Time with Kanso: Almost four years.
Ninja Status: Helped implement our automated training program.
Huge Fan Of: Playing guitar like a boss + reading about Tesla.
Wizard of Oz Connection: Was hit twice by tornados as a kid.
Spirit Animal: Dhole (Google it, folks….it’s an amazing cross between a fox and a dog and it actually sings!)
When it comes to successful career shifts, you’re going to want to hear from this guy. Andrew comes to us from the financial services industry, where he built a successful career before deciding it was time for a change. We threw a lot of questions his way about what he does, and why he does it. And good news: Andrew didn’t disappoint.
Q: As an Account Manager at Kanso, what does your day-to-day look like?
A: It’s a mix of quite a lot of things: fielding client support calls, training our clients, training our new employees, some sales calls, and even a little bit of coding, too. I actually helped implement this obscure document generation system called Docmosis.
Q: Cool! Tell us a little about your journey to get here.
A: I used to work in the financial services industry. I had all my licensures and everything, but I was still pretty dissatisfied with my forward momentum, even when I was starting to make it.
The work was pretty boring, and not rewarding by any stretch of the imagination. I was just buying and selling investment vehicles. I wasn’t even choosing what’s going into these portfolios. It was just cookie-cutter work, by-design.
I realized there were two huge missing pieces for me: I didn’t really feel like I was creating anything, and I wasn’t making the world a better place.
At that point, I knew I wanted to get into web design, and I was taking all these courses. I ended up quitting the other job and just did a major trust-fall with life.
I reached out to a buddy who happened to be a developer here at Kanso, and asked him for advice. One thing led to another, and he invited me to come work here. I came out to Denver and the rest is history.
Q: After joining Kanso, did you finally feel like you were in the right role?
A: Definitely. What’s exciting for me is just creating new things. And one of the things I’m proudest of doing here was helping create an automated training system that allows our clients to, in a sense, train themselves. So that drastically decreased the amount of work that we have to put in to train them.
Q: How so?
A: When we onboard new clients, or help current clients adapt to our new system, Doorways, the training time adds up pretty quick. We use to spend about 12 hours training teams on our software to get them up to speed and feeling comfy with how it works. With the new, automated training system, that average time is down to about TWO HOURS TOTAL.
Q: Wow! That’s huge. How did your team react to the improvements?
A: I got a lot of kudos for that (not to toot my own horn), and everybody was a lot happier. Our team has a lot more in the gas tank to service clients now when they do call in, because we’re not talking to them for a dozen hours every time we bring them on board.
Q: How does your work impact your clients?
A: I’ve gotten to meet a lot of clients in person, when we go to train them. These are just really great individuals that truly want to help others, and make sure that people get the care and shelter they need.
Of course, those transition periods when they’re having to learn a new software system can be really hard on them. You come in and say, “I get it. You probably hate me right now, because it feels like I’m the guy who just kind of turned your world upside down.”
But over time, they’ll often come back and say, “Hey, I know I was a little ornery when you first got to interact with me. But now I have all these added benefits.” We’re talking things like way more powerful tracking and reporting, a much more beautiful and easy-to-navigate interface, and in some cases, even the ability to work from home now. And they really appreciate that.
Q: What’s something that surprised you about working with Kanso?
A: Don’t underestimate the power of people working together to solve hard problems. It’s cool to know that there are people out there willing to work on those problem, who want to make that change, and then stick with it and grow those solutions. At Kanso, you can learn to code, you can learn new tools, and if there’s that will to succeed there, and you’re smart, I think you can make a major impact.
Another huge thing about working here is that everybody actually likes each other here. We really like to have fun, and it’s very much a work hard / play hard situation. For other companies, that’s just the marketing slogan. But here, it’s the real thing. And as I keep hearing from our new hires:
“This is the first job I’ve worked at where literally, everybody’s cool.”
Andrew and girlfriend Jennifer
Andrew’s very cool nephew, JP
Gouda, Andrews dapper cat
Want to find out more about a place where you can show up and discover your true potential starting on day one, surrounded by people who get you – and celebrate you? We’d love to hear from you today, and invite you to reach out at info@kanso.com.
