Skip the Slides: How to Close a Nigerian Client by Listening

Today on the podcast, we're going to look at why you don't always need PowerPoint presentations every single time you're having a meeting with a potential customer or client. I repeat today what we're going to be looking at on the podcast is you don't need PowerPoint all the time. Relax, this is the first time you're having a meeting with this potential customer, with this potential client. Yes, you want to put your best foot forward.

Resist the temptation to go and sit down in Canva. Sit down and you know, design all those fancy. This Is Us. This is what we do. We are the greatest. We are the best. Option A option B Silver package, Platinum package. Design every, every event like 6 hours and design something that is to die for. Relax, you don't need that, at least not yet. There's a time for it, but it's definitely not this first meeting that you're going to have with this potential customer, with this potential client.

I'm making today's recording at home and if you've been listening for the last week or so, you know that my neighbor, she's been prepared for her daughter's wedding. The day is finally here, so cannot pee. Everything don't set. So, you know, if you're hearing noise in the background, you know that's where it's all from because they're getting ready for all the good stuff. In fact, I need to record another podcast later on today.

But I know that you know, oh, I'm bad. You understand now. So because of music and things, recording this evening is not going to be it's not going to be possible because I'm more it's going to be born a boy Whiskey Ed. That's all be happening today anyway. So yeah, bottom line is there's going to be some noise in the background. So welcome to the podcast. I'm your host Tava Shima IED, just like today. For years I've been trying to give you guys good stuff, things that give results in the Nigerian market.

So if you're ready to start going your business the Nigerian way, then stay tuned. Stay locked into this podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, Apple or any player of your choice. And if you'd love to connect with me, you can call, send me a text message or WhatsApp message on 08064662140. By the way, those of you who do send messages eventually, I beg no Vex. You know, now the podcast is beginning to as we need to grow small.

You know, we now have about 3000 like 300 subscribers on the show. And so, you know, some people send messages, you know, regularly. It's not going to be possible for me. Oh, sorry, my neighbor is calling me. OK, I'm back. Sorry about that. My neighbor was calling me. I had to move the car. You know, like I said, they're setting up canopy and we're getting ready to enjoy getting ready to flex. So today show you and your love rice.

Oh, yeah. This is what makes life sweet. I see. This is the reason why money is important. It's part of the reason why I make this podcast. You know the only way that we can flex, the only way that we can show you is if business is moving well. When business is moving well, there's opportunity to pay school fees. There's opportunity to train your children. Your children can grow up well. They can get married. You proudly.

Now you know when the time is right, you can now declare and call your neighbors and come and shop. Come and join me and declare. Excuse me, come and join me and declare the goodness of the Lord. And then you declare Shyo for boys and declare jealous rise for the whole neighborhood with fried meat with every, every. So this time money is good. So anyway, keep listening to the podcast so that when the time is right, all of us, we can flex,

we can enjoy. Yeah. So yeah, I'll say yeah, I just gave my phone number and please, I'll just begging now, you guys, just like I said, the podcast podcast is growing about 3300 subscribers on Spotify alone. So excuse me. And I'm not sure how many subscribers I have on the other platforms. So I know that for you, when you send a message, you know, it's like you individually, you send a message. But if we look at things from our things, from our point of view, I'm receiving a few, you know, dozen messages every week.

But then I also have other commitments, you know, family commitments. I have to record the podcast. And then I also have commitments to my paid clients. So there's a bunch of stuff that I'm doing as well. So you know some of UDVX that you know I'm not answering. Well, first of all, most of you actually are pretty impressed that I do respond because people think that it's a fake number that I'm giving out. This is not fake.

It actually is excuse me, actually is my private number. So I do respond. But then there's some of you that can see that, you know, unite effects that I'm not responding on time. You know, you guys have messy on me now, you know, let me attend to one or two things, but any which way, there's nobody that I haven't responded to in less than 3 days. So feel free. Excuse me. So feel free. Send your questions, send your comments, send your contributions, you know, send your whatever.

If you don't hear from me immediately, no, Vex won't pass two or three days, but I'll respond to you and trust me for now, I respond to everybody. When it gets to the point where maybe 20 or 30 people are sending me messages every day, OK, maybe then it won't be possible to respond to everyone. But for now, I respond to everybody. So just be a little patient for me. OK, so where were we now? I lost my train of thought.

OK, So what we're talking about today is I was just trying to say that, look, you don't always need PowerPoint presentations. And This is why I set up a meeting recently for one of my one of my clients. They are in the content production space. So you know, with computer, with AI, with, you know, every, every, they think they've found a way to produce content reliably, produce content affordably and produce content quickly.

