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Hello and welcome to the show. Today's an Art about episode. So expect to hear some noise in the background, particularly the generator that is, you know, rumbling in the distance. But anyway, the windows are up, so hopefully we shouldn't have too much noise bleeding into today's episode. Now today we're going to be looking at cold calling for growing your business. You know how to grow your business by doing cold calling.
Now, if you're not familiar with the term cold calling, you don't know what that means. Don't worry, just hang in here. We're going to get it there real quick, but the reason why we're looking at cold calling today is because for the for those of you who are just discovering the show today, when you're done listening to this episode, you know, skip back four or five episodes where we were looking at how a baby lawyer.
When I say baby lawyer, I don't mean an actual baby. I just mean somebody who is young as a lawyer, you know, coming into the business, trying to start the business on their own. We came up with a couple of episodes with ideas for how people who are coming into the legal space or people who are open their trying to open their consultancy practice or trying to look for ways that people like that can get clients. And I think we started off by prospecting, defining what prospecting is.
And then from there we moved into networking, networking as a form of prospecting. And the next one I was going to tackle was cold calling. And then it occurred to me that there are a whole bunch of you listening to this podcast right now who do not even know what cold calling means, even though chances are some of you do it every day or some of you have done it at some point in the past. So today's episode is just dedicated to cold calling.
You know, what is cold calling? Have you been doing it? How can you do it? How can you use it to grow your business? So that's what we're going to be doing. So we're going to be ditching the baby lawyer example for now. We might come back to that case study again, but for now, no more baby lawyer. So cold calling for your business. Before we continue, if you'd love to connect for a strategy session for a business audit or because you have a few questions that you want me to answer,
that's no problem. Reach out to me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, I'm on LinkedIn as Tavishima IED. That's my name. I'm the host of the show. So now the definition of cold calling. Cold calling just means you are talking to total strangers. Now you see why I say some of you have done it in the past even though you didn't know. So if you're one of those people who likes to walk up on strangers in, you know, a Kesha City mall, for those of you based in Lagos, you know, maybe you have a travel agency and you're trying to take advantage of the fact that people are trying to Jack while they're trying to leave Nigeria.
So you just stroll up to Eketa City more. You see a man with his kids, you just walk up to him and you start trying to have a conversation about whether he wants to Jack by. So if you've been doing that, that is called calling. Cold calling is you just walk up to a stranger cold. You don't know the person, the person doesn't know you. The person has no preview of context about you. You have made no prior contact to that person.
You guys have no emotional connection. You guys have no existing relationship. The thing is, you're just guessing. The person might be interested in your product or service. So you say, yeah, let me just try my luck. So you walk up to people in the street, that's called calling. You walk up to somebody at the Kesha City Mall, that's called calling. Although that kind of cold calling nowadays is called canvassing. When you're using your two legs,
you walk up and down and you're talking to people, that's cold calling. Although nowadays it's called canvassing. So in most parts of the world, Europe, whereas America, when they say cold calling, they like to limit it, to limit it to when you actually pick up the phone and call somebody who is a total stranger. So the person that you're bossing, the guy doesn't know you, the babe doesn't know you, no prayer context.
You guys don't know each other from Adam or Eve. No prayer contact, no emotional connection, no existing relationship, nothing. You just see the phone number somewhere. You think this person might be interested in my program and service? Let me just buzz the person. Let me try my luck. Let me see how far. So that is cold calling. Yeah. So that's it. Some people are going to get hung up on the fact of whether it is phone call or not.
But for the purposes of this episode, I want you guys to know that the thing that makes a cold call cold is this whole thing of prior context, prior contact, prior knowledge, prior emotional relationship, all this prayer thing. In cold calling, there's no prior nothing. I do not know you before. I know nothing about your context. You know nothing about me. I've never contacted you before. You've never contacted me before.
That's what makes it cold. So it's not the matter of the technology. Now, the reason why I'm stressing this is because in the old days, in the old and old and old and old days, cold calling was when you will walk around and go and knock on somebody's door, their office or their house. You know, I met them before. You're trying to do business with them like Jehovah's Witness. So back in the 80s now in Niger, Jehovah's Witnesses, they used to walk all over the place knocking on people's doors.
