Evaluating Your Merchant Account Sales Partner

As an experienced merchant account sales agent you have worked diligently
to build a considerable portfolio of clients. You know that once you acquire those
merchant accounts, you must consistently offer exceptional merchant support in
order to maintain good business relationships with all of your merchants. That is
why choosing the right merchant services provider is of paramount importance,
and you should occasionally reassess if you have partnered with the company
that best meets both yours and your clients' needs.

When assessing a merchant services provider, you want to consider the
following:

-Is it an established and reliable company? To determine this, you want to
consider how many years it has been in business, what professional affiliations
it has, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and the Electronic Transaction
Association (ETA), and the number of merchants it already services. An
additional factor to consider is if it has been able to maintain or even grow its
business in these difficult economic times. One way to find that out is to visit the
company's press release section on their website and see if it contains anything
about current earnings. While those releases are written by the company, if it can
boast about its financials, that is a good indicator it is on financially solid ground.

For example, Merchant Services, Inc (MSI), which has been in business for over
20 years, is not only a BBB Accredited Business, but it also has an A+ rating
from the Bureau. It services over 75,000 merchants and is an active member
of the ETA. When you combine all of that with MSI reporting overall growth
in 2009 despite a lethargic economy and distributing a "record breaking" 37

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million dollars in paid residuals to its ISOs, you can feel confident that you are
partnering with a flourishing company with excellent business practices.

-Does it offer quality equipment and services? For a merchant sales account
to be profitable, you have to actually keep the account. If through your chosen
merchant services provider, you can offer a wide array of quality equipment,
access to professional and immediate support, and a number of straight-forward
systems to organize and secure transactions, you will have a happy and loyal
merchant who will provide a consistent stream of residual income for you.

All of that may sound like common sense, but you would be surprised by how
many people neglect to do their homework on the payment processing industry
before affiliating themselves with a provider and consequently see their profits
stagnate or decrease. Continuing with MSI as our example, in addition to all of
those things, they have developed an advanced business management system
dubbed OASIS (Online Agent Sales Information Systems), which is dedicated to
ISO support and provides multiple tools for a busy ISO to acquire and maintain
accounts. Any company that invests so heavily in its ISOs is an organization
that understands meeting client needs and will cultivate revenue growth.

-Are they on the cutting edge of technology and security? The way we do
business has changed drastically over the past decade or so, and technology
is continually evolving. Today, it's the iPhone and mobile transactions, and we
cannot predict what or when the latest and greatest innovation will transform our
world. Has this company kept pace with the e-commerce world? Consumers and
merchants alike expect to have access to the most current systems, and also to
integrate them seamlessly into their business transactions. Likewise, security of
transmitting and storing sensitive date is a major concern and in 2006 prompted
the creation of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).

You and your merchants realize they must be PCI compliant and renew that
compliance annually if they want to process credit card transactions. This is a
significant and warranted concern for both of you. Is your merchant services
provider well informed about being PCI compliant and does it offer ways to make
that compliance easy for your merchants? To illustrate further, MSI automatically
registers you for their PCI Protection Plus program, which guides you through
the PCI compliance process by providing a certified Qualified Security Assessor
(QSA) and systems to easily monitor your merchants and assure their continued
compliance with Data Security Standards. While being vigilant is a major priority,
it should never detract from your merchant's ability to maintain and grow their
business, and you need a merchant services provider like MSI that can provide
peace of mind.

-How do they structure their residual program? Some merchant service
providers require you to obtain a minimum before you can begin collecting

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commissions or hold your residuals until one year of processing. Some will also
cancel your residuals after a pre-defined period of time such as three years,
regardless if the account is still active. You are the key connection between
your merchants and these providers, and should be compensated fairly and
accordingly. With MSI continuing to serve as our case in point, your commission
is not dependent upon reaching a minimum and your compensation will not be
delayed. Most importantly, MSI pays you residuals for the lifetime of the account.
All of these are ethical and profitable practices that ensure your hard work is
always rewarded. This should bolster your confidence, enthusiasm, and income
as you develop your career as an ISO.

Have you selected a merchant services provider that fosters your success as a
merchant sales account agent? That is a question only you can answer, but if
you come to the conclusion you have not, then you should consider making a
change. Your prosperity relies in large part upon choosing a quality merchant
services provider, like Merchant Services, Inc., who understands the needs of
merchants and supplies ISOs with the means to provide excellent merchant
support. If you do your research, you will not only make the right choice, but you
will also have established a gratifying partnership that will increase your income
for years to come.

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As an experienced merchant account sales agent, you should occasionally reassess if you are partnered with the most rewarding merchant services provider.

Jeffery Holter is a freelance writer in Los Angeles who engages in credit card transactions frequently. If you are interested in exploring merchant account sales opportunities, you may want to begin by visiting www.1800bankcard.com.

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