Ries McQuillan is a professorial revenue leader who delivers value through thoughtful conversation and impressive recall, one meeting at a time. Today he serves as the Director of Business Development & Growth Operations at Vested, a platform that helps employees afford their stock options exercises.
Ries grew up locally in the Boston area for the majority of his life and describes himself as a “Bostonian through and through”. Growing up playing sports and captaining his high school’s varsity soccer, basketball and lacrosse teams, he and his brother were raised by teachers. His parents inspired him to have a love of learning as well as problem solving that he has carried with him into his professional career.. The McQuillan curriculum definitely rubbed off.
Ries was also influenced by his uncle, who worked at private schools across New England and revamped their technology programs. His uncle was the first person Ries knew who had an iPod and it stoked an early interest in technology.
He went off to Boston College, attending their undergraduate business school with a concentration in Information Systems and interest in getting into coding. Over the summer following his sophomore year, he heard about selling Cutco knives from a friend. I know you know someone who sold those!
Much to his surprise, Ries loved it! It was his first collision with sales and he learned how to listen, ask the right questions, and find product fit. Ries learned that “sales is way more about problem solving than it is about selling something”. That problem solving approach led him to end the summer as a Top 10 regional rep.
For the summer following his Junior year and during his final year at BC, Ries completed additional internships at EMC, Promoboxx, and Reebok with Senior year being a bit of a blur as both of his parents battled cancer that year. They’re both doing ok now!
After college, Ries leaned into his love of sales and startups to support various businesses in and around Boston. He was able to continue supporting the early-stage ecosystem by taking an SDR role with Zerto, a disaster recovery software for IT systems where he applied his education to become one of their most acclaimed and awarded sales people. The West Coast Field Sales Rep he supported, who had already gone through 2 SDRs that weren’t a fit, called him “robot” because of how quickly he was able to book meetings with his Top 20 target account list. He got half of that list in the first month! His hard work paid off in a promotion to Inside Sales Representative where, within his first 12 months, he hit 125%+ of his goal. He was Zerto’s first ISR to close a six-figure deal and became the Team Lead the following year. He helped interview, onboard & upskill other reps as they grew from 8 to 14 people all while supporting his own book of business.
He was then promoted to a Cloud Account Executive role where he was traveling to meet with clients and prospects. Life on the road gets exhausting though. Even with all Ries had accomplished, it paled in comparison to his younger brother’s scary Leukemia diagnosis. After a terrifying episode where his brother had to be placed in a coma for a few weeks and relocate back to Boston, Ries reflected on his work. Healthy people want a thousand things but sick people only want one, right?
This experience gave Ries a lot of perspective. He really liked the energy of startups and wanted to remain in Boston supporting the early stage ecosystem. Wanting to get closer to more start ups, he accepted a position for WeWork as the “go-to” connection with startups in Boston. It was exciting, fast-paced work alongside a fantastic team of high performers that ultimately spring boarded him to HubSpot where he continued working with startups and connecting a great product to users in need of a more comprehensive solution. His HubSpot experience was everything he had been told it would be. The culture was amazing and the product was top notch. He’s still a proud shareholder!
While at HubSpot, he got more ingrained into the Boston startup community by volunteering as a judge and mentor for early-stage companies with the likes of TechStars, Founder Institute and MassChallenge. He also became a member of some angel investing groups and began taking on some part-time consulting work. He got reconnected with Vested through one of these part time projects. They were looking for someone to do market research and Ries brought insightful learnings back to the Vested team. After seeing how uniquely positioned the Vested offering was, Ries asked “are you hiring?”
Ries had also had personal experience with the problem that Vested solves. When he left Zerto a few years prior he had thought he could just take his options with him. He didn’t realize he’d have to pay for the exercise within 90 days of leaving and it wasn’t exactly nothing. There’s still a gap in equity compensation knowledge, and an even bigger gap when it comes to the capital required to exercise and pay the related taxes! He had reached out to Vested to see if he could get funding for his options. This time, Vested carved out a Business Development Manager role and he began walking startup employees in need of funding to exercise their options through how Vested can help.
