I like that each book covers a different aspect of the sales process, from building relationships and influencing others to closing deals and developing a successful sales strategy.
I’m excited to be back after taking some much-needed time off to focus on being the best first-time dad I could be. #GirlDad #ThankYouForYourPatience
Since it’s been a while, I needed to brush up on my sales acumen so I turned to ChatGPT to discover the top 10 sales books it recommends every salesperson should read.
For each book, I asked for a one sentence summary and one actionable step I can take this week.
I like that each book covers a different aspect of the sales process, from building relationships and influencing others to closing deals and developing a successful sales strategy.
I hope this helps someone this week.
“Spin Selling” by Neil Rackham
Summary: A research-based approach to consultative selling that focuses on asking the right questions to understand customer needs and pain points.
Action: Identify your top 5 prospects and create a list of open-ended questions to ask them to better understand their needs and pain points.
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie
Summary: A classic guide to building relationships, communicating effectively, and winning people over.
Action: Make an effort to remember people’s names and use them in conversations to build stronger relationships.
“The Challenger Sale” by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon
Summary: An alternative approach to selling that involves challenging customers’ assumptions and helping them see their problems in a new light.
Action: Practice re-framing customer objections to help them see the value in your product or service.
“The Psychology of Selling” by Brian Tracy
Summary: A comprehensive guide to the psychology of persuasion, including the importance of self-confidence and the power of positive thinking.
Action: Visualize yourself as a successful salesperson and practice positive self-talk to boost your confidence.
“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini
Summary: A classic book on the six principles of influence, including reciprocity, scarcity, and authority.
Action: Identify one of the six principles of influence (reciprocity, scarcity, authority, consistency, liking, or social proof) and find a way to incorporate it into your sales pitch.
“The Ultimate Sales Machine” by Chet Holmes
Summary: A guide to improving sales performance and productivity by focusing on core activities and implementing proven strategies.
Action: Create a daily schedule that includes time for core sales activities, such as prospecting, lead follow-up, and customer relationship management.
“To Sell is Human” by Daniel Pink
Summary: A research-based examination of the changing nature of sales and the skills required for success in today’s economy.
Action: Practice active listening and empathy to better understand your customers’ needs and perspectives.
“The Art of Closing the Sale” by Brian Tracy
Summary: A step-by-step guide to closing deals and overcoming objections, including the importance of building rapport and understanding customer needs.
Action: Role-play different closing scenarios with a colleague or mentor to develop your skills and confidence.
“Pitch Anything” by Oren Klaff
Summary: A guide to creating and delivering high-impact pitches that capture attention and persuade others.
Action: Create a compelling opening statement that captures your audience’s attention and sets the tone for your pitch.
“Little Red Book of Selling” by Jeffrey Gitomer
Summary: A collection of practical sales tips and strategies designed to help salespeople increase their success and achieve their goals.
Action: Identify your top 10 customers and find ways to add value to their experience through personalized communication and offers.
To transform regret into something positive, you create distance from the regret. You can do this through space, time, and language.
I read The Power of Regret by Daniel Pink a few weeks ago. I learned our regrets could improve decisions, boost performance, and deepen the meaning of our lives.
Daniel Pink provides four core structures of regrets:
Foundation regrets – our failure to be responsible, conscientious, or prudent, which sounds like “if only I’d done the work.”
Boldness regrets – our failure to take chances, which sounds like “if only I’d taken that risk.”
Moral regrets – our failure to rise above temptations, which sounds like “if only I’d done the right thing.“
Connection regrets – our failure to recognize and honor the relationships with others that give our lives purpose, which sounds like “if only I’d reached out.”
To transform regret into something positive, you create distance from the regret. You can do this through space, time, and language. This process is called “self-distancing,” which is a way to examine the regret dispassionately without shame…and to extract from it a lesson that can guide future behavior (pg. 178).
You do not need to experience regret before learning from it. Self-distancing builds on the idea that it is easier to solve other people’s problems than to solve ours. If you anticipate a regret your future self may encounter before it occurs and take the appropriate action, good things will happen.
The late Intel CEO, Andy Grove, was known to embrace self-distancing. He usually asked himself, “If I were replaced tomorrow, what would my successor do?” This exercise allowed him to live briefly in the future and look at the challenge through a different lens. With an imaginary person now with the challenge, it empowered him to find creative solutions to the problem.
One of my mentees anticipated his regrets and applied the concept of self-distancing to spur the growth of an account.
When he started managing the account at the beginning of the year, he asked the previous account team: “what do you regret most about this account?”
The team described in detail the chances they wished they had taken. The discussion had all the elements of boldness regret: “if only we had taken that risk.”
