After spending over a year selling real estate in Dubai, a failed deal forced Noah Honawon to return to Nigeria and start a new career selling digital financial products.
In this edition of After Hours, we follow his journey from selling properties to selling tech products in Nigeria, how he sells financial infrastructure, and the cheat code to looking like an expert in tech.
Enterprise tech sales in a nutshell
When we talk about enterprise tech sales, what it really means is helping businesses, especially financial institutions, digitise their operations by selling them technology-based products. In simple terms, I look for people or organisations that need what my company offers, and we help them transition their manual financial activities into optimised digital tools.
For example, in the past, if someone wanted to open a bank account, they had to walk into a bank branch, fill out forms, submit passport photos, and provide other documents. Now, thanks to digital infrastructure, I can open an account with fintechs like OPay without visiting a physical office. That’s essentially what turning manual processes into a seamless digital experience is.
Turog Technologies, the company I work for, helps financial institutions do exactly that. We build tools that enable banks to engage and acquire customers, manage customer data, and run their operations more efficiently. We provide the digital infrastructure for agency banking as well.
So, from customer-facing platforms to the backend systems that power them (core banking applications), we help banks go digital, and then I sell these products to financial institutions.
How to sell tech solutions
In enterprise tech sales, my work starts with people, meeting people at events or on platforms like LinkedIn. When I do, I try to understand what they do, the sector and consumers they serve, and their current challenges.
Many times, organisations tell me they use several tools to manage customers; one for data, one for communication, and one for reporting, and none of these are integrated, which creates an imbalance. I can offer a solution that unifies everything into one dashboard. With a single login, they can manage all tools, manage customer requests, and handle internal approvals.
I also ask potential clients about their growth goals. Some want to expand to new regions; many prefer the agency banking model, and so I help them set that up by providing POS machines and digital systems branded with their names.
That’s essentially how my sales process works. Some clients reach out with a product idea or a problem, and we help them customise the right solution.
From real estate to tech sales
My real estate journey started in 2020. Within a year, I qualified to work abroad as an assistant branch manager in Dubai. Things were going smoothly until I lost a major deal that affected operations, and I had to return to Nigeria.
After returning, I took a short break and then joined another real estate company in February 2023. The company hadn’t made any sales in Lagos for almost a year, but within a few months of joining, I closed deals that revived several abandoned projects. Eventually, I left because it was commission-based and I was being owed. I later joined another firm, but things didn’t go as planned, so I decided to take a break from August 2024 to May 2025.
By then, I realised that although I had the experience and knowledge to start my own brokerage, I didn’t have the capital or network to do it at the scale I wanted.
I’d always been fascinated by technology anyway, even back in school. I joined my first real estate company for social media management, digital marketing, and content writing, not sales. I had a digital marketing career right from my school days at the University of Lagos (UNILAG). I still use that digital marketing skill to make money on the side now.
When the opportunity came to join a tech company as a sales executive, it felt like a perfect fit. I could explore my interest in technology while leveraging my sales skills. It went beyond what I read; it brought the experience.
Tech sales challenges me differently. It’s complex, strategic, and requires patience, but it is also very rewarding.
Selling properties vs selling tech products
Switching from real estate to tech sales has been an exciting journey. The truth is, sales is not hard or easy; it just depends on the number of people you need to talk to. In real estate, I mostly dealt with individuals or couples looking to purchase properties. The deal could close quickly. In tech sales, especially B2B enterprise sales, I sell to entire organisations.
It’s not just one decision maker. It might start with the Head of IT, who likes your product, then move to the Chief Financial Officer, then the board, and each person has to be convinced. It’s a longer process that involves lots of presentations, demos, negotiations, and approvals. But it has strengthened my communication and strategy skills.
I’ve also learned a lot about the industry. Five months ago, I didn’t know terms like “open banking,” “core banking application,” or “retail engine.” Now I understand how these systems work because I had to learn them for client conversations. I even document my learning journey on LinkedIn. It gives the client a positive view of me, the salesperson.
The cheat code
Coming from a business-to-customer (B2C) perspective and then changing to a business-to-business (B2B) sale is a whole different ball game.
When I switched to tech sales, I didn’t take any formal courses, but I did a lot of self-learning. I read newsletters like Techpoint Digest, attended industry events, and followed thought leaders on media platforms.
When I come across something complex, I use ChatGPT to break it down in simple terms. At work, my colleagues were very helpful in the beginning. They joined client meetings with me until I got confident enough to handle technical discussions myself.
Would I go back to real estate? Not as an agent. If I ever go back, it would be as an investor. Right now, I’m enjoying the challenge and exposure that tech sales brings. I’ve met incredible people, learned incredible things, and developed skills that I never thought I’d need.
Tech sales has been both demanding and fulfilling, and I love that it constantly pushes me to grow. It takes a lot to be exceptional in this, so I’m walking that journey.
