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Nail Your Goals: A SMART Guide to Marketing & Sales KPIs - How to Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Your Marketing & Sales Campaigns

Agreeing on terms and KPIs before launching a campaign is crucial for clarity, focus, and ultimately, success. Here's how you can identify key KPIs for each business objective with your sales and marketing teams before you guys start planning or launching anything:
1. Clearly define what you want to achieve? Increase brand awareness and be more known in the market? generate leads and potential customers you can follow up on? boost sales and the amount of people who purchase today? drive website traffic and activities and engagement on your social media channels?
Break these down into smaller, measurable objectives. For example, if your goal is "increase website traffic," an objective could be "attract 20% more visitors to the site per month."
2. Link specific metrics (standards for measuring something) to each objective. Website visits, and page views, might be good for website traffic objectives, but conversion rates (how many people took the next step?), lead generation forms filled (how many people gave us a phone number or email?), are better for sales goals.
3. Make your KPIs SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, "Increase leads by 15% through email marketing and trade fairs before September 2024" is a SMART KPI.
4. Examples of KPIs & Relevant Metrics to go after in sales and marketing efforts are:
For Brand Awareness: we can measure Reach, impressions, brand mentions, social media engagement etc.
For Lead Generation: we can track Website traffic, conversion rates, form submissions, etc.
For Sales objectives we can track Sales volume, revenue generated, customer lifetime value (CLTV) etc. The CLTV is the amount of money we think an average customer will spend with our business over time.

We ought to Regularly monitor and analyse our KPIs to see how particular sales and marketing efforts are performing.

It also would be a good idea to adjust your KPIs as needed based on insights and learnings that you get once you have launched your activities.

Also we should Communicate KPIs and progress transparently across teams to make sure everyone is on the same page, and moving at the same pace.

The Marketing Toolbox: Choosing the Right Channels for Your Business

Choosing the right marketing channels and tactics for your business or product is like picking the perfect tools for a project. It depends on what you're building! A simple approach for finding the ideal fit is:

1. Know Your Audience Demographics & Psychographics: Understand your customers age, location, interests, and online behavior. This helps determine which channels they frequent and how they consume information. If you sell catfish pepper soup should you be using LinkedIn as a marketing channel?

2. Consider Your Goals! Brand Awareness? Focus on channels with broad reach like social media and influencer marketing. How about TV and radio? If you want greater brand awareness for your car batteries business, should you use Pinterest as a channel? Would the radio be effective if you're trying to grow your brand as an Instagram influencer?
What about Lead Generation? Here use targeted channels like email marketing and LinkedIn ads to capture contact information... Or if you're using live radio shows, have a specific contact number promoted as part of the calls to action?
What about Sales & Conversions? Perhaps channels with "high purchase intent" like Google Ads and retargeting campaigns over Facebook?

3. Channel & Tactic Brainstorming!
Get specific with tactics: Within each channel, define specific tactics. For social media most people consider organic posting, paid ads, contests, or live streams.
I for one have been trying out LinkedIn Audio Live sessions.

4. Prioritize channels based on your budget and available resources. Some channels, like SEO and content marketing, require long-term investment of either time or money, while others, like PPC, offer immediate reach but ongoing costs.
Also Monitor campaign performance across all these channels. Track metrics like how many people reached, engagement levels, conversion rates (how many people take the next step), and ROI (return on investment) to identify what's working and so you know where needs adjusting.

Don't be afraid to experiment! When it comes to sales and marketing nobody has all the answers. We start with educated hunches based on our area of expertise. Try new channels and tactics based on the feedback and the insights you get from the audience.

By following these steps, you can confidently choose the marketing channels and tactics that will resonate with your audience, achieve your goals, and drive growth for your business.

So now that you're about to start a snail farming business, what are the marketing channels and tactics you think we should be starting with?

Because of the word "personal" in personal selling, some folks assume that it HAS to be done "face to face".

Unfortunately that's a misunderstanding of the word "personal" in that context.

Personal doesn't just include "face to face", but any other context where you clearly intend, and the customer clearly perceives that HE or SHE is the SOLE FOCUS of your attention.

If you are "face to face" but you are also trying to engage 3 other people in a business conversation, then we can't truly say we have effective personal selling going on anymore.

The rationale is the same no matter which medium you use.

If you are using WhatsApp and other text based media, and the context clearly shows that a personal focused conversation is going on, then you are doing personal selling.

It's not about being personal in a physical sense, but being devoted to one person at a time.

A blanket email or WhatsApp message isn't "impersonal" because it's not "face to face". It is impersonal because it's addressed to everyone and no one in particular.

Personal selling is targeted and personalised communication all the way whether over the phone, face to face, email, SMS, WhatsApp, or virtual reality (when the time comes for that).

Given all that we have explored so far, it's obvious that it's easiest to show focused personalised attention when we're either face to face or using the telephone.

It's just much harder to fake personal attention in those contexts.

It's easy to copy and paste messaging and mask the fact that you're blanket messaging 500 people all at once.

These are the reasons why I espouse my personal preference on my podcast for "face to face" or "over the phone" for the most impactful sense of having personalised conversations.

But remember these are NOT the only mediums available to you.

So long as you remember and hold to heart that you are supposed to be engaging in conversations all the time, you'll be fine.

