Outlier Venture lab is a climate & energy focused venture building platform started by  in 2018. The program aims to nurture and empower startups that address pressing environmental challenges. We have hosted companies working on innovative solutions such as plastic recycling, paper recycling for roofing materials, solar cook stoves, solar lamps, and plastic recycling for manufacturing floor tiles, among others.

At Outlier Venture Lab, we believe in the power of collaboration and support. That’s why we have partnered and received support  from esteemed organisations and individuals who share our vision. We are grateful for the support of GTbank, Basheer Tosin Ashafa (BAT), Fastizers Confectionery Limited, and many others who have played a significant role in driving the success of our program.

To ensure our entrepreneurs receive the best-in-class support, we have assembled a team of dedicated mentors, coaches, speakers and advisors. These industry experts bring their wealth of knowledge and experience to guide and uplift our entrepreneurs as they navigate the challenges of building their startups. Some of our esteemed mentors include Sam Rosenfeld, Chairman at Verdigris Holdings USA; Nelson Amoo, CEO at Inno Hub Ghana; Victor Amusa, Founder of Vicfold Recyclers Nigeria; Adan Mohammed, Co-founder of Ecodudu Kenya; Olumide Lawson, Director at Sahel Capital; and NSE Olugbenga, General Manager at Women Banking NG.

In 2021, the Initiative got a renewed focus under Brockville Investments Limited, to drive positive change. With a strong commitment to addressing pressing environmental challenges, our aim is to create a sustainable and resilient future.

Under the new administration, we continues to run the Outlier Venture Lab program, empowering climate-focused startups and providing them with the necessary resources and support to thrive. Our mission is to foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and impactful solutions that tackle climate change and promote sustainability.

As part of our efforts, we have developed an industry-focused approach with distinct tracks tailored to partner with companies in specific sectors. These tracks include Outlier Build (construction), Outlier Energize (power), Outlier Make (manufacturing), Outlier Grow (agriculture), Outlier Move (clean transport), and Outlier earth (extractive industries). Through these partnerships, we aim to create valuable solutions and add value to our partner companies.

Through strategic partnerships, mentorship, and access to a network of industry experts, we strive to create an ecosystem that nurtures and accelerates the growth of startups working on innovative solutions. By supporting these entrepreneurs, we aim to drive technological advancements, create jobs, and contribute to the overall well-being of communities.

 

 

 

 

What if we told you that a clear and well-defined sales strategy is the key to achieving sustainable growth in terms of your business revenue? What if we told you that developing an effective sales strategy is a very important aspect of running a successful business? Truth is, a company can have a sales team or marketing department without a structured sales approach. Successful companies have both, and that is why they keep generating more sales and revenue.

When you make a good product or service, the best way to measure how well it did is to see how many people bought it. Many business owners spend a lot of time working on their products and marketing plans, but they don’t have time to work on a strategy for selling.

A winning sales strategy can help you achieve the following;

• Understand what makes you stand out from the competition.
• Decide who you want to reach with your product or service.
• Plan out your elevator pitch.
• Determine the most effective means of generating revenue.
• Use a tried-and-true approach when approaching prospects.

 

Before we delve into how to develop a successful sales strategy, it makes sense to first of all talk about a sales plan which is like a road map that lays out the sales goals, strategies, and implementation and control measures needed to reach them. A sales strategy is what you need to do to reach a sales goal, so it’s part of a sales plan.

Keys to developing a sales plan

Your company has an identity, and so should your strategy be unique. You must develop a sales plan that is consistent with the identity and business model of your company. To do this, you will need to factor in these key components;

• Your company’s vision. Your strategy must match the overall vision.
• A written amount you want to generate in sales, monthly, quarterly or annually. Does this help with achieving the company’s vision?
• An ideal profile of your customer. With this, your sales team can easily and quickly qualify prospects.
• A good value proposition. Customers need to know how your product or service meets their needs, what it does for them, and how it differs from the competition in order to buy from you.
• You need to set aside a specific amount of money and invest in your salespeople. They are going to need some form of training as well as tools and software to be able to sell more and faster.

Designing a strategy to increase sales

1). Get to know your target market and customer profile

To increase sales, what you want to do is to find out what’s working and do more. Therefore audit your existing customers to truly find out who they are. As a business owner, this is crucial since there is frequently a disconnect between your targeted consumers and your real customers. In a real sense, you’re marketing to the first group, whereas the second group are those who will really buy your goods or services from you.

