Winnie Akadjo on The Sales Scoop, Founder @ LVS Hub

Automated Transcript

Alastair Cole  0:00  

Hello, good afternoon and welcome to The Sales Scoop. This is a weekly live show for tech startup founders who want to improve how they sell. I'm your host for the day, Alastair Cole. I'm a computer scientist and ex Software Engineer with two decades experience in B2B, sales and marketing. And I'm delighted to say that I'm joined today by Winnie Akadjo, founder of LVS Hub, and an expert in live stream video shopping. Hi Winnie, hello.

Winnie Akadjo  0:45  

Hi Alastair, thank you for inviting me on the show. How are you? I'm very excited to get into all things live shopping, live streaming, and your experience in B2B, B2C and B2B2C sales, selling technology products, which is what our audience is interested in.

Alastair Cole  1:08  

Can't wait to get into your sales scoop before we do that. I'd love, love to hear, on behalf of everyone else, a little bit of an intro to you. Winnie and LVS Hub, could you tell us a little bit about you and your journey, please. 

Winnie Akadjo  1:22  

Yes, of course. So LVS Hub is a live and video shopping agency which supports e-commerce brands and retailers to drive new audiences, sorry, to grow new audiences and drive sales through the use of live and video shopping technology, including Tiktok shop as well. So I've been building the business for the last 18 months, and it's pretty much like a combination of my experience to date. So for 10 years, I worked in the sales and marketing space. And so I actually started off in retail, so in store retail where I did a lot of perfume sampling through to working on makeup counters in department stores. Following that, I then sold insurance for a little bit at Zipcar, as well as managing things like unlocking cars and so on.

I joined Groupon just after finishing uni on a grad scheme, and that's where I was really able to kind of grow my sales, particularly B2Be marketing skills.

So working within the London team and essentially prospecting and onboarding merchants all across London to, like, run promotions on Groupon, did that for just under two years. Then I had a small sprint at the trust pilot. Following that, I then worked within. And then actually I did B2B as well within, so it was B2B2C for an airport app at the time, which was called Flyo. They were based in Germany, and that led me to then join an incubator accelerator, where I essentially built a community of entrepreneurs that were able to build their own businesses within the organisation. And through that experience, I then worked at Tiktok, working with creators to essentially go live on their Tiktok channels. Did that, and then worked with Fauci to launch their live shopping channel as well, which was using software. So it was a completely different experience. To on site, and it was through the back of that so it's a different experience to Tik Tok, in a sense. It wasn't on social media, it was on their websites, and it was off the back of that in January, around January 2023, I was like, there's definitely a gap in the market in terms of educating businesses on like how to get started, the benefits of live and video shopping, how they can do it for themselves and generate new audiences as well as sales and revenue. And that's brought me on to where I am now.

Alastair Cole  3:54  

Amazing journey, amazing story. You mentioned some of the big technology innovators in this space, Tiktok, Farfetch, really pushing the boundaries. I saw in one of your newsletters that L'Oreal had helped close a million pounds worth of business through one of their recent Super brand days in the UK, one of its kind, like the first live beauty event. Obviously, we've got two really big live, potentially live shopping minutes coming up. We're, you know, just 10 days away, I think, from Black Friday and Christmas in a month's time. How are you expecting the world of live stream shopping to be different this year than it was 12 months ago?

