Meet Vladimir Kiselev, Head of Driver Acquisition for APAC. He joined inDrive in mid 2021, after working in FMCG for several years. Here’s some of his advice and inspiration, as well as his experience of working for inDrive - so far!
How I joined inDrive: I had just started working with a new employer, wheninDrive offered me the role of driver acquisition team leader in Southeast Asia. I also had an offer from another company and I was choosing between them … I imagined myself sitting somewhere in the tropical forest during the rain, drinking coffee and doing business there, so I chose inDrive. During my three years of work, there have only been two times that were something close to what I was imagining! But I don’t regret it.
So I joined inDrive and helped launch Bangkok during COVID; then Kuala Lumpur, and now Manila – and as well as India, Bangladesh and some other locations.
It's all about field work - during offline acquisition, you visit all types of places. In many countries, drivers are using their car to get money and buy food for their families. So, you drive around all of the districts: the bad ones, the good ones, poor ones, the wealthy ones – you see the contrast. And often, it's not luxury.
You talk to drivers, you need to understand and respect them and know how you can address their pains … people have the same pains, but they have different cultural specifics, so you need to know how to change your presentation of inDrive, and how to link your benefits to their needs. Because in some cultures, for example, people don't bid; it's prohibited, especially for the elderly. But bidding is one of our main benefits, so you need to handle that somehow.
So it's all about adapting to people and their environment, addressing their pains and making their life better.
Name the main qualities you need for this work: Patience, flexibility, and the ability to energize yourself and others. You need to respect people and listen to them.
Highlights: When you establish the business in a country or city from zero, and start seeing the growth in rides… but the biggest highlight is when you yourself start using inDrive to get around in the location you’re launching.
If you work as a salesman, for you, it might be signing the contract and receiving the money. For us, it's seeing how the business starts and grows in the location.
Challenges: I have a big team, so the challenge is to motivate people, know their strengths and weaknesses, and try to motivate them to grow professionally, to work and show immediate results – the common part of a manager's work.
The other challenge is when you have a checklist on how to do business, but it doesn't work everywhere, and you have a limited amount of time to find another solution. We always succeed, but sometimes it's not obvious what to do.
Adapting is part of the job: I call myself a cockroach, because I'm adapting literally to everything: food, mentality, the climate, the business, the environment in which I live. You have to put the business up front, and there is sometimes no time even to think about your personal comfort.
What’s important for a good workplace: Honest and timely feedback. For a startup, it's very important to say how it is, in order to change things before it's too late, because every dollar counts and every hour spent by your teammates counts. So, feedback about what's going on, how to make it all happen, and what’s needed to make it work better.
Best career advice: Draw conclusions based on feedback; this gives you the opportunity to develop at any stage of your career and in any position.
Prioritize! You need to prioritize. Also, don’t be afraid to ask questions and sometimes challenge the prioritization.
Work life balance: It's all about juggling - and prioritization! As soon as you’re not enjoying what you're doing or some part of the work, it means that maybe you need a rest, or you need to prioritize or make it interesting again.
Favorite inspirational saying: “What the eyes fear, the hands do.” Sometimes it's best to just start doing something; don't think about whether you're going to succeed or not. If it's not an investor speech or something, just start doing it - the answer will come and the results will also come.
Dealing with failure: In our work it's so dynamic, you don't have time to dwell on your failures.
Failure is good only when you make outcomes out of it - you can stop what you’re doing or do it in a different way. if you start putting too much emphasis on failures I think it's a stop factor for your achievements.
How do you keep yourself motivated? By finding new ways to develop current processes.
Success is when you enjoy not only the result, but the processes too.
What’s the foundation of career success? Think wide. Be data-driven, and keep your word.
