The Silent Killer: Why Businesses Fail Without a Sales Plan

Hello and welcome to the show. Today I'd like to discuss one of the main reasons why people are not seeing business growth. Now, there are lots of times that people's businesses struggle and people look towards macroeconomic factors. You look at the harsh economic climate, because Tinnaboo is now in power, energy prices have quadrupled. Let's see what else Napa is bad, you know, on and on and on. So there's always something macroeconomic that we can point the finger at and blame and say that this is the reason why your business is not moving.

Now a central tenant that I've had on this podcast, you know from day one has been that if we take personal responsibility for things within our control, especially if we have a very unique sales and business development orientation or mindset, then we can do a lot to improve our businesses while still struggling with the macroeconomic factors. So yes, cost of running your generator, if you're someone who produces trinkets and you know things like that, yes, we know that the cost has gone up.

But there are ways that if you employ a unique sales and customer centric focus, you should be able to cope, you should be able to adapt, you should be able to get by, you should be able to breathe until you can start dealing with the larger problems. So my own take has never been to look at macroeconomic factors when things get tough, because the truth of the matter is whether these macroeconomic factors, you know, like the current presidency and the cost of fuel and the crippling power infrastructure.

Yes, maybe those things have something to do with the reason why your business is where it is today. But I do not pay attention to those sorts of things. Because even if those are critical and significant factors about where you are today, you're not in a position where you can actually do something to improve the outcome. There is nothing that I individually can do that is going to increase, sorry, improve fuel prices or make sure that this, if I think the politicians are my problem,

there's nothing I can do to get rid of the politicians today. So looking at macroeconomic factors and blaming that on why your business is where it is, is not really the solution, even if it's true. So I think that we should be paying much more attention to things that are within our own control. And a lot of times it's just adopting some simple sales practices, You know, that's enough to open up the spigot so that more revenue, more money starts flowing into our businesses and more money starts flowing into our coffers.

Now the reason why I'm making this podcast today is because something happened recently, well, after Valentine's anyway. And for me, it was just kind of a another example that I want to highlight over here on the podcast about why some people's businesses are not moving along like the way they should. So of course, it's currently March. Everybody knows well, especially those of us here in Niger, because, you know, we're still Valentine's.

Crazy that Valentine's has come and gone. You know, that was a couple of weeks ago. But The thing is, you know, I was in the that situation where I was let me know, like I was kind of cleared up, as in I was broke. I was dry doing valves. But now I was able to find an artisan who makes really, really interesting stuff. And I knew that there was going to be stuff there that, you know, would really impress my wife. I looked over at this guy's catalogue.

We chatted back and forth. You know, we agreed about the items that were going to be customized. What the. So I can't remember what these things are called. You know, like when you have a, a pendant on a chain or something on an earring, you know there's there's a term and so if you're working with artisans, you can get to customize it. You know, you can get to say, OK, I like this chain, but it's sort of a golden butterfly.

Can we put a, a Unicorn made of amethyst or whatever. So when you're working with artisans, you can customize that kind of that kind of stuff. And my wife is impressed when I don't just get any kind of gifts, but this is a level of thought that you know, goes into it. So negotiated with the guy, we agreed on everything. And I'm like you know, to be honest, you know, right now I'm dragged. So I can't pay you now back and sort you next week.

Next week I'm expecting some money. The guy says cool, I said OK, no Allah. Then next week comes along. I pay the game, I get the goods, Everything is nicely gift wrapped. I hand it over. Well, I didn't hand it over to my wife, you know, I just left the line around so that she would discover it and it had the intended effect. So Valentine's in my own household. So, excuse me. So Valentine's. My own household was a week late.

But she, she loved the gift. You know, she wore it. Things didn't come the way I thought because, you know, when you look at pictures, some things seem larger than when they come in real life. But The thing is my wife loved the gifts and she has worn it several times since then. Not just the the chain dependent but also the earrings. Now the reception, shall I say reception. Anyway, the way that my wife received the goods, I mean I

was, I was really I was the so I stopped calling them goods. The present. So her reaction to the present was was was really nice. And I'm glad that things worked out the way that they did. But here's the thing. The artisan that made these things is never going to know that because he didn't call to say, hey bro, what's up? Off. I know. So how did it work? Delayed Valentine's? Did it work? Was Madam impressed? What did she think?

Did she like it? Ah, correct. Nice one, Nice one. Nice one. Hey, bro, you know, I'd appreciate it if you know other people just like you, you know, husbands who are trying to spice things up with their wives. You know, if you know a couple of people, you know two and three, I'd appreciate if you can send me their phone numbers. You know, let me see if I can. Let me see if I can move my ministry, you know, because me and that guy, we had that kind of rapport, we could talk like that.

