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NB: This newsletter is published every Monday. Point your browser to www.tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets to read at least ONE new post added to my SD Nuggets blog on a different category from Tuesday till Saturday (sometimes even Sundays) in line with this publishing schedule 
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IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS newsletter is published online on the “reincarnated” version of my Self-Development (SD) Nuggets blog. I continue to put finishing touches to the content. If you encounter ANY bad/dead links, and you can spare the time, email them to me via tayo at tksola dot com. Thanks in advance
No. 169: Achieve Superior Success by Acting Locally While Thinking International
“Have noble intentions. A grand plan. A mission. An objective that makes a difference. A major difference. Something transcendent everyone you know assures you cannot be done, at least not by you. Many people who know you and love you do not believe you have what it takes to reveal the greatness they do not see through the prism of their misperceptions about you.” – Burt Dubin, renowned mentor of some of the world’s highest paid experts-who-speak, and Creator of the Speaking Success System™
I first came across the above quote way back in 2001 – my last year in Guinness Nigeria.
Burt Dubin, by writing the above words, in one his many articles that I’ve read, touched and inspired me to get where I am today. Every time I felt I could no longer go on, quotes like the above, by him, and others, are what I reread to keep myself going.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll understand what I mean. If you’re aspiring, you’re bound to understand sooner or later, if you diligently apply yourself to the pursuit of authentic success.
Aiming for an international standard of achievement, will automatically boost your local success
It’s simple common sense. What I propose here will equip you to make the products/services you offer – and the way you package and promote them – much more compelling than if you did NOT deliberately cater for an international audience in putting them together.
I’ll give an example, based on what I’ve done over the past 12 years:
My noble intentions include…
a. Building low cost customizable Excel-VB apps for sale to individuals and businesses to help them do what they do better.
b. Training creative MS Excel-VB solutions developers, who will help those who need it to improve their personal and business performance, like I did while in Guinness for 7 years, and like I have been doing for clients within/outside Africa, over the past decade.
c. Using public speaking to inform and educate my target audience about how to do what I do, and also to help interested others learn to make money doing it like I do.
In several past articles, I’ve shared stories about how many laughed at me over the years, whenever I told them about my above mentioned plans…
When I began, I struggled to find clients to pay me to develop apps, or to provide training or give talks on Excel-VB solutions development. Soon, I found myself coming under criticism. Close relatives asked me to consider doing something else.
Not surprisingly, what they proposed most times was what they saw others doing. They wanted me to aim for something they considered more believable and that was familiar.
A close family friend who owned a business asked me “Who’s going to pay you to do that with MS Excel?”
I recall telling him what I’d done in Guinness and how it had earned me wide recognition and career advancement opportuntie4s. He replied that I would not find such interest in the Nigerian market.
I thanked him, but refused to accept what he said. Instead, I went back and did more deep thinking and decided to begin putting my stuff on the web. I knew Excel-VB solutions development was big business in many developed markets.
My experiences with Guinness also convinced me I only needed to SHOW proof of how Excel-VB solutions I offered could help businesses in Nigeria/Africa, to win paying clients.
It would not be easy, I knew, but I was sure it would be worthwhile in the end.
As I continued trying out all sorts of ideas, I became increasingly convinced that the best way to win high profile paying clients would be to use the web to attract their attention to me. I began reading up on how to promote my offers online – and I discovered article marketing.
Since I had lots of experiences from my time in Guinness to tap from, I began writing articles that narrated true stories about how I used Excel-VB to solve real life problems in the manufacturing workplace.
Later on, I began adding short tutorials/case studies supported with video demonstrations.
All the time I did these, I kept studying how internationally recognized experts whose work I admired, were doing their own self-promotion.
Then I adapted the ideas I got from studying them, in a way that I felt would appeal to my target market.
It did not happen overnight, but eventually, the enquiries began to come – from local as well as international visitors. Some were small business owners, others were independent consultants, and a few were decision makers in companies – even multinational manufacturers and oil service companies.
For instance, in 2009, I got a phone call from a Dutch expatriate working as a senior manager heading a department in an international oil service firm.
He asked to meet with me at Eleganza’s premises in the 7-Up area of Ikeja, Lagos-Nigeria.
