The Payment Technology Podcast Celebrates It's 100TH Episode! | B2B Vault Episode 100

Hey, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from the B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast with your host Allen Kopelman, and we'll be providing you educational information about business payments, fintech, decentralized finance, and the technology businesses use in today's world. And in today's special episode, this is episode 100.

Yeah, Rocky, Rocky, high five!

Yeah, there you go, buddy, we're live. Anyway, yeah, man, so episode 100, um, you know, we don't really have like a specific topic. We will be announcing the winner of— well, the 3 winners of the giveaway. We got some other, you know, prizes to give away for the questions that were asked. We're going to reflect on a couple of the— I mean, talk about the 5, the top 5 podcasts of the 100 that have already aired. You know, reflect on just whatever we want to talk about.

And then some people wrote some questions in and we got some lot of messages. Congratulations on episode 100.

Of course, thank you, everybody.

Thank you to everybody who wrote in.

So shout out to all the fans, the listeners, the, you know, the people who are really out there that, you know, listen every faithfully, every episode, you know, there's, I'd say there's about 100 of you guys, something like that, that you could just really tell that, that the content is being consumed. And that's great.

Yeah, because we see people that access the content through our blog on the website. We see people going on the different platforms, Apple, Spotify, a few other platforms.

YouTube.

YouTube is very popular. More— we're getting, uh, a lot more plays on YouTube.

More subscribers.

Yep, and more subscribers. And, uh, you know, it's nice. And, you know, and I've gotten comments from customers. We've had a few people, potential clients, contact us, you know, right? So, yeah, I checked out the podcast, really great information, really appreciated it, I learned a lot. Sometimes we even do a podcast based on what customers are giving us for feedback during, you know, a week. We're getting a lot of, you know, it's the same question, or business types, or we're going to a convention, or there's a convention in the area that we're attending. Now we do a podcast based around—

those are always, uh, popular episodes when we, you know, like the—

yeah, we went to the Alternative Payment Expo, the CBD Expo, we went to that Emerge, which was a big startup, 2020. Yeah, Bitcoin 2022. We already got tickets to go to Bitcoin 2023. So it's, it's exciting when we go out to a conference. I'm going to a conference, the Digital Payments Conference in Atlanta, the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. And the first 2 days is all about payments for businesses, and then the second day is about, um, the second day I'm speaking in the morning about the future of point of sale. Which is— that's an interesting topic— and about, you know, can small businesses compete with large businesses, and can small businesses actually do what's called omnichannel or omnicommerce type business. And we're going to talk about the platform that we're in a slow launch doing right now that gives merchants, small merchants, smaller merchants, small merchants, medium-sized merchants, the ability to have to give their customers an omnichannel experience, which is important whether you're selling B2C or B2B, right? Is given that, that smooth payment experience to your customers. We talk about this all the time, you know, with the next podcast we're airing is all about that for B2B. So what were the top 5 episodes, Justin?

All right, so coming in number 1 Um, was episode number 92, which is obviously fairly recent. What is fintech? Obviously, you know, we talk about fintech constantly, right?

And I gave my specific definition. This is software where money is being moved, right, or payments are being made, right? And we see people live on the podcast, so if you have a question or you want to leave us a comment We can see it and you can ask a question.

Uh, number 2 was the Dick Durbin FinTech Friday special where you were talking about your buddy over there, you know, that's your Senator Richard Dick Durbin.

And you know, that was one of the questions somebody asked. They were like, who's this Dick Durbin guy? And I was, you know, so we'll explain. So Dick Durbin is a senator. I don't even care what state he's from. And what party doesn't matter, but he has basically— he basically had an ongoing war for over 10 years with Visa and MasterCard. So all the time it's— they did the Durbin Amendment in 2010.

We talked about that, right?

Right. Which is supposed to save small businesses money, and it didn't accomplish that. Now he wants to do this other— this Credit Card Competition Act. That's not going to save small businesses any money. It's not going to say— and on top of that, there was already a law, a legal case in 2006 which everybody seems to be ignoring as part of the story of this, that in 2006 Visa took First Data to court. Well, and said it's antitrust what they wanted to do. This is the same thing that Durbin wants to do. So this is only going to help big businesses. This is not going to help small businesses like what we're doing now. We're— we come out with a brand new product that you're going to see soon, and it's basically an omnichannel product that's going to level the playing field, right?

Right.

Don't you think that's leveling the playing field for merchants?

From what I can gather, yes.

Yeah, because you're going to be able to do everything you need to do out of one dashboard.

It makes it really simple for I can see how for, for people like web developers and service people, who— it's going to really benefit, help you guys a lot.

Yeah, it's going to help even a retail store. Yeah, it's going to help you level the playing field.

Not like Macy's, you know, small retail, you know, Justin's T-Shirt Shop. Yep, it's perfect for that.

Gonna help you level the playing field so that you can, you can level the playing field.

