During this season of the year merchant services sales professionals have plenty of prospects, but merchants don’t want to buy at the holidays!
There are two core objections which all merchants share between black Friday and Christmas.
- Too Busy! “I can’t possibly do that right now. I’m too busy trying to make sure everything works with what we’re doing.”
- Worry About Risk! “I don’t want to switch right now. What if you mess up my terminal, something goes wrong?”
Here are two tips for overcoming the “too busy” objection:
#1. Your value proposition. Whatever your value proposition might be, over the holidays it’s going to be massively better. During the month of December merchants are going to process a lot more transactions than any other time of the year.
So, if you are offering savings, the savings are going to be tripled or quadrupled. Offer them value. That’s really, really important.
#2. Your service. Make sure you explain up front that the process you’re talking about will only require about ten minutes of the merchants’ time just to complete the paperwork. Then assure them you’ll take care of everything else. Even offer to train their employees if there’s a new terminal or something like that.
The risk objective can’t be “overcome.” There is no amount of savings which will compensate for the risk of not having a terminal working during December. Even if you could eliminate all fees completely with cash discounting, that wouldn’t matter. Merchants are not going to be interested in doing that.
However, offering this one assurance will give you the edge (don’t use this only at holiday time.) Tell merchants,
“Look, here is what I’m going to do for you. Your concern right now is that you don’t want me to bring a new terminal in and, God forbid, something happens to the terminal. Then on December 20th or 21st you can’t accept credit cards.
Obviously, if that was even a slight concern, I wouldn’t recommend doing this until after the first of the year. But I’m actually going to turn this around for you and make it much MORE secure, much less risky. We are not going to cancel your existing merchant account. If I bring my new terminal, you’ll save a lot of money. During the holidays your savings will be two or three times more than normal. Your current, working terminal will simply be set aside. It will stay plugged in and ready to use if needed.
There is 99% chance that the new terminal will work great; you’re going to love it; and you’ll save lots of money. After the first of the year, we’ll cancel your existing account. In the meantime, if there is any problem with the new terminal, just put the old one back in place and use it!
Of course, I’ll be here within an hour or so to correct any problem that arises. Basically, I’m going to provide you with less risk instead of more; you’ll have two working terminals.
So, let me ask you a question, Mr. Jones. Keeping in mind all the savings I’m going to provide and the fact that it’s only going to take about ten minutes of your time, don’t you think this deal is worthwhile? To have an extra terminal here during the busy holiday season is a great idea. Then if something does happen to one of your terminals, you’ve got a second one ready to use. That makes sense to you, doesn’t it?”
That’s how you sell retail merchants during the holiday season! Go over the “busy” objection with your value and service. Then go over the “risk” objection by flipping it and actually showing merchants you are giving them an extra terminal.
Hopefully, that will be of help to you as you get out there and try to sell merchants during the holiday season.
Happy Selling,
David
