The Payments Experts Podcast
Expert payments attorneys discuss the electronic payments industry from a legal perspective.
The Payments Experts Podcast
Merchant Agents Business Growth in Payments: Leveraging AI & Social Media with Josh Holden | PEP030
Unlock the secrets of thriving as an independent merchant agent in the fiercely competitive payments industry with our special guest, Josh Holden from Card Connect. From the financial challenges of Southern California to the critical transition from bank-fed sales to independent agency, Josh brings his extensive experience from Wells Fargo, First Data, and Heartland to the table. This episode is packed with his invaluable insights on building a robust client base and navigating an industry where smaller firms often struggle to survive against larger, well-established competitors.
Explore the contentious issue of clawback letters and the financial headaches they cause for small agencies and ISOs. We'll dissect the importance of customer service, legal advice, and how software-driven processing mandates are reshaping the industry. Josh's practical advice on survival strategies and industry adaptation offers a lifeline to those struggling to stay afloat amidst evolving market dynamics. If you've ever faced unexpected financial burdens in your business, this segment is a must-listen.
Discover the latest trends in the payments industry, from the nuisance of junk fees to the revolutionary potential of AI in business operations. Josh shares his thoughts on leveraging AI for digital marketing, enhancing communication with clients, and building a personal brand through consistent social media efforts. Whether you're a seasoned professional or new to the payments sector, Josh's strategies for strategic growth, customer-centric approaches, and community partnerships will provide you with the tools you need to achieve business success. Tune in and transform the way you approach the rapidly evolving payments landscape.
A payments podcast of Global Legal Law Firm
I read a stat I was looking at stats yesterday. The average merchant agent on their own out there makes $48,000 a year.
Speaker 2:Wow, I don't know how it's not going to work in Southern California.
Speaker 1:You can't live on that, Right? You can't live on that at all. And then they say after five years you can make six figures. And even six figures in California may not get you a house.
Speaker 1:It's not going to, especially with interest rates going up and qualifications to get something like that. So I think you're going to get swallowed up. Where you have to go get a W-2 job, you have to go get that, and maybe this becomes more of a side thing. Or who do you know? Networking. I think there's going to be a lot of changes coming up and your bigger ones will obviously survive because they're going to have a big brand, big name and they'll be able to put the money towards customer service or the things that are needed to stay alive. But I think a lot of your independent people or your your solopreneurs, you would say I don't know how much they're going to do just this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, welcome to the Payments Experts podcast, a podcast of global legal law firm. We hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Payments Experts Podcast, a podcast of Global Legal Law Firm. Today we're really excited to have in studio with us managing partner of the firm, james Huber, as well as special guest Josh Holden, who is an agent with Card Connect. Josh, thank you so much for joining us in studio today.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. What's your middle name? Josh Benjamin's my first name.
Speaker 3:I go by Josh.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Very cool.
Speaker 1:Good question.
Speaker 3:Well, you guys have a number of things we're going to talk about today. Absolutely, If you guys want to, maybe Josh tell us a bit about Card Connect. How'd you get involved with them?
Speaker 1:Your background in payments, absolutely so. Again, my name is Josh Holden. I've been in payment for about 15 years now. I started off with Wells Fargo, worked there for about eight years, then I transitioned into First Data directly At Wells Fargo, at Wells Fargo Bank. I was a banker there. I moved my way up through the ranks.
Speaker 2:Merchant services was the avenue I went down yeah, what was so when people came into the bank and they're like I need processing, yeah?
Speaker 1:nailed them. Yeah, we, we would nail them. Um, it's kind of like. I kind of consider it like being in the zoo, like they fed us leads, they fed us all the stuff like. So it's a hard transition to go out there and go get it yourself, but once you get that muscle memory down then you know it's great for knowledge, though. I learned so much from like your goal to sign up. There is like 15 to 20 accounts a month when you're an independent rep. I don't know too many people who do that on their own independently, unless you have a team built out right.
Speaker 2:Okay. So then you said you went to work direct for First Data. Yeah, team built out right. Okay. So then you said you went to work direct for First Data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, directly. I covered all of California for their BBVA relationship, so you were a sales rep. Yeah, they called it mid-market rep, so I handled accounts from like $4 million to about $200 million.
