Why "No" is the Second Best Answer in Sales

Hello and welcome. Today on the podcast we're going to look at how to target people for your business outreach. Again today we're going to look at how to target people for your business outreach. So you have a product, you have a service you're about to roll up into the market. You want to start approaching people. We're going to come up with some ideas about how to look for the best possible people that you should be running after.

Because when it comes to sales and marketing, if your targeting is off, you're going to be wasting a whole lot of time because there's no point in talking to people who are not going to end up buying. At the end of the day, you're just wasting your time. You're frustrating yourself. So today, how to target people for your business outreach. Now, the reason why we're doing this particular topic today is because yesterday we discussed webinars as a form of lead generation.

And for those of you who listened yesterday, you remember that lead generation is any activity we do that causes people to show that they might be interested in our product or our service. So for people who run webinars to promote their businesses here in Nigeria, what they're trying to do essentially is this. Let's say you're in real estate and you guys don't specialize in home ownership, but you specialize in investment opportunities in real estate.

Now, if you create the webinar on real estate investment opportunities in 2026, so excuse me, so you create a webinar called Investment Opportunities in Real Estate in Abuja or in Lagos in 2026 and then you run a bunch of advertisements on that on Instagram or Facebook or whatever. The assumption is that any single person who shows up for that webinar and who signs up, that person might be a potential lead, might be a potential contact, might be a potential prospect because it's not as if you are advertising beauty secrets or something.

The title of your webinar is Real Estate Investment Opportunities in Lagos in 2026. So the chances that somebody in Uber Montreal might sign up, OK, well, the chances are it's possible that that kind of person might come, you know, so that, you know, well, let them learn. But we're hoping that if we did a good job with the targeting in our advertising, that people who show up for that kind of webinar are people who are interested in investment opportunities in real estate in Lagos.

So that when you collect their contact details, you know they can be reaching out to those people. So these were some of the things that we spoke about yesterday and we're going to continue into that today. Just tease out a few more issues, particularly around targeting. So yes, Nigerian businesses, you can use webinars as a form of lead generation because the idea is while we're trying to increase the likelihood that people who show up are interested, that they want our product or service, they can afford it, they have a sense of urgency.

So targeting is key. When it comes to all these things, targeting is key. How will I define targeting? OK, targeting, let's just say who are you aiming for or who are you running after? So we need to settle these questions. Who are we aiming for? Who are we chasing after? Who are we running after? Who are we trying to attract? So targeting is key, because if you're going to have a webinar and you target the wrong kind of people, you have very little hope that good business conversations will start at the end of the day.

But if you target the right kind of people and there is alignment between you and them, then we increase the likelihood that we'll have good business conversations starting at the end of the webinar. So let's define a few terms as usual. So outreach, for those of you who are new, outreach just means you're going out to chase people. That's just what it means. Outreach, go out, reach outside, that's all. Now, some of you who listened to yesterday's episode might be confused.

You say yesterday you said that webinar is inbound. And yes, actually webinar is inbound. It's an inbound strategy. So we can't really call that outreach per SE. But The thing is there are times when you have a webinar that you have to go out and start inviting people individually to come to your webinar instead of just promoting it on social media. So yes, you can have your webinar. You know, real estate investment opportunities in Lagos for 2026,

that can be your webinar and you can run the promo on LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever. But it doesn't stop you from being outreach, from reaching out to people one-on-one. They say Bros, Madam, Sir, you know, Adogu, you know, lol or whatever, reaching out to people to say that I think you'd be interested in this webinar. This is what we're going to discuss, blah, blah, blah. This is how it will benefit you. So nothing stops you from doing outreach.

And in fact, I mentioned it yesterday that the reason why we're talking all this time is because in usual fashion, somebody reached out to me to try and invite me for a webinar. But of course, the lady went about it the wrong way. And I think this is 1 mistake that she made targeting. So this is the scenario. The lady reached out to me on LinkedIn. She sent me Adm Oh, by the way, sorry if this is your first time listening to the podcast.

My name is Tavi Sharma IED. I'm a former lawyer turned business consultant, and I like solving business problems. So that's what I do over here on the podcast every single day. Most especially, we try to look at issues around reaching out to customers and potential clients, how to start conversations with them, how to build relationships with them, how to get them to commit, how to get them to pay our deposits, how to make sure that they're happy, how to get them to buy again.

