Southeast Acquirers Association Conference | SEAA 2023 | FinTech Friday | B2B Vault | Episode 169

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, the Johnny Bench of payment processing himself, 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, we'll be talking about the SEAA of 2023. That was pretty cool, the Southeast Acquirers Association Conference of 2023. It was my first time there. Uh, yeah, so that's what this podcast will be about. But, uh, before we get into that, you know, we always let you know how you doing, check in real quick. What's up? It's also Men's Mental Health Awareness Month, so what's up? How you doing? Mental health check-in.

Mental health check-in. My feet are tired.

That's physical health. Mental health. Mental health.

Brain is a little tired. Yes, literally. Like 3 days, you know, actually 4 days— Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday— of just non-stop conferences, meetings, conference, talking to people, meetings, conference, listening to speakers, attending demos, what, you know, listening to panels and all kinds of different things. And, you know, it's important to attend a conference. I was glad to take Justin there for his first time, help him learn, learn more about the business and continue to learn and grow.

Yeah, man, I'm all right.

You know, how'd you like the conference?

Yeah, I think we're going to talk about during that to the podcast, right?

Yeah.

So like, I'm doing okay otherwise. Mental health check-in. I'm, uh, I'm all right, you know what I mean? Dealing with some other stuff, trying to figure out some insurance things.

Insurance is crazy these days.

I don't have insurance, so I got, trying to figure out this whatever. It's a lot of, no más insurance for me. I don't have insurance, they kicked me off. So I have to figure out something else. But other than that, I'm doing great, man. You know, life is good. Grateful for another day on earth. So yeah, man, so as far as the SEAA, the conference, man, it was my first time there again for the third time. We said it already. Yeah, you know, I, my first, I guess, going into any conference, right? Um, I've been to a whole bunch of different kinds of conferences anyway. Uh, this— going into any of them, I kind of have these, like, in my head you think of these— they're huge, right? Like, they're these giant things and there's going to be these extravagant displays and showcases and state-of-the-art technology, and it's never the case. It's never the case. Uh, it's just a bunch of— not just, but there's a bunch of booths and, you know, different businesses and, you know, services and stuff like that. It's super interesting to see the landscape of the business, you know what I mean? Um, there's a lot of different people that you meet, characters. Um, I wish more owners would, would have been there.

I feel like that was other companies. Yeah, there was a few owners of the company. There was a few, but yeah, most of the time they send their upper management type guys, sales guys, the sales guys, business development guys, right?

That's those guys.

Yeah, there was a few owners around though.

No, I met a few CEOs and a few of the, you know, the founders were around for sure. And I'm not saying anything to take away from the conference. The conference was super, uh, informative. I met a lot of cool people.

Um, yeah, I've met people from all over the United States. People came as far as California, Costa Rica, Costa Rica, New York. People came from all over the United States.

Yeah, I can't remember anybody's name off bat, like I'm terrible with names, so pardon self. But you know, I definitely requested a couple of guys. Oh, Ian, I remember Ian. We met with him. We had a meeting with that guy from Tild, right?

Right.

Yeah, from Tild. Yeah, that was— he was a nice guy. Um, the other guys from, uh, from the delivery thing.

Yeah, we met some guys from a delivery company. They were from Canada.

Yeah, those guys were cool.

Payroll company. We met with some software companies, you know, but I want to give a shout out. So like when I got to the show Sunday, you know, uh, Dale Lassing from the Green Sheet was there. So hung out with Dale.

Oh yeah, I met Dale in person for the first time, so that was nice. Shout out to Dale, right?

She helps us with some, you know, some publicity stuff, PR stuff. Yeah, PR stuff. And then I want to give a shout out to some of the people on the board of the SEAA. First off, Judy Foster, who invited me and Dave in 2001 to go to the very first SEAA in St. Pete, and we've been every single year since. So shout out to Judy.

Salute to you, Judy.

Shout out to John Shipley, who I know—

oh, John was super cool. Yeah, that was a nice guy who I know for many, many years.

Jamie Garfield, who hooked us up with some swag shirts.

Oh yeah, man, appreciate the shirt, Jamie. Thank you.

Shout out to—

she's the wife, right, of the—

no, she's not. Of who? Her husband was there, Jared.

He does merchant.

Yeah, he's in the business too. I don't know what he's doing in the business these days, but he's in the biz. He's worked around in the, in the industry, but like in a support role.

He introduced us to the woman at the end of the last day we were there, right? Uh, the woman in the yellow.

No, that was Dee, my friend Dee.

Oh, so Dee is not Jamie's husband? No. Oh, okay.

Anyway, Shout out to D. He's not—

he's dope. He's not on the board, but he was super cool.

His daughter is on the board.

Which daughter?

D's daughter is on the board.

What's his daughter's name?

Layla, huh?

Was that Layla?

No, that's— no, she works at— she works at this place, Linga. Oh, honor.

So yeah, too many names, too many faces. I can't remember you guys. Sorry.

McCormick, who's the head of the SEC. He's one of the founders with Judy from General Credit Forms, who makes cool pens. Sonny Wooten, who used to be at Amex, but he's still in the business doing something with a different company. And Sonny's there every year, and he was pivotal helping the SEA get established, because every year the SEA has gone on, uh, American Express has had sponsored the lunch. Yeah, yeah. And I mentioned it later in the podcast about the lunch.

So how was Sunday? I didn't go with you on Sunday night.

