Entrepreneurship Month Wrap Up | Financial Technology, Small Business, & Payment Processing Trends | B2B Vault: The Payment Technology Podcast | Episode 128

Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy Allen Kopelman, and we'll be providing you educational information about small business fintech, payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today. And in today's podcast, it's the, uh, typically we do the monthly wrap-up, but it's Entrepreneurship Month, so it's Entrepreneur or Entrepreneurship Month wrap-up.

Geez, it's a big long word.

Say that 3 times fast.

Hashtag Entrepreneurship Month.

Wrap up. Yeah, so, uh, you know, we talked about entrepreneurship, uh, for the most part all month, um, and we also snuck in an episode. Allen was out of town for a little bit, so we had the Financial, uh, Brand Forum recap episode, which did really well. You guys really liked that episode. I don't— I don't— we didn't do anything different, um, the only thing that was very popular. Yeah, the only thing that was in the title that's different or whatever was Las Vegas, but yeah, so, uh Shout out to the listeners for listening to that episode. We really appreciate you. Hopefully you got some good content out of it. Yeah, so we're going to be talking about a few things.

Let's talk about Thanksgiving.

Of course.

Of course. You have what you want me to go first? My menu?

I'll go first. And you can go. First, I would like to say I'm very grateful for everyone at Nationwide Payment Systems. Thank you, Allen. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Anna. Thank you, Samantha, and all the other people out there that make stuff possible. Oh yeah, Rocky the mascot, can't forget about you, you big jerk. Uh, he's the grumpiest old dog on the planet. Um, yeah, um, but yo, I'm super grateful for my father, my mother, my children, um, for life in general, being alive and breathing at 42 years old. Um, ask me this a long time ago, you know, never would even have thought that I'd be here. So, um, super cool, uh, stuff in my life. But yes, man, I am very grateful. Thanksgiving when I was a kid was a very big spectacle, right? And, uh, as an adult, it is what it is. Um, Anyway, we want to talk about what we ate, man. I cooked my butt off. Um, I cooked the big old turkey, like a 20-pounder. Um, did you do anything special with it? Not nothing that I don't know. I marinated it overnight, you know.

One of my friends told me he made a smoked turkey and it took like the whole day. He started it like the day before.

My kids don't like all that.

And then another friend of mine got one of those deep fryers and deep fried turkey and deep fried it. And then somebody else sent a video and they got some new Coleman thing where it's a deep fryer but no oil.

It's like an air fryer.

Yeah, but it was like a— it looked like a deep fryer. There was no oil inside it. I thought that was pretty interesting.

Yeah, so we made, uh, I mean, homemade mashed potatoes, homemade mac and cheese dressing. I made some, um, collard greens. Um, I forgot the cornbread. That was salty. I was very upset that I forgot to buy cornbread. I went to Whole Foods and I'm not—

I don't know. I know how to make homemade cornbread.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm not a chef like that, sir. Uh, and then we had, uh, some green beans. My wife makes these like fresh green beans. It almost tastes cheesy, but there's no cheese. So it's like, I don't know what the hell she does on those things, but they're amazing. Of course, we had— my father wanted green bean casserole. That's gross.

I'm sorry. I remember it is still when I was a kid.

It's like the— like, I don't know, in the southern, southern houses, like, to bake macaroni and cheese is to— in the white households is the green bean casserole. Like, if you, if you mess up the green bean casserole soup in, in, in, like, the Caucasian Thanksgiving feast, dude, you're getting kicked out.

You know, I remember when I was a chef and we would have like the Thanksgiving buffet at the hotel, right? You would— we would make that, the green bean casserole. And you know, I would not make it with like canned soup. So I would make mushroom soup. Oh, you know, and then put it in there and then put the— make real onions, not buy those onions.

You'd make fried onions, fried onions, and put it on top.

People used to go nuts for that. They loved that.

I, I never— it never looked good to me. I never liked it.

I wasn't—

and then my wife makes it and I'll eat hers.

Yeah, I'm just not a big fan of that. Yeah.

And then she made me, uh, some homemade cranberry sauce because she knows I don't eat the jelly shit. Sorry.

When I was a kid, my dad used to like the gel.

That's what I'm talking about. I can't do that.

That one, the can.

Yeah, when it just comes out, it's still shaped in a can.

Sliced.

Yeah, no, that— I'm traumatized from that. I would—

your dad used to eat that?

My grandmother.

My dad used to eat that. It was so nasty.

My grandma and my grandpa. Yeah, my grandma, my grandpa, they would tear that up. And when I became an adult, it was like mandatory that someone was to prepare homemade cranberry sauce because it is like the super easiest thing to do. It's sugar.

Yeah, cranberry sauce and water.

Yeah, water, cranberries, and sugar.

Yeah, that's it.

I mean, I don't know if you want to be— I've seen some cinnamon sticks inside of it, some Star of Anise, and some orange peels and all this other crap.

I'm—

man, put me some sugar, some water, and some cranberries. Make sure it's not too tart. I do want to have a little sweetness to it, you know, because the dressing is very herby. So that's why I put the dress— the cranberry on top of the dressing. Because what is dressing anyway? It's just bread.

