Stop Chasing Everyone: How to pick the customers who actually want to buy

Hello and welcome to the podcast. Before we begin, apologies because tonight is a late night recording and NEPA is misbehaving as usual and not everybody has inverter. So my name was a blasting generator all over the place. All right, now that the apology is out of the way, what we're going to do in this podcast episode is similar to what we did in the last podcast episode. We're going to look at ideas around doing outreach, inbox outreach the right way, and how to nurture relationships on LinkedIn, on WhatsApp, on Instagram DMS.

Now, the reason why we are talking about this again is because there are lots of people who are trying to do outreach and too many of you are doing outreach the wrong way. So instead of discussing these things in a very theoretical format, I figured that as many as these, how will I put it? I don't want to say bad outreach. All I say, OK, well, as long as I keep receiving outreach that could have been done better, I will use them as case studies over here on the podcast so we can figure out what not to do in our businesses when we're trying to sell.

Using LinkedIn, using WhatsApp, using Instagram, using Snapchat, using Twitter X, using whatever social media platform that we can, using Telegram that has messaging features that are built in. This is your first time listening to the podcast. My name is Tavish Shima Ayede, I'm a former lawyer turned business consultant and I'd love to hear from you. So call me, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 08064 662140.

But please don't send me any crappy outreach. The reason why I give my phone number is because I love solving business problems. That's the whole point of the podcast. So if you have a question and you want me to answer the question, that's fine, reach out to me 08064662140. Even though I'm a consultant, I'm OK with giving people free advice. Just make sure you let me know in the very first message. Let me know I'm looking for free business advice.

Then what we're going to do is we will schedule a call and then I will answer one question only. So give it some serious thought about what that's your one question is because I'm only going to answer one question. But then if you want us to take a deep dive, we will have to book a proper consulting session. And don't worry, we have options available for big boys and girls or for middle class people or for people when we get money,

you be sorted any which way. So like I said today, more ideas around outreach, the proper way to do inbox outreach, whether is LinkedIn, whether it's WhatsApp, whether it's Instagram. And it's because I received a message. And you know, sometimes when I say these things, some of you think I'm telling lies. By the way, let me just continue. This is the message I received. I won't like anyway, let me just read it. Let me begin.

This is the message I received today is my birthday and I was surprised to find this out about me online. Then the guy now put a link and then he sent so Maria confused the same way my mails confused. When I received this message again, the message was today is my birthday. Somebody is sending me a message room and he's not. It's not that he was reaching out to me to tell me happy birthday. The guy is telling me that it is his own birthday.

How do I take consign me then? He's now telling me that asked by his own birthday, he saw something about him online and he was surprised so he now sent me the link. I hope you guys can see the problem with this outreach. Like honestly speaking, how he take consign me that it is your own birthday, then you now send me a link about your own business and I'm supposed to click on nothing to view it? Because of what? Or because you are who?

It's not as if I was chilling and then Dangote sent me a message and of course, you know, I want Dangote to be like my pal. You know, Dangote and Tony Lumilo and the rest of them, you know, I'm still trying to break into that crowd. So it's not as if one of them just sent me a message like that. You are some brown or nobody. I don't know you. And of course, I engaged the guy. And like I tell you people, it's not just me he sent this message to.

He sent it to other people. But I engaged the guy just because I wanted to be sure. Honestly speaking, I just wanted to be sure because when I'm seeing some of these messages, I wonder what are people thinking? Today's my birthday. So therefore, I'm sending you this link because somebody wrote something about me online. Anyway, so I engaged the guy and I told him happy birthday. But how does one take consign me? I asked him straight up.

Then that's when the guy was honest that oh, you know what? That you know, indigers do outreach. He's trying to promote this idea because he's into hydroponic farming. And at some point he was one of the youngest hydroponic farmers in America because I think he started this thing when he was 10 years old. And so this feature that he received, he received when he was 13. So no beat Niger. He's not a Niger guy. So he's into hydroponics and he's trying to spread the gospel and stuff like that.

And currently now the guy is now the guy is 13 years old. OK, sorry. This thing that was released was released when for him was released when he was 10 years old. So now he's 13. So I decided to say, let me just level them on a when I put it on the very, you know, brother to brother level because I like saying the hustle like he's 13 and he's already on his grind. So I like that. I like it. So I said he was level with the guy.

