Now that we have good ideas for how Alice ought to initiate conversations with her aunt regarding her shoes and bags business, we have one final issue to consider.

Is it enough that Alice is her niece and that's a good reason to buy from her?

If that were the case, wouldn't that be enough for us to buy from our nephews and nieces and also support the business endeavours of other family members?

If you're new to this series of posts, Alice is a fashion entrepreneur who is looking for customers and decides to hit up her aunt to see if they can do some business together.

Her aunt has three daughters and because of that Alice sent "Aunty" the following message, "good morning Aunty, I am now selling good quality bags and shoes from Lagos, Malaysia and some from the UK. My prices are really good. Aunty please come and help me and buy from me".

The last few posts have been devoted to whether this was a good way to start the buying conversation with her aunt.

Now that we have the right approach, and we know it isn't enough to bulldoze your way to a sale using your USPs and UVPs, is it a good enough reason to buy from someone because you are related to them?

The answer depends on the motivation of your relatives!

If your Aunt in this case has been quarrelling with your father for the last fifteen years because of a land dispute in the village, then in fact your aunt might NOT want to buy from you... depending on which Nollywood scenarios that might ensue, your aunt might even do her best to frustrate your business at every turn she can.

Does that mean you shouldn’t imply that your family members should support your business JUST BECAUSE you are related?

NO! It just means you have to delay that "family ask" until you know that particular family member’s motivations.

How will you know what they are thinking? You'll have to engage them in conversation and tease out some information.

My mother has a soft spot for the empowerment of the girl child and so she will do anything and buy things that she doesn't need just so that she can support that budding entrepreneur of a niece.

That could be a possible motivation for "Aunty" in this case, and not just the fact that they're family.

So if you were Alice, how would you go about with the "family ask" or "female empowerment ask" to get her to buy your handbags and shoes?

We will tackle that in another post!

Until then, ask me anything in the comments section below.