Just, I went down there, I took Dale out for dinner with my mom and hung out with her because I know her for many years, right? Then we went back to the hotel and there was a reception, so that reception for the sponsors, so we snuck in, you know. Right, because I know everybody. Nobody said anything, right? Slid in the door. Okay, they're like, oh, who are you guys with? I said, hey, it's Allen and Dale from the Green Sheet. I mean, I am writing articles for the Green Sheet, so, you know, use my, uh, the power of the press to get into the, uh—

there you go—

into the show. You know, the importance of going to shows like this is that as the owner, you know, and the, you know, of Nationwide Payment Systems, and, you know, to take Justin and my business partner Dave, for us to go there, is that you get to interact with people who are in the business here, like, how are they doing, what people are struggling with, what people are successful with, and also to talk to with people and companies who are there, because there's always new products. And new products sometimes don't always— from the beginning, you know, you have to watch these products. So you want to make sure, you know, how, how developed are the products, how developed are the— is the customer support for the products, um, how many employees do these people have. Because sometimes people come out with a product and They have like no— the support is not there, right? And you know, that's— so we, you know, we've learned over the last 20 years, 22 years in business, to ask a lot of questions and get contracts and then read the contracts and then interview the companies and make sure, you know, what, what the type of infrastructure that they actually have, right? And, you know, so it's important because you build the relationship, right? But we also want to make sure when we're giving a client a product, right, that it's a strong product and there's customer support behind it.

Absolutely.

Developers are working with the product all the, you know, and things like that, because you don't want to get a product and it's broken and people are complaining about it and things like that.

Right.

So it's, you know, so it's, you know, it's always interesting to go because sometimes, you know, we saw a few new products, but, you know, the jury's out on, on those products, right? And then some products come out and they look great, and then they work great, and then behind the scenes, this doesn't work so well. What you see, what happens behind the scenes, you know, it's important, you know, because We want to communicate well with our customers, right? And then we need that communication to flow from the vendors. So we need to make sure that the vendors that we deal with, that there's good— that we have a good rapport with them and we have good communication with them, you know. And even we spoke to a few vendors where their communication is not— is lacking, and we said to them, well, we can, you know, we can't really give you guys much, you know, a lot, ton of business because you're lacking in these areas. And that's, you know, that's why it's good to go to these shows, because you can get some face time with people who are on the executive level. Might not be the owner, but there are people on the executive level or developers there that you can have a conversation with.

Yeah, I got to talk to a developer that I—

we won't call out any, any names on people.

No, it was cool though.

It was good to talk to them, right? But it is good to talk to them and to, you know, and we want them to listen to what we have to say and give them feedback from the—

if that developer is listening, I spoke to another developer yesterday and they said that that's not a big deal.

Okay, I wouldn't think it's a big deal, but you know, listen, they have a list and somebody has to prioritize.

Yeah, that's a big priority Right, I would say that should be up on number 1, but whatever, who am I? So, you know, that Monday was demo day. Um, we first did the exhibit hall, didn't open up until like 3 or 2.

Well, 2 o'clock. We had a ton of meetings in the morning. The whole, whole morning was one meeting after another, every half an hour. Yes, from 11 til 2.

Next year I'm definitely going to do a better job at your— that there's got to be a little bit better, bigger break in between us.

What, the meeting? Yeah.

Okay, at least 10 minutes.

Well, you know, usually they're, you know, because meetings went over, you know.

Exactly.

Try to schedule them to be kind of short because it's kind of a, hey, let's get to know you, 20, 30 minutes. And then boom, move on.

All of them lasted longer than 30.

Well, I tried to keep them short.

The one guy even— never mind, it was one guy had to come over to be like, hey man, you forgot about me, like we've been waiting over here waiting.

The other people went off the subject onto like a whole nother product.

Oh well, that's because we were excited.

Well, you know, we didn't know the guy. Yeah, so we got to see some new technology, but like I said, we take our time to evaluate '98, and at these shows they're always plying you with— we don't— me and Justin don't drink alcohol, so dude, water, this— they got—

I don't like— I'm not like a super sober soldier, but I'm not like— I don't participate. Like, I, I just don't. Like, it's got to be something like a super special occasion or I'm celebrating something, you know, like Listen, whatever.

Don't put a bunch of— don't put a, you know, there's what, 1,300 sales guys there basically?

Yeah, I mean, and it was all open bar, so like, it's— that's great for them, you know what I mean? Like, if you're into that, like, that's good, you know, like, go ahead and socialize. But like, I don't— liquor, that's not— I don't like to socialize.

And we had—

I don't just— whatever.

There was food, there was coffee, there was tea, there was plenty of water.

Oh yeah, man. I mean, I had a great time. I'm not saying like, don't ever—

saw some other cool stuff. We saw self-service kiosks. We're in a ton of the booths. Everybody's getting in on the self-service kiosk. I mean, that's just something to think about. Like, for these— for a lot of restaurants, if you don't have a kiosk, you know, you better get— start thinking seriously, thinking about getting a kiosk.

So someone who doesn't know, like, a kiosk is like literally just a tablet, giant thing, big giant. It sits in front of here. It doesn't require any person managing it. The customer comes up and doo doo doo doo doo, pay, tap, go.

They needed that in the hotel because we went downstairs to get some lunch.

Oh my God, mine had like 60 people in it.

They were making the food very fast.

