Southeast Acquirers Association Conference 2023

Southeast Acquirers Association, Incorporated, is a non-membership, 501(c)(6) trade association. SEAA was formed in 2000 and produced the first SEAA Annual Conference in 2001. Since then, SEAA has hosted thousands of industry professionals and presented hundreds of hours of education networking with the top vendors in electronic payments.Sunday night: We had some nice entertainment at the hotel – got to meet up with many old friends at the event every year.

Shoutouts – Dale Laszing from the GreenSheet, John Shipley, Jamie Garfield, John McCormick, Sonny Wooten, and the rest of the board members of the SEAA!

Monday: Demo day and in meetings, we looked at some new technology and software and met with and possibly new vendors.

New and exciting technologies always appear on the scene; we take our time to evaluate each one and then do a test before we get knee-deep into something.

The exhibit hall has over 130 vendors – to speak with, network, and have food, drinks, coffee, and snacks.

A lot of talk about Self-Serve Kiosks, Robots for restaurants, and electronic signage where business owners can make a monthly income from that. – Everyone is talking about cash discount and merchants paying 0%.

On Tuesday: We had the keynote speaker, and there was a tribute to Derek Vowels, who recently passed away – he was president of the SEAA for several years, and Derek and I worked together as he was employed by a few vendors that we work with.

The main speaker was Mark Walberg – many people thought it was the other Mark Wahlberg – the famous actor and he really played it off with pictures.

Marks’ story was quite interesting – currently, he is the host of the show Temptation Island – one of my favorite reality TV shows – after a busy day nothing like watching a show that is entertaining with dating drama –

Mark’s talk was about how he was able to connect with people, and that has been part of his success.

He spoke about Quitting:

Q – Quit – Get quiet and label your feelings

U – Unplug – from that feeling for 10 minutes

I – Instead – do anything that brings you joy

T – Trust – that you’ll forget to go back and worry

He also talks about service – we are in a service industry

We are the best version of ourselves when we are IN SERVICE TO OTHERS

At – we are here to Serve our Clients/Merchants!

Then he spoke about making presentations:

Set an intention of service
Listen deeply and respond
Call out the elephant – as he did with he is the other Mark Wahlberg
Choose to be passionate – about what you do!

It was cool to meet Mark, speak with him and his wife later in the day at the cocktail hour, and share a laugh about all the reality tv shows – I recorded the show’s first episode already.

Later that day, we attended – lunch sponsored by American Express – shout out for having vegetarian options –

We attended several breakout sessions – they were talking about software and referral partnership, and the last one was about Banking as a Service – which we are exploring because this is a service that merchants are definitely leaning towards.

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Video Transcription

Yo, what’s up everybody? It’s Justin Live from B2B Vault, the Payment Technology Podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Johnny Bench of Payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And we’ll be providing you educational information about small business FinTech, payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today.

And in today’s podcast we’ll be talking about the s e A of 2023. That was pretty cool. The Southeast Acquirers Association Conference of 2023. It was my first time there. Yeah. So that’s what this podcast will be about. But before we get into that, we always let you know how you doing?

Check in real quick. What’s up? It’s also Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month. What’s up? How are you doing? Doing good. Mental health check-in. Mental health check-in. My feet are tired from, that’s physical health. Mental health. Mental health. My brain is a little tired. Yes. Literally like three days, actually four days. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of just nonstop conferences. Pretty much. Meetings, conference, talking to people, meetings. Conference, listening to speakers, attending demos, watch, listening to panels and all kinds of different things. And, it’s important to attend a conference.

I was glad to take Justin there for his first time, help him learn more about the business, and continue to learn and grow, yeah, man. I’m all right. How’d you like the conference? Yeah. I think we’re gonna talk about during that to the podcast, right? Oh yeah. So I’m doing okay.

Otherwise mental health check in. I’m I’m all right. You know what I mean? Dealing with some other stuff. Trying to figure out some insurance things. The insurance is crazy these days. I don’t have insurance, so I got trying to figure out this, whatever. It’s a lot of No MAs insurance for me. I don’t have insurance.

They kicked me off, so I have to figure out something else. But other than that, I’m doing great, man. Life is good. Grateful for another day on earth. So yeah, man. So as far as the S e a po the conference man, it was my first time there again for the third time we said it already. Yeah, I, my first, Going into any conference, right?

I’ve been to a whole bunch of different kinds of conferences anyway this going into any of them, I have these, like in my head, you think of these, they’re huge, right? Like they’re these giant things and there’s gonna be these extravagant. Displays and showcases and state-of-the-art technology, and it’s never the case.

It’s never the case. It’s just a bunch of, not just, but there’s a bunch of booths and, different businesses and services and stuff like that. It’s super interesting to see the landscape, of the business, there’s a lot of different people that you meet characters.

I wish more owners would of, would’ve been there. I feel like owners of the companies. Yeah. There was a few owners of the companies. There was a few, but yeah, most of the time they send their upper management type guys, sales guys, the sales guys, business development guys. That’s those guys. Yeah, there was a few owners around that.

No, I met a few CEOs and a few of the, the founders were around for sure. And I’m not saying anything to take away from the conference. The conference was super informative. I met a lot of cool people. You met people from all over the United States. People came as far as California to go.

Costa Rica, New York people came from all over the United States. Yeah. I can’t remember anybody’s name off bat. Like I’m terrible with names, so Pardon itself, but. I’ll, I definitely requested a couple of guys. Oh, Ian, I remember Ian, we met with him. We had a meeting with that guy from Tilda.

