Merchant Services Sales Training: What You Need to Know

Saturday, March 18 2023

Merchant services sales is one of the hottest and most lucrative sales industries on the market right now, and for that reason it is incredibly attractive. It is true that you can earn great money being a merchant services agent, but it often requires a strict training program and dedication to the craft. If you want to be successful in merchant sales, then there are some key pillars that you will need to be familiar with that will help you to succeed and thrive in merchant services sales. By following this crucial training structure, you can set yourself up for success in the merchant services industry.

Pursue a quality partnership

The first concept that you will need to be familiar with in your merchant services sales training regimen is that you should pursue a quality partnership and arrangement with a merchant services provider. As a merchant services salesperson, you will work under the umbrella of a merchant services provider that will be the backbone of your business. The partner that you choose will administer these services to the merchants that you sell to, so it’s very important that you find a merchant services provider that is reputable and can provide you with all the benefits that you need for success in the merchant services industry.

There are a few things that you should look for in a quality partnership with a merchant services provider such as prompt payment, good payment structure, frequent bonuses, large share of profits, quality support staff, solutions for every industry, and tools to help you succeed. A quality partner that can provide you with all of these things is one that can help catapult you to success in merchant services and enjoyment of a life that earns passive income. It’s critically important that you make the right decision when it comes to the merchant services provider that you choose.

Optimize your pricing structure

While sales is mostly about making connections with businesses and selling your products, there are a lot of other things that you can do to help yourself have success. One of the more subtle things that you can do is to optimize your pricing structure to provide you with more margin and more opportunities to increase your revenue. There are several ways that you can do this by offering upsells, sticking to strict limitations when offering discounts, and others.

While a change in your pricing structure might not make a large effect right away, when the effects are compounded over hundreds of transactions, you can notice a very large difference that will greatly impact the trajectory of your merchant services career.

The more options, the better

When you are going through the preliminary stages of training to be a merchant services agent, one of the most important things that you should be on the lookout for is a merchant services provider that doesn’t limit you by their payment processing capability or options. You should seek to work with a merchant services partner that provides you with a wide range of payment processing options such as debit, credit, cash, ACH, and others. When your partner offers these additional methods, you can offer them to your merchants. Merchants like to be presented with multiple options and flexibility, so if you can offer them flexibility in their payment processing solution, then they are more likely to work with you for their merchant services needs.

Providing good customer service

One of the most important lessons that you will learn in merchant services sales training is that customer service should be your main priority at all times. The customer is the most important party in the entire transaction and without happy customers as your merchants, you will find a very hard time succeeding in merchant services sales.

Providing good customer service is something that you will have to master if you want to get to the point where you are converting more customers and increasing your portfolio of merchants. To do this, you should be sure to always be attentive to customers’ needs, answer questions in a timely manner, and be able to get in touch with them whenever they need something from you.

However, you are not the only important person in the process when it comes to customer service. You should be partnering with a merchant services provider that also values the power of good customer service if you want to have success in merchant services sales. This means evaluating how well your merchant services provider is able to meet the needs of customers and what their reputation is for providing service to the merchants that they oversee.

If you can provide a good customer service experience to your merchants, then they are much more likely to continue coming back to you time and again for their processing needs.

Free terminals included

If you want to have success in merchant services sales, then you’ll quickly learn one of the secrets of the industry is to include a free terminal for your merchant. Not only do merchants love to have free bonuses included in their processing packages, but you’ll also be providing your merchant with a POS that is specifically designed to increase performance and efficiency while using your offering of processing solutions. With a terminal that is specifically designed to help your solution work in the best way possible, you can be sure that they are getting the best possible user experience that they could want.

This also helps your relationship with the merchant. Providing them with incentives is one thing, but they can take additional confidence in knowing that they are partnered with an agent that cares enough about their merchants to ensure that they have the proper equipment to get the job done the right way. If you want to increase your conversion rate and improve the quality of your relationships with your merchants, then offering a free POS system is a great way to do so and is now considered industry-standard.

Posted by: Shaw Merchant Group AT 03:21 pm | Permalink | Email

ISO Agent Partnership

Become a payment service provider today and take your business to the next level. If you are a sales-oriented individual with vast experience in the world of payment processing or you are a driven and motivated professional looking for a new challenge, the SMG ISO agent program might be a great fit for you. With the highest paying commission structure in the industry, superior products, and sales support, our program will see to it that you are rewarded for your efforts.

For anyone with a sales background or a passion for the payments industry, SMG is the ideal partnership. There are dozens of reasons to become a sales partner with Shaw Merchant Group, but don’t just take our word for it. Here are some of the top reasons that we were given when we asked our ISO agent participants why they chose us and why they continue to work with our highly lucrative program.

Sales Partner Portal

With our industry leading partner portal, you’ll have access to online enrollment, training sessions, marketing materials, and you’ll always be ahead of the game with the latest news and promotions.

Alerts

Stay up-to-date on merchant issues and their resolutions via automated emails and text messages that include a detailed ticket number describing what the merchant’s concern was and how it was resolved.

Registered DBA (White Label)

With our program, you’ll be able to market under your own brand, without paying costly fees! Your brand will be seen on the partner portal, marketing communications, merchant statements, and more.