My mentee was determined to limit his regrets by anticipating them. He analyzed the previous account team’s missed opportunities and created a new path to unlock growth in the account.
I am happy to share he is on track to outperform his quota at the end of the year.
What’s interesting about the story above is that I was leading the previous account team. My mentee learned from my boldness regret without experiencing it.
There are two actions you could take:
Identify a difficult customer situation and imagine what your successor would do. This exercise puts you in a position to solve someone else’s problem and broadens your vision to see potential blind spots.
Ask a customer stakeholder, “what is a goal you will regret not hitting by the end of this year?” Their answer may identify one or two goals at risk. This is an opportunity for you to partner with them to change the outcome.
Bonus action: Grab a copy of The Power of Regret. You will not regret the decision 🙂
Below is a summary of an article from Harvard Business Review (HBR) titled Sensemaking for Sales which describes how successful sellers help customers make sense of information overload during a complex buying process.
I asked a few sales executives in my network, “are interested in a service that summarizes long-form B2B sales strategy articles and research from reputable sources and delivers them to your inbox?”
The overwhelming answer was YES.
So I decided to test this concept further in today’s post.
Below is a summary of an article from Harvard Business Review (HBR) titled Sensemaking for Sales which describes how successful sellers help customers make sense of information overload during a complex buying process.
I hope you enjoy it, and please let me know if you’ll like to see more of these summaries.
The amount of reliable, trustworthy, and valuable product and service information available to B2B customers has become overwhelming, so much so that B2B customers dedicate only 17% of their purchase process to talking with potential suppliers. In addition, this information overload has complicated the buying process, leading to indecision. Research from Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP @ Gartner, published on HBR, revealed three ways sales reps engage customers with information: giving, telling, and sensemaking. One method outperforms the others.
Giving sellers are characterized by a “more is better” mentality. Their approach is “I can get you more information on that,” believing that they are moving the deal forward with more information. However, the reality is that only 13% of 1,100 B2B buyers surveyed believe the claims of giving sellers.
Telling sellers are usually highly knowledgeable reps with years of experience and deep subject matter expertise. Their approach is “Let me tell you what you need to know,” basing information on extensive personal experience and knowledge. However, only 28% of 1,100 B2B buyers surveyed believe the claims of telling sellers.
Sensemaking sellers give customers just enough information to help them meaningfully interpret and simplify that material. Their approach is “There is a lot of information. Let me help you make sense of it.” 67% of 1,100 B2B buyers believe Sensemaking sellers’ claims, proving this approach is more effective.
The reason why Sensemaking is more compelling is that these sellers do three unique things well. They:
Connect customers with carefully curated and relevant information. When asked a difficult question, these sellers know it’s okay to say “I don’t know” rather than manufacture half-truths which can erase the customer’s trust.
Clarify that information by explaining, simplifying, and deconflicting. The key here is to empower the customer with consumable and straightforward insights that are shareable and easily understood without much explanation.
Collaborate on customer learning through Socratic guidance. This concept involves guiding the customer to arrive at their conclusions by asking questions, not telling them what to do. Customers are more self-confident this way.
Sensemaking organizations focus on their strengths. They provide the customer with credible information backed by data that subtly ties to their unique strengths.
Also, sensemaking sellers increase the size of the pie. They prioritize earning the customer’s trust, making the customer feel more confident about making a higher-risk decision, such as buying the bigger, more complex product.
My main takeaway from the book is scenarios often (but not always) seem to fall into three groups: 1/more of the same, but better; 2/worse (decay and depression); and 3/different but better (fundamental change). Although not all scenarios fit nicely into these three groups, understanding what decisions lead to each outcome is critical.
A mental model I’ve found helpful in handling high-stakes and uncertain customer situations is scenario planning. A few years ago, one of the best sales leaders I’ve worked for explained this concept as I started leading more complex multi-year sales cycles. Since then, applying it has provided clarity and elevated my sales acumen. I also consider the concept an excellent antidote to inaction.
In The Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz defines scenarios as a tool for helping us take a long view in a world of great uncertainty. Further, scenarios are not about predicting the future; instead, they are about perceiving futures in the present.
My main takeaway from the book is scenarios often (but not always) seem to fall into three groups: 1/more of the same, but better; 2/worse (decay and depression); and 3/different but better (fundamental change). Although not all scenarios fit nicely into these three groups, understanding what decisions lead to each outcome is critical.
I’ve found it’s best to work backward from each scenario, not just your ideal scenario. This approach helps inform which decisions to avoid and which to make with conviction. Also, working backward from each scenario from the point of view of your customer or prospect builds empathy. Finally, it helps you be more consultative in guiding your customer to your ideal outcome.
A practical and easy way of applying scenario planning is using it to set agendas for high-stakes sales calls.
