MTN Nigeria has equipped locally owned small businesses with skills on sales and marketing in a training featuring leading industry experts, as part of the ongoing The Revv Programme.

Using a four-pronged approach, including masterclasses, access to market, productivity tools support and advisory initiatives, the programme aims to reach and support 10,000 small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) across Nigeria.

A total of nine masterclass sessions will be delivered by MTN executives and industry experts after which 200 SMEs will be selected to join MTN’s Y’ello 200 accelerator programme, giving them exclusive access to a broad range of technology-driven tools and services.

At the last edition of the virtual Revv Programme masterclass themed: “Smart Marketing & Sales – Your Customers are out there” which held last Wednesday, experts showed the SME owners in attendance how to navigate the murky waters of effective sales and marketing especially when digital is their only avenue.

Panelists included the Chief Marketing Officer, MTN Nigeria, Rahul De, Chief Sales & Distribution Officer, MTN Nigeria, Adekunle Adebiyi, Founder, BTDTHUB, Dipo Awojide, Founder, Trainquarters, Stephanie Obi, Founder and CEO, Terragon Group, Elochukwu Umeh and Country Sales Director, JCDecaux, Opeoluwa Filani

Rahul De has been the Chief Marketing Officer of MTN Nigeria since 2015. Prior to that, he was the Chief Marketing Officer at MTN Ghana and has occupied senior roles across Asia and Africa. In his wealth of marketing knowledge, he shared that building trust is key and every product must fill a gap if they want to achieve that cutting edge marketing they require. “As SMEs, we need to understand the gap areas we are filing. Once this is identified, the SME owner can proceed to build trust with customers”, Rahul said.

Also speaking at the masterclass, Chief Sales and Distribution Officer, MTN Nigeria, Adekunle Adebiyi, shared that the most important thing to look at is the product and the ease of accessing it. According to him, “apart from coming up with innovative ideas to make the product better, you need to expand your base by taking the product to where the customers are”.

While moderating the masterclass, Josephine Sarouk, General Manager, Regional Operations, Lagos & South West, shared that MTN has partnered with Facebook to offer Digital Marketing training sessions to the small business owners participating in the Revv Programme masterclasses. “We are also partnering with Facebook and we will be offering Revv Programme Digital Marketing training sessions and invites will be shared with all participants”, Josephine said.

The Revv Program was created to help small business owners rethink and retool their operations to enable them withstand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is not the first of this kind of intervention by the telecommunication giant. In 2018, MTN launched the “Man In The Box” campaign to support small businesses with technology solutions and create awareness for them by showcasing their businesses in MTN LED “Boxes” for 24 hours to the entire world.

Source: The Nation Online