And then how to get them to refer people to us so that our business continues to grow. So those are the kind of problems that we solve over here on the podcast. So this is your first time listening. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple iTunes, YouTube, you know, web Ware, everywhere because at this point, I'm everywhere. I am not on Amazon Music, unfortunately. Don't worry, I'll sort that out. But anywhere else you search, you will find me.

This is a six year old podcast or over six years old and I have over 1300 episodes, so I'm everywhere. If there's anywhere that you can find me apart from Amazon Music, let me know so I can sort that thing out because I want to be available to everyone across all platforms. So subscribe and then if you want to connect with me, you can find me on LinkedIn. Let's have a chat. But if you want to talk to me directly or you want to connect with me, then you can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 0806466 2140.

In fact, there are some people that I want to hear from right now. And those are people who have 345 business ideas and have not been able to decide on which one is the best idea to roll out. So reach out to me because I put together a training course so that we can help you select the best idea for you. Will also help you validate the business idea to make sure that there is demand for this idea. There's no point in starting a business that people are not interested in, people are not willing to pay for.

So that's what we're going to sort out when we talk about market validation or trying to validate the demand. Then we're also going to come up with a selling system so that, like I said, you will get people to buy once, come back again, come back repeatedly, and then refer other people to come and buy from you as well. So that's what the whole package is for. Now, there is one person who has reached out to say, bro, I'm interested, but I don't like #1

and two, can we do #3 that's not a problem you're interested in #3 just creating a selling system for yourself. No problem. Reach out and let's see how we can help your business grow with this three simple, easy steps. But like I told the guy, because I'm saying easy, it doesn't mean work is not involved. There's going to be serious work that is involved. The framework is easy, but you know, there's always a sweat that is involved in some things.

I almost had blood, blood, sweat and tears. Let me not say that, so I won't chase you guys away. So yeah, the framework is simple, but we have to put some elbow grease. We have to do some, you know, there has to be some legwork to get this thing moving. All right, so back to the scenario now. So the lady reached out to me on LinkedIn and the webinar that she's organizing is called Emerging Trends in Internal Audit. And in the e-mail was very long.

In fact, let me not even go into that one. We'll do that tomorrow. So in the e-mail, sorry, not e-mail, in the LinkedIn DM, she essentially told me what the training was about and she wanted me to attend. So that was it. Now for those of you who have been listening to the podcast for a while and who are familiar with my methods, you already know what the main problem is. For those of you who are listening for the first time,

just let it sink. Let let it sink in. You'll get it. You will clock it. The problem is this. The lady has reached out to me. She wants me to attend the webinar. The webinar is titled Emerging Trends in Internal Audit. Remember, I've been talking about how targeting is important because you only want to invite people who are going to come for this webinar, who might have a want, who might have a need, who might be interested, who might have a budget.

Because we don't just do webinar for webinar sake, like right now, not just podcasting for podcasting sake. The reason why we do these things is because we're hoping to attract certain kinds of people who at the end of the day, we can engage in profitable business conversations with so that by the end of the day, by the end of the week, we'll hear ping him in our bank account. And once we hear that ping him, you know, we can do things.

We can settle school fees, we can flex, we can buy shawarma, we can travel abroad, we can send money to the village, you know, whatever. So the problem obviously is how does this lady know that I'm interested in internal audit? How does this lady know that I might become a paying customer for her service? She doesn't know her targeting is off. Long time listeners of the show, you already know, those of you who have checked me out on LinkedIn, you already know.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing on my profile. There is nothing, nowhere from the things that I see from like if you look at me up and down there is I don't even know how she even thought I'd be interested in internal audit. I have never ever spoken about, posted about reading thing anything about anything remotely close to internal audit. This is one problem that lots of business owners, lots of consultants in our own case as a consultant.

So it's not, well, consulting is hard, Yes, definitely. But one of the reasons why you Nigerian business consultants are suffering is because you are not doing good sales practice. Your targeting is off. You're trying to talk to everybody other than the sun. But it's not everybody under the sun who can end up being a paying customer for your product or service. And it's not everybody under the sun who is interested in what you do.

So why not just make your job easier by targeting the right people from the beginning, from the get go? Give yourself a chance to succeed in this business. You're in the business of internal audit. Why are you wasting your time talking to people who it looks as if they have no connection to internal audit? OK, I'm sure you'll be thinking, well, they might know somebody who they might know somebody who, but come on, target people first.

