Stacy Bishop, Fintech and Banking as a Service | The Biz To Biz Podcast

Welcome to the Biz to Biz Podcast, your number one source for all business news. Hey everybody, welcome to B2B Vault, sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems. And we're going to talk— where we talk about sales, we talk about business, we talk about payments, and we never wear ties. So there's no ties, no fancy outfits. We just talk business and have a good time doing it. And today my special guest is Stacy Bishop from What's the name of your company again?

Selling FinTech.

Selling FinTech. Yeah, well, she's— Stacy's been around in the FinTech industry for a number of years, and we've run across each other's path a couple of times. And now she's launching a new venture where she helps FinTech companies as their chief revenue officer and helps them, you know, add payments, work with banks, work with neobanks, work with FinTechs. And we're going to dive in and we're going to talk fintech today on B2B Vault with Stacy Bishop. So welcome to the show, Stacy.

Thank you, Allen, for having me.

So where, where are you, where are you living? St. Louis?

No, I wish. Spent a portion of our time there. We had recently relocated down to the lake area in Missouri. It's, it's a little, little town called Shell Knob on Table Rock Lake. Beautiful. It's where we had planned to retire. We accelerated those plans a bit, moved down here early. So fun stuff. You're seeing an unfinished house behind you. We'll get there though, Allen. I'll keep you updated on that progress.

Yeah. All right. Well, you're not far from my daughter. She lives in Cedar Rapids, Missouri. Is like right there. You guys getting some of that snow that she got today?

We are. The kids are home. Hopefully they will be quiet and stay out of this room. But yeah, we did. And it's very chilly. Very chilly here as I'm speaking to someone that is not in a cold location.

Warming you up with some flamingo.

I know, right?

Right. I'm wearing my flamingo. Warming you up with sending you some heat from South Florida.

Thank you, sir.

Where it's 80 degrees.

Geez. Yeah, that's just cruel. That's like as cruel as what the Eagles did to my Chiefs this weekend. You just taunting me with with the warm weather that you have. Cruel.

So let's, so let's, let's dive into fintech. Probably some of the, you know, the biggest things going on with fintech now is a lot of talk about embedded payments, you know, embedding all sorts of payments inside of applications on websites and portals, you know, doing all kinds of different things like that. And it's, and it's, you know, that's like the biggest like buzzword now. Rocky doesn't— he doesn't like embedded payments.

I get you, Rocky.

Rocky, come here.

But you're exactly right, Allen. I mean, embedded banking is the thing right now. It is such an untapped market at this point in the US, especially in the statistics. As far as growth opportunities are, hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of the next 4 years by 2030. It's Amazing. Like, I think somewhere $170-ish billion, if I'm not mistaken, is just up for grabs. And to your point, there are these fintechs, these— and when I say fintech, any company that's moving money, and it can be moving money across a variety of different ways or paths. That could be with credit cards, debit cards, it can be via ACH, wires. There's a broad term this fintech is, is pretty broad in its reach. But all of these companies that are starting, they need a way to move money and they are looking for relationships either directly with banks and credit unions, where a great deal of my specialty is, or with other types of payment providers out there in the industry. So it's also, however, just one of the, the least tapped markets right now. Tons of opportunity in the banking space. You'll hear this referred to embedded banking, embedded finance, or another term is BAS, B-A-A-S, and that stands for banking as a service. Yeah, I happen to be married— oh, go ahead.

No, I was going to say what's interesting is, is, you know, I've been listening to people talk about banking as a service for a couple years. I've even talked to a few credit card processors who were trying to, you know, add like, you know, into their portal, you know, so where, you know, merchants, when they have a merchant account, they log into a portal and try to add different services in there. But I think when, you know, when, when business owners think about banks, I think we, we look at it. I look at my business and I look at two separate age groups. So I look at the age group over here, 40 to 45 and above. Those guys are looking to walk into the bank like me. I like to go to my bank and touch the bank, although I do some online banking. I mean, I use Betterment, you know, basically, which is a really cool product, you know, where you can put money and they pay interest and they spread your funds across 8 different banks. It's crazy when you look at the statement. It's, you know, it's pretty, it's pretty unreal how they do that. And, you know, and And, you know, but I've talked to companies and they're like, oh, you know, want to put banking. And then I've talked to like these online banks who are just banking as a service and they're sponsored by, you know, other banks, you know, and they're trying to embed payments into their banking. So when you open up a bank account, they're embedding some kind of payment, you know, embedding like a merchant account there. So it's pretty interesting where, you know, all the different directions everything is going in.

