Every Merchant Service ISO Should Provide Their Sales Agents With These 10 Things
Merchant services such as POS systems and credit card processing are an invaluable part of any
retail business, and as such the job of a merchant service company is critical. The role that the sales
agents of these companies play is just as important, as they are the intermediaries that make all of these
deals work. If you are a sales agent, you are going to need a partner company that is on your side, or
else you are not setting yourself up for success, and you are bound to disappoint your customers as
well.
As a sales agent, you're running a business, so it's actually your responsibility to make sure thatyou have everything that you need to get the job done. Part of that responsibility encompasses choosing
a merchant services company that you would be proud to be partners with. In business, relationships
are everything, and you need to choose the kind of relationship that will benefit all parties involved, or
else it won't be sustainable. Because of this, it is important to “shop around” and make sure that you
have carefully examined the terms that you will be working with.
Not all companies will be worth it because they may be trying to get you to push a shoddy
product or to try to sell way above market price, so you must choose carefully. There are a few key
things that you should keep an eye out for that will indicate a promising choice, and ideally thecompany that you choose as your partner should exhibit all of these traits and provide you with all ofthese resources. Let's take a look at them closely to get a better idea of what your business will require:
1) A Win-Win Partnership
Of course, a business (even yours) will always act in its own self-interest, so agreements willoften be skewed at least slightly in the favor of the merchant service company that you're working with.
The point is to carefully review the terms and make sure that they are at least fair before you go ahead
and sign up. It may seem like overkill, but you might even want to hire a specialized lawyer to lookover the paperwork if you feel like you might miss something or if you're not totally sure what you're
getting into. At any rate, make sure you have an exact idea of what the terms are before you get started
or it may come back to haunt you later. As “the little guy,” you have a lot more to lose when things gowrong.
Here are a few things you're going to want to keep in mind when you're looking over youragreement:- You shouldn't be liable for your merchant's losses or chargebacks. Make sure that this isstated plainly in black and white. You shouldn't have to bear any of the risk of the merchants andshould be held blameless in the event of losses. You also shouldn't have to pay for any chargebacks thatthe merchant experiences.

- Your revenue sharing model should be balanced. This is especially true when it comes toyour residuals. Make sure that you have a fair amount coming to you for every sale. You do all of theheavy lifting to get the lead, so you deserve a cut of the profits for as long as that customer pays.
- Don't let them force you into exclusivity. Don't allow yourself to be seduced by a single
company because you never know how things are going to turn out, especially if you're new to thebusiness. Relationships can fall apart, or you might notice better deals with new companies as you
work. Never paint yourself into a corner and sign any kind of exclusivity agreement.
- Make sure that you get what you're entitled to, even after a contract ends. Part of whatmakes merchant services so lucrative is that you will have access to residual income streams even longafter your initial sale. As the sales agent who established that lead, you are entitled to the residuals fromthe merchants that you have sold to. It doesn't matter if your contract with the merchant services
company expires or is severed in some other way, you must be able to still receive that income for thelife of the merchant's account. More importantly, you should be able to sell these residual streams as
well, or secure loans against them.
- Make sure that you can move your merchants to another processor in the event that you
are not paid. Normally, payment processors aren't going to want you to take the leads you gave themand then switch them to another processor, but you may have to do this to protect your asset. This may
take some negotiation, but you're going to want to establish that if the merchant services company fails
to pay you your residuals from a given merchant, that you can switch the merchant to another service
provider.
This is not a completely exhaustive list, which is why you will want to check with a lawyer if
you can. Speaking of lawyers, make sure that your contract specifies that you can recover attorney's
fees in the even of a lawsuit.
2) A Price Scheme That Works
Selling merchant services is a line of work with a huge potential for both active and passive
income. As you might expect, this means that you're certainly not the only sales agent out there andthat you have tons of competition. Though it is always best to not attempt to compete on price, and to
focus on value creation for your customer, you won't get very far if your prices are too high.
Try to negotiate to get the best deal with the payment processor or else you are going to have a
hard time selling your wares. The fees for your merchant can really add up, so make sure that you are
passing on the savings. In the long run, the better deal your clients get, the better your residuals arelikely to be. Remember that you are helping your merchants to stay in business.
