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Hello and welcome to the show. It's available on YouTube, Apple podcast and Spotify. I'm your host, Tavi Shima Aidi. Today is definitely going to be a noisy episode because I'm out and about. If you'd love to connect and explore opportunities with me, then call me on 08064662140 or WhatsApp mail the same number. The country code is +234. And to connect with me on social media, just search LinkedIn and you'll find me there today.
Well, Speaking of LinkedIn today, the question I want us to tackle is how to sell on LinkedIn. Now, I know that I've done a bunch of episodes on this in the past, but it's not something I'm going to stop doing because I keep receiving every other week really bad sales pitches or attempts on how to sell. And so I know that a bunch of you are trying out these techniques using LinkedIn, using Instagram, using Facebook, and using Twitter.
So that's why I keep making these episodes. So the case study we're going to use today, I'm going to call it the Speedy Gonzalez case study. The reason why I'm calling it Speedy Gonzalez is because I don't want to use the guy's real name. Also because Speedy Gonzalez, for those of you who were born in the late 70s and the early 80s, you remember this cartoon character I think was Warner Brothers. The fastest mouse in all of Mexico, all Mexico as we call it in this part of the world.
So the fastest mouse in all of Mexico. The guy used to run really, really fast. You know, the bad guys are really interesting cartoon and the interaction that I had with this guy reminded me about Speedy Gonzalez. So for the rest of the episode, I'm just going to keep referring to the dude as Speedy Gonzalez. But of course, this is not his real name. I just want to protect his identity. So the forecast for today's podcast is going to be on how to sell on LinkedIn or how to sell using social media.
We're going to look for alternative and more effective approaches than what you guys are doing out there these days. So in order to go through the case study, let me just run through the message history that I have with the guy. So let me just pull up some stuff real quick. I made a note of a bunch of things. So April 19th, 2024, that's when me and the guy first got connected because I was speaking at an event. It was the NBC event, that's the Nigerian Bottling Company event.
Those are the people who own the franchise for Coca-Cola in Nigeria, Coca-Cola, Sprite, I think Chi Vita, you know, all that stuff. And they organised a series of events in Lagos and Abuja. I was speaking at the Abuja end and the one that I was speaking at was on how to use artificial intelligence tools to promote your, to beef your career, to promote your business. And so that's what I was speaking at. And the organisers wanted me to talk about LinkedIn during that event because surprisingly, lots of Nigerians are not aware about LinkedIn.
At first when they said we should actually talk about LinkedIn, I was like, I beg, everybody knows about LinkedIn, why should I talk about LinkedIn? But leaving that event, I was surprised to find out the amount of people that are not aware about LinkedIn. And I really think it's a social media network that everybody should be on if you're thinking of promoting your career or if you're thinking of boosting your business, because that is exactly where people who are trying to run businesses and people who are trying to build their careers, That's exactly where we hang out and that's where we network.
Now, I know that LinkedIn is considered boring by most people. In fact, one of the ladies at the Yvonne women in Digital marketing, that's NA, she came straight out and she told me that, look, LinkedIn is boring. So I get it that LinkedIn seems boring, but truth of the matter is if you're trying to network because you're trying to be somebody's PE or you're trying to get promoted or you're trying to grow your business or something, you really have to be on LinkedIn.
So get on the platform, check YouTube videos, listen to podcasts, you know, find a way, make it work. Because unlike other platforms where people are chilling on Facebook or chilling on LinkedIn, and if I'm trying to sell to them, I'm harassing them on LinkedIn, it's kind of expected that all of us are trying to run one or two things. So it's, it's still, I mean, it's still a nuisance if you do it wrong, but at least it's kind of expected that people should be doing those sorts of things,
networking and things like that on LinkedIn. So that's how me and Speedy Gonzalez, again, that's not his real name. I'm just calling him Speedy just to protect his identity. So that's why me and Speedy Gonzalez first hooked up was April 19th, 2024 while speaking at this event. Of course, I taught them about LinkedIn, how to use artificial intelligence to optimize their LinkedIn and how to use that to promote their careers and build their businesses.