You're, you're so right. I mean, fintechs, and just by nature, these are solutions that in most cases they're app-driven. You know, we all have these phones. We all want to be able to interact with a service like Betterment, or, you know, pick a, pick a product, pick a fintech provider. And we want to do it from one consolidated user experience. And that's where I think the embedded component comes into play because at least, at least in my opinion, I actually happen to be in that, that group you mentioned where I don't like to go into the bank, but I am in that group that you mentioned, Allen. But I, even me, I am in that stage where I would love to be able to do the majority of things in one place, in one app. And when it comes to doing things like ordering, ordering coffee, you know, you can do that and pay for that inside a Starbucks app or, you know, selecting any type of money movement, money payment. Uber is a good example. DoorDash is a good example. These players are embedding payment options inside their apps, which is what we as end users now expect. Nobody wants to order food on DoorDash and then have to go over to their bank to pay for that or transfer money. That's just not the experience we're looking for or that these providers have made us used to. And that's why I think banking itself is on the verge of change and why we're likely going to see much, much more in the way of embedded, embedded and vast banking in fintech apps or payment rails. More specifically to your specialty inside these, inside these fintechs. That's just kind of my view on it. I might be, I might be a bit biased. I happen to be married to a banker that is also a bass banker. So he does embedded banking. This is all the things we talk about all the time, payments, opening accounts, embedding, et cetera.

What's interesting is when you talk to bankers and I speak to all bankers in all types of industries, you know, B2B, B2C, right? And when we talk to them about banking, like I bank at a bank, whatever, doesn't matter, Truist, okay? And so I had to get, you know, so I was, you know, when the rates were high, I was putting money in CDs, you know, then you have to go flip 'em. And I go, you have to come to the bank and come sign a paper. But recently when I had to flip some CDs, they were— I didn't have to sign anything. They just did it all over the phone, which shocked me. They're not even asking me, which I don't really love, right? But I think, like, one thing that I think these banks need to do is they start— they need to really start thinking about security, because security is a huge problem right now with, like, Zelle, Cash App, Venmo. Those are all fintechs. I mean, we have all these scam text messages going around Florida where people are getting texts and emails, oh, you didn't pay your Florida toll on the toll. And then people are clicking on it and then they're putting in their credit card and then their credit card gets whacked with a bunch of fraudulent charges 10 minutes later. And this is, you know, people need to do that. I mean, we just had Cybersecurity— no, Internet Safety Day was recently, and people just don't need to have better awareness about about, um, security when it comes to like getting a text, getting an email, you know, should you click on the link, should you not click on the link, and things like that. Like, I'm surprised that the, the bank's like, oh, we're going to send you a code, read us the code over the phone, or hit OK on your phone for us to flip this around. No, granted, they're not moving the money, but you know, there's been a lot of problems with with things like that, you know, people's bank account getting compromised and, and, you know, and those, and those kind of things. But the other thing where I see a lot of movement is, is a lot of like SaaS companies and credit card processors and even bank— well, banks don't do a good job of this, but like embedded— when I think about embedded banking, also think about embedded, you know, finance, like loans. So You know, like, it would be nice when I log into my bank, oh, you qualify for this kind of loan, or, oh, you have, you know, this much money in your savings account. Do you want to open a CD? Here's the rates. Like, they haven't got these big— these— the bigger institutions haven't got to that point yet, you know, of doing that. And even the smaller institutions, like smaller online banks, You know, they don't even have this— these kind of services. And consumers are forced to, and even business people. But one of the things about banking as a service that I've heard from a lot of people is like opening a business checking account, like not in person, you know, like over the internet is a huge challenge for them. And I did speak with this one bank and they got They literally, they got, they got defrauded, they got frauded out of a large, some large sums of money by people setting up a fraudulent bank account and then a fraudulent merchant account. And then the bank ended up taking the hit.