Here’s an example of how I used it when my team and I presented a proposal to a customer about a transformative project.
After welcoming everyone and doing a round of introductions, I kicked off the meeting by letting everyone know three possible outcomes could happen at the end of our time together.
First, they listen to what we have to say and decide to adopt one or two recommendations, which may improve their business, but nothing transformative. (Scenario 1)
Second, they decide not to accept any recommendations and continue operating business as usual. (Scenario 2)
Third, they like our proposal and commit to adopting all the transformative changes we are recommending (Scenario 3).
After sharing these possible outcomes, I noticed my nerves calm down. I even observed everyone, including my team members, relax because I presented everyone with options which gave them a sense of control. As a result, they all had skin in the game.
Furthermore, by using scenario planning to demystify the uncertainty of the meeting outcomes, everyone could now focus on the content and arrive at an objective conclusion.
When the meeting ended, the decision-maker leaned towards Scenario 3. In contrast, one or two of the decision-maker’s lieutenants leaned toward Scenario 1.
Fortunately, my team did a fantastic job leading the discussion that Scenario 2 did not appear to be a part of the customer’s future.
We closed the opportunity with the decision-maker for the transformative project a few weeks later.
If you take nothing from this article, take this: you need someone selling on your behalf when you are not around.
Recent research from Gartner finds when B2B buyers are considering a purchase, they spend only 17% of that time meeting with potential suppliers. Further, when buyers are comparing multiple suppliers, the amount of time spent with any one sales rep is only 5% or 6%.
Brent Adamson, the author of The Challenger Sale, shared in a 2017 article that the average number of customer stakeholders involved in a B2B purchasing decision is 6.8, up from 5.4 in 2014.
With a decreasing amount of time spent with suppliers and an increasing number of customer stakeholders involved in a decision, one of the keys to making progress on a complex sales cycle is to find creative ways to add value even when you’re not in the room. To do this, you need a customer champion in the buying organization.
Andy Whyte, the author of MEDDIC, defines a Champion as a person who assists you and has power, influence, and credibility within the buying organization. The champion is not necessarily the final decision-maker. Still, this individual has access to the final decision maker(s) and economic buyer(s) and understands the decision criteria and process.
More importantly, this person has a vested interest in your success which is why “the most critical selling your Champion can do for you is when you are not there.” You win; they win.
If you take nothing from this article, take this: you need someone selling on your behalf when you are not around.
Educate your champion on the value of your solution. Your champion needs to know your solution’s good, bad, and ugly elements. The more they know, the more they can play defense and offense when you’re not in the room. As part of educating your champion, they must know how your solution is different from your competition. It is very likely your competitor also has a champion, so getting in front of this helps you empower your champion to succeed ahead of other competing champions.
Match your champion to an internal champion within your organization. Your champion needs to know there is a champion within your organization that wants to get a deal done as much as they do. This individual can be your direct Sales Manager, Director, or VP, depending on the size of your company. The key is to align your champion with someone who also has power, influence, and credibility within your company. This internal champion could serve as an escalation path to help remove blockers when they arise, which is bound to happen in a complex sales cycle.
Connect your Champion to trusted third-party stakeholders. If it’s an expansion or renewal opportunity, start with internal stakeholders within the buying organization who can advocate for your company. These internal advocates add credibility when you are not in the room. If it is a new prospect and there are no existing relationships, connect your champion to champions at other companies. The key here is for your champion to hear from a trusted third party. The more relevant the third-party connection is to their business and industry, the more impactful the conversation will be to them.
I have interviewed many salespeople over the past five years at AWS.
Unfortunately, a common mistake I see candidates make in interviews is when they continuously use a broad “we” when telling a story about an accomplishment.
An interviewer wants to learn how your unique actions advanced a sale or helped a customer achieve impactful results. You are the one getting interviewed, not your team.
My recommendation is to clarify early in your story the members of your team and their roles, then move on to describe what you did that made the difference.
Using a broad “We” generously without specifying your individual contribution is a concern the candidate is slow to take ownership and responsibility.
Using too many “I’s” without giving proper credit to the team involved is a concern the candidate likes to take undeserving praise for the results, which is an earned trust issue.
How To Fix It
The key is to balance the “we” and “I” in your story.
To achieve this, clarify who ‘we’ is and each person’s role early and as often as needed.
Next, describe your ‘I’ contributions and how they led to the ideal customer outcomes and results using a framework like the Situation Task Action Result (STAR) method.
This way, the interviewer gets a holistic view of the scope of your accomplishment, its impact on customers, and the results delivered.
If success is getting one person to a level of fluency in their native African language, leading to a deeper connection with family members at home and abroad, then the team at Mandla is successful. The Mandla app, a platform for learning multiple African languages, is currently used by thousands of satisfied users. I took a few Igbo lessons on the app and found it to be beautifully designed, engaging, and intuitive.
