How to Sell to Nigerians PDF

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT ME AND THIS BOOK “Memorize Every Single Sentence in This Book” If you are someone already in business or have the intention to start one down the road, I recommend you memorize every single sentence in this book or, at least, put it under your pillow an...

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT ME AND THIS BOOK “Memorize Every Single Sentence in This Book” If you are someone already in business or have the intention to start one down the road, I recommend you memorize every single sentence in this book or, at least, put it under your pillow and pull it out to read before going to bed and, first thing when you get out of it. Listen, if making money from the business you slaved for in order to become financially free is your goal, Akin Alabi has gifted you with a book that will make that dream come true for you. That's how indispensable this book is to every small business owner. Dr. Sunny Ojeagbase Publisher, Complete Sports and Success Digest “Written for Maximal Impact in Our Unique Market” Akin has concisely unraveled proven strategies that guarantee positive marketing results. Through this book, his wealth of experience has been tangibly communicated with practical illustrations that depict his passion to impact knowledge on the new generation of marketing professionals. How to Sell to Nigerians is written to inspire innovation to the Nigerian marketer and for maximal impact in our unique market. No one could have written it better. Moses Babatope Co-Founder, Filmhouse Cinemas “Tested Strategies and Tangible Recommendations” If anyone has proven that they can sell to Nigerians, it's Akin. I'm glad he's taken the time to share his tried and tested strategies and tangible recommendations in this new book. How to Sell to Nigerians has been written from principles to inspire innovation and help businesses maximize their impact in our market. Shola Akinlade Co-Founder, Paystack “To Everyone Who Desires A Slice Of The Nigerian Market” Akin Alabi has shown avidly, his in-depth knowledge of the Nigerian consumer. This book is highly recommended to everyone who desires a slice of the golden pie (Nigerian market space). Dr. Kennedy Okonkwo GMD, NedcomOaks Ltd “Strategy Worked Within 24 Hours” After reading just a chapter of this book, I immediately summoned an emergency meeting with the customer service department of my company. I asked them to apply the lessons and the next day, one of my customer attendants said "sir, this new strategy is working." This was less than 24 hours after our meeting. Gaius Chibueze AKA Bitcoin Chief Founder & CEO, Tatcoin.  “You Won’t Find A Better Book on The Subject” Akin Alabi is one of the best marketers in the world, and with his first book Small Business Big Money, he showed us why. “How to sell to Nigerians” is even more insightful, practical and seeing as we know the author better now from reading his first book, we can now intuit some of his ideas, away from some of the counterintuitive effects of some of his great ideas in the first book. The beauty of this book is that it is much more than a book on selling to Nigerians. It is a book on the psychology of Nigerians in a way that you can apply it to influence people across different interests. As someone who spent time studying human behaviour, I know this is a book on how to make Nigerians do what you want them to do without making them think you are making them do it...but to the specifics of selling, this is a must have for everyone who’s got something, anything at all to sell to Nigerians. You won’t find a better book on the subject. J J. Omojuwa Author, Digital: The New Code of Wealth “Rich In Information That Helps Business Owners” Akin Alabi's writing style is unique and communicates rich, impactful messages in simple language. I consider this extremely important because data shows that Nigerians don't really like to read. Akin has found a way to distill powerful business and life messages using simple language and relatable stories which means more people can read and learn from his writings. I personally enjoy reading Akin's books and always recommend them to small business owners and young people with aspirations to own a business. How to Sell to Nigerians is rich in information that helps business owners understand how Nigerians arrive at buying decisions and therefore increase sales exponentially. I highly recommend it to everyone in business or with aspirations to start one. Abiola Kazeem Founder, Sports Derivatives “You Have A Lot to Lose by Not Reading This” Akin Alabi provides a wealth of insight into strategic marketing and business success. One of the virtues I admire about him is his open-minded attitude in helping others to achieve success by sharing his wealth of knowledge. If selling to Nigerians has always been a puzzle to you, this book is the key to unlock it's mysteries. You will learn strategies and techniques to sell to Nigerians successfully and profitably. You have a lot to gain by reading this book. You also have a lot to lose by not reading it. The choice is yours; but choose wisely, especially if you have products or services to sell to Nigerians. Adekola Oyategbe Creative Director, Mrl Productions “This Book Will Change The Way You See And Do Business” Doing business in Nigeria can be a tricky adventure. Understanding the mindset of the average Nigerian is key when it comes to doing business here. That is what Akin Alabi has done. Reading this book will change the way you see and do business. Angela Nwaka Co-Founder, CasinoCity.NG “Everyone Doing Business In Nigeria Should Read This Masterpiece” Akin Alabi is a walking testimony of what he teaches. He swam in the muddy waters, clasped the secret codes of doing business in Nigeria and for Nigerians early, became a success at it, then dedicated his life to teaching it. Everyone intending to do business in or with Nigerians should read this masterpiece of a book. Ayo Bankole Akintujoye Convener, Lagos SME Bootcamp  “Great Follow Up To Small Business Big Money” How to Sell to Nigerians is the perfect book for Nigerian entrepreneurs, and anyone looking to do business in Nigeria. Akin Alabi taps into his experience as one of Nigerian’s most successful entrepreneurs having built a consumer facing business from the scratch. This is a great follow up to Small Business Big Money that will leave you with practical solutions to increasing your customer base and satisfying them. Ayobami Adekojo Lead Strategist, Optimum Horizon Ltd  HOW TO SELL TO NIGERIANS Copyright © March 2021 by AKIN ALABI Published by: Get Altitude Nigeria Limited 2, Issac Aluko Olokun Street, Igbo-Efon, Lekki Epe Expressway, Lagos Nigeria. +234 708 881 0936 [email protected] www.akinalabi.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic, digital or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below. Ordering Information: For information about special discounts available for bulk purchases, quantity sales by corporations, associations, trade bookstores, wholesalers, sales promotions, fund-raising and educational needs and others, contact the publisher at Get Altitude Nigeria Limited Sales Department at 0708 881 0936 or [email protected] or at the address above. Printed in the Federal Republic of Nigeria Book Production by: MRL Productions www.mrl.ng Digital Publishing by: Emphaloz Digital www.emphaloz.com To my late father, Chief Adediran Alabi. 1934 to 2019  DISCLAIMER I am not a lawyer but it is important I say this. This book and the contents provided herein are simply for education and general information purposes only. They do not, and should not take the place of investment and legal expert from your lawyers and advisors. It is sold with the understanding that the publishing company and I are not engaged in rendering legal, investment, financial or other professional service. Every effort has been made to ensure that the content provided in this book is accurate and helpful for the readers at publishing time. Also, this is not an exhaustive treatments of the subjects. I have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information within this book was correct at the time of publication. While we try to keep the information up-to-date and correct, there are no representations or warranties, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products or services contained in this book for any purpose. Any use of this information is at your own risk. I do not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any part of the loss, damage or disruption caused by errors or omissions result from accident, negligence or other causes. This book comes with a money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with the contents, you can ask for your money back but we do not guarantee you will make any particular amount of money after reading this book. Many variables affect each individual's results. Your results will vary from examples given. Get Altitude Nigeria Limited, The Learning Corner, TheAkinAlabiLetter.com and Akin Alabi Foundation will not promise you personal success. Get Altitude Nigeria Limited, The Learning Corner, TheAkinAlabiLetter.com and Akin Alabi Foundation have no control over what you may do or not do with this book and therefore cannot accept responsibility for the results. You are the only one who can initiate the action, in order to reap your own rewards. If you wish to apply the ideas contained in this book, you are taking full responsibility for your choices, actions and results. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought.  CONTENTS What People Are Saying About Me And This Book Disclaimer Foreword Introduction Chapter 1: How To Make Nigerians Want What You Are Selling Chapter 2: The Selling Lessons Behind Nigerians And Sex On The First Date Chapter 3: Nigerians Like To Buy From Those They Like, Trust And Respect Chapter 4: Fear Sells Chapter 5: Dealing With Potential And Existing Nigerian Customers Chapter 6: How To Sell To Nigerians Using Influencers Chapter 7: Selling With Sales Letters Chapter 8: Nigerians Love Stories. Tell Them Some Chapter 9: The Kinds Of Products Nigerians Love To Buy Chapter 10: Five Additional Selling Techniques That Will Work For You Conclusion Recommendations  FOREWORD Let me start writing the foreword to Akin Alabi’s second book, How To Sell To Nigerians, by telling two illustrative stories. When we established our NGO, Success Attitude Development Centre and we started publishing SuccessDigest magazine, we began to attract patrons from all over Nigeria who wanted to own and run their own businesses as we promised we would teach them. One of the things I was emphasizing to my new converts was that they needed marketing knowledge to succeed in business like they needed oxygen. I could have been talking to deaf and dumb people for all the attention they gave to what I was telling them. “Teach us how to make soap and snail farming first,” they chorused. “After that we will learn how to market it.” Not too long afterward, they realized they had made the wrong choice. The soap and snails they produced were all over the place. But how were they going to fight off competition without marketing knowledge? The second story is about how I discovered that any business without a strong marketing team (different from a sales team) is doomed to struggle in the marketplace. Actually, marketing starts from where sales stopped. We were seven years into starting our sports publishing business, Complete Communications Limited, publisher of Complete Football and later Complete Sports, when it began to occur to me that something was missing. I didn’t figure out what it was until we were almost wound up by a bank to which we owed millions of naira. In the process of struggling to avoid bankruptcy, I got hold of a book that opened my eyes to the importance of sound marketing knowledge in running a profitable business that is a delight of their founders and the investors they bring into them. Why did I share these stories? It’s to caution you not to treat this gift from Akin Alabi as a spell binding novel written merely to entertain you. If you are someone already in business or have the intention to start one down the road, I recommend you memorize every single sentence in the book or, at least, put it under your pillow and pull it out to read before going to bed and, first thing when you get out of it. Listen, if making money from the business you slaved for in order to become financially free is your goal, Akin Alabi has gifted you with a book that will make that dream come true for you. That's how indispensable this book is to every small business owner. Pastor (Dr) Emmanuel Sunny Ojeagbase Executive Chairman, Complete Communications Limited & Co-Founder, Success Attitude Development Centre March 9, 2021  INTRODUCTION I don't know about you, but I absolutely detest it when friends and family try to “force” me to buy what they are selling. