Sales Sense Payments

(585)672-6381
Get a Free Consultation

Getting Comfortable with Digital Meetings and Presentations

by Leave a Comment

Getting Comfortable with Digital Meetings and Presentations

Like it or not, most business people now have experienced meeting virtually because we cannot get together around a conference table safely. Digital meetings and making presentations remotely is another part of the technology revolution we’re deeply involved in. And thank goodness, right? If we didn’t have methods to conduct business electronically at the moment, commerce would be even more stalled than it is. 

Digital meetings and presentations are much more cost-effective than traveling or convening a group of people in a single location for an hour or two. These might include sales webinars, training sessions, virtual conferences or presentations between supplier and customer. 

The trick is to make the transition to virtual meetings smooth and professional. In-person meetings let you watch body language, facial expessions, side conversations and attention spans. These are mostly absent in a digital forum unless everyone has their camera on. And even then, your eyes can’t be watching all participants and pay attention to your presentation at the same time. 

So here are a few tips to help you get comfortable with making digital presentations and participating in virtual meetings. 

Prepare for your virtual meeting
Just as you would prepare for a face-to-face meeting, get your materials organized, create your presentation deck and become very familiar with the functions and features of the presentation system you will be using. Each system has unique features and you must know how to move smoothly through the process, how to unmute participants, how to switch presentations and so much more. Some even have a “blur” setting so you can obscure your background or have a picture of a nice beach or sunset behind you. 

You really cannot take a presentation you have made in front of a live audience and simply share it digitally. The results will not be the same and probably not well received. Your interactions with a remote audience are limited so your visuals must reinforce your message well. 

Practice your presentation using the presentation system beforehand so you work out any tough spots. 

Send the login information, including the URL, password, call in numbers and an agenda, at least one business day in advance so they have the information needed. If it’s the first time with this group of participants, suggest they log in a few minutes early in the event they have to download an app and test connectivity before the actual start time of your meeting. 

Be Engaging, Stay Focused
Don’t skip the early call pleasantries – you need to engage in a little chitchat to help put people at ease and reacquaint them with your voice and speech cadence. Do a little housekeeping by asking participants to put their questions in chat or raise their hands. Explain how the call will go briefly and ask for their agreement. To keep people engaged and paying attention, you might want to ask questions during your meeting but avoid tough questions or ask a particular person so you don’t have a long period of dead air followed by several people trying to talk at once. 

Don’t try to pack too much into your meeting. Keep your topics to no more than two. Otherwise you may confuse or “turn off” your audience. If the call is longer than one hour, give participants a 10 minute bio break. Adults don’t sit for long periods of time well; their concentration and focus strays easily.  

Think about your clothing and stay neutral – no plaids or stripes that cause video jitters. Be dressed as you would in a face-to-face meeting: if the customer usually dresses in business attire (tie, suit jacket) then mirror that as you present.

Stay fully focused on your presentation and participants throughout the meeting. If you sound or act distracted, that will come across to your attendees and you will lose them. Iron out any technical issues well before the meeting begins, asking new participants to log in as much as 15 minutes early so you and they can ensure smooth connectivity. 

Digital Meeting Etiquette
Here are some quick reminders for what to do and what not to do whether you’re the presenter or a participant in a digital meeting. 

Be polite, attentive and respectful to all participants and speakers
Speak clearly and a little bit more slowly, near the microphone
Slow down your presentation slightly to allow for comprehension
Keep body movements to a minimum if you are on camera
Keep your microphone on mute unless you are asking a question or presenting content
Move and gesture slowly but naturally
Maintain eye contact by looking in the camera, not at your notes
Keep the session interesting with mild jokes, quips, cartoons, asking softball questions
Relax and enjoy the session
Smile even when you’re not on camera – your pleasant demeanor on or off screen still communicates to your attendees 
Avoid making distracting sounds – tapping a pen, jingling change, sniffling, laughing loudly, shuffling papers, clanking bracelets or jewelry
Never shout or whisper – keep your voice at a normal tone 
Try to not interrupt other speakers or participants – the audio lag can be a problem with this
No side conversations on mute or by covering the microphone – people can hear the slightest sounds and they are quite aware of what you’re doing

As you do more digital meetings and presentations, your natural personality and abilities will make them a snap. Give them a try!

