Book Review — How To Sell To Nigerians by Akin Alabi
Yesterday, I finished “How To Sell To Nigerians: Sell More Of Your Products In The Next 30 Days Than You Did In The Last 300 Days” by Akin Alabi. Akin is a Nigerian legislator who rose to prominence when he pioneered the multi-billion Naira sports betting industry in Nigeria via NairaBET.com. He is also an icon of the Nigerian internet marketing space.
In ten short chapters, Akin lays bare his blueprint for understanding how the mind of the Nigerian buyer works. And he goes ahead in the first pages by saying the book comes with a money-back guarantee, emphasizing that if the reader does not see the value in the purchase, he can ask for his money back without questions. How does that make you feel? Assured?
For the rest of the book, he touched on the common-sense, almost routine strategies he has mastered overtime to ensure that he “can never be poor for the rest of [his] life.”
He is no fan of relying on friends and family for your business and he does not want you to, because few things ruin relationships more than money. For those who beg their friends, especially on social media, to patronize their products, he does not have good things to say about them. Accordingly to him, they are making a mistake and in a world where you can get an unlimited number of customers, it is a shame they have not seen the light.
But before then, they need to know that Nigerians are a peculiar set of people, and the way you appeal to them is different from how to sell to most other nationalities. Yes, he made the hilarious example of how Nigerians are the only people who he knows that buy money. Read it again and it immediately registers to you as a Nigerian. If you are not a Nigerian reading this, you need a Nigerian to explain to you how Nigerians buy N70,000 for N100,000. He also says that his experience is that Nigerians are the kind of people who love offers that look like they are ripping you off; that they would rather pay more when they feel they are ripping you off than pay less when they feel you are ripping them off.
So how do you sell to people like that? He says you need to master making and offering irresistible offers. Have you ever had someone offer to see you an Air Conditioner and then offer you free servicing for the first 3 months? That’s the kind of thinking Akin promotes. Before you advertise your business or any of your products he says you need to ask yourself, “What is the crazy offer I am offering?” If you cannot answer that, then do not advertise yet. Everyone is out there selling “normally”. You cannot afford to join them. You have to come up with something different — a special offer.
You have heard it said that businesses should under-promise and over-deliver? Akin says that his experience is that Nigerians like those who over-promise and under-deliver. Said differently, Nigerians love hype. Nigerians love to be pumped up with promises. He said that his experience is that Nigerians will prefer someone who promises 100 and delivers 80 to the person that promises 80 and delivers 100. As you can see in the political space, Nigerians are used to disappointments so much so that it is not strange to them when products disappoint. That makes them see underpromises as a double disappointment. Once a product can deliver moderately, even if it promises excellently, most people will be satisfied. While he does not endorse ripping people off, he says that once you understand this psychology, putting out products that over-promise and over-deliver make you be in a league of your own. Incredibly, he backs it up with some good examples of what has worked for him.
He talks about building and nurturing a list. Too many small businesses are too much in a hurry to make a few sales that they forget about building a long term relationship with people who would buy from them over and over again for years. That’s where building a list comes in. He shows how you can do this online and offline.
Chapter 7, which talks about Selling with Sales Letter, is my favourite in the book. He said the day he discovered how to write a sales letter was the day he said bye-bye to poverty. He took his time to explain the important parts of sales letters, including the swiping techniques for headlines. That was an eye-opener for me. I got to know of the sales letter for Wall Street Journal which has sold $2 billion in subscriptions. It’s widely known as the greatest sales letter ever written in the direct marketing industry. It’s a really beautiful letter.
Throughout the book, he used a lot of relatable and funny stories to drive home his point; stories that read like gists in a beer parlour or pub. He’s done it intentionally because according to him that’s how he knows to pass his points across.
Unfortunately, that attitude of not doing things properly is what he’s carried to the structure of the book itself. For many of my friends, the book would be a turn-off because it is poorly formatted. It’s strange that a Nigerian legislator would boast that he did not bother with grammarian rules, and worse, he did not give the manuscript to a professional proofreader. You read that right. It is not that he did not harken to the suggestions of a proofreader, it is that he did not bother at all to give to one. He justifies by asking the reader to “focus on the business lessons”. As I read the book, I counted many typos. When the Honorable gets to read this review, you should know that after seeing typos in pages on pages 96, 114 and 117, I stopped counting yet the one on page 203 still called me out for help. I think it’s disrespectful to the reader who has parted with his money for such details to be ignored.
That’s my only criticism of the book, and if you know me, it’s a big one. Still, that does not take away from the marketing lessons in the book. There is a lot to laugh at when you see the cover of the book, but it has some really tangible takeaways. As I read, I kept sending shots of the pages I had highlighted to my friends. If you ever plan to sell to Nigerians, I don’t see how you will not gain from this book. It has common-sense but often ignored marketing strategies. Naija Book Club got you covered on getting you physical copies of this book and even many more brilliant books out there.
