Last year, social media guru/ sales trainer Jeffrey Gitomer rented an office for the summer in a 41 unit building outside New York. On the day he moved in, the local phone company dropped off 41 phone books in the building's lobby. All summer, as he came and went, he watched those books. They sat there. And sat, and sat, and sat. At the end of September, as he left the building for the final time, curious, he counted the phone books still sitting and gathering dust. There were thirty nine.
Your customers don't look you up in the phone book anymore. A cattle hauler from Wyoming who breaks down on the Pittsburg bypass doesn't go to the nearest gas station for a phone book- he googles diesel mechanics.
Where are you going to be when someone googles your business? First? Near the Top? On the first page? If you're not at least on the first page you're business is in trouble, whether the receipts show it or not.
The beauty is that it's easy to get near the top of a Google search. You don't have to understand search engine optimization, you don't have to pay a company thousands of dollars. All you have to do is take advantage of business social media.
Have a business Facebook page that you post on at least three times a week. Have, and use, a twitter page. Make sure your Twitter profile contains all the words and phrases someone might use in a search for your business. For example, my Twitter page says I am a "Profitability Improvement Specialist- Credit Card processing, Merchant Services, Electronic Payments at Central Payment". It may not flow off the tongue, but every time I tweet Google is reading, and saving, those words and phrases in conjunction with my name. ( A friend calls using key search words in this way "spreading Google dust").
Have, and use, an account with LinkedIn. LinkedIn especially gives you four or five different places for you to use your key words. In my personal opinion, it is also the best place for posting valuable content that gets noticed by your peers.
When your done with all that, start a Youtube account. After you post a value message, record yourself speaking it, and post it to your account. And- you guessed it- use your key words as often as possible.
It is not time consuming to set this up. You can set up accounts, with your key-word laden profiles, at all four sites in less than an hour. And you can set it up to when you post a message at one site, your other sites pick it up. In other words, you can post a tweet on twitter that automatically shows up on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Now comes the fun part. At night, while you are warm and comfy in your bed, the Google fairies scan the web, collecting your Google dust and applying it to your name.
It is amazing how quickly this will rocket you to the top of Google searches for your name, your business, and your keywords. If you have never set up a business social media site, try this experiment. Google your name, and note at what page and page location you find yourself. Do the above for one week, and Google your name again. If you are not in the first five entries on the first page I'll eat my shoe.
Track and play with your keywords. When I started using Google dust my name would come up near the top of a search for 'credit card processing', but not 'merchant services.' I found new places in my profiles to use the phrase 'merchant services' and for a week every time I posted anywhere I used the phrase in the title of the post. When I tested again at the end of the week, mine was the second name to come up when I searched.
Google is the new phone book. And you have control over the size of you r phone book ad. You can have a little two inch square ad and never be found on Google, or you can have the back cover and come up first in Google searches for your business. The cost is the same- the centerfold takes a little bit of work.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Some Miscellaneous Stuff
Here are a few bits of news important to credit card processing, that may be relevant to your business.
Omni 3740 and 3750 say goodbye. Nearly every processor I know of says they will no longer support these terminals, most as of October 2012. That means if you have one, come November, it will no longer process cards. The most common replacements are the Verifone VX510 (for dial up accounts) and the VX570 (internet processing.) Those are Central Payments free terminals, so if you have an old Omni you can upgrade for free.
Visa is introducing a new fee in April. A 'fixed acquirer network fee, it will add $2.00 to $2.90 to most merchant accounts. Theoretically a business can recoup the costs through a lowered network fee, but don't count on it. When this was first announced it seemed some processors (including Central Payment) were leaning toward assuming the fee on behalf it's merchants, but now all the processing companies are treating it as a pass-through. The fee can be very expensive for companies with thousands of locations that process millions of dollars (read: Wal Mart and McDonalds) and if the processors assume the $2.00 for Bob's Diner they will have to assume the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the mega-merchants also.
And finally, The IRS formally drives processors to the brink of ruin for no good reason. As most of you are probably aware, the IRS decided "it would not require merchants to explain how and why their business income differs from their credit card receipts in 2012, nor do we intend to require reconciliation in future years.
Now that processing companies have spent millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of man hours, trying to match merchant information with what the government had on file, not to mention scaring the beJesus out of merchants with the punishment nightmares they (the merchants) would face for non-compliance- the IRS says "Just kiddin." This comes after some processing companies spent a year charging merchants up to $20.00 a month for 'IRS compliance', too.
That's what's happening in my world- if you have any questions about any of the above, or electronic payment processing in general, holler to me at bswitzer@cpay.com.
Omni 3740 and 3750 say goodbye. Nearly every processor I know of says they will no longer support these terminals, most as of October 2012. That means if you have one, come November, it will no longer process cards. The most common replacements are the Verifone VX510 (for dial up accounts) and the VX570 (internet processing.) Those are Central Payments free terminals, so if you have an old Omni you can upgrade for free.
