Episode 99: Jace Edwards – The Path to Managing Director

For many, the SDR role is only just scratching the surface of all the opportunities within the sales field. This was especially true for Jace Edwards, who has climbed the ranks all the way from an SDR to become a Managing Director at memoryBlue.  

Jace serves as a testament to the successful trajectory a sales career can provide you with if you strategize well and work efficiently. Like any career, there are different obstacles no matter which sales role you’re in but learning how to work through them and utilize your resources effectively is what will push you ahead of the pack and help you reach your goals. 

In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Jace discusses the different roles within sales, his own personal journey through them, and the most important things to remember when hiring people in sales.  

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Jace Edwards

💡 What he does: Jace is a managing director at memoryBlue.

💡 Company: memoryBlue

💡 Noteworthy: Jace began his career at memoryBlue in 2019 as an SDR and quickly ascended the ranks to leadership. In less than a year with memoryBlue, Edwards was elevated to client delivery manager, where he supervised and trained over 35 SDRs. Today he is a managing director at memoryBlue and leads the Austin office. Edwards holds a bachelor’s degree in applied sociology with a minor in business administration from Texas State University.

💡 Where to find Jace: LinkedIn | Website

Key Insights

⚡ Sales is a viable option as a career path. After working different jobs like being a delivery driver at a local pizzeria, where he was promoted to team leader, Jace started working at a furniture store that his uncle bought. As he says, that’s when he realized that he wanted to get into sales. “At some point, I did start realizing that sales is for me. Starting off, it was a lot of inventory management, tracking what’s coming in, pricing it. I did a lot of valuing. It was a consignment store. People would bring us their stuff, we would sell it for them, and then we would give them a cut. So, a lot of learning how to properly evaluate furniture, what to look for, how to negotiate with customers because everybody wants more than what it’s worth. […] Whenever I would close a big deal, I found that I got that adrenaline rush that I enjoyed so much as a kid.”

⚡ For an SDR, the pipeline is your lifeline. To be a successful SDR, you need to get in touch with the right people. As Jace points out, it is very important to prepare before calling a company because that is the only way you will get in touch with the right person. “Once I had that process down, ‘All right, here’s who my target audience is, here’s what I need to scan for to make sure that they’re the right person. Here’s the type of company that’s the sweet spot, let’s get their mobile number; let’s verify that their information is correct.’ Use LinkedIn, ZoomInfo; the tools here can be used to cross-reference that information. Putting in that upfront work and just doing more of that work is the only thing special about me as an SDR.”

⚡ Being in management gives great satisfaction. Jace had been working at memoryBlue for five weeks when he first found himself mentoring a girl who was struggling in the SDR role. In his third month, he was offered the delivery manager role. Although he did not think about it before, he says that in the conversation with the DMs, he explained many advantages of this job. “Watching somebody who was struggling to have any productivity, helping them, showing them the light, and then seeing that light switch for them, that was awesome. That feeling right there was way more satisfying to me than booking a good meeting or hitting quota myself. I got more gratification out of that than my own personal accolades.”

Episode Highlights

Jace as an SDR at memoryBlue

“I knew that I was going to be working for clients: cold calling, emailing. I knew that essentially my role was to schedule meetings. That first day, I remember the night before; I think I slept maybe one hour because there was so much I did not know. I didn’t know, like, ‘Am I going to be good at this? Who’s my client going to be? What is my manager going to be like?’ I didn’t sleep at all the night before. So anyways, I came into the office that day. It was the middle of a blitz, so it was quiet, and people were focused on doing their job. Christina [Ierullo] greeted me, showed me my desk, and was like, ‘All right, here’s your battle station. Here’s your login information. Get set up, and we’ll get you going on your client.’ I was on the Booz Allen Hamilton campaign for seven or eight months. Prior to memoryBlue, I didn’t even know what that company was. Turns out, a very large consulting firm, Fortune 500, which does all the cybersecurity for three letter government agencies. So literally, before coming here, I’d never heard of them. But it was a cool campaign; I enjoyed the world of cybersecurity. I was ready to dive in head first, like, ‘I need to be successful in this. I need to be a student of the game and figure out what my craft is and what I am not so good at. What do I need to focus on?'”

The Role of a Delivery Manager

“It’s not effective to create mini clones of yourself. People are motivated very differently; they have different goals. Something that’s going to fly for you isn’t necessarily going to fly for them from a tactical perspective. Somebody might just be naturally smooth over the phone; so, a certain way to handle a certain objection might work for them but might not work for another person. So I found out very quickly that everybody’s different; everybody takes coaching and feedback differently. And it took a while to really unlock how to diagnose some of those things, things to look at between the lines. Not every SDR is going to be a pleasure to manage; there are going to be some people who will make you want to pull your hair out a little bit, but that’s part of the fun of it. 

Part of being a manager is that you have to unlock the best in people. I would say, for new DMs, don’t try to make many clones of yourself. Listen to your team very early and understand: What are their goals? What are they hoping to gain from this experience? What do they want next? What do they think they’re struggling with?”

Things Jace Considers When Hiring People

“First and foremost, I want somebody that’s going to come in, be a student of the game, and actively try to be the best that they can be. I think that’s really important. […]

Secondly, and you can uncover this a lot in the role play, do they have a natural sense of curiosity? I think being curious is straight up the most important skill in sales. Ultimately what we’re trying to do here, in the world of sales, is solve problems. To solve a problem, you gotta know what the problem is, and to know what that problem is, you gotta get really curious. […]

If you look at the DHR, the people that are getting 150 plus percent of their quota, take a look at their activity. They’re likely to be list building a lot more than everybody, they’re likely making more calls, sending more emails. […]

Whenever I’m interviewing somebody, one thing I like to think of is like, ‘All right, so this person, as they stand right now, if I put them in front of a client, what is that client going to think?’ […] I try to think how that client is going to react. If it’s positive, good, they pass the test. If it’s not positive, it’s like, ‘Okay, that’s probably not a good thing.'”

Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Jace Edwards: As long as you develop those good, foundational leadership and management qualities when you’re in the DM role, the DM role is the time to, you know, let, just as an SDR would do when they start off, like a DM role, like if you wanna get into sales, leadership, like that is the perfect time to hone your craft. 

[00:00:41] Marc Gonyea: Wow. All we’re actually here, Chris and Jace Edwards at memoryBlue, Austin. 

[00:00:43] Chris Corcoran: Podcasting in Austin, giving Joe Rogan and Tim Ferris a run for their money.

[00:00:50] Marc Gonyea: Right. 

[00:00:51] That’s right. That’s right. Jace. After this, you could only open.

[00:00:55] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, this is, this is a third most listen to podcast that’s recorded in Austin. There you go. Absolutely. How’s it going, Jace? 

[00:01:03] Jace Edwards: It’s going good. No complaints. Living the dream.

[00:01:06] Marc Gonyea: Office, having a good day today. 

[00:01:07] Jace Edwards: We are having a good day.

[00:01:08] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Tell us what, tell us about that. 

[00:01:10] Let’s just start off with that, and then we’ll go back and get into your background. 

[00:01:13] Jace Edwards: Yeah. I mean, the, the vibes are right today and the team’s getting after it. I think we have like 40 books on the day, which is a really good day for us. A lot of, some of our newer SDRs are getting some multiple book days. So, yeah. Things are, things are going well right now. Wow. 

[00:01:28] Marc Gonyea: And you have 55 SDRs in this office, 75 memoryBlue personnel. 

[00:01:32] Jace Edwards: That is correct. 

[00:01:32] Marc Gonyea: And you put up 40 book meetings. Yeah. That’s, that’s a great day. 

[00:01:38] Jace Edwards: Oh yeah. Just gotta figure out a way to do that every day. And we’ll be in good shape. 

[00:01:41] Marc Gonyea: That’s right. All right, we’ll come back to that part. 

[00:01:43] Chris Corcoran: Just do it tomorrow. 

[00:01:44] Jace Edwards: Yep, day by day. 

[00:01:45] Chris Corcoran: You go brick by brick. 

[00:01:48] Marc Gonyea: Okay. So we, we’ll definitely come back to that. So let, but let’s get into you. So we’ve got, you know, people who are thinking about coming to work here, we got SDRs that might wanna be delivery managers, delivery managers that might want to open up their own office, or be it another MD in an existing office, or take over an office.

[00:02:03] They’re gonna wanna, they want talk or hear about stories like yours. That’s what we wanna get into. Okay. So in, in, in terms of doing that, I, I gotta say it, like you’re an Austin unicorn. 

[00:02:16] Jace Edwards: That’s right. One of the few.

[00:02:17] Marc Gonyea: Right? Tell us what that means, and kind of talk about growing up. 

[00:02:21] Jace Edwards: Yeah. So born and raised here in Austin, haven’t found a reason to leave just yet.

[00:02:25] Marc Gonyea: Pretty, pretty cool city. But yeah, born in 1992, just turned 30 years old, growing up very much a middle-class neighborhood, a lot of kids my age that I used to run around with, get in trouble. What part of Austin? Where, the surrounding area? 

[00:02:42] Jace Edwards: Austin, South Austin. 

[00:02:43] Marc Gonyea: South Austin. Okay. Got it. Alright.

[00:02:45] Jace Edwards: So in the heart of South Austin, which, in comparison to some of the other places, like Round Rock-Georgetown, North Austin, certainly had more of that, like keep Austin weird vibe, right? You get kind of the old hippies and the, you know, all-natural, low organic stores. Mm-hmm. But yeah, grew up and spent my entire childhood in, in South Austin.

[00:03:03] Marc Gonyea: What’s it been like with the change? 

[00:03:07] Jace Edwards: It’s…

[00:03:07] Marc Gonyea: The growth.

[00:03:08] Jace Edwards: It’s crazy. I mean, first and foremost, the road that I live on, or that I used to live on growing up, used to be just a dirt road one way where now it’s, you know, four lanes both sides. But yeah, I mean the, the growth of Austin has been incredible to see over the past, you know, 25, 30 years.

[00:03:25] Mm-hmm like, I remember growing up, going to Zilker park, looking at the downtown skyline. There may have been three sizeable buildings to where now, it seems like there’s a new skyscraper, or Facebook is building a new office or, or Google’s coming with their new headquarters here. So yeah, now, nowadays, every time I, I drive through downtown, there’s some new tech company that’s blown up their headquarters right there, so it’s changed a lot, and you know, I will say with all the, you know, recent and I mean, I guess, it’s been happening for 30 years. I mean, there’s always been a tech presence here, but yeah, it’s really ramped up over the past 10 years, and you can certainly, you know, see an effect on the, on the local economy. You know, it’s created a lot of jobs, you know, there’s some cons to it.

[00:04:06] I mean, rent’s gone up quite a bit. Yeah. But hey, you know, that’s what comes with it? 

[00:04:10] Marc Gonyea: Yep, and what, and what compelled you to stay, but just because of all those things, I mean, everybody’s moving here. I mean, how many people from this office are from Austin, you said, out of the 75 people?

[00:04:20] Jace Edwards: I would say five, five people count on one hand.

[00:04:23] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So everybody’s moving here. Yeah. So was it always like, “I’m, I’m just not gonna leave. I mean, why would I leave? Everybody’s moving here.” 

[00:04:30] Jace Edwards: Yeah. I mean, that, that’s certainly factored into it. I mean, I really just do have a love for the city. Like growing up, I didn’t really, I feel like I kind of took it for granted how great of a city it was to live in.

[00:04:41] I mean, we have a great live music scene. There’s so much outdoor activity to do around here. Like we have the Highland Lakes, so, I mean, there’s just a lot to do in the city. So, I mean, I kind of took that for granted growing up, and it wasn’t until I got a little bit older, and, you know, I recognized that there’s a lot of opportunity to really like, you know, or at least for me, continue setting my roots here.

