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How do you retain customers?

This is a question I'm happy to address in live training sessions because it shows that the person asking the question has a proper understanding of what the sales function in a business is.

Sales isn't just about collecting the payment now, it's also about making sure that the person is happy enough to come back and buy from us AGAIN.

The more repeat customers we have, the less running around we have to do everyday to look for new clients.

Also the more HAPPY REPEAT CUSTOMERS we have, the more they'll refer us to OTHER PEOPLE so that we don't have to run around everyday looking for new customers.

From a traditional sales perspective, the sale isn't complete when you "collect the money".

The sale is complete when you have secured a repeat customer. Other favourable scenarios include when you get a testimonial, or a warm introduction to another possible customer.

So if you are one of those people thinking to yourself, "how do I retain customers who have patronized my business before?", then you are thinking in the right direction.

We will start exploring some of those mechanics and dynamics of customer retention tomorrow.

New year, new you, and the possibility for new business too?

Sometimes it boils down to just wishful thinking if nothing fundamentally has changed except the dials on the clock or the flap on the calendar.

The new year will come whether we want it to or not, and whether we plan for it or not.

The new YOU will never come so long as you're stuck in the same old habits.

The new opportunities for business will never come if you're not doing either prospecting (chasing down customers) or inbound, demand generation, lead generation etc. (making yourself pretty enough for customers to CHASE YOU DOWN).

So there in lies the prescription to make that phrase mean anything this year, or any other new year to come in the future.

New year, new you, and possibly new business too? We pray to God so, and we owe it up to ourselves to make it so.

Can you use referrals to get your first set of ten customers?

Some folks seem to think so because it's an answer I've been given during live sales and business training sessions.

Whether this is possible or not depends on your definition of the word "referral".

If by referral you mean any form of "word of mouth", then that's possible.

If you come from a large enough family, or you're popular enough, you can get enough people to refer business to you even if you’re an unknown entity in the market.

So yes it’s possible to go into business as a baker TODAY and get your first set of ten orders next week from “referrals”.

Remember we’re using a VERY LOOSE definition of referrals here in scenario 1.

However more traditional folks will define "referrals" only as "word of mouth" coming from clients you have ALREADY SERVICED BEFORE! Let’s refer to this as scenario 2.

When more traditional people say, "check out Chinyere, she's great for XYZ", it turns out to be more than a recommendation. It's almost an endorsement!

Word of mouth BEFORE you service an individual and word of mouth AFTER you satisfy a client don't carry the same weight.

If in the first case I'm recommending Chinyere because I think she's a nice girl. It doesn’t carry the same weight.

If I'm recommending Chinyere in the second case, it's because I KNOW and I HAVE EXPERIENCED FIRST HAND what she can do in her field of expertise.

A referral in this case almost comes as a personal guarantee... which is why people don't give it freely!

If I make the referral in scenario 2 and Chinyere doesn't live up to the hype, then I'm going to look really bad. People will think me a man of poor taste, or a poor judge of character and competency.

If you want to get your first set of 10 customers for your business, then YES you should get all your friends, family members, associates, classmates, and any one else talking about you and giving you referrals.

But the real magic happens AFTER you've gotten the first 10 clients and you start getting referrals from them.

If you do a "correct" job with the first 10 and you have good customer service, professional delivery, and good bedside manners, you could get a few choice referrals from them.

These kinds of referrals almost smell like endorsements.

You can rely on them more than referrals form random conversations.

How do you intend to reach your first ten customers?

This was a question asked by the organizers of a business session of which I was the chair of the sales panel.

Lot's of interesting answers were given to the question, but my favourite responses went something like this...

"I intend to get my first XYZ customers through social media and referrals"

I like this answer not because it's the best answer to give, but because it betrays a poor understanding of how these things work. This way we can quickly give them the right idea of how things work in the real world.

Wrestling with these assumptions early makes the journey more pleasant in the future.

Let's start with social media.

You CAN get your first set of customers with social media, but those customers aren't going to come IMMEDIATELY YOU OPEN UP YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLES.

Getting sales through social media requires a number of things.

Old school marketers say that social media or any marketing strategy requires AIDA (attention, interest, desire, and action).

First you have to create some awareness in the market. Then you need to find a way to spark interest. After that you have to put out content that sparks a desire, then you have to figure out a way to get them to take action which ends with them placing an order.

This whole process isn't going to happen overnight.

If you get into business today, are you sure you're capitalized enough or you have enough in savings to wait it out until you can create AIDA?

Other folks say that getting sales through social media requires that you have built up some CREDIBILITY in the market place.

Building credibility doesn't happen overnight.

If you want to bake wedding cakes or doughnuts for child day care centres, part of building credibility will involve posting pictures of cakes and pastries you have baked before.

That means you must have gotten some prior sales through another method to begin with, or you’ve spent time experimenting and doing some free work.

Do you have enough in savings to keep paying the bills until your credibility starts bringing in the orders?

Social media is a wonderful tool to bring in customers so long as you have the right expectations.

Social media for sales is a medium to a long term sales strategy. Social media isn’t for bringing in sales today. Social media activities today are meant to bring in sales sometime in the future.

If social media is going to be pivotal to your sales strategy, that's fine... but you need to look for something else that'll bring in the initial sales and customers today.

If you do it this way, then you won’t have to exhaust your savings or your business capital prematurely.

What about referrals as a means of getting your first ten customers?

We'll tackle that tomorrow!