The founders behind the Mandla app are passionate about solving the complex problem of preserving African languages in a world where Western languages are the norm for economic and social interaction. They pursue this mission intensely while balancing heavy course workloads from top universities like MIT, Harvard, and Vanderbilt.
Below is an excerpt of my conversation with three of the five founders.
1. Briefly describe your different backgrounds. How did you get the idea for Mandla/what inspired the idea?
General: We are a team of 10 sophomores attending various universities, including Vanderbilt, Harvard, and MIT. We are either first-generation African immigrants who grew up here or diasporans who are currently in America for school.
Inspiration: Our experiences with receptive fluency inspired us to start Mandla. Many of us can understand but not speak our native languages. When we looked for resources to learn, we were disappointed in the results. The results were either poorly designed with terrible UI/UX or costly. We noticed that we were not the only ones with this experience. We found countless communities on social media of people in the same position. Additionally, we realized that many African languages would go extinct soon due to the prioritization of Western languages, and we wanted to help preserve them.
Delanyo: I’m a sophomore at Vanderbilt studying Human and Organizational Development (HOD). First-generation Ghanaian-American. I was inspired to join the Mandla team because I wanted to connect more with my indigenous languages. I am receptively fluent in Ewe and Twi, but I wanted to respond back. Growing up, I had several moments when I would either ask my parents to teach me, and they would say yes and eventually give up after a couple of days, or I would look for ways of self-teaching and not find anything accessible. So I joined Mandla to help remedy this problem for the thousands of diasporans in the same position. I am passionate about making African languages accessible and building a community of people trying to preserve their connection to their cultures.
Wenitte: I’m a sophomore at Vanderbilt majoring in Electrical Engineering and Math. I was born in Burkina Faso and came to America when I was very young. I always looked for Mooré language resources and couldn’t find them growing up. Then, I noticed that many friends from different African countries faced the same issue. I see my life purpose as to use my knowledge and skills to benefit my community, and I saw this as a problem that was accessible to me to solve, so I got to work.
Kwesi: Wenitte recruited me in the earliest stages of building the platform, and since joining, I have worked on several features and new ideas for the app. I was born and raised in Accra and came to America when I was young. I now attend MIT, studying Computer Science. Building resources for learning African languages online was an exciting project for me. Firstly, I’m passionate about languages, and more importantly, I believe that Twi, and to a greater extent, African languages are underserved in that respect. With this in mind, joining was a no-brainer.
2. What has surprised you the most, both good and bad, about your journey thus far building Mandla?
Delanyo: What surprises me the most is the reception. I knew that I was not the only person struggling to learn my native language. But I did not realize that such a massive community is in the same position. Seeing thousands of people liking our posts and engaging with our content online has solidified to me that there is a need for Mandla and that we can be successful.
Wenitte: Mandla is a labor of both love and hate for me. Love for my people and seeing how this is making a positive difference in their lives; hate for the brutal history of colonization and slavery in Africa that has led to something like this even be necessary. I dislike how I’m only fluent in European languages. My dream is for every francophone African country to get rid of the french language one day altogether.
Kwesi: Conceptualizing ideas and seeing them come to fruition – and have a direct impact on our users’ lives – has been the best part, to be honest! Hearing our users’ love for the product and the need it addresses is fulfilling. Also, working on something with a tangible, real-life impact has been enriching. There are no terrible surprises yet, but scaling a product with a grand vision has been challenging.
3. Why is the problem you are solving the most important for this generation?
Delanyo: Our generation wants to (re)connect with the motherland, and Mandla is one way of doing that. Many people want to learn their native languages to preserve their connection to their cultures. We are filling the gap of language learning apps such as Rosetta Stone or Duolingo that are not prioritizing African languages.
Wenitte: Identity is critical. One of the most constant parts of the human experience is figuring out who we are and what we value. This journey is challenging for marginalized communities whose identities and practices have been vilified and demonized for centuries. Language is a central part of one’s identity as a people. In an increasingly digital and hyperconnected age, languages not written or used on the internet will eventually die. Beyond a language learning app, Mandla plans to build a robust database of African language data, create voice recognition tools, and teach indigenous African writing scripts. And ultimately, our long-term goals at Mandla go beyond language. We want to leverage technology to build the future of Africa.
Kwesi: Much like Wenitte, I’ve always seen Mandla as more than a language-learning app, and our ambitions go far beyond that. It’s a great start and one that will only improve in the future, but in working on it, we’ve discovered an even more pressing original problem – the severe lack of African language data. It’s a daunting challenge, but its solution – again, Wenitte referenced – will have many benefits for African language-learning and capacity-building in the 21st century – think news articles, mobile navigation, and so on. We want people to be proud of our languages, and what better way than complete immersion. That’s our end goal—an all-purpose African language tool.