Yeah, bread, onions, and celery. Yeah, like when I was in the— when I lived in Atlanta and in Texas, you know, they wanted southern style in the hotel. So we make it half with bread, half with cornbread. And you would chop up garlic, onions, carrots, celery, sauté all that with sage.

That's why I was upset. I forgot the cornbread, sir.

The sage.

So my stuff, my dressing wasn't really dressing. It was just stuffing. That's all I'm gonna call it. It was stuffing.

I—

it was good though. It did taste good. You know, but whatever. And then we had sage—

is Southern style.

Oh yeah, gotta have sage in it. And then pumpkin pie. We have some apple pie. And then I don't eat any meat. So we tried the Gardein holiday loaf.

How was that? Give it a 1 to 10.

I'll give it a 6.

6. Okay.

So there was this one, I don't know if it was the Gardein or whatever. And no, it wasn't Tofurky because I've never really been a fan of tofurkey. Besides back in the day, like my— when they first came out, you know, that was the veggie burger that you— I mean, whatever it was that they had, the turkey burger, right? Yeah, the tofurkey. Yeah, that one, that was good. That's still good, I guess. But I, you know, like I said, I try to stay away from the process.

Publix now, that at some Publix they have some kind of a sub meat substitute for turkey sandwich that you can get on the sub now, but I don't know what it is.

They're selling those deli slices.

Yeah.

Oh, I don't know, I just don't like the way they smell.

I, I haven't seen it yet. I asked them at the Publix, they said they don't have it yet.

They have the— there's this one I've had, the, like, the turkey style of it before, which you're talking about. I can't do— I can't do meat substitutes cold in general. Yeah.

Oh, you could get it heated up, I guess. They heat up some sandwiches. I don't know.

So I had that, you know, of course I had a lot of food. Well, it's 5 of us.

Okay.

You know, that, that turkey, my dad's gonna make a turkey pot pie. And then we were gonna make soup, we were gonna make turkey soup, but I fell asleep and my wife decided to not give a crap about the carcass. So no turkey soup this year, ladies and gentlemen. And she was like, what do you mean you can't? I was like, that's where all the flavor comes from.

Yeah, the bones you got, you can't—

there's no stock. I'm— you can't make turkey soup without the carcass. So yeah, sorry.

Yeah, when you're done, you take the carcass, put it all in the pot, put the vegetables and gooey stuff, all that. Yeah, everything. Pour it all, everything, boil it up. Then you put— after, then you strain it after like 3, 4 hours, and you put it in the fridge, and then all the stuff, nasty stuff, comes up to the top in the fridge. You take it off, and then you have your soup.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not— I don't eat meat. And I'll tell you what, I would have a very small bowl of the turkey soup almost every time.

We had like the un-Thanksgiving at my house. Oh, my son decided, he's like, oh, let's not make turkey.

So you did it this year like how my house usually normally does.

So we had— so we decided that filet mignon. Nice. So you got some nice filets at the butcher. Made that, made mushrooms.

You like filet mignon better than T-bone?

He doesn't— Jacob's not big on the fatty, on the— yeah, he's not big on like cutting the steak, you know. He wants to, you know, he's not big on the New York strip. Now I prefer— now I like, like the New York strip, I like the tomahawk, you know, ribeye. I mean, there's nothing— let me tell you something. I get a tomahawk ribeye, right? That can feed 2 people. Plus, plus Rocky has a field day with that. That bone's gonna be, you know, he's gonna tear that thing up. And, uh, we had filet. We gave Rocky some filet. He was chilling. He passed out after he had all his thanks, you know, he had a whole full day of Thanksgiving. And I mean, I passed out.

I looked at my watch, it was 7:48.

So I made— we were watching football. I made mac and cheese. With like 4 kinds of cheese, truffle seasoning, salt, black pepper. Then I made, uh, I put a little—

my secret for the macaroni and cheese is I like to use Cajun seasoning.

Yeah. Oh, that's probably good.

Yeah, so it gives it a little kick, but I don't put too much of it in, so it's like you're— I don't know, you know, it could be a little spicy.

Yeah. And then, and then I made, um, so I decided, then I made spaghetti squash casserole, and then I made, I got eggplant, peeled it.

Spaghetti squash casserole, it was delicious.

Yeah, take the spaghetti squash and then I sauté up some garlic, basil, and then I put a tomato sauce, just a little bit, and then I mix the spaghetti squash in with that and then bake that off in the oven.

Oh nice. Yeah, I have a spaghetti squash waiting to be cooked.

It's very delicious like that. And then, yeah, first I— you can either cut it in half and put it in the oven, which takes like an hour, or you can just nuke it in the microwave for— until it gets soft. I'm putting it out, huh?

I don't— I'm not a microwave.

No, I just put it in the oven. I just cut it in half.

I'm not even gonna lie to you, I I wish we'd— there was a better way of heating food up.

Oh, that's for sure.

You know, like in—

well, you can get those now. You can buy one of those like Ninja air fryer convection oven things. That's—

and you can put anything inside of it too, right?

Like a paper plate even.

