Loading…
Auto-generated; may contain errors.
Loading transcript…
Hello and welcome to the show. Before we begin, this is an out and about episode, so expect to hear some interruptions in the background, especially a fellow to the left of me who's listening to Hambalambe first thing in the morning. So just in case you get some of that audio bleeding in through the background, for those of you who are not Nigerians listening to the show right now, Hambalambe is OK. I don't know the chap's real name, but he's he's sort of a social activist influencer type who has his own radio station.
It's called Human Rights Radio, 101 point something FM, really popular guy who takes up social courses and things like that. So he's really popular in this, Yeah, in this part of the world. So if you're thinking about exploring different parts of Nigerian media, Nigerian culture, you know, stuff like that. He has a YouTube channel, so check him out as well. He is entertaining. Yeah. Like I said, they do social courses and stuff, but he's also an entertaining fellow as well.
So for those of you who are not Nigerian, I'm not familiar with him by Lambert. You know, check him out on YouTube. Might be some good entertainment to start your day. Because even though he's a social activist, he he is sort of a comedian. OK, so now let's head straight into the topic for today. And today I'm going to look at content as a Moat. Now this is not part of the questions from listeners or audience. There's just a number of things that I think how to talk about content related.
And then after that we can get back to listener questions. Now, I've interacted with one shop in the last day or two who found me because I was looking for content marketing ideas, a podcast that is built around content marketing ideas, but not run by a foreigner. When we say foreigners in this context, because you know, this is a podcast by a Nigerian for Nigerians. But of course those of you who are listening from America,
Denmark, UK, some Germans listening to the podcast find that surprising. So in this context, when we say foreigners, we just mean non Nigerian, but we don't mean lesser than. So anyway, he was looking for this kind of content and then he found my stuff. And anyway, I'm glad that people are finding me from searching other things. But however, I do want to point out, just in case there happens to be another chap or another lady listening to this podcast right now who was looking for something about content marketing.
I just want to let you guys know that, yes, I am currently talking about content, content production, content marketing, all these sorts of things, but I'm only talking about those things to the extent that they can help us boost our sales. And I'm looking at things primarily from a sales and business development perspective because I am not a content marketing specialist, I'm not a content production specialist, I'm not a social media expert.
I'm none of those. My primary area of interest and specialty is sales selling, particularly personal selling, which is those situations where you are one-on-one with a potential customer and you're having the conversation and trying to close the sale. When I say one-on-one, I don't mean face to face. It could be over the phone, it could be via e-mail, Instagram DM, LinkedIn DM. But that is my area of specialty, those one-on-one conversations.
So if you're someone who is in this whole content marketing, e-mail marketing, social media marketing space, you could say that my speciality is conversions. So you've done your mass marketing thing, you've done your e-mail thing, you've done your social media thing. You're now trying to get people to convert into being a customer. People have emailed in, people have called in, and you now want them to become a paying customer.
That is my speciality. So that's just the caveat that if you've been looking for content marketing and things like that, then yes, come along for the ride. But just know that this is a limited, it's a limited number of episodes that I'm making that's going to be devoted to content, content marketing, social media content production. I might talk about these things time and time again. But sales, that is the primary focus of this podcast.
And if you check the title of the podcast, it's in there. It's sales for the Nigerian business person. You know, it's not content for the Nigerian business person. So just letting you guys know so you won't feel like I did a bit and switch like you came here for content and social media. And then later on I start talking about sales. So this podcast is actually about sales. I talk about other things, marketing, content, everything,
so long as it supports the primary mission of sales. So now that I've gotten all the disclaimers out of the way, let's go straight into content as a Moat. Typical fashion, who would have to define what the Moat is? So you guys know what it is that we're dealing with because some of you know what the Moat is in terms of, you know, you watch all those adventure things that your kids watch and you know, so there's a castle and the castle has a protective barrier, has a Moat.
And yeah, that is essentially what a Moat is. A Moat is a protective barrier. Now, the use of the word as a Moat, you know, I'm not an academic so I can't give you a, an academic treatment of when the words had been used in the business context. But I got familiar with it back in my uni days when I used to read material from Morning Star and from hanging around other weird, weird students. You know, back then would have thought of those students as weird because entrepreneurship,
business was not a thing during my time. People were bred to be part of corporate Niger. That was the whole air that was in the atmosphere because back then in Nigeria when we were growing up, you know, military era, the military is out of the way or passenger comes in, Nigeria is opening up and there's lots of trade, there's lots of promise. The economy is developing. So my set, we were bred to be part of corporate Niger and not really to be entrepreneurs, risk takers, business people,
self-employed people, that sort of thing. So there were some of those weird kids who used to read those sorts of material in my class, you know, people reading personal development, people reading investing, people talking about Warren Buffett and all those things. So back then was when I came into knowledge of this whole thing about emote. So it's a concept that has been used in investing and emote basically is something that helps a business maintain the competitive advantage, a competitive edge.