Visa is introducing a new fee in April. A 'fixed acquirer network fee, it will add $2.00 to $2.90 to most merchant accounts. Theoretically a business can recoup the costs through a lowered network fee, but don't count on it. When this was first announced it seemed some processors (including Central Payment) were leaning toward assuming the fee on behalf it's merchants, but now all the processing companies are treating it as a pass-through. The fee can be very expensive for companies with thousands of locations that process millions of dollars (read: Wal Mart and McDonalds) and if the processors assume the $2.00 for Bob's Diner they will have to assume the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the mega-merchants also.
And finally, The IRS formally drives processors to the brink of ruin for no good reason. As most of you are probably aware, the IRS decided "it would not require merchants to explain how and why their business income differs from their credit card receipts in 2012, nor do we intend to require reconciliation in future years.
Now that processing companies have spent millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of man hours, trying to match merchant information with what the government had on file, not to mention scaring the beJesus out of merchants with the punishment nightmares they (the merchants) would face for non-compliance- the IRS says "Just kiddin." This comes after some processing companies spent a year charging merchants up to $20.00 a month for 'IRS compliance', too.
That's what's happening in my world- if you have any questions about any of the above, or electronic payment processing in general, holler to me at bswitzer@cpay.com.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Is There a Merchant Revolt Brewing Against the Credit Card Companies? Part 2
If you accept credit/debit cards at your business there is a lawsuit that goes to trial this fall in New York that you should keep on your radar. The suits began as approximately 55 lawsuits filed in various jurisdictions, with all but ten of them seeking class action status. Plaintiffs range from local and regional retailers to national trade associations and chains such as Kroger, Walgreens and CVS. Losing could cost Visa and Mastercard billions of dollars, and a negative outcome for the credit card companies could change the way you accept credit and debit cards at your business.
A merchant's agreement with the card companies is thick enough to choke a Brahma bull and written by lawyers for lawyers. Most of the items in the rules and regulations section are centered around the Big Three Rules- 1) a merchant can't have a 'minimum amount', but must accept a card as payment for any transaction, no matter how small, 2) a merchant can't add a surcharge onto a transaction to recoup his processing costs, and 3) if you accept a card for any transaction type you must accept them for all transaction types. That means that a business that accepts credit cards can't refuse a certain type of card, a 'rewards' card or a business card for example, because the processing costs for that type of card are higher than other types.
Numbers two and three is the reasons behind the lawsuits.
The suits cite the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts as well as state law and depict the U.S. credit and debit card interchange process as a price-fixing scheme operated by the card issuers to the detriment of merchants. They are challenging the legality of rules that prohibit surcharges on credit card transactions and prevent the steering of customers to the merchant's preferred transaction types. Merchants are demanding changes in business terms that could potentially include cuts to credit card fees and recognition by the card companies of merchant's rights to surcharge. They also want rights of 'steerage', or the ability to offer an immediate discount, rebate, or free or discounted product or service to cardholders for using a particular low cost card or other form of payment.
In other words a merchant with an average transaction of $200 knows a rewards card costs them four percent of a transaction and a debit card costs them one percent. They are suing for the right to offer a free gift to the cardholder in exchange for using the less costly card, or to refuse to accept the more expensive card at all and ask for nother form of payment.
A jury verdict against the card companies could be catastrophic to them. Mastercard has estimated it's cost to settle the claims individually at $500 million. But that does not reflect the 'class component' of the case- it is considerably more expensive to settle a class action than a series of individual cases. Some observers estimate they card companies could owe billions in damages should they be found liable for the alleged counts, which are subject to trebling under anitrust law.
Visa has not commented on estimated expenses but their financial reports list $2.93 billion held in escrow for litigation expenses.
But monetary damages are only part of the story- a plaintiff's verdict would effectively blow up a business model that has been in place for decades. Indeed, the non-monetary aspects of card acceptance are among the issues most merchants have concerns about.
"One issue that merchants have complained about is the extraordinary restrictive rules we have to operate under," says Mallory Duncan, senior vice president and general counsel at the National Retail Federation.
Both sides point to a antitrust suit over many of the same issues brought by seven states and the Department of Justice in 2010. In a settlement Mastercard and Visa agreed to allow merchants in those states (including Missouri) that process more than a million transactions a year to offer an immediate discount or rebate or free or discounted product or service for using a particular low cost card or other form of payment. Opponents of the card companies say the settlement effectively establishes precedent; card industry insiders say it will allow the companies to say, "We gave them nearly everything they wanted in the settlement. It would be unfair to add surcharge into the mix now."
