Sales Is Ghana’s Most Overlooked High-Income Career

speaker-0: There's raw talent in Ghana and Africa as a whole. And there's this connotation about sales, right? When I'm a salesperson, people think you're just selling on the market. But for me, I'd seen a different kind of selling. B2B selling is very much different to what we think of selling back home. Yeah. You know, and anyway, but I just saw a gap and I was like, Do you what? What if I can train the next generation of sales leaders from Africa? And I said, What are my strengths? I love coaching, I love mentoring, I love sales, I love technology, set up a sales academy. I'm giving back But I'm at the same time sharpening the the skills of the next generation of salespeople and sales leaders. So it's not gonna do that. So four years four four and a half, five years ago, I got I got to work and Africa Sales Academy was born. The vision is to be seen as the preeminent sales training company in Africa. speaker-1: In today's episode of the Sound of Crowd Podcast, we are joined by Michael K. Adonteng. He's the founder and CEO of the Africa Sales Academy, and he's also the founder and CEO of Ovil Consulting. He works with startups, scale-ups and enterprise companies and helps them build predictable revenue growth through sales strategy, coaching and pipeline generation. With a background spanning enterprise sales, go-to-market strategy and revenue enablement, Mike has worked with organizations across the UK, Africa and in the Caribbean to improve how they sell, scale teams and enter new markets. Through Africa Sales Academy, he's on a mission to train and connect the next generation of African sales talent to global opportunities whilst helping businesses rethink sales as a true growth engine rather than an afterthought. In this episode, you're going to learn why having a sales system and a sales process is crucial in every organization and company, no matter how big or small they are, why everybody is in sales. You're also going to learn why sales is confused with marketing. Ghana and across Africa, and you're also gonna learn why sales is the most important thing for your organization to stay alive today. And you're going to learn why sales could be the huge game changer for taking the African economy and the Ghanaian economy to the next level, creating jobs and opportunities across the continent. You don't want to miss this episode. Enjoy. Hey everyone, Adrian here. Welcome to the Sand of Crow Podcast. As this this is the show where we showcase global Ghanaian excellence to the world. just in housekeeping. if this is your first time listening, this is the show where we speak with top Ghanaian founders, creatives, and entrepreneurs. if you're watching on YouTube, hit the like button, leave a comment, let us know what you think of the episode. If you listen to Apple Spotify, please leave us a five star review. All right. Okay, so today I'm joined with Mike Adonte. Yeah? speaker-0: That's right. speaker-1: Uh-huh. he's the founder and CEO of Africa Sales Academy and he's also founder CEO of Ovil Consulting as well. So we're gonna get into both of those platforms and consulting firms. But first and foremost, Mike, how are you doing? Thanks for coming to the show actually. speaker-0: Finally, finally, finally. I've been following you for a while. likewise, likewise. And nah, I'm grateful. speaker-1: I'm a big admirer of your work, honestly. Like I've seen you pop around quite a few times, you know, on LinkedIn, you know, doing some of those sales workshops, you know, with the whiteboards. I really love stuff like that. You know, you're taking your content very seriously. you're always giving great content, leaving tips, you know, on the platform. And then, you know, I at first I I didn't realize what you did, but then it's only DC when I really realised what you did. And I was like, no, mics and B2B sales. Not only is in B2B Sales, he you know, he's done a great job in the UK and he's also flying a flag in Africa. He's got the whole sales academy. And I'm like, this is something I don't come across every day. Honestly, he's not. so yeah, could you share more about but actually before you do that, how are you what have you been up to recently, this year, twenty twenty six? speaker-0: B busy. Super busy. now this year's been good. I'm just grateful to God for everything. Yeah. I think I was saying to you off off off off line, off air, we came into this year with one word where my wife and I advancement. Yeah. And you know, it's been nothing short of that. It's been a lot of work, a lot of hardware, a lot of like heavy input But we're now seeing some of the fruit of our labour. Mm and it's been a good year. I mean, I believe in, you know, inputs equals outputs. Hundred percent. So if you if you do the right thing, you know, you see, you know, the resource takes takes takes care of itself. yeah, we're just grinding. You know, we're building legacies, we're building generational wealth, which is obviously what we're gonna talk about today. Yeah. in more more ways than one. and I'm just grateful that, you know, these opportunities are coming to me and able to obviously then then pass it on to others. So it's been a good year. Obviously we're still just about halfway through the year and it's always like, you know, we want to finish hard and wanna finish, you know, as as you know, as you know, coming up to the end of the years where budgets get drawn out, budgets wanna get spent. And therefore, you know, the work has started, but I know it's gonna be a great year, you know, Q two, Q three, Q four. speaker-1: Brilliant. I we're pretty much halfway through the through the year, the World Cup's coming up, you know, Garnava Singland. Should be an interesting one, isn't it? speaker-0: Yeah, I've got I've got a kit ready. I've got my my yellow kit at home ready. speaker-1: I saw the England World Cup team announce and I'm like, Okay, maybe gone as a charge. speaker-0: I've not seen it. I I I need to get updated. I need to get updated, yeah. speaker-1: I'll let you have a look at that. yeah. So you know what before we kind of go, I do want to s touch on your sales career because I did mention to you on the private call sometime that it's the kind of sales career I did actually once but I didn't manage to achieve, so I have a huge respect for you. But before you go then, Mike, could you tell us more about the mission behind Africa Sales Academy and Oval Consulting? Because I know they do two different very things. speaker-0: Yes. So maybe a bit of a backstory. I I've always been in sales, right? As far back as I can remember. my first sales job was when I was eighteen, working for World Dreet Free. and that was like no, not giving away my age, but I was like nineteen ninety eight, right? I was like eighteen at the time. Okay. fast forward I worked for BT Cellnet before we became O two. So this was like early two thousands. but I was like doing part-time work and I was a top salesperson. But I was like face-to-face selling. I didn't really take sales seriously at the time. And then I wanted to go to university, so I went to uni, I was a late entrant. whilst I was at uni, I was still working part-time. I still topped my region, even though I was just working, you know, yeah, half hours than most people. Wow. Again in O two. Then I finished university. I studied business computing. So I'm not really a coder, I'm not really a tech guy. I like coding. you know, communication or like business. So when I finished uni, I had the option to go into either a f a hands-on tech role or more of a a hybrid, which is more of a you know a business role. And I remember saying to myself, Mike, like this