And so he was one of the people who was there in that class. OK, Well, not really a class because there was 1600 of them, about 1006. So he was one of the people that was at that event. And when I'm doing these things, I have to keep it super practical. So of course I was going into the crowd talking to people who had problems. Me and my Co host, you know, my Co host was also doing the same thing. And then the NBC organisers of the event also had volunteers going around helping people.
So he was one of the people that I helped to put on LinkedIn. So that was April 19th. And then in typical fashion, I didn't hear from the guy. 0 Zilch. So we've spoken, we've connected, and then from April 19th, no contact. Then all of a sudden on November 18th, 2024, bam, a sales pitch hits my inbox. Remember I said the first time we hooked up, The first time we got. So let me not say we hooked up before you guys misunderstand.
The first time we got connected was April 19th, 2024. Now this guy 0 until November 18th now hits me up and he's trying to sell me something in my inbox. Now, for those of you who've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know what I've been talking about relationship building and relationship nurturing. How well do you think you're going to be able to close the sale if this is your opening salvo? You connect with somebody and then zero, nothing, and then seven months later you just show up and you're trying to sell the guy something.
How do you think you're going to be effective at it? This is one of the reasons why people say that sales is hard. You know, sales is not hard if you just do some basic common sense stuff. You can't connect with somebody in April and then go zero and then show up in November and I think that guy's going to buy something from you. It just doesn't work that way. So you need to come up with a plan for relationship building or relationship nurturing In the interim.
You need ideas. Keep listening to this podcast because these are the sorts of things that we talk about. Because remember I keep saying that sales or selling is a personal game. As in it's all human. It's all basic human stuff. Well, it should be basic, but for some reason people don't pay attention to these sorts of things. So lesson #1 relationship building, relationship nurturing. Don't meet somebody in January and then all of a sudden in July you're trying to sell the guy something in between.
There has been zero contact. It does not work that way. And plus, since I'm in the game, I know that what this guy is doing is automated. Definitely automated because, well, first of all, it was exactly 7 months to the day. Well, seven months and one day. So he definitely threw this thing into some automated stuff. You know, there are bots that you can use to, you know, automate messages, automate LinkedIn messages, automate e-mail messaging, you know, all kinds of stuff.
And I really was kind of sad, ashamed or sad that somebody that actually taught one of my students would actually be engaging in these, in these sorts of things. So I say everybody should be on LinkedIn. Then you hop on LinkedIn and then the next thing you do is you now start automating spamming, you know, everything. Like some of you guys need to calm down. You're trying to run too fast. Like you take it easy. Learn how to do something organic first.
Organic just means soft touch, you know, human being one step at a time. It is after you finesse the soft touch, the human being, the one step at a time, that now you can start automating things up and down. Because in the beginning, what are you, what do you know that you're automating? You're automating rubbish. And this is going to be an example about how if you start off with this kind of approach and you're automating for the sake of automating, you're automating rubbish.
And when you multiply rubbish, what do you get? You get more rubbish. So please using social media platforms, calm down. Learn the organic thing first. Learn the human thing, the personal thing, the one touch small by small, step by step. Learn nothing first before you. Now start doing all those automated things that are out there because I'm really tired of this whole thing. You go to events and the speakers are talking about automate your this, automate your this, automate your that.
Like, calm down. What are you automating? Learn something first, know how to interact with people, know how to have a conversation, know how to build a relationship, know how to build interests, know how to build alliances, know how to become somebody's friend. Before you start automating something anyway, let me not go on too much of A rant. So yeah it's automated and definitely some parts of the messages was copy and paste or bot scripting things like that because you know I'm in the game so I know.
But even you self, you will know that. OK, is this a bot or is this really a human being? No, this is the stage where somebody like my wife will say, look, why are you even engaging yourself? And yeah, I get it, why am I even engaging? But The thing is, especially for people that I've met one-on-one, like you've been my former student or I've done consulting for you in the past, I have a soft spot for you guys. So whenever I see one of you running foul like this sometimes I just say let me engage.
