October 24, 2009
career in merchant services?
jdesey asked:
I am looking at an inside sales position with a Card Processor. They have a ENDLESS supply of leads…and the preference is phone vs. face to face. They are looking for their superstars to get up to 30 or more new accounts per month. I am told that the average merchant is approx $10,000 per month in volume…but of course there will be larger ones.
I am looking at an inside sales position with a Card Processor. They have a ENDLESS supply of leads…and the preference is phone vs. face to face. They are looking for their superstars to get up to 30 or more new accounts per month. I am told that the average merchant is approx $10,000 per month in volume…but of course there will be larger ones.
My question here is whether or not this is reasonable? Can a superstar sales person really do well?
I am currently in a sales position, medical recruiting, and I do very well there, but do not enjoy the work.
Please respond if you HAVE done this kind of work
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Hi, I worked for a registered ISO/MSP for Visa and MasterCard (six years) and have done sales so I speak from experience. The company I worked for operated in the same manner as the company you are describing.
You can make good money but it won't happen right away. The real money comes from residual income on the merchants you acquire. Although you can make money from selling credit card terminals that will only be enough to put food on your plate while you build up your portfolio.
As you build your portfolio your monthly income will grow accordingly. On average a typical merchant will make you about $25 per month. So when you are first starting off the residual income won't be enough to support you. But as your portfolio grows to about 100 merchants that residual income will now be $2500 a month or more which, when combined with your terminal sales, is enough to make a living. The average sales agent brings in 5 - 8 merchants per month.
Of course, your goal is to have as many merchants as possible in your portfolio and to land as many "big fish" as you can. Landing high volume merchants will make you much more money then landing start-up ecommerce websites as they tend to perform poorly. You also need to make sure you bring on enough new merchants to help offset the ones that leave you. Just like you will be stealing merchants from other sales agents, they will be doing the same to you.
If you plan on soliciting merchants directly a work week is never less then 40 hours if you hope to keep generating leads. You'll be spending half of your time generating leads and the other half making your sales pitch to the leads you have generated. Competition is fierce and merchants are reluctant to switch so don't be surprised to be turned down frequently.
I run the site below if you need to verify my knowledge.
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