A lot has been said here about how to validate your business idea using either SALES or TRACTION.

These concepts sound lofty, but at the heart of them is something very simple, human, and so practical that anyone can do it.

How do you go about getting more sales to prove your business idea is workable?

You start by talking to friends, family members, and associates.

Eventually you'll work up the courage to start talking to strangers.

Somewhere between friends, family members, associates, and a couple of strangers, you'll know if this is a bad idea because you haven't been able to sell anything.

Of course the next question would be, "do you have the knowledge to sell effectively?" or "were you targeting the right people?," but in either case you'll be better along in your business journey than if you had done nothing.

How do you explore traction with your business ideas?

The process is the same! Start talking to friends, family members, and associates... see if you can get a few people to sign on.

After working these comfortable relationships for a while, you'll gather the strength to start talking to total strangers and potential investors.

If you fail to get any sign ups, the questions might now also be, "were you targeting the right people?" and "do you have effective communication skills for persuasion?" but either way, you've still made progress beyond conjecture.

Whether you rely on actual sales or traction to get your business going, the journey begins with talking to someone other than yourself.

Learn how to have conversations today and get the ball rolling on that brilliant business idea of yours.

Sales can be used as tool to validate your business idea because if you can get a sizeable number of people to PAY for your product or business idea, it's a sign that there's unmet demand for that target customer base.

What about business ideas that don't have paying customers right away?

That's the situation that our brothers and sisters in the tech space often have when they come out with that new-fangled idea for an app or website that's supposed to revolutionize the world.

These websites or app ideas usually rely on network effects before they can become profitable.

Network effects are the possibilities, value, and leverage that you have when you build connected networks of groups of people. The network is only as valuable as the number of nodes, people, or connections that they have.

If only 600 of us signed up to Facebook in the early days, then it wouldn't be worth anything today.

There's not much value in a social network of only 600 people. If those 600 people are all billionaires on the other hand, then that's a different story!

So how do you show progress with your idea when you need people to sign up today with hopes of monetization tomorrow?

That's where TRACTION comes in.

Traction in this case would be HOW MANY PEOPLE SIGN UP, HOW QUICKLY THEY TAKE ACTION, and FOR HOW LONG they remain with you.

These figures are signs from the market that people think your business ideas is valuable and that they're driving value from the network.

If your app idea attracts only one person per week for six months straight, it's doubtful if that's a spectacular business idea.

On the other hand if 1,200 people sign up in the first number of days, it might be a sign that you have a hit on your hands.

That was the early Facebook experience.

That was a sign and market validation that the idea was worth exploring even if in the early days they weren't sure how the website would make money.

Traction is a sign of market validation and permission to you to move ahead FOR NOW.

So long as you have validation at your current stage, it's a sign that there's much more to explore ahead.

So if your big business idea is an app to connect rural rice farmers in Lagos, Ilorin, and Osun to exchanges and commodity traders in ABJ and LAG, then maybe for the first couple of months, you shouldn't worry about how much sales you make.

You should be concerned rather about how many rice traders and intuitional "agric" people agree to sign up to the site in the first place.

If only one village of 200 FARMERS signed up in 2022, then maybe the road to utopia is still far off and fraught with many challenges.

But if you were able to attract 200 VILLAGES of 120,000 farmers in 2022, then that might be a good enough sign to ask your financiers to give you more money to pursue the idea.

So that's it!

Sales or traction is a sign from the market and other stakeholder that you have a valuable business idea worth pursuing.

So do you have sales, traction, or both regarding your business idea?

Any business can work so long as we have gotten some form of MARKET VALIDATION.

Market validation is when the customers and the market at large tell us that this is a good product or service idea for the business.

This is a response I've given in the past when faced with a question on what to do with business ideas that are unachievable.

Whether a business idea is truly unachievable or not depends on what the market thinks.

When I say "the market" here I mean customers and possibly other stakeholders.

Some folks might start off saying that building a vegetarian business in Nigeria is unachievable.

They may have good reasons for thinking so since culturally we seem to be hedonistic meat eaters.

The idea of large scale hospitality businesses built around vegan or vegetarian themes in Nigeria might seem laughable!

However the only way we'll know this for sure is if we fail to get some form of market validation for the idea.

Market validation is usually gotten through SALES or TRACTION.

If you are able to make some sales (customer purchases), then that's a sign from the market that your idea is valuable and workable.

Even though it might seem like a silly idea to launch a vegetarian eatery in the heart of Abuja, if you're able to get some SALES on a smaller version of the idea, then the market (customers) are giving you signs that there's room to explore a more developed form of the idea.

Let's say BEFORE you launch the restaurant, you start cooking some vegetarian recipes and sell to some of your friends.

Some might buy because they are culturally sophisticated. Others might buy because they like the taste of vegan food. Some others might buy because of ethical reasons regarding the treatment of animals, and some may buy because of health benefits around blood pressure, cholesterol, and skin care.

Whatever the reason, if you approach 50 people and you're able to get 10 regular customers from them, then it might be a sign for bigger tests and better forms of validation.

The next step might be opening up an Instagram handle and running some sponsored ads to see how many total strangers might purchase!

If you make progress with the Instagram play, then maybe the idea has been sufficiently validated enough for you to try the restaurant idea!

So don't start off saying ANY business idea is unachievable until you have had a chance for business validation or traction.

So now that we know how SALES can be used as a tool to validate a business idea, what are we to make about TRACTION?

More on that in future posts...

