From AE to VP: An Interview with VP of Sales Jon Rydberg
I had the pleasure of interviewing Jon Rydberg. Jon is a 3x VP of Sales and high-growth technology revenue leader, consultant and advisor with 15+ years of experience in GTM execution.
As VP of Sales at Valcre, Jon is responsible for all direct and indirect sales efforts, strategic partnerships, and business development strategies to drive adoption of the Valcre platform. Jon brings to the position a successful track record of more than 15 years in business development, focused on building and executing long-term business strategies that lead to company growth and customer satisfaction. Prior to joining Valcre, Jon was a two-time VP of Sales in the PropTech space at both Dottid and ProDeal.
Rydberg’s successful career as a technology sales executive also includes results-oriented roles at Expesite (now Accruent), Intuitive Surgical, Robert Half Technology, Cisco and a Microsoft global ISV partner, AvePoint. In these roles, Jon enjoyed partnering with Fortune 500 clients in their digital transformation initiatives and shifting from vendor to trusted advisor in his client relationships.
Jon has a passion for coaching high-performance teams and a curiosity for understanding his clients business challenges and then delivering tailored solutions that lead to positive business outcomes. He is committed to servant leadership, building strong relationships, forming strategic partnerships and programs that add value to the customer relationship.
Jon holds a bachelors in communication from The Ohio State University, as well as a Masters in Christian Education from Dallas Theological Seminary.
In his free time he enjoys spending time with his wife and three daughters, coaching lacrosse, watching Buckeye football, volunteering for Younglife and serving at his church.
How did you break into a career in tech sales?
I landed my first tech sales role right out of college. I had a summer internship in tech support at a company called Expesite and they hired me as an Account Manager as soon as I graduated. Expesite was an Inc5000 firm delivering SaaS project management and resource planning tools for capital projects with clients targeted in retail, restaurant and retail banking.
What has been your biggest challenge in your sales career?
The biggest challenge was moving from Individual Contributor (IC) to Sales Leader. Using a somewhat comical analogy, Being an IC is a lot like being single (sans kids) where you only have to worry about yourself. All I needed to focus on was myself, for me that was Creating Opportunities, Advancing Opportunities and Closing Opportunities. Whereas being a sales leader is a lot like being married with kids. Now you’re not just focused on leading yourself, you are responsible for leading others. You are always on the clock, constantly managing up, managing down and managing across as you have more and more stakeholders. You are a coach, guidance counselor, manager and leader. As your level of responsibility elevates, so does your skill set and capabilities. You learn to control the controllables and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. To me, leadership is the most challenging and rewarding journey that you can experience in your career.
What is it that most excites you about sales leadership?
I love to coach and lead people. In my personal life, I volunteer as a lacrosse coach and have done so since I graduated college. In business I’m passionate about building teams and implementing playbooks to help people achieve their personal and professional goals. It’s all about people, processes and tools and ensuring that you have a cohesive GTM strategy that ensures a repeatable process to allow the company to scale and hit revenue targets. I make an effort to be real with my team and bring my whole self to work. By modeling this my hope is that the folks on my team can feel comfortable of bringing their whole lives to work and be authentic.
If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a new Sales Rep who’s about to start their career, what would they be?
The best wisdom I can pass along is to have a growth mindset. The best sellers and sales leaders (really people in general) have a continuous improvement mindset. Strive to get 1% better a day. Be an avid reader, learner and consumer of all things sales and professional development.. Listen to podcasts, read books, take classes and hone your craft. For Individual Contributors when you join a new company request to shadow the top performer for a week. Study their habits, process and behaviors and mimic those. Reverse engineering the top seller is the easiest way to rise to the top at a new company. Just because you were successful at the last company doesn’t mean it will 100% translate to the new role. But guess what? There is good news…there is someone who has gone before you and has already figured out the success algorithm at that specific company. Do what they do. Watch how they navigate internal politics, sales process and leverage cross functional teams to win. Mimic everything!
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Connect with me on LI:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-rydberg-a9928334/
This was very insightful. Thank you so much for joining us!
