So I’ve been on this journey of trying to get things automated for a little over a year now. The process with Wise-Sync has gotten to be so smooth. I’m so confident with this product and all the other pieces that I’ve put in place, especially Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, that I can literally say “Alright, I’m going to be dedicating 8am-4:30pm Monday through Friday at the clinic,” and things are going to be alright - things will run.
From having begun as a one-man band running just about every report imaginable on his own, to now, heading a company that he's able to partially remove himself from in order to fulfil his higher calling -
Kevin Vaughn, CEO, A One Networks, proves that with learning, dedication and the right mindset, you can just about make anything work for you.
Within the first seven years of starting his business, Kevin found himself facing a "horrible" process day-in day-out; one that would ultimately stunt his business' progress.
Alright, so, we kind of added the components of ConnectWise Manage slowly, and they had an integration that was working but then some sort of API standard was going to go away so then maybe not work -
I was using a competitor of yours, and they just didn't help me. I would take my time to try and explain and really help them to understand why it doesn’t work that way -
And they still didn't get it. So, I went to find someone else.
Since implementing Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, Kevin regards his overall experience as simply, "phenomenal."
However, Kevin wasn't able to get up and running quite as fast as he would have liked to; a journey Kevin shares, was due to a large ordeal on his end -
For that reason, Kevin advises those looking to implement Wise-Sync and/or any other solution, to really "work with the team" and invest in yourself in all the learning that comes with that; an experience that requires being just as "committed" to your part as the dedicated support team are to getting you onboarded.
"We’ve maintained a relatively small posture; there’s three of us in total, and I don’t even do a lot of the hands-on anymore; I’m just at a point where I’m doing the administrative stuff which is why I needed to automate so many things."
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After an unsuccessful run with a competitor, Kevin searched for a solution that would hopefully achieve exactly what he needed: End-to-end automation.
"So, once I found you guys, I implemented Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, and I killed that other payment processor - I haven’t looked back since."
When the pandemic hit pretty hard, Kevin "bounced back and sold a bunch of hardware," where he admits, "I knew a little about IT but not everything, a lot of it was over my head but I said, you know what... I can do this!"
Of all the results achieved for the business, Kevin shares the support he continues to receive from the Wise-Sync team makes all the difference, where he says, "your ninja avatars work for your company very well."
With his newly acclaimed financial visibility, Kevin now feels empowered to make the right decisions for the business.
"Enter Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay -
From there, I’m saving maybe 10, easily as much as 15 hours a month and not having to chase things because everything is automated; that is worth more than I thought because not only is that 10 or 15 hours of my month that I’m not spending doing stuff that I don’t need to; that could look more professional, be more automated, without me - but I don’t feel as stressed, so let’s say there was a lot of stress (and there was), associated with that 10 or 15 hours a month, well then that snowballs and it has an effect on the things around it that don’t get done and I’m then not that enthused about or get put off; so, you really can’t compound that 10 or 15 hours because that stress that went in with those same 10-15 hours is not there; I don’t know if you want to multiply it -
It's not really just those 10 or 15 hours, but it's taken off so much stress and saves me so much time, that I now have more quality of life -
I can do other things more efficiently without having to worry about all that type of "180 days, what's happening here?!' "
Prior to unlocking end-to-end financial automation, Kevin was predominantly receiving checks from customers; a system that was heavily time-consuming and incapable of returning the up-to-the-minute data he needed; the time it would take Kevin to accept a check vastly affected his ability to understand where the business stood; having payments outstanding and/or yet to be received significantly hindered Kevin's financial foresight -
"I was freaking getting these checks in the mail, opening them up, depositing, taking a picture, turning them over, scanning them, filing them there, writing down the ACH number - it was so time-consuming."
Since A One Networks' implementation of Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, customers are now set-up in the Wise-Pay portal; customers are predominantly paying via credit card/ACH - an instant and automatic process that has since enabled Kevin to free another significant portion of his time formerly spent on not only processing checks but managing all the paperwork that came with that.
Many of our customers are now set-up, and they're paying automatically. So, I think this whole system just keeps getting better and better -
And that's all through Wise-Pay! And that’s because of Wise-Pay, I mean, literally whatever QBO had; they had some version of this, I’m sure, but it didn’t look right to the customers - it was too complicated, or made them feel like they had to create an account; this somehow doesn’t feel that way, it’s like “Okay, this is apart of the relationship we have with A One,” and this becomes part of our customers’ process - that whole attitude of 'I’m able to participate or not participate but I do have to create the first step,' is what I’m now seeing with our customers - and that’s the best!
While Kevin makes plans to "grow, grow, grow" without being so involved, he's able to instead dedicate his time to fulfilling a full-time role as a Certified Peer Support Specialist.
On top of co-running A One Networks, Kevin works full-time in the mental health department of a smaller clinic at a local hospital where he provides both one-on-one and group classes. Here, Kevin specializes in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT); the two are often interdependent and each plays a vital role in the individual's recovery -
CBT is designed for those who are ready for change and want to change, while DBT, which was originally designed for suicide prevention, is intended for those who have more severe mental illnesses with a longer road to recovery ahead.
As a Peer Support Specialist, I can say, it’s all about veteran to veteran; talking to someone who actually understands what you’ve been through because they’ve been through something just like it. They found that veterans who see a guy like me, someone who's been through drug and/or alcohol-related issues, are four times more likely to return versus seeing a psychologist or some other professional who hasn't served or experienced these motions -
The thing most people don’t realize is that with every individual act that you do - it raises your self-esteem. It’s an instant gift back even though you’re not asking for a thing; you just want to help and make someone’s day and make it a little bit easier for them -
It’s an instant self-esteem boost, and a lot of people don’t realize I don’t do those things so I can boost my self-esteem… although, now that I think about it, next time I’m cranky, maybe I should go and do it; maybe bag someone’s groceries or something like that (laughs)!
And the other thing is, for your information bank, PTSD comes in all sorts of forms and manners and not necessarily combat. So, in my case, there was a bombing that went off in one of the officer’s buildings that had been on patrol, and it literally had just gotten down to the driveway -
And me and my partner, I mean, it was freaky; four of our officers’ clubs got blown up that night. And it kind of didn’t bother me for years and years and years, but then it started to, especially as I became more and more aware of the war and what was going on - Putin, Syria... all of it.
When Kevin told us he was a veteran, the first thing we said is, "Thank you for your service," a response that seemed natural to us, without realizing that it does goes a long way for those who have served -
And in commemoration of Veterans Day today, with a beholden heart across the team, we would like to thank all of those who have served.
"When people say "Thank you for your service,' which we now do in the United States, I say “You’re welcome, and thank you for your acknowledgement.” I just need to thank them for the acknowledgement because I appreciate that I’m being acknowledged. I mean, it means so much -
It just means so much, I’ll leave it at that," says Kevin.
"For my business, A One Networks, my fellow Co-Founder and I are both headed to a place where we’ll get to manage IT Support Services; we won’t be headed to sites, instead we want to provide more flexibility for our staff where even working three productive days a week equates to a full-time wage -
We’re really headed towards an end, which we don’t know when that’ll be exactly, where we see our business facing a smarter (not harder) future."
Read more about Kevin's experience as a Veteran in his recent Q&A with ConnectWise.
Finally, for those considering Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, Kevin Vaughn shares his final words:
And you’ll be like “Wow, why weren’t we doing this before?
If you're ready to put your manual accounting tasks on autopilot and take back control of your finances, Wise-Sync's here to make it happen: Get in touch with our friendly team today or book a demo to see how it all works.