Speaker 1:And they were shoveling you the meat still. Yeah, they were still connected to different banks and things and they would still shovel the meat over to us. And then I went to Heartland. I did a short stint at Heartland. I was originally first data. I don't like all the regulations that a lot of these bigger processors have. Like you know, I don't feel like they have the best. Like I know we can go lower on the pricing if we had to win the deal and they still wouldn't do it. They're nickel and dime, like all these little things. I was like we don't need to charge all that kind of stuff and maybe I didn't see the bigger picture right. I'm not the CEO. I'm only thinking about me signing up a client and getting some residuals off it. So it's a little different.
Speaker 2:You know when you're running a big organization but yeah, I didn't like all that kind of stuff, yeah Cool. And then you said you went to Heartland.
Speaker 1:Heartland. I did that stint for probably about eight months to a year. I was a regional manager there, helped them in the San Diego market, and then I started on my own agency. It was actually Ignite at first. I don't know if you guys remember Ignite, but I started with them. Then I went over to Card Connect and now we've and Card Connect together. Okay, so we're using both channels, just depending on the client and you know what their needs are.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you started your own shop, as you know, first Data Ignite yeah, so basically you're direct with First Data Correct Retail, not taking any risks, not taking a lot of risks? Yeah, and how was that transition? Because now you're out hunting.
Speaker 1:I like it. Okay, At first it's rough, Don't get me wrong. When was this like 2012? When was this no 2015. Okay, yeah, 15, 16, right around there. It's rough at first. You kind of you know you're trickling around two accounts a month, three accounts a month and then, once you get like your rhythm, it took me about a year and a half before I started having referrals, like really getting the brand out there, the name out there.
Speaker 2:You know the trust factor out there and were you selling as ignite?
Speaker 1:yeah, okay, so uh, yeah, I was selling as an ignite agent rep.
Speaker 2:Did you get to keep any of your old residuals? Yeah, when you're an employee.
Speaker 1:Oh no, not from when I worked with the other companies. Yeah, yeah, no, that's too bad. Yeah, so they get you. Uh-huh, they put in markers. And it's funny, now that I'm an agent owner and I have people underneath me, I understand why they do some of that stuff. Sure yes.
Speaker 2:So I get it. Okay, so you were Ignite and then first data says we don't want to deal with this stuff anymore, let's, and then card. You know, first data says we don't want to deal with this stuff anymore, let's, uh, put y'all under card, connect, yep, um, and that just kind of happened automatically yeah, how was that? Transition, and will the word awful be a good description?
Speaker 1:okay. So I don't know if awful is the correct word to use. I mean there are. You've got to be understanding like there's going to be some growing pains Anytime you do anything. I mean, we just switched over, we added MyCam to our solution. We have some growing pains because it's not exactly Card Connect. I'm used to a certain platform. They use a different platform, so there was some growing pains. I like Card Connect's platform. They use it's called Copilot it. I like Card Connect's platform. They use it's called Copilot. It's very agent-friendly, like we get to see everything that our clients do. We have access to all that stuff. So when it comes to, like managing your business, it's very good for that Customer service, things like that. Like they're growing too, I'm sure, and you don't always get a hold of the people you need to get a hold of, and so we're out here kind of dancing around trying to fix things that we maybe not have access to fix and we're waiting on a lot of things. But you know it's growing with any kind of business you're with. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I saw it and we were always puzzled. When First Data is going, it almost seemed like they don't even want to deal with the isos anymore. They like their big presidents, club boys, and that's it. And then the smaller people they were like and then they just straight out did it, yeah, and said you can all go to card connect and deal with them. Yeah, now, and I know everybody really liked card connect before that yeah, um, and then card connect came in and the first day that people you know started bleeding over there and all that and there's great people there too. But now I'm looking at it and I'm seeing the same thing and you know it's all coming from Frank up at the top. Yeah, you're seeing the same thing where they they're starting to treat their ISOs not that great Like we got to. Did you guys get a clawback?
Speaker 1:letter. Oh yeah, clawback, yeah, uh. What was it a year and a half ago? Year ago, something?
Speaker 2:like that where they got, all of a sudden, a bunch of people got a letter saying hey, you know, we've made a mistake. For the last five years we've been under billing you and we're just gonna take it. And but we'll be cool, we'll just take a little a month. Yeah, and I've heard it from you know, way higher ups going. Yeah, this is a business model, you know, take it. Or if people complain about it, ok, we'll reverse it. But we, we run into a ton of people that they didn't even complain and I'm like why, why didn't you not complain? They didn't even complain and I'm like why, why didn't you not complain? Like, yeah, then we'll go in and we'll get them some of the money back sometimes or at least get them to stop taking money, because it's it's total BS. Yeah, 100 percent, and it was just a big cash grab. But I'm going these are.
