Payment Systems-Which is Right for Your Business?

Minding Your Business: Payment Solutions and Small Business Strategies

 In this episode of 'Minding Your Business,' hosts David Praet and Scott Merritt welcome Joel Truss from Paymentum to discuss pressing issues like rising costs and staffing challenges faced by small businesses. Joel shares insights into Paymentum's services, which include payment and communication solutions tailored for a range of industries. The episode also delves into trends like AI and kiosk solutions in optimizing business operations. Joel also touches upon his side business, Avenge Sports, highlighting the importance of sports in teaching business concepts to his children. The session wraps up with Joel's advice on effective communication, building a network of trusted experts, and recognizing employees to ensure business success.

00:00 Introduction and Rising Costs

00:39 Welcome to Minding Your Business

01:24 Meet Joel Truss from Paymentum

01:56 Joel's Background and Family

03:49 About Paymentum and Its Services

07:35 Challenges in Payment Solutions

09:58 AI in Customer Service

14:09 Operational Efficiency in Payments

23:43 Future of Payment Solutions

29:22 Joel's New Business Venture

31:58 Final Advice and Conclusion

Paymentum - https://www.paymentum.net/

Text Bubble - https://txtbbl.com/

joel@paymentum.net

(615) 922-6000

Transcript

Joel Truss: 0:00

And the two things that I hear, you know, more recently I hear rising costs and the rising costs, the rising wholesale cost concern is they've raised their rates. They don't want to continuously keep raising their rates. They're looking for ways to help their clients and they know that they're getting hit already at the gas pump. They're getting hit already at the grocery store. So having the right communication, having the right communication with how their cost structure works and how they can help someone bringing that back to what I do. We have a communication platform, so we have a way for people to say, Hey, I'm fighting for you. We're doing our best at not increasing costs and being able to effectively communicate that.

