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Today on the podcast, we are going to continue our conversations with the Tech Bro series. If this is your first time listening to the podcast, this is me running commentary on a video of that I saw a couple of weeks ago where a popular personality in the tech space in Nigeria was speaking at a tech conference in Lagos. And in that particular segment, he was talking to people who have a start up idea on who want to take new stuff out into the market.
He said a couple of things about what they have to expect when it comes to sales and marketing. And I have been making a series of commentaries on his all essay on his presentation. So I've been talking about things that he got right, things that he could have phrased a bit better, and then giving you guys a much more robust framework or robust perspective on what to expect when it comes to sales and marketing. And so today what we're going to be looking at is, so excuse me,
popular ideas around selling or popular selling tactics, because he spoke about a couple of popular selling tactics. And unfortunately some of the tactics that he spoke about are not very helpful. But people talk about these things a lot in Nigeria. And some of you are running around trying to sell using these ideas or using these tactics that are not very helpful. And two of them in particular are selling by using features.
You talk about the feature of a thing and then you use that thing to try and convince somebody to buy. So back to my the idea that I've been caught on for a very long time now, which is the Tesla Cybertruck. So you will now be on this whole kick about, you know, the features. Oh, it's driverless, it's battery, it's this, it's that you're using the feature of the thing to try and sell the thing. So that is features based selling.
And then he also spoke a bit about using emotions to sell. And there are lots of people who run around and try to use emotions to sell. I have noticed in particular people who are into the skin care and beauty industry, you try and use emotions to sell a lot. So yeah, we're going to be looking at popular ideas when it comes to selling in Niger, especially feature based selling and trying to use emotions to sell. So we're going to freestyle on some of these issues now.
If you love talking about these sorts of things, you like listening to these things every day, then subscribe to the podcast because this podcast was created specifically for you. If you wake up every day and you think, how am I supposed to sell? How do I use the features of my product or my service to sell? How do I use emotions in my selling? How do I get people emotionally captivated? How do I dial up my emotions or how do I dial down my emotions?
Share anything that has to do with selling, attracting, marketing, customers, stakeholders, partners, investors, whatever. These are the sort of things that we talk about over here on the podcast. So subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple or any player of your choice. And if you'd love to connect with me, my name is Tavishima Ayede. I'm the host of the podcast. You can call, send me a text message or a WhatsApp message on 0806466 2140.
So again today popular ideas around sales or popular selling tactics in Niger. Now one of them is features. If you have listened to the broadcast episode from yesterday or maybe the day before, you remember that I said this guy stood up on stage and then he gave people a selling challenge, which is not very helpful, which was sell me this laptop. Some of you, maybe I've never heard that before, but the more popular one is sell me this pen.
You know, you're networking. Somebody says, well, I'm good at sales and say you're good at sales IB, you know, remove your pen from your pocket and say, why sell me this pen? I think it's a good way to gauge whether somebody's without selling or not. Now, if you didn't listen to yesterday's episode, what you would like to know whether this is a useful exercise to go through when you are teaching someone to sell or when you're trying to train your sales team to sell or when you're trying to figure out if somebody's good enough to sell on your behalf,
then please listen to yesterday's episode. Let me give you a spoiler. It's not a helpful exercise. It is useful under some circumstances and usually in the hands of a professional who has devoted his time and devoted his life or her life to learning these sorts of things. So you learn when it can be helpful, when it can be helpful. So yesterday, Abby? Yeah. I think yesterday or the day before. Yeah. So how will I put it?
OK, in the review that I did yesterday or the day before, that's when I introduced you guys to this idea. Sell me this laptop or sell me this pen. Now, the version that he did was sell me this laptop. And eventually he found somebody who was successful at selling a laptop in 20 seconds. I think, by the way, this is not realistic because this is another thing that you guys need to know when it comes to when you're trying to sell something that you are still at talking stage or theoretical stage, you can sell anything and somebody will say yes.
Whether somebody would actually drop money, part money, pay for The thing is another thing entirely. So yes, in a mock up session, you can get somebody in 20 seconds to agree, yes, I'll buy that laptop. But whether you can sell a laptop in 20 seconds in real life is another matter entirely. So please, when you are when you attend any of these sessions and you see people pull off some of these exercises and you know, they sell a car in one minute or something on stage, just know we're still in the realm of fury.
When we get to the level of practicality, you know, things work a little bit different or sure for the sake of it, let's just agree that the guy was able to sell the laptop in 20 seconds. So the conversation followed how did you sell the laptop and was very easy. The guy said all he had to do was he mentioned that the laptop is good for note taking because he noticed that the person that he was trying to sell to was taking note with a pen and a paper.
