Hi friends, after doing this show on air with Armed Forces Radio 107.7FM Abuja on Wednesday 13th of July, 2016 a lot of you asked me to send the scripts to my page for you to study.
What I had to do now is to beef it u[b][/b]p as there was no time enough to have all of these aired life. So sit back, read and enjoy the piece.


Most businesses hardly survive the teething stage, so they run out of circulation in no time owning to so many reasons.
I may not list the entire reasons in this presentation. However, it is important to let you know the few most important reasons and what to do about it.
In a research done by some experts in the micro, small & medium scale business survivals, this conclusion was drawn. And I have a total submission that their findings is true.
In every 100 businesses set up in Nigeria and Africa as the case implies, given one (1) full calendar year, only 20% tends to survive. In these 20% which translates to 20 businesses if your guess is as good as mine, 10 of them goes down the drain after two(2) years. The rest of the surviving business carry on with a whole lot of issues……


The so-called "smartest ones" will go into huge borrowings and as such let their faiths to be determined by the banks for the rest of their survival life.
This is not to say there are no survivors, but it is rare as most will be heavily indebted to either the banks or investors.


Why is it so? You may ask.


Reasons are not far fetched.


1. Most people go into business to survive the fear of being broke. Unfortunately, your business is supposed to need you to survive not you needing the business to survive. So the aim of setting up a business gets defeated from the onset.
2. A good number of people get into business for the fact that they want to increase their income – They lay this as their priority. So they fail in the course. You need to think value creation first, not to make money.
3. I once thought that the business world is one you can start and begin to make profits without laying the basics. So I failed like a tumbler.
4. Life Purpose amongst many other reasons are some very sensitive reasons.
For the purpose of this presentation today, I want to list just 10 basic steps you must take to start making sales in whatever business you’re doing today.
It doesn’t matter the nature of business or the location. Your level of education doesn’t even matter here. All that is needed is coordination.
So let me go straight to the points.


1. Identify your target audience – Every products or services was initially designed to meet some particular sets of people and their needs. If you haven’t figure those people your products or services will serve. Then you are in a deep blue sea. Start with that first.
The mistake people make here is trying to generalize a product for everyone. This is not wrong, but it is best to start with those you know that will actually want your products.
The focus for indomie was to serve young bachelors and spinsters who do not have all the time to go cooking a meal for themselves. Today, children seem to have taken over this consumer class from the singles.
Your laundry business can start with a focus on only bankers for a start.
With time, other target audience will jump in to consume your products.
I started my Real Estate business focusing on the "Low & middle class" - I call them the ordinary man & woman like me. And we are getting the patronage of the high & mighty today.


2. Establish the first 5 or 10 reasons they need your products – Using indomie as an example here. I can help state the first 5 reasons why the target audience being singles will need the products.
a. Singles usually don’t have all the time to cook food for more than 10 minutes.
b. Singles can’t take time to watch dishes after eating or before
c. Singles hardly want to go into the market to buy ingredients
d. Singles can’t preserve foods
e. Singles don’t need stress of picking or watching the foods before cooking
I can go on and on.


3. Establish the corresponding solutions your products with provide them – The corresponding solutions after listing the problems with singles are as follows;
a. With indomie, it takes a single 5 or 7 minutes to get it ready for the stomach
b. With indomie, a single needs just a pot, plate & spoon. Most singles will eat directly from pot.
c. With indomie, singles have all the necessary ingredients tied together with the snacks – pepper, salt, Maggie all in one sachet.
d. Singles can finish a big or small pack of indomie at a go. There is no need of keeping it too long in a pot and allowing it to rot. Hence, no food is wasted here.
e. If a single is to cook rice or beans, he needs to per boil except you are like me. Lol. That’s maximum stress for a single. He would prefer to just open indomie and pour into water on a fire and give it 3 to 7 minutes. Off he goes.


4. Be able to relate the solutions of your product to life experiences – I just did with the above illustrations.For instance, if I am telling someone to subscribe to my laundry business, and I want to relate it to a life experience, this is what I would say - "Sir, as a banker some few years ago, it I would always want to be the best and as such I work all day. But once it the weekends come, one very teething issue I always faced was watching & ironing my clothes. I found out that most laundry men do general washing and leaves my clothes worn out fast and with stains as well as unpleasant smells. I was forced to doing the washings myself. Thereby leaving me with unfinished tasks every weekend. This has a lot of impact on my growth and successes as a banker." Ask him this question to carry him along. "Sir, you know time is a very essential commodity for you as a banker? His response will be rapid. "Yes! Yes!!. Then go on and tell him, how he will save his time to get better things done while you help him with his clothes.
Do you understand?
Ok let's ride......


5. Develop the skills required to make your presentations anywhere – Writing all these things down, or getting to recite all these points off hand can help you make your presentations anywhere.
Of course it comes with your passion. Do you already have the passion for what you are doing to about to do?




6. Identify where your target audience are mostly found – If my target audience are bankers for instance. Obviously, I know how many banks are in my location. I will find more banks and identify them.


7. Establish how to meet your target audience one after the other – Having armed yourself with all of the presentations as above, get the list of your target audience out and start with 5 or 10 people you will meet and talk about your services or products daily. Stay focused here. A good presentation of the values you want to create for your target audience will let him or her fall flat and yield to your products or services.
Highly sensitive here too.


8. Set Your Targets in No.s, & Identify the cost involved to deal with this & prune it
This part is one difficult part that a lot of people fail in. I will take it simply this way.
- Setting targets – How many target audience will I meet in a day? How much money do I want to make from these targets in a month? How much will I spend to find them, and render my services in a month? Once I get these few details. I will go ahead and subtract the expenses from the income I will make. The balance is what I want to make right? Good! The next question is; Will this profit I make every month sustain me for another month? If not, how many more people do I need to talk to, so that I can increase the income from X to Y?
Do this exercise diligently.


9. Establish a perfect delivery system to meet with their expectations – This is another area that most businesses usually miss out from after getting a good number of clients from their presentations. My first Branch Manager would always tell us to under promise and over deliver. Here, you must always deliver your products promptly. In fact try to beat customers’ expectations to increase their interest in dealing with you. If you promised to deliver their laundry in two days, try to do it in one day or that same day you have promised them. And you will see the magic gains in your business.


10. Start Building Relationship After every meeting & keep it going – After every meetings with a target audience, ensure you keep the relationship open. Learn to follow up on them with pleasantries. Check them out with visits. Don’t give up when they reject your offers in the first instance. Keep the close contacts and work on them.


I hope this serves.


You can listen to the recorded audio piece I had live on air which has been posted on my Facebook wall.

Thanks for liking my page – Marketing With Tim Abel.


Until I come your way again.


To Your Success