sales thing, because obviously we learned sales in my one of my modules, I want to explore that. So I remember vividly working for a company called Adlab Manufacturing in 2005 and I was making some like a hundred calls a day, selling to plumbers, builders. And when I mean like they're putting the phone down, the phone was getting put down like ninety-five percent of the time. But I managed to excel in nine months into one of the top, you know, like the five percent within the the organization. And there was something that I loved about the selling because it was almost like you're coming to work every day wanting to improve yourself. What did I do wrong? What can I have done better? And it's like you're thinking failure is not the end. It's improvement, right? And I loved that for the for the nine months. It was tough. And then There was a shift where I I remember seeing a newspaper, some like hundred K salary in ten years time, if you can do these things. And come on, like who wouldn't want to do that? This is going back like two thousand five. And I said, I am going to be that person. I kid you not, I then the very next day I I signed up for an agency at the time and got my first B to B tech sales role in two thousand and six and I've not looked back. Wow. So since two thousand and six I've done You know, you name it all the you know, SDR to account executive to you know, sales leadership to now obviously founding Africa Sales Academy and of your consulting. Yeah. Now I'm Ghanaian through and through. born here, raised in Ghana and and obviously spent a chunk of my time here from from the age of eighteen. Yeah. And I always kind of go back to Ghana and I always used to feel like we've got so much talent, right? There's raw talent in Ghana and Africa as a whole. And There's this connotation about sales, right? When I'm a salesperson, people think you're just selling on the market. But for me, I'd seen a different kind of selling. Right. B2B selling is very much different to what we think of selling back home. Yeah. You know, and anyway, but I just saw a gap and I was like, Do you know what? What if I can train the next generation of sales leaders from Africa? And I said, What are my strengths? I love coaching, I love mentoring, I love sales, I love technology. Set up a sales academy. I'm giving back, but I'm at the same time Sharpening the the skills of the next generation of salespeople and sales leaders. So I said I'm gonna do that. So four years four four and a half, five years ago, I got I got to work. An Africa Sales Academy was born. The the vision is to be seen as the preeminent sales training company in Africa. But what we really stand for is we're empowering the next generation of sales leaders, whether young, old, to basically be able to understand how to Position their services and speak value and get tangible results. Right? So it it's a lot of nuances when it comes to selling, but we're all about frameworks, methodologies, lista outputs. we have a foundation that that we we you know that that's you know assigned aligned to Africa Souls Academy. and you know we're privileged now to be able to be working with partners like Tek in Ghana, Spurts. You know, that there's many opportunities that are coming our way now. There are businesses you know in Africa that are working with us because they see the value of not just selling or but actually building repeatable revenue systems that will serve them now and for the future. And and that's key. And obvious consulting is my consultant in the UK. So I always thought, all right, Africa Source Academy, that for me is like legacy building, right? It's gonna be here for the next ten, twenty, fifteen, fifteen, twenty, thirty years. Yeah. But what about now? Like when I'm when I pivoted from con corporate, which I did for about eighteen, nineteen years, yeah, I had to pay the bills. So it's like, well, I need a consultant in the UK. So that's obvious consulting. It's almost the same as Africa Souls Academy, but it's more working with leaders, businesses in the UK, Europe, i any business beyond Africa, I work with with within obio consulting. And it's the same thing, right? I train them, I mentor them, I coach them, and I help them build repeatable sales frameworks to help them grow and grow their people. speaker-1: Perfect, Michael. I think that's a key word that you mentioned there, repeatable sales processes. I think one of the key things in sales is having, you know, systems and frameworks that you can just follow through and just trust the process and it will get you to where you need to get to. And that's a big part of sales. I think that's something I learnt later on in my sales career when I was heavily in sales. But yeah, I think this is a good segue, Mike, to talk about the businesses that you're working with in Africa. I mean It's such a shame where you see African businesses they got a great product, you know, great product. They talk about it, they may shout about it, do bit marketing, but they often neglect a whole sales process because sales is the lifeblood of any business. speaker-0: Silly. speaker-1: Talk me through why do you think that happened from your experience? What are you seeing on the continent in Africa and Ghana in terms of the sales process being neglected? Are you shocked to see the amount of people that have no sales structure, process in place. speaker-0: Even shocks is not even the word. Really? Honestly, shocks is not even the word. I mean I I'll bring it back to the Ghana context 'cause this is the sound of our craft, right? So let let's let's keep it let's keep it authentic. Okay. But if I look at Africa as a whole, I've I've trained leaders in Ethiopia, I've been in Uganda, of course I've been in, you know, Jamaica as well. I train other, you know, leaders across other continents. And I always see see the a recurring theme across the board. So it's not just Ghana. You know, it's across the board. What I typically do is when I get a brief to say, Mike, you know, you're training these ten companies or you know, you you're gonna be coaching this many, you know, leaders, the br the first thing I always look out for is obviously the company, what they do, the how they set up, right? The teams, and then you see products, all the or the you know, bios, and then you see social media, marketing, logistics, ops. And then a team a a company of let's say a hundred people You go to sales and it's like one person. No. No, no, I kid you not. Serious. I kid you not. And and I do this every time and I'm like, Why? But meanwhile, there's other people in the business doing sales, by the way. Right? It could be the founder, it could be the CEO. and we'll talk about that later on. But I see this so the first thing I always bring up would be to the leaders, why just one person in sales? You said you rightly said it. It's the the the the engine room of the business, of any business. So why just one person? And then that obviously unravels a whole kind of you know and and from that point on it gives me the opportunity to then explain why that should not be the case. I find sales is always an afterthought for a lot of businesses. Not least because these founders and some of these leaders, they they naturally sell because they built the companies, they're the founders, they're the innovators, and they've kind of just grown the company organically through referrals or their network. But that can only hit a ceiling at some point. Right. And and when I get bought in is to say, Mike, you know, we've managed to grow to this revenue s size, but we're plateauing. Like w we're we're st we're we're stagnant now. We need to go beyond that. Mm. And there's always a a