Category Archives: The Farm CEO
Smart Marketing Systems Move Prospects Closer to Buying, Long After You’re Gone [Hint: Why It’s Better to Let People Convince Themselves to Buy from You, Instead of “Pushing” or “Chasing” Them!]
Every now and then I have conversations in which people ask me how I am able to generate such regular enquiries online for my Excel-VB software products, software development service and other solutions I offer – without placing any form of paid adverts in any medium.
My answer is always the same:
Over the past decade, based on careful experience based research, and lots of trial and error, I’ve developed and use (while continuing to tweak for better results) what I call a customizable Web Marketing System (WMS).
After telling them that, I try to illustrate what I mean by sharing true stories about how my WMS has generated quality sales leads for me in the past, with some eventually leading to highly profitable sales.
What I have however found is that very few of those I explain this concept/strategy to really “get it”, and yet they see (or have been on the receiving end – as buyers – of) that same WMS at work!
For many, even though they do not say it, but I sometimes sense they think I’m hiding something or even lying.
One cannot however blame them. This is because what I claim to achieve on such a regular basis sounds more like magic than reality.
After all how many Africa based African experts can claim to make regular 5 to 6 figure income from sales of custom ExcelVB software products, books and other solutions to buyers in and out of Africa via the web – without face to face meetings?!
To help more people “get it” about 2 years ago I created and began using a Mindmap to explain the WMS to prospects and other interested persons.
Later on I added a screenshot demonstration video in which I use the mindmap as a basis for explaining the 9 key components of what I call a WMS.
I share the above details here to illustrate one of many ways I use my creativity to manipulate my WMS to effectively communicate the benefits that my solutions can deliver.
By creating the mindmap and supporting it with a video explanation, I’ve eliminated the need to devote conscious effort, time, energy or indeed money to market my WMS development service to any interested person(s).
Once s/he indicates interest in learning more, I simply request his/her email (and phone number) and then send him/her a generic message, with a personalised introduction.
By the time this happens, I conclude my work is done as far as marketing goes.
All I then need to do is wait.
Yes, waiting is what I do from this point – not chasing and not calling to follow up.
I just wait – patiently, like a hunter, meme (French for “even”) a Ninja!
Why?
Because at that point I know s/he would learn everything else I could have told him/her by listening to me in the video, while studying the mindmap – all of which can happen even while I sleep: talk about putting your marketing on autopilot!
Waiting like I’ve described above is something majority of people who want to sell find very hard to do.
Yet the process of selling is more of a psychological than physical process – and the art of “waiting” is a crucial element.
I am able to wait like that – with confidence and without fear of loss – because my WMS enables me know for a certainty that I’ve done virtually everything needed to convince the prospect to buy.
So if s/he still balks or walks away at this stage it will often not be wise to push or chase him/her.
Instead you simply stay away for a while, and since s/he would have joined your mailing list from the onset of your interactions, in order to connect with you, just let your email newsletter keep working on him/her.
Some prospects I’d long given up on came back 1, 2 even 4 years later to buy from me in this manner I.e because I used my newsletter to stay indirectly in touch, making them NOT feel they were being pressured.
As a result, they took their time to study me and my work enough to convince themselves they really needed my help.
This is why I say it’s better to let people to convince themselvesto buy from you, than it is for you to convince them to do so!
The former results in buyers who are motivated and often willing to pay what you ask – and they tend to be more willing to trust you and accept your guidance as well I.e easy to work with.
The latter can often be the exact opposite of the former.
I don’t know about you, but do NOT like to work with such people, because they tend to be too difficult to satisfy!
Like I tell those who ask all the time, the best marketing systems are those that keep moving the prospect closer to making a buying decision, long after you and the prospect cease communicating or separate.
In other words, the marketing system would be designed to keep him/her focused on the alluring benefits of the solution you offer, offering additional logical insights that ultimately influence the prospect to RETURN to you, often to ask few questions for clarification and ultimately request payment details, or simply pay – depending on how you sell.
I’ve closed countless sales effortlessy with prospects in various countries using this time, effort and cost-saving approach as part of my WMS, and that’s why I recommend it so highly.
Below is an example of an email I sent to an existing client looking to invest in my WMS development service.