For visual artists, for people who are selling artwork, you know, who are at like those art shows, right? It's perfect for that. You could just literally send them a text message and you could just pay it, right?

They're gonna—

we're gonna be coming out with the mobile, uh, card reader.

Yeah, and you'll be able to link everything together in one account.

QuickBooks, if you want, if you're sending invoices. It's, it's really nice. Yeah, it is really doing everything. I'm learning more and more about it every day. They're, they're rolling it out slowly, so, you know, we're, we're we get to play around in the backend. Right.

And we're, and we're adding in like the different services and make— gonna make it easy for people to order the, the equipment that they need. And it's all— what's great about it is you don't have to buy it. It's all on a rental program, which is awesome.

You can buy it though, right?

But, but we're promoting the rental program because it's much easier. You have the rental program, and then if the equipment gets upgraded or it breaks, you get it replaced. Yep, there you go. No cost. Yeah, you know, it's awesome. So what's the number 3 podcast?

Number 3 was The Future of Payments, The Future of Payments, uh, episode number 38. That's always, you know, when you talk about— when we talk about just the advancement of technology, uh, I think it's, you know, really intriguing to people who have, who have no idea, you know. Like when, yeah, when you— when I first started this, you know, working with you, you know, I didn't really know much, you know. I knew about PayPal, I knew about Stripe, you know. I didn't understand the merchant. I didn't, you know, there's just a lot to try to grasp, okay. But I think that when we talk about the few— the future of payments and where we were as far as like cash, checks, debit, credit, and the small little boxes— yeah, I've literally, you know, like I said, I argue with everybody. I think our— my generation is the coolest generation. We have literally seen technology advance Exactly. From, from way, you know, from nothing to now. It's really crazy. Um, so yeah, I mean, the Future of Payments, uh, that pod is always great. Um, number 4 was, uh, Understanding High-Risk Merchants, episode 98. Another one that's more recent. I don't know what's going on. Maybe it's, uh, the way the algorithm is, is popping up that the newer newer episodes are more popular.

I don't know, but I know people are listening to the newer ones. No, but even like, there's one that's called The Business of Payments.

Yeah, that one is— that one's popular, but it's, it's less like number 7. Okay.

Because I just—

that's because these newer ones must have pushed them down. Because yeah, because then number 5 is July's ish episode of The Payment Trends.

Yeah, and payment trends seems to be a very popular episode when we do it because we're talking about what are the trends in payments, new companies, you know. And I, you know, we always, when we talk about that, we talk about news. So one of the things that's always in the news is, is, you know, Congress is with their, all their committees and all their agencies and all that. And we were talking about that, this competition in fin— you know, in payments saying. And then they, then they were talking about how innovation is outpacing regulation. Yeah, and the amount of fintech, um, innovation that's going on is amazing. Uh, so here's somebody asking a question about Durbin, and people don't know what that amendment is. So the Durbin Amendment basically gave the merchants, business owners, the right where one, they could set a $10 minimum if you could use a credit card. So they didn't have— they could do it.

It's like you go into the gas station and you walk in the gas station and you have to spend more than whatever they said to, to make the—

usually it's $10, right? That's the legal—

where I was at, it was $5.

No, but I'm saying the legal—

they're supposed to have a sign, but the legal limit was always written in crayon.

It's supposed to be— it's supposed to be tens. 5% not allowed. And then the other thing it allowed is merchants to basically pass the fee. So let's say a merchant wants to pass 3%, 2%, 4% to their client. The limit was 4% in Durbin, which was the Durbin Amendment, part of the, um, part of the Dodd-Frank Act. So the significance of this for merchants, which is another question being asked, is that gives merchants the freedom to do what they want. If you want to pass the fee to your customers, you could do it. You don't want to do it, you don't have to do it. And merchants ask me all the time, is it good to do? And I said, tell them, I go, listen, based on who your competitors are, based on what's going on, I mean, now, like, you know, what are you going to do? Keep rate— you know, how many times can you keep raising your prices, right? Yeah. So you can do cash discount. I can tell you right now, 80% 8 out of 10 retail businesses we sign up pass the fee. And I would say that with other businesses that are not card-present, right, right, like they're not card-present, then they're gonna get— they're, they're, they're passing the fee too, but sometimes it's 1%, 2%, you know, because they're trying to recover at least something, you know. Here's a question from Brad. Have you seen things evolve around more folks widely accepting crypto as payment?

Fluctuations in value in transit between payment and acceptance by seller, etc.

So right now we have a crypto— we have a product where you can have a customer come into your business or do a transaction through an invoice, and you want to get paid. Brad wants to get paid $10,000.

Cash.

In cash. So he sends the invoice for $10,000, and the, the software automatically calculates the transition from whatever coin the customer selects. So the customer can select Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, or Ethereum. They select more— huh? No, Litecoin. I said Litecoin.

