1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,320 One of the questions I get asked by you guys a lot is "Hey Vussy, I've got a business, I've got a product, and I don't know how to sell." 2 00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:10,600 One of the craziest things to me is people think that selling is a bad thing. 3 00:00:10,600 --> 00:00:19,600 Like if you ever find yourself having to sell something, somehow you are, I don't know, maybe a small, so you're trying to rob people of stuff, or you've got to beg them for stuff. 4 00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:23,720 There are three things I want to tell you very quickly about selling. First, selling is psychology. 5 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:27,560 Second, selling is value-ed, and third, selling is outcomes-based. 6 00:00:27,560 --> 00:00:31,000 If you get those three things, you'll typically do well at selling. 7 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:33,880 Let's go to the first element, first, psychology. 8 00:00:33,880 --> 00:00:39,600 So I've got a friend of mine who will interview him, I want to say, 20-26 for one of my podcasts. 9 00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:43,160 He runs a sales promotions agency. This is what he does. 10 00:00:43,160 --> 00:00:53,960 And he tells us a really interesting story, like when he first started, he was one of those guys who would go from building to building, door to door, company to company, secretary to secretary, selling something. 11 00:00:53,960 --> 00:01:00,960 It would be a mug, it would be a toy, it would be a pen, it would be a board, it would be a marker, it would be a calculator. 12 00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:07,320 Like he's built an entire business as a promoter. He would get stuff from manufacturers, then he'd go and sell it. 13 00:01:07,320 --> 00:01:11,320 And if you've ever done any promotion, you know how hard that is. 14 00:01:11,320 --> 00:01:18,480 Think about yourself. When you're walking through the mall, and somebody stops you and says, "Can I get you to try a sample of this perfume? What's the first thing you think?" 15 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:22,640 No, I'm here shopping. I'm not here to try a sample of your perfume. 16 00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:28,480 But he tells this really interesting story about how he's built this incredible sales business. 17 00:01:28,480 --> 00:01:31,480 And he talks about the law of averages. 18 00:01:31,480 --> 00:01:39,240 And his take on the law of averages is of every 10 people he talks to, not going to say no, one's going to say yes. 19 00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:44,240 It's one thing to hear, right? When somebody says, "Well, you talk to 10 people, none are going to say no, one is going to say yes." 20 00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:48,040 The hard thing to do is not to lose your enthusiasm when you're 6 people in. 21 00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:53,040 You meet one person and say, "Hey, can I get you to buy my cup of coffee?" They go, "No." 22 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:57,040 Next person, "Hey, can I get you to try my cup of coffee?" They go, "No." 23 00:01:57,040 --> 00:02:01,040 Third thing, "Hey, you want to try my cup of coffee?" No. 24 00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:06,040 By the fourth you're like, "I've got a cup of coffee, you want to try it." 25 00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:11,040 Because what happens to a lot of us human beings is the more you do something and the feedback is negative. 26 00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:18,040 Your enthusiasm waits, your attitude waits. And so his whole thing is when you're out on the field selling, 27 00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:22,040 your job isn't actually to sell the product, it's to regulate your attitude. 28 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:24,040 It's to regulate your enthusiasm. 29 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:31,040 He says, "If you can manage your attitude and regulate your enthusiasm, sooner or later somebody's going to buy the product." 30 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:36,040 The hard thing to do is to move from customer A to customer B to customer C to customer C. 31 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:42,040 From D, hear no from all of them and not lose your enthusiasm. 32 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:46,040 Still, approach customer E and go, "Hey, I've got this amazing cup of coffee you want to try it." 33 00:02:46,040 --> 00:02:51,040 "What do you think?" "That's hard," he says. And I think he's absolutely right. 34 00:02:51,040 --> 00:02:56,040 So I'm having a chat with him the other day and I said to him, "But how do you keep a positive attitude?" 35 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:59,040 He says, "Well, it's about understanding the law of averages, one in ten." 36 00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:04,040 I said, "Yeah, it sounds fine, but when I met six people in, I don't feel like talking to the seventh person." 