Can Google My Business be used for demand generation?

I'm not sure!

I'm not a demand generation specialist. My area of specialty and interest is "personal sales" or "personal selling" which involves "one to one" communicaitons between individuals in a business context.

Luckily for me, that aspect of sales means that I'm continually picking up skills which can be easily transferred to other endeavours.

I mean! Which aspect of business doesn't eventually boil down to "one on one" communications between one person and another?

So why do I write about some of these topics where I don't necessarily ahve all the chops?

Because personal selling can lend great insight into a miultitude of disciplines and scenarios.

So back to demand generation!

Demand generation is important because it gets people to pick up the phone and give us a call, or get into their cars and drive to our storefront.

Demand generation is creating interest and awareness for your product or service.

We've already established in earlier posts that this has to be done with the right audience or else we'll be cultivating interest and awareness among people who might not be ideal customers for us.

Can Google My Business be used to create interest and awareness?

Yes! In a sense.

When we create or claim our Google My Business page, we put our details out into the Googleverse we send signals out to the world at large that we are open and ready for business, and that XYZ are the things we specialize in, and ABC are the ways in which we can help our customers.

When we do this, Google continually prompts us to update our office hours, new offerings, holiday specials, change of address, and Google also does a good job of reminding us to put up photos and videos of our business.

They also are in the habit of sending us emails every month showing how many people came across our page, as well as the search terms that they used to find us.

That kind of intel in the right hands is really useful for planning your marketing and other kinds of promotions.

The only thing missing in this mix is that you're not responsible for targeting and approaching a definite market or customer base.

What you are doing in this Google My Business scenario is... you are throwing things out into the universe, takaing feedback from the process, and then optimizing your advertising, SEO, etc.

Does this kind of activity also consitutite demand generation?

I'm not sure!

Is this a good activity for everyone to do?

Definitely! Especially since for now Google still remains a dominant search engine and window to the internet.

This is the summary of the advice that I gave my students and the Evolve Africa Business Incubation Sessions in 2022.

Whether Google My Business is demand generation, or whether it can be considered some sort of marketing or not, most of us have nothing to loose by creating and claiming a Google My Business Page.

How do you create a Google My Business page? You start by Googling it!

Can WhatsApp be used for demand generation?

Sure!

Demand generation is creating interest and awareness for your product or service and you can definitely do that with WhatsApp or telegram.

That's what the whole game with WhatsApp and telegram groups are isnt it?

Here is demand generation 101 using telegram and WhatsApp in Nîgeria.

Step one. Get a bunch of people organized into communities around certain intersts to which your product or service are aligned.

Step two. Demonstrate your authority for a while, by moderating the group, helping people, and topic choices presented on the group. After a while people should trust you enough to buy from you!

This is an example of how technical sounding concepts are readily available, understood, and applied by the every day man or woman.

This example of using WhatsApp for business was given by a student of mine during a business incubation session in 2022.

She runs a cleanjng business in the eastern part of Nigeria.

This is an example of how you don't have to be high tech to find value and practical use for high sounding concepts that we hear everyday in business media.

Sometimes demand generation doesn't need fancy new software. It just needs the default apps already installed on your phone.

The same goes for Facebook groups!

These high quality conversations ought to yield a good quality audience where you can tease out your ideal cuatomer base.

Dont just expect this to work the first month you try it out.

Have reasonable expectations around this. Demand generation using communities is a LONG TERM PLAY.

So demand generation sounds highly technical and unachievable right?

It sounds like something we should leave to "tech bros" and look for more relatable things that ordinary guys and girls like us can do right?

WRONG!

These big business terms have very simple meanings and actions behind them that everyone can do.

Demand generation means simply creating interest and awareness for your product or service.

Just like the crier shouting in the village markets of old, you are trying to create awareness in HIGH QUALITY PROSPECTS who might turn out to be high quality customers in the future.

Before you start compiling a list of activities that can create interest in the “high quality people” you want to buy from you, you have to make a few guesses and figure out a few things.

The first thing we have to figure out is who this "quality customer" is!

The town crier of old went to the village square because everyone was there so there was a chance that his audience would hear the message and take action.

He didn’t know who the quality audience was, but he had faith that they were in the crowd and would hear him.

Luckily for us, with all the modern tools and gadgets, we don't have to go to the public square and shout into the distance.

There are ways we can find "our people" with some clever thinking.

Figuring out who your "quality customer" is sometimes involves guesswork, and sometimes it involves looking at your past customers who already exist!

You can create a profile from the folks you've done business with in the past. This might give you an idea of who you should be chasing after in the future.

If you are able to figure out who these quality customers are, where they hang out, what they do before they decide to buy, etc, then you will have a good sense of where to "market" to them.

Before you think of demand generation tactics, try to figure out who your quality customers are.

That's why the neighbourhood akara woman doesn't come to your estate.

She knows you are too fancy to eat akara for breakfast. She spends her time setting up where her customers are.

Or is that the case? Could there be ideal akara customers INSIDE the high brow residential estate? These are the wonderful, exciting, and strategic questions for the everyday day to day growth of our businesses.

Demand generation sounds like a REALLY BIG WORD when it comes to growing your business.

Because the word comes across as highfalutin and high IQ, most folks assume that these concepts require an MBA to execute.

Even though MBA boys and girls walk around throwing terms like "biz dev", "demand gen", and "go to market" all over the place, the meaning and true gems behind these words are quite easy to understand, and can be applied with some simple creativity that’s accessible to anyone.

