Many times as I speak to merchant services sales reps, they seem a little lost about who they should be selling to. Should they go after large accounts? Should they avoid certain types of businesses? In this mini-series, I am going to provide you with 5 merchant types you should approach and a few tactical tips on how to target them correctly.
#1 – Restaurants: There are several types of restaurants that have unique challenges and advantages in prospecting, here they are:
- Pizza Shops – I have them listed separately because they are so profitable!!! This is because they all have multiple locations. If you know what you are doing in the field and feel fairly confident in your ability to sell merchant services, you need to be going after Pizza Shops right now. Stop everything you are planning tomorrow and instead map out every pizza shop in your area and walk in before 11am. Even if they are not open, the owner is usually there in the morning, helping his staff to get ready for lunch. Most pizza shop owners work from 8am to 1 or 2pm and then head home. Then they come back and work from 5 or 6pm till closing. BE CAREFUL!!! Pizza Shop owners all know each other and many times they are even in business with each other. If you screw up a deal, you are screwed, so don’t go after them until you are confident in your ability and in the processor you are using.
- Quick Service Restaurants / Fast Food – For some reason these types of businesses always get avoided because reps think they are corporate. Very few fast food restaurants are corporate owned. The vast majority are franchises and again, most fast food franchise owners have 5 or more locations that they own. Start walking into Taco Bell, Dairy Queen, actually any of the YUM brands http://www.yum.com/brands/ and many more. When in doubt, walk in and ask if they are corporate or franchise owned. The owners can be tough to track down, but it is worth the effort!
- Fine Dinning / Taverns – These are probably the toughest in my mind, just because it can be hard to reach the business owner and because they always use a touch screen point of sale. Today, I want to give you a custom pitch that I have found very useful when prospecting these business types. First, track down the owner because you want to introduce yourself. Tell the employees, “I am really making an effort this year to do a better job of networking with other local business owners so I would love to meet Susan when it is convenient. (Also, use social media like LinkedIn). Then, use this pitch with the owner after making small talk about their business. “I do have very competitve pricing because I work with mutliple processing companies to find you the best deal, but the issue I usually run into with restaurants like yours is that I may not be able to integrate with your Point of Sale software. So, before I waste any of your time, could you just tell me the name of the software you use and let me check to see if we integrate with that and then I could work on a free bid for you, do you know the name of the software you use? Once you get the name, move on to the next prospect and find one of your processors that works with them (or email me james@ccsalespro.com and I will tell you). Now, when you come back, you say, “Good news, I found someone who can integrate with your system…” then you get the statement and move forward.
BTW, just today a rep sent me a snapchat message from the field with a situation almost identical to the one described above and I was able to tell him who to place the deal with. Please reach out to me on snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or email me james@ccsalespro.com if you have any questions. My passion is helping independent reps succeed and so my team and I are ready to help you accomplish your goals.
Have a great day,
James Shepherd
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