[00:05:02] So that was, that was part of it just kind of realizing like how great of a place it was to live. You know, there was a period there, especially whenever I was going through college, I was like, “Hey, maybe it is time to branch out, go to another city.” So naturally, the other two options for me being a Texas boy was Houston or Dallas.

[00:05:17] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Spend a little bit of time in those two cities, and you really realize how much better Austin is. 

[00:05:22] Marc Gonyea: Be funny from Austin. Always crisis. 

[00:05:25] Jace Edwards: Dallas, yeah. No, thanks. 

[00:05:27] Chris Corcoran: Well, hey, so what’s funny is I go do a lot of on campus recruiting, and I love when I go to on campus recruiting at a college in Texas. Yeah.

[00:05:36] The first thing that I’ll ask this college student is, “Where do you wanna live?” And almost, I almost always hear the same answer. “I’m open to live anywhere in the state of Texas.” It’s always like, this is the most open-minded person I’ve ever heard of. Yeah. Within this, within the state of Texas. Yep. 

[00:05:58] Marc Gonyea: That’s right. So, alright. So what were you like as a kid? 

[00:06:03] Growing up, I mean, I was, I will say that, I was a bit of an adrenaline junkie as a kid.

[00:06:08] Chris Corcoran: Really?

[00:06:09] Yeah. I was very much into extreme sports. Like I did the skateboarding thing for five or six years. Didn’t do parkour. No, never got into that. I thought those kids were kind of weird, but um, anyways, no, like skateboarding, BMX biking. I got into a dirt bike a little bit. 

[00:06:25] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Like, Jace, you got to do cool shit. Yeah. 

[00:06:27] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Like me and my buddies, like I said, there was a, a number of us that were around my age growing up. So, you know, we would go to the back of the neighborhood and dig up a dirt ramp and see how high we can get on our bikes. Yep.

[00:06:37] You know, get bruised up, scraped up and all that stuff. And I think, now I really just liked kind of the thrill that you, I would get from doing some something dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. I, I did a lot of that growing up.

[00:06:48] Marc Gonyea: Watching himself off, you know, these guys just kinda one up each other on these dirt bikes.

[00:06:52] Jace Edwards: Oh yeah. And people got seriously hurt. They did. So like looking back on it, we were kind of dumb. Yeah. But, yeah. Made some, made some great friendships growing up, and on top of all that, I was, I was really interested in music as well. Like a lot of people don’t know this, but I was, I was a part of the bands in middle school, like hardcore rock bands.

[00:07:10] Yeah. Like straight up playing metal music, lasted for like two years, but I was really into guitar or in playing the drums. I’m in this band, I played bass guitar, and then that kind of spiraled into kind of a lifelong love for music, like, I still play music to this day. My girlfriend hates it, but the office in my home is kind of half of a music studio too.

[00:07:31] Marc Gonyea: Oh, okay.

[00:07:31] Kind of did that conversion on my own when she wasn’t too big of a fan of it.

[00:07:34] Marc Gonyea: Without permission. 

[00:07:35] Jace Edwards: That’s right. And I went ahead and did it, took initiative. But yeah, it was a, you know, pretty average upbringing. Like I said, middle-class neighborhood. I certainly prioritized having fun with the friends over school work. Like I was never the kid that would spend a ton of hours studying for a test. I knew I was smart and that I could do it, but I just didn’t necessarily apply myself as much as others did with, you know, studying for, for tests and all that. Very much B students, you know, some A’s sprinkled in there, certainly some C’s. So yeah, certainly prioritized, you know, building relationships and, you know, having fun. And like I said, seeking those thrills out, like that was, you know, the bulk of my childhood. 

[00:08:14] Marc Gonyea: What did you think you wanted to do when you were in high school? 

[00:08:17] Jace Edwards: I honestly had no idea. I bounced around a little bit, you know. At one point, I thought I wanted to be EMS.

[00:08:24] What’s that?

[00:08:25] Jace Edwards: That, that would be, man, what is the emergency medical services? Yeah. So the people that ride around in ambulances 

[00:08:31] Chris Corcoran: That goes and take care of the kids on the dirt bike that, you know.

[00:08:34] Jace Edwards: That’s right.

[00:08:35] Marc Gonyea: There’s an adrenaline rush there. Yeah. Oh, race and help somebody, you know.

[00:08:39] Jace Edwards: That could have been why.

[00:08:40] Marc Gonyea: You encounter, right? Definitely why.

[00:08:42] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Two things, though. One, I actually saw some pictures of what they deal with, and I was like, “Nope. Yeah, screw that.” Two, I found out how much they were making. So I was like, “Yeah, screw that, too.” So yeah, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but also growing up, I, I found out very quickly that, I mean, I was a, I was a hustler as a kid.

[00:09:00] Like I was always looking for creative ways to make some money. I was very money motivated as a kid. I think it all kind of started with, I was probably nine years old, and my dad made me a proposition. We had a family dog, and he was like, “Hey, if you go clean up the backyard once a week, I’ll give you five bucks.”

[00:09:17] I was like, “All right.” So I, I did that gig for a little bit, you know, put the Lincolns in my piggy bank, and I came to this point to where I was like, “Oh crap. Like I’ve got 45 bucks here.” 

[00:09:26] Marc Gonyea: Right. Oh, that’s a lot of money too. 

[00:09:27] Jace Edwards: I’ve made it. Yep. Yeah. So when I, I think I forgot what I did with it, but I think I got on my bike and rode down to the Subway and got a foot-long sandwich and a game from GameStop.

[00:09:37] And that was it. And I was like, “Oh crap. Like I need to make some more money.” Yeah. So, you know, that kind of developed into, you know, trying to do some other things here and there. A lot of my family lives here in Austin, so we would have get-togethers. So, you know, I would, you know, do, you know, random things around their house to, to help out to make some extra money.

[00:09:54] So yeah, I mean, I was, you know, ready to get after it. And at that time, like I knew that, and this was instilled in me at a very early age, but anything worthwhile in this world, that’s going to make you a lot of money is going to be hard. So like, if there’s one thing you can control, you control how hard you work something.

[00:10:11] Chris Corcoran: Can, can you repeat that for the people in the back? 

[00:10:15] Jace Edwards: Yes. Anything that is worthwhile in this world that is going to make you a good amount of money is going to be extremely hard, so buckle up. So yeah, I always had that value instilled in me at an early age. 

[00:10:29] Chris Corcoran: How is that instilled in you?

[00:10:31] Jace Edwards: I mean, just, you know, seeing my parents work, my dad was in sales.

[00:10:35] He was, he worked for Canon for a number of years, selling wide-format copiers, so the big copier machines, business to business. So yeah, you know, I think, you know, a lot of just kind of seeing what my family did, had a couple of other family members that were in sales. You know, just kind of seeing how they ran their day-to-day.

[00:10:52] So yeah, a, a lot of that just continuously is kind of what instilled that, and I think on top of that, you know, being able to do some of those things at an early age, um, you know, go out and do a variety of things, and see the first year labor pay off and, and turn into income, I think, like that, and myself kind of like started turning some wheels.

[00:11:11] Jace Edwards: I was like, all right, fine. I gotta be getting after it to, you know, make, make something of myself. 

[00:11:17] Marc Gonyea: All right. So you’re coming outta high school, what would you do?

[00:11:20] Coming outta high school, I, my first two years of college, I was at ACC, so Austin Community College. I was working full-time.

[00:11:27] Marc Gonyea: Right, right. Outta high school. What were you doing?

[00:11:29] Jace Edwards: So outta high school, I worked at a local pizza joints. 

[00:11:32] Marc Gonyea: Did you work in high school too? 

[00:11:34] Jace Edwards: Oh yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. 

[00:11:35] Marc Gonyea: H, how, how many years in high school before you had a license, when you got a license senior year? 

[00:11:39] Jace Edwards: My very first job was before I got a license.

[00:11:43] I worked at Panera Bread. Okay. As a dishwasher. Oh, right. And I found out very quickly that was not the route that I wanted to take. I think that was probably some of the best motivation in the world because some of the people I worked with were, you know, 30, 40 years old working as a dishwasher.

[00:11:58] Jace Edwards: And I was like, “I don’t care what I do, but I know for a fact I’m not doing that.” So that, that gig lasted about a month, past that, really my first, you know, actual sales job, one of my buddies, and this was, I had turned 16 at the time, so I just started driving. One of my buddies growing up, his dad’s a general contractor.

[00:12:17] So, you know, over the summer, we were looking for some creative ways to, to make some extra money. And he was like, “Hey, I’ve got a proposition for you and your buddies. Like, why don’t you come down to my office this Saturday, and I’ll, I’ll give you guys the spiel?” So we’re like, “All right, cool.” So I went outta their office, which was literally a mobile home on a job site, circled around a conference table, and it was like, “Hey, look like, you know, if you guys want to test your luck at the world of sales, like here’s what I’m trying to do here. Like, we do a lot of different things for, you know, not just residential customers, but for commercial as well. An area of our business that’s struggling right now that we could use some help in is our residential roofing. So like, here’s the deal, like you guys are gonna, we’re gonna give you guys your zip codes. You’re gonna go around door knock. You have a briefcase with all your information. Here’s your pitch.” 

[00:13:03] Marc Gonyea: And you’re 16? 

[00:13:04] Jace Edwards: Yeah, yeah. So like, literally, right when I started driving, like, and I was fired up after that meeting. Like looking back on it, I was like, “Man, that was dumb.” But yeah, there was some slick guy that came in. One of his, like top sales reps, he had this nice suit, like, you know, slick haircut. 

[00:13:24] Chris Corcoran: Like, like, like Marc’s?

[00:13:26] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Like Marc’s. Exactly. Yeah, and he was telling us like, “Hey, this is how I got my start. Like when I was 16 years old, I made 90K in a summer.”

[00:13:34] And dude, my eyes were just like blown up. I was like, “That’s what I want to do.” So yeah, we literally, like, they gave us our briefcases, gave us a labeled polo with their, with their logo on it. We had our zip codes. They were like, “All right, here’s the, the tricks of the trade. Like you want to go to a nice neighborhood, but not too nice of a neighborhood ’cause they probably already have somebody, like shoot for the upper-middle-class neighborhoods.

[00:13:56] Like here’s some things that you can look for on the roof, target those.” So they were giving us prospecting tips. Yeah, so yeah, spent the summer literally going around houses, and you know, 110-degree, Texas weather, trying to drum up some business. 

[00:14:09] Marc Gonyea: What’d you learn? 

[00:14:10] Jace Edwards: Man, sales is hard. 

[00:14:11] Marc Gonyea: There’s a lot of rejection.

[00:14:13] Jace Edwards: Yeah, which looking back on it, you know, having that experience, not that the SDR role is easy in any means, but rejection in person when you’re at somebody’s house, and they slam the door in your face, or God forbid, they have a gun on ’em. I mean, this is Texas. Yeah. Like that’s a totally different type of rejection than somebody, a prospect telling you to F off over the phone.

[00:14:33] So it definitely did prepare me in that sense. But yeah, I mean, like, it was a lot harder than I thought. Like I thought, you know, I would, you know, at least, you know, once a day, get somebody that’s interested in learning a little bit more and getting an estimate, but I would get maybe like one a week. And over the course of the summer, I think, maybe one of those people like actually turn into business.

[00:14:53] Jace Edwards: Yeah. And I made very difficult. I, I forgot off that deal. Like maybe 500 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. So the grand scheme of things, not a worthwhile endeavor, but a lot of inva, invaluable lessons that I learned. 

[00:15:03] Marc Gonyea: Absolutely. Yeah. So, you were coming outta high school. You were, you were at the ACC, and you were working full-time? Working full-time. Tell us about that pizza place. 

[00:15:10] Jace Edwards: Pizza place. 

[00:15:11] Marc Gonyea: What were you doing? 

[00:15:11] Jace Edwards: Yeah, glamorous. So, lo local pizza joint called Craig O’s. I started off as a delivery driver there, you know, ultimately learning the road, learning the business a little bit, and was promoted to a team lead. So, that was kind my first experience, you know, being responsible for people. So I did that for wow. Like a, like a year or two. It was a long time. 

