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Today on the podcast, we're going to be looking at lead scoring again. Today on the podcast, we're going to be looking at lead scoring. What is a lead? How do you score a lead? And does the practice of lead scoring do anything for your business? Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Ayede. I'm the host of the podcast and I'm making today's recording. I'm on the road, so you're going to hear some noise in the background because it's raining.
So the goal of this podcast is not to tell you about my pearls. If you like talking about business problems like today, lead scoring, how do we figure out who it is that we're going to call? Who is a good prospect to call back? What are the best opportunities for me to make some money? If these are the sorts of questions that you're worried about, then this podcast is the show for you. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or any player of your choice.
And if you'd love to connect, you can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064662140. Again today we're looking at lead, scoring lead, LEAD. Now, First off, what is a lead or who is a lead? Now, for those of you who are listening to the show for the first time, a lead is anyone who has done something to show that they might be interested in your product or your service. And you managed somehow to collect the person's contact details.
So that is the person that you call a lead. So if someone is interested in your product or service, but you couldn't, you know, chat them up in a conversation, you couldn't get a phone number, I couldn't get e-mail address, you couldn't get anything. The person walk up as well, you know, you can't call that the lead. But if you look at the sheet of paper, you look in your inbox, you look somewhere and there's a name and there's a phone number,
there's an e-mail address. It looks as if this person might be interested. Then maybe you have a lead. So that essentially is what a lead is. But remember, this person must have done something in the past to show that they are interested in your product or in your service. Because there's some people who say, I went and scoured the Internet and I got 5000 leads. And of course, the question is 5000 leads, how? Like how do you know that they're interested in your product or in your service?
So let's say you're a plumber. You go to the estate that is, you know, on your way to work. It looks like they're a rich man's estate and it's a good place to get some clientele. Then maybe you have somebody there who works in the estate admin office or something like that. And then from there, you're able to steal, let's say, 3000 phone numbers of the people who live in that estate. And your goal is to call up that numbers, all those numbers to see if they need a plumber or not.
You can say you have 3000 leads because yes, you have 3000 contacts on a sheet of paper, but you do not know if any of these people is interested in your product or your service. However, let's say that same plumber goes to that same estate. You talk to your guy and you say guy, I beg, when are they doing estate meeting? Then the person tells you estate meeting is the last Saturday of every month. Now you say, I beg, please help me speak to chairman or PRO, let me go and make presentation so that if anybody who needs plumbers, they will call me.
He was able to hook it up. And then you go for the meeting. But before you give your presentation, chairman says, no, we're not taking any presentation today. But you know what, let me just pass around a sheet of paper. Anybody who is interested in talking to this plumber, write down your name and your phone number and you say thank you Sir. And then you wait there and then people write that name on their phone number.
They give you a sheet of paper and they say, Mr. Plumber, please can you excuse us? We're about to deliberate on very important matters and we don't want outsiders. So now you take that sheet of paper, you leave. If 26 people wrote their names on that sheet of paper, well, maybe we can call that a lead because you went there, you wanted to make a presentation. You were not given the chance. But Chairman said if anybody's interested in talking to this plumber, write down your name.
These people have written down their names. So now you have a list of contacts of people who might be interested in your product or your service. Those people, we can call them leads. Please pay attention because some of you who want to grow your business will hear third parties, outsiders saying, we guarantee you 2000 leads. Are you going to get 2000 leads or 2000 contacts? Please listen carefully. Some of you say semantics.
It is not semantics. It is not word play. If you have a list of 2000 names and phone numbers, but there is no indication, there is no reason to believe that any of these people might be interested in your product or your service. What you have is 2000 contacts, not 2000 leads. A lead is someone who might be interested in your product or your service, and they have done something like this example. They wrote their name on a sheet of paper.
It gives us hope that we are closer. It's not a guarantee that the deal will close, but it means that at least we are talking to the right person. And when it comes to sales and business development, a lot of things that we do should be geared towards making sure that we are indeed talking to the right people from the beginning. Because if we are talking to the wrong people from the beginning, there is no amount of gist of toasting, of prayer and hard work that can turn the wrong contact into a lead.
Who's going to pay you money? Just can't be done. Let's say I sell Mercedes Benzes S class brand new from America, straight direct from the factory. I go and pay somebody for 2000 leads. The person go and scout the Internet. Well, unfortunately for me, of all the 2000 on that list, the most somebody can afford to buy is KK. Now, do you think there's any amount of hard work I will do that will turn those 2000 leads into one paying customer?
