IMGCAP(1)]
If selling reigns as the most important endeavor in the ISO industry, sales training places a close second.
Most ISOs use similar internal resources to train sales agents-online seminars, conference calls and visits from point-of-sale vendors and credit card companies. But each ISO uses a training tool or method it believes is unique, such as the one-of-a-kind in-house computer database of product manuals and company reports that an ISO maintains.
Whatever the method, training begins and ends with teaching the agent to work in harmony with the company and follow company protocol.
Old Versus New
Training an agent, whether a rookie or a veteran, presents multiple challenges, executives say. Consider, for example, the experienced agent who needs to adapt to a new way of doing business. Agents new to the industry should learn how payments work before making a single sales call.
As part of the training at Louisville, Ky.-based ISO Payment Alliance International, agents experience what senior vice president Donna Embry calls "bankcard 101 class." "It gives them a little bit of familiarity with the terminology and how the business works because things like interchange can get pretty complicated," Embry says.
When the company's agents are ready to hit the street, they usually shadow someone before striking out on their own, she says.
Other companies, including Merchant Services Inc., a Port St. Lucie, Fla.-based ISO, use a similar "understudy" approach, says Steve Norell, director of sales.
"The best training method is when you are out there with them, in person, and they get to see how you do it or they hear how you make the presentation, and they take it from there," says Norell.
ISOs that do not know their agents are making a mistake, he says. "Most companies hire independent agents no matter how they walk, talk or chew gum," Norell says. "They don't even meet them. They do a six-hour training [session] on the telephone and they send them out there to basically say anything to get the sale-even if it's not true."
Listen Up
Training experienced sales agents can pose problems, industry executives say, but Norell believes he has a training model that produces results regardless of the trainee's experience. Challenging his method could cost an agent his job because most need training regardless of how much experience they have, he says. "Obviously, one of the reasons they came to me is because it wasn't working out where they were," Norell says.
Norell outlines his requirements to experienced agents right away. He requires agents to sign at least 10 deals or $100,000 in processing volume in the first month. The company expects agents to produce
$1.5 million in processing volume in their first year and have 350 active merchants at the end of three years.
"Then they have to keep monitoring those 350 merchants and keep selling them services," Norell says. "It's not that complicated in my opinion and can be done once someone is trained in our methods."
If experienced sales agents initially do not agree to abide by his method, Norell challenges them to do it their way for 90 days. If they cannot reach his numbers, they are "out the door," he says. "You've got two options, but my way works better. My way pays more. They get some health benefits, some expense money, some signing bonuses and healthy residual income."
Nationwide Payment Solutions, a Scarborough, Maine-based ISO, works to make veteran agents feel secure with a new sales approach. "There are a lot of experienced agents that have just been stuck in a certain way of doing things for a long time and are not competitive in today's market," says Brian Soares, vice president of sales. "But they have changed their thinking as the market has changed."
Payment Alliance uses computer-based training that relies, in part, on documents and multimedia files posted to a shared Web site, according to Embry.
The Payment Alliance site serves a number of purposes. Employees and agents post questions and answers in a designated portion of the site, she says. The site also contains product manuals, sales conference calls transcripts, company announcements, training sessions and anything else Payment Alliance finds valuable. The company updates the site almost daily. "Anytime we do training on a product, it's recorded and put on the [site]," Embry says.
Payment Alliance needed the site to avoid having to print or e-mail large files, she says. All the information for those products is in one place. "It also gives us the ability to manage releases and keep information current without having to do anything but e-mail the internal notification messages," Embry says.
Other advantages soon became apparent, she notes. "Sales agents can go through training at their own pace," she says. "As more and more products and services are added, it's an easier place to have all this information." She lightheartedly called Payment
Alliance the first "green" ISO because the Web site replaces printed manuals and other teaching materials.
Using A Utility Belt
Agents at Nationwide participate in an internally developed program called "impact" training by Soares. "We're educating our agents with better techniques, better skills and sending them out there with a better assortment of tools for them to use," Soares says. "It's kind of like Batman's utility belt."
A personal approach also can prove valuable.
Besides a support department, sales managers and an interactive Web site, agents who work for Whitefish, Mont.-based NxGen Payment Services also receive help that has enabled the company to retain agents, the company says. "Personal support is one of our base principles, and our consultants are fully aware of this," says Michael Jaffe, vice president of global marketing and new programs at NxGen.
"It's one of the main reasons they choose to sell with us ... and grow portfolios alongside us." Jaffe says personal support comes in the form of a strong relationship between the agent and the company.
The assortment of internal training resources available to ISOs keeps external training to a minimum, executives say. But external training does occur and can take many forms.
Outside The Company
Peachtree, Ga.-based ISO Bluestone Payments LLC uses internal and external training, according to president Linda Rossetti. "External training is great for validating market trends and sales techniques," Rossetti says.
Regional and national industry conferences provide external training for agents. Sessions often include information about data security or ways agents can enhance their portfolios.
Embry says some trade shows offer introductory classes to the merchant-acquiring industry.
Regional shows are well attended because they often require less travel time and expense, Embry says.
But information from external resources is useful only when combined with what the agent already has learned from the company, Rossetti says. "Internal training provides agents with a clear understanding of boundaries surrounding merchant type, size, products supported and other important factors to help make the agent successful," she says.
ISOs remain skeptical of external sales training because they believe nothing can substitute for their own knowledge, executives say.
Norell says his company considered external training and external resources but decided they would not fit the goals the company wants its agents to accomplish. "The problem with [external training] is they want to do the training based on their way of doing things, and I personally have my own mindset on how we should do things," Norell says.
Soares says Nationwide's external training may come in the form of sales courses recommended to agents by the company's vice presidents. The vice presidents also read sales and management books and pool that information to find better ideas for the company. Soares says external training sometimes achieves success, but "it always comes back to [the fact that] we know our markets and our agents better, so it is easy for us to do the research for our agents so they do not have to do it."
Which is why sales-agent trainers become an important part of the training process, industry executives say.
The Trainers
Sales agent trainers are as important to an ISO as the internal resources agents study, industry executives say.
Nationwide's trainers are its four vice presidents. "They are the ones who do the sales training and carry the message to the troops," Soares says.
The vice presidents' training consists of quarterly meetings and daily communication through e-mail messages and phone calls, Soares says.
Embry says Payment Alliance chooses trainers from among the employees who have worked in sales support or operations. But trainers cannot anticipate every possible sales scenario, so Embry says her company maintains an extensive sales-support group and makes it available to the entire sales staff-not just trainees.
Payment Alliance involves its trainers in as many areas as possible. When the company introduces a product, for example, one of the tasks in the project plan is to involve the trainer immediately, Embry says. "We do that so they understand how the new product fits so they have a basic grasp of why we're offering the products and who benefits from the product," she says.
Payment Alliance trainers also should know who can answer their questions and inquiries from sales agents. That ability has value when trainers are working with new agents.
Salespeople hungry for knowledge perform their own research and train themselves, but the company should join the process, too, Embry maintains. "It's good for the industry," she says of the company participation. "It takes us all to a new level of performance."
