over researching. This is something that should take you 2-3 minutes top.
You just need to know some basic info before you call this guy back or this babe back. This is a guy or a babe. Where do they live? What's the job? How old does Bess look like a guy, man? Does she look like a Maria Maka? Just some simple things that will help you have a very warm and human conversation. So that's it. That's my simple research stack. And that is the reason why I knew Joseph carried his name before he told me.
And for the rest of you who are trying to have a conversation with me and then I refer to you by name, it's, it's that simple. Basically, although to confess for some of you, like I use my real name on WhatsApp, some of you use your real name on WhatsApp and you forget that even though it will show on the person's phone as plus 2-3 something, something, something. When you click the number, you also see the person's real name.
So for some of you, that's it. I just simply clicked on it and I got some information. Oh, by the way, we should be doing that as well. So whenever I'm chatting with someone on WhatsApp, I always do that. I click and I go and see the person's profile. Most people don't have much there. Maybe they'll write a devoted Christian mother or something like that. But even that, yeah, it's OK. It still allows you to personalise the conversation and to customise the conversation.
And if the person is a business person and you kick on it, like who was I chatting with recently? And listen on podcast I was chatting to recently is by clicking on that. And I now got a sense of, oh, OK, these are all the different businesses that the person is involved in. So that when I started asking specific questions like, OK, so for your, this this business, what do you do? Say, who told you I do this? It's very simple.
Just because I did some small research, I clicked on the WhatsApp. So let's be doing that as well. You're chatting with somebody on web on WhatsApp, chatting with somebody on what's the other one, Telegram. Click on the profile, see the header, see the services, see the location, see the everything. Well, and then also for LinkedIn and Facebook, the same thing as well. Somebody sends you DM, you're just DM ING back and forth.
You didn't click on the person's profile. Come on guys, let's get serious here. We're trying to close the deal. Any extra information that can help us to personalize or customize the deal will come in handy. So if somebody sends you a Facebook message, click on the zero that the circle thing where the person's facing, click there, a small tab will come and then on that tab you see a view profile. Then click on view profile and we want to see the person's profile.
It helps if we sell pajamas and the woman has sent a message asking how much is children's pyjamas. It would help if you go and do and click and then you see that Oh, OK, she's a mother of eight and four of her children are teenagers. And then of the remaining 4, two of them are under 5. It would help. Anyway, I've stretched this episode unnecessarily, so let me just stop here. Thank you very much for your time and attention.
If you would love to connect with me for a strategy session, for a business audit if you have questions or if you want to test my research ability, just in case you're thinking this guy will never find out my find out who my true identity is, you know, just try me. You'd be surprised. So yeah, the number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian. In fact, you guys use this as a test.
Take my phone number, 080 64662140. Take that. Now copy and paste it in Truecaller. You will see that my real name, my government name will show up. Then you now take my government name, copy and paste it in Google, and then you will see the digital footprint that I've left. You would answer a lot of questions for some of you before you actually pick up the phone and then to call me. So it is a live case study. Take my phone number, do exactly as I said.
You'd be surprised the kind of information that you that you dig up on dig up on me. Then what else? So connect with me on LinkedIn. The name is Tavishma Aidi. I have a YouTube channel by the same name, Tavishma Aidi. The podcast is also there over 1070 something videos right now. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys on the next episode.