Sharing thoughts, facts, ideas, and best practices for business owners of all kinds.
Credit Card
Partnership
Point of Sale
POS
Once you complete a sale and sign an agreement with a merchant, it’s often easy to just move onto the next one and focus on finding more of them to sign. Merchants you’ve signed tend to stay happy and complacent as long as their hardware and software are functioning…
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Affinity Diagrams
What in the world are Affinity Diagrams? Essentially, their function is visual organization of data, especially during multi-person brainstorming sessions. You’ll end up asking yourself a lot of questions you never thought you would have to when you became a business owner. There are so many things to consider when…
Customer Loyalty
Loyalty Program
You’ve probably heard of loyalty programs before. If you have not, chances are you have at least heard of club cards, loyalty cards, rewards cards, or points cards. Their use is widespread and the average US household has 21 loyalty programs. Companies try to add consumers to their loyalty programs…
POS
Restaurant POS
What is a restaurant POS, what are its benefits, how does it help, and what kind do I need? The introduction of POS computers to restaurants was one of the most effective and efficient things that has happened in the restaurant industry in many years. Prior to their introduction, restaurants…
Restaurant POS Systems
Restaurant POS System
Here’s a strange way to start a conversation about restaurant POS systems, but bear with me… Restaurants have always been under public scrutiny. Since serving food to the public became a form of business, customers have always critiqued restaurants’ levels of service, in addition to obvious factors like food quality…
Marketing
Small Business Marketing
Small business marketing, done right, increases customer flow, money flow, and (you would hope) your free time! Small businesses need all the help they can get these days. We don’t have the huge budgets of major corporations. Cutting costs and stopping money leakage is essential for small businesses, and especially…
Credit Card
Chip and PIN Credit Cards
Chip and PIN credit cards provide a higher level of protection against fraud and theft than any other credit cards before them. The world would be a very different place if it weren’t for credit cards. We wouldn’t have the ability to buy anything online for one. And if we…
Credit Card
Credit Card Chip Technology
Credit card chip technology is a security measure to protect our personal financial information from theft and fraud. How? And what does this mean for your business? We’ll get into it in just a moment. Another day, another threat to our security, right? It seems like every time we turn…
Credit Card
Credit Card Readers
Everyone knows what a credit card reader is. Or at least you know where you can find one. Every store, every gas station, every establishment who accepts credit cards as a form of payment has one. Even people who don’t have or don’t use a credit card could tell you…
Credit Card
Credit Card Swiper
It reads the card’s information when you swipe the card through. A swiper is one way to enable your business to accept payments by credit or debit card. If you wish to stay competitive in the 21st century you need to have a swiper. If you aren’t familiar with credit…
Credit Card
Credit Card with Chip
Credit card with chip is the new standard across the world for secure payment transactions and credit card data security. Every time you look at the news feeds, you see it: another threat to credit card security. It seems like not a day goes by we aren’t once again under…
EMV
EMV Definition
EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa. These three companies came up with the standard used for authorizing smart cards. Yes, the future of credit cards looks very “smart” here in the United States. Credit cards have remained the same for a long time now. They look the same and…
Affinity
Affinity Groups
Affinity groups are groups of people who band together with one common interest or goal in mind. Chances are you know of one and don’t even realize it. Knowing of them and understanding what their purpose is is two different things. As a business owner, it’s worth exploring your options…
The world of payments is rapidly changing in front of our eyes. Massive consolidation is happening at a record pace, and this will inevitably impact your business as a merchant services agent.