Does Your Sales Pitch Include Savings, Service, & Equipment?

Make sure you present a good offer to the merchant.  You need to be able to offer one or more of these three:  savings, service, and equipment.  I’ve found that many agents rush right into the business and try to start doing a pitch as soon as they get an analysis back with a cost savings summary.  That’s not very smart!  First stop for a second and make sure you’re offering one or several of these three items which are going to create value.  You need to understand what your pitch is going to be.  Answer these questions:  Why should the owner use you instead of the current processor?  What is the value you’re presenting to the owner?

• The most important one is savings. If you’re with North American Bancard or TMS on my team, my experience is about 70% of the time we’ll be able to offer the merchant significant savings when you get a statement.  The other 30% of the time we can offer a little bit of savings or at least break even.  Make sure you can give the merchant a lot of savings.  However, if you can’t offer savings, you’ll have to definitely offer both of the other two items to compensate.
• Service is the next item. What kind of service are you going to provide?  Some of you might have a business model where you provide unbelievable savings and free equipment but not very good service.  The merchant can get service from the processor.  If this is your plan and your business model, that’s fine.  I know a lot of agents who sell to other businesses doing sales that way.  This model is especially very effective when selling over the phone.
• The last item would be equipment. Are you offering the merchant free equipment or giving upgraded equipment?  Lots of times on a smaller account I’ve been able to close the deal simply because of offering local service and free equipment, even when I couldn’t offer savings.

One other little tip I’ll give you:  If you can offer merchants only a tiny little bit of savings, don’t even present that as savings.  Just say, “We’re going to match your present rate.”

Before you go in to make the presentation, you need to make sure you know what your value proposition is – what value you’re going to offer the merchant.  This is an excellent way to increase your closing ratio.

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