Stick with the CDC for Health Info and Reopening Guidelines
Click here to read more best practices from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wear a mask in public. Stay home, slow the spread. Flatten the curve.

Stay home, stay healthy and safe!

Mike Krause
Sales Sense Payments
585-704-6453
mike@salessensepayments.com
Please visit SalesSensePayments.com for more information.

Do Merchants Benefit With Groupon?

by Leave a Comment

Groupon and others such as Get My Perks have enjoyed a lot of popularity especially with cost conscious consumers over the last decade. Certainly, everyone loves to save money on restaurants, amusement activities and other retail stores. But how do these deep discount deals affect the merchant behind the offer? It depends. 

Benefits of Groupon Offers

1. Customers love them. Groupon offers attract new customers to you by appealing to bargain shoppers who are willing to pay but want to save money at the same time. Groupon promitions can be a benefit as long as the promotion does not sacrifice sales to existing customers, who are willing to pay full price for your products or services. It’s important to make these promotions a part of your overall marketing plan, side-by-side with your Google Adwords, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms.

2. Offers build business awareness. Using Groupon lets consumers learn about your business and attract new people to your products and services.  Hopefully they’ll be so impressed with your offerings at 50% off that they will return without the discount. The key here is to attract new people as well as increase your conversion rate for repeat visits.
3. Move slow-selling inventory. You might use a Groupon deal to move slow selling products or promote little-known services. Discounts such as these seem to be most successful for merchants with a low cost of goods sold. Use a bargain price deal for a product or service that isn’t very pricey to you.
 
4. Build relationships with customers. Rather than offering a one-time buy, make the offer a sequence of buys: $20 worth of product for $10 times three visits, rather than $60 worth for $30. Same value but it builds the habit of coming to your business on multiple occasions. Or offer discounts on specific products and services rather than on the total bill or invoice. Keep them coming back for more!
5. Generate additional revenue. If your business has a fixed cost structure, promotions can help you make more money by attracting more people than you would usually have. For example, a miniature golf course business. The owner’s operating costs don’t change much based on the number of customers using the course. Setting up a coupon promotion brings in extra cash by getting more people to come play mini-golf. Customers pay $10 for three rounds (rather than $15) and the owner still makes a profit. It’s imperative for this to work that you know your costs and can set a coupon price to attract customers and stay profitable.

Disadvantages of Groupon Offers

1. Deals bring out bargain shoppers. Since Groupon’s whole premise is low cost, the customer base is in the habit of only looking for bargains and may not be willing to purchase without the deep-discount coupon as incentive. Therefore, you may see low levels of spending with commensure low rate of return. To counteract this, put an upper cap on the number of coupon deals you are willing to sell at the reduced price.

2. Deals can tarnish your brand. People preoccupied with price aren’t buying what you’re selling for brand. And they’re not ikely to stick with you for because of your brand either. When people get a brand at a deep discount one time, they are much less willing to pay full price in the future.
 
3. Deals don’t encourage repeat customers. Historically, Groupon deals have a low rate of conversion for repeat customers, roughly 20 percent of customers will return, depending on the product or service. You may never see that customer again unless they have another coupon.
4. Deep discounting is not profitable for a merchant. Groupon keeps 50% of the sales revenue from each promotion. This means you need to gross a margin in excess of 50% to make Groupon work for you. If a business is built on a 75% margin and customers merely visit and get the Groupon deal, the merchant loses money. You must be able to offer a typical deep discount, pay 50% to Groupon and still make something from the deal for it to be reasonable.