Perform your due diligence and make all the calculations before you determine if a deal isworth it or not.
3) Multiple Payment Processors
Your merchant service partner ideally should allow your merchant to use many different
payment processing services. The more options, the better, because there's nothing worse than losing apotential lead simply because they want to use their current processor. Whatever POS system that you
are selling, it should be flexible and allow for many different processors and payment methods.
4) Good Customer Service
Customers are the heart of your business, and without them, you can't hope to thrive. Ideally,
since so much of your business is based on residuals, you want to acquire customers that you can serve
over the long-term. One of the things that will absolutely kill customer retention is bad technicalsupport and customer service. You may be doing the best you can to solve your client's problems, but if
the merchant services company can't hold up their end of the bargain when it comes to customer
support, it is like you have wasted all of your efforts.
Makes sure to ask lots of questions before you sign a contract and do plenty of research about
the company, because you are ultimately putting your valuable merchant connections into their hands.
Take a few of these factors into consideration:- The size of their customer support department.
What kind of investment, in terms of labor, do they make in the realm of customer support? If
you or your clients call to fix some technical issues, how long will you have to wait before you can talkto a human being?
- The quality of the customer support.
Are the people on the other end of the line well-trained? Do they actually successful solve yourclients' problems in a timely manner, or do they seem under-trained and clueless? Do novel problems
that don't follow their script make them confused?
- The hours of their customer support lines.
Do their customer support call centers have decent hours? Ideally, they would be available
around the clock, though this isn't always realistic, of course. Another thing you will want to consider
is what happens if a client calls and it is after-hours.
- Whether they do out-calls.
Is the merchant service company willing to send tech support technicians out to your merchant's
location? Many times, this can actually be faster and easier for your merchant than their having sit there
on the line with a remote technician, especially if the problem is hardware-related.
- What is the training like?
What kind of help does the merchant service provider give to your client to get them up andrunning? Do they offer training material? Do representatives from the company go on-site to showthem?
- Are you informed about customer service issues or kept in the dark?
At the very least, you should get a call or some form of notification when your merchant ishaving technical trouble. Even better, it would be great if they provide you with a way to remotely
access all of your client's trouble tickets.

Remember all of these factors when you are choosing a good partner company. It can mean a
lot when it comes to customer retention. The thing is, it may be hard to determine some of thesethings—like, for example, the exact quality of their customer service team—until you are actively
working with them. This is why it is so important to never sign an exclusivity deal with any one
company when you are first starting out, as there are always going to be a few unknowns that you can't
quite fathom until you're out there helping your merchants to succeed.
5) Upsells That Actually Provide Value
A large percentage of the income that you will be making will come in the form of upells
because it's simply easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to sell to a potential one. This is aclassic example of the “foot in the door” technique, and you will find that you will be using it a lot.
Upselling can be a great source of income for you, but what about your customer? These aregoing to be long-term relationships for you, so you don't want to rip your clients off by selling themuseless services that they don't need. This is why you want your partner to offer genuinely high-quality
products that you can upsell to your clients. For example, if you sold a POS system to a merchant, andyou learn from your regular communications with him that he is in need of liquid cash, you might beable to make a decent profit if your merchant services partner also allows you to sell short-term
merchant loans.
6) Free Terminal Deals
Sometimes clients aren't going to want to pay for hardware upfront, especially if they are going
to be paying a substantial monthly fee. A similar evolution has happened in other subscription-based
electronics industries, such as the cell phone industry, where the customer receives the hardware forfree or at a huge discount, but pays a service fee for its use. Nowadays, the POS industry is leaning inthis direction, so don't be surprised if your clients don't expect to pay anything upfront.
In order to cater to this demand, make sure that your merchant services company offers a freeterminal deal, even if they have other options that require paying for hardware. As time goes on, you
may find that there will be more and more of an expectation in the market for free terminals, so be
prepared. If the merchant services offer all-inclusive package deals that will get the client started for
absolutely no upfront cost, that is even better. If your potential client basically has nothing to lose, thenthe sale is much more likely to happen. A lot of the time, paying upfront for a equipment isn;t reallyworth it unless there is some major advantage to it, such as greater flexibility and not having to be tied
to a specific merchant service provider.