Oh, I'm sorry.

And then they can, they can, uh, well, they do some of the other ones that can be included in there is the Lumen coin. Right, but it doesn't— it depends how the trading is going. They only include the coins where the trading is high, and then they calculate how much coin you need so that the business owner gets $10,000. With 10, you get 10 grand, 10K, right?

So whatever the invoice it is that you sent, you're gonna get that. Never know.

No, if you want to add a fee to it, you could add a fee, right? Like we have some nightclubs, they had a 5% or 10% fee on top, and then they give the customer the whatever, the club dollars, right? Because they paid them in crypto. Now they have club dollars. They can use it for tipping, they can use it to pay for bottles, for drinks, for food, whatever they want, right? They can use it to pay for their VIP private area in their room.

So it's, you know, and he said fluctuations in value.

So there's no, there's no fluctuation because it's a guaranteed thing that you're going to get your 10 grand, right? Guaranteed you're getting 10. You send the invoice for 10 grand, 10 grand's going in your bank account. If you chose not to pass the fee, then let's say the fee comes out, right, of the 10 grand. But if you pass the fee, most people don't even care because it's actually cheaper to do a transaction to buy something with crypto than it is to cash it out, get the money in your account, and then spend that even if you hand it to the person.

It's cheaper and it's saving you time.

Yeah, it's cheaper and it's faster.

Way faster.

Yeah, way faster. I mean, we've done— we just did a real estate transaction. It was a $1.1 million—

that went through?

Yeah, real estate transaction where somebody used Bitcoin to purchase.

Yeah, I mean, so condo in Miami. It's like when you're saying Evolve, dude, it's evolving to real estate. We got, uh, jewelry stores, cars, car dealerships.

Luxury car dealerships, boating, selling boats. Yeah, we have a guy— oh, you know what else we have? We signed up a company where you buy the top— the jet time.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, you know.

What kinds of payment solutions do you see being major game changers when it comes to consumer behavior over the next decade? That's gonna be— that's a good question. Shout out to GoDaddy, one of our partners. Our partner, by the way. Thank you.

We don't know who that is from GoDaddy. We'll guess that it's Cassandra. Maybe she can write it.

We—

they can put their name in. We'll know who it is. Hey, you could win a part. We could choose you. You could win a prize. Yeah, payment solutions are definitely— consumer behavior is definitely changing. So the ability for a business to send a payment request by email, by text message, to get a customer to pay, electronic invoicing. These are all things— these trends were— have been around for years. During the pandemic, I saw all of them accelerate, and I think that they're going to continue to grow rapidly. The other thing that I think that we're going to see a consumer trend is, even though like Instacart like blew up, right, everybody getting their groceries delivered, right, and then more companies started doing it, right, delivering groceries. I think you're going to see more stores start to add in curbside pickup, in-store pickup. This is going to be— that's why omnichannel and having your retail store and your website linked together, right, so you can deliver those services. So your customers not going to Walmart, not going to Amazon, not shopping from major retailers. Having the ability to take your store inventory, putting it on a website, and doing it quickly and efficiently.

I mean, this is going to be like, like what you're saying is really the way that small businesses are going to be able to survive and survive over the next 10 years.

Yeah, I mean, let me tell you, we go back to this all the time. I tell Justin, you know, Olive Garden, right? They do a great job.

Shout out to Olive Garden.

Order online, They tell you your food's ready, you drive up, you tell— you send them— tell them what space you're in. I think they do it through a text, right?

No, it tells you—

I thought it tells you— or it tells you what space to pull in. Yeah, you pull into the space, you tell them you're there, they come out and bring the grocery, the food. Uh, Wendy's, they want people to order on their app, then you pull into the parking lot, you tell them you're there, they ask you what kind of car you're in. Yeah, and they come and bring your food out.

Businesses aren't doing that and figuring out ways to to, to, to make the consumer's purchase, like, streamline it. I'm sorry, but you're not gonna—

and even like McDonald's, they have it where you can— McDonald's has it. I think you can order online and then everywhere. If your food's ready when you get to the window, you go to the drive-through. Yeah, ordered online, my name, whatever the code is.

You can skip people when you order online through the drive-through. I remember I was in—

yeah, some of them have where it's two— they have two pickups, so they have two lines.