Speaker 2:We've always said the ISOs are the lifeblood of the industry. The industry dies, otherwise it's all going to be square and straight, which we know do not help merchants. The only advocate for the merchant are, you know, the good ones like your outfit. They're advocating for the merchant. Yeah, yeah, you want to make money, but you're going to lose your customers if you're just screwing them over, if you're not taking care of them. Yeah, so by treating the ISOs like crap, I think the industry, the industry, the small, particularly small businesses take a huge hit 100 and so it's really interesting to see card connect now taking that on and I'm glad that you know you're working with the other iso that you mentioned, my camp, who, yeah, has the no let's.
Speaker 1:The isos are the lifeblood oh, no, no, yeah, they treat as well dining you and you know we'll bend over backwards.
Speaker 2:So that's great, um, all right. Well, where?
Speaker 1:but just I want to comment on that. One one thing to your point why I don't think a lot of people stood up for the clawback thing. They were a lot of. The reps or agencies are so small, they don't have lawyers on hand, they don't. They don't have anybody like you to kind of hey, let me balance this off you here's what's about to happen, what's your advice? A lot of them are just like okay, I don't what, what is my other choice? Not to have this anymore, right? So I think it's important, as your business gets larger, is to start looking into having legal advice. Well, having someone to have on your side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's one of the reasons that we, you know, kind of fell in love with this space is we saw people like yourself, entrepreneurs, built up this huge business. Then they'd call us and we'd be like, oh, like, why didn't you call me before? Yeah, we would have been able to figure that out. So it's interesting, all right. So what are you seeing, you know, out in the field? Now you guys got your ISO up running, cranking. Yeah, what are you know? What are the opportunities and threats that you're seeing out there?
Speaker 1:I mean the biggest threat out there. Your, your SAS people, your software's out there. I mean that's the biggest threat. It's funny I I was talking to someone else in the industry. They're like, hey, what do you see it happening in the next five to 10 years? I think it's going to get weeded out a lot. I think these SAS programs are going to. I mean, auto places have it, restaurants have it All the major industries have someone like that and then they're telling you who to process with Right. Eventually they're all going to do that and it's going to really be hard for agencies. I think they'll still be the agents because we give the customer service, we get that, but your smaller ones are going to get kind of swallowed up because there's not going to be a lot of money out there. I read a stat I I was looking at stats yesterday the average merchant agent on their own out there makes 48 000 a year.
Speaker 2:Wow, I don't know how it's not going to work in southern california. You can't live on that right you can't.
Speaker 1:You can't live on that at all. And then they say after five years you can make six figures. And even six figures in california may not get you a house may not like, it's not going especially with interest rates going up and the qualifications to get something like that.
Speaker 1:So I think you're going to get swallowed up. Where you have to go get a w-2 job, you have to go get that and maybe this becomes more of a side thing, or who do you know? Networking, like. I think there's going to be a lot of changes coming up and your bigger ones will obviously survive because they're going to have a big brand, big name and you know they'll be able to put the money towards customer service or the things that are needed to stay alive. But I think a lot of your independent people or your your solopreneurs, you would say I don't know how much they're going to do just this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's tough and I hear you on the. I mean we've got our headaches. Our software as a service, our law firm software, has the payments tied to it, yeah, and you're not allowed to get out and the rates are. I don't think the rates are that bad, no, but I'm going. I've got clients who would give it away to us because they want the you know, nice, clean business. You know, I don't think we've ever had a chargeback.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, it's funny. Have we ever had a chargeback. We actually just lost a chargeback last month. Yeah, I think it's our first one, literally our first one, and now we're going to go sue them.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, Wrong person to do it. Well, that's the point.
Speaker 2:The irony of it really so ours, and we don't even really like the software, but they all suck, according to us. So, yeah, I mean I think you see that because, look, it does help. It's better than when we used to run it off of Excel. So, yeah, no, I think that is a big threat. So, yeah, no, I think I think that is a big threat. But what I hope, I was hoping you were going, is that these softwares as a service are so bad that there's going to be a way to get in there, to get out of it to. You know, break that up, because you have, like, the big companies going around. You know, the ISVs buy up all those veterinarians, yeah, and they'll mess with it, yeah, to get their payments in there. So what I'm hoping I see is that, okay, look, I'm stuck with you know what rocket, whatever our systems is called rocket matter.