Yeah. From til Ian. From til, yeah. That was, he was a nice guy. The other guys from from the delivery thing. Yeah. We met some guys from a delivery company. They were from Canada. Yeah. Those guys were cool. We met with a payroll company. We met with some software companies, but I want to give a shout out, so like when I got to the show someday.

Yeah. Dale Lasing from the Green Sheet was there, so hung out with Dale. Oh yeah. I met Dale in person for the first time, so that was nice. Shout out to Dale, right? Cause she helps us with some, some publicity stuff. PR stuff. Yeah. PR stuff. And then I want to give a shout out to some of the people on the board of the S C A A.

First off Judy Foster who invited me and Dave. In 2001 to go to the very first S C A in St. Pete, and we’ve been every single year since. So shout out to Judy. Salute to you, Judy. Shout out to John Shipley, who I know. Oh, John was super cool. Yeah, that was a nice guy who I know for many years. Jamie Garfield, who hooked us up with some swag.

Sure. Oh yeah, man. Shout. Appreciate the shirt. Jamie. Shout. Thank you. Shout out to John. She’s the wife, right? Of the, no, she’s not. Of who? Her husband was there. Jared? He does merchant. Yeah. He’s in the business too. I don’t know what he’s doing in the business these days, but he’s in the business. He’s worked around in the industry, but like in, in a support role.

He introduced us to the woman at the end of the last day we were there. The woman in the yellow, no, that was d my friend. D. Oh, so Dee is not Jamie’s husband? No. Oh, okay. Jamie’s husband. Anyway, shout out to Dee. He’s not on the board boards. He’s not on the board, but his daughter D was super cool.

His daughter is on the board. Which daughter? The Dee’s daughter is on the board. What’s his daughter’s name? Oh, I don’t remember her name. She, Layla. She’s a diff huh? Was that Layla? No, that’s, no. She works at. L. She works at Displays Linga for Connor. Oh, there’s yeah. Too many nays, too many faces. Mcc, I can’t remember you guys.

John, sorry. John McCormick, who’s the head of the s e a. He’s one of the founders with Judy from General Credit Forms, who makes cool pens. Sonny Wooten, who used to be at amex. But he’s still in the business doing something with a different company and Sonny’s there every year. And he was pivotal helping the SCA get established because every year the SCA has gone on American Express has had sponsored the lunch.

Yeah. Yeah. And. I mentioned it later in the podcast about the lunch. So how was Sunday? I didn’t go with you. Did on Sunday. So Sunday night, just I went down there. I took Dale out for dinner with my mom and hung out with her. So I know her for many years. And then we went back to the hotel and there was a reception.

So they had reception for the sponsors. So we snuck in. Because I know everybody, nobody said anything slid in the door. Okay. They’re like, oh, who are you guys with? I said, Hey, it’s Allen and Dale from the Green Sheet. I am writing articles for the Green Sheet use my the power of the press to get into the there you go into the show.

Yeah. The importance of going to shows like this, Is that as the owner, and the, of Nationwide Payment Systems and to take Justin and my business partner Dave, for us to go there is that you get to interact with people who are in the business here. Like how are they doing? What people are struggling with, what people are successful with.

And also to talk to with people and companies who are there because there’s always new products and new products sometimes don’t, always from the beginning, you have to watch the these products, so you want to make sure you know how developed are the products. How developed are the, is the customer support for the products?

How many employees do these people have? Because sometimes people come out with a product and then they have no, the support is not there. And that’s, so we, we’ve learned over the last 20 years, 22 years in business to ask a lot of questions and get contracts and then read the contracts and then interview the companies.

And make sure you know what the kind type of infrastructure that they actually have. And so it’s important because, but you build the relationship. But we also want to make sure when we’re giving a client a product that it’s a strong product and there’s customer support behind it.

Absolutely. And developers are working with the product. All the, and things like that cuz you don’t want to get a product and it’s broken and people are complaining about it and things like that. So it’s, so it’s, it’s always interesting to go cuz sometimes, we saw a few new products, the jury’s out on those products.

And then some products come out and they look great and then they work great. And then behind the scenes is, Doesn’t work so well, but what you see what happens behind the scenes, the, it’s important, cuz we want to communicate well with our customers. And then we need that communication to flow from the vendors.

So we need to make sure that the vendors that we deal with, that there’s good, that we have a good rapport with them and we have good communication with them. And even we spoke to a few vendors where they’re. Communication is not, is lacking. And we said to them, we can, we can, we can’t really give you guys much, a ton of business because you’re lacking in these areas.

And that’s, that’s why it’s good to go to these shows be because you can get some FaceTime with people who are on the executive level, might not be the owner, but there are people on the executive level or developers there that you can. Have a conversation with, yeah, I got to talk to a developer that I, we won’t call out any names on people.

No, it was cool though. It was good to talk to them. But it is good to talk to them and to, and we want them to listen to what we have to say and give them feedback from the, if that developer is listening. I spoke to another developer yesterday and they said that’s not a big deal.

Okay. I wouldn’t think it’s a big deal, but, listen, they have a list and somebody has to prioritize. Yeah. That’s a big priority. I would say that should be up on number one, but whatever. Who am I? You know that Monday was demo day. We first, the exhibit hall didn’t open up until three or two.

Two o’clock. Yeah. We had a ton of meetings in the morning. The whole. Whole morning was one meeting after another Every half an hour. Yes. From 11 till two next year. I’m definitely gonna do a better job at your, there’s gotta be a little bit better, bigger break in between us. What? The meetings? Yeah.

Okay. At least 10 minutes. Usually they’re at. Cuz meetings went over, exactly. I tried to schedule them to be short cuz it’s a, Hey, let’s get to know you. 20, 30 minutes and then boom, move on. All of them lasted longer than 30. I tried to keep ’em short.