I think because of security issues, maybe they don't do that again because you know how Nigeria is now, you go and knock on somebody's door and you get shot or maybe they'll set the dogs on you because everybody's, you know, everybody's on, on red alert nowadays. So they don't do it again. So that's cold calling. You just walk up to a stranger's house, you knock on the door, boom, boom, boom, hello is your daddy and tell him that so, so so wants to see him.
You go, you come out, your daddy looks at the person. You know, they've never met each other before. People are total strangers. That is cold calling. So it's not about the technology. It's not about whether you walk into a Ketchup City mall or you knock on somebody's door or you pick up the phone. The thing is just that you guys are strangers. I don't know you. You don't know me. I've never contacted you. You've never contacted me.
No emotional connection. I don't feel you yourself. You don't feel me. No prior relation, relation, no prior relationship. I don't know who you are. You don't know who I am. I don't know your brother, your mother, your sister. You don't know me. So that's what makes it cold. Now some of you are going to say, can this kind of thing work for green business? Is this thing workable? Is it possible? The answer is yes, it does work.
If it didn't work, nobody would be doing it. Granted in the UK and in America, the flavour that people prefer depends on the industries. So in solar sales, for instance, in America, they do cold calling, but that one is knocking on doors. They called on door knocking. So all the people who are selling solar now you jump inside the car, you drive to the estate, maybe it's lucky phase two or something. You park the van at the beginning of the estate.
You get inside. You will now go and start knocking on doors. You say, why are you Kunle? Start from door one and knock to door 10. Cammy, you start from you go left, start from door 15, knock on to door 25. You distribute yourself. You just be knocking, knocking, knocking, talking to people, handing out Flyers. So in America, solar sales, in some parts of the country, that's how they run it. I think it would be a good idea and I think it might work in Nigeria, I think, but I don't,
I've never, the solar client that I had, they didn't have a massive sales team, was just a four person sales team. So that's why I didn't bring it up because if you have only four sales people and you send your 4 sales people out into the field doing that, it's time intensive. It means no work is going to get done at the office. But I suspect that it might work if you're into solar, that you drive to an estate, let's say like Sun City in Abuja for instance, you drive to Sun City,
you park your van, you will just be going from door to door. It's time intensive, but I think you can work anyway. So yes, it's workable. People do it in different parts of the world in different industries. So for solar and for insurance, they do door knocking, roof insurance, they do door to door. But that's America in the UK cold calling. Now on this phone call, you'll just be minding your business. Now you know you're just chilling trying to watch Netflix or something.
Some number will call you say who is this or no number maybe just answer. You answer. Then the person says hello, is this Tavashima? I say yes, this is Tavashima. Who am I speaking with? Ohio Tavashima, we're calling you because we have won 5 lbs Something, something something to qualify for this. Click on this and send your personal information to that, that I will just cut the call prep, said the idiots. That's cold calling.
They're trying to sell you something. So in the UK, that's how lots of people cold call. Now in Nigeria, cold calling by phone, lots of people don't do it. I've only received a cold call once and funny enough was from the government. They were trying to get what were they trying to do? So they were trying to get opinions about the African Free Trade Continental Treaty, I think that was under when Buhari was still in government.
And I thought, OK, that was interesting because I don't think you should be calling people up cold like that because it's a highly specific law and you can't expect the average man to know what's up and to even understand the law in the 1st place. So I know what's up because I'm a lawyer and I know some people who have been following, sorry, I used to be a lawyer. I know some people who follow and that sort of thing. So cold calling by picking up the phone in Nigeria, not very popular, but I expect more of that to happen because people are already sending cold texts.
