Hello and welcome to the show.It's available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify, amongst other sources.I'm your host, Tavishima Ayide.
Today is definitely going to be a noisy episode because I'm outside at the bank, so expect to hear some interruptions.
Now, the reason why I'm at the banks is because they've been doing some tech or data migration software platform, some tech thing going on in the banking space in Nigeria.
And it's been leading to all kinds of crappy, crappy situations, you know, failed transactions and stuff like that over the last maybe like three weeks.And of course, you know that, you know,
You know, things are kind of dry, things are kind of cray right now.So, these idiots just somehow lost 50K of my money in transactions.And so, I said, look, I have to come here and sort this thing out myself.
Because, you know, the online channels to try and report the transaction are not working.Trying to solve this thing by phone call, by WhatsApp, you know, is terrible.So, I just came into the bank and let me say, let me sort this thing out real quick.
But then again, I'm not sure how long this is going to take, so that's the reason why I said let me just make this podcast episode right now before I get into the bank and then I see that the queue is like four hours long or something.
Anyway, not to bore you with my own personal woes, As usual, if you'd love to connect and explore opportunities with me then call me on 080-6466-2140.
That's my WhatsApp number as well and the country code is plus 234 for those of you who are not Nigerian.
But to connect with me on social media, make sure it's LinkedIn because if you try any other place, I'll probably get back to you in about a month.But if you hit me up on LinkedIn, yeah sure, 24 hours, you and I will be having a conversation.
Now today, I would like to continue from where we started yesterday.Yesterday, where were we on?So one moment, let me look at my notes.Okay, yesterday, we were looking at content and resources that the sales team needs to succeed.
And I think that is why I introduced you guys to the concept of sales enablement and how we have to look at the training that our salespeople or employees receive, the training, the material, and then the technology.
So today, I figure we'll just, you know, freestyle, talk some more about how you can use technology to empower the sales team.Because I know we spoke about a bunch of stuff yesterday, but today, let me see if I can just stretch it out a little bit.
So basically, that's the focus for today, how we can use technology to empower your employees or to empower your sales team.
Now the reason why I'm saying employees or sales team interchangeably is because like I said yesterday, for most of us in the SME space, you'll find out that your employees are having to sell one way or another.
So you're a small business, maybe you have two or three sales people, but you find that every once in a while, accountant will bring in a deal or human resources will bring in a deal
or I don't know, maybe even the cleaner will bring in a deal and you give the cleaner a percentage or something like that.But you find that in the early days of the business, everybody's having to be on their grind.
Everybody's having a hustle to bring in a deal or two because that's how salaries are going to be paid.So how can we use technology to empower the sales team or empower employees who once in a while try to sell on our behalf? So, let's see.
Okay, I have two or three ideas about how tech can come in handy and number one, this is something of centralized data.
That's having all your customer info in one place and it's something I hinted at in yesterday's episode when I spoke about the business owner that I was having a conversation with who is in the paint space, selling paint.
and there was this problem in the past of you know one or two sales people resigning and leaving him and then you just lose a whole bunch of contacts you know they're good customers that you can't get in touch with because uh you know okay chukwu has left or you fired kemi and all the details happen to be on their phone
So if you have tech and everything is centralized in one place, then there's benefits to you, the business owner, because everything is in one place.But then there's benefits to other team members because everything is going to be easy to access.
So if you have, even if it's something as basic as, what's this thing called now? Google contacts or whatever and it's available to everybody on the phone.
Then you don't necessarily have to be with each particular salesperson in case you need one phone number.So let's say you have a bunch of salespeople.Let's say you have Adam, Adele, Abdulaziz and Arochukwu.
Yeah, so let's say those are your four salespeople. And Arochuku needs the contact details for somebody and it's on the handset that Ahadele has it on.
So Arochuku doesn't have to call Ahadele because you can check Google Contacts or whatever contact management system that you have for your business and everybody has access to the contact details of customers or addresses and things like that.
