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Shaw Merchant Group
Tuesday, August 01 2023
How to Succeed at Merchant Account Sales?

Wondering how to become a merchant services agent and just crush it in the sales game? Well, it is both easy and challenging. It’s easy for those who know what they need to do to become a successful sales agent and difficult for those who are clueless.

So to help you have a pretty good idea of things, we have come up with this guide. It will help you up your merchant services game with just a few practical approaches. So with that said, let’s start:

5 Core Elements to Work on to Become a Successful Merchant Services Agent:

1. Decide Your Approach:

One of the most important parts of not just the ISO agent program, but any business, is that you have the groundwork laid out. When you become a merchant services agent, you will have to make a complete business plan and decide your approach before stepping out into the field. There are various aspects that you need to consider, and some of the main ones are:

  • What will be your target market? (Individual street-side stores or the ones in malls)
  • What will be your target industry? (High-risk industries like CBD or low risk like parking garages)
  • How will you make money? (Sell plans only or other things like terminals as well?)
  • How will you approach a customer? (Your pitch – most important)
  • How will you market your business? (Cold calling, internet marketing, word of mouth, anything else?)

Everyone wants to become a credit card processing agent because of the freedom this job grants; no more bosses micromanaging you! However, this also means that you are mostly on your own in the field. You need to come up with a strategy, decide your approach, take action, and keep refining the strategy based on results.

2. Spread the Word:

Sales business benefits a lot from social networking. The more contacts you have, the more clients you can expect from every direction. People in today’s world don’t blindly trust any business, which is why they ask their friends and family for referrals and usually end up trying out the referred business.

According to BigCommerce; 92% of people believe in suggestions coming from friends/family more than advertising. This shows how powerful referrals can be, which is why you need them! You will work on two types of referrals besides the general business contacts.

  • Commission Based: These will be the people you will pay a percentage of your commission for bringing you leads. They can be your relatives, friends, family members or someone you go to the gym with. The gist is, you will tell them to look out for any merchant in need of credit card processing facility, refer them to you, you will educate them, close the deal and share some of your commission with the referrer.
  • Merchant Based: These will be directly the merchants. You can visit different merchants in your vicinity, introduce yourself, ask them if they need any help with their credit card processor, and just help them without charging anything. You are actually selling without selling! When they see you are there for them when they need you, they will put trust in you, and sooner or later, either they will switch to your credit card processor or tell their ‘merchant-friends’ about you. Either way, it’s a win-win for you! Making yourself known in the community and increasing your exposure will reward you with sales and opportunities you wouldn’t have thought about.

3. Choose the Right Credit Card Processor:

Choosing the ISO agent partnership is the most careful thing to do. It can either make your merchant sales career or break it. Most of the ISO agent programs will promise to bring the moon for you if you bring sales, but not everyone will really live up to their promises. So to help you find the right program, we have outlined some tips below:

  • See if they are offering their customers free add-ons like POS terminal, and signage. These things make it easy for you to sell.
  • Do they have fair pricing? The processing fee and their monthly service fee should not be too high that discourage the merchants from taking the plan.
  • Do they offer a cash discount program? Here, the merchants can offset any processing fee directly to their customers and not pay anything.
  • Are they using the latest equipment and software? How smooth is their POS interface?
  • How good is their customer support for both merchants and agents? You want a processor that won’t leave you hanging when you need help.
  • Will they work in high-risk industries like CBD, Pharmacy, and Tobacco, etc.? You might not work in these industries now, but when your business grows, you will have to.

Check your contract with them, check your fee schedule, and see how much you will be paid in commission; it should be fair. Also, they should have various bonuses available for achieving good sales.

• You should not be bound to make X number of sales to continue receiving residual income from your previous client; they should be yours no matter what your sales numbers are.

• You should not be bound to only work with them until the contract ends, working with other processors simultaneously should be an option.

You also want to ensure that the ISO agent program you are working with offers amply training resources so you can better equip yourself with knowledge about the product.

Tip: Try exploring our ISO agent program; we fit this criteria and have been in the game for several years. You might find your a perfect match without having to comb through the market.

4. Be a Sponge and Absorb Knowledge:

Be it merchant services sales or any other business; knowledge is power, which is why you need to be the sponge. Absorb as much knowledge as you can about your business, the market, the customers, and, more importantly, the product.

Start by devouring the educational and training material provided by your ISO agent provider. Side note; Shaw Mrchant Group offers a wealth of resources for gaining knowledge and proper sales training.

Once you are done by company training material, take courses on platforms like Lynda, Udemy and Coursera, etc. Not only you need to learn about your market, product, and target audience, but you also need to know about the tactics of selling effectively.

5. Honesty is the Best Policy:

They say honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom, and I say you need to read this whole book. To become a merchant services agent who gets results and is loved by his customers, you need both honesty and wisdom.

You need to have wisdom allowing you to help your potential clients without asking anything in return as they will bring you good business once they trust you. You need to be an absolute truthful person so that merchants can rely on you for their credit card processing needs.

Once they do, they won’t go anywhere, and you’ll be getting continuous residual income. So being wise and honest will only add wings to your business, keep practicing both.

Practical Tips for Selling the Merchant Accounts:

  • Learn to Identify Prospects: Rule 101 in a sales agent’s notebook; drop the bad prospects, and focus on good ones. Let’s say you visit 10 prospects, 8 of them are not interested in talking to you, and some may even talk harshly, drop them. Focus on the remaining two who discussed their business with you or at least showed some respect.
  • Talk Less Listen More: You need to use your ears more than your tongue. Listen to the pain points of your potential clients, and only talk when you have a solution or a question. Let them feel that they can rant in front of you, and you will listen and solve their issues. Just let them talk themselves into sales!
  • Don’t Be Pushy: Do not make your prospects feel like they are being pushed or pressured into making a purchase from you; you might soon get banned from their store. Instead, just have patience, and keep visiting them from time to time. Don’t let them forget you, and once an opportunity comes up, you will be the first one in their minds.
  • Be Creative: You cannot sell by selling, this is not the 70’s, and everyone knows the old tactics of selling, so you need to be creative. Let me give you an example of creativity; there was this merchant that had a POS which didn’t support the processing program that the agent was selling. The agent gave him a free POS terminal as his company; (SMG allows it), sold the old one on eBay, and gave full money back to the merchant. You can imagine if the merchant converted or not!

Over to You:

To become a credit card processing agent, you will have to do a lot than just wearing a shoulder bag and using gel in your hair. You need to have a plan, a network of referrals, the right type of processor, a wealth of knowledge, and an honest approach. Only with these core elements, you can make it to the top.

Posted by: Shaw Merchant Group AT 12:04 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
 

ISO Agent Partnerships

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.

Registed DBA 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:

  1. A letter authorizing EPX to register your DBA on your company letterhead.
  2. A high resolution image of your company logo.
  3. 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.
  4. The ISO Branding request form.

    ©2023 Shaw Merchant Group is a registered DBA of EPX, a registered ISO of BMO Harris Bank N.A., Chicago, IL, Fresno First Bank, Fresno, CA, and Citizens Bank N.A., Providence, RI.