I mean, and then the woman at the front desk even said, we're doing the best we can, there's only one chef back there. You know, like, I understand, but yo, like, you knew that you were having a conference on top of it being tourist season.

Oh, the hotel was definitely full.

Crazy full, right?

And, and, and so we walked out thinking maybe we're not getting any food, and then we saw, oh, scan the QR code. We actually got our food before the people in the line.

A lot of people Yes, a lot of people—

that worked out. They should have had a kiosk and people could have just went up to the kiosk. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

That would have been a lot more efficient.

Yeah, so kiosk was everywhere, and then we saw a couple of booths with that robot.

The robot is— the robots are coming for y'all jobs, man.

Yeah, the robot is coming.

I don't mean to laugh, but it's actually, you know, it's approaching a lot faster than you guys think. Uh, this is just like I don't know how many times we've done seen these robots.

Well, we've seen a few of them. One I saw was like $20,000, and then there was a little— there was another one, another robot there that was very expensive. But then we saw the little robot, remember?

It's more like a bus.

It looked like a— it looked like a waiter.

You remember the— the Jetsons made—

it looked like a little table like this.

Yeah, exactly, with 3 tiers.

With 3 tiers. And then It had a screen on top and it could tell— obviously you could program in, it could go up to the table and tell you the specials. That was pretty cool. It could talk.

Yeah.

And tell you like the specials. It could take it or possibly take an order, the guy said. And then, you know, also, you know, whatever they could throw up, maybe like in a pizza restaurant or like a sub shop, they could just put it on there and say, yeah, go to table 2. And I guess the, you know, the map is programmed.

Pizza would be problematic, it's not that big.

But I could see how like a burger spot, I think it came in a different—

like a pub, a pub food, right? Wings, sandwiches, sandwiches, subs, that type of environment.

A lot of these places just don't have enough help, right? Self-order kiosk is— I'm telling you, even if you have a sit-down restaurant, you need to start thinking about Hey, do we need to put in a self-order kiosk and the, you know, robot, a kiosk on a road?

I would if I had a— so if I had a restaurant, yeah, at every table, you know, or you'd have a tablet. Yep.

Let people just—

it would be stuck there though, you know, like you would be able to spin it.

The tablet would be stuck.

Not that everyone have their own menu, right? But then to order, yeah, you take the tablet moving. Yeah, well, or I mean, I guess it could just move, you know, I don't know. But what I— my— what I was saying is like, because as a customer, it's a pain when you're waiting, or like if you're thirsty.

If you wanted to—

that sucks, waiting.

No, no, but I'm saying if you wanted to separate, you could. I'm gonna tell you, I bet you we're gonna see somebody, a smart restaurant, or I bet you if I put my— you know, I should be in the restaurant business. Business for 20 years. It was my first career, right? So I worked in delis, restaurants, full service, fine dining, all types of restaurants, hotels, country clubs. Let me tell you something, kiosk— people got to figure out a kiosk. I guarantee you that we're going to see somebody come out like in 2008, 2009, the, the term fast casual came out, and those are the restaurants like Chipotle, Moe's, you know, where you walk up and they just like make you some quick food, right? And, and there's some other ones. What's that other one down the street, or the healthy one that's not— it's like up and down. It's like the healthy version of Chipotle that's in the strip center.

Oh, the Honey Pot, whatever.

I don't remember.

Yeah, I can't.

Yeah, it was very up and down with the food.

The food is very— it's like hit or miss. One day it tastes delicious, the next day you go, it's burnt and cold. Yeah, it wasn't Yeah, they're not consistent enough.

And, uh, the, the— I guarantee you, you're gonna see somebody come up with a restaurant concept where you're gonna walk up to the front, they're gonna say, oh, here's your, uh, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna go— we're gonna seat you at a table, right? And then you're either gonna get a tablet and go to the table with it and order your food or you're gonna order from a kiosk and then they're just going to bring the food out to you.

That's how it's going to happen.

Something like that is going to happen. And tablets—

forget iPads, because I mean, if you go like at Wawa, you go and order your sandwich on a kiosk. Yeah, yeah.

Or an app.

Or your app on your phone. Yeah.

And I think like for one person, the app is fine when you're one or two people. You know, so for older people, they're not going to want to deal with, you know, uh, they're going to want a kiosk. They're not going to want to deal with looking at trying to look at a smartphone to order a hamburger.

Yeah, I feel, you know, I feel bad for some of the older generation. I watched some of the older generation struggle with technology now, and it's, you know, it kind of sucks because they were so stubborn. You guys were so stubborn and you didn't listen to your grandkids, man. We told y'all, we told y'all, man, over and over again. Smartphone, you have to learn how to use the technology or it's gonna use you, man. And that's what's happening, and it sucks.

But we saw a lot of booths with kiosks, and there was at least 3 or 4 booths with those robots, all different sizes of them and everything. You know, I think the robot could work— even the robot could work as maybe even a busboy for it to help the waiters. Because they could put those bus—

at least they wouldn't have to hold everything, right? Like this, the more—

no, like they could have—

that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, they could just put the dishes in there and wipe off the table, and instead of them carrying it back to the kitchen, the robot could take—

right, like they put all stuff on there and then they wipe the table down, and that the, the, the, they're already taking the stuff back there, right?