Like, I don't know about it. No, no, not a paper plate, but like the— you know, you can put any food.

Well, a lot of people just put those foil pans in there, and then you can get like a silicone thing on the bottom so you can reused the pan. The pan, right, right, right. Put a silicone in there. But then I made this eggplant dish that came out awesome. So I sliced up some— peeled the eggplants, sliced it up long ways, and I cut it in little square pieces. Then I put that, salted it, let that soak for like an hour. Then I patted it all down with paper towel, baked that off in the oven. A little— just salt, salted it. That way you get the water out so it's not—

okay, I was gonna say like, yeah, because I'm like, eggplant's so watery, why don't you soak it?

No, put it with water. Then I took the paper towel.

Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I got it.

Then I put it in the oven on like 250 till it gets pliable, soft. Then I put in the pan, I put tomato sauce, eggplant, some more tomato sauce. Then I made a mixture with fresh spinach, portobello mushrooms, regular mushrooms, garlic, put that on there, a layer of that. And then I put a little bit of mozzarella cheese and a little bit of Parmesan cheese and a little— another layer of the eggplant and the sauce, then a little bit of cheese, and then bake that off in the oven. Came out really good, was very—

where'd you find that recipe?

I just made it up.

Sounds good.

I don't know, eggplant lasagna. Yeah, that's what it was. And, uh, well, you had— I made that spaghetti squash lasagna that one time where I made—

when you just said that lasagna, when, when you said eggplant lasagna, what I was thinking that you, you use pasta. Yeah, yeah, no pasta, no, thinly slice the eggplant.

Yeah, that's what I did. I thinly sliced it like this big. Yeah.

Like the whole length?

Yeah.

So that was the noodle?

Yeah, that was the noodle.

That sounds really good. Yeah.

And I have one of those.

But did you fry the eggplant first?

No, because I want to have it like— I didn't want to bread it and fry it because I want—

because then it would have just been eggplant Parmesan, right?

But I want it to be low-cal, you know, so it's low calorie. It's— I call it skinny eggplant. This is going to be more like a cookie. This is— this is turned into a cooking show today.

15 minutes in and we're talking about food.

And then, and then we had, uh, and then what else did I make? I think that was it. I think that was pretty— oh, and I made, uh, sweet potatoes because Jacob wanted sweet potatoes. So I peeled the sweet potatoes, boiled the sweet potatoes, mashed the sweet potatoes, added butter, added sugar, added cinnamon. I don't use sugar, so I use Truvia. Cinnamon in there. Then I put it in the, in the pan, and he wanted— then I put the baby marshmallows on top and bake that off. Oh, that was so delicious.

I used to love that, but, uh, Jacob, the way my teeth are set up—

one year, you know what I did, which was really cool? I had a lot of people at my house, so I took— I got small sweet potatoes and you made personal sweet potato pies. Yeah, so I, so I tell you, I've seen this before. So I, so I, I just cut, you know, I just cut a slit in them, then I baked them off in the oven the night before, scooped them all out, then made the mash, right? I had a couple of extra sweet potatoes so it would look good. Then I stuffed the marshmallows in there, right? And then when every— when, you know, when it was time to eat, I baked them all off, then everybody got their own little sweet potato.

I've seen—

that was really good.

That sounds like people were blown away by that.

I've gotten—

that's a lot of work.

I mean, I used to cook sometimes for 20, 30 people at my house back in the day. I would make a turkey, I would make a roast beef or a brisket or a big pot roast, you know. I would throw down on some serious food.

Yeah. So anyway, so that was the—

so that was the whole menu. Yeah, man, I'm super grateful That was, uh, and I'm very grateful for my staff in the office, everybody. Anna, Justin, Samantha. I'm glad that I'm the boss so I can bring Rocky to work so he doesn't have to stay home alone, and he gets to come here and sleep and terrorize us. And although he did— he's, you know, the UPS guy loves Rocky, and the people at the bank, everyone loves Rocky.

He's just a grumpy old jerk.

He can be grumpy sometimes. He barks when people come here, and he likes the Amazon man.

And bites you. He's bitten everyone in the office. We should all go get a tetanus shot. No, on Allen.

Okay, I think they're free at Publix.

No, hey, we're gonna go in a line like, what happened? Our mascot bit us.

So let's talk about what was up. What did we go over on the podcast? So we talked about cash versus cashless. So we talked about that cash is still out there and very popular. People are still getting cash out of ATM real quick.

Yeah, cash is still king because Sylvester Stallone said so.

Oh, is that on his new TV show? Yes.

Pulled out a lot of money and he was like, we— he was trying to pay for his coffee and first he was super upset that the coffee came in a paper cup. Then he couldn't pay for the coffee because he didn't have a card. A card.

Oh yeah, he's caused that.

Oh wait, no, he couldn't ship his package. Oh, because he didn't have his card.

Okay.

So yeah, that's a pretty good show anyway. Tulsa King or whatever.

So there's been— yeah, that's a— it's on Paramount.

Paramount Plus. We're plugging this more, plugging our food and plugging everything else.

