The Secret Agent of Sales: How History and Diplomacy Prepares Us for Success

Hello and welcome to the show. Today we're going to be talking about how your past experiences can enrich you and better prepare you for a career in business, sales, personal selling. You know, all things related to the sorts of things that we talk about over here on the show. Because as some of you who are getting ready to take that career step, whether you're about to become a customer service officer, you're about to hit the phones, you're about to get into sales.

And you think that maybe your previous background in law, in medicine, in diplomacy, in dentistry, in whatever doesn't adequately prepare you for the job that you're about to do today. Today we're going to examine how you we can find glimpses of things in your past that can prepare you for the career or the challenges that you're going to have today. If you're an employer and you're about to be put on the phones or you're about to be put, sorry,

If you're an employee and you're about to be put on the phones or put in the customer facing role, or if you're the owner of the business and you're getting ready to start talking to strangers and those sorts of things. And we're going to be using as a case study today someone who studied diplomacy in school. Yeah, I think was diplomacy, sorry, international relations I think was what she studied. And and yeah, we'll tease out some things about how the study of international relations and diplomacy has prepared this young candidate for the role that she's going to be stepping into quite soon if she's successful.

And that's because I was part of a hiring panel that was talking to this young lady to start work in a startup in the real estate space that uses proprietary algorithms and tech to help people get the best kind of rental real estate or investment property. So those are the things I'll be talking about today. So it's not going to be an exhaustive episode. And of course, when I run into people who have more interesting professional backgrounds, like if I talk to somebody who studied animal husbandry, for instance, I definitely will be making another episode on that.

So as I talk to people who have much more interesting academic backgrounds than mine, I'll be making podcasts like podcast episodes like that to share. So that's what we're going to be talking about. So as usual, apologies for the background noise because I'm not in my audio booth. If you'd love opportunities to connect with me, then call me on 08064662140 or connect with me on socials, I'm on LinkedIn. The name to look for is Tabishima Aidi.

So like I said, how your past enriches you for your new career in business, new career in prospecting or your new adventures in owning a business. So I was part of an interview panel that was going to talk to a very young lady who graduated in 2024. Yes, they just graduated this year and and studied her background was in history and international relations. So I'm not going to give her real name, but of course, I've given enough details.

So I'm sure that when she listens to this podcast episode, if she does, she'll know that it's about her. But I didn't take her permission to name her. So I'm not going to do that. But however, there was one part of the interview session that I'm going to share right here just for the benefit of you, those of you who are, well, how should I put it? Those of you who are a bit younger, because from the Spotify Wrapped that I got this year, it seems that my, the largest growing audience of the podcast seems to be, I can't remember, 20 something to 20

something, maybe like 23 to 27 or something like that. So there are a couple of stuff that I need to tell you guys, particularly the ladies, not because I'm picking on ladies, but because I haven't come across this problem with young men. The problem that I've come across with young men is, you know, they're all trying to position themselves as, you know, I know it all. I'm an expert. I'm a this, I'm a that. So I've on the podcast, I've said time and time again about how guys, you will just need to calm down.

Stop calling yourself the experts. Stop calling yourself the guru. Be honest about where you are, what you know, where you're heading to, and people will just roll with you accordingly. And when the time comes, it is other people who will call you expert. It is other people who will call you guru. It was other people who will call you, you know, strategist, you know, whatever. So the thing that I want to mention for young ladies is because I have looked at CVS

where the, the e-mail address there is butter butterscotch. Sorry, butterscotch hot chick. I've seen Butterscotch Hot Chick, the lady at this interview panel. I'm doing the interview session online. Monica on Google Meet was Patty cake. I've also seen, you know, something like cute Iberry 84 and stuff like that. So young ladies, I'm not trying to be mansplaining, but heading into these sorts of situations where you want to be taken for taken seriously as a professional, it doesn't help if your e-mail address, your online monikers, you know, your Zoom handle name, your, your WhatsApp, WhatsApp, what's it called?