So you're minding your business, you're trying to watch Netflix. Next thing a text message will come in, bring him. Are you thinking of travelling to South Africa soon? If so, text 405 to 990 to qualify for 10% off something, something. So those, those are cold texts, Those are promotional texts. They're sending the text to the stranger me that I'm receiving the, the text message. I don't know the person sending it. The person that is even sending the text message to me, the person doesn't even know it,
doesn't know me, have no prior context. I don't know you before, no prior contact, I've never contacted you before, no relationship, nothing. Those are cold texts. So in Nigeria, we've already started doing cold texting. Even if we haven't started doing cold calling, then let's see what else. By the way, the point I'm just trying to make is I see it can't work. It depends which part of the world are you in, which country,
which culture, you know, all those sorts of things. What are the business conventions going on? So yes, it can't work. But for the thing to work best, it requires that you do some research and some targeting ahead of time. I repeat, especially for those of you who like to walk into a Ketchup City mall. You say a man with his children, you have a travel agency. You go and walk up to the guy and say, oh, Sir, are you thinking of travelling to Saudi Arabia soon or do you want to Jack back?
If you want this thing to work, walking up to total strangers or sending text messages to total strangers, sending emails to total strangers, knocking on the door of total strangers. It requires some researching and it requires some targeting. OK, so research the opportunity. Research the prospect before you knock on that door, before you send a text message, before you approach them. In fact, for this, you can just see more people.
And yes, I have been approached at the Kercher City Mall. That's back when I was in Lagos. But then I didn't have kids, you know, so was my, my, my younger brother. He had kids that he started early, by the way, starting early man, it's a huge benefit because like now my younger brother, his kids are now 15 and 13. So for him, he's at a very chilled stage in life. If I, if you call my brother by 8:00 in the morning, he'll answer because he has already started work, because everybody has left the house, wifey has left the house.
Children are in secondary school. 8:00 AM sharp. He's ready at his desk. He has started work. In fact, sometimes by 8:00 AM, he has already been working for one hour, unlike me, 8:00 AM I'm still doing primary school runs. So if you have the choice, I have your kids early. Yeah. What was I? So I'm not chilling at Ikeja City Mall now with my brother's kids. You know, me and my, my wife, she was my girlfriend at the time.
You know, we'll take the kids just so that my brother and his wife can, you know, spend some quality time now and people just roll up on us and then start talking about travel and jackpot and everything. So I am one of those people who say cold calling Eketa City Mall Capital. NO, don't do that. Do not do that because it is too cold, too cold. You haven't done any research. You haven't done any targeting. You don't have any reason to suspect that this person might need your product or your service.
So do some prior research before you start approaching total strangers just to give you a small hint or a small leg up that they might need your product or your service. Then also when you're going to do cold calling it, you need to have a simple conversation built around the problem statement because lots of people who do cold calling like the Jehovah's Witness back in the 80s, who just roll up and say start talking about how Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior and everything.
You know, don't just roll up on someone and say Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. You know, ask the person first. You know, I heard about Jesus. Would you be interested in having him as your personal Lord and Savior as he asked a question? A person says, oh, no thank you, I'm already a Christian. They say, oh, OK, oh bless you. And then you have a small prayer and then you leave because you're looking for people who have not heard about Jesus Christ.
So it's the same thing. They Jack by person. You don't just roll up and then start trying to sell me jackpot services and travel services at least start a simple conversation built around your problem statement because the goal is you're trying to figure out is the person interested and does the person want to learn more? Because when you show up called to someone, or you send a text message called to someone, or an e-mail called to someone, or you knock on somebody's door called,
you start trying to sell. You are a complete pest. You're a total nuisance and nobody wants to deal with you. See this reason why people say cold calling doesn't work? It works. You're just doing it wrong. You're rolling up on people, no research, no targeting, and you're trying to sell them immediately. So of course you're a pest. Now my wife, she will just ignore and start walking away. I try to be a little bit more polite.
You know, I'll collect the flyer and say thank you, I'm not interested. But some of you don't take the hint. You continue to talk and to talk and to talk and what's the point? The wife is walking away. The husband is trying to be polite about it. You're still trying to talk in front of you. You will see the husband roll up your flyer and throw it in the dustbin. And you still want to continue with that. Just simple researching, simple targeting around the opportunities, around the prospects, around the context.