4. How can people learn more about what you’re doing and support your mission?
African cuisine is so broad and is one of the best globally, with so many techniques and flavors in its cooking process. The world knows about Jollof Rice, but many other unique, delicious, and hearty dishes exist. There is the need to let the world know, enjoy, and access these dishes, but how do we go about that if there isn’t any recognizable brand with a convenient and consistent product?
1. Briefly describe your background and how you got started.
I was born in Nigeria, attended secondary school in Akure, Ondo State, and got an accounting degree from Babcock University. While studying for my ICAN exams in Nigeria, I found comfort in cooking for my family and friends, started watching more food shows, and decided to take up a summer job in Texas working in two food companies – Panda Express and Dairy Queen. Those experiences made me decide to pursue a degree in Hospitality Management at the University of North Texas.
Three weeks into settling in Denton, I started craving Nigerian food, and I realized Walmart, Target, and Kroger did not have any items on their shelves that had African flavor in them. I tried the closest Nigerian restaurant to me, and after a 40-minute drive and bad customer service, it was one of the worst experiences I had with Nigerian food. I decided to start a blog to teach people how to make Nigerian food, and from this blog and my posts on Twitter, many people booked me to cater for their house parties. Word spread, and I got to be known as “the guy that posts nice food photos and recipes.”
My friends started asking me to cook them meals. It got to a point where a friend of mine took a flight from Oklahoma to pick up some food from me, and I knew we had to figure out a way to get food to people conveniently, which gave birth to AllIDoIsCook.
I started AllIDoIsCook with catering, and this morphed to include shipping these meals all over the USA. All of this was going on as I worked on my M.Sc. I took four classes, wrote research papers, worked with my major professor on his research, mentored students, cooked for multiple events on the weekends, and took time off school to ship boxes on Mondays. I could only ship on Mondays with the workload, which saved me from having to replace orders due to spoilage as delivery companies primarily work on business days. It has been fun seeing people adopting that model.
After my M.Sc, I worked at Winstar Resort and Casino in every department to understand the hospitality business on such a massive scale. I worked the front desk, pushed bell carts, did room service, worked as a barista, worked as a supervisor, pool boy. Whatever job you could think of in a Hospitality company, I did it.
After that experience, I decided to go back to school to do a Ph.D. in data science to understand how the hospitality industry could use data collected from customers to give a better experience. I loved being in school, researching, and teaching marketing, but I enjoyed cooking. I was determined to 100% drop everything, focus on working on AllIDoIsCook, and do it to the best of my abilities because I felt compelled to do African cuisine and do it right/better than what was available on the market.
At that point, I called my parents and told them I was dropping out of school to focus on the food business 100%. A huge worry for my parents was me being able to afford my bills, After hours of talking, showing them revenue projections, and the like, they agreed to support me, and I dived. That is one decision I am forever grateful I took.
Fast-forward to 2021, AllIDoIsCook is one of the most recognized brands exposing the world to African flavors by delivering gourmet food products to doorsteps and most recently getting in grocery aisles.
2. Flashback and then fast forward to the present; what has surprised you the most about your journey thus far?
Honestly – how big of a problem we are solving. When we started in 2016, it was just a food blog that stemmed from not finding Nigerian/African cuisine conveniently. I live in Texas, the one state in the USA with the most Nigerians (probably), and you mean I had to drive 40 minutes to get to a Nigerian restaurant, and no grocery store had Jollof rice at least?
Fast forward to 2021, with over 8000 boxes shipped and over 4000+ customers. It is sometimes mind-blowing to realize we have not even scratched the surface. When you look at it this way – there are over 700,000 Nigerian immigrants in the USA alone, and these are Nigerians that participated in the last census. Then we think about the Nigerian Americans, the Americans who are married to Nigerians, the Black American population who want to rediscover their roots and experience the cuisine of Africa, and the millions of individuals in other demographics that want to try African cuisine. There is also a substantial ever-growing Nigerian population in Canada and the United Kingdom! We have reached only 4,000 of these people just with word of mouth. Then you realize so many people have this problem, and we are glad that we have at least started somewhere with making sure anyone anywhere can get access to Nigerian cuisine.
3. Why is the cause you pursue or the problem you are solving the most important for this generation?
For us at AllIDoIsCook, there are many reasons. With the increased immigration of Africans to the West, the world becoming a global village, and people getting busier, there is the need to preserve and promote African cuisine so that future generations can have something to hold on to proudly. Educating the world about our heritage is necessary to be done that will have lasting effects on generations to come.
