Focus More, Sell More: Why doing less grows your business.

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. First off, apologies for the noise in the background because I'm recording. I'm making today's recording at home and there are other people around. So there's going to be some noise in the background. Now, today, I want us to look at why focus is absolutely important in your business to grow your sales. I repeat today I want us to look at why focus is really, really important in your business.

It's really, really important to grow your sales. And I've spoken about some of this before on the podcast, but the problem is, in the past when I've spoken about it, I've spoken about it in the very academic way. I didn't use any particular examples, but I found an individual online that I think would be the perfect example to show how lots of us are having problems growing our business, scaling our business, making profits, making sales, because we're throwing ourselves all over the damn place.

So there's someone who I'm connected with online and the guys involved in a variety of industries. And when you are involved in, you know, some people are trying to do different things, but at least they're kind of in the same space like this. The individual who reached out to me, I told him to focus. He said he wasn't going to focus. By the time we sat down a bit, we realized that OK, he's involved in different things,

but this kind of a connection and the connection was that he's doing things that are involved inside the house. So painting he does, interior decor he does, I can't remember what does 3 or 4 things. But by the time we did some, you know, Kung Fu moves using char GPT, we forgot that there was a connecting link and that he does things inside the house involved in beautifying the house. And then the fellow on his own came up with a plan for how he was going to start targeting hotel managers.

And, you know, people like that to try and see if you can get business for them. So there are some people that are doing lots of things, but they're kind of playing in the same space. And so it was kind of this some sort of a connection. And then the rest of you are just playing around in too many, too many, too many industries. So this guy, what we call him now, let's just call him Jay-Z because I can't think of any.

Any name. Yeah. So, OK. No, let's call him Prince Ali. Yeah. I haven't called anybody Prince Ali before. Any reason why I'm calling him Prince Ali? Nothing, really. He's OK. Well, he's a gentleman of Northern extract, so let me just put it that way. So let's call him Prince Ali. Now, Prince Ali doesn't realize that because he's involved, he has different roles and in different industries, he's given himself some some serious challenges, serious, serious challenges.

Now, the first one is time management and burnout because Prince Ali is a founder. And then he's also a secretary for two different organizations. I repeat, Prince Ali is a founder, his own runs, and he's the secretary for two other organizations. He's also into the business of textile. He sells textiles. And yes, if you're wondering, Prince Ali's a Carnou boy, He's one of my Carnou brothers because, you know, I served in Carnou and I lived in Carnou for a very brief while.

But I love Carnou. Nice place, peaceful place, apart from when, you know, one or two things erupt. Apart from that Carnou, it's not a bad place to settle down. Plus the cost of living is quite good in Carnou. So he sells textiles. No problem. Then Prince Ali is also a graphic designer. OK. And he's trying to do all of this while he is a software engineering student. Let me repeat, in case there's some of you who were wondering,

did I hear him correctly? Yes, you heard me correctly. I said it. Let me repeat. Prince Ali, he's a founder for his own businesses. Then he's a secretary in two other organizations. Then he's a textile seller, he's a graphic designer, and he's doing all of this while being a software engineering student. Please, I'm not making this up. The only reason why I'm doing this thing like this now is because usually when I talk about it, I do it in a very,

very academic. You know, I'm just talking in principle. So I want you guys to see in practice what some of you are putting yourself through and some of the reasons why some of you might be struggling in your businesses. So it's not a safe business is not a good idea. It's not a safe to think cannot work. It's not as if you're not a sharp guy or you're a sharp girl, but you're starting off by making things unnecessarily difficult for yourself.

Which is why when I meet people like this, if we're going through a consultation, whether it's a free consultation or a paid consultation, usually I tell people that, look, you know what we got? We got to focus. We got to narrow things down because a lot of us are coming to the business game, you know, as a warm man show or as a warm woman gang, you know, self-employed, you understand, Abby entrepreneur, you know how we call ourselves.

So guys, be realistic. It's just you. It's just you. Sometimes you look at Tonio Lumelu and then, you know, sometimes you look at what's this guy Richard Branson and you know, we look at them and think we can do it. Tonio Lumelu down is different. He started on our whole banking thing. When that thing was mature, he started branching out and out. And Tonio Lumelu and Richard Branson, in fact, they do the same fact. They have a similar like business model.

What they do is they want to enter somewhere. They go and look for somebody that is a specialist and then they put their person in charge. Tonio Lumelu or Richard Branson is not going to be a founder and then a secretary for two different organizations while selling textile, doing graphic design, and then he's still in school doing software engineering. If Tonio Lumelu decides that he wants to go back to school now, he wants to go to Harvard to go and do an executive degree or something, what do you think he's going to take?