[00:15:32] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. That’s a learn. You learned a lot of lessons in those roles. 

[00:15:34] Jace Edwards: Yeah. I got some good like practical business experience. Like I was in charge of, you know, keeping tally of the da, daily numbers, right, what are our expenses, had to keep a close eye on, on the employees, sounds ridiculous, but grabbing too much Parmesan cheese.

[00:15:49] Like that’s a cost for them, right? And somebody’s, you know, stashing 20 a box, like business loses money. Yeah. So I learned a lot of really good, solid, practical business skills. You know, how to interact with your direct reports, right? You know, having those tougher conversations early, you know, if somebody’s not pulling their weight, like how to address that, how to report up to upper management, you know, if something’s going wrong, like, you know, what are some things that you can do to fix it? So, yeah, look, it was a fantastic.

[00:16:18] Marc Gonyea: So you learn all that right outta high school, right? 

[00:16:20] Jace Edwards: Outta high school. Yep. Going to school full-time. 

[00:16:22] Marc Gonyea: Nice, man. Yeah. That’s probably more valuable than whatever I was learning at Craig 100, my freshman year of Virginia Tech. What happened next? 

[00:16:31] Jace Edwards: Um, so after ACC, um, I was just getting my basics out of the way. Went on to transfer to Texas State in San Marcos. Wonderful place. If you haven’t been to San Marcos before like I highly suggested, if you like rivers, they got good ones. 

[00:16:45] Marc Gonyea: Those are the Bobcats. 

[00:16:46] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Those are the Bobcats.

[00:16:46] Chris Corcoran: The Bobcats’re dying together. 

[00:16:48] Marc Gonyea: Really? 

[00:16:48] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. Really good sales program. I heard the river and like the tubes down there, it’s amazing.

[00:16:53] Jace Edwards: It is.

[00:16:54] Marc Gonyea: Man, I’m surprised you haven’t been there yet. 

[00:16:57] Chris Corcoran: Someday. 

[00:16:58] Marc Gonyea: Someday. Yeah. They got a good sales program. 

[00:16:59] Chris Corcoran: They have a great sales program, and that’s my number, I want that to be our number one school. 

[00:17:03] Marc Gonyea: Isn’t that, that far from here? 

[00:17:04] Chris Corcoran: 30 minutes. Yeah. 

[00:17:05] Marc Gonyea: Really?

[00:17:06] Jace Edwards: Right down the road. Yeah, yeah. So whenever I was at Texas State.

[00:17:10] Marc Gonyea: We got you. You would school there.

[00:17:11] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was living in Austin and would commute to San Marcos. Yeah. So it’s, it’s that close. But yeah, anyways, I transferred to Texas State, ultimately, wanted to be a finance major. I, I can’t remember exactly why I wanted to do that. I, I kind of thought the concept of, you know, having turning money into more money was interesting.

[00:17:30] It was like, “Hey, why not do that for a living? It seems like they do pretty well for themselves.” So I didn’t necessarily know exactly what I wanted to do. All I knew is that I wanted to make a lot of money and do something that I enjoyed. So very quickly found out that majoring in finance is not, or at least for me, was not the most interesting thing in the world.

[00:17:48] Like it’s a lot of analyzing numbers and, you know, some, a bunch of, you know, random terms, like.

[00:17:54] Marc Gonyea: But you like to know the numbers guys too, though. You told us that. Yeah. 

[00:17:57] Jace Edwards: Yeah, it was, but like, whatever I was majoring, you know, going down that route. Yeah. It just like didn’t appeal to me at the time.

[00:18:04] Yeah. Okay. Okay. I, I think now that, you know, I kind of know the, the meaning behind the numbers that, you know, I’m responsible for. And like, you can kind of use those numbers to inform decisions it’s, you know, started to become a little more like it’s, it’s more my speed now because you know, I know what to do with the numbers versus back then.

[00:18:22] It’s like, “How am I gonna apply this to a job?” So anyways, I majored in finance. Very quickly. I was like, “Hey, it’s like, I don’t wanna do this anymore.” So I transferred to Applied Sociology, which, if you’re familiar with sociology, it’s basically the study of groups of people, behaviors, and how they interact with each other, like except applied, the applied part is applying into the world of business. 

[00:18:47] Marc Gonyea: So interesting. 

[00:18:47] Jace Edwards: It was actually very practical. Like I learned a lot of really good things from, from that major. 

[00:18:51] Marc Gonyea: So, what did you think you were gonna do when you were, when you were coming up and getting out?

[00:18:55] Jace Edwards: Still, no idea. Yeah, I, I just knew that, um.

[00:19:00] Marc Gonyea: It’s before the sales program? 

[00:19:01] Jace Edwards: Yeah. I think it was just starting. 

[00:19:03] Marc Gonyea: Okay. All right.

[00:19:04] But yeah, I still didn’t know necessarily what I wanted to do. 

[00:19:07] Marc Gonyea: Sure. You wanted to go sales? Yeah. Actually, sales wasn’t even on the radar. So it sounds like.

[00:19:11] Jace Edwards: Wasn’t, wasn’t quite on the radar. You know, kind of when that started to get on the radar, and I’ll come back to that in a second, but yeah, move to Applied Sociology. I just knew that like, “Hey, I’m gonna open up a lot of doors for myself if I get a four-year degree. So. I gonna go through, I’m gonna get my four-year degree. And at that point, you know, I’ll figure out what, what’s next for me.” So, when I started at Texas State, made a, made a job shift. I was still working full-time, commuting to school. My uncle, who moved down here to Austin from East Texas, he bought a furniture store here. So, he was like, “Hey, like, I’ve got an offer for you if you wanna be my right-hand man.

[00:19:45] And, you know, help me kind of,” and it, it was a furniture store that had been in business for 25 years. So they had a good name, but, you know, the, the current regime before my uncle, uncle bought it, like just wasn’t getting the job done. So it’s kind of a rebuild process. So he was like, “Hey, look, like, I’ll make you a job offer if you wanna come be my right-hand man. I’d love to have you come, come work at the furniture store.” So did that, and that was really my first, you know, I would say, you know, experience with, you know, a legitimate, like high volume of sales. 

[00:20:18] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. I’m gonna say one thing. Since an early age, Jace has a lot more experience than most people that we know at an early age, right? With like the different jobs knocking

[00:20:28] Chris Corcoran: Knocking on doors, knocking on doors. 

[00:20:29] Marc Gonyea: on doors, the pizza joint. Chris and I are friends with community colleges, like, yeah, knock out the basics at community college while you’re working full-time, you’re learning a shit ton. 

[00:20:38] Jace Edwards: And it saves you so much money, too, to go to community college.

[00:20:41] Like I get the, you know, four-year college experience and freshman dorms and, and all that, but yeah, you save a lot of money back going to community college.

[00:20:49] Marc Gonyea: A significant amount. So, so sorry, so you’re out, your uncle’s pitch, pitched you. So started there, and what was that like, though? Was it like, “Okay, I’m gonna do this, this kind of business, but it’s kind of sales, slowly up my finance degree,” but how did you view it? Did you view it as you were getting into sales, or did you view it as I’m getting the business? 

[00:21:08] Jace Edwards: At some point, I did start realizing that like, “Hey, sales is for me.” Like starting off, it was a lot of inventory management and like tracking what’s coming in, pricing it. I did a lot of valuing for, it was a consignment store.

[00:21:21] So, you know, people would bring us their stuff, we would sell it for them. And then we would give ’em a cut. Yeah. So a lot of like, you know, learning how to, you know, properly evaluate furniture, like what to look for, you know, negotiating with customers ’cause lemme tell you everybody wants more than what it’s worth.

[00:21:35] So you know that, and as I got more into it and certainly started, you know, working more with customers, like, you know, once I got that down, my uncle’s like, “Hey, I’m gonna turn you loose on the floor. Like here’s our mark that we need to hit each month, and I’ll pay you a bonus for, you know, how much you can, you know, sell.”

[00:21:51] Jace Edwards: So I was like, “All right, cool. Let’s do it.” And I mean, B2C is very different than B2B. I found that out when I got here. But I mean, that was kind of, at that point, you know, I found that adrenaline rush that, you know, I enjoyed so much as a kid whenever I would close a big deal, right? If I sold $10,000 worth of furniture, I was like, “Yeah, let’s go.”

[00:22:12] Yeah, I got that thrill. Yeah. I was like, “Let’s do it, making some money.” So I think that’s kind of when the, you know, when that gear shifted in my head where I was like, “Sales is a viable option for, for a career path. Like I know I can, you know, outwork most people, I can talk to people.” So, like to go hand in hand with sales, like I start looking into that a little bit more, to fast forward, couple years, and I continue to work at the furniture store once I graduated from college. I graduated from Texas State in 2016, and I continued working at the furniture store. We also started, you know, doing a, running a little side business, where essentially, we were a, a business brokerage. That was my first, you know, real experience into actual prospecting and inside sales.

[00:23:01] So my uncle, he was a registered broker, and my job was to go out and try to, you know, get in contact with these local businesses, you know, catch their pulse on, “Hey, are you trying to sell your business for whatever reason are you trying to retire? Are you just looking for, for something new?” We would, you know, evaluate their business, we’d look at all their books.

[00:23:19] We would market it. We would find a qualified buyer and essentially broker the transaction, and I got to be a part of that, which was really cool. And that was my first like B2B experience. So I was doing the furniture thing. I was doing the business brokering thing for a little while, so like at, at that point, that’s when it really started becoming apparent like sales is the option for me. Like that’s, that’s where I gotta go. 

[00:23:41] Chris Corcoran: So that business broker piece, were you just doing the prospecting, or were you whipping out the finance skills to do the financial analysis? 

[00:23:48] Jace Edwards: Didn’t whip out any of the finance skills. I was strictly prospecting. I was okay, yeah. I was, you know, trying to garnish some interest, get a pulse on, you know, how somebody would feel about, you know, potentially wanting to know, and we’d start like, “Hey you, if you’re thinking about selling, we can give you a free valuation,” and that’s kind of how you hook ’em in a little bit. 

[00:24:06] Chris Corcoran: What kind of businesses? 

[00:24:08] Jace Edwards: Yeah, I mean, we, we specialize with anything. I mean, mostly like, you know, little mom and pop shop, so proprietorships, um, kind of the sweet spot for us was $500,000 in annual revenue up to 10 million. Once you get past 10 million, you know, that’s when it becomes a little more like, you know, doing it as a small, small shop with two people becomes a little, you know, muddled at that point.

[00:24:30] Chris Corcoran: I see. So, okay. Yeah. Were, were they just Austin-based businesses?

[00:24:33] Jace Edwards: Austin-based, yeah. In Austin area based.

[00:24:35] Chris Corcoran: How long did you do that?

[00:24:36] Jace Edwards: I was doing that for probably a year and a half.

[00:24:39] Chris Corcoran: Hard.

[00:24:40] Jace Edwards: It was hard. Yeah. I, my specialty was handwritten letters. So, I would literally like get a list of businesses, find their address, sit there and write out a hundred letters a day. So yeah, that was something. 

[00:24:53] Chris Corcoran: What was your hit rate? 

[00:24:55] Jace Edwards: Oh, man, I want to say like maybe

[00:24:58] Chris Corcoran: How many letters, a hundred letters go out and how many, how many?

[00:25:01] Jace Edwards: We would get maybe, I would say, out of 200 letters we would send out, we would get one response. That response was usually like, “Hey, not interested, but try me in six years.” So hit rate was low. Wow. 

[00:25:14] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, that’s fascinating. 

[00:25:16] Jace Edwards: Yeah. It was something, I, I learned a lot about the, uh, the hardships of prospecting in, in sales during that gig. 

[00:25:26] Marc Gonyea: So then, you decided to do something else. 

[00:25:29] So, well, what, what inspired that change? 