They should—

Starbucks has it. You can order your food beforehand and then you scan the QR code and they already have your coffee ready for you before you even walk in the door. And, and places like QSR need to, need to get with it and get— do what McDonald's is doing. You walk in now, there's not 5 cashiers, they got 5 kiosks. You walk up and order your food, tell them, oh, I want this burger, no mustard, whatever, no ketchup, this, that, the other. And then you go— they call out your name, and then you go up and get your food, or they bring it out to you, you know, to your table, or you take a number at some places. I mean, let me tell you, like, things are changing. I mean, I've walked into many full-service restaurants, right? And in the full-service restaurant the, uh, they don't have enough waiters, right? And then, you know, what, what are they going to do? They're going to have to come up with something where people are sitting at the table and, you know, ordering the food themselves maybe, and paying for it right there, and paying for it right there. And the waiter just comes, you know, you just have people in the restaurant that are bringing out the water and bringing the food to the table, right? And serving, and serving the food. I mean I don't know if that'll go over great in like every kind of restaurant, but I think we might see like an operator that says, hey, maybe I can make that experience really cool, you know. Maybe they could figure it out, that maybe they would come up with a way. I remember years ago there was a restaurant, I can't remember if I was— I think it was I was living in Dallas, and they actually had like this, um, that a tablet on the— that like a computer on the table.

Yeah.

And you just put your order in on the computer. It's pretty limited to your kiosks.

Yeah, well, you know, with this, as far as the, uh, you know, the, the kinds of solutions, obviously we're gonna say crypto.

Yeah, I think crypto buy now pay later is gonna get offered more and more. Um, financing solutions for business, like businesses offering financing solutions, absolutely, is definitely growing. Um, You know, here's another question about what are some of the pain points in the merchant space right now? What verticals? What businesses? I think the restaurant business has the biggest challenge. Any business where you have to depend on labor, you know, where you have heavy labor. And I worked in the restaurant business for 20 years. We know. But I'm just saying, before I got into this business.

Yes, sir. So what are some pain points?

No, the pain points are, you know, the lack, you know, help in the business, you know, the ability to hire.

Right.

And the other big pain point right now is prices and inflation.

What kind of prices?

Well, the prices of— you're paying more for your employees, you're paying more for goods. And that, you know, there's got— hopefully that's going to not last much longer because some business— I mean, listen, you know, we go out to eat and then we look at— you look at the bill and you go, wow, or where you go to the grocery store and you look at the bill and you go, wow. So, you know, what happens is, I mean, listen, I've been in this business for 20 years, so I remember 2008, 2009, price of gas shot through the roof, the price of everything went through the roof, businesses were dropping like flies, you know, a lot of businesses. And there were even people who had like a side hustle business, they closed their side hustle up because they just couldn't afford to And then they said, well, what verticals have more challenge than others besides the restaurant?

I mean, of course restaurants are going through it just because of COVID That's— I mean, beyond that, but—

well, it's not COVID, it's just, uh, you know, when they were closed for 3 months, what do you think the employees did? They figured out other jobs to do, and then they don't want to go back to the restaurant. I mean, if you're not gonna— if you found a better job, or maybe during COVID they got so much money they went to school I mean, we have a client that's a, uh, train— like, they train people to do medical jobs that only take a few months to, uh, to train, right?

You know, so what other ones besides the restaurants there?

Um, I would say even the trades have a hard time.

Like trades?

Yeah, like people that come to your house to fix up— contractors, plumbing, electricians, contractors. Everybody has a hard time. When they're trying to hire a contractor to find people that do good quality work, right, and are trained properly, right?

You know, so I mean, those guys, what you just mentioned, and those are good paying jobs, but they're good paying jobs. But those, those people are also one of those, the, those group, the, you know, like the services, they're not utilizing the technology at their hands, like they're still, you know, making draws, getting checks, right?

They need—

and they— and you need to really step it up. And you can start just, hey, oh, you know, I need to make a draw, let me text Allen, you know, show them the list of materials that I just bought at Home Depot and just send it to them via text. You don't have to wait for email, you don't have to call them and tell them to check your email, you don't have to go and visit them at his job, you don't have to disrupt his day. It's just very convenient. So to all you service industry guys out there. If you need any help, just give us a call, we can help you. And then GoDaddy, again, how does a restaurant know they have the best payment solution, POS and payment processor? What is so— with so many different solutions out there?

Yeah, they're, you know, everything that has to do with, you know, when you're buying a point of sale, especially in a restaurant, You have to look at like, okay, some— and I always ask this when I analyze a point of sale company, I go, okay, like, where's your— what's your, you know, what's your hot area? Like, what's your thing? Can you put it in and put 20 of these things in a place?

Right.

And then they'll be like, no. So you have to make sure— no, you have to make sure the sales rep knows exactly what's going on. Like, you're going to do— let's say you have a big restaurant with a big menu. A cloud-based system might not be for you, right? Now let's— you know, you might need a server-based system. And what's funny is— I won't say it's funny—

that's server-based.

Yes, I get it. But a server-based system is where there's a computer in the establishment, in the establishment, and everything's running off of that computer. When you have a cloud system, all the information is up on the cloud.

Right.

So they're hybrid systems where they do, you know, they have a server or they're using one of the stations that's a server. And you know that if you have a place like, you know, I'll give you an example. Like we have a restaurant that we, that we do, that we do their merchant processing for. So there's a count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. There's 14 stations. Okay, well, that's not going to work with a cloud-based system. It's on 2 floors. Well, I guess not.