Let me see how far the thing will go just so that later on I can open the corner and say, look, when you and I were talking, this is not what I taught you. This thing you're going to do, this is not going to work. And these are the reasons why. And they are trying to maybe rescue the situation. Well, of course, you know, people like this who have decided, you know, they never listen. So anyway, that was the first thing.
Yeah. He automated the whole thing. He waited six months. There was no relationship building in between. And yeah. So that's it. Now let's break down his business pitch. I'm sorry, his sales pitch. Let's see whether the pitch was even an effective one, because people out there say that the most important thing is the sales pitch. And actually I disagree. I want to make importance about that. The important thing is not the sales pitch, but I'll get to that later.
But anyway, Sha, for those of you who say the sales pitch is the most important thing, let's break it down. Let's see what he was saying. So basically what he was saying was there's a business opportunity if I was interested. Now pause. Let me go back to this thing, especially for young Nigerian men listening to this thing, this podcast right now in Nigeria, when somebody says business opportunity, when a business, when somebody who is self-employed or in the hostel or whatever, he has business opportunity.
What they think is you are either going to bring them customers or you're either going to bring them, you're going to bring them either customers or opportunities for trade where money comes as a result. Let me repeat again, the Nigerian person, whether he sells spare parts or he owns a hotel or he owns a Courier company or or the person owns a laundry service, if you meet that person and say I have a business opportunity for you,
what the person is thinking is more customers for him or more money or opportunities for trade. So please, young men in Nigeria, stop going round and crawling everything under the sun. Business opportunity. Then by the time the person asks a few question, it turns out that it's actually network marketing and you want them to sell on your behalf. I don't know about how it functions in America or in the UK, but in Nigeria, if what you have is a network marketing opportunity, don't call it a business opportunity.
Because here in Nigeria, the man who sells spare parts or the person who owns an advertising agency or the person who owns laundry service or the woman who is selling catfish, if she has business opportunity, she's not thinking about MLM at all. For her, that's not multi level marketing for her, she can't see through the crap that all you have this product, you want people to sell your product. So please stop trying to hoodwink people.
Don't call it business opportunity if it is not a business opportunity in America. Maybe this is a business opportunity in the UK, maybe, I don't know, but in Nigeria, if you say business opportunity, be sure that you have a plan to bring that person customers or to bring that person money or to bring that person opportunities for trade. OK, Because it turned out to actually be a pyramid scheme that this young man is working on.
They're going to be renting LinkedIn accounts. OK, well, one more thing, this kind of thing where you're buying and selling LinkedIn accounts on social media handles and things like that, it's a sophisticated sale. It's a sophisticated pitch. Not everybody is going to understand this sort of thing. Because if not for the ladies that I was hanging out with at the Avon training, the digital marketing for women, because they are the ones who told me that people can buy Instagram accounts.
I had never heard it before. They say that you can buy Instagram account. They say you can buy. OK, I know that you can buy followers, but I never heard that it has reached the stage where you can buy a whole account or you can rent an account for a while. So this is a sophisticated sale. You have no business trying to sell anything sophisticated over texts. You cannot ping your way to success. If it's a sophisticated sale, If it's something that requires a certain level of trust or something that requires a certain level of understanding,
then please pick up the phone. Stop trying to make these sales over texts. That's the mistake that the guy made. Think about the people who sell socks, stocks or insurance. Do they text people and say, oh, Zenith is now at 59 per share, this is a good deal for you? Are you interested? They don't do that because buying and selling stocks or buying and selling insurance requires a bit of trust, requires a bit of finance.
They pick up the phone and they say, Madam Julia at home now, long time. Are you in the office? I'm coming. There's something I want to discuss with you. It's concerning the Zenith trade. Zenith shares, in case you're interested, say OK, I'll be around 12. OK, no problem, I'll be there, 12 O clock. And then you go there and then you have the conversation. So for those of you who are trying to sell stuff over on LinkedIn and there's something,
The thing is sophisticated, requires some trust or requires some explaining, stop trying to sell it over text. Just doesn't work, does not work. You might pick up one or two moguls, but to be really effective, stop trying to sell these things over text. So another question if you're involved in this kind of business, because I have to give the comment, those of you who are trying to sell, buy and sell Instagram handle.