It is— you have touched upon some major topics in banking and these are like they're the hot buttons next to embedded regulatory compliance, like what, what we refer to in the industry as regtech is maybe, dare I say, the sexiest thing that bankers are speaking about. And it's not that it's a super compelling topic all the time. Nobody wants to talk about fraud, but we have to because of some of these instances that you've noted. And I think it's even more complicated now for bankers and likely financial services as a whole, because now we have— I hate to say AI, but AI absolutely changing the game. And now we have AI tools that can replicate voices. We have AI tools that can, that can really cause a banker or someone that holds your information probably to doubt themselves. And, and normally these fraudsters have been going after the bank customers or the credit union customers. Now we definitely see them also going after the bank in that regard. And I'm not sure what the solve is for this. I think it's going to be a constant iteration because these, these fraudsters, these people, these bad actors are so ingenuitive, I guess will be the nicest term I can say for what they do.

It would be a lot better if they use their talents for something legal versus illegal activity of getting money, you know, getting money out of people's bank accounts. Like, you know, you have to be so careful. You can get a fake email from an e-commerce brand that you're familiar with, and then all of a sudden you're going on to a fake website with Cyrillic type that you're not familiar with. And all of a sudden, you know, you're doing a transaction and someone's got your credit card information.

Oh, yeah.

Or you think you're logging into PayPal or Zelle or Cash App, and you're really logging into a scammer's website. They get your info and then they empty your account out. No, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who I've talked about on my podcast a number of times, I don't feel that like the people that run that and the people that are on the Financial Committee of the, of the, you know, the House of Representatives and the Senate, I don't feel that these people really understand how the bank, how banks work, how payment networks work, like how Visa and MasterCard work. I mean, I don't know if you saw the last hearing that they had Visa and MasterCard there. They're asking them, oh, Visa, how come there's a trillion dollars in debt, or whatever it is, right? And the lady, the woman from Visa says, oh yeah, but that's not us, you need to talk to the banks. So they don't even understand that, like, Visa has nothing to do with— who's loaning the money out, right? And, you know, then, and then they're trying to regulate all these buy now pay later companies. And this, this is all fintech, you know, it's all financial technology. And it's, you know, and there's no— I feel like they does not, you know, and then we get to like open banking. Right, which is a whole nother category of, you know, oh, can you walk into Truist, hand them some money, and they're going to go send it over to be a Bank of America for you? Because that's what, like, basically open banking would be. And how, you know, and how is that going to be— how's that going to be handled? And I think that, you know, the, the government needs to, you know, they need to get it together. They can't have— they can't have these, these lay people, right? They're, they're, they're not even coming up with rules. They're just like— it's everything is like, oh, we have a problem, now we need to react to it. Like all of a sudden, people getting money stolen from Zelle, right? And then, you know, all of a sudden they're— I mean, they made some of the banks give back millions of dollars to people. I'm not sure that's fair or not fair, or— but now, like, my bank, if I add somebody to Zelle, they send you an email, they send you a text message. You got to put codes in, you got to do, you know, you got to do all these things before you can get, you know, send money anywhere. And I think that they really need to start— and also passwords. Let's not even get— you know, that's like my least favorite thing in the whole world is dealing with passwords and websites. And every website is a different combination. Oh, you can't use a number, you can't use— you can't have the password has to be put together. I mean, it's crazy, some of the, some of the stuff that's going on. And I think like security definitely needs to be addressed.