The answer is no, because somebody went around, got me a bunch of names and phone numbers. The most that anybody can afford on that list is to buy KK. And unfortunately, the gap between the cost of KK and between the cost of Mercedes, it's too much. So if I'm buying this is brand new and I want to sell them at 4050 M and KK is 1.2 M, the gap between 1.2 and 50 is too big, we can't make that sale. So please, this is not semantics, pay attention.
So sorry that I've wasted 6 minutes in hammering this definition here, but believe me, this is 1 definition that is important, especially since nowadays there are lots of Nigerian businesses that will say come with us, pay us, we will guarantee you 100 leads, 200 leads, 1000 leads. Be sure about what you're paying for. Are you paying for leads? IB you're just paying for contacts. OK, now lead scoring. Now what lead scoring means is it's a practice of giving a number value to a lead.
You see a name on a sheet of paper, it says Chukwudi, a hand outro. Then you know has a number next to it, a lead score, you know, maybe 98 or 100 or two. The number next to it when you're doing the practice of lead scoring is to show how much value that contact has because not all contacts are the same. Back to the guy who sells Mercedes. There are some people on that list. The most that they can buy is KK. If you're going to score that person, score that person 0.
Because as far as you know, today, the person who buys KK will not be able to buy a Mercedes. Now, God might elevate his circumstance and maybe in one year he should be able to buy a Mercedes-Benz, but that is not today. There's some people on that list who have serious bar and who have recently elevated their status and they're looking on buying a car that will reflect it accordingly. That kind of lead will be scored higher because that kind of person is closer to being serious, is closer to buying, is closer to being hot.
Hot is closer to being ready to make a decision. So that one will score higher. So that is what lead scoring is. You have a number of contacts on your sheet of paper, on your Excel sheet, in your CRM, on your phone, on your wherever the database is, and then you come up with a way. Excuse me of ranking them or scoring them between 0. Excuse me between 0 and 100. Who has the greater likelihood of converting? Converting just means take the next step.
Who has the greater likelihood of converting, taking the next step, or ultimately becoming a customer? We're just trying to find out how to rank these people now. What is the reason for lead scoring? For businesses that do lead scoring, the whole goal is this. You're trying to figure out how to prioritize your sales efforts so that by the time you look at the list and you see all those people that score 00255, you just leave them.
They're all those ones that the score is 98176. You pursue those people because they have the highest chance of converting or becoming a paid customer. I repeat, the reason why we do lead scoring is so that we can prioritize our sales efforts, know who to chase after. So essentially, that is the reason why some businesses do lead scoring. I don't advocate for lead scoring, but I will explain as we go on. For now, let me put my bias to the side and let me just explain the thing as it is.
You will not make up your mind whether lead scoring is a good idea or not. And in case you haven't figured out the reason, the reason why we're discussing lead scoring today is because I'm talking to a client of mine who has a sales team and the sales team, they are talking about doing lead scoring. I've already told them it's a bad idea and I've already explained everything. Well, it's a bad idea in their own circumstance, in their own context.
And I'm going to explain today why for lots of you, especially those of you in the SME space, remember I'm talking about small and medium scale enterprises. For those of you in the SM and E space, lead scoring is a bad idea, or at least it's a distraction. Let's OK, let's not say it's a bad idea, it's a distraction for now. I repeat for those of you who are in the SME space, small and medium scale enterprise. All right, so I've explained what the lead is.
I've said the reasons why we do lead scoring so that we can prioritize our sales efforts. And then also it helps us to make our lead nurturing smooth because all those people that have low scores, you know, 205712, we put those people in lead nurturing sequences. Now a lead nurture nurturing sequences. When you take a group of people, you bunch them together and you say, look, these ones, they can't afford to buy what we have now or they can afford it.
They're not interested or they might be work up us. So let's just put them somewhere so that every two, two weeks, every 3-3 weeks, every one, one month, they'll be receiving WhatsApp messages from us, e-mail messages from us. Let us remain top of mind, let them get educated, let them be gingered, let them be inspired so that eventually they can move up on the scale. So yeah, we're also able to do this more effectively by the time we start doing lead nurturing.
Now, the goal of all this, in case you haven't figured out, is increased revenue. If you're able to prioritize your sales efforts and begin the Porsche, all those who scored 7689 and 99100 and then the other people, you just put them in lead notion. You don't waste your time. Over time, money should be trickling in. The people who are in lead nurturing. The thing should be automated. And over time, you know those ones will become much more viable prospects.