0:48

This is Minding Your Business, the podcast exploring the minds of successful business leaders and industry experts to uncover strategies and insights to elevate your business. Join us as we spotlight inspiring guests who will empower you with practical advice and fresh perspectives to help your business thrive. Now let's get started on your journey to success. I'm David Praet. Hi, I'm Scott Merritt and this is Minding Your Business. We've got a special guest today, Scott. Yes, we do. In fact, Joel Truss is with us today from Paymentum. Glad to be here. Welcome to the luxurious Exodus HR Studios. I'm impressed. Stunned silence. Good setup. Very luxurious. So everybody can't see us, you wish you could. So you need to get with Dave and I, and we'll get you on this podcast. So you can experience the luxury that is the Exodus HR Podcast Studio. A lot of people are surprised that we could fit the fountain in here, but it works. I think I'm impressed. So, Joel, let's start off with the softball questions. Where's home home originally from Wisconsin, but I've moved to Tennessee in 2001. So I've been here longer. Tennessee is home. If I'm not mistaken, I believe you had some athletics in your background. Played baseball all the way growing up. Pretty high level in high school, had some opportunities to play in college. My mom worked at Marquette, so I could go for free. So, that was the better decision than following a, uh, a small college path. And was still afforded the opportunity to play club baseball at Marquette, which was a lot of fun. We still got to play some great, great teams, great programs, and continue playing the game. You, you said you moved here from Wisconsin and you got a family. Tell us a little bit about your family. So we all like to work with people that we know, love and trust. So, um, we want to know more about you. Yeah, so my, my wife is a Canadian and so she came down to Vanderbilt University, uh, working on her PhD. She's a clinical psychologist locally. So we met here in Nashville, built a family here. So, you know, a guy from Wisconsin, a girl from Canada and settled in the South. Then, uh, you know, but she, she's amazing. You know, she's kind of the, the rock for our family and, and very thankful for her. Not just as a working professional, but also somebody that, that runs her home. You know, we'd be lost without her help. And then my boys are 13 and 15, so I've got a, a sophomore and an eighth grader. They're both big into baseball, um, which I may have, uh, influenced a bit. They had a, you know, a ball in their hands at a very early age. You know, I've, I've coached the last 12 years, so I've coached both of them from roughly, you know, when they started through age 12 and, and just recently since, you know, I have a 13 year old, I've kind of stepped out of that role. I feel like at a certain point, parents shouldn't be coaches. They should transition to a pro coach. And so we've just recently done that. So I missed the coaching piece a little bit, but, um, you know, it's, it's also fun to see them challenged by, by other people with different lessons and, you know, different specialties that they can teach them. Your company is Paymentum. What does Paymentum do? So Paymentum has a few different components. 80 percent of what I do is the payment side. So whether it's credit card processing, merchant services, whatever you want to call it. Um, we have payment solutions that drive momentum, a variety of different solutions, a broker style model. And in addition to that, we added both printing and communication solutions really to round out our, our solution set and meet more needs for the client. So, what would be your target clientele? Target clientele would be somebody who's going to do more than 10, 000 a month in credit cards, but up to a million dollars a month in credit cards. And really, there's a wide variety of industries I can help. I'm not a specialist in just one category. I'm really capable of helping anybody across industries, and, and really anybody at any stage, whether they're at the startup stage, or whether they've grown and And really looking for the next evolution of how to help their clients and accept payments. How long have you been working in the payment space? Yeah, so I started in 2003. So I'm going into my 22nd year in the payments industry. What made you decide to go out on your own? I've actually wanted to go out on my own and be independent for 20 years and really never had the opportunity. Once you're on the corporate nickel, it's a little hard to move away from it, but always kind of had my eyes set on doing something. Finally was afforded the opportunity where it just kind of made sense with where our family was and you know, where I was as far as job transitions to make that change and do it independently for myself and grow my own team. What do you like about what you do? My passion is helping small business. Most of the resources out there. Go to big business. They go to enterprise, you know, they've got better lobbying efforts, more government support, but small businesses make up 80 percent of the businesses out there. My passion is helping that small business owner really use the same tools as an enterprise business and equip them with ways that they can grow ways that they can feed their family, feed additional families, and really compete with the bigger competitors out there with. all, you know, whether they don't have a gift card program or kiosks