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. You are on your own “jejely” and a cousin of yours who just opened his clothing line comes to you. He is just starting out and he needs your support. You are a nice guy and you feel you should support him. It doesn't even matter if his clothes are of top quality or not. Nothing wrong with that. After all, we all need support. No one has reached the top without being assisted by someone one way or the other. No human is an island. So you support. His kinds of clothes are not what you normally wear but you support nonetheless. You get the clothes and give away or keep in your wardrobe or at least wear them once to show your support. If the clothing are of top quality, you can even tag your cousin on social media so others can see. You mention him and his business to a few of your friends with the hope that they patronize him in future. You help in spreading the word. You have done your bit and you move on with your life. Few months down the line, your cousin comes back asking you to patronize him again. Heck. Now you are not too happy. You patronized him months earlier because you are a nice guy. You don't like what he is selling. Besides, you don't have unlimited money. There are other things to buy with your money. You politely turn him down and he sulks away. Then he's back a few weeks later. You turn him down again. You notice that he is not happy with you. Then he stops communicating with you. You see his posts on social media with quotes saying things like “he is not your family if he is not helping you” and “don't put your hopes in people. Even friends and family will disappoint you”. The last straw that broke the camel's back for you was when you started hearing from different sources that your cousin has been saying negative things about you behind your back. Things that insinuate that despite your financial stability, you have refused to help him by supporting his business. Now, many people have gone through this. Different stories and scenarios abound so it's not necessarily exactly how I described it but in a nutshell, getting pressured by friends and family to patronize them. When they do not live up to expectations, they get labelled as bad people. Now that we can visualize this, I want us to turn the tables. Now, you are the business person. You just started that business. Maybe a clothing line. Maybe you started manufacturing hand sanitizers or you opened a massage parlour. It is time to market but the only marketing idea you have is selling to your family members. You have a cousin that runs a primary school so you know he needs hand sanitizers and you assume he should patronize. Maybe he even gave you his word that he would patronize you when you start the business. You have a close friend that loves fashion and you expect him or her to buy your clothes when you start. That is fine but what expectations are you placing on them? If they do not patronize you, would you label them as bad people? More importantly, do you have a plan of who to sell to apart from your family and friends? Are they your only hope? If you answered yes to that, you are making a big mistake. A massive one. You are making a mistake because.. Depending On Your Friends And Family To Buy From You Is Not A Good Strategy! Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with telling your friends and family about your new business and hoping they buy from you. What you should not do is pin the success of your business on their patronage. It is not a wise thing to do. Begging people to buy from you is not a smart thing to do. You see it on social media all the time. “Please help me retweet” “My business needs your support” “My customer may be on your timeline” Zzzzzzzzzzzz You can get lucky doing this but the odds are against you. Rather than going around begging friends, family and strangers to buy from you, what you should do is learn and deploy smart selling and marketing techniques that are guaranteed to work. The kinds of techniques I shared in this book. Techniques that are tailor made for the Nigerian market. If you are a Nigerian business with Nigerians as customers, this book is for you. Also, if you are a non Nigerian entity but have Nigerians or hope to have Nigerians as customers, this is for you. Nigerians are a peculiar set of people. What we buy and how we buy is different from what and how others buy in other countries. For example, Nigeria is a place where people buy money. Let me say that again. Nigeria Is A Place Where People Buy Money! If you are a Nigerian, you will know what I am talking about. You probably have done it before. You buy newer notes of money and pay a commission on it. You buy let's say Twenty Thousand Naira (one hundred notes of two hundred naira). You then pay a percentage on it. There was a time it was ten percent commission. Later, the standard became twenty percent. Today, I hear it is thirty percent. So you buy one hundred thousand naira with one hundred and thirty thousand naira. Isn't that weird? Do you know what they do with the money they buy? They give it out while dancing at parties! I have been to many places in this world of ours and I have seen so many kinds of business model but this is totally on another level. How do you deal with customers that buy money but do not pay their rents on time? You need specific knowledge. Knowledge dedicated to that kind of market place. That is what I have served in this book. Go right ahead and dive into the book. Take note as you read. All I need you to do after reading it is to apply what you learn in your business. Within a short time, the results will be so obvious you will be looking for me to thank me. If the techniques in this book do not work for you, feel free to ask for your money back. It comes with a lifetime money back guarantee. I am that confident. Your Friend, Akin Alabi Founder, Akin Alabi Foundation PS: If you are gender sensitive and political correctness is your thing, I want to warn you before you read this book. I have used “he”, “she”, "him", "her", “him or her”, “he or she” at different points in this book without any particular intention. There is a chance I used one more than the other. It was not deliberate and it is definitely not a slight to anyone, only as a convenience. Thank you. PPS: As much as I could, I used the names of actual companies and individuals and the details of actual case histories and examples. In a few cases, individuals' names have been held on request. PPPS: If you are a grammar perfectionist, you will not like this book. This is not an academic work and I am not bothered with adhering to grammarian rules. I started some sentences with words like "because", "and" etc. I also used a few slangs and street lingos. I still haven't figured out the difference between "will" and "would". Also, I did not give the manuscript to a professional proof reader or editor to make corrections. Pardon me. Just focus on the business lessons. PPPPS: You have probably seen my copyright note a few pages earlier. In case you missed it, allow me to state it here again, this time, in simpler English. If you copy a single sentence in this book without my permission, I guarantee you will have a terrible legal experience that will give you nightmares forever. Peace. CHAPTER 1  HOW TO MAKE NIGERIANS WANT WHAT YOU ARE SELLING I want to start this book by sharing with you, an experience I had in 2013 when I wanted to buy a house in Lekki, Lagos. I looked around a particular estate and ended up discussing with two different builders. They both tried to tell me why I should buy from them and not from any other person. The two houses were five bedroom houses with a “boys quarters” at the back. However, one was priced at One Hundred and Fifteen Million Naira Only while the other was priced at One Hundred and Twenty Million Naira Only. They both tried to tell me why their own house was better than the other. They both claimed they used top quality building materials while the other used substandard products. Now, I am not an expert when it comes to building materials so I couldn't tell. All I was concerned with was how great it looked. Except a particular part of a building was physically dilapidating, I cannot tell which is which in terms of quality materials. After about a week of inspection and negotiations, I settled on the house that costs One Hundred and Twenty Million Naira. The more expensive one. Why? One day before I made a final decision to buy the house, one of the sellers made me an offer. He noticed I was very concerned about the quality of the building materials and how long they would last. He made me an offer that if any defect comes up within a year, in any part of the house, he would replace it for me and if it is a structural defect, he would return the entire money I paid for the property. He was ready to put it into a contract. I couldn't believe it. This man was so confident about his building and he was putting his money where his mouth was. Our lawyers came up with the contract and I bought the house. The more expensive house. Let me tell you another story. In the year 2004, I advertised a seminar on web designing. I priced it at Fifteen Thousand Naira per attendee. I put out an advert in a major newspaper. I rented a hall at Lagos Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos. I paid the resource person who would teach the attendees upfront. Guess how many people attended? Zero. I was disappointed. Naturally. But I did not give up. I went to learn more about what you will be learning all through this book. I learned about techniques of selling to Nigerians effectively. I reworked the offer. I offered free email consulting for three months for the attendees. I promised a CD Rom containing 10 eBooks on web designing and also a web design software (which I downloaded online for free). I advertised in the same newspaper. I rented the same hall. The only difference this time is... I Increased The Price To Twenty Five Thousand Naira! Guess how many people attended? You're right. We sold out and we had people at the door with their money begging us to let them in. What's the lesson so far? I will tell you. Permit me to tell you another story. Years back, I used to be a member of an association called Association of Information Marketers of Nigeria. As the name implies, it was a group made up of Information Creators and Sellers. In case you are hearing about this for the first time, information marketers is a fancy term used for people who sell knowledge. I am sure you know people who sell products like masterclasses, tutorials, bootcamps, seminars, audio teachings and so on. It is a very simple but outrageously profitable business if you know how to do it. In fact, I started my business career selling information products. I've told that story over and over again so I won't bore you here. No. I've changed my mind. I believe there will be many people out there who have not heard my story before and I will be doing them a disservice if I skip it just because I assumed everyone had heard the story before. If you have heard it before, pardon me. I started my business selling knowledge and information. In September 2002, I attended a 5-day seminar organized by a man who later became my mentor, Dr Sunny Ojeagbase, the publisher of Success Digest and Complete Sports. He taught me (and the other attendees) how to package knowledge and information to sell both offline and online. Let me digress a bit. I lived with my parents in Ibadan, Oyo state at that point in time. The seminar was being held at Ago Palace Way, Okota, Lagos. I didn't have friends or relations I could stay with in Lagos and I certainly couldn't afford to pay for a hotel. So I did something I think is a crazy thing. 