They pay attention to them. But excuse me, Either way, we increase our revenue over time. Now somebody's going to ask, how do you determine scores? How do you determine scores? And this is how you do it. Essentially, the answer is data. Data just means information. So you need information, you need demographic information. Demographic information is all that simple stuff that they taught us back in primary school in Nigeria.
Age, height, sex, location, occupation, what else? Salary level, you know, all those sorts of things. So all those statistics, this is what we call demographic data. Now, the reason why demographic data is important is because it helps us to match ICP. And ICP is the ideal customer profile. Now, no matter what it is that you sell, you'll find that there's an ideal customer profile. The ideal customer profile are the people who really like your product or your service, the people who pay you well, the people, OK, well, me, I'm the one who's adding that extra whatever.
But traditionally ICP is just the people who mostly buy what it is that you sell. Now for me and a couple of other people, we added that extra element that is not just a matter of people who traditionally like what it is that you sell or who need it, but also, you know, people who pay you well, people who pay you on time, people you enjoy working with, you know, things like that. Because time is going to pass anyway. You're going to have to service the customer anyway.
You might as well service people that at least you enjoy working with. And the financial returns are, you know, are sweet. That's the whole idea. So when you check all the people that have been paying you money over the last less you've been in business three years, by the time you look back all three years, you start noticing some things like, oh, it's mostly women that buy what I have, or oh, it's mostly men that buy what I have.
Or oh, they seem to be mostly from a certain tribe. Or oh, they seem to live. Most of them seem to live in Oshobo. Or you know, oh, most of them happen to be lawyers or oh, most of them happen to be hairdressers or whatever. You start seeing some commonalities, all those commonalities that you see that we can describe in terms of what they taught us in primary school. Remember social studies when talk about demographics, age,
location, sex, economic background, salary, address, you know, blah, blah, blah. All that is demographics. Now let us look at this is one example. Now, for instance, I'm currently working with someone who is in the business of providing content, affordable content to businesses. So content production, that's what the guy does. The guy set up an app that is supposed to and I don't mind me. See, I don't understand all this technical stuff.
So and sometimes I don't need to know. I just want so long as I understand what the goal is, I can help you get there. So especially for those of you need tech space, I really don't need to understand, you know, the code and how your product works. All I know is somebody gives an idea, you do your thing. I look at the output and I'm like, oh, OK, the output is quite good. You know, however it is that the thing works. Quite frankly, I don't know.
And as long as the thing works all the time, my job is to see how we can sell that thing. So now for people like that now who are in the content production space, demographic just means what are the job titles of the people who buy my stuff? Because that's demographic info. Is the person CEO? Is the person entrepreneur? Is the person founder? Is the person chief marketing officer? Is the person social media manager? You know, it depends.
What are the job titles? Is the person the sales manager? Is the person the head of sales division? Then you will also notice some similarities when it comes to company size. You might notice that OK, over the last year I've done business with 50 companies. Out of the 50 companies, it looks as if 80% of them are one man show. In that case, you now know that any company that is just Auger or maybe Orga and Secretary that might be a good that might match your ICP, your ideal customer profile.
So these are the thing kind of things that you look for when it comes to demographic data and then you score people accordingly. So whenever anybody matches the demographic data, you begin the add, mark, add, mark, add, mark. The less that people match the demographic, demographic data, you begin the subtract, subtract, subtract. This is what determines how some people will be 0 and some people will be 98. Then remember what I said earlier that they lead is someone who has done something in the past to show that they might be interested.
So the next kind of data you're going to get is behavioural data. What actions did the person take that shows their level of interest? The people that visited your site and downloaded content, then sent you an e-mail, then sent you Adm and then maybe give you a phone call. Of course you will rank those people high or like somebody that just looked at your e-mail. And so I looked at your website or Instagram and then sent you an e-mail, you know, so in theory, this is how we start ranking people demographic data.
What information do we have on them? Then behavioral data, what are the kind of things that they did that shows they might be interested in our product or in our service? So summary, you will find that no matter how complicated lead scoring is, you will see now this is what people are doing when they lead score. You either use demographic data or use behavioral data. How much do they match our ideal customer profile? What kind of activities, what kind of behaviour do they engage in to show that they might be interested?
So based on that, we'll now know whether we'll rank somebody zero or five or whether we'll rank somebody 76 or 92. So the question for today, is this a good idea for people in the SME space? If you have just created this app, you're just starting this business, is this a good idea for you to be doing lead scoring if you sell solar products, but you know, you're not one of these companies that are OK, like Xenox, for instance, Xenox the OR is it Xenox?