5. Look for better deals. Daily deals, like Groupon coupons, are not the only game you’ll find. You can easily run a similar promotion such as a discount on your business Facebook page, Instagram or through Twitter. Cheaper, better returns and you’re not giving away 50% off the top. 

Discount doom? 
Not necessarily but you must be very careful with Groupon-type promotions. There are many ways to get creative and attract new customers. Want to know more? Contact Mike Krause at Sales Sense Payments for some targeted brainstorming to help you promote your business and not give away your profits!


Stick with the CDC for Health Info
Click here to read more best practices from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wear a mask in public. Stay home, slow the spread. Flatten the curve.

Stay home, stay healthy and safe!

Mike Krause
Sales Sense Payments
585-704-6453
mike@salessensepayments.com
Please visit SalesSensePayments.com for more information.

Combat Covid with Contactless Payments

by Leave a Comment

Combat Covid with Contactless Payments

Making a payment by tapping – a contactless payment – provides consumers all over the world a more sanitary and streamlined way to pay for purchases, preventing contact with potentially contaminated public surfaces.

While secure contactless payment processing has been around for several years, the technology is slowly getting adopted by consumers. Here’s a brief overview to explain and foster greater use of secure contactless payments in the US and worldwide.

What is a contactless payment?

A contactless payment uses wireless, encrypted technology to transmit payment information from your electronic/digital device or enabled card to the merchant’s point-of-sale terminal without any physical contact. Contactless payments are quick, secure and easy to make. Consider the alternatives of handing someone your credit card (or inserting it yourself in a public card reader used by hundreds) or cash, which is notoriously dirty.

There are numerous electronic devices these days that you can use to make a contactless payment: your smartphone, a contactless-enabled credit or debit card (look for the contactless payment symbol, usually on the backside of your card), a smartwatch or other wearable technology. With these, simply tap the device over the contactless-enabled device over the payment terminal.

The transaction is almost instantaneously processed securely and there is no contact between people or possibly contaminated surfaces.

What’s going on behind the transaction?

When you initiate a contactless payment, a secure signal transmits your payment data directly to the payment reader, using Near-Field Communication, abbreviated NFC. The contactless payment devices have an NFC antenna in them to transmit data to the terminal, activated when placed near an NFC receiver, such as a payment terminal.

How do I know it’s secure?

Contactless payments are every bit as secure as using a chipped credit card. Contactless devices/cards use the same technology used in EMV  (Europay Mastercard Visa) chipped credit/debit cards. This makes payments made with contactless devices/cards are virtually impenetrable to counterfeiting for in-person transactions. To date in the US, the use of chipped cards/EMV technology has decreased counterfeit card fraud by 87 percent, and overall in-person card fraud by 40 percent, VISA announced in September 2019.

Contactless payments use tokenization to ensure every transaction is secure. Tokenization replaces your credit card account number with a one-time-only digital identifier, called a token. The tokens are instantly created and just as immediately disposed of. The tokens do not transmit sensitive data such as your account number. What this means for a consumer is that even if someone obtained your tokenized data, it keeps you and your account number untraceable beyond the moment of the transaction so it cannot be used a second time.

Use your smartphone for extra protection

If you use your smartphone for contactless payments,  you have an extra level of security in hand. Smartphones require you to login, either with a PIN or unique biometric identifiers such as your fingerprint or a face scan to proceed to payment approval. That means that only you can use your smartphone to transact a contactless payment, adding one more layer of security for your purchases.

Your smartphone stores credit card information in what is called a “secure element,” an industry-standard, certified chip that is specifically designed to store payment information securely. That’s the purpose of the mobile wallet on your smartphone.

By the way, if you’re paying with a contactless device/card, as a consumer you are never liable if you become a fraud victim. Either the merchant or the funding financial institution is liable, not you.

What do I do to make a contactless payment?

First, check to see if your card or smart device is enabled for contactless use. Contactless credit/debit cards come from your bank or credit union and bear the brands of the major players in the industry: Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover. Millions of contactless credit/debit cards are in circulation, making it very likely that your financial institution issues them. Check your cards and look for the universal contactless symbol on the front or back of your card, looks like little sound waves.