Winnie Akadjo  4:42  

So I think live streaming sits on the spectrum of like video. So if we look at where video is, I think videos had a huge trajectory, even in the last year so far. So we're now consuming a lot more video. In fact, everything that we look at on day to day, busy on a day to day basis, is formed around video. I think similarly, live streams as well. You know, if you remove the shopping component, live streaming also has a very big presence in society now. So, for example, on a live broadcast at the moment, which has been distributed across several countries around the world, I think it was only a couple of days ago, Netflix hosted their first live stream with sports we're obviously used to like YouTube, live streams and Twitch, you know? And there's loads and loads of platforms out there that are actually based off of the back of live stream. So I think sometimes we look at it as this new thing, but actually it's around what we consume. It was actually a big part of society, and that's what excites me the most about live stream shopping, because it's almost just like the next phase of how people consume live stream content. Um, so it's rapidly, well, it's slowly growing in Europe. But as most people are aware, live stream shopping is extremely successful in China, where it was like 70% of e-commerce transactions. Global e-commerce transactions that happen through the country take place through live stream shopping shows. And I think in the US we have also seen it kind of grow really rapidly. I think the success of L'Oreal generating 1 million in sales through their brand day, kind of replicates other businesses as well. We've had the same successes. So we've seen, you know, I think Tik Tok has seen at least four to five brands now who have been able to generate a million pounds in sales. So for me, I think it's just getting started, just because of the natural evolution of how society is now consuming content.

Alastair Cole  6:36  

Thank you. And before we get to your 'Sales Scoop', which is obviously around the discipline, the practice of sales right and selling LVS Hub into other businesses, a kind of B2B sell there, as a bit of context for that. How are you? What are the benefits of the LVS Hub that you're talking about when you're speaking to potential buyers? What are the benefits that LVS Hub brings to people who purchase your platform and work with you?

Winnie Akadjo  7:06  

I think one of the biggest benefits is domain expertise. So it's like, I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about, so I think a lot of it from, like, a theoretical standpoint. So I started journalism. I had a really good understanding of the media and how society engages with media platforms and so on. From a practical standpoint, I was the full fire at Tiktok shop back in April 2021, so I was part of, kind of like the very early inception of Tiktok shop, before, you know, anyone even knew as it is now. So kind of being on that journey and seeing a lot of the kind of, like makeshift work that we had to do, and a lot of the way that we had to kind of like sell it in, because it was still very much the same. You know, people weren't convinced, they didn't really understand it. So there was still a lot of, like being able to sell it in from even, like a Tiktok perspective.

So yeah, I definitely think that, and then also kind of having the opposite experience, working at far fetch and seeing it on site allowed me to really see the value, because it's very easy to say, well, it's on Tik Tok. Everyone's on Tik Tok, so that's why it's performing. Or, you know, it's this product. This product is just going viral, and that's why it's performing. But actually, when I was through my experience at Farfetch, I was actually able to see more of the kind of value add that businesses can get outside of sales and revenue. Because sometimes we can go on so much about generating income that we actually forget all the other things that it can contribute to. And I think a big part of that is kind of like engagement, which is really important now. So actually being able to drive engagement, and being able to be authentic in terms of showcasing your brand, your brand, messaging your product value, and all of those types of things, building up custom communities. So actually, the far fetch livestream shopping shows started off as private client experiences. So it was an additional experience for their private clients before it was opened up to the public, being able to nurture your customers in that way and offer them something new is also really beneficial. And being able to kind of like, analyse the performance of your content and how it relates to the products that you're selling. So even something because little like which colourways are getting the best attention, or which price point is best performing, but actually being able to use that data to make better informed decisions in your business. So there's a lot of different dynamics and lots of different kinds of benefits that you can get from live stream shopping. And I think that's why it's so overwhelming, because it's so easy to just feel like, okay, I'll do this, and this is what I get, and it kind of shows me all of this. But when you're thinking about content, you're thinking about products, you're thinking about engagement, you're thinking about viewership, and all of those things, it can seem like, you know, overwhelming. And hence why I think it's normal that the adoption is slightly slower than expected.

Alastair Cole  9:57  

Yeah, you know, having spent most of my career, if not all of it,  at that cutting edge. Yeah, adoption is a difficult thing to get over. People don't get it till they see it, and even when they see it, they don't always get it. We're going to come back to a lot of those. I'm keen to hear without further ado, what, what your number one top selling tip is for our audience. Winnie, what is your sales scoop for today?