Exhaust the targeted people on your list. Then maybe after that you can start saying, OK, let me talk to anybody because they might know. They might know, they might know as a wedding photographer. Because even though I started off as a lawyer, eventually moved into wedding photography, I did not just go around talking to babes on the street. Have they proposed to you? Are you getting married? No, it's not like that. Yes, it's possible I might run into a babe on the street.

Nobody has proposed to her. Or maybe they are proposed to her sister. That doesn't mean I should just go on the street and then be talking to everybody. Sister, have they proposed to you? You, they marry, it's not like that targeting. Now, how do you do targeting for your business outreach? Or in this woman's case, how do you do targeting to invite people for your webinar? So number one, we use some common sense. You ask yourself who might be interested in your product or your services.

At this stage, we're not being too picky. We just want to think of absolutely any single person who might be interested in the product or the service and we need to be thinking in terms of demographics and psychographics. You know, this is key. I keep saying it a lot. I want this thing to lock in, lock into everybody's head who's listening. Now. We should always be thinking in terms of demographics and psychographics.

Now demographics, that's the easy bit because all of us who schooled in Nigeria in primary school and junior secondary school, in business studies and in social studies, they taught us demographics. Demographics, Those are the characteristics of Abby. How do you put it? Again, characteristics of population that they share in common, Abby, Something like that anyway. So demographic just means age, height, sex, location,

occupation, what else? You know, all of those things. Break it down. You need to be able to think in terms of who might be interested in your product or service. Is it mostly men or women? Is it small boys, middle-aged people or old men? Is it senior babes? Is this CCA codes or is it small girls? You need to be thinking in terms of demographics. Is it people who mostly live in Abuja or in Orca or in Maiduguri? Is it people who mostly work in the civil service or in the oil and gas space or who are tailors and professional seamstresses?

These are the terms you should be thinking in who might be interested in your product or service. And then start plotting down the demographics. What are the age of these people? Where do they live? Where do they work? Then psychographics. Psychographics that is interests or hobbies. So what are the kind of things that people are interested in? You know, things like that. So psychographic is kind of hard because, well, first of all,

it's new. And so excuse me, a whole, a whole lot of us who are products of the Nigerian primary and junior secondary school system, we haven't really studied it yet. But don't worry, that's the reason why podcasts like mine are here, you know, to train you up in these sorts of things. So after you ask who might be interested in your product or service, the next thing is decide on a channel. When we say channel, we don't mean TV.

Channel just means a medium that you want to use to go and meet somebody. Now a lot of you be worried about what the perfect channel is. Don't worry about the perfect channel. When we're starting in sales, there's a lot we have to figure out. There's a lot that is going to be experimental as per, you know, you try the one that work, you continue, the one that don't work you discontinue. So a whole lot of stuff is going to be experimental in the beginning.

So don't worry for now. Don't worry about the perfect channel for now. Just look for the channel that OK, this one makes sense. I think I can run it. Then begin the runner. As you're running it, your vision will clear. Like OK, I'm not on the right path, let me try something else. But please don't do this Nigerian thing of everything has to be perfect. So I will decide on the perfect channel before I will start. So if like this woman, you assume that, OK, LinkedIn DM is the way and no problem, begin with LinkedIn DM.

After a while, you know, you discover one or two things. I'd be like, no, this LinkedIn DM thing is not is not working. Maybe I should try e-mail or maybe I should start going physically to certain kinds of offices to talk to people. But you know, like I said in the beginning, the whole thing about sales is this is certainly element of it being experimental in the beginning or just trying to figure out was was working or was jiving with me or what, what is the one that I can do well.

So don't worry about the perfect channel. Those of you who are thinking about perfection, you want to launch your consulting practice, you're thinking of perfection. Calm down, take it easy right now. Just pick the most realistic channel and start. We'll worry about perfect later. So Step 2 is decide on the channel then #3 obviously we have to start the conversation. But this is one thing I want to advise. When you start the conversation,

keep it focused on the individual's needs, the person you're talking to. Focus on their own needs because too many of us, especially in the Nigerian context, we like to focus on why we're the greatest. Come for this webinar on internal audit because I have 25 years experience because I was schooled in Edinburgh and then my master's was in Harvard. And then after that I did a post doctorate in Washington state. And since then I have worked in the UN and then I have worked in the United Kingdom.