WhatsApp name, WhatsApp handle, you know, is all these sorts of things. Now, of course, if you use all these things, Zoom, WhatsApp, Google Meet, if you use it for purely personal purposes, then yeah, sure, call yourself whatever it is. But if you're heading for a job interview, then Butterscotch Hot chick and then party cake and cute Iberia 64. Yeah, that you ain't gonna cut it. So some conventions, I'm not saying you guys have to be like men, but I've noticed that for men, we either use both of our names or we use some people use the first name, some people use the surname.

So I think that's OK. So instead of a cute Iberia 64, how about just, you know, AB area, you know, I think that's fine. Or your surname, you know, that's fine. So yeah, so that's my mansplaining done out of the way now. So like I said, the candidate was OK, let me not state her age, graduated from RSU, that's River State University, and the degree was in history and international relations. And so the core thing that they studied in school was diplomacy.

So of course I asked about. So hold on, let me get my notes because I don't want to forget. I made some notes while we were talking. Yeah. So I asked about her education and her previous work history. Now, if you've been following this podcast for any length of time, you'll know that if I'm on the panel and you've hired me because you want me to look over candidates that you're hiring for a sales role, a customer service role, that sort of thing.

I'm not really interested in what they studied per SE, and I'm not really interested in how long they have worked per SE, but I'm interested in what experiences that they've had personally, academically or in the work environment, no matter how long that they have worked, that would have prepared them for success in this job role. Because if you bring me in and you want me to look at candidates to work in your organization or you want me to train up your candidates, those are the things that I'm looking for.

Because there is no academic degree that will qualify you to work in sales. So we're taking people from all kinds of backgrounds. Law, marketing, diplomacy, dentistry, medicine, politics, philosophy, economics, English, Yoruba, economics, theatre, arts, you know, all kinds of backgrounds. So I'm just interested in what has this person been through before school wise and work wise and what kind of things have they learnt on the job or in school that might prepare them for what it is that they are about to do today for this particular organization.

So she wasn't allowed to work because of personal circumstances, but she was able to do some work as a personal assistant and as a technical assistant. And I told her that that was good because that is precisely the kind of free, willing, free Willy work environment that will prepare one for a career in sales. Because you will find that lots of times when you are in a sales job, your role is not like everybody else that you know.

So if your brother or your sister works in a bank, let's say like in Forex department in the bank, you know that her time, this is what her work looks like. She shows up at 7:30 and then you look over the books from yesterday and then you make sure that all the cash is complete. And then, you know, I don't know, check e-mail, be sure that there's no problem from forwarding offices or whatever. Then check the days, the spot rate or whatever, then attend to customers and so and so and then lunch is so, so, so and so time and then meetings and you know,

blah, blah, blah. But when it comes to sales, things are not that smooth, you know, so there's some time that you have already scheduled the day before for meetings, but you're going to spend some time prospecting. Some people are going to call up because they're angry. They haven't seen this, they haven't seen that. Some people want to find out how far. So you find out that things I'm a little bit topsy turvy. So you have to be able to be self motivated and be able to think on your feet.

And I told her that, yeah, Pata, that's definitely a good experience right there. And from asking a couple of questions, I was able to unearth the fact that in doing her job for her, it was instrumental for her to have a diary, or she called it a journal that she used to plan her day. And it's absolutely fantastic. And of course, I told her that, look, heading into this new role where you are going to be a virtual inspection officer,

you're going to be liaison with the public. Journals, Diaries, whatever it is you want to call it, are going to be absolutely important to getting things done. Giving some structure to your day, making sure you don't forget things that you're supposed to be paying attention to, making sure that things don't fall off the table. So for those of you who've been listening for a long time, you remember those episodes where I

keep talking about CRM, customer relationship management tool, about how it can be something physical or it can be something digital. What The thing is, we need something if we're going to be heading into this sort of role. Now, if you work in Zenith Bank, you're in the Forex department. If you don't have a journal, it's not going, you're not going to suffer per SE because your work e-mail is there. Your superior is going to be dropping physical files on your desk.

