Monthly Wrap Up February 2023 | FinTech | Payment Processing | B2B Vault | Episode 149

Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by the Larry Bird of payment processing himself. Allen Kopelman, and we'll be providing you educational information about fintech, small business payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today. And in today's podcast, it's a monthly wrap-up. We'd like to talk about all the, you know, things that happened in the past month, the different podcasts that we, uh, covered, and, you know, just throw it all together for anybody who missed any of the pods or You know, we also, you know, notice that a lot of people do check out the monthly wrap-up, so then maybe everyone just uses this as a way to catch up.

Yeah, you get a sync, you get a synopsis, and then if there's a podcast you missed, you go back and check it out if you really want to. Yeah, you want to get in-depth, dive a little bit deeper, deep dive.

February was a cool month, uh, it was Black History Month, very short month.

Yeah, Valentine's Day.

Uh, yeah, there was that.

And also, uh, business taxes had to be done. Yeah, that had to get done. And, uh, what else happened in February? We did it.

I don't agree that Black History Month should be in February. It's the shortest month of the month. So that's, I mean, that's about all I got to say on that.

But yeah, President's Day too.

Doesn't feel like Black History Month living in the South. I'll just you know, I, I will say that you can definitely feel that you live in the South because Black History Month is not celebrated the same as it is where I'm from. But, uh, yeah, so as far as my month goes, it was— it went quick. I had a lot of personal things going on. Um, got a lot of tooth— got my tooth pulled. I went to the doctor, got some blood work done.

Um, thank goodness I didn't have to go to the doctor. Yeah. And, uh, you know, we went to a lot of networking events.

I was gonna say, yeah, we were busy on top of all the other personal stuff. We were super busy. We went through, I don't know, 3 networking events, a couple conventions.

Yeah. Today we went down to the, uh, Natural Disaster Expo. Yeah, I didn't have real high hopes on that, but we did talked to quite a few merchants that were in the need of e-commerce services. So that was interesting. And there was a lot of drones, man, massive drones. I mean, those drones— that one drone was scary. That one drone was humongous. I mean, it was— there were some serious small airplanes. Yeah. And then we saw that, that air— that thing that will hold a car right? Like, you drive your car up and then you back it up into this airplane, and then you can fly your car to a destination.

It's being produced in—

in—

what do you say— Connecticut or Virginia? I can't remember.

Yeah, I've seen videos of it on like YouTube and stuff and Facebook.

I met the CEO.

Yeah, yeah, that was pretty cool to meet him. And we saw this thing that'll put out a fire, remember? That was like, what, like a jet?

It's called the fire cannon.

Yeah, it was a fire cannon where massive amount of water goes through and then the cannon shoots it out and sprays it out versus the airplane just dropping a blob of water, you know, when you see those big fires.

Technology is amazing. Yeah.

And then we saw a bunch of like flood control stuff, tents, all kinds of stuff. What was that one thing we saw? Bags, right? There's bags, survival kit. No, no, we saw that thing where you can put all your stuff in a bag.

Oh, a dry bag.

Yeah, in case of a flood. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

It's a dry bag for your business. So basically you put all your laptops, devices inside of this big bag. It's very smart, very, very smart thing to do, especially living down here in South Florida.

Yeah, if there's a hurricane, you'd be able to protect your electronics.

Personal belongings. His very— I'd said I would be— I grabbed his card because I probably will buy one.

Yeah, it was pretty cool. It was a pretty cool—

what other convention do we go to?

We're gonna be going to the Alternative Payment Expo tomorrow.

You went to another one this month?

We went to— we, well, we went— we attended a local biz-to-biz trade show.

I know that, but I'm saying What other convention we go to? Convention at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center.

Oh yeah, we went to the IT Expo.

The IT Expo.

Yeah, that was pretty cool too. We saw a lot of things about how telephone systems are changing and how, how the internet of things, huh? Well, it was interesting if you like phones. Yeah, if you like phones and cloud phone technology. Yeah, it was a little—

wasn't— I wasn't blown away at the IT Expo. I'll be— I'll just say that.

Well, one of the things I will say is that, you know, the year before that there was a lot of cryptocurrency companies there.

Well, because the IT Expo is like 7 expos wrapped in one. Um, it's the blockchain, it's, it's a whole bunch of them pushed into the IT Expo. Right. And last year when we went, it was very packed because obviously crypto, NFTs— I mean, the NFT, they had a whole NFT room.

Oh yeah, last, last year was a whole separate thing.

Yeah, that was a very, very much— oh no, I'm thinking of the other— that was the, that was the actual, uh, I don't think— I don't know, Bitcoin conference.

Yeah, I don't know if you went with me when I went down to that thing.

To the other IT Expo.

Yeah, to the IT Expo. I don't think it was last year, I think it was like 2 years ago, so it might have been right before you started working.

I don't know, they gotta figure that one out.

Yeah, they gotta, they gotta, they gotta become more different types of things in there is what they need to do. Yeah, there was— because it was like only like a couple of computer companies, Dell, all the same thing. Right, a lot of people were selling the same stuff over and over. So this last month we dove into a lot of like cool topics. Some of them were kind of fun, and, uh, the first one we talked about was, you know, check scams. And, you know, scams is just completely out of control. Every time I open the news, they're talking about phishing scams, email scams, text scams. People getting scammed out of, out of money and getting told to go buy gift cards or they're going to go to jail and all kinds of crazy stuff. And, uh, you know, uh, checks were being— and when we're doing the podcast, there was a whole thing going on because, uh, businesses were being targeted that I guess a scammer knew that they got a lot of checks in the mail and they were stealing the businesses' checks and then using whatever— they were going old school Catch Me If You Can stuff and taking the name off the check and changing it and then depositing the check in their bank account. And then the customer would say, what do you mean I didn't pay my bill? You cashed a check. And then come to find out the check was cashed by somebody else.