As complicated as the facts of the case are, it seems inevitable that once the dust clears merchants will be better off. Any settlement will almost certainly include lower card fees. A plaintiff's verdict could open the doors for each merchant to craft card acceptance guidelines according to what best serves his own business.
And in the event of a verdict for the card companies, they will have little time to catch their breath; other lawsuits are working their way through courtrooms across the country. Merchants are slowly coming to realize that you can demand fair business practices from the card companies. Let's hope it continues.
A merchant's agreement with the card companies is thick enough to choke a Brahma bull and written by lawyers for lawyers. Most of the items in the rules and regulations section are centered around the Big Three Rules- 1) a merchant can't have a 'minimum amount', but must accept a card as payment for any transaction, no matter how small, 2) a merchant can't add a surcharge onto a transaction to recoup his processing costs, and 3) if you accept a card for any transaction type you must accept them for all transaction types. That means that a business that accepts credit cards can't refuse a certain type of card, a 'rewards' card or a business card for example, because the processing costs for that type of card are higher than other types.
Numbers two and three is the reasons behind the lawsuits.
The suits cite the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts as well as state law and depict the U.S. credit and debit card interchange process as a price-fixing scheme operated by the card issuers to the detriment of merchants. They are challenging the legality of rules that prohibit surcharges on credit card transactions and prevent the steering of customers to the merchant's preferred transaction types. Merchants are demanding changes in business terms that could potentially include cuts to credit card fees and recognition by the card companies of merchant's rights to surcharge. They also want rights of 'steerage', or the ability to offer an immediate discount, rebate, or free or discounted product or service to cardholders for using a particular low cost card or other form of payment.
In other words a merchant with an average transaction of $200 knows a rewards card costs them four percent of a transaction and a debit card costs them one percent. They are suing for the right to offer a free gift to the cardholder in exchange for using the less costly card, or to refuse to accept the more expensive card at all and ask for nother form of payment.
A jury verdict against the card companies could be catastrophic to them. Mastercard has estimated it's cost to settle the claims individually at $500 million. But that does not reflect the 'class component' of the case- it is considerably more expensive to settle a class action than a series of individual cases. Some observers estimate they card companies could owe billions in damages should they be found liable for the alleged counts, which are subject to trebling under anitrust law.
Visa has not commented on estimated expenses but their financial reports list $2.93 billion held in escrow for litigation expenses.
But monetary damages are only part of the story- a plaintiff's verdict would effectively blow up a business model that has been in place for decades. Indeed, the non-monetary aspects of card acceptance are among the issues most merchants have concerns about.
"One issue that merchants have complained about is the extraordinary restrictive rules we have to operate under," says Mallory Duncan, senior vice president and general counsel at the National Retail Federation.
Both sides point to a antitrust suit over many of the same issues brought by seven states and the Department of Justice in 2010. In a settlement Mastercard and Visa agreed to allow merchants in those states (including Missouri) that process more than a million transactions a year to offer an immediate discount or rebate or free or discounted product or service for using a particular low cost card or other form of payment. Opponents of the card companies say the settlement effectively establishes precedent; card industry insiders say it will allow the companies to say, "We gave them nearly everything they wanted in the settlement. It would be unfair to add surcharge into the mix now."
As complicated as the facts of the case are, it seems inevitable that once the dust clears merchants will be better off. Any settlement will almost certainly include lower card fees. A plaintiff's verdict could open the doors for each merchant to craft card acceptance guidelines according to what best serves his own business.
And in the event of a verdict for the card companies, they will have little time to catch their breath; other lawsuits are working their way through courtrooms across the country. Merchants are slowly coming to realize that you can demand fair business practices from the card companies. Let's hope it continues.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
It's the Wave of the Future; It's Free; And Your Competitors Ain't Doing It
Suppose someone offered you a piece of equipment that could double or even triple your revenues. Would you be interested? What if the equipment were free? And what if your competitors were blissfully unaware the equipment even existed? Would you jump at the chance to own it? Of course you would.
Good news! Such an item really exists. It's known as 'business social media', and it's the wave of the future.
Business social media (bsm) is the use of social web sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn- not to broadcast your latest bowling score to your friends, but as a marketing and sales tool for your company. In much of the country bsm has supplanted newspaper and radio as a business owner's preferred method of marketing. Over three quarters of the respondents to a Constant Contact poll said they used social media, predominately Facebook, as the most important part of their marketing strategy. In San Francisco, where the company I work for is located, a merchant would no more try to start a business without a Facebook and LinkedIn page then they try to start one without electricity hook-ups.
But the Joplin are hasn't caught the wave yet.