To one guy even. Nevermind. That’s okay. One guy, it was one guy had to come over and be like, Hey man, you forgot about me. We’ve been waiting over here waiting. The other PE the people went off the subject onto a whole nother product. Oh, that’s because we were excited. That, we didn’t know they got, yeah.

So we got to see some new technology. But like I said, we take our time to evaluate and at these shows, they’re always plying you with, we don’t, me and Justin don’t drink alcohol Dude water that’s, they got, I don’t like, I’m not like a super sober soldier, but I’m not I don’t participate. Like I, I just don’t like it’s gotta be something like a super special occasion or I’m celebrating something, listen, whatever.

Don’t put a bunch of, don’t put a, we’re what, 1300 sales guys there, basically. Yeah. And it was all open bars, so It’s, that’s great for them. You know what I mean? If you’re into that, like that’s good, go ahead and socialize. But I don’t liquor, that’s not, I don’t like to socialize.

And we had some, I don’t just whatever. There was food, there was coffee, there was tea, there was plenty of water. So that there’s water. Oh yeah, man. I had a great time. I’m not saying don’t ever, we saw some other cool stuff. We saw self-service kiosks. We’re in a ton of the boots. Everybody’s getting in on the self-service kiosk.

That’s just something to think about. Like for these, for a lot of restaurants, if you don’t have a kiosk, you better get, start thinking, seriously thinking about getting a kiosk because, so someone who doesn’t know, like a kiosk is like literally just a self order machine, a tablet giant thing.

A big giant tab, it sits in front of here. It doesn’t require any person managing it. The customer comes up and do pay. Tap gone. They needed that in the hotel because we went downstairs to get some lunch. Oh my God. The wine had 60 people in it. They were making the food very fast. And then we walked out, the woman at the front desk even said, we’re doing the best we can.

There’s only one chef back there. I understand. I get it. But yo, like you knew that you were having a conference. On top of it being tourist season. Oh, the hotel was definitely full in capacity. Crazy full. And so we walked out thinking maybe we’re not getting any food, and then we saw, oh, scan the QR code actually got our food before the people in the line.

A lot of people. Yeah, so a lot of people. So that worked out. They should have had a kiosk. And people could have just went up to the kiosk boom. That would’ve been a lot more efficient. Yeah. So kiosk was everywhere. And then we saw a couple of booths with that robot. The robot. It’s, yeah, the robots are coming for y’all jobs, man.

Yeah. The robot is com. I don’t mean to laugh, but it’s actually, it’s approaching a lot faster than you guys think. This is just I don’t know how many times we’d done seen these robots we’ve seen a few of them. One I saw was like 20 grand. And then there was a little, there was ano one, another robot there that was very expensive.

But then we saw the little robot. Remember it’s more like a bus. It looked like a, it looked like a waiter. You remember the i the Jetsons made? No, but it looked like a little table like this. Yeah, exactly. With three tiers. With three tiers, and then it had a screen on top and it could tell, obviously it could program in, it could go up to the table and tell you the specials.

That was pretty cool. It could talk, yeah. And tell you like the specials, it could take an, or possibly take an order, the guy said. And then, also, whatever they could throw maybe like in a pizza restaurant or like a sub shop, they could just put it on there and say, yeah, go to table two.

And I guess the, the map is programmed, the pizza would be problematic. It’s not that big, but I could see how A burger spot. You think it came in a different, like a pub. A pub food, right? Wings sandwiches, subs, that type of environment. A lot of these places just don’t have enough help.

The self-order kiosk is, I’m telling you, even if you have a sit down restaurant, you need to start thinking about, Hey, do we need to put in a self order kiosk and the. Robot. A kiosk on a robot? I would if I had a, so if I had a restaurant Yeah. At every table, or you’d have a tablet.

Yep. Let people just order. It would be stuck there though, like you would be able to spin it. The tablet would be stuck. Not the, everyone have their own menu, but then to order. Yeah. You take the tablet and move it. Yeah. Or I guess it could just move, I don’t know.

But what I, my, what I was saying is like, because, and there would be, as a customer, it’s a pain when you’re waiting to, or if you’re thirsty, if you wanted a separate check, that sucks Waiting. No, but I’m saying if you wanted a separate, you could, I’m gonna tell you, I bet you we’re gonna see somebody, a smart restaurant, or I bet you if I put my, that’s to be in the restaurant business for.

20 years. That was my first career, right? So I worked in deli’s, restaurants, full service, fine dining, all types of restaurants, hotels, country clubs. Let me tell you something, kiosk people gotta figure out a kiosk. I guarantee you that. We’re gonna see somebody come out, like in 2008, 2009, the term fast casual came out.

And those are the restaurants like Chipotle, mos. Where you walk up and they just make you some quick food. And there’s some other ones. What’s that other one down the street or the healthy one that’s not, that’s like up and down. It’s like a healthy version of Chipotle that’s in the strip center.

Oh, the. Honey pot, whatever. I don’t remember. Yeah, I can’t. Yeah, it’s, I, it was very up and down with the food. So the food is very, it’s hit or miss one day, it tastes delicious. The next day you go, it’s burnt and cold. Yeah. It wasn’t, yeah. They’re not consistent enough. And the, I guarantee you, you’re gonna see somebody come up with a restaurant concept where you’re gonna walk up to the front.

They’re gonna say, oh, here’s your you’re going to. Here you’re gonna go, we’re gonna seat you at a table, right? And then you’re either gonna get a tablet and go to the table with it and order your food, or you’re gonna order from a kiosk and then they’re just gonna bring the food out to you.