99% of people wouldn't dare do it. I went to Lagos from Ibadan for FIVE DAYS. I would go to Iwo Road and look for the cheapest bus (soole) to Mile 12. I would drop at Cele bus top and walk to Esuola Street, off Ago Palace Way. For FIVE DAYS Nah, fam. That was really crazy. That is why I laugh when I put up a seminar in a town and people start asking, “when are you coming to our town”? Whenever I organize a seminar in Lagos for example, they will ask, “when are you coming to Calabar”? Or “when are you coming to Aba”? I ignore. I ignore because my belief is that if they find my teaching valuable, they should be able to come to where I am to learn from me. The hilarious thing is the day you decide to go to another town, those in that town will suddenly “disappear”. When you announce another seminar in another town, you hear them again asking when you are coming to their town? The most hilarious thing though for me when I put up a seminar in Lekki, Lagos, you wouldn't believe what some people asked me? When Are You Coming To Ikeja? Lol. Those kind of people, even if you bring the seminar to Ikeja, they will ask you when you are bringing it to Opebi, Ikeja. If you take it to Opebi, Ikeja, they will ask you when you are bringing it to Number 10, Opebi, Ikeja. Don't be like such people. Go all out to get the knowledge that can help you. Anyway, where was I? Okay. After I learned the business, I decided to launch my first information product. You see, before the seminar, I had tried to relocate abroad like most young Nigerians. I tried to relocate to Canada. I went through most of the steps but stopped when it got to the stage where I had to pay. I can't remember how much it was in 2002 but I know I couldn't afford it. If you know anyone who has relocated to Canada through their permanent residence immigration scheme, you should know the person is not poor. The person is not going to Canada for money. Such a person is probably looking for a better standard of living for himself and his family. Whatever. After the seminar, I brought out my pen and paper and created a guide on how to relocate to Canada. I went online to add more information and download some forms. I then took a small advert in Success Digest. It cost me N3,500.00 which I consider my business start up capital. Sales came in and I kept repeating the ad. So I decided to create another information product. I had become quite good in the process of creating and selling information products. The product creation itself, the crafting of adverts and sales letters, the use of automatic email responders, product delivery and so on. So I created an information product... On How To Create Information Products! Did I hear you call me smart? After that I created more and more information products on different topics. I created products on web design, sales letter writing, business registration, girl “toasting”, food making and what have you? I was having fun. Then I stumbled on Sports Betting. My brother, Ayo, asked me if I had ever heard of sports betting. He asked me if I knew I could bet on football without having to predict the scores. I told him no, but I thought it was interesting. He asked me to look for a Ladbrokes, William Hill or Coral shop around. I was in Milton Keynes and spotted a betting shop at the City Center. I went in, placed a bet and won. Placed another bet and lost. Then I won again, then lost. I found it very exciting. When I left that shop, I came up with an idea to create an information product on how to bet on sports. I created a 14 paged tutorial, explained what it was all about and how it could be done online. I listed the websites that accepted Nigerian residents. I took out a half page advert in Complete Sports and wrote a “mad ass” sales letter. The product sold and sold. Made millions. After about a month, some of those who bought my information product came back to me asking me to help them fund the sports betting accounts they opened following my tutorials. They faced some form of restrictions making payments online. That was 2008. Making payments online was not as easy as it is now. I asked them how much they wanted to fund and I got responses like $100, $250, $500, $1,000 and so on. Then it hit me. Why do people need to transfer money abroad to bet? Why can't we have a sports betting portal in Nigeria? Then I started working on how to create one. That's another story for another day. I will write how I pioneered the multi billion Naira sports betting industry in Nigeria. I think I should title it, The NairaBET.com Story. Or what do you think? Anyway, after I created the website, I sent a message to the database of those who had bought my tutorials on sports betting. It was an instant hit. The market was there. The want was there. All I needed was to provide them the service, which is one of the lessons I shared in my book, Small Business Big Money. The lesson was, do not create a product and find a market. Rather, find a market and create a product to satisfy that market. Get the book for more lessons on that. Onward. How did I get here? Okay, I was talking about the association I belonged to, the Association of Information Marketers of Nigeria. Like most voluntary associations and NGOs, we needed money to run the secretariat and the operations. We suggested different ways we could raise money. The obvious suggestion was to “tax” ourselves. Our President, Dr Ojeagbase opposed this. He said since we were all information marketers, why couldn’t we come up with an information product idea and sell? We went back and forth and came up with a solution. Twenty members (I'm not too sure of the number anymore. I'm getting old) would “donate” their digital information products so we can bundle and sell. We put everything together as one package. The “package” contained twenty information products ranging from how to design a website, to how to attract traffic to your website, to how to write a killer sales letter and so on. The average price of each of those information products was about N5,000.00. If you want to buy them individually, you would be spending about N100,000.00 but if you buy the “all in one package” you would spend only N4,500.00. Dr Ojeagbase tasked me to write the sales letter. We put out the offer and the result was wild. The association made millions. We didn't need to “tax” each other anymore. Why did the offer sell? That is the lesson of the three stories I've told you and this chapter in general. The offers in the three stories were too good to refuse. Your job from now is to start creating offers that are so good and powerful people would find it difficult to refuse. Offers they will look at and say to themselves that “I've got to be an idiot not to take this up”. The three offers are what you can refer to as “awoof”. Nigerians love “awoof”. Nigerians love offers that look like they are ripping you off. Nigerians would rather pay more when they feel they are ripping you off than pay less when they feel you are ripping them off. Let me emphasize that last statement. Nigerians would rather pay more when they feel they are ripping you off than pay less when they feel you are ripping them off. It is not about low prices. It is about crazy offers. Nigerians love awoof. We love offers that are too good to be true. That is why we fall for “funny” investment schemes. Investment schemes you should slap a 10 year old boy for participating in, are being taken up by educated folks. That is why “wonder banks” fleeced a lot of people of their hard earned money in the late 2000s. Later MMM came. Educated Nigerians fell for it. Those of us who warned that this was a big scam were ridiculed for taking that position. They said we do not want the average man to succeed. They particularly hounded me being a founder of a sports betting company, NairaBET. I explained that when it comes to gambling, you know the risks of what you are getting into. It was never packaged as an investment opportunity. It is purely entertainment. One would think with the scam of “wonder banks” and MMM, Nigerians would stay away from such schemes. Today (the year 2021), people still fall for them. Just this evening, I read about the cries of some Nigerians who got scammed by an investment scheme called Binomo. While the perpetrators of these crimes should be arrested and jailed, we need to enlighten our people that there is no investment where you can just deposit your money and get guaranteed 300% earnings, which these charlatans promise. Now, I am not trying to sell you on the idea that you should make outlandish promises you cannot fulfill. Never. I am only telling you to sweeten the deal you are making to your prospective customers. Whenever you are about to put out any form of promotion, be it radio advertising, TV advertising, flier (I do not like fliers anyway, they hardly work), you have to create an offer that will be too good to refuse. Do not be like most small business owners. What most people do when they advertise is list their products and their prices. That is why most people do not succeed. You can't act like the majority. In business, the majority is always wrong. Create an offer that will entice your target audience. Rather than just advertising your hotel and room rates and stating the standard things like everyone else, like air conditioned room, adequate security and other mediocre statements, why don't you make offers like, book for two days and get the third day free? Or something like, free taxi all through your stay. Rather than advertising that car by just posting beautiful pictures, why don't you make an offer that says free servicing for the first 3 months? Rather than just advertising that television set like everyone else, why don't you offer a money back guarantee for any fault that comes up with the television? Before you advertise your business or any of your products you need to ask yourself, what is the crazy offer you are offering? If you cannot answer yet, do not advertise yet. Everyone is out there selling “normally”. You cannot afford to join them. You have to come up with something different. A special offer. An example of making a powerful offer is what I did with promoting this book you are reading. This book comes with a money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with what you learn in this book, ask me for the money you paid for it. It doesn't matter if it is twenty years after you bought it. I will give you your money back. Do you know the best part? After returning your money, I will ask you to keep the book as compensation for wasting your time. How about that for a crazy offer? How To Create Irresistible Offers That Will Make Nigerians Buy From You Creating irresistible offers is not as difficult as it looks on the surface. If you follow my teachings or if you have read Small Business Big Money, this will be a familiar territory for you. All you need is some smart thinking. I'm sure you can come up with irresistible offers.. I am going to share with you three techniques which you can use. Make A Giant Promise Use FREE Give A Guarantee Let's expand on those points. Make A Giant Promise One of my teachers (an American) once taught me that the best way to build a business is to under promise and over deliver. What this means is if you have 100 promises for your customers, tell them about 70 of them. After they buy from you, give them more than you