[00:25:32] Jace Edwards: Yeah, so I kind of got to the point I was, I was done with college, you know, I kind of reached my potential at the furniture store. I was like, you know, what else am I gonna do here? Right? I’m not gonna buy out my uncle. Like it’s his business, you know, the business brokering thing, like, you know, I made a couple good bonus checks, but ultimately, I was ready for the next challenge. I was like, “Why the hell did I go to college if like, I’m not gonna put that to use?”

[00:25:56] So I knew I wanted to get into sales. I had a fascination with tech, especially growing up in Austin. You know, obviously like the big names here, like Dell’s headquartered right down the street, Intel. Oracle had a really big presence before they just straight-up moved their headquarters here.

[00:26:11] Jace Edwards: Yeah. So a lot of, a lot of tech companies. And I always thought it was, you know, fascinating like how literally the future of our world is shaped by these companies. Now what really solidified my interest in wanting to just hardcore go after a job at tech sales, one of my buddies from college, once he graduated, he started at Indeed.

[00:26:31] And he started off as an ISR, moved to a senior ISR, moved to an account executive, and ultimately, got promoted to one of their directors of sales in the period of like two years. So, had a conversation with him. I was like, “Hey man, like how you been, seems like things are going really well for you?”

[00:26:48] You know, we got to talking about the tech industry, and he was going on about like, “Hey, there’s a lot of area of opportunity here. Like I, you are probably one that was trying to make up for lost time,” because I was 27 whenever I graduated college. So, I was, I was, you know, people younger than me were starting their careers, and I was certainly trying to make up for lost time. I was like, “Hey man, like, you can certainly do that in the world of tech. Like I think that you would be, you’d be really good in, in a sales role in this industry.” And then he told me how much money he was making. And like, at that point, I was like, “All right,” like, “this is it.” like, “this is what I’m doing.” 

[00:27:21] Chris Corcoran: This is like that $90,000 indoors. 

[00:27:24] Jace Edwards: Yeah, exactly. A hundred percent. Right. 

[00:27:25] Chris Corcoran: Same thing. Stars in your eyes.

[00:27:27] Jace Edwards: Stars in the eyes. That’s right. So anyways, I knew hardcore like, alright, tech sales is what it’s gonna be. So I, you know, every night I would go home, I’d research companies.

[00:27:37] This was in, when I made that decision was in February of 2019. Okay. I started here at memoryBlue in June of 2019. And in February, I didn’t know what an SDR was. I knew I had sales experience, and, you know, closing some, you know, mostly B2C -type deals, so the job that I kept seeing pop up on, on these, on Indeed and LinkedIn or whatever was account executive role.

[00:28:05] Being naive, I was just gunning for those right off the bat. It only took three applications that I submitted to where the recruiter was nice enough to let me know, like, “Hey, let me give you a hint here. Like, you’re not gonna get one of these jobs. Like you gotta start off as an SDR.” And I was like, “Well, what’s, what’s that?” And she broke it down for me and was like, “Yeah, it’s a sales development representative.

[00:28:28] You know, essentially think of it as like a stepping stone to get to that next level of, you know, you can get into a closing role or a managerial world. You know, it’s a lot of cold calling and emailing and prospecting, you know, your job is essentially gonna be to set up meetings for, you know, the closer to go in and, you know, hopefully, turn that into a closed deal on time.”

[00:28:45] “All right. Well, I appreciate that knowledge.” So back to the drawing board, started looking at SDR jobs, and man, I, I applied so many places.

[00:28:57] Marc Gonyea: Company strong, these companies… 

[00:29:00] Jace Edwards: Yeah, I got shut down a lot. 

[00:29:03] Marc Gonyea: Good. 

[00:29:03] Jace Edwards: Yeah. I know, right? It worked out. 

[00:29:06] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. 

[00:29:07] Marc Gonyea: So you got shut down, but then you, do you remember how you found us or how we found you or?

[00:29:11] Jace Edwards: Yeah, I do. So recruiter reached out on LinkedIn. I, at that time, when I realized I wanted to get into tech sales, like started beefing on my LinkedIn profile, putting all my experience on there, and I think what it was Abigail Bull-Windham who was, w, yeah, was my recruiter. 

[00:29:27] Marc Gonyea: She’s the Austin resident now.

[00:29:28] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. She, uh, and Matt Gloger.

[00:29:30] Marc Gonyea: She’ll be here tomorrow. Yeah. Mr. Gloger. Yeah. Can I hear that bell ringing?

[00:29:34] Yeah. So reached out over LinkedIn. I never heard a memoryBlue before, but kind of gave me the spiel of, of the business. I thought like, right off the bat, I was like, “This is a really unique business model.

[00:29:47] Jace Edwards: Like, so you guys aren’t a tech company that has your own product that you’re selling, but you’re helping other tech companies sell their product?” She’s like, Yeah, that’s exactly what we do.” I was like, “Okay, cool. Well, like, you know, talk to me like what’s the, the pay range? Kind of tell me a little bit about the culture.”

[00:30:02] And I was intrigued, I mean, the more I, you know, did research prior to my interview, like I was like, this is great. The one thing that really stuck out to me the most was the, the alumni survey. So, pulling all the people that I’ve gone through the program, kind of seeing, you know, what they’ve done life after memory blue mm-hmm it seems just in looking at different reviews on, on Glassdoor, it seemed like a place to where I could do exactly what I wanted.

[00:30:26] Jace Edwards: And that was make up for lost grounds. Like I could get not just skills for selling a specific product, but I could build like really good foundational sales skills that are gonna serve me long term in my career. I was like, “Hey, these guys if they are experts in something, it’s developing sales professionals.” so yeah, at that point, I was, I was super intrigued. 

[00:30:46] Marc Gonyea: You, did you interview with Nimit? 

[00:30:47] Jace Edwards: Yeah, initially I did. I did interview one with Nimit, and then I did the second and third interview with, with Christina Lerullo. 

[00:30:57] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. I mean, that wasn’t that long ago. 

[00:30:59] Jace Edwards: It’s crazy. That was, I mean, June of 2019, sometimes it feels like 10 years, but, I mean, three years.

[00:31:07] Yeah. It’s wow, right? Man, if you were to, if somebody would’ve told me, whenever I started as an SDR here, like, “In three years, you’re gonna be, you know, running the Austin office.” I’d say you’re crazy.

[00:31:19] Chris Corcoran: Like what’s presiding over 75 people? 

[00:31:23] Jace Edwards: It’s nuts. It still blows my mind sometimes. Like, I mean, I’ve been doing this for four or five months now, and I’m still like, wow.

[00:31:31] Marc Gonyea: That’s great. Well, yeah, it’s funny how it worked out. We’re gonna get into the SDR role, but all those things that you did before were all preparing you for what you’re doing now. 

[00:31:39] Jace Edwards: Pretty much, man. 

[00:31:40] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. I, no one else who was an SDR, and if you look at when you stopped being SDR, that was within the three years, right?

[00:31:48] I know. So you started, I mean, no one else who could come into the role, this isn’t high school, and they did this, they’re not gonna be ready to run the office. Yeah. But everything you were doing, business brokers, the furniture, and even the things before that, that’s all prepared you for what you’re doing now.

[00:32:04] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Looking back on it sure did. And I am glad that my parents laid the law down, was like, “Hey, if you want some extra money, you gotta go out and work for it.” No, no handouts. And that’s initially like what really got me, you know, wanting to work at an early age. So yeah. 

[00:32:22] Marc Gonyea: They do, they’ve done a great job. 

[00:32:24] Chris Corcoran: Hey, Jace, I can replicate that as well. 

[00:32:27] Marc Gonyea: All right, no, there you go. We don’t wanna do that, right? So, so I, well, let’s go back to, for those listening and for our own memories, our own giggles. Take us back to like doing the SDR job here. Yeah. First day. Did you know what you were doing?

[00:32:43] Jace Edwards: Not really. Not really. I mean, I had an idea what you were getting yourself into. 

[00:32:46] Yeah. I knew that I was gonna be, you know, working for clients. Yeah. You know, cold calling, emailing, essentially, knew my role was to schedule meetings. Man, that, that first day, like, I remember the night before, like I think I slept like maybe one hour because like, there was just so much unknown.

[00:34:05] Like, you know, I didn’t know, like, am I gonna be good at this? Like, you know, who’s my client gonna be, you know, what is my manager gonna be like? 

[00:34:14] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, we need more people like this.

[00:34:16] Jace Edwards: And so, yeah, I was like, you know, I didn’t sleep at all that night before. Um, so anyways, I came into the office that day. It was middle of blitz, so it was quiet, or relatively quiet, you know, people are focused doing their job. 

[00:34:29] Marc Gonyea: People at their desks. Yeah. 

[00:34:30] Jace Edwards: So, Christina Lerullo greeted me, and was like, yeah, Tina, she showed me to my desk, and was like, “All right, here’s your battle station. Here’s your, your login information, get set up, and we’ll get you going on your client.”

[00:34:40] I was on the Booz Allen Hamilton campaign. Man, for, I would say, seven or eight months. Prior to memoryBlue, I didn’t even know what that company was. It turned out a very large consulting firm, Fortune 500, does all the cybersecurity for three-letter government agencies. So literally, before coming here, I’d never heard of them. But yeah, it was a, it was a cool campaign. I mean, I enjoyed the world of cybersecurity. Yeah, no, I was just gonna say, you know, I was ready to dive in head first. Like I need to be successful in this. I need to be a student of the game and, you know, figure out what is my craft, and you know, what am I not so good at, what do I need to focus on. So yeah, I was, I was ready to dive in head first. 

[00:35:20] Marc Gonyea: Who, who else was, who were you rolling with? What their SDRs were there, you know? 

[00:35:25] Jace Edwards: Yeah. So some of the SDRs, like specifically on that campaign sure, in the office?

[00:35:30] Marc Gonyea: In the office, just the memories, like, you know, you’re a new person, you come in a little nervous. You also got more left experience than others. Yeah. But who do you remember? 

[00:35:38] Jace Edwards: I would say Sam Burkhalter. Burkey. Sam. He was, he was one. Man, so many, so many good people that I met. Tyler.

[00:35:46] Chris Corcoran: Okay. Yeah. Psycho T. 

[00:35:49] Jace Edwards: Psycho T, that’s right. I think he’s gonna be in attendance tomorrow.

[00:35:52] Chris Corcoran: So, oh, I hope he is.

[00:35:53] Yeah, there was, let’s see who else was kind of my, my crew. Anique B. Yep. Sierra. Oh, Kate, yeah. Alex Tran. Okay. Walter Seaman, man, list, list goes on and on.

[00:36:06] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Ton of those are all strong people. Yeah. And you were, when you were on, you know, becoming a student of the game, what did you become a student of? Like, what were you good at?

[00:36:16] Jace Edwards: Man, quite honestly, just like figuring out what works and working harder than the person in the left and right. Yeah. Like I found out very quickly that success as an SDR comes like, pipeline’s your lifeline, right? Like pipeline is your life. If you are not gonna put in the extra work to not just let’s build the right way ’cause there’s very much a wrong way to do it.

[00:36:36] Like ZoomInfo exporting is not gonna get the job done. You’re gonna disqualify.

[00:36:40] Marc Gonyea: You’re a master at this. 

[00:36:41] Jace Edwards: Yes. 

[00:36:41] Marc Gonyea: So, I got you coming down to this. I was like, what’s going on with Booz? Yeah. What’s going on Booz? This is a high-profile campaign, and then, they’re like, “Jace’s got like this rifle shot program. He targets the right people.”

[00:36:50] Jace Edwards: Very good. Like the work, that big level, high, high-value meetings. Yep. Personalization. But yeah, very early on, I found out like, like you gotta target the right people and put in that upfront work before you even start calling them before you even start emailing them. ‘Cause you know, come to find out if that person’s janitor at the company that you were talking to.