Then he also said that buying a laptop would make more sense because of a cloud computing. So because notes can be synced to the cloud, the person wouldn't run the risk of losing her diary. And so that is how he sold the laptop. He sold it using the features that this thing is good at note taking and this thing has cloud computing embedded in it. Therefore it's a good idea to sell sorry to buy. So you can see now the level of theory, it makes sense.
Abby, it's easy for you to say, Oh yeah, sure, I'll go ahead and I'll buy it. But whether in real life at that point, because somebody said no taking and cloud computing, you would turn over 450,000 and buy the computer, that's something else entirely different. Oh, by the way, features. Now when we say features, we just mean a part of something. So for instance, over here in my living room, I have a Benatone. I can't remember what model it is.
Benatone something something only buy Benatone products. Don't ask me why when we're little. And then we moved to Lagos because NEPA was really, really terrible in Lagos when we moved there back in my teenage years back in the military era. So we had been atone stabilizers and like been atone electric ions. So I just go to the Abdul behind been a torture. So there's been atone here in my house and it's one of these banner toes that has, you know,
like 3 blazing at the back and then like 4 small blaze in the front. Now that is a feature. I don't know what, you know, that feature. So excuse me, I don't know what that feature is called, but having multiple blades, you know, that's a feature. Then whether your fan is 3 speed, 4 speed, 5 speed, that's another feature. Let's see what else? OK, the different kinds of base, somehow circular base, somehow star base, that is also a feature.
Let's see, what else? What else can I think of? Well, you get my point. So when we say the feature of a product or a service, you know, that's what we mean. The constituent parts of the thing that make it up. OK. Yeah. OK. What's have ATV here? The Panasonic TV. It's not a smart TV. That's because at the time, because this TV, the TV soldier, I think I bought it when we still had like our first born. So this meant TV is old TV.
Don't try it out. But it's not a smart TV because back then I didn't realize what the smart TV was and I didn't see the point in buying a smart TV. But yeah, this particular Panasonic TV that I have here in the house, we can hook up. I think it has like 4 USB slots, so you can hook up flash drives. That is a feature. The number of USB slots that he has. Then it also has a HDMI plug in HDMI slots. So you can use HDMI, connect your DSTV, connect your computer, connect a bunch of stuff.
So the number of HDMI cables, that is also a feature. Then this technology is old. It's it's a flat screen, but it's LED, yes, LED. So that is also a feature, whether it's LED or whether it's AMOLED or, you know, all those different things. That's a feature because modern T VS are I think they're more curved, you know, whether they curve inward or the curved outwards. So, you know, do you think curves for, you know, 360
panoramic viewing, blah, blah, blah, you know, all those things that TV people say that is the feature. So you can see what we mean when we say feature based selling. You're trying to sell your product, you're trying to sell your service, but you're hinging it on the features. So you're talking to somebody you're just pushing Bam bam bam feature feature feature the best, the brightest, the fastest, the this the that. So if it is TV, you'll be saying Bros forget LED this one AMOLED.
Check out the corvatures. He has the team just called. He has the team fine, blah blah blah, megapixel HDTV something something almost see the thing now see the number of flash drives that you can put in this thing. Come and see HDMI port blah, blah, blah, this and this wireless connectivity something something uh huh. So when you're toasting somebody to buy the TV that is feature based selling and the guy who successfully sold a laptop at that event, remember Nathurio is just is just now role play.
It's not as if it really, really happened. What the guy did was feature based selling. Now, is feature based selling a convincing way to go about selling? The answer is it depends. And for those of you who listened to yesterday's episode, or maybe the episode the day before when I was talking about why these selling exercises are not helpful, you remember that I said that the two things you need to sell, number one is understanding value #2 is communicating value.
And that understanding value means you're able to figure out what does this person want? What does this person think is important? Why does this person think it is important? What are the goals the person is trying to achieve? What is the vision that the person has? What, where is this person running from? Where are they going to? That is what will determine the features that you will play up or that you will play down.
So feature based selling is not a bad idea in itself. But if you don't know what to understand value, you'll be wasting your time talking about features that people do not care about. So feature based selling in itself, you know bad, it's not bad at all, but you need to learn how to engage with somebody 1st and listen to somebody first so that you know which features that you need to play up. So for somebody like me who does everything on the phone, you can be talking about AMOLED
connectivity, something something smart TV, blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, me because I don't watch TVI don't, I don't. But for somebody who, because you know, there's some people like that, like my brother. Now for instance, you know my brother, hook up the TV, go relax, dim the lights, you know, get some nice Brandy and then be streaming the FIFA match live. If it's not available live. He has those piracy sites that he goes to so that he can be streaming all the match.