I'm not sure what it's called. The Nigerian company back when I was in uni, they had launched Nigeria's first laptops, Nigeria's first laptops, you know, design produced in, in Niger. I don't know if the other people who produce laptops now, but anyway, Xenox or Xenox, they've now started producing solar equipment as well. And of course, you know, Xenox or Xenox, you know, they're, they're national everywhere. You know, Lagos, Abuja, ABBA,
ABBA, Kaliki port are called Kanu, Kaduna. So they're everywhere. So I'm not talking about Xenox. Now, let's say you started your solar company. It's you, your brother, and then you have two salespeople. Is lead scoring a good idea? And the answer is this. For corporations, maybe it's a good idea because for corporations, for big companies, for Xanax, Now, maybe it's a good idea because everything is formalized, everything is all roboticized, everything is automated.
So yeah, it might be a good idea because you have plenty and plenty and plenty of sales teams. So you need to look for a metric leading way to manage your sales team. So you can have a meeting in the morning and say, Oh yeah, my 100 sales people from #1 to 2, all of you pay attention to the leads that are ranked 46 to 52 from numbers, you know this to this pay attention to, you know. So yeah, the certain scale, you know, you, you need lead scoring to share, manage operations and manage your sales team.
But remember, I'm not talking about big corporations now. I'm talking about people in SME space. You have created this app. It is you and five or six salespeople, OK, you one or two developers because you need to make sure that this app don't crash. Then the people on the sales team are like, you know, two or three shower all of you when I know past 10. Is this a good idea for you for the small and medium scale enterprises lead scoring?
Yeah, maybe not. Maybe it's not such a good idea because when you do lead scoring and you are an SME, you are wasting too much time in mind reading people. You're wasting too much time in guessing things because at the at the SME level, all of this is just guesswork. You guys have a sheet of paper and then you're guessing and you're guessing. The alternative is this. Instead of guessing at what a lead score is, talk to your customers and stop this guesswork.
When you talk to them, you will know who is a serious person to invest time with and who is not. Remember what I said? I'm talking about SME's. Now, if you're a big corporation, then you know, by all means, by all means, because you will hear about lead scoring and you hear about companies like HubSpot, for instance, who sell CRMS and how they are doing lead scoring to determine who it is that they pursue, who they chase, you know, But that is HubSpot International conglomerate, you know, hundreds and hundreds of sales teams.
Those ones, excuse me, they get contacts in the thousands and thousands and thousands. So in that case, more now the, you know, automate and whatever, but SME, you are your boys. You will just gather some resources. You're in space, you understand doing lead scoring, you're wasting your time, you're doing guesswork. Go and talk to your customers. Now, the alternative way to try and sort out, to try and rank who is a serious person, who should I be spending time with?
So excuse me, I keep talking about the time and time on the podcast and I've spoken about qualification frameworks. Now, qualification framework is any framework, any outline, any guide, any philosophy, any worldview, any whatever that helps to guide you when you're having conversations with people to try and figure out, am I talking to the right person? Are they interested in my product or service? Can they afford what it is that I have?
Do they have a serious problem or they have a serious problem? Do I have the skill set or the inventory to meet that problem? That essentially is what qualification is about. If you use qualification frameworks, you're going to be able to prioritize conversation. Sorry, I say conversations or forgive me, you know, sometimes you know why you're just rocking on the mic. You know, life like that, you know, once in a while talk to Easter.
So conversations I have, so I need to say so you don't know how to prioritize conversations where you have the most answers. In other words, every qualification framework that you have is what you require you to look for certain things or to ask for certain things based on the responses that you have from those questions when you're talking to potential customers, you will now know, is this person serious? Is this person to walk up us?
Is this person a High Roller or is this person broke? OK, this person is a High Roller but is he merely curious or does he have a serious problem? Does she have a serious problem? So I have spoken about lots of qualification frameworks, but 2 popular ones that I've spoken about on the podcast are spin and then band One Then I won't need and afford. I repeat, I've spoken about 3 a lot on the podcast. The spin, this band, then this one need afford.
Now let me clarify something. Excuse me. The reason why I speak about these 3 is not because they're the best. It's not because they're the ultimate. There are many qualification frameworks then plenty many. If you go and search on the Internet, don't be surprised if you come up with a list of maybe 1520. The reason why I talk about these ones is because they're simple. If you notice all of them for four letters spin S PIN4 letters for requirements bands BAN T4
letters for requirements want need afford urgency only four criteria 4 things that one is simple. These are things that you can remember so that even if you're sleeping and your son comma wakes you up and say daddy daddy, daddy what is want? What is a sorry? What is a band qualification framework? In your drowsy state, you will explain it 100% in your sleep and then in your drowsiness and then go back to sleep. It's something you can know and you can internalize.
