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Education

StreetSmarts SM

How to sell in today's environment

By Dee and Emily Karawadra to have 90 minutes of airtime a month on my Nokia phone
Impact PaySystem plan. Today MLS must be well-diversified in their product
knowledge and offerings. The shift in focus from payment
he payments market today is vastly different processing alone to products small businesses need and
than when we got started 19 years ago. Life was want helps solidify long-term business relationships,
simple back then. We had three-tiered pricing, lowering attrition.
T only four terminals to choose from (Verifone
Tranz 330 and 360, Hypercom T7, and Nurit 2085), and Today an MLS has to contend with thousands of com-
a short selling cycle. The concept of credit cards was still petitors in addition to the evolution of payments and in-
new to many business owners. We spent more time over- terchange. The conversation is much more complicated
coming objections to accepting credit cards than discuss- today than previously. We are juggling communication
ing cost and equipment. It wasn't long, however, before methods, terminal encryption, EMV, POS systems and
card acceptance became a need, and businesses sought us more. The sales cycle is longer, but can be shortened with
out. Not any longer. the right knowledge and approach.
Five products with big rewards
Why was the sales cycle so short 19 years ago? We only
had to memorize rates for qualification, mid-qualification All merchant level salespeople (MLSs) must master the
and non-qualification statement fees and batch fees. We following five product areas and turn their expertise into
could provide a quote within minutes of looking at a a versatile sales tool:
statement. All other rates were hard-coded in the three-
part, carbonless application. 1. POS systems: POS systems used to be only for large
enterprises, not mom-and-pop businesses. Technolo-
There were no integrations or POS systems to worry gy has made it affordable to bring POS systems to the
about. The ecommerce business was in its infancy. All mom and pop markets. Knowing your own POS sys-
we had was MO/TO (mail order/telephone order). Today, tem is a must, but you also need to know your com-
paying with your phone is a reality. Back then, I was lucky petition. For example, you will need to know whether
a given POS system communicates to the processor
through a gateway or direct integration, for example.
So many marketplaces exist Research online. Call the system's technical support
nowadays. From Etsy to Shopify, they team to see if it works with multiple processors.

are selling merchant services as part 2. Marketplace shopping: Marketplaces are allowing
of their bundled pricing ‒ but there small merchants to have a wider audience. So many
marketplaces exist nowadays. From Etsy to Shopify,
are ways around this. they are selling merchant services as part of their
bundled pricing ‒ but there are ways around this. For
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