Winnie Akadjo  10:26  

So I don't think it's anything new that everyone, no one has heard before, but it definitely leads. So the more leads, the better. I think sales predominantly is a numbers game, which everyone should be aware of if you're on this call. So you want to be able to optimise, and obviously, kind of like increasing your opportunities of bringing on board customers and sales is also about pipeline management. So it's also about understanding that customers come in at different points of, you know, at different points of their own journey, and they can be converted at different points as well. So it's kind of removing the assumption that you know, if you have one lead today, they're going to convert, like the next day, and actually think about how that conversion goes through. So for me, my biggest kind of what I focus on is generating leads and diversifying how I receive those leads. So I'll talk through some of the strategies that I use and how they're how I find them effective.

My favorite is probably going to events or conferences. And the reason why I think this is a really powerful way to generate leads is because a lot of the time you get to speak to somebody within the organisation. So you're lucky if you're speaking to the decision maker, but sometimes you might be speaking to somebody who's directly impacted by the problem. So in my case, it might be the marketing team. It marketing, the marketing, sales director, so you're able to obviously learn a little bit more about their brand, if you can obviously test their products, build some rapport, understand, kind of like the structure of the team, who you should be speaking to, and then when you follow up, it's just a little bit more, it's easier, because you already kind of built that relationship. So throughout the first year of building LVS Hub, I went to a lot of events, and I think I've been able to generate over 100 leads from going to events, and that's definitely makes me more confident than, like, generic lead sourcing of Google or anything like that, because, you know, cold emails, and they've got such a bad roof at the moment as well. So that's definitely one thing.

Another thing, I think, is referrals, or, I guess, tapping into third degree, second degree, third degree connections. So whether there's somebody in your network which works within a particular organisation or is tapped into kind of like the businesses that you're looking for. So in my case, it might be, you know, a great example could be a business like women, who buy women built. So this is an organisation that essentially supports female consumer businesses. So forming relationships, alliances, and receiving referrals from those types of organisations means that it's directly impactful and relevant to what you're building. So secondly, I would say definitely identify organisations, agencies, places where kind of like what you're looking for is already in place.

Third lead sourcing, so everyone's favourite. So once again, of lead sourcing as well, I try to always diversify how I do lead sourcing. So sometimes I'd look at directories. So finding, you know, it could be who? Let me have an example. So there's one business that I use. I think it's called 18, one, 800 DTC. So they have list calls, lots of directories of E commerce businesses, and it's kind of categorised across different verticals. So you're able to see, kind of get a clear understanding you've got loads and loads of leads, and see actually what works for you, what's most relevant, rather than, once again, just kind of like going on a blank search, if you're able to find directories or places where your customers are kind of being mimed, then it makes it a lot easier for you as well, to find the leads that you're looking for. Another example could be listicles. So I think listicles are really powerful, and that's kind of tapping into written content. So it could be, for example, the top 10 best skincare that are at right now, or it could be the top 100 shoes of the year, or it could be etc, but these are essentially free leads that are kind of being presented to you. And at the same time, you can learn a little bit about the business, how they sell. You know, they've obviously got a lot of momentum, because they're like, you know, being showcased in the press and things like that. And once again, it kind of beats like a blank search, display advertising, I think we take for granted, like, how many ads we see just on a regular day when you're walking around and those types of things. So I definitely try to be strategic when I'm like, looking around and see like, Oh, this is a good brand. This is an upper common brand. You know, I think Oatley is a great example in terms of how.

They use display advertising to kind of blow up their business and be able to gain a lot of customers. And it's probably a lot of small, up and coming businesses that also operate in the same way. So being able to kind of spot those opportunities, spot those new businesses, and kind of, like, I don't know, keep your eyes open while you're walking on the streets, I think, is also really powerful. One thing that I haven't done in a while, but I did it the other day, and I was like, Why did I stop doing this? Is newspaper advertising. So once again, in newspapers, there's a lot of ads, a lot of businesses sharing, like, new features, new services, all of this stuff. And even magazines, you know, the last time I found myself going through Vogue and they had like, a whole Glossary of just like businesses across different categories, across different verticals, offering different services. And I was like, Oh, wow, these are so many leads.

