5 Tips on How to Sell a Merchant Account

As a business owner, you may find the process of acquiring new accounts or services challenging. In some cases, selling a merchant account may be even more difficult than you’d expect. You can’t just send an email with your request and wait for a response; there’s more to it than that. You need to know what they are looking for and how much they want to spend in order to successfully sell them on becoming your client. Even if their current processing option is not working for them, you need to still convince them why switching providers is in their best interest. If you have been attempting and failing time after time, here are some tips on how to sell a merchant account without fail!

Any form of sales begins with understanding your audience and their needs. Without this, you don’t have a chance of selling anything, let alone a merchant account. You need to know what their business goals are, what their average revenue per sale is, how many transactions they process in a day, and how many locations they are at. All of this information will help you create a sales presentation that is specifically tailored to their business model. You also need to understand what type of sales cycle they are in. If they are currently growing their business, you need to be mindful of the fact that they may not have the capital to purchase the more expensive point-of-sale software that you have. Of course, there are many other factors to consider when getting to know your audience.

Be clear on your messaging and value proposition

No one will buy anything from you if they don’t know why they should. You need to clearly articulate what you do, how it works, and why they should choose you. In many cases, the decision to use your services may be based solely on the value that you provide. You can’t just tell them that you offer the best service in the business; you need to back that up with actual numbers. You need to clearly define how your solution will make their lives easier, more profitable, and reduce costs for them. You may have the industry’s best product and a team of experts behind you, but if you can’t communicate that to your customers, you’re not going to make any sales. It’s not enough to just be clear on your messaging and value proposition, you need to be persistent in getting your audience to understand why they need your product.

Offer incentives

No one is going to buy something if they don’t have a reason to do so. This is where incentives come into play. There are many ways that you can offer incentives to a prospective client. You can offer them a lower price, a longer contract, or even special bonuses like free services or add-ons to their account. You need to do whatever you can to convince them that making a change to your services is worth their while. If you are selling to a company that is currently using an inferior solution to yours, you can offer them a discount on the price of their new account. This is a good way to get them started using your services without putting them out too much upfront. It can also help them feel confident in the transition by reducing the initial cost of change for them. You can also offer to extend the agreement on their contract for a longer period of time. This can help to lower their monthly expense for them, which may help make the transition easier. If you are selling to a small business owner, you can offer them free or discounted add-ons such as fraud prevention software or chargeback management. These services can help reduce the amount of time that the owner needs to spend on the business, which can free up some of their time.

Be patient and diligent

If you have been trying to sell a merchant account for some time, you may feel like you’ve exhausted every option that you can think of. You may be tempted to try something new or change your entire sales strategy. Before you do that, make sure that you’ve given it enough time to really see if it works. You may just need to be more patient in getting your message out there. There are many ways to get the word out about your services and the best method will depend on the industry you are in. If you are selling to small businesses, you may want to look into attending some local networking events. You can try sending emails to different businesses and often times they won’t get around to replying until a week or even a month from now. Meeting people face to face and getting your message across can sometimes be much more effective.

Understanding their objections and roadblocks

Every time someone is buying something, they have roadblocks and objections that they are facing. You need to be aware of these and address them accordingly. Some common roadblocks that businesses have when purchasing merchant services include a lower monthly expense in their current solution, a lack of funds to make the change, and being tied to a contract with another provider. If the current provider is offering them a lower rate than what they are paying currently, you will have a hard time getting them to make the change. You can try and address this by offering incentives or a better product. If they don’t have the funds to purchase your service, you can offer them a payment plan or a discount on the price. This will help them to make the transition easier. If they are tied to a contract with another provider, you can offer to buy out their contract. This will allow them to make the change without having to wait out their contract.

Wrapping up

Hopefully, these tips have given you some insight into what it takes to sell a merchant account. You need to be purposeful and diligent in your approach. You also need to be aware of the roadblocks that businesses are going to face when purchasing your services. In some cases, you may need to wait out a sales cycle. It might take some time, but if you apply these tips, you should be able to sell your merchant account without fail.