promised. He said it will wow your customers and keep them addicted to you. There is a lot of sense in this. I took this advice to heart and I applied it in my businesses. I however noticed that competitors that made bigger promises did better than I was doing. Although it is a sensible advice in general, it is a bad idea for the Nigerian market. In Nigeria, people love Giant Promises. Promises that look too good to be true. You should make giant promises to your customers. Let me give you a personal example. If you know me well, you will know I like to give personal examples and examples I can verify. I like to teach what I have done and not what I read somewhere. You know what most people do these days is read a foreign book and then start teaching you what they learnt. Beware of such people. Before anyone teaches you anything, find out whether he has successfully done what he wants to teach you. Beware of the fat person selling you weight loss products. Beware of the poor man teaching you how to get rich. Anyway, in the early days of running NairaBET.com, we used to make manual payments to winners. This took about 2 working days. Later, we automated it and started making almost instant payments. Almost, in the sense that payments would have been instant but because we have to run some checks to prevent fraud, it usually takes a couple of hours and the most suspicious transactions could take up to twelve hours. Following the advice of my American business teacher, I decided to under promise. I made a promise that payouts would be made, maximum of twenty- four hours. I didn't want to promise instant payments because I knew some transactions would take hours. I thought if I promised twenty-four hours and delivered within a few minutes to an hour or two, customers would be wowed. But the reverse was the case. Our competitors started promising instant payment. I went ahead to register with our competitors. I created betting accounts with all competing sports betting companies. You should do that as well. You should patronize all your competitors to see what they are doing right and wrong. That's by the way. Sometimes I remember important lessons I feel I should pass across so I chip them in at any point. After creating, funding and placing bets in these accounts, I made payout requests. Out of the four I tested, I got a credit alert after two hours from one of them. I got two more credit alerts from another two after about 6 hours and then an alert from the last one after twelve hours. All of them promised instant payouts. I said to myself that customers would see through this and know I am the honest one. Unfortunately, our customers started warning us they would leave us (many of them left) because we did not offer instant payments. We tried to explain the situation to them but they wouldn't budge. All they wanted to hear was that we were promising instant withdrawals. They were swayed by the giant promise. I did not make the claim because I do not lie. What I did was work very hard to ensure we offered instant payments before I started making the giant promise. My country men love being pumped up with promises. Nigerians will prefer someone that promised 100 and delivered 80 to the person that promised 80 and delivered 100. I have tested this over and over again. I believe this is possible because we have disconnected the buying process from product satisfaction. We see the buying process as a different event. Once the buying is over, we see it as a closed deal. The product satisfaction is another thing entirely. If the product can deliver moderately, most people will be satisfied. This is because people are used to buying products and getting disappointed. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting you deliver less than you promised. You should deliver what you promised. The point I am trying to pass across is that you should not hold back when putting out your promotions. You should be bold with your promises. A product with a gigantic promise will sell better than one with an average or no promise. No matter what you are selling, you can find a bold promise to make. It is interesting because most times, you don't have to look too far to find a promise. Let's say you make furniture, normally, you would struggle to find a giant promise on the surface. I'm assuming your furniture is beautiful and will last long. Your advert can say something like... You Wouldn't Be Needing Another Sofa In The Next 20 Years! (You Then Place The Picture Of The Sofa) This timeless design combined with durability is all you need till your new born baby graduates from the university. If the sofa lasts for 10 years, the buyer will be happy. This is better than promising it will last for 5 years but actually lasts for 10 years. You see how easy it is to find a giant promise? Most good sofas will last long anyway. How come no one is emphasizing on the promise? Business owners just assume people should see it. No. You should make the promise. Let's take a look at some other promises. - Read This Book And Your Spouse Will Never Think of Divorcing You (A book on marriage) - Turn Your Child Into A Genius (Home tutors or courses for kids) - 250% Deposit Bonus (Online Casinos) - Your Money Back If You Don't Quit Your Job In 90 Days (A business opportunity seminar) - Any Girl That Visits You Will Drop Her Pants When She Enters Your Apartment (An interior decoration business) - Six Packs In 90 Days Or Your Money Back (Gym or personal trainer) - Lose Weight While Still Eating What You Love (A weight loss product) Don't hold back. Don't be shy. Make that promise. With your FULL CHEST. Use FREE Free is the most important word in marketing. You should be using it in your marketing. It does not matter what you are selling or what market you are operating in. You can be selling something as basic as fruits or something as luxurious as Rolls Royce, you can always find a way to use free. If you take another look at the example about the seminar I held in 2004 you would see that the difference between the offer that failed and the one that succeeded is that one had free bonuses and the other did not. It has been proven over and over again that when you pile on free bonuses for your Nigerian prospects, they are more likely to buy from you. Now, I am not talking about unrelated bonuses. I'm not talking about bonuses like selling carton of fruit juice and adding bonuses of soap on it. That sounds ridiculous but I see a lot of people doing it. Giving a bonus of T-Shirts for buying a laptop from you does not make much sense. Although I agree that any bonus is better than no bonus, the best way to get results is to offer bonuses complimentary to what you are selling. Take a look at that seminar offer again. I was offering a seminar on web designing. I didn't offer an unrelated bonus like free T-Shirts. I offered a CD Rom containing resources like software and eBooks that will help them create stunning websites on their own after the seminar. I also offered free email consulting. They could ask me questions about the web design issues they were having. Take a look at your products and business. What are you selling? What can you offer for free. It doesn't have to cost you a lot of money but it must look valuable to your customers. My email consulting does not cost me money. It cost me just a bit of my time. The interesting thing is that most of the attendees did not bother me at all for that bonus. Your duty is to come up with ways you can use free for your offers. Let me give you some ideas. Free Delivery Offer to deliver what you are selling to their desired location FREE. Delivery fees sometimes put people off from buying. When a customer sees the price of a product he wants to buy, let's say the product is priced at N5,000.00 and then finds out he has to pay an extra N1,500.00 for delivery, there is a chance he could be put off. In his mind, the price of the product is no longer N5,000.00 but now N6,500.00. Can you find a way to accommodate this delivery fee? Can you get your own motorbike so what you have to pay for delivery will be less? Or can you even just price that product at N6,500.00 and make the delivery free? Let me ask you. Which one do you think is a better offer? Let's assume you are selling original iPhone chargers on your website or social media page like Instagram and Twitter, or even via WhatsApp broadcast. Offer 1 Original iPhone Chargers N5,000 Add N1,500 for delivery. Offer 2  Original iPhone Chargers N6,500.00 Delivery is FREE The second offer will convert better than the first. Free Servicing If you are selling serviceable products like cars, air conditions, generators etc, offering free servicing for a period will help make your offers more irresistible. You are only going to do it for a period and since the product is new and of top quality, the servicing won't cost you a lot. 10 KVA Diesel Generator For Sale If you order today, we will install it for you for free and service it for you for 6 months. The interesting thing is that free servicing for 6 months for that type of generator will likely be once. Free Consulting I like this one. I use it a lot. I like it because it does not cost me money. It can cost a bit of time but it can always be arranged in such a way that it won't take much of your time. You can automate it and you can hire an assistant to take care of your customers' questions and answers. Here are some other ideas. Free Webinars Free Test Drive Free eBooks Free members area Free group (Telegram, WhatsApp etc) Give A Guarantee After making a giant promise and loading your potential customers with free benefits, offering a guarantee will tremendously increase your chances of selling your products and services. As I wrote in my book, Small Business Big Money, no one wants to buy a product and get stuck with it. A sort of guarantee that they are making the right decisions will put their minds at rest. In the story I shared earlier about the developers trying to sell me their properties, what swayed me eventually was the guarantee. If you are buying a product and you know there is an iron clad guarantee behind it, you are more likely to buy. Offer your customers a chance to get their money back if things go wrong. Offer a money back guarantee even if it is for a limited time. I see vendors on social media putting “No Refunds” in their bio. That is a very outrageous and dangerous thing to do. People are already skeptical about buying and you now want to make them more afraid. Never do that. You should always try to find a way to put the minds of your prospects at rest. Let's even imagine you do not offer a guarantee, there should be better ways to communicate this but putting it on your bio is a no no. But you should offer guarantees. Do not be afraid. Guarantees work. I know some people will take advantage of you but the money your guarantee will help you make will be more than cover up for the idiots trying to take advantage of you. That is why I always tell my students to sell only quality products. If you sell rubbish products, your guarantee offer will backfire big time. Let's close this chapter by taking a look at some guarantees. Learn French In 60 Days Or Your Money Back Custom Duty Fully Paid On Our Cars! Call Us If Customs Officials Stop You On The Road Do Not Pay Us A Kobo Until You Start Making Money With Our Bitcoin Formula No Mechanic Worries For One Year When You Buy Cars From Us Herbal Drink From Osun State That Guarantees Rock Hard Erection Or You Get Your Money Back. There is so much you can do with the above. On to the next chapter. CHAPTER 2  THE SELLING LESSONS BEHIND NIGERIANS AND SEX ON THE FIRST DATE If you are a man reading this, I want you to imagine yourself stepping into a party full of hundreds of very beautiful women. If you are a woman reading this, assume you are a man and please join me in this imaginary experiment. Okay. So there are hundreds of beautiful women at this party. Being the bad guy that you are, you are interested in having an affair with almost all of them if