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Steven Feldshuh tinued to support our sales groups and sales agents but
Betterpay LLC cut spending to the bare minimum. Given the fact that we
maintained our very-high credit rating, and maintained
I can't emphasize enough how difficult this past year this tremendous financial discipline, we are fine and ready for
has been. I can tell you though that we owe a lot of thanks the coming year.
to our sales groups and agents for sticking with it. The
concept of directly calling on merchants disappeared for Market trends: Because we had a lot of extra time on our
several months, and with it came a large drop in new busi- hands, we focused on looking to the future. We further de-
ness. veloped our Betterpay brand and focused on developing
dozens of marketing pieces strictly for our sales groups.
Combined with the shutting of hundreds of restaurants, The marketing pieces were program based, equipment
athletic clubs, and nail and hair salons, volumes substan- based and solutions using POS systems. We continued to
tially decreased. It has only been since March 2021, that develop our agent portal with an easy-to use e-sign appli-
volumes have started to come back, and only since April cation. We refined all of our power points and delved into
2021 that new business is again coming in and agents are more and more Zoom trainings.
again attacking the street. With our company's business
model of mostly retail, restaurant/food and service busi- Change was dramatic for more than a year. Fortunately
nesses, the bottom didn't look so great. for us, we were able to take advantage of a better product
from Clover including their Flex terminal and Clover Sta-
So what did we do to remain afloat? Given that this is a tion Pro. Both products were on target with our merchant
residual based business, our company still managed to base. Along with the PAX systems, Paradise POS and the
have income coming in. The amount of income coming in new Valor terminal, we had some fresh products to offer.
forced the partners to stop taking any income for an en-
tire year. We were able to obtain a business loan in order The biggest change which had an impact on our business
to keep our employees fully employed without any drop was the movement to cash discount and surcharge pro-
in compensation. We eliminated all non-essential travel, grams. The timing couldn't have been better to introduce
entertainment and purchases. Basically, our company con- these cost savings products to our merchants, who were in
many cases hanging on by a thread.
Our role: I think our role in helping the economy recover
continues to be providing better solutions to merchants.
The companies that have taken advantage of struggling
2021 merchants (and we know some of the big names who
have done it) should stop the antics and stop the price
gouging.
STILL
where the industry meets We in the industry all should be responsible enough to
give merchants who rely on our expertise fair pricing,
gaylord opryland | nashville | july 25-27 honest reporting and new applications that help grow
a business. We shouldn't be hitting our merchants with
OPT products that they have no use for. We shouldn't be
hitting our merchants with outlandish Non-PCI fees of
$125 a month, or made-up fees that continue to show up
on statements. Yes, I agree we are all in the business to
make money. But as professionals shouldn't we provide
processing at a fair cost?
The thing is we all realize that most merchants do not
open up and review their processing each month. With
more companies going green and not sending out paper
statements, the likelihood of merchants going online to
one-stop shop to advance your POS sales view their activity goes down even further. This is what
those entities who recently have decided to charge even
• education higher fees are hoping for. I don't understand how they
• networking sleep at night.
• meet suppliers Some advice: The time has come for agents to get back on
the street, back on the phone—and double their efforts.
www.GoRSPA.org/RetailNOW Yes, a lot of businesses closed, but keep an eye out for
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