So now we will begin the talk. So I was now telling him a couple of things about the proper way to do this kind of outreach. Now his, his goal, his mind was in the right place because what I was trying to do was relationship nurturing. Because actually me and the guy, we don't connect on LinkedIn before. I'm not sure who sent the invite, whether it was me or whether it was him. So we've been connected before. So this is the kind of thing that we do in marketing when you say you're doing relationship nurturing.

Now, the idea behind relationship nurturing is this is that you have a contact on social media or in real life or whatever, and you're looking for ways to stay top of mind so that every once in a while, then when they see you, they will know that, OK, you still exist. You understand, they know that you still exist. They're going to see your face, they're going to see your updates, they're going to see your post, you know, so that when they're ready for that thing, they'll remember you.

So if you are in the wealth advisory space, OK, let's just use that wealth advisory because the last time we were analyzing somebody was this guy the one that cautioned A Rambo. We yeah, we're using his business because he's in wealth advisory. So if you're in the wealth advisory space, relationship nursing will mean you would define ways over e-mail or on WhatsApp status on social media or through phone call or WhatsApp where you'll be keeping in touch with people on a steady.

It's not as if you're saying buy now, buy now, buy now. But when they see your update, they'll say, oh, Sheena Ramble is in wealth advisory. Oh, OK, OK, OK, OK. You put up a funny meme on social media and say, oh, that guy Sheena Ramble. OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK. As in just, you know, they'll be seeing your face so that when they are ready, like, oh, OK, I've collected my pension, what will I do? Let me call, you know, Rambo,

That's the whole idea. So it's called relationship nurturing. And there are different ways for doing relationship nurturing. We've talked about on the podcast. So I'm not going to any more detail, but sure, that's what this young shop was trying to do. I May God bless you also because honestly, at 10 years old, I won't lie, at 10 years old, what I was doing was I was climbing trees. I stole my neighbor's Ching gum, 'cause she was a she was a market trader.

I stole her Ching gum. I killed my neighbor's chicken. What else? I broke my arm. What else? What else? Again, when I was 10 years old, man, my life was just adventure, adventure, adventure, adventure. But to see that there are guys that 10 years old, the radio on their hustle teen inspired me not be lying. So I actually pray that God will bless these guys also. I pray let God bless his also. So yeah, the guy wants to do relationship nurturing, but there are a couple of things that are wrong with this approach.

So let's break it down. One thing that I spoke about in the last podcast episode, and I'm going to stress again here is this. When you're reaching out to people, when you want to do outreach like this, you're chasing after people, you're targeting gas beyond points ICPI do customer profile, target audience, whatever it is you want to call it, it has to be on point. You suppose focus be very focused right now. This guy is a hydroponic farmer.

For those of you who are wondering, hydroponic hydro, what it is this people that do farming without using soil, like this thing is mud, like when we were expecting, that's our first child does this. My friend Doctor Mike, the doctor has to go and chill with, you know, once in a while, just go hang out. You know, Madame is not feeling OK. We'll just go there just to get second opinion because you know, for those of you weren't unborn,

you know who it is. Now, when you're expecting your first child, any small thing, you get nervous. You know, Madame has headache, you get nervous. Madame is sleeping too much, you get nervous. Madame is not sleeping enough, you get nervous, the baby is not kicking, you get nervous, the baby is kicking too much, you get nervous. So any small thing will just be running to the doctor. So that's how one day now me and Doctor Mike were just chilling then he now told me about hydroponic farming as a hydro.

What he said that there's some people that plant, what do you call this in this tree? Is it a pier? Is I think it's pier now something Pierre Avocado, Robbie and other people who plant avocado by doing hydroponic, hydroponic farming. I said which one is hydroponic farming? So you never have. So the guy showed me a video. So basically you find ways to grow crops without using soil. Nothing is mad, really mad. So people are growing vegetables, people are growing some small fruits and things like that without using soil,

just water. So you get the container, you hook up the whole factory, you put some nutrients in the water, you suspend the the the seed above the water. Shah, the thing takes rooter. I don't know the technical something something, but Shah it works. And of course the whole goal is if you're able to maximize hydroponic, that is growing crops without using soil, in theory you should be able to grow crops anywhere because you don't need physical.

