Selling Credit Card Processing and Merchant Services | Pros and Cons

Going to businesses and getting them signed up for credit card processing is a potentially great career to do if you understand the risks involved.  Like anything else you do in life, you need to be aware of everything that will be expected of you.  Assuming you are making the correct choice, it can be a profitable enterprise for you.  One of the main reasons why it could be such a great move is because all companies, great and small, need to be able to process credit card and other alternative forms of payment in our increasingly cashless society.  In this modern era we do almost everything electronically, and our in person transactions are typically done with a plastic card.  Due to this myriad of new styles of payments, most companies do not expend the time and effort needed to keep track of all these things.  That is where you come into play.  As a purveyor of credit card processing and merchant services, you will not only be able to assist companies with their day-to-day operations, but you will be able to draw a percentage yourself off of every transaction that utilizes your services.  Therefore, if you are mobile in car, computer, and phone, not to mention the drive to sell your product, you already have everything you need to make money in this endeavor.

This is not to say that it will always be smooth sailing.  You will need to grow accustomed to hearing the word “no” a lot.  It is not that people are necessarily trying to be unfriendly, although that will sometimes occur.  Instead, it mainly has to do with essentially being a door-to-door salesperson, which has never been one of the more accepted professions in our society despite being lucrative.  People will simply not want to give you the time of the day.  You could have the best service for them, but if they are busy their task at hand comes first.  It is understandable that people have a job to do, and this is especially true for small business owners.  As such, do not be surprised if you are not given much attention when you butt into their daily affairs.  As the saying goes, it is not personal, it is just business.  It does not matter how friendly you are, how well dressed you are, or even the quality of your service.  People want to focus on the things that matter to them the most and will have trouble seeing how you fit into the picture.  Nonetheless, perseverance does pay off.  When you can get the most stubborn client to finally speak to you and you are able to lay out all the benefits of credit card processing and merchant services, they usually see the light.   It will also help you to appreciate the more initially receptive customers who might make your trip to their place of business well worth your while.

Now that you understand a bit more of some of the possible risks involved, we can turn our attention to some of the perks.  One of the hidden joys of providing credit card processing and merchant services has to do with the connections you will make with people.  It is not simply about providing a service, however.  Though they sign a contract and you leave their business that day, you will now have a vested interest in seeing that company succeed and profit.  Because you now have an incentive, this will mean answering any questions they might have regarding the process and the way it works.  You will want to ensure that their credit card machines and online processing are working at their peak performance.  This is doing business at the speed of the digital age.  Most business owners know how their company runs, but they do not understand all the ways they take in money.  Hence you can be of the utmost service to your clients by ensuring that they can communicate with you whenever a problem arises, just like in any other relationship.  Making sure you maintain those avenues of communication will help convince your clients to stick with you once their contract expires and they are free to seek other credit card processing services.  A happy customer, as another saying goes, is usually a customer for life.  And if they are a life-long customer, you will see that percentage of their business that you get grow and continue for the foreseeable future.

Another benefit of maintaining good relationships with customers is word of mouth.  If they are satisfied with the credit card processing and merchant services you provide, chances are they are going to tell their friends who are also business owners.  You thus have the potential to ingratiate yourself into an entire network that will keep your percentages growing.  It is also likely that the business owners will want you to provide the same services for any other company that they decide to open.  In other words, you can get in on the ground floor of some major operations.  All it took on your part was the initial sale and it almost increases itself.

It is that initial effort that can mean the difference between staying small time and really developing a chunk of change on which you can rely on a monthly basis.  Through credit card processing and merchant services, you will have multiple revenue streams of various sizes.  But maintaining good business relationships is key to achieving this goal.  It does take hard work, and you will put in the typical forty hour work week that any other person does.  However, you will be able to set your own schedule, which can be handy when you are dealing with a variety of clients with different schedules.  Because many business owners like to have weekends off as much as you do, you will typically not have to work many of them.  If you are able to do all these things, you will build a kind of business of your own that will almost be able to grow itself.