Meet Derrick: An inside look at federal sales at ServiceNow

"The federal space is an interesting one," says Derrick N., a senior solution consultant at ServiceNow. A 15-year tech veteran, Derrick is in his first year working with federal civilian accounts. He describes himself as a chameleon because of his ability to fulfill whatever role is necessary to make sure ServiceNow customers see value in the company's products.

In the federal space, taxpayer dollars fund the bulk of agency spending, so ensuring efficiency is a high priority. "We want the federal government and their employees to sit back and say, 'ServiceNow actually makes my work a lot better.' I will do anything to make sure that happens," Derrick says.  

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Making work easier

 Over the past year, Derrick has worked alongside the Department of Labor (DOL) on Creator Workflow efforts. This involves citizen development-allowing people with little to no coding experience to use ServiceNow App Engine to tackle mission-specific areas affecting federal agencies. It's a whole new world for these agencies to see the power of the Now Platform and quickly release applications that make their work easier. 

"The Department of Labor has leveraged App Engine to build a tool that connects federal and private-sector employers nationwide with highly motivated college students and recent graduates with disabilities who are eager to demonstrate their abilities in the workplace through summer or permanent jobs," Derrick explains. This is a critical area for DOL, he adds, and the agency has found a way to solve it using the Now Platform.

Collaboratively ensuring a safe workplace

The Small Business Administration (SBA) is another agency Derrick works directly with to promote adoption of the Now Platform. "We're building the ServiceNow footprint there, and I really believe that the work we're doing for their IT groups will translate to the rest of the administration," he says.

The SBA is in the process of going live with the ServiceNow Safe Workplace Suite. According to Derrick, the organization handles thousands of vaccine attestations and is rolling out an enhanced version of the suite to process them. 

Taking Safe Workplace to the finish line was a team effort, he adds. "The ServiceNow product team was so instrumental in helping get the SBA to production." The product team spent time with Derrick, the SBA, and its partners to make sure things were configured according to best practices.

When reconfigurations or tweaks were needed, the product team made sure they were done in a way that didn't add tech debt to the instance. The product team was flexible enough to say, "Hey, if the federal space has specific requirements going forward, we might have [the] resources to natively build those into the platform."

It took about a month from the time the SBA started work on the product to finish. Now the SBA can say it's addressed the vaccine mandate.

Building trust

 The most important thing in Derrick's job is trust. "Customers must trust us to correctly align our products to their business needs, especially at the federal level," he says. "I put a ton of effort into building relationships. This is my first year in fed sales, and I think that because of those relationships, I'm really the trusted adviser. We can really start to grow ServiceNow adoption in my accounts."

Learning our platform has been key to Derrick's success. "Things are moving so fast here," he says. "I need to stay on top of all of the enhancements we're doing." In the federal space, IT Service Management (ITSM) has been the default. Derrick and his team want to make sure the rest of the platform is a default for federal agencies as well.

Loving what you do

 Former UCLA professional tennis player Arthur Ashe once said, "Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome."

A former UCLA tennis player himself, Derrick lives by that mantra. "I really love my role, and I want to be a mainstay in my accounts and be that go-to resource," he says, He's already referred two of his good friends to the company, knowing they're in good hands here.

"I'm really excited for my future at ServiceNow, and I'm confident I'm going to make my mark here," he says. He's well on his way. Derrick recently won "Rookie of the Quarter" in the federal civilian practice and is working to turn that into "Rookie of the Year."

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