African cuisine is so broad and is one of the best globally, with so many techniques and flavors in its cooking process. The world knows about Jollof Rice, but many other unique, delicious, and hearty dishes exist. There is the need to let the world know, enjoy, and access these dishes, but how do we go about that if there isn’t any recognizable brand with a convenient and consistent product?
A good example I use is this: A Nigerian in the USA would need to spend 10-12 minutes explaining to another demographic what any other dish aside from Jollof Rice is.
We have lived both at home and abroad. Being outside of our home countries can get lonely, and one crucial aspect of African culture is the food. Having a meal that feels like home is honestly therapy sometimes, and we firmly believe we should do it properly.
4. Reflect on all of the necessary sacrifices and trade-offs you’ve had to make to get to where you are today. Which of these would you say was the most pivotal and why?
Man. I’d say every single one of these sacrifices was pivotal. I have learned that life is a collection of many events that shape you/prepare you for a series of events. No sacrifice is an island, literally. There are a few that I remember at the top of my mind.
Dropping out of my Ph.D. and hauling all my belongings to Houston was one of the most significant sacrifices. I was leaving an almost guaranteed path to becoming a tenure track faculty member for something with no salary in view. This sacrifice was pivotal because it was “all in, all chips on the table,” there was no safety net, which helped my cofounder and I focus squarely on getting AllIDoIsCook to where it is.
Another is making the sacrifice of reinvesting into the startup. With a bootstrapped business, We have had the opportunity to grow the company to a point where it is rapidly ready to scale with a fantastic track record.
5. What is the best piece of actionable advice you’ve received that continues to be a source of inspiration in good times and challenging times?
There are so many phrases I tell myself a lot. There are two that stand out – “keep going” and “be better every day.” These phrases just make sense when I hear them.
“Keep going and be better every day” – things are going to get super hard, discouraging, tiring, and you will feel like giving up A LOT. During that time, it is essential to take a break, rest, recenter and recover. It is crucial to be honest with oneself in entrepreneurship – during your break, evaluate everything at intervals. “Be better every day” – this is huge for me. Being better every day ensures that I set my goals, focus on them, learn from my mistakes, and learn more. This helps you grow as a person.
People want to patronize food trucks more; however, there are too many obstacles to overcome to figure out where the trucks are, what they serve, and how to pay them. GrabGrubGo will bring so many more options to everyone’s fingertips. People will finally be able to see all of the food trucks in their vicinity. And food trucks will have a streamlined way to accept orders and payments from their customers.
A conversation with Kelly and Tiffanie, Founders of GrabGrubGo, following their winning pitch at Umu Igbo Unite 2021 Convention where they won $10,000.
Ozii: Tell us a bit about your different backgrounds.
Tiffanie: I have been running small businesses since I was a little girl. I sold candy, I babysat, and I even made and sold keychains. If there was a way to make money doing something, I was going to do it. But, more than the money, I loved seeing my ideas come to fruition. Kelly: I grew up taking things apart and putting them back together. It was not as much of a drive to develop a business; it was a desire to learn why things work. I took computers apart at eight years old, built websites in junior high, and took IT certifications before starting high school. Going through college and realizing then that I could use my skills to make money was very rewarding and put me on this path to monetize anything that could be tedious for anyone else. I’ve built a lot of businesses while looking for a pathway to truly expand into something great!
O: Tell us how you came up with the idea of GrabGrubGo? What’s the significance of solving the identified problem for all the stakeholders impacted (food truck owners, customers, and the community)
T: At work, we often had food trucks that come to the office to serve food. Everyone would always be super excited because food trucks always meant a break from the ordinary bologna sandwiches we were bringing to work. Once the truck would arrive, everyone would naturally flood the lots. There would be a long line, and we’d be standing out in the hot sun. It was an interesting experience. The food was good, and you got to talk to your coworkers in a way that you wouldn’t typically talk to them in the office. However, the overall experience was pretty bad. We would all be so hot and would spend the entirety of our lunch hour, if not more, waiting in line for the food. So one day, I sat back and wondered if there was a better way to do this? K: Tiffanie and I briefly worked together and became fast friends. Sharing our various work struggles and entrepreneurial efforts was tremendous and, if nothing else, presented an opportunity to discuss ideas and offer help to one another. In one of these discussions, she described her food truck experience, and I instantly told her, I can build that, and I know it can be game-changing. Fast forward to today, and we have grown relatively quickly in our quest to solve this problem. We welcome you all to follow our journey on Instagram @grabgrubgohtx or email us at tiffanie@grabgrubgo.com or kelly@grabgrubgo.com T: I think our application is a win-win for everybody involved. People want to patronize food trucks more; however, there are too many obstacles to overcome to figure out where the trucks are, what they serve, and how to pay them. GrabGrubGo will bring so many more options to everyone’s fingertips. People will finally be able to see all of the food trucks in their vicinity. And food trucks will have a streamlined way to accept orders and payments from their customers.