There he told me how they’d been searching for the right MS Excel expert to help them with an in-house problem without success. They’d had many people come in, but after meeting with them found they lacked the needed depth of expertise to solve the problem they had.
One day he decided to do a Google search and my MS Excel Heaven website came up.
The fact that the search engine result indicated I was based in Nigeria caught his attention. When he spoke with me later he noted that the videos and demo apps on my website convinced him I was likely to be able to help them. [NB: I’ve am currently building a new version of that website, to suit the content repurposing I’m doing since replacing spontaneoudevelopment.com with tayosolagbade.com].
After our meeting, he arranged for me to visit the finance department for a meeting with the department’s head and an assistant on Lagos Island.
There was a large and important MS Excel workbook built for heavy tax computation data handling and report generation. The author had suddenly left the company, and no one else knew how to use the workbook.
They wanted me to help re-build the workbook to make it more user-friendly. I spent about 1 hour with the gentleman. By the time I left, we were discussing my fees, when I would start, how long it would take me to finish etc.
The next morning, I got a call from the PA to the Dutch expatriate saying the finance department had found my conversation with them quite useful and that they’d said they wanted me to start. I however eventually ended up not doing that job, because we were unable to agree on certain aspects regarding my payment.
Having said that, the point remains that I got found and contacted – at zero cost to me – by a top decision maker in a local office of a large, and well known international oil Service Company!
And that happened because of the approach I adopted in promoting my services and products – I chose to make myself LOOK bigger than I was, and to appeal to a global audience.
The oil service company that contacted me was one that MANY local experts I’d met had tried countless times to gain access to, without success. Those who learnt I got invited by them asked me what connections I’d used. I told them all I did was use my web marketing system to intelligently achieve what Michel Fortin calls Power Positioning™.
Doing so using my website, made me stand out from other providers in my local market – most of who ONLY had brochure websites, stating what they did and little else.
Many Experts Lack the Insights to Achieve Outcomes Like the Above…
They feel adopting “foreign” techniques and strategies like those I describe here would be over kill.
Maybe when not properly adapted to suit local situations that would be the case.
Otherwise, creative adaptation of “foreign” ideas can help you achieve superior marketing results locally. The results I get confirm this is so.
And here’s the best part: In the long run, this strategy is can actually reward you with patronage from international buyers, if you do it right. I am proof that this happens, because, when I started doing it, I initially got responses ONLY from Nigerians. But over the years, I have not only been getting enquiries from various countries/continents (including Australia), but I have won buyers from within/outside Africa.
In several cases, international enquirers (from North America/Asia especially) who contacted me expressed surprise on learning that I was African and based in Africa.
My phone conversation with a US based farm CEO enquirer just 2 days ago is a good example.
I should however add that in some cases, announcing to them that I’m a Nigerian, SCARES them off (I’m sure you know why)!
Now, if my offers can be so compelling that international prospects reach out to me, often thinking I’m based in THEIR part of the world, local ones are likely to be even more impressed.
Not surprisingly, over 80% of my buyers are Nigerians, who have NEVER met me in the flesh – and who send payment even after learning, from me, that I am based in Cotonou…outside Nigeria!
Final Words: Set Yourself Apart from the Crowd by Acting Locally, While Thinking International!
If you want to set yourself apart from your rivals or competitors, in a way that makes potential buyers choose you over them, I recommend you adopt a similar strategy of “Acting Locally While Thinking International”.
And if, while you’re at it, doubts creep into your mind, remember the quote below:
“I have never started a company that, at some point, didn’t cause me to have doubts. This must be a stupid idea because no one else is doing it. Why don’t people get it? Maybe there is nothing there” We all have self doubts, but as entrepreneurs we don’t let these thoughts stop us. It is only a sanity check and is a normal thing.” – Fran Tarkenton (Former American Football Star/Millionaire Entrepreneur)
Learn about Burt Dubin’s speaker mentoring products (books, audios etc) below…
If you need help purchasing ANY of Burt’s products (like “Presentation Magic”), call me on +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic, my base) or +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or email tayo@tksola.com
Have a great week :-))
Tayo K. Solagbade*
Self-Development/Performance Improvement Specialist
*Sole Agent For Burt Dubin’s Speaker Mentoring Service In Africa
Mobile: +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic)
http://www.tayosolagbade.com
Tayo K. Solagbade is a Location Independent Performance Improvement Specialist and Multipreneur (i.e. a highly versatile/multi-skilled entrepreneur), with a bias for delivering Best Practice solutions to
Farm Businesses and others.