That’s how it’s gonna happen. I both of those and something like that is gonna happen. And tablets forget iPads. Cause iPad is, if you go, like at Wawa, you go and order your sandwich on a kiosk. Yeah. Yeah. Or an app. Or your app on your phone. Yeah, and I think like for one person, the app is fine when you’re, or one or two people.

Some for older people, they’re not gonna want to deal with, they’re gonna want a kiosk, they’re not gonna want to deal with looking at, trying to look at a smartphone to order a hamburger. Yeah. I feel, I feel bad for some of the older generations. I watched some of the older generations struggle with technology now, and it’s, it’s sucks because that’s why I think restaurant, they were so stubborn.

You guys were so stubborn and you didn’t listen to your grandkids, man. Learn how use, we told y’all use the smartphone. We told y’all man over and over again, learn how to use the smartphone. You have to learn how to use the technology or it’s going to use you, man. And that’s what’s happening.

And I, it sucks, but we saw a lot of booths with kiosks and there was at least three or four booths with those robots. All different sizes of ’em and everything. I think the robot could work. Even the robot could work as maybe even a busboy for it to help the waiters, cuz they could put those bus top, at least they wouldn’t have to hold everything, right?

Like the more No. Like they could have to, that’s what I’m saying. Yeah. Yeah. They could just put the dishes in there and wipe off the table and instead of them carrying it back to the kitchen, the robot could, they could, like they put all stuff on there and then they wiped the table down and, That, that they, the robot, they’re already taking the stuff back there.

The robot could take the stuff back to the kitchen. Yeah. And wash because there’s gonna have, the labor shortage is real. I don’t care what anybody says. It’s not that I don’t think people don’t want those jobs anymore. I think that people have figured out how to start a business, how to have a side hustle.

Are learning that there are many well paying jobs that do not require a college education, and people are going after those jobs and not worrying about the these, and I think maybe even you might see robots in a retail store one day where you know, the robots or employees are using the robot where maybe there’s some clothes not folded on the.

Right? They take it, just stick it on the robot instead of leaving it out there messy. So the employee taking it to the back, the robot could take it to the back of the store for them. It is endless, but yeah, man. Yeah, there’s a lot of application guys. All the youths out there. The Utes.

Yeah. All you Utes, y’all you need to go and learn a trade or some sort of skill, man. Cuz like there’s a shortage. The robots are coming, but there’s a shortage of skilled labor for things like plumbing. It’s what I’m saying. Conditioning. Collection a trade. Go learn a trade. Learning to be like woodworking, anything carpentry.

General repair, electrician, general repair stuff. I’m telling you, go to school for this stuff. Learn how to do it. Gardening, agriculture, all of the, there’s a lot more to do than rapping and playing basketball. And the other thing everybody’s talking about at the show is the, cash discount every booth had was talking about cash discount.

0% said. The big buzz Merchants. Merchants love it, because merchants don’t want to pay the fees no matter what Dick Durbin says. Nobody merchants the people who want to get rid of credit card processing fees are not merchants. It’s not square, it’s not Stripe, it’s not PayPal, it’s not anybody.

It’s Target, it’s Walmart, because they’re not passing the fee of their customers. You see the owner of Walmart, some of the owners of Walmart, sold $400 million worth of stock in their company. Really? Who? Really? The owner of Walmart? Or the ceo, someone, something like that. Somebody, yeah. Who knows?

It’s a lot of weird stuff going on. Did you also hear about the oil tankers and. Ah, nevermind. What’s not getting into the whole economy discussion. World War ii. Oh wait, what? We’re not getting into a whole political discussion. No, I’m saying World War III is upon us. Okay. We can be swimming with the fishes here.

I just work every day and help business owners and keep your head down and that’s it. So Tuesday, so that was Monday. Then Tuesday we had a keynote speaker that was a tribute to a longtime friend of mine, Derek Vows, who passed away. That’s very touching. Yeah. He was president of the s e a for several years.

Who was the guy talking? John McCormick. That John, you did a great job. Yeah, he did a good job. I didn’t know Derek, but leaving, I felt a bit of a connection with him and that, and I’m not just saying that a video of Derek playing a couple spots. It was, yeah, it was an emotional, and Derek worked at a bunch of companies that we did business with.

He was at Comdata. He was at PAI for a while. He was at some other companies. He had just got a job at another company, electronic Verification Systems, and I know the guys over there, Derek was a great guy and knew him for probably over a decade or way over a decade. And then we had a keynote speaker.

So it’s really funny cuz I looked online, I said, oh, keynote speakers, mark Wahlberg. So I’m thinking to myself, me too. It’s the Mark Wahlberg, like the movie star, the guy who was the producer of one of my favorite shows of all time Entourage. And yeah, I love that show. Entourage. Entourage. The movie was awesome.

Also, he made a cameo in that movie. I’d never watched. I watched Entourage, but I can’t say that I watched, like watched Entourage. I was into Entourage. Sunday was Entourage. I was watching Entourage. I was into it. Yeah. But it wasn’t wa Mark Wahlberg at all. I before it was, I thought it was, when I read it, I was like, oh man, that’s cool.

And then I googled the, I highlighted the name and it wasn’t, it was the other, it was not the same spelling, it was the other. Mark Walberg, the first one as he put it. Yeah. He’s the Oh, he is older. Yeah, he’s the first Mark Wahlberg. So it’s the other Mark Wahlberg, who is Na who is, he’s I guess he’s famous now for being the host of Temptation Island for the last three seasons.