Speaker 2:I can matter and we're stuck there but going no, you have to let us out of this. Yeah, you have your agreement with them, that's your thing. Great, go get the attorneys that aren't payments attorneys, that, no, this is not the best option out there and open it up. So I'd like to see some of that, the cracking for that. So there's competition, because all of you know the, the bigger isos out there that have their own developers or anything. They're all saying, no, we can route into the back end, just do it. But then we've tried it and you know it doesn't link with quickbooks and all of that. We we're going look, we just don't want to mess with it.
Speaker 1:Right, right, that's the answer, right there. We don't want to mess with it. It's a headache and I get it Like. Conveniences mean so much. I think that's one of the most valuable things. I pay extra for convenience If I don't paid a little bit extra, yeah, but if okay, fine.
Speaker 2:But you know you're bawling most. You know businesses are running a margin. So you know, restaurants, I think their margin is 10. Oh it's super. Yeah. And if my processing fees are three and a half to four percent, my margin is now six percent.
Speaker 2:So lawyers doing math over here dangerous business yeah, know that leads me to the biggest problem that we're seeing in the space that we're, you know, advocating against, is these surcharge caps. Yes, the rule is supposed to be I'm allowed to recoup my processing fees. So in California, california has now passed legislation that says that it's just the same as Visa. It's the same as what they just did in new york, that the cap is three percent. You can't surcharge a debit card, which makes it almost impossible to, in a restaurant, do a surcharge in any environment.
Speaker 1:Is this a debit card?
Speaker 2:oh, I see this oh, whoops, no surcharge, um, and then you can do cash discounting, but the cash discounting needs to list the higher price and then you do a discount. So my $1.99 hot dog is now two dollars and you know eight cents and that's. I'm not recouping the fees. So my margin is still low and I might get fined. And you know there's going to be attorneys going out and going after the merchants of you're violating this.
Speaker 3:Yeah 100% On behalf of it.
Speaker 2:Now, I'm a consumer, you know, protection the cardholder. But to your point I don't know if you've seen it Nobody cares. Yeah, charge me whatever for you having to use my card, but just you can tell me, yeah, and maybe I'll go to the ATM. I've always, I've been always saying if you want to charge them a 20 for using a card, yeah, do it. Do you have to tell the person?
Speaker 1:yeah well, I mean the in the restaurants. I see a lot of line items now it says for um, like business expenses, business service, and it's a line item on there. It's like as if you purchased it or something like that. Right, and it's five percent, six percent. I was just at Mastro's with my wife eating in San Francisco, probably about a month ago, and they have a line item and there are signs everywhere 5% business expense service fee or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not compliant with Visa, it's not going to be compliant with a new rule and it bleeds into something else we were coming into is it's potentially a junk fee Potentially a junk?
Speaker 3:fee. Yeah, james, can you talk about for our audience? Why? Why is that not compliant? Why is that line item not OK?
Speaker 2:Well, it would be a surcharge. Call it whatever you want. If you're adding any fee to a transaction for using a card, even if you're doing it across the board, the merchant, that's the plaintiff or the subject of our class action. They were charging four percent for cash, four percent for this and short. No, I'm buying a service fee. This covers my overhead. Visa says, and the legislation, the way it's written and probably going to be enforced, is if you add anything to the transaction, that is a surcharge really, even if it's for cash also like you, really Interesting, yep, and that was the one.
Speaker 2:They got a $70,000 fine for that, for adding across the board. And so, yeah, I'd say that's total BS. Yeah, you know, if I want to charge a because it I mean, look, that's what they're doing. But if it is, it's a, you know, maitre d' fee, because we're having the maitre d, you're paying. If you don't want the maitre d, you won't have to pay that fee. Yeah, that would still be a surcharge. Oh, my God, I wonder if there are ways, if there are ways to do it, I mean we'll be arguing that in our case if it proceeds that far. But can I add any? Like what, if I'm selling a bread fee, yeah, how is that different? Um, so the junk fees is another thing that's scary is this could this could go hit our business? 100 your interchange fee, I mean interchange. 147 different interchange fees.
Speaker 1:Yes, so confusing.