So he didn't worry about the customer success function and customer satisfaction. So he didn't call to find out how do things go and then he doesn't have a plan or is not concerned about the repeat business and referral part of the equation. So he didn't ask me who else I know that could be interested or if there are other people that I want to get stuff for. Because of course Valentine's is not just a wifey thing. Valentine's can also be a mumsy thing or a mother-in-law thing.

Like, you'll be like, cool, Correct. So she liked it. What about Mumsy? Now you won't get something from Mumsy. What about your mother-in-law? You know, we have this range. We have this, we have this. You know, I understand you said that things are tied by no ally. Instead of looking at this range, we're sort of looking at this material. Let's look at this. Let's look at this. We can do this one. We can customize this one like this.

You know, how far? What do you think? You know, it's a conversation that people should be having. Now that some of you listen to the podcast right now, who are going to say Tavi Schumann, you're a wicked guy. You should have just picked up the phone and called the guy and giving him all this whatever. And yes, maybe I should. But here's the thing. I've been preaching about the gospel of sales for quite a while now. There's over 790 episodes over here on the podcast and to be frank, you know, I'm quite tired of running into good business people and then me trying to how I pull it, how I put it, Gosh,

let me just put it this way. People who don't have a plan for these sorts of things or a framework for these sorts of things, when you call up and give them the testimonial anyway or the whatever, they don't do anything with it. So I've just found that calling up people to gush or to blush or to give these kinds of suggestions usually is just a waste of time. It's possible that me lassing with this guy, telling him a couple of these things, you know, he might take it on.

But I've just found that my experience of dishing out free advice like this over the years is, you know, nothing ever comes out of it. And quite frankly, I'm tired of just always teaching people how to, you know, you run into someone who is good and everything and, you know, this graduate just trying to teach them how to improve their business and everything. You know, I'm. I'm just tired about it. So tired of it rather.

So that's the reason why I didn't call the guy. And Truth Matter is actually was so impressed by the response. I was going to call him, but then you know how these things are. I was going to call him, but then my older son called me and then we spoke about something and then the baby had, you know, something else to do. And then was night time and then me and Wifey, there was this movie that was supposed to watch on Netflix that we hadn't watched.

You know, so we watched the movie. So from Netflix and movie there was just that we hadn't just said and then you know next thing the next day and OK, I'll call the guy and then I put it in the calendar and that's how I just never called the geisha. And then time just passed. So bottom line of this, my story for today is I'm not trying to give you guys a back door into what the relationship with my wife is or how much money that I

have. But I'm just trying to say that there are some businesses that might be struggling today or there's some businesses whose prospects might be improved regardless of how bad the macroeconomic factors in Nigeria are or the macroeconomic factors in your country are. You need to have a sales framework. You need to have a sales process for your business. You need to stop winging it. There are times that you're going to do something, you're going to deliver something to a customer and things will go terribly wrong.

You need to have a sales framework, a customer service framework for dealing with those sorts of things. When things go wrong, then there are times that you're going to deliver to the customer, that things are going to go great and fantastically. So you need to have a process for tapping into that goodwill that you've created, getting a testimonial from it, trying to get repeat business and referrals from that. And also for doing relationship building with the person afterwards, because it's a lot easier to do.

It's a lot easier to do business with someone after they've done business with you in the past. So Valentine's has come and gone. If this artisan had done a good job of keeping in touch with me, who knows? He might have been able to spark up another conversation around different stuff. Easter for instance. OK, Easter is coming up. So if you had done good with relationship building, me and him get some rapport going, he figures out that I'm Christian or Catholic or something.

Who knows, you could have been talking around Easter things that can be made around the home or I mean who knows, maybe even if it's just things like a customizing rosaries. I mean you never know how you can. Or a rosary is is a prayer chaplet that Catholics use. And then also that Christians of the Orient, so the East, the Orient. So Russia, Russia, Jerusalem, what else? Syria, you know, that part of the world. So that's what the rosary is.

Prayer chaplets for those of you who are not used to seeing Catholics around or Orthodox Christians around, it's similar to what Muslims use. So that could have been another. Those are, you know, future conversations that could have been had later on. So, but The thing is this guy doesn't have a plan. He doesn't have a process. He's not following any single process. And so the opportunity to what's that word to extract to maximize customer lifetime value out of this relationship is just not going to occur.