reason for that. There's a real cause, and I'm sure we'll all know we're dying. speaker-1: Must be rubbing your hands when you hear that point. speaker-0: Well, it's not that it's just like, really not again. But do you know what? If you don't know it, you don't know it. Yeah. Right? Th there's there's a certain way of doing things And if you know that methodology and that framework, then you do it. If you've never been exposed to it, I don't blame them. So to answer your question, I think it's a a culture of one sales is being frowned upon. Right. And I know many, many leaders in Ghana or even many reps, you know, what's your role? I'm a marketing person. No, no, no. You're not marketing. You're doing sales. But the name sales, they don't like any association with it. speaker-1: They don't understand the concepts. And I think this is a great point to kind of circle back to you mentioned S D R, AE. I think people even in the corporate world may not understand those terms. Could you break down S Dr, A E and what what those what those roles are? Because some people don't actually you actually realize there's actual roles in speaker-0: Yes. So an SDR else is an acronym for sales development representative. Yeah. an SDR for short are individuals that would typically do the the the top of funnel activities. When I say top of funnel, yeah, they're the ones who are doing the research, you know the researching potential buyers of your service or your product. They are doing the calling, the emailing, the LinkedIn. They do a lot of the heavy lifting in the business. They're undervalued. And because I train SDRs, I know how they feel. Without them, nothing comes through the funnel. If you think about funnel, you put a lot at the top and everything filters down to because you can't close everyone you're speaking to. You can't convert them. There's only a fraction and a percentage. And and you know, the SDLs, that's their job. the next level up is once you've done an SDR role for some time. I did SDR role for about two years. Mm-hmm. Then I moved into accounting executive. Now a lot of businesses will interchangeably use accounting executive for a BDM. A BDM is a business development manager. Yeah. Or a bid or a business development representative, a BDR. Yeah. They tend to be slightly senior than the SDRs. Yeah. And their role is effectively, in a s as a as a BDM or as an account executive, when you get past that inquiry or that lead from a SDR say, I spoke for Vadrian from the Sound of a Crowd Podcast. He seems to have a budget to buy what it is that we're selling. He has a timeline and there seems to a bit be a knee there. Okay, I'm the I'm the AE account executive. I pick it up, I have a call with you, and then we have a a long drawn-out sales cycle. A sales cycle could be anywhere from, you know, a few days to months or years in some instances. Yeah. And that's where the magic of, you know, how do you establish relationship, trust, talk about value, ROI? good presentation. There's a whole host of things that if you don't have a certain way of doing it within your own organization, that engagement falls down and you lose the deal. Yeah. And you wonder why a lot of CEOs and founders will say, The deal's stuck, it's not moving. It's just because there's no framework or there's no methodology for the account executives to follow to to to to close Adrian from inquiry to becoming a customer and beyond. So that's what a AEs do. then obviously from there you've got the the sales directors, you know, who are people managers to the VPs and and the likes. But then you've got the account managers. So when I train leaders, I talk about sales go to market team. Yeah. Now the sales go to market team isn't just salespeople or no the SDL, the AE, it's everybody who has an affiliation with revenue. So that includes marketing, that includes, you know, RevOps, right? That also includes, you know, I think I talked about the AE already. Yeah. You know But the but the RevOps is key because the RevOps are the ones who, as a CEO, you're thinking, what are my conversion ratios? How many meetings does my people need to do to convert? RevOps are the ones who will give you that information, like the data, the analysis. Yeah. Revops are key because they also give you the tools. Yes. As a salesperson, no you need tools to help you to be successful. Yes. What are the tools? A CRM where you log in everything you're doing. A call system. Mm-hmm. these days it's AI, right? Yeah. So all these tools, the RevOps people are the ones who ensure that, okay, these tools are there to support these salespeople to help them achieve X, right? so yeah, so we've got SDRs, you've got AEs, you've got sales directors, you've got the RevOps people, of course you've got marketing and and the likes. It's a team. Yeah. Right. Sales cannot be successful without, you know, the team in and around them. And therefore, you know, when I speak to leaders, it's all about You know, think team and then maybe you bring it down to sales and then we can talk about the sales playbooks and so on and so forth. But th th those aspects are critical to get it right. speaker-1: Cool, thanks for breaking down all the different types of sales roles. I think it's so easy to overlook, you know, what role does what. And, you know, some people don't have an actual concept of different roles of sales in actual business rather than just, you know, pitching to someone or mubs. I think they just make I think there's a typical mix up of mixing up marketing of sales, isn't it? In especially in Africa. speaker-0: Yes. Yes. yeah. I mean, look, back back to my earlier analogy of, you know, looking at the brief and there'll be two or three people in marketing, somebody doing social, somebody doing you know, product marketing, somebody doing field marketing and and all these are other other roles. but yeah, look, I th there's this situation that always on rivals between sales and you know, salespeople and marketing people, marketing feels like they're doing the right jobs because obviously they're the ones that I call something push and pull. Yeah. Marketing are the ones who create awareness of the brand, the product, the organization. And typically when you create awareness, it brings inbound. Right. So that's like the pull effect. Yeah. So, you know, I may be browsing and I see the sound of a crowd podcast through the work of your marketing person. let me go and you know, investigate who this person. a sound of a crowd. I like that. Let me make an inquiry. That's a marketing inbound. Yeah. Right? And then typically when it comes inbound you know the the SDLs will pick it up sometimes and and work from there. then you've got salespeople, right? Salespeople for me, again, when I say sales, I mean the ones that are doing the outbound stuff, the push. Yeah. So they're doing the heavy lifting research, you know, the things I talked about earlier on. there's this thing where marketing always points fingers to say, No, we're doing our job, but you're not the ones right. And then sales people say, No, no, but we're getting, you know, crap, you know, lease or or opportunities and there's that thing. If you can find a model that makes marketing appreciate the work of sales and sales appreciate the work, that's the best formula that any organization could could ever put together. and and I say this from experience, right? I've worked for larger organizations, I've worked for, you know, startups and I've worked for some SMEs, you know, or or mid market organizations. When I've seen it work is when marketing and sales are interlocked. There's a cohesion between the the the two teams and it just it just works because It there there's you know, support coming from either side and ultimately it leads to the overall r you know, revenue goal or or whatever the goal that that that may be set. speaker-1: Okay, okay. No, I totally agree with you on that one. Mark and the sales I always say like brothers and sisters. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: But it's so important. It's I don't know why it's so overlooked and underrated in Africa as well. what would you say Ghanaian and African business owners usually get wrong about pipeline? speaker-0: So speaker-1: 'Cause you mentioned earlier refer referrals, introductions, word of mouth, existing relationships that's typically how people get their speaker-0: That that is how you know the the low hanging fruit w and there's n there's nothing wrong with that, right? But of course, you know, we talked about scaling beyond that. And you want to speaker-1: Sustainability consist predictabil predictability of leads. speaker-0: Totally Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So what in my in my experience, you know, working with, you know, founders and leaders, when they say pipeline, they're almost thinking like contacts, like referrals. Some of them are unqualified. What I mean by that is Yeah, i yes, you may get ten people saying, I think I might like what I like what you're doing or but you haven't qualified it. What does that mean? You haven't had a conversation to say, Are they within my sweet spot? Right? 'Cause you can't close everything. do they have money? Yeah. Right, because somebody might be interested now, but they don't have money till maybe five years' time. You're not going to spend the same amount of effort on somebody who's going to be ready in five years to somebody who's ready now. So this is important, right? Prioritizing your urgent importance and non-urgent non-important, right? Because you have to be able to segment these these referrals. But yeah, what what when I hear that it's always like, is it qualified or unqualified? And what you don't want to do is if you fill your funnel with the mixture of qualified and unqualified, how do you distill it? in the end. Right. and and and and I hear that speaker-1: No process for that. speaker-0: No process. No process. So it's it's vitally important that yeah, you know, that segmentation takes place. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: Have you have you got any kind of good like customer stories that you worked with where they didn't have anything like this in place and then you came in or Africa you know, or Africa Sales Academy came in and then, you know, they've got a complete shift in their business speaker-0: Yeah, I've got a trajectory. Yeah. Yeah, there's a few. I mean, th th the the one that I always kinda use, it's a very simple story. Yeah. Ghanaian Company, so Africa Sales Academy, we were fortunate to be able to work with the United Nations International Trade Center, right? UNITC for short. Yeah. So UNITC had a program that was running for five years called the NTF five. Another story for another day. That's okay. But I met one of the the leaders, Milo at Tek in Ghana in fact, you know, several years ago. And I remember it was Just in passing, right, you know, she was one of the speakers, I was one of the delegates, you know, the session was about to start, she was going in and I just bumped in and I Hey, how you doing? My name's Mike. She's like, yeah, okay. And then she's like, What'd you I Africa says academy. She's like, Tell me more about that. And literally it was like two minutes, I kid you not. I said, Well, we focus on value, focus on She's like, We need to talk. She had to get back, obviously. She got back, we exchanged numbers, email, subsequently we had a call and then I g I won a contract to to work for ITC. Now, as part of ITC, there's always like a a group of cohorts. These are maybe twenty businesses that are being supported through you know, maybe a three or five year period. Yeah. And I worked with easily twenty companies over a three and a half year period. Now the the value from that from that engagement, I was three year or two and a half years into the program starting. So obviously I was with them for two and a half years and seven and a half million dollars revenue outcome for the businesses that we supported. It's not just down to my efforts or the efforts of ASA, After Souls Academy. Yeah. But as as a whole, yeah, revenue was a you know, a huge attribution. Yes. Which obviously came from the the the training, the coaching and everything else. speaker-1: I can link it back to the efforts that you and your team have done. speaker-0: Absolutely. Absolutely. So that number kind of you know stands out. But I remember one guy, obviously don't want to mention the name on the podcast, okay, coming to me and saying, Mike, we leverage your frameworks and we turned over in one quarter more than what we did in the year more than what the year before. So within three months, they're turned over us more than what they turned over the prior year for twelve months. No. Just leveraging some frameworks. That's the power, right? Now, obviously there's no didn't give me any revenue numbers. course. But for me that was powerful. And I use this because it's like you know old mindsets, old results, new mindsets, new results. And that's exactly what happened with them. there's been others, you know, I I'm working with organizations that are changing their way of doing things from building playbooks. And I talk about playbooks a lot because and I know we're gonna probably you know dive in dive into that later on. Playbooks are the blueprint of of how organizations run their sales culture or their sales teams. Yeah. What I find is a lot of these businesses that I work with across Africa, Ghana as well, they would have pockets of that. They they may have how to identify the ideal customer persona, or ICP, if in case we use, you know, the the the acronym. They may know how to do a discovery call, right? How to, you know, have a call and qualify. Can we work with that person? Are we good and all that. Yeah. But it's there's no coherence. So The challenge is you're a salesperson, you've been hired into this new organization, you have come from a place where they did things differently. You're now in this new organization, you're saying, Okay, but how do you do things here? Well, well, just go into the the drive and everything. No, no, but what's your sales culture? What is your playbook? How does success look like in this organization? Yeah. Now, I've been a salesperson before f for many years. If you leave us all of you know to our own accord, we will work. But we won't we won't work to how you want it to to look. What I mean by that is things needs to be measured, tracked, right? I need to be coached. I need to be mentored. I need I've got aspirations. I've got a story. As a leader, founder, CEO, salespeople need love. If you're not tapping into these things, they're gonna end up leaving for the for the next person that comes in and say, I could give you all these things that you're not getting. But it starts with having a playbook and a structured way that everybody in the business understands. We're all gunning for this revenue number and my efforts are leading to this ev you revenue number. And therefore I think when I speak to leaders, I always say it has to be from top down as opposed to bottoms up. You, the leader, has to, you know, outrightly come out and say, Look, we're gonna build a sales culture. We are gunning for one million, five million dollars of revenue for the next twelve months. Yeah. And this is how we're going to do And there are some frameworks that I always