or things of that nature that some of your larger operations might have, but we can scale that down to a small business and help them and enable them to grow. That's my passion. Absolutely. Small businesses, backbone of our nation, backbone of the economy. I think a lot of that became apparent during COVID because if you remember back, which were the businesses that were getting closed and shut down. It wasn't the big ones, right? Correct. It wasn't the big boys. It was the mom and pops. I think it's just so critical that we support small businesses and obviously that's what we are all about is helping those small business owners. So let's dive into that and do a little bit of that now. I guess just about every business takes some form of payment. That's kind of what they're all about at the end of the day. That's correct. So a business that doesn't take credit cards at this point is hard to find. So no matter how they interact with their clients, whether it's at a point of sale, a traditional point of sale, whether it's invoicing before or after a sale, whether it's through e commerce, virtually everybody has that electronic payment, which could be credit cards, debit cards, also could be ACH. So, you know, ACH gift cards, there's other forms of electronic payment other than credit cards, but You know, understanding with a client sitting down, understanding their process of how they interact with clients and really embedding our solutions into how they're already conducting communication with clients. Do you see businesses that still take cash at home? Yeah, actually, some businesses have even had a little bit of a, a renaissance with cash. And I, I think it's varied. I mean, the higher risk businesses, so CBD, things of that nature, there's, there's even some laws or restrictions that maybe force some of that business to be more cash based, but it's still, I mean, credit card is for most businesses I'm working with. It's, it's 90 plus percent of the payments they're accepting. What are the challenges that you see that businesses are facing as it pertains to payment solutions, accepting payment? Where do they need help the most? So one of my questions I ask in every discovery appointment is about pain points, and it's usually not specific to payments, but there is a payment solution that follows. And the two things that I hear, you know, more recently, I hear rising costs. And the rising costs, the rising wholesale cost concern is they've raised their rates. They don't want to continuously keep raising their rates. They're looking for ways to help their clients and they know that they're getting hit already at the gas pump. They're getting hit already at the grocery store. So having the right communication, having the right communication with How their cost structure works and how they can help someone bringing that back to what I do. You know, we have communication platform. So we have a way for people to say, Hey, I'm, I'm fighting for you. We're, you know, we're, we're doing our best at, at not, uh, increasing costs and, and being able to effectively communicate that. And then having good transparent pricing policies. One trend in the industry is a dual pricing methodology. So here's your cash price, here's your card price. Um, with the understanding that, you know, there is a cost of doing business when a card or electronic payment's factored in. And laying it out that way where the buyer has that choice. I think is, is a good effective way to not necessarily have a cost increase, but to lay out the transparency of, you know, there's a cost of doing business this way and a choice that you have as the end user to make that. The other thing that I hear often, and this is not just a recent thing, but for the last 10 plus years, is staffing. So, the staffing concern, finding good talent. Retaining good talent is a major thing for people, and I think we'll actually, as we go into the next administration and have immigration law, I think it's actually going to even become a bigger part of the conversation, and you know, there's lots of ways to address that, so I think identifying the employees that want growth, that want trajectory, building mentorship opportunities, comp plans, rewarding employees, are all very important things, and ways that I bring that into my business, As, as people have fewer employees, recognizing the opportunities from an electronic standpoint or a technology standpoint that can be more efficient. So kiosks, kiosks to take orders and go through the entire cashier experience from ordering to payment and reducing that front of house staff. AI calling. I just recently saw the statistic that 30 percent of companies today use conversational AI today. That number is expected to be 85 percent in two years. So, we expect to see major growth in the AI calling component, um, which is another service that I've added to, to what I'm doing. So, when you say AI calling, does that mean the customer's calling the business, the phone picks up, and rather than it being a paid employee that's answering the phone, it's a chatbot or whatever it's called? Yeah, so there's both inbound and outbound. Inbound might be, uh, accepting a pizza order, right? That pizza order looks the same virtually across the board, and there's no reason that an An AI bot or a program can't execute that entirely from answering to order and confirming order. Receiving a text, right, while you're still on the phone placing your order and being