Start off the conversation with a simple problem statement and try to figure out if they're interested, if they want to learn more. That's all you need to do when you're trying to do cold. So let's go back to this Jaguar Agency travel agency thing, Ikeja City Mall, for those of you who are in Lagos, by the way, I don't know if the place is still called the Kerja City Mall 'cause I haven't been in Lagos in a very long time.
So if the name has changed, you know, pardon me, but when I was in Lagos, it used to be called the Kerja City Mall. It was next to Alausa and they had, you know, some nice pizza places, you know, clothes shops, what else, You know, some nice, nice, nice, good stuff, good stuff. I think they even had the cinema then, you know, then it was brand new. So it was all the rage. Ikeja City Mall. So if you just roll up on strangers like that, the result is you're going to get plenty of rejection.
I'm trying to be polite, but most people are not me. Like I said, my wife will just turn and walk away. There's some people who even hiss and walk away at you. There's going to be plenty of rejection, plenty of snubbery. Some people might even insult you. Like ah, you seem like an educated person. Why can't you go and get a real job Now? That one hasn't happened to me, but I've heard it happened to some people. Somebody would say you're,
you're very articulate for a young man. You seem well educated, you know. Now did you go where, where did you go to school? I went to OAU. How OAU, That's a very, very good university. How can't, why can't you get a proper job instead of walking around up and down like this in, in traffic, You know, have you thought about that? I've had, I've had those sorts of things say to some people, but nobody has told me that. And of course people are rejecting you, snobbing you anyhow, insulting you up and down.
Of course, next thing is low morale. When your morale is low, it's just journal disenchantment. So that's how you wake up one day and be like, whoa, I don't have time for insult today, Let me just relax, I beg. And of course, by doing that, your business is not going to grow. And then you wake up the next day and you're even under more pressure because you didn't do any prospecting yesterday. You didn't talk to any potential client yesterday.
You've wasted one month. You're closer to the you're closer to the end of the month, you're closer to school fees, you're closer to house rent, you're closer to, you know, whatever, but you haven't done any business activity. So that's a result if you just roll up on people code like that. So instead you should be heading to wherever it is you head. If you own a jackpot or a travel agency, a travel agency and you're trying to take advantage of this old jackpot thing.
By the way, in case you haven't figured out jackpot is not new. It's just that it, it comes in waves. It comes in waves, you know, So like, I remember when I was in, I think I was in GSS, maybe I was like when I was in GSS 2 and when I was in GSS 2 here, you know, we just resumed. And then, you know, some people are not there. Where's Chukuma? Oh, Chukuma is in Philippines. Hey, where is Nana? OK, Nana is in America. OK, where is Michael?
OK, Michael is in Italy. Where is this? Where is that? You know, so the thing just comes in waves. So like all my addresses to some people just evaporated like that. People just miss because, you know, military, government's country was hot, you know, things like that. And then I think like towards my senior secondary school, I think that was when like medical doctors started to just disappear. Where is doctor Susan? So he has moved to Saudi Arabia.
Where is, you know, so he has moved to Cuba. Where is doctor this? Where is doctor that He has moved to America, He has moved here. So he's just waves. He comes and goes and comes and goes. But Jackpot has always been a thing. But you know, the name Jackpot is just new. So where was I now? So instead of just going to Eketa City Mall and then rolling up on total strangers, do some research. Remember I said if you want cold calling to work, do some research.
Do some targeting around the opportunities and around the prospects. So ask yourself who might be interested in the product or the service. The answer to the question will determine where you're supposed to go to talk to strangers, The kind of opportunities that you will talk about when you talk to strangers, and the kind of conversations that you will engage in when you talk to strangers. So in my own opinion, if you want a travel agency, instead of going to Ketchup City Mall, wake up and ask yourself who might be interested.