So for Warren Buffett and for Morningstar, they'll actually invest in businesses that have the Moat that has a competitive advantage. The scope is if your business has a competitive advantage, then the competition cannot copy you. If they can copy you easily, then they can compete with you easily. Then they can compete with you easily. Then your prospects for maintaining leadership in the market, you know, goes down and that hampers your profits.
So that is the idea behind a Moat. There is something that you have that other people don't have, and because you have that other people can't copy you because they can't copy you, they can't compete with you. While they can't copy and compete with you. You remain a leader in the market. While you remain a leader in the market, you keep working in that cool moolah. So that is the whole idea behind the Moat. Now, some of the competitive moats that you guys might be familiar with is technology.
You know, when somebody develops a certain kind of technology that nobody has, nobody else, that nobody else has. Oh, by the way, sorry, that wasn't me fighting. That was just someone driving by on the motorcycle, one of these power bikes, you know, because we have, you know, Abuja is becoming like Lagos. So in Lagos you guys have biker clubs or biker gangs or whatever. So we get some of them in Abuja every once in a while.
What was that? Yeah, So competitive advantage. So that's where the motive is basically something that gives you a competitive edge against all the other people. So the question that we're going to explore in this podcast now is how content can be used as a Moat to give you a competitive edge. Now, remember, if you've been listening to the episodes of the show from yesterday, the day before and the day prior to that, whenever I say content,
what I mean is anything that you're putting out on the Internet. So if you're putting blog posts, if you're writing text, that is content. If you're taking photographs, that is content. If you're sharing pictures, that is content. If you're creating audio like a podcast, that is content. If you're creating video like YouTube or Reels or Instagram or TikTok Reels or whatever, that is content. So anything you put out on the Internet, that is content.
Loose definition. So how can we create a competitive edge, a competitive advantage by throwing things out there on the Internet. If this is your first time listening to the show, listen to the ones that came prior yesterday, the day before, the day before that. You'll also get some more ideas about why content, what content is, why content is important, and how to execute a a content play. So the primary way that content helps us to have a competitive edge is that it helps us to establish thought leadership,
because thought leadership is not easy to copy, and even if you copy it easily, you cannot copy it quickly. That was my strategy when I started this, when I started podcasting years ago, I knew that podcasting was difficult. I knew that having a single cohesive, unified system of thought around any topic is hard and trying to trying to create content around that, trying to articulate your ideas around that is hard. So I knew that even if people try doing it, lots of people will start see how difficult it is and they will fade away.
They will disappear. That is the reason why you're finding my podcast, because I've been doing this a couple of years and I currently have over 880 episodes. So I would like to think I'm better than the other guys and girls. Well, truth of the matter is that yes, there's some quality. I'm better than them. I'm smarter than them. I'm more articulate than them. Yes, there's some of that. Well, truth of the matter is the reason why you found my podcast is because I'm still here.
The other people gave up in month one, week 1. Some people made it as far as year one, I'm still standing. Other people have given up because thought leadership not easy. And that is the reason why I'm here. And my theory is that if I continue at this, in another maybe 10 years, when people talk about sales in Nigeria, in theory, I should be the only one standing. OK, well, not the only one person because the other people out there who are also doing good work.
But my theory is that in another 10 years, I should be the most notable one in this space because I'm doing the work with the podcast trying to establish thought leadership. So it is not going to be easy to copy because other people will see the light, they will see that OK, this thing works. Like this young man is actually gaining some advantage, especially the others who have been in the space before me, because I've only been in the game a couple of years.
I mean, I've been started off as a wedding photographer a decade and a half ago, been involved in a bunch of other businesses, whether successfully or unsuccessfully. And that is what made me realise that sales is the pivotal reason why businesses succeed or not. It's not because of macroeconomic climate. It's because of whether you can sell, excuse me, whether you have the skill to be able to sell or not to sell. But what I'm trying to say is that while I was a wedding photographer, there were already people who were in this space being business consultants over the last 15, you know, 20 years.
So eventually one of them is going to wake up and realise that. Look at this small boy, this guy that used to be a photographer before, he's now doing business consulting. This podcasting thing works. Let me start podcasting. The content I've put out will be a competitive mode because there's nothing you can do to get rid of my 880 episodes and the number of years that I have been podcasting. The best they can do is to try and catch up.