Sorry, 1 moment I will be back. OK, I'm back. Sorry about that. Remember I said there's a late night recording and the boys are home. So the boys are fighting in the living room. So I want to go and set to quarrel. You know, sometimes this is a disadvantage when you only have boys, you know, it can be a madhouse sometimes. But yeah, OK, so they haven't killed themselves. So let me continue. And so the idea behind hydro,

hydroponic or whatever it is that they call it. So the scope is this, if you can plant without needing physical soil, you just need a small space, then you may be able, you're able to increase output per square meter because you can have a small room. As long as you can stack shelves and be doing your hydroponic something. You can be planting your vegetable, planting your pear, planting your whatever, and you're just planting like that,

like that, like that. So even if you're in the desert, you just need small water and you know, hydroponic engineers, you know how they hook the thing up and then you, you farm. But anyway, I am not a in fact, I was going to say I'm not a professional. It's not an obvious like I'm a complete novice when it comes to these things. I just know it's wild. Anyway. So when I see people doing, I just think it's wild. And then funny enough after that, one of my cousins older son, the guy is quite like guy is quite smart, like sharp guy.

He too on his own. I didn't know that I started doing hydroponic, growing some things at home. So that's the whole scope now. So where was I? The background now? So targeting if you are in this kind of business now you're a hydroponic farmer. What business do you have sending this kind of message to someone like me? If you check my LinkedIn profile, you don't see anything agriculture related there, do you? Nothing. I've not said anything on this podcast.

I've not put anything on my LinkedIn profile that shows I'm remotely interested in agriculture. There's nothing that shows I could be a customer of hydroponic farming, that I could be a stakeholder in the hydroponic farming water. Like there's absolutely no reason why this guy should be giving giving me outreach. The fact that I respond to the guy is just, you know, out of make of human kindness. It's just lock. So all those other people, that guy's message 0 no contact absolute 0 because #1 targeting is off.

So the guy, they pursued the wrong people. And a lot of you are trying to do outreach on Instagram, on TikTok, on LinkedIn, sending WhatsApp messages, Telegram messages. You're targeting 0. You're reaching out to somebody who could never, no matter how much money, like even if I'm a billionaire, honestly speaking right now, what do I know about hydropony? What's my interest in hydropony like? There's no way I can be a potential asset to him at all.

None. Which is the reason why I'm giving the guy the advice that I'm giving him. You know, I'm not interested. I no get money, Washer. Let me share the knowledge that I have. Hopefully, we'll bless the young guy because, man, this boy is 13 years old. He's on the move. He's going places. So targeting was off. Then the outreach was wrong. I said it a lot on the podcast. I'm saying it again, for those of you who are listening for the first time, whenever you're doing outreach, the focus should be on the other person, not you.

If I show up in your inbox and I say I'm the greatest, I'm the best, I'm like this, I'm like that In your mind, you'll be thinking, and so I don't want to concern me, honestly, that is what you'll be thinking. So you show up as if you know something about this person, you've noticed something that they're doing or you suspect they might have this kind of problem and you think that this is how your product or service might be able to help.

Are they willing to have a conversation that is different. You're making it about the person. If this guy sent me a message saying that, oh, we said, I noticed that you're a vegetarian, you're trying to live a healthy life, something sometimes, blah, blah, blah, blah. Have you heard about the benefits of hydroponic agriculture and how we can help you live a healthier life? You know, have a lower BMI, lower your blood pressure,

something, something, that kind of thing. Oh, OK. At least I'll be reading because he made the thing about me. He tried to make it above me. Instead, the message was today is my birthday. OK, how's that my business? I'm surprised to find this about me online. OK, so people are writing about you. Congratulations. Like, how does that affect me? Stop reaching out to people with the focus only on you. And then make sure that you target people accordingly before you send messages.

Now, some of you be wondering. OK, Tavishma, we've heard you. Hydroponic farmer. OK, that's his occasion. That's it. I say occasion occupation. Sorry. You know, when we're doing late night episodes, my brain is slow. Yeah, my brain is slow today. It's been a long day. So now the guy's a hydroponic farmer, so he'll be asking, OK, if he's not supposed to target me, who should he target? Very good. Now I won't lie as I look at this in hydroponic farmer, I

won't lie. My brain hook. I didn't have idea so I said OK, let me cheat small. So I went on the Internet and one simple search and I found some ideas that actually made sense. I see guys and girls, boys and girls, men and women listening. This is the reason why I say these AI tools are very good for ideation. Ideation means I don't hook or I'm tired or I can't think. But I need to come up with some ideas. What ideas can I find?