And then I have and then and then and me and me and me, my, my, my, me, my, my. Like, relax. Your time will come when you can, you know, boost your credentials by in the beginning. It's not that time. Some people will be impressed. OK, but how do you know you're even talking to the right person first? It's about the person's needs first. So when you start the conversation, relax, You can flex your credentials later because you know, Nigeria would like to, would like to flex.

And I remember when I started off in wedding photography, it's something that people used to tell me all the time. They say, oh boy, that look, you're a lawyer, you should put it in your marketing material that you're a lawyer, you schooled abroad, put it in your marketing material that you schooled abroad. That's the kind of thing that we like to do, by the way. I didn't do it. I didn't see what the point was. Yes, I studied law and yes, I

schooled abroad for a while and then I was back in the country. I really didn't think it was that important. Anyway, that's a no conversation. Sure, focus on the person's needs, who you're talking to right now, not why you're the greatest and blah, blah, blah. Then you should also be ready for a no for people to say no thank you. I am not interested now when somebody tells you no thank you. I know that we want to hear yes,

yes, yes all the time. But let's be realistic, even your wife doesn't tell you yes all the time. Even your husband doesn't tell you yes all the time. Even your children, you know they have enough of you from time to time. And even your mumsy and your policy right now, they're glad that you are married or glad that you are grown and you're not their problem anymore. So this whole thing of getting a yes all the time is not realistic.

So if we hear yes all the time from people, yes, I'm interested, yes, I will buy, yes, I will attend your webinar, your seminar. It's good. But then people are afraid of no. Yes is the best answer. No, actually it's the second best answer because when somebody tells you, no, you are free, you're now free. Oh, they're not interested. You can now keep it moving. You can start looking for who else is interested. All those people who say maybe let me think about it.

Let me talk to my doctor, let me talk to my wife, let me talk to my pastor, let me pray about it. Let me this, let me that. You'll be happy when you're here. Maybe, maybe it's a huge waste of your time. All those, maybe, maybe, maybe people, they will just keep you in suspense. Meanwhile, they're not telling you anything and you're wasting time following up with the maybes, my friend. If you get yes, it is good. If you get no, it is very, very good.

Keep it moving. In fact, ask the person who you're talking to right now. OK, no problem. You don't want to attend my seminar on internal audit. By the way, do you know anyone who might be interested in attending a webinar on internal audit? If they tell you, good. If they don't tell you, keep it moving, But before you go, leave a flyer, leave your business card, leave your e-mail address, leave a website link, leave your podcast, leave your whatever and then keep moving.

So if you're listening to this podcast for for the first time and you've always been afraid of no, please, I'm telling you now, yes is a good answer, but no is the second best answer. If you hear no, be happy. At least I know where you stand. All those maybes, a huge waste of time, a huge waste of time you spend, you waste your time chasing maybes. Meanwhile you could have been going out looking for more possible yeses.

So maybe is a rubbish answer. Yes is good, no is second best. It's also the same thing in relationships. Boys, you know what I'm talking about. Now remember university you call me 100 level you know you went to an all boy school. OK you had one or two field girlfriend but that was on the level of writing letters. You're now university you want to have a proper girlfriend so be nice for you to hear yes? So you start chatting on Nikki and Nikki saying maybe maybe you think you're making progress.

You start hanging around Nikki for two semesters. Then in semester 3 you now go and hear that she's dating bio. Meanwhile, she has wasted 2 semesters of your life instead of hanging around with Kevin, hanging around on. Maybe, maybe, maybe it would have been better for Kevin to tell you no, I don't like you. You're too tall, you're too short, you're too black. You sound funny, you're too smart, you're too dumb. Whatever it is would have been nice for Kevin to tell you no.

Then you go and cry for two or three days. You drown your sorrows, and then you wake up. And then you're going to start toasting like Baquet. You try your luck. That's how it is. Yes, it's good, No, it's very good. Maybe it's a waste of time. So as in relationships, also as in business, so in relationships, please young men, if there's anybody who's telling you, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. Please just push for a yes or a no and then move on.

The same thing, sisters, you're hanging around any bloke. The bloke is saying, oh maybe, maybe, maybe. Why should we define anything? Why should we put ourselves under pressure? If you like, keep wasting your time, push for a yes or no and then move on. It's also the same thing in business. Will you buy my product? Will you buy my service? Will you attend my webinar? Will you do this? Will you do that? Or maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe,

maybe. Push for a yes or no. Get either, then move on. So these are the simple steps. Ask who might be interested in the product or the service, or in this case in the webinar. Decide on the demographics and the psychographics because that will determine who you will chase. Then pick a channel that you're going to use to start chasing people. The mode of communication that you use to start chasing them. Don't worry about the perfect channel for now.