The idea behind demand generation is quite simple; it's creating interest and awareness for your product or service.

If enough INTEREST and AWARENESS is created, some folks might be motivated enough to call you to figure out "how much?", "are you available?", and "can you also do XYZ?"

That is the gist of the word demand generation. Do the activities, create some interest, some folks might call you, and you should get some business from those folks who eventually call in.

What about the MBA crowd? They can make anything sound complicated!

Let's leave the highly technical aspects of this to them. As for the rest of us, there are simple practical ways of applying demand generation tactics to our businesses even though we don't have MBAs or businesses valued in the billions.

What are these simple examples of ways people have applied "demand gen" to their businesses?

We will examine them in future posts.

If we accept that some forms of communications are more effective than others, then an important question in the referral process now becomes HOW to reach out and figure out if everyone's happy BEFORE making the referral.

The options that we explored so far are 1. text based communications 2. audio based 3. video based, and 4. face to face/ in person... maybe in a few years we might have to add a few paragraphs about the metaverse!

Are text based forms of communication a good way to figure out if the customer is happy?

It definitely is the easiest to scale because you can send an email, questionnaire, survey, etc. to 1,000 customers with one click. This however doesn’t mean you're going to get the most effective and usable feedback from the process.

Text based forms will be the fastest and easiest to scale, but probably not the best to start a nuanced conversation if there's something the customer is unhappy about.

Maybe 99% of the customers might say that they are a "5" on a scale of "1 to 5" on how dissatisfied they are with something you did. This is the kind of feedback you get when you use drop down menus on a questionnaire.

But if you call 20 customers and close to half of them say things like, "that was unnecessary, that was cumbersome, I didn't appreciate XYZ, I was let down by ABC" and maybe one or two use cuss words, and you can sense undeniable tension over the phone, now you get a true sense of the problem that drop down menus don't convey.

Context, nuance, tone, aggression, disappointment, joy, elation, and other kinds of emotions don't come across well over text based forms of communication.

If you want to be sure that the customer was absolutely PUMPED before asking for a referral, perhaps text based forms might not be the best media to use for now.

As always remember that these things are contextual! Your national bank isn’t going to go through the hassle of calling you guys over the phone.

But if you’re a wedding photographer, interior decor consultant, personal shopper, or maybe even a tennis coach for teens during the long school holidays, perhaps text based forms might not be the best for you and your business.

Don’t send an email and assume everything is fine and then ask for a referral.

It's not a bad idea to initiate some sorts of interactions with the customer using a Google form or some sort of online questionnaire.

However is this the best way to go about customer service issues and asking for referrals?

If you're scared of picking up the phone and talking to people then YES this is a approach for you.

If you are willing to have a NUANCED conversation where you can dig in deeper on the highlights and the low points of your relationship with a customer, then other means of communication are better.

Face to face communications is the pinnacle of interpersonal communication because it allows for you to gauge context, intent, subtlety, and you can get feedback immediately when something is unclear.

Over the phone is the next best mode of communication because of similar reasons. You can get a lot of meaning from the "tone of voice", inflection, and stressors used in the conversation. A lot of these kinds of cues are totally lost in text forms of communication like email, SMS, and drop down menu forms like online questionnaires.

While we would agree that text based forms of communication are at the bottom of the rung, there's still some research either way showing whether "video" is a better form of communication than "audio".

In other words, the jury is still out whether "audio WhatsApp" and phone calls are better than "video WhatsApp calls", zoom, and skype etc.

So given the preamble we have established so far, what would be the best way to figure out if a customer is happy before asking for a referral?

Thanks for reading and commenting!

I have a few questions and comments in turn though....

1. what do you mean about not asking the first time?

2. thanks for pointing out that in some industries, customers concerns over privacy and confidentiality means they won't be referring as much... that's definitely good insight!

3. how does the surgeon know that most his clients claim they did the surgery abroad?

4. could you introduce me to the surgeon? I have some ideas on how to get around the problem of no referrals...

How do we go setting about to confirm that the customer had a positive and fulfilled experience with us before asking for a referral?

The answer is so obvious that most of us don't see it!

You ASK THEM about the experience of working with us so far, as well as how suitable our product or service was in solving their problems or meeting their desires.

The thrust of the questions should be to find out 1. what did we do right? 2. was the purchase "fit for purpose"? 3. what are the things we could have done better? 4. is there something important to them that we left out?

This is not an exhaustive list. The general thrust of the idea is to be sure that the customer is happy before we ask for a referral.

If the customer is dissatisfied about anything, then we need to be sure it's something we can address before we ask them for a referral as well.

Everyone who does business with us is trying to solve a problem or meet a desire.

If you are a pig merchant in Benue state, then obviously most of the people who buy from you are doing it because they are trying to impress their in-laws. It's not a bad idea to call them later on to see if the father in law was happy with the pig they got.

After the small talk about how the wedding went, and prayers for the bride and groom, THEN it would make sense for you to ask for a referral.

When it comes to ASKING them about the experience, the average person defaults to using a customer experience questionnaire or some sort of online or email form.

It's not a bad idea to initiate the interaction using a Google form, but is this the best way to go about customer service issues and asking for referrals?

The real magic in business begins when we learn how to proactively cultivate referrals with our happy and fulfilled customers.

This is because cultivating referrals is what leads to sustainable and dependable recurring income from our current customer base.

