Life Lessons – Page 5

From Highlighters to Smart Terminals: A Nostalgic Look Back at the Leap That Changed My Life

It was April. I can’t pin down the exact calendar date, but it was right around 2009 or 2010 when I decided it was finally time to bet 100% on myself.

At the time, I was managing a Dollar General. It was a long way from my earlier days of selling wholesale fish to restaurants, but it was a grueling grind all the same. I was clocking endless hours, trading my life for a steady paycheck. When the opportunity to step full-time into merchant services presented itself, I knew it was my moment. No more safety nets. It was time to put all the chips on my own work ethic.

Confessions of a Salesperson

Every merchant services rep knows the exact sound I’m talking about. It’s the chime of the door as you walk into a retail shop, or the heavy click of a glass door at a B2B firm. For a few minutes, you’re on. Your energy is up, you’re reading the room, you’re looking for the terminal or asking about their current processing volume. You are the face of your business.

The Short-Week Trap

We’ve got a three-day weekend right around the corner. Memorial Day is this coming Monday, which means barbecues, family time, and a well-deserved break and the official opening day to summer. For most people, a long weekend is pure celebration.

The School of Hard Knox From Hypercom T7 to the Modern Grind

In today’s day age of cash discount closing a deal seems like a “Easy Win.” But let’s be real—you don’t build a career on the layups. You build it on the deals that almost broke you.

I remember when I first started. The landscape looked a lot different than it does today. Back then, every ISO was a 50/50 split and a $200–$300 bonus. If you were lucky, you had a “true-up,” but those were a double-edged sword. If you didn’t price the deal exactly right or hit the volume tiers, those true-ups would come back to haunt your commissions.

A Table Full of Success (And the One Man Who Made It Possible)

As the residuals stack up and the wins become more frequent, it’s easy to let pride take the wheel. We’ve all met that agent who hits a certain level of success and suddenly claims to be a “self-made” individual.