Yeah. And before that he told this story, which is an interesting story. He got his first job with Dick Clark. I could relate to the part. Where he said that he was he was the TV host or whatever. What? Yeah. He was a host. No, but when he kept saying that this is what he does, and then he realized he hasn’t done this in five years.

Oh, he said so he was talking about when he was in between jobs, when he was on the Antiques Road Show for 15 years. Okay. And they let him go. Right then he had no, he didn’t have a TV job and he goes, here I was the TV guy with no TV job, right? He kept saying I’m a tv, and then one day he woke up and realized like, dude, why am I’m not a TV guy. I haven’t been on tv, right? He hadn’t been on TV in five years. And so he pivoted and yeah, he pivoted and became a speaker and he was doing, went back to doing comedy and some other stuff, and he talked about. So he talked to, and he met his wife when he was first working with Dick Clark.

Dick Clark. He had met his wife. She was there. That was cool. She was very nice. I met them after the, in the cocktail hour. Alan has a photo with Mark Wahlberg. We’ll be posting on social media. And so it was inter, it was interesting, cause. I like reality tv. So I’ve seen he knew who he was.

You knew who he was right away. Yeah, I knew who he was. Yeah. When I saw the thing, I was like, oh, this is the guy, temptation Island. This is gonna be really funny cuz it’s a crazy show. He was funny. He was funny. He related, you know how he, things that went on in his life. He talked about how he quit so he was not doing TV for five years.

But I like what he had to say cuz he talked about quitting and he said Quit. So he said he used four letters. He said Quit get quiet Acronym. Yeah. AC as an acronym. Get quiet and label your feelings. You unplug from that feeling for 10 minutes and I instead do anything that brings you joy and trust that you’ll forget to go back and worry.

So it was cool because actually I identified this to Justin, cause Justin was feeling a little off and then he said, oh, I want to get back to gardening. And this guy was also gardening. Oh yeah. I mean there was a lot of similarities, nuances and similarities for sure. Where he was saying about just well in, here it’s easy.

So I’ve been dealing billing websites for a decade. And I. I moved down here two years ago, six years ago. I was still doing my own thing for a while. Really, trying to figure it out, would realize that I wasn’t making enough money. So I started looking for a job and I worked, found Allen Boom.

I’ve been working here ever since. And, the problem that I was starting to, it’s like you have this, this self perceived Expectation of yourself. And you’re supposed to be at this. And, we do that to ourselves a lot. It’s, it was interesting that he was speaking about all this, especially during mental health Awareness month.

He talked about going to therapy. He talked about, how he, he was his wife didn’t want anything to do with them. There was so many relatable things that he was speaking about. And it’s really relatable in a business sense too. Because, yeah. Cause I actually had a similar. Journey to what he was talking about.

Yeah. Cause I was the chef like I was the web, the I was the owner the owner of my own company. I was the guy, it me. But then, it’s hard to. To relinquish that, right? It’s hard to just let go. It’s hard to be like, okay, man, and now I’m the digital marketing director of Nationwide Payment Systems.

It’s hard to be that, like, When you do your own thing for so long and then you’re, you have to, you gotta be, sometimes it doesn’t work out right. And you gotta figure it out. Gotta make a pivot. You gotta pivot and you gotta, you gotta provide for your family by any means necessary.

You know what I’m saying? And at the end of the day, what he was saying was valuable. He’s right. Because we worry about so much stuff. You know what I’m saying? That’s what he was saying. Quit like he’d be worried. Worried is worried. Literally destroying your whole day. Cuz it sucks the energy right outta everything.

If you’re worried about so much stuff, you can’t focus. I trust me. I believe me. That relates to business too. Like when you’re in your business, you know you’re having a rough day, quiet down, label your, what you’re feeling, get away for 10 minutes, and relax and take a walk because like, When you get back from that walk, that’s what he was saying yeah, you had to be clear.

You’re, but that the problem will still be there. And you’re still gonna have to figure out the solution. There’s no reason to lose yourself. Yeah. But it’s gonna get you out of the rut. And then also adds something to your life that brings joy for me, when I was down, what brought me joy was my kids.

So I got to, I spent a lot of time with my kids and I’m, cuz I was not spending time with my kids. My kids are teenagers, man, that’s worth too much. When my kids were little at the time. Yeah. I don’t want, they don’t want nothing to do with me. I get it. And that’s what, that’s on a mental health thing.

It’s one of the things that I’m going dealing with. It’s really, and I’m sure there’s a lot of business owners out there who can relate too, because for 10 years, me being a solopreneur, I was always there for them. You know what I mean? And during the years when they were growing up, before, they were always there for them.

Drop of a dime. They get sick, they’re there with daddy. You know what I mean? And that, that having a job takes away from that. Alan is very understanding. He knows, Hey dude, you got a kid, you gotta go get to your kid. Whatever. My point is it’s y we worry about that. And we spent so much time on our business. Yeah. So I did miss a lot of time with my kids too, though. And, you think of it in, on the other side of the coin and that same thing when I was working in my restaurant, I wasn’t with spending time with my kids.

Exactly. So think about, you gotta, you always use those things to bring you back to, to, to what you’re doing it for in the first place. Exactly. Okay. And then he went and talked about be the best version of yourself, of ourself when we are in service to others.

And he related that because the business that we’re in is a service industry. Even though it’s not like a restaurant or something. But every business is basically in the service industry. Yeah. Cause you are serving your customers. And I enjoy serving my customers. I enjoy servicing them. I enjoy.

Serving them. I enjoy when they call me on the phone, even if it’s a problem. That was the whole point of me starting my business in the first place, was to help small businesses seize their stake of. On the internet, yeah. Stake their claim on the internet, like the gold rush.

