I was wondering if you have advice on which works better: in-person sales or telephone sales? It looks like some ISOs favor face-to-face interaction with merchants and others focus almost entirely on phone sales. I want to know what gets the best results.
Garrett Byers, Merchant Level Salesperson
Garrett,
Your question is central to the payments business. Every MLS must decide whether to do in-person or phone sales, or a combination of both. Unfortunately, we cannot say which is better for you, because much depends on the verticals you're targeting, your geographic reach, your ISO's business model and your own personal strengths and preferences. In 2014, Aaron Nasseh, CEO of Finical Inc. (formerly known as Prudential Payment Systems Inc.), wrote an informative three-part series on this topic titled "Which sales model is right for you?" The links to those articles follow:
Part 1: www.greensheet.com/emagazine.php?issue_number=140202&story_id=3896
Part 2: www.greensheet.com/emagazine.php?issue_number=140302&story_id=3929
Part 3: www.greensheet.com/emagazine.php?issue_number=140502&story_id=3994
You also might want to check out "Phone appoints vs. face to face selling merchant services," a blog post by James Shepherd, the co-host, with Patti Murphy, of the Merchant Sales Podcast and founder and CEO of CCSalesPro. Here's the link: www.ccsalespro.com/phone-appointments-vs-face-face-merchant-services .Another option is to use the search function on our home page to look for articles containing "telesales," "phone sales," "face-to-face," "in-person," etc., and you'll find a range of perspectives offered by industry experts over the years.
And from our home page, access our MLS Forum. It's a place where industry veterans and newbies alike pose questions, help one another clarify the issues of the day and encourage best practices. All of these resources should help you evaluate what approach you want to adopt.
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