Why, why wouldn't it, right? Because it's too much, it's too much to push up.

Yeah, there's too much, it's too— there's too much, too much going on. Yeah, and not gonna work. But let's say you had a pizza shop and you just need 2 stations. Okay, you could use a cloud-based system.

You got a sandwich shop, something small.

Yeah, just it depends if you have a—

well, not Jimmy John's, but I mean like Jay's Sandwich Shop and I got 5 sammies on there.

No, but I'm just saying it depends on how big the menu is, right, and what the demand is and all that. And then what do you need to link into the— your— what do you need to link into your, uh, to your software? Oh, do you need time and attendance? Do you need to do cash discount? Do you need to have online ordering for your customers? That where— so you want to use a point of sale that can connect your menu to the online thing? Does it link up to delivery services like Uber Eats or DoorDash?

And then beyond all that, you got what, your fees and process, you know, right?

But I'm just saying, you gotta— before you do that, you need to think about what's my budget, and then what do I need? Because you want to make sure you don't get something that doesn't, that doesn't need it. And there's, you know, multi-location or single location, same thing with the point of sale. You want to make sure if you have multi-location, is there a Is there a franchise mode, right, in the point of sale and things like that for food? You know, like food truck, you can do food truck.

Can I read you the question?

Yes, read me the question.

Multi-location versus single location solutions, choosing a POS that could serve a franchise versus a food truck, what kinds of hardware, and yes, what kinds of options for the guests.

So I'll tell you, Craig, we're just in the process now dealing with a guy that's getting started with a food truck, right? So I said, oh, what do you want to do? So they're going to get one terminal, and then that terminal needs to be linked to online ordering. So they want the people when they get there to basically scan a QR code, go to the website, order their food. They don't want them coming up to the truck ordering the food.

That's smart.

Yeah. And they're gonna— and they're gonna—

if they can make it efficient, if it runs efficiently, right?

They have to train their customer to do that.

True.

You know, food truck can be pretty quick too. Like, I have some food trucks— like, I have a guy who takes 3 food trucks and they go to a concert. So one food truck has hamburgers and the other one makes chicken fingers and the third food truck makes dessert, right? And then what they do is they, they have people out in the front with tablets and then they're just like taking everybody's order and they tell Oh, you know, they text them, they get text or email, here's your thing, and it sends the message over to the food truck. You can design it however you want. I've been to— I've hooked up food trucks before, and they basically write it down on a piece of paper, and then they just have a little hand, you know, that they ask for a PayLink. No, that's not a PayLink, it's QR code going to their online ordering website.

It's just a link.

Yeah, it's just the link. It's a hyperlink. Yeah, hyperlink. They're just clicking, like scanning a QR code.

There is a way open to, to make the a pay link?

Well, you could do a payment link if you were gonna sell just a couple of items, right? Like, let's say you had a food truck and you're just selling vanilla ice cream and chocolate ice cream.

Boom.

You could just put up a web page and have a payment link.

Exactly.

Could be done. Work too. Yeah, I mean, it just depends how sca— you know, what's the scale of what's going on? Yeah. How fast does it need to move and all that? You know, do you have the capability to have, you know, strong— what, like, you know, right?

I think, I think with the restaurant thing, I think that people— the lack of knowledge of the restaurants, the technology is what I'm saying, right? It's like they don't know the options that they really have, like with pizza. So they see Clover, right? And they're like, oh, that's got to be it, right? Because that's what everybody else uses. Well, they, you know, you need to educate yourself, right?

But I'm saying like pizza shops have a different thing than a sit-down restaurant. Right, pizza shop, they're delivering pizzas, you know, they want to keep people's orders in there. So you have to make sure, like, oh, I'm a pizza shop, what does your software do for pizza? You got to ask the right question. Well, it's time, let's do time for the prize.

Yeah, let's, let's, let's pick this. So the, the generator gave us the 3 names, uh, for the, uh, giveaway, but it doesn't pick like first, second, or third. So, hey mama, um, so yeah, um, we're gonna pick the winners out of the hat. We'll show you right here. It's Jen, Adela, and Christopher. Okay, yeah, so look, there's nothing else in there. No, you know, we'll put them in there, shake it up, pick the winner.

Sarah, okay, the first person is getting— drum roll please— are they getting the first prize? Yeah, they get first prize. Jen is the winner of the Oculus Meta Quest 2 goggles. She's going to be having a fun time in the metaverse soon. We're going to be sending you an email.

You have to provide your address so we can mail that to you. Yes.

Second prize, Christopher, the winner of $100 gas card.

And third place goes to Adela for the $50 Amazon gift card.

Right.

Round of applause to you guys. Thank you for—

thank you guys for entering the contest. We over— I meant 2,000 entries.

Oh, it was— yeah, there was over 2,000.

