The payments industry is changing rapidly.

With new players from the tech world already in our space, and others circling our industry, Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) and Agents are facing more competition than ever.  It’s imperative that sales agents align with a partner who can provide both out-of-the-box products and truly intuitive, easily customizable products that allow them to compete and win merchant clients on a level beyond just pricing and support.

Agents, the best way to separate yourself from the competition is to treat the sale as a consultation.

How do you take a consultative approach?  Make the sale more about how working with you provides the merchant with an advocate who is a valued expert resource and sounding board.  This approach makes it easier for you to develop and maintain the relationships you create.  Sell the fact that you will improve the overall process of accepting payments in these key areas:

1. Reporting
2. Accounting
3. Bin Range Reconciliation
4. Interchange Optimization
5. Data Management
6. Security

One thing that consultants do very well – and something that you as agents must master – is listening.  On every sales call: LISTEN to the merchant.

Invest the time to talk to the merchant about his or her pain points, and then respond with how you can help relieve these frustrations – either through educating the merchant on how to read statements or providing a product that solves the issue.  This is the best way to make it more than just savings and really develop the long term relationships that lead to the types of merchants who make up a strong portfolio.

The processing partner you pick today will determine your future success.  Take time to review your current portfolio, your sales pipeline and your product offerings.  Your partner should help you to stay on the cutting edge of payments technology and value your relationship.

Agent partners of CardConnect have access to the following products that help them make the merchant sale about more than just price:

• CardConnect Gateway API – Integrate our payment gateway to enable businesses to accept payments within any ERP, business management application, or online shopping cart.
• CardConnect Virtual Terminal – Run transactions and research your payment processing activity within our easy-to-use web application.
• CardConnect CardSecure – Encrypt and tokenize credit card and customer data, removing your business from PCI Compliance scope.
• SmartPay Online Billing – Our invoice presentment and billing tool gives a business’s customers the ability to receive, view and pay bills online.
• CoPilot – The most powerful ISO management tool on the market, CoPilot provides one place to track everything from merchant application processing to risk monitoring, reporting and customer service.

If your processing partner is not providing you with several products that you can offer to your merchant clients, it may be time to look elsewhere.

Over the course of this series, I will address many topics that are important to running a payments business.  Are there any in particular that you’d like me to cover? Let me know in the comments below.