So they deliver to their clients in less than 24 hours. And the price point actually is not too bad. They produce content for between 30 to about 99 KA month. But you know, it's a fixed set of things, you know, so limited number of graphics, motion graphics, what else? Texts, you know, but they don't produce audio. They don't do they don't do podcasts. So yeah, so this team is brand new. This team is fresh and, and they're doing their GTM motions,

you know, go to market motions. That's just the fancy way that tech boys and tech girls nowadays, excuse me, like to say that introducing their product, like to say sales. And see, The thing is, I don't know why everybody's afraid of saying sales. We always look for new ways to to always look for new terms. So a couple of years ago, everybody was saying biz dev. Biz dev as in business development, I'm doing business development, I'm doing business development.

OK, that time don't pass. That trend has passed. Now everybody's saying GTMGTMGTM go to market, we're doing go to market motions. Likewise, everybody afraid just call you what it is. It's sales that we're doing. We can call it some fancy time, something that sounds more intelligent, something that sounds more touch, you know, but on our sales, So if you say you're doing biz dev, you're doing biz, the biz development, what you're doing is sales.

If you say you're doing GTM go to market motions, what does go to market mean? It means you're taking your product and you're introducing it to the market, letting people know who you are. This is what you do. These are the problems that you solve. This is how much it is. If you want to work with us, this is how we go about it. It's not not selling anyway. Let me move on. So yes, so they're doing their GTM motions, their go to market motions and I've, excuse me,

I've been able to set up a couple of meetings with potential clients for them. So the first meeting that we had one client, I told them ahead of time, I said, hey boys, this was going to happen. This meeting now is not for you boys to go out vomit, right? And this is what I mean by vomit. Whenever people hook up a meeting with the first client, the initial impression, the initial urge, the initial desire that everybody has is you know what?

This client, we will wow them, we will finish them, we will impress the hell out of them, you know. So during the meeting, we'll start about us. This is our founder. This was the founders vision. This was the founders ideal. This is the problem that we solve. You know, this is how a solution works. This is the cornerstone of our technology, this is the Dis, this is the that you will now create PowerPoints to overwhelm them.

You know, fine figure, fine presentation, fine everything, kill them. That's the whole attitude when people are coming for this first meeting that will sit the client down and then we will overwhelm them with how good we are, with how good our offering is. So that's what the average Nigerian business person tries to do during our first meeting, especially those of you in the tech space, you know, I'm not lying. If you don't believe me, go and check your PowerPoint that use your last presentation, open the first slides.

You'll see that the first slide was This Is Us, this is our founder, founder story, summary of the problem that we solve, technical, whatever, whatever this is, how much we raised, this is, you know, those are the first, that's what you'll be putting in the first set of slides. So it's not just a Nigerian thing anyway. So don't feel bad. Globally, that's what people do, but especially in Nigeria, we want to kill them in our first meeting.

So I told them, boys, it's not like that. This first meeting is not for us to spend one hour talking about ourselves. No, listen to me. This is how sales is done. The whole point of this meeting is first of all, we shouldn't last one hour. People are busy, they have things that they're doing. But even if we spend one hour, the whole point of this meeting is we want to know this client inside and out. The client, we want to know their own target market inside and out.

This client, we want to know their brand guidelines inside and out, want to understand their messaging and their market positioning inside and out so that all the information that we gather, we can now use that to now not only create an accurate quote, but that's the information that will allow us to make sure that we'll produce something that will work well for them. So I had to tell these boys now look, this meeting is not for us to talk.

It's for us to sit down and listen. Some of you I wanted, did you hear me correctly? You did. That first meeting is not for you to talk. It's for you to sit down and listen. You are to prompt your potential customer. It is your potential customer that should be vomiting on you. Your one is to sit down and listen. Where you understand, jot it down. Where you don't understand, ask a follow up question. Oh sorry Sir, when you said that, did you mean this or did you mean that?

The guy will talk some more, The lady will talk some more. That is the whole point of this first meeting. It's not for you to use verbal diarrhea and overwhelm them. It is for you to tease them into a conversation and learn as much as possible from them. So the outcome of the meeting, now, the client was impressed. I knew he would be impressed because let's face it, most Nigerians are not used to being listened to. So it's a very refreshing thing that you have in a meeting with a potential vendor and a potential vendor took 15

minutes, 20 minutes just to find out about you and what it is that you want. Is it refreshing something? We're not used to that in Nigeria. So I knew that the guy would be impressed and the guy was and we agreed on the next step. Some of the questions the guy could not answer because you know, the OR guy at the top doesn't have all the answers. So do things like brand guidelines, content calendar, content schedule, you know, is the on my share the people in the marketing team who know that one.