If you're interested in these sorts of debates, subscribe for free to the show SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON PODCAST on SPOTIFY/ GOOGLE/ APPLE ITUNES/ POCKET CASTS/ OVERCAST or any podcast player of your choice.

Remember also to connect with me on LinkedIn because I really love hearing from you guys. The name to search for in either app is TAVERSHIMA AYEDE. The name of the show is Sales for the Nigerian Business Person Podcast.

Don't bother looking for me on Instagram and TikTok because I hardly spend any time on them these days.

The old videos are still up though just in case you're curious.

I'll catch you guys in the next post.

“Personal sales” is the same thing as “personal selling” which some people otherwise call simply “sales”.

You might find all these names used interchangeably especially for those of you who chose to research these things using the traditional texts that we used in secondary school or university.

So for those of you who studied Marketing, or maybe Business Management, and Business Administration in university, or Business Studies in secondary school, these are the headings under which you should be looking to learn more about these topics.

In modern business parlance you'll often find "marketing" pitted against "sales" or "personal selling".

There's a lot of controversy over which is more effective or efficient, and which businesses should spend more of their time investing in.

Is all of business a matter of marketing which we subsume everything under? Or should "sales" be the primary driver of revenues and profits for the business owner?

If we look to our old business textbooks, everything was considered marketing and that's because the primary function of marketing is making your product or service familiar to people who might be interested in what you have.

Traditionally speaking, since everything was marketing, all the other functions that we speak about and argue about today were considered smaller subsets or functions of marketing.

Marketing was considered to be the mother, and all other functions were thought of as her children.

So marketing would be the parent, while advertising, personal selling, branding, merchandising, etc would be considered marketing functions.

Looking at things under this paradigm, marketing comes first, especially the marketing functions that make you known to the whole world, because it is only when people know you and what you do that they'll be open to having a conversation with you.

That’s the reason why in some economies like Nigeria, having people walk the streets and talk to people in markets, malls, and traffic is still called “marketing” by many people.

The marketing assets that the business person produces will be "one to many" that allow us to be known by the wider world.

The personal selling would come in when it's time for "one on one" communications with a particular buyer who is still thinking through whether to make a purchase or not.

For the wedding photographer or wedding planner, marketing would include all the facebook and instagram ads, flyers, social media activity, billboards, newspaper and television appearances etc that signals to the market "we are here, and this is what we do".

Personal sales or personal selling would be the situation where the wedding vendors would meet customers face to face, to promote their products or services.

Personal selling would be where they meet their clients, either at wedding fairs or in their office or home to have conversations over whether they need a wedding vendor and how they could be of use for a specific wedding date in the future.

If you're interested in these sorts of debates, subscribe for free to the show SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON PODCAST on SPOTIFY/ GOOGLE/ APPLE ITUNES/ POCKET CASTS/ OVERCAST or any podcast player of your choice.

Remember also to connect with me on LinkedIn because I really love hearing from you guys. The name to search for in either app is TAVERSHIMA AYEDE.

Don't bother looking for me on Instagram and TikTok because I hardly spend any time on them these days.

The old videos are still up though just in case you're curious.

I'll catch you guys in the next post.

Online sales and sales funnels these days are synonymous with "digital marketing".

When most folks hear of these terms they think of online funnels, online ads, Instagram ads, Facebook ads, click through rates, online lead generation and those sorts of things.

The idea behind online funnels is to create massive awareness and interest around your product or service.

From the awareness created, the goal is to keep funnelling people through "calls to action" and critical next steps which provide us cues as to who is merely curious, and those who have acute needs or problems that our product or service can solve.

The further down people move in the funnel, the more likely they are to have a "sales conversation" with an actual person who can "seal the deal" or "close the sale".

This final "sales conversation" doesn't have to be over the phone, infact most marketing practitioners would prefer to automate the whole process, or engage over email.

An example of this sales funnel would be to create content online like "20 reasons why a Google ChromeBook is greater than the latest Apple Air Book".

The goal of this kind of content is to get people interested who might be in the market for a new computer.

Anyone who clicks on the article link is providing positive cues that they're interested in the subject matter.

Anyone who from this page provides a valid email address to receive notifications on offers and promotions for laptop models is also providing evidence to us that they may be interested in buying a laptop anytime soon if the price is right.

Also anyone further in this subset who clicks on a link in one of the emails that says "click here to see how your current computer compares to the Lenovo XYZ 2023" might have "strong intent" and be ready to buy a computer now.

The final link in the email series could be a link to the website to "buy now" or a link to schedule a call with an attendant who will help them find the right computer for them.

That essentially is a sales funnel!

Online internet traffic is "funnelled" through specific steps to filter out the “curious” from those who are acutely interested and ready to take the next step.

Personal selling on the other hand is a collection of techniques and principles that help guide a business owner through having individual and tailored conversations with people "one on one" who are ready to make a buying decision.

Sales funnels and digital marketing brings everyone to the door or to the website. Personal selling helps you convert all that online or physical "traffic" into paying customers.

Which part is more important for business development?

They both are!

Each one serves its own function in its time, its place, and its own unique context.

Sales funnels and digital traffic are "one to many" to appeal to the masses while personal selling is "one on one" to appeal to the individual whom you're currently having a conversation with.. whether via phone, text, or video.

If you're interested in these sorts of debates, subscribe for free to the show SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON PODCAST on SPOTIFY/ GOOGLE/ APPLE ITUNES/ POCKET CASTS/ OVERCAST or any podcast player of your choice.