I don't know how that works. You know, LinkedIn handle, renting LinkedIn handle. Should you even be engaging in this kind of business? Because this is the kind of thing that gets you black Mr. from social media sites because people who own this site, Zuckerberg them and all these people, they don't like it when somebody is on the platform and the person is not who they say they are. They don't like these sorts of things.
These kind of things get you blacklisted. I will try to make money from these tools here. So stop engaging in these kind of activities. It's and then there's also some risk there because the risk for scam in this kind of thing is high and then the risk for identity theft is high. So please, my own personal recommendation. Yes, I know that the ladies told me that these things are common. Well, please, this is not the kind of business you want to be involved in, except if you have the power that you create one e-mail address, you create one identity, you create one account, then they blacklist you, you go and manufacture another identity, then they blacklist you, then you manufacture another one, and then they blacklist you.
And really, is that how you want to live? Is that how you want to run your life? Manufacturing one e-mail address and building different names and social media handles and everything because you want to make money. And then on top that, how much how much money can you make from all these things anyway? Any like I said him no around too much. So because he's my guy, we've had some relationship. I decided to be straight.
I was like, look, dude, give me your number. Let's talk. Call me. And the reason why I said that is because I have a soft spot for all my students basically. So if I've consulted for you and you know, I've taught you before, you know, anybody can attest to that. If you call me or you know, you're trying to run one or two things, you have some ideas or something. I mean, like I will answer, it's not a problem. Like we're we're folks now.
So it's not a problem. I will answer because like I tell my students, looking information is free application is what you pay for. So if you want to know my opinion, yeah, sure, I'll tell you. But then if you want me to come in and then you, you see how we're going to run this thing together about how I'm going to help you to implement the framework, you know, stretch things out, you know, guide you through the whole process, then yeah, you pay for that.
But information is free. That's why this podcast is free because honestly, I believe that information is free. Truth of matter is, if you don't get the information from me, you will get it from somebody anyway and you get it for free. So application is what you're going to pay for if you're doing business with me. But the information is pretty much free. So I told the guy, call me, let's talk. And then next thing he says that, oh, OK, that I should talk to his boss in the USA, in America.
Now another thing, the long story on this thing is now becoming too much when it comes to selling, especially you're selling complex products, you want to keep things simple. Some of you might say that is a simple setup. Now it's not complicated, but I'm saying think about things from the customer's point of view. For the customer who has never heard of renting LinkedIn handles before and didn't know that there's a business opportunity in quote, I don't think there's a business opportunity.
But for the person who is hearing all of this the first time and then the person knows you, next thing you're trying to pass the person off to somebody that you met in the USA. The story is now becoming long, so you need to simplify things a bit. But by the way, there are industries where you can have a 2 step sales process and this is how you run it. So typically what you do is you have somebody called the business development Rep.
The job of that person is to call or reach out, confirm that the person is interest, interested, and then you have, you qualify the person. What that means is you have the conversation to figure out if the person has the money to invest in these sorts of things. If the person has the time and if the person has the desire to go ahead. Then in a conversation you let the person know that, oh, OK, that my colleague is going to be in touch.
That other colleague is someone who's called an account executive, then the exotic account executive, the person who comes in and closes the deal. So that's how it works. You let people know how it's going to go right from the beginning. You don't spring up any surprises during the process. So this is the proper way for you to do a two man or a two woman tag team in selling. Don't keep things simple. Don't spring things up on people.
Then I say, OK, no problem, talk to your guy because of course I want to know what's going on so I can advise my guy accordingly. So I say, OK, so before I talk to your Olga, give me some details. He saw this guy give me some details. Oh by the way, at this point he has not even picked up the phone and called me every. He just copied and pasted something called a notice of market expansion plan. OK, now I understand that when we are trying to sell, sometimes we, we, there are some resources that we use and then you just copy and paste.