In other words if you get into the habit of cultivating referrals then we shouldn't have to engage in more prospecting, canvassing or demand-generation for most of our time in the business.

Although we should consider it good business practice to keep on looking for NEW customers whenever we can!

But the holy grail however should be to have LOYAL CUSTOMERS REFERRING new customers to us who will in turn refer others as well.

When we have more CUSTOMERS SELLING ON OUR BEHALF the amount of selling that we have to do ourselves on a day-to-day decreases.

We are to go about cultivating referrals by first of all learning how to ask for referrals!

Because the key thing is to ask, it doesn't mean that we should ask absolutely every single person who has done business with us in the past whether they can make a referral.

Before we ask for a referral, we have to be sure that the customer or client had a pleasant experience working with us and that the solutions we gave them in our product or service was ideal to getting the outcomes that they wanted.

In other words if you sell authentic faux leather Italian shoes, then there's no point of asking for a referral from your customer if they feel that what they received was a knock off and belittled their sense of style and sophistication.

If you ask someone for a referral in this kind of context you are asking for trouble!

Customers who feel short-changed by the experience they had with us are angry and are probably in the frame of mind to spread the news about the bad business experience, rather than refer new business to us.

That is because anyone who has had a bad business experience doesn't want to foist that kind of experience on their friends, family members, or associates.

If anything they will make sure that their loved ones don't patronize us at all so that they don't walk into the trap that they did the first time around.

Besides, when someone makes a referral to our business and we end up treating that person badly it reflects really poorly on the personal credibility of the person who made the referral in the first place.

Our customers and clients do not want to stake their personal credibility in that way at all!

So how do we go setting about to confirm that the customer had a positive and fulfilled experience with us before asking for a referral?

We will tackle that in future posts!

Whether we are good at talking to total strangers to drum up business, or demand-generation to bring in business online, eventually we start cultivating a good "book of business".

We start coming up with a loyal customer base if we are doing business the right way.

The next step now becomes very important.

That is learning how to cultivate referrals.

The reason why this is important for the average business person is because we assume too many things.

We assume that because people love us and love doing business with us, they will automatically referr us to their friends, family members, and associates.

That is not always the case.

Referrals have to be earned and cultivated.

Most referrals won't come automatically.

And for the referrals that do come automatically, you have to be happy with knowing that you're just relying on low hanging fruit.

The real magic begins when we learn how to proactively cultivate referrals with our happy and fulfilled customers.

So if you have decided that talking to strangers isn't for you when it comes to developing your business, then there are some viable options open.

One of those is called demand generation where you try to create awareness and interest around your product or service.

These activities are usually carried out online and its goal is to have people find you desirable enough to pick up the phone and start chasing you instead.

This is the dream and it takes all the heartache out of the personal rejection that you get when talking to people face to face and when you have to physically leave your house, go for trade fairs, client meetings, and networking sessions to look for your daily bread.

Unfortunately demand generation isn't without it's problems because it usually boils down to content CREATION and PROMOTION.

Content is the creative media assets that you have to put "out there" for people to discover you and find you intriguing.

Content is blog posts, interviews, podcasts, photos, videos, etc and whatever you can think of that'll make you look pretty, interesting, and desirable online so that the crowds will start flocking to your business.

Content has to be created CONSISTENTLY for it to be effective.

If you create just one video and hope it will go viral and give you all the money you need to buy your mansion on Banana Island, then you are SORELY MISTAKEN!

Content has to be created on a regularly repeated schedule.

If you create 10 videos in a year and post them all in January and February and you hope that one of them will go viral and bring in your millions, you are in for a lot of heartache.

You are better off posting those videos once a month for the whole year and your odds increase that the videos will create some awareness and interest.

How much awareness and interest?

We don't know! This process involves a lot of creation, reiteration, taking feedback and going at it again and again.

What if you don't like this hassle of waking up everyday and thinking, "what piece of content am I going to create today? How can I think up something that will bring the whole world to my doorstep?"

The answer is, unfortunately you have to do the work. It's either you go and talk to strangers, or you do demand generation. Ideally you should be doing BOTH in your business!

The best you can do with demand generation is to come up with a CONTENT CALENDAR to cure for the times when you aren't motivated enough to create, or you aren't feeling particularly inspired.

A content calendar allows you to keep going when you can't think of anything to create, or you don't feel "jazzed up" enough to create.

How do you come up with this content calendar?

In the early days it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

Journal entries and calendar entries can suffice! If you write into a diary or actual calendar several days or weeks ahead with what you think would be good things to write on, or videos to make, that's sufficient to give you some editorial direction.

This is simple and inexpensive.

I keep a running list of questions on my phone that I haven't answered yet.

That's where my content ideas come from.

This is piece is the answer to a question I was asked by a student in a live question and answer session.

These simple and uncomplicated methods are enough to keep you going for weeks and weeks!

That's why I now have over 530 episodes of my business podcast, and over 380 posts on the blog.

This is part of the journey you'll have to take when you get on the demand generation side of business promotion.

If traditional prospecting or canvassing is difficult because you're spending a lot of time talking to total strangers, then is demand generation an easier alternative?

 

Demand generation is the process and activities around creating "awareness" and "interest" for your product or your service.

 

This is done mostly online these days.

 

So is creating awareness behind a computer or phone keyboard easier than talking to total random strangers?

 

To answer that we need to have a sense of what the difficulties of demand generation are.

 

Demand generation these days boils down to content PROMOTION and CREATION.

