By Bunmi Jembola
Whether you are an entrepreneur or growing a career, I have five questions for you. How well you answer them determines how much success would eventually happen to you.
1. How many people know that you do what you do? Whether you are a clerk, an accountant or an entrepreneur the number of opportunities you will ever have will always be a function not just of your popularity but of the popularity of what you do. Too many people are popular on facebook and not one person knows what they sell. Don’t be like them.
2. How convincingly do you speak to people about the value of what you do? – Value communication is a skill that every man on earth must learn. This is because perception is everything and that’s what value communication does. It helps people SEE value; they may not see it on their own. You must be able to show any man that you know what you do so well and that it is so valuable that he must write a cheque to get it. If you cannot, you can’t be rich.
3. Who are the people that buy the things you sell- If you sell to beggers the chances of success are slimmer. Competition will always drive down your margin because beggers can’t pay premium. If you sell to rich men your margins would be better because more than price they are intent on value. Rather than sell N5, 000 courses to struggling start up founders, I mostly pursue organizations that have a budget for training and very easily pay N500K for a single day of in-plant training. Guess what; it takes more effort to get the former who are only willing to pay N5, 000, because even that N5,000 he struggled to make it.
4. How mad are you? See if you are not very mad you can’t even make anything out of this life. I use this simple rule of success that I learned from the late founder of Walmart Sam Walton. He says “99% of your competitors are doing the same thing. Do the opposite” That opposite often looks like “madness”. Let me tell you one mad thing: 99% of business owners and sales people are prospecting an average of 3 new businesses per month set a target for 33 and without excuses meet it. Mad right? You will win them in 6months if you are that mad. The interesting thing about being VERY mad is that even failure clears from your path when it sees your mad approach to business. What am I saying? The easiest way to fail in business is to do business like a “gentleman”. I send a mail a day. Some people like it so much because it helps their life and business they reply and pray for us. A few people are outraged and they want out. Politely we ease them off. Some will like your guts, focus on them. Others will hate it, don’t care so much. If someone does not like you in the first place they can’t buy from you so they are not likely to be a great miss.
By all means, be mad on this journey to success and be unapologetic about it.
5. Do you wow people?- See, if you are a starter in business and no one is referring new businesses to you there is something you are not doing right. Buyers usually feel morally obligated to spread the word for starters who wow them. See [Name, Fallback=], it is very easy to stand out in this clime. Why? – Mediocrity is common place; just a little bit of excellence and you’d be standing out.
6. Asides making money how else do you serve humanity? See, if you don’t have a “Y” that’s deeper than money-making, you will make money but you can’t last. This week, I got two mails from two young entrepreneurs who prayed immensely for me telling me how much progress they have made by simply applying the little tips I send in my mails each morning. If this were to be all about making money we would have long fizzled out. We genuinely wanted to help businesses so people can create profitable ventures that give them the freedom to live that luxury life that every human being deserves as much as we also want to make money. Thankfully, we are doing both.
If you learned anything kindly do share with others so we can learn together. You may also tag someone who does need this motivation.
Bunmi Jembola is Nigeria’s leading sales trainer and consultant helping Nigeria’s leading brands to improve their sales outcome. To discuss how we can help you make more sales email: sales@salesruby.com. You can also check for training solutions for your team members at www.salesruby.com