37 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:07,040 He says, "What about when you had sixteen people in and all of them have said no?" 38 00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:10,040 He said, "But you just said it's the law of averages, one in ten." 39 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:14,040 He says, "It is one in ten, but it's not one in every ten." 40 00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:18,040 It is one in ten, but it's not one in every ten. 41 00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:20,040 So I said, "How did you do it?" 42 00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:27,040 He says, "I've had days where I've gone an entire day without selling a single thing." 43 00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:29,040 Guys, I want you to picture this. 44 00:03:29,040 --> 00:03:34,040 You arrive at an office park, you talk nicely to the security guard to let you win. 45 00:03:34,040 --> 00:03:37,040 Into that office park you go, and in the office park there's buildings. 46 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:41,040 You go to building A, and in building A, there's eight companies. 47 00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:44,040 You walk to the door of company one. 48 00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:49,040 When you walk into the door of company one, you knock, and the receptionist lets you win, 49 00:03:49,040 --> 00:03:54,040 and you go to the receptionist to say, "Hi, my name is Wilson Tibigua, I come from Hello Family, I'm selling this cup. 50 00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:56,040 Can I talk to some of your people to see if they want to buy a cup?" 51 00:03:56,040 --> 00:04:00,040 The person says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not interested. We don't allow promoters here." 52 00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:05,040 Then you leave, and you go right next door to company two. 53 00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:06,040 They let you in. 54 00:04:06,040 --> 00:04:13,040 "Hi, my name is Wilson, I'm from Hello Family, I sell this cup. Can I... No, no, no, we're not interested." 55 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:17,040 And you leave, and you go next door. 56 00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:23,040 Ten companies on the first floor, five floors, that's 50 companies. 57 00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:27,040 And they all say, "No." 58 00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:32,040 How do you not lose your enthusiasm by the time you're on the third floor? 59 00:04:32,040 --> 00:04:35,040 And by the time, by the way, by the time you get to the third floor, 60 00:04:35,040 --> 00:04:39,040 the people on the second floor have phoned, the people on the third floor to tell them you're coming. 61 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:43,040 The people on the third floor have phoned the people in the next building to tell them you're coming. 62 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:46,040 So now they've built a resistance to you. In fact, when you're knocking at the door, they go, 63 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:50,040 "No, no, no, we're not interested. No hocking. Don't come in. No hocking." 64 00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:53,040 How do you not lose your enthusiasm? 65 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:56,040 Here's what he says to me and blew my mind away. 66 00:04:56,040 --> 00:05:00,040 He says what he realizes is that the law of averages is true. 67 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:06,040 So if your nose compound, guess what happens? Your yeses are compounding too. 68 00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:15,040 So he said, "He's had days, or in a week, he'll go two or three days of knocking door after door, 69 00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:20,040 company after company, person after person, and hearing nose." Then one day, 70 00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:24,040 every single door he knocks, people say, "Yes." 71 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:28,040 I said, "Explain that. Is it like voodoo? What is it?" 72 00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:32,040 He says, "It's just the law of averages." 73 00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:36,040 So I think one of the things a lot of us need to learn is that the law of averages is real. 74 00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:40,040 And admittedly, some of us make it look easy, right? 75 00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:45,040 Like we're busy going through a process of fundraise at the moment. 76 00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:53,040 And of every five emails that I'm sending out, and you know, for whatever it's worth, 77 00:05:53,040 --> 00:05:55,040 I'm vusted to improvise, not like when I send out an email. 78 00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:58,040 The people on the other side don't know who I am. 79 00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:02,040 And by the time I'm sending out the email, the person on the other side is warm. 80 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:05,040 I know them. We've spoken. We've told them a bit about what we're doing. 