Dirtbag.

So that was pretty bad. And you know, and And the solution to that is to put up a payment portal and just do ACH. Your customers can log in, choose to pay with a credit card, or choose to pay with an electronic check, or set them up for recurring payments. Yeah, however, you know, there's better ways to do things, you know, because they're, you know, you don't want, you know, because that's a reputational problem, you know, for the business. And then also for the person who wrote you the check, now you got to wait for them to get their money back so you can get your money. So, you know, it's worth it. And today also, with all the, uh, with, you know, with the, the way interest rates are in the economy, more people want to pay by credit card. I mean, we're getting a lot of businesses— like, just recently we're working now on like 3 businesses that sell to businesses that need to take credit cards because their customers need to float, right? So it's important, you know, and we also talk to them about ACH so that way they could do both.

So yeah, forget it, there's a lot of scams going on. Be careful.

Yeah, a lot of scams. I did see one, you know, because we've talked about Zelle before.

It's funny because it's like the next step no more checks in the mail.

Well, that was part of that episode.

I was gonna— I was wondering why was that there.

Yeah, because I just— to remind her, no more checks in the mail. Get a payment.

Yeah, stop putting checks in the mail. That's out, bro.

Yeah. And then we did a podcast about the tipping culture. Has tipping gone too far? And it was pretty crazy because I saw this one TikTok video And in the TikTok video, it was a guy who owned a food truck that sold the bakery items, and he said he felt really awkward when he would give the people the tablet to make the payment, and then there was like a tip option there, and he felt like really awkward about asking for a tip.

I, I don't know, like, whatever your thoughts or feelings on it Tipping to me is second nature. Like, you gotta tip. Um, I don't care what it's for, you tip that person, you know. Like, like my dad always said, you treat the janitor the same way as you treat the CEO of the company. Um, so the people who are making your food or whatever they're doing, they make— they deserve a tip. Now McDonald's, I guess, you know, that doesn't change, you know, after talking about this a lot, you know, speak— talking it out with my dad and my wife, and there's really no difference because they're doing a service for us, you know, and they're— it's right then and there. It's something that we don't want to do, or it's something that we refuse to do, right? So to, to, to, to, to not feel like they're deserving of a tip is wild to me.

No, I just think that tipping is showing up in places where it might not have shown up before. And, you know, we have customers like they have a home service business, right? And then they want to have the tip enabled on the machine because people don't carry cash. Like, the plumber comes to your house you want to flip the guy, you know, a $5, a $10, a $20, right, along with the bill. People don't have cash on them anymore, so it's good to have that tipping option for the businesses. But I think people are getting a little— the perturbed part comes in like when you're going into a retail store or something and then they're asking for a tip at the retail store.

I mean, then again, it's different. I mean, like, so what is it? Is the retail— are they helping you get fitted for a suit, why would you not feel— you know, you might want to tip that person, but still, you, you might want to tip that person, right?

So I don't, I don't see it at a suit— at a clothing store. You've seen it at a clothing store? What, a tip? I've never— I just went to the clothes. I didn't see it.

I have, like, for like, like you go into like a more urban style, you know, like, and they'll tip because they'll pick your outfit out for you or something. Okay, because they're like, you know, they're being your— what's the, what's the word—

um, a personal shopper?

No, like a designer, like a fashion— they're picking out your clothes to wear, you know what I mean? So you might feel, I'm wanting to tip that person. I don't know, like, to me, if you got it and you want to spend it, spend it, right? Like, I don't have a problem with the tipping thing. At all. Like, when I see people asking for tips, if they did a good job, I tipped them. That's— it's simple. I was just— I was just trying to figure out some— like, I was asking you, it's kind of not related to tipping, but in regards to not having cash and the homeless, you know, just imagine all the homeless people that are out there. Like, they're asking for, you know, for a little help, but no one has any cash. You know, like, how hard is it on the homeless people right now on top of that?

It's hard on— it's hard on them because especially if they're out panhandling and everything. Listen, uh, we could get into— we could do a whole podcast on homeless. We can end homeless right now. It could be— the United States could end it if they wanted to.

I agree. Has tipping culture gone too far? To me, absolutely not. I think I think that the people who have problem with tipping culture, they're cheap.

The only place I don't agree with tips is when you go to a counter and you're— I mean, it would be like, can you imagine, like, you're checking out at Publix and they have a tipping option for the cashier?

You tip the guy that— I see people tip the guy that pays their groceries all the time.

They don't allow it at Publix. They're not even supposed to take the money.

They do.

Okay, well, I'm just saying that was— that's been like their policy.

But why? What's the big deal?

They don't really even take your groceries out hardly anymore. They do if you ask them, I guess. I'm serious.

Okay, you all gotta do is ask them. They'll take your groceries all the way outside.

I know, they'll take it to your car and put it in your car, right? I mean, Publix doesn't deserve a tip. They'll— I've had— I've tried to tip them before.

That's a yes or no question.

Yeah, they deserve to get a tip, but the policy at Publix was no tip.

It's trash.

They're the only grocery store that does it. Whole Foods doesn't do that.

I've never seen that before in my life until I moved down here.

Yeah, Publix is the only store that takes the groceries out to the store.

Well, uh, I mean, I've seen that happen at— yeah, no, I guess I have seen this happen before. I have. I don't remember what grocery store that was back home, but there's maybe a few like family-owned stores.

I mean, Publix— a lot of people don't know this, but it's owned by the employees, right? So all the employees, as part of their pay, get stock in.

So is that— so the employees got upset because someone works at the deli department all day and they don't get any tips? Like, come on, man, that's super petty. If that's exactly what happened to— I know it.

