How to Find Ideal Clients: Dallas Hogensen, VP, LYFT The Powerhouse CEO with Kelly Fidel

Your host Kelly Fidel talks to Dallas Hogensen, VP of Sales at Lyft, about why sales evoke an emotional response, the importance of identifying a company’s core values, and book recommendations.
Episode Highlights: 
Sales is about people, not product. The effect of one bad client or deal or sale has an effect for longer than any good client. When you scale a business quickly, there are opportunity costs. Lyft sacrificed operational efficiency for the sake of scaling up and growing their sales team. The one area in which you should never make a concession for the sake of scale is company culture and values. The ideal client for Lyft has changed over time, and the strategy has been to pursue what they have defined as the ideal client unless or until they discover they are wrong or that it has changed. Lyft’s valuation grew from $500,000 to $70 million in about 14 months. Lyft has something called the Wonka Room, which you enter through a tiny, hidden door, into a whimsical room where employees can go for some quiet time and to reconnect with the company’s history and values. Too many sales teams are hiring at a fast rate and throwing people into the game without proper preparation, which is the only way to calm the fear of rejection and exercise the muscle to sell. Dallas’s sales team has had so many successes because he teaches them a process and helps his employees become self-aware about their skills and improvement. All the scripts in the world can’t compensate for understanding the psychology behind sales. He instituted a peer review and self-review of sales calls every week that centers on asking questions like “Why did you ask that?” “Why did you find that interesting?” because that leads to self-awareness. Dallas has an extensive morning routine for several hours before leaving for work to take care of himself so he can better manage his team. Lyft grew and scaled up slowly in order to avoid compromising their core values or experience. Lyft allowed Uber to make growth inroads first so that they could come in afterward and counter what they did with different messaging and a different experience. Not all salespeople are motivated by money, so don’t treat your staff as if that’s the only reason to do the work. If you’re keeping your head down and doing what you need to do for your business, there won’t be a need to worry about your competition.  Something that led to Dallas’s success is not being afraid to ask questions and say when he didn’t know something. 3 Key Points:
In scaling a business, don’t lose sight of the people and core values making that possible. The real meat of sales is the preparation and process. Self-awareness and an ability to evaluate yourself is crucial to improving your sales performance. Tweetable Quotes:
“Number one: Values have to be stated. If they’re not clear, and if you can’t say the values the same way I do, then there’s no value set.” –Dallas Hogensen “I have this theory called The Lego Theory, which is that little chunks of time motivates big results.” –Dallas Hogensen  Resources Mentioned:
Dallas Hogensen: Twitter The Score Takes Care of Itself Turn the Ship Around Ego is the Enemy Kelly Fidel: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, YouTube www.noglassceiling.com