Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter

Monday 8th August 2016

NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.

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PII 026: You Can be Competent Yet Lack Confidence!

To boost your chances of making sales, you need to have sales conversations as often as possible. And that requires creating systems to generate a regular stream of sales leads/prospects.

I learnt that truth the hard way, and today, I apply that learning with diligence. My ability to succeed in making sales in spite of adversity is proof of this. I continue to have sales conversations with CEOs belonging to my different target audiences – on and off the web.

However, like I’ve repeatedly noted in my writing, I continue to reap more profitable benefits for my efforts, from those who come to me through my Web Marketing System.

For instance, last Thursday, I took a call from the CEO of a Feed Lot business based in Uganda, who was interested in purchasing my Excel-VB Ration Formulator app. Some days earlier, a Graphics Designer based in Ghana had called about my Excel-VB Invoice Generator.

Compared to the phone conversations I’ve had during the same period, with prospect via offline channels, I continue to see proof, that more profitable results are achievable when you make potential buyers discover and come to you, rather that you discovering and going to them.

This trend has remained regardless of the geographical location of the potential buyer who connects with me – be it within or outside Africa.

However. it is my considered opinion, that there is ONE key reason I sell so well to TOTAL STRANGERS, and it provides a foundation on which all the other factors influence the results I get.

That reason is captured in one WORD: CONFIDENCE.

By that I refer to the confidence I EXUDE or DISPLAY in every way and manner I communicate what I say I know, or can do.

It also has to do with how I communicate in response to those who choose to reach out to me AFTER encountering my marketing messages via various platforms e.g. website, blog, Email newsletter, Facebook business page, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube etc.

NB: I HAVE HAD potential buyers reach out directly to me with sales inquiries via virtually all of those media I just listed. Over 60% of them went on to buy from me. And like I noted above, I believe it was the confidence with which I handled myself that ultimately moved them to take action to buy.

Speaking, writing, and acting with confidence DID NOT however come naturally to me.

I had to learn it.

You can be competent and still lack confidence. Many people live THAT reality.

In my case, shyness was more my disposition – and INTROVERT was a word that most who knew me when I was much younger would have readily associated with me. Even when I was in paid employment, I started out that way. I was brilliant on the job, but generally a bit of a loner outside the workplace.

When there was work to be done, a little seen side of me came to the fore, mainly because my drive to NOT fail forced me to overcome the reservations I had about being in the spotlight.

So I tended to thrive in such circumstances. Over time, repeated exposure to high-pressure workplace performance situations helped me overcome my shyness and I became adept at handling myself interpersonally.

That improved social competence would prove invaluable to me when I became an entrepreneur, and began marketing my services as a self-taught provider of Custom Automated MS Excel-VB driven Software Development and Learning Solutions.

Each time I encountered rejection, my self-confident core provided the needed cushion to NOT take it personally, and to apply the wisdom I’d picked up from reading books like “Think and Grow Rich” about PERSISTING in the face of adversity, until I got a breakthrough.

It goes without saying that I had to unlearn many things I knew from school and my time in paid employment, in order to make smart progress as an entrepreneur in the real world of my society in Nigeria.

There are so many unexpected “annoyances” that deny competent persons of integrity the opportunity to get due reward based on merit. I’ve written many articles on the subject of corrupt business in the past, on this blog, so no point saying any more here.

Suffice to say that I only survived those prolonged periods of unfair rejection, and even abuse meted out to me (which were often designed to break a person’s spirit so you accepted to “join the game”) MAINLY because I had CONFIDENCE in myself and my ability to succeed at anything I set my mind on.

One other thing I had was Blind or Absolute and Unquestioning Faith that the Creator would help me find a way to succeed in business without being corrupt.

Remember though, as I hinted at the start of this piece however, My Self-Confidence did not come with me from the womb. I developed it over time.

How?

Well, I did it by going out relentlessly to DO things that challenged me, in a way that tested me to my limits (or what I thought were my limits).

In other words, I formed the habit of going out of my way to get experience at doing anything and everything I did not know how to do, or did not know ENOUGH about doing.

The drive to do this came from a realization I made that I only felt fear and anxiety when I was not sure about something. My thinking about THAT revealed that I was often only unsure about things I had NOT done before. As a result of being afraid, because I was not sure, I found that I was unable to speak, think or act with confidence.

Since I did NOT like that feeling, I decided to eliminate or reduce it to the barest minimum by taking action to do as much of those things I felt that way about, as often as possible, to the best of my ability, until I achieved a level of competence that made me FEEL confident wherever I went or whoever I had to interact with.

Today, I am able to confidently take international phone calls from experts, with backgrounds from every imaginable field, at short notice, to discuss solutions I offer.

Not just that, I readily accept invitations to give talks to audiences in ANY of my stated areas of focus or interest, even if at short notice.

Probably most notably, I have shocked many prospective clients by requesting they make payment of N10,000 (Ten Thousand) to N20,000 (Twenty Thousand) Naira, for me to agree to meet with THEM towards discussing hiring ME!

Over 90% agree to pay to meet with me, even after I make it clear they ONLY get a refund if they go on to hire me.

For those that signup, I go on to confidently provide the promised solution, and guidance, sometimes corrective in nature, to make the most of themselves, with my support.

Most importantly, my self-confidence equips me to keep going even during the (rare) moments when things go wrong, such that I am not only able to quickly resolve the problem, in a manner that earns me praise from clients I serve.

If you want to be able to excel at what you do, under ANY conditions, in relating with ANY persons, you need to develop the kind of Self-Confidence I have described here.

Need help learning to BE that way? Click here to send me a message.

SDN Blog™

New posts from last week*

Monday:

[Tuesday]:

[Wednesday]:

[Thursday]:

[Friday]:

[RECOMMENDED] Blocking Brute Force Attacks

[Saturday]:

[RECOMMENDED] How to Get Audience Attention at the Start of Your Presentation – By Efe Ohwofasa

[Sunday]:

N/A

Tayo K. Solagbade*

Self-Development/Performance Improvement Specialist

*Best Practice Farm Business Support Specialist & Founder of the MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club and Competition

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 organizations 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 organizations, 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 (October 1994 to December 2001) as a high performing manager in Guinness Nigeria. He rose from Shift Brewer to Training & Technical Development Manager, and later acted in senior roles as Production Manager and Technical Manager.

In addition to constantly challenging the status quo and influencing positive work changes, he built a reputation for using self-taught spreadsheet programming skills (starting with Lotus 1-2-3, and later moving to Excel Visual Basic) – in his spare time – to develop Automated Spreadsheet Applications to computerize manual report generation processes in the departments he worked. Over four(4) of his applications were adopted for brewery level reporting.

Tayo holds a B.Sc degree in Agricultural Extension Services from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, having graduated top of his class – with Second Class Upper Division honors – in 1992. 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 (SDAc).

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 The Farm CEO Weekly Newspaper (sent via email to paid subscribers) and his Weekly Performance Improvement IDEAS newsletter.

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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