So, yeah, so I think that's the most creative way that I've come from doing manual lead testing. I try to avoid manually testing as much as possible, because it's not enjoyable. And I think one thing about sales is that you have to, and you have to make yourself enjoy it, you know, because it's not, you know, for some people, it's quite fun. For some people that don't enjoy it, but you can find a way to enjoy it. So for me, going to events is quite enjoyable. You know, exploring different directories is quite enjoyable, reading through magazines and kind of looking at these things. Yes, it sells, but I'm finding ways to, kind of like enjoy it, and that also leads me on to kind of like my final point, which is in store. So

I just started visiting, going to different parts of London, and just kind of like going into stores and speaking to businesses that would be interested in hosting live stream shopping shows. Once again, I think we take for granted how much resources we just naturally have around us, and how you can just jump on the bus to, like, Stratford Westfield, and then you're surrounded by, you know, 100 brands and loads of new brands that you might have never heard of. And that's also another way to generate leads,

Alastair Cole  16:55  

Wow, like seven cracking areas that we can dive into, right? I've got some interesting orders you've picked. We'll get into that in a second. You're obviously, like, passionate about it and keen, right? And you've got different strategies that go now. Were you always this excited about prospecting, or is it something that you've built as a skill?

Winnie Akadjo  17:21  

I think it's something that I'm good at, so I've learned to nurture it. So I don't, I don't think I was born a salesperson, but I think when I was at Groupon and I kind of got sales training, which was actually really good, you know, now, like, you know, we don't get training as much as we used to, but when I did get sales training through my time at Groupon, I kind of understood the elements to it, and I think also kind of coming from a degree in a background journalism, I like to talk and ask questions, so it's kind of like bringing that all together. And it was through my experience that I actually realised I was quite good at understanding people's pain points and being able to kind of translate how what I'm offering is a value, and that's really all sales is, you know, you're trying to match make people fix people's problems, but by listening to what their concerns are and how your solution fits.

Alastair Cole  18:19  

It's interesting you say, listening to people, being with people. You know, your first two there events and referrals. They're very human. They're very high touch events. I love that, right? And until you get we so much more is conveyed in so much less time when we meet face to face. And you know, I think you are talking about events. It's really important because, you know, we can all sit in our remote jobs and do lead generation, lead sourcing, prospecting on our own, but it is, it is cold, and actually you don't, doesn't get any better than immersing with your customers, hearing from them, bouncing around. And so we always advocate, you know, events, live events as in real life events as a really big part of the funnel mix, the way that you've set those seven up. How much have you played with that, refined that? How much have you changed? How much time do you invest into each one of those? Have you got to this LVS mix that you've got at the moment?

Winnie Akadjo  19:23  

Oh, good question. So I'm still experimenting. I'm still trying out different things, and I'm still trying to see which is going to provide the most value. But then I think it also goes back to pipeline management, because that's a secondary part to sales, isn't it? It's like you obviously find the leads, then you have to manage the pipeline. So not everybody is always ready to convert at the time that you're ready to convert, so no leads are wasted, but it's about, you know, thinking about what's probably most reactive, or what you're going to be able to engage with at the time. So because of that, I would probably say that I would look to optimise, probably more referrals and organisations where they actively support businesses in that way, because there's a bit more of an urgency. It is a bit more of a demand. I find with events, sometimes it might take a little bit longer, because, you know, if you're going to an event, you have your own objectives that you want to meet and live stream shopping might not be one of them, so you're just adding another thing to whatever it is the person's already thinking about.