Now remember what I say. Simple means easy to remember. Easy to remember means easy to do. Easy to do means easy to improve upon over time. Please remember because people like looking for, you know, you want to find a qualification framework that has, you know, 12 objectives. Each objective has like, you know, 3 or 4 intermediate steps. You know, essentially you're supposed to be running the sales play and paying attention to 4849 steps.
Like Oh my, what is that? Now when you become a big boy in selling or a big girl in selling and you've mastered some things, yes, mastering complicated mental frameworks is not a problem. Why? In the beginning, please just pick all these small, small ones. 33 letters, 4/4 letters is OK. You remember it because you remember it. You will do it because you will do it. You'll be able to improve over time because you'll be able to improve.
You'll be able to get better results. When you get better results means you're making more money. So please in the beginning, keep it simple. So again, we have SPIN, we have bands, and then we have want, need and afford. Now let's look at speed. SPIN is an acronym, and the acronym is for the main things that we should be looking out for when we're having conversations with people. Because remember, a qualifications framework is just a framework for arranging your conversation.
When you're talking to somebody, what kind of conversation should you be having? What kind of questions should you be asking? What kind of information should you be eliciting from these people? So that is what the conversation framework is. So now SPIN situation, problem implication and need payoff again, SPIN situation questions, problem questions, implication questions, need pay off questions. Don't worry if I'm running too fast for you.
All you have to do by the time you're done with this particular episode is either rewind and listen again or just go to ChatGPT or Perplexity or whichever AI tool you like and just type in. I am a Nigerian petrochemical engineer. This is the product that I am selling and I'm trying to target people in so, so, so and so industries. I have heard on the podcast about the spin qualification framework. How does spin qualification framework apply to the Petro chemical industry in Nigeria?
How should it guide my conversations and what kind of questions should I be asking when I'm having a conversation with potential customers? So that is the prompt that you will use then ChatGPT perplexity, Google, Gemini, whatever it is we're now explaining for you, you write everything out. This is what situation question is. These are examples of situation questions you think you will even ask you. Do you want some more ideas about situation questions?
So don't worry, just understand first the spirit, the principle behind what it is that I'm saying. So spin situation questions, problem questions, implication questions, need pay off questions now situational questions back to this idea of somebody. And by the way, the reason why I'm doing that is because this is what I'm currently working on. Now, like I said, the guy has this app, they produce content to produce it for at affordable rates.
They have packages between 30,000 and 99,000. That's for the whole month though, not for one post. So when I say affordable, I mean affordable. And we're trying to figure out how best he can sell and how best he can approach the market. So the reason why I'm looking at this now, using him as an example, is because these are precisely the kinds of questions that we are working on every day. So situational questions. That is where my guy who has the app is supposed to be asking people.
Are you struggling with visibility online? Are you struggling with engagement on your social media? Basically situational question just means what's up, what's happening? What's the 411? What's going on within the Apple? That's just what situational questions mean. You're a tailor or your fashion designer. Somebody comes and says, I want you to design peplum and you say, oh sure, no problem, we can design mommy, no problem, we can design peplum.
But mommy, what's happening? Is it by day or is it marriage anniversary or is your daughter getting married? Those questions. Is it by day or is it wedding anniversary or is it daughter, your daughter getting married? Those are situational questions. What's going on? What's happening? What's the four on one waiting to happen? How can I help you? Well, mommy, why are you here today? Those are situational questions. You're trying to figure out what's going on.
So now my guy who has this app, who is into content production affordably and reliably situational questions is where he's asking questions like that. Are you struggling with visibility? Are you struggling with engagement? No problem questions. That is where you dig in to find the nature of the problem. So if they're struggling, this is where you ask them, you know, straight up, oh, OK, you're struggling. But the problem is you're only producing one piece of content a week bar is that it?
You're you're hindered by speed. You see, you're narrowing down the problem now then implication of questions where you ask them the question like OK, we don't solve this problem. What's the worst that can happen? You need to ask because this is the part that will let you know whether this person is serious or just they walk up us. So if you say, oh, you want to produce 1 content a week and it's one piece of content a week, OK, yeah, that sounds like a problem.