Get to know your genuine customers and develop a customer profile that matches their identity. An effective way is to craft a compelling story that describes the person and lifestyle of this ideal customer.

The following is a story that describe the ideal customer for a laundry business;

Melvin is a 33-year old accountant who works in XYZ Bank. He rarely has time to do chores, not to talk about laundry. On Saturdays, he’s either in training or attending to his side business. Melvin’s home is always filled with unclean clothes and bedsheets as he needs to attend to his major priorities. He is, therefore, more than willing to take his clothes to a good laundry store so he can have them cleaned and ready for use.

To generate continuous sales, create a persona of actual buyers. Demographics such as 30-50 years old, business owner, retail industry, etc. can be boring. Whereas a customer profile that tells a story is something your sales team can relate to.

2). Identify the risks and opportunities

This is good for new entrants or businesses who are new to a certain industry. Identifying risks and opportunities means to perform a SWOT analysis of the market and industry to know where you stand in the competition. It assesses your company’s present state and identifies your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

3). Create a sales process model

A sales process is a set of predefined sequence of steps that must be followed in order to convert a potential lead into a customer. It comprises every phase of a potential customer’s sales journey, from the initial contact to the closing of the transaction. Every business that sells a product or service can gain from a clear understanding of their sales process (which, of course, is different from the sales strategy).

Suppose you don’t have a sales process in place? Your marketing efforts will go to waste since the team has no clearly defined roadmap to follow. When you have a sales process in place, you can keep tabs on how well your team is doing at each stage of the sales process and provide them feedback to help them get better. Your sales force may, for example, excel at giving pitches but struggle with resolving objections. It’s now possible for you to provide them with training so that they can better deal with objections.

4). Choose the right people to handle sales

In order to increase sales, you must hire individuals that fit in with your staff and the company’s culture as a whole. The process of hiring a top-notch salesperson can seem like a complex one. And so you want to write down the qualities you want in a good salesperson and use it when you interview people for the job.

It is important that you teach your “A-team” how to speak with prospects on the phone, deal with objections, and negotiate. Apart from skills, you should also make sure that they have the resources they require to close deals.

5). Take action

As things begin to fall into place, create a workflow that breaks down all of the activities involved in getting you closer to your goals. Assign the tasks to team members who have the necessary qualifications and expertise. Plan the completion of these tasks according to the schedule you have created. Ensure that your timeframe is in alignment with your revenue objectives.

Conclusion

Your best bet for long-term success is a clearly defined sales strategy. Take care of this one detail and monitor the upward and rightward movement of your company’s growth curve. If you don’t have one, your business could go out of business.

How To Retain Your Top Sales Talents

Are you looking for the best way to bring in high performing sales persons into your organisation? When you finally hire these “fresh and most innovative” talents, how can you, as a business owner, do your due diligence to make sure that they remain loyal to your business? That’s what you will take away at the end of this article.

First of all, let’s understand who these “fresh and most innovative” talents are. When you know who they are, and what they want “out of life” and in their career, you know how they think and what you can do to keep them.
Who are these Top Sales Talents (T.S.T)?
1. They are competent people. They are able to perform well under pressure because of their industry-related competence and flexibility.
2. They are innovative and open to challenges. They are good problem solvers who collaborate effectively with others.
3. They are highly-motivated and self-driven. They are aware of the influence a person’s mindset has on their surroundings. As a result, they don’t whine when they’re given a difficult assignment. Instead, they keep their spirits up and focus on what needs to be done to overcome a problem.
4. They believe in the company’s mission. They are goal-oriented. They begin each day by reviewing their personal and professional goals, then tailoring their actions accordingly. When they have to make a decision about sales or work, they think about whether their choice will help them reach their goals.
5. Their desire is to have work-life balance. In order to maintain routines and achieve long-term results, top sales talents understand how important it is to maintain a healthy work-life balance and to set aside time for personal well-being.
Tips for Managing Top Sales Talents
Having understood who top sales talents are, to keep them you need to learn how to manage them better. The following are seven strategies you can apply as a business owners;

1). First and foremost, emphasise the need of being flexible rather than being micromanaged.
Good sales employees are more likely to perform well if they are driven by a need for control over their job. Make sure you’re receptive to learning from top sales performers who find more efficient and creative ways to get things done.