But if you copy and paste, common sense says edit the document, personalize the document, make it look as if you're talking to a human being. This whole copy and pasting, I mean, so yeah, if not because me and the guy we've met before, not like I can't remember him that well, but you know, there's small message history, so we've been acquainted. Let me just put it that way. You know that most of you wouldn't even have gone this far.
Most of you would have blocked this guy or hit spam this guy right from the very beginning. Those of you who are listening to the podcast right now, I hope you you see where I'm going. I see why I said that this approach is not effective. The only reason why this gist has lasted this long with the guy is because someone I've spoken with and it's something that I helped set up his own LinkedIn profile. And I'm concerned that I said all of you should be on this profile.
You've gotten on this profile and you're doing some things that are going to get you blocked on this. On this social media app anyway. So as you're copying and pasting, no problem. To save yourself time, edit the document, personalize it, make it look as if you're talking to another human being. Now it is in this document that I now saw the mention of LinkedIn account rental services and the thing does not even explain it with explain what LinkedIn account rental services.
Now remember what I told you guys, if you're trying to sell something that is new or trying to sell something that is complex, do you think you should be trying to do this thing via text? It does not make sense. The person is not going to understand a few things. The person is going to have a couple of questions at the very least. Let this thing be a phone call or let this thing be a face to face, or let this thing be a video WhatsApp call or something so that when the person is confused, you can see that the person is confused.
If the person has some questions, the person can ask you some questions on the spot instead of emailing and pinging back and forth. Oh, by the way, like I tell you guys and some of you don't even agree this pinging back and forth that I'm talking about this like almost like is beginning to near like 2 weeks. If the guy had taken my suggestion and had called me, do you know we would have finished this conversation in 30 minutes and then he moves on to the next prospect.
But for some reason, people are happy to sit down and continue pinging back and forth for 2-3 weeks to close one deal. I mean, like, how much time do you have? Just pick up the phone, make a phone call, 20-30 minutes. You've made progress. You know where you stand. If you're moving forward, you're moving forward. If it's not, then cancel the thing and you move on to the next person. Please. You should be picking up the phone.
So this is my recommendation about how this guy should have done it. The guy should have asked my phone number. I should have called. I should have said, bro, long time, Novak said. I never agreed, you know, all that whole thing, like it's been a while, so I should have been in touch. I really appreciate how that last session went. Thank you very much. I'm on LinkedIn now. I'm trying to use it, you know, blah, blah, blah, that whole thing.
And then you now slide in. I came across one horse like this from one company in America. I don't know whether it's something you're interested in. Of course, I'm always down for making more money. So of course, I'll say, well, what's up now? So what did you hear? And then he would say you not ask because remember, you have to confirm interest. Have you ever heard about renting social media accounts before You asked me.
Now let us pretend that I've heard and I'm interested. By the way, I'm not interested now I've heard about it. I found out last week, but I'm not interested. But let me pretend that I'm interested. You continue the gist and then you now try and show the value prop. So guy, you have over 2000 followers on your LinkedIn. Would you be interested to see if we can monetize your audience at about $10.00 for each LinkedIn account you see?
Trying to confirm that the person is interested. This is a simple phone call. This is not any back and forth and everything. And then let me pretend that I'm interested. If I'm still interested, then the next will be OK. I'm glad you're interested. My colleague in the USA would love to give you some more details if you have any more questions. Are you free for a WhatsApp call on Friday around nine, 2:00 PM because of time zone difference?
And then keep quiet and then you hear and let's pretend I'm interested and say, yes, I'm free. That is how you handle it. You pick up the phone, you have a sharp, sharp conversation. This whole stretch that I'm talking about you could have done in about, I don't know, maybe 5-10 minutes. You get to build from rapport, you get to revive a conversation. You get to build some interests. You know, all these, all these sorts of things, instead of automation, automation, spam,
spam, spam, copy and paste, copy and paste. No, 'cause I really want you guys to think about it and do the math. Because this thing about automated messaging and copy and paste and spam, yeah, it makes everything a whole lot easy. But think about it. Why will you waste your time in one day and send 500 automated messages and then maybe 300 people block you? Why waste your time doing that? You're getting blacklisted on all these sites.