If you don’t have a contactless-enabled card, call your credit union or bank (or visit them in person) to request one.

All iPhones and most Android devices introduced in the last two or three years are enabled for contactless payments from their mobile wallet applications.  The most popular of the mobile wallets are Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, which are pre-installed on new devices purchased from those manufacturers. You can easily and quickly opt-in to using these services.

If you use a device as a digital wallet, treat it the same way you would cash—use the locks on your device and set up notifications on all your credit cards in case of fraud or theft.

Once you have your contactless card or mobile device set up, making a contactless payment is simple. When you’re at the register checking out, hold the device for two to three seconds above the contactless-enabled payment terminal. Listen for a beep and check the payment reader to see that your payment has been processed. Easy peasy!

How can I tell if a merchant accepts contactless payments?  

You will be delighted to find that millions of brick-and-mortar merchants accept contactless payments. According to Visa’s report from 2019, more than 60 percent of face-to-face transactions took place at contactless-enabled payment readers.

When you’re at the checkout, look at the merchant’s payment reader for the contactless symbol or a sticker that shows Apple Pay, Google Pay and others are accepted. You’ll also see the prompt/contactless symbol on the screen of the payment reader. The word “tap” on the screen also is a clue that the reader is contactless-enabled.

And if you see no symbols or stickers indicating contactless payments, ask the checkout person. Since contactless payments are so secure, merchants are eager to have you use this form of payment.

My business does not currently accept contactless payments. How can I add that capability?

Contact your merchant services/credit card services provider. If you are already accepting chipped credit/debit cards, you are probably already set up to take contactless payments. If you aren’t accepting chipped cards (still using the swipe method), you should consider upgrading to chipped card equipment for your own financial protection.

Sales Sense Payments can answer any questions you have about taking contactless payments and help you with equipment or other requirements. Visit SalesSensePayments.com or call (585) 704-6453.

Bottom Line

While contactless payments offer a wide array of benefits, the best reasons to pay by or accept contactless transactions is the highest level of security and convenience, along with the touchless aspect that’s so important right now. Contactless payments provide merchants and customers a payment option helping everyone avoid contact with potentially contaminated surfaces – something we all should be concerned about as the whole world fights to eradicate the deadly COVID-19 virus.

Regardless of how you pay for your purchases, don’t forget the common sense steps to avoid infection by washing your hands often, wear masks out in crowded public places and don’t touch your face. Click here to read more best practices from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Stay home, slow the spread. Flatten the curve.

Stay home, stay healthy and safe!

Mike Krause
Sales Sense Payments
585-704-6453

Free Credit Card Processing! (Not April Fools :))

by Leave a Comment

Free Credit Card Processing!
It’s All in the Spin: Cash Discounts

In January 2019, New York State passed a law allowing merchants to add a surcharge to customers’ credit card payments. The surcharge covers the fee the merchant pays for the privilege of accepting credit/debit cards for purchases.

Whether they call it a convenience fee, a non-cash adjustment, a courtesy fee or a surcharge, it amounts to the same thing: when a customer pays with a credit card, the merchant can add a fee to their bill. The extra fee is to cover the merchant’s cost of accepting credit cards. This practice is currently more prevalent in New York City than in upstate businesses.
 
So if a customer pays for a meal or products with a credit card, their bill could be anywhere from 2.5% to 3.99% higher.  
 
Meal                                             $20.00
8% Tax                                             1.60
2.75% Non-Cash Adjustment        0.55
               Total                              $22.15
 
The merchant cannot add a non-cash adjustment that is higher than what they are charged. In other words, the convenience fee added to the check can’t be 3.99% if they are only charged 2.75%. The fee is passed along to unburden the merchant from the charge but is not a way to add profit to the business. 
 
Some merchant processing vendors are touting this fee pass-along as a “Cash Discount,” attempting to make the practice more palatable to merchants. Using the same example, here’s how a receipt might look, one paid with cash and the other paid with a credit card.
 