It doesn't matter who is playing or where they're playing. Even if the FIFA match is on the moon, my brother will find it, stream it on our TV, dim the light, blow AC, have a nice bottle of Brandy, puts on ice cubes inside. Now relax himself, if you are selling smart TV to someone like my brother, if you understand the value that he's going for, you will now be able to lean in Features, features, features. So feature based selling, it's not bad, but still the paramount skill that you need before you start thinking of which feature to talk about is understanding value.
Who are you talking to? What do they like? What do they value? What do they want? What do they desire? What are they afraid of? Where are they running to? What are they running from? What is their problem? What is their main issue? What is their desire? Future based selling is only possible if you know how to understand value. So you can see that all these people, all these events that you're attending, they're talking about how you should talk about features, features,
features. You can say they're not helping your life because I'm not even telling you the thing that is instrumental to the thing that is foundational to before you start talking about features. So for those of you who are that event and you're impressed that somebody spoke about note taking and cloud computing, I used it to sell a computer. Because of that, you now think that every single time you want to sell a computer, you will talk about note taking and cloud, cloud computing.
You think that that's the magic that will help you sell your computer. You find out the hard way that man, it's not necessarily the case. So what about emotions now? Because we also talk about selling using emotions. Now, I admit, emotions are a useful dynamic to have. You can use emotions to, you know, make things nice and smooth. And also emotions can also kind of hinder the thing. But The thing is, whether people buy or don't buy, emotions are not causative in themselves.
It is not the emotion itself that is causing the person to buy or emotion that is making the person not to buy. It can hasten things or it can slow things down. Was not as if that's the primary thing. If you are wondering what is the main thing you have to pay attention to before you start thinking about engaging emotions or not, then you've not been listening to me. For those of you who've been listening to me, you already know what I'm going to say next.
That understanding value is the main thing you should be paying attention to. 1 moment. Let me turn off my alarm. So I'm really sorry about that. OK, 17 minutes only to make sure that this today's podcast episode wouldn't last for too long. That's why I left. I set the alarm. So understanding value, that's the main thing. Because only when you understand value, right, that you will know which emotions to push. If you try and understand value,
what do they like, what they don't like? This and this and that and that. It is then you now know which emotions to push, where to stoke emotions, where to reduce emotions. I'm hoping you guys get my point. So if there's plenty of fear in the situation, then you now start, you now start talking about a risk mitigation strategies. Risk mitigation strategies are all, I put it, OK, about to buy something. And the person is, you know, the guided fear to the fear risk mitigation is where you start trying to say that oh, Sir, yes or Madam, yes.
Ordinarily in this situation and this situation, these are the kind of damages that can occur. However, with our product and our service, we have this feature, this feature that feature, this capability, that capability. And these are the things that mitigate these kind of things happening. And in fact, Sir, the last 100 people that we've done business with, 98% of them did not have any of these problems occur at all.
So Sir, it is almost virtually guaranteed that if you go ahead and buy this thing or go ahead and use it like this, like this, like that, you will not have this problem occur. So let's say in the solar space, of course, you know, back as a young lad, you know why we just moved to Lagos during our military era, you know, not be everybody here solar back in the day. And of course all those who used to have solar, we always used to hear that social and so-called solar and then next thing fire,
the house burned down. So even though it's been a very long time and the technology has changed over the last, you know, 20-30 years, there are still people who anytime you say solar, you'll say because when they hear solar, they think fire that also burned down. So you can see that there there's fear in the situation. The guy don't they fear because he knows that Al Haji so, so, so and so did solar. In 1995, the house burned down.
Then Hajiya Rukaiat did solar in 1998, her house burned down. Then Al Haji Lamido did solar in 2001 and then his house burned down. So personally, you're talking to the person solar. Every time you mention solar, the person hears fire, fire, fire, fire. So there's fear. If you are good at understanding value, asking some questions, leaning into it, trying to find out what happened with the Alhaji Lamido, Haji Arukayat and the rest of them, you understand this is a really problem,
problematic issue. It is. Then you can now start talking about. The different safety features that modern solar systems have, I was I think called the ZDCDC switch. I'll be something there's one switch in which are that trips off whenever current is supposed to go too high or too low. You now start talking about all those features and you're trying to use emotions Now you're trying to inspire confidence in the situation, but it's only because you're paying attention,
you're understanding value, you know what it is that they are running away from. So you know which emotions you're trying to play up in this case or in some other situations, the kind of emotions that you are trying to tap down. So if the person to the fear will now be doing risk mitigation, it was this situation of, you know, pride or, you know, formal, then you know that you play off some features and, you know, because you're trying to show the status of the something.
