Introverted Tech Expert Goes Extra Mile to Find His Podcasting Voice

Now, if you're an introvert and you're wondering, could you possibly have a podcast or be a guest on a podcast? My my guest today is going to explain to you how he managed to overcome being an introvert and really embrace podcasting to help build his ICT business. Peter Vanigo, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Jim, and um. Glad to be here.

Well, you know, for those of you that, uh, don't know Peter, he's in a place actually where I grew up, uh, when I was younger. He's in Nigeria today, um, and I was there when I was 8 years old. But Peter's there just visiting his, his mum, but he's normally based in Leicester. So his business, Target ICT, is UK-based, but he's joining me here from Nigeria. So Peter, we're going to talk today about how you're getting your own personal ICT consultancy noticed. So it's really good lessons for people that are building their own business brand because you've got some learnings from Facebook and skills and sort of exercises that worked in other businesses you ran that have been not as successful with the new business. So we're going to dive into that and we're going to look also into how you have been doing content creation with articles as well and the successes that you've had there. So Peter, first of all, explain a little bit about your business and then we're gonna talk about how you've been getting your business noticed.

All right, so Target ICT is basically a business I started to focus on what I'm best at, which is tech. Because when I started my previous businesses, I started my first business in 2010. I've started a couple of things I've done, procurement. I've done e-commerce. At a point I had like 4 or 5 businesses running at the same time. But one thing I always got, one inquiry I got from my friends doing business with me was they always asked about, okay, for the food business, the biggest part of the food business was— the biggest part of the food business was a portal I built where most of the orders came in through that portal. And people always asked, oh, how do you do these things? The processes in the business were always so like the food— the last food business had about 4 branches. The recipes, everything were just the same everywhere. I don't know how to cook. And so you can imagine things like that. So when I kept getting those inquiries on the tech part of everything, that's when I started Target ICT to help other businesses improve, do more with technology.

Really interesting that, you know, you, you found a market, or a market found you eventually, uh, in spite of— like so many of us as entrepreneurs, we start businesses and eventually the right business finds us, which is fantastic. But it's a competitive industry, Peter, being a service provider in tech. So how have you gone about differentiating yourself? So that beyond that initial set of referrals, you've been getting people coming to you.

All right. So one thing I, one complaint I got from a lot of people working with other tech providers was they had to listen to and process a lot of tech jargon. So a lot of times you're working with a technical person, they say these big words, ROI, SAP, this, this, this, that, that, that. And With communication, because one of the first skills I learned was marketing, writing copy for my businesses, my adverts and co. I realized that when you're communicating, when you're writing something people will read, if you use these big words, they have to stop. It stops the flow. They stop and they try to understand what you're saying there. So it caused a lot of conflict. A lot of times you're dealing with a person and you don't even know what they're doing. You don't even know what— you just hope that they do, hope that they mean well for your business and everything. So So that's one thing we differentiate ourselves from others. We try to avoid jargon. We try to explain everything at the most basic level. So okay, if we are doing this for you, you'll be able to grasp, okay, this is what's going to happen. There is no big technical terms masking what we're actually doing to make it look more complicated or stuff like that. So I think that's one thing. that really differentiates and what people have always been happy about.

It's really wonderful. And on another show, we've been talking about keeping things simple. And with Ben Goodman, who's just written a book called Simple Up, and just about how much friction we create in the transaction because we overcomplicate in our desire to maybe look Smart. Smart, or yeah, that's right, uh, or overcome our own insecurity about why someone should buy from us. You know, we, we position ourselves in, in such a way that we may be, you know, incomprehensible, especially when it comes to tech. There's a really, really good— what kind of content were you then creating, Peter? Because obviously if people talk to you, they would hear, you know, you bringing a simplicity and a clarity to the problems that they were facing. What other platforms and content types have you been using to share your message?

All right. So first of all, I started sharing blog posts. So typically take a problem a business is facing, try to explain it, make it easy. and share. Then recently, this 2024, so 2 years ago, 2022, we started sharing it on a podcast. We started a podcast too for the business. So same thing, we just take a concept and break it down.

Peter, now starting a podcast is not easy. I mean, I've now been doing this for a couple of years and I have a couple of shows under my belt. It's a lot of work. Just take us through the process then of why you decided to do a podcast instead of doing articles, because it's actually a big leap to start and then to keep it going. And you've got 59 episodes now of your podcast. All right.

So I think the process of it— okay, we started writing the blog post articles and all that. Then during the pandemic, I discovered podcasts, you know, stuck in the house all the time, no one around and everything. So I discovered podcasts and I realized that I actually used to listen to everything. Like I'll sit down, maybe I'm walking or I'm doing something around the house. I'll listen to a whole 45 minutes, a whole 1 hour. I would actually go to the links they mentioned. I actually research on the people talking and I'm like, okay, This seems like a better way to share this blog post because these days we realize people have very short attention spans. And I feel even me too. I feel it on podcasts. My attention span works better on podcasts than on articles. I might just read an article halfway and I drop it. So after that was 2020, I discovered podcasts. Then in 2022, I decided to start the podcast. And like you said, it was actually difficult because I did the first episode and abandoned it for a couple of months because I didn't want to. I don't know. I just— okay. Since I was younger, I've really been— I grew up, I didn't really have friends growing up. I was just me, books, me and books. I always read books all my life. So getting all the businesses I started before this, I would always be at the background. I always have a partner making the talking and all that. I'll just do ads or do things that won't have me come out or have me come out in public. So when I put out that first episode, I'm like, oh my God, everybody's going to hear my voice.