81 00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:07,040 We've told them about the sectors we're looking at. 82 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:10,040 We've given them a sense of our thesis. Like we've shared information with them. 83 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:13,040 We're not just sort of cold outreach. 84 00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:20,040 But every five emails I send out, I use Spike, which by the way, any of you here who are in sales, 85 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:23,040 highly recommend you use Spike, the email application. 86 00:06:23,040 --> 00:06:29,040 Because what Spike does is it tells you every time a person opens your email 87 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:32,040 and every time they forward your email. 88 00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:39,040 So for my sales outreach, or my sales outreach emails, I use my Spike email application. 89 00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:46,040 And of every five, when I was checking at the stats, of every five that we send out, 90 00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:53,040 something like three of the five will respond in the negative. 91 00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:59,040 And the negative could be no, not yet, not interested, or just to plain ignore. 92 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:03,040 It happens. And of the two that respond in the affirmative, 93 00:07:03,040 --> 00:07:07,040 it's not as if immediately when they respond to the affirmative, the business is going to come. 94 00:07:07,040 --> 00:07:09,040 There's still work to be done. 95 00:07:09,040 --> 00:07:12,040 So the first thing is you need to understand the law of averages. 96 00:07:12,040 --> 00:07:15,040 A lot of us don't understand the law of averages. 97 00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:18,040 And you've got to regulate your attitude as you're approaching that law of averages. 98 00:07:18,040 --> 00:07:22,040 A lot of people don't understand this. But you've got to be able to do that. 99 00:07:22,040 --> 00:07:27,040 Second, I said to you earlier, it's psychology, it's storytelling. 100 00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:31,040 So if you're selling something, and as you're selling the thing you're talking about, 101 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:35,040 features, you've immediately lost the person, because features are about the product. 102 00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:38,040 You want to tell them what they're going to learn from it, what they're going to gain from it. 103 00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:39,040 That's benefits. 104 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:43,040 Hey, I'm Pussi Tamagawa, I'm selling this cup, so there are many other cups. 105 00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:46,040 But tell me about the cup. 106 00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:51,040 This cup, for instance, and I'm just saying this just because we're having this conversation, 107 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:57,040 this is a Hello Family Foundation, so a portion of the proceeds goes towards our foundation. 108 00:07:57,040 --> 00:07:59,040 That makes buying the cup different. 109 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:02,040 Hit the link below, by the way, by the cup, right? 110 00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:04,040 But that makes buying of the cup different, suddenly. 111 00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:06,040 Now it's not just a cup. 112 00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:10,040 You buy the cup and you contribute towards our foundation. 113 00:08:10,040 --> 00:08:14,040 Our foundation works with families, that's why it's called Hello Family. 114 00:08:14,040 --> 00:08:19,040 We work with families who are poor, who need help, and we provide them with help. 115 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:23,040 We've picked a very specific niche and that's where we're focused, right? 116 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:27,040 Two-headed household families, that's who we work with. 117 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:30,040 Two-headed household families that are struggling. 118 00:08:30,040 --> 00:08:37,040 So once you understand that sales is psychology, you're able to talk to the psychology of the person you're selling to, 119 00:08:37,040 --> 00:08:38,040 not necessarily your psychology. 120 00:08:38,040 --> 00:08:41,040 I'm going to give you guys a quick example. 121 00:08:41,040 --> 00:08:48,040 I was in Dubai, I was at a conference, I spoke about this conference in another video, 122 00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:53,040 and I'm meeting with a lady who runs a family office, and her family is native Indians. 123 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:55,040 They come from Mumbai. 124 00:08:55,040 --> 00:08:57,040 In India, they've done really, really well. 125 00:08:57,040 --> 00:09:03,040 She's now running the family office out of Dubai, and I think the family offices are about $100 million, 126 00:09:03,040 --> 00:09:07,040 and they allocate $5 million per transaction. 