The Payments Experts Podcast
Expert payments attorneys discuss the electronic payments industry from a legal perspective.
The Payments Experts Podcast
Candor Over Clever: The Sales Edge Most In Payments Ignore | Field Guide for ISOs & Agents | PEP076
Candor Over Clever: How Honesty, Software, and Solid Contracts Build Real Payments Businesses
In a market where scripts and “solutions” blur together, candor is the unfair advantage. This episode features JJ Sedor of Paymint Solutions (https://www.paymintinc.com/)—a former construction-business owner turned ISO CEO—who wins by telling the truth, learning faster than rivals, and leading with software that actually fixes merchant problems. Join Christopher Dryden, and Jeremy Stock hosting JJ to break down how saying “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” disarms resistance, opens real discovery, and builds trust that survives pricing pressure. This is a field guide for agents, ISOs, PayFacs, and fintech operators who want durable growth, not churn.
From Job Sites to Merchant Counters: Transferable Skills That Win Deals
JJ maps the surprising overlap between running remodels and running payments projects: scoping, sequencing, clear milestones, and proactive communication. Door-knocking anxiety nearly derailed him; what saved him was acting before he felt “ready,” then operationalizing every lesson. Confidence followed competence—and competence came from doing installs, touching terminals, and walking the workflow with the merchant.
If You’re Not Selling Software, You’re Selling a Commodity
Modern acquiring is software-led. JJ shows how integrations with accounting, inventory, and POS unlock time savings merchants can feel: reconciliation, real reporting, faster cash, cleaner training. Lead with outcomes, not features. Translate “API” into “fewer clicks and fewer callbacks.” The result: stickier portfolios, lower support drag, and margins that survive rate-shopping.
Contracts Decide Tomorrow’s Revenue—Not Just Today’s Close
Newcomers miss the fine print. We unpack the traps that bury future earnings:
Residuals: Watch for clawbacks, one-sided true-up language, and vague net definitions.
Exclusivity and non-solicit: Keep them narrow, time-boxed, and tied to real consideration.
Reporting: Monthly, line-item detail that lets you verify your split—no “trust us” clauses.
Termination: Define cause, cure periods, data hand-off, and residual survivability.
Legal review isn’t overhead—it’s risk control. The right ISO alignment protects both sides and prevents relationship drift when people change or priorities shift.
The Sales Operating System: Practical Tactics You Can Use Today
Lead with candor: “Here’s what this does, here’s what it doesn’t, here’s the tradeoff.” Credibility beats clever.
Do the work on-site: Touch the hardware, map the workflow, document the current stack. Solve a real pain in the first week.
Sell the integration, not the widget: Demo the end state—“close batch, auto-post, reconcile”—not the menu tree.
Standardize discovery: Ten questions that surface risk, compliance gaps, and must-have integrations before you quote.
Instrument your portfolio: Track install-to-activation lag, support ticket drivers, and save reasons. Close the loop monthly.
Confidence Without the Spin: A Culture That Compounds
Knowledge compounds when you share it. JJ’s rule: teach the playbook, build a bench of mentors, and reward the person who asked the tough question—because that question saved ten others. Teams that hoard information burn out; teams that publish internal “how-to”s and run weekly debriefs scale.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
Moving from construction to payments and transferring customer skills into process and project management
Overcoming doorknocking fear and building “Teflon” confidence through reps and real merchant work
**Matters discussed are all opinions and do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people and events is a coincide
A payments podcast of Global Legal Law Firm
You got to be vulnerable to a certain degree, right? I mean, I I and I'm not trying to be touchy-feely, but I have no problem. I think you have to be willing to say, hey, I don't know, but I'll find out, right? And and I think people respect that that candor of just being real with somebody else. And and and I think what I've gotten better at as I've gotten older is the law is crazy, right? I mean, there's so much for us to know. I've gotten really good at telling potential clients, going, I know nothing about that, and I'm not going to learn anything about that. There are tons of professionals that you can go to to find out about that, you know. I'm not that guy. If you got a tax question, I got plenty of people for you, but I'm not getting involved. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Welcome to the Payments Experts Podcast. A podcast of Global Legal Law Firm. We hope you enjoy this episode.
