The Green Sheet Online Edition
November 24, 2025 • 25:11:02
Street Smarts
10 stupid ways to lose a sale
Payments is a competitive business. Consumers have more ways to pay. Merchants have more ways to accept payments. And ISOs and merchant level salespeople (MLSs) have more challenges convincing merchants to choose their brands.
In this environment, where we need to work smarter, not harder, why work stupider? Just the other day, four MLSs challenged the top 10 points I've promoted on StreetSmartsSM. Rather than argue, I sat back and let them show me 10 top ways to lose a sale. And here they are:
- Sell processing, not product
March in and sell savings and service. Ignore the fact that merchants care more about products than processing. Shout over their objections by explaining how much you can save them in processing fees, so your competitors can say the same thing tomorrow and take away the sale or account.
- Pay to play
Drop your pants (figuratively speaking) by offering discounts and money to get accounts. Make it harder for the rest of us to earn an honest living by sharing residual income with the merchants you sign up.
Merchants who go along will disrespect you for giving away your own residual streams.
- Use cheap cards, generic emails
Hey Mr. Gmail with cheap business cards and no website, you know who you are. Keep handing out those cheesy cards and generic emails without a dot.com address. Keep telling merchants about your cutting-edge technology without bothering to invest in a small one-page website and professional email address, which are more affordable than ever.
- Sell one-size-fits-all solutions
Keep selling shiny all-in-one solutions that look like they rolled off an assembly line. Keep pushing cash discount to people who don't want it, and don't listen when they try to tell you the problems they're facing.
- Avoid networking, community service
Stay on the couch, surfing the web, commenting on merchant Facebook groups and checking your portal every fifteen minutes to track your sales pipeline. Don't attend networking events at the local chamber or happy hours where you could meet potential prospects and partners. Don't bother to volunteer in your community.
- Offer complicated apps, onboarding procedures
Make it harder for people to do business with you. Avoid fintech and embedded finance solutions that make it easy to apply for services and merchant accounts. Have an onboarding process that makes them feel like a contestant on America's Got Talent.
- Do not follow-up
Forget Rule Number One of responding quickly to leads and inquiries. Make it your mission to never return a merchant's call. Avoid having an active blog or newsletter that would make you discoverable. Stay undercover and out of reach.
- Make up stuff
Never sell what you have, which is way too boring. Offer merchants vaporware or products that your company has no plans of ever offering. Then tell your sales manager and underwriter it's their fault you lost the sale because they don't have the right product mix.
- Badmouth your competitors
Insult merchants by telling them they picked a real loser to process with, but you can fix that problem right away by switching them over. Make up stories about others competing for the same account, about how unscrupulous they are, which will not be hard because you wrote the playbook.
- Be late and dress inappropriately
Show up late and unshaven or wet from a recent soak in the hot tub, or better yet, dress like a banker to let the world know you still think it's 1999. Dress to impress and avoid looking like a copycat by mirroring your prospect's dress code.
- Commit fraud
Go along when a merchant shows you fake documents and fake websites, and think about all the new friends you will make in jail. Follow the money; don't worry about inconvenient things like ethics. Make friends with scammers and scale your bank account.
Friends and fellow MLSs and ISOs, it's time to under-promise and over-deliver once again. If any of the 10 stupid ways to lose a sale look familiar, it's not too late to change the game.
Want to know more? Keep reading The Green Sheet and consider following me on LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/allenkopelman, where we can share ideas and support each other. 
Allen Kopelman, a serial entrepreneur, is co-founder and CEO of Nationwide Payment Systems Inc. and host of B2B Vault: The Biz to Biz podcast. Email him at allen@npsbank.com and connect on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenkopelman/ and Twitter @AllenKopelman.
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