Marketing Gurus Offering Merchants A Course On Customer Growth
By Ed McKinley
A company that teaches marketing is calling upon independent sales organizations to present a new training course to merchants.
Chicago-based Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle LLC this week announced a 16-hour online presentation called the Maximum Profits Academy for ISOs. The package also includes a weekly one-hour video seminar on marketing.
“The owner of a pizzeria fails to realize he’s not in the pizza business–he’s in the business of getting new customers and keeping those customers coming back,” Will Harovas, Glazer-Kennedy national business advisor, tells ISO&Agent Weekly. “That is the training we provide.”
By offering the course to merchants for free, ISOs can avoid the trap of pitching merchant-transaction services solely on the basis of lower price, Harovas says.
“It changes the conversation,” he notes.
The lessons merchants learn in the course can improve their businesses, and that can cement their relationship with their ISO or sales agent and thus prevent poaching by competitors, Harovas maintains.
Merchants may visit the site to view the course day or night as many times as they like as long as their license remains current, he says. The sessions consist of 16 one-hour video presentations by marketing experts, he notes.
They also receive a one-hour video seminar each week by marketing gurus that include Dan Kennedy and Brian Tracy, Harovas continues. The company gives students an archive of three seminars when they begin their study, and the archive grows with the addition of another seminar each week, he says.
Glazer-Kennedy, which teaches 30 different video courses, is marketing the course as a $5,000 value, Harovas says.
He estimates putting together the course from offerings on the company website would require fees closer to $15,000, a figure he considered too high to present to the public.
Although Harovas declined to say how much ISOs pay for course licenses, he mentioned they could divvy up the courses as they see fit. For example, ISOs could offer new clients an introductory offer of three free months of training and reward long-time customers with a lifetime pass, he says.
Entrepreneurship can feel lonely, and merchants can deepen their involvement with Glazer-Kennedy for further instruction and even networking, Harovas maintains.
Merchants willing to pay additional fees may sign up for a personalized marketing course, Harovas says. Based on the merchant’s answers to a questionnaire, a mentor provides a study guide and conducts three 30-minute one-on-one phone calls.
For a $59-a-month membership fee, merchants receive a monthly newsletter, a monthly recorded presentation and admission to a monthly meeting in one of 75 cities across the country, Harovas says. Attendance at the three-hour meetings often runs to 75 or 100 entrepreneurs, he notes.
When an ISO’s clients sign up for memberships, the ISO receives a 20% residual that comes to $11.80 per month, Harovas says.
Harovas is seeking large and midsize ISOs to offer the course. He is in talks with three ISOs interested in the academy and plans to pitch the offering next week at the Midwest Acquirers Association conference in Chicago.
Harovas worked 18 years in the acquiring business before joining Glazer-Kennedy.
