Why traditional selling doesn’t work anymore
What smart businesses are doing instead (The Moniepoint Playbook)
Every business is either a price taker or a price maker.A price taker does the work and the market tells them what their worth while the price maker decides what their worth and then the market pays them- Daniel Priestley
Assuming you are taking a trip to a popular city in Nigeria, e.g Lagos, Abuja, you would first have to drive through the beautiful city and observe the amazing sights of the urban landscape.
But if you continue driving, the reality often shifts and you begin to see the not-so-glamorous parts of the city that are not exactly rural but not so urban either.
This is exactly how the Nigerian market operates. There are formal and informal markets. The formal market makes up for the institutions that keep the economy running, such as the banks, government, schools, hospitals etc.
These institutions have structure, and their staff are regulated and identifiable. They make up a certain segment of the Nigerian economy. So many years ago, after independence, a lot of multinationals and large institutions were part of the economy, and they actually employed thousands of people.
However, due to the structural deficit and lack of institutions, jobs, investment, and job creation, the majority of the market has become largely informal.
The informal market captures the hustle and bustle of the city. These are the market women , the kiosks shops, the retail hubs and logistics that most of the Nigerians depend on, it is characterized by trade, craftsmanship, services.
For many years, institutions that were founded when the economy was driven by the formal industry catered to the upper middle class and high net worth individuals.
One such industry was the traditional banking system. These are mostly segmented into tier 2 banks and are dominated by the FUGAZ: First Bank, UBA, GTCO, Access, and Zenith Bank.
These banks represented the formal economy and consolidated themselves as institutionalized entities.
The FUGAZ catered to the government, large institutions, and the multinational or middle class. They were the engines of the corporate world. They were found in developed neighborhoods, urban centers, and expensive complexes.
They tried to make institutional giants of themselves through their products, bureaucratic nature, and large office buildings, air-conditioned banking halls, and marble floors.
The plan was simple: create a decent product, cater to high-ticket clients, and bring people into their corporate ecosystem.
They relied on large billboards, suits and ties, and corporate jargon to drive growth. They tried to capture the bulk of the money moving through the formal economy, and for many years that worked out fine.
The Death of the traditional selling
Traditional selling doesn’t work anymore because companies are still trying to sell formal, institutional solutions to an informal market.
These institutions had certain problems that contributed in bottlenecks , red-tapes, bureaucracy.
The formal banking system had certain demerits such as
- The proximity and location problem: For a long time, banks were situated around modern, commercial, and urban centers. For the people of the informal sectors, these areas defied proximity, and the environment was sophisticated and too corporate. For a lot of people, this environment was out of reach, and so they preferred to hold cash or rely on informal thrift and microfinance like Esusu and Ajo.
- The Bureaucracy of Exclusion: The Banking system is known for its bureaucratic work culture and trail of paperwork. Opening accounts and rectifying problems were not user-friendly and required high entry compliance measures; accessing loans required a lot of paperwork and collateral. This made it less of a utility and more of a commodity.
- Chronic downtime and Network failure: The banking system infrastructure relied on bureaucratic, technically inefficient technology that affected the financial ecosystem, making it slow and costly to operate. There were a lot of problems with transfers not going through, network downtime, etc.
- Hidden Charges and Deductions: Banks made most of their money from opaque, unannounced fees. Customers complained about deductions or expensive cuts in transactions and account maintenance.
- Zero Customer Support: Banks usually operated within processes that were not so seamless or user-friendly. Complaints and problems took time to resolve, and there was a divide because a lot of customers had problems navigating or understanding their financial products
How Moniepoint took over the market
I call this the stallion that later metamorphosed into a Unicorn. It began as a product of necessity and the brainchild of Tosin Eniolorunda and co-founder Felix Ike.
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Tosin Eniolorunda was a computer systems engineer who previously worked as a software engineer at Interswitch. Felix was a technology engineer and helped create the backend of the system powering the Nigerian fintech industry.
Moniepoint began as Teamapt, a software startup company powering the fintech economy. It started by providing backend infrastructure and software solutions for traditional banks.
They targeted a major pain point: the chaotic settlement system that left merchants wondering who paid what and when.
In 2019, the company rebranded and launched Moniepoint. They realized that the real business was in the untapped informal market filled with unbanked customers processing microtransactions per second but at high volume.
Recognizing that millions of Nigerians lacked bank access, they decided to create a system and products that catered to this demographic.
By embedding their products in the daily lives of people through their agent-backed systems, point-of-sale, and cloud-based settlement systems that made transactions faster and seamless.
They also broke down the bureaucracy by making banking products accessible; onboarding and customer-friendly user experiences turned customers into mini agents and affiliates.
This was a subtle financial revolution that has soon created an ecosystem, birthing the POS machine and a faster settlement process.
They also adopted the system of lending that prioritized lending to low-income earners and SMEs based on cash flow and less paperwork or compliance.
Ever since, they have captured and processed over 100 trillion in transactions, and in 2025, every 8 in 10 transactions were from their system.
They achieved it because they identified a pain point and bridged the gap, making headway for the explosive fintech industry that has soon become a venture capital favorite and is becoming more profitable than some traditional tier 1 banks.
Traditional selling ( Price takers) vs. modern market capture ( Price makers )
Traditional selling assumes that if you build a high-grade product, acquire an impressive office building, and run generic mass-media ads, customers will naturally walk through your doors.
It is a system that runs on the supply-side mindset that assumes that the vendor holds the leverage, and so if they can increase supply, they can capture more prospects.
Modern marketing is more hybrid and involves what is now known as lifestyle marketing. It is a medium by which products or strategies are focused on creating demand, creating desire, familiarity, and embedding your product into the lives of your customers, making it easier for them to find you and choose you.
So the supply side says, let’s increase our output or commodity. The demand side says, let's make ourselves part of the daily lives of the individuals.
One serves as a utility; the other serves as a commodity.
A good product is important but that is not the entire value chain. A lot of value is still left untapped in the distribution networks.
Now many businesses are adopting lifestyle marketing and trying to make their product a utility by renting space in the hearts of their customers.
They do this by sponsoring or supporting aspects of the customer journey so that the customer feels seen and understood.
Instead of waiting for customers to come meet you, smart businesses understand the cost of acquisition by incentivizing demand, paying attention to their customers, and solving their pain points.
It’s no longer just a bank; it’s the system your entire life runs on; it’s payment, it’s utility bills, it’s essentials for daily life.