Yeah, over 2,000 entries of people who confirmed their email address.

Yep. And Mom, your package is on the way. Thank you for asking the question. And to answer your question, what is a digital credit card?

Yes, it is an Apple Pay or Google Pay, or where you can have an app on your phone and then you store your credit card in there., or if you have an Apple phone, you can apply for the Apple credit card, right?

There you go. So I answered your question on Facebook. You didn't reply, but now you got it. I love you, Mom. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you.

Whoever's asking questions, if you guys send us your email address, we'll send you a swag bag.

All right, so get a box of swag. We got another question. Uh, I don't know, you just handed me these.

So one, one question was somebody asked about chargebacks, like how does a consumer do a chargeback? And then they said, can people do chargebacks on platforms like Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, Stripe, and Square? So consumers can do— you know, that merchants have a merchant agreement and consumers have their agreement with their credit card company which says whatever. They could make a complaint and, and get a chargeback. We just did a whole episode on chargebacks if you want to find out about chargebacks.

There is definitely episodes on chargebacks.

And so, you know, consumers have to contact their bank, and you can charge back like Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, stuff like that. It's hard. In fact, there's a lawsuit right now going on against Zelle, um, because people got scammed. So dumb shit.

Oh yeah, no, we were talking about that in one of the payments.

Yeah. So one of the things that I'm sure is going on right now, I can tell you now, like with Zelle, um, they stepped it up. So when I go to my bank and I need to Zelle somebody money and I add someone in, it sends me a text message. Yes, I added them into the Zelle. Wasn't doing that before. No. And then after you send a transaction, it sends you another one. You got to put the code in to verify, to verify. So then Zelle stepped it up, but they're getting there. They're getting sued big time right now. And a couple of—

I'm surprised Cash App isn't getting sued for all the— I mean, all the people that get hacked on their Cash App.

Well, they are. There's— they're having— there's like a big complaint now going on in Congress.

Oh, really?

We talked— we, uh, we briefly touched on this where Congress is— wants to talk to all these companies. I thought—

I didn't remember hearing Cash App's name.

Yeah, well, they— they're— the Congress wants all these companies to come before Congress that do these P2P payments, and they want them to explain to them their business model and what they're doing to stop fraud. And it's very important. And then Stripe and Square, yeah, you can do a chargeback, the same thing. And I can tell you, if you're a merchant using Stripe, Square, or PayPal, they don't really care when you get a chargeback. The reason they don't care is they're the met— the, the merchant of record, right? So any of these payment things like Chime and all this stuff, all those companies, they're on the hot seat right now. With Congress. What we talked about— regulate— innovation has outpaced regulation.

Yep.

And they're coming after these companies to make sure that they are— what are they doing with the data? What are they doing with people's personal data? How are they tracking things? What are they doing about fraud? What are they doing about, you know, KYC, know your customer? What are they doing about AML, anti-money laundering? Right? It's very, very, very important to, to, to, to do, to do this. And, you know, the, you know, Congress is going after these companies. I wouldn't— I would say they're not going after them as hard as Dick Durbin is going after Visa and MasterCard, but they're definitely small business. Yeah, and small businesses, you know, um, same thing, you know. Like, what was the other question?

What is omnichannel?

So omnichannel is the ability—

it sounds so scary, I'm sorry—

the ability for merchants to have one, basically one dashboard and then control all their payments. So payments on their credit card machines, whether it's one sitting in a store, a mobile machine, you know, sending out payment requests via text and email, sending out an invoice. Hooking up your website or your online ordering or your e-commerce website, and then being able to view all that in the dashboard.

Because one place, right, centralized into one place for you to manage all of that, right? And we can help you set that up today.

When I first started in the business, if somebody wanted to do anything remotely close to that, you need to have 2 or 3 merchant accounts.

Really?

Oh yeah. They were like, oh no, no, no, we can't mix it all together. Now everybody's all put it together. Yeah, but it's easy.

Big old gumbo pot.

But it's easier for the business now.

I like it.

To compete against the bigger— their bigger companies.

So we got that one. We got that one.

We talked about who is Dick Durbin.

My mom— oh, here was another—

here was another question. Why are— this was asked by a guy, Lawrence. Why are many merchants charging their customers 2, 3, 4% or more Even some businesses have added, uh, in the past a COVID fee and now an inflation fee. And he's saying it sounds like a big rip-off. So the answer to that is the cash discount laws. So you have cash discount, you have surcharging. All of that was covered in the Durbin Amendment 2010, which gives merchants the right to run those programs. Now all these other fees You know, people were talking about like in New York, the state gave businesses the ability to say, oh, we want to charge a 10% COVID fee. Is that to go buy all these masks and extra cleaning and that, that, that?

I don't disagree with that or argue it.

No. And then I saw a restaurant recently. It was a diner in my area. I don't want to name the name of the place.

Okay, don't.