O: What was your pitch preparation strategy? What resources did you find most helpful, and why?
K: The biggest thing that we did to prepare was to make sure we understood the task at hand and had a good grasp of our strengths and weaknesses early based on the guidelines that UIU presented. We binged a lot of SlideBean videos to understand better what works and what doesn’t. We went through multiple deck iterations to clarify our vision and answer questions that we thought the judges could ask. Going through our journey prepared us for the competition and further fleshed out our product, and pushed our creativity well past our preconceived notions. Understanding how to tell a good, concise story was our goal.
O: You seemed very confident on stage; tell us about your experience delivering your pitch in front of the judges and audience? What did that feel like and what’s your advice for startup founders pitching for the first time?
T: It’s funny you say that because I was so insanely nervous, I thought my ankles were going to crumble into ash. I remember trying to go through the slides in my head before getting on stage and remembering nothing. My brain felt like an Etch-a-Sketch that had been shaken. But, once we got on stage, something changed. There was just something about the energy in the room. There were so many smiling, warm, and welcoming faces in the crowd. It felt like people were genuinely interested in hearing what we had to say, so the words just spilled out. K: I had to block everything out mentally. When the first presenter went on stage, I had to close my ears, say a little prayer, and rap some lyrics to a Notorious BIG song to keep my head in the game. Once it was our turn, everything else was automatic. My practical advice for founders pitching for the first time is not to psych yourself out. No one knows what your product or service offering is, and therefore, no one will know if you make a mistake. Honorable mention would be to keep it simple. Understanding what we needed to say and then building our story around it allowed us to stay on task and put out the best parts of our story. T: The other advice I would offer to founders in pitch competitions is not letting the fear of what you don’t know to keep you from moving forward. I had a lot of trepidation being a non-technical founder. I thought, who am I to present this idea when I can barely operate my computer. These concerns made me feel like an imposter in the space. I’ve since discovered that people found many tech companies without technical expertise. Having the vision and ability to communicate it to others is more important. The truth is there are plenty of resources out there, and everyone is so supportive. The best thing to do is dive in and get the experience.
O: You won the grand prize of $10,000. How do you intend to invest the $$ in your business? Why are these the most important investments to make at this point in your company’s journey? If someone wants to start using your solution, when/how can they get started?
K: Still very excited and honestly humbled to not only have been in consideration but ultimately awarded the grand prize of $10,000. We intend to use the winnings to get our platform into the Beta stage to get testing in place with live data. We are confident that we can get our pilot going early next year and fine-tune our application to get us ready for launch. For GrabGrubGo, at this stage, the most critical investment that we can make is in the infrastructure. So making sure that the foundation is solid is the most important thing at this point so that we can have the platform and view and validate the interactions so that we can plan for expansion and get our platform in as many hands as possible by launch. T: We will also invest the winnings in establishing strategic alliances with food truck vendors. This alliance will allow us to involve them in building the app so that it best serves their needs. Users can email us at info@grabgrubgo.com or follow us on Instagram @grabgrubgohtx.
O: What is the best piece of actionable advice you’ve received that continues to be a source of inspiration in good times and challenging times?
K: Stay the course no matter how tough things may seem in the interim. If you want success, eventually, you will find it. Keep learning and continue putting yourself in difficult situations and drive that momentum forward. T: I’ve been told that you only fail when you quit. There will be trying times, and people will not believe in your dreams and your vision. Regardless, don’t quit, just keep going.
Nkọwa okwu is completely free and offers more than 8,000+ Igbo words, 2,000 Igbo example sentences, 1,000+ audio recordings, supports 17 dialects, and renders Nsibidi script above all words. Nkọwa okwu started as a dictionary because it’s tough to find high-quality, advanced, robust, Oxford-styled, Igbo-English dictionaries outside Nigeria.
Ozii: What/Who got you interested in building technology and how has the journey been so far?
Ijemma: Ever since I was young, I’ve been interested in how technology works. I was fascinated by how digital clocks could tell time, how microwaves could create heat, and even how magnets could distort colors on CRT TVs. But I specifically became more interested in programming during middle school and high school when two things happened: 1. I learned that my Mom programmed for her job (and has always been my biggest role model), and 2. I wanted to build my website. So most of my school memories were of me showing my websites to my friends and family. It started as a hobby to see what I could learn, and I remember being genuinely excited every time I learned a new HTML tag or a JavaScript function.