Remember also to connect with me on LinkedIn because I really love hearing from you guys. The name to search for in either app is TAVERSHIMA AYEDE. The name of the show is Sales for the Nigerian Business Person Podcast.

Don't bother looking for me on Instagram and TikTok because I hardly spend any time on them these days.

The old videos are still up though just in case you're curious.

I'll catch you guys in the next post.

The new frontier of sales and business development:

When it comes to sales and business development, a lot of the material you are going to find relates to "established" old school business sectors.

You can find loads of material and videos on YouTube about car sales, medical sales, construction sales, online sales and marketing, real estate selling, and other forms of complex sale situations.

The automobile industry has been in existence for over a century.

It makes sense that by now the industry would have grappled with the best ways to market cars, finance them, and get people to buy them.

With the growth and development of commercial medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and other healthcare products, the medical sales industry has had decades to come up with practical and ethical ways to market their devices and get their medicines and healthcare solutions into the hands of medicare administrators and the final consumers of medicine like you and I.

As for the real estate industry, as modern societies have become more urbanised, there have been centuries of time to figure out how to market property developments, and land ownership around real estate agents, brokers, appraisers, developers, investors, etc.

Industries such as these have provided a wealth of information when it comes to marketing communications and the persuasive arts.

What do these all have in common?

They relate to complex sale situations involving high priced items, multiplicity of relationships, and complex variables that have to be considered before the buyer makes a purchase.

But what about the new frontier of self employed solopreneurs like the wedding photographer, the graphics designer, or the webpreneur who might have a range of services between simple and complex sale situations.

Who is going to lead them to the Mecca of sales profits?

That is where the discipline of personal selling comes in.

Personal selling is the body of knowledge and practices around handling "one on one" conversations between the business owner and their customers.

It encompases theory and practice around how to look for potential customers, how to initiate conversations with them, how to align their problems with the needs your product or service can solve, and how to get them to "commit" and "take the next step".

Personal selling is the discipline that the modern man and woman should be looking at today to show them the path to profits and business success.

The essence of personal selling is direct and personalised interactions between the business owner/ salesperson and the customer.

The focus is on building relationships to generate sales.

Luckily our big brothers and sisters in automotive sales, medical sales, real estate sales, and other older industries have done all the work for us.

The challenge for the solopreneur is to glean these principles from the "big boys and girls" and apply these to the business conversations and contexts that the average Joe meets on the streets.

If you're interested in these sorts of debates, subscribe for free to the show SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON PODCAST on SPOTIFY/ GOOGLE/ APPLE ITUNES/ POCKET CASTS/ OVERCAST or any podcast player of your choice.

Remember also to connect with me on LinkedIn because I really love hearing from you guys. The name to search for in either app is TAVERSHIMA AYEDE.

Don't bother looking for me on Instagram and TikTok because I hardly spend any time on them these days.

The old videos are still up though just in case you're curious.

I'll catch you guys in the next post.

Technical Business Skills VS Sales and Business Development Skills: Which is necessary for business success?

There's a legion of business owners who assume that to build a better business, they have to get better at the "technical" aspects of the business.

This is the wedding photographer who assumes he needs better composition, lighting skills, and more state of the art equipment.

This is the architect who assumes she needs something better than Autocad to do her work (if that still exists!), and that she needs more rounds of continuing education for architects to bring her up to speed on the latest architecture trends and building technology.

Technical skills are absolutely necessary to keep you relevant and up to date with providing client solutions but unfortunately those aren't what determine how profitable or successful your architecture practice or wedding photography business will be.

If you want to move the needle forward with your business, it's sales and business development skills that you need.

Expensive cameras with no clients coming into the studio means that you'll have to "fold up" soon.

State of the art computer aided designs as well as state of the art knowledge on modern building design won't amount 5o much if no one is calling you from the website.

It's not an EITHER/ OR scenario but BOTH.

We need both technical AND sales/ business development skills!

The opportunity for improvements in technical knowledge and skills will always be there.

We talk about those in association meetings and professional blogs all the time.

What's scarce and what you should pursue are helpful materials on acquiring business development skills.

If you're interested in these sorts of debates, subscribe for free to the show SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON PODCAST on SPOTIFY/ GOOGLE/ APPLE ITUNES/ POCKET CASTS/ OVERCAST or any podcast player of your choice.

Remember also to connect with me on LinkedIn because I really love hearing from you guys. The name to search for in either app is TAVERSHIMA AYEDE. The name of the show is Sales for the Nigerian Business Person Podcast.

Don't bother looking for me on Instagram and TikTok because I hardly spend any time on them these days.

The old videos are still up though just in case you're curious.

I'll catch you guys in the next post.

There's more than enough available resources online, relating to how you can improve your business through better branding.

If you think branding is going to be the thing that leads you to the promised land of profits, you can find tons of books, podcasts, and YouTube videos.

For the disciples of branding, there will always be more than enough to go on to learn and to improve.

However there's an underserved space on the internet for those who want to learn about personal selling, sales, and business development.

That's what I blog and podcast about regularly and that was the focus of episode 1 of the Sales for the Nigerian Business Person Podcast published on 13 March 2020.

There's no ULTIMATE way to build a business and so sales and branding are both viable options for getting the job done.

Branding is a marketing tool concerned with how you are perceived and projected into the market.