So, you know, there's been a lot of articles about ATM machines and what banks need to do with ATMs. And, you know, putting, um, ATMs, um, inside the bank with like virtual tellers in there and all kinds of stuff with ATM machines. And ATM machines, you know, like becoming a financial hub. So there's a lot going on with the ATMs. And, you know, of course we provide managed ATM services so businesses don't have to worry about getting cash to put in the ATM and the security around that. We put an ATM in the business, and then the, uh, armored car comes and loads the money. So making it safe for everybody and profitable. And let's see, we talked about supporting local businesses and charities, so we have our charity project going on right now.

Did you support any business on Small Business Saturday?

Yeah, I went to small businesses over the weekend. There you go. Yeah, I went— when I went out to eat, I ate at a local sushi place. I got, uh, I bought some stuff at a local store.

Yep, I ordered, uh, a couple— 2 t-shirts and a hoodie from Bohemian Chic. It's a crystal shop type of thing. My wife is really in, you know, I've got crystals too, man, you know, keep the good energies on me and the bad vibes away from me. Uh, yeah, no, Small Business Saturday.

And then, yeah, Small Business Saturday.

Oh, I definitely wouldn't see my brothers, Chalice Rolling Limited. Thank you.

You check—

always take care of me.

Yeah, so we're talking about entrepreneurs, Small Business Saturday, Black Friday, Cyber Monday was the big month for holidays, for everything. Today is Cyber Monday.

Yeah, I mean, my wife's birthday is on the 21st. So, I mean, happy birthday, but it's already passed anyway, you know. But so like this whole month is just kind of crazy. And my grandson was born on the 18th of November.

Yeah, we had Thanksgiving this month, big holiday month. And we talked about, um, financial technology trends, like what's going on with, you know, how money's going to be transferred in the future back and forth, you know, with the Fed now and maybe pay by bank coming soon. I just don't think it's going to catch on in the US as fast as everybody thinks it is because everyone's so afraid of putting every, like, their banking account information and things.

Well, it's not that, just, just like be paying by bank, man.

I think people are upset with the whole Zelle situation, you know. But today there's a story out, I think like 20-something people posted it on LinkedIn this morning because, uh, Wells Fargo and Chase, who have been like— and I don't even know what other banks have not been very compliant with, um, Elizabeth Warren coming after them, um, you know, the government going, you know, calling them in for hearings about the fraud and the scams and the this and the that and the security behind Zelle.

So they were saying don't, don't be mad at Zelle, use Zelle.

That's right, that's what the banks were saying, and they're saying they're gonna— they're looking into giving some more money back. So, well, I mean, you got to be careful. Do you— could—

can you really blame Zelle, or can you blame the bank, the financial institution?

Well, I think that people have to take some responsibility and be educated. We talk about that for sure. Financial literacy, and people need to be updated on cybersecurity and not falling for stupid texts.

If I—

I probably get 5 to 10 text messages a week. Oh, your bank account is on hold.

You're kind of good one this morning. Almost got me to click.

I'm like, what was it?

Just something about insurance. Oh, and my health, uh, my, my car insurance.

I was like, yeah, and but whatever, they guess. Oh, your TD Bank account is for— I don't bank at TD, stop sending me TD Bank. Bank of America. But you get these texts and then people, oh, log into your Zelle, and then the per— the person puts in their credentials, the scammer on the other end gets it, goes on to your bank, logs in, transfers himself $500, buy $500. So, but I think that Zelle needs to come up with better security, and they're giving a bad— and, you know, and other apps too have problems too with transferring money— PayPal, Venmo— and they're all being called up in front of Congress right now, you know. So that's a big, a big hoo-ha. We'll get more into some other stuff about that. We talked about, you know, how to do it, how how to create more income for your agency by starting a side hustle with Nationwide Payment Systems.

Hello everyone, we'd like to take this time to thank our sponsors Nationwide Payment Systems and NPS Printer. We'd also like to shout out the listeners and everyone that subscribed to our YouTube channel. Thank you for tuning in. If you'd like to reach Allen or myself, head over to b2bvault.info where you'll find two forms, one to contact us and another if you're interested in becoming a sponsor. If you'd like to sign up for a merchant account, click the Apply Now button located at the top of the page of b2bvault.info where you'll answer a few questions and you'll be on your way to processing payments in no time. The podcast is available on Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, and other popular streaming networks. Thanks again for listening.

Yep, and actually we got two referrals for that that came in over the holiday, two agencies that are— want to talk to us about, um, signing up and, and getting set up so they can create an extra revenue stream. And we talked about starting a business from home, what does that take, and how it's more acceptable now than it ever was.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, man. I remember when I first started my business. And, you know, everyone, hey, you know, where's your office? I don't have an office, but we can meet at your neighborhood coffee shop.

Right?

You know, so that turned away a lot of people back in the day, but people got more accustomed.

And that's more acceptable. You even see like these businesses opening up where it it's a small office, maybe somebody has 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 square foot, and they get permission from the city to have several hundred business licenses through their address. And they set up, you know, mailbox service inside, copy machines inside. Maybe they have a graphic designer on staff that you can rent out, and different, you know, things like that. Maybe they have meeting rooms.