Notice the details I provide in it are consistent with the explanation I’ve given above.
If you’re interested in getting copies of the mindmap and video, click here to send me a message.
Dear Alhaji S(name removed for privacy),
Our recent phone and Whatsapp conversations refer.
After listening to your Whatsapp message I decided you may find it useful to view the mindmap and watch the video explanation for what I NOW believe will best suit your company’s needs.
I call it a Web Marketing System or an Effective Online Presence.
Below is a generic message I send out to explain what it is all about to potential clients.A. Find attached a mindmap image that shows key components of what I call a customizable Web Marketing System (WMS).
The WMS is what I propose to develop and implement for your company to boost your business marketing reach/impact, measurable over time in terms of:
1. time, effort and money you WILL save
2. Quality sales leads/enquiries you will generateB. Find attached a zipped folder containing a video for you to watch offline, in which I explain what the WMS components are about and how they benefit businesses that use them.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR UNZIPPING THE VIDEO FOLDERDownload the attached zipped folder to your desktop and unzip the contents.
2 files will emerge. Double click on the web page file to launch a browser window in which the SWF video file will playback.
Note that if you see THE browser prompt shown in the linked PNG image below, all you need do is simply click “Activate Adobe Flash” (or the equivalent linked text displayed in your browser), and follow the instructions to get the video to display and play.
http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/fbsc-video-tip.png
TIPS FOR WATCHING THE VIDEOS:
To watch the video, YOU MUST (and this is important!) REMOVE or EXTRACT the 2 files in the zipped folder, and place them in the same location on your PC.
Next, double click on the web page file (the one with the browser icon) among the two, to watch the video in your browser. If you get a prompt to activate “Adobe Flash Player” click on the prompt to activate it by following the instructions that appear.
WARNING: If you click on the 2nd SWF file, it WILL NOT play the video.
AND if you click on the files without REMOVING them from inside the zipped folder, you will get an error message. The video will not play.
For the video to play, YOU MUST copy out or EXTRACT both files from inside the zipped folder and place on your PC in the same location, TOGETHER. Then click the one with the browser icon.
Let me know if you need help.
In your service
Tayo
THE FARM CEO (Issue 46 – Exclusive Offer): Send in Your FREE Advert details for LIFETIME publishing on my Buyers-Meet-Sellers Platform for Farm Businesses & Others!
This offer is exclusive to members of my Cost-Saving Farm Business Ideas Club and clients in other fields.
A few days ago I announced that my buyers-meet-sellers platform was LIVE in a blog posted (featuring 3 initial adverts for real life clients) at http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/advertise-your-products-and-services-on-tayo-solagbades-buyers-meet-sellers-platform-for-agro-based-businesses-and-others/
Within 24 hours of publishing that post, I got an enquiry from a Facebook friend that I’ve been connected with for a few years, but never met in person. He wanted details about the English LLB Law course offered by UPIB (International University & Polytechnic of Benin). Read the full story at <a href= “http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/succeed-more-by-using-the-web-creatively-features-true-story”>http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/succeed-more-by-using-the-web-creatively-features-true-story</a>
Even I was surprised, and I told my client so when I informed him about the request and got his consent to give the enquirer his contact details.
It’s now time for me to create ads for the rest of you who are my clients. All you need do is send your advert information to me in the format shown for current participants on the page at http://tayosolagbade.com/contact-buyer-seller.htm.
<b>Fill and submit your full contact details, with specific information for the ad you want published, using the form on the page linked above.</b>
I wiil setup a general marketplace page for all my clients where these ads will appear automatically. Note that they will remain FREE for you as my client and will therefore never expire or stop being visible on that page..
<h3>One suggestion: Get a website or even a web page</h3>
Lack of a functional website and online presence can severely limit your ability to reap full benefit of the exposure this FREE advert will give your company.
I suggest you get a website built or at least setup a sales page online.
Alternatively, if you wish I can offer you an extension of my 1 year Web Marketing Support promo which expired last December.
See details at
http://tayosolagbade.com/smclub-nonfarm.html
<h3>Get Started!</a>
Fill and submit your full contact details, with specific information for the ad you want published, using the form provided at
<a href= “http://tayosolagbade.com/contact-buyer-seller.htm” target=”blank”>http://tayosolagbade.com/contact-buyer-seller.htm</a>.