The robot could take the stuff back to the kitchen, wash, because there's going to have The labor shortage is real. I don't care what anybody says. It's not that— I don't think people don't want those jobs anymore. I think that people have figured out how to start a business, how to have a side hustle, are learning that there are many well-paying jobs that do not require a college education, and people are going after those jobs and not worrying about the, these, you know, and I think maybe even you might see robots in a retail store one day where, you know, the robots or employees are using the robot where maybe there's some clothes not folded on the right, they take it, just stick it on the robot instead of leaving it out there messy. So the employee taking it to the back, the robot could take it to the back of the store for them.

I mean, it's endless, but Yeah, man.

Yeah, there's a lot of apps, you guys.

All the youths out there, the youths, yeah, all you youths, y'all, you, you need to go and learn a trade or some sort of skill, man.

Like, because the robots are coming, but there's a shortage of skilled labor for things like plumbing.

That's what I'm saying.

Conditioning.

Go learn a trade. Go learn a trade.

Learning to be like woodworking.

You know, anything—

carpentry, carpentry, uh, general electrician, general repair stuff. I'm telling you, go to school for this stuff. Learn how to do it, you know.

Gardening, agriculture, all of that. There's a lot more to do than rapping and playing basketball.

And the other thing everybody's talking about at the show is the, you know, cash discount. Every booth head was talking about about cash discount. Oh yeah, the big buzz. Merchants, merchants love it, you know, because merchants don't want to pay the fees. No matter what Dick Durbin says, nobody, nobody— merchants, the, the people who want to get rid of credit card processing fees are not merchants. It's not Square, it's not Stripe, it's not PayPal, it's not anybody. It's Target, it's Walmart, because they're not passing the fee to their customers.

You see, the owner of Walmart— some of the owners of Walmart sold $400 million worth of stock in their company.

Really? Really? The owner of Walmart? Mm-hmm.

Or CEO, someone, something like that.

Somebody. Yeah, well, you know, who knows?

It's a lot of weird stuff going on. Did you also hear about the, the oil tankers and Ah, never mind.

Let's not get into the whole economy.

World War III, I mean. Oh wait, what?

We're not getting into a whole political—

No, I'm saying World War III is upon us. Okay, we're gonna be swimming with the fishes here. Work every day and help business owners and keep your head down, and that's it.

So, so that was Monday. Then Tuesday we had a keynote speaker. There was a tribute to a longtime friend of mine, Derek Vowles, who passed away recently.

That's very touching.

Yeah, he was president of the SEAA for several years.

Who was the guy talking?

John McCormick.

That John, you did a great job.

Yeah, he did a good job.

I didn't know Derek, but leaving, I felt a bit of a connection with him. And I'm not just saying that.

They had a video of Derek playing a couple of spots. Yeah, it was an emotional And Derek worked at a bunch of companies that we did business with. He was at Comdata, he was at PAI for a while, he was at some other companies. He had just got a job at another company, Electronic Verification Systems, and I know the guys over there. You know, Derek was a great guy and knew him for probably over a decade, or way over decade. And then we had a keynote speaker. So it's really funny, like, because I looked online, I said, oh, keynote speakers, Mark Wahlberg. So I'm thinking to myself, it's the Mark Wahlberg, like the movie star, the guy who was the producer of one of my favorite shows of all time, Entourage, right? And yeah, I love that show, Entourage. Entourage the movie was awesome. Allen Kopelman also made a cameo in that movie.

You know, I never watched— I watched Entourage, but I can't say that I watched, like, watched, watched.

I was into— on Sunday was Entourage. I was watching Entourage. I was into it.

Yeah, but it wasn't Mark Wahlberg at all. I, uh, before, you know, I thought it was when I read. I was like, oh man, that's cool. And then I, I Googled the, you know, I highlighted the name and It wasn't—

it was—

it's not the same spelling.

It was the other Mark, the first one, as he put it. Yeah, he's the— oh, he's older.

Yeah, he's the first Mark Wahlberg.

So it's the other Mark Wahlberg, who is now— who is—

he's—

well, I guess he's sort of famous now for being the host of Temptation Island for the last 3 seasons.

Yeah.

And before that, he told his story, which is an interesting story. He got his first job with Dick Clark.

I could relate to the part where he said that he was, uh, you know, he was the TV host or whatever. No, but when he's— he kept saying that this is what he does, and then he realized he hasn't done this in 5 years, right?

Oh, he said like— so he was talking about when he was in between jobs, when he was— he was on the Antiques Roadshow for like 15 years. Okay. And they let him go, right? He had no— he didn't have a TV job. And he goes, here I was, the TV guy with no TV job, right?

He kept saying like, I'm a TV, you know. And then one day he woke up and realized like, dude, why am I— I'm not a TV guy. I haven't been on TV, right?

He hadn't been on TV in 5 years. And so he pivoted and he pivoted and became a speaker, and he was doing went back to doing comedy and some other stuff. And he talked about— so he talked to me, and he met it, and he met his wife when he was first working with, uh, Dick Clark. He had met his wife. She was there.

That was cool.

She was very nice. I met them after the— in the, uh, cocktail hour.

Allen has a photo with Mark Wahlberg we'll be posting on social media.

And, uh, so it was inter— it was interesting, you know, because I like reality TV, so I've seen—

well, he knew who he was. You knew who he was right away?

Yeah, I knew who he was. Yeah, when I saw the thing, I was like, oh, this is the guy, Temptation Island. This is going to be really funny because it's a crazy show.

He was funny. He was funny.