But I will always be a leader in the space because I started. By the way, I was not the first. Other people have started before me, but the others gave up. Day one, week one month one, maybe year one. But I have kept going. So that is how thought leadership helps you to establish a competitive mode because gives you some credit. Your established thought leadership and thought leadership is not easy to copy. Even if you try and copy, it'll be clear to other people who the leader is and who the photocopy is.
So you can do the same thing whether you're a Carpenter, whether you're a catering, whether you're a tax consultant or whatever. So let's say the catering things, food photos, that's easy. Everybody can do food photos. How about food videos that help you establish thought leadership or establish brand? Now that is not easy to copy because everybody has a phone and everybody can whip out and take photos. That one is easy.
If you do start doing a video based strategy, whether you're talking about recipes or trying to show your personality or useful contents around content, around planning for events or dieting or whatever angle you want to take, that is much more difficult. And I can assure you that in your city, if there are 20 of you that are caterers and you want to establish thought leadership using content and you try to do video content, which is hard.
I can assure you there are 20 of you and 20 of you start can assure you by the end of year 115 of you would have given up. And then there's just five of you who are left in the space and who are left in the race. Because sometimes it's not really a matter of who is the best. It's a matter of who is least willing to. Yeah, who is least willing to give up. Sometimes it all bores down to that. Then apart from helping establish thought leadership,
oh, by the way, the whole point of all these things that we're doing is to increase sales. If you establish thought leadership, you establish know, like and trust and all of that. The hope or the aim rather, is that when it comes down down, when it comes time to making a choice, that people think about you as #1 and they're not going to be so price sensitive when they're talking about you. Because by chilling with you over your podcast or your videos or your blog post or your whatever, they would see that there's lots of value to doing business with you.
That goes beyond the price. Then content also builds brand loyalty because the more people know you, the more people see you, and the more people engage with you, it fosters a stronger connection. So whether it is liking the photos every day or liking the podcast every day or listening every day or something or sending you messages once in a while, whatever it is that people do in engaging on the daily or on the weekly or monthly or yearly fosters stronger connections.
Now, this brand loyalty is another way of distinguishing yourself or differentiation yourself. Differentiating. Sorry about that. Differentiating yourself from the competition. Oh, sorry about that. OK, 15 minutes. Let me wrap this up. I don't want this to be a 30 minute episode. I wasn't. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, distinguish yourself from the competition. Yeah. So that's what also content helps you do. Yeah. Because it really sucks to be part of the crowd.
By the way, this whole thing about competition and distinguishing yourself, everybody complaints about it. People say that markets are saturated and people say my industry is saturated, blah, blah, blah. OK, back to the catering thing. And we will say all the catering industry in Lagos is saturated. Everybody's a caterer. Well, see The thing is, I have bad news for you or good news rather rather good or bad depending on how you take it.
Every market is saturated. There is no market that is not saturated, especially when we're thinking about things on the SME front, the small and medium scale enterprises. The reason why is because with the Internet and with the democratization of information people have, the how is not the problem anymore. I want to be a wedding photographer. I can go to YouTube and learn. You don't have to go to Abafumi Aloha University anymore and be part of the theatre arts department and then study media and blah blah blah.
Then graduate in four years to become a photographer. You don't need to do that. In fact, it's been at least 20 years since anybody had to do that in Nigeria to be a photographer because information is readily available on YouTube. The problem now is to be able to raise some money, collect more money from Mom C, create some some money from Pop C from your rich uncle, and then you go out by your camera and then you begin.
So it's the same for whatever the profession. Some people complain that journalism is now saturated because everybody has access to the phone, everybody thinks that they're a reporter. So it's not particular to any industry, all industries, because everybody's a wedding photographer, everybody's APR specialist, everybody's a journalist, everybody's a Carpenter, everybody's a fashion designer. Everything is saturated. Every business, whatever is saturated, there's too much competition.
So the goal is not to try and find a business that has not gotten any competition yet. I mean, that is possible and good luck trying to find that. The goal is to distinguish yourself or to differentiate yourself from the competition so that people think in terms of you and the others the same way that people think about Coca-Cola and the others. Well, Coca-Cola, maybe Pepsi and then the others. So that's the goal. You can't stop the others from getting into the space.
You just want the conversation to be you and the others and content is one of the ways that you can make it you and everybody else. So what was that? Yes, how content help. It also helps you to boost your SEOSEO is a search engine optimization. I don't talk about that a bunch on the podcast because really I think that's as long as you're paying attention to as long as you're trying to make sure that your content is useful and valuable to people, you'll be easy, easy to find over the Internet.