Speaker 3:And they bundled it.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh. So they bundled it all into one fee. I could say you could go, that's a junk fee. Now it doesn't look like it's going to go that route. It is going to restaurants for that. They are going to hit the restaurants with the. I mean, what do they call it? What did you say? The Maestro's?
Speaker 1:Maestro's what I mean? What?
Speaker 2:do they?
Speaker 1:call it? What did you say? The maestros, master maestros. There's a bunch of other restaurants, I mean a lot of the higher end restaurants. I see, have it and I mean I have a consumer, I I don't care, but I just know that you know somebody else I guess out there cares about whether they're getting an extra fee or not. I'm not gonna not eat there if they have a five percent service fee?
Speaker 2:no, no, you're not, it's not gonna matter. No, you're not, it's not going to matter. The thing that Visa has said is being like well, you need to know what you're paying. You never know what you're paying unless you're in Wyoming, where there's no sales tax. I'm not sitting there computing sales tax. Sales tax is junk fee. It's dynamic, but the junk fee is. Ticketmaster is the perfect example of what the junk fees are. You have no idea what the fee is going to be 100 and you don't know until checkout, because I've had some of them where it's like what, whoa, this is 200 extra.
Speaker 1:And then some of it's like 14 bucks and you're like thank you, live nation, but um I just bought pottery tickets yesterday and I thought they were gonna be like 300 a piece and they ended up being like 400 a piece. Right these extra fees.
Speaker 2:I was like holy cow, right, yeah, um so, but the, the, the surcharging and stuff like that, I don't put that in a junk fee, it's a three percent fee. Yeah, it's not changing, it's not dynamic. Yeah, I would say, doing the dual pricing could get it a little bit confusing, because you're going, you know I have to do math. Yeah, which one? Yeah, I'm screwed. Um, all right, well, what do you? Uh, so where are you guys going? Where are you taking your business? What's next?
Speaker 1:so I mean right now we're going through a lot of growth and a lot of expansion, we're hiring on new sales reps, we're're playing with some different things. I think in our industry. I talked to a lot of other. I've been doing it for about 15 years, so I try to stay connected to other merchant reps out there, people that I've worked with in the past, new people from you know Instagram and social media and stuff, and I find that the biggest problem in our industry is the canvassing. No one wants to do it Like you get excited about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, knocking on the doors and all that stuff. So I think there's a big miss in like having, like a call center or someone setting up appointments. And I know there's other companies that it seems to be more and more popping up recently doing a call center. And I know our office is starting to put together a call center. So we're really working on how do we eliminate all the stresses of being a merchant rep, so call center, and then we have an installation team. So we're telling reps you come with us, we'll go ahead, we'll set up the appointments for you and we'll do the installations for you. All you need to do is go and pretty much present the pricing and sell the product. So that's been big. That's something that we've taken on in the last like two to three months and we're really working on that good, yeah, I mean, the brutal part of the call center is just the capital.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and having employees in california is deadly. We had some clients that were, um, they'd take people on from out on parole. Oh really, that was their call center. And this is hilarious too. The guy running the call center was a former corrections officer, so they'd go oh hey, officer Brown, good to see you again. He was super cool too and he was like one of the cool guys, so they loved it and they didn't have any issues in there because he got. And people are always like, oh, that's a problem, you're going to have former people, they're on parole.
Speaker 3:They don't want to get in trouble. They're going to follow every rule there is Exactly.
Speaker 2:It was a beautiful setup, but I have seen in California you know people that you know they love their. You know that you know they love their. You know their call center because it's great. You know you pay people a small wage because you're just coming in the office making phone calls, you're reading off of, you know scripts pretty much, and you're smiling and dialing and you can make good money because if they get an appointment, you're skiffing them out yeah, if the sale closes, you're skiffing them out, yeah, and it's great. And then learn that business and then go out on the road yourself and there's a great room to advance. I mean, I had a canvassing job and I hated it until I got good at it. Then I loved it. So the problem, though, is you're just in California and you've got people you know here's the supervisor you know sidling over.
Speaker 3:So yeah, can we talk about AI, because it sounds like what you know the call center. Maybe at some point AI can be an answer for some of that yeah.
Speaker 2:What do you think? Great idea, Jeremy.
Speaker 1:It's a great idea, I think. I mean we're trying to get more like into the digital marketing, digital that stuff, and I think AI is going to play a big part into that. Where leads are just starting to come in all over the US, that's definitely something that we're trying to kind of, I guess, dabble in right now. But I think, yeah, I think AI is. If you're a business owner of any business, ai is going to come in and play some part. Restaurant owners are going to have robots or something like that delivering the food. Like I've heard of different places where they don't have any employees already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I don't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's wild yeah.
