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Education

Five-step plan for cross-selling to merchants

By Barry Davis • Getting more customers
Womply • Saving money

he landscape is changing • Saving time
rapidly and dramatically Everything you cross-sell should be framed through the lens of these pain
for merchant level sales-
T people (MLSs). Local busi- points.
nesses are facing an evolving set of 2. Get consultative
challenges and opportunities, and
merchant acquirers must respond by Just because merchants share common pain doesn't mean their experiences are
learning how to cross-sell value-add- the same. The challenges of attracting customers, for example, will be totally
ed products. different for a local retailer compared to an independent restaurant owner. If
you take your pitch out of a box, you'll miss important nuances and leave sales
In this article, I'll outline some con- opportunities on the table.
crete things every MLS can do to
acquire and retain more merchant The key is to know how to be consultative without taking too much of the
accounts and make more money. My merchant's time. That starts with getting a deep understanding of the products
insights come from my experience in in your portfolio and how they address specific, everyday business problems.
selling software and data products to You can't sell what you don't understand.
small businesses in all 50 states.
You also need to get very good at asking the right questions and then
Here's a five-step process for selling intentionally listening. For example, have you ever asked a merchant, "If you
value-added products to local mer-
chants:
1. Know which pain points matter Let Be Your EMV Expert!
most
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If your only focus is selling credit card
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on transaction fees. Things get more
complicated when you sell a full port-
folio of products and services. You
need a broader understanding of the
pain points for local merchants.

My colleagues and I have collected a is EMV-Certified
boatload of empirical and anecdotal
data over the years about merchants'
biggest challenges. Using that data,
we created what we call an "anxiety
index" that ranks the top worries of
thousands of merchants around the
country.

We also found some common themes
such as threats from tax increases,
competition from Amazon or chang-
ing consumer tastes. But these are
just symptoms of the root problems.
You can boil down merchants' top 1(800) 296-4810
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concerns to three things: eProcessingNetwork.com All trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

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