You can— yeah, they have the coworking spaces have have that, right?

But you see a lot of small ones popping up now.

What, coworking spots?

Yeah, small coworking spaces. That's becoming very popular. We talked about also like the gig economy, what's going on with the gig economy today. Somebody told me something I never heard of before, that their business uses, uh, Square for payments, and then Square has an app for the employees so you can do your payroll through Square, and then the employees can borrow money on their paycheck before they get paid. So you're running short, you get up to $200 if— before you get paid, and then it's deducted out of your pay. But then I saw that they charge 1% for that to get the money— they charge the employee 1%. So if you make $100 $100. Oh, then there's a fee, a $3— a $2 or $3 fee also. So if you took $200, it cost you $2 plus, so it cost you $4 to get $200 before you get paid. I'm not a big fan of advancing people money off their paycheck because if you have a lot of employees doing that, uh, what happens if the business closed? Square's gonna— that maybe they're holding part of their deposits. So I don't know how that works for the business. So it was interesting. I was like, wow. But the gig economy, you know, there are companies— I've seen these, these fintech payroll companies, and, you know, some of them, I, you know, I'm sure like Square, um, is taking the taxes out and all that. But I saw other ones where they weren't taking taxes out. Yeah, and I was like, that's a little dangerous, I'm not getting involved in that. We also talked about the subscription economy and how that continues to grow, and businesses come up with creative ways to have a subscription for their business. Even creators, you know, have, you know, $3, $4, $5 a month so you can get, uh, you know, exclusive content, or you have access to exclusive videos. Or maybe you're, um, you know, a pool cleaning company. Instead of each time that you go trying to collect the money from the customer, right, they might not be home. So instead of that, putting people on automated billing. Yeah.

And speaking of like the, the side hustle for the agency, yeah, that's just, you know, and this goes into the subscription economy because Uh, this— a friend of mine, Stephanie, she's— she and a couple other people started an agency where you set up, you know, you pay your subscription per month per level, and you basically are paying— you're paying for, you know, website updates, right? So like if, um, you know, like whatever. Allen says, Justin, you're done. You can hire WP Focus. And they can do my job, right? From anywhere, right? For a fee, of course.

Right.

And then you just pay that subscription.

Like, however, you know, say, we saw that one for graphic designers, you could pay like $100 a month, $200 a month.

Yeah, a certain amount. Same, same, same exact, got a certain amount of hours of graphic design. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, you know, how popular it is, because, you know, you know, the whole getting people to do maintenance on their website is really hard anyway. But, you know, but I hope she does well.

I mean, there's a business for everything.

Speaking of that, before, I know we talked on one other thing too, that's very important during the holidays that's coming up is making sure that your website is secure and up to date. All of your thresholds are set up properly, all your plugins are updated.

Even check your gateway, make sure your gateway settings are updated.

You never know, they— who knows, you know what I mean?

Check everything.

Double check your bank account, make sure that your, you know, your stuff is up to date. Renew your domains, make sure your, uh, hosting is, you know, good and, you know, ready for, for the remainder of the year. Just update your site real quick, you know, just, just try to get a little ahead of the game. You got a couple weeks left before Christmas.

Yeah.

So I mean, all is not lost, you know, just because you didn't make your billion over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you could have a big opportunity to make more money.

Still going to be sales.

Yeah. So I mean, take care of your website. Also, you know, This goes out to your family and friends. It doesn't cost anything to promote your business. So, you know, tell your friends, yeah, review it.

Part of Entrepreneur Month, review a local business.

Yes, go and review someone's business. That, that is crazy how much it helps small businesses. You know, if next time you're in a restaurant, you really love the burritos, you know what I mean? Like, talk about it on Facebook, because you're on Facebook, probably taking a picture of the food. Yeah, tag the business, make sure the business is tagged, leave a review under their business profile. And you know, that's a lot, that helps a lot, and it doesn't cost you anything but some time, right?

Take 5 minutes, do that. We talked about consumer financing and how there's going to be new advances in consumer financing that's going to speed it up. That's going to be pretty cool.

Buy now pay later is all over the news again this week.

Well, buy now pay later, The government is going after them because we talked about it on the podcast that they're saying they're lending money and they're not providing the— what they're supposed to as far as under the truth in lending laws. And let me tell you, Consumer Reports had like a 20-page article about it.

So I got— so I know we've talked about it a few times. I was, I was just curious because I'm My wife wanted a new hoodie, right? Right. And it was Cyber Monday. I didn't see anything I liked the other day on Black Friday, so I've— this morning I'm like, all right. And it was only $24. How is it— how is—

why can't—

you should not be able to bust that down in 4 payments.

Well, we talked about that. What about the guy who did buy now pay later on a burrito?

That's what I'm saying.

I mean, like, it's just messed up.

I don't know the Obviously these businesses, one, I'm so like, I'm under the impression that they're not setting that up on the back end. They're enabling buy now pay later, but they're not setting a threshold. Yeah, there's no options. There's no like, they're not going through the—

those companies might not have options that you could say, oh, to get buy now pay later, the transaction needs to be $100 or $50 or $150, right?