And you know, you can not give a hoot about your job, but between e-mail and the physical files that are dropping on your desks, you know, somehow, somehow the important stuff or the urgent stuff at the very least is going to get done. But when it comes to sales, customer facing rules, no, no, no, we can't. We can't live like everybody else. We need something. So for me, it's my phone and it's apps and tools that are based off of the cloud so that if this phone that I'm using right now gets stolen, all I

have to do is go and buy another Android phone, sign in, and then everything that I need is there. But yeah, you can do physical journal as well. So yeah, her previous work experience, having to juggle somebody else's schedule, having to juggle other people's meetings, other people's priorities and having to use a journal. I told her it prepares you for the role that you are at today. Now this is important to know because it can be quite scary,

you know, going through the Nigeria educational system and then all of a sudden you're now thrust into the job role where your job is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, talking to strangers. It can be quite unnerving. So it helps to look back and to see that, OK, I went through this, I went through that. It prepares me for what I'm about to do now. I should be able to handle it. I should. Then let's see what else, OK.

The other people on the panel wanted to know what her motivations were. She said her drivers were money. I thought it was quite interesting for a 21 year old, although I my own opinion as a 21 year old, I don't think you've lived enough to know exactly what your drivers are. But I like the fact that she's money motivated because, you know, for me, I'm all about that chatter as well. So yeah, let's get on, let's get that dough.

But quite frankly, some of you think you're motivated by money, but you might work a bit and discover that well, you're actually much more motivated by the challenge or much more motivated by the, what's that thing called, the recognition that comes with doing certain kinds of jobs. So let's see what else then She expressed a deep desire to be involved in corporate Niger, which is why she wanted to work with the startup because this company is a startup.

But I had to point out with her that pointed out to her rather that startups have flexible management structures, flexible corporate structures. So it's not the same thing as dealing with corporate Niger. So like I said, if you work in Zenith Bank and you're in the cash remittance department or the forex department or the whatever department, there's some structure to your day, your line manager, your reporting structure, your everything is kind of fixed.

It's not the same as working in the startup where they might hire you today for this thing and then next tomorrow they're trying to get you to do something else. Like the episode I made about the young man who felt like he was completely useless, but I had to point out to him that, look, it's not like you're useless, but your employers, they put the first one on you. They brought you in here and said, guy, you're going to do marketing.

And then in typical startup fashion, they're like, oh, you know what? We don't have people in sales. So you move from marketing when I start doing sales. And so at the time that, look, you are not adequately prepared to succeed in this job role. You came in here for marketing what you know is marketing sales. Yeah, it's related, but it's a different skill set. Nobody taught you anything. Nobody trained you upon anything.

Nobody give you any kind of support in terms of resources, materials, tech or things like that to be successful at your job. So it's not that you're useless, it's that your employers didn't do a good job of preparing you. So that's how things work in start up environments. So if you're someone who needs a bit of more, you know, you're looking to be in corporate Nigeria or something a bit more structure. Yeah, it'll it'll be fun to be in a start up, but I don't know if that will adequately prepare you for the job role that you're looking for in the future.

So now the nitty gritty of what we discussed, this lady studied history and international relations and so the Coco of what they studied in school was diplomacy. And so diplomacy and relationships, international relationships. So honest, you know, what idea about international relationships were and good thing about professors, because the professors were able to explain to them that relationships was just about balancing the economic interests, the power interests,

the cultural dynamics and things like that between two or more countries. And that diplomacy was their main tool. If I watched it said diplomacy, I was like, whoa, OK, we're getting real deep here. And she said, sorry, no way. She mentioned them. Espionage. Yeah. She said that espionage is a key, the key to to love theirs that they use in international relations. So she said, yeah, it sounds sexy and dangerous, but actually it's it's not that.

It's not that dangerous and it's not that sexy whenever it sounds cool. They said that he went to school and he studied espionage. And I wish I studied that well when I was in school anyway. So yeah, I told her, OK, cool, Noela, no problem. But actually this, your past history, your academic background actually does prepare you for a career in sales and in customer relations and in customer facing roles. Because as someone who is handling the customer facing function of a business, you will always be trying to balance two or more competing priorities.