A lot of small businesses still are unrepresented on the internet, so my whole thing was to like help businesses get online and, make more money online. Unfortunately, not all the businesses wanted to do that, but. People still resist, have, we’ve run into people all the time with no website and it’s crazy.

That’s today. I don’t see how you can be a business in 2023 without a website. Yeah. Some of these businesses we run into, they haven’t even claimed their Google page Exactly at go, what’s it called? Google My Business. Yeah. Come on dude. You at least need that min at a minimum. And so at nps we’re here to serve our clients, the merchants.

And then he spoke about presentations. A lot of people have a problem when it’s time to do a presentation or it’s time to do a sales call. And I remember how nervous I was when I first started in this business and I was going door to door and I would’ve to walk into a business and I’d be like, man, I gotta walk in this door.

I would be like losing my mind. I would be in my car. I would be like, I got it. And I want, you have to do this. You gotta feed the family and you’re gonna have to get out of the car and get in there and go do it. Yep. And one of the thing, and it was funny because they were talking about it in another meeting we were in, oh, remember back in the day, you would take out your laminated paper.

Remember hearing that in a meeting Yep. And show people like what the credit card machines looked like. And because I was so nervous, I was like, okay, let’s. Let’s go. I’m gonna be like a step further than what everybody else was doing. And I got myself a three ring binder. I put pictures of all the different credit card machines you could get, right?

And I’ve looked at it, I’m like, okay, look, I’m a chef. So this is the menu. This is what’s on the menu. The trans three 30. Oh, you gotta add a printer on, then you need a pin pad. Or you could get this. Hyper calm, all nice with all the buttons on it. Or we had this really cool looking lento machine, shout out to Judy Foster.

She was the lento lady. And and that’s how I approached the business. Or people needed, a gateway and I’d sell ’em the gateway and and I would just have my little picture book and then I would draw drawings. Cuz back then, like 2001. You’d go into businesses they didn’t even have a credit card machine, right?

None. So they’re like, how does it work? So I draw a little picture, oh, here’s your machine. It calls the bank, checks the thing, da. Then sends a batch, and then your money goes in your bank account. And I’d make a little drawing and I’d show it to them and educated people. And I enjoyed doing that.

I’m sitting here trying to think about how you’re Yeah, it was cash, bro. Yeah. And there, unless you’re at the grocery store, I went into tons of places that only took cash. Tons of them. They never had credit. It was a it was a free for all. This business was a free for all back in those days.

Literally you would just walk in and, Oh, brand new business. Oh, you guys got credit card machines yet? Nope. Okay. I’m here. Boom. I whip out my book. Cuz you want to be, when you talk to a business owner, you need to be knowledgeable. About what you’re talking to them about, and this is the things that he talked about.

So have an intention of service. So my intention was to serve them and teach and educate them. Then he talked about listen deeply and respond, right? This is the worst thing when I see salespeople not do this, right? They do not listen to the customer. They’re not listening to the merchant, the customer, the client, the potential client.

They’re not listening enough. You have their idea of what they want to sell them. You need to listen to what the customer is saying and then respond. The other thing you need to do is that, which you didn’t really talk about is technology has changed in 20 years. And the way some businesses are still doing things, there’s one thing that irks me.

Okay. When we, when a restaurant is still doing tip adjust and not taking the machine over to the table, they are doing a, they’re doing a disservice to themself. They’re doing a disservice to their business. They’re doing a disservice to the customer and they’re doing a disservice to their the wait staff because taking the tablet to the table, the customer’s gonna be happier and feel more secure.

The customer’s probably gonna put in a bigger tip. I’m telling you the tips. When that any restaurant where we switch them from tip adjust where they write it down to putting the tip in on the machine, the tips go up. I believe every single place it go, the tips go up. Listen to me, business owners, if you’re still doing tip, adjust, get a wireless machine, do tip at the time of the sale and the servers are gonna be happier.

So the customer’s gonna be happier, your servers are gonna be happier, and you as a business owner are gonna be happier because why? Your customers are gonna be happy and the, and this, your employees gonna be happy. Happy. And it’s less to deal with at the end of the night, going back, putting all the tips in, can you read that guy put down 20 bucks or did he put down 25?

Cause you have to read their people’s handwriting. And then if you did it wrong, then you get a charge back. Or it’s over 20% or 25%, then you get a charge back. Just do tip at the time of the sale. Get with the times. So you gotta listen. To what customer Get with the times. Get, yeah, get with the times. And then he says, call out the elephant, which could be the tipping issue.

Call out the elephant. He called out the elephant. When he got up to speak, he said, oh, I’m Mark Wahlberg. Maybe you were expecting this guy. And he showed a picture of the other Mark Wahlberg. Everybody laughed. There was a good, he was good. Yeah, he was good. And he also talked about like when he greets people and he tries to greet people in a way to disarm them.

Huh When instead of the guys behind the counter at Starbucks going, oh, what kind of coffee do you want? He just goes up to them and says, Hey, latte artist. Hey hey latte artist. I’m Mark. So that’s, I’d use that when I meet people sometimes I say, me and Justin were walking around the show.

It was pretty funny, cuz I’m used to it because last year people. Was like the first time I went to the show, after the podcast, a lot of people said, oh, podcast, you got a podcast. Wow, you got a podcast. Wow. And then this year I’m walking around with Justin. Everybody’s oh, that’s the podcast guys.

That’s the guys from LinkedIn. That’s the LinkedIn guys. Yeah, those are the guys on LinkedIn. Oh, we see your videos all the time. Pe cuz I have whatever, over 30,000 people connected on LinkedIn. So people are seeing the, this content. The content that we create. It’s interesting to, to see that, see, and be passionate about what you do.