But you know, to be honest, you're already putting out four things a month. So if you're not able to solve this content problem, like what's the worst that is going to happen If the person says the worst that's going to happen. I told you, I'm already suffering. I'm getting ready to suck my stuff by December. They asked me what's going to happen. Now, that kind of person, you know, might be serious because for them, as far as the guy is concerned, if I don't start producing more than two, three,
4-5 pieces of content in a week, I might have to start sucking people Is the same thing. You have a fashion designer? Well, yeah, sure, no problem. When we can produce peplum is not that bad. But Mommy, do you have any Plan B? You know, in case it's popular. My dad didn't work, so. Oh yes, my sister-in-law brought me a something something Givenchy gown from Paris something, something, blah, blah, blah, blah. OK, Mommy, you know, OK, Mommy has a Plan B.
Maybe, maybe it's not as serious. Mommy has options. My mommy answers you and says what are you asking me for this wedding that I told you is in two weeks? Say look bimpy, bimpy, don't disappoint me. In fact, I need this thing ready by next week, Tuesday. I want to come and do testing by Tuesday so that if there's any alteration will be done before Friday. When somebody's talking like that, because you're asking them implication question, you now know that this person is serious.
The thing is peppering them. That's open of implication questions. By the way, lots of Nigerian people, business people, this is where we mess up. We don't ask implication questions. Somebody calls you up. Oh, boy. Alpha, I'm good. You design websites? Of course. Now, of course, we're doing this for like 5 years so far. What? Error rates? That's no problem. Now it depends. I can design for 1:50. There's designs for 3:50.
There's designs for 5:50. OK, Well, I send me proposal. No problem. Should I send it to your WhatsApp? Yeah, I'll send it to your WhatsApp. You now send it the person who goes to you. You now say the person is all serious. You didn't ask any questions. Really. You didn't. You didn't ask situation questions. You didn't ask problem questions. You didn't ask implication questions. You didn't ask any question. Oh, yeah, sure.
We can design websites. What do you need the website for? Oh, OK. All right. No problem. OK, so that means you're more like in the retail space. Oh, sorry. Forgive me. OK. You're actually doing e-commerce. Since you're doing e-commerce, you know, your website has to be robust because we need plenty of back end things to work well so that you can people can add to queue, you can process payments. Oh, by the way, who's your payment processor?
OK, it's PayPal that you're using. OK, and no problem, no problem. See, you're asking questions, you're asking questions in your mind. You're not getting a sense of what kind of website are you going to design instead of just sending somebody. It was called the price list websites. 100K to 150, then Class B is 250 to 3:50, then Class C is 350 to 800. Engage people in conversations, please. That my Nigerian brothers and sisters.
Engage someone in the conversation. Ask them what's up, what's going on, what's the 411? That's the spirit of the conversation. If you don't know which question to ask, just start with. Oh, how can I help you today? I know some of you think they're stupid. You're a Carpenter. Somebody comes to your shop. You're asking how can I help you today? It sounds stupid, Abby, but don't worry. Just try it with patience. Just try it.
Say hello, Olga. Carpenter. Maybe Carpenter. Oh, yes, yes, yes, I'm the Carpenter. So, Madame, how can I help you today? And then just be like that. But I will now start talking situational questions. You're trying to understand what kind of thing that is going on. Problem question. What's the problem that they're trying to solve? If somebody's asking that you're all the table you make should be mahogany or should be Euroco,
there's a reason why they want it to be Euroco or mahogany. Ask. Don't just say, Oh yes, if it's mahogany wood, it is this amount. If it is Euroco wood, it is this amount. If it's ordinary ply wood is this amount ask then you also need to lead in the implication questions. OK, Madame, we can do it, but I would like this thing will be expensive small sure, just in case it's too expensive. I don't it's not something that even do self like what's going to happen.
You know my says, if you can't walk out work carry my old dining table. Now problem solved. In that case, as you're following this woman to young, you know that this is not something that is really, really choking her. But she says that, look, this thing has to be ready. It has to be set. I'm moving into my new house. We're going to do house warming, and I want a befitting dining table in my dining area. OK, It sounded like there's something here.
OK, 36 minutes, so let me move on. Well, basically you've seen that that is spin. I say yes, spin qualification frameworks now need pay off questions. That's when you just ask people about the kind of results that they are looking for now when you have those kinds of questions. So back to my guy who is designing this, the app now, for instance, that creates contents now, So excuse me. So if you ask questions, if you ask them questions around the kind of positioning that they're looking for, the kind of branding that they're looking for and whether they're hoping to get increased leads from engagement, you know, with the content, you know, all that is need payoff questions.