No, I'm not going to name it, but They've been bashed and I don't like it because they raised their prices, right? No, they didn't raise their prices. They just added like an 8% inflation fee. That— it's one of these diners, but this started during COVID didn't it?

No, no, that was a different one.

Yeah, that was a different one. Oh, that was one we talked about in New York that had some crazy—

you said you were going to the one restaurant and they said that there was a COVID— they raised their prices because of COVID Yeah, they raised their prices.

Because they've— they raised them through the roof.

So this is a different restaurant.

It's a different—

they added an 8% fee on there.

Yeah, an 8%. They're not doing— they should just do cash discount, right? And then charge people 4%. But they're not doing that. They're adding an 8% fee. But it's one of these restaurants where the rest— the menu is like a book. Oh, you know, so what are they gonna do? They're gonna take like little white pieces of paper, white stickers, and cover up everything and write in new prices every day. It's crazy. And they're having it. And then that some of the menu items they can't get, so they have to tell people they don't have the menu item, you know. And it's hard. That's why a lot of places— but they deal with an older type clientele, so that client— that clientele wants the menu. It's tough, the menu, you know.

Those are the same people that are paying with checks.

I go to a— I go to a restaurant, you have to scan the QR code, see the menu on the phone. The guys— I said, oh, what happened to the printed menu? The guys— the prices are changing.

I'm joking.

Rapidly. You know, the prices are changing.

I'm still paying with checks.

Yeah, there are people that— my mom loves to write checks out, still loves a check.

That's like a generational thing though.

Yeah, she loves checks.

My grandmother, she had her balance sheet. She cherished that thing. If you took it, touched the pen that she used to write checks, you're in trouble.

No, my mom loves to write checks.

That's funny.

No, but you know, merchants can do that. They can charge the fee. Is it a little outrageous? Listen, if people don't like it, they don't have to go back to the restaurant. I, I mean, I don't know what else to— I don't know what else to tell you, but you know, the businesses have the right to charge up to 4%, I think, if you don't have— and the other thing is, do they have the money to keep reprinting the menu, reprinting the menu, reprinting the menu?

Yeah, I mean, we can— when we go to the one place, Adam and Joe's, yeah, you know, I, I like how they set it up, you know, there's an incentive to, to, to order digitally, right? You know what I mean? Yes. To keep one, to stop from everyone touching the paper, right?

And then, well, they give you like a free cookie.

Yeah, they give you a cookie and a soda.

Yeah.

Shout out to Adam and Joe's, local business. If you're lucky, if you're ever in Fort Lauderdale and you're looking for a sandwich to eat on a Friday afternoon, stop in over there and they'll hook you up.

Um, anyway, yeah, so I mean, so there was a good victory today for small businesses, a big victory. So we got a letter, I got an email right before the podcast from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which fights for small businesses, and the 3.8% additional tax that was in this whatever inflation bill, they took it out of there, they took it out of in the Senate. So now the bill is in the House. There's a—

there's a— they wrote— they wanted— there's an amendment that they want done to it.

No, no. So what happens in Congress— let's just explain this so people understand. You got a bill starts either in the House, in the House or the Senate. So if it starts in the House, then they send the bill to the Senate, right? Senate has to vote. If it starts in the Senate then they got to send it over to the House so that either one of them, when they send it back and forth, can make changes. But if they make changes, then they got to send it back to the other place. So today, what we're going to put in the podcast, um, notes, or maybe we'll put— we'll post it up on our social media, a link from the National Federation of Independent Businesses. I'll give it to Justin after the podcast.. We'll put it out on all our social media. Click that link if you own a business, you want— or you want to support small businesses because you have relatives and friends that own a small business. And believe me, a small business is somebody running out of their house or somebody doing $5 million a month. They're still considered a small business. Yeah, $5 million is nothing.

I learned— I was— that was, uh, this is for a different podcast, and I think that it should be talked about, but it was about, uh, Latin American-owned businesses.

There's a lot of— there's a lot of minority-owned businesses, period. Yeah, Latin American businesses, there's all types. In South Florida, it's a mishmash of everybody.

Oh my God.

Yeah, I meet people, they're whatever, they're whatever they want to be called— Black, African American, Indian, people that are the Indians from the Indian reservation. That's over there. Native American Indian. You have to be careful. I don't— whatever. People with the alphabet, stop, relax, let's just go. No, no, but I'm just saying there's all types of businesses out there. Yes, this tax is basically a double tax because businesses— people go, oh, businesses don't pay tax. Yes, this business, you have your profit, your profit that in your business is on a business tax return. That profit goes to— on your personal tax, on the person who owns the business or partners in that business. All that profit goes on their personal tax return and they pay taxes on it. And they wanted to add 3.8% to that. So that's basically double taxation, which is against the Constitution.