7) Decent Analytics
In our age of technological progress, there's really no excuse for a merchant service to notprovide you with analytics on the back-end. This will allow you to manage your business and examine
where the money is coming and going. You might have access to a few different kinds of information,
including your merchant's sales activity, their history of tech support calls, and maybe even information
about your own residuals or the activities of agents who are working under you.
When it comes to any business at all, you can perform the trial and error that you need toperfect your sales strategy much better once you have access to a decent level of analytics. Ask about
this before you decide on a merchant service company. Even if you don't plan to make heavy use of
these tools (though you should) it at least shows that your partner is technologically advanced and that

they are ready to meet the challenges of the future head-on.
8) Good Training Material
There's no point in your client even purchasing a POS if he isn't going to know how to use it.
Examine your merchant service provider's training and information material. You want to do thisbefore you get started selling because 1) you need to familiarize yourself with how the system works if
you are going to sell it anyway and 2) you need to decide if the information material is actually decent.
A good service provider will offer more than manuals, too. You want online resources, andsome sort of training program, especially one that involves representatives from the company coming
out to the field and showing your client exactly what they need to do. As with providing good customer
service, a decent training program of some kind is critical. If your client feels that the system is too
difficult or cryptic to use, he is bound to drop you sooner or later, and that is a stream of residuals thatyou will lose out on.
It just makes good business sense to make sure that your client is on board and that there are no
problems from the beginning. Play the long-term game by making sure your merchant has everythingthat he needs.
9) Leasing
Though, as mentioned before, you will probably find that more and more of your clients will
expect a free terminal, since the industry is trending in this direction, some clients will still want tolease equipment for various reasons. Perhaps they are interested in something more high-end, forexample. Maybe they want a terminal system that is not tied to a specific merchant service, so that they
have the flexibility to switch if they feel the need, but this means that they must buy the hardware
themselves.
Even when a client wants to pay for the equipment, though, he might not have to pay upfront.
Having a fair leasing plan means that the client can afford the terminal even if he doesn't have as muchcapital to spend upfront. This kind of flexibility is key in accommodating all kinds of merchants, andyou want to look for a merchant service provider that offers this kind of option just in case.
As with any other kind of sale, you should receive a percentage of the monthly payments thatyour merchant makes on the equipment. Make sure that this is part of the agreement before you signup.
10) Help Analyzing Statements
Reading statements and coming up with just the right pricing for your client can becomplicated. This can be a headache even for people who have been working as sales agents forawhile, so you can imagine how confusing analyzing all of this unfamiliar financial information can befor someone who is totally new to the business. Make sure that your merchant service company iswilling to help you on this front, and that they will provide you with statement analysis services if you
should find that you need them.
Getting into merchant service sales is a great choice if you're looking for a challenging andrewarding career where you can legitimately help customers while making a decent income foryourself. There are few lines of work that allow this level of residual income and revenue sharing, andthere are many directions that you can take in this business.
The first factor that you should keep in mind, though, since it affects so many other things, isyour choice of partner company in this endeavor. They should be willing to give you a fair cut of thedeals, should be willing to negotiate with you on the details, and they should provide good customer
service to your merchants that will allow you to retain them as customers for a long time to come. The
key here is to find a company with which you can forge a long-term relationship that works for both ofyou.
Not all merchant service providers are created equal. First and foremost, you will want one withintegrity—this is the trait that really encompasses all of the others. A company without integrity is not
one that you will be able to work with in the long-term because you will never be able to create trust.
Make sure to perform your due diligence an research the reputation of every merchant service thatyou're considering working with, but a good place to start might be with Shaw Merchant Group. They
are a solid company to work with and have a great reputation of helping their sales agents every step of
the way. Of course, you don't have to take our word for it—always ask for recommendations and lookat reviews before you make that first critical partnership decision.
Shaw Merchant Group LLC
Ph: 877-431-7701
Web: shawmerchantgroup.com