So now listen carefully. Remember in the beginning who are saying lead scoring, you just simply give people a score 05179672. But what I'm proposing now is since you are an SME, talk to somebody if you're able to ask situation questions. Also, let me check the time because I'm supposed to be cutting out somewhere soon. OK, so if you ask situation questions, are you able to get some information? You understand the situation,
that's good. If you understand the problem, that's good. If they say it has serious implications, that's good. If they will say that there's need payoff, that's good. Then we now know that is a serious person. But if you talk to somebody, you understand the situation looks like they have a problem, but really is not that big of a deal. And whether you do it or they don't do it, you know they're fine. Does it sound like somebody should be wasting time with So if you're someone who likes the spin qualification framework SPIN, then this is how you prioritise your leads.
Talk to somebody. If you understand the S, then give it a tick mark. If you understand the P, give it a tick mark. If you understand the I, give it a tick mark. If you understand the N, give it a tick mark. If you can't take everything good means you have a serious customer on your hands. The same thing with banned. Banned is budget authority, need and timeline. Again, banned is budget authority, need and timeline. But it just means when you ask people questions about what they are willing to spend realistically.
So in this case, like I told you, my guy has different products, different service, ranges between 30K and 99-K for the month. So it's something that you should be asking people early. Oh, OK. Yeah, it looks like you have a content problem to spend. I'm just curious how much have you allocated for this? You know, because we have packages between 30 and 99 K. It's not an investment that you're willing to make. If you ask how the person say hey 30K how am IA millionaire in your mind you know OK this person has unrealistic price expectations that 30K to produce content for the month is cheap because 30K for the month means the person is producing content at what's that now 30K that's divided by 4 that's 215 now 7575
I'll be now 7500 nap per week. That kind of person should you be wasting time talking to that person? You can see how I'm saying that wasting your time doing lead scoring at the SME space is a waste of time. Instead of just having a simple conversation with somebody using qualification framework, he will let you know what's up. In this case, if somebody says 30K, am I a millionaire? You don't know that this person has a realistic price expectations.
This person is not willing to invest 7509 a week to solve content. Weave this person, leave this person, put this person in lead notion, then authority. Authority just means are you talking to someone who has the ability to make the decision? If you're talking to the secretary, you're wasting your time. If the secretary cannot authorize, cannot cut you a cheque, cannot make the transfer, so that you start this thing. But if you're talking to the head of sales or if you're talking to the head of marketing, or if you're talking to chief revenue officer or you're talking to CEO or you're talking to whoever it is, but it looks like this person can make the decision, you're not talking to the right person.
Invest on time now need. That is the same thing as you know, problems. If they admit that they have a problem with content on an SEO, good, continue the conversation. If they say Oh no we only produce 1 post a week and we're absolutely fine, we are totally fine with one piece of content a week, why waste time with them? Wrong person to talk to. There is no need, there is no problem. They're good. They are chilling timelines,
timelines in Bant. BANT timelines just means you're trying to get a sense of people's timelines. When are they ready to take action? Is there any sense of urgency here? It's also another mistake that lots of Nigerian business people make. But luckily for me, since I started in the wedding space, this is one thing that we learned quick in the weddings and the event space. We ask that if I is one of the first questions we ask, oh,
congratulations, you just proposed blah, blah, blah. When's the wedding date? We ask it, people think we're being nice, we're being personable. It's not just that we're asking because we want to know, should I be wasting time with you? If somebody says, oh, the wedding is going to be two years from now, Why? Why will I be wasting my time pursuing you on a daily basis? The wedding is in two years. If somebody says, oh, the family met was so enthusiastic or the wedding is in, you know, the wedding is is in March or maybe having this conversation in January.
Now you can be following this girl up sharply because weddings in two months. So that's why I'm lucky that I started off in events. So timelines, in fact, if you're not married yet or you're trying to plan some event when your wedding, I'm telling you now I'm giving you the Expo. If your planner is asking you about dates and all whatnot, she's not just being nice and conversational. She's trying to figure out should I be wasting time with this guy or not?
If your timelines are far, far, far, far, far, she will continue to talk to you, all right. But she'll be putting much more attention and focusing much more on people whose matter is now, now, now, now, now. So finally to ask questions about timelines as well in your business. So for someone who is in this kind of business of creating, producing content should be asking people. So when would you like us to start? Are you looking at putting out any campaigns within the next month, within the next two months?
If somebody says six months from now, no problem. Be talking to the person, but don't be following up with that person every day, every day. If somebody says where can we start? If possible, I want us to start today and you know, follow up with that person that is motivated. Don't take action then want, need, afford and then urgency. Want it just means is there a need for a product or service? Sorry, how will I put it?