SPEAKER_02:Alright, JJ, we're gonna jump in. So, um, that's payment, by the way. Not payment, but payment, M-I-N-T. I actually like to play on the word. Um, it it's really interesting too because JJ's based in Illinois, but his address, he lives on San Diego Place, which I think is the greatest thing ever, because we happen to be located in San Diego. So when I saw that, I was I you know I was oh, it's perfect, man. We're we're we're made for one another. So JJ's been in the space for a while. He's got kind of an interesting story. Um, JJ is a people person, and the thing that I really like uh uh about our podcast is that we get normal players in the space from from, I mean, and it's everybody, right? I mean, we get you know digital transactions and publications, we get the feed on the street, which is more like JJ. We get ancillary service provider providers. But the great part about having somebody like JJ on is he's a sales guy and he runs sales and he didn't start in payments, he found his way to payments, which I think is a is usually a more successful avenue. Like I think when you start in payments, you may or may not be a great salesperson. But when you do something else and you understand sales and you transition, I think generally that is something where people become very successful. So just to get us going, just tell us about your your background, not just in payments, but how you started in business and then how you transition to payment. Sure. Well, first thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_04:Appreciate it. Been looking forward to this. Um, I started uh in payments in in this industry in about 2018. Um, I'll kind of backtrack real quick. I was in the construction industry, I owned a construction company uh for about 18-ish years and uh sick and tired of the grind. Um was fishing with a good buddy of mine that was has had been and still is in this industry for a very long time. And uh he's like, hey man, why don't you hop in the car one day with me and just see what I do? Um so I did, and I was I that was the only time I was in the car with them, and I was actually shocked. Like, you know what? I think I can do this. Um, running a construction company that very similar in sales. Um obviously every every sales job's a little different, but very similar. Um, but I was I was burnt out. Um, couple guys on the team, you know, you're you're taken from Peter to Pay Paul, mostly residential, some light commercial. Um and then once I started doing this part-time and at the end of 2018, I realized I'm like, wow, this is uh uh this is interesting. And I think I may have found um a different avenue of making a living. Um 2019, I just kind of just jumped into it. I sold my construction company, COVID hit. Um, and a really weird scenario in my life happened. Um I really after 2019, COVID hit. I really didn't do much in this industry. I had a little bit of residuals. Um, and then right out of COVID, it was January, I caught COVID, and literally the third week of January, um, I I told my wife, I'm like, you know, I gotta, I gotta shit or get off the pot. I gotta do something. Either I go do this or I go do something else, but I have to do something um full time and take it serious. And I just started from there. Um within that first year, I not only meet and beat my expectations, I I shot for the moon, as uh my book good buddy would say, he's like shoot for the moon and and reach for the stars. And I I hit both of them, and then year two, I hit uh exceeded from there, and it just it just kept growing.
SPEAKER_02:Um so well, what's been to me coming in from a whole new space? I mean, when I when I train uh employees in payments, um a lot of times it's easier to understand where we are by understanding where we came from. And so I use different methods of trying to train people. And and really I try to give people historical payments from my perspective of when I first got involved, and that's like 20 years ago, and it's monumentally shifted. What was probably the biggest learning curve as you came into the space trying to determine? I I mean, what are the what are the top 10 learning biggest learning curves? But no, I get it, but it's as far as like you know making a transition into this, I mean, look, people want relationships. That's my that's my feeling about it, right? Like, and I don't care what business you're running running, people want relationships. They're not always gonna like what you have to say, but they want somebody that's going to deliver a message with their with their best uh you know, best with good intent and their best outcome in mind, right? And so, and sometimes that's literally like walk away, or you know what, you're in a great situation, you don't you don't need me. And it's building that rapport, even if it doesn't pay dividends till later on. But you know, out so some people have that natural ability. That seems like you every time I talk to you, you're easy with the gift of gap. But as far as like coming into a space that was really unfamiliar, like what were the things that you you know you found difficult and kind of ways that you overcame those, those those obstacles? It's a great question.