possible. The problem is that you are just an average guy. You are not a celebrity. No one knows you apart from your family members, classmates and those you drink beer with at Mama Joyce cool spot. You are not great looking. You are just average looking. Granted, you are not ugly but you are just like millions of other men. Plain average. I mean, you don't even have beards. You are of average height and you don't have an athletic build. Six packs is far away from you. Money? You are not rich. Yeah, you work at an old generation bank and earn N180,000.00 monthly. Nothing special. You can feed yourself and also send some money to your parents as “pocket money” every single month. You are thankful for what you have but you pray things get better. Let's imagine you walk up to these one hundred ladies one after the other and you tell them you want to have sex with them right away. How many of them do you think would follow you to the toilet or to the car or wherever you planned to carry out your evil thoughts? Maybe none. Think about it again. You are just an average guy. Maybe one of the ladies? Maybe you can have one or two of them say yes to your crazy proposal. There is a chance one of them would be as naughty as you are. Or maybe one of them wants to get back at an ex and is ready to explore just like you. I reckon that in total you will get between zero and three to say yes to you. Now let's try another approach. You're still the same guy. Nothing special about you. You walk up to one hundred ladies, one after the other. You ask them if they are having a good time and offer to get them a drink if they need one. Then as you are about to step away, you ask if you can contact them again. You ask for their WhatsApp number or Instagram ID so you can send a direct message or you ask for their details on whatever technology application is working well for you by the time you read this book. How many of them do you think will agree to this? I reckon about one in two of them wouldn't mind. That will be about fifty of them. This is a conservative estimate because I believe more would actually agree if you were very nice and witty with the ladies. But let's stick with fifty. So you get the contacts of fifty beautiful ladies. The next day you message them asking if they are doing okay. Some would reply, some wouldn't. You keep up the communication with the fifty of them and you ask them out for drinks or dinner or to the cinema depending on whatever you guys agree. Later, you show your cards that you are romantically interested in them. After about three to six months, how many of these women do you think you would have “smashed”? Maybe half of them. That is TWENTY-FIVE of them. Compare that to the first scenario where your chances of having your way was zero to three percent. Now we are talking about twenty-five percent. That is a huge jump. In the first scenario, you would think you were a smart guy who got one or two of the girls. No you were not. You were just an impatient guy who lost the opportunity to get twenty-five girls. What has this got to do with business? A lot. A lot of Nigerian sales people and small business owners are too much in a hurry to make a few sales that they forget about building a long term relationship with people who would buy from them over and over again for years. What they want is a sale today. What they should do is build a list of prospects and customers so they can market to them forever. Let me replace the “experiment” I shared earlier with a business scenario. Let's assume you have a website on which you are selling mobile phone chargers. You learned that one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website is through Facebook advertising. You got someone to do it for you. You got traffic for Ten Cents ($.10) a click. One thousand clicks will cost you One Hundred Dollars ($100). Pay One Hundred Dollars, you will have one thousand potential customers on your website. Side Note: If this sounds like Greek to you, don't worry. Facebook is a powerful way to advertise your website. I am writing this in 2021. You could be reading this in 2075 and maybe Facebook would no longer exist but if it still exists when you read this, you should be using it. Just go online and search for “How to Advertise on Facebook”. If you send those people to your website, how many do you think will buy immediately? Research shows that with a well optimized website, about 2% will buy from you on their first visit to your website. That is 20 people out of 1,000. What will happen to the other 980 people? Probably gone forever never to come back to your website, except you spend another money to bring them back. So rather than try to sell to them immediately, why don't you offer them something in return for their contact details? Remember the party scene? Why don't you offer them a short educational piece on how to spot fake chargers that can spoil their phones, cause explosion and endanger their lives? Imagine you click on an advert about phone chargers and you land on a website where you see this... Do Not Buy Another Phone Charger In Nigeria Until You Read This.. Discover how to spot fake chargers that can spoil your phones, cause  explosion and endanger your life. Enter Your Email Address In The Box Below. How many people out of the 1,000 people you attracted from that Facebook advert would sign up for this? Think about this. They were interested in chargers, that is why they clicked on the advert to come to your page. They now see this. They remember stories they have seen online about how phones spoilt, how chargers blew up and how people have died of electrocution. How many people would sign up. I can bet more than half would. Let's say half. That is 500 people. You automatically send the short report to them through an autoresponder but now you have their details. You now send them to your website. Maybe one person buys. The following week you mail them a reminder. Another person buys. During a holiday, you offer them a discount. Maybe another person buys. You still send them other quality information in the process to show you are a good guy. You send them to your social media page. A few of them of them would follow. Tell me. After about six months, how many people would have bought from you? A lot. And many more will buy years down the line. Also, when you have new products, you have a ready made audience to introduce the products to. You don't even need a kobo to promote your new products. You just send an email or SMS bulk message to them. They are a willing audience. They opted to be hearing from you so they are receptive to your message. Let me give you a personal example. You know me by now that I teach only the things I have done. No theories here. Only things that I have done that you can go ahead and do as well. Actionable tips. Anyway, when we launched NairaBET.com in 2009, I did not spend a kobo on initial advertising. In chapter one, I told you about how people who had bought my information products on sports betting were asking me to help them fund their sports betting accounts abroad. I had an email list of people that had opted for my free tutorials on sports betting as well as those that have bought the products. All I did when we launched was type an email telling them we now have a Nigerian sports betting website where they can trade in Naira. Do you get my drift? It is important you build a list of prospects and customers. Once you have a list, you will never go broke in your life again. Just maintain the list well and regularly sell them quality products. The war against poverty has been won in your life. My friend owns a hotel in Abuja. It is called Mayfair Hotel. It's on Danube Street, Maitama. It is a lovely, small hotel of twenty rooms and it is always sold out. Although there are a few sources that bring him customers, notably Booking.com, he tells me that anytime he sends an SMS broadcast to his list of customers, there is always a surge of new bookings. How do you begin to build your own list? Well, I already shared an example earlier with the phone charger business. But what if yours is a totally OFFLINE business, how can you go about it? Calm down. I'm a nice guy. I will show you as I teach you about the kinds of lists we have. But before that, I want to talk about the kinds of lists we have. From my experience, there are basically five kinds of lists you should have. 1. List of Potential Customers 2. List of New Customers 3. List of High Rollers 4. List of Cheap Customers 5. List of Long-Term Customers List of Potential Customers This is a list of those who are yet to buy from you but they are people interested in what you are selling in the industry/market you are operating in. In the phone charger example I gave earlier, everyone who clicked on the Facebook advert to come to the website is a potential customer. Find a way of collecting their contacts before you even think of selling to them. If you own a physical store, everyone that walks into your store is a potential customer. When they walk around, engage them and find out what they really want. If they are not ready to buy or you simply do not have what they are looking for, find a way to get their details. If you are a smooth talker, you can get their phone numbers or you can do the easy thing. Follow them with your business handle on social media and politely ask them to follow you back. Some would not. Some would. Those that follow you will likely buy from you in future. Sometimes, potential customers are not those that have taken physical actions to come to you. They could be those you met at events like conventions and seminars. Let's say you have a web design business and you attend a seminar of 100 people on web design or you were invited to speak there, you can get the contacts of your fellow attendees or the students in case you were the speaker. They are potential customers. Keep them on a separate list and follow up on them later. List of New Customers Many small business owners do not know this but let me tell you right here, right now. The best set of customers are the customers that have bought from you. It is far easier to sell to them again than to look for a new person to sell to. I'm assuming your product and customer service are great. One mistake business owners make is they assume its better not to “disturb” someone that has already bought from you with similar offers. Wrong. That is counter productive. If you sell cars and someone just bought a Toyota Camry from you today, after delivering and making sure he is happy with you, you can follow up with offering him or her another car after a few days. Believe me, he or she is a better candidate than a new person. As soon as he bought that Camry, he would be thinking, “how I wish I can get another car so I can bless my parents or surprise my partner.” He or she is a prime candidate for another purchase. Make sure you build a list of those that have bought from you. Their emails, phone numbers and every other way you can think of. It is easier to build with a digital business. You can see your data at the back end but it's not that easy in a brick and mortar business like a supermarket or restaurant. It is not easy but it is not impossible. You can create a special offer for your customers. At the payment point or at the exit of the building, you can tell them you are sending them discount coupons to their WhatsApp for their next visit. You thank them for their patronage and say you want to reward their patronage. You then ask for their WhatsApp numbers so you can send the coupons. There is no one way to do it. I am sure you can come up with something that will suit you. List of High Rollers Pay attention. I'm about to reveal to you a goldmine. In a lot of businesses, 80% of the money that will be made will come from only 20% of customers. The Pareto Principle works in business. What is the Pareto Principle? The Pareto Principle is a theory that 80% of results are as a result of 20% of effort. The connection was noticed