[00:37:07] Well, guess what? You just wasted 30 seconds of your time building out that name. So it was very much about, you know, trying to identify areas of opportunity to be as efficient as possible. And once I had that process down of like, “All right, here’s who my target audience is, here’s what I need to scan for to make sure that they’re the right person.

[00:37:24] Here’s the type of company, that’s the sweet spot. Like let’s get their mobile number. Let’s verify that their information is correct. You know, use LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, the tools here avail to kind of cross-reference that information,” putting in that upfront work and just doing more of that work is literally the only thing special about me as an SDR.

[00:37:41] Like. I made that a priority. And I was like, “Hey, maybe I’m not the best over the phone yet. Or if like, you know, maybe not the best at, you know, closing a meeting, but like what I am good at is focusing on the control of this, and I’m gonna do more of that than anybody around me.” And it worked.

[00:37:58] Marc Gonyea: It did work. Yeah. What, knowing what you knew, you know, after being the SDR for a while, what would you have told yourself that night before when you couldn’t sleep? 

[00:38:05] Jace Edwards: Mm, that’s a good one. Probably, buckle up. You thought you got told no a lot, and, you know, knocking on doors, like, you know, wait till you step into the world of B2B tech sales where the people that you’re targeting got 10 other phone calls that day.

[00:38:22] They probably get, now that I’m in the, the managing director role, like I’m starting to get those emails from vendors, and like there’s a lot of ’em. So, like the people that you’re trying to book a meeting with, like those people are already heavily, heavily prospected. So, you gotta find a way to like, you know, make yourself stick out from the craft. Mm-hmm

[00:38:41] Marc Gonyea: Who else was good at their role when you were doing this? Your SDR. 

[00:38:46] Jace Edwards: Yeah. I mean, Alex Tran was, was really good. He was just a natural, like I think, to qualify for tops, he needed like 19 occurs in the month like before the qualification ends.

[00:38:58] Marc Gonyea: I remember this.

[00:38:58] Jace Edwards: And he got like 20, like on the last day of fall.

[00:39:00] Marc Gonyea: Remember I came down, and we were like, “Do you guys know how many you need?”

[00:39:03] Yeah. And he’s like, I never, I, well, I think I said, he took it personally. 

[00:39:07] Jace Edwards: Yeah, he did. 

[00:39:08] Marc Gonyea: He’s like, “I’m gonna go.” Yeah. And he got, he crushed it. 

[00:39:11] Jace Edwards: He was a gunslinger, man. Let’s see. Who, who else? Burkey was a really good SDR. Yeah. Sam Burkhalter. Um, like I mentioned, I feel like I’m mentioning some of the same people, but Walt was really good.

[00:39:23] Yeah. Yeah. John Laufer, he was a fellow DM of mine for, for a while. Um, he was, he was really good. You know, yeah. I mean, Jackson, he had just stepped into the DM role, but like, and listening to his calls, I was like, “This guy’s got it going on. He’s figured it out.” Um, so yeah, those are the big names that, that come to mind.

[00:39:43] Marc Gonyea: You learn from the community. Yeah. Right? Exactly. You learn from the folks who not necessarily what, even on your campaign. Yeah. Right?

[00:39:50] Jace Edwards: A hundred percent.

[00:39:51] Marc Gonyea: You learn from, and that’s what you’re trying to do here. 

[00:39:53] Jace Edwards: Yep. It looks like, yeah. There’s, there’s something to learn from every single person. Right?

[00:39:58] Mm-hmm. And I think if you can, you know, unlock what that is with, with each person, like that’s just spreading knowledge around. That’s gonna make the entire unit, you know, one, one step that.

[00:40:08] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That’s why working in the office is, yes, it’s a blessing. People may not look at it that way. Right. But I was in the Boston office last week and then know lots, everyone in the SDR game knows someone who works at a company where they’re working from their house.

[00:40:24] Yep. If not for full-time, a lot of time. Yeah. But you’re gonna miss out and learn from Alex and Walter and, Sam and Jackson, like, ’cause you’re not gonna sit next to those folks. You’re not hearing them. Yeah. You can do some of that stuff virtual, but not anywhere near the same as getting your teeth kicked in when somebody sitting next to you.

[00:40:44] Jace Edwards: Right. That’s right. Yeah. There’s, there’s nothing like it. One, to get, you know, immediate advice from, from your, your partner in crime, but you know, two, I mean the SDR role is, I see it as one of the toughest jobs in sales. Like it’s a lot of rejection, you know, it’s, it’s tough. And if you can, you know, kind of go through some of those growing pains, you know, experience failure, but you have your, you know, teammate besides you to go through it. I mean, it’s, it just makes it that much easier. Right. I mean, I was still in the SDR role for the first, you know, three months of the pandemic when we were all working from home. Yeah. And I hated it because like, I didn’t have that, you know, I didn’t have my team around me to kind of, you know, lean on whenever, you know, things weren’t gone so good. It’s not a lot of fun to cold call from your, your kitchen table and just, you know, suffer and suffer in silence. 

[00:41:33] Marc Gonyea: No, not at all. What, so you’re in the saddle, you’re doing it. Did you have any mentees? Did you like, how, how did you, how are you kind of like figuring out what you wanted to do next? ‘Cause typically we give, you know, mentees to folks who maybe wanna impact the office more. Yeah. 

[00:41:51] Yeah, I did. I had a, I had a couple of mentees, and it happened a lot sooner than I thought, too. 

[00:41:55] Marc Gonyea: Like that’s ’cause you’ve got all that great experience. 

[00:41:57] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. So, ultimately, when I came here, like I thought that I wanted to like, come in, you know, get hired up by my client, become an account executive.

[00:42:06] Like I wanted to be the one closing deals, make a lot of money. Like that’s the path that I came in here thinking I was going to go down. It started kind of changing when I did, you know, start mentoring people. I remember, and this was like, granted, I was in my like fifth week on the job, and Jackson like calls me over and was like, “Hey, I got an SDR, you know, I was kind of, kind of struggling right now. Do you wanna be a mentor?” And I was like, “Do you want me to be a mentor?” Like, I just started here. Like. 

[00:42:33] Chris Corcoran: Okay, like it’s a battle of mentees’ assignments. 

[00:42:36] Jace Edwards: Yeah. I was like, “Sure, man, like, what is, what is she struggling with?” Yeah. You know, got, got some insights. 

[00:42:42] Marc Gonyea: Who was it?

[00:42:42] Her name was Paige. 

[00:42:44] Marc Gonyea: Okay. All right. Yeah.

[00:42:44] Jace Edwards: Yeah. So, anyways, like I, I, I got the rundown, you know, worked on some of those things with her. Very quickly turned it around, and I was like, that was cool. Like, yeah. I was able to share some knowledge and like help somebody, you know, become a little bit better. Still, at this point, like I didn’t think that I wanted to get into management.

[00:43:01] Like I like, all right, gonna be a closer yada yada, you know, kind of where, you know, the wheels really started turning for wanting to get into management. Well, first and foremost, I remember this day vividly. I think I was in my second or third month. I was, I was doing pretty good. I hit all my quick star bonuses.

[00:43:17] Things were flowing. I was really starting to kind of figure out like how to get the job done, like what to look for and, you know, prospecting how to book meetings, yada yada. So, I was in groove, man. And Nimit teams me out of the blue and was like, “Hey, can you come to my office?” And I was like, “Oh shit. I’m getting it, I can’t.”

[00:43:33] So he goes, I walked into his office, wasn’t the case, obviously. But he was like, “Hey man, like, you know, just want to catch up. It’s been, you know, a couple months and she started on the job. Like, how are you liking everything? You know, kind of where’s your head out with the SDR role?” Like, and what he really wanted to talk about was like, “Hey, if like, I wanna talk about what’s next for you, right?

[00:43:50] Jace Edwards: Like have you ever taken into consideration like the delivery manager role?” And quite honestly, at that time, I really hadn’t, and I was honest with him. I was like, you know, “No, not really.” And you know, he showed a little bit of faith in me. It was like, “Hey, look, quite honestly, like, I think that you make a really good delivery manager here.

[00:44:09] Like, what I want you to do is like go out and talk to some DMs, right? Like go pick their brains on what their day-to-day is like, you know, what are some of the, you know, wins that they get to celebrate? What are some of the hardships? Come back to me, you know, see what, I want, I wanna hear your thoughts on potentially like what that, that path would look like for you.”

[00:44:26] So that was the initial seed that was planted. I remember walking back to my desk. Man, I was riding high. I was like, yeah, like I’m, I’m in the mix. Like let’s, let’s go. So anyways, I started talking to some DMs and, you know, one of the common things that I, that I, that I heard, which I later realized, was, you know, one of the most, you know, gratifying parts of, of being in management was that they just really enjoyed helping people, watching them succeed.

[00:44:51] And you kind of get to build a legacy underneath you. Like it all comes down to, you know, empowering the people that you’re managing to be successful, and kind of whenever I had that moment of realization that I had some of the, you know, same sense of gratification. David Thorp. He started on Booz.

[00:45:10] I was probably six, seven months into the role, and naturally, I was the other person on the Booz campaign. I was his mentor. So, took him under my wings, showed him the ins and outs of the campaign. I was like, “Hey man, like, you know, here’s, what’s gonna work. Here’s how you, you know, talk to these high-level, you know, CSOs and CIOs at, you know, these Fortune 500 companies, you wanna get right to the point, like don’t waste their time, you know, get right to your value, then, you know, sell the meeting.”

[00:45:38] So, you know, I shared my tips and tricks with him, and early on, I mean, he’s obviously done very well for himself. You know, got, got a job offer from Splunk. I think he’s got his own little mini team underneath him, but whenever he started off in the SDR role, like dude was struggling like no two ways about it.

[00:45:55] Jace Edwards: Like, I think it took him three or four weeks to get his, to get his first book meeting. So, you know, I continuously like work with him, you know, let’s break down calls. Like, let’s see what’s working, like try this first that like, let me see your LinkedIn game. Right. Like what type of people are you prospecting?

[00:46:11] And ultimately, like through that work and just, you know, like I said, taking him under my wing, like there was a point in time he just like completely turned it around and like, it clicked for him. Went on to be a top performer. Went on to be a top performer. He was put on the Splunk campaign, did very well on that.

[00:46:29] Jace Edwards: I think he booked like Robert Herjavec, something like that at some point. But anyways, got a job offer. So like at that point, like watching somebody that was struggling to, you know, have any production, you know, kind of helping them show them the light and then that seeing that light switch for them, like that was awesome.

[00:46:47] Like that feeling right there was way more satisfying to me than myself booking a good meeting or hitting quota. Like I got more gratification out of that than like my own personal accolades. 

[00:47:01] Marc Gonyea: So impactful. 

[00:47:02] Jace Edwards: Exactly. 

[00:47:03] Marc Gonyea: You’re impacting somebody’s livelihood. 

[00:47:04] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Right. Once you can conceptualize that, like it’s, it’s a beautiful thing. So like, that was the point in time to where I was like, yep, I’m getting into leadership. Like that’s what I want to do. 

[00:47:17] Marc Gonyea: And then you moved up to being at DM. Yeah. And you were at DM for a while. 

[00:47:22] Chris Corcoran: Talk about that journey. 

[00:47:25] Jace Edwards: Yeah. It was a, it was an interesting journey at the start. So, you know, as I was, you know, moving into the DM role, like I could kind of see behind the curtain a little bit. Like I, I felt like the promotion was right around the corner. Yeah. Starting off, like, I think two weeks after I was officially promoted, I’d just gotten back from DC. We had the DM boot camp at that time.

[00:47:45] Mm-hmm. Who was it? It was me, Ellie Miller. 

[00:47:48] Chris Corcoran: And why is the other name escaping you right now? 

[00:47:50] Jace Edwards: We’ll come back to that one. Yeah. But anyways, there was three of us fresh DMs came to HQ. Did the boot camp thing, shouted some, some DMs there, literally fresh out of, you know, coming back from that trip, pandemic gets, everybody works from home. So, you know, I was like, “Hey, you know, this is weird.”