 

Unfortunately most people think that a single post going viral is going to be sufficient to get the business moving.

 

Sadly not everyone can craft the perfect viral post or video.

 

Also for most people, success in demand generation is going to come from content that is produced or promoted ON A REGULAR SCHEDULE FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME!

 

The period of time in question will depend on your product or service, the nature of the industry, market conditions and trends, and a host of other factors beyond our control.

 

If you're looking for something easier than talking to strangers and you don't want to do any difficult work, then demand generation isn't the saviour you're looking for.

 

You have to produce content regularly for an extended period of time.

 

If you sell makeup products online, that might mean producing top notch videos once a week for months before people start  texting via DM to say "how much?"

 

If you run a sports betting franchise, your content production and promotion cadence might have to be hourly!

 

If you want to make money from gambling spreads (which aren't much) then you need people constantly on your feeds for the match fixtures, the odds, the stats, the previous game outcomes, player profiles, etc. Putting up one post per day on your Instagram isn't going to work in this case.

 

So pick your poison! Either learn how to talk to strangers, or learn how to product content periodically and faithfully OVER THE LONG TERM.

 

The "make money without work" pill hasn't been invented yet.

Is demand generation easier than face-to-face prospecting?

The question is relevant because a lot of people assume that it is easy to do your business activities behind a keyboard than talking to people face-to-face.

Because of this mistaken belief, a lot of people take to the keyboard even when it might be a lot more effective to talk to people face-to-face or call someone up to talk over the phone. Even if that person is a complete stranger!

Whether one activity is easier than the other will depend on a number of factors.

It depends on the nature of the industry, market, and the product or service in question. It also depends on the level of the relationship between the two people concerned.

Because of all these contextual differences it is hard to give a once and for all answer about which is better.

But for those who would assume that sitting behind a keyboard to drum up business is a lot easier than talking to strangers, you ought to consider a number of factors.

"Demand generation" which is another way of creating awareness and interest online for your product and your services, comes with its own hassles and its own concerns.

The chief concern about this is that demand generation eventually boils down to "content creation" and "promotion".

When the rubber hits the road, are you ready for the level of dedication that is required on a daily or weekly basis to produce content? Promote content? And stir up conversations online to give your product or service the attention that it DEMANDS to move your business forward?

MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, IT IS AN ABSOLUTE AND NECESSARY BUSINESS DEMAND.

It is doubtful whether any kind of business can thrive without some sort of promotion attached to it.

These and many more are some of the questions that we will consider in the posts that will come in the next couple of days.

One of my favourite students at the Evolve Africa Business Incubation program for 2022 said she'd tried prospecting in her business earlier and gave up for something a lot easier.

Prospecting the art of asking of yourself the question, "who could I talk to today that could become a customer tomorrow?". Off course prospecting also involves the PRACTICE of going out and looking for same people to talk to.

The talking part was hard for the student because she spoke to a few dozen people every week and was exhausted.

She figured online activities would be a lot easier and this is how her relationship with "demand generation" began.

Demand generation is mostly about creating AWARENESS AND INTEREST online for your product or service.

This sounds a lot easier than talking to strangers right?

Maybe!

But "behind the keyboard" and not "face to face" doesn't necessarily mean "easier".

Demand generation also comes with it own daily hassles and worries.

What demand generational activities was she trying out by the way? WhatsApp groups, Facebook, and Google my business.

Was the journey easy?

We'll continue that in another post tomorrow!

Even though prospecting is something we all need to do to get our business rolling, we fall short on the activity because prospecting is hard.

There's a lot of rejection involved, and a lot of hours have to be devoted weekly to talking to strangers, calling over the phone, attending meetings, and sending out emails.

Even though a lot of work is involved at this stage of business, the number one thing that makes people afraid of prospecting is the unrealistic expectations that they have concerning these activities.

Most people assume that if they talk to 10 total strangers, they'll end up doing business with 8 of them.

This is REALLY far from the truth!

You might be a brilliant individual and really good looking and fluent. Your product or service might be "one in town" and revolutionary. You might have the best pricing on the planet or maybe have exclusive appeal and "off the wall" branding.

You might have all of these factors and more working for you, but still you aren't going to get 8 out of 10 people doing business with you.

The reason why NOT EVERYONE WILL BUY FROM YOU is obvious.

Not everyone WANTS what you have.

Not everyone NEEDS what you have.

Not everyone can AFFORD what you have.

Because of this you should have more realistic expectations.

Expect 2 or 3 people out of 10 to do business with you. The actual figure will depend on the kind of product, your industry conversion average, and the kinds of markets you guys are breaking into.

If you expect 3 out of 10 to do business with you, but you are consistently getting 1 person everyday as a customer, then at least you feel like you're a third closer to the goal.

If you expect to close the deal with 8 out of 10, then even if you hit 5 consistently everyday, you'll feel like a failure.

Just so you know, 50% or 5 out 10 would be considered MAGIC returns in most industries.

So go out everyday and do what you need to do to bring business in.

But make sure you have realistic expectations around your prospecting activities. That is what will determine whether you go out motivated tomorrow, or shrink away in fear next week.

Prospecting is the answer to the question, "where can I find someone to talk to today who might be interested in my product or service?"

Prospecting is an activity we have to do regularly, and the questions it raises are things we should be asking ourselves periodically as well.

The reason why it's important to ask these questions is because without a paying customer, there will be no business!

Without a paying customer, all we have is a hobby.