Related, you know, how he— things that went on in his life. He talked about how he, he quit So he was not doing TV for 5 years, but I like what he had to say because he talked about quitting and he said QUIT. So he said he used 4 letters, said QUIT. Yeah, as an acronym. Get quiet and label your feelings. You unplug from that feeling for 10 minutes. And I instead do anything that brings you joy and trust that you'll forget to go back and worry. So it's kind of cool because actually, like, I identified this to Justin because Justin was feeling a little off, and then he said, oh, I want to get back to gardening. And this guy was also gardening.

Oh yeah, I mean, there was a lot of similar nuances and similarities for sure where he was saying, uh, about just, well, in, well, here it's easy. So like I've been doing building websites for a decade, right? And, you know, I moved down here 2 years ago. I mean, 6 years ago, I was still doing my own thing for a while, really, you know, trying to figure it out, would realize that I wasn't making enough money. So I started looking for a job and I worked, found Allen Kopelman, boom. I've been working here ever since. And, you know, the problem that I was starting to, you know, like, it's like you have this, you know, this self-perceived, uh, expectation of yourself, right? You know, and you're supposed to be at this, and, you know, we do that to ourselves a lot. It was interesting that he was speaking about all this, especially during Mental Health Awareness Month. He talked about going to therapy. He talked about you know, how he, you know, he was, uh, his wife didn't want anything to do with them. It was so many relatable things that he was speaking about, and it's really relatable in a business sense too, right?

Because I actually had a similar journey to what he was talking about.

Yeah, I was a chef, right, right? Like, I was the web, like, I was the owner, the, the owner of my own company. I was the guy, you know what I mean? Me. But then You know, it's hard to relinquish that, right? It's hard to just let go. It's hard to be like, okay man, you know, and now I'm the digital marketing director of Nationwide Payment Systems. Like, it's hard to be that, you know what I mean? Like, when you do your own thing for so long and then you have to, you know what I mean? You gotta be, sometimes it doesn't work out, right? And you gotta figure it out.

Gotta make a pivot.

You gotta pivot and you gotta, you know, you gotta provide for your family by any means necessary. You know what I'm saying? So, and at the end of the day, what he was saying was valuable. He's right, like, because we worry about so much stuff, you know what I'm saying? That's what he was saying, quit. Like, he'd be worried, worried, just worried and literally destroying your whole day 'cause it sucks the energy right outta everything. If you're worried about so much stuff, you can't focus. Trust me.

Believe me, that relates to business too. Like, when you're in your business, You know, you're having a rough day, quiet down, label what you're feeling, get away for 10 minutes, you know, and relax.

Take a walk because like when you get back from that walk, that's what he was saying, like—

Your head will be clear.

But the problem will still be there and you're still going to have to figure out the solution. There's no reason to like lose yourself.

It's going to get you out of the rut and then also add something to your life that brings joy. For me, when I was down, what brought me joy was my kids. So I got to, you know, I spent a lot of time with my kids. And because I was not spending time with my kids—

all my kids are teenagers, man.

I was working too much when my kids were little at the time.

Yeah, they don't want nothing to do with me. And that's, that's what, that's on a mental health thing. It's one of the things that I'm going dealing with. It's, it's really And I'm sure there's a lot of business owners out there who can relate to because for 10 years, you know, me being a solopreneur, I was always there for them.

Right.

You know what I mean? During the years when they were growing up before they were always there for them, right? Drop of a dime, they get sick, they're there with daddy. You know what I mean? And not that having a job takes away from that, right? Like, you know, Allen is very understanding. He knows, you know, like, hey, dude, you got a kid, you got to go get to your kid. Whatever. But, you know, my point is, it's like, you know, like, we worry about that and we spent so much time on our business, right?

Yeah.

So I did miss a lot of time with my kids too, though. And, you know, you think of it in, you know, on the other side of the coin.

And that same thing when I was working in my restaurant, I wasn't spending time with my kids.

Exactly. So like, you know, think about, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta always use those things to bring you back to, to, to what you're doing it for in the first place.

Exactly. And then he went and talked about be the best version of yourself, of ourself, when we are in service to others. And he related that because the business that we're in is a service industry, right? Even though it's not like a restaurant or something, but every business is basically in the service industry. Yes, you are serving your customers, and I enjoy serving my my customers. You know, I enjoy servicing them, I enjoy serving them, I enjoy when they call me on the phone even if it's a problem.

Well, that was the whole point of me starting my business in the first place, was to help small businesses seize their stake on the internet, you know what I mean? Stake their claim on the internet like the Gold Rush, right? You know, a lot of small businesses still are unrepresented on the internet, so My whole thing was to like help businesses get online and, you know, make more money online.

Unfortunately, you know, not all the businesses wanted to do that, but people still resist. Have we run into people all the time with no website?

And I mean, it's crazy.

That's today. I don't see how you can be a business in 2023 without a website.

Yeah.

I mean, some of these businesses we run into, they haven't even claimed their Google page.

Exactly.

That Google, what's it called? Google My Business.

Yeah.