What do you call? Is it academic leave of absence? I mean, what do they call that thing? He'll take it for his businesses, and then he'll delegate somebody in charge. He will appoint A chairman for this person, this, this, this, that, you know, once in a while they could report to him. And then, you know, from there, you know, he'll be running things remotely, but he's not going to be throwing himself into the home mix like that.

The same thing with Richard Branson. That's what I think. Richard Branson is a correct guy. Whenever he has always wanted to go into a different sector, he has always one of his biggest questions has always been, OK, who is the guy? Who is the babe? You know who? Who is the person that knows this thing? Let this person accompany me. In fact, this person should be in charge. Then that's how they'll be running it. Know that him personally, he's trucking hand inside, you know,

here, here, here, here and there. So I repeat, Prince Ali, he's the founder, he's a secretary for two different organizations. He sells textiles, he's into graphic design, and then he also does software engineering. So juggling all of these things while still going to school can lead to extreme time pressure. Extreme, extreme. When you're studying Yoruba economics, no one is hard enough not to talk of know that you're studying software engineering.

Sorry, please, no disrespect to those of you who studied Yoruba or Yoruba economics or Yoruba agriculture or whatever. So you don't mind me, it's just a joke. We used to have unwind OAU because you know, in certain parts of our OAU, we can be kind of elitist because I was, I studied law in OAU. So those of us in law and in medicine, you know, law, medicine architecture, we know we used to feel as if we're the ones that own OAU.

Like you understand, like we are the elite, you know, now it's people pass and that kind of thing. And we'll now be looking down on all those people, all those you will study in Yoruba, OK, You will study in anyway. Let me not say too much. I don't want to create enemies. So it's hard. Trying to meet up with your professional responsibilities will be hard. This is where burnout comes from. He's not going to be able to give any of these things his full attention.

Software engineering in school, he won't give you full attention. Graphic design is not getting full attention. Textile selling textile, you won't give full attention. Then the other organizations where he's a secretary, he won't give you full attention. Now let's say he's a young man, you know, he never married, and then he's trying to toast one or two people on campus. How will any evenly be himself will not get his full attention.

We need to focus. Time management is an issue for us. Burnout is a serious problem for us. Those of us who are trying to do 456 things, we need to focus now because Prince Ali is trying to do too many things. I bet you the guy has a lack of strategic focus. I beat no strategic focus except if he's one of these guys like Tonio Lumelu and Richard Branson, where, you know, he's chairman of the board. Then he has, you know, people in one or two places with the wrong things.

Then once in a while, every week, every two, two weeks, every month, everybody reports to him. And then he will now say, oh, no, hold on. Like this partition this one like this, do this one like this, execute this one, like this, drop this one. But I doubt that he's at that level yet. So when you're doing all these sorts of things, no strategic focus. So he also has businesses that involve study abroad services and travel and tours.

So, you know, get visa, get travel arrangements, you know, for people to study abroad, for people to travel, you know, tourism, things like that. Then of course, he has this printing and graphic design things going on. And then the textile sales is basically a Jack of all trade. Not specializing in anything will make it hard for him to build a strong brand identity. He won't be able to build a strong brand identity at all.

He won't be able to establish a place in your own mind so that when somebody says, oh, do you know somebody that does so? So, so you will call him. In fact, let me give you a test right now. You're listening to this podcast with all the things I've said right now. If you wanted to refer Prince Ali, what exactly will you refer him for? Let's say you like him, he's your friend, you know, you want to help his ministry and then,

you know, maybe have a rich uncle or you know, you just want to send businesses with. What exactly are you going to send this way? What can you say with full confidence that he can do that? He'll be comfortable sending somebody to nothing. Lack of strategic focus is going to is going to really, really, really hamper his business opportunities. He's going to, he's going to cramp his branding. He's not going to be able to establish a strong identity in any segment at all.

And those of you who are trying to be like him, you're hurting yourself. You just don't realize it. But over the long term you are seriously hurting yourself. Then the all these things he's trying to do, each of them has different operational issues and each of them has different legal issues. For those of you who are looking at the jackpot space and the tourism space, you know, any small thing, General Trump would change policy.

Any small thing UK could change policy. Any small thing, you know, people just change policy anyhow. Anyhow, how is he going to be able to be up to date on all these changes that have to do with international travel and visa processing and forex fluctuation and all these things? How, how can he stay up to date doing all these things? Then doing graphic design, then of course going to lectures for graphic design. By the way, for those of you who have tried to use travel agencies to try and book your ticket and you're angry with the founder of the travel agency,

this is the reason why the person who is in this travel agency is a common experience. The person actually works in another place, then he's using this travel agency, you know, as a side hustle, making it make, you know, some money on, you know, on the spread, you know, collect money in dollars and then, you know, it's not the main thing, it's a side hustle. So because of that, this is where they start making mistakes.