[00:48:05] You know, I had one SDR on my team at that time. I had one client, and you know, I was ready to start growing my team a little bit. So, you know, it was, it was strange, you know, there kind of the fear of the unknown didn’t know how the pandemic was gonna shake everything out. But, “Hey, focus on controlling the controllable,” right? So that’s what I did. I remember I got a call from you, Marc. I had just claimed a client. This was gonna be my second client. Marc hits me up, and I was like, “Hey, like, what do you think about this pandemic stuff? It’s crazy.” Right? And he was like, “Look, bad news. Like, you know, we’re gonna need you to call on that, on that new campaign you just claimed.”

[00:48:40] And you know, I was a little disappointed, but like I’m a soldier. I was like, “Hey, look like, if that’s what it is, that’s what it is like, yeah. I’m gonna make the best out of this. I’m gonna kick ass on this campaign because ultimately, it’s gonna be my client.” So like, I want to do good work for them, and I also had my one SDR and my one other client.

[00:48:58] So I got some experience in managing people. You know, how to do all the behind-the-scenes stuff, right? Like how to create, and this was before the community portal existed, but by creating client reports, like reporting to the clients. So I got to, you know, get my feet wet with all that stuff before. We officially got back into the office, and that’s when I really started ramping up my team.

[00:49:17] You know, after all that, the dust had settled. We were back in the office. You know, I, I got a couple of SDRs. Well, the campaign that I was calling on it was called Mine Tickle. They actually expanded from one to two. So, I got a couple of SDRs for that. Jackson was just now stepping into the MD role.

[00:49:32] Jace Edwards: So, I inherited some of his work. So very quickly, like literally like a month after we got back to the office, here I am with like a team of eight SDRs. It’s like drinking out of the fire hoses for like the next six months. 

[00:49:44] Marc Gonyea: Absolutely. Yeah. Why, why is it drinking on a fire hose for, you know, SDRs who are thinking about being DMs?

[00:49:50] Yeah, it is. And that’s a common, it’s a common, common lexicon 

[00:49:54] at memoryBlue. Yeah. What’s, what it’s like?

[00:49:56] Jace Edwards: Ultimately, I found out very quickly, but it’s not effective to create like little mini clones of yourself. Especially once I started getting a bigger team. People are motivated very differently.

[00:50:09] Right? They have different goals. Like, you know, something that’s gonna fly for you isn’t necessarily gonna fly for them from a tactical perspective. Right? Like somebody who might just be naturally smooth over the phone, so, you know, a certain way to handle a certain objection might work for them, but might not work for another person.

[00:50:23] Right? So, I found out very quickly, like everybody’s different, everybody, you know, takes coaching and feedback differently, and it took a while to, you know, really unlock like how to diagnose some of those things. Like, you know, things to look in between the lines. Right? You know, not every SDR is going to be a pleasure to manage, there’s going to be some, some people that, you know, will make you wanna pull your hair out a little bit, but, you know, that’s part of the fun of it.

[00:50:47] Right? And you know, part of being a manager is that, you know, you have to unlock the best in people. So yeah, early on, you, I would say for new DMs, like, “Don’t try to make many clones of yourself. Yeah. Listen to your team. Like very early in often, like understand what are their goals, right? Like what are they hoping to give from this experience?

[00:51:08] What do they want next? What do they think they’re struggling with? Right? You might already know that, but like, what do they think they’re struggling? So listen to your team, get to know them, and then, you know, develop your coaching strategy, you know, once you have that information.” 

[00:51:22] Marc Gonyea: What about the interviewing piece?

[00:51:23] That’s good. That’s the man, man, the player management. Once you get ’em on your squad and then going through the shock, right? You just take ’em out of the boat, and you throw ’em in the ice cold water. Yeah. And they’re like, their teeth are chatter and they’re, and then you pull ’em back in the boat. Right? And then you throw ’em back in the water again while we’re training them, but they gotta learn to kind of swim. Yep. What about when you’re identifying them and like, talk about that? ‘Cause you had never, I guess, had you, you had, had people work for you had, you never, had you, you interviewed people, hand selected them, never interviewed people, gone to battle with them. Yes, no. Talk about that. 

[00:51:58] Jace Edwards: That was a new thing. And very quickly figured out it is a lot more than just asking a list of questions. Yeah. Definitely, a skill that you have to develop. Whenever I first started interviewing people, you know, I would look very surface level like, “Hey, do I like this person?

[00:52:14] Are they saying the right things? Cool. Give ’em a check, like bring ’em on in.” Yeah, and then over time, you notice some of those. Oh really? You know? Yeah. Like, you know, you start, you don’t know, and it comes with experience, too, right? Yeah. Because it only takes getting burned a couple times and making a bad decision to never make that decision again.

[00:52:29] Right? Yeah. Like, you know, if you uncover that, you know, somebody has moved, you know, six different places over the past year, like, “Hey, that might be a flight risk. Something to dig into.” Not that, you know, not to say that person wouldn’t pan out, but like those little details, like you gotta, you gotta look into a little bit, right?

[00:52:48] Or if somebody is, you know, kind of flip-flopping other answers or they’re contradicting themselves. Maybe that means that they’re just putting on a phase four, you can telling you what you want to hear. Right? So, you know, I, I would say that I got good at, you know, one making, making some mistakes with some bad hires.

[00:53:05] I mean, we’ve, we’ve all done that. Yep, and then kind of reverse engineering, like, okay, what did I not see coming? Right? Like looking back at your interview notes, and then you can kind of see like, “Oh crap, I should have caught that.” So yeah, read between the lines, like is I kind of view interviewing as like a really long CWP, right?

[00:53:23] Like just with the CWP, when you’re asking discovery questions, like same thing, like ask follow-up questions, dig a little bit deeper. Right. Um, don’t just, you know, get a surface-level answer and move on to the next one just ’cause they checked a box, right? Have a conversation, you know, get to know, you know, truly who that person is as a person before you, you end up hiring them for your team.

[00:53:43] ‘Cause I don’t think short-term fixes or any long-term solution, and making a bad hire, like that directly affects your, your book of business. 

[00:53:53] Marc Gonyea: How do you ascertain, like, what else do you, I’m gonna keep digging a little bit, what else do you look for, for folks who are, you know, we hire people right outta college.

[00:54:04] Yeah. Or maybe with a little bit of experience outta college or people who haven’t gone to college, which we’re fine with, too. Yeah. Right? ‘Cause we believe in, in, in what life can teach you. Yep. Uh, in many cases more so than a four-year degree, but h, how do you figure that out amongst those like that kind of broad range of because we, we’re hiring people to go work with some very sophisticated, technology companies who work with, in, through that work, we work with an accomplished, smart, hardworking clients. Yeah. So how do you size these folks up? And what else are you looking for? 

[00:54:35] Jace Edwards: I think there’s three big things that I look for when, when hiring a, an SDR. Yeah. So, I guess, really four things. But first thing, the, the biggest thing that I want is, is this person going to, you know, really dedicate themselves to learning the world of sales.

[00:54:55] You know, one of the things that’s always been intriguing to me about sales is it is a craft that has no one true master, right? Like nobody at any level of sales, you know, it could be the CEO or head of sales at a Fortune 100 company. They can’t look at themselves in the mirror and say, “Hey, I know everything there is to know about sales.” Like it’s just not possible. Like markets change. People’s buying habits, change everything, life changes. So like, there’s literally no point to where you can say, you know, everything. So first and foremost, I want somebody that’s gonna come in, be a student of the game and actively trying to, you know, be the best that they, that they can be. I think that’s really important. 

[00:55:31] Chris Corcoran: So, are they thirsty? 

[00:55:33] Jace Edwards: Yes. Yeah.

[00:55:34] Chris Corcoran: How do you determine that? 

[00:55:36] I mean, there’s, there’s a number of questions that, that you can ask, right? So, you know, I, I think one good one to ask is like, I really like this one. It also kind of assesses competitiveness too, but, “Hey, candidate, let’s say that you and I, we’re on the same playing field, same client, same level of experience, yada yada. How are you gonna beat me and just see what they come up with?”

[00:55:58] Jace Edwards: Right? If somebody kind of gives a very surface-level answer, like, I don’t know, I guess I would, you know, seek out additional coaching. Like, I, I don’t wanna hear that. I want somebody that’s like, look like I’m going to do everything better than you. I’m going to work harder than you. I’m going to, like, I want to hear that like energy and, and people, right?

[00:56:20] Zest. Yes. The zest is very important. Like I remember whenever, I interviewed Dickie Kapparos, that.

[00:56:27] Marc Gonyea: He probably deserves it. 

[00:56:28] Jace Edwards: Yeah. He had the sauce, man. Like he had so much zest in that interview. 

[00:56:34] Chris Corcoran: Like he still, he still got it.

[00:56:36] Jace Edwards: Yeah, he does. But like that, that’s, that’s a lot of what I love for like, I mean, I remember coming away from that interview, I was like, “This kid is absolutely going to crush it here. Like we have to happen.” So I hope that that helps. 

[00:56:48] Marc Gonyea: No, I, what else? That’s number one, number one. Yeah. The, is this person thirsty? 

[00:56:54] Chris Corcoran: Are they thirsty about the tech sales profession? 

[00:56:56] Jace Edwards: That’s right. Yeah. Or is this just kind of a stop in the road for them? Right? Like I want somebody that knows that, “Hey, this is the realm of work that I want to get into.” Yep. 

[00:57:07] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, just not another job. Yeah. 

[00:57:10] Chris Corcoran: Pots and pants. 

[00:57:13] Jace Edwards: Definitely not a, not lots of advance. This is, yeah. So secondly, is this person, and you can uncover this a lot in the, in the role-play.

[00:57:24] But do they have kind of a natural sense of curiosity? Like I think being curious, straight up the most important skill in all of sales, right? Like ultimately, what we’re trying to do here in, in the world of sales is solve problems. To solve a problem, you gotta know what the problem is. Right? And to know what that problem is, you gotta get really curious.

[00:57:44] Jace Edwards: So I want somebody that’s naturally curious, right, that, you know, whenever they’re talking to a prospect or, or talking to their client, like, they’re getting down as deep as possible. Like they have that genuine sense of curiosity. Like I think that skill, like if you have that, you can be successful in sales. Like everything else can be tweaked, coached. But if you have that natural sense, like you’re gonna be cool. 

[00:58:06] Chris Corcoran: And how do you measure that?

[00:58:08] A lot of it in the role-play, you can kind of see like how they would do in an actual, like prospect conversation. Like, “Hey, are they, you know, digging a little bit deeper in their discovery questions?”

[00:58:16] But also, I think an even bigger indicator of that is whenever I turn it over to the candidate and they start asking me questions, right, like, you know, are they asking me some out-of-the-box questions? Or are they just, you know, asking me the surface-level? Probably my biggest pet peeve is whenever, like I turn it over to a candidate, and their, you know, three questions are like, how many weeks of PTO, what’s the work schedule, and what paid holidays do you have off the time. Dude, like seriously? Like I want somebody that’s asking me like thought-provoking questions, that’s like asking me about my journey that, you know, it’s asking like, “Hey, like where’s the company heading in the next five years?” Like I want that level of curiosity.

[00:58:53] Jace Edwards: So I think the two biggest places that you can find that because whenever you turn it over to the candidate to ask you questions, but then also in the role-play like you can kind of see like, you know, do they carry that natural sense of curiosity in kind of a high-pressure situation. Okay. 

[00:59:08] Chris Corcoran: That’s two.

[00:59:09] Jace Edwards: Two. Three, man, hustle mentality, like at end of the day, sales is a numbers’ game.

[00:59:14] Marc Gonyea: Show me the hustle. 

[00:59:16] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Show me the hustle. 

[00:59:17] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, you can talk about what, keep going, sorry. Yeah, this is your podcast. I’ll shut up. 