So it's really, really going to help. Because whenever your crew needs something, you don't necessarily have to call somebody in this office, or call somebody here, or call somebody there.
If somebody's on sick leave, or somebody has gone home for a burial, or the person they knew showed up to work today, everybody can continue.Because using tech, everything is centralized in one place.
Even if it's something as simple as Google Contacts to store your contact details, or maybe everything is stored on an Excel, master Excel sheet.And yes, you'd be surprised
But there are lots of businesses today, well, in Nigeria anyway, that I come across that still use Excel sheets.And I'm one of those guys who thinks like, look, if it's working so far, then I guess there's no need to replace it, at least for now.
So even that works.Excel, that's simple technology right there.And you can use that to empower everybody in the sales team or empower people who are selling on your behalf.
Then, of course, also if everything is centralized, then it's going to be easy to manage deals.OK, let's go back to the whole Excel thing.There's this wedding planner in Abuja.I'm not going to call out his name.
I don't want to embarrass him so that people won't know that that's how he manages their customer information.But for them, they run everything through Excel.I'm not an Excel guy.
So for me, to be honest, I used to find it frustrating when I had to, you know, liaise with them and share contact details. They send me information, it's in a spreadsheet.I'm like, you know, what's all this now?You're sending me a spreadsheet.
Can't you just copy and paste what I need?Send it to me instead of sending me the whole damn spreadsheet.So there are some people who run business that way.
So Excel, for those of you who do, well, I'd be surprised if there's anybody listening to this podcast who hasn't heard of Excel.
You know, there's Microsoft Word, there's Microsoft PowerPoint, there's Microsoft Excel, and there's a fourth one I can't remember. So Excel is like a table with different rows and different columns, and then you get to put information in there.
You can put names, you can put phone numbers, you can put addresses, and then you can also put little tabs to show what is going on.
Okay, so like this wedding photographer now, for instance, sorry, not photographer, wedding planner in Abuja who runs his whole business off of Excel. Okay, well, to be honest, I haven't done business with him in like four or five years.
So it's possible that they've changed their system.But the last time me and him had to do business together, he used to run everything through Excel.So they would have a sheet.Let's say we went for a bridal show now.Okay, we're in 2024.
So let's say we go for a bridal show.Let's see.Okay, I don't think there were bridal shows this year.Anyway, I'm not sure.But let's just assume that there were bridal shows this year in Abuja.
and let's say it had held at Hilton Hotel so what he would do is that there'll be a spreadsheet so Bridal Show 2024 Hilton Hotel that'll be like the header
Then on the tables, there'll be name and then serial number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, you know, all the way down.Then next would be phone number and then that, and then next would be address.Then after that, maybe it would be wedding date.
And then the other spaces will now track the stages.So if somebody comes to the booth, let's say the person's name is Arochukwu, Arochukwu and Angela.So Arochukwu and Angela.So that would be step one.
Number one name arrow Chukwu and Angela then they'll put their phone number there then they'll put the address then put phone number and Then maybe the next tab will be okay next time wedding date.So wedding day to be there and
then let's say after the wedding fair, they're able to come to the office to visit the wedding planner to talk in more detail, then maybe the next time after that we'll say office visit or client consultation, you know, that sort of thing.
So now this is the benefit to everybody else who works with that particular wedding planner, all his junior wedding planners, all his salespeople, anybody who needs to know information on anything can just open up that Excel sheet.
And of course, this is Excel sheet.Everybody can have access.So I'll be here.I have access on my phone.You'll be there.You have access on your computer.Somebody else is in Port Harcourt and they have access on their laptop.
but we don't have access so somebody can just open up that sheet and be able to see that for this particular customer that we're trying to find out how far sorry about that some idiot's car alarm just went off so
You'll be able to check and then you'll be able to see that for Aro, Chuku and Angela, these customers that we're talking to, this is how we met them.This is the stage of the relationship where we are.