127 00:09:07,040 --> 00:09:12,040 I'm chatting to you about the stuff that we're doing, and she says, "Yeah, you know, we've never really done anything like in Africa. 128 00:09:12,040 --> 00:09:15,040 We don't really understand the region, like the risk is too high." 129 00:09:15,040 --> 00:09:20,040 And a lot of people who've never done anything in the continent have quite set ideas. 130 00:09:20,040 --> 00:09:24,040 No thanks to Hollywood, because we've been marketed in a particular way. 131 00:09:24,040 --> 00:09:27,040 So I'm trying to have this conversation with her. 132 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:30,040 So I start the conversation and going, "Oh, she's like, have you done any business in India?" 133 00:09:30,040 --> 00:09:35,040 I said, "Yeah, we've got an education business. We do. We've got a small education business in Hyderabad in India." 134 00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:36,040 So I'm sharing that with her. 135 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:38,040 She goes, "Oh, wow. And what's been your experience?" 136 00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:45,040 And I tell her, "Well, our experience has been this, and this, and this, and this." And I said, "But let me tell you how it relates to what we've seen in Africa." 137 00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:51,040 And once I was able to tether our experience in India to some of the stuff we've seen in Africa, 138 00:09:51,040 --> 00:09:57,040 the conversation could suddenly go from, "Oh, so how do I become a part of that?" 139 00:09:57,040 --> 00:10:05,040 Then we went from, "Hey, we're raising a fund. Do you want to participate as an LP to, oh, wait a minute." 140 00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:08,040 So you actually understand a little bit about the place that I come from. 141 00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:12,040 So you might be able to understand what drives me and what my values are. 142 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:19,040 "Oh, you're telling me it's actually quite similar to where you are, just that your environment is still a bit nascent and will develop to where we want to go." 143 00:10:19,040 --> 00:10:22,040 That's interesting. How do we do business together? 144 00:10:22,040 --> 00:10:25,040 The conversation changed because I wasn't telling her features. 145 00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:27,040 I wasn't saying we're going to invest in the sector. 146 00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:30,040 We're looking, we're targeting these IRRs. This is how we've modeled it. 147 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:37,040 That's all the stuff that her people can check in the DD. It's all the stuff that my people are going to put into the data warehouse. 148 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:44,040 That comes later. In the initial part, it's all we aligned and do I understand her psychology? 149 00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:50,040 So when she says, "Well, you know, we're a family office. We don't really do a lot of venture. We've traditionally focused what she did." 150 00:10:50,040 --> 00:10:55,040 She was like, "We don't really do a lot of venture. We've traditionally focused ourselves in real estate. 151 00:10:55,040 --> 00:11:01,040 We're now doing a private equity play. What that told me, the fact that in real estate, is that they risk averse." 152 00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:05,040 Which means I've got to be careful how I position our venture offering. 153 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:20,040 The minute I was like, "Yeah, we're structured more as a permanent capital vehicle. We're targeting family businesses that are in transition from generation to generation that are looking at external capital to bring in strong operational expertise and take them to the next level." 154 00:11:20,040 --> 00:11:29,040 She was like, "Oh, family businesses. Well, I come from a family business. You know, in India, it's basically built on family businesses. We can do business together. I get you." 155 00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:33,040 Went from features to psychology. 156 00:11:33,040 --> 00:11:38,040 This is to say, if you're selling anything to anybody, what you want to be clear of is what's in it for them. 157 00:11:38,040 --> 00:11:42,040 A lot of you don't spend time researching the person you're having a conversation with. 158 00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:50,040 So you talk to every person like the every other person. You lose that game. You lose that game every day and twice on Sundays. 159 00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:53,040 So that's the second element. 160 00:11:53,040 --> 00:12:02,040 And then the third element. So we've spoken about enthusiasm, which is great. We've spoken about psychology, which is fantastic. All of these are really important. 161 00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:07,040 Make sure you're enthusiastic that your attitude is right. Don't let the nose beat you down. 162 00:12:07,040 --> 00:12:18,040 Make sure that you understand what's in it for the other person, what's called with him, what's in it for me, what's in it for the other person, and position that in the conversation and position it up front. 