he Phoenix Group, an independent point-of-sale equipment distributor based in St. Charles, Mo., opened for business in November 2001 with a vision of providing high quality products and services to ISOs, along with creating strong relationships with its customers. The company has not faltered from this vision and a year and a half later, amid a highly competitive market, The Phoenix Group is going strong.

"Business is wonderful," said Scott Rutledge, the company's founder and President. "I think it's the fact that all we've done is exactly what we said we'd do: 'We're going to treat people with respect and honesty, give them fair pricing and keep our overhead low so we can keep our prices low.' And it's just taken off like gangbusters over here."

The Phoenix Group sells both new and refurbished equipment directly to ISOs and provides them with services such as equipment deployment and repair, overnight replacement of that equipment and equipment buy-back programs. Rutledge said the company sells thousands of pieces of equipment a month now and signs new customers every day. Customers range from large Independent Sales Organizations to individual agents. The company attributes most of its growth to advertising and word of mouth from having a good reputation.

"When we advertise in publications like The Green Sheet, that drives the calls," he said. "When the calls come in, then it's simply just getting to know the customers. If you have a good business and you have good morals and the customers have a decent business, then it clicks."

The Phoenix Group's business model is to not do what its competitors do - an everything-under-one-roof approach. The company still offers an all-and-everything menu of services and products, but it has formed partnerships with trusted providers to supply many of these services rather than try to do it all alone.

"We'll sell the equipment, and we'll stand behind it - probably better than anybody," he said. "But when it comes to the services, we'll either do it ourselves or we sub it out to some of our strategic partners. And by doing that, we can maintain a very, very reasonable overhead, which means our equipment pricing is extremely competitive."

What also sets the company apart from the competition is its ability to create and maintain personal relationships with its customers. After a sales organization or agent makes initial contact with The Phoenix Group and receives the company's information packet, Rutledge tries to call every new customer himself.

He calls to get a better understanding of the customer's business and its needs. He'll ask questions such as "How many sales do you do a month?" and "Who is your processor?" and "Why are you currently looking for a new distributor?" Rutledge believes that if the customer is looking for a new distributor, then he or she obviously is not satisfied with some aspect of that relationship. He'll try to find out the reason why and then earn the business with The Phoenix Group's policies.

Some of these policies include not charging handling fees, not bumping up freight charges, not adding on miscellaneous charges or restocking fees. "All those nickel-dime fees," Rutledge said. "We enjoy the people we choose to do business with and we enjoy the relationships that we have with them. We'll bend over backward to get things done for them if need be, and if they're not the type that appreciate that or want to do business like that, it's fine. We shake hands, we part ways and that's that."

The Phoenix Group also uses a database to track each customer's preferences and attempts to meet those preferences when providing equipment and services.

"Some guys like their equipment shipped with a custom label on it, some guys like their equipment shipped where it says 'please deliver at the site door,' " he said. "There just are so many different variations in terms of how people like their stuff. We try to accommodate all the little idiosyncrasies of every order and, for the most part, we're pretty successful at that because we keep good records."

As an independent distributor, The Phoenix Group sells equipment mainly from Hypercom, Ingenico, Lipman, MagTek, Thales and VeriFone. Small manufacturers often approach Rutledge and ask him to sell their equipment, but just as The Phoenix Group won't do business with every customer, it won't sell just any piece of hardware, either - only quality pieces that are certified and being used.

"If it's a viable product, we're all over it," he said. "If it's not, we'll say, 'Give it a few months.' Let it get certified. If they have some of the big certifications, then we'll support it."

Rutledge believes part of the benefit of being an independent distributor is that he sells what sales agents want and what their customers demand. "There's no processor behind me looking for transactions or looking for specific banks or specific ISOs," he said. "There's no hardware manufacturer behind me where I go out and tell everybody that calls that this certain piece of equipment is the best thing out there when it very well may not be the best thing out there.

"If you want a Lipman, you get a Lipman. If you want a VeriFone, you get a VeriFone. If you want to know about any one of them, I'll tell you everything there is to know about every single piece of equipment that you want to ask about."

If asked, The Phoenix Group provides sales agents with recommendations on equipment based on their individual needs and directs them to processors and other companies with experience using that equipment.

"If they have a long history of using Lipman devices or using VeriFone devices and they say their preferences are toward that, we'll try to tailor a solution on the platform that they are used to," Rutledge said. "If that platform is not a viable platform for where they want to go, we'll suggest other things to them."

Rutledge said The Phoenix Group will try to help its customers in any way it can - and sales agents are shocked when they do this: "They call back and say, 'I can't believe that you helped me with this.' If I can't get to know the people, or if someone here can't get to know the people and know what they need, then we've lost the battle. Then you may as well label us the same as everybody else."