You're ruining your, what's it called, domain authority. Because as people are blocking you and spamming you and hitting delete and everything, the LinkedIn inbox algorithm is seeing these things. The YouTube, sorry, not YouTube, the Gmail algorithm is seeing these things. The Yahoo algorithm is seeing these things that people are saying. This boys a scammer. Why not just take your time? Use my own approach. My own approach is going to take more time, yes, but buy small data and then give yourself two months.
Because if you have 500 contacts, you know when you call 500 contacts in one day. And I understand that that's the attraction that because you can automate stuff, you can use one day and hit 500 people, but I hit 500 people doesn't mean when to get business out of it. So give yourself two months so you can tackle the 500 people. Buy small data on your phone and then start what's up, call, what's up, call what's up, call one after another, one after another.
Build a human connection, use a very human centered approach and believe me, you'll make progress. If you have 500 contacts, you have to be really, really, really, really terrible or the opportunity has to be really, really, really rubbish that if you call 500 people that you can't do at least 5 or 10 deals out of. You have to be really, really terrible. So my own thoughts, this business who is a bad business? The ladies, they told me about this thing at the Women's Digital Marketing Training with Yvonne and I was shocked.
For those of you who are doing this thing, it is a bad business. When we started off in wedding photography over 15 years ago, then people used to buy followers and buy audiences. Buying followers and audiences was a bad idea then, it is a bad idea now. Now that people have upgraded and they go beyond buying and selling of bought and buying and selling of followers and audience, and they now buy and sell the account and they rent the account.
This is bad business. The possibilities for scamming are there. You might end up being scammed. So these people are reaching out to you from, well, they say they're from America, but who knows really where they're from. You don't know who it is that you're dealing with. Small time. Now they hack your handle. The opportunities for identity theft are plenty. So please, in my own opinion, please, this is bad business. I won't even call anyway.
I guess you can call it business, but this is bad business. And then my own recommendation, You have greater chances of success by being human. Be a human being. Learn the human aspect first. After you learn the human aspect and you become a pro in the human aspect, you will now know what to automate. Calm down, don't rush to automate everything, to copy and paste everything, to spam everything. Be a human 1st and learn.
For me, if I now, if I'm automating stuff, I want to be much more successful than you who has not even been trying trying anything you've just entered. You created your LinkedIn handle in April, then December you already want to start automating and spamming anyway. I guess what I'm trying to say basically is stop doing this thing of connect and pitch. Connect with somebody on social media, connect with somebody at networking session.
But don't just try and sell them something immediately. Networking is not about collecting contacts and then doing nothing for several months and then trying to sell to them. Build a relationship first. Build a relationship first. Build a relationship 1st and please stop burning the little social capital that you have. Think about it. Let's say on your phone you have like 1500 contacts. You won't be doing this kind of approach.
So because of that, you pick Monday, you blast 500. You pick Tuesday, you blast 500. By the end of the month, you have thoroughly pissed off every single person in your contact book. Next year, when you start a new business venture, who do you want to sell to? You want to sell to everybody on your phone book or on your contact list on LinkedIn or whatever, Everybody that you've pissed off. So next year when you start a new hustle, you now have to start looking for new moguls.
Anyway, let me stop. I've overdone it. So that's all for today. Remember, if you'd love to connect with me to explore opportunities, call me 08064662140, WhatsApp me on the same number, country code +234. Also connect with me on LinkedIn. And please, if you're going to connect, connect with me on LinkedIn, you know, try and try and learn something. Pay attention to my videos, to my material, to my podcast. Try and learn something please before you start trying to sell people something.
Anyhow, you know it's not. Anyway, let me leave it like that so I'll catch you guys tomorrow.