So somebody like my brother. Now, by the way, don't try search my brother because, you know, his kids are teenagers now. Yeah, he's my younger brother. See, this is the benefit of starting on time. His benefit of starting on time when it comes to marriage and kids. I talked to young men. Now they say that that chasing the bag. They're chasing the bag. I said chasing which bag, Like now is the time. Find you a nice girl, propose,
get married and start early. Because trying to be doing school runs when you're in your 40s and your 50s is hard. When your 40s and your 50s, that's the time when, like my brother, you're supposed to be navigating university level. So please or you guys, you are afraid, like what are you afraid of? Marriage has its difficulties, but the way that the fear that people are carrying in your heart is not that big. Really. It's not that big, babes.
People are afraid of losing sovereignty, losing independence, but like your fears are too big. It's not that deep. It's not that deep. And then guys, you don't want to have somebody that's a dependent on you or something, something. And what if you make a wrong choice? You don't mind the love of your life. You are thinking this thing too big. It's not that big. It's not that deep. You guys should relax and take it from me.
I'm talking from experience. Soon I'll have to wrap this thing up and I'll have to go for primary school runs. You know, my brother doesn't care. He can relax at home. His daughters will take care of themselves because they're teenagers. They sort themselves out. 7:30 in the morning, my brother is working. Meanwhile, 7:30 in the morning I'm still stuck in traffic doing school rolls. Because by the time you have university age kids like waiting concern you.
You don't want to go for lecture, they will go if they don't want to go, it's their problem. I was like, so I was just trying to say that don't try and sell my brother because you know, university level children. So you know, he's not as if money full ground right now, but where was I? I have formal and empride. So since he's a football guy and TV as an important part of his life and enjoyment and flexing schedule, if you're talking to somebody like him, if you've been able to do understanding value very well, you understand what's important to him when it comes to a home entertainment system because at that level you don't call it TV.
Again, it is home entertainment system by the way, it's not just the TV. The TV should be connected to the subwoofer, should be connected to the speaker, should be connected to the surround sound so that when somebody's calls go, the whole house going to vibrate with the quality of the rich sound, cinematic quality sound. Those of you who sell TV, listen up very well. Listen up, listen up. So if it's this kind of thing,
you know where the person is coming from, like it's a thing of pride and for more is involved, fear of missing out because you'll be somehow you are enjoying your home system, but you go to your friend's house, all of them, they have the home system of 20252026. You're still using your own from 1998 is somehow now. So the emotions in now that you'll now be playing up there will now be something of pride and you're a big boy now.
You don't pass this level. The OK, you can't be using system of 1998 when the era of AMOLED when the era of 2025 already they don't they release 2026 specs. Those ones are coming out next year is an Olga. You're too big for this. You're a big boy. You're playing up the emotion, you're playing up the pride. But that only works if you have done a good idea at understanding value first, so you even know what you're playing up or which emotions you're trying to tap down.
So as a good rule, if you want to be one of those emotional sellers, find out what people are emotionally attached to 1st. Then you can now start worrying about how am I going to throw emotions into the mix so that I can secure this sale. I repeat, if you insist you want to be one of those people who like to sell using emotions don't come in all emotional. Relax first find out what the person you're talking to is emotionally attached to in their everyday life or in the use of this product or the service.
Then you will know what emotions that you're going to play up. Summary, in case you haven't gotten it from this podcast episode and he didn't get it from last podcast episode. What I'm trying to say is forget all these tips and tricks and everything. The key thing is understanding value first. Forget the tactics. Tactics are secondary. Learn how to understand value 1st. And if you want to learn how to solve from anyone, forget people who stand on stage and who keep talking about this tactic, this tactic, that tactic.
Talk to people, follow people and listen to people who have a systems based approach of selling. Only the person is trying to tell teach you a system that looks selling is like this. There's a philosophy. These are the stages that are involved 12345 These are how the stages fit together. This is what underpins all the stages. These are the contexts where this will work. These are the contexts where that is not going to work.
That is the person you should pay attention to. Anybody that is standing and talking about the top five gimmicks, the top 6, this, the top 2 trends or 2025, the top 2 magic words that will help you triple your income in 2026. Please pay no attention to that person. Yeah, I said I was going to say something to those of you who sell skin care and makeup. So my sisters, those of you who try and sell skin care, who try and sell makeup, you notice you guys are really tired at the end of the day and it's emotionally exhausting.
