The most common question I’ve been asked over the last ten years is, “How much can I make selling merchant services?” To be very honest, I’ve never been happy with my answer to that question! I’ve never had the ability to be specific – until now! By using the income calculator I created, you can get personalized information. Don’t miss the culmination of the series on merchant services sales commission. In today’s episode we’ll tally the grand total of your predicted earnings.
If I could write an eBook knowing what I know today and then go back in time and deliver it to myself 10 years ago when I first got into this industry, this would be the one! CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
To get an accurate prediction of earnings, there are assumptions which underlie the question. Please refer to the previous episodes in this series to learn each assumption and how the number entered was chosen.
“How Many Merchants Can You Sell”
“How To Sell More Than 100 Merchants”
“Understanding Up-front Bonuses”
“Why Your Residuals Are Not Growing”
“How Much Residual Can You Make Selling Merchant Services?”
For the purpose of this episode, I will walk you through the calculator one more time. Then you will be up-to-date and ready for your grand total.
First, go to instantquotetool.com and click on “goals.” You don’t need to sign in or sign up to use the calculator. Here are the numbers entered thus far:
Your monthly income for month one and two should read $5,400. Why are those the same? Because you’re making sales but haven’t gotten any residual. Understand that residual is a full two-month delay. Your merchants take about a month to start processing the first full month. Then there is another month before you get paid for that month of processing. Therefore, you won’t see the first residual until the third month. You should see in the third month $5,820, $420 extra. The next months’ totals are $6,240, $6,660, $7,080 – the residuals are growing each month. By month six, you are already making $7,000 a month. In the first year, you make $86,400.
Now, consider these scenarios:
#1. Change the up-front bonus from $450 to $200. Notice the first-year income just dropped from $86,000 to $50,000. I mention this because of talk in the industry concerning the evils of leasing terminals. This frustrates me. The truth is if you want to survive your first year in merchant services, you should take a hard look at leasing. Leasing will increase your up-front bonus money significantly. You might at least do leases on cash discounting or maybe selling Poynt Terminal. Perhaps you are exclusively selling free terminals and saying, “No, I get a profit true-up.” I must point out that profit true-ups go negative much more than they go positive. You will probably be around $200 or $300 up-front. That will dramatically damage your income in the first year especially. After the first year, that is not as important. Re-enter $450 now; all the numbers will change accordingly. You’ll see year two is at $96,802.
#2. Take the annual attrition from 20 to 12. That will add $5,000 a year to your income. So, taking the extra time to send a birthday card or Christmas greeting to your customer is totally worth it!
#3. Change the gross margin. Let’s say you’re only selling to small mom and pop shops. Notice year 5 right now based on the changes we’ve made is $137,000. Change the gross margin from $70 to $40, meaning you’re going after smaller businesses exclusively. You’ll see year five drops to $90,000, a loss of almost $50,000 because you aren’t targeting everybody. Since you aren’t comfortable selling a two-location pizza shop or some larger place, you’ll have a much smaller income for the future. The gross income change won’t impact year one much, but the business types to whom you sell will have a major impact down the road.
So, how much can you make selling merchant services? An average rep who is operating according to industry averages we entered in the calculator and who is doing half leases and half up-front, can make $86,000 the first year. Then you can grow from there to a heavy six-figure income peaking at around $140,000 or $150,000 by your fifth year in business.
Use the calculator to find your individual prediction. Change the assumptions according to whether you’ll do more or less than the average. I hope you’ll enjoy the calculator; it’s my free gift to you. While you are at instantquotetool.com, please do take time to look at our training and other functions of the tool. We’re adding new training and building more features monthly. This tool could be a huge help to you!
As always, please comment with your own opinions and experiences. And share these episodes on your social media if they’ve been helpful to you.
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