leverage in my training. speaker-1: And I'm sure I think you do give some some free away. So we'll make sure that's linked in the description below. Yes. from courtesy of of your consultant, isn't Yes. Yes. We'll make sure there's a link. You know, we'll leave a link in the description below and you know, I'm sure Mike and his team would be happy to work with you if it's if it's a good fit as well. you know what, you read my mind because I was actually gonna say what does a good sell system look like and you basically answer this, you know, in a sense We talked about what a good sales team looks like. We talked about what a good sales system looks like. why is this not a viable career? Or why is this not really a sought after career for Ghanaians, maybe Africans? Like why why why isn't? I mean you talked about your sales career. Yeah. You talked about earlier on how you saw the salary figure. why can't I you know, why not? Let's give it a go. Commissions, bonuses, there's a lot of upsides in sales. Why is this not a sought after career in Africa and Ghana? speaker-0: I still don't understand. I think it's that negative connotation. Yeah. But then again, look, growing up, I wanted to become a doctor. Mm. Yes, weird. I also wanted to become a an engineer. I remember my uncle was one of the engineers for Gunner Airways, right? no longer here, R. I. P. Sweet. But I used to look at him and think, Rah, I like this uncle, right? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, you the way he dresses, the way he goes about his swagger. Yeah. But then obviously s you know, went to college and uni and engineering wasn't really my thing. Yeah. But if we take it back to Ghana, doctors are respected. Mm-hmm. Lawyers are respected. Mm-hmm. Engineers are respected. Yeah. Salespeople are misunderstood. Mm. If you say you're in sales, your mum or dad is probably thinking, Mm s sales, what is that? Yeah. Doctor, yeah, yeah, well done. Right? speaker-1: One of the most overlooked careers. One of the most profitable as well. speaker-0: Absolutely. Yeah. As well, right? Because speaker-1: In control of what you make. speaker-0: absolutely. But but now let's bring it to some of our leaders. Okay. Right? Now I've done some research. Okay. Right. And Kwame Krummer, as we know, from what the the research tells me, back in the thirties, early thirties, when he was in the States before his political career, he was selling fish wholesale. Yeah. Right. i in in in in the States. He was a salesperson. And I'm saying this for a reason. Yeah. Right? if we look at Nelson Mandela, before he set up his well w when he set up his all black attorney, right, he had to go out and leverage his business development skills to grow the company. Again, the business skills, right? Then finally let's look at Aliko Dangote. Yeah. Again, from research, he had to borrow Money from his uncle or something to start his commodity business. But again, he needed the the sales skills to be able to grow that. Why am I saying all these things? The leaders that we value and we appreciate, these skills are either innate or inherent, but it may not be explicit. But today it is explicit, right? And therefore we'll have to tap into that and grow. Grow as people and grow as organizations. So yeah, I mean, I I don't get it because sales. You know, it empowers economies, it creates jobs, it funds innovation, it does all these things. It's the revenue engineering and any investor that puts money into a business, guess what? They put money in because they want their business to grow. What is the function in the business that grows the the the organization? It's a sales team. So so I d you know, it it's it's quite counterintuitive when we don't give it much time and much love. But that's that's why that's what I do. I advocate and I challenge leaders To to change their thinking, t th th their ways of thinking. speaker-1: Wow. Powerful. Very, very powerful how you explained all of that. Whew. I think for any corporates, any organizations, B2B, th wow, these are great insights that I think people need to, you know, listen to and pay attention to. And you know what it is, Mike? Everyone's in sales. Break that down. Everyone's in sales. Interviews. Yes. Updating. Relationships. Everyone. Break that down real quick. Yeah. speaker-0: We're all selling. Break break that Yeah, I mean look, selling selling is not people think selling is the ones who are the loudest in the room. Yeah. yeah, who who can do the the most talking? That's not selling. Yeah. Selling is you know, who is the best listener? Right? And look, if you talk about dating, I'm married, so I'm out I've been out of the game for a long time. But you know, if you take your lady out or you know you you go on a date. What do women value? Good listeners. Right? Yeah. If you do the most talking, everybody thinking you're not listening to me. Another example, you're talk I'm talking to you right now. Imagine you're talking to me and I'm not even looking at you. There's no eye contact. I'm just like you're thinking, like are you really interested in the conversation or are you not? Right? So I say that to say when it comes to selling, now I I know that there are some you know traits that good salespeople exhibit, which you know we'll dive in later on, I'm sure, if if we come to that. But I always say communication is key. But the body language and all the like you get to know who you are as a person when you're in sales. I have read countless books. I have been to countless courses just because I want to be better, I want to grow. Yeah. And that's all off the back of sales. Because when I'm in sales, I'm thinking, how can I understand how the human psychology works? Yeah. Because sales is all a mindset. Yeah. If you can get into the mindset of and by the way, sales is not it's not a trickery. It's not persuasion, it's not convincing. Those words don't work in my academy and and and the premium academies that that I I I I value. Yeah. What really works is influence. How can I come across as trusted, right? Genuinely and authentically be be trusted. How can I come across as somebody who knows the industry, somebody who knows your challenges? How can I come across as somebody who adds value to what you're doing? But most importantly, servant mindset. Like I genuinely want to serve my customers. Like I really wanna go over and above to say, Okay, I may not be doing great here, but look, I'm serving you. And you they have to see that. So, you know, all the young salespeople out there or even, you know, people that been in sales for a long time, the it's a mindset, it's a servant mentality. And if you can really, you know, align to that kind of th a way of thinking, it just you're gonna be a standout. And this is gonna come a time where I mean currently the market's flooded, right? Because There's lots of, you know, people letting go and and because of AI and and and and all these things. It's speaker-1: That's a whole conversation. speaker-0: a whole conversation. We're not gonna get into We're not gonna get into that. That's another two. But guess what? What the guess guess the elite sellers, yeah, and and I Africa Source Academy, yeah, and and OVA consulting, I I always use this terminology elite. Like you have to stand above the rest, right? It's like a an iceberg. Like I always say, you know, the the top twenty percent or the top one percent. Yes. That's what we train for. Because otherwise, you're just like everybody else. You're just average. Like you're hearing the same things, you're you're you're you're speaking the same way. You have to invest in yourself to to be better and to be above anybody else. speaker-1: that's really important