10 Useful Tips on How to Sell to Nigerians and Make Money

Everything I ever needed to know about selling is learning how to identify, find and keep customers. — Lillian Vernon 

Do you know that you can easily sell your product or service to Nigerians? Believe me. You just need the right tips to follow at the right time. 

Selling is a daily activity in the marketplace. Markets exist for the exchange of value and the exchange can never be balanced without selling. 

Entrepreneurs like market diversity because it allows new players to come in and capture their own market share. Nigeria’s market is diverse and gives room for participation. 

Participating in economic activities in Nigeria requires good knowledge of the market and customers.

If you want to sell anything to Nigerians, there are certain things to know and skills to hone. Selling to Nigerians becomes easy when you know how. 

Business is selling and selling is business. You can’t stay in business without selling. Selling brings in revenue for the business. Selling is the main source of resources that power the machinery of everyday business activities. If the business is an agent of change in society, selling is the fuel that powers it. 

In this blog post, I will be writing tips on how to sell to Nigerians without losing your soul. As a seller in Nigeria, I gather these tips from my personal experiences and that of other business people, and they are quite helpful and practical for everyone. 

Let go in: 

1 ) Sell What They Want

This is the most important tip on this list. One of the mistakes many sellers make in Nigeria is selling what they think people need not what they really want. And if Nigerians don’t want something badly, they will not exchange their money for it no matter how good the product or service may appear to be. 

You have to sell what they want, or else you will patronize yourself. And a business whose only customer is its owner isn’t a business.

2 ) Sell the product or service when they want it badly

This is another important tip on how to sell to Nigerians. You have to sell your product or service at the time Nigerians want it badly.

Nigerians are impatient when they want to have something. They can go the extra mile to get what they want because they want it badly. 

When they want to buy a product or service, they will come to knock on your door no matter how far you’re from them. This is the best time to sell a product or service to Nigerians and make a good profit. 

Price cannot deter Nigerians from getting what they want except if they don’t have the money. 

Having and selling a product or service when Nigerians want it badly will bring in revenue for your business and you will always smile to the bank.

3 ) Make it easy for them to buy from you 

Nigerians face problems daily. In cities, they face traffic jams when commuting to work and coming back home every day. This makes most people living in the cities easily offended, provoked, and pissed off. 

I remember a customer once opened up to me that one of the reasons he patronizes my business is because he finds it easy to buy from me, unlike others. Deep down in my heart, I know that he is saying the truth. 

There are many things you can do to make it easy for people to buy from you. You can employ a few of them that suits your kind of business. 

Take for instance: If you have a customer that regularly buys a product on a particular day of the week, write down the name of the customer, what he buys, the day he buys it, the quantity he always goes for, and his phone number. When next he comes, you can simply confirm from him if he needs the same quantity he normally purchased. He would be happy to know that you take a step further to know about him and his needs. 

You can also step your game up a little bit. There is no need for customers, most especially the ones you have their records to be coming to your business place physically if the situation doesn’t warrant it. You can be delivering orders to their doorsteps. 

If you want to sell to Nigerians and make a good profit, make it easy for them to buy from you. 

4 ) Place a reasonable price on your product/service 

What attracts the majority of Nigerians to your product /service is price and the same thing also chases them away. 

Nigerians don’t like to be cheated, scammed—as they popularly say it. They watch carefully before putting their money on your product/service. If they sense that you overprice your product/service, they will not only ignore your business but also tell people not to buy from you. 

Place a reasonable price on your product and make it affordable, you won’t stop seeing Nigerians demanding for what you are offering in the marketplace. 

5 ) Have money recovery intelligence 

You can’t sell to Nigerians without selling on credit. And you can’t stay in business for long without knowing how to recover your money from peoples’ hands. 

Having money recovery intelligence is required in selling to Nigerians, and lacking this may throw you out of business quickly except if you don’t sell on credit, but with my experience, it’s almost impossible in Nigeria not to sell on credit. 

6 ) Don’t appear desperate when selling 

No doubt, every tip on this list is useful but some are more important than others and one of them is this: Nigerians are adept at sensing desperation at a distance. If you want to sell a product or service to Nigerians, you must not appear to be desperate. Not that you’re not eager to make money, but don’t let it be clearly written on your face, or else they will run away from you or misprice your product. 

In addition, Nigerians don’t like to be forced to buy anything if they don’t want to. Forcing them to buy will make you appear desperate to them. Don’t do it. It’s bad for selling and what’s bad for selling is bad for business because business is selling. 

7 ) Be available when they need you 

Generally speaking, a small business person is supposed to be available to serve customers/clients when the need arises. Customers love to buy from businesses that value their time and are available to meet their needs. 

As mentioned earlier, Nigerians are impatient when they want something badly and they will buy from available businesses in the marketplace. They move to any available business to meet their needs for them quickly when you are unreachable. 

Being reachable through various channels takes you a bit ahead of the competition and it will bring more sales to you. 

8 ) Reward your loyal customers 

It’s hard to win Nigerians’ loyalty and also hard to maintain it. If you have been in the business for long, you will definitely win some hearts.

Your relationship with them won’t only be about business but like that of friends and family. Some will even tell you that they cannot buy elsewhere if you are not available—that they will rather wait or postpone the purchase. They will bring friends and family members to patronize your business. 

These kinds of customers must be rewarded at least once a year. Gifts can be given to them at the end of the year. Special discounts on products they buy are not bad. The reward should be something they appreciate. 

Rewarding your loyal customers will help to grow your business and you will be able to sell to more Nigerians. 

9 ) Sell something(s) that solves the painful problem(s) for them

Nigeria’s economic realities bite hard for the majority of the people. Many Nigerians leave below the survival line. They spend 70% of their income—if not more—on daily needs and basic necessities.

Hunger is a painful problem. Sickness is a painful problem. Lack of good shelter is a painful problem. And there are so many painful problems to solve for Nigerians and make money through it. To sell to most Nigerians, your business/product/service must address any of their painful issues. 

A hungry man will care more about filling his stomach than going on a vacation. A man struggling to get to work will care more about commuting easily than watching the latest movie at the cinema. A sick person will want to regain his/her health back then watching the premier league. 

If your business plays in the arena of meeting the basic needs and necessities of the majority of Nigeria, you will make more money than you expect. 

10 ) Have stretchable patience

Selling itself is a business activity that requires patience not to talk of selling to Nigerians who are impatient most of the time when they want to buy what they desire. You will definitely need to have the patience to deal with them and remember that you are in business because of providing them with what they need. 

More so, doing business in Nigeria needs patience. You need the patience to turn your idea into a profitable business. You need to have the patience to make good sales and profit which may not happen quickly as projected. 

In conclusion 

Now that you have useful tips on how to sell to Nigerians, what is delaying you from acting with it? Act now and act fast. There is money on the table waiting for you. 

Do you know any other tips on how to sell to Nigerians and make money? Please, leave comments below. I can’t wait to read from you.

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