Last night, I signed up and attended a webinar.
It lasted from 8pm to almost midnight.
I feel like my entire mind was renewed.
The teacher was some really smart lady, Mayowa Adeoti (called thewebsitechic on Instagram).
She taught us about Sales funnels.
She revealed some deep truths.
I feel like crying, honestly.
It is so shocking that with the amount of time I spend each day learning, I am yet to scratch the surface, on the things and tools I need to learn, to run an amazing business.
It is as though she brought me out, pulled my skirt down and flogged me on the butt.
Chai! Ignorance is terrible!
She shared with us her story. She was a techie. She had knowledge of ecommerce, years before Jumia and Konga were born. When she was working at an ecommerce company (taafoo), there were only a few players, so marketing was pretty easy.
As a techie, she built apps and all sorts of solutions. She even taught her younger brother to code and build tools. They built and built and built, put did not sell and sell and sell.
She grew frustrated. How can I know so much and not sell so much? You mean with all these skills and knowledge I have, noone wants to buy?
Surely, I must be doing something wrong.
She decided to dump tech for a while (2 years) and dive into learning, marketing.
Wow! What she learnt blew her mind.
She grew her team from she alone, to a team of 7, working with her and serving the same people who seemed like they were not buying before.
She started to sell and sell and sell.
She asked us a question which was the turning point for me. It was the question that actually slapped me.
She asked, “How many of you here have ever seen an Advert on social media for the first time, clicked and immediately bought that item? Kindly grade your answer on a scale of 0 to 10”.
Most of us answered ‘0’.
She then interpreted it to mean that people do not make buying decisions when you just make an ad. People have to TRAVEL ON A JOURNEY WITH YOUR BRAND AND YOUR BUSINESS. That journey has to show them their problems, convince them that you are the solution to those problems, persuade them, remind them, love them, teach them, literally nurture them and finally, get them to buy from you.
So, if you run a Facebook ad for one day and you wake and say, it did not work, then, you do not understand the customer journey.
You are still in the dark like she was.
You need a re-orientation.
You are refusing to take your customers on a journey with you. You are asking people to do what you yourself, will not do.
Sales funnel is simply teaching you how to build this customer journey and nurture your audience from cold to warm to hot.
Only hot customers, buy.
It takes a journey, not an Ad.
Hmm… I have spent over an hour this morning teaching my husband what I learnt and how foolish I have been.
I have slapped myself and cried for myself.
Now, I am ready to learn.
Learn, I must.
Learn, I will.
Ignorance, depart from me.
This marketing thing eh, I go learn you.
Just like Mayowa, I have to consciously dump my accounting skills, then go headlong and learn some badass marketing skills.
I have joined her inner circle and I am angry at myself. The kind of anger that forces me to break forth.
Dear you, know this please, your business runs on 15% skill and 85% strategy.
Go and work on your 85%
I have an accounting skill, that is only 15% of what I need to run Accountinghub.
85% of it is marketing, strategy, critical thinking, negotiation skills, communication, public speaking and a world of other things.
The day you wake up and realize that you are struggling to run your business on skill alone, is the day that business is about to make a turn for the better.
Like me, slap yourself.
Slap yourself harder.
Go and learn your 85%
Chioma is the CEO & Founder, Accounting Hub