They have come to the office, this is what we've discussed and this is going to be the next step.They're supposed to come back to the office and then we're supposed to look at samples, you know, those sorts of things.
So you can see how using tech, even if it's something as basic as Excel, by keeping everything in one location, everything is centralized data, you see how it's going to make... Now, what the hell is going on now?Okay, let me just continue.
Sorry about that.I don't know why the guy's car alarm is just going off.Where was I?This guy made me lose my train of thought.
Okay, so yes, if everything is centralized in one place, then that's how it helps everybody to sell well, because everybody, no matter where you are, we can just pick up our phone, computer, laptop, anything, and then just check.
We have access to all the data.It's going to be able to help us to sell well.So, like, maybe that transaction now, Aro, Chukwu and Angela, their wedding, so maybe it might have been started by, let's say it's Felix that started talking to them.
Oh, by the way, when I was a kid, my mom told me that it's not Felix, it's Felix. So that's how I went to school and I met my friend, Felix, and I told him, hey look, Felix, your name is not Felix, your name is Felix.
And my guy started to argue with me that his name is not Felix, that his name is Felix.So anyway, we had an argument about it and then I go home and I told my mom, like, hey mom, you told me that his name is Felix, but he says no, his name is Felix.
And my mom says, well, his name is whatever it is that he says his name is.So that's... That's a tip for you guys here today.People's names are whatever they say their names are because, you know, this thing happens a lot.
Like in the wedding space, you would meet a Christiana who insists that her name is Christina.And in my mind, I'm thinking, I can see your name right here.Your name is clearly Christiana.You know, why are you calling yourself Christina?
But anyway, and also it goes the other way around.Somebody spells their name Christina, but then she introduces herself to you as Christiana.So these sorts of things happen. So, where was I?
So, let's say Felix is the one who started the interaction with Arochuku and Angela and then maybe Felix now decides to jackpot and so he leaves the company.
Now, me, who is taking over the account and trying to close the deal between Aruchukwu and Angela, I will have all the information I need because everything is in one centralized place.Everything is all on Excel sheets.
So, Felix and Jacqua, it's not a problem.Business will still continue.So, that's how technology can help our businesses, by having centralized data, keeping everything in one place.Easy to access and it's going to be easy to manage deals.
Then technology also helps because it makes things more efficient.It helps you to automate certain tasks like This is free to alter dot AI And that helps with their transcribing meetings.
So the next time you're having meetings Okay, since I've gone to weddings, let me just stick with weddings for this episode.I So you have the bride there and the groom for the meeting.
Oh, by the way, if you are going to be recording these sorts of things, let people know.For me, I do not record audio at meetings, and I do not record a video, and I do not do auto transcription.I just make notes.
So I just tell people like, what did I say again?I tell them, oh, Aruchuku Angela, nice to see you guys again, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, so today Last time we saw we spoke about this is today.I was supposed to talk about that.
I hope you guys don't mind I'm going to be taking notes while we're talking so I don't forget anything and of course, I will took one Angela I'm going to say oh, that's okay.That's not a problem.And then the meeting continues So that's how I do it.
Some people have decided to adopt tech, and there's no problem with that, where all you do is you just bring out your phone, you push a button, and then Google Transcribe, as you guys are talking, Google Transcribe will just be writing everything down.
Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha.And that thing is beautiful.It's magic.Like, the first time I saw it, I just, I thought to myself, like, what?Like, this is a game changer.And the thing is fairly accurate.
Of course, it doesn't pick up on some Nigerian things like, Like if you say ABI, for instance, it's not going to pick up on things like that.But these are things that you can go in and then later on fix by yourself.But it just writes everything down.
Well, the only problem with Google Transcribe is that it's going to write everything down as one document.So you will have to go back and then now edit it properly, and then stretch it out like, OK, this is the part where Arochukwu was talking.
This is the part where Angela was talking.And then this is the part where me, Tavishima, I was talking. Then there are some other tools that can, I think like Otter AI, will separate it into speaker 1, speaker 2, speaker 3.