I mean, come on, dude, you at least need that at a minimum. And, you know, so at MPS, we're here to serve our clients, the merchants, you know. And then he spoke about presentations. You know, a lot of people have a problem when it's time to do a presentation or a time to do a sales call. And I remember how nervous I was when I first started in this business, and I was going door to door, and I would have to walk into a business. I'd be like man, I gotta walk in this door. I would be like losing my mind. I'd be in my car, I would be like, I got it, Allen, you have to do this. You gotta feed the family and you're gonna have to get out of the car and get in there and go do it. Yep. And one of the things— and it was funny because they were talking about in another meeting we were in, oh, remember back in the day you would take out your laminated paper. Remember hearing that in a meeting? Yep. And show people like what the credit card machines look like. And because I was so nervous, I was like, okay, let's, let's go. Like, I'm gonna be like a step further than what everybody else was doing. And I got myself a 3-ring binder. I put pictures of all the different credit card machines you could get, right? And I've looked at it. I'm like, okay, look, I'm a chef, so this is the menu. This is what's on the menu. The Trans 330, oh, you gotta add a printer on, then you need a pin pad, or you should get this Hypercom, all nice with all the buttons on it. Or we have this really cool looking Tolento machine. Shout out to Judy Foster, she was the Tolento lady. And you know, and that's how I approached the business. Or, you know, people needed you know, a Gateway, and I'd sell them the Gateway. And, you know, so, and I would just have my little picture book, and then I would draw drawings, because back then, like 2001, you would go into businesses, they didn't even have a credit card machine, right? None. So there's— how does it work? So I draw a little picture. Oh, here's your machine, it calls the bank, checks the thing, then sends a batch, and then your money goes in your bank account. I'd make a little drawing and I'd show it to them. And, uh, you know, educated people, and I enjoyed doing that.

I'm sitting here trying to think about how you're like, like, yeah, it was cash, bro.

Yeah. And there, I mean, unless you're at the grocery store, I went into tons of places that only took cash. Tons of them. They never had card. It was a, it was a free-for-all. This business was a free-for-all back in those days. Literally, you would just walk in And, uh, oh, brand new business. Oh, you guys got credit card machines yet? Nope. Okay, I'm here. Boom, I whip out my book, you know, because you want to be— when you talk to a business owner, you need to be knowledgeable about what you're talking to them about. And this is the things that he talked about. So have an intention of service. So my intention was to serve them and teach and educate them. Then he talked about Listen deeply and respond, right? This is the worst thing when I see salespeople not do this, right? They do not listen to the customer. They're not listening to the merchant, the customer, the client, the potential client. They're not listening enough. They have their idea of what they want to sell them, right? You need to listen to what the customer is saying and then respond. The other thing you need to do is, is that which you didn't really talk about, talk about is technology has changed in 20 years, right? And the way some businesses are still doing things, there's one thing that irks me, okay? When we— when a restaurant is still doing tip adjust and not taking the machine over to the table, they are doing a They're doing a disservice to themselves. They're doing a disservice to their business. They're doing a disservice to the customer, and they're doing a disservice to their— the wait staff. Because taking the tablet to the table, the customer is going to be happier and feel more secure. The customer is probably going to put in a bigger tip. I'm telling you, the tips— when that— any restaurant where we switch them from tip adjust, where they write it down to putting the tip in on the machine, the tips go up. I believe every single place it go, the tips go up. Listen to me, business owners. If you're still doing tip adjust, get a wireless machine. Do tip at the time of the sale, and the servers are going to be happier. So the customer is going to be happier, your servers are going to be happier, and you as a business owner are going to be happier. Because why? Your customers are going to be happy and this—

your employees are going to be happy.

And it's less to deal with at the end of the night going back, putting all the tips in. Can you read that guy put down $20 or do you put down $25? Because you have to read people's handwriting. And then if you did it wrong, then you get a chargeback or it's over 20% or 25%, then you get a chargeback. Just do tip at the time of the sale. Get with the times. So you gotta listen to what—

get with the times.

Yeah, get with the times. And then he says, call out the elephant, which could be the tipping issue, right? Call it elephant. He called out the elephant when he got up to speak. He said, oh, I'm Mark Wahlberg, maybe you were expecting this guy, and he showed a picture of the other Mark Wahlberg. Everybody laughed. That was good. He was good. Yeah, he was good. And he also talked about like when he greets people he greets people and he tries to greet people in a way to disarm them. Hi! When instead of like the guys behind the counter at Starbucks going, oh, what kind of coffee do you want? He just goes up to them, latte artist. Hey, I'm— hey, latte artist, I'm Mark, right? So that's, you know, I use that when I meet people sometimes. I say, you know, me and Justin were walking around the show, it was pretty funny, you know, because I'm used to it because last year people was like, the first time I went to the show after the podcast, a lot of people said, oh, podcast, you got a podcast, wow, you got a podcast, wow. And then this year I'm walking around with Justin, everybody's like, oh, that's the podcast guys, that's the guys from LinkedIn, that's the LinkedIn guys. Yeah, those are the guys on LinkedIn. Oh, we see your videos all the time, you know, because I have whatever, over 30,000 people, right, connected on LinkedIn. So people are seeing the, you know, this content, the content that we create. So, you know, it's, it's interesting to see that. So, you know, and be passionate about, about what you do. Be passionate, you know, greet people, disarm them, listen to them, you know, call out the elephant, you know. So the elephant could be, hey, you're doing it this way, have you ever considered doing it this way, you know, and explain to them why. Like the same thing, like people who take credit cards over the phone— why are you doing that? We have the technology today. Put in the information, click a button, send a text, send an email, let the customer fill it all out. Boom boom. Believe me, the customer wants you to do it that way. The customer feels safer that way. They know somebody's not on the other end of that phone writing down the credit card number, right? The customer feels safer. Your employees are going to feel better. They're not going to feel like, you know, I— hey, I'm giving someone a credit card over the phone, they're repeating the numbers to me like 9 times. It's like so annoying, dude. It's like super, super annoying. I'm like, why are you guys doing this? Like The pool company I have calls me up the other day, oh, your credit card didn't go through. Yeah, I got a new credit card, send me a link. No, we can't do it like that. They don't know how to do it. And you're using Square. I'm like, man, you guys should be using my company. I'll show you how to do it. Because once the customer does, you send the customer the link. Once they put it in there, you click the button, add to database, and then create the recurring transaction. And you don't have to hassle around with what's the the guy's credit card number.