So we agreed that the next step was we're going to have another meeting with the marketing team and then after that we'll draw up drafts that will all be would approve and then, you know, we'll not be able to go go forward. So I knew that outcome was going to be of the meeting was going to be good. So that's how it ended. So during the debrief now with the boys, by the way, that's also something we should be doing after every single meeting.

We supposed to debrief. We have finished this meeting now how did the meeting go? What worked well, who messed up, what we have done better. The whole point of doing this debrief now is because if we do it as a team now, in the future meeting will be more on point and on point and on pointer. So every single time you're in a meeting with another team and it looks like the team is, you know, well orchestrated, well oiled, like they're always on point.

It's not an accident. They have been practicing and they have been refining over time. They have been perfecting their art. And that is what we should be doing as well. After every meeting, we suppose. Debrief, how did it go? Was it good? Did we achieve our aims? Where could we have done better? So doing the debrief now, nobody decided to ask me again. Now, you sure we didn't need PowerPoint and I had to tell them again, capital, NO, we did not need a PowerPoint in this first meeting.

We had this first meeting. You will do not show one single slide. But yet this guy wants to go forward. Excuse me? This guy wants to go forward. Not only is he impressed, he wants to hook us up with a meeting with the person who is in the head of the head of their marketing for the organization. Doesn't that sound like a good outcome to you? Some of you are married to your PowerPoint. You think you need it. It's a crutch.

You can actually can have a successful meeting. You won't show one single slide. Nobody showed one single slide during that meeting. Yet we made progress. Now in the future meeting, yes, we can kill the whole PowerPoint. But believe me, that first meeting anyway, some of you will not agree. I guess you have to see to believe it. In fact, I have never. From when I finished youth service to now, I have never made any presentation at all.

None. As in PowerPoint presentation. I have never. OK, well I used one for the British High Commission when I was doing training for them. They forced me to create the PowerPoint. We created it, but by the time we started we realized that it was off point because basically the orgas said this is what you should train our people in. And I said OK, calm down. Let me speak to the team. Let me know what challenges team are having.

They said no, we are there, we are the orgasm. We know the problems that the team is facing. Go and prepare your presentation on this. So I prepared the presentation day one in the classroom, 10 minutes. I could see that well off point and I asked them and they say, no, all these things, this is not really a problem. I said, all right, now, so what's the problem? And then we started talking and we had the wonderful three day session where I was able to deal with the problems that they actually needed to learn.

That was the only time that I did PowerPoint. And lo and behold, the PowerPoint was now off points from beginning. So I know some of you think it's not possible, but it can be done. You can have a successful meeting without having one single PowerPoint, one single slide, one single picture. It's possible. In fact, for the first meeting, I'll recommend that you go there with an ear to listen, not to talk. So I told the guy, no, we didn't need the PowerPoint.

The purpose of the early meeting is to get the client talking, not to get you talking. We need this information from them, like I said, because that's the only way we can give an accurate quote. First of all, because it happens a lot. It happened to me when I was in event photography as a wedding photographer that sometimes that you don't ask question and then you hear 500K and like are correct and you collect the 500K.

Then by the time you start the work, you realize that all more I should have charged 850 because I'm having to call in more boys, I'm having to produce more this I'm having to produce more that the only reason why you will end up in that situation where you have collected money. Yeah, even though the money started big at 1st and now you're running into problem is because you didn't ask enough questions. It is when you get the person talking and you start asking questions.

So for those of you who are still in the wedding photography space, congratulations. When are you getting married or where's the hall? How many guests are we expecting? Is there going to be a red carpet? So for the albums, is it just for you and Mumsy or you want to get one for uncle to know how many pictures are we printing this? By the time you ask everything and these people are talking and talking and talking and talking,

then your quote will be accurate. Your quote will cover everything because you asked questions and you listened and they said everything. So this whole thing of getting people to talk is not because we're shy or it's because, you know, we don't have what it is that we don't want to say. It's because we need all the information to know what it is that we're heading into so that we can have an accurate quote. Get them talking.

If you're in a meeting and the other person is not talking, the probability that you go and hang somewhere in the future is high. Get them talking. Know what it is that you're getting into. Give them an accurate quote. Don't collect money now and then start to cry later. You collect 1.5 from somebody, but then in executing the job you spent 1.450. After three days of work. The only profits they are putting in your pocket is 50K to avoid situations like that.