Some advocates of branding will say that it's not just about logos and colours, but also about substantive issues around how you do your business.

If you run a sophisticated hair salon, that will be part of your brand. If you run an eatery and your kitchen and staff are dirty, then that will become your actual brand as well regardless of how much you invest in photos, colours, logos, and advertising campaigns.

Sales and the business development functions of growing the business aren't concerned so much with projection and reputation, but on the daily one on one interactions between the business owner and his customers, clients and other stakeholders.

The branding people for the hair salon and the eatery might be concerned about how we project our companies into the marketplace, but the sales and business development folks are focused on WHO we approach to be our customers, HOW we start the relationship with them and WHETHER we get them to come back long term and bring their friends along to purchase from us as well.

It's not a battle between sales and branding, because we need both to get the job done.

Branding and other marketing functions makes sure everyone is aware of who we are and what we do.

Sales and business development make sure we close a sale once people walk into the store or find us online.

If you're interested in these sorts of debates, subscribe for free to the show on SPOTIFY/ GOOGLE/ APPLE ITUNES/ POCKET CASTS/ OVERCAST or any podcast player of your choice.

Remember also to connect with me on LinkedIn because I really love hearing from you guys. The name to search for in either app is TAVERSHIMA AYEDE. The name of the show is Sales for the Nigerian Business Person Podcast.

Don't bother looking for me on Instagram and TikTok anymore because I hardly spend any more time on them these days.

The old videos are still up though just in case you're curious.

I'll catch you guys in the next post.

In March of 2020 I started a podcast then called "Sales for the Nigerian Wedding Industry".

I've since shifted focus because not long after, it became clear that a whole swathe of folks outside of the wedding industry not only listened to the show, but found the insights valuable and applicable to sorting out business challenges they had.

It took a while because I was scared to upset the apple cart and change the branding and messaging, but finally in 2023 I made the change and for a couple of months we've been growing as "Sales for the Nigerian Business Person Podcast" without any issues.

This blog and the weekly podcast are dedicated to taking ideas around sales, promotions, business development and translating them on a practical level to the Nigerian business experience.

The Nigerian business experience isn't unique in any way from the American business experience! But unfortunately cultural norms differ and so it's easy for us Nigerians to "miss road" if we apply things we hear on foreign podcast hook, line and sinker.

Also surprisingly, lots of folks in Naija haven't heard of sales principles which to some of us are obvious and commonplace.

So this isn't just another project in a sea of business development education projects.

This is a gospel that needs to be heard by folks who haven't heard of it, and by others who wonder what the hell people mean when they argue "PLG is better than SLG".

By the way, that's the debate over PRODUCT LED GROWTH VS SALES LED GROWTH... which is better?

Don't worry I'll have a podcast episode on that in the future.

So if you've come across the podcast or the previous versions of this blog, these and many more are the reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing.

And for the foreseeable future, these are the sorts of things we'll continue to talk about here on the blog and on the podcast.

And in fact these were some of the issues we explored in the very first episode of the podcast "An introduction to personal selling" published on the Sales for the Nigerian Business Person Podcast on the 13th of March 2020

If you’d like to listen to the full episode, you can subscribe for free to the show on SPOTIFY/ GOOGLE/ APPLE ITUNES/ POCKET CASTS/ OVERCAST or any podcast player of your choice.

Remember also to connect with me on LinkedIn because I really love hearing from you guys. The name to search for in the app is TAVERSHIMA AYEDE.

Don't bother looking for me on Instagram and TikTok anymore because I hardly spend any time on them these days. The old videos are still up though just in case you're curious!

I'll catch you guys in the next post.

Growing up in Nigeria in the 80’s, the impression most of my mates had about insurance was visions of burning houses or smashed up cars for which there would be no insurance claims paid.

It’s not like it happened to me or anyone I know, but a lot of us grew up with that idea that “insurance doesn’t pay”.

If you add that to other ideas like “everything in life is 50/50”, and “God is my protector”, it’s reasonable to see why there’s speculation that 80% of Nigerians have no use or knowledge of insurance in whatever form.

In my family I only know one person who uses insurance, and both of my grandfathers had football teams for children.

That is a lot of family members who think they know what insurance is, but have never asked questions beyond the surface.

What is insurance anyway? And why should a Nigerian man or woman in 2023 be asking about business practices that are as old as the industrial revolution?

Those are some questions that we shall be tackling with the column over the course of the next year.

When the average Nigerian hears “insurance”, they think of the risk of death, accidents, fire, and property damage.

These are not pleasant things to talk about and it’s understandable why a 40 year old man like me wouldn’t want to contemplate his mortality.

But what if there’s another face to insurance that we haven’t been educated on?

What if insurance isn’t just a tool to manage life threatening risk?

What if people have figured out a way for insurance to become a savings tool?

What if people have figured out a way for insurance to be used as an investment tool?

What if people have figured out a way to use insurance to save money and invest money for the future without losing your capital?

If you could get all your money back and more at the end of the period, would that change the calculation of “everything is 50/50 in life?”.

And would it make it worth your while to put something aside “last last” even though “God is my protector”?

These and many more are the issues we’ll tackle in the column where we examine the changing face of insurance in Nigeria.

Episode 583 - if you missed something earlier, how do you go back and fix it? Recovering the sale when things go bad.


If the potential customer or client says "let me think about it", "let me discuss with my wife/ husband/ boss/ colleagues/ kids", then it means you've missed out on something important in the earlier part of the sales process.