by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto and developed by Joseph Juran, a distinguished management consultant. Pareto showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. This theory has been proven to work in life and in businesses. Examples abound. It is believed that 80% of work is completed by 20% of your team It is believed that 80% of customers only use 20% of software features It is believed that 80% of sales come from 20% of your products It is believed that 80% of sales come from 20% of your marketers It is believed that 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers It is believed that 80% of wealth is owned by 20% of people It is believed that 80% of sales come from 20% of your clients Take a look at that last point. I know that for a fact. Only a handful of percentage of your customers bring most of your sales. That should ring some bells in your head. These customers are like gold. You should take care of them specially. You can have them on a special list. A special list you take care of. A special list you give undivided attention. A special list you attend to any time they have questions and complaints. You cannot afford to lose your high rollers. You should keep them close. You don't need to tell them they are your high rollers. Just let them know you care about them as customers. They are likely not getting that elsewhere. List of Cheap Customers I know I have been raving about the high rollers. That does not mean the cheap customers are not to be taken care of. You need them for three reasons. Firstly, you need their money, it all adds up. Secondly, the so called cheap customer can be a high roller tomorrow. Sometimes, they are just testing your products and services. Lastly, you need them to make up the statistics. See, a lot of banks do not need the N1,000 you have in your savings account but having you as a customer makes up the numbers that the company can brag to the world and investors about. And of course, they will make the most noise, be it positive or negative about your business. List of Long Term Customers These are your cheerleaders. You absolutely must have a list of your long term customers in order to care for them specially. It is hard to keep customers for years. There is too much distraction and competition. If you have people who have been buying from you for many years, it means you have been doing a super job or they just love you. Do not take that love for granted. Stay in touch with them. Tell them to spread the word about your business if they are not doing it already. Keep them like they are family. Let me conclude this chapter with some words of advice. Nothing good comes easy. Success in business does not come easy. You need to continuously work at it. You can make it simply by directing your efforts at the real things that will bring you results. One of such important things is building and nurturing your list. Please do everything to make sure you do not joke with this. If you can build a sizeable list, you will never be broke again. Just concentrate on growing and nurturing your list, there is no industry where you cannot excel. Try me. CHAPTER 3  NIGERIANS LIKE TO BUY FROM THOSE THEY LIKE, TRUST AND RESPECT Some bank ATMs are absolutely useless. And this is annoying. There are some bank ATMs that never work. Some work during the day but would never work outside office hours like evenings and weekends. As you drive into the bank, the security officers on duty would wave at you to let you know that you are wasting your time. It happened to me yesterday evening. I am sure you have experienced this as well and I am also sure you know of at least one of such ATMs. I tweeted about this a few weeks ago and it looked like everyone knew at least one ATM that hardly ever works. Anyway, after driving around last night, I eventually found an ATM that worked. There were three machines at that particular branch of Access Bank. All I needed was N20,000.00 because I had no cash on me. I like to keep a little cash with me when I'm alone. I don't bother when I'm with my assistants and aides. But I was alone last night. The machine I used could only dispense N10,000.00 at a time. I collected it and decided I could not wait and left. I then changed my mind. I went back to collect another N10,000.00. This time, I used another machine. As the ATM made that rumbling noise indicating that my cash was about to pop out, another bank customer came to use the ATM. This guy however did not use the other machines. He stood behind me and waited for me to finish. I was confused. Is this guy a thief? Why couldn't he use the other machines. The other machines were working. I know I tested one of them. They were working fine. Why didn't he bother to check? My money popped out and I left. He stepped up to use the machine as soon as I left. I wanted to show him he was stupid by using another machine but I changed my mind, and left. As I drove away, I kept wondering. Why didn't he try to use the other machines? I can understand if multiple people queued at only one machine. That can give off a sign that some people had tested the other machines. This was different. I was the only one there. When I got to my destination, I talked about this episode with a few friends and funny enough, they had all experienced something similar. Most of the time, people want to queue at the machine that is paying because they can see a PROOF that the machine works. They do not want to waste one minute trying another one. All they care about is the one that is working. PROOF. Many people are used to ATMs not working. Some work (you can check your balance etc) but would not dispense cash. Some work and dispense cash but would retract your card for the flimsiest of reasons. People are tired of bad ATM services so when they see one that is working, they stay on queue. That is how the mind of the average Nigerian works. Nigerians have experienced so much bad service, from both the government and private businesses. Nigerians believe only in proof. The will love and respect you because you have got proof. That is what your customers want. No stories. They want proof that your product works. They want proof that your product will work for them. They want proof that your products have worked for other people. They want ASSURANCE. I remember when we opened the first set of shops for Nairabet.com. Because sports betting was still new, a lot of customers needed education on how it was done so we mandated our shop cashiers to walk up to every new customer to put him or her through. The funny thing was that the customers were not listening to the cashiers. They preferred to learn from their friends who understood how it was placed. They felt we would hide the winning secrets from them (there is no winning secret in sports betting) so they felt it was better to listen to “colleagues”. Simply put, they want PROOF AND ASSURANCE. And the proof and assurance can only be gotten from those who have played the game and won. 99% of your customers want this. The question is...  Are You Giving It To Them? This lesson can turn your business around so hark unto me. I want you to learn how to give your customers assurance and proof. They will respect you for this. Once you have this, they will be begging you to keep their money. Even when you run out of stock, they will want to pay you in advance. Because they believe you die. I am going to show you SIX techniques of providing TRUST and ASSURANCE. They are easy to do. 1. Nigerians Judge By Looks I travel a lot. I spend a lot of time away from my family in the process. When I am around, I like to spend as much time as possible with them. One thing I like doing is taking my kids to school in the morning and if I can, pick them up in the afternoon. I love the discussions. The gists about their classmates and their teachers. I enjoy this a lot. One day, as I was about to drop them off at their school gate, I saw an old neighbour who I know runs a school. I am certain she still runs that school because the vehicle she came in on that day was branded with her school’s name, colour and logo. What was she doing in another school? She came to drop off her own kids. In another school. A competing school. I was very surprised. It got me thinking. How can you own and run a school but your own kids do not attend that school? Is that an admittance that your own school was crap? Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t judge her. There could be a reason why she is doing that. I cannot really say. But it got me thinking about people who sell products but the “result” of the products they are selling is not evident in their lives. You are selling slimming products but you are extremely overweight. I mean, if you come to me pitching slimming products and you are overweight, the word scam would come to my head. How you look can make a potential customer trust you or not trust you. A potential customer has an idea of what he or she wants to see when patronizing a business and it is better for you to look like that for him or her to trust you. If you do not look like what the customer is expecting, you will have to make up with other factors, which is extra work. It is easier to give them what they want from the get go. Imagine visiting a “native doctor”, aka babalawo and you see him putting on jeans and football jersey. Lol. You will be disappointed. Thanks to Nollywood, you will expect a babalawo to look a certain type of way. You wouldn't expect him to live in Banana Island, Ikoyi, Lagos. You would expect him to live in a remote part of South West Nigeria. When I visit a doctor, I will prefer if he is old and with a bald head. For real. I will feel safer in his care. I would prefer it if he has a stethoscope around his neck. If you take your dog to the vet, you will be happy if the vet is putting on a lab coat. It shows they know what they are doing. If I sell cars and you ask for a meeting and I come to you in an Uber, that would not inspire you. You would feel better if I come in an unregistered car. Or if I am a dealer in luxury cars, you wouldn't expect to see me driving a Toyota Corolla. If you are selling weight loss products, you cannot be fat. If you are fat, you should be behind the scenes. Hire sales people who are slim. You cannot be a gym instructor and have a beer belly like mine. Get fit or hire fit people. I cannot patronize your tattoo shop if you do not have a lot of ink on your body. A woman selling gold chains would not look convincing if all she uses is beads. You have to look the part. People want to be like the seller. I have been in the seminar business for fifteen years. A lot of the topics I teach are on wealth, business success and marketing. I advise young ones doing such businesses never to show up at such seminars on an “okada”. Come on. You cannot be teaching wealth and you appear in an okada. You have to look “sharp”. You do not have to put on a suit or a tie. In fact, the casual the better. Loads of people attending seminars on wealth, money and business are people who are looking for “freedom”. Successful young entrepreneurs these days tend to look casual. Whatever you are trying to sell, please look the part. When people see you, (sometimes not you personally as it could be your sales people) and you fit the dreams and imagination they had, they will likely trust you. How you look matters to the average Nigerian. 