able to complete that transaction without human intervention. Where I see it also is sales and service. An introductory sales conversation, so an SDR, an appointment setter, that role will go away. I think that role will move entirely to AI calling. I still think the closer, the final conversation, the more detailed, you know, once some of the qualifying has gone away, I think that position will remain, but I, I do believe the appointment setter role will, will move to AI and level one service. So that inbound level one service will most likely move to working off a knowledge base and an AI call, AI call. So, when you're talking about that, are you talking about me calling my dentist to make an appointment, and that appointment gets set that way? Or are you talking about the more traditional, what we used to call cold calling, where people are calling cold to try to book a in person appointment? Yeah, both. If you want to use the healthcare or medical setting, I think confirming appointments, even basic, you know, reminding somebody of a bill. You know, even level one collection calls can all be easily done with an AI. Any call that is a repeat call, it's a templated call, will probably move to conversational AI. I know we're in the beginning of all of this. I just wonder on the outbound, the cold calling, I just wonder if the technology needs to get a little better, because I think today you can tell. In a lot of cases that this is not really a human I'm talking to. It's well, and I think the right thing to do is actually to build that into the script. I think having, Hey, this is your virtual assistant. I'm helping you to make sure that we're having the right conversation. Right. We're not wasting your time. You're not wasting ours. And so to me, it's, it's actually not, that's not a bad thing. I think that's a It's a numbers game. As we all know, we've probably all made sales calls and you might make a hundred calls and only touch base with a certain percentage, only qualify a certain percentage. If, you know, an AI can do that and, you know, move to where a conversation takes place, you know, there's both an interested party and a interested solution provider. I think everybody wins. I think you're exactly right. I think the key is just being transparent and honest in it and not trying to fool somebody. I've also heard some of them have the ability that call can be transitioned to a live person if the need is there for that to occur, whether it's the customer asking to speak to somebody or there's a question that can't be answered by the chatbot, it can be actually transferred to a live human. Absolutely. So it's coding. So any, any workflow that you want to create, you can create. And that goes from transitioning to a human. It also goes for like confirming via text. However, the next stage of communication, if you build out the workflow or integrations and other technologies, other software, it can all be done. What's going to happen when an AI calls another AI and then those two are trying to compete with each other for making it a, I'm just, just throwing it out there. Could be interesting. Could be interesting. I, I don't know where this goes in, in 10 years. I have a pretty good vision of where it goes in six months or two years. Yeah. I, from a, from a marketing standpoint, I love the idea of having an AI cold caller. They can literally do thousands at the same time it would take us to do a hundred. Don't call in sick. They don't call in, you know, you don't have to pay any, any benefits. Yeah. Well, which is bad for you, Dave. Bad for me. But everybody else good for small business. Yeah, that's good taking a step back and talking about the payment solutions again If I'm a small business owner, am I just shopping for the cheapest percentage? Is that what I'm looking for or what am I looking for in a payment solutions provider? So there's a variety of reasons I'll end up on the phone with somebody and sure sometimes it's cost savings That's driving that conversation, but more often more than 50 percent of the time. It's some kind of value added component And whether that's operational efficiencies and hey, we need to, you know, we've always had kind of a dumb terminal and we need something that will do inventory or we, we need to add a website and we need e commerce capability. There's a variety of different reasons that I will get in front of somebody, some of which are in crisis mode. You know, we were either just shut down or we're just opening. You know, we need a solution right away. And some are more, more advanced conversations. It takes a little longer to build out and I'll give, you know, I'll give an example. So, uh, a service based business that has 20 trucks, having a terminal in 20 trucks is cost prohibitive. It's expensive, but chasing that person down with an invoice and a paper invoice and a phone call is also unproductive. One solution that we provide is enabling each driver to have NFC technology they can carry with them. The NFC technology is extremely cheap, um, so they, if they want to have a hundred of those out, you know, you're looking at a very low cost to do it, and they're still enabling an in person transaction. And an in person transaction where somebody can pay however they want. They can initiate that through a link that goes right to a, essentially an e commerce sale, but they can complete it from their phone, from their iPad. from their laptop, but the key is to actually have