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Educaton
Staying informed in Don't attempt to shotgun knowledge on every abbre-
the payments biz: viation or topic you hear. You will find yourself over-
whelmed with information. As a result, you could
end up retaining very little, or worse, you could actu-
A sane approach ally start mixing up the information and not getting
the facts straight when you are communicating with
your customers and prospects.
By Jeff Fortney
Clearent LLC Do gain a working knowledge of the general topics of
the day. You do not have to become an expert.
ecently, I had an interesting conversation with
a merchant level salesperson (MLS) about Don't allow yourself to be paralyzed by information.
the changing payments landscape. She was In other words, learn one thing at a time, and don't
R wondering if the industry was passing her by. move on until you are comfortable with the topic.
She was well aware that payments is a technology-based
industry and that merchants are very concerned about Do listen to your current merchant customers and
their costs, the speed of deposits and how easily they can others doing business in the marketplace you are tar-
accept payments. However, merchants were now asking geting. They are getting hammered with subjective
about the cloud, POS solutions, Europay, MasterCard and information (information positioned to benefit your
Visa (EMV) and mobile wallets. competition and weaken your business relation-
ships). You need to be objective, point out any errors
In most cases, her merchants didn't necessarily want all and dispel any myths.
of these solutions, but they were hearing about them from
various sources and were wondering if there was a way Don't try to gain this knowledge from a group of
they could use this new technology to their advantage. third parties.
A seismic shift Do go to your ISO partner and approach that indi-
vidual with your concerns. Your ISO should be able
It has definitely been interesting to watch this shift. The to provide the information you need.
old radio station, WII FM (What's In It For Me) seems to
have changed formats. Merchants have become skeptical, Essential topics
and rightfully so. They have been hammered with fear
tactics regarding EMV. They have been offered "free" POS The next steps are to identify the topics that are needed
solutions only to later discover hidden costs that weren't today.
fully disclosed.
EMV implementation: This has been a hot topic
Fear of falling behind for almost three years, yet there is still a lot of
misinformation in the marketplace. Ask your ISO
In addition to this acquired skepticism, merchants are partner for information the business has compiled.
becoming more and more technologically savvy. In fact, For example, at Clearent, we developed a four-part
many merchants are from the millennial generation, series of resources on EMV that can be found at www.
which means they have never known life without iPads clearent.com/resources/emv-chip-card-technology. Your
or smartphones. They have no fear when it comes to ISO might have a similar resource.
discussing how to best leverage their tablet devices or how
best to use the cloud to their advantage. As such, what's in Also, do an Internet search for articles written by
it for the merchant has changed greatly. reputable news sources. Pay close attention to the sta-
tistics on percentages of cards issued and the types of
Discussions like the example I just described have become terminals and POS solutions that are EMV enabled.
more and more common. Many MLSs have told me they Additionally, pay close attention to how the solution
are fearful they no longer have the knowledge base they works for your merchant types. If you primarily fo-
need to be successful. cus on restaurants, for example, you should under-
What to do, what not to do stand how tip adjustments work.
Do you sometimes feel this same way? If so, there are POS solutions: In the past few years, the demand and
some dos and don'ts that will help you overcome this fear interest in POS units has increased greatly. Today,
and give you an advantage over your competition. POS technology isn't restricted to large, expensive
equipment. As such, you need to understand tablet
44
Staying informed in Don't attempt to shotgun knowledge on every abbre-
the payments biz: viation or topic you hear. You will find yourself over-
whelmed with information. As a result, you could
end up retaining very little, or worse, you could actu-
A sane approach ally start mixing up the information and not getting
the facts straight when you are communicating with
your customers and prospects.
By Jeff Fortney
Clearent LLC Do gain a working knowledge of the general topics of
the day. You do not have to become an expert.
ecently, I had an interesting conversation with
a merchant level salesperson (MLS) about Don't allow yourself to be paralyzed by information.
the changing payments landscape. She was In other words, learn one thing at a time, and don't
R wondering if the industry was passing her by. move on until you are comfortable with the topic.
She was well aware that payments is a technology-based
industry and that merchants are very concerned about Do listen to your current merchant customers and
their costs, the speed of deposits and how easily they can others doing business in the marketplace you are tar-
accept payments. However, merchants were now asking geting. They are getting hammered with subjective
about the cloud, POS solutions, Europay, MasterCard and information (information positioned to benefit your
Visa (EMV) and mobile wallets. competition and weaken your business relation-
ships). You need to be objective, point out any errors
In most cases, her merchants didn't necessarily want all and dispel any myths.
of these solutions, but they were hearing about them from
various sources and were wondering if there was a way Don't try to gain this knowledge from a group of
they could use this new technology to their advantage. third parties.
A seismic shift Do go to your ISO partner and approach that indi-
vidual with your concerns. Your ISO should be able
It has definitely been interesting to watch this shift. The to provide the information you need.
old radio station, WII FM (What's In It For Me) seems to
have changed formats. Merchants have become skeptical, Essential topics
and rightfully so. They have been hammered with fear
tactics regarding EMV. They have been offered "free" POS The next steps are to identify the topics that are needed
solutions only to later discover hidden costs that weren't today.
fully disclosed.
EMV implementation: This has been a hot topic
Fear of falling behind for almost three years, yet there is still a lot of
misinformation in the marketplace. Ask your ISO
In addition to this acquired skepticism, merchants are partner for information the business has compiled.
becoming more and more technologically savvy. In fact, For example, at Clearent, we developed a four-part
many merchants are from the millennial generation, series of resources on EMV that can be found at www.
which means they have never known life without iPads clearent.com/resources/emv-chip-card-technology. Your
or smartphones. They have no fear when it comes to ISO might have a similar resource.
discussing how to best leverage their tablet devices or how
best to use the cloud to their advantage. As such, what's in Also, do an Internet search for articles written by
it for the merchant has changed greatly. reputable news sources. Pay close attention to the sta-
tistics on percentages of cards issued and the types of
Discussions like the example I just described have become terminals and POS solutions that are EMV enabled.
more and more common. Many MLSs have told me they Additionally, pay close attention to how the solution
are fearful they no longer have the knowledge base they works for your merchant types. If you primarily fo-
need to be successful. cus on restaurants, for example, you should under-
What to do, what not to do stand how tip adjustments work.
Do you sometimes feel this same way? If so, there are POS solutions: In the past few years, the demand and
some dos and don'ts that will help you overcome this fear interest in POS units has increased greatly. Today,
and give you an advantage over your competition. POS technology isn't restricted to large, expensive
equipment. As such, you need to understand tablet
44