[00:59:21] Jace Edwards: Like I want, I want somebody that’s like ready to get after it. Like that’s not afraid of being me mediocre. Like, like I said, sales is just a numbers’ game, right? And if you’re willing to, you know, just do more than the, the people next to you, like you’re gonna get more at-bats.

[00:59:36] You’re gonna get more opportunities, even if you’re not converting those opportunities, guess what? That is valuable stuff to break down and, and coach upon. So like you gotta get as many at-bats as possible. And to do that, guess what? You, you gotta work hard. Yeah. Like it, it, another one of my pet peeves is whenever I see like somebody on LinkedIn’s, somebody that’s, you know, complaining because they’re, and not, not memoryBlue, but you know, some other SaaS company, SDR is like, you know, publicly shaming their manager because they made it make 40 dials that day.

[01:00:08] And it’s like, it is mind-blowing. Right? Like, okay, sure. Like that’s great that you have cracks the code to, you know, be at the minimum level of production on, you know, minimum activity. But like, again, it’s numbers’ game. Like, just imagine what you could do if you made a hundred dials. Like, you know, if everything lines up correctly, that’s three times the production, like.

[01:00:29] Marc Gonyea: And by the way, Jace is talking earlier about the importance of list building.

[01:00:33] Yes. We’re not like, “Oh, just to make a hundred dollars, just to make a hundred dials.” Yeah, no, it’s making a hundred dials on these lists. You’ve been hand-curating.

[01:00:41] Jace Edwards: That’s right. A hundred percent. It’s not some arbitrary number that we just throw out.

[01:00:47] Marc Gonyea: Just to make you feel good as a manager. 

[01:00:48] Jace Edwards: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s, you know, this is those, the metrics that are needed to, you know, get to as many at-bats as possible to be able to hit your number, to exceed your number. And guess what, if you look at the DHR, you know, the people that are getting 150 plus percentage of their quota, take a look at their activity, they’re likely list building a lot more than everybody is, they’re likely making more calls, any more emails. So that’s the third thing is just so. 

[01:01:09] Chris Corcoran: And how do you measure that hustler mentality? 

[01:01:12] You know, there, there’s certainly some questions that, that you can ask about the interview process. You know, one of which I, I like to ask is, and keep it very open-ended, right? So, I’ll ask a candidate kind of towards the end of the interview.

[01:01:24] It’s like, “Hey, like, let’s say, I do hire you. What can you promise me?” Like, I’m not expecting you to say like, “Hey, I’m gonna get 20 books a month.” Like, you can’t promise that you don’t know what clients you’re gonna be on, but like, what can you promise me? Right? And see what kind of response they come up with.

[01:01:37] And you will get a lot of like, “Hey look, like I might not be the best person out there. Like I know that I’ve got a lot of work to do. Like, you know, this is something that’s new to me. I’ve never had a sales shop, or what I can guarantee is I’m gonna give you 120%.” So you kind of have to like, you know, feel their energy kind of going back to the zest.

[01:01:53] So, I like that question. When assessing like, “Hey, is this person, you know, gonna, gonna be a hard worker?” Or, you know, you can kind of pose the question, like, “Hey, let’s say that, you know, your teammate is, you know, made $150 that day, what are you gonna do?” Just leave it open-ended, see what they say.

[01:02:09] Jace Edwards: Right? So those types of questions can give you a bit of a gauge on like, “Hey, is this person gonna be a hard worker?” And obviously, you know, the, the obvious of chatting through some of their passport experiences, right? Like looking at their resume, like, “Tell me about your day-to-day here.” Like, you know, what is it, you know, you know, really heavily-involved job that required them to be a hustler. So kind of a combination of all those things is, is how I would measure, I mean, the hustle. 

[01:02:33] Marc Gonyea: The hustle. Somebody asked me this question today, and I think you, you reminded me of all these things. ‘Cause it’s been a little while since, you know, either of us have interviewed, well, actually you interviewed people when you go on campus.

[01:02:43] I don’t interview folks anymore, but I definitely remember trying to find out in what facet of your life, you know, no matter your income, your background, like if you went to college, if you’re not, where have you hustled. Yeah. Just, you know, it could be something as trivial as like beating your family at board games at Thanksgiving. Yeah. Or it could be like in my last job, here’s how, like I got like the, the, the best shift. Yeah. Or I got the next promotion. Right? And we can a, you can ascertain something about someone based upon their past, like what they’ve done. Yeah. And we don’t care if it’s a certain degree from a certain school to certain GPA. Yeah. We just wanna see the hustle. 

[01:03:25] Jace Edwards: That’s right. There’s life experiences. Yeah. 

[01:03:28] Marc Gonyea: And just show me. Yeah, and communicate to me. And that’s how, and it’s a shot in dark still. Some people are good at giving you the answers that you think they want to hear. You got people who, you know, lot of finesse in, in their game, you might get duped, or they might genuinely think they’re a hustler and they get here, and they realize that they’re not. Yeah. That’s 

[01:03:48] not their fault. Yeah. And hopefully, they’re pushed a little bit. Yeah. Hopefully, you can realize it, but that’s great. That’s great. I think we got, we got ’em. 

[01:03:54] Jace Edwards: There was three.

[01:03:54] Chris Corcoran: So it was fourth. 

[01:03:55] Marc Gonyea: Fourth? I got five. Keep going. We’re on six. 

[01:03:59] Jace Edwards: Alright. Well the, the fourth one is I like to call it the, the client test. So whenever I’m interviewing somebody, like one thing I like to think of is like, all right, so this person, as they stand right now, if I put them in front of a client, what is that client gonna think? And if it’s like. 

[01:04:21] Marc Gonyea: Wait, what does the client think? What would the client think? 

[01:04:26] Jace Edwards: Yeah, like I, I ask myself just personally, like I don’t, I wouldn’t ask this to the SDR, but I’m like, “Huh. If I put this person in front of a client one-on-one if I wasn’t there, like, what do you think the client?” Like, I try to think, like, how is that client gonna react? Right? If it’s positive, good, they pass the test. It’s not positive, it’s like, “kay, well, that’s probably not a good thing.” That’s the fourth thing that I, that I consider whenever interviewing and, and hiring people.

[01:04:53] Marc Gonyea: What are you looking for in someone?

[01:04:55] Jace Edwards: Man, polish, somebody that can communicate effectively, you know, somebody that can speak with, you know, a certain level of intelligence that, you know, maybe they don’t know what they’re doing yet, ’cause they’re in an entry-level role, but, “Hey, do they sound confident whenever they’re talking?” Right?

[01:05:12] Like I said, are, are they polish? You know, not to anything against like those rings or anything, but like, you know, the, client’s probably gonna have some kind of opinion about that, right? so a, a lot of those things. 

[01:05:22] Marc Gonyea: Okay, cool. Yeah. Is it all four?

[01:05:26] Jace Edwards: That’s all four.

[01:05:27] Marc Gonyea: Okay, awesome. 

[01:05:29] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. You should write a book.

[01:05:34] Jace Edwards: Oh, I need a writer. I don’t think I’d have the. 

[01:05:39] Marc Gonyea: So you turned your squad, and you had the biggest team in the office?

[01:05:42] Jace Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. We were, we were 14 strong for a long time. That was a ride. 

[01:05:49] Marc Gonyea: And then, you, also most profitable team?

[01:05:54] Jace Edwards: Yes. Yeah. So things were good. 

[01:05:57] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. You know. Hey, making sure that people don’t take too much mozzarella cheese.

[01:06:02] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, Parmesan.

[01:06:03] Jace Edwards: Gotta keep an eye on your, gotta keep an eye on your revenue and your expenses. 

[01:06:06] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, yeah. Right?

[01:06:07] Yeah. Always paying for that Parmesan. Jace. Keep your hands off that Parmesan. 

[01:06:14] Jace Edwards: Yeah, it was, yeah. Once I got past that initial, it was around six to, to eight months of, you know, like I said, drinking out of a fire hose.

[01:06:23] But after that, man, I did, I felt like a Jedi. I was like, all right, like I got this figured out. I know, I know how to work with clients. Like I, you know, have gotten really good at coaching SDRs, being able to identify different skill sets. So yeah, after that initial six- to eight-month period, and things, things were cooking.

[01:06:41] Marc Gonyea: Who taught you how to interview?

[01:06:43] Jace Edwards: Jackson. Jackson did. 

[01:06:44] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Okay.

[01:06:45] Jace Edwards: Jackson taught me a lot about, you know, not.

[01:06:48] Marc Gonyea: Hawkins?

[01:06:48] Jace Edwards: Yeah. 

[01:06:49] Marc Gonyea: We miss you, man. Yeah, not that much. You know, we’d miss you. Yeah. 

[01:06:53] Jace Edwards: Just a little bit. Oh, miss that. But yeah, not only did he teach me a lot about, you know, being a delivery manager at memoryBlue. Yeah. But taught me a lot about, you know, good, you know, leadership qualities, right?

[01:07:03] Like, he’s good at that, you know, holding your team accountable, you know, leading with questions, you know, how to have tough conversations, like not just holding your team accountable, but holding yourself accountable. Like if something, you know, gets messed up at the end of the day, like that burden falls on you as, as the leaders. So, yeah, not only did he teach me, you know, just tactical delivery manager stuff, interviewing, all that, but good leadership qualities as well. 

[01:07:29] Marc Gonyea: And you started to talk to Jackson about being an MD. Yeah. Right? How did that happen?

[01:07:33] Let’s see, when was that? So yeah, like I said, things were cooking. I had a big team, all two ex-clients, and at some point, I think it was man, I wanna say probably November of last year, was when the idea, you know, kind of was, was planted in my head. He had kind of told me through the creative finding. He was like, “Hey, look, like, I think that Marc and Chris might be wanting to open up a new office.

[01:07:58] Jace Edwards: Like you ever thought about, you know, stepping into the world of being a managing director?” And I was like, “Well, things are pretty good right now, but you know, ultimately like, you know.”

[01:08:07] Marc Gonyea: Just figure this out. 

[01:08:08] Jace Edwards: Yeah. It’s like, I mean, that seems like the logical next step for me. So I was like, “Yeah, like talk to me about it, man. Like what, what are your thoughts? Like, how’s it been for you?” So that was kind of the initial, like planting of the seed, you know, conversations continued. Like I talked to, to Kristen a little bit about it. I think she was in town like that December of last year. And we sat down and had a little bit more of a formal conversation, like, you know, logistically, like where would the next office be?

[01:08:33] Would I be willing to relocate, all that good stuff? And she was like, “Hey, like go talk to, go talk to Joe and, and Jeremy, like, you know, pick their brain on, what being an MD is like.” So very similar to whenever I was an SDR and I was thinking about getting into the DM role. Like I was kind of doing a lot of that same thing when I was in DM, getting curious about the MD role.

[01:08:53] Like I was, you know, doing my homework, asking current MDs. “Tell me about the job. Like, what are some challenges that you face? Like how do you responsibilities change?” Yada yada. So it was almost like a repeat of whenever I went from an SDR to a DM, and like I said, roughly, that started December, November part of, of last year.

[01:09:12] Marc Gonyea: And what did you learn? 

[01:09:14] And the big thing that I learned is the importance of utilization. 

[01:09:17] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, just cords. 

[01:09:22] Jace Edwards: I learned exactly why that’s so important. Yeah, you know, ultimately what. 

[01:09:28] Chris Corcoran: That’s our version of the cheese right there.

[01:09:30] Marc Gonyea: Our version of the Parmesan cheese. 

[01:09:31] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. That’s our version of the Parmesan cheese.

[01:09:33] Jace Edwards: Yeah, but yeah, you know, the things that I gathered from talking to other people is like, “Hey, like now, like the big jump from going from a DM to an MD is like, you know, now, you’re managing managers, right? Like, you know, these are elevated employees that have proven themselves. Okay.” And it’s a lot of, you know, being able to knowledge share, like what worked for you as a DM with those DMs, right? And I think just like you had managed the team of SDRs, like you still very much have to understand, like, what motivates each one of your DMs, right? Like what, what are their goals? Like, what are they hoping to accomplish? Right. Like, how are they feeling about the role? Like, what are they struggling with?