Speaker 1:You know like I think AI is a big part and if you're not trying to learn it now and try to get ahead of the, you know everybody else you're going to be left behind.
Speaker 3:We behind we uh, we just bought a clone of me.
Speaker 2:There you go and all right, it's going public and no, it's actually me, but as you type in whatever you want and I sit there and talk about it really yeah, and with the first one was pretty bad because it was like my mouth was all the sudden overheated, moving around and my head's shaking. Bad because it was like my mouth was all of a sudden overheated and moving around and my head shaking around. Yeah, it's like total recall. Take two weeks.
Speaker 3:Right, right or Max Hedrum, Max Hedrum yeah.
Speaker 2:Max Hedrum, and then now they redid it and it kind of looked pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's a lot better. So you guys are even dabbling into that right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, mine is, you know, put it out there of, because one of the biggest problem that lawyers get complained of is we're not talking to our customers enough communication, you know in your business where they they need someone when they have a problem to call ours is I need an update. I need an update so I can send you an email, an update. But why not? You know, I'll just type it in and I'll tell it to you on a video. That's cool.
Speaker 3:It's a personal touch, 100% yeah that's cool.
Speaker 2:We should show you that, because I could see that being really great for you guys. Hey you're onboarded. Here's what to expect. Call me, I'm the CEO. I'm always available. What was the guy who sold it? He has one of him. It's on him on a mountain bike. Yeah he's like hey, just got done a ride. I was just thinking about you yep, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think the thing about it is and james and I have talked about this this is probably going to be good and fresh and usable for a couple of years now, but eventually everyone's going to realize I'm seeing ai, I'm seeing ai and it's going to lose its value. It seems to me yeah, even still.
Speaker 2:Fine. Fine it's ai mine is cool, yeah, at this point yeah, at this point, for sure yeah yeah, yeah, and somebody, when I went to a presentation where the guy presented it and they asked that question he's like is it going to be a problem in five years?
Speaker 3:I don't know, ask me in five years, for right now, I think it's super cool because, yeah, somebody calls me out like james, that wasn't even you, that was a clone.
Speaker 2:I'd be like I know, cool yeah, wasn't that cool? Yeah, exactly, I'll come to your party.
Speaker 3:Well, true story. So yesterday we have a meeting. Every day, Josh, for the whole firm comes together in the morning. We call it our stand-up meeting. We just kind of check in with each other. Well, I played for the first time James's AI clone and I had him do this monologue from the office, a Dwight Schrute monologue. Ok, I'm telling you, james, only two people out of probably about 30 people were like is that AI? Is that?
Speaker 2:everyone else was like.
Speaker 3:I didn't like, they didn't know.
Speaker 2:That's cool and that was on a big screen. Didn't break into Mandarin because it's supposed to have 20 languages. I wish I could have done that. I didn't know. That's cool and that was on a big screen. Didn't break into mandarin because it's supposed to have 20 languages. I wish I could have done that. I didn't get that part done. Yeah, um, yeah. No, I see that being a huge thing, even on the call center. I haven't used it, but the new chat gpt is like conversational, because if you and you have to train it, but you train it like just you would a sales agent, overcome objections, overcome objections, and I could see that being huge.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, I yeah and they're not the same cost of an employee they're not the same cost.
Speaker 2:And then everybody goes like oh you know, jobs are gonna go away. No, you still need someone to manage the ai. It's just gotta be more efficient.
Speaker 1:You know, or we were the computer took people's jobs away some of them, but no, yeah right I mean it's just a lot of scale faster too, like you can grow your business quick once you have right multiple things that can go on you can hire more people without getting bigger.
Speaker 2:You need more people to do that. So, um, what, uh? What's next? Where are you going?
Speaker 1:I again. We're just trying to grow out, grow the company out. We're trying trying to get into the call center. We want to get to the point where we can set appointments for other merchant companies out there, not just ours, Having an installation and a service team. I think that's a big miss in our market. There's so many reps who hate doing it.
Speaker 2:Oh and it's a pain. Yeah, they shouldn't be doing that. They should be doing what they're best at. Yeah Selling.