It's— here's nuts—

it's not allowed. Double taxation, not allowed. I don't care what— who owns the business. Right, no matter what. So if you own a business, you have a friend that owns a business, you have a family member that owns a business, you go into small businesses, go to our social media. The link will be up by the end of today, and you can go click it and support that, right, your congresspeople.

Well, we'll pin that on top of one of our page— on top of a social media page.

Yeah, we'll pin it to the top of all the social media.

Get it.

So if you want to follow us on social media, @B2BVOL everywhere—

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, you know, YouTube. And YouTube is—

we're everywhere. You want to listen to the podcast, you can listen in video format on YouTube, or you can visit us on any of the platforms— Apple, iHeart, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Pandora Podcasts, Samsung Podcasts. The list is endless. Every time I go— we were on— we got a message from some company one day on Twitter. They were like, oh, are you on our platform? We looked, yep, we were on the platform. We claimed the podcast, and that was the end of that.

Before we end it, I mean, yeah, I just, you know, I think there's— we should— for me anyway, I just wanted to say a few things, you know, like I never in a million years would have thought that I would have been doing a podcast with a 65-year-old.

I'm not 65.

63.

I'm sorry. 62. 62.

I'm sorry. You know, it, for me, it's been a hell of a learning experience. You know, like you and I, we don't always see eye to eye. Um, when I first started this podcast, I wasn't even in the video, right? Like, I was in the back, and he would— and it was terrible. Like, we would sit there, we're almost yelling at each other to— so that you could hear what we were saying.

Well, you didn't really want to participate, but that—

because I didn't know anything about payment process.

I was teaching you, right?

Okay, we've learned a lot about payments.

Justin has learned more about payment processing in the last year than most people. Like, he's getting— like, he's getting— like, he's working with it every day, and we're doing 2 or 3 podcasts every week, and he's learning about products all the time. So he's gotten a really good—

like, a university degree in payment processing. They should have, like, some— you could probably put a course together and make money off of it if you really wanted to, but I'm not helping you do that. We got enough work.

Yeah, exactly. We have enough work today.

But yeah, man, what I was saying, I just, you know, I was reflecting on this this morning. I recently started writing in my journal again. What I wanted to say is, is that this podcast, I was a very creative person. I'm a web developer. I like, you know, I love graffiti. There's just a lot of hip hop, whatever. So I'm a very creative guy, right? Yeah. And so I used to write lyric, poetry, and rap songs, whatever. And I re— you know, I haven't had like that, the creative bug, in a really long time, right? So when I started this podcast, I still was like, didn't really. And then I seen you kind of struggling to figure, you know, like you can't— not struggling, but just to— it's just you, right?

Yeah.

And you can't payment processing, you saw only so much.

You—

it's like, well, no, you tell me sometimes, like, it's a little boring.

But you know what, we found like a good mix between the two of us because I've been a business owner, you've been a business owner. So when I talk about payment processing, you sort of look at it as a business owner.

Exactly.

And ask me questions. And that's what gives the podcast an interesting dynamic. It's not two payment processing professionals.

No, exactly. Sitting here spitting out a bunch of totally different creative minds going back and forth. I just want to say that thank you for like pushing me to, you know, like to find your voice. Well, I always had a voice, but I wanted to— I just want to say thanks.

I took you out from the back.

You helped me, you know, get my creative, you know, juices flowing. And that's cool. My wife appreciates it. My kids can see a little bit of a difference in me and shit. Stuff. Sorry. Uh, but, you know, I don't know, man. It's been cool. It's 100 episodes down.

Uh, we're gonna do 100 more.

Absolutely, absolutely, man. Rock on. Peace.

No, the podcast is, you know, we started out, it was very rough, and we didn't know where it was going to go. And then we started to, you know, Justin started to warm up to the idea, like, he could participate more and feel like But we have to monetize, right?

Like, I'm always trying to figure out a way to make more money, okay? Jay want— Jay's about the dollar, dollar bill, y'all. Cash rules everything around me. Show me the money, son. Put it in my hand. Anyway, real quick, we're going to announce the winners again. First place, Jen Stabler at North Carolina, she won the Oculus. Uh, Christopher Steets— I'm sorry if I'm butchering your guys's name— of Kentucky. You won the $100 gas card. And Adela, Adela Gonzalez of Louisiana, you won the $50 Amazon gift card. So I will be contacting you guys via email. Um, you did leave your— actually, I'm gonna send you a text. I'm not even gonna— I'm gonna go straight.

Yeah, go straight to bypass it.

I'm gonna get your, uh, address and then we'll have that shipped out to you ASAP. Um, again, thanks to all the listeners over the past, you know, what is it, 8 months only?

Yeah, thank you for everybody who's listening to the podcast, leaving us comments, contacting us. If you want to book an appointment, we have our text messaging up. Text the word book to 954-827-9818. Again, you can visit the website b2bvalt.info. Peace, peace, everybody have a great day. Thank you.