Mike because investing in consistently investing yourself in terms of and practicing as well, really key in sales, that could be the difference between maybe converting maybe ten percent of your leads compared to twenty percent of your lead. speaker-0: Sol. speaker-1: Honestly, it's so so key. Totally. You know what? I'm actually thinking, is there anyone that you kind of look at to in terms of sales speaker-0: wow. That's a good question. Yeah. speaker-1: 'Cause I've had I mean, there's people who are really known well for sales. I mean that of course, I mean I I can't even think of American people at the moment. But for some reason, you know, I think Grant Cardone at one point one point was really good, you know, and then Jordan Belfort at one point, you know, the Wolf of Wall Street guy, the speaker-0: Yes, yes, yes. speaker-1: straight light system. there's other people out there. is anyone that you could admire or you've looked up to, or maybe it's helped you along the way. Maybe even I know you've referred to good to great that speaker-0: Yes, yes. As well. Yes. speaker-1: Why has that book been so pivotal to your sales career? speaker-0: think good to great for me is this the concepts, the frameworks, the methodologies. But I mean the name says it all, right? Companies that were good were left behind by the companies that were great. And and and i if you look at the the flywheel, yeah and and I talk about the flywheel a lot, it's just there are frameworks in there where, you know, discipline people, di discipline thought, discipline leadership. Mm and the the takeoff is from Disciplined thoughts, right? And obviously, you there there's the there's a whole different frameworks in in each of those three buckets. Yeah. But good to gray for me, when I read that book in twenty ten, I go back to this book almost every year. Yeah. Because for me it's applicable in all areas of our lives, right? Yeah, so so I love that book. But in terms of your question I don't really have any kind of anybody out there that I look up to. And I don't say that from an arrogant perspective, right? speaker-1: So you don't always have to. It could just be maybe speaker-0: Leaders. Leaders that I've worked over the years. I probably go a handful, right? You know, I have to actually I'm not going to mention names because they know who they are. But the ones, you know, I I have this on my phone. You know, whenever a leader did something which I really valued or appreciated, I'll just make a note of it to say this leader, this thing. Right. So if you if I go on my phone, I've got leaders that I I valued and I trusted, and it's all there. Yeah. And obviously from there I've learned so much from it. And I now leverage it in my leadership, you know, with with with with what I do. But it's interesting because I talk about the fact that leaders, when it comes to coaching and and and mentoring, the one thing that I never had, but it's so critical, is they never really got to find out who I am as a person. Yeah. My story. And I always feel like, you know, and I use this on, you know, a tech and gunner podcast that I had recently on, rules without relationships creates rebellion and resistance. And I found like the leaders will You know, th they were good at what they do, they'll deliver a number, but they don't really care about you, the individual. Right? And I remember bringing this up in in a coaching session in in w when I was in Uganda and a through artist, leaders, understand the stories of your people. One of them led to me in a blank phase that your stories. I said, Yeah. Like the why of your people. Like why why do I come to work every day, Mike? Like what makes me wake up at five in the morning wanting to come and work for your organization? Mike, tell me about your story. I what I see It's it's probably twenty percent. But you've got eighty per cent that I don't know. Tell me more about that eighty percent, right? The iceberg, isn't it? The ice principle, right? Yeah. And this leader was like so I said and then s suddenly another leader was like, let me answer the question. I I've got something that I want to share. Okay. This leader says Okay, and this was a room full of about twenty other leaders. Yeah. He says, During COVID, he was almost like bankrupt. He had no money to pay his staff. Yeah. The one thing that he'd he'd done prior to and he still does it to this day, yeah, was He really gets to connect with his staff. Doesn't matter what level they're at. Yeah. He wants to understand who they are, what makes them take, what's their story, like their family, that kind of stuff. He said, Mike, throughout COVID, his counterparts, we're losing staff, left, right, center, none of his staff left. They all stayed. speaker-1: That made a difference. speaker-0: That made a difference. He said they because they wanted to s like work for him. 'Cause he they knew he generally cared for them. It's no different. Right, when it comes to what we do and and you know salespeople, I mean yeah, we need love 'cause what we do is tough. Yeah. And therefore, you know, the leaders that I remember to this day are the ones who genuinely cared for Michael. Mine, let's pull work aside. How are you doing? Like, do you know what I mean? Like generally that. So and and and and I r I respect it to this day. speaker-1: So true. Like honestly, it's so so true. I think I remember in my retail sales days, because I think in terms of how I started sales was maybe a bit like you, you know, jumping on the phone, cold calling, selling, you know, double glazing windows to people across the UK. and you know, I didn't like that because the sales leadership wasn't great as well. It was very repetitive, very but very boring. And then when I got into phone sales, like O2, car for warehouse, and then moving up to management, I loved it because there was certain managers that I worked under before I went into management myself. Yes. they cared about me. You know, they cared about me, you know, they wanted to see how I was doing and they wanted to see look, what what's going on your personal life? How can I help you so that when you come to work you can do your best? And those are leaders that I couldn't wait to to work with every day. Absolutely. it's so, so important, I think, having a right sales leader in place in any organisation. Yes. But also Going back to what we discussed before, is also important having certain mindset, yes, certain skills. Yes. in terms of selling. What would what would you say is the skills, the mindsets that are needed to be a good seller? I mean, you've talked about being you know, making jumping on the phone, making a hundred calls a day, being rejected. I've been through that as well. So talk talk me through that stuff the tough skin, etcetera. speaker-0: Yeah, so I mean when it comes to recruitment, again that's an area where I I advise businesses on the people you bring through the door are the ones that are going to end up forming your sales culture, right? And it's so critical because I see a lot of people do it the other way around. They bring in the people, right. and then they they then overlay you know, systems above that. It's good, but I would say build a system first and then over the over the overlay the people. Yeah. So in terms of the people Th there's three H in my mind, right? Three H. Yeah. the first H is your head. The second H is your heart. The third H is your hard work. So let me kind of double click on those. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Your your head is almost things such as you know your communication, you know, y your your viewpoints, how curious are you, yeah, how intelligent are you? These are the things which you know, if you see a any anyone exhibiting these things and you can give them different tasks and stuff, or look at the exp you know past experience, the the he the he the headpiece is is key, right? Yeah. Then the heart. The heart are the intangibles. Right. And I always say the hearts are the like the emotional intelligence, the you know your your integrity, your your your trust your values. That's important because that's character building. And you know sales is tough. When things get tough in sales, your heart is what comes in. Cause you're gonna have times I alwa call I always call it feast and famine. Yeah. You feast. Salespeople, yeah, I'm doing amazing, you know, six months. But like seasons, yeah. Famine's going to come. Yeah. When famine comes and you're down here, yeah, your character's what gets you back up there. So that the the the heart is what kinda pushes you back up. And then the hard work, the name says it all right. That's like work ethic, like who who's really going to own the stuff. Yeah. accountability. Like, you know Like who genuinely wants wants it more. Right. And I'm not saying hard work is working, you know, twenty-four hours a day or, you know, eighteen hours hour days. It's not that. Yeah. But it's an intentional approach of like I really want this thing to work. Yeah. And therefore, even if I have to spend an hour on a Sunday evening to prep for my week ahead, I'm going to do that as opposed to coming on a Monday and just starting right. So so it's is all that planning, the preparation. Yeah. That that is what I mean when I talk about hard work. So the three H's It's f it's quite easy for me to obviously train and for leaders when you know, when you're in an interview room and you're, you know, trying to you know, assess individuals, you just think three H's and suddenly you can ask questions which are pointing to to th to those H's, yeah. speaker-1: It's very good framework. I've never heard it put it that way before, but I mean it internally I've kind of known that, you know, over the years. thanks for sharing that. Okay, so look, when we picture Ghana or Africa as a whole, let's say we've got good sales teams in place, we've got good s sales processes and frameworks in place. Yes. And we've got people actually interested in joining a sales career. Yes. How do you think that would then shift the economy of Ghana or even Africa as a whole? And and then also talk me through what the next generation, building up the next generation looks like for Africa Sales Academy in terms of the next talent pipeline of the next sales leaders and and sales managers and executives. speaker-0: Sure. So that that that's quite a nuanced question, right? The first one. Yeah. earlier on I alluded to the fact that, you know, sales, funds, innovation, it it creates jobs. Yeah. and obviously, you know, it empowers the economy, right? But how I look at it is and I always use, you know, the Dash story. Yeah. And I'm not talking about Dash in the negative way. I just think in every failure there there's an equivalent opportunity that we can learn from. You know, Dash, amazing company, raised up to eighty million dollars. but then their burn rate was so significant that they had to shut down. Now I know it was probably boiling down to some specifics, right? I know reglitery was one of those things. but I would say imagine there was a way in which there was such a s there was a sales system as you mentioned, the people and everything else was so structured in such a way that the revenue that was coming in, well, let's say a million a month as opposed to the five hundred K burn rate. Yeah. That would have been sustainable somewhat, right? And I'm pretty sure it'll still be here to this day. Yeah. So, you know, if imagine having ten of dashes in Ghana. Mm. What is that going to do for the youth, right? It gives you confidence. You just know that innovate you just believe that wow, okay. We can build businesses in Ghana that can turn over a hundred million plus. Mm-hmm. Right? Even to the billions. Why not? Yeah. Right? We have such a fantastic infrastructure. Yeah. Mobile money. Right. It's solid, you know, s it more users than the p population, from what I read. Right. so payments wise, I think we're you know there's still work to be done, but we're fairly, fairly structured somewhat. speaker-1: We are getting there, definitely. speaker-0: Right? What it really needs now is and an innovations from an innovation perspective, we have so many amazing and intelligent innovators. Like you go to all these events, everyone's building something. Look, speaker-1: True. speaker-0: okay, but you're building, but how are you gonna sell? Are you gonna build it and put it on the shelf? Yeah. I mean honestly let's be honest. speaker-1: True, it's true. speaker-0: You have to build and sell. speaker-1: It's probably why you see maybe a lot of these startups, maybe across Africa, they raise so much but then they decline because no salesmen. Where's speaker-0: Totally. speaker-1: the money? speaker-0: Totally. So, you know, in terms of economy, I just think we just need to, you know, gr just get away from this connotation of sales isn't good or you know sales is the lifeblood of every business. And therefore we need to start thinking long term, right? Start thinking legacy, start thinking sustainability like you just said, start thinking repeatability. When the mindset starts to s shift from the next year, next two years to long term And I every business would have different exit plans, right? But I'm talking businesses that wanna be here to stay for a long time. Yeah. And even if you're looking at exiting at some point, still ensure that you're building these frameworks. For me, the economy can only grow because foreign investors are gonna be interested in investing in Ghana. Yeah. Why would they not, right? There's ten dashes, twenty dashes companies growing. Wow, everyone's what Ghana must be that new next hotspot for businesses that are growing. Why is that? Let's go investigate. There's money more money coming to the economy. Yeah. There's more people paying taxes. Yeah. There's more jobs being created because these businesses grow, they need people to then guess what? Not just in sales, but in all different divisions. You know, accounting, legal, logistics. Yeah. So for me, I come back to the my earlier point of it will fund economies, it will create more jobs, and you know, it will empower the the next generation. And kinda leading to your next question of what does that look like? So as part of Africa Sales Academy, we ran cohort training. for for young salespeople, right? The ones I want to get into SDR. Yeah. and what we've now built is we built a a separate sister company called Talvara. Yeah. Right? So it's called Talvara.io. Okay. And Talvara is effectively a managed revenue platform. So think about and I know this and you may know this as well. Businesses in the UK and the US, if you hire an SDR, you know You're paying them, I don't know, let's say forty K a year, right? In the UK. Yeah. Put commission on top, another maybe twenty K, sixty sixty thousand pounds. Okay. But the fully loaded costs is beyond that. Coaching, mentoring, the systems they're using, add an extra, like the the tax you've got to pay them. And I so the fully loaded cost of an SDR is not sixty K including commission. You're probably looking at seventy five K. Mm, right? And businesses kinda overlook that the fifteen K extra. Now. The SDR starts, it takes them three three months to onboard. Yeah. And I know because I train SDRs and I've been in SDR before many years, right? Yeah. So three months, and then imagine they leave after n after