Since 2002, he has earned multiple streams of income providing individuals and organisations with personal development training and coaching, custom MS Excel-VB solutions, web marketing systems/web hosting,
freelance writing services, and best practice extension support services (for farm business owners).
Tayo is the author of the Self-Development (SD) Bible™ and the popular Livestock Feed Formulation Handbook. He is also the developer of its accompanying Excel-VB driven Ration Formulator™ and the Poultry Farm Manager™ software.
He has delivered talks/papers to audiences in various groups and organisations, including the Centre for Management Development, University of Lagos, Christ Baptist Church, Volunteer Corps, Tantalisers Fast Foods
and others.
In May 2012 he was the Guest Speaker at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development’s Annual Semester Entrepreneurial Lecture at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.
On 1st April 2013, Tayo (who reads, write and speaks the French language) relocated to Cotonou, Benin Republic to begin slowly traveling across the West African region.
His key purpose is to deliver talks, seminars
and workshops on his key areas of focus and interest to interested audiences (Email tayo at tksola dot com for details).
In a previous life, before leaving to become self-employed, Tayo served for seven years as a high performing manager in Guinness Nigeria. He rose from Shift Brewer, to Training & Technical Development Manager, and then later acted in senior management roles as Production Manager and Technical Manager.
He is an Associate Member of the UK Institute & Guild of Brewing, a 1997 National Finalist of the Nigerian Institute of Management’s(NIM) Young Managers’ competition, a Certified Psychometric Test Administrator for Psytech UK, innovator of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development™ (SCfS-D™), and Founder of the Self-Development Academy Limited.
When he’s not amazing clients with his superhuman skills (wink), Tayo works as the creative force behind his Daily Self-Development Nuggets blog – on which he also publishes his Weekly Public Speaking IDEAS
newsletter(which he uses to promote Burt Dubin’s Public Speaking Mentoring service to experts working across the African continent).
You can connect with him on Twitter @tksola.com and Facebook.
Visit Tayo Solagbade Dot Com, to download over over 10 performance improvement resources to boost your personal and work related productivity.
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[IMPORTANT NOTE:====
On 4th May 2014, Tayo’s 9 year old domain (Spontaneousdevelopment dot com), which hosted his website, was taken over by Aplus.net.
Within a few days however, Tayo used his advanced self-taught web development skills to build a SUPERIOR “reincarnation” of it the website http://www.tayosolagbade.com.
But updates are still ongoing to URLs bearing the old domain name in most of the over 1,000 web pages, and blog posts
he’s published.
If you experience any difficulties finding a page or document, email Tayo at tksola dot com.
Click “Tayo, What Happened to SpontaneousDevelopmentDotCom ?” to read a detailed narrative about how the above event occurred :-))
Here’s an article Tayo wrote, to inspire others to defy adversity, and bounce back to even greater reckoning at what they do EVERY time:
And he wrote the one below, to explain why losing a domain name, no matter how old NO LONGER determines your online success or otherwise:
A Proven Strategy to Find Profitable Buyers Regardless of Your Domain Name
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“(Tayo Solagbade) is amazing and I think he is going to produce some impressive results online…” – click here to read full comment by Patrick Meninga (US based 6 figure income blogger who gained fame for building a $2,000 per month adsense website and selling it for $200,000).
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“Tayo, I honestly believe you are one of those who will succeed at anything he does. Your commitment and effort has been outstanding….Thanks for all your hard work since I’ve been here – you will be sorely missed. I don’t need to wish you good luck, you have the ability to make your own luck. – Andy”(R. Jones)*
*Operations Manager, Guinness Nigeria Plc Benin Brewery, December 2001 (Handwritten comments in farewell/xmas cards sent to Tayo Solagbade following his resignation to start his own business).