Traditionally prospecting was done by "canvassing" which is going up to people physically to start a conversation with them.

Businesses still do that today because the last time I was at Ceddi plaza in Abuja, a rep for a real estate development company walked up to me to see if I was interested in some flyers and projects they are rolling out around the city.

Canvassing and "face to face" hustle is really hard work!

That's why we have to make sure that we do the right amount of "targeting" up front.

We want to be sure we are approaching the right people from the beginning. This increases our chances of having conversations with people who are actually interested and might be ready to take action reasonably soon.

With this in mind, is it a good idea to approach members of the public randomly? Maybe not! (although random activity might be better than nothing in the early days).

The trick with canvassing and "face to face" is to make sure we have some rough cues that can serve as clues for who might be interested in what we do.

Back to the lady at Ceddi plaza selling real estate development...

Should she only approach people who drive SUVs? That might be a sign that they have disposable income and might be able to afford a plot in a project under development.

Should her company enter into a partnership with a bank so that they have access to people who have about 5M in fixed deposits maturing soon? That might mean they have spare cash sitting around with no ideas of where to spend it.

Or should she approach people who are members of the board for REIT/ Real Estate Investment Trusts and see what opportunities for business arise?

These are the sorts of ideas and creative thinking that we should mull around from week to week to get the needle moving in our businesses.

The better we get at "prospecting", the better our chances are for having productive business conversations.

By the way, I didn't take the lady's flyers. I don't have disposable income now, and I'm not interested in real estate at the moment.

It's not that talking to me was a waste of her time, it's that she didn't properly target to begin with.

We have to pay our dues to be successful in business. Fortunately we all have to pay the same coin everyday to make it happen... at least in the early days of the business.

The coin we have to pay is called "prospecting".

Prospecting is the activity of looking for people to talk to who could be potentially interested in your product or service. These are people who could become paying customers in the future.

Without prospecting, there is no business! This is because without a paying customer, THERE IS NO BUSINESS! This is the same for NGOs and charities, but that’s a topic for another day.

So! For the average business person, you either have to look for the customers yourself, or pay someone else who can.

Nowadays there are folks talking about "product led growth" where the product "sells itself" and because of that neither YOU nor someone else has to do any selling.... that's a topic for another day... and there's some nuance there people leave out in their optimism.

Prospecting is the coin we have to pay, and like any other coin, it has two faces.

All coins have either "heads" or "tails", and so does prospecting.

Prospecting is either done "face to face" (some people call this “canvassing”) or through "demand generation".

Which is "heads" in this case? Whichever one you find easier to use!

And what's the difference between the two? We'll tackle that in future posts.

The bottom line is, get ready to pay your dues!

My main thesis for the Evolve Africa Business Incubation Session for November 2022 was simple!

Generating sales and growing your business requires systems and practices that you can easily replicate and do sustainably everyday.

There's not going to be any growth or progress without designing some sort of system to handle your day to day business needs of looking for folks to talk to, and seeing how many of those folks could become paying customers.

Once we get those paying customers, we also need to come up with systems for working out how to keep them happy and coming back for more.

New income in good, but recurring revenue is even better! That's because it's easier to maintain from a "selling" point of view. People who come back with recurring revenue have already been "sold" on working with you in the past. That's why they're knocking on your door today!

This is not a bad thesis for those of us in the early days of the grind where "effort" and "systems" can cure a multitude of sins with the business.

Those of you who are a little farther along need someone to help you with "scale" in the business.

I'm assuming that you've already validated your product or service and set up systems that keep the sales and revenue engine running.

If you've gone beyond these stages, then your problems with the business will be problems of "complexity" or "strategy", and strategic thinking will help you move the needle forward with your business.

If you haven't reached either of these stages yet, let's keep reading and subscribe because that's our perennial focus here on the blog and our continued vision for 2023.

Let's come up with simple systems and practical stuff that we can do everyday without hassle to get our businesses chugging along.

I had an online sales clinic session with cohorts from Evolve Africa a few days ago.

They are a Nigerian outfit dedicated to empowering people to succeed with skills needed in business and the work place.

While brainstorming on possible ideas for the sessions, I suggested that we run case studies using REAL LIVE businesses owned and operated by people in the class.

My reasons for doing so were simple; people have a deluge of content to consume everyday that introduces them to new perspectives and possibilities.

VERY LITTLE of that content is directed at answering the question of WHAT TO DO NEXT to move profits in the right direction, and increase the number of customers that come back for repeat business.

That was what the session was about... real life problems and real life solutions instead of more theoretical stuff that sounds good but you’re not sure about how to apply it.

The answers and scenarios from those sessions will serve as the core for our pieces in the following days.

Sit back, relax and enjoy the practical problems, concrete solutions, workable and readily applicable perspectives that you can bring to your sales and business development challenges everyday.

How do sales skills help with making better presentations to a client?

The chief benefit that sales and business development training brings to you is that it helps you understand that it's NOT ABOUT YOU or the wonderful message that you are bringing to the world.

It's all about the audience, their needs, and their requirements. The best presentation in the world can fall down flat if delivered to the wrong audience.

The wrong audience are the folks who aren't interested in the message or have no need for it.

So the first thing that sales practice will help you with for better presentations is to ask the questions, "is this the right audience?" and "how can my knowledge/ experience be brought to the particular context of this audience's needs?"

If you are asking these questions, you are making a step in the right direction for a better presentation!