2). Provide regular feedbacks but ensure they’re constructive
High-performing employees are known to seek ways of improvement, and so regular and constructive feedback is necessary. How? By having regular meetings with them. This can be once per week or twice every month. Go over the work, give comments, and talk about the long-term objectives. In this case, consistency is more important than how often you meet.

3). Assist them in achieving their goals.
Get to know your sales team better by spending time with them. Learn about the challenges they face and the resources they require so you may help them succeed.

4). Inform them of the ways in which they can contribute and benefit.
Involving your high-performing sales talents in unique projects can help them stay highly motivated. Ensure they know what new skill they will acquire by carrying out those activities.

5). Create possibilities for personal and professional development.
In many cases, top sales people quit because they do not feel they are progressing in the organisation. Therefore, make it easier for them to choose a career path in your organisation that aligns with your metrics and HR policy. For example, provide them access to online courses, networking events, or the chance to connect with top-performing sales teams in other companies. It is easy to retain them once they know you’re a part of their success.

6). Acknowledge and reward them for their efforts.
Assign high-priority tasks to your best sales talents. Show your appreciation for their efforts by praising and rewarding them for their accomplishments.

Final Thoughts
Be careful when dealing with your top sales talents. Never ever limit their potential. Always take them seriously and ensure they are not overworked. Make sure you pay attention when your best employees make suggestions about how your company could be better. This will help you keep the employees who are most excited about working for your company.

Do you want to lead your team to achieve sales targets? Enroll your team members for our next sales training program at Outlier Sales Academy’s

Sales are the heart of every business. Without sales, there are no customers, no revenue, no profit, no business.
For you want to thrive beyond launch the initial growth stages there needs to be a sales mentality in every of your employee. It starts with the security man or whoever answers your phone to those who engage with customers and the employees who execute the work
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You and your team must view satisfying customer needs, wants, and desires as a time-phased interaction, or else all you will have would be transactions that are short-lived.
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On April 7th Abayomi Ogunro will join our team to discuss how to close the sales performance gap.
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We would touch on setting the appropriate sales strategy and measuring what your sales team is doing to meet the goals set in your sales strategy
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Today, competition is more intense than it used to be. It’s all too
easy for your company to be endangered if you don’t differentiate yourself from the competition and don’t have the most efficient methods of selling.

And just like the title of this article, you will learn the exact same strategies that the highest performing businesses use to generate massive sales and grow their income. There is a clearly defined process to selling, and that’s what you’ll take away at the end of this article.

Prospecting or Getting New Leads
Prospecting the potential client is the first step in the sales process. But before you start marketing you; ve got to know who the exact buyer will be. In essence, you’re not just thinking of the best strategies to use in getting prospects to sign up but also understanding the buyer’s journey.

You must always identify with the challenges they face along with that journey, and whatever roadblocks are preventing them from achieving their desired results, which gap your products or services tend to close.
So you re looking at the lead generation process with both eyes - one on your marketing arsenal and the other on the buyer, from the moment he or she is aware of your product to the point of deciding to make that purchase.
So you want to make sure you study the market carefully to understand the three stages every buyer passes through, before saying yes or no, and adding paint a picture (of these) in your content marketing, ad, sales call, or face-to-face conversation.

Dissect (or break down) your prospects into groups
Who are these prospects? Have you met them? Do they all have the same
willingness or readiness to buy?
A very good product that distinguishes several buyers at different levels is
₦1,000 Naira phone recharge card. Some mobile phone users will buy normally because they need to recharge their mobile lines. For others, they are only interested when they need to subscribe to data. As there are different reasons why people will buy a particular product or pay for a specific service, so your prospect(s) qualify based on their; needs, interests, budget (money), or decisions.
Therefore, in assessing a potential prospect, ask questions in these four areas;
I) Needs: How strong are their needs?
II). Timing: How urgent are the needs? Are they desperate enough to solve
these needs? How desperate?
III). Budget: Can they pay for the product or service? Do they have the
finances to buy?
IV). Decision-making process: Do they have the power to make the decision
or must they talk to someone before making the purchase?