Speaker 1:So we're just really trying to handle those both sides. I mean, it's nice when you can just come into a place and, kind of like a bank, have leads ready for you, right, you know? Yeah, so the burnout hopefully goes down a little bit when that happens. And then we're really trying to partner with the communities out there. A big thing that we're doing is we're offering up 50% residual splits on anybody who refers us. A deal that's great, very cool.
Speaker 1:Just trying to get out there. So many people that I'm friends with in different network groups and communities out there are starting to refer deals and then it's just side income for them, they don't have to focus on it. Don't have to concentrate on it so it allows our company to scale faster because we're getting referrals and leads from all over the US, from people that I would have never met in person because we're here in San Diego.
Speaker 3:That's very cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Can we talk just real fast, Josh, as we come to the end of this podcast? You're doing a great job yourself of marketing, of getting yourself out there. You're kind of you're very video friendly. You want to talk a little bit about your average day, what your day looks like and how you're incorporating your video marketing into your business model.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. This is a new. Favorite topic for me is the marketing and the personal branding. About a year ago I said I was going to dive into it and really try to get my name out there, because one of my mentors, grant Card cardone I don't know if anybody knows him, but grant cardone he says they don't know you, they can't flow you, they can't, you know, do business with you if you're not waiting a minute.
Speaker 2:What was the last? No, you flow you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if they don't know you, they can't flow you that part doesn't rhyme.
Speaker 1:But think about this too best uh, best known beats best product. Right like that is something that's always hit with me. So everybody's concerned about being the best in their industry. You need to be well known, you need everybody to know you, and so I spend a lot of time now I I make a commitment to post at least three videos on my instagram. I've hired a marketing team for my linkedin for tiktok and really trying to expand the brand and it it takes, I would tell anybody.
Speaker 1:This is not one of those things where, like in a month it starts to explode. Like it's taken me six to seven months Now I'm starting to get people who trust me, and consistency is the biggest thing that you can do. If you're not consistent, if you send a video once every two weeks, once a month, like no one's going to really trust you. But if they start seeing you every single day, sometimes twice a day, they'll still. They'll start to trust you. I have relatives who've known I've done credit card processing forever who are now going. Oh yeah, I've got clients that that would be great for you and I'm like, where was this before I started?
Speaker 2:when I was struggling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. So I think marketing, personal branding you guys make a commitment to it Everybody starts off bad. I'll tell you, right now, the biggest thing was getting in front of your camera or your phone and posting something on Instagram or posting something on TikTok. It was uncomfortable. It's too many people go and edit it a thousand times before you post it. Some of the advice I've had to me is record it, post it. Who cares? Just record and post it. And the more you get into that, the muscle memory starts to kick in. You start to start saying the right things and then it starts to become like this, like this flow, Like you're. It's just every single day, it's like breathing. So I would tell you, do all of that as much as you can. You'll see your business grow faster than you would have ever done doing something else.
Speaker 2:Are you getting sales agents calling you or are you getting merchants calling you?
Speaker 1:I've got agents. I've had agents from other companies who can't do deals. Send them to me, because they know me from Instagram, that's rad. Yeah, they're like hey, I can't handle this, or this person wants free equipment or this and I'm too small to be able to handle this. Will you go ahead and sign them up and?
Speaker 2:I'm like absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:And then we'll get a lot of referrals from this. So a lot of people coming in and doing referrals and again, I told you six, seven months and we're starting to get some larger companies now, companies that are doing $100 million a year, who are sending us referrals going hey, get in contact with my CFO. I'd going hey, get in contact with my CFO. I love seeing what you guys are doing. See if you can help us out. I would never have gotten that if I wasn't on social media all the time. That's great.
Speaker 3:It's the new business card. I mean we talk about our website all the time. We've got traffic just constantly coming through there.
Speaker 2:Are we on Instagram? We're not on.
Speaker 3:Instagram. We're not on Instagram, I know. I mean, I guess we better get on that after today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're everywhere else.
Speaker 3:Well, we're not on TikTok either.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't even really know what TikTok is. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1:I try to be everywhere, Like you know.
Speaker 2:Are we on Facebook?
Speaker 3:Yes, we're on Facebook, we're on LinkedIn and we're on YouTube. I mean, youtube is where it's at.
Speaker 1:That's probably where I lack the most is YouTube.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's where we're strongest. I need to get more presence on YouTube.