They're literally like— you got— I don't know, man.

I mean, we saw that the guy paid for a burrito.

Yeah, I mean, you're helping a lot of people out with that, you know, I guess. But I don't see how you guys could be making money on them.

And the other thing I didn't like is, like I said, like that Afterpay company is issuing credit cards.

Yeah.

And then people are using the credit card at the grocery store to buy their groceries and put groceries on buy now pay later.

You know, this is just random.

I mean, it's just— I had to cause a problem.

I had to put a fraud alert on my name.

Yeah.

And I— dude, that sucks because now I can't get approved for nothing, right?

Unless you give them the code.

It's so messed up.

I— how do I get—

where do I get my code from? Oh, you gotta—

what you gotta do is you gotta go to like Experian and TransUnion and, um, What's the other one besides Equifax? And what you got to do is put a block on your credit. It is, right? And then they give you— then when you want to open up your credit, someone says, oh, we need to check.

That's right, I gotta open up my credit.

That's right. Or you give them a code, one or the other. So they— that's how you do that.

Okay, I can now remember. So I forgot.

So they're saying these buy now pay later are not providing truth in lending laws. That's a big problem. The other thing is, is banks are getting into it. So I read an article about Chase, another bank, Apple Pay, and a couple of other banks, and they were saying that after you make a charge, you'd be able to go into your, you know, onto your charge card portal and then mark which ones you want as buy now pay later and set up the buy now pay through your bank. Through your regular credit card. Credit cards are going to start offering it, start offering buy now pay later on your regular credit card. You'll be able to go in and select which ones you want, and they'll give you lower— like a long time, longer to pay on, but not pay like 70% interest, pay like the lower interest. Okay, it's a little weird, I don't know. You know, then we talked about, we talked about, you know, the Financial Brand Forum and, you know, how that now fintechs are competing with banks for people's business, for their business, for credit cards, for depositing, everything, for everything. I mean, they're these fintech companies. We saw something where there was like 70% of fintech companies are either offering banking as a service or are adding banking as a service.

I would say if you're a small business or if you're a person looking to start a small business, so to stay away from your bank, right?

No, but so, so that's what you would—

would you say that too?

Well, I would say that if you want, it depends what your level of service is that you need. So you might find a better level of service.

Someone has just started Right.

That's what I'm saying. Like, if you need low—

if you need help, low money—

no, but you need help.

Banks ain't giving you no help.

Well, you could go to a credit union or a community bank and probably get a lot more service.

You'll get a lot of love at one of those banks, depending on which, you know, the, the credit union, right?

That's what I'm saying. You're going to get more service from those banks.

But in general, would you say—

in general, what would I say? I would say that we people in my age group, you learned, oh, you gotta use the bank, go to the bank, go to the bank. Everything was go to the bank. Now I would say, like, I would be— so I'm leery of some of these fintech companies, of course, because sometimes I go and I look and I go, oh, oh, buy this, uh, gold, right, and we'll pay you 4% interest on your money. So now I read because it sounds good, 4% interest, right? So that sounds good, it's attractive. The bank's paying nothing, and, you know, maybe I'm not put so much, you know, watching what's going on with the stock market, right?

Gold's going up like crazy, right?

So they have this, they have some of these things where you can invest in gold, but then I look, oh, is that FDIC insured? If it's not FDIC insured, you don't want to put your money on that fintech. A lot of these fintech companies, your money is not FDIC insured. No. So you need to read what you're doing because you won't— you don't want your money, your cash, right, in a bank or fintech company that's not FDIC insured. So you got to make sure it's FDIC insured. But, you know, after going to the Financial Brand Conference, I really saw that, um, because I'm gonna tell you, struggling—

banks are really struggling to get merchants to sign up.

Banks are struggling, but credit unions, I think, have an advantage right now.

They're flourishing.

They could really flourish if they would increase their business banking, you know, bring in more businesses.

Yeah, you would think that that would be like super important to them because just imagine all the, the entrepreneurs and small businesses that already bank there. Like, I've been banking with Navy Federal and I've never received like a small business for small businesses, you know what I mean? So no, I think they do, they do, right? But so it's— I don't want to talk about Navy Federal because that's one of those little, uh, whatever, it's like a hidden gem. Thank you for—

no, no, no, but what I'm saying is, is that, that, um, like recently the ATM company that we work with, right, they just did a partnership with USAA, which is also Yeah, a bank, and it's like a similar to— it's like it's a credit union, and it's for people that were in the service. Yes, similar to Navy, but if there's no physical branches, but now they're enabled the USAA network on all the ATMs that qualify. So those are the ones that are in like convenience stores and liquor stores and, and then, you know, general places like at—

like the one in Wawa.

Right, so we just enabled all— so I think there was about 5 or 6 machines, like ones that are in nightclubs. No, like nightclubs, stuff like that, that wasn't enabled. But there was about, I don't know, a dozen machines that we have, like at gas stations. Yeah, they were enabled to, uh, take the USAA card. And the way it works is it's surcharge-free, right? And then USAA actually pays us this $1.50 every time somebody uses it. Yeah, that's cool, because they, they pay— because they get the interchange, they do, right? USAA does, and then they give it back to the— to the company. That's right. I think there's a big opportunity for credit unions to step up because there's something going on with banks now. These big banks, there's nobody in the bank working, there's no people sitting at the desk, and And they're— and these banks don't— these big banks don't know where they're going, you know what I mean?

