As many businesses are accepting payment transactions mostly through digital modes, it has created a buzz in the market causing increased demand for the merchant services. The global market of merchant services that valued at $41.44 billion in 2021, is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 17.4% by 2030.
With this exponential growth insights of the sector, the necessity for finding and implementing new effective strategies on selling merchant services becomes vital.
What Are Merchant Services?
The financial services offered to the businesses who use digital payments modes is called merchant services. These services allow all forms of digital payment using different tools that facilitate payment processing like:
- credit card transactions
- debit card trades
- electronic fund transfers
- other such payment methods
For seamless financial transactions, merchant services offer customer support, point-of-sale, and payment gateways.
A Few Examples of the Most Prominent Merchant Services Are:
- Mobile Payment Solutions: Mobile payment solutions let businesses accept electronic payments through smart devices like card swipers or near field communication readers (NFC) that can be connected via tooth or into a smart device.
- Virtual Terminals: A virtual terminal is a web-based application similar to that of an online checkout form. It process payments via mail order, telephones, fax, email, or in person.
- Credit Cards: The credit card merchant services offer a transaction mode for businesses to accept online/ offline non-cash payments.
- POS Systems: A POS merchant service is a tool that offers seamless implementation in the payment processors. Once the pay option is chosen on the tool, the POS system shares the payment value on the payer’s card reader to avoid the hassle of manual input.
- Payment Integrations: Payment integration services arise when a business’s POS system is connected to a payment processor; this allows seamless payment transactions.
Merchant Service Provider:
- A merchant service provider allows both the business and its clients to make easy and convenient electronic transactions.
- They delivers the required software and services for businesses that accept electronic payments from their clients.
- They ensure safety measures by implementing encryption methods in the services to minimize data breach risk.
- In addition, the merchant service providers streamline payment collections by providing a robust suite of payment solutions.
How to Sell Merchant Services?
1. Create a Proficient Business Model:
- Examine the market of merchant services for potential prospecting and shaping your business model.
- Check for factors like client requirements, market size, competition, and also the current industry trends. It will let you identify a strong financial strategy, maximum reach, and also lets you set realistic & achievable goals for your business growth.
2. Know Your Target Prospects:
- The better you understand the target client, the more you can analyze for effective prospecting. Determine the potential businesses that can benefit most from your merchant services.
- As every business is unique, you need to implement a strategy that aligns with the business you target.
- The most successful merchant services businesses are those that understand the potential client’s unique requirements and challenges. Once you understand their business wants, tailor your sales approach to the prospect’s necessities.
- Demonstrate how your merchant services can enhance their business’s payment transaction efficiency, security, and customer experiences.
3. Connect With Target Prospects:
- Connect with key professionals of businesses like retailers, auto-mobile dealers, small business owners, restaurant owners, and other such businesses via email database.
- Using the email database you can run multi-channel marketing aligning with the prospect’s business objectives. It helps you expand your business and network, making your client base stronger for long-term business relation.
4. Collaborate With a Reliable ISA or ISO:
- ISO or Independent sales organizations are businesses that are approved by payment industry regulators to sell merchant services; they make the transactions process through a formal relation with a payment processor or by acquiring a bank.
- Independent Sales Agents are the small entities that serve as a mediator between the payment processor and merchant business, they usually have their own clientele.
- ISAs regularly approach merchants to offer payment transaction solutions and earn commissions based on the volume of the transaction.
- ISA can be your ideal prospect if you need more customized and flexible solutions. At the same time, ISO provides a structured approach with access to resources and knowledge to understand the implementation of the services for a seamless user experience.
- Both ISO and ISA are essential in processing payment transactions, catering to different requirements and needs.
5. Identify Your Sales Goals:
- Now that you have analyzed the market needs and chose the intermediary, it is the time to establish your sales goal and pursue to achieve them.
- To set achievable goals, recognize your business objective by examining:
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- Value propositions
- Merchant services
- Competitive benefits
- Prospect’s industry
-
Set clear, ambitious, and measurable goals by considering elements like existing client retention, new client acquisition, and upselling or cross-selling additional services.
6. Develop a Potential Lead-Acquiring Strategy:
- A sales strategy is equally important to have the needed strategy for business growth. An essential element of a sales strategy is having the right industry network, which aids in increasing your business’s sales.