To Succeed in Spreadsheet Programming You Need Sound Understanding [Hint: Do You Know Where New Excel-VB Macros Are Stored?]
[NB: This is a tutorial note created for members of my Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club – but left open without password protection for viewing by interested non-members]
You’ve been using MS Excel and the Visual Basic Editor for some time now, since we started this series. I am quite aware that it is NOT easy for most of you to make sense of some of the new stuff being presented to you.
However, I want you to know that the human mind is very powerful and regardless of your background, you CAN learn to do ANYTHING you set your mind to.
In the course of developing myself in various fields of interest as a Multpreneur, starting from my 7 year stay in Guinness Nigeria, up till today as a Location Independent Multipreneur, I have discovered that DELIBERATE REPEATED exposure to ANY subject matter is a GUARANTEED way to develop familiarity with it, and ultimately proficiency IN IT.
Just keep going at these tutorials, and sooner than later, you’ll start wondering why you ever thought it would be hard to “get it”. Remember I’m ready to help anytime 
When I first encountered spreadsheet coding sentences in Lotus 1-2-3 macros written by an expatriate boss I had during my graduate training in Guinness in 1995, they looked like total gibberish to me!
But the results I saw them produce in form or automatic data handling and reports/charts generation, even to the point of printing without prompting, I KNEW I wanted to be able to control the spreadsheet application in that manner too.
My motivation stemmed from the fact that I hated the way many of the senior colleagues I was working with used manual calculators for hours, sometimes days, to prepare reports to be used for decision making.
Not only was it stressful for the person preparing the report, it was also a process fraught with risk of avoidable calculation errors arising from such stressful conditions under which it was being done.
I did not want to work that way.
Luckily for me, my expatriate boss, being the Training Coordinator, had a vision to influence a change in the way formal management reporting was being done in the company, using his apps.
One day we got talking about how spreadsheet automation he did could save time, effort and minimize errors, and he looked at me say “You can change the way things are done using this method.”
THAT day my mind was made up. I became a new man, and began sitting with him to watch as he worked, whenever I had free time.
Less than a year later, I was solving spreadsheet automation problems in Guinness Benin Brewery Edo state, where I was assigned.
In the years that followed, up until I quit the company to develop custom spreadsheet software for a living (as I do today), I built a reputation across the company for building custom apps (without being asked) that eliminated paper based data recording, analysis and report generation.
Among other benefits, my apps boosted productivity and made the lives of co-workers better. All of that did not go unnoticed, as I was rewarded with great career advancement opportunities.
You can achieve even better results in your workplace than I did in mine, by developing and applying your spreadsheet automation skills to the benefit your employer and/or clients.
You can do so with my help.
In my time I had NO one to look up to within or outside the company for guidance. Indeed when I quit my job in December 2001, to develop custom spreadsheet software for a living, I found no one else doing it, and many who I thought would understand told me I could not succeed with this idea of earning a living doing Spreadsheet Programming.
But what I saw happening in the Excel-VB industry in places like USA, Singapore, Canada, UK and Australia, convinced me I just needed to identify the right target audience and market;
Today, I enjoy the benefit of having done that, as I continue to attract buyers and clients for my products and development services respectively.
My success despite years of harrowing adversity and rejection derives from having a SOUND foundation in my chosen vocation.
The truth is I LOVE working with numbers and data, to establish trends, and extract meaning/insights for decision making. But I LOVE, even more being able to accelerate that process using a reporting application like MS Excel, which comes with its own in-built dynamic calculation engine.
If you want to succeed in Excel-VB Solutions Development, you need to build a sound foundation of understanding like I do
Mine has enabled me rapidly build myself up to adopt and adapt wisdom from some of the world’s foremost Excel-VB developers to create a unique range of solutions for my target audience.
A good place to start is getting a firm understanding of how Excel creates and manages macros
I’ve shown you how to use the macro recorder to record tasks you carry out as you work.
But if you do not understand how Excel creates, and manages the macros, you may have difficulty finding them as you create more in a particular workbook.