That torch. Get them talking, You only need to listen. Get them talking, get all the information that you need for an accurate quote. Then if you get them talking, you get all the information you need. It is only then that your proposal would be relevant or on point. And that's the reason why this guy was happy to hook us up with the head of marketing because you could see that based on the questions that we're asking,

these people then get sense, then go school. They know what it is that they want to achieve. These are the people we should go forward with them. That's the reason why it's based on the question that we ask. This guy could see that these boys, we are sharp on the move. We're going somewhere. So you can use PowerPoint presentation to show people that you're sharp. You can, but I'm telling you anyway, you know I flog it.

So your proposal will be on point when you propose somebody propose something that OK, OK, I think the next step is we should do like this. We should do like this. This is how we should handle it. The same you see them nodding their head, shaking their head. In that case, you now know that oh, we actually are making progress. We haven't started talking money yet, but we are moving forward. So get them talking that way.

Your proposal, you go make sense. They want to see what's next. They want to take the next step. They want to follow you and continue to yarn. Get them talking. The more that they talk it is then you have all the information you need that will make this engagement with these people effective. Effective means you know the outcome you you wanted was good. The outcome they are looking for was good. The only way that can happen is if you get them talking, figure out what their priorities are.

Then you, you can now see, OK, their own priorities like this, me, my own priorities like this. How can we align these priorities and then make progress so that at the end of the day, everybody will be happy. Get them talking at that first meeting. It is not to bamboozle somebody with PowerPoint. It's not about this is me. I have master, I have master's degree. I raise 1.5. This is my founders vision. This is my something something this is my whatever, whatever.

These are my past clients. This it's not about you get them talking at that first meeting. Now for those of you who love PowerPoint and you must do your PowerPoint no problem. You can do it, but you can do it at a future meeting. And if you understand everything I've been saying now, if in this first meeting you got them talking, you heard about them, you know who they are, what their problems are, what they're trying to achieve, what the vision is, where they're trying to head to.

Now you have all the information that you need to make that killer PowerPoint presentation. So I'm not saying abandoned PowerPoint, especially for those of you in the tech space who are doing GT emotions go to market. If you go to market, people, I'm saying it again, hold your ear. There's no sure thing as go to market. It is called sales. We can call you go to market because you know, you guys are educated, all of you have master's degrees, all of you have schooled abroad.

So you know, you want to say something that sounds befitting. You can't tell your father that you're doing sales after he has paid for UK degree. So you're doing sales. And so no dad, now you know more startup we're currently doing GTM motions. So what's GTM? So that GTM is a go to market is oh OK, OK my son, nice one good job. So you can tell Bob, so you're doing GTM well between you and me know it what you're doing in sales.

Don't deceive yourself. So you want to form them with PowerPoints? No problem. Just get them talking in the first meeting, get all the information that you need. Then you'll be able to deliver get that all the information that you need to make that killer PowerPoint presentation so that the next meeting you use PowerPoint and just queue them. But generally speaking, let's try not to get wedded to our crutches, to our tools.

If you're wedding photographer and you're thinking that the camera is the main thing, you are deceiving yourself. It is your mind and your creativity that is the main thing. You're a business person and you think it is your Samsung whatever, whatever phone that you're using or your fancy PowerPoints. No, no, no, no. The killer app is you. It's not all your tools. So whether you have PowerPoint, go in there, have an effective meeting, you can do it.

If you have PowerPoint, go ahead, it can be done. You don't have PowerPoint, go ahead, it can be done. But you don't always need PowerPoint presentations, especially during those first set of meetings right now. Please, nobody should run into me in the future and say I know you don't like PowerPoint. I'm not saying I hate PowerPoint. There's a time for everything for that first meeting. It is time for the client to talk.

It is time for us to get to know the client. It'll make our job easier. So that's it and that's all for today. Remember, if you'd love to connect, you can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140. And yes, it is my personal number for now. You know, when I become a big boy, you know, yeah, my PA will be answering it. But for now, it's my personal number. And please give me some time, you know, 2-3 days, you'll hear from me for sure.

And if you love all the things that we're talking about, you think it's applicable. It works in the Niger market. Then you're in luck because on this very feed that you are right now, whether YouTube or Stitcher or Spotify or you know, podcast radio or whatever, we have over 1200 episodes. So if you have nothing else to do, it's a weekend, you're waiting for your neighbour's party to start. No problem. Continue to listen, continue to listen.

There's good stuff. Make some notes. Make sure you apply one or two things. You're in the right place. Don't go anywhere, I'll see you soon.