Maybe. I mean, it's a little weird. Like, the guy who makes your sandwich, what if you want to hook them up? There's no way to pay that, give them a tip. They don't take payment over there.

So, I mean, yeah, this whole tipping thing got brought up because Allen's seen a sign that said what are the tips are going to be used for, and the employees all like gave their, you know, an answer. And one was like to get their nails done, another was like car insurance, another one was whatever— tires, tires. And Allen—

I just thought it was a little forward to put a sign like that. I don't mind like that.

I don't understand why it's forward though.

I don't want to know that the guy needs tires. I feel bad.

But see, you're— I think you're taking it way too far like that.

I'm just telling you, I feel bad the guy needs tires. If I'm the boss and you got to put a sign up saying Justin needs tires, I'm buying you some tires, bro.

Yeah, I, I hear you.

You know what I'm saying? I'm not doing that.

I don't—

my employees—

I don't— if so, it— for me, it's a tactic. For the, the, the customer.

They just thought— like, I asked the lady, I go, is that serious? And she said yes. And I was like, I would leave a tip anyway because I tip almost everywhere I go. But there's some stuff, like, I'm not going to go up to the counter in a convenience store and the guy's going to ask me for a tip and put a tip on.

Well, convenience store, that's—

I'm just saying, that's how far it's going, is that tipping is showing up everywhere because all these point-of-sale systems.

Well, they're not set up right.

No, they have a feature where they— the business can turn on the tipping feature, right? And then the— and then the business— what are— and the other thing is like, what do they do with the money? So, you know, and that's a whole nother problem where the IRS now has a— has a little bit of a, uh—

I got a question on tipping.

Yes.

My daughter just recently started working at a restaurant.

Okay.

She's the cashier.

Okay.

It's a small spot, so she keeps all the cash tips, but the cook gets to keep all the credit card tips.

That's weird. Why?

I don't know, for organization purposes maybe for him.

I don't know.

I think my daughter's making out— I mean, getting kind of shafted on it because there's no—

what other employees are there? There's no waiters or waitresses?

So it's her. She works the register. Yeah, she takes all the orders over the phone and people who walk in.

Okay.

And then there's one—

well, there's two chefs, right?

And there's— so there's my daughter, she works, and then there's another girl that works. Alternate. And so both of them take all the cash. Whatever day they work, they keep all the cash and all the cash tips. Okay. And then whatever tips were on the credit card for that 12-hour shift, the chef keeps.

I don't know.

I would say that my daughter's getting shafted. I mean, because I always would tip more on a credit card.

People usually tip more on a credit card. If they come in, they pay cash, they'll leave a dollar, $2, whatever change they have, right? Whatever change they have.

If it's $6 change, they're not gonna put that $5 in there, they're gonna put that dollar bill and a quarter or whatever that they got. So I mean, it's— I'm not complaining, she's not complaining, she's earning money. So I'm like, keep it up, you know?

But yeah, I mean, there's rules on, you know, there's rules on tipping and there's rules about reporting tips and all that. And, you know, I, I just know one thing. I've seen several articles that came out where the IRS is, is investigating businesses that— where there's tipping and they're not part— because there's a program that the IRS has called TIPS, T-I-P-S, and that's for restaurants and bars and nightclubs. Most restaurant bars and nightclubs enroll in that so that they don't get audited. And they basically agree that they're going to do their best to report all the tips. And businesses that do not participate in that, if they get audited, they're going to ask where the tips went and did the employees pay taxes and how the tips were split up, because tip sharing kind of is not like allowed. You're not supposed to be doing that. Tip, all this like tip sharing. There's a lot of rules about it.

Maybe that's why there's no— that's why maybe it's happening.

Yeah, maybe.

So it's, so it's easier.

Yeah.

For the business owner, like he's keeping all the credit card tips, he's gonna claim all that on his taxes, right? You get to keep all the cash and deal with that mess.

Exactly.

It sounds like a pretty lot that— I mean, I would rather be getting the credit card tips, but whatever.

Okay, so tipping culture, we don't agree, but we agree to disagree.

Yes, we agree to disagree on the tipping thing.

Listen, TIPS stands for To Provide Service in a Time— you know, to provide service in a time punctual manner. So, you know, to ensure prompt service. TIPS, to ensure prompt service, right? So if you get good service, you should leave a tip. Then we covered this whole thing about 7 rules for small businesses. And out of that, you know, there was—

I can't remember all this.

Well, I re— the, the one that was the most important one is the whole thing about the, the non-compete, and then how far the non-compete laws, the non-compete, making that illegal to have a non-compete agreement, and how far-reaching can that go. And I guess we'll wait and see. What happens if somebody gets taken to court on this non-compete issue?

Yeah, it's a little strange.

You know, I didn't like it when someone made a comparison saying, oh, you work at this hamburger store and you signed a non-compete so you can't go work at another hamburger store. It's not really meant to do that. It's meant for, you know, Justin as a website company has 5 website designers and they know all the websites that Justin works on.

And they sign a non-compete agreement that basically stops them from using my process of how I build those sites.

Not just your process, but your customer base and the customer base, right? So, you know, so if someone—

like, if you're a niche audience, so like I'm building websites for, uh, chiropractors, right, in Fort Lauderdale, I make another web developer— I make the web developer Hey, you guys can't compete against me, against chiropractors within 250 miles of Fort Lauderdale, blah blah blah, right?

And then the person goes and says, well, that's— now, now I can do it. As long as he does— I feel like the person can go do that as long as they don't steal your customers. Once they start stealing customers, then that all bets are off.

Thin line. I mean, I, being a web developer Uh, you know, it can get kind of ugly when you, you know, the niche audiences, you know, there's a lot of fighting for scraps that way.