So in history and international relations, you're thinking about two different states, Nigeria, Cameroon, America, Togo and you're wondering people's economic drivers, people powers, motives, people culture clash, all kinds of things. But then when it comes to the business, you have to be mindful of those sorts of things. It's just that now it's between the business and the customer and probably you because you as an employee, you know, your motivations is there steady the customer, they have their own motivation, their own concerns.

And then the business as a whole has its own goals, its own motivations and its own concerns. And as a salesperson or as a customer facing person, you're always trying to balance these sorts of things to make sure that everybody comes out nice at the end of the day. So that you as an employee, you do something good, you get the recognition that you deserve. The the customer of the business is able to solve their own problems and then they feel happy and then the business comes out all right because they've put some money on the balance sheet.

And so there is some of that jogging that is going on. But I told her, you know, instead of thinking about countries, you're now using those that same mindset when it comes to private actors. So you, the business and the customer. Then on the whole thing of diplomacy and espionage, for her, she said espionage was essentially understanding people's priorities and understanding their motives. And she said that the main tool that their professors taught them to use was conversations.

And at that point, I had to tell her that, look, very good, you're practically home. Because when it comes to sales, that is precisely what it is that we're doing in sales and in customer service. We're trying to understand other people's motives. And we'll just do that by conversations. It is only by talking to someone that you know what's on their mind. What do they like, what they don't, What do they not like? What are they trying to achieve?

OK, like the wedding. Sorry, no wedding fashion. Yeah, like a fashion thing. Somebody comes and says make me peplum and you say, OK, no problem. You now bring out your ruler. I say ruler. What's it called? Your tape measure. You bring out your tape measure, your pencil. You start drawing lines around the person and everything. And then you write it down and then you tell her it's a 25K, Come back and collect it December 23rd.

Now if you do that, yeah, that's basic. But that's just what any other tailor of fashion designer will do. What we should be doing here is a bit some bit of espionage, engaging conversations, trying to figure out what's going on. So peplum, OK, sure, no problem. As you're measuring, you now engage in some conversations, you know, like, oh, is somebody getting married or you need it for some occasion for some something.

And if she's not talking about her or her daughter just gave birth and blah, blah, blah, and Thanksgiving and this and this and that and that. And of course, you lean into the conversation and you know, some are poor building, like congratulations, myself, my sister just gave birth and this and this and that. The whole point of engaging in conversation with this person is because you're trying to understand their motivations and you're trying to understand their likes and their dislikes.

So you're trying to figure out what does she need this garment for? What is her sense of style and sophistication? Which part of her body does she like or does she not like? Because for there's a woman that they like the way everything sits on their body, but they're particular about their bust. Like look, tailors don't usually get my chest area or my chest area to be my chest area to be like this. Leave exposure or leave more cleavage or don't leave cleavage.

And then for some other people, it's their arms. And some people are particular about their stomach and some people are particular about their bum bum. But The thing is, if you do not engage someone in a conversation at the beginning where you're doing the measure cut and so on, everything you will end up in quarrel. When she comes back three weeks later from now, she's saying, I know, adjust this, adjust this, adjust that in order to reduce the adjust this and adjust that.

As you are cutting and drawing lines on the person and doing tape measure, be engaging in conversations. You will now know that. Oh, OK, this woman is as if Tommy is going to be a problem. Was it as if Bom Bom is going to be a problem? I need to pay attention to Bom Bom. And then you now start asking questions, you know, so you know, you tell us, you know, the kind of questions is that you're going to ask. But I'm assuming you try and get a sense of maybe this is somebody that likes to dance and, you know, get her groove on and, you know, likes to shake and move, you know, so I guess you can make it too restrictive around the Bom Bom then dancing and shaking and grooving might be a problem.

But you catch my drift, essentially. What we are doing is espionage. We what we're doing is we're becoming spies. We're trying to enter into the mind of somebody. And to enter into that person's mind, you need to engage in conversations. Understand who is this person? What do they want? What are they going after? What are their fears? What are their concerns, concerns? What do they want to achieve? Can only do this through conversations.