A study by a MSSU business group estimates that just 2.3 percent of the locally owned businesses in the Joplin Metropolitan Statistical Area have active business Facebook pages. ('Active' is defined as a page that gets more than eight posts a week). The Joplin LinkedIn group has 96 members, and only four local members have posted on it over the last 30 days. The Carthage group has six members, none from Carthage. (One hales from the Netherlands). Northeast Oklahoma and Southeast Kansas don't have LinkedIn groups for business owners at all. I couldn't find any numbers for local businesses on Twitter, but there are only a handful of locally owned Twitter business accounts that are easy to find. The nearest Groupon (a social site dedicated to promoting a business's 'deals') accounts are in Tulsa.
I could go on, but you get the drift- business social media, the biggest advancement in marketing since the creation of the daily paper, the way business will be done in the future, is in it's nascent stage in the Joplin area.
And that creates an incredible opportunity for local businesses.
The dominant businesses in Joplin in five years are going to be the ones that are the biggest players on the bsm sites. Right now almost no one is vying to be that leader. And that's why you need to get started right now, today, building your social media presence.
It's easy, and it's free. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. Really- that's it. And it's free.
Start with Facebook. DON"T start putting business posts on your existing Facebook page. At the bottom of your Facebook site there is a menu that includes the option 'create a page'. Click on that, and follow the directions. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube are all as easy as pulling up the site and clicking on 'create an account.'
Look at pages that you like on the bsm sites, see what others are doing, to get an idea what sort of content others are posting. Follow my blog, sekcreditcardguy.blogspot.com- about every other post will be orientated toward business social media. Jeffrey Gitomer has written the definitive book for starting out in bsm- it's called Social Boom. Read it and learn well. Hubspot has more good material than you can read in two lifetimes. And it's free.
Business social media is the best opportunity to grow your business and beat your competition that you have ever had. It's just sitting there, waiting for you take advantage of it. And it's free.
Sign on. Establish an account on each major site. Post something. Tweet something. Connect with someone. Post value messages every day. If you do it every day, and do it right, you will create loyal customers and profit from your ability to expose yourself, your thoughts, your and value-driven message to your market and around the world.
And two years from now when your biggest competitor decides it's time to find out what Facebook is all about he will quickly discover you own his ass.
Good news! Such an item really exists. It's known as 'business social media', and it's the wave of the future.
Business social media (bsm) is the use of social web sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn- not to broadcast your latest bowling score to your friends, but as a marketing and sales tool for your company. In much of the country bsm has supplanted newspaper and radio as a business owner's preferred method of marketing. Over three quarters of the respondents to a Constant Contact poll said they used social media, predominately Facebook, as the most important part of their marketing strategy. In San Francisco, where the company I work for is located, a merchant would no more try to start a business without a Facebook and LinkedIn page then they try to start one without electricity hook-ups.
But the Joplin are hasn't caught the wave yet.
A study by a MSSU business group estimates that just 2.3 percent of the locally owned businesses in the Joplin Metropolitan Statistical Area have active business Facebook pages. ('Active' is defined as a page that gets more than eight posts a week). The Joplin LinkedIn group has 96 members, and only four local members have posted on it over the last 30 days. The Carthage group has six members, none from Carthage. (One hales from the Netherlands). Northeast Oklahoma and Southeast Kansas don't have LinkedIn groups for business owners at all. I couldn't find any numbers for local businesses on Twitter, but there are only a handful of locally owned Twitter business accounts that are easy to find. The nearest Groupon (a social site dedicated to promoting a business's 'deals') accounts are in Tulsa.
I could go on, but you get the drift- business social media, the biggest advancement in marketing since the creation of the daily paper, the way business will be done in the future, is in it's nascent stage in the Joplin area.
And that creates an incredible opportunity for local businesses.
The dominant businesses in Joplin in five years are going to be the ones that are the biggest players on the bsm sites. Right now almost no one is vying to be that leader. And that's why you need to get started right now, today, building your social media presence.
It's easy, and it's free. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. Really- that's it. And it's free.
Start with Facebook. DON"T start putting business posts on your existing Facebook page. At the bottom of your Facebook site there is a menu that includes the option 'create a page'. Click on that, and follow the directions. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube are all as easy as pulling up the site and clicking on 'create an account.'
Look at pages that you like on the bsm sites, see what others are doing, to get an idea what sort of content others are posting. Follow my blog, sekcreditcardguy.blogspot.com- about every other post will be orientated toward business social media. Jeffrey Gitomer has written the definitive book for starting out in bsm- it's called Social Boom. Read it and learn well. Hubspot has more good material than you can read in two lifetimes. And it's free.
Business social media is the best opportunity to grow your business and beat your competition that you have ever had. It's just sitting there, waiting for you take advantage of it. And it's free.
Sign on. Establish an account on each major site. Post something. Tweet something. Connect with someone. Post value messages every day. If you do it every day, and do it right, you will create loyal customers and profit from your ability to expose yourself, your thoughts, your and value-driven message to your market and around the world.
And two years from now when your biggest competitor decides it's time to find out what Facebook is all about he will quickly discover you own his ass.
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