The sales process as we've outlined it in earlier posts includes (1) looking for people with a need, want, interest, or desire for our product or service.

If they say "let me think about it" then perhaps you might have to revisit this step and ask questions around interest and need to be sure you didn't miss anything.

You might discover with this approach that the customer thinks your solution is a "nice to have" but not something that's a "need to have". It's best to have this information earlier than later.

This gives you time to look for other people to talk to with a more pressing need, or you can keep the customer "in the loop" by using "nurturing" and "relationship building" tactics so that you'll be "top of mind" when they now have a pressing need.

What happens if they have a pressing need and it's important for them to get the product or service, but they still want to "think about it" or discuss it with other people?

More on those scenarios in future episodes.

To get more on this and other topics discussed on the show, Subscribe For Free! to SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON PODCAST in Spotify, Google podcasts, Apple/ iTunes, Pocket casts, & Anchor.

Episode 582 - What if the potential customer or client says NO?

In previous episodes we've gone over how being tech savvy can help with different parts of the sales process like looking for who to talk to, starting conversations with potential customers, finding out their wants and needs, and discovering if our product or service CAN INDEED be helpful to them.

The final cap off for the series was to say that in all our communications, we should have a CTA which is the ask, feedback, request, or further action you'd like the potential customer to take.

This is because business communication is usually geared towards a specific end or goal.

When communicating with potential customers or clients AFTER we have made a proposal, a reasonable CTA is to "ask for the sale" or ask for some other form of commitment to move the business relationship forward.

Most people don't want to "ask for the sale" because they have a reasonable fear that the customer might say NO.

Because of this fear, most business people are okay with hearing things from the potential client like "let me think about it" and "let me get back to you later".

Is it such a bad thing when the customer says NO?

It actually is a good thing when this happens.

If you "ask for the sale" and the customer says NO, then it means you've missed something from an earlier part of the sales process.

If this is the case, you are better off hearing about it now, rather than three weeks down the line when the customer says "I'm sorry but we decided to go with someone else" or "I'm sorry my boss/ husband/ wife/ colleague etc decided we should go in another direction".

If you hear NO now, you have the time to come up with another course of action, or look for another potential customer to have a conversation with.

If you hear NO three weeks from now, or three months from now, it means you wasted enormous time and “opportunity cost” that you could've used to invest in other profitable opportunities with your time.

So if a NO today means that we missed out something critical in the sales process yesterday, how do we go about diagnosing that situation?

That will be the focus of a future episode.


To get more on this and other topics discussed on the show, Subscribe For Free! to SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON PODCAST in Spotify, Google podcasts, Apple/ iTunes, Pocket casts, & Anchor.

Episode 581 - the real reason why you should send people messages - show notes and summaries

In the previous episode we discussed how digital quotient; being digital and tech savvy can help with effective business presentations.

We capped off the episode by saying that messages should include CTAs (call to actions) or else the potential customer might say something like "thanks for a wonderful presentation, let me think about it" or "let me discuss with my partner/ husband/ wife, etc".

The reason why this happens is because when there's no clear "ask" at the end of the interaction, the most logical thing for the other person to do is to say some versions of "thanks let me think about it", "that was wonderful", "let's see how it goes", "I like you because you have a really professional demeanour" etc.

That is what a CTA is. The CTA is the "ask", “feedback” or “request” that you make at the end of communications with customers, potential clients, or other stakeholders in business.

CTA is an acronym standing for “Call To Action” and means what you'd like the potential customer to DO now that they have heard your presentation.

The real reason why we communicate with people is to get them to do something.

The pastor communicates because he wants you to repent.

Parents communicate because they want the kids to grow up self-sufficient.

Politicians communicate because they want to get votes, or because they want support for some political initiatives.

Business people communicate because we're either trying to build the relationship, or to close the deal.

CTAs are not absolute and depend upon the state of the relationship or level of the transaction that you're at.

Once you're done with the presentation, a reasonable ask to make is for the payment of a deposit to move things along, or at the very least to ask if there's anything else standing in the way of executing the deal.

If you're meeting the potential customer for the first time, a reasonable CTA is to ask for a meeting or phone call next week so that you can go over the idea in more detail, or see if it'd make sense for you guys to talk about doing business together.

There's no ideal CTA and so it depends on where you're at with the potential client, customer, stakeholder, or investor.

Either way, every presentation must have a CTA or "ask", or some sort of feedback because the real reason why we communicate is because we're trying to get someone to do something.

We communicate not just for talking sake, but because we’re trying to make “progress” with something.

If there's no CTA, the potential client will say "let me think about it" because they really have to think, "after all this information what do they want to hear from me about? What is the next step supposed to be? Is there any other important information I'm missing before we make a decision? If my wife were here now would she think this is a good deal or not?"

The uncertain mind will make no decision, so do both of you a favour and ask!

What happens if the potential customer says "no we won't be going ahead?", that's a subject for a future episode.


To get more on this and other topics discussed on the show, Subscribe For Free! to SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON PODCAST in Spotify, Google podcasts, Apple/ iTunes, Pocket casts, & Anchor.

Episode 580 - digital quotient and presentation skills

What are “presentations” in sales and marketing?

This is the part where you make a case for why someone ought to buy your product or service.

The presentation is what sales, marketing and selling are about right?