2. Nigerians Love Those Who Show Knowledge And Authority For many years, I was not a fan of building wealth through the stock market. I was more focused on building my own businesses and also investing (read saving) in real estate. As I grew older in business, I realized the importance of paper investments. The era of doing it alone was gone for me. As I began to invest in other businesses and received investments from others, I was naturally drawn into the stock market. Not just in Nigeria but in every major country in the world. I decided to start investing passively in the stock market. I asked a lot of questions online and offline. A lot of stock brokers approached me promising to give me quality tips to help me grow my money. They flooded my emails and social media timelines with different sales pitches explaining why they were the best. At the end of the day, I met a great guy who runs a stockbroking firm. He came to my office and did not make a single sales pitch. All he did was answer all my questions about the stock market. From how to start, to how to buy and sell shares, to explaining the difference between Equity and Premium Boards and so on. I was excited and felt like I had a PhD in the stock market. Let me ask you, when I was ready to invest, which stockbroking firm do you think I hired? You are right. I went to him. I went to him because I had come to trust him. He loaded me with quality information without trying to take money from me. He demonstrated that he knew the industry well. I have gone from hiring him to recommending him to my family and friends. People love to learn from experts. They are seen as mini gods. They love to learn from their pastors. They love to learn from business experts. They love to learn from people who give out quality content. What you should do is find a way to start giving quality content on the kind of product you are selling. You can do this in many ways. Let's briefly look at a few. You can write a book Write a book on the topic and you automatically become an expert. The title of an author will forever be respected. Even if you hate writing, you can speak into a voice recorder and get someone to transcribe it for you. Spoiler Alert: Very soon, I will write a book on how to become a best selling author. Start a show You can start a radio show where people will call in to ask questions. If you are versed in that industry and you provide quality answers. You will be viewed as an expert. You can also start a TV show. If all these are expensive, you can start a podcast. It is free. If you have a phone, you can have a podcast. Demonstrate your expertise on social media As at today, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are the best social media platforms to use. You should provide information, solutions and answer questions on Twitter and Instagram about your market. You can go viral easily. When new platforms come up, jump on them because no platform lasts forever. Organize free events Organizing free events like seminars, workshops and conferences can position you as an authority. Teaching people about the peculiarities of an industry will make them trust you and ultimately buy from you. The person who organizes free web design seminars will likely turn attendees into paying customers. So we have talked about Looking the part and Showing Knowledge And Authority. The next is... 3. Nigerians Love Those Who Can Provide Testimonials I wrote in Small Business Big Money that what you say about your business is not as important as what people say about you. You need to get people to talk about your business. Use the positive testimonials in your promotions and use the negative ones as feedback to improve your products and service. Whenever you see someone talking glowingly about your products, maybe on social media, save it and use for testimonials. I do this a lot to promote my books. Apart from that, you can solicit for testimonials. Ask your customers to talk about your products. But what if your business is new? Not a problem. Give selected people your product or service for free. Let's say you own a spa. Give about three to ten people free sessions. Or you just wrote a book. Give a few people copies to read and collect their testimonials. It is very powerful. 4. Nigerians Love Those Who Welcome Them With Joy & Offer World Class Customer Service From the moment customers walk into your business, be it a physical location, a website or even over the phone, be the sweetest business they have ever had to deal with. “Kill” them with wonderful services. Do everything within your power to make them always smile. I want to assume that your product or service is super. Now back it up with customer service. Let people know that they are safe with you. If they have any issue whatsoever, step in to help them genuinely. Any form of issues whatsoever, you should help. Late delivery, faulty products, dissatisfaction etc. Once you always show up when they reach out, they will trust you and will forever buy from you. It wouldn't matter if there are competitors, they would queue to buy from you... Like That Guy At The ATM! 5. Many Nigerians Trust And Respect Foreigners (Or Someone With A Foreign Accent) I do not like to talk about this because as a proud Nigerian, I always feel bad when I think about the fact that this works. My job in this book is to teach you what works. It is up to you to moralize it. The truth of the matter is that Nigerians respect foreigners a lot, especially Europeans and Americans. We respect Asians as well. If you go for a presentation and there is a foreigner in your team, there is a good chance you would get through the door and you would be favourably attended to. If the Managing Director of a company is looking at his CCTV to see who is waiting for him, he would take a closer look if he spots foreigners. The interesting thing is the foreigner doesn't have to be the brain in the team. Anyone can be the brain in the team. The foreigner can just be looking and nodding. The brain in the team can refer to him once in a while. His or her presence is enough. Personally, I do not hire foreigners because of this. In my business career, I have hired and fired foreigners from the United Kingdom, South Africa, Armenia, Ukraine and what have you. I hire and fire based on ability but I must confess that I have asked them to be a part of my team when I go for some meetings simply because of this. People with foreign accents are also respected. When someone with a foreign accent calls, you will pause for a few seconds to hear what the person wants to say. I have had some of my students who relocated from Europe come to me, saying that they feel out of place because they have foreign accents. I tell them it is an asset. They should maximize it. We love the foreign touch. 6. Nigerians Love Foreigners With A Nigerian Connection This point is for foreign individuals and foreign companies hoping to sell to Nigerians. It is important to have or create a Nigerian connection so Nigerians can be at ease with you. If you do not have a Nigerian in your team and you want to sell to Nigerians, it is better if you can establish a connection. There are many ways to do this. One way is by reading a lot about Nigeria. Read about Nigerian politics, music, movies and so on. When you are chatting with a potential client in Nigeria and you ask him where he lives and he says Lagos, you can reply with “is it Lagos Island or Mainland” or you can ask whether Ambode is still the governor. This is 2021 and Babajide Sanwo-Olu is the governor but you asking about the immediate past governor shows that even though you are not a Nigerian, you know what is going on the country. You can ask about our musicians as well and ask about the debate as to who is the greatest musician. One thing that gives Nigerians pride is foreigners talking about Nigerian exports especially in the area of sports and entertainment. I was at Ipswich in the United Kingdom a few years ago and once my hosts found out I was from Nigeria, they asked me if I knew Finidi George. Finidi George is a retired Nigerian footballer who at a time played at Ipswich FC. He was highly revered. My hosts kept going on and on about him. They sang the songs they composed for him. I was grinning from ear to ear. I felt proud as a Nigerian and I was more relaxed to relate with them. TRUST and ASSURANCE. These six techniques can help you gain trust. Once you have these and sustain it, a Nigerian will buy from you forever CHAPTER 4  FEAR SELLS The year 2020 was a mess. Never in my wildest imaginations did I think 2020 would go the way it went. I made a lot of plans. But God had other plans. Covid 19 struck and all that mattered was our safety. Countless people died worldwide. Businesses suffered. Jobs lost. Many businesses will never recover from this. As I am typing this, many kinds of businesses (in Nigeria at least) are not allowed to open yet. Cinemas and Nightclubs for example. They have been shut down for months. How are they expected to survive? Of course they can't pay their staff. Rents and leases keep running. The landlord does not care. I am not blaming the government. I just feel bad for them. It is a different ball game if you had planned to shut down your business for a period for a different reason. This was totally out of the blues. Some just took loans to repay in six months. I am really bothered. Maybe I am bothered because I am an entrepreneur myself. It has been a very rugged year. As media personality, Daddy Freeze famously said months ago... This Year Go Rugged o... Sigh. It was really rugged. Economies round the world are trying to open up but we will not be able to get to normal without a cure for Covid 19. We now have a vaccine and hopefully things will return to normal very soon. Is there a marketing lesson to this? Yes, there is. I talked about the vaccine for Covid 19 and as it is today (January 2021), countries are in a mad rush for it. Why? The reason is simple. There are deaths and sicknesses as a result of Covid 19. When you turn on the news, statistics of infections and deaths would stare at you. The gloomy statistics are there. There is fear in the land. And when there is fear, people look for solutions and are ready to spend money on the solution. I mean, if you are about to die and you find a solution that can stop it and all it takes is for you to spend money, you will go to extreme lengths to find that money. We know people have exhausted their life savings and sold assets to save themselves and loved ones. It is a natural human feeling. Fear is a very strong emotion. We love to avoid disaster and discomfort. Imagine you have been saving some money for the interior decoration of your house then overnight, a strong wind removes your roof. Your discussion in the morning will not be with your interior decorator. It will be with your carpenter so you can fix your roof. This emotion is why we spend more money on cure rather than prevention. No one needs to persuade us to spend money on malaria treatment when we get infected, but they have to convince us to buy insecticides or mosquito nets. We don't like to spend money on prevention, that is why insurance is difficult to sell. To be honest, all human beings, not just Nigerians are influenced by fear. However, I have never come across a group of people that are as fearful as Nigerians. Every problem to a lot of Nigerians is caused by the enemy. We believe there is always someone trying to do something terrible to us. We always look over our shoulders. You still do not understand how this relates to YOUR business? Hark unto me. Because people buy when they are afraid, you can find a way to change your selling strategies to include the "fear factor" so they can buy more, buy without thinking about the price and buy very quickly. When there is fear, it is easier to achieve these things. No matter what you are selling, you can always find an angle through which you can bring in the fear factor. I am going to teach you with examples as I like to do. It will be easier that way. If you are selling mobile phone chargers (I am using this example again because I know a couple of people that have been making a killing with this business using my marketing techniques), normal advertising will read something along these lines... Original Charger From USA Stop buying fake chargers. Buy your chargers only from reputable shops. We stock original chargers,  shipped directly from the USA. Order while stock lasts. Call 080 blah blah That is a normal ad. A pretty decent one at that. But we are not talking about normal ads. We are talking about ads that will sell out all your products and have customers begging