Be passionate, greet people, disarm them, listen to them, call out the elephant. Say the elephant could be, Hey, you’re doing it this way. Have you ever considered doing it this way? And explain to them why, like the same thing, like people who take credit cards over the phone.

Why are you doing that? We have the technology today. Put in the information, click a button, send a text, send an email. Let the customer fill it all out. Boom, boom. Believe me, the customer wants you to do it that way the customer feels safer. That way they know somebody’s not on the other end of that phone, writing down the credit card number.

The customer feels safer. Your employees are gonna feel better. They’re not gonna feel like Hey, I’m giving someone a credit card over the phone. They’re repeating the numbers to me like nine times. It’s so annoying, dude. It’s like super, super annoying. I’m like, why are you guys doing this?

Like the pool company I have calls me up the other day. Oh, your credit card didn’t go through. Yeah, I got a new credit card. Send me a link. No, we can’t do it like that. They don’t know how to do it. And you’re using Square. I’m like, man, you guys should be using my company. I’ll show you how to do it. Cuz once the customer does, you send the customer the link.

Once they put it in there, you click the button, add the database, and then create the recurring transaction. And you don’t have to hassle around with what’s the guy’s credit card number and use the technology. Don’t let the technology use you. Yeah. Don’t, cause people might go to a different company because.

Of the safe because they feel safer, yeah. The way that company is doing business. So that was pretty cool. Like I said, I got to, yeah, Marko, he had a lot of great touching points. He was a good, yeah, he was a great guest speaker. Good motivational speaker. I was surprised, it’s always surprising when somebody’s a, when you have different, I’ve been to many conferences, and then they always have a speaker. Sometimes the speaker is. Is good. Sometimes the speaker’s like over the top, but this guy, I found him to be very relatable. Yeah. And down to earth. Yeah. Very relatable.

And also he felt very blessed because he told the story about he was outta work for five years and then all of a sudden temptation. I like call. He wasn’t outta work. No. But he was not doing what he wanted to do. He didn’t know what he the temptation doing TV was off the end of it wasn’t on his radar anymore.

And then he did something was off the radar. Somebody called him and it just landed in his lap. So it was it was wild. Dropped out in the sky. Yeah, it was wild. It was a good story. Yeah. Very good story. He said he gets to work for four weeks a year and live in Hawaii with his wife for four weeks.

Weeds. Damn. I’ll take that gig. Yeah, he said it pays very well. So I’m looking forward to watching this season.

Yeah, he didn’t give out any spoilers or anything, but it was funny. Spoilers, yeah, at the first episode aired last night. Then after that we had lunch. And I’ve always dreading lunch cuz I’m I’m pescatarian. I eat salmon. My doctor said I have to eat salmon at least once or twice a week. And you eat tuna, sometimes tuna, sometimes.

I’m not a big fan, but I’ll eat it. But yeah, so you know, we had lunch and I was just sitting there man, the day before I was upset because I told Alan I was gonna bring something to eat, but then I’m like, how am I going to heat it up? What am I. This doesn’t make sense. All right. So I just went, I just, so then that’s when we were talking about, we had to order on a, on the app, on the, QR code.

And so I’m sitting there like, all right, I’m gonna have another big giant salad for lunch. And that’s what, cuz a lot of times when they say, yeah, there’s vegetarian on the menu, it’s literally a salad, but, it’s okay. And so we get up there and I’m like, oh, there’s a salad.

There’s, there’s oh, they had three kinds of lettuce had like the romaine spinach, the, that was later that, oh, that was later. That was later. The lunch was just the, like the basic romaine with the balsamic and olive oil with a little par, freshly grated Parmesan. It was good. It was all right.

And that potatoes the potato. I don’t why was a, why would you eat cold potatoes? I thought mushrooms. When I scooped it out, I was like, cold potato salad. Cold baby potatoes, cold potato salad. That was so weird. Not potato salad, in a sense of potato salad where it smashed up or chopped. It was just like with oil and garlic and some onions and green, red peppers.

Yeah. I, nah no, me. And then next to that, they had the hummus, veggie wrap. Let me say that I was expecting the worst because hummus doesn’t sit well. Okay. Yeah, there’s a bad idea for a sandwich. Exactly. It’s gonna squeeze out drip everywhere. Future reference chefs out there thinking about making veggie meals, skip the hummus, find a different protein.

Actually, it was put together pretty well. It was put together really well. Cause we didn’t put that much hummus in there. It was just a schmear. A smudge. Yeah, smudge. No, because if you put a ton of it, then it would’ve dripping out. Yeah. No, it’s, I, yeah. No, and the vegetables had were, it was a good flavor.

It had some sort of balsamic, yeah, it was balsamic, like a dressing. So it was, it had flavor. It wasn’t like, oh, here’s some vegetables. And with, and then they had a pasta salad, veggie pasta salad, which was, it was good. It is, I’ll say this, it’s the best lunch. That I’ve had provided to me on a vegetarian Hey, this is the vegetarian option.

Definitely the best vegetarian option I’ve had a long time. A couple weeks ago we went to that other conference and the vegetarian option was horrible. Remember that We had this sit down lunch. It was the worst ever. It was horrible. The food was horrible. First of all, I wasn’t vegetarian because the mashed potatoes were covered.

We’re, I haven’t had that much butter in probably 10 years. Oh yeah. I couldn’t eat the mashed potatoes. The I, yeah, I did not add. And then we ended up eating like three snacks. So this was, the vegetarian meal was potatoes and then some Z zucchini and some squash. It was horrible. And some green peppers.