Just pick something that'll be comfortable for you, like you know you'll be easy to do later on. You do what is perfect. When you pick the channel, remember that this is a conversation. Try to engage people in conversation. Focus on their needs. Don't focus on your credentials yet. The time will come for you to brag and to boast how you got degrees from Edinburgh, from Washington State, and from Harvard. The time will come, but it's not now.

It's not yet. Then be ready for a no. In fact, if you hear no, rejoice and then keep it moving. But before you go, ask them, do you know anybody who might be interested in buying my product? Who might be interested in buying my service? Who might be interested in buying my webinar? If they give you a number, good go and meet that person. If they don't give you a number, you say thank you very much for your time. Hope you don't mind if I leave your flyer.

So you leave your flyer, you leave your business card, you leave your website link, you leave your podcast, you leave your whatever it is that you have your newsletter and then you keep it moving. Or then Step 5, rinse and repeat. Continue going round and round and round around with this process until you hit your goal. If you wanted five people to register for the webinar, rinse and repeat, continue until you hit 500.

If you have a certain revenue target, you know, continue, rinse and repeat until you hit the revenue target. If your goal was, I want to talk to 30 prospects this month, you know, whether they buy or not, I want to talk to 30, no problem. Rinse and repeat. Keep going around, around, around until you hit that 30. Now to the main question, who is interested in your product or your service? Now I want to be very, very specific.

I want to use this babe. Sorry, this woman, by the way, please moan and ovex anytime I say babe or guy or stuff like that. I'm just trying to keep it casual. I'm not trying to denigrate the person that I'm talking to or rather talking about. So who's interested? Let's keep you very, very specific now. So this babe, she's in the business of selling internal audit management software. She's selling consulting services and then she's selling software that you use to be doing internal audit.

If you don't know what internal audit means, then clearly you are not this woman's target audience. So she should be asking herself that. Who are the people we even know what internal audit means? Who are the people who understand what internal audit means? Who are the people that can relate to this world? When we say internal audit, I remember what I said, demographics and psychographics. So demographics, name, age, sex,

location, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, when it comes to age, I, I don't know. I can't guess. When it comes to sex, I don't know. I can't guess 'cause I'm sure that there are men who are in internal audit and there are women who are in internal audit. So that one I can't guess. But then occupation. Now occupation, I can start making some guesses. Now, these are a couple of guesses that I came up with. So I wrote this thing down.

Let me scroll on my phone, the same phone I'm using to record this podcast is actually, that is where I I made those notes about people who might be interested. Good, good, good. Now, some of you who have listened in the past, you remember how I said that sometimes people just target me because I'm visible and that this is what happened because I'm podcasting, because I'm throwing things out on the Internet, my profile is visible.

And so that's the reason why lots of people sell to me. Because some of you are wondering, every time they're complaining, they're trying to sell to you, they're trying to sell to you. Is it only you? Well, yes, lots of Nigerian business people are making a mistake, Mistake. They're running after people who are visible. It's not a matter of who is visible but also who is a good fit for the product or the service. So I mentioned how a lot of the people who reach out to me on LinkedIn actually should be reaching out to people like my wife and her colleagues.

This is one of those instances. You have seen me. You can see that I'm a consultant, and then I'm also a radio show host and I host the podcast. Somehow you think I'm interested in internal audit. You didn't ask. You didn't do some small brainstorming. Now, if you brainstorm it internal audit, my guess is you should be looking at professionals who work in risk management or people who are in corporate governance, excuse me,

or people who have some kind of organizational oversight. Those are the kind of people you should be looking for from my profile on LinkedIn. For those who have seen my LinkedIn profile because you reached out to me on LinkedIn, by the way, it's not too hard. Before you send somebody on a message on Instagram, can you look at the Instagram profile first and get one or two queues about maybe they might be interested in your product or service or not?

Just glance their profile 5 seconds before you send a message? Is anything on my profile that shows I'm into risk management, I'm into corporate governance, or I have any form of organizational oversight on my profile? Did it say that I have a team of consultants under me? If you look at my LinkedIn profile, I think it's clear that I'm a one man gang. I'm a one man show. I think it's pretty clear. Yet she's sending me, inviting me internal audit.

