The Key to POS Integration – How To Sell Merchant Services Fine Dining Restaurants

In this episode I offer help on timing your interaction, gathering the right data, and creating a successful campaign to sell merchant services to fine dining restaurants. This is the fifth episode in my current mini-series on selling to specific business types.   The summary of payment processing for this industry is integrate, integrate, integrate!  Every fine dining restaurant already has a point of sale system to manage their tables, menu, etc.  Integrating with the current system is the key to selling in this industry.  Selling this industry is challenging.  Trying to integrate without knowledge of systems and equipment is a waste of time.  My advice is take some time to learn before trying to sell fine dining restaurants.  My tips today will give you the advantage you need to sell in this industry.

Read the previous article here: http://bit.ly/2igt2ec  My SuperSaver Processing tips and -How to Sell Merchant Services to Auto Repair Shops

>The first step – survey.  In addition to your current sales schedule, set aside thirty minutes or an hour a day to visit different fine dining restaurants. This is a suggested script for the visit, “Look, here is my situation.  I’ve got a local company.  We do payment processing.  I’m putting together a program for fine dining restaurants.  But it seems a little complicated to me because most already have a point of sale system or a service provider who they like.  I’m just doing a little bit of market research.  Would you mind answering a couple questions for me?”

Take advantage of the opportunity to learn all you can about various point of sale systems and software.  Ask business owners, “What point of sale system are you using – or considering using?”  There are many different systems available.  The big players are NCR, Aloha, and Micros.

>The next step – talk to your processor.  Find out whether you can integrate with the system. Two variables are very important to the integrating process.

(1)  Will the point of sale software company allow you to integrate?  The problem is not that you can’t integrate technically speaking or that they won’t integrate with you.  Rather, they don’t want to integrate!  The same people who sold the point of sale system also sold the merchant services, so they are tied together.  This current provider is also probably racking up a lot of fees.  To switch merchant services, the business would have to get rid of the point of sale system, too.

(2)  Do you have a front-end frame work with which they integrate?  Front end refers to the solution, similar to a gateway, which works with that point of sale company.  A point of sale company decides regarding payment processing when making their software.  Usually they will integrate with a gateway, authorize.net and Stripe, for example.  However, the point of sale company may go directly through a processor instead of a gateway.  Perhaps a company may use Heartland Payment Systems and integrate directly with them.  This is a smarter play if you’re a software company.  Then your merchants can only use Heartland, which means they can only use you, which means you are going to make residuals forever.  

>In my experience, I estimate 70% of restaurants are not locked in to a situation where you must swap out the point of sale system to sell them.   There may be a cost of $500 or $1000 to switch.  In most cases, that is not a bad investment.  Often when there is a barrier to entry to get their business, the provider doesn’t want to lose the merchant services and is charging them a ton of money.  You may save the restaurant $200 or $300 a month.  For them to pay $1000 to save $300 a month is a very good investment.

>Talk to your processor about the EMV issue for fine dining restaurants.   Currently EMV is a huge problem for restaurants.  There are probably certain terminals your processor has that work with EMV.  That is another good topic of discussion you should have with restaurant owners.

>This is one method which I’ve used to side-step the point of sale issue.   Usually the payment processing can be turned off on a point of sale system at no charge.  They can still check it as a credit card, but the swipe will be on a separate terminal.  Although it’s not integrated, many times this is an easier arrangement, especially for EMV payments where a wireless terminal is needed at the table.  The restaurant can keep their point of sale system.  Everything stays the same – just move the credit card processing to a separate terminal.  Say to the owner, “Look, for $200 or $300 a month, why not do this?  It’s not much more inconvenient.  And it is EMV chip card compliant.”

There are several payment processing tips for you.  Now let’s talk about how to sell merchant services to fine dining restaurants.

• You need the same casual, relaxed attitude as we discussed for selling merchant services to auto repair shops. Use my survey idea I’ve already mentioned.  Take a couple of weeks to survey several fine dining restaurants.  Then you can come back to these same people later to sell them.
• Timing is everything! These fine dining restaurants are very busy at certain times of day.  In my experience, the best time to visit is 4:00 or 5:00 p.m.  Perhaps this could be your last stop for the day.  The restaurants get busy by 6:30 to 7:00, but most staff are there by 4:00 to prepare for the dinner crowd.  Casually walk in and begin to talk about their point of sale system.

You may need thirty days to get a comfort level of knowledge on how to sell merchant services to fine dining restaurants.

• Know what the pricing is going to be.
• Know how to answer their point of sale questions.
• Know what systems are being used in your market.
• Know which ones you can flip.
• Know which ones you have to turn off and separate.
• Know who does EMV and who doesn’t.

As you can see, selling to fine dining restaurants is a little more complicated.  You should keep selling the other business types while you dig in and learn!  Get your data together and create your campaign.  Then get some great sales!  I hope this has been helpful to you.  There are more episodes to come in this mini-series.  Don’t miss a chance to benefit from my experience in how to sell merchant services to specific business types!

Read the next article here:  http://bit.ly/2ioci56  Leverage Sales to Specialty Shops – How to Sell Merchant Services to Retail Specialty Shops.