Now, of course, I know he's a solid guy, so of course next time I need something, I'm going to call him. But sometimes things happen. People forget you. People forget your phone number. What else? All kinds of things. So this is the reason why we actually should have a plan. We need to have a sales framework. We need to be following this script. Somebody got in touch. We delivered. Now that we've delivered, is the person happy or not?

The person is unhappy. What are we going to do next? The person is happy. Very good. Now we're going to secure a testimonial. We have secured testimonial. Now what are the steps that I'm going to do either on the phone or over social media or e-mail for building a relationship with this person? Relationship with this person is now established. So what is the next plan for making sure that the person buys again now that the person has bought again?

What is the plan to make sure that the person refers me to somebody else now that the person has referred me to somebody else? What is the plan for making sure that this referral that has come in, the person is also happy and you see how the process continues and continues and continues and you do that and then running your business gets easier because dealing with repeat business and referrals is a lot easier is a lot less stress than waking up every day and thinking what am I going to post on Instagram today that is going to attract a new buyer.

So yes, gust of fuel has gone up fourfold. Yes, a bunch of us in Nigeria are not happy with our politicians, but then again that's universal I'm sure in Russia and in America and in the UKA bunch of you are not happy with your politicians as well. So macroeconomic things, they'll always be there. The truth of matter is even if your guy as in your main guy, the politician that you're backing, even if he comes into power next year, chances are he's going to do something that is not going to be too sweet for your business.

So macroeconomic factors, we have no control over it. That is minor, minor, really small things that are within our own sphere of influence and it doesn't cost a lot. Forced to execute on these things. Mobile phones, we all have them. Data, data is relatively affordable. What else we have access to Social media, so you can research people. What else? We have access to YouTube and Google, so you actually can Google, you know, selling frameworks for this or business.

Sorry, relationship building tips for that. Let's take advantage of these things. Customer focused personal selling is a discipline that can help a whole lot of businesses, no matter how big or small. So come up with a plan. I'm not saying that this guy is blaming macroeconomic factors. I'm just saying that you know, me hanging out with people every day. I see the number of people who do blame macroeconomic factors. But I'm just trying to say that yes, there's a whole bunch of stuff that we have no control over.

Our control over that is messing up our businesses. But then there's some very, very small things that we can execute today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year that will help improve, that will help increase our ministry and make things easier in the wallet and in the household. So that's it for today pretty much. Well, this was not what I wanted to talk about. So I think I'll still make the podcast episode later in the day.

The one that I was I intended to nuts about buying signs. If you don't know what the buying sign is then just make sure that you catch the next podcast episode. It will drop later on in the day so not too pretty much. Thanks for your time and attention. Remember to connect with me on WhatsApp. I love hearing from you guys. The number is 0806466 2140. Country code is +234. You can also hit me up on Telegram. I respond to WhatsApp more, but Telegram.

Yeah, sure, no problem. I'll check it once in a while. Also connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavish Mahiri. I'm the host of the show. Don't worry about the spelling of my exotic name, You will find it at the link we're currently listening to this episode. You'll find the spelling of my name and you'd also get my e-mail address. Oh, by the way, for those of you who keep saying that my name is exotic, my name is actually is not exotic.

It's just that you haven't run into lots of two people in Benway state, you know, I hear someone shout tavishima. I don't assume it's me because it could be any other tavishima. And I remember when I opened up my Facebook profile, you know, donkey, years ago, I was thinking when I don't know what I was thinking, but I decided to search. And at the time I opened up my my Facebook profile back when I was in uni, there are already 20

Tavishimas that were there. So yeah, the name is not as exotic as it sounds. You just need to broaden your horizons, you know, you need to meet more Nigerians from other parts of OK, well, other parts of Nigeria, of course. So mixed with more people, middle belt people, Niger Delta people. In fact, I'm one who I could even use that advice myself because I've been mixing around more people asking more questions. And you just you could have some interesting conversations.

You assume that OK, this person is Yoruba because I had one of those encounters. I assumed this particular lady was Yoruba because of the surname. We started talking and then it turns out that she's Niger Delta. She's actually from NBA. And then I get to find out about different cultures, you know, things like that. So yeah the name is not as exotic as it sounds and for Nigerians try and you know broaden your broaden your personal horizons.

You know have much more personally what's not worth personally engaging or in cycle conversations. Yeah, and discover the rich cultural tapestry that is Nigeria, because there are lots of other tribes and ethnicities beyond Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba that you can learn from. And there are lots of more exotic in quote names out there that it would be exotic names and cultures that it would be nice to know and interact with.

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