them complete it quickly, because then you're not chasing the person down later for completing the payment and taking up staff time to send paper invoices and try and get somebody to pay. So, we're talking about maybe, say, an HVAC company, they come out to do your, your seasonal tune up, and, um, the technician does his work, he comes, knocks on the door, I'm finished, and he collects payment right there on the spot? Yeah, right there on the spot, and if, if somebody has a small enough crew, you can just have a, you know, a 4G, 5G device that, you know, that they collect payment right there, and it's, and, and that would be, if somebody has, you know, two trucks, that might be the right solution. For somebody that has 20 trucks, you know, when you're You get into the cost structure and, and what's probably best for that business. There's other ways to do it that can be just as effective in, in completing that payment transaction. We actually had a plumber come to our house the other day and, you know, he left a paper invoice. We got a phone call, we got a paper invoice by mail. That's an inefficient way of doing business. What an amazing lead. It's a great lead, right? You know, we had that conversation when they called. I mean, that was my cue to take it from there and see where we could help advance their business. So in that scenario, there was a period of days between when the work was completed until the money went into the bank account. Correct. Of that company. And I may have stalled payment just to make it a little more painful on their end. Truly, I feel like I probably was the typical pay cycle that they see and, you know, it was five or six days before I completed the transaction. And that money could have been in their bank. Five or six days earlier, obviously. I don't know who wouldn't want to sign up for that as a business owner. So operational efficiency I think is a big key to what we do. If I have a conversation with most businesses, especially businesses that do payment in multiple ways, if somebody has just a brick and mortar store and every single transaction is the same way, It's a pretty simple business, but very rarely do you find that business anymore. Most businesses have, Hey, we have our brick and mortar, but we also have e commerce. We also have service people that go out and I can tell you if they're doing three or four different ways of doing business, the likelihood is that at least one of those is being done inefficiently. And you know, my job is to ask the right questions, identify those pain points and fix those with good solutions. I use a broker style model. And, you know, if you were to go to your bank, at the end of the day, they have one set of solutions. You know, if you go to a bank, they're going to have one set of solutions. They're going to ask great questions, probably the same questions I ask, but they're, they're trying to fit you into the box of what they have. With my model, I have like nine different back ends I can go to. I feel like I'm much better equipped to give a solution that's going to be a better match for what they truly need. Interesting. So you can tailor the solution to meet the business needs. Yeah, a hundred percent, that's what I do, and I've been strategic in what partners I have as far as a back end that is varied, so that I can really meet, you know, if it's a petroleum business, if it's a harder place or high risk business, if it's a, you know, a simple solution, if they want to add PayPal and Venmo, you know, Google Pay, Apple Pay, whatever they're looking to do to expand payment options or, or improve their operation, you know, I feel well equipped that I've got a lot of solutions that I can do it. It seems like the payment hardware has gotten a lot fancier over the years, um, when you go into a retail store and they flip the thing around for you and it's got the mandatory tip option. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Can we get rid of that? You know, it's funny cause it's always up to the business owner, right? We, we ask for their guidance and where they want those levels set. And when I started this industry, it was, it was a very standard 15%, maybe a 20 percent option. It has gotten a little bit crazy. I think I've seen 30 percent or even north of that. That's a whole nother topic for another day probably. Another rabbit hole. Tipping, how tipping works and who gets tipped and who doesn't get tipped. Just share a success story maybe that you've had recently with a, with a business that you've worked with, taking them from where they were to a better solution, I guess. It's a great question. There's a pretty wide variety of businesses that I've helped in in a variety of ways. One of the solutions that I think is really effective and was important in this restaurant's case was they were having a challenge. So quick service restaurants. So more of a counter style pay restaurant that that was having staffing challenges and their staffing challenges were Mostly in front of the house just a lot of turnover So we actually implemented a kiosk and you know the kiosk ordering so they do So it's it's they do huge breakfast business and their breakfast business, you know, it's a it's a mexican restaurant They do breakfast burritos and they'll get a line out the door So a line in a 20 30 deep, getting breakfast burritos there in a pretty good high traffic walking area, adding the kiosk, and they added one kiosk, and pretty immediately, I