Meet A ServiceTrader
Ozella Bowman, Solutions Architect
Ozella is a Solutions Architect on the Customer Success team.
She was the 2022 Q4 ServiceTrade Culture Award winner for her collaboration and willingness to get it done.
Tell me about your ServiceTrade journey.
I was in the midst of a job search in 2021. I knew I was looking for a growing SaaS company that was available for remote work. A friend of mine, who is a really awesome head hunter, was working with Anna McMahon, VP of Inside Sales, and when he introduced us, we hit it off immediately.
In previous roles, I was a Customer Success Program Manager. I helped with onboarding and support, documentation and training articles, and also on the sales side in the commercial lending and payments industries. I’ve always worn a lot of hats.
Tell me about your role as Solutions Architect.
As a solution architect, it’s very much that translation piece; helping to design the solution of a suite of products that we offer. It’s translating what the customer needs from the business side into how we realize that on the technical side. Very often that also means demo setup, demo support and demo delivery if it’s a product that is beyond the knowledge of the sales team at the time. It’s scoping out the solution to figure out where the boundaries are. It’s saying “yes” when it’s yes and “no” when it’s no.
If a deal is coming to me, it’s either one that wouldn’t close otherwise because the knowledge I bring to that sale is out of scope for that salesperson, or it would have a higher probability of onboarding failure for lack of scoping. The salesperson might have answered the question but could have left really significant things out (unintentionally of course), and if they don’t bring me in, then there would be a gap in the translation from discovery to implementation. The unintended result is that deal may suffer and be either a non-renew or failure-to-launch. My role is to provide an up-lift in the things that would otherwise be a non-start by capturing another layer of necessary information about what ServiceTrade is going to deliver to our customers.
My daughter and I in our backyard pumpkin patch.
Which of the ServiceTrade culture values is most important to you?
When I am looking for a position, and when I was looking at ServiceTrade, something I always say is “I want to work with a group of seriously intelligent people who don’t take themselves too seriously.” I want to know everyone is going to be high caliber, high-functioning, and getting it done – that has always been a mantra of mine. GSD. Get Shit Done.
When I saw ‘We are bold’ and ‘We are weird’ in one set of values, I mean that is awesome! That means you own your stuff.
My boys and I at a football game.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
My kids. That’s something I’m still working on. I had things I used to love to do, but honestly nowadays I think it’s probably a challenge for a lot of working moms. It’s like re-finding yourself amidst your career and your family.
I like to work on my house. I’m a big DIYer. I like to work on my garden, fight away the animals, dig up stuff. Whenever I am actually in the kitchen I like to act like I’m on the show Chopped. I’m a big proponent of using all the groceries before going grocery shopping. You know how they give you the basket and it has mystery ingredients and you have to figure out what to make? That is me.
My son and I cooking.
How do you take the ServiceTrade culture values and apply it outside of work?
It’s kind of one of those things where the culture values here just work so well for me. It’s not taking them and applying them. I found a place that has the same values I have. I am bold, and I know that and I love that. I try to be bold in everything I do and have a certain degree of confidence when I’m trying to get stuff done. I think in everything I do these values play a part, so I’m just glad to have found a company that shares the values that I have versus the other way around where I have to try and remold myself to fit in.