I don't know anybody who has tried booking in Nigeria anyway or I've tried booking through a travel agency that has not had one issue or another that they booked the ticket, the flight was changed, the travel agent did not tell them to go to the airport and they're like where's my flight? This is the reason why your travel agent is trying to, he's trying to do wrongs. So your travel agent is only a travel agent in name.

But you know, really speaking, he's working in another company somewhere. Then he has three or four different side hustles. This travel agency is not the main thing. This is where all these things happen. So for those of you who have used travel agencies before, this is where the annoying, the annoying thing starts. You get to the airport, say OK, your flight is tomorrow. You don't start calling the travel agent. He's not answering his phone.

He's not answering his phone because he has lots of side hustles. He's engaged in another side hustle. That's why the guy know the answer. You know, maybe we'll start to quarrel. Those of you who are running travel agencies as a side hustle, can you see what you guys need to focus and pay attention? If you are focused on this side, on your travel agency, all these kind of mistakes should not be happening that the flight was cancelled.

You didn't tell somebody the flight was cancelled. You didn't even know. It is your clients that will get to the airport and find out that the flight is cancelled. Then he will now start trying to do the thing himself. At the end of the day, you're still expecting the person to pay you. You say that Nigerians are dishonest. How is the guy dishonest? As far as he's concerned, he gave you a job to do. You messed up the job.

He had to sort it himself. You now say Nigerians are dishonest. Then as the textile seller, he's supposed to manage your inventory. Because my wife and I spoke about doing Ankara business very, very long time ago. And you know, you just know what's moving, which kind of material is moving? Is he Ankara? Is he Kente? Is it, you know, whatever, which kinds of Ankara, what are the trends, what are the colors, what are the disk?

What is it that you to manage? Physical inventory, supply, supply chain logistics are also a thing. Where are you going to be sending to ship these sorts of things? Who's going to be picking up material when it lands in the boss park? Because of course, you know, gig God is good and God is good logistics. You know, they do have the house delivery. Well, you know, most of U.S. business owners want to skimp on you, don't want to save on certain costs.

So instead of do using a God is good or any of those things will tell the person, just go to the park, give it to the driver. I'll come and pick it up at the park myself. We'll now be running up and down calling the driver, where are you? Where are you? Then graphic design, of course, we know now that everybody in Nigeria is into graphic design. So the competition there is plenty, plenty freelancers. How is one person supposed to be doing handling all of the operational issues here, all the operational issues that are involved for the flight thing,

cancellations, rescheduling, changing cost, changing travel policy, changing, you know, all kinds of things. Then managing your inventory in textile, then doing the logistics or the running up and down. How is one person supposed to manage all this? Oh, by the way, I forgot he's also in school. He's trying to do his sorry. Let me scroll up again. Let me see the gas profile. What's his starting again? I know it's not a very big cost like this try.

OK. I can't remember what it is, but I know that he's in he's in he's in school Shah. He's still doing full time education. I know that it's a is it software engineering? Software engineering, yes. I just scroll to his profile now. So he's a software engineering student. I was almost supposed to be juggling all this anyway. Now another problem that he's going to have is with scaling or resource allocation. Now, what scaling means basically is growth when you want your business to grow, but not just any kind of growth, but the kind of growth that when the business grows beyond you.

So right now in my consulting practice, of course, I'm the only one. But and, and you know, my business is going to grow because I'm going to, first of all, get more clients #2 I'm going to raise my prices over time. And then let's say #3 I'm going to get repeat customers. And yeah. But all those levels for business growth are something that is stuck to me and me alone. So even as a graphic designer now, it's the same thing.

In the beginning, he's one that's going to be doing all the graphic designs. So the way that the business will grow is he will get more customers or he will raise his prices and then he'll get referrals or get people to come and buy repeatedly. But that is growing. Still using you as one bottleneck. But eventually you had two or three people. And it's just simple mathematics. The amount of money that two people working together can make is better than what one person working alone can make.

That is what scaling is. You're now growing beyond yourself. You're using people, you're using systems, you're using technology to grow beyond your natural limitations. That is what we call scaling. Scaling is going to be a problem in any of these businesses because it's all over the place. Excuse me. Then of course, resource allocation. Resource allocation. What is resource allocation now? Sorry, I'm thinking of how to define this thing.