More recently, after returning from paternity leave following the birth of his first child, he moved over to the other side of the business to help Vested raise the fund whose capital would help fund all these startup employee option exercises. He helped close $2M of LP capital for their most recent fund and his day-to-day now is focused on helping expand Vested’s awareness and influence.
On top of his “day job” at Vested, Ries is also actively involved in Startup Boston, serving as a volunteer for their Marketing Partnerships team. Startup Boston Week is a free conference that brings together everybody from the New England innovation ecosystem. His role is focused on expanding awareness across startup founders, incubators, accelerators and VC firms in New England.
Compound Networking – Turning Meetings into a Motion
As the son of teachers and a revenue leader, Ries has thought a lot about building an intentional outreach and connection system. He starts with cold outreach using social signals. He’ll find the right people he wants to connect with, why, and relevant criteria to surface.
Outreach
He’ll send a succinct tailored email based on the subject’s internet presence. He does not expect a response. Next, every 2-3 weeks he’ll diligently follow up with a consistent structure & process, making sure to block time off for his outreach.
When he first starts building an outbound motion, he does everything manually. Once he builds the muscle, he begins to systematize what his 2nd & 3rd e-mails will look like. He doesn’t jump into a pre-built sequence until he has a better feel for what will resonate.
Naturally, he uses HubSpot for e-mail and their tasking tool to track follow ups as he goes through his process, increasing the velocity of follow ups. He’ll send a note every 3 weeks, then 2 weeks, 1 week, and then every few days until he closes the opportunity out. He’s found that people typically respond to the 2nd or 3rd email.
It’s important not to be super pushy but remember to follow up with personalization. We know how people feel about pushy sales people!
Meetings
Ok, that’s all just to get to a meeting. For a first call or in-person meeting, Ries puts an emphasis on having a conversation without the crutch of slides or a presentation: “It’s a sales meeting without trying to sell anything”. He’ll focus on better understanding the client’s priorities and evangelizing Vested and gauging the prospect’s interest from multiple angles.
He approaches by listening, picking up on something they’ve said to come back to at the end of the conversation, and closing by asking for warm introductions.
Follow Up
The compound networking comes from this listening part. By building rapport and helping identify and begin to solve someone’s problem through a conversation, it will usually open an opportunity for additional introductions. That is where a single meeting can turn into 3 more meetings through warm introductions. It’s the final step, culminating in all the hard work that’s come before it, where Ries shines!
3 Career Insights / Learnings
Relationships Matter Most – “There’s a lot of hype and excitement around AI. And it is very impressive. When the internet came out we thought it would replace everything too. But I don’t see AI replacing people, it can’t create relationships for us or say that we have a 10 year history. There’s no way to replace that. People matter and relationships matter”
Virtual Branding – “Personal branding is just the 21st century way to say ‘reputation’. If you ask anyone with 10-15 years of experience, they would say your reputation matters. Branding and online presence is just an extension of that and a way to scale that. Who you are, what you think, what you care about most definitely is very important.”
Say Yes to the Meeting – “You don’t have to say yes to every meeting. But if you get something personalized, I have 15 minutes to take a meeting for someone who’s taken the time to reach out to me. I’ve been on the other end of that. As long as you can keep it brief, be polite & courteous. Vendors have reached out cold. One person let me know about Chelsea football transfers that day, which was super helpful! That goes back to relationships, you never know who you’re going to meet”
Ries loves living and working in and around Boston. From a professional perspective, he thinks it’s one of the most underrated innovation ecosystems in the world, always punching above its weight. In the years ahead it will be important to maintain the energy & enthusiasm, with our new hybrid culture, so that builders will stay here and Ries wants to be part of the innovation economy support effort.
Whether that’s advising startup founders on GTM strategies or “dot connecting”, he enjoys helping people. He especially looks up to people like Jesse Bardo from Hunt Club, Lily Lyman at Underscore, and Allison Byers at Scroobious. They’ve all demonstrated that you can do well by doing good as consistently kind and courteous community builders.
If you want to learn more about Ries, you can check him out on LinkedIn, cheering on the innovation ecosystem at a Boston area startup event, hanging out with his family and toddler, or watching a Chelsea FC match! Thanks for sharing Ries. Excited to see the companies, founders & employees you continue to help in the years ahead!