Then my guess is that it would also be people who work in medium to large scale organizations because there's only medium or large scale organizations that will have all those kinds of issues. Because they say The thing is called internal audit. It means we they audit ourselves with the audit the company for somebody who is a one man show like me, which internal auditing are the audits? Where's the internal? Where's the company?

Well, of course, yes, on paper every Nigerian has a company. But realistically speaking now where is the company, where the internal, where is it? So it has to be medium or large scale organizations. Now again, I say before you send that message to somebody on LinkedIn, on TikTok or on Instagram, glance their profile first. That is just some basic research you can do to know whether you should continue or not. Does it look like for those of you who know me, who I've seen my profile, does it look like I

run a medium to large scale organization? Can you see how those of you who are trying to start consulting services in Nigeria, can you see how you're making your job unnecessarily difficult? You now say consulting is hard in Nigeria. Yes, I agree, consulting is hard. I'm with you. I feel you. I feel your pain, but you're making it worse on yourself. You're frustrating yourself because you're talking to every single Tom, Dick and Harry and you don't need to be talking to those people.

So for my brothers and sisters who are in internal audits, why are you talking to people who are one man show, one woman gang? Why are you talking to them? So I also came up with some job roles, subtitles that this kind of woman should be targeting chief audit executive. To be honest, I didn't know those ones exist. And you know, I found it on the Internet. But you know, you learn new things every day. So chief audit executives, you should be looking for chief audit executives then internal audit directors.

Yes, there are departments that have internal audit. Yes, today I drove past surveyors council because my wife has a meeting in town. I dropped off at the meeting. So when I was passing and I saw this surveyors council something something of Nigeria, I said OK, I didn't know surveyors have their own council is in Abuja in Central district. But judging on the location, judging on the size and everything, definitely those people have intern, definitely will have an internal audit function.

They're surveyors now. They suppose, you know, survey, audit the survey and everything and audit the organization. So they'll have internal audit officers or directors. There's also a job role, internal audit managers. I see. By the way, since this lady reached out to me on LinkedIn, these are job titles that she can readily search because you can search for these roles on LinkedIn. You actually can go to LinkedIn, go to the search bar, and then type in internal audit manager.

Hit enter. Ma'am. This woman has the paid profile, so it will now bring out people who are associated with internal audit, people who have the title of internal audit director, internal audit manager, companies that are involved in this line of business. Everything will just come out like that. Those are the people she should have been going after. Instead of clicking my own profile. She should have gone straight to the search function in LinkedIn,

put it there as a search term. Hit enter. Thousands of names will come up. She can start from now until the end of next month. She wouldn't have finished all those names. Those are the people that you target, compliance officers. There's a friend of mine who is a compliance officer in the wealth management firm Cedar Crest. They're the ones that did Taste of Nigeria. Sorry, Zed Crest. Cedar Crest is the hospital. So Zed Crest, he's a legal and compliance officer.

He's people like him that should be targeted, that should be targeted. He's people like that that are worried about internal audit because he's a legal compliance officer. So he always has to be looking outside. Are we doing OK? You also have to be looking inside. Inside. How are we packaging ourselves? How are we arranging ourselves? Are we doing OK? Is everything above board? There's no one do the current thing that CBN will find us or that Securities and Exchange Commission will find us or Pencom, that's pension.

ABI Utah has Pencom again, pensions Commission something and I can't remember. It's his job to make sure that internally the company is OK and they're not going to do anything. They do now get fined. So legal and compliance officers, risk officers, yes, my wife has done some training in risk management and so for the organization that she works for, she's one of their risk and compliance officers. So you see how I said that you will chasing people who are visible.

It's not about who is visible online. Just sit down and target and follow people. It's not a matter of oh, this person is on is online now let me let me try and chat him up. It's not like that. So risk officers, compliance officers, compliance managers, quality assurance, quality control, all these people are there, IT auditors and then on external auditors like accounting firms and stuff like that. These are the people that this young lady should have been targeting from the get go.

These are the people you should have been trying to have conversations with. And can you see how with the simple basic training that we have from Niger primary school into secondary school, can you see how like simple demographics, occupation, you start to write these things down? Your eyes will not become clear. Your eyes become clear. Where are we supposed to go is becoming clearer so that whether it is online, you know the people that you're targeting,

even if it is also offline. From all these things I've called so far, your brain has started jogging. You started seeing one or two things. I'm sure that there's some of you. Once I said legal compliance, your mind went to oh, Zenith Bank. My sister works in Zenith Bank. That's how it works. You just make the connection. Oh, my sister works in Zenith Bank. She's in Forex department. Maybe she knows somebody in compliance.