No, some green beans, too. Green beans. A couple of green beans. So I’m, yeah. I ate all the salads that were already out on the table. Like I had three salads on the table. I had two salads. It was good. The salad was good. Salad was the spring salad mix was not bad. Yeah, spring mix is always good.

Can’t go wrong. Later during the happy hour that a whole table full of salad, which was great. Oh dude, the, I wish they would’ve had that salad for lunch. Yeah, that was a nice salad. That salad was, yeah, they had all the fixins had spinach, spring mix. Then it was a whole bunch of veggies.

They had the there roasted pumpkin seeds, roasted flo sunflower seeds. The roasted garbanzo beans were, those were fire. Not as good as mine, but they were fired. No, they were pretty good. Yeah. I’ll give ’em give a couple fire emojis. They were good. They were crunchy, huh? Yeah, they were a little crunchies.

Couple of ’em were like gone and that Avocado guacamole. Yeah, cuz then they had the taco bar. Had the taco bar. Yeah, it was pretty good. I’m just saying, man, did you try one of those those mushroom croquette things though? Yeah. That was not good. They were passing around hors The past hors were not very The hors, I felt like slapping it out his hand after I had it.

Dude, get rid of that thing. The only thing I ate, the empanadas were cold. Yeah. The only thing that I had was tasty. Was, and this is no shot at the s e a, this is a shot at the hotel. They ho they don’t, no, but they had this they had like a the second night who the American Express put the right, the dried apricot with the, they laid it all out, the dried apricot with the cheese on it.

That was pretty good. I don’t, I didn’t have that. They were passing that around. They didn’t have very much of that. I didn’t have that. I didn’t have any desserts. We’re at another party and they gave us like an egg roll that was like, eh and some other thing. And it was cold. Oh, the empanadas were not, yeah.

No. Empanada was not so good. But all in all, I will say as the first time attendee to the s e A 2023 I keep saying 2023 for the S E A was really cool. Thank you to everyone who showed me hospitality. Yeah. A lot of people showed Justin the love. They were like, Hey, podcast guys, LinkedIn guys.

Everybody knew who Justin was. It was funny. He probably felt weird. I was overwhelmed a little bit a couple times. Like the guy at the front desk, he was a little intense. He slammed my, yeah, I know. He from LinkedIn pong. I was like, whoa. I don’t know you, but Okay man, I’m gonna watch you. Yeah. And then the, at the end there was like some bunch of breakout sessions, software referral partnerships, banking as a service, which is very interesting.

All those, the breakout sessions on the second day were I don’t wanna say better, it’s just Ds, not panels. Yeah, different. It was different, right? That’s better. It was different, but it was, it’s all, because it wasn’t so much like the first day was more like elevator pitches. I did think I got to three people on the panel in the one place a little bit excited.

Whatever. Why is everybody because it’s the elephant in the room, right? I, and they don’t want to talk about it. Exactly. So we always talk about PayPal, Stripe Square Cash app. We’re not afraid to mention the names Spot. I’ll throw, I’ll shoot shots all day at those. Yeah, exactly. They’re not gonna do any what?

They got so much money. Come and buy us out. Then tell us to stop talking about you. Send us a cease and desist so we can put that on the podcast. Yeah. So yeah, we had dressed the elephant in the room and everybody got upset. No, you gotta go door to door. No. The guy was like, why are you wasting your time and energy focused on a segment of people?

If that’s what they’re using, and I’m thinking to myself cuz it’s a giant customer base, there’s a, how many businesses are using PayPal on a daily basis to operate their business? Millions. Millions of how many people are using Clover? Millions of people are using PayPal. Clover Square. At Stripe. Stripe.

We talked to a guy yesterday, Shopify, he’s got 1200. Yeah. 1200 businesses using Stripe. Horrible. What? Yeah. And they said it’s too expensive. I said, why are you using them? The guy went like this. I don’t know. I’m like, you gotta talk to us, dude. He, I he def I feel like we’ll hear back from him.

Yeah. I hope we’re gonna hear from him and talk to the company that he works for. He wasn’t the owner, but Kimche. Chem, that’s what his name was. Yeah. He sent me a text. Oh good. Yeah, he sent me a text at the thing. Oh. But I’m just saying, so these shows are important for development of the company development of learning about things, talking to people.

It’s great. For Justin, I was really happy that he enjoyed the show. How did I do? I think Justin’s eyes opened up to like, when he says to me sometimes, man, Why are we selling all this different stuff? And then you go to the show and you see all these companies are doing the same exact thing that I’m doing.

Pretty much it’s, I’m don’t say it. Why are we selling this different stuff? No, I’m just saying you don’t, like nobody at the show had a specific business focus. It’s everyone is selling the same stuff, right? Every business. So it’s hard to put that into words, but he got an eyeopening about how big the business is.

How vast it is, how there’s a lot of opportunity in the business, and hopefully, definitely opportunity. Hopeful, hopefully. I’m gonna get ju we’re gonna get Justin into doing a little bit more in a sales mode, over the next year. Yes. Get him into the sales mode, so if you want to learn more about what we do here at B2B Vault, nationwide payment systems, go to the website, B2B vault.info.

Yeah, don’t forget to catch us on YouTube at B two V Vault Podcast and hit the subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And catch us on all the podcast apps. Spotify, Spotify, LinkedIn, Twitter, all the social, all the podcast apps. If you don’t see us in your favorite podcast app, let us know and we’ll get in there in the app.

I think we’re just follow us on Twitter, please at @jrowings & @AllenKopelman. Peace out. Carpe diem. Big shout out to the S E A A. Thanks for the swag, We’re looking forward to 2024 in New Orleans. It’s gonna be fun!