Free Equipment for Your Merchants

Selling businesses on a new processing plan is much easier when you are able to effortlessly jump over the hurdle of the cost of the equipment. With this program, you can offer your clients free equipment that they will need for their processing provider change. This lowers the barrier to switching and creates a higher conversion rate for you.

Lifetime Passive Income

You will recieve 50–70% of residual income based on the pay structure you select. You will share income on every available revenue stream. With SMG, you get a True Interchange Revenue Split. Unlike other ISO agent programs, there is no basis points off the top for BIN sponsorship or for what they call hidden losses. Our sales partners earn more residual income with our 50/50 partner program than you would with our competition who claim to offer a higher percentage because thier interchange cost (buy rate) is higher.

$20K Performance Bonus

We offer a performance-based fast start bonus that is payable for anyone that onboards more than the standard threshold of clients in the first 4 months. This program is designed to reward those experienced sales members that join our team and quickly learn how to sell this product. The bonus can reach up to $20,000, making it one of the most lucrative and competitive in the industry.

Profitability Based Bonuses

We will look at how much profit is generated on the account after they have been processing for one month and you earn 14 times of the total profit. Example: If we retain $100 in residuals in that month, the bonus would be 14 x $100 or $1,400. You would have already been paid $600, so we would pay you an additional $800 on that account. This bonus is capped at a max of $10,000 per merchant per location. With our dual pricing program it is easier than ever to earn huge bonuses with a 14x profitability bonus. This dual pricing model enables you to maximize your bonus at $10,000 on almost every merchant processing over $90k.

Dual Pricing Program

When you are selling merchant services, one of the best assets of any partner program is more rewards and incentive programs that save your client money. The Edge dual pricing program is one of the hottest new commodities in credit card processing, as it is designed to save the client thousands of dollars in credit card processing cost, instead passing on the fee to the consumer in a way that isn’t damaging to their own conversion rate and revenue. We offer this program to our clients and make it easy to understand and present for our sales partners.

Medical Benefits

With some sales jobs, you don’t even have the option for medical coverage. With the SMG ISO agent program, you’ll have the resources that you need to provide healthcare coverage to you and your family at an affordable rate. We take care of our own, and when you are in our program you will have access to these benefits.

White Label ISO Program

Grow Your Merchant Services ISO with White-Label Payment Solutions

As an independent sales organization (ISO), you can upgrade your business by providing merchant processing services under your own brand. You may dismiss the idea at first, probably thinking that you don’t have the infrastructure or expertise to set up your own payment processing company. However, with white label payment processing, all you really need is a good ISO partner.

How a White Label ISO Program Works

To offer payment processing services under your own brand, your ISO partner will provide you with an online application page that doesn’t identify their company. This “white label” solution is ready for your brand and includes your logo, colors, and contact information, so your merchants only identify the payment solutions with your company. It eliminates any confusion among your merchant customers about who their service provider and primary contact should be. Your brand is the only thing the merchant will see on your website, merchant portal, and marketing materials.

Your payments ISO partner becomes a silent partner, providing technology, payments functionality, and services. This puts you in more control, allowing you to deliver seamless, consistent customer experiences in all interactions – and enhance your brand’s reputation. With this white label payment solution, you won’t need to overcome negative perceptions a prospect may have about the company your working with. This is because you are creating a unique customer experience. Better still, you don't have to fall in line with another company's existing customer experience.

Once you start providing white label payment services, you will also find that you build stronger, longer lasting relationships with your merchants. They'll begin to view you as a payments expert and an expert in the other solutions you provide. You may even find you are able to grow your customer base, as merchants in every vertical or niche can benefit from accepting payments, enabling you to market to more types of businesses.

Remember: white label payment processing enables you to earn huge residual income.

Our White Label Program Will Save You Thousands in Fees

Put your brand on merchant statements and applications — build your brand with your sub-agents and merchants. Full white label payment solution with your logo and branding on applications, statements, online enrollment, merchant and partner portals.

We at Shaw Merchant Group have an awesome white label solution. There is no huge package of documents for you to fill out, no approval process by Visa and Mastercard and the sponsor banks, and best of all no annual dues. Here are some details on the “White Label ISO” program:

Roughly 4–5 weeks to fully set up once we get the signed license document back.
Executed addendum from you saying it’s OK for us to use your brand too.
This program can run on our standard schedule A’s with bonus and free equipment and has no other obligations. from you other than the standard agent agreement.
When we set up the DBA you will have access to EPX/BMO Harris for submitting merchants under your brand.

What do we brand?

Paper Applications
Online Applications (Simplified Enrollment)
Partner.PaymentsHub for your back office.
PaymentsHub for your merchants — It’s generic when your merchant logs in and then show your brand once inside.
Merchant Support Email — TMS (ticket management system) which emails you and your merchant each time we speak with your merchant and shows the proper brand in the notice and as the from address on the email.
Merchant Support Phone — Our call centers answer with a generic “merchant services” then once they have the MID identified, they represent your brand.
Deployment Packages — Generic boxes and welcome docs inside with proper brand.

What we need:

A letter authorizing EPX to register your DBA on your company letterhead.
A high resolution image of your company logo.
A certificate of good standing from the state you are registered in. It may not be called a certificate of 'good standing' in some states.
The ISO Branding request form.