And yet, Peter, you're a handsome young man. But also, as anyone listening to this can hear, Peter, you have a great voice for radio, right? Really, really great. But you were an introvert, you said. So it was a big emotional challenge to overcome. How did you overcome that? Because I think there are many people thinking, oh, I'd like to either be a guest on a podcast, which is frankly, I think, a great way to start with podcasts before trying to create a show. But then to actually be hosting is another challenge again, because you have to take responsibility for the conversation and so on. How did you overcome that? Let's call it an emotional, a self-confidence issue. How did you get back after the couple of months?

All right, so after the couple of months, um, I'm a member of, um, Toastmasters. So I joined Toastmasters in 2016 because the same thing, I knew, okay, as a business person, I need to communicate, I need to talk to people, and I really hated doing that. So I took one of my Toastmasters projects in— that was level 4, kind of in my pathway— was starting a podcast. This was after I'd abandoned the first episode. So I went through the program, the listing, and part of the requirements was having— I can't remember, is it 4 or 10? I can't remember how many. I think 4 episodes. You should have 4 episodes live for them to move, for you to move to the next level on the pathway. So I just, okay, I took my podcast and said, okay, let me just bring it back up and continue, use this and as an excuse to continue with it. And it's actually fun.

It's amazing fun having a podcast, right? You get to meet lots of interesting people, as you know, as you and I are doing today, Peter.

Yeah.

So, so it's called Tech Your Business. You've got 59 episodes now, which is good. Tech Your Business, it's available on all players and you've got the techyourbusinesspodcast.com as a website. How is the podcast helping you, Peter, in terms of brand awareness and generating leads?

All right. So in the, in terms of generating leads, one thing I've realized, okay, first of all, the podcast was started to share, like I said, share information, share this thing, things and all that. Then when I started having guests, I realized being in that situation where I'm talking to a person. Okay, it's Tech Your Business. So we have business owners and other tech experts coming to show how you can use tech in your business. So I'm talking to a fellow business owner. On a normal day, I would have had to put out an ad, wait for them to come on a sales call, and then try to convince them. Or I would have had to maybe send a cold email and go through a gatekeeper to get through to them. But these people actually email, they come to you and they talk to you and One thing I don't really like selling there, but what I do is most of the time I'm talking to you and I realize you have an issue. I just give a solution. I give a solution. Okay, this thing, oh, it can work better this way. And they come back, oh, this is nice. This works for me. Oh, this is this. And I've had like maybe 2 or 3 people who have become clients out of these people I've talked to just from things like that. So it's been amazing actually.

Yeah, well, that, that's one of the main ways that people talk about getting podcasts to be part of their sales funnel, is that people would love to come and talk to you on the mic in a way that they wouldn't come and talk to you if they thought they were being sold to, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And so, Peter, that's wonderful. And what about using the show content? Are you then repurposing the content from your shows into blogs, for example, or on social media?

Um, yeah, we— yes, we are doing that. So we do shorts, we do short, um, videos for each episode. Then, um, currently the website for the podcast is just like a Linktree. So I did that purposely so there is less to manage because I realized everything you start brings a lot of, um, takes up a lot of your time. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it brings Yeah.

So, so the website, we just, we just made the links, just the Spotify link, the YouTube link, just that. So for now, we started the blog post on my main business website, but we stopped for a while because we want to migrate everything to the podcast website. So it's still going to be like the Linktree, but we would have a blog on it just for SEO purposes.

Right. And Linktree, that's link, L-I-N-K-T-R, and then it's a dash.

Yes.

And then it's .ee.

Exactly.

And I have one of those as well, Linktree accounts. And you can basically create one place for all of your URLs.

Yeah.

So it becomes like a one destination for you and all of your assets, websites and podcasts, and in my case, books and courses all under Linktree. So it's a really, really useful website to, to centralize all of your digital assets. So thanks for raising that, Peter. We haven't really talked about that. Um, it sounds as though you've been making great headway in the podcast space, and you have been building this new business. You've had multiple businesses before. Is there something that you've learned, Peter, where you could share a mis— you know, something you tried that didn't work out, uh, now that you're building the ICT business. And for those people that can't see, um, Peter, he has the, uh, the hat on. He has his, um, very nice targetict.co.uk hat and a matching t-shirt. So he has turned up on the video podcast Looking the part. Peter, so you're a branded guest. Fantastic. What about, is there something that you've done that you could share that hasn't really worked out quite as planned?