Security is a tough one. This is, this is that area where we I don't know what the proper solution is, but I do know as a person that has to log into these websites like you, I want it balanced. I want it balanced between ease of use and ease of entry and security. And I think there are some sites that go way overboard in trying to make the site secure. I appreciate what they're doing, but it seems like overkill. And then you have those sites where I'm thinking, huh, okay. They just— did they just want to see if I had a pulse? It was a very basic type of uneven— it didn't even feel like a strong password situation. So that I think is going to be a continual struggle for us, especially more and more sites requiring passwords, more and more apps requiring passwords. To your point, all of the different configurations that are required that we as end users have to just deal with and manage. And it's not the best feeling, and it's one that I'm going to be anxious to see what continues to happen there. I hear my dog, by the way, snoring. Can you guys— I hope you can't hear that right behind me.

He's probably snoring now too.

I opened up my heart a little bit. I'm like, okay, come on in. But I was going to ask you, Allen, what are you thinking? So the CFPB, Man, it's a— it's an organization that people love or hate. There's, there's not a lot of middle ground. What do you think about— have you heard about some of these new pauses on the whole CFPB, their policies and their, their components since the new administration took office? What do you think about that? Are you—

I think that the— I think in general, you know, we cannot have bureaucrats or people who work in the government make rules and laws. And that's a huge issue about anything. Doesn't matter what it is. Like, they need to— I think when you, when you listen to some of these hearings and they're discussing banking and they're discussing credit card processing and they're discussing credit and loans and interest rates and all these different things, What I see is a bunch of people asking questions to people and they don't, they don't know. First of all, the people asking the question are asking the wrong person the wrong question and they're not getting the answer they want. They're just putting them on, on, on, on blast, right? Oh, we're going to yell at Visa and MasterCard, right? Where's American Express? Where's Discover? Where's, you know, Jamie Dimon, the the CEO of Chase Bank? Where is the president of Bank of America? I mean, if they understood how, how all these systems work, you know, I'm glad I'll go teach them a class. They can fly me up to DC. I'll sit all the people down on the Financial Committee and go over like Credit Card Processing 101. Here's how it all works, right? But, you know, they're not There's just no— there's no regulation. There's no standards. I mean, look at buy now, pay later. They, they sit there, you know, they want to go hog wild on that, right? And if you look at what happened in Europe and Australia, this is why we have buy now, pay later, because they regulated credit card processing. They drove the price down. Then consumers could not get credit anymore. So they had less credit to deal with. So they— and they don't really have debit in those countries, have some other form of like debit payments. And now you have buy now pay later. Buy now pay later, not good because it costs the consumer more money and the business more money. So that didn't— so they, they said, oh, we're going to go do this to these companies, right? Then it produced something else that costs more money than what people were paying before. And that's what That's what people don't seem to understand is how that works. But, you know, when we're talking about embedded payments and embedded finance, I think, you know, we launched a project called the Merchant Toolbox and another project called the ISV Toolbox. And those are tools so that ISVs, fintechs, can go add into their software, you know, oh, here you can put payroll in there. Oh, you can get a business loan by clicking a button and apply for a business loan. You can get— you could add buy now, pay later if you're selling large-scale items and consumers need financing. And then it's all built, you know, have it all built into your software because companies like Square, companies like Stripe, QuickBooks, Toast, they're already doing all that. So businesses need to catch up. To, to do all, to do all these things. And it's the same thing with embedded, with, with banking. Banks need to figure out like, okay, well, I'm going to— where am I going to embed all these bank accounts? Like, are people going to want to? One of the things I find with the neobanks when I talk to them is I'm like, okay, you want me to send you customers, right? I have a brick— let's just have a restaurant, right? And you want me to get my customers to bank with you, but they don't have the ability to write checks. They don't have the ability. They have— they can move, they can pay bills with like a credit card or a debit card, but they can't write a check. Not that businesses need to write that many checks anymore because you might have to pay by ACE, you know, you need to ACH money to your liquor vendor, the food vendor. Some of them still pick up paper checks.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

They still pick up paper checks, right? But then you have to deal with— these businesses have to deal with payroll, right? So they You can't just take the money from Bank A and send it to Bank B so they can run payroll. And that's where, that, that's where I think some of these, um, banks are the, the banking as a service, where some of them are— most of them that I've talked to are lacking in those capabilities for people to run. While you could get your money faster, right, and then you can move money around, simple thing like payroll They, they don't have a way for businesses to run payroll out of those bank accounts.

