Jay Wallace, Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Rumble, joins me today to talk about his experience on how someone who didn’t start off in cybersecurity, ended up as VP WW Sales and is now in the process of building up his sales team from the ground up.
Jay started off working in the world of banking by doing financial advisory work. As time went on, he realized that the path he was on, wasn’t for him. He started to dip into the world of tech, and ended up in the cybersecurity space. Now, in 2022, he is the VP of Worldwide Sales at Rumble. He joined Rumble in March of 2021 as the first Enterprise Sales hire helping to build the sales organization from the ground up.
So, what is Jay’s approach to creating his team?
Well, Since they're education focused they haven’t been looking for those “seasoned sellers.” First they started by hiring two BDR’s as they didn’t need these long sales cycles. What they needed was prioritization. It was more about responsiveness and making sure they were giving good customer experience.
Now that business has grown, they’re looking for someone who’s an SMD, looking to make the next step in their career. They want someone who understands sales cycles and the importance of building relationships without being pushy.
They started off with experimenting with roles. After bringing in the first few hires, some that were really experienced sellers in security and some that were less experienced sellers, they realized some of the things they needed. They need people that know how to work through legal issues as they're going to have to deal with things like liability and cyber insurance. They need people who can be patient with sales cycles and are warm, empathic people who can build strong relationships and handle hostile situations.
One of the biggest struggles he's noticed with sales people where the product leads the sale is getting them to believe that it'll be okay and that the product WILL sell. It’s not easy for someone who hasn't seen that happen before, but the magic in Rumble is getting to say, “hey, test the product” and it’ll sell itself.
As they continue to have a high amount of inbound coming in, they're going to hire more salespeople and well, only the paranoid will survive.
One thing Jay sees all the time is that really high achievers are those that are always afraid everything is gonna fall through and have the mindset of, “things are great, but there are always things that could be better.”
We hope you were able to learn something today from Jay’s hiring methodology and as always, be sure to tune into the podcast for our weekly episodes!