One answer that I can give right now is that visa applicants might be interested in your product or your service. People who have actually gone to go and do something to show that they're trying to check out, that they're trying to escape from Niger. You should be looking for visa applicants. So be running your Instagram advertisements and targeting people. Who have recently applied for a visa or who might want to apply for a visa or who have visited a visa office or you know,
something like that. The people who respond to those adverts, you have now generated leads that you can now start reaching out to. OK, well in those cases that's not really cold calling because they have done something true that they might be interested. But you get my point. The first question should always be who might be interested. So visa applicants, how are we going to capture visa applicants online? Then physically in Abuja, you can go to visa application offices because since in Nigeria everybody's trying to escape and nobody respects us, what they do is that they make all of us queue outside.
I mean, it's the most degrading crap that you can go through. But I know you have to, well, you can pay for what's it called. Is it expedited or something where they let you into the building? But bottom line is, I don't know how it works in Lagos now, but if you go to Abuja, like in Central area, if you're in Central district and you go past what's this place called? It's before, before Access Bank, before Chelsea Hotel and Access Bank.
There's one of those visa places. Every time you go there, every time in the morning, in the afternoon, people are just queuing outside under the sun or in the rain because we're all trying to escape Niger. So whether it's a Schengen visa or UK visa or this visa or that visa, you know, everybody's trying to cut out. If you go to those places, presumably those people might be interested in your jackpot or your travel services.
And it would not be strange for you to roll up on somebody who is there with his children and start these conversations. Because at least now the person is in front of a travel visa something office, he's trying to pursue Schengen visa. The person might be open to a conversation. Now remember what I said for call calling. You don't just show up and then try to sell. So don't go outside these Visa offices and then start trying to sell your travel services, your jackpot services.
We should try and figure out if they're interested. Your messaging should be nice and simple and straight to the point. And remember, I keep saying it on the podcast that sales or selling is a conversation. So we should be engaging them in conversation. Is this your first time applying for a Visa, Sir? Or Ma or mummy or daddy, if they're an elderly person. That is an OK way to start the conversation. Now they know that you're there trying to sell them something.
But this is not, and this is not too intrusive to just walk up and say this is your first time applying for a visa. The person will say yes or the person will say no. Another question is OK, Sir, Are you sure you have all your visa documents with you? The reason why I'm giving you this one is because somebody has actually rolled up to me and asked me these kind of questions before and the person turned out to be a very helpful individual.
I told the guy that you know, look, I don't need your services and everything, but I really appreciate all you've done. And guys like, hey, no Allah, no problem. Just collect my phone number. This is my flyer, you know, anybody just connect them to me. And the way I take care of you is the same way I take care of them. And I said OK, no Allah, no problem. And I have the guys contact details. So you see how it works. The guy didn't come off as a nuisance.
They say, oh, hello, Sir. This is your first time applying for a visa. So no. I've applied for a visa in the past, but that was a decade ago. So yeah, I'm out of touch. Do you have all your visa documents? Say yes, I complied with all these things I printed out. Or see the e-mail that they send you, the e-mail that is labeled something, something VN. So, so, so, So I say yes. I say, OK, that's some things that they didn't put in that e-mail say.
Really. Yes, when you go inside, they will ask you to do this, they'll ask you to do this, ask you to do that. Oh, but I don't have this. That is not a problem, Sir. You can just go to that cyber cafe over there, sign in on your phone, and then you will print whatever the document you need and say, oh, really say yes, it's not a problem, Sir. The print out is just 29 per copy. That's the Cyber Cafe over here. So let's just go.
I'll talk to the security guard so you don't miss your space on the queue. You know, that kind of thing. You can see now helpful conversation. I remember the episodes that we spoke about elicitation and qualification. From having all these conversations, you're now going to be able to be getting small, small things about where this person is applying to, whether they're travelling for business, whether they're trying to cut out of the country, whether they're travelling for pleasure,
you know, And it's from there that you'll be able to make a proposal about, oh, we have this package for business class, We have this package for family class. We have this package for one way jackpot never come back because some of these jackpot people, what they do is I think you need to have a certain kind of balance in your bank account. I can't remember how much it was, but it was one of my classmates. I was travelling and the gist I
had was that he had like 35. Was it 85 M or 35 MI? Can't remember. Sure. By my own opinion, I was thinking if you can raise like between 35 and 85 M, like why are you running away now? Like you can stay back and do something. But that's just my own opinion. So there's some people who say, sure, no problem, you don't have that 35 M, No problem. We have guarantors who will put that 35 M in your account, but you must return it to us.