No, but I'm just saying, like, once somebody steals customers, that crossed the line. But until there's a lawsuit to challenge this thing, we'll see how that plays out. And then some of the other stuff was about, was related to Tac, you know, the The taxes, tax laws, and there was a few other things that were— that, that are very important. And small business owner, if you own a business, you should definitely check out that podcast. Read the, read the, uh, the podcast description and see, you know, what, what laws on there could affect your business. Because, you know, laws and rules that the government comes up with can, can really put a damper on people's businesses, and it's not, not fun. And the whole— and the other thing was the 1099, the change in the 1099 on who's a 1099 and who's not a 1099. And already in California, that's causing a huge problem. That's gonna be because they started enforcing it there, and most of it was to go after Uber, Lyft, the delivery services and all that. I don't know how those businesses are handling it, but I have spoken to other business owners who had, uh, 1099 salespeople, and that put— they put them all on payroll now, right? So they're all getting paid through payroll. They're on 100% commission, but they're all on payroll.

That's crazy.

Yeah, so they have to take taxes out and all that. And the only way around that is if you form a corporation or an LLC get a federal tax ID number, and then you have them pay your corporation. So if you want to be an independent contractor and you want to stay out of the fray, you need to do that. And then you also need to read—

you want to stay out of the fray, call Allen, he can consult and tell you what to do.

Yeah, but you should read the new rules from the Department of Labor. It's on their website, Department of Labor. It's those are two important things that we covered.

And we need to write down the episode numbers so we're not just telling—

I can't get out my phone and tell you what the episode numbers were real quick.

Tipping Culture, 7 New Rules.

So the 7— so the 7— the 7 New Rules was— oh, why doesn't it say what the episode— that was episode 142, 7 New Rules.. And Tipping Culture was the one right before that, so 741. Nice. Well, it was a FinTech Friday, the Tipping Culture, so it was on February.

That was the last— that was the last FinTech Friday we've done, right?

And so it's important to, you know, the 7 New Rules was a very important whole thing. Where do small businesses go for Re— you know, Go For Resources, which was episode 143. And that was also, you know, we covered a lot of different areas and organizations where, you know, how people, you know, get a mentor, where you get help from, and things like that in your business. And it's really important, you know, that you, that you do that and, and do business networking and things like that. To help you grow your business. Like, one of the important things about, you know, even a good resource for businesses is, you know, attending a trade show that's for your industry, or attending trade shows for industries that you're interested in selling to. Or like today, we went to the Disaster Expo. I wouldn't think that there would be anybody there in the food truck industry, and there was 2 companies.

There was more than 2, but those are the— we talked to 2.

We talked to 2. Oh, there was another one we missed?

Yeah, we missed one.

We missed one. Okay, well, we could probably find them on the brochure. But there was, you know, other people selling all sorts of other products that I would have never thought that I would see there, right? You know, there was people selling—

what did we see?

Like, no, like flashlights.

I mean, pretty much everything else that I've seen there, I would—

yeah, I would say it was disaster or first aid related. You know, besides, it was a lot, a lot of—

I mean, the lawyers being there, I get it.

But well, we saw that one company there, the Monarch Meteorology Company, that provides weather data to companies. That was pretty cool. My daughter's a meteorologist. That girl even knew my daughter. Yeah, which was kind of funny. Said she followed her on Twitter. So if you want to find out about You know, resources for your business. We talk about that in the podcast, on that, on, in that podcast episode 143. And then we talked about like another little controversial thing, which was, you know, how does shoplifting and dine and dash affect businesses in episode 144. And it's kind of crazy. Well, it's not crazy, it's a little crazy, you know You know how we keep reading about shoplifting, and not just physical shoplifting in a store, but shoplifting— I call it online shoplifting, friendly fraud. I don't—

yeah, it's— people are scamming. He's— but in essence, it is online shoplifting.

Yeah, I mean, I was talking to a merchant the other day and they were like, yeah, we're not getting any help from our credit card processor. We got all these chargebacks, people are charging back. And I said, well, we got to sit down and go over, you know, like, what's going on? Why are you getting the chargebacks? Where are you shipping these goods to? And things like that. What are you doing for your fraud features on your gateway and all that, you know? And it's, you know, but those things, you know, we have all these factors in the economy right now. So you have factors of you know, labor shortages, you know. So restaurants— and we talked about even at a restaurant, someone does a dine and dash, yeah, the restaurant owner lost his food. But my— 9 times out of 10, I was telling Justin, you know, I was a restaurant owner. Um, some restaurant owners will make the employee pay for a dine and dash.

That's, that's terrible to me.

So you're not hurting— especially like a corporate restaurant, let's say like a Cheesecake Factory. You dine and dash on them, the server's paying that bill, not the—

that's just messed up—

not the, uh, the restaurant. You might think you're hurting the restaurant, but you're hurting the server.

And, you know, shame on the restaurant making the server pay for that. That's a terrible pro—

I'm not saying everybody does it.

No, I know, I'm just saying like whoever's doing that, whatever restaurant chain or owner that's doing that. Shame on you, man.

But if you want tips about how to prevent chargebacks, or you're having problem with chargebacks on your website, we can talk about that. Shoplifting in the store, that's a whole nother— that's a whole nother, uh, thing.

Yeah, higher security.

Yeah, I mean, what did I— I just saw like the craziest article where there was an someplace in the United States where they wanted the— there was so much shoplifting going on, and the California— the police— oh yeah, in California, the police are tired of going out to the businesses, so they're telling the businesses that they need to hire their own security guards because they're not coming out for shoplifting anymore. That's messed up.

California is like the Wild Wild West, I heard.