All right. So I think one thing I'll share is when I started my first, in fact, everything that started before Target ICT, I would always start something, then you either use Google Ads or Facebook Ads. And that's all. So like for the food business, I had my disdain. I'll just get a very high definition photo of the food items we cook, put something under, and people want to put the ads out by lunchtime and you just get sales. We used to have like 10 times returns on our ad spend then for that. So when I started Target ICT, I'm like, okay, I can just start this. I can use ads too and then push this. I ended up spending thousands of pounds and I didn't even get— Anything, and I'm wondering, isn't it the same adverts? What's wrong?

Yeah, I guess it's a different kind of bites, isn't it? Really, true. Yeah, you know. So, so that's interesting. So really, the the different business responded differently to the same marketing strategy.

Totally different.

Reminds us to be really sort of listening to. Yeah, the needs of each individual business. You can't necessarily transfer the same strategy from one business to another. Um, Peter Benigo, you're, you're there in Africa today, in Nigeria today on the west coast, but you're normally based in Leicester. Um, plainly you've succeeded because you've got through the first 5 years, Target ICT, you know, you're across the, the early years which are the hardest. Well, what would you say has been the secret to your success? Plainly it wasn't the advertising, you know, maybe some of the podcasts, but that's relatively new. What would you say is the secret to your success in terms of building the company now?

I think one thing that has really worked has been, and I think this is one thing that I've done in everything I have, um, in every business I've done, it has been what's the word, exceeding expectations of our clients, exceeding expectations of the customers. So when we have something to do, always make sure the customer ends up very, very happy. And when you have very, very happy customers, you don't even have to most of the time ask them to call others. They say, oh, I had this problem because I recently had a client. She has a— she has an HR consulting company. She had a lot of issues with her everything. She had a couple of websites. Everything was— Everything was faulty and she had worked with different people. They kept piling and just making it harder for her. So I met her on a Facebook group complaining about it and I'm like, okay, what's the issue? We talked and then we sorted out everything in about a week or so. First of all, she was on a bigger hosting plan than she would— than she was on a dedicated server when she was meant to purely be a shared or reseller server. They just oversold her. So yeah, so she gets them. things like that. So we cleaned out everything, made everything work perfectly. And she's always like, she's always so excited. Sometimes I'm here, someone messages me on WhatsApp and they're like, oh, I got your message from this person. And she says, oh, she said you really helped out in this and this. And it's always, it feels good. It feels good. So I think good work, exceeding expectations has been what has really helped.

And it sounds as though engaging with people in Facebook has also worked for you, Peter. Not advertising, but just engaging and, and solving people's problems before they become clients.

Yes, yes. And most of the time I do it free.

So you're a good man, you're a good man. But plainly, plainly you're doing enough, um, business to keep it all, all going, everything running.

Yes.

Yeah, which is brilliant. Uh, Peter, if I was to ask you for a podcast or book that you'd recommend, what would that be?

One book I read and I really enjoy, and that's one book I've read more than once, is The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. So it's really, it goes, because a lot of books about business, just a lot of them touch the surface. A lot of them make it look like a bed of roses. A lot of them just Yeah, are just there. But this goes really deep. It goes into all the everything that can go wrong and still shows you that in spite of everything, you can still make things work.

Okay. Ben Horowitz.

Yeah.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things. That's a great addition to the library for the unnoticed entrepreneur, I think. Peter, if people want to find out more about you and maybe get their hosting plan changed, where would they go?

I think where you get the most updated information is from the podcasts. So you can go on Tech Your Business Podcast. The YouTube version is hosted on the company YouTube, that's Target ICT Limited. So yeah, so best place where you can get up-to-date information, techyourbusinesspodcast.com. From there you can link to Target ICT.

Okay, that's, that's perfect. And as you can hear, you know, Peter's got a great voice for radio and got a handsome face for TV too. Peter, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for coming on the show today and really appreciate you sharing your energy and your enthusiasm and also that you are constantly innovating. Really recognize and appreciate how you've gone from business to business and And never stop trying to innovate and find a solution. So thank you so much for sharing that with us today.

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

So what a pleasure to have Peter on the show. And, you know, I wanted to have him on the show because he is someone who's overcome the anxiety of, you know, talking to other people, being actually shy, and hasn't just hidden behind writing articles, but has realized that podcasting is really a wonderful way to connect and engage with potential customers. But also, as you can hear, he's obviously grown as a person because now he's very comfortable to come on podcasts and share his message and share his voice and his wonderful laughter as well with us today. So if you've thought about maybe getting onto podcasts, I can encourage you to think about Being a guest first before you try and host, because it is a lot of work, but it is a great medium for you. So until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating. Please do share a review of this show if you can, and share the show with a fellow entrepreneur, because you might know someone like Peter who actually would love to listen to a podcast and doesn't want to get left behind. And this podcast is all about helping the unnoticed entrepreneur to get noticed for what they do. Thank you for listening.

Thank you.