So there's that, and I think with kind of like manual lead sourcing, or kind of like desktop scrape and all of that stuff, naturally, they just take longer. So I always think about them being associated with brand building, like I can reach out now, but actually, the more I grow the brand, the more I can kind of go back and kind of like to share more and all of this stuff. So I like to think of it in terms of, like, how I invest my time when I'm thinking about leaders, like, what can I get within three months? What can I get in six months? And what can I get in, like, a year? And I think next year is now, how do I make sure that the strategies that I'm using are also kind of replicating that, but I'm still testing, so I don't have a definite answer. Well, I think that's part of the answer, the fact that these are seven different things that you're very clear on and that you're playing with. I always visualise them as slices of the funnel mix. They're little fires, right? They all need to be stoked. And some, some, some quarters fire. Three might be delivering better results, so you're feeding it a bit more. But you have to, even if they go down, you have to keep them on. It's quite difficult, you know. It's not just pipeline management. It's your funnel mix, and you lead stuff, you know.

Alastair Cole  21:28  

I think for a lot of people, that might sound like an awful lot of work. What? How much time are you spending each kind of day or week? What's the kind of cadence of how you manage these how many events are you doing? How much time you're doing and looking at listicles, how do you split up your time? And how much time and how much? How much time does it cost you a day or a week?

Winnie Akadjo  21:46  

Well, now I'm trying to spend more time on actually outreaching and nurturing, but in terms of the lead sourcing, I would say about three months ago, I was probably going to events like four or five events per week, which is at one event per night, so it's also quite exhausting, so I wouldn't recommend doing that. I would definitely say, like now I'm probably trying to look at how I can go to maybe two a week, or maybe find the ones where are going to be most optimal in terms of what I'm looking for, or even just in terms of insight, like last week, I went to the plant based world expo in Excel, and not because I wanted to go lead tours in because I just didn't have enough knowledge about plant based so I'm like, I'll go, I'll learn, and then next year I'll go and get some leads. So it's just like, also kind of like being a bit strategic around how you go to the events and what your aims are from these events. So, yeah, I think definitely, I think probably two days a week is enough to spend lead sourcing and then another two days like outreaching and actually nurturing and tracking and, you know, managing the operational, admin side of things.

Alastair Cole  22:59  

Because, yeah, that's another challenge. That is another challenge, and I think that's a great story. You're going to excel, and you know, you're not going to be going after leads this time. This is about immersing and getting used to the community and net, and the next time, next year, you'll go for that. I think that demonstrates the long term requirements of sales people, I think, or clients coming to us, or people on listening to this, watching the recording back, they think like, I want to be able to close something today. But the truth is, you just can't, right? You have to sow these long term seeds, which it's a very long waiting game. And it is, it is hard. It's really hard.

Winnie Akadjo  23:43  

So environments, then you've seen it, you know, I remember, there's a company that I worked for where I sourced the lead, and then I left the company, and then I saw it get close, and I was like, wow, it's been five years.

Alastair Cole  23:55  

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's funny. I mean, we, our last show was on enterprise deals. And you know, those sales cycles are really long, and you know, a lot of jokes can be made about what you seem, which it looks like, the fact that you're doing events right, that feels like you do. You get a lot of confidence from going to those events and talking to people. And how does that impact the other prospecting things you do?

Winnie Akadjo  24:24  

I think because I work in the live stream shopping space, events are really powerful, because I can demonstrate so I can show live streams. I can show some of the work that we're doing with customers. I can show real life examples. I can talk about brands. I can actually showcase on video. So it kind of like small demos that I'm able to put together quite quickly, and I found that to be really impactful, rather than just kind of talking about it, because a lot of people don't understand and it's still really new, but if you show them, they're more engaged, and they're kind of, like a bit intrigued by it. So I think for me, it's definitely a conversation topic. It's easier than just going up to someone, because I can be like, Hey, can I show you, you know, introduce myself and be like, Can I show you some of the shows, some of the clients that I've worked with? And it kind of gets the ball rolling a little bit completely.