I mean, that's just crazy. Like, you can just go in— I know, like, we had a client that had a, um, a liquor store. He owned 2 liquor stores in California, and basically they just— they got hit. Like 50, 60, 70 people ran into their store at one time with like, you know, big giant bags and everything and just started stealing all the liquor. They emptied the whole place out. They closed the store after that. Wow. Yeah, they went out of business.

That's a smash and grab.

Yeah, it was basically like a bunch of people ran in, grabbed all the liquor, and ran out of the store. And then I said— I called them up. I didn't see any credit cards for 2 days. I go, what happened? They said, yeah, they broke in, stole all the liquor out of both of our stores, and now we're gonna close up the stores and declare bankruptcy on the business. And yeah, they moved to it— they sold their house in California and moved to another state. They're gonna started business in another state.

Wow.

They said they, they couldn't take it anymore because they said that they got windows smashed out, they got that, some other robberies, and said they had enough. And but that's just messed up. And count what, you're going to tell me I have a convenience store, now I gotta have a security guard 24 hours a day to stop people from shoplifting? I mean, that's just— I, I, I mean, where's that?

Where is that the cop's job though either, like, no, but I'm not— some guy stealing a candy bar every 15 minutes.

No, but they're not prosecuting anybody, so there's no punishment.

So what are they supposed to do? You know how many people be in jail?

No, but I'm just saying, they put a law like $900, you could steal less than $900 and you don't— and they don't even— they don't even give the person a ticket. They don't even have to show up in court. I mean, you can't operate a business and let— just let everybody come in and steal? No. I mean, it's a problem. I saw another client of mine where they had to put— they, they basically put a wall up. They switched their store around. They put a wall, a counter across the front, and when you come in to buy everything, you come up to the front, you tell them your whole shopping list, they go get all the stuff, they put it in this, um area in this like Lucite thing, and then you can't open it up until you pay the guy. And then you open up the Lucite thing, take your, your products with you and go out.

When I was in Philly, I went to a place like that.

Yeah, and they did that because they were getting too much, too many items stolen out of the store, and they otherwise they couldn't afford to keep the store open. Yeah, I mean, it's nuts, but you know, that's how far things are going. And You know, and, and, and, and, you know, that's society. That's—

I was about to say, does that— that's not the police.

No, I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying—

but I'm just a big bro in them. They need to fix the problems.

Well, I mean, you know, if there's no punishment, then it's people— certain people are gonna just go steal.

This is way bigger than stealing though.

I guess it is. It's way bigger than stealing, and it's, it's a problem. It's a moral issue. So the other thing we went over was pain points. What are the pain points when business owners—

piece of shizniz—

need to buy a POS, point of sale, not piece of shizniz. And, and, and you know how to decide like what are— what type of point of sale are you going to need. And one of the pain points that we talked about was Businesses need to seriously think about like, hey, what's my budget? What do I want and what's my budget to get what I want? Yeah.

What, what, what does my business need to thrive? Like what is, what is going to make my process better, more streamlined, more easier for my customers to use? What do I need integrated into it?

Yeah. Like inventory loyalty program. I mean, I saw really sad news, cards. I saw really sad news today, right? That in the last couple of days they're talking about all these loyalty programs that change. Like Dunkin' Donuts requires more purchases to get a free coffee. Chipotle raised the amount of money you need to spend before you get a reward, and a bunch of other different things. And then I was reading about a bunch of different restaurant businesses that, that are trying to do the subscription model, you know, like $6.99 and you don't have to pay for delivery. The restaurants is mad wild to me, like $6.99 and then they'll deliver your food for free, but you pay $6.99 a month.

The one subscription that I, that had people going all in a tizzy was the, uh Frontier was talking about the $399 fly you anywhere you want all year long, right? That's pretty cool.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of restrictions though.

Oh yeah, I'm sure there is.

I'm sure the restrictions are massive and they probably can kick you off the plane at any time.

Frontier Airline is not a comfortable plane to be on.

I'm sure the seats are like sitting on a brick.

Exacto mundo.

So that's a, you know, pay, you know, you're gonna have a business, you know, think about like, I need to track my inventory, I need to have a loyalty program, I need to accept all sorts of payments, like having, you know, NFC machine and all that. Just don't throw a cash register and a credit card machine in your business and say you're done and say I'm done unless you're going to be there 24/7, 7 days a week. You're gonna be there and that's it. That's how you're gonna operate your business. I was talking to a guy the other day that's in another state and he used to live in Florida. They moved to Arizona, they opened up a pizza shop there. He's having like a really hard time, so he's got his boys working there. His two sons came to work there. He's got his wife working there. He's got some other relative working there. And they decided that instead of being open 7 days a week, they're only going to be open 6 days a week, and they're only open for like 9 or 10 hours a day, and that's it, because they can't— they don't have enough— they can't find enough people to work.

That's terrible. And so that's all over the United States.

Yeah, it's everywhere. I hear it from— I walk into other restaurants and, and the same thing. I'll see a whole section where there's nobody sitting. And then they'll say, yeah, there's nobody sitting because we don't have enough waiters to wait on you. And I even notice when I go into restaurants where before a waiter might have 4, 5, 6 tables, now they're covering 10, 12 tables.

So yeah, I would not want to be a waiter right now.

Yeah, it's kind of difficult.

Any service industry job really, for that matter.

And that's, and that's why I think we're going to see like different types of things like kiosks come into restaurants.

Which is terrible because that's less jobs for people, right? But technology, hey man, you know, we talked about it on one of these podcasts about, you know, like this, the technology tsunami that's about to come.

And oh yeah, we saw it today. What did we see today? It was a technology tsunami of, uh, what did we see? We saw that one drone that'll fly over an area, detect if people have a temperature.

Oh my God, sicknesses.

Oh, all kinds of— it would detect all kinds of crazy temperature to see if you were—

your heart rate.