Here are simple tips to guide you:
1. When you create a macro for the first time, MS Excel will create a new code module in the Visual Basic Editor (VBE) under the Object Explorer
2. Open a new, blank workbook and press Alt+F11, to access the VBE. You will see that the” Object Explorer has not folders in it, and only the default worksheet objects (sheet1 etc) are visible there.
3. Now, click the macro recorder button and type in a name for a macro, then go to the workbook interface and type in an entry into a cell.
4. Return to the VBE, and click the STOP button to end the recording. Look into the Object Explorer and you will see that a yellow folder named “Modules” has been created there. Double click on it and it will reveal a code module named “Module 1”
5. While that workbook remains open, every single time you record a new additional macro, MS Excel will append it to the bottom of that same module 1.
6. However when you SAVE, then close and reopen the workbook, and record another macro, the macro recorder will open a new module incrementing based on the number for the last module. So if the last was Module 1, the new one after the workbook is reopened will be Module 2.
7. It is in that new module that the recorder will write all the code sentences for your new macro.
8. Note that it is not possible for you to control where the macro recorder puts your new macro. Instead you simply need to understand how it decides where to put it, as explained above, so that you can quickly easily find your macros at any point in time.
9. Incidentally, regardless of how many modules get created, you should have no difficulty locating your macros in order to edit or run them. All you need to is to call up the Macro dialog box, select the name of your macro from the list it will present you, of ALL the macros in that workbook.
10. Next week, I will discuss this with a practical example. For now, I recommend you open the workbooks I’ve sent you before now to study them based on what I’ve explained here.
RELATED
Advertise Your Products and Services on Tayo Solagbade’s Buyers-Meet-Sellers Platform for Agro based businesses – and others!
I’m pleased to finally be able to announce that my buyers-meet-sellers platform is LIVE.
Right now, I’m using the contact details and information from businesses belonging to both groups, that I have so far obtained via the market surveys I’ve been doing on behalf of clients in Benin Republic and Nigeria.
The platform is still evolving, but already fully functional – and automated
See below, three 200 x 200 pixel size rotating image banners that I’ve created for 3 different real life clients (2 are farm businesses and one is a private university).
| [adrotate banner=”2″] | [adrotate banner=”3″] |
| [adrotate banner=”4″] |
The platform will be open for use by all my clients (in and out of Africa) as well as other businesses who indicate interest and meet the required terms of access.
This is because I intend to employ strict quality controls in running it to ensure integrity.
If you seek clients, buyers or distributors within our outside the African continent for any products, services or solutions you offer, get in touch with me using this form (click here) for details of how to get started.
DISCLAIMER
This is information passed to me by those who choose to advertise. Those who are my clients get FREE access to this platform.
However, you must take the due diligence action of checking and verifying whatever information you read in the ads or the linked pages I setup, especially if you choose to use it, or to make contact directly with the supplier. I do NOT play the role of a middle man.
How Studying a Great African Achiever is Leading Me to Self-Actualization
“Va vers les gens, vit avec eux. Apprend d’eux. Aime-les. Commence avec ce qu’ils connaissent. Planifie avec eux. Construit sur ce qu’ils ont. Enseigne en montrant. Apprend en pratiquant. Ne te conforme pas, mais transforme. Ne soulage pas mais libère. Et quand avec les meilleurs leaders, le travail est fait, la tâche accomplie, les gens diront nous l’avons fait nous-mêmes”. Lao Tsu, Fondateur de la philosophie Tao, 600 av J.C.
English Translation:
“Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say ‘We have done this ourselves.” – Lao Tzu, founder of the Tao philosophy, 600 B.C
I discovered the above wise quote through reading a publication by a great African man here in Benin Republic, whose works have inspired me since I read about an award he received way back in 1987.
That was during my first undergraduate year as a student of Agricultural Extension Services in Nigeria’s University Of Ibadan.
I was 17 years old at the time. In another 2 months from today I will clock 46.
How time has flown – almost 30 years have passed – yet this man has continued to be a leading light and inspiration to many across the world, for his works.
I constantly drew inspiration from following his progress, and often visualised myself doing something similar in my chosen area of interest.
