When your company and industry are both expanding, professional development is often not too far behind.
Serving as a senior account manager at PaymentCloud, Faviola Paz helps lead members of the sales team as they aim to meet their quotas. It’s a role indicative of the growth she’s experienced that, according to Paz, came about unexpectedly quickly at the organization.
“When I started, I think it was maybe eight or 10 employees,” Paz said. “In a few years, I was promoted into a team lead position. I wouldn't have expected that to happen so soon.”
Similarly, Relationship Manager Brianna Bravo is no stranger to gathering new experience at the fintech company, which specializes in identifying credit card processing capabilities for companies. When Bravo expressed an interest in learning how she could grow with the organization, leadership arranged “almost daily mentorship meetings” with Chris Roets, the founder of contactless payment firm Paysley, so that Bravo could learn more about the company acquired by PaymentCloud last year.
“Now I can run it, basically. Using that mentorship to my advantage was a huge help for me,” Bravo said.
Acquiring that industry-specific knowledge isn’t just a boon for team members’ personal career tracks, but that of their colleagues as well. With a year under his belt at PaymentCloud, Senior Account Manager Javier Lopez is seeking to be a resource to newcomers to the team.
“I’m making sure I’m there for them. Everyone helped me out, so I’m going to help them out as well,” Lopez said.
Ultimately, it’s a sentiment that distills Bravo’s larger assessment of the organization’s culture: “Everyone here gets along. I think the number one thing is the teamwork aspect. Everyone comes together as a whole to work on projects or meet deadlines, no matter what the role is,” she said.
On the heels of the organization’s recent move into brand-new, 17,000-square-foot digs in Encino, Paz, Bravo and Lopez shared how development materializes at the organization, why camaraderie is central to the workplace experience and more.
Recent Honors
What makes the culture at PaymentCloud special? And how does the company value culture-building?
Bravo: We have a culture committee, which is dedicated to planning outside and internal events. Also, we have big celebrations for little things, whether it’s an email blast to the whole company, or just a big congrats when someone does something that might not even be a big milestone. For example, if someone gets a good review on one of our Google pages, or praise from a client, it’s really celebrated here.
Lopez: It’s super fun and super lively. Everyone always has a smile on their face but, at the same time, because we’re set to certain quotas, we’re all here to work hard. Nevertheless, it’s a fun, lively environment.
Paz: Even with the COVID-19 pandemic, we still tried to keep things fun and light. For example, we had a lot of fun yoga sessions in the morning. We’d have little hangouts after work hours to keep that culture and spirit alive. We do a lot of outings after work, but nothing’s mandatory.
Everyone comes together as a whole to work on projects or meet deadlines, no matter what the role is.”
How would you describe the camaraderie of your own individual respective teams?
Bravo: We’re all really close and focused on the same goals. We have all of our numbers on the wall and celebrate each milestone; that helps with camaraderie. It’s very collaborative. Everyone has completely different personalities; it makes for a really good team.
Paz: In the sales department, we try to have newer people learn from more experienced people. We’re a young company, but we do have a lot of people who have been in this industry for 10-plus years. That really helps with training. The experience and professionalism from more experienced people helps to set a good, balanced tone.
Lopez: We have individual team goals. Obviously we want to be the best team, so there’s a little bit of competitiveness there — “Let’s catch up to that team” or “Let’s keep our lead,” things like that. We do stuff where we can all get together, such as team lunches, as well as team incentives.
New Spot, Same Team Spirit
How does PaymentCloud’s growth result in professional opportunities for team members?
Lopez: As we grow, that opens the door to set up relationships with bigger merchants and bigger clients — whether that'd be a merchant account with a massive company or a referral program such as those we have with blue-chip companies.
Bravo: We train our salespeople to not only be experts in their field, but be able to go the extra mile and actually care about who’s on the other line. I think that’s important. If your people aren’t getting you those good reviews and standing out, you're not going to have repeat business.
We're all really close and focused on the same goals.”
What resources are made available to you to help you grow professionally?
Bravo: Everyone here has an open-door policy, so it's a great way to learn and ask questions. Everyone really cares about each other and their growth. We constantly have meetings about where we're going and where we want to be — both as part of the team and individually to meet those goals.
Paz: Once we see potential, we really go after that because at the end of the day, everyone wants to gain experience and grow. When we have new reps who are showing strong potential that would be a good match for a customer, we'll pair them up and that way they’re able to grow and see what more there is to the company. Allowing reps to build relationships on their own is super important.
Lopez: Our CEO, Shawn Silver, makes it super clear that, if you want to grow within the company, go into a different department or explore something new, he’s willing to have that conversation with you. We actually just had a big team meeting highlighting everyone's promotions.
Looking ahead, how do you hope to contribute to or shape culture at PaymentCloud?
Bravo: I’m working toward having my own team. I hope to continue getting to know my team to help them succeed just as much as everyone higher up than me has helped me. When you’re a small startup company, it’s easy to have culture-building, fun events and more, but as you grow that can go off to the side. I hope to help bring that in even as we grow.
Paz: We are opening a satellite office in San Diego, so my next big step is running my own team there with CTO Neal Hamou and growing the team even further while still really maintaining that culture and fostering growth personally and professionally here.
Lopez: When I first started, everyone was so willing to help me. Now that we’re back in the office, and I've been here for about a year, everyone who sits around me is fairly new and I have become that guy whom they come to with questions. Everyone was so willing to help me out, I'm going to help them out as well — paying it forward as it was paid to me.