Yeah, people's heart rate.

I, I did— what is it?

Dilatation of eyes. If people's eyes were dilated, like how close?

And we're talking about a drone that's like up in the air, right?

And the thing was massive. It was massive. It was about, what, 20 feet across? That thing is crazy, man. And it had all kinds of, uh, all kinds of sensors on it. I mean, that's some crazy stuff. Like, so if they're— like, they probably need to fly that thing over that Palestine, Ohio area because that's all, you know, that's terrible. That's terrible what's going on there. Like, terrible.

It's terrible what's happening all over the United States.

But the whole thing with the, you know, point of sale is get what you need to run your business and And don't worry, you know, don't worry, oh, it costs a few hundred more dollars, or it costs $1,000 more than you wanted to spend, because you're going to be able to— if you have the right tools in your business, then you're going to be able to make more sales. Because the key to making more sales, especially retail and restaurant, having a loyalty program, caring, you know, showing your customers you care. So they're going to come, they're going to want to come back. Like my kids used to love to go to this one place because we got points there. And then when you got points, you got free money. And then whatever, they could get dessert, you know, or they could get more food, whatever it is. Or you got money off of your bill. So it's important that you show the— you show the love.

Yeah, I think loyalty programs need to be more popular with all businesses, man. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, whether it's referral type of offerings for your customers.

Hey, you know, you refer somebody, even like I have, like I have this coffee I get online and they give you points for ordering coffee, and then when you get enough points you get a free bag of coffee.

See, that's why it should be.

It's cool, I like it. So they send me a thing, hey, you earned a free bag of coffee. Then the next time I redeem my free bag of coffee.

Yeah, kind of like how PayPal never gives you anything for all the websites that I signed up, but instead Instead, now I talk to Nationwide Payment Systems and they pay out referrals every month for all the clients that I send them.

Yeah, referral program works forever and can work in any kind of business, can help you grow your business by having a referral program, having a loyalty program for your clients. I remember I used to go get my haircut at this haircut place when I lived in Texas. It was really funny. And so you would come in and the, the name of the place was Woody's. And you could get the— they had all these services. It was kind of like a circuit training but for haircut. So you would come in and the first thing is, oh, do you want a shoeshine? And they had dudes that would give you a shoeshine.

Nice.

So like when I would go get my haircut, I would purposely wear dress shoes or a pair of boots that I wanted to get shine. Right? So you go get your shoe shine.

Not for free though, right?

Well, it's part of the— if you got the full Woody, whatever. I don't remember how much it was. It was maybe like $40. Pause. Huh? Pause. Pause what?

Nothing.

No, I'm saying it was like $40 to get the, the, the whole, the whole shooting match. But there's extras you could add on. You could get up to 50, 60, 70 bucks if you got like all the stuff.

What's all the stuff that they're—

so I'm telling you, see, that a shoeshine, then let's say you wanted to shave, you go to the shaving station and the guy gives you a shave, then you go get your haircut, then you could get a massage, they give you a little bat, you know, just like—

place still open?

It's in Dallas. I bet it's still open. It's called like the Full Woody. It's called Woody's.

It can't be called the Full Woody. Woodie.

No, it's called Woody's, but they call it the Full—

pause, pause.

Excuse me. Woody's Barber Shop, shop in, in Dallas.

No, I don't see it.

Let me see.

Woody's.

Yeah, here, here it is. Is this the place? Woody's Grooming Lounge. Yeah, this is the same. This is the place, dude. Men's grooming lounge.

Here, check it out. Get your wax. I got it.

Yeah, they— you could get everything done. So they had a thing called the Full Woody.

Well, they ain't doing that no more.

No.

Well, they got women in there now.

Oh, okay. Well, they got— they're doing everything. Thing. But it was a cool place to go. So you would go, they would have sports on, you could get a beer. They got beers in there. So that was like a cool thing.

I like those barbershops.

So, you know, that's what I mean. Everybody's got to come up with a little twist to your business that's going to keep people coming back. I mean, look at this guy's got a ton of reviews on his— yeah, on his place because it's a cool place to go. And, um, you know, so yeah, spent get what— get what you need for your business on point of sale. Like, what we try to do is talk to the business. What are you trying to do? What do you want to do? You know, you could get something that's going to do half the stuff you want, or three, or maybe not even half, and then you're going to spend a little money. But maybe if you spend more money, you're going to get everything you want. That's going to help you make money. This point of sale can help you make money. If you do it right. The same thing with your payment system. If people— if you're a wholesaler and you send out an invoice and a person can click and pay or go to a payment portal and pay their bill, then those people are going to be happier because they don't have to call you on the phone, right, sweat you out to try to get your— to try to pay their bill. And you're going to make it easy on them and give them multiple ways to make payments.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we talked to that guy today. What did he say? He goes, oh yeah, we need to sell the foreign countries and we need to set— we need to have buy now pay later. And we told them we can give you all that foreign currencies, pay in your own currency, and buy now.

Oh, that was the, the Bull Bag.

Yeah, the bag. So, you know, get what you want from your point of sale or your, or your payment system. Get what you need to get so that you can, you can get more customers, become more loyal, make it easier for them to pay. What did the girl say? Oh, you know, if a business doesn't have a mobile app or a mobile website, right, they don't like that. That they don't find that an attractive business. Oh yeah, the girls, it's like today they wanted to get coffee, they go on some Wawa app, order up a bunch of coffee, drive over there, the coffee's all ready to go. Boom, just walk in and get your coffee. Yeah, it's crazy.

I mean, I like apps because they was asking me like If I— but I think about it, I wouldn't not use something that doesn't have an app. But they're—

they make a valid point though.

I mean, it does make it very easy to do things, right?