AI tools are perfect for that one search. This is what I found out. People that he could have targeted could have included chefs and procurement managers, especially since the guy they based in America. So all these restaurants that have this concept of farm to table as per they think that's be fresh, fresh, fresh, you know, organic something, something it makes sense. Now what he's doing is hydroponic farming, water, fresh vegetable, correct produce.

Those are the kind of people who should be reaching out to chefs and procurement managers for all these restaurants that are around this whole farm to table concept. You should be trying to talk to decision makers in that space. You see, because these people, they care about consistency. So the food should be available all the time. And that's one of the benefits of hydroponic. With hydroponic, there's no such thing as rainy season, dry season, because you are farmingly seen in house on site.

All you need is just water. You can be farming the vegetable, farming the whatever. 247 every single season, winter, summer, hammerton, whatever, still grainage. Those are people who should be targeting because those people, they care about consistency. If they want vegetable, they want vegetable all year round. If they want kill, they want kill all year round. If they want pier, they want pier all year round. They don't want to hear that we're in season, we're not in season.

These are people should be talking about. Then he also should be reaching out to agricultural tech investors and venture capitalists because there are people that have serious money and they want to invest in the agricultural space, whether on ethical grounds or because they think it's good business. But The thing is, they don't know who these boys and girls are. Like, where are these people? Where them they people with ideas.

So you should be targeting those kind of people on LinkedIn, not sending messages to me. So you should be looking who are AG tech investors, venture capitalists. Now the good thing about you know, this guy reached out to me on LinkedIn. The good thing about LinkedIn is for the free feature you can do some quite advanced searching like you can search according to. Industry, you know, things like that. So you can just go to LinkedIn in the search function and then type agricultural tech investor,

hit send, ma'am. A list of things will come out. You'll be able to sort people according to whether it's accounts or according to industry, according to company, according to number of employees. Boscha, you can do that kind of basic search and you'll find some things from that list. The boss should have known that. OK, let me start targeting some of these people. This could be valuable resources to me, valuable assets to me.

Now, for those of you who had paid, paid LinkedIn accounts, you know, LinkedIn Navigator, LinkedIn sales, sales something a camera board is called. You can even do much more advanced searching, but you can see what I'm saying. Now you sit down. Reason I'm first think, think, think, think target who is my ideal audience who might need this product, who might need this service or who might be a stakeholder that is could be affected by any of these things that I'm doing.

Think if your brain is tired like my brain is tired today, no problem. Whip out your phone, begin to type, open your AI tool, start typing. These tools are brilliant for ideation. You can see that these two ideas that I called now, you don't make sense for a young boy who is based in America like he like he is, doesn't this thing make sense? So when he's reaching out to these people now, the ARC tech investors and venture capitalists, you know, he can be showing them water savings.

You know, the savings that he's achieving with his farming techniques, you know, less water, less soil. These, these, these, this is my expansion plan, blah, blah, blah. You never know, Conversation can start then Google Gemini also said that this guy can reach out to ESG officers. That's environmental sustainability. Abu What's the G for? Is that one group? Abu something And those of you in that space, you, you know what's up.

Just send me a message, let me know 08064662140 reach out. Let your boy know that I don't know much about the environment. So educate me so you can reach out to sustainability and ESG officers in different companies. They've mentioned some Nigerian companies in case the guy wants to try and look for business in Niger. So people like Unilever and Nestle, they have green initiatives for sustainability. You see why I'm saying that these AI tools are mad.

It was left to me, how will I think of this kind of thing that Unilever and Nestle have green initiatives. How would I, how I take how, how would I know that thing? How so? There are people that he can reach out to. The scope will be, he'll be talking about carbon footprint, how they're helping with food security in urban areas. I know all that. You know, those of you who like SDG now, sustainability and all not, you know, all those things you like to hear.

Reach out to these people and start giving them this sweet, sweet toasting. That's how you make the way forward. Not that you're reaching out to me because you know, so on and on and on and on and on. And this thing is just giving plenty of ideas, plenty of ideas, plenty of ideas. It even gives some idea about how this guy can reach out to diaspora investors in case he's targeting Nigerians specifically because they're Nigerians that are abroad who are interested in automated and modern farming techniques and stuff like that.

These are the kinds of people that the guy should be looking for. Not sending me message but you can see that with one brief search. I didn't search 2 times though. I search one time using Google Gemini and you can see some of the results that I came up with. These rules are wonderful for ideation. For those of you who keep saying it's not perfect, it's not perfect. Please I don't mean to be rude but you guys should just keep quiet.