you to hold their money until you have a new stock. Those are the kinds of ads I like to write and teach. That is one of the reasons why you bought (or maybe borrowed) this book. So how can we use the fear factor for that ad? We are selling original chargers. The question is, if they do not buy original chargers, what are they buying? Fake chargers right? So what are the bad things that can happen to a man that buys and uses fake chargers? - He won't enjoy his money because the fake charger will spoil quickly - He will spend more money because he has to keep buying new chargers all the time - The charger can spoil his phone - The charger can cause an explosion and he might get injured or die. You can create an advert using any of these factors. Out of all of them, I think the last factor is the most fearful. If you buy and use a fake charger, there can be an explosion and you can get injured or die. Let us try and create an advert out of that fear. 19 Year Old Student Suffers Second Degree Burns After Phone Charger Explodes (Punch, August 8, 2020. Page 8) WARNING: Do Not Buy Any Mobile Phone Charger Until You Read This Our Chargers come with 100% money back guarantee. If it spoils within 6 months, we will return your money to you. Wowzer... Side note: You can always find a real story to quote. Just do some googling. My example is fake obviously. Or say something like... Stop Putting The Lives of Your Family Members In Danger With Your Fake Chargers! They can cause explosions and death! You see the difference? Let's take a look at another example. Let's say you are a real estate agent in Lagos and you want to advertise your little hustle. How can you advertise using the fear factor? You need to think of the worst thing that can happen to a house buyer that is not buying from you and is buying from unscrupulous agents. He can get scammed. Lots of land and house deals go badly in Lagos state, Nigeria. Too many scam artists out there. No one wants to get scammed so that is a good fear factor you can use. You can create an advert along these lines. PROTECT YOURSELF! 65% of Land and House Deals In Lagos Are Scam. You like that house? You like that land? It might be a scam. There are questions you need to ask. Go through only reputable agents. Buy through us. We will show you how to avoid scams. Bingo... I am too good. I am so good I begin to ask myself where I got this brain from. Sometimes when I read my own write ups, I begin to admire myself. No be small thing. Let's get back to selling with fear. You get the gist now. In the course of my research about this topic, I stumbled on an advert by an international organization that used fear to sell successfully. The World WildLife Fund is known for raising awareness about changes in our environment. They are an NGO and require donations from the public. They wanted people to donate money in their efforts against Climate Change. That is a difficult advert to create. How do you even use fear factor to do this? They created the advert below. It is a very brilliant ad. They know people have watched a lot of movies and they have this fear for the end-of-the- world. Like there would be an apocalypse and we would all turn into zombies. The ad portrays that Climate Change can end the world (they are right) if we are not up and doing.  Source: https://www.worldwildlife.org Can you compare this to "normal" ads where they will say something like... Climate Change Is Real Let us save our planet. It is the responsible thing to do. Bleehhhhh. No matter what you are selling, you can come up with the fear angle. I will look around me right now as I sit in my son's room typing this and pick random products and then come up with fear factors one can use to sell them. Toothpaste/Mouthwash: Bad breadth. A girl refuses your proposal. You fail to get a job because you mouth smelled bad at the interview. Headline: Avoid Embarrassments Internet Connection: Slow Internet connection. Miss school assignments. Miss work deadline. Child is upset because he can't play his game Headline: Slow Connection Can Ruin Your Career Business Book: No money. Business attempt fails. Stuck at a job you hate. Suffering pensioners. Headline: Retire Poor? Extension Box: Explosion. Electrocution. Headline: A Bad Extension Box Can Electrocute You Bin With A Foot Pad: Avoid germs others get when they touch the bins trying to open them. Headline: Deadly Germs Are Everywhere. Open Them With Your Legs, Not Hands The FIVE examples I gave up there were unplanned for this chapter. I just looked around me in my son's room for random products. I can see a tube of tooth paste and a bottle of mouthwash. I have my Internet connection modem with me. My book, Small Business Big Money is right beside me. There is an extension box here and there is a dustbin. It shows how easy it is to coin out a fear angle for the product you are selling. Imagine if I spend quality time churning better selling messages. I am going to end this chapter with what is referred to in direct marketing circles as the greatest sales letter ever written. It was written to sell the subscription of the Wall Street Journal. This ad grossed in... Two Billion Dollars! Here goes... Dear Reader, On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both – as young college graduates are – were filled with ambitious dreams for the future. Recently, these two men returned to college for their 25th reunion. They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same Midwestern manufacturing company after graduation, and were still there. But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was its president. What Made The Difference? Have you ever wondered, as I have, what makes this kind of difference in people’s lives? It isn’t always a native intelligence or talent or dedication. It isn’t that one person wants success and the other doesn’t. The difference lies in what each person knows and how he or she makes use of that knowledge. And that is why I am writing to you and to people like you about The Wall Street Journal. I will cut the advert here. Did you get the fear factor there? One was a reader of The Wall Street Journal. One was not. See the life of the one that was not a reader. Find a way to add fear to your advertising. CHAPTER 5  DEALING WITH POTENTIAL AND EXISTING NIGERIAN CUSTOMERS O ne day, I made a post on Twitter about my bestselling book, Small Business Big Money. The tweet was basically about how to buy the book. I cannot remember the exact words I used but it was along these lines... If you are interested in buying my business and marketing book, Small Business Big Money, text your name and address to 0703 723 7906. We will bring it to you and you can pay the delivery man. Get it at a discounted price of N3,500.00 Can you guess what the first reply to the post was? You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. The reply was a question. The question was... How Can I Buy The Book? I mean, the tweet is basically about how to order the book and yet the question you are asking is about how you can buy the book. I thought that was a one off. Within an hour, I got the same question from about 50 people. I was shocked at the level of dumbness and laziness. I then posted the same instructions on Instagram and Facebook. Same results. They were all asking for information on how they could buy it. The next most asked question I got, especially from Facebook was “what kind of business is it?”. That I didn't understand. I mean, the instruction was clear. Text this number if you want to buy my book. What do you mean by “what kind of business is it?”. Another set of dumb people. After a few days, I decided to change gear. I convinced myself that the instruction was not clear enough. I decided to be more elaborate. So I came up with what we call a thread on twitter. It is a series of tweets. In the thread, I wrote all the available options of buying the book. The names and phone numbers of agents selling it, the bookstores selling it, the websites selling it in Nigeria, the websites selling it abroad, the apps selling the digital copies in Nigeria and abroad. I listed EVERYTHING. I took the thread to Facebook and made a post about it with links to all buying options. I posted the picture of the book on Instagram and used the place for caption as the ordering instructions. I went to my blog to do the same thing. Clear and explicit instructions. Despite all these, can you guess what the most asked question was? That's right. The most asked question was... How Can I Buy The Book? Sigh. 1. Nigerians Are Impatient And Do Not Like To Pay Attention To Details When you are selling to Nigerians, you must understand that we are an impatient set of people and we do not pay attention to details. If you have ever been to Nigeria, you would have noticed how impatient we are. From the driver on the roads to the customer at the bank. We know what we want and the end results but we are very impatient to look at the details involved. The driver on the road knows where he is going but ignores the road signs and other road users on his way to his destination. The customer at the bank wants an issue sorted and does not care whether there are 100 customers before him. We just look at the end goal and act. Be prepared so you don't get unnecessarily upset. In fact, be prepared for the laziest and dumbest requests ever. You will sell more that way. Don't try to point out this obvious flaw. Do go around telling customers “but I already mentioned that to you”. No. Just repeat the information if you have to. When I post my book for sale and such questions are asked, I politely reply every single post with the correct reply and explanations. Be patient. That is the way to go about it. A lot of times, business owners tend to assume that every potential customer is an A Student. Most people fall into the “C Student” category. Even after explaining with every information available, a lot of people still wouldn't understand you. Do not worry. Those are often the best customers. Treat them well. Educate them. Be patient. Thank them for their question even when they ask the dumbest questions. Smile even when you are burning inside. What usually happens is that a lot of vendors cannot tolerate their dumbness and it shows. Either they get rude or just dismiss the potential customer as a time waster. Those customers will feel the difference when you treat them with sweetness and they will stick with you. 2. Many Of Your Potential Customers Are Rude and Aggressive A few years ago, I was on a Delta flight from Atlanta, USA to Lagos, Nigeria. I got talking to the flight attendant. She talked a lot about Nigerians because she frequents the Atlanta-Lagos route. By virtue of this, she spends about 50 days in Nigeria in a year. She knows many parts of Lagos and frequents Lagos night clubs and hangouts more than the regular Lagos guy. And of course, she has dated quite a few Nigerians. I asked her to give me her honest opinion about Nigerians. I told her not to hold anything back and that I do not want answers laced with political correctness. I assured her that her responses were safe with me. So she gave me her opinion. She said... Nigerians Are Rude And Aggressive As F*ck! Then she continued. She said “beyond that rudeness and aggression, you guys are the sweetest and most caring humans on planet earth.” She said the way to “handle” Nigerians is to not care about the aggression. Be patient to get past that “wall”, after that you will see sweetness you have never seen before. I absolutely agree with her. Let's start with the nice part. Nigerians are extremely nice people. We are very caring. We can give our last savings to a hungry stranger. A Nigerian can borrow money from someone to lend someone else. We take other people's problems as ours. We often leave our own bills unpaid to sort other people's bills. We are an awesome specie. But the ugly part. A lot of us can be rude, uncouth and aggressive. To say thank you and please (the two most common polite gestures) is hard for many Nigerians.