Sell by adding value
In the first two stages, you’re thinking and planning how to prospect with the
potential client. The next three stages are when you execute.
By adding value, you want the potential client to taste the icing before the actual cake. For example, if you’re trying to sell software, you can add value by doing the following;
● guiding them through the operation of your software.
● doing a demo presentation at their office.
● train them on a particular area of the software.
By doing this you’re adding value in advance to selling the actual product or
service.
Close the deal
A Harvard Business report suggests three common barriers Sales reps face to
closing any sale.
1. Talks that drag on for months, even years, with no end in sight.
2. An unwillingness by one party or both to make their best offer.
3. Tough competition that makes your counterpart reluctant to close with you.
And so, in getting the buyer to your side of the negotiation table, there are some techniques you need to practice.
● Learn about the potential client before engaging them.
● Listen more than you speak.
● Enter into the negotiation with a price you are confident about.
● Use the time to your advantage.
● Avoid being emotional during negotiation.
Close more sales
Most sales professionals go to sleep after closing the deal, not understanding
the need to get referrals and repeat business. That’s why this step is the most
important.
Sales don’t stop after you closed the client. As a sales rep, you don’t close in after you meet your target or sold to a high-paying client.
Therefore, to close more sales, you need to have a customer referral program.
The goal of a referral program is to bring in new customers. You can do this by
asking customers to think of people who might benefit from your product or
service then recommending them. Sales reps or teammates can then keep in touch with these leads because not only are they a good fit for your business, but they also know something about your product or service. Because they’ve been referred by someone they know,
they have a source that can vouch for your company’s honesty and customer
service.

Do you want to lead your team to achieve sales targets? Enroll your team members for our next sales training program at Outlier Sales Academy’s

CONTACT US VIA +234 817 971 4138 OR EMAIL sales@thebusinessoutliers.com

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Teaching children and teenagers about money could help them establish an active sense of good financial habits for the future. Letting your children develop good financial habits, helps them face and be ready for the financial affairs of the future and to know the role and advantages of budgeting, savings and investment.
Given how essential financial capabilities are to navigating life, it’s alarming that the school system doesn’t teach children about money.
As a parent, you should teach your child important financial skills.
Beth Kobliner says children as young as three years old can grasp financial concepts like saving and spending. And a report by researchers at the University of Cambridge commissioned by the United Kingdom’s Money Advice Service revealed that kids’ money habits are formed by age 7.
“The sooner parents start taking advantage of everyday teachable money moments (for example, give a six-year-old $2 and let her choose which fruit to buy), the better off our kids will be. Parents are the number one influence on their children’s financial behaviors, so it’s up to us to raise a generation of mindful consumers, investors, savers, and givers,” she says.

Budgeting
Budgeting means creating a plan to spend money. The spending plan is called a budget. Creating this spending plan allows you to ascertain beforehand whether you will have enough money to do the things you need to do or would like to do (to settle bills, or buy some things). Budgeting simply means balancing your expenses with your income.

Savings
Savings means money you set aside for future use rather than spending immediately. Along with the benefits of saving up for future use , delaying an impulse purchase also helps you decide whether it is something you really need, or something you will regret shortly after buying.

Investment
Investment is the act of putting out money in order to gain a profit. Investments are things we put our money to help it grow.

How to teach your child Saving, budgeting and Investment
Create three jars for your child – each labeled “Saving,” “Spending” and “Sharing” respectively. Every time your child receives money, whether for doing chores or from a birthday or as a gift, tell the child to divide the money equally among the jars. Have him or her use the spending jar for small purchases, like candy or something inexpensive that she wants. Money in the sharing jar can go to someone your child knows who needs it or be used to donate to a friend’s cause. The saving jar should be for more expensive items and for a long period of time.

Give your child some money, like N2000, in a supermarket and have her make choices about what cereal to buy, within the specifications of what you need, to give them the exposure to making choices with money.

Have your child set a longer-term goal for something costlier than the toys she may have been saving for. “Those sorts of exchanges, called opportunity costs — what are the things you have to forgo to save money — is a very important thing to talk about. These days, children are reluctant about saving because they want to buy stuff, but thinking of what long-term goals are and what they’re having to give up shows that it’s a good decision,” says Kobliner. For example, she says, if your child has a habit of buying a snack after school every day, she may decide she’d rather put that money toward an iPod.