It's like that complete ecosystem is what is— it's lacking for many people. It's tough to replicate. And kudos to you guys for, for figuring that out and doing that with your ISV toolkit, because I do think it's going to empower— sure, fintechs, of course, but also just, you know, any, any small business owner, which, by the way, my husband and I fall into that category as well. So I try to look at things from a couple of different lenses, fintechs that work with and sell to banks, fintechs that work directly with small business owners or directly to a customer, because of course I'm, I'm that in many regards. But I love something you said and it just hits home and it's, it's talking about just the complexity of the payments environment. And you having lived and worked in this space for so long, you have this expertise, this knowledge that the vast majority of us do not. Like, truly, even growing up in banking, I, I dare say I couldn't, I couldn't even touch, I couldn't even be in the same ballpark with you when it comes to that payment knowledge. I know enough to be dangerous, sure, but it's, it's complex when you are a fintech founder trying to figure out which route to go and what your, what your payment and money movement options are. It's really complex for a small business owner as well that, that has a more traditional type of brick-and-mortar business, something you might see on Main Street. I think it's a challenge, let alone congressional people that are making decisions on, on laws and regulations. So it's, it's a challenging issue because I think it's a challenging and complete, uh, a complicated space and What do you think? How do you go about when you're selling to people, Allen? How do you— or working with, with providers or small business owners or whomever— how do you lay out the landscape? Do you just start by telling them their options and the ecosystem? I'm dying to know.

We try to figure out like, okay, what are your needs, right? And then basically, you know, from, you know, I mean, listen, we used to sell just go around selling these things for years, right? Just putting a credit card machine. Now everybody wants to have a POS system. They need some kind of technology. And it used to be like when I started this, my company in 2001, people built software to sell hardware and service contracts. Today, any company who's building out software, they're thinking about SaaS revenue. And they're thinking about how, what's the cheapest way I can put this thing out there? Like, will it work on an Android tablet? Will it work on an existing Windows computer? Um, and then embedding payments, right? Payment, you know, have putting payments in there and then figuring out like how they can make money from that. And that's something like we're launching now, like a whole white label so people can like white label. Like let's say you had Salon Software we can white label the whole portal so your customers can go in, sign up, you have a portal, and they would see Stacy's Beauty Salon software, right? Or whatever, whatever that software is, whatever businesses, whatever business vertical you're, you know, you're, you're doing or whatever it is. So we're able to like set all that up for somebody, right? Work with you. You have a fintech, you bring them to us and we help them navigate that whole thing, plus plug the ISV Toolbox tools so they can create more stickiness for their client, with their clients, and create extra revenue at the same time. So it's, you know, it's super important to figure out how this whole puzzle is. And then, you know, hey, are we going to bring in like a banking piece into there at some point and go, okay, we're now going to— you can now embed some banking in there and embed loans. Into the, into these systems so that people can log in. And let's just say it's a veterinary clinic and they go, oh, look, I need to go buy something. And they say, oh, I'm eligible for a $50,000 credit line. So, you know, it's, it's a growth— it's just a, it's a whole, it's a whole ecosystem of all these things like plug that, you know, you got to plug this in here, plug that in there. And, you know, that's what we do. We thread the needle. We figure out, okay, what are you doing? What do you need? Do you need a credit card machine? Do you need point of sale? You know, do you need some software because you're doing some complicated billing or maybe you need to be using a gateway or for your website? And then what kind of features do you have? I mean, you know, we're dealing with now is this whole click-to-cancel law that the FTC put out. So people have to have on their website, as easy as it was to sign up, it has to be that easy to cancel. And that's going to cause a lot of problems. And there's a big fine, $55,000 per incident.