nine months because they did not perform. Yeah. It's a lot of expense. What we're doing at Talvar, and to to your point is we are training the candidates. We started from Ghana and now Nigeria. Yeah. so Ghana and Nigeria are the candidates. We try them through like an eight week cohort. through Africa Sales Academy, so that's where we c you ASA comes in. We have a learning e-learning system. So it's it is quite a an intensive cohort, but they leave being elites at SDR jobs, right? It's specifically S DR. Now what we then do is these businesses in the UK and the US that are saying, actually, do you know what I'm I I want to significantly lower my cost of sale or my my you know, my payments to to the S Dr organization. Yeah. outsource it to us. Now, when they outsource it to us, it's cost effective for them. Yeah. Right. We're delivering results because we don't just hire anybody, right? We have a a particular way and a science to what you know how we hire, you know, the individuals that go through the cohorts. But we're giving jobs to these individuals. Right. And that that for me, that that's the key thing for me, right? How can we provide a win win outcome for foreign businesses And for the locals that we want to train and and the next version the next generation of the sales leaders. So that's what we built now. Yeah. so we're gonna continue running these cohort sessions, but from an Africa Source Academy perspective, we're just training leaders, right? I mean, you know, off the back of my session with the Tek in Ghana masterclass, yeah, we had two inquiries. Right. and myself and and Akussiar Tekken Ghana, we are starting the revenue growth lab. Yeah. Which is again a six week but purely for leaders. This is not SDR, purely for leaders. Yeah. and the goal is for them to kinda leave with, you know, playbooks and frameworks that would give them the repeatability and sustainability that we talked about. Absolutely, right. So yeah, you know, it's exciting time because you know, when I was I I I was on the on the way here I was like, actually Mike, so you wanted to be a a doctor, you want to be an engineer, you didn't become any of those. But in a sense I kinda am because I'm diagnosing sales or businesses and that's what doctors do. I'm engineering frameworks and methodologies, that's what engineers do. So in some way, God have a funny way of working right, because what you think is going to be is not going to be. Honestly, on the way here, I was like, actually that is that. Yeah. So I'm just excited with you know, with what I had and of course, you know, I'm looking forward to you know, partnerships with with the likes of yourself because Yeah. You know, the the platform that you've built is incredible. Yeah. and I think, you know, platforms like you is what we need to amplify the voice of, you know, especially Ghana and Africa. Yeah. and you know, businesses, 'cause you build the trust, you have the expertise as well. and and you know, you can only scale with partnerships as well. So I'm I'm excited for for where things are going with ASA. speaker-1: Thank you. Thank you so much. really exciting to hear everything that's coming up as well. Tech in Ghana next month I believe as well. We'll leave a link below. Shout out to Koswia and the team. but yeah, I think it's a great year for Africa, it's a great year for both of us. You know, there's a lot happening in the continent as well. I think a lot more people are waking up to Africa as well. Yes. So I think you're in the the right place at the right time. And that was a beautiful poetic circle back because you mentioned doctor and engineers Potential career part of the beginning of this episode and this is kinda like where we're ending. So that was wonderful. I like that. Yeah. So yeah, it's been great ha having having you on the show, Mike. just before we get out of here, is there anything else you want to say to the audience? Otherwise let everyone know where they can find more about Africa Sales Academy and O O Vilcons. speaker-0: Yeah, so I always leave with i it's a mindset shift, right, Adrian. I think as leaders and I said this it has to start from top down, we need to start thinking long term, longevity, right? We need to start building systems and frameworks that are here to stay for a long time. Yeah. because sometimes when I'm coaching some of these businesses and I look at their history, yeah, it's like they've been going for like a hundred years, like fifty years, yeah, forty years. But why can't we do the same thing back home? Like why can't Africans and and Ghanaians do that, right? And almost it's synonymous to a a manufacturing production line. And I use this because this is relevant. Mm-hmm. When we think about a production line, right? Think about you know, anything that, you know, is being produced. Yeah. You got the raw materials, right? That goes through some measurements, mm-hmm, that then gets refined. Yeah. Then there's an output. Yeah. Now we're manufacturing revenue, so it should be the same thing. In my view anyway, right? So what are the raw materials? The raw materials are you know the the the sales leads, the inbound leads, outbound leads, the referrals, the the network. That's the raw materials, right? Then it goes through a production line. Yeah. That is where, as I explained earlier on, the accounting executive picks up the inquiry, has the meeting, maybe has a demo if it's a technology solution, d does a proposal, does a meeting, several meetings, do a dis a negotiation. Close the deal. That's the production line, right? Yeah. But then there's a QC, the quality control. The quality control is where are you speaking to the right people? All right, I've got ten inquiries, but not all ten are gonna buy from me. Yeah. Which ones are my ICP, i.e. my yeah, you know, identified customer persona. You know, so you need to make and opposite things like frameworks. So when someone when a salesperson is speaking to a potential customer, how they do their qualification. Yeah. Right. And there are many frameworks out there, right? you know, there's medic, there's bands, I you there's there's so many. Again, you've got have a system for that. So the QC is important because if you don't QC it, it impacts your forecast. And as we know with leaders, ha the forecast is key. How are you able to forecast the next year, the next five years, knowing that you're confident that when you're speaking to an investor, we believe investors how prove it. There you go, boom, boom, boom, right? There's a science to that. So that's the QC part. So so far you got raw materials, production line, the QC, and then the output. The output is always gonna be revenue, growth, retention. Right? Renewals, all those things. So I really implore every leader to think manufacturing revenue is a production line. And those components need to be you know, given a lot of deep thoughts. And this is where the likes of the the sales playbooks comes into play, right? You need to leverage playbooks to help you to kind of give you that that blueprint foot for your organization. speaker-1: Perfect. Yeah, and speaking of blueprints, I know I once again you've got some free resources on Oval Consultants, we'll link them down below so you guys can grab those those resources. Yeah, wow, that was a very fantastic session. I really enjoy that, Mike. So yeah, there you have it guys. Mike Adonteng, founder CEO of the Africa Sales Academy and Oval Consultant. We'll leave all the links in the description below. Other than that, thanks so much for tuning in into today's episode of the Sound of Crowd Podcast and I'll catch you guys in the next one. Thank you so much. speaker-0: Thank you, Jean. Thank you.