SPEAKER_04:Um, you know, there was a lot of in in my past career, there was a lot of having to like my mind's working like an engineer. So I had to figure out problems, I had to constantly learn. And that was really, really like I love learning and I love uh figuring stuff out, but I also that's one part. The other part, I I had to deal with customers. Whether we had, you know, I had two or three jobs, a bathroom, a kitchen, it was constantly having to keep, I mean, you're dealing with other people's money in their home, and it's a very difficult situation. So um I feel like the the customer service part of it and dealing with customers from start to finish was um was was easy for me. And when I got brought into this industry, I'd feel like that was the easiest part. Honestly, I was in two, three homes a day, seven days a week. When I actually had to start walk, you know, knocking on doors, walk into a business owner, ask if the business owner's there. There were times I'd drive around. I'd drive around the block three, four, five times. I'd sit there for 20 minutes before I walked in the door. I don't know what it was, but it was it was very difficult. It was a total different interaction to have to like get out of the car, go in there. Hey, is the business owner here? Right. Like, um, that was that was intimidating. It was very intimidating.
SPEAKER_02:You gotta be you gotta be Teflon. I mean, it's those those instances, it's uh like all young attorneys going into a courtroom. You know, you gotta you gotta go in and understand that you're not gonna win, you know. But like it James, my partner, says it really well, you know, like every trial is a coin flip. And you know, every qu uh every client wants to ask you, like, you know, you know, look, I the I can say the facts are on your side, the law is on your side, the facts and law are on your side. But at the end of the day, at the presentation, every trial is a coin flip. And it took me a long time to understand what he was saying. And I think it takes defeats to understand that sometimes that's gonna happen. And really, I mean, I chalk up whatever, whether it was apprehension or whatever it was, that you know, that waiting. I think it's just the ability to try to, you know, put on your Teflon self and and get in front of someone. I agree. I that's a great way of explaining it.
SPEAKER_04:Um, it it took a minute, and once I started getting into that groove, um, I I it it just became easy. I'd have to say the hardest thing was, you know, you got to figure out the basics, kind of what to say, what you're doing. I was told, you know, you don't need to know everything about the technology. Um, but in my mind, I needed to know because that that how can I approach these business owners and not know anything about the products that I'm trying to help them with? And I wasn't really trying to sell them, I was truly trying to help people. And how do how do you do that? How do you have a conversation and not know anything of what you're talking about? Um, so that began to snowball immediately. Once I got comfortable with talking to these business owners, I think that was the the biggest hiccup. And I actually and I had an agent advocate, I'm not gonna say any names, very specifically, who was by my side. She was very tough on me. Um, I thought she was rude at first, but she wasn't. Um she was awesome and she answered a billion questions anytime. I asked a lot of questions. And if if I could say a name, I would, um, but I don't want to put anyone on the spot. Um, and I she was awesome. She really helped me. She helped me from uh just simple terminals to knowing how to utilize them, doing your own installs, and progressively within a very short period of time, all these pieces of the puzzle just started kind of falling into place, right? You're learning how to speak to people, you're learning trying to figure out what their needs are, trying to figure out if you can even be of any help. Um going into what the product is that they may need, going into how to install the product. I can go on and on and on all these conspect.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's where love, I think that's where knowledge comes in, right? I mean, I think it's you know having uh a conversation, getting five minutes in and really understanding A, what's the value prop for in the mind of the merchant, and then B, what's the value prop that you see objectively that they may need by looking at a business? I mean, I I think that's where having experience as a business owner, I think that helps me and my job all the time. Like, yes, I'm a lawyer and this is what I do, but I run a business, and including like this the this podcast is part of it, right? I mean, this is marketing for us, and so understanding, you know, from my perspective at least, how to connect on a level other than just the service that I'm providing, I think it's really important. Yeah, and it's it's much easier to just, you know, I think I think what you're going back to driving around the block a few times. I think to be a good salesperson or to effectively provide a service or product, and if you're a salesperson, you're really providing a service, you got to be vulnerable to a certain degree, right? I mean, I I and I'm not trying to be touchy-feely, but I have no problem. I I think you have to be willing to say, hey, I don't know, but I'll find out, right? And and I think people respect that that candor of just being real with somebody else. And and and I think what I've gotten better at as I've gotten older is the law is crazy, right? I mean, there's so much for us to know. I've gotten really good at telling potential clients, going, I know nothing about that, and I'm not going to learn anything about that. But there are tons of professionals that you can go to to find out about that, you know? I'm not that guy. If you got a tax question, I got plenty of people for you, but I'm not getting involved.