Per incident. I don't think I realized that price point. Yikes. So you want to be working with somebody that knows their stuff, right?

So it's the same, you know, it's where everything is. The fit— when we talk about innovation and we talk about fintech, fintech, it's like a new word in the last couple of years, you know, and innovation is moving at a rapid speed. Like the payments industry is changing so rapidly. Like it's like it's just changing. And all this banking, you know, there's been the banking stuff that's changing really fast too. And that's why, like, and there's all types of companies trying to get into the get into the space to move money around. Like, there's all these— like, even these payroll companies now are, you know, coming up with these portals. Oh, you can go in here and put all your commission salespeople in and then pay them out and do all this, you know, do all these different things online. And it's, you know, to help everybody move money around. And that's what it is. It's all moving money all around. But, you know, companies need to think about, like, what are those guardrails going to look like? How are they going to not take take, you know, not have, not have too much security, but have enough security so that they don't get ripped off and their customers don't get ripped off.

Yeah, good point.

It's a fine line to figure out how to, how to deal with that. And what— so let's ask— so answer this question. What is the perfect— if somebody is listening to the podcast and they go, oh, I want to reach out to Stacy, I mean, Stacy Bishop, she's on LinkedIn and I'm on LinkedIn too, but she's on LinkedIn. You can contact her there. Is that the best way to get a hold of you?

Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm a basic CY, S-T-A-C-Y Bishop. So yes, sir.

Okay. And then what is your ideal customer that's going to come to you that you can help? What's your ideal client?

Who are my ideal client? It's likely a very technical fintech founder because here's the scoop. What I, what I have learned in working with fintech for the past, you know, 25+ years or so, selling different sizes of fintechs, fintech founders, those that are starting out developing their solution, they are, they are the most intelligent people. They truly, truly are. But most, in most cases, they're also very technical. Technical-oriented. They're the ones in there creating the code, creating the solution. And then guess what? They're small, they're forced to sell their own product. And selling is something that doesn't always come supernaturally to people. It's— it can be intimidating. And a lot of founders I speak with go straight for a hefty discount just to get the deal done and to win a logo. So my ideal client, I guess, is working with these technical fintech founders that are at a stage where they may not be able to devote money to a chief revenue officer or CRO or VP of sales or even a sales staff at all. They're doing it, they're living it, they're building the company, but they need some guidance when it comes to selling to banks or credit unions. And that has been my background. That is what I know and that is what I specialize in.

No, it's super important because one of the things I talk about a lot when I talk about business to people is, oh, I'm going to open a business. Again, the first question I ask them, I say, okay, well, what are you going to do to get sales? And they're like, I'm not a salesperson. If you're going to have a business, you need to think about being a salesperson. When I was a chef, my boss told me one day, he said, you have to go into the catering office and help the woman who's selling catering. I'm not going to remember her name off the top of my head. She was really, really cool to work with and I learned a lot about selling from her. And, and you have to go in there and sell yourself. So these people are going to book this party and I was scared to death. What am I going to say to these people? I just remember when I went to culinary school, the chef who was teaching us about things, he said, oh, whenever you have to talk to customers, he goes, dazzle them with brilliance. Baffle them with bullshit.

That's sales, right?

Right. That's what he used to say. And then they ended up sending me to Dale Carnegie to take a sales course.

Oh, yes.

And one of the things that I, that I learned is you are the expert. So I'm the expert at B2B Vault, Nationwide Payment Systems. Stacy is the expert at what she does. We are the— we're the experts. And that's the thing. When you own a business, you have to remember that you are the expert. Right? And you also have to build a team. And where people— a lot of times people fail is like delegation, right? So how am I going to delegate to, to different people these tasks, right? And at the same time, you know, it doesn't matter whether— if you're the owner, you also have to do sales, and you got to put yourself out there. And we're in a different— we're in a different place. So you got to put yourself out there on LinkedIn, you got to put yourself out there on Facebook. You have to be where— you have to be where your customers are going to be, you know, because yes, the other thing that I see is like in-person, like trade shows and things like that, the attendance on those is way down. Maybe them, it's, it's still strong in certain niche, very niche type of things, but in a lot of bit— a lot of, um, in a lot of spaces, it's, it's kind of like not as, as busy as it once was.