Is presentation the most important skill you can have in business?

NO! Because discovery and qualification are the steps where you get all the information you need to make a convincing presentation.

In the old days presentations were done face to face! But with some tech and digital savvy, more opportunities for making effective presentations are available over internet, video and multimedia.

You don't have to be in the same location or time zone to make a presentation and seal the deal anymore.

However, because we have these options available doesn’t mean we can send over the PDF, powerpoint, or word document and expect that the potential customer is going to read everything and then sign and go ahead with the deal.

If you must use these avenues that the modern digital landscape offers for presentations, send the document ahead and schedule a time when you can make a phone call or video session and talk the client through the major parts of the document or presentation.

The benefits of doing this are that you can gain feedback on troublesome parts of the presentation and parts where the customer would normally come up with “objections”.

Also doing things this way makes it better to be able to gauge if you're on track with the relationship.

Remember to have a Call To Action “CTA” in the presentation. If you don’t do this, the potential client will say "thanks for the wonderful presentation, let me get back to you later/ let me talk to my wife/ business partner, etc".

If you are not sure what a CTA is, don’t worry we'll get to that in future episodes.


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Episode 579 - can digital quotient help you get happier clients?

Yes! That's because having happy clients boils down to making sure you knew what they wanted in the first place.

If a client has a problem, you want to be sure that your product or service can solve it.

If they have a vision or goal they're working towards, you want to be sure that your product or service can help them achieve that goal or get the desired outcome.

If your product or service doesn't solve the problem or achieve the goal, then you won't have a happy client.

How can we be sure we're on the right track with clients and potential customers? By using discovery questions.

These are questions designed to get the nature of the problem and how significant it is to the customer.

You want to be sure your product or service is having a positive effect on significant problems and important goals.

What are the kinds of discovery questions we can ask? Depends on the context in question.

Let’s use the example of a Carpentry professional or Woodworker who has an expectant mother as a potential client.

There are a number of discovery questions you could ask in this case which could include 1. How many kids does the family have? 2. Does the baby need to have a separate drawer? 3. What old drawer types mummy has tried in the past? 4. drawer types she's drawn too or types she's tried that the family enjoyed 5. Colour preferences 6. What particular room will the drawer be put in? 7. Is this going to be a multifunctional type of drawer or will it be used to store clothes only?

The answers to these questions make sure you have a happy client at the end of the day because the woodworker has been able to figure out what mommy wants and what the family needs.

This satisfied customer will in turn make it easier to parlay this into referrals and repeat business.

If mummy is happy, she’ll call the carpenter back for more projects around the house, and she’s likely to refer him to friends and family members who need a friendly, trustworthy and competent wood worker.

How does digital quotient factor in here?

1. There are more avenues for carrying on the conversation with the potential client. You don't have to visit the house all the time. Whatsapp video calls can help to preview the room and also chat to get information that help inform the solutions that will be explored.

2. Digital makes it easier to share proposals. Designs and idea boards can be shared quickly over Whatsapp or email, or Instagram DMs) etc.

Other kinds of questions to explore will depend on the actual scenario and physical context of your trade or business.

Be open to learning new ideas around tech and digital and be willing to use it to improve your business and client relations.


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Episode 578 - does high digital quotient affect how we qualify customers and potential clients?


Digital quotient is being skillful at acquiring skills and knowledge around tech and digital. Since knowledge is nothing without application, DQ also involves being able and willing to apply this new knowledge.


Qualification of customers and clients on the other hand is the process of having conversations to figure out who this client is, and what problems or visions they have.

This is important because this process gives us the information we need to provide an accurate quote, and also lets us know if this would be a good client to work with. We have to be sure that the problem the client has, or the vision they are trying to achieve is something that our product or service can help with.

In the old days (pre internet) qualification conversations would have been FACE TO FACE by necessity.

But now digital and the internet makes these interactions easier because of multiple avenues we now have for conversations with our potential customers

The options available today include inbox messaging (email, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram), Video conferencing and internet calls.

How do we use digital to carry on qualification conversations?

1. By researching the person through looking at their public internet profiles, and reaching out to people you have in common for some intel on who the prospect is, how best to go about building a relationship with them, etc 2. Keep messaging short - long messages will overwhelm the recipient and create lack of clarity on what the next steps should be 3. Ask questions to get the prospect talking… or typing in this case! 4. Have a clear agenda before you hit the keyboard and also be sure what next steps you'll recommend to build the relationship between both of you.

Final tip! Remember you're having conversations with an actual person.

Typing AT them or making sales pitches in text will fall flat most of the time especially when dealing with complex and expensive solutions.


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Episode 577 - does digital quotient affect how we look for customers?

Yes it sure does!

Digital quotient is not just the ability to acquire skills and knowledge around tech, it also encompases the propensity to use those skills in our day to day business operations.

You can't say you have a high digital quotient if you know about tech but never use it.

The first step in looking for customers from a sales perspective is traditionally called prospecting.

Prospecting is looking for people to talk to who might be interested in your product or service

Without tech prospecting would have to be either “face to face” interactions or over old school analogue phone calls.