Yeah, they think that every time you walk into a big bank, it's like a ghost town.

No, no, but I think that smaller banks can re— like, just like me, I'm a small company, right? So we can react. Oh, we want to do this project. Boom, we just do it. We pivot quick. Boom, boom, and we pivot, right? So, you know, like, we made a new website because we said, oh, we want to offer a new type of merchant service. Right now. We're working on— we built the website, now we're doing the marketing, right? We're starting the marketing. So that— so, you know, the same thing, credit unions could really step up, say, oh, we have better service than the big bank. Now, for me, you know, one part of my business that banks don't love, they don't like ATM business, right? So you got to make sure whatever bank you deal with, if you have an ATM where you have some— where you have a lot of cash. But also, we talked about that cash handling, how now there's companies coming out, they're trying to figure out how to market it, where you're going to be able to put your cash in a special safe. They call them cash recyclers. Your money gets deposited to your bank account. Now we just got to work out how that— what's that going to cost for businesses, you know?

Very cool.

And, you know, so So we went over all this stuff, you know, today. We went over everything that we talked about this month for Entrepreneur Month, support a small business or charity. You're going to see soon our charity project for B2B Vault and Nationwide Payment Systems. Talked about Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Yeah, my son, you know, he works for a clothing store that he— it was— he told me is he broke broke like the all-time record in the clothing store because he's a big sales guy.

Nice.

He worked very hard. Good for him. Was very busy. He said all weekend the mall was packed. I did not go— I did not go near a mall. I don't do this sale thing.

I mean, I went to Whole Foods.

Publix wasn't that busy when I went there the other day.

Publix was closed on Thanksgiving, which was surprising to me. I think they were open part of the morning, not the one by my house.

Oh, that's maybe select ones. Yeah, I don't know.

I didn't know, because then I, I'm like, I remember I knew that Whole Foods was open until 3.

Oh, okay.

And when I say that that was the only grocery store open in Fort Lauderdale, probably it was probably packed. I was almost ready to just walk out with the stuff because I'm like, yo, One, you're not gonna stop me. Two, this is chaos.

I'm sure some people walked out. Oh yeah, and maybe with stuff.

You know the elevator that puts your cart up? Yeah, that was broken. Uh-oh. So everyone either was carrying their groceries or waiting to get on the elevator, and I was just like, man, thank you. All I needed was pie. We let our pie out, man, overnight, and within that little bit of time, there was mold growing over the top.

It's not good. Wasn't probably fresh.

The pies were no good in the first place.

Yeah, that's what I mean. No, I would have returned that.

I tried to just, you know, my wife is very— she's like, I don't want to deal with this. You'll throw the pie at someone's face.

Uh-oh. So, uh, no, so that's it. And then, uh, next month— oh, we talked, I don't even remember. So next month I think we're gonna have a little theme too. Next month, what's the next month? I don't know. Well, we're gonna have a— I don't know, we talked about some whether or not there was going to be a theme for December. So December is that, you know, yeah, we talked about cybersecurity, identity theft. I can tell you there's a lot going on with that. You need to, you know, well, next month is going to be giving month.

It's like, right, isn't that the whole end of the year giving?

You know, people giving at the end of the year, people do their end of the year campaign for their charity. Yeah. So we're going to talk about different things that have to do with the end of the year, filing taxes. Some people are going to have some big surprises and we're going to talk about that in the coming December. So visit our website nationwidepaymentsystems.com or go to b2bvault.info. Hit apply, you'll end up at Nationwide Payment Systems. You can check out the solution finder, find the solution for your business, answer 10 questions, and then check out, and you'll have your merchant account in about 5 minutes or less. So that's our new theme— 10 questions, get approved in less than 5 minutes. Want to find out more? Text the word book to 954 827-9818. Yep, you can have a meeting with me, Justin, Rocky. We'll show you him if you do a video meeting. You can see Rocky, you'll hear him for sure. He barks sometimes. His ears right now, he's napping, he's sleeping.

His ears popped up, he's, he's just chilling.

He's chilling like a villain.

Yes sir.

So that was Entrepreneurship Month. We hope everybody got some really good entrepreneurial tips during the month.

I have one last thing I would like to say for entrepreneurs, like everyone who's thinking about— so I always thought about it, right? Like, that there's this one thing that is you love tremendously, right? Whatever that is, figure out how to make money from that and go and do that for the rest of your life. That's what I— that's my advice to you. If you have one thing that you love, whatever that is, whatever you love doing, figure out how to make money from that and hit the ground running, bro.

Oh, look at the show Shark Tank, it's inspiring, right?

Yeah, no, I'm just saying, like, as far as, like, like, if you love to— what is it— pottery, right? If you love creating that, if that's something—

start a side hustle.