Speaker 1:I love LinkedIn. I've been trying to post on there once to twice a day on LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's probably where I get most of your stuff. I'm surprised how much people actually use LinkedIn, like looking at videos and stuff like that. I always just look to look people up.
Speaker 1:But that's how I originally used it. And now, when something's in my face all the time, you're like, oh OK, this person must be important, they must know what they're doing. And it's so funny how video makes you feel connected with someone.
Speaker 3:Right, which is really true. Yeah, which is why the. Ai might work even in five years.
Speaker 2:Yes, what about one right which is really true? Yeah, which?
Speaker 1:is why the ai might work even in five years. Yes, what about uh twitter x? I'm not big on that.
Speaker 2:It's probably again. I should be never used. I've never used it.
Speaker 3:I did eight you know years and years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you did so much reading with that you were like doing, like getting in this thing, like, yeah, talking trash.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I remember your video of masks don't work james has to mention that once a month at least he's going look, look, yeah, this mask doesn't work this is gonna get edited out, but
Speaker 1:going to your point. Video is so important. We've started following up with our clients by video message.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll do this and text it to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's something different when you, I guess, see another person's eyes or what it may be, but then you just believe them, yeah.
Speaker 3:You guys pause real fast. I apologize.
Speaker 1:No, we should wrap it up.
Speaker 2:The camera is overheating.
Speaker 3:I've got to get this addressed. It got to get this addressed. It's a major issue.
Speaker 2:I apologize about that. Conversation's too hot. Just that one camera.
Speaker 3:You know what it's? These two, and I'm not sure exactly why.
Speaker 2:Yet why don't you just wrap it up from over there? Then on yours you can just say great conversation, I'll give you the last word. Oh yeah, because we need to go. Josh, where can we find you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, great conversation though.
Speaker 1:If you guys I, I'm local, so anytime you guys want to do this, I, I love doing this stuff uh, let me know. If you guys are like, hey, we need some more content for this week or next week or whatever, yeah, let me know, I'd love to come in, love it and I'll just be a robot next time you'll be talking into a screen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, that's funny, it's pretty cool, and I think that I think we paid a thousand bucks up front, yeah, and then do you know how much? I think it's like a hundred bucks a month or something.
Speaker 3:Something like it's not too bad. Yeah, it's like wicked cheap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I could see like, because think of how much your time goes down. Yeah, you, so I could see like because think of how much your time goes down. Just type in boom, content, content, content. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:And, according to them, 14 minutes later. So if you type them your script, whatever you want James to say, supposedly 14 minutes later, your video is ready to go.
Speaker 1:So did you have to first initially do video with your favorite? Yeah, we need to do another one.
Speaker 3:We actually get to do two more because they gave us one for free.
Speaker 2:Oh, I thought it was just to train it.
Speaker 3:It's just different backgrounds, different backgrounds, which I think will be really helpful actually.
Speaker 1:Give me. If you have their card or information, let me know. Yeah, will you send it to them, jared?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, oh, and I think we get referral fee too.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely send it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by the way, josh, if you're getting all this work coming your way, they need legal assistance. Two people well, I've told them about you guys. I don't know if they ended up using you guys, but I tell everybody like, this is the group to be a part of, right on, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 3:Okay, we're golden, we're back on. So you guys ready, we're jumping back in.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. Well, josh, thanks for joining us. This has been a lively conversation, stoked to hear about your success. Where should people get in the hold of you, me, if you have questions. I love to connect with other merchant reps out there. Other agency owners love to share ideas, so please reach out to me. I answer all my stuff, so if you get an answer back, it's from me.
Speaker 2:I like. I want to one more thing that I really like. When you're saying you know other agents reach out to me, I think that's cool because it's you're not competing with people. It should be a collaboration, because we're we've always gone like we're in this together we have only one attorney group there's. You know, there's maybe like five other payments attorneys out there. Total, it's like one group that like we don't totally get along with. Yeah, and it's really interesting. It's their choice. Yeah, it's a collaborative. I'm very likable.
Speaker 1:Every opposing council likes it, loves, loves, james. No, we'll go farming one.
Speaker 2:We'll go fight it out and we'll you know do our work, but then afterwards it's okay, like yeah.
Speaker 3:Want to go, want to go to a bar. Yeah, yeah, Awesome and then fight.
Speaker 2:All right, cool. Well, thanks for joining us, absolutely Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Payments Experts Podcast, a podcast of Global Legal Law Firm. Visit us online today at globallegallawfirmcom.