How can prospecting be enhanced by tech?
1. You save money because you don't have to visit people all the time. Modern tech options save cost because of video, internet calls, WhatsApp, email, telegram, social media DMs in inbox that allow not to spend time in traffic driving to meetings, but also saves the cost of making phone calls.
2. You can find out a lot more about prospects and do research on them than in the old days. Before the internet you had to ask about someone from another who knew the person you wanted to meet. Now you can Google search, check linkedIn profiles, see their instagram or pinterest handles to gauge their personality, see contacts you have in common from Facebook or LinkedIn etc.
These are more avenues to get you feeling comfortable and knowledgeable about someone before you call him or her for the meeting.
3. Follow up is a lot easier now especially for those people averse to face to face and phone interactions - you can follow up via internet text based options
4. The internet makes it easier to find potential customers. Targeted instagram and Google advertisements means you only spend time talking to high quality folks who responded to your advertisements because they have a need and find your content relevant.

These and many more are the ideas and topics discussed in today's episode.

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SWOT analysis is concerned with the strengths, and weaknesses of a corporation, as well as the opportunities it can exploit, and the threats available in the market at large.

PEST on the other hand is a similar tool aimed at determining the level of Political, Economic, Social and Technological change in the environment and how it affects the business corporation.

These are business management methods and tools FOR CORPORATIONS to influence its operation and become more competitive in the marketplace.


How to use these tools

1. Create a SWOT matrix.
2. Gather the right participants.
3. List your strengths.
4. List your weaknesses.
5. Identify your opportunities.
6. Identify your potential threats.
7. Examine your matrix for connections.
What should you do with your SWOT analysis?
8. These connections you make will be the cornerstone of your business strategy.

The main question we consider on the podcast however is whether they are any good for the small business owner, or entrepreneurial type businesses seeing that THEY WERE CREATED AS TOOLS FOR BIG CORPORATIONS.

Maybe not!

Early business traction depends on being CUSTOMER FOCUSED and not US FOCUSED.

The main question shouldn't be opportunities and weaknesses in the market, or political and technological trends, but rather...

1. Product market fit/ market validation - which helps to determine if the market as a whole has given us the signal that our product or service is valuable to the world.
2. Customer satisfaction - which answers the question of whether the customer is happy?
3. Customer success - which looks at whether the product/ service/ brand promise is achievable by the customer.
4. Good CRM use for relationship nurturing so we have a finger on the pulse of how the product/ service affects the customer.


The main downside of PEST and SWOT?
1. Doesn't give you clear next steps
2. Management exercise that might be out of step with the customers and the market
3. Requires too much guesswork
4. Talking to customers gives you clear prescriptions for what to do next.
5. Talking to customers keeps your finger on the pulse with changing trends in the market, economy, or technology.

So the flip side of it all is that paying attention to the customer might give you all that extra information after all!

To get more on this and other topics discussed on the show, Subscribe For Free! to SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON in Spotify, Google podcasts, Apple/ iTunes, Pocket casts, & Anchor.

Episode 573 - Networking for getting leads and customers


You'll recall from previous podcast episodes that a lead is someone who might be interested in your product or service.

Networking can be described as an exchange of professional or social contacts in a bare bones sense of the word.

Because networking has to be a value driven exchange, it can serve as the channel through which we can acquire new customers and business associates.

We get customers from networking by sorting through contacts to achieve the following: (1) figure out who has a need for our products/ services (2) figure out who could be valuable associates to do business with in the future, or (3) figure out opportunities for cross referrals and partnerships.

These and many more are the topics addressed in today's episode as well as the dynamics of LISTENING and good conversational skills and how they can be applied to be the hallmarks of good networking.

To get more on this and other topics discussed on the show, Subscribe For Free! to SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON in Spotify, Google podcasts, Apple/ iTunes, Pocket casts, & Anchor.

Trade shows are the more "old school" methods of chasing down customers because they rely on interpersonal skills and face to face interactions with potential customers and other industry stakeholders.

Trade shows are exhibitions to promote products and services.

These include events like wedding expos, international trade fairs, food and fashion fairs and some other industry specific events like those organised by the Nigerian Society of Engineers NSE in Abuja of 2022.

Whether trade shows will be worth your while or not depends on the target audience for the event.

If it is going to be full of mostly industry peers, then maybe it's not a good idea to attend. if it'll have potential customers who are an overlap for your ideal customer base, then it might be a good idea to attend.

The skills needed to pull all these off are (1) merchandising and display skills for your stall or booth (2) conversational skills and rapport building (3) contact management and familiarity with a CRM (4) EQ emotional quotient which will come in handy for relationship building and follow up, and (5) the physical STAMINA to remain standing for upwards of 5 hours everyday while the event lasts.

Don't expect to make a sale or close a deal everyday at a trade fair if you deal in high ticket items which multiple people have to decide on before going ahead.

If this is the case, be prepared to have simple conversations at the event to follow up with them at a later date to see if there's a possibility for business to happen between both of you.

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Advertising is paying for access to attention and audiences that have been created by another.

When we advertise on radio or Google, it's because they have amassed the attention of the customers that we crave.

Boosting posts within social media also has a similar premise because we're paying for more of a particular audience to see the post.

For boosting and advertising to work, our advertising should be well targeted to our potential customers demographics and PSYCHOGRAPHICS!

We want to be sure we have not just their age, occupation, sex and location; we should also be able to target their interests, curiosities and hobbies.

Crappy targeting and execution of advertising campaigns will get you crappy results.

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This topic is relevant because creating customers is our primary function as business owners and self employed people.

Online communities are new school methods of lead generation because they are online and tech facilitated.