Over the past 10 years I’ve taken concrete steps closer to achieving my dream. And I resolved that I would find a way to meet and thank him for doing what he’s been doing.
Relocating to Benin Republic in 2013 made the possibility of that happening just a matter of time.
And now it has…
About 2 weeks ago I met and spoke with him for the first time ever. The next day I ran into him again and we had a short exchange.
In between those 2 meetings I had a good opportunity to observe him from a distance as he moved around and interacted with the people. It was obvious, to me, that there was deliberate purpose in his actipns and utterances.
Later that day I got handed a document published by his organization in which I read the quote reproduced above, and had my inner eyes opened to the secret of his success.
Click here to read the page on his organisation’s website, where the quote is reproduced.
Click below to view a page with the english version of the quote, along with several other quotes by the same Chinese philosopher.
This man does not know it, but he’s been mentoring me remotely as I followed his progress, over the past 2 and a half decades.
As soon as I read this quote, I instantly knew it was what I needed to adopt to achieve the new plans I’ve been working on.
Before now, I periodically sensed a need to do what it advised but resisted the impulse each time mainly because I was not sure how to proceed.
Luckily for me, this great man chose not to be miserly in sharing the sources of his own inspiration. As a result, the rest of us benefit.
How I wish there was a way I could add value to him the way he has done to me and many thousand others who continue to benefit from the enduring solutions provided by his organisation.
For now, one way I know I can thank him is by succeeding in using this quote’s wisdom to implement my own evolving plans to start a centre that help others with solutions I offer.
PS: By the way, in case you’ve not discovered it yet, from clicking the above mentioned link to his website, this man that I have spoken so highly of in this article, is Father Godfrey Nzamujo – the Founder of the world renowned Songhai Integrated Farming centre, headquarted here in Benin Republic’s Porto Novo. He makes me proud to be African!
THE FARM CEO (Issue 45 – International Business Opportunity): Agro-processing Companies in Benin Republic Seek Buyers/Distributors in Nigeria and Other English/French Speaking Countries for their Organic Health Boosting Agro-based Food/Drink Products
This week just ended, I met the marketing representatives team leader for a company here that produces nicely made and packaged Pineapple juice.
When I told him how I get buyers without going out or paying for advertisement, he invited me to meet the Head of Marketing – a lady.
By the end of that meeting she told to prepare a presentation she could present to MD. I’ve been working on that, but writing acceptable French is not as easy as speaking it.
So we contacted a translator who asked for FCFA 25k (divide by 2 to get Naira equivalent), and said he could only work over the weekend. I agreed tentatively.
We then went on attended day 3 of a trade fair today and I met for the first time some very entrepreneurial Beninese citizens who produce natural health boosting products from various agricultural raw materials, in attractive packaging.
But they just don’t know how to find buyers.
By the time I spoke with some about how I cut the time, effort and money I expend to sell my custom apps and books, which are mostly digital, for up to N80k, they were asking me what they had to do to get my web marketing support service.
I’ve told them my fee is FCFA 500.000.0 – including training of their staff.
But I added that I currently would prefer part payment in form of a bedroom apartment I can live in with my family for 1 year or more at no expense to me. (This is designed to appeal to companies that have accommodation facilities they pay little or nothig to use).
If they give me that, I will cut off FCFA 300,000.0 so they only pay me FCFA 200k. And if they pay for my monthly Blackberry subscription here, (which is FCFA 10k per month) for 1 year, I will cut off the FCFA 120k and take the rest FCFA 80k in cash.
The idea is to eliminate those 2 cash flow expenses from my budget, by getting a client to pay for them. Since I will get other clients I will not feel it and I will have peace of mind!
Entry into Nigerian market: They want distributors and consumers.
Some of these companies have health boosting agro-based products I believe will really do well in Nigeria. Not surprisingly, they are keen to connect with buyers/distributors in Nigeria.
Upon discovering that I can communicate proficiently in French, and that I also offer Web Marketing, combined with my knowledge of Nigeria and how to sell in it, they’ve shown serious interest in paying for my service.
We’re looking at a form of partnership.
It occurred to me that you, as members of my club, or persons you know, may be interested in their products.