Just learn, figure out how to get paid from it. That's all I'm saying. So I wish I would have did that a long time ago.

A lot of businesses, that's how they start. The person starts a little side hustle, builds it up, and then turns it into a business. Because not every business— especially if you stick to like service type businesses, you don't have to have inventory— then you can like, let's say you like to wash dogs, you're the dog whisperer.

For her.

Every dog loves you. You can wash dogs. If I told you the amount of vans I see driving around— that has increased since COVID— these vans driving around and they go wash your dog at your house. Yeah, it's a business. I'm sure the person's making a decent living, you know. They set their own hours. They drive around in a van. They get more and more customers. And I think that we're going to see a lot of services like for where things in your home, it's going to continue. Like, one thing that I'm surprised as a business I haven't seen really pop up is somebody— you see it in the grocery store, like a big package of, you know, lasagna, you know, like made fresh, you know, like at Publix or Whole Foods, they have prepared take and bake. Yeah, take it home and then make it. But I'm surprised that nobody has come up with like concept of a store, right? They used to call them appetizer stores when I was a kid. That's what they called it, an appetizer store. You would go there, they had the rotisserie chickens.

Really?

Yeah. You don't see— you know, you don't really—

I've never seen that.

Oh, they— yeah, they— then they disappeared. Like, they disappeared for a long time.

Wouldn't you call it fast food though?

No, they just sold like rotisserie chicken, and then they had trays or they had like salads and foods, and you're— you could just go there and say, oh, I want to go, right? I don't want to make dinner tonight. So you'd go there, oh, give me 2 chickens. You're feeding a family, right? Give me a couple of chickens. Oh, I want some green beans, right? So it was all cold and they put it— oh, what size package did you want? They fill your package up with green beans, fill it up with mashed potatoes.

Like a great idea.

Yeah, right.

Isn't Boston Market kind of like that though?

Sort of, but you can eat there. Oh, true. So it's not— they have something, I think.

Yeah, but I'm just saying, I get what you're saying though, because I guess there is some— some grocery stores have that option, but not like a whole menu, you know?

Right, that's what I mean. Like, that they would have a whole thing. They would have— they would have fish, they would have all kinds of stuff, and people would go there and get like their you know, oh, I just need dinner for two. Oh, I'll get this, I'll get that. You see it in like some— like some of the kosher, uh, markets have prepared foods, you know, and you could buy— you can buy it. But I'm surprised that we haven't seen it on like a much bigger level. Like Whole Foods has a lot of prepared foods, you know.

Yeah, but not like what you're saying.

Yeah, right. That's what I'm trying to say.

That's a really small— if there's only two freezers.

I remember we had— I had a client when when I first started in this business. Oh, they do have the whole wall actually. Yeah, right. But they have that whole deli case with all that.

Whole Foods does have a lot of prepared foods, right?

But I had this client when I first started in this business, and they had a store in a neighborhood, and they made the rotisserie chickens, and they had other chicken dishes and other dishes, and that it all put in packages, and people would just go in there and buy that. That's like, there's this other restaurant in Boca that I went to called Lazy Dog, I think it's called, and they sell frozen TV dinners.

Nice.

It's interesting. I bet. And they sell a lot of them. I talked to the manager. I said, do you sell a lot of those? He goes, oh yeah. So they make up dinners and they have them in a special prepared package and take them home and take it home and put it in the freezer. Maybe it's good for your kids.

I like it.

Let's say you're two people. Right, need something quick after work.

I just told my dad, I said, I wish I was a billionaire. I would have— I'm sick of cooking. Like, I'm just sick of thinking of things to cook. I'm thinking I'm sick.

That's why I come up with stuff. You know what, look what's in the fridge and make it.

I guess I'm not sick of actually cooking, but the prep work of it, like going to the grocery store, cleaning the vegetables, cutting the vegetables, that part of it, man, I'm a little bored.

Of all of them. I don't know, I sometimes I get bored with it and I just eat something quick like a salad, stir some chicken.

That's what we had last night. We had Caesar salads.

It's all good with veggie chicken patties. There's the food.

Don't forget. Yeah, go to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, B2B Vault. Like, subscribe to the channel, YouTube channel, please.

Follow the podcast on whatever podcast network you listen to. Spotify, we're on every DSP, man, everything. We're everywhere. Podchaser.

I've just seen one this morning. I didn't even know what it was. I'm like, what is this? It looks— it's got to be from some other country. So what, another place that our podcast is?

Oh yeah, I get, I get stuff on Twitter all the time. Oh, you're— it's your podcast. Oh. Is your podcast on our network?

Yes, it is.

Yes, it is.

Yeah, so thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you for listening this month. We had a record month with a lot of listens on the podcast this month. It was a record month, so the podcast is growing. We really appreciate our listeners, our customers, and everybody for, um, participating in the podcast. Don't forget, we have FinTech Fridays on Friday. We didn't have a live one last week, but this week it'll be live. So watch for the notification on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn and come in and ask a question, or send us a question before the podcast, and your question could be featured. You might get a t-shirt like Justin's. Peace out. Carpe diem.

Peace.

Seize the day. Entrepreneurship Month.

Get money.