So maybe if I start speaking at the meeting, it's now going to identify me as speaker 1.If Angela is the one who said, okay, that's okay, no problem, you can make your notes, then Angela will now be speaker 2. and then ROChuKu will now be Speaker 3.
So that's how it will record the meeting.Speaker 1, Speaker 2, Speaker 3.So I think that's otter.ai.Well, an otter is O-T-T-E-R.It's not the Yoruba otter.It's not O-T-A.It's otter the animal.O-T-T-R dot A-I.
even though otter.ai is free unfortunately i think you're only limited to 63 minutes per month which is not much because let's face it for wedding photographers that's basically just like two meetings a month now because each time you meet with uh the bride and groom that's like 20-30 minutes so that's not much but might not be a bad place to start
And then for the people that I did the session on artificial intelligence for, you know, I spoke for NBC, that's Nigerian Bottling Corporation.That was earlier in the year.
And the talk was about how you can use artificial intelligence to boost your business or to boost your career prospects.
And so, for that particular team, what they were using, the consultants who were working on behalf of the NBC, what they were using was read.ai.That is read, R-E-A-D.ai.And that also takes notes during meetings and things like that.
So, the online meetings were going to have because, you know, everybody was in a different place now.You know, like me, I'm in Abuja.NBC people, marketing team were in Lagos.
I think the lady who hooked up everything, I think she was in Oshun at the time or something.So that's what they used to take minutes of the meeting.So, anyway, bottom line, what I'm trying to say is this.
You can use technology tools to automate stuff, like all these AI tools that we've spoken about.You can use read.ai.I don't know if it's free.Otter.ai is free, but I think maybe 60 minutes, one month.There's a paid version.I don't know how much.
Then Google Transcribe.Google Transcribe, that one is definitely free.Works like a charm. But basically what I was trying to say was this, let people know, don't record somebody without telling them what's up.
Don't use any of these transcribing tools without telling them what's up.
uh well hmm how do i put it from a legal standpoint you could say it's a violation of um um privacy privacy a violation of privacy from a legal standpoint but even if there were no legal concerns at least definitely in nigeria people don't like this whole thing of look you're recording what i'm saying and you need to even tell me and another reason why it's a good thing to warn people is because
There are some people who are free and who talk anyhow, like me.But if we know that the thing is being recorded, you know, we'll calm down and we will, you know, comport ourselves accordingly.
Because it's somehow, for somebody to say something, intending it to be gist between you and me.And then next thing, you now hear that the thing was recorded somewhere and somebody has access to the transcript.So you need to let people know, like,
Okay, how do we do it?Okay, so Arutruku, Angela.Yeah, nice to see you guys again.I really loved the last meeting.And now that we're here to discuss so-so-so-and-so, I hope you don't mind.
I want to take a couple of notes during this meeting just so I don't forget anything.And this is what I'm going to be using.This is Google Transcribe.It's going to be transcribing everything as we talk.
I'm just going to push this button on my phone here and we'll start recording.So, guys, do you have any problem with it? And if Angela says, oh, no, it's OK.I'm cool by it.And then Aruchukwu says, no, how you will record in our meeting.
At that point, don't try and argue the case that since Angela said she's cool with it, you're going to record.If one person says, no, I don't like this thing.I'm not feeling this thing.Then just let it go.Bring out your sheet of paper.
Bring out your pencil and start doing it old school.Just make. Let people know.Don't force anybody. Then another way that tech can help empower the sales team is improved insights.
Now this is something that I saw first hand when I was doing business with my brother, when we were doing the agricultural export business. Because like I said, me personally, I do not like Excel.I think the thing is complicated.
You open it and then you see a table and it's just too much.It's too many letters, too many numbers, it's just too much.And then like you need a PhD to use Excel.That's my own opinion anyway.But my wife says Excel, easiest thing on the planet.