163 00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:25,040 So not just what is unique about what you're doing, but what is unique about what you're doing and how it's going to benefit them. 164 00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:29,040 So important. So, so, so important. 165 00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:40,040 And amongst all of this, it's of no consequence if you don't know how to build a narrative and how to market and how to position this, which a number of you struggle with. 166 00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:46,040 So you've got to be able to build a narrative. And there are three narratives. Okay. 167 00:12:46,040 --> 00:12:54,040 The first narrative is the short narrative. It's the small thing you do explained in a single sentence, what a lot of people call the elevator pitch. 168 00:12:54,040 --> 00:13:06,040 That's the short narrative. I sell cups. Why? Because I think every single moment that comes with joy has two people holding a cup, having a conversation. 169 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:15,040 It's a short narrative, long narrative, right? I sell cups. Why? Because all the proceeds from these cups go towards families. 170 00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:24,040 We're really passionate about families, and we want to help families, particularly poor families, kind of get their leg up. A bit of a longer narrative. 171 00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:30,040 Even a longer narrative. Well, you know, we don't just sell cups. We ethically source them. 172 00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:38,040 And we make sure that we leave the world other carbon neutral or we contribute to carbon credits by how we source and run the logistics of our cups. 173 00:13:38,040 --> 00:13:44,040 Then our cups are targeted at families, then people make memories holding cups in their hands. 174 00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:50,040 So you've got to have clarity over your narrative because in different conversations, you've got to know which of those narratives to do. 175 00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:55,040 Now, what I'm saying, this is the following. Today, I'm literally at the gym. I'm leaving the gym. 176 00:13:55,040 --> 00:13:58,040 Guy comes into the elevator with me because, hey, what's the time? I said, hey, how's it? 177 00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:03,040 He says, hey, I'm doing X, Y, and Z. And then he proceeds to tell me the long narrative. 178 00:14:03,040 --> 00:14:08,040 But I'm in an elevator with him. It's maybe going to be 15 seconds. And then I'm out of there. 179 00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:12,040 And so he lost me when he was still talking about the early part because I got out of the elevator. 180 00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:16,040 He's like, can I get at your numbers? I got another time. I'll see you at the gym another time. 181 00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:21,040 Whereas if he'd gone straight to the short narrative, he would have captured that moment. 182 00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:31,040 Two weeks ago, maybe three, three weeks ago, I went to plane, Joe worked Cape Town, and set next to me is a lady who's the chairperson of one of the funding agencies in South Africa. 183 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:36,040 It's a two hour flight. So what are you working on at the moment? 184 00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:41,040 There's my opening right there. So I take the opening right there, but I go in with the long narrative. 185 00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:45,040 Why? She's sitting in front of me for the next two hours. She ain't going nowhere. 186 00:14:45,040 --> 00:14:51,040 It's always said to people, do you want to do networking? Golf is great. Flying business class is fantastic. 187 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:58,040 My return on spend on business class seats is probably 1,000 X. Why? Because who do you think flies business class? 188 00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:02,040 You bump into them at the lounge first, then you whip them on the airplane. 189 00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:10,040 And if you're flying long haul, see all the chairman of the company we're trying to talk to is going to be in the same cabin with you for the next eight hours. 190 00:15:10,040 --> 00:15:21,040 There you go. So as you move into the year 2026, I want you to decouple yourself of being embarrassed of selling. It's important to sell. 191 00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:31,040 Because people who don't sell go hungry. You don't ask, you don't eat. Second, once you understand that actually you're not really selling, you're adding value to the other person. 192 00:15:31,040 --> 00:15:35,040 The thing you're giving them is going to make their life better. You shouldn't feel as poorly about selling. 193 00:15:35,040 --> 00:15:44,040 And third, know which of those odd narratives you want to share. Keep your enthusiasm, maintain your energy, and make sure that you make 2026 a kickass of a year. 194 00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:52,040 That's it. Hit me up on the comment section. Like, share, subscribe, and I'll see you soon. Sanora. Cheers.