If you're trying to raise funds from investors for your big business idea, you'll have to show some SALES to show that there's a willing market and room for growth for the business.

In the absence of sales, you should be able to show the investors that there's some TRACTION for this business idea that you have.

Traction is the idea that people are willing to DO SOMETHING with your big business ideas.

So if your next business idea is an app to show LAG and ABJ drivers where VIO and LASTMA are so they can avoid the traffic and the hassles of law enforcement, you should be able to show the investors proof of TRACTION.

Traction in this case might mean that you showed the app to 500 drivers in the last 2 months and out of those, 350 downloaded the app. Maybe out of the 350, 200 have been using it daily for at least 20 days a month in the last 2 months. And maybe out of those 200, they have recruited another 120 drivers to join using coupons and referral codes that you gave them.

This shows that your idea is so great that people are willing to use it as it is. This will inspire the investors and make it possible for you to argue that with their investment, you should be able to recruit more, advertise more, invest in more app development costs, and do whatever it is you need to build something massive that we can all partake of in the future.

Does pursuing traction need a certain measure of sales skills? YES! Because you have to talk to someone in the first place to get them to use your app!

Imagine toasting and cajoling Lagos taxi drivers on why they should install your app!

Increase your chances of getting your business funded. Learn how to sell so that you can demonstrate traction for your great business idea.

Before you approach your wealthy uncle or auntie to "invest" in your business idea with you, you had better VALIDATE THE IDEA first.

Validation just means PROOF that this is a workable idea that can grow in the future.

Validation usually involves SALES or TRACTION depending on what you are working on.

Sales is the proof that people are willing to give you money for your product or service. It shows that your underlying business idea is a valuable one that can grow over time.

If you come to a meeting with your investors for this revolutionary idea that will change the world, but you haven't gotten anyone to PAY YOU MONEY for the product, don't be surprised if the investors become sceptical.

On the other hand the idea might sound stupid to the investors you have approached so far. BUT if out of 50 people you showed the product to, 30 of them bought the product, then it's a sign to the investors that perhaps there's something viable here that they ought to be paying attention to!

However not all business ideas will start running with the PROFIT MOTIVE from the beginning. This is where the idea of traction becomes important, and we'll get to that in the next post.

Until then, think about this and see how knowledge of sales can be VERY USEFUL to helping you secure the investment outcomes you desire.

Thanks ellzii and HappyMangle for the comments and questions...

It's not safe to count on investors ONLY because traditionally you require two forms of capital for business - revenue from your customers OR funding from investors.

Either way you'll have to LEARN to talk to your customers and get them to buy, or talk to investors to get them to invest.

ellzii why don't you send me an email using the link and let me hear some more about your business idea? Let's see if your savings are enough to get things rolling at least?

And YES what you need is a great idea, BUT IT ALSO HAS TO BE Backed BY GREAT EXECUTION... this is where sales and persuasion skills come in.

So we should be working on both the great idea and the great execution skills.

Thanks again you guys for reading and commenting! I REALLY appreciate the attention and engagement.

How do sales skills help you validate your investment idea or business thesis before approaching investors?

Your business thesis is the idea that your great business is going to be built around.

Let's say you are into photography and you think that there's a market of sophisticated brides who will appreciate nothing but black and white wedding photos EXCLUSIVELY.

For some reason you also happen to think that they're going to be more "up market" than the average ABJ or LAG bride.

Before you approach your wealthy uncle or auntie to "invest" in this idea with you, you had better VALIDATE THE IDEA first.

Validation just means PROOF that this is a workable idea that can grow in the future.

If you meet your investors with fancy power point and Queen's English, but you have nothing to show that the market desires this idea of yours, then you are unlikely to secure investors.

This market validation or proof is also going to serve as the basis for all those fancy "market projections" that you are going to make to them that you can double or triple their money in 3 years time.

If you have no proof, you won't get credit alerts on your account... except if you approach your mother. She loves you and she'll give you the money without proof because she wants to support you.

Don't expect the same deal from your father.

What do investors want in return for their time and their money?

Since they don't run charities, they are going to want two principal things in return. Sometimes they want one or the other, and sometimes they want both of them at the same time.

Investors are going to want 1. equity, or 2. interest.

Equity is a share in the ownership of the company or the business idea that you are going to make using their money.

If you watch Dragon's Den and Shark Tank then you're familiar with this already; "This sounds like an interesting idea, I'll give you the 2M you're asking for but I want to own a 50% share in the company". That is equity!

If the investor wants "interest", then what has happened really is that the investor loaned you money to get the business off the ground. This is the kind of conversation you have with your rich uncle or rich aunt; "This sounds like an interesting idea, I'll give you the 2M you're asking for but I want to be paid back 3.5M total by this time in 2 years". That is interest.

In the second case the company and the business idea will still belong to you, but you'll have to pay 1.5M as interest after you've paid back the 2M you borrowed at the start.

Sometimes the investor will want both! "This sounds like an interesting idea, I'll give you the 2M you're asking for but I want to be paid 2.5M by this time next year and I'll also own 20% of the company".

Does this sound excessive? It all depends on the balance of power and sophistication between the entrepreneur and the investor in question.

Bottom line! Before you start looking for investors, realize that nothing goes for nothing.

If someone is giving you cash, they want something in return. You have to get good at figuring out what that “something” is, and what you’ll be willing to trade for it.

Except your mother... she wants you to succeed and so she'll give you the money with no strings attached.

Well... SOME mothers anyway!