My brother says Excel, easiest thing on the planet.Mom sees Excel, she likes Excel.So I don't know, maybe I'm just the black sheep in the family, so I hate Excel.
However, when my brother and I were in business, I saw the benefits of Excel first hand. Because one day he was fooling around on stuff and I was looking at it, next thing I saw, pie chart.
You know, like from secondary school now, the entrance to secondary school, pie chart, bar chart.That's where everything is represented in graphs.You know, like a circle with different sections of the circle cut out or bar charts.
That's, you know, you have, hmm, how do I describe it now?I was going to say X-axis and Y-axis. You have one line straight, one line straight up, another line going, going, what's that word?Horizontal.
And then you have bars in different colors to represent different kinds of data.So my brother made pie charts in Excel.That's one where the information is represented as a circle.And there was one part that was purple, that was very small.
And then there was another part that I think was like yellow and very big.And then I asked him, oh, what's this?He said, oh, that he's just arranging everything into data.
So I said, OK, that yellow part, this very big one that is taking up like 90% of the circle, what is that?He said, oh, that is where we make most of our money from.I said, eh, where is that?He said, Middle Eastern countries.I said, eh, OK.
So that tiny one, where is that?He said, China's okay.So most of our money is coming from All those Arabs them say yes.So this tiny whatever that's China.He said yes.Okay.
I looked at the other circle That was now the other way around Where the big one that was like 90% was a different color and then the small one that was like 10% was something color I said, okay.What's that big one?
So these are the number of Scammers that try to scam us Oh, and by the way, I didn't expect it, but when we started doing the export business, man, there are lots of scammers out there in this world.Plenty of scammers.
I used to think Nigerians are the king of scams, but I guess scamming is a universal thing because... Anyway, it was just a big surprise because we started off in the wedding space.
I used to do photo, he used to do video, and you come across one or two people who are trying to scam you, but... It's not like export.
On the export thing, I would say every two or three days, you meet somebody that is trying to scam you, trying to do 419, as if you are doing the export.
So those of you who are in the export business, you know, shine your eyes, you know, be very careful.So he said, oh, the big one was, these are people that are trying to scam us and, you know, blah, blah, blah.And then everything was color-coded.
I said, well, OK, that big one, from which country?And then he said China.I said, what?So all. So like 90% of the people that are trying to scam us, they're from China.He said yes.And then that's why we're making the smallest amount of money.
He said yes.I said, ah, it's time for a meeting.So I called him and said, look, in my own opinion, if Asian countries
this small money and this small inquiries but then number of scammers this big from now on can we just ignore anybody that's calling us from China or an Asian country and then that's how that's how we decided so you can see that in this case that's how it um
that's how it helps to you know improve insights can help how you conduct your business you can look at something and very clearly even for people who are illiterates when it comes to these sorts of things like me we hope to see clearly like this is where we're making this amount of money this is where we're losing this amount of money okay then this is perhaps what it is that we need to do next oh by the way apologies guys the uh crew that is cleaning the building they've moved right here next to the window so expect to hear more noise um from this part
So the tech gives you, where was I?So improved insights basically.You guys are going to be able to analyze data, you're going to be able to look at trends, and you're going to be able to see opportunities that you have for improvement.
Then, of course, tech is also useful for collaboration.Like I've pointed out, you can share information with the team.
And I think it's a sign from the universe, now that these idiots have come next to my window, that I think it's time to bring today's episode to a close.Where was I? Yeah, so that's it pretty much.
So that's just me freestyling about how we can use technology to empower the sales team.So let me just wrap up now and we'll head into the bank and see how I can chase down my 50K because right now 50K actually is needed.
So thank you for your time and attention.And remember that if you'd love to connect with me to explore opportunities, the phone number is 080-6466-2140.Or you can WhatsApp me on the same number
the country code is plus 234 for those of you who are not Nigerian and then also if you're looking for me on social media the place to look for place to look at rather is on LinkedIn so I'll catch you all tomorrow
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