But you know, I think about like going to a coffee shop as a more of a like a coffee shop experience. Hey Justin, let's go grab a coffee.

Coffee.

And we go walk into the coffee shop.

That's our generation, right?

Get the coffee, talk, get a little schmooze. Maybe, maybe get it, maybe get it. Maybe get a nosh.

I don't know what any of this means.

A nosh, some food. Okay, then you go sit down outside and have some coffee and like a Danish or whatever and shoot the breeze for half an hour. It's like a coffee break. He's got the people, the young generation wants to order the coffee, run over there, pick it up, boom, I got my coffee. I didn't have to wait around.

FaceTime.

Yeah, then they're FaceTiming their friend while they're drinking their coffee and their friends drinking their coffee somewhere else. No, it's a different—

it's a different world, man.

It's a different world. But you know, listen, if you can— if, if that's the kind of thing you need at your business, right? Let's say you have a coffee shop and you want to be cool, then that's what you need to do. And then we talked about how fintech is changing the way we bank. We just put up a blog article on the website nationwidepaymentsystems.com, where we actually wrote a very in-depth article.

I was very impressed reading it. You wrote a very good article, sir.

Thank you.

I hope you guys find it informative. I learned a little bit— I learned a lot, actually, but not from that article directly. I learned— been learning from you.

So the article was just Oh yeah, it's very eye-opening how, how, how we're seeing, like, from in, in age groups how things are changing, you know, and how people access their banking. But the one thing that's— that ha— that hasn't changed yet is the way for businesses to get a bank account. You actually really need a physical bank.

Yes.

And to have a good secure bank account and banking relationship.

Yeah, we were just talking about— they were asking me what's in and what's out for like business, and I said one, one thing was Cash App. I know it's going to catch some flack, you know, people are going to be like, why? We get paid— well, you're very limited, you know.

Yeah, um, program—

no, excuse me, if I'm a business yeah, and I want to pay another business, right? But the only way that they could accept payment is Cash App. I don't know, using that—

I don't have Cash App, so I can't pay you. I've had people tell me, oh, I take Cash App. So I go, yeah, what, what am I going to do with that, right? I don't do— I don't have Cash App.

I'd say, so I definitely say, like, I get it, it's for its purpose, but it's time to step it up.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you have a barber shop, get it, get a, uh, get a merchant account. Yeah, but not just that, you can get a point of sale.

So we have had this argument a lot.

Yeah, about the barber shop.

Now, location, location, location.

Exactly.

Yeah, so you're not going to want to put an ATM if you're on Slauson Boulevard, whatever, Slauson Avenue in Crenshaw. Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, Slauson and Crenshaw, you don't want to put one in there. You might not want to, unless you got a 24-hour guard. It's probably high risk.

And a dog.

Yeah. You know, now in Beverly Hills, you know, wherever, at a barber shop, you probably get away with it.

You probably need to take American Express in Beverly Hills.

Exactly. So again, it's like location. Look, and I know a bunch of owners who own, uh, barbers who own their own barber shop. And since working here, I've been trying to get them hooked up, right? And they're constant argument, Jay, I don't want to get robbed, or I don't want my store broken into at nighttime. So I get that point.

Yeah, well, now we have a valid point. Now we have the new thing coming out. You can just use your phone, you don't even need to have— and you can take credit cards without any equipment, or just a little piece.

And you can still say I don't take cash, right, with the point of sale system.

So I mean, the— and we're trying to level that system up now too, right?

I mean, like, you know, the appeal of, you know, if someone's a thief and they see a cash register, you know, thieves are dumb, you know, they're not the smartest group in the bunch. Uh, so, you know, they don't realize that, oh, this is a cash, you know, because you can get— can't you? You don't even need a drawer.

No, you don't need a drawer.

You can just say, I don't take cash.

Yeah, I don't take cash, I take credit cards only. That's it. Boom.

I mean, barbershop, this is tough. Like, again, this is a different— yeah, barbershop is a whole different culture, a whole different business. It's always been a cash business.

Listen, even in— even like auto repair, you go to auto repair, unless you're going to like a Pep Boys or something, a brand place, and you're going to just to like your local— your local guy, a lot of them, they want cash. They'll even give you a discount if you pay. Exactly.

They probably don't even I mean, I come from up north a lot. The guy would look at me like, oh, you're gonna pay on credit, dude? Really? All right, man. He'd have to break out his machine, plug it in, like, or they had it hidden. Yeah, because he didn't want to pay, you know, he didn't want to—

I'll tell you a crazy story. So we had this merchant, and the business is still around, it's somebody we signed up for credit cards like in 2001, and the guys that keep the credit card machine under the counter, right? And then one day we said to him, hey, why don't you do the cash discount option where you're passing the 3.7— you pass the 3.75 fee to the customer, you don't have to pay for credit card processing. You know that the guy's sales in his business more than doubled. I believe you, more than doubled. The guy couldn't believe it. He's like, oh, this is the greatest thing ever. And then he retired a couple years later The people who have the business now, they're doing the cash discount, keep same thing. But it's amazing how they're— how the, um, how the business, like, the sales went through the roof because of the— because they put the credit card machine up on the counter and they started selling a lot more stuff in the business, you know, the inventory.

So we definitely agree that fintech is changing the way we bank though.

Yes, fintech is changing the way we bank. It's changing the way we access money.

It's changing the way we live.

And we go over like all sorts of fintech, fintech apps. I talk about next generation ATMs and banking and new businesses, new businesses and how they, they do their business.

And you know how there's virtual banks, how to integrate fintech into your business currently, right? So there's a— you should definitely be listening to B2B Vault.

