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.