So while I've been doing this podcasting game, I've not paid any attention to SEO. So I don't do any keyword thing, I don't do any tagging, I don't do backlinks, I don't do this that, I don't do none of that. My focus is on making sure that I'm producing the most valuable content ever and people find me accordingly. So I'm not saying don't do SEO. You can do your SEO and pay your consultant so that you guys pay attention to your keywords and come up with a link building strategy and optimise for web speed and all the things that you SEO people do.
I'm just saying that if you try and create valuable content and make sure you distribute accordingly that you'll be easy to find over the Internet. And that is one way that content helps to build a more for your business because. The more content you put out and the more widely you distributed, it makes you more findable over the Internet. And if you're more findable than your counterparts, than your competition, than the other people in this space, then the chances are it will give you a business some sort of protection over time.
Now, I've said something here in passing that I want to emphasize, and I'll use that to wrap up the show. I said something about creating the content and then promoting and distributing it wildly. Sorry, wide Lee. Yes, widely promotion and distribution is the key. That is the main thing here. Please pay attention for those of you who are interested in content and you want to use content as part of your business strategy, creating the content without a strategy or without tips or tactics or without the discipline of distributing your content on a daily, on a weekly,
on a monthly, whatever your cadence. In fact, it shouldn't even reach monthly. I think monthly is too much. We should be thinking daily or we should be. We should be thinking daily and weekly. Promoting your content on a monthly basis. I don't. I don't think that's going to get you anywhere. By the way, it depends on the industry that you are involved in. If you don't have that part of the program locked down, then you are going to be wasting your time.
I was spoken about my experience podcasting and I told you guys how over the first three years I will just make the podcast and I didn't promote. What I was thinking was let me make the podcast if the useful people will see it. If people see it, they will share it. If they share it, more people will come. And it took me 3 years to get to 5000 downloads, three years, Then heading into then into year four, halfway into year 4, I
decided to start promoting only on LinkedIn. And in six months I went from 5000, I think to about 12,000. Now you guys didn't hear me correctly. I might be off, maybe you know, a few 100 here and there. But the, you know, I'm accurate when, when I'm talking about in terms of growth from year one to year 35000 in year four, the first half I start, I'm able to more than double that to roughly 12,000. In other words, the content was always there.
People did not really start seeing it until I started promoting and distributing. So it's not enough to make your reels, to make your podcast, to make your blog post, to make your whatever it is that you're trying to make, to promote your business. If you just make it and you upload that thing once, you have no thought around how you're going to repurpose, how you're going to distribute, how you're going to promote, it will not serve you.
It is when you now have a strategy for distribution and promotion that things start popping off, which is the reason why you, dear listener who's listening to the show, that is the reason why you're discovering me now and you didn't discover me in year one. You have always been looking for this kind of content, but you didn't discover me back then because back then I was not promoting. Right now, I am actively promoting on the daily.
I'm pleased. Your promotion should be on the daily or on the weekly. If you're doing promoting on a monthly, I think that's it's not going to work. I don't think it's going to work. So distribution and promotion is the main thing. If you want to know how, I think yesterday's podcast was devoted to that. I was trying to show you how in the argument of quality versus quantity that you can produce quality content so long as you have a strategy for repurposing it.
That way your quality content gets shared over and over and over again. So once you're done listening to this episode, if you're interested in the whole thing about how do you distribute, how do you promote, how do you repurpose, how do you reuse, how do you recycle content, then listen to yesterday's episode and you get caught up to speed. So OK, 25 minutes. OK, I've already gone over anyway, so that's all I have for you guys today.
Summary content can be used as a mote to protect your business and to set yourself apart from the competition. So give it a try. You have nothing to lose except the time that you spent invested in promoting. Sorry, in creating the content the way you create. Remember, you have to promote as well. And hopefully over time, you're going to be able to reap the rewards of establishing thought leadership, getting brand loyalty, and also boosting your find ability, if that's a word.
You'll find ability over the Internet, making it easy for people to find you over the Internet. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode. My name is Tavishima Ayede, I'm the host of the show. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. The spelling of my name is in the link. We're listening to this episode and my e-mail address. In case you're an e-mail person. My phone number is 08064662140.
You can connect with me on WhatsApp or send me an SMS. Might take me a couple hours, but I definitely will get back to you before the day is up. If you hit me up on if you hit me up on WhatsApp, if you send me an e-mail, I'll get back to you. Yeah, most likely tomorrow ish. If you send me LinkedIn request and all that. Yeah, you'll hear from me in a couple of hours. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.