OK. Resources are the things, the raw materials, the input, the whatever that you have to plug into your business so that the business will grow. So you you have human resources. So because that's you and then you know, your employees and what else, raw materials, the tools of your trade, I guess our resources as well, you know, so different things. But scaling will be a problem because this guy is all over the place.

Even if he wants to hire a team or implement technology across all these things, because he's all over the place except if he has like, you know, except if he's a big boy and he's doing what Illumelu would do or what, what's his guy name was? Virgin Atlantic. What's the guy's name? This Virgin guy, I called his name and I can't remember right now, Branson, Richard Branson. So except he's going to be doing that, having people in charge of separate things, then he's one that is chairman of the board or chairman of the holding company.

At the end of the day, everybody reports to him. Scaling will be a problem. Allocating resources is going to be a problem because you have to find human capital to grow. You have to find human resources to scale. But doing this while maintaining other jobs and while doing a full time education is going to be a problem. Even if he finds people, finding reliable staff will be a problem. How is he supposed to supervise the staff in the graphic design department when he's spending a lot of time in school?

How he supposed, how is he supposed to to? That would have been hard enough, hard enough. It was only the graphic design that he was doing, but now it's graphic design blending with this travel agency and then in fact these two organizations where he's the secretary. Let's not even talk about this secretary. Most let's not even talk about that. This will be a struggle. He's not going to be able to find reliable stuff.

Even if he finds stuff, he's not going to be able to delegate. It'll be hard. Scaling be a problem? Anyway, I don't want this episode to be an episode of complaining, complaining, complaining. It's just that I found a very good example, not an academic. Something to show you guys why this thing is not going to work. OK, well, it's not as if it can't work where you're making this thing unnecessarily hard on yourself and you are slowing things down.

Even if he knocks off two or three things, he'll be making his job a whole lot easier. If he says he wants to be a secretary of those student organizations, then he will continue in school. But the only thing, the only thing he will focus on is just this selling textiles. It is then that this textile business can really, really take off because his mind, his mind will still be split, but there's more attention there. So when you reach out to me and I say pick one, I'm not trying to kill your dreams.

I'm actually trying to accelerate your, oh, I put it now. I'm actually trying to make sure that you achieve your dreams faster, quick, quick. And also because it's a psychological element to these sorts of things. When you put your hand behind something and you feel like you're making progress and you see your bank account is doing ping, ping, ping, ping, ping every day, and then you're seeing growth in the bottom line psychologically.

This is the thing that gives you the ginger so that you can even do more and more and more. So it's important that we focus because at the end of the day, wearing this for the money, we're not in this to prove to people that were super talented or that were Superman or Superwoman. It's a business. Wearing this for the money and spreading yourself all over the place is making it difficult for you to chase that money. So anyway, that's it pretty much.

So if you'd love to connect with me, you can call, send me a text message or WhatsApp message on 08064662140. If you're involved in multiple things like this guy is, and you need some help in trying to narrow things down to try and figure out where you should be spending most of your time, that's not a problem. Let me give you some Expo. If you reach out to me and you want us to have this conversation, my, what I'll be trying to do is we'll try and look at everything and try and figure out where we have the greatest traction first of all.

And then we'll start working things down from there. And from a sales perspective, that is where traditionally we recommend people to go. You have the most traction here, then let's double down where we have the most traction. They'll provide the momentum and it will provide the funding that we can use, you know, for other things, not just to fund our lifestyle, but to also fund all the other business ideas that we're interested in eventually.

So reach out, connect, call, send me a text message or WhatsApp message on 08064662140. I'd love to hear from as many people as possible. And don't worry, for those of you who think I'm expensive, yes, I understand my rates are expensive, but however, I'm not against talking to people for free. So if you're looking for free coaching, just let me know. What we'll do is I will answer only one question. If you want us to go in depth into everything, or rather in depth into anything else, you want us to start looking at your financials or your strategies or whatever to try and figure out which would be the best business to double down on.

Then for that, we'd have to book a proper consulting session. So we have options for monthly coaching sessions, weekly, hourly, daily. So there are options. But either way, I try to make sure I give value to everyone who comes across my path. So and even if you insist, you know, get money, no problem. I'll answer one question. Just make sure you think really hard about what that one question is before I reach out. So thanks for your time and attention.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you guys. Bye. That's if you call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140. Even if you don't reach out, I beg more on our focus. Some of you are just all over the place. It's hard enough even for those of us who have decided there's only one thing we're going to do. Even that is hard enough not talk of when you now combine 3456 things, right? So that's it. I'll catch you at some other time.