They involve the use of social media groups (Facebook and LinkedIn groups etc), online communities (reddit, discord, etc), newsletters, WhatsApp and Telegram groups and such.

Educative, informative OR ENTERTAINING content is used to biuld an audience from which you can invite people into these groups to nurture a community and biuld relationshps.

These communities can later serve as a loyal customer base for products and services that you roll out in the future.

This can't be a parasitic "one way relationship" because it depends on you delivering overwhelming value to your audience time and time again.

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Lead generation or the art of creating customers SHIULD be our primary preoccupation because without paying customers, there's no business.

Search engine optimization is part of the toolkit for modern, online, news school methods of generating leads and new customers.

This discipline utilizes keyword optimization and research, back links, shares, networking, collaborations between business etc as a hallmark for getting potential customers to find you interesting and check you out.

To find out more about these issues discussed on the show, Google search SALES FOR THE NIGERIAN BUSINESS PERSON and Subscribe For Free!
in Spotify, Google podcasts, Apple/ iTunes, Pocket casts, & Anchor.

Informative content is useful to promote your business because it can be used to set you apart as "the expert". It shows mastery and expertise, reinforces credibility and competence, and adds an aura of trust that makes the sales process easier with potential customers

Content is good because it provides interest and awareness for your products or services. It also creates opportunities for conversations online or off that could lead to future business. Content doesn't ALWAYS have to be catchy and exciting but it should always be relevant and targeted to your intended audience. Catchy content is good, but it'll require you to learn and create entertainment value. Educational and informative content on the other hand can be done by almost anyone.

Why Newsjacking? Because it helps create content that's likely to be seen, shared, and talked about. However to seem less gimmicky, you should have a content calendar to keep you going all year round. You don't always have to promote your business around news cycles.

You also want to be sure customers got what they bargained for. Ineffective products or inadequate services lead to customer attrition. If they leave then there's no repeat business or referrals either. How to figure this out? Have conversations with them over phone, email, etc.

There's no point in harassing family members to subscribe to your YouTube channel. If they're not your target audience or interested in your content, they'll actually hurt your statistics and sour the performance of your content. If they can't be potential customers, don't do it!

How do you gauge customer satisfaction and customer success?

These are important things to consider because you cannot retain a customer and keep him or her loyal until you know for sure that (1) they are happy with you, and (2) they achieved the goals or brand promise that was made when they decided to do business with you.

These two points are at the heart of customer satisfaction and customer success.

They ONLY way you'll know for sure if they're happy and successful with your product or service is if THEY TELL YOU SO.

Some people are proactive and will come up to you and tell all the goods things about your business and maybe some of the bad stuff you can improve on.

Those proactive customers are a rarity and a VERY SMALL minority!

Most other customers won't say a peep until YOU ASK THEM WHAT THEY THINK, AND HOW THE EXPERIENCE WAS!

How do we go about asking those second set of customers? More about that in the next posts to come.

Customer retention cannot work without “customer satisfaction” or “customer success”.

What is customer retention? That’s our wish that customers remain loyal and buy from us for a very long time to come.

Why is that important? Because it’ll give us steady and predictable revenues! Apart from that, loyal long-standing customers tend to introduce their friends, family members, and associates to our products and services as well.

That is always nice because those people become easy future customers.

What is customer satisfaction on the other hand? That’s the business function that should be concerned about whether your customers are happy or not.

What about customer success? It’s the business function that should be concerned with whether your customers are achieving the goals, results and promises that your product or service claims to deliver.

If you sell baby nappies that promise to keep babies fresh and dry for 3 hours, but mummy has to keep changing the baby every hour because the baby has peed, then you have a BIG customer success problem.

In this case CUSTOMER SUCCESS and CUSTOMER SATISFACTION are strongly correlated because mummy is unhappy over how many diapers she has to change all through the day. She is unhappy because these diapers don’t work as well as they should.

How does all this affect customer retention?

If mummy is unhappy and unsuccessful with your diapers, how long do you think she’ll remain a customer of yours?

Not very long!

That’s the reason why the key to sorting out customer retention is to pay attention to the customer satisfaction and customer success functions in your business.

Customers who are unhappy and unsuccessful with your products or services won’t hang around for very long... except if you’re a monopoly and utility like NEPA/ PHCN power companies, water board, etc. In these cases your customers won’t go anywhere because they have ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE ELSE TO GO!

If you’re not in these industries, then you better take customer success and customer satisfaction VERY seriously.

What are the mechanics of customer retention?

This is just a fancy way of saying, "how does customer retention work?"

Customer retention means that the people who have done business with us in the past continue doing business with us now, and for a reasonable time in the foreseeable future.

Customer retention is good because it gives us predictable revenues we can plan against, and also because it reduces the pressure to go out and sell and market to new customers everyday from a point of desperation and pressure.

Businesses that have good customer retention don't have to wait for special seasons and start marking everything as 50% off to buy.

Customer retention doesn't exist in a vacuum, and sometimes it DOES happen by accident, but the best way to take advantage of this is to plan for it deliberately in your business.

Customer retention cannot work without "customer satisfaction" or "customer success".

Customer retention most likely won't occur without "feedback" or "follow up".

Customer retention also needs a healthy dose of "asking for commitments" in terms of putting out recent offers, new product features, and not only trying for new business, but for referrals as well.

Since this is an awful lot to explore, it only makes sense that we begin the breakdown in the next post!