The only thing I had to add was just the structure of the conversations because the the professors told them about using conversations, but didn't tell them about the kinds of conversations. So I had to introduce her to the concept of open-ended questions. You know, The Who, why, what, where, when, how, and let's see what else open-ended questions. And I can't remember right now, but I know that I made a podcast episode about that.

If you're curious and you want to know about these sorts of things, then when you're done listening to this episode, go and check me out on YouTube. My YouTube channel is there. I have over 1000 podcast episodes now, over 1004 podcast episodes up there. All you have to do is just type in Tavishma and then type in conversations. Then every single episode that I've made around these sorts of issues, you know, conversations and things like that should come up.

Listen with a pen and paper, make some notes so that you can start putting into practice one or two things. So, OK, 20 minutes. So let me see if I can wrap this up quickly. So anyway, yeah, basically that was it. If you studied history and international relations and you're wondering if you have been adequately prepared for a role that is customer facing in sales or in customer service or whatever, rest assured, all the things that your professors taught you, they're fine and they apply.

We just need to bring a whole lot more actual business knowledge, business frameworks, selling frameworks, all those sorts of things to the table. But chances are you'll be fine. In fact, I would like to meet an individual who has studied something other than business, where by the time we sit down, truly, truly, truly, maybe there's nothing that the person has learnt that would help them in a career opportunity that is customer facing.

So that's it. So if you study international relations, you are good. If your previous job was a personal assistant or a technical assistant, you are good. If your previous job role was your handling, doing counter work, your receptionist, you are also good. You have been adequately prepared. So let me see. I think that's pretty much what we spoke about. I don't want to go over that in any more details so this doesn't end up being a 30 minute episode.

Oh yes, shout outs. I forgot to shout out Glory Baba Lola. She reached out on LinkedIn. She's a podcast listener. So I don't even check my notes. Let's see. Yeah. So she says that she found the podcast really helpful in her new role because she's currently a corporate relations officer and a partnership manager in the new company. It's also a start up as well. So she says she has been finding some of the tips on the podcast real useful in her job.

So thank you very much, Glory Babalola for listening to the podcast. Please remember to like and to share with other people who might derive value as well. And I hope the rest of you who are considering career transitions, whether you're like Little Miss Patty Cake who is about to take a role in something that is customer facing in the start up, or whether you are like Glory Babalola who is about to start a new role in corporate relations being a partnership manager.

I want you guys to know that chances are, whatever it is that you studied, there's a little bit of something that you guys did there that has prepared you adequately for where you are today. But of course, keep listening to podcasts like this one and keep looking for other material that can help you to be better prepared for your job, and you should do just fine. One of the reasons why you should do just fine is because unfortunately in this part of the world, in fact, I'm told world over, most people prefer to just go sign up, do the job,

collect salary and leave. So those of you who are trying to do something extra, no matter how small, you listen to a podcast today, you know one or two things, you try it out. You read a book tomorrow, you try one or two things, you know, you try it out. Or you watch a movie, you see, you know somebody, a sales person doing something moving and like, OK, let me try that technique. You try it out, you're going to be much better than other people because other people are just showing up and just marking register.

So those of you who are doing more than marking register, trust me, you are going to be fine at the end of the day. So if you're ready to get actionable strategies to grow your business, you can book a no cost business audit with me by calling me or messaging me on 08064662140 or connect with me on socials. I'm on LinkedIn, the name to look for establishing my aid. Somebody followed me on Instagram today. Please, I'm letting you guys know Instagram.

I'm getting rid of my account, I'm getting rid of Facebook. I'm getting rid of everything because people are trying to hack me while they're trying to hack me. I don't know because I don't want help up to like 1005 or 2000 followers. So it's nice if you hack my profile, you can even do anything with it. So I'm just shutting down everything. I'll just remain on LinkedIn where I actually use. So that's it. Yeah, call me connect, book the no cost business audit and let's see what kind of actionable strategies we can help you work out so you can boost your business and boost your career.

So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.