OK, well, won't I need that? The same thing basically, there's something that Brian Tracy used to say wants, need and afford me. I just put urgency there. So basically, do they want, do they need it? You also have to have the money conversations, you know, can they afford it? And then urgency, when are they looking at starting? You have to ask. If you have answers for all these questions, then spend time with these people.
If you don't have answers to any of these questions, this person is not worth spending time with. So ask them. Or if I look at your Instagram handle, are you guys thinking about reviving your content strategy anytime soon? Ask them. If they say yes, cool you have answers now, then dig in, figure out if there's a problem or it feels like you guys are losing money because you don't have lots of engagements and enquiries.
If the person says my brother we are losing money, continue talking with them then afford. That's why you say it again. OK, I think I have a fair grasp of what's going on. But like I said earlier, our packages are anything between 30K and 99,000 naira for the month. Is that an investment you're willing to make? Ask them based on the answer that they will give you. You now know this person. Should I be following up with them sharp, sharp, or should I
just put them on the wayside? You know, call them once a month. So this is what I mean. If you're a small and medium scale person, instead of sitting down and trying to do mathematics in your head and coming up with complex algorithms and trying to figure out who do I score to, who do I score 8? Who do I score 92 or who do I score 37? Because believe me, it is. It's plenty of math work. Why not just pick up a phone and call somebody or go to the person's office and have a conversation?
Based on the convo, so long as you have a qualification framework that you're following, you will now know who you're supposed to double up on, apply pressure on close mark, follow up, sharp, sharp, every week, every two, two days. You will know. And then you also know that, OK, you know what these are largely allowed to get by a large is rich, but you know based on all these things are largely and again, no to our problem, maybe I just call him every one week at those great time, you know,
just keep up appearances. So that's how you know, and that's one of reasons why qualification frameworks are important. They help us to determine how we're going to prioritize our sales. Who should we be chasing now? Who should we be going to their house every day? Who should we be going to their office every two, two weeks? Who should I be calling every six, six hours or who should I be calling every 6-6 days? This is how you get the answer to your questions.
Do you have a qualification or framework? Are you using this framework? Are you guiding your conversations based on the framework that you're using? What are the answers to the questions that you have? That is how you know whether you have a strong lead or you just have an empty contact. So summary, OK, sorry this is almost one hour summary Now what I'm trying to say is stop all these academic exercises and doing number crunching.
Stop it. For those of you that SM ES, go and talk to your customers, qualify them, have conversations with them, engage with them. When you have plenty of answers, it is simple. That is a good contact. Continue. When you don't have any answers, you're wasting your time. Let this thing go. So what I'm trying to say is don't get distracted from talking to your customers. Basically, if you're in the SME space, anything that you're seeing online that is distracting you from talking to customers is wasting your time.
I repeat, there are lots of fancy ideas that we see on the Internet and lead scoring is one of them. The idea is beautiful in principle and it's OK for, you know, conglomerates, for big, big corporations. But for those of us, those of us in the SME space, any fancy idea you hear on the Internet, You, you, you hear on the podcast, you see in a blog or something. If The thing is not encouraging you to talk to more customers or talk to your current customers more, The thing is wasting your time.
Only pay attention to things that teach you how to talk to customers, how to talk to more customers, the customers that you're talking to, how to have more efficient conversations with them. That is what you should be paying attention to now in the SME space. Now, when you don't blow like Xinox, are you a multinational business? Customers in Nigeria, customers in Bennett, public customers in Togo. When you now reach that level ahead, you cannot be doing lead scoring.
Until then, please don't waste your time with all these fancy ideas. Talk to your customers, please talk to your customers, talk to more customers and talk to them well be having efficient conversations. I repeat, this is your focus for now. Any other fancy idea excuse me is a distraction. When you escape this SME stage, they start doing all that fancy stuff. But until then, please my brothers and sisters, leave all this fancy stuff alone, please And please, this is for people in the SME space.
So nobody should come and send me a message that I'm leading people astray. I'm telling them to go exactly where they need to be. Lead scoring is good for some businesses. So NBC, Nigerian bottling company, they sell Coca-Cola and Spriter. Not what? Not if they want to do lead scoring to determine which of the distributors that they should be paying more time with. They can do it. It's NBC. You are not at that level yet.
If you're in the neighborhood, If you are the neighborhood store, don't be doing lead scoring. Talk to all your customers. Based on the conversations, you will now know which of the customers you should be calling up more, which of the hotels you should be supplying more. It is from one-on-one conversations anyway. I've spoken too much is ready one hour. Let me just bring it to a close. 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 WhatsApp message on 08064662140. Thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.