- Attend events, conferences, and trade shows related to merchant services. Involve in conversations, establish relations with industry experts, and exchange business cards with potential leads; this is vital for lead generation.
- Creating content such as articles, blogs, videos, and more can also help you in generating leads. It can be achieved by attracting more traffic and establishing your platform as an educational and valuable industry knowledge source.
7. Craft a Powerful Sales Pitch:
- Many merchant services lose their client interest in them due to not having an effective sales pitch. Such merchant service businesses use a pre-packaged sales pitch and pray that it works in the process of lead conversion.
- Avoid this mistake by creating a sales pitch that highlights the benefits a prospect can avail through your services. Emphasize on how the services will enhance the secure payment processing, increase user experience, and improve sales.
- Use case studies and your past service offerings that have had a positive impact on your client’s business. Demonstrate how you can offer the same yet better profit to your prospecting lead through your merchant services.
This will solidify your sales pitch and may increase the chances of closing the deal with the prospect.
8. Consistently Deliver Real Value to Your Merchant Service:
- An effective strategy for selling a merchant services depends on what value a business can offer to the client. Communicating the value of your merchant services is essential to build trust and nurture a long-term relationship.
- Communicating value should include empathy, authenticity, and a client-centric approach.
- Express your business’s core values and align them with the client’s goals. Explain how your values can benefit their business and foster trust for lasting partnerships.
9. Be Transparent and Consistent:
- Offer transparency and consistency while selling your merchant services. It builds trust in your potential prospects. Provide clear and understandable information about your services, associated fees, or restrictions, if any. These will highlight straightforward pricing without any hidden charges.
- Provide regular updates on any industry shifts, trends, or improvements to your clients. Ensure timely responses to customer support for inquiries and consistent messaging across all your communication channels.
By offering these features, you build a reliable reputation and transparency, form trust, and build lasting client relations in your merchant service industry.
Additional Tips on Selling Merchant Services
Understanding how to sell merchant services is vital for the growth of the business. A sales representative of your merchant service must educate themselves with the latest payment industry operations. They must familiarize themselves with the current industry trends and new technologies to enhance their sales pitch.
A few more effective tips on selling merchant services are as follows:
1. Educate Your Sales Team With Credit Card Processing:
- Understand the role of a credit card processor, which is similar to merchant service providers. Every merchant service provider has a pricing structure that outlines the payments for businesses. It may cause a high number of businesses to pay more.
- In some cases, the payment structure may include credit card cash surcharges or discounts. Study how to use a full-featured card reader and POS system that will help your business grow through smooth debit and credit card sales, especially from e-commerce businesses.
2. Relate to Each Client’s Requirements:
- For a sales team to excel in successful strategies of selling merchant services, it must actively listen to the business owners. They must understand the business’s pain points and address the required necessities.
- If a client is dissatisfied with their current payment processor, the business’s sales agent must investigate the reason and offer necessary solutions.
- Perhaps the business’s merchant services package does not align with the client’s business needs. Otherwise, the current processing business’s sales agent was too focused on delivering the sales pitch instead of engaging in a meaningful conversation with the client and did not bother to have a follow-up.
3. Flexible Payment Options:
- A “one size fits all or a universal payment option” does not fit for all payment processing. It excludes most of the potential lead conversion ability.
- For better sales outcomes, many businesses in diverse industries expect varied payment streams and cash flow cycles. Offering multiple payment options increases the chances of your sales interactions on the merchant services.
4. Get Hold of Continuing Sales Training:
- Every merchant service business will have targeted sales training in their sales agent programs. The training will help these sales agents to excel in working with the clients.
- You can also suggest your sales team to read classic sales training books, review successful salespeople, and listen to industry-relevant podcasts by industry leaders.
- The curiosity of merchant service business’s continuously improving sales skills will offer an extra edge to excel in their industry.
Conclusion:
Creating a strategy for successfully and effectively selling merchant services requires a deep understanding of the industry. For powerful lead conversion, customize your marketing objectives to align with the prospect’s business goals.
Having a clear understanding of the merchant service’s market needs and communicating transparently through sales pitch enhances your sales. It will increase your revenue, enhance client relations, and boost your business growth.