              Cash Discount                                       
Meal                                        $20.00       
8% Tax                                        1.60       
2.75% Non-Cash Adjustment     0.55       
Cash Discount                          – 0.55
Customer Pays                       $21.60       
 
          Credit Card Payment
Meal                                         $20.00
8% Tax                                        1.60
2.75% Non-Cash Adjustment      0.55
Customer Pays                        $22.15
 

Find Out What You’re Actually Paying

Credit card processing fees are seemingly endless and intentionally difficult to decipher. Financial institutions pass numerous credit card fees along to your business every month. Do you know what you’re paying and why? Contact Mike Krause at Sales Sense Payments for a free, objective analysis of your credit card processing fees. We know we can save you money.

 

Online Ordering Benefits and a Limited Time Offer

by Leave a Comment

Online Ordering Benefits and a Limited Time Offer

Stay home. Shelter in place. Social distancing. Self quarantine. Out of an abundance of caution. Wash your hands. Pandemic. Flatten the curve. The New Normal.

These phrases color our conversations, thoughts, newspapers, email, internet content, television and radio broadcast these days. We’re all doing our part to prevent contamination. Here is one more way you can stay safe and help local merchants.

My recommendation for online ordering:
1. Order directly from the merchant
2. Pick up your order from their location 

Avoid delivery services such as Door Dash, Grub Hub and others (did you know they charge merchants from 25% to 32% to deliver your order?) to reduce the number of people handling your order. And 30% of delivery drivers admit they eat some of the food before delivering. Picking your food up yourself lets you enjoy a meal someone else cooks, comply with public health mandates and support local businesses struggling to stay afloat.

Merchant Benefits of Online Ordering & Pickup

  • Eliminating delivery service fees with customer drive up helps the restaurant/merchant survive and lets them keep employees on the payroll. 
  • Keeps people working rather than laying them off or terminating their employment.
  • Lets the merchant spend more time helping online customers rather than increasing cleaning protocols. 
  • Fewer people in their facility touching items and otherwise contaminating the area.
  • Gain new customers with easy-to-use online ordering; once the quarantine is over, the new online ordering habit remains.

Additional Online Ordering Benefits for Merchants

  • 30% of diners have ordered food from a restaurant’s website using phones or tablets.
  • Online ordering is real and growing, accounting for 5-18% of overall restaurant sales.
  • People prefer online ordering compared to calling because it’s easier, more accurate and more convenient.
  • Restaurants offering online ordering see their customers order more often.
  • Online ordering drives more revenue. 60% of people order takeout food at least once a week.

An Offer From Sales Sense Payments for Merchants
For a limited time, Sales Sense Payments is waiving its $499 set up fee for credit card processing. This gets you set up to take credit cards and enable your businesses’ online ordering. 
Contact us TODAY for more information and help your business weather this crisis.

Customer Benefits of Online Ordering & Pickup

  • Your order (take out food, lawn fertilizer, kids’ clothes, whatever) is touched by fewer people. For take out food orders, the food is prepped and boxed by the kitchen staff and handed to you. One or two people touch your order between cooking and pick up.
  • Most store workers are now wearing nitrile gloves to minimize their exposure, also reducing your exposure. 
  • Ordering online from stores, such as Home Depot, Target, Costco and many others, keeps you out of the store itself (less exposure to crowds) and your goods (and credit cards) are handled by fewer people.
  • Picking up from a restaurant saves the merchant money (25% to 32%), helping local businesses survive the pandemic.
  • Some restaurants deliver the food themselves without delivery services, such as pizza eateries – a different business model but still important to patronize in the current environment.
  • Credit cards and point-of-sale card readers are hotbeds of germs and bacteria. Order online and only you handle your card.

Stay healthy and safe!

Mike Krause
Sales Sense Payments
585-704-6453
mike@salessensepayments.com
Please visit SalesSensePayments.com for more information.

Privacy Policy