By the time I was a senior in high school, I knew that I wanted to study computer science in college, but I didn’t know what computer science was and how to use it after college. Sure, I learned to program, and I was good at it, but I didn’t know what “engineers at Google” did for their day-to-day. I knew I would learn a lot at college, so I stuck with the major. It wasn’t until my first college course where I realized that I was a minority, not just because I’m a woman but also because I’m black. The sense of excitement and comfort I found while creating websites in high school quickly faded and transformed into imposter syndrome, where I felt like I wasn’t good enough or I didn’t belong. That mindset affected me for the first half of my college experience because I wasn’t excelling in all of my classes compared to when I was in high school.
The silver lining came when I realized that I wasn’t alone. Many women, especially black women, had a similar experience as me during college. So during the second half of my college experience, I made it a point to be more intentional about my work and the people and students I wanted to guide and mentor. I wanted to see more people like me doing what I do at my school. By the time I graduated, I had got more women in the DALI Lab, which was my on-campus job that teaches students relevant skills
Ozii: What’s your theory on why the Igbo language is at risk of becoming extinct? What is the data telling us and what firsthand experience, if any, supports what the data is telling us?
Ijemma: My theory is factors like colonization, tribalism, and other elements that have no place within Igbo culture or heritage have pushed Igbo as a language to the side. English is Nigeria’s official language and the common denominator language across Nigeria for communication. This reality makes it more difficult for young Igbos to see the need to actively speak Igbo as their primary language outside of academic settings since English is the de facto language within many business transactions, government organizations, and even within many homes. In my opinion, when jobs and paid opportunities are primarily looking for fluent English speakers and skilled English writers, it makes sense to obtain the skills necessary for attractive opportunities. Also, the global state of the world is Western – entertainment, sports, education, art, etc., is increasingly Western-influenced.
UNESCO projected that Igbo would become extinct by 2025, an outdated 2012 projection that has proven to be incorrect. But a more realistic forecast that I framed my work around is that Igbo will become extinct by the end of the century. This is because generations are not effectively passing down the language. I can personally attest to that as an Igbo-American. As a kid, my parents didn’t want my sisters and me to be confused while learning two languages, so we weren’t taught Igbo. Even other Igbo kids I grew up around had a similar experience. This is such a large pattern that’s affecting young Igbos – if we decided to start a family, our children’s chances of knowing Igbo are significantly lower.
Ozii: Tell us about your platform and how it is solving this problem.
Ijemma: I started Nkọwa okwu to push back on the projection that Igbo will become extinct so that the language exists and thrives in a modern world. I genuinely believe in the Internet’s fair and open educational materials, so currently, Nkọwa okwu is completely free and offers more than 8,000+ Igbo words, 2,000 Igbo example sentences, 1,000+ audio recordings, supports 17 dialects, and renders Nsibidi script above all words. Nkọwa okwu started as a dictionary because it’s tough to find high-quality, advanced, robust, Oxford-styled, Igbo-English dictionaries outside Nigeria.
To further address the language learning crisis, we’re creating Nkọwa okwu Learning to allow students to enroll in high-quality Igbo courses at fair prices. At the same time, our instructors get paid for the Igbo courses they put on our platform. In addition, many of our community members struggle to learn Igbo in their free time, so having a platform like Nkọwa okwu Learning can dramatically ease the way we learn online. On top of that, the platform will incentivize Igbo instructors to create more Igbo content that can help others learn.
Ozii: What is the next major milestone for your platform?
Ijemma: Our next milestone is to release Nkọwa okwu Learning by the start of 2022. Releasing this platform will finally give young Igbo people the opportunity to learn Igbo online at their own pace. We currently have a small team consisting of software engineers, product designers, and a lexicographer/audio recorder working to build out the platform and the course content. Once we get closer to release, we want to find a growth marketing manager to help start marketing the platform across social media. This timeline means that we want to start being more active on social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to attract our target market. At the same time, we also want to continue recruiting Nigerian university professors to start creating courses on the platform and start making money.
We’re also looking for investors and funding to hire committed employees to ensure that we keep our momentum moving forward. Visitors to our website can also donate by clicking on the ‘Support Us’ button.
Ozii: What’s the one piece of actionable advice you’ve received that continues to be a source of inspiration in good times and challenging times?
Ijemma: One of the best pieces of actionable advice I’ve ever received was to share my work with others. I was so worried about whether or not people wanted to see what I was working on, so much so that I would end up waiting until my work was “worth sharing” for others to see it. But what I’ve learned along the way is that people want to see you succeed, and they’re excited to see you make progress on your project, whatever that progress could mean. Once I took the advice of sharing my work often to heart, I realized that I wasn’t just publicly making progress, but I was also meeting so many unique and talented people who wanted to help me make more progress. That’s why we’ve been able to grow our volunteer community to 80+ members.