think, you know, less than 60 days later, added a second, because the, the way that they were able to reduce their line, and just, I mean, a lot of people, when they see a line 30 deep, they go on to the next location by reducing that line and having it 5 deep, because they've got two cashiers and two kiosks. They now, you know, they're now able to serve more customers and get them through quicker. Pretty simple solution actually. The, the kiosks are, are very easy and effective. We've done them for movie theaters. We've done them for quick service restaurant. They work great. And that unattended solution I think is something that you're just going to see a little bit more and more. It sounds like your solution removed a bottleneck in that business. Yeah, correct. One of the things I think is really kind of a neat solution, and I guess I'll use the example of Chick fil A. I hate standing in lines, and if you, when you go to Chick fil A, which everybody's done, usually the lines can be long, but they move quickly, I will say that, but what I like to do sometimes is just, if I'm dining in, go in, grab a table, sit down, open the Chick fil A app, Place my order, enter my table number, and my food comes out automatically. Yep. It's like a full service restaurant, but you ordered through an app. Well, I'll give kudos. There's a lot of larger restaurants. So, you gave the Chick fil A example. Sonic does a great job. Jimmy John's does great. There's a lot of Apps that are really well resourced. The three examples we just gave are all enterprise businesses. So the capabilities are out there for any size business. And I would encourage small businesses to look at utilizing those solutions. Because sometimes, just this morning I was talking to a gentleman, his wife is a teacher. And he was talking about gift cards and he's like, you know, I was looking at her her gift. She has a gift card stack like three inches tall of gift cards. She's received his gifts from students. 90 percent of those gift cards are from major well known restaurants. And why aren't more of these done in with small medium sized businesses? That solution is extremely cheap. If it's not on a business's radar to have that, and if it's not on a buyer's radar to support the small business, uh, you're not seeing those effectively done. My goal is to, A, help that small or medium sized business add that gift card program, but perhaps more importantly, communicate it effectively. So use, like, a text loyalty program to blast it out. You know, here's, here's what we do. I get a Sonic message, uh, at least once a week. Or a Panera text once a week, there's no reason a small business shouldn't be following the same pattern and growing their business. And those text messages, they always seem to come out around 1030, 11 o'clock, right? Strategically timed, yes. Just a coincidence. Yes, just a coincidence. But very effective program, very low cost program. So the, the text loyalty programs are something else I offer. And it's a great way for a small business to A, communicate with their clients. Um, not every text needs to be an offer or a sales message, but that's, that is kind of the expectation is that, you know, when you're having that message, you're, you're communicating an offer, uh, probably a limited time offer that's going to drive traffic for you. So if a restaurant is slow on Tuesdays, you know, they, they can be very thoughtful and strategic about when that message goes out. What kind of offer it has and help drive traffic that, you know, is going to help them grow. So where do you, looking at your crystal ball, where do you see payment solutions going in the next six months, year, five years? What's going to change and what's it going to look like? So I, if, if it's not obvious already, I, I like unattended solutions. I think the staffing challenge is going to continue to be an issue. So I, I think kiosks and NFC, more, uh, paying at the point of, of solution. So if there's service drivers, if there's somebody coming to your table, you know, more solutions that happen at the point of transaction. I think everybody, you know, there's, there's continuously evolving solutions that are out there. So, you know, paying by crypto. I mean, you can do that now. I haven't had a lot of demand for that. Um, that's not to say there won't be demand as you look out, you know, two, five or ten years in adding those additional payment options. You know, Visa and MasterCard were in front of, you know, it was a pretty public government meeting recently with, you know, they were, they were asked tough questions. I saw that. And they're, You know, there's, there's a drive to, to have more consumer choice, more options out there. Is that something that could happen? We'll see. I wouldn't bank on it. Visa and MasterCard and the banks that are behind Interchange are pretty well resourced. But I think additional payment options are another trend that you'll see. And, you know, do people migrate more to using Cash App or Venmo or Coinbase? They can. We have those solutions today. They've grown slowly, but Apple Pay also grows slowly, and it's grown to a point where you can't ignore it anymore. A business that doesn't offer Apple Pay is behind the times. It's now growing, I think, in the high teens, as far as the percentage of payments that go through Apple Pay. Yeah. It's really amazing to see kind of what's happened over the last several years. You know, Venmo now is, it's just so common