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I agree a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_02:So, what do you think was um, at least from the industry specific stuff, what do you think was the most important thing that you really kind of learned that made a difference in conversion or, you know, because I think who you are probably is a lot of what's attributable to your success so far in the space. Because, you know, from from my listening to your story outside of this podcast, I mean, you're growing in ISO. And I think a lot of that is really you. You know, I mean, it's you're able to have agents, you're able to work with them, you're able to get knowledge, give them knowledge without fear of disloyalty. I think a lot of that's attributable to you. But when we get into like actually the um the industry itself, what do you think that's paid the most dividends to know?
SPEAKER_04:It's a great question. Um I think I don't think there's one specific answer.
SPEAKER_02:Give me a top three.
SPEAKER_04:Top three. Um I think being vulnerable is one. I think being honest, this all is part of one. Being honest, like you said, if you don't know it, don't pretend like you know it. People can can see most people can see through BS. Um I don't know if it's different anywhere else, but uh in the in the general areas that we work in the Midwest, um, people can I think people in general can see BS. So being honest, right? Um the the ever growing technology, how quick technology is growing today compared to five years ago or 10 years ago, that's a huge one. Because if you're not up to date or willing to learn that technology, and you're just sitting there trying to how are you helping people? Really? How how are you helping them? What do you what's not I get you, man?
SPEAKER_02:I like I I truly believe that Alan Copelman has been on our show. He's a big sales guy, he's been in the industry for like 30 something years. Um, he's down in South Florida. He he this guy knows tons about just payments, right? He's got his own podcast and he focuses on different issues. We've been on his podcast, and he said he made the statement. I don't know if we were on error or not, but I I've repeated it many times. He's like, if you're not selling software, you're dead. Yeah, right. I mean, like, and and and I truly believe that because every piece of software is intended as a business efficiency tool. And being a business owner and understanding efficiency and how, you know, I'm not looking to replace people, but I want to automate as much as I can because there's no reason to not in the day and age that we live in. And so I think it's really important to to kind of do that, you know. I I and I think that's where payment technology comes in is it it helps create, um, especially when it integrates successfully with whatever accounting software you're using, it can give you some really good metrics to see, you know, where your money's going.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. Uh, I'm gonna I want to come back to that because that's a really important thing. Uh but really quick on number three would be the ever-changing industry of payments. I do not know 50%, let's be real, of of all this payment. I'm learning something new, multiple things new every day, and it changes every day. So I feel like I'm constantly just trying to just trying to keep up with that shelf that keeps growing. And I'm I'm trying to catch up, but it's it it becomes difficult.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I tell my kids it's the only reason I come to work is because it's like, look, being a lawyer is like a job. There's a grind to it, right? It's not always I said name another profession where somebody's trying to kick your feet out from under you the entire time you're doing it, and and and really that's what we do. Yeah, there you go. Like that's what we just eat me up. But I and I say so it doesn't make it pleasureful. The really cool thing about the subject matter I work in is that it's changing all the time, and I'm learning all the time. And I I actually enjoy learning, it's you know, one of those things that I've always enjoyed is I think knowledge is power, and and the more that you have of it. So I I think that that's important what you just said, and not to be discouraged of, hey man, this is moving quick. Like, you know, just do the best that you can to understand as much as you can.