I could see that. I can absolutely see that. I love what you said about these, these founders needing to create a personal brand. I mean, because you are the face of your company and to the degree that you can just work your way through the discomfort of posting on LinkedIn or Facebook or wherever your prospects are, just lean into it and do it. It's only going to get better. It's never, it's never going to get worse. You're never going to get worse at it, I dare say. And I think that's very important. And I also try to keep in mind that these founders— and you kind of touched on this— they're doing a lot. They're wearing a lot of different hats. They may be the chef in the back, also part-time seller, part-time going to get groceries, go, you know, part-time. They're—

they're—

founders are often— or business owners are often— we know this— wearing all the hats that need to be worn until they can afford to build a team. And when you're mentally switching between all of these tasks and then you have to throw in sales as well, it's— it can be uncomfortable. So to your— something you said, Allen, I love it, but I've heard it phrased this way as well. Your story is your authority. You're the expert. I'm the expert in what we do. Lean into your expertise as a business owner and find the people like Allen, or if you need some assistance like me, and we'll be honest if we can't help you, if we're, we're not a fit.

But sometimes it's not about like hiring people. Sometimes it's like, hey, who can I partner with to do accomplish this? Like, we partner with a lot of companies who have technology, and we might not make, you know, the big commission. We make a little less commission than we normally But now we have the technology to sell to our clients, which we couldn't sell them anyway if we didn't have that partnership. So it's important to not just think about like, oh, how can I do all this by myself? Having the right partners so that you can accomplish what you're, what you're doing. Like a lot of software companies run to Stripe. Stripe's not going to be your partner. You can't call them on the phone. You can't talk to them. You're not going to get an advisor. Like with us, with Nationwide, or you come to Stacy, you're going to get that. You're going to have that advisor that you're going to be able to talk to and have a partner that's, you know, that's, that you can work with. And that's what people need to, you know, get out of, you know, listening to the podcast is, you know, learning that, you know, there are experts out there in the area, the fintech, that you can reach out to and have a conversation anywhere.

Oh yeah, and we can be a bit more today, like we're having today, and we can be more creative, honestly, when it comes to structuring partnerships than some of those bigger logos that, that you've mentioned. Because there's a lot of levers, a lot of things that might be important to you and/or me, Allen, that, um, a fintech owner in my case may not have thought through, but different, different ways that aren't always just about shelling out money, there's, there's ways to, to structure ways in which we can work together. So I always think that's part of the fun is, is trying to figure out a scenario that works for both and that ultimately benefits both players.

Any final words as we're gonna, we're gonna sign off soon?

I mean, watch every episode of B2B Vault that you can and check out Allen, who I have really grown to to know and just like so much. Um, since I have known you, Allen, a year, you know, maybe a couple of years at this point, I always learn something. So check out everything that he does. And if I can ever be of assistance or even guidance, that's, that's another big thing I like to do is just have conversations with people, create connections with people. It's, it's about just, you know, sometimes being a good person in business, and that's what I strive to do. So if I can help you, fantastic. If I can't, I will let you know. The very least, I can absolutely connect you to someone like Allen or others that can help you or your business. So that's what I would say.

Thank you to everybody for listening to B2B Vault. Thank you to Stacy Bishop, Selling Fintech. You can find Stacy on LinkedIn. You can find B2B Vault everywhere you listen to podcasts— Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Pandora. We're everywhere. We're on social media. I'm on LinkedIn. Everybody's on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's, you know. So that's the podcast for today. Carpe diem. Again, we always— we never wear ties, but we're always making sales, right? Everybody have a great day. Thank you for coming on the podcast today.

Thanks, Allen, for having me. Bye now.