to Venmo money back and forth. I look at my, my kids and you know, that's very common in their age group, probably less common in my age group, but you know, they're always Venmoing money back and forth and it's just so easy. But how often do you see it in the business? Right. So I think there's a generational piece to this. And as that generation that's using it more frequently, so, you know, say people in their 20s, as they become, you know, a bigger part of the decision process, I think you'll see additional payment types expand. So one of the, I guess it seemed to be one of the first, it might have been, might not have been one of the first, but you know, the big, the big one that I recall in the early days was PayPal. And they seem to be trying to make a comeback now with some new TV ads. I don't know if you've seen that with, um, Yeah, so the Elf guy, Will Ferrell, yeah. Yeah, so PayPal and Venmo are also, they're linked. So how you might see that or which brand you might see out at the forefront may be one or the other. They both have their audience. Target audience, I feel, is a little bit different. You know, their Venmo brand is, you know, VeeR's younger. Their PayPal brand, VeeR, is a little older. But both solutions are often bundled and, you know, if we're adding them as a payment type, you're adding both of them at the same time. I think PayPal was, uh, that was Elon Musk, too, wasn't it? Early on, I think it was. I don't think he has any No. interest in it anymore. But, yeah, he was one of the He made a couple of bucks off of it. Is he doing okay now? I don't know if he's gonna make it. I don't know. Worried about that guy. doesn't have enough to fill his time, I don't think. I think he might be ai, he doesn't sleep. He might be, he's he must be a master delegate. Can, you can edit that out. You know, I don't want anybody on my, on my radar. His, his bandwidth is, is let a lot of this out. Um, but he, he also I'm sure has a, a large team behind the scenes. Yeah. Well, I don't want to push this too far. What's your favorite tool that you use in your business, and what can you not do without. I write, um, I, I have notebooks full of notes, which is inefficient, and I've, I've tried to move to electronic solutions in the past, but more recently I've, I bought a remarkable tablet. I'm really impressed so far. So it, it, it's a better tool to go back and find my notes. Um, which I'm excited about, so, you know, it's new to me, so I can't say I'm like, you know, completely, uh, you know, I, I haven't turned the corner, I, I will still make physical notes sometimes, but I, I think it's a great tool, and I'm, I'm excited to keep going on that charge, and, and, you know, the ability to go back to my notes more efficiently, and not have to search page by page in a physical notebook is, is really attractive. So, obviously the key to writing something down, it helps you remember it. But when you go back, because I've got the same, I've got ten notebooks in my folder right now. When I have to go look for something, I struggle finding it. So, obviously that Remarkable is a great tool. Have you seen it? I have, I've seen it. I've not used it. I've seen it. Yeah, they're pretty amazing. I'm pretty cheap guy though. So here's the hard time buying that. Yeah, it's it's not it's not inexpensive Right now facebook marketplace You can find some really good deals because they just added a color Remarkable and a lot of people are getting rid of their old ones getting rid of their older ones And so you can pick up an older. I don't need no fancy. You don't need the color. Yeah You can get one pretty cheap right now. I think that's good too for, um, you can like upload, if there's forms that you regularly have to fill out for your business, you can upload the form and then you can fill it out kind of by hand on the remarkable. Can you put your service agreements on there? I'm a pretty basic user at this point. Um, so I can't. Just notes. Dave's taking this to a higher level. Yeah, I was going to say, it probably is capable of that. Um, that's not what I've used it for yet. But it's done a good job for me, mostly from the notes. And it does have different templates. So if you're tracking numbers and want more of a spreadsheet look, or a more traditional note, you know, it'll do both. So you have a new business. Tell us a little bit about the new business you have. You know, sports has been a passion for me, you know, from, from the onset, you know, kind of a side business, if you will, or, you know, a business that I've, you know, for about five years, I've sold sporting equipment, my boys and I started a business together in 2019. Um, so I think when they were 10 and eight. We started Avenge Sports. It was really a great way to teach them business concepts at a young age. It was fun to, you know, have a dinner conversation that didn't surround around, you know, I mean, it was, you know, talking about profit and loss and, and things that I feel like benefited our kids in a longer term way. So some basic business skills, some great ways that they can kind of build their resume. Um, and the business still continues. We still mostly, at this point, help schools, organizations, facilities with their, their sports gear at a wholesale level. And I've shared a little bit with both of you. We, a friend of mine in Wisconsin, we've been friends since we were 14, you know, recently started. We took that same concept, but building it a little