[01:10:12] So it’s a lot of the same stuff, but it’s just a level up, right? Because, like I said, now, you’re now you’re managing managers very first SDRs. 

[01:10:20] Marc Gonyea: I wanna go back to the DM thing real quick. Yeah. Because that’s great, and the answer. And I just wanna like pause and let it sink in for the folks who are listening about just the five-tool or the five-tool player. As, as a delivery manager, it is just such a business person’s job.

[01:10:35] It’s not funny. Yeah. From interviewing people, assessing them, figuring out who you’re gonna hire, who you’re not gonna hire, who might be good, maybe for the company, but not particularly, particularly on your team. Yeah. Working with, then having them come on board, knowing when to give ’em a high five, knowing when give ’em kick in the butt.

[01:10:53] Yeah, right? Knowing when you have to put someone on a performance improvement plan, you have to go of keeping them. Knowing when you have to let, have someone, let ’em go, having some people quit on you. But also getting these people developed, turning around people’s perspectives and their potentially their career working with these clients, upselling clients, great clients, more challenging clients, right, now, clients renewing, clients firing us, us messing up.

[01:11:19] Yeah. I mean, there are just so many dimensions of that job. It’s, it’s just such a learning experience. It’s just not that funny. Yeah. 

[01:11:28] Jace Edwards: You know, you are the, essentially a CEO, like you are in charge of your book of business, your team, and all aspects down to, you know, making sure that your clients are being invoiced properly. Yeah. Like literally to the most finite detail. 

[01:11:41] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Yeah. And you, you built it to a team of 14 and obviously, some through in clients, and then you took it into an M, MD spot and we were talking about Phoenix. Yeah, Phoenix, Arizona. Yep. Right? And, and, and then, why did that initially appeal to you?

[01:11:58] ‘Cause, ’cause that’s why I was curious about in the beginning, I said, “Hey, why would you wanna leave such a great town?” But, but you know, but you would not leaving, thank God. Yeah. Right? Because it worked out. But tell us about that. 

[01:12:10] Jace Edwards: Yeah. So, the reason that I, why Phoenix stuck out to me in particular, one, I like hot weather. Like I don’t necessarily like cold places. Yeah. Very hot there. 

[01:12:19] Marc Gonyea: It’s hotter than here. Yeah. 

[01:12:21] Jace Edwards: Yeah. It sure is. And I like mountains too, which kind of contradicts itself. Like I don’t like cold, but I don’t like mountains, or I do like mountains, but, yeah, that, that appealed to me. Like, I mean, Arizona’s a pretty scenic place.

[01:12:32] I’m a big outdoors person. Yeah, and you know, the reason why I was kinda interested in potentially opening up an office there, so pretty good tech presence. Like there’s a lot of startup companies in Phoenix, from the more I started kind of researching into some of those companies, I was like, there’s a legitimate opportunity here. Um. I know Nimit’s down there. I think Bailey lives in, in Phoenix too. 

[01:12:51] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. 

[01:12:52] Chris Corcoran: Mississippi. 

[01:12:53] Jace Edwards: Ah, got it. 

[01:12:54] Chris Corcoran: But she used to live in Arizona. 

[01:12:56] Jace Edwards: There you go. Well, we got, we got Nimit. So, yeah. Yeah, he’s really a pro. Ultimately, I’m glad it panned out to where I was able to stay in Austin. Like my family lives here.

[01:13:06] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. It’s.

[01:13:07] Jace Edwards: It worked out.

[01:13:08] Marc Gonyea: Well, we, it was fortunate ’cause Jackson B. Yeah. Right. Love him. Decided to go, you know, find his next mountain to climb. Yeah. And literally, he’s another mountain guy. Yep. Right? And we said, “Hey, Jace, you know, what do you think? Why did you decide to do it?” So we, you know, that’s something you have to walk into.

[01:13:27] Jace Edwards: Yeah. You know, I, I, I think the big reason I took it is I’ve always been somebody that when an opportunity presents itself, take it like kind jump off the cliff, man, ’cause it might not come back. And, you know, I, the more and more kind of, I was talking to other MDs and like talking to Kristen and Jackson about the MD role, like I kind of knew, like I wanted to stay with the company.

[01:13:50] Like I knew, at some capacity, that’s the role that I wanted to get into next. Like ultimately, my life goal is to be retired on the beach at Costa Rica by the time I’m 50, and not have to work anymore, but I get there, you gotta, you know, getting after it. So, yep. You know, I, I knew I needed to go up another level time for my next challenge.

[01:14:06] I had the DM thing figured out pretty well. So like, I, I knew that was the role for me as the MD role. Honestly, it happened a lot sooner than I thought. Like I, I remember I had a one-on-one with Kristen, just kind of a checkpoint, and she was like, “Hey, like, I’ve got some news for you.” And she was like, “Well,” and I didn’t know this at the time, like, Jackson did not mention anything, or like show any signs that he was looking for his next journey.

[01:14:28] She was like, “Well, Jace, like Jackson is moving on from memoryBlue. We want you to be the MD of Texas.” And like, I remember that like vividly, and I was just like shaking. I was like, I was like, “Oh crap, it’s happening.” But yeah, you know, ultimately, I was like, “Okay, well, this is exciting. Like, let me think on it for a second.”

[01:14:46] And I think later that day, I was like, “Yes, let’s, let’s do it,” ’cause, like I said, when an opportunity, a good opportunity presents itself, man, you, you gotta take it. 

[01:14:53] Marc Gonyea: Mm-hmm. And what’s that been like? 

[01:14:56] Jace Edwards: Man, it’s, it’s been a lot of fun.

[01:14:58] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Interesting economic times.

[01:15:00] Jace Edwards: Fighting the invisible enemy, going through. Yeah.

[01:15:03] Fighting the invisible enemy. But yeah, it’s, it’s been very rewarding, you know, especially, I think it’s unique for our office, but half of our DMs right now, Emily, Jordan and Olivia, those are all SDRs that were on my team. So like being able to, you know, manage them, what’s more, of course, the other three love working with them.

[01:15:23] But, um, you know, kind of being able to, you know, see how they’ve developed from like, whenever I hired them all and, you know, kind of watch ’em go through that journey, you know, watching them develop as a DM under Jackson’s tutelage, um, to where now, like I’m able to like, you know, help get them to the next level.

[01:15:39] So like, that part is really rewarding, being able to like help them continue to develop in their careers, you know, show them little tips and tricks of, you know, things that I used to do as a DM, you know, offer some coaching and feedback on like kickoffs and, and client calls and, and interviews, and also like, you know, as an MD, you have, you know, you are literally in control of the ship.

[01:16:05] So like, I get to be a lot more, you know, in tune with some of the office wide metrics, right? You know, “Hey, like, office wide, like how’s their conversion rate looking, right? Like household rate?” So you can kind of start, you know, picking apart some of those metrics that you can identify an area of opportunity.

[01:16:23] And like you have a lot of sway in being able to change those things, right? You know, maybe it’s, you know, myself running a, running a training on, you know, how to follow up with prospects to help out with hold rate, right? Or, you know, delegating something to a DM that’s really good at this, you’re helping out with another team.

[01:16:39] So, yeah. Extremely rewarding. But yeah, certainly interesting economic times. Yeah.

[01:16:46] Chris Corcoran: Jace, scale of one to 10. How hard is it being an SDR? 

[01:16:52] Jace Edwards: Oh man, I would say, being an SDR man, you’re talking about at least what nine, nine. I would say nine. Okay. Not the hardest thing in the world, but man, if you’re not ready for it, if you’re not ready to get kicked in the teeth a little bit, like it’s, it’ll eat you alive. 

[01:17:07] Chris Corcoran: Okay. And then how much more challenging is it being a DM than an SDR? 

[01:17:13] Jace Edwards: Oh, man. It’s 15. 

[01:17:15] Chris Corcoran: 15 times harder?

[01:17:16] Jace Edwards: Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t say 15 times harder, but on a scale out of 10. Yeah, it would be a 15 outta 10. 

[01:17:21] Chris Corcoran: Okay. And then, what’s harder, MD or DM?

[01:17:23] Jace Edwards: Man, that’s a, that’s a good one. Wow. I would say as an MD, you have more weights on your shoulders, but if you developed good management skills as a DM, a lot of that stuff translates to the, the MD role.

[01:17:42] Right? Um, so I think if you have that, that foundation, it can be, you know, roughly about the same level of difficulty, but again, you have a lot more weight on your shoulders. So the mistakes that you do make as an MD, like, you know, typically have, you know, a higher, you know, level of severity than, you know, if it was a DM and, you know, a client got misbilled by, you know, a little bit right, to, whereas, you know, if something crazy happens as an MD, it’s like, wow, like this literally shifted the course of my business unit. So, yeah, more, more weight on the shoulders. But I would say the level of difficulty is, you know, relatively the same. But again, as long as you develop those good foundational leadership and management qualities when you’re in the DM role. Like that, the DM role is the time to, you know, let, just as an SDR would do when they start off, like a DM role, like if you wanna get into sales leadership, like that is the perfect time to hone your craft.

[01:18:39] Marc Gonyea: Love it. Great. So what’s what, what plans you got for Austin? 

[01:18:44] Chris Corcoran: Office, your kingdom. 

[01:18:46] Jace Edwards: Personal goal of mine. You guys might not like this, but outgrow the office by the end of the year. 

[01:18:52] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. We know. We would love that. We’d love that all. Yeah. 

[01:18:54] Marc Gonyea: We’re working on trying to help that happen. You know? Yeah. You gotta retain your clients and upsell ’em. We gotta get you more clients. Yeah. Right? And quality of people to come work here. 

[01:19:04] Jace Edwards: Yeah. So outgrow the office. And it’s kind of the magic number I have in my head. I wanna get to a hundred employees, I think just a good three-digit number. But that’s really good on paper. 

[01:19:15] Marc Gonyea: So, that’s a great number.

[01:19:17] Jace Edwards: Yeah. 

[01:19:17] Chris Corcoran: You’re 75 now?

[01:19:18] Jace Edwards: Yep. 75, 25 to go. 

[01:19:21] Marc Gonyea: Let’s do it. Yeah. Jace, listen, we’re uh, there will be a part two to this, but all right, Chris and I are fortunate to have you employed here at the company, and, you know, the epitome of coming in and seeing an opportunity and seizing it. Yep. And it, it’s great that you, you took it.

[01:19:40] Yeah. ‘Cause not everybody does, which is okay. But you took it, and you were running with it. Yeah. ‘Cause you look at how long you’ve been here, and what you’ve done in that amount of time. It’s pretty incredible. 

[01:19:50] Jace Edwards: Yeah. I appreciate that. And very fortunate to be given the opportunity and that you guys saw the potential.

[01:19:56] You know, I think that’s what this business is all about is, you know, helping hungry people that, you know, are, are ready to start a career in tech sales, and help get them to where they want to be. Like I would say a career highlight for me would be the fact that out of all the DMs in the company, I had more internal promotions than anybody else. Like I will. 

[01:20:19] Chris Corcoran: Your SDRs?

[01:20:19] Jace Edwards: Yes. Okay. Yeah. While I was a DM, like that career highlight for me so far. Like I had, nothing is more satisfying or more rewarding for me than, like I said, building that legacy and helping your team, the people underneath you, get to where they want to be in their career. 

[01:20:35] Chris Corcoran: Marc and I were just talking about that earlier.

[01:20:36] There. 

[01:20:39] Marc Gonyea: That’s a conversation from, off the podcast. But, Jace, thank you very much. 

[01:20:46] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, that was great. Thanks, Jace. 

[01:20:47] Jace Edwards: Awesome. Appreciate you having me. Yep.