Alastair Cole  25:11  

You know, a picture might be worth 1000 words in a live demo is worth, you know, 10,000 right? It's so it's so powerful. And, you know, I think there's something about sales that can be difficult, and the more confident you can be, the better, right? The more confident you are, the more comfortable we are going out there. And so actually going to live events and meeting people and talking to customers and showing them stuff, I always feel like I've had a massive injection of kind of positivity and confidence off the back of the light that the in real life events and that that rolls into the other things I'm looking at, you know, display advertising, even doing the hard yards in terms of, you know, lead sourcing and getting lists together that that Ben that benefits from stuff that's in person? Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, like, fascinating to hear about your seven areas of prospecting, really, and how regularly you're doing them, certainly the real life events, if anybody is watching or listening and they'd like to continue the discussion with you. How could they, how could they find you?

Winnie Akadjo  26:26  

So they can find me on LinkedIn. Someone went to LinkedIn when you Acadia, which will probably be the best place. You can also follow the LVS Hub page on LinkedIn, on YouTube, and you can stay up to date as well as Tiktok. You can stay up to date with a lot of my videos where I actually talk a lot about my sales strategies, my tactics and the value proposition proposition of live and video shopping. And you can always send me a message if you want to, like, grab a coffee and talk more in detail.

Alastair Cole  26:53  

Fantastic. Thanks. And given we're talking, given your sales group is about prospecting and generating those leads, what makes a what would you be impressed with? What would make a good outreach message to you from somebody here who might be interested? What grabs your attention?

Winnie Akadjo  27:09  

So it has to be, I don't like cheesy. Sometimes people send a lot of cheesy out cold messages now, and it's just like, This doesn't even make any sense. So I think less generic, probably not too personalised, because then the other end is that people can get too personalised, and it's just like, oh my god, you don't even know me. So there's that component, I think it's being always professional, always looking at the value proposition and also thinking about the mutual benefits, you know? So if, if it's supportive of you, how can it also support me? How is it a good use of my time, and how am I going to get out of it? So very much similar stuff. I think, although, like now I see there's so much new tips and tricks and so much new things people always suggest. But I think with sales, there are some things that just need to stay the same and just kind of like, you know, don't need to be, like, messed around with. I completely agree. And I think what happens is, a lot of people certainly are new to sales. If it's not working, they want to change it, and actually just have to keep going. You have to put in the yards and keep going.

Alastair Cole  28:12  

So thanks for that. People reach out on LinkedIn. I mean, I'm, I'm a big fan of your LVS Hub, website, LVS Hub.com that I think, brilliantly showcases like what you do. So I can take a look at that. That's us out of time. Winnie, so thanks for thanks for sharing your time and your clear expertise with us in this area. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. It's been great. Yeah, good. Thanks for your time. The our next show a week today is Kieran and I will be running through the five sales foundations you need for next year. Prescient, given it will be a week away from or a month away from the end of the year, any final like predictions or behaviours you'll be having on Black Friday when you are given it to surround the corner and you're an e-commerce expert?

Winnie Akadjo  29:04  

I think a lot of people are going to shop earlier this year. I think a lot of people are going to avoid the Christmas rush and try to actually get as many presents as they can during Black Friday. So I think we should see, you know, businesses should see a lot of sales. I think a lot of businesses are going to test video, um, over the Christmas period, and perhaps maybe some people will test that live stream shopping as well. So that's exciting to see. And, yeah,

Alastair Cole  29:30  

Okay, well, look, I guess it's, I guess it's not too late. If somebody is on the call and they were desperate to get some live stream shopping, they should come over to LVS Hub and give you a call right away, right given we're short of time, but, oh, look, that's, that's that's really interesting. You heard it here first, folks, get your shopping done early because there's an early wave of Black Friday stuff coming. Says Winnie. Okay, show Winnie. Thank you so much. We'll sign off there. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Bye, bye, bye, bye.