bit greater and grander to help the whole athlete ecosystem. And, you know, right now we're working on a marketplace that, you know, will be available. So. Swag. com, S W A Y G. com, um, Sway1 is kind of the first iteration of that. So there's a bigger term vision, but you know, right now we've just got a marketplace online that you can buy our sports gear and, you know, again, it's mostly geared towards that athlete ecosystem, trainers, coaches, schools, facilities, organization. That's fantastic. What should a business expect when they have you come out and take a look at their business and make the decision to start working with you? What does that process look like? Yeah, so typically first call is a discovery conversation. So, you know, at that point it's just learning about each other's businesses, identifying pain points, goals for the business. Where do they, you know, where do they see things? Are they looking to pass it down? Are they staffed correctly? You know, if the solution is obvious, we, you know, a moving to presenting a solution in that first call is a possibility. It doesn't have to be a long sales cycle, but more common is a second appointment where, you know, we would present a thorough solution, maybe do a product demonstration, and, you know, this is typically when they would also make a decision for how we would move forward. How can our listeners learn more about your services or get in touch with you? Yeah, so direct communications preferred. You can reach out directly to me at joel at paymentum. net or by phone or text at 615 490 4459 But the website's also got a bunch of information and that's again That's paymentum. net which we will include in the show notes. What final advice would you like to share with our listeners? For me, there's three key things for a business owner. I think communication, you know, preferably one on one communication, you know, whether it's with your clients, with your employees. And to me, the most important part of that is asking questions and listening. So that forum for feedback, that forum for, in my eyes, typically your customers and your employees have the best ideas to grow your business. So, I find great value, not just in a conversation with the business owner, but as I go out and do a discovery conversation, I try and talk to the people that are doing the work. Talking to the cashier. Because the cashier is more likely to know, oh my gosh, we have to hit this button six times and, you know, or we have to repeat this information. You know, if I can create that operational efficiency and make it so they don't have to repeat something and the transaction takes 15 seconds less, that adds up. You know, that makes that line that, you know, might be 30 deep, less deep. So I think communication to me is, is the heart. It's also where I see the most disagreement or frustration, not just with businesses, but even personal relationships. Communication is key. Number two in my eyes, building a network of trusted experts with experience, good ethics, I think is really important, and a network of other business owners. Um, you know, there's people that have done it before you, there's people that have done it better than you. Learning from them and also teaching the next group. So, you know, being both the mentor and the mentee. So helping somebody, you know, who's getting started in the industry. I think it just feels good. It feels really good to, you know, to help somebody and see them grow. And I get passionate when somebody passes me up, you know, there's for my corporate life, you know, for 17 of those 20 years, I led teams and led, you know, teams as large as 170 people. A lot of people that I previously led now lead organizations, and it's fun to see their success. So it's fun to be, you know, on the learning side of that, but it's also fun to be the teacher. And then, you know, the last thing I would say is just finding a way to recognize people. So whether it's rewarding employees, For their loyalty, whether it's, you know, just public recognition at a meeting or, or something that nature, but a, it's good for the heart B, I think it's, it's good for kind of that pipeline and succession planning. So as you're, you know, looking to, you know, retain employees, I just really think that's a key way to do it. That recognition goes a really long way. And a lot of times it doesn't cost anything. It just costs the, you know, the time investment that's in my eyes, that's a difference in somebody staying with a company longterm or somebody looking for their next opportunity. That's great advice, and I think every business out there is going to need to continue to find ways to attract and retain employees, and rewarding them certainly is a major component of that. 100%. Thanks for coming by, Joel. Hey, thank you for having me.

Scott Merritt: 34:47

Well, that's it for this week's episode of minding your business. And Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five star review and your favorite podcast, listening app. And if you didn't enjoy, why would do not have enjoyed it? Or if you have a brilliant idea to how we can approve the show, drop us a note at minding your business show at gmail. com. And we might mention you on an upcoming show, but we will never sell your data. Honestly, we're way too lazy and that sounds like way too much work. So don't worry. No selling, no spamming, just good vibes. I'm Scott Merritt, wishing you peace, purpose, and profits.