SPEAKER_04:I agree a hundred percent. And if people um that are helping you with that knowledge, there's some people that are willing to give it to you and and teach you when you're asking questions. And there's also some people that are that are unwilling to or give you um I I don't know how to I don't know how to say it. They're they're not not that they're not willing to, but they're keeping some of that information guarded. I did I dispose of that. I don't I don't want that around me. Um I'm more than willing to help anybody, even if it's a competition, it doesn't matter. We're there's so much food out there. Um and if I can help someone, great. If someone can help me, awesome. But if you're guarding your information and you don't want to help someone next to you in the industry.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, I'm I'm with you. Like uh you can ask Jeremy. I give away a lot of time and I do it on the front end with people, and I try to be really clear with them about what's going on and and what expenses are gonna look like, and and but I give a lot of time away, and I do it because and information, because I agree with you, you can't really live in that way where you have to sit there and you know hover up, and you know, like it just doesn't make any sense to me. No, no, um well on the flip side of that, like um, because there is a subject matter I want to get into on on on the on the podcast with you, but we'll get to that. I'm kind of laying my foundation here. I consider myself, I've never said this on air before, but I really I I you know, as a younger person, I listened to Howard Stern a lot, and I enjoyed Howard Stern, even the the juvenile sophomoric stuff that went on. That makes it fun. And then, you know, his shtick is it gets old. But the one thing that Howard Stern I will say that he is really great at is he's one of the best interviewers on the face of the planet. Yeah, and he gets things out of people and in his space, which I really enjoyed always. Like it, he's got to put out a best of, but he's got people that come on a show. I like to interview people because I want, you know, like I'm I'm genuinely interested and I want to know. So on the flip side of like what are the what are the things that have been most beneficial? What are the the pitfalls that you've seen that you've experienced, whether you brought it on yourself or not, that you think everybody should look out for?
SPEAKER_04:Um, another really good question. Um have somebody on your side like you guys. Um because from just signing a contract, not knowing what that contract says will really hinder you and screw you. So I think that's really important. If you don't understand legal terminology, which I don't, I can somewhat understand it, but not really well, um have someone look at it because you're gonna put it.
SPEAKER_02:I we didn't plan this. Not at all. I'm I'm really different. I had I had a different answer, totally.
SPEAKER_04:I'm gonna go I got another one too, but I I would I would say that's a big, big one. Because if you do something in this industry and you actually become successful and you don't have you know your uh team that you're playing on, right, one of the ISOs that you're working with um truly doesn't have your back, or there's terms in the agreement, or something that's that's not cool, um, that's not beneficial to you, it should be equal to all parties. And I mean, we're all here to make money and protect ourselves. And I get that from every aspect. But there's also a lot of big companies out there that are greedy and that uh really aren't looking out for the agent. You know, the agents that are out there are are the good agents. They're trying to hustle and they're trying to make money and help people, and um there shouldn't be big ISOs out there hurting anybody. Um, so that'd be number one. Have a professional look at your contracts, have a professional look at your um what you're gonna sign on to before you do anything. Um, number two, um have someone to go to for information. Um that like we were talking about before, I think that's really important. Um if you can't ask questions and all you're left to is the you know the internet, which is great, um, you're not gonna have experiences helping you. And that that can really hinder you. I mean, I was grateful enough to uh and fortunate enough to have somebody by my side uh helping me with a lot of those questions. Because if I didn't, I'd be lost. I wouldn't know where to go, what to do, um and I'd be selling to sell. That's it.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Payments Experts Podcast, a podcast of Global Legal Law Firm. Visit us online today at Global Legal Law Firm dot com. Matters discussed are all opinions that do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people and events is a coincidence.