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Education

This program also requires a great support team
that will offer daily coaching for your agents and
lots of hand holding. While it is more labor intensive
than recruiting experienced agents, it could be very So unless you or someone working
rewarding. with you has extensive knowledge

3. Telesales on managing and training a
telesales team, I strongly encourage
This model often appears to be very easy, and thus
it is the first choice of many agents. However, it you to think twice before making a
quickly proves to be the most challenging, because large investment in this model. The
to succeed, it requires excellent sales team training
and management. cost of telemarketers, phone lines

Merchants receive multiple calls throughout the and overall management of this
week from other agents, all of whom are offering model could be prohibitive.
them money-saving opportunities So unless
you or someone working with you has extensive
knowledge on managing and training a telesales
team, I strongly encourage you to think twice competing against larger ISOs that are spending
before making a large investment in this model. hundreds of thousands of dollars per month on
The cost of telemarketers, phone lines and overall online marketing – and have experts managing it.
management of this model could be prohibitive. It
may be a simple model, but it's definitely not easy. How to choose
Now that I've briefly reviewed some of the models widely
4. Appointment setting
used in our industry, the question still remains, which
model is the right model? My answer has always been the
The appointment setting model is a hybrid of same: I truly believe that all models are the right model,
telesales and a feet-on-the-street program. In this
model, either a team of appointment setters, or but not all of them are right for you and your organization.
Or to quote Payment Logistics, who is a member of GS
the sales team itself calls upon the merchants in
advance to schedule in-person appointments. I Online's MLS Forum, "The model is not nearly as important
as your unique value proposition." I could not agree more.
have seen many agents and ISOs have great success
with this model. Nevertheless, to succeed, this also Next, it is important for you to honestly evaluate your set
requires excellent management and training of
your team. of skills and expertise, and determine your strengths and
weaknesses. For example, if you have never done online
marketing or telesales, you probably want to stay away
One word of caution: the success of this model from those models until you are able to hire experts to
has also led to the start of many unscrupulous
third-party companies that charge for scheduling manage them for you.
appointments on your behalf. Unfortunately, most
of them are only there to separate you from your Having worked with thousands of agents, I have learned
that your chances for growth and continued success are
hard-earned money. So, if you're going to do this
model I suggest keeping your appointment setting much greater if you stick with what you know. You can
always introduce new sales initiatives down the line, but
in-house.
first establish a strong sales engine under the model that
5. Online marketing you are most familiar with.

On its surface, online marketing appears to be the Aaron Nasseh is the founder and Chief Executive Officer at Finical Inc.
simplest of all models. I mean, who doesn't love His extensive sales and management experience includes having previ-
the idea of sitting back while the search engines ously served as the General Manager of CardPayment Solutions and
do all of the work for you, and leads come pouring Vice President of Sales at iPayment Inc. He may be reached at anasseh@
in through emails or phone calls. However, this finicalinc.com or at 818-330-4055.
requires a very special set of skills to be effective.

You or one of your employees must be an expert in
managing online marketing campaigns, otherwise
it is all too easy to throw away your money

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