The Green Sheet Online Edition
November 10, 2025 • 25:11:01
Street Smarts
Sell like a boss
When we started our ISO, Dave and I knocked on a lot of doors and networked like crazy. Local happy hours, chamber of commerce receptions and early morning BNI breakfasts were how we showed up, built relationships and got to be known around town.
Twenty-five years later, we're still making the rounds, promoting ourselves and our brand. These days our fingers do most of the walking; we're not wearing out our shoes. Zoom meetings are great for building rapport. We can make eye contact, share our screens, and chat about the trophies and pictures on our walls.
Time management
Time remains our biggest challenge. Most merchants don't have enough of it and are understaffed as well. It's not always a stall when a merchant requests another meeting. The person may need to get others involved, especially if it's a family business. As much as I love a one-call close, I'm not above scheduling a follow up. I also ask prospects if they prefer an email, call or text because you'll never know their preference unless you ask.
Image management
One of my pet peeves is seeing a generic email address on a merchant level salesperson's (MLS's) business card. A personal website and dot.com email will boost credibility and earn trust. As financial service professionals, we need to walk our talk. This means looking professional, having a one-minute pitch down cold, and being active in our communities. It's important to maintain a mix of professional networking beyond door-to-door selling.
Pipeline management
Lead generation is a big problem. Advertising and social media campaigns are expensive. Cold email blasts are getting harder to do because AI can sniff out SPAM emails and ban your domain. AI-powered robotic messaging is also getting banned on LinkedIn. We need to meet our prospects where they search, and many of them have moved from traditional search engines like Google to AI agents like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, Copilot and more.
Back office optimization
Industry-leading ISOs and service providers are paperless. Most companies have traded paper applications for online apps that are fast and simple. I pre-populate my application with name, email, phone, name of business and pricing, and let the merchant fill out the rest or provide a link to an application that they can fill out. We need to be more like Stripe, Square, Toast and other fintechs that sign up businesses online.
Brand positioning
In this mature and crowded payments ecosystem, MLSs that continue to sell payment processing are in a race to the bottom. Others who leverage technology are more likely to succeed. It's critical to create a strategy and amplify it with clear and coherent messaging. I can't say it enough: our competitors are selling products, not processing, and their customers aren't chewing them down on price, because they want the technology.
Work smarter
While the end game of closing the sale is the same no matter what, fine tuning one's approach to the specific situation will ensure success. Work smarter, not harder. Read Street Smarts. Figure out what you're going to sell and how you're going to sell it, and build your business around a few products. Refine your search for partners. Instead of asking companies about their Schedule A, ask about their technology for a change.
Be authentic
Lose the canned pitch and strive to be authentic and in the moment. Practice your presentation to avoid looking too perfect or polished. Tailor your pitch; some prospects are auditory learners and others are visual. If you flub a presentation, you'll gain trust and empathy by showing that you're human. People expect to be contacted after a sales presentation, so follow up with a note, text, email or call, using their preferred channel.
Coffee is for closers
"Coffee is for closers," is a famous line from David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Glengarry Glenn Ross." In the movie version, Alec Baldwin plays a motivational trainer who announces that two underperforming agents will be fired by the end of the week. Most of us work in more supportive settings, but the pressure to keep a roof over our heads is real.
While the goal of closing is the same every time, each deal is one of a kind. That's the beauty of selling. I still hear the word "no" every day. It's music to my ears because it lets me know that people are listening, and every single no gets me that much closer to a yes.
Want to know more? Keep reading The Green Sheet and consider following me on LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/allenkopelman, where we can share ideas and support each other. 
Allen Kopelman, a serial entrepreneur, is co-founder and CEO of Nationwide Payment Systems Inc. and host of B2B Vault: The Biz to Biz podcast. Email him at allen@npsbank.com and connect on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenkopelman/ and Twitter @AllenKopelman.
Notice to readers: These are archived articles. Contact information, links and other details may be out of date. We regret any inconvenience.