And of course, when you jackpot and you get to the UK and you start working, you owe us a certain percentage of your salary or, you know, whatever you have to pay us back, that sort of thing. So it's from all these conversations. Is this your first time travelling, applying for a visa, Sir? Are you sure you have all your visa requirements? Oh, by the way, I noticed it's a Schengen visa, you know, business or pleasure or something.
It's from all those conversations, you'll be able to figure out all these things and you'll know which of your services to now propose to the person. And you have to engage in all these conversations because there's some people who are trying to Jack back. But that 35 M, they have the 35 M, so they don't need your money. They have the money complete in their bank account, but they might need you for something else, you know, maybe they don't know how to, I don't know, the most efficient way to fly, I
guess because there's some people who don't like like layover, you know, you know, me and my, my family were not at that level yet where we can just do, you know, fly like big boys. So we still do that whole layover thing. You know, you go and land in London and you wait like 7 hours for the next flight, you know, blah, blah. So some people have the money and they don't like that 7 hour wait or that 2 hour wait. The one is look, how can you just connect me to the sharpest whatever?
So I go there the most direct way as possible. I don't care about the money. And then of course the big, big boys like Dan, go to them. They'll just chatter the flights direct, you know, just take me to Australia straight. Don't do any layaway, don't do any anything. So where was I? So yes, cold calling works, but if you're going to roll up on strangers, do some researching, do some targeting around the opportunities, around the prospects.
Don't just walk up the people around them. If you walk up the people around them, they will insult your life, they will snub you, you know, low morale. So who might be interested in my product or my service? Where might they be? Go there. Start trying to call there. So for you people who are trying to sell travel, stop going to the Keja City Mall, stop going to Grand Square, stop going to, you know, whatever mall it is in whichever part of the city, go to all those places where visa applicants already are confirmed.
Try and have simple conversations with them. If you don't know how to start. The one that somebody used on me, This is a good way. Is this your first time applying for a visa? Sir, it's not a bad way. Are you sure you have all your documents, All your visa documents? These are very good conversation starters and you're trying to show yourself to be a helpful resource. Make sure you have all your contact information ready.
Make sure you have your flyer, your everything, your business card, and you have your simple sales pitch. Once you've figured out what it is that the person needs, that way you're going to be able to generate leads that you can pursue that you can chase later, or you might be able to build some useful contacts, some youthful relationships later on so that you might end up doing business with the person later on. Because like I said, the guy was a very helpful chap.
And you know, it's not as if I'm going to refer him to everybody. But I mean, to be honest, if any of my friends call me to say, hey, what's up? I beg, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. I'm in the binds. Like, do you know anybody? He seemed to be a helpful resource. I said, OK, look, I don't know this guy personally, but the last time I was there, this is how he helped me and this and this and this. So I don't know. Just call the geisha.
If he's around, just call him up and see. So you never know. Call, call him. You can work for your business. It can help you grow your business. It's tough. So it's not for everyone, but don't be like all those people who say cold calling never works. It can work. Just make sure you do small research, apply some common sense. Meet people where they might already be interested in your product or your service. Meet them at the right context.
Start up with a general conversation. Don't start up trying to sell them something immediately. So that's it. That's how I can get cold. Cold calling to work for your business. So I spoke about Jehovah's Witnesses. Yeah, that's not a business. And I spoke about a Japan travel agencies. But you know, whatever it is you do, I'm sure there's a way that you can make it work. Remember, if you'd love to connect for a strategy session or for a business audit or you have a bunch of questions, then reach out to me on WhatsApp.
The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. Then I'm on LinkedIn and Establishima Ayede, thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode. And until then, May God continue to bless the work of your hands. I'll catch you guys.