The above described development made decide that it’s better to do a group event so I can win miultiple clients from among them.
I plan to organize a FREE web marketing talk for sales and marketing personnel of the companies.
That way I’ll just explain with my mind map to many potential clients at once.
For the first time since coming to this country I’ve identified and connected with people truly hungry for a solution I offer like Web Marketing.
The icing on the cake is that have good quality health boosting organic products that vcome well packaged, which they are eager to introduce to the Nigerian market.
My unique combination of skills, and knowledge equips me to help them achieve their goals in a cost-effective mannet.
If you’re interested in receiving photos of some of their products along with contact details etc, let me know.
How the Excel-VB Driven Poultry Farm Manager is Used (True Stories)
In this article, I share some examples of how my Farm CEO clients use my increasingly popular <a href=”http://tinyurl.com/15pfmVideos” target=”blank”> Excel-VB driven Poultry Farm Manager software</a> I sold them, with my guidance. I do this here to provide potentially useful insights for prospective buyers who may be concerned about how well it meets their unique needs.
In a separate post to follow this one, I will feature excerpts from an email conversation I had with a Farm CEO who is now a client, several hours before he purchased this same app from me.
He’d written in to ask 2 questions about data integrity protection which I replied required extending the app for a standard development fee. He’s since bought the app on the understanding that he’ll order for the extension when he’s ready via an arrangement in which I hope to get other Farm CEO users to share the fee payment, at a pocket friendly rate.
Having said the above, it so happens that there are ways in which the app is already being used by existing clients to get around some of its seeming limitations – which I’ll be telling him about.
You see, I did not build this app for use in the manner being requested by some clients (e.g across an intranet), because I felt most of those who would need it would want use it alone, or with a few trusted persons they shared a PC with.
<H3>As a result, here’s what my clients do, based on my thinking in developing the app:</H3>
1. The Farm CEO/owner or someone s/he trusts to use it right gets assigned the username and password to exclusively post data into it.
2. S/he is advised to use the app on a computer preferably not shared with 3rd parties.
3. Typically s/he prints and makes photocopies of the daily record form (that comes with the app) weekly, for issue to the supervisor or manager, who shares them out to farm operatives.
4. I recommend that the client try to post entries daily using data hand filled into the paper record forms. However, the logistics of getting the filled paper forms back from the farm can sometimes make it hard to do. So that makes them post what may be several days backlog or at weekends – which is still okay.
5. The various Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) auto-computed by the app and presented in dynamic report summary tables and trending charts, are meant primarily for exclusive use of the business owner/decision maker.
Once s/he completes posting of the data, s/he then sits back and carefully reviews the autogenerated reports, to establish/follow trends, with a view to identifying areas that need intervention – or opportunties to replicate pockets of success etc.
<H3>By way of interest, I always recommend that the CEOs get their manager/supervisor to snap clear photos of (or scan) the filled and signed Daily Records Form, and send (e.g via email or Whatsapp) to the CEO at the end of each day, making it unnecessary for him/her to come down daily, or to wait till weekend to pick them up in bulk.</H3>
I do not know if any do this, but they tell me interesting stories about how they use the app to identify areas not doing well and then use that to challenge and guide the farm manager/supervisor to establish the root cause and take corrective action.
<b>A few days ago, one CEO told me how his Farm Manager later asked him how he (the CEO) had been able to discover a cage line of birds were getting higher than the farm’s average feeding rate, but returning the lowest Hen Day Percentage in the flock!</b>
He said he replied by making a rhetorical statement saying “What do you think I’ve been doing with the software I post data and records I get from you!
The above scenario provides an example that justifies the thinking I adopted in building this app.
Simply put, it was built for use by a decision maker or owner with the motivation to use it with integrity.
It so happens that the Web Marketing System I use to attract clients or buyers is designed to repel most people lacking the above qualities. As a result I continue to have a growing number of serious minded and results focused Farm CEO purchasing this app and making diligent use of it.
You can join them today, and become a member of my Cost-Saving Farm Business Ideas Club, which earns you access to a lifetime 40% discount on all other products and services I offer (terms apply).
<a href=”http://tayosolagbade.com/pfmgr.html” target=”blank”> Click here to send me a message</a>