rum roll, please. For the final month of the 2004 "Street Smarts" feedback contest, we had ... a tie. Susan Stephens of Bay St. Louis, Miss.-based Electronic Data Resources, and Nadya El-Afandi, of Roseville, Minn.-based Evolve Systems, each submitted a story in December. They will both receive a paid membership to the National Association of Payment Professionals (NAOPP) and paid registration fees for an upcoming regional event of their choice.

In addition, we selected Stephens as the Grand Prize winner for 2004 for the best overall story for the year.

In early 2004 The Green Sheet instituted the contest, which called for readers to submit a story about how information provided in the semi-monthly "Street Smarts" column helped their business.

Everyone who entered received a one-year paid membership to NAOPP. We also awarded the writer of each month's best story paid registration fees to either an Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) Expo Network or a regional acquirers' association meeting.

As the 2004 Grand Prize winner, Stephens receives a fully paid trip to the 2005 ETA Annual Meeting and Expo to be held March 15 - 17 at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

The Grand Prize includes paid registration for the show, round trip airfare, a three-night stay at the Mirage and $500 spending money.

The ETA Annual Meeting and Expo is the premier event for the electronic payment processing industry. Nearly 3,000 professionals from across the country and around the world will attend to learn about new trends, network with peers and explore the latest technologies.

The Green Sheet thanks everyone who participated in the 2004 "Street Smarts" Feedback contest. This contest will not be extended in 2005.

Following are Stephens' and El-Afandi's stories:

Susan Stephens' Story:

Dear "Street Smarts" and Ed Freedman, For the last few months, I have considered submitting a story in your contest and never quite seemed to get around to it. However, the subject has been on my mind so strongly these last few days, and I could not ignore it any longer.

For one thing, I have decided to change and improve many things in my business as an MLS in the new year, and I believe I could not have done it without The Green Sheet or your column.

You asked readers to write about one of your columns that "lead you to success." I have to say that that was too difficult to pinpoint. I have gone back over past columns, and have come up with this:

I have been an MLS for about five years now, and discovered The Green Sheet about three years ago. It has been invaluable to my business. Even more so, your column has been invaluable as well.

I remember so many times I would become incredibly frustrated to the point of wanting to walk away, when an issue of The Green Sheet would appear in my mailbox.

When you began the "Street Smarts" column, it became the first thing I would look for to read when I opened the publication. I knew that I would find something in there to help me, or motivate me, and I always did.

It's confusing enough when so many ISOs advertise with their incredibly enticing offers. Who do you trust? Well, I could always trust "Street Smarts" to answer questions I didn't even realize I needed to be asking.

So, Mr. Freedman, I thank you for your column, your insight, knowledge and willingness to share others' expertise. Please don't ever stop offering this education.

- Susan Stephens,
Electronic Data Resources

Nadya El-Afandi's Story:

The article, "If You Want to Make the Green, Think Greenhorns" (The Green Sheet, July 12, 2004, issue 04:07:01), makes a recommendation to seek out the inexperienced and also ponders the decision to utilize a W-2 or 1099 sales force.

I'll walk you through how that single "Street Smarts" article was a turning point for our office. As a growing ISO, Minnesota-based Evolve Systems has needed to manage that balance of employees vs. contractors. The cash flow realities of a growing ISO are simply that we make use of more 1099s than employees.

The number of displaced workers in the current economy might lead one to believe that contractors would be readily available. Au contraire! These people, already fragile from being displaced, are not great candidates for the uncertainty of commission-based income. Further, the lack of health care benefits provides a significant deterrent to many of the individuals we spoke with, especially if a family was involved.

We were interested in taking advantage of the experienced, un-utilized workforce that surrounded us. Unfortunately, that work force was not so interested in us. Our reality called for 1099 workers to whom we could offer the lure of unlimited future income based entirely upon one's own efforts and abilities, with no expectation of retirement or health care benefits.

Ideally, that person did not have a family to support, possibly had other means of income available until individual sales took off, already had some form of health care, had their own transportation, and was eager, enthusiastic and willing to learn.

Placing ads in local college newspapers and working with college placement offices gave us exactly the type of person we needed. We even had some students requesting non-paying internships.

Our new recruits had all the confidence of youth, the eagerness to succeed and learned very quickly where the big payoffs are found.

One rep started contacting banks and credit unions. He would get the appointment and together we would make the presentation.

One sales call had us waiting half an hour for the President. In the meantime, we chatted with the Chief Operating Officer and discovered that they were utilizing services from a company that provided financial services to credit unions.

Later that week we were meeting with a company that provided financial services to over 50 credit unions in the metro area yet did not have a merchant-processing offering.

We presented who we were, what we had to offer, and how we could benefit them, their member credit unions and also their individual members.

We are now the sole provider of merchant processing services to a large majority of the credit unions in the Twin Cities metro area. Truly, this is a case of greenhorns bringing in the green.

- Nadya El-Afandi,
Vice President Sales, Evolve Systems