Yep, B2B Vault, where you find out how to grow your business. And then we did the last two podcasts. Was one was Spilling the Beans on Restaurants, where we talk about the restaurant business and what was going— what's going on in the restaurant business and how they're dealing with things in the restaurant business. And you know, that was a really interesting podcast. I spent a lot of years in the restaurant business. I respect people who own restaurants. Work at restaurants. It's, you know, it's a hard work.

It's the toughest. When I was looking to start a business, you know, 10, 15 years ago, doing my research, because everyone says I cook really well, from the research literally stopped me from opening a restaurant.

Because anybody asked me if they should open a restaurant, tell them no. I did it, I would not recommend.

97% of restaurants close within within the first 3 months.

Yeah, it's a hard business because, you know, there's a lot of licensing that goes on.

On top of that, just because your friends and family like your food, that doesn't mean everyone else will.

Yeah, but the, the thing that a lot of people don't realize is like there's a lot of licensing requirements required, and you can— and, and all of a sudden, boom, and then you can't open. It's delayed, delayed, delayed. It's very difficult. And then last but not least, we talked about why we started the podcast How It All Began, and we've talked about our journey, and we're sitting here in the new studio. And, uh, you know, the new studio with our cool light, so professional, new chairs. We got a new camera, new mics, new mic stand. I mean, we look cool.

Cheers!

We look like cool podcasters now.

I guess we kind of know what we're doing.

Yeah, we kind of know what we're doing. We put like some new lighting in.

And, you know, thank you to Samantha and her boyfriend Nielsen.

Yes, Nielsen and Camille for helping, and Justin for putting stuff together.

I got my Bob the Builder on.

Yep, we did Bob the Builder, and everybody put in a lot of hard work figuring it out. Let me put tape on the floor so we don't have to guess where the lights go and the mics go and the this and the that go. And it was a, you know, that was, you know, we talked about the journey and learn, you know, how much we've learned about technology, uh, podcast technology. Even though I would probably say if we told— described what we had in the room to somebody who's doing like a super professional podcast, this is still pretty much a hack.

Oh, we're definitely under budget.

No, no, but I'm saying it's a hack. Yeah, it's a pod— it's a hack. So, you know, if you want to do a podcast, listen to that, that episode about how we started the podcast, and that was episode 147. Although we didn't count all these FinTech Fridays, we're probably close to 200 episodes. We'd have to go count how many FinTech Fridays.

Yeah, I think we're up to 200. I mean, it's 52 weeks in a year. How many Fridays is that?

52.

Yeah, I would say we're at 100.

Yeah, we should count them. So should we— should know so we can have a 200-episode special.

We might be past that, but I'll still do it. I'll get back to you.

We could renumber and just jump up.

Why did my daughter just text me, Carolina, I love you? 'But why are you texting me for a scooter?

I'm not buying you a scooter.' So, you know, podcasting, it's been an interesting journey because you try to always, you know, improve the podcast.

Super interesting considering I didn't even want to do it. I mean, not in a negative way, I just didn't want to. Well, it was kind of like I didn't know anything about payment processing, so me being your co-host was like, I was— well, I said— I remember saying to you, what am I going to do, just twiddle my thumbs?

No, I said, you're gonna ask questions.

So I said— so I was like, all right, we'll give it a shot. So I wasn't on camera, but yeah, man, you want to listen to the story, you should definitely— you should. It's a— it was fun to talk about.

Yeah, but it's— it's an interesting journey because even now, like, I'll be talking about a concept that a business should be using and Justin will go, hey, slow down, like, explain that a little bit more. And, oh, right, you know, so it's, it's important because, you know, every day I feel like I'm educating, you know, educating somebody. Like the other day I was telling Justin, I was— this customer, we just signed them up and they were using Square, and they're like, well, you know, we don't want to pay more than Square, we want to pay less. So I explained to them how we do it and why they're going to pay less, because, you know, they're using consumer cards, business cards, and they're going to be on this variable rate interchange pass-through, which is a very complicated thing. The whole other podcast— yeah, it could be a whole nother podcast explaining that. And then, you know, I was explaining it to the guy, you know, and I explained it to him very slowly, and then finally he's like, okay, I get it, you know, I get it. So because I said, you know, otherwise I can put you on a flat rate, we can charge you the same thing you were paying over at Square, and he didn't want to do do that if you want to save money. He's doing a ton of volume, and that's kind of, you know, but so it's— that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to help business owners learn tips, learn tricks, learn things. I have been in business for over— this business, since 2001, since it's 22 years. Before that, in the restaurant business, the catering business, and the consulting business to to hotels and worked in the hotel industry, you know, for many years. I worked for a guy that was very entrepreneurial, so I learned very quickly about budgeting, you know, working with a budget, working with numbers, you know, and running my— because basically I had to run my business, and they taught me that. Like, this is your kitchen, you got to run your business, here's your budget and all that.

And that's a great Time to end the podcast. Yes. Because what he's talking about is a whole nother—

that could be a whole nother podcast.

So thanks for listening. We appreciate everybody that follows the podcast. Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn @B2BVault. Follow the podcast on YouTube. Turn on post notifications. Never miss another episode again in your life.

And if you haven't caught us on YouTube, check it out. You can see the old Studio and the new studio.

Yep, check b2bvault.info. Check b2bvault.info if you need a merchant account. There's a button for you up top, click that, sends you over Nationwide Payment Systems. 10 questions, you're done, hit the ground running. Yeah, that's about it. Follow us, please share the podcast episodes, like them, comment any questions that you have for us. Give us a shout, we'll answer them the best as we can. If I can't answer it, I'll send it to Allen. If Allen can't answer it, then I don't know, you're gonna have to call—

I know guys that know a little bit more than me or have more advanced—

he'll find out for you.

We can find the answer. Peace out, carpe diem, be safe, be to be vault. Peace.