This is the reason why, because you're trying to sell using emotions. You're trying to sell by being happy and being excited and quite frankly, you're tired. Who won't be tired? You go on, you have 5 to 10 meetings every day and each time you're trying to sound excited on every single call. Nobody can be excited like that. Now. That's the reason why you're always tired. You come in, hello, chirpy brights everything. You know, I'm not saying that you should frown.
I'm not saying you should squeeze your face. But before you're all chirpy and excited and everything, come in first and then understand value. What do they value? What are they running from? Where? What are they trying to achieve? Ask them questions. Oh, Madam, thank you very much for taking today's meeting. What were you hoping will be able to achieve? OK, that's no problem. I have a couple of samples here with the bag.
But before we start looking at any particular things, can I ask you a couple of questions? Oh, I noticed those pictures. Oh, those are your babies. Oh, they're older now. OK, but your skin care routine when you were pregnant and, you know, before now, was there any change? Before, you had oily face, OK, Now you have dry skin. OK. Like, where is it? Everywhere in particular, then you ask them question on their face, their scalp, their money routine.
You know, every, every, all these questions you're asking is not just MTGS. You're trying to figure out this woman's skin care history. What was her skin like before? What is her skin like now? What kind of cream is she currently using? The cream that she's using now, what's the problem? All this small talk, that is what you're trying to fish out this one. I'm talking from experience because my wife, she always likes looking for.
So forgive me, you skin people. I know I'm going to say something that is wrong. Is it UPV 36 or something? I think UPV 36 is I'll be down on his sunscreen and there's up something UP50I know there's 1UP or UV or something that my wife likes to buy and that's because she says she has dry skin here. I believe she has oily skin here or something like that. So don't just come in all excited and you know, in the beginning, excuse me, you're,
you're trying to come in with with, you know, happiness, excitement. Talk to the person first. When you now find out that the person like my wife is looking for UPV 36, I'll be UPV 60 or UX, whatever that thing is. Now you cannot be excited like wow. But I have some good news for you. What you're looking for, we actually have it is UPV blah blah blah. I've been able to sell it to 20 people this year and the report that I've gotten so far, 19 of them have not have any problems with it at all.
The only person who had one problem is because she tried to combine it with Oroyo. Madam, I hope you don't use Oroyo. OK? Very good. In that case, there's no problem. The good thing about this UPV 36 is it is good for people who have oily skin or dry skin like your own and the way they use it. You combine it like this, you combine it like that. So Madam, I'm excited. I can really help you today solve this problem. In fact, Madam, I can assure you that by the time you finish with me today, you will not have to look anywhere else and talk to anybody at all for your skin care routine.
Even if you Japan to Canada, Madam, we can still sort you out because I deliver to my clients international Mommy, I know I can help you. So before I put my bag and bring out these samples we have demo different price ranges from between 25K up on to 670 Ki Hope that's within your budget mark. Then hear what the person says because some people will say 20 Ki was thinking 2K5. Now you know that this woman just leave. The cheapest thing you have is 20 K.
She says she's thinking 2K5. The gap is too much if you say you have between 20K and 670K and she was saying now my friend I'd be wrong here. She says she bought for 18/5. You can open your bag because the gap between 18, five and 20K is not that big. You can make something happen. You can get them to go from 18-5 to 19. So that's how you do it. My makeup sisters. And that's the reason why you're always tired, because yesterday you had five visits.
Each visit you came in. Oh wow, excitement, excitement. Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy. And then she didn't buy. You went to the next place. Oh, I'm excited, I'm happy. Acceptment, acceptment. She didn't buy. You did that five times. That's why you're always tired. So relax. It's not about emotions first. Go there, understanding, value. Try to understand what's going on with this woman. Skin walls, her skin like before.
How is her skin like now? What is her skin routine like now? By the way, some people don't even have skin routine like me, I don't have skin routine. I just bath and I wear my clothes and I'm out. So you need to find out before you recommend something for somebody. So yeah, that's it. That's all for today. It's already 30 minutes. Let me not take this thing any longer. So for those of you who would love to connect, you have questions, you have comments,
you have queries. You can call, send me a text message or WhatsApp message on 0806466 2140. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I will catch out the next episode. I think we have a few more things on this conversations with the tech bro. But so far, I hope you guys are feeling the flow and I hope you're getting the gist of what I'm saying. Excuse me of what I'm saying so far that yes, certain kinds of tips and tricks, yes, they are evolved, but there are some things that are fundamental to closing the sale.
There's not everything that you hear somebody talk on the stage that this is how you sell. They take it as gospel truth. So listen to everybody's experiences when it comes to selling, yes, but pay attention to the professionals like us because we are the ones who will tell you what really works, when, how and under what circumstances. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you some other time.