And, you know, use the technology, don't let the technology use you.

People might go to a different company because of the safe— because they feel safer, you know. Yeah, the way that company is doing business. So that was pretty cool.

Like I said, you know, yeah, Marco, he had a lot of great touching points. He was a good—

yeah, he was a great guest speaker, good motivational speaker. I was surprised. You know, it's always surprising when somebody's a— when you have different— I've been to many conferences, you know, and then they always have like a speaker. Sometimes the speaker is, is good, sometimes the speaker's like over the top. But this guy, I found him to be very relatable. Yeah, and down to earth.

Yeah, very relatable.

And also he felt very blessed because he told the story about he was out of work for 5 years And then all of a sudden, he wasn't out of work. No, no, but he was not doing what he wanted to do.

He didn't know what he— the temptation to doing TV was off the end of— it wasn't on his radar anymore. And then he did something, somebody called him, and it just landed in his lap. So it was, uh, it was wild. Yeah, it was wild. It was a good story. Very, very good story.

He said he gets to work for 4 weeks a year and live in Hawaii with his wife for 4 weeks. Damn, I'll take that gig. He said it pays very well, so I'm looking forward to watching this season of—

yeah, he didn't give out any spoilers or anything, but spoilers—

yeah, the first episode aired last night.

Then after that we had lunch, and I, I'm always dreading lunch because I'm Uh, well, I'm pescatarian. I eat salmon. My doctor said I have to eat salmon at least once or twice a week.

And you eat tuna sometimes?

Tuna sometimes. I'm not a big fan, but I'll, I'll eat it. Um, but yeah, so, you know, we had lunch and I was sitting there like, man, the day before I was upset because I told Allen Kopelman I was gonna bring something to eat, but then I'm like How am I gonna heat it up? What am I, you know, this doesn't make sense, right? So I just went, you know, I just, so then, then that's when we were talking about we had to order on the app, on the, you know, QR code. And so I'm sitting there like, all right, I'm gonna have another big giant salad for lunch. And that's what, you know, because a lot of times when they say, yeah, there's vegetarian on the menu, it's literally a salad. But, you know, it's okay. So we get up there and I'm like, oh, there's a salad. There's, you know, there's like—

Oh, they had like 3 kinds of lettuce, like the romaine, spinach.

That was later.

That was later.

That was later. The lunch was just the, you know, like the basic romaine with the balsamic and olive oil with a little freshly grated Parmesan. It was good. It was all right.

I had potatoes.

The potato, I don't— why was it— why would you eat cold potatoes?

Mushrooms. When I scooped it out, cold potato salad, baby potatoes, cold potato salad.

Not potato salad in a sense of potato salad where it's mashed up or chopped up with oil and garlic and some onions and green, red peppers. Yeah, no, no, no me gusta. And then next to that, they had the hummus veggie wrap. Let me say that I was expecting the worst because hummus doesn't sit well, right? Okay, like, that's a bad idea for a sandwich.

Exactly, it's gonna squeeze out, drip everywhere.

Future reference, chefs out there thinking about making veggie meals, skip the hummus. Find a different protein.

It was put together pretty well.

It was put together really well.

You didn't put that much hummus in there.

It was just a schmear, a smudge.

Yeah, smudge. No, because if you put a ton of it, then it would—

oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I— yeah, no.

Uh, and the vegetables had like—

it was a good flavor. They had like some sort of balsamic—

yeah, it was balsamic dressing, so it was— it had flavor. It wasn't like Oh, here's some vegetables.

And then they had a pasta salad, veggie pasta salad, which was, you know, it was good. I mean, it is— I'll say this, it's the best lunch that I've had provided to me on a vegetarian— like, hey, this is the vegetarian option. Definitely the best vegetarian option I've had in a long time.

A couple weeks ago we went to that other conference and the vegetarian vegan option was horrible. Remember that? We had to sit down lunch. It was the worst ever.

It was horrible.

The food was horrible.

First of all, it wasn't vegetarian because the mashed potatoes were covered— were— I mean, I haven't had that much butter in probably 10 years.

Oh yeah, I couldn't eat the mashed potatoes.

I, I— yeah, I didn't know that. And then we ended up eating like— this was the vegetarian meal. Was potatoes and then some zucchini and some squash.

It was horrible.

And some green peppers.

No, some green beans too.

Green beans.

Couple of green beans.

So I'm— yeah, I ate all the salads that were already out on the table. Like, I had like 3 salads on the table.

I had like 2 salads.

It was good. The salad was good. The spring salad mix was not bad.

Yeah, spring mix is always good. Can't go wrong during the happy hour. They had a whole table full of salad, which—

oh dude, I wish they would have had that salad for lunch.