Learn how to prompt. Yes it's not perfect. Use it for what is good at for now. If you put in a query, the thing gives you 10 ideas. Only three makes sense. No problem. Ignore the seven that don't make sense. Start applying the three that makes sense and stop complaining. Use this thing at the level that it's that it's at, and stop this whole thing about perfection. We're trying to boost revenues here. Who's talking about perfect?

Are we making traction? Are we making progress? The move we tried, Did he bring results? That's all we need to know. The thing brought in results or I'll continue anyway, long and short because I'm keeping you guys for 30 minutes. So let me just wrap it up. Let me bring it to an end. One pet thing that I used to talk about, this guy, when he started his journey, he was, how old did I say? Was he 8? I'd be 9. Then by the time they wrote about him, they did TV coverage for him in American media.

The guy was 10. Now that the guy is chatting with me, he's 13. You know, there's some people who when they break into the space, they like to play up this whole, you know, I'm the youngest this I'm the youngest that this whole thing about age, it gets old pretty quickly. It gets old pretty quickly. So in my own opinion, I think you're better off so long as we're talking about business, focusing on your USB. What is the unique selling proposition?

What is the value that you're bringing? What is the main reason why people should do business with you? What is the chief benefit that they will get? And stop trying to play up all these things, you know, I'm the first female something. OK, Well anyway, maybe with the way the times are going is OK if you're the first female something, something, I can't play it up. But all this, I'm the first blah, blah, blah, blah. Like even if honestly speaking,

I am the first chief person to achieve this and this, I'm not going to play it up. Like for what? I'll focus squarely on the USB. This is the value that I bring. This is the benefit that I bring to you. This is how I bring value into the situation. This is the reason why I should do business with me. So I am the first this, I am the youngest, this I am the smartest, this I am the like, I beg, let all those things rest,

focus on the USB because those things, eventually they get old. So at some point the hype was he's the youngest hydroponic farmer in America. OK, right now he's 13. Is he still the youngest? We don't know. So excuse me, but guess what? He's 13. Guess what? One day he'll be 16, then he'll be 19, then he'll be 22, and then eventually he'll be thirteen, and then? And then what? You now start saying what? I was the youngest hydroportic farmer.

Focus squarely on your USB, then let people be impressed by the other circumstances around you. So if this is the value you bring to the table, if this is the cheap benefit you're bringing to this person, to this industry, to this circumstance, focus squarely on that. Let the person now be impressed that the guy I know more do that. The guy is a small boy and he's sharp like this. Let the other person be impressed. So anyway, was a nice conversation.

Another reason why you all should be hanging out on LinkedIn because you can see the quality of conversations that we have when on LinkedIn because LinkedIn business platform, career development, personal development, so interesting people. This one is not just going online to be to be watching trends and you'll be looking at scandalous videos. So if you don't have a LinkedIn account, get the LinkedIn account. The quality of people that play on LinkedIn, there's a difference.

Nigerian business people, please take note. Open a LinkedIn account. You'll take a while. At first you think he's dry and stuffy because nothing trending. But just try it anyway. I didn't come here to advertise LinkedIn. I came here to say if we're doing outreach, we should make sure that the outreach is focused on the benefits to the other person and that you target well and that you only reach people who might have a need,

who might have a want, who might have an interest in your product or in your service. So if you are trying out certain kinds of business outreach, if you're trying out certain kinds of business outreach and you're stuck, you don't know what to do next. You've been sending plenty message. The feedback is not good. Whether you're making progress or you're retrogressing, you don't know. I need a second set of eyeballs on your problem.

Reach out to me 0806466 2140. It's OK, Don't worry if you're broke, that's cool. Just let me know you're looking for free business advice and I will answer one question only. So think very hard about that, about what that question is. But if you want us to sit down and look at everything properly, what's the business situation? What are the channels you're operating in? What is your unique value proposition? What is the best way to go to market?

How are you going to reach out to potential customers, potential investors, other stakeholders? You want us to do a deep dive? Then what we got to do is you have to sit down and schedule a consulting session. But either way, you're going to get some value. So reach out. 08064662140. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'm not sure what the next episode is going to be. I can't let you know ahead of time, Basha.

Subscribe, follow, follow me along on the journey. So yeah, that's it. I'll catch you guys some other time.