Good. You now know to call your big sis says no, I'm starting my consultancy practice. So blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I want to organize webinar. I beg Shabee Madame. So, so, so she's in compliance. I beg, can I have a phone number? I just want to see if she will attend my webinar. That's it. That's how you start. So pick a channel. In this case, the lady picked LinkedIn. So I think she should have started searching and sending direct messages to people who have these job titles.

Now, when it comes to age, I don't know, maybe 25 might be too young. So maybe between 30, I don't know. OK, let me just guess. Let me say 35 to 45. This is me just guessing, OK, maybe 35 to 65. So you just put in those criteria on LinkedIn 35 to 65, and then you start running the search on these different professions, job titles, and then some names come up, some organizations come up. Then you slide into those people's DMS and then you now start telling them, asking them whether they're interested in coming for your seminar, your webinar on internal audit.

And now you stand the chances that anybody who attends this thing might be interested in your product or your service, your consulting service. Because me honestly speaking, even if I go for this webinar, at the end of the day, what can she sell? What product or service will she sell me? Nothing, because I'm not doing any internal auditing something. But if she knows somebody who works in Zenith Bank and is able to get some phone numbers or some e-mail addresses for, let's say 6 or 7, excuse me, 6 or 7

legal and compliance officers or internal audit officers who work in Zenith Bank, and she approaches those kind of people after the webinar, don't you think it's possible that you'll be able to sell some consulting services to them? It's possible. During the seminar, they'll be discussing internal audit, They'll be discussing modes of internal audit. And then of course, you know Niger. So the internal audit officer probably hasn't received training.

Then of course, you you're coming back from, you've gotten your degrees from Edinburgh, from Washington State and then from Harvard. So you've come back with the best of the best. You have world class knowledge. So by the time you bamboozled down with your knowledge, they'll be like, it is true. There are lots of things we're doing in Zenith Bank that are not proper. They are not up to code. The next question will now be,

Madam, how much for you to come and look inside our organization. That is the whole point of doing the webinar. We want to make sure that the people who attend are people who have a likelihood of after the training to be able to say, ah, Madam, thank you very much for your time. How much will it cost for you to come and do this thing in our organization? Or, Madam, can you have a chat with me and my team? Let us see what we need to improve on.

Like we're trying to make sure that we have profitable business conversations after that. So whether it's a webinar or whether you're doing outreach for your general business, these are the kind of thought processes that you should be following. And I hope you can now see how targeting is key. Targeting is key. Who are we running after? Who doesn't make sense, makes sense to run after. Oh, it's 40 minutes. Let me bring it to a close.

So summary the mistake that Nigerian business owners. Nigerian consultants, Nigerian salespeople, Nigerian marketers, the mistake that all of you are making is that you're not bothering to sit down and target effectively. You want to hit the road running. And so because of that, you are running and you're sending DM and you're running up and down, but you didn't even see to think, let us target effectively. So yes, the economy is hard, but really you're the one who is frustrating yourself.

You're not giving yourself a chance. And so that's it. And that's all for today. Remember, if you'd love to connect, the number is 08064662140. If you are a business consultant, you're new in the field, you're rolling out a product, you're wondering why am I not converting? I'm talking to potential customers. I'm not closing deals. Reach out to me 08064662140. You're trying to organize webinars. People are attending your webinars, but at the end of the day, you're not making any money.

Why am I not making money? The number to reach out to me is 08064662140. And then the first group of people that I spoke to. You want to start a business. You have 3456 ideas. You're not sure which one is the business you should start? Reach out to me 08064662140, call me, text me, WhatsApp me. Let's figure out which of these ideas is the best one for you to start. Let's figure out which of these ideas might be the most profitable.

And let's figure out which of these ideas we can create a selling system around. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I think tomorrow there's one more thing I need all to say about webinars and this woman who reached out to me, and then we can wrap it up and move on to other things. So thank you very much for your time and attention. Remember, if you're discovering the podcast for the first time, please subscribe.

Tell your friends, your family members, and your enemies, because if your enemies make money, you make money as well. I'll explain it later.