Accomplishment Networking

Most people learned when they were kids not to brag. Now, as adults, they can't bring themselves to tell other business people what they are good at. But this is something we have to get past. If you are going to Network then letting your network know your accomplishments is a neccessity. Trust is a Must in Networking and without letting people know what you do well, you will have trouble gaining that trust. On the other hand when you tell them about how proud you are that you fixed problem XYZ for Client ABC then you are not bragging you are educating them on your accomplishments. If they are educated on your skills and accomplishments then they can find similar clients that need your product or service and then refer them to you. Which is what Networking is all about.

Business Slowdown during the holidays

In the Merchant Services business there is a bit of a myth that business stops during the holiday crush. The reality is that yes, Retail businesses don't really want to think about their merchant services during this time of year. But Retail is not the only industry that accepts plastic. Health industries such as Doctors, Dentists, Massage Therapists, Chiropractic, Nutritionists, etc. all need to take payment somehow. So do Services based companies such as Mechanics, Cabdrivers, Handymen, House Cleaners, etc. And now is a great time to see how much they are currently paying or if they should take plastic at all. The facts are that business goes on everyday and when you work you expect to get paid, regardless of what time of year it is. So have a great Holiday season but don't let it keep you from making decisions on your Merchant Services.

Seeing through the smoke and mirrors with Merchant Services

How many times have salespeople come to you with promises of savings? There is always some little fee or cost which they latch onto to convince you that they have a better deal. There are experts out there at finding a tiny charge and convincing you that they can save you hundreds on your monthly bill. The problem with that is that all of the providers start out with the same base cost from the main processing companies. So how much do you really think you could save? Do you trust your current provider? Do they do a good job for you? Do they give you real info when you need it or just more fast talk and obfuscation? These are the important questions you should be asking yourself when deciding who to do business with.
As a couple of examples I have two situations I would like to relate, the first deals with a client who was told he could save hundreds on his monthly bill by lowering his transaction cost by one or two cents. From $0.20 to $0.18 per transaction. To allow reality to intrude lets think about this for a second. By lowering your cost by $.02 you could save $100 if you had 5000 transactions. This client only had about 500 transactions a month. He might save that promised hundred dollars in ten months, not monthly as was implied. (Oh yeah and it cost him $250 to close his account.) For the second example lets look at the often made promise of no discount being charged for your Debit transactions. This one is a little more subtle in how you could be convinced. There is a system that you could be on which allows you to process debit transactions with no discount being taken my the credit card companies. Where it gets misleading is that they do not tell you there is a flat rate which replaces the discount and, depending on what your average transaction amount is, could actually cost you more than the discount system would have cost you.
I guess the Bottom Line is you should do your homework (and the math) and talk to your provider before making any decisions in a hurry when it comes to switching companies.