Yeah, that was a nice salad.

That salad was— yeah, it had all the fixings. It had spinach, spring mix, spring mix.

Then it was a whole bunch of veggies.

They had the roasted pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds. The roasted garbanzo beans were— those were not as good as mine, but they were fine.

They were pretty good.

Yeah, I'll give them a couple fire emojis. They were good.

They were crunchy, huh? Yeah, they were a little crunchy.

A couple of them were like gone.

Avocado, guacamole.

Yeah, because then they had the taco bar.

The taco bar. Yeah, it was pretty good. I'm just saying, man.

Did you try one of those, uh, those, those mushroom croquette things though?

Yeah, that's not good. They were passing around orders. The past orders were not very good orders.

I felt like slapping it out of his hand after I had it, like, dude, get rid of that thing.

The only thing I—

the empanadas were cold.

Yeah, the only thing that I had was tasty was—

and this is no shot at the SEAA, this is a shot at the hotel, right?

They don't know. But that is, uh, they had like a—

the second night, the American Express put the, the—

right, the dried apricot with—

they laid it all out, the dried apricot with the cheese on it.

That was pretty good. I don't know, they didn't have very much of that.

I didn't have that.

I didn't have any desserts. We're at another party and they gave us like an egg roll that was like, eh, and some other thing, and it was cold.

Oh, the empanadas were not—

yeah, no, empanada was not so good.

But all in all, I will say, as the first-time attendee to the SEAA 2023— well, I keep saying 2023— for the SEAA was really cool. Um, thank you to everyone who showed me, uh, hospitality.

Yeah, a lot of people showed Justin the love. They were like, hey, podcast guys, LinkedIn guys. Everybody knew who Justin was. It was funny. He probably felt weird.

I was overwhelmed a little bit a couple of times. Like the guy at the front desk, he was a little intense. He slammed my— yeah, I know you from LinkedIn.

Bang!

I was like, whoa, I don't know you, but okay, man, I'm gonna watch you.

Yeah. And then at the end, there was like some bunch of breakout sessions, software referral partnerships. Banking as a Service, which is very interesting.

All of those, the breakout sessions on the second day were— well, I don't want to say better, it's just—

that's not panels.

Yeah, different. It was different, right? That's better. But it was, you know, because it wasn't so much like the first day was more like, uh, elevator pitches.

I think I got to 3 people on the panel in the one place a little bit excited.

Why is everybody so, you know, because it's the elephant in the room, right? And they don't want to talk about it.

Exactly.

So we always talk about PayPal, Stripe, Square, Cash App. We're not afraid to mention the names.

I'll throw—

I'll shoot shots all day at those.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, I mean, they're not gonna do any— what, they got so much money? Come and buy us out then. Tell us to stop talking about you. Send us a cease and desist so we can put that on the podcast.

Yeah, so yeah, we addressed the elephant in the room and everybody got upset. No, you got to go door to door.

No, the guy was like, why are you wasting your time and energy focused on a segment of people if that's what they're using? And I'm thinking to myself, because it's a giant customer base.

There's a—

how many businesses are using PayPal on a daily basis to operate their business? How many people are using Clover?

Millions of people are using PayPal, Clover, Square, Stripe. Stripe.

We talked to a guy yesterday, he's got 1,200— yeah, 1,200 businesses using Stripe, right? Horrible. What?

Yeah, and they said it's too expensive. I said, why are you using them? The guy went like this, I don't know. I'm like, you got to talk to us, dude.

He, I, he would, he definitely, I feel like we'll hear it back.

Yeah, I hope we're going to hear from him and talk to, talk to the company that he works for.

He wasn't the owner, but Kim, Chem, Chem, that's what his name was.

Yeah, he sent me a text.

Oh good.

Yeah, he sent me a text at the thing. Oh, but I'm just saying, you know, so these shows are important for development of the company, development of learning about things. Talking to people is great for Justin. I was really happy that he enjoyed the show.

How did I do?

I think Justin's eyes opened up to like when he says to me sometimes, man, why are we selling all this different stuff? And then you go to the show and you see all these companies are doing the same exact thing that I'm doing.

Pretty much. I'm not saying why are we selling this difference.

No, no, I'm just saying like, you know, like nobody at the show had like specific business focus.

It's— everyone is selling the same stuff, right? Like every business.

So it's hard to put that into words, but he got an eye-opening about how big the business is, how vast it is, how there's a lot of opportunity in the business.

Definitely opportunity.

Hopefully, you know, I'm gonna get just— we're gonna get Justin into doing a little bit more in a sales mode. You know, over the next year. Yes, get him into the sales mode, you know. So if you want to learn more about what we do here at B2B Vault, Nationwide Payment Systems, go to the website b2bvault.info.

Yeah, don't forget to catch us on YouTube at B2B Vault Podcast and hit the subscribe button so you never miss another episode.

And catch us on all the podcast apps—

Spotify, LinkedIn, Twitter, you know, I mean, all the social, all the podcast apps.

If you don't see us in your favorite podcast app, let us know and we'll get in there in the app.

I think we're gonna just follow us on Twitter, please, @jrowings and @AllenKopelman.

Peace out. Carpe diem. Big shout out to the SEAA. Thanks for the swag. SEAA 2023. We're looking forward to 2024 in New Orleans. It's gonna be fun. Peace.