Making the Move from Vendor to Payment Partner

By Caesar Kavadoy, VP of Sales Strategy, Paysafe

A majority of payments companies focus solely on pricing and leave it up to the customers to figure out the rest. It’s time to make a change. Sales teams need to take a consultative, solutions-oriented sales approach to the business. If they don’t make the move from the same old payment vendor and become a true payment partner they will continue to shorten their merchant and ISO/agent lifecycle and become obsolete.

Managing revenue growth for technology companies over the past two decades has given me the opportunity to work with both partners and vendors. It has also brought my teams and me to the intersection of deciding what we want to be to the clients we pursue.  Twenty years ago, I started my career in an industry that was on the cusp of massive changes.  The payments industry is on a similar path, and the players who survive will be those who get the difference between being a vendor versus a business partner.

Sales Professionals today have a choice to make, join the fray that is racing to the bottom of the pricing barrel or start working with other innovators to leverage one another’s domain expertise.  Companies today, who want to dominate their marketplace, are not interested in purchasing services; they are investing in scalability and capability.

Between emails, voicemails, got-a-minute meetings, vendor meetings and weekly briefings, decision-makers field no fewer than 170 separate requests for their time on a daily basis.  What can our industry do to improve the probability of moving from vendor to trusted advisor?

We are going to need to accelerate alignment with our customers to create better turnkey solutions that are relevant to their space. There are only two choices, innovate or integrate. Faster and frictionless deployment of hardware and services is just the tip of the integration model. And it’s not a question of should we offer frictionless turnkey solutions, that is a must! The only real question you need to ask is whether you decide to “innovate” and create this technology with your own resources or whether you decide to” integrate” and utilize a third party.  It doesn’t matter which route you take, the goal is the same. The objective should be real collaboration inside and outside of our space to develop unique turnkey solutions that immediately affect the customers’ ability to grow their business.

If you have ever been in a position to manage vendor relationships, ask yourself two questions:  How many vendors that I managed, was I happy to meet with or accept a call from?  How many of your customers that manage you, can say the same about receiving your call?

History, stats and facts teaches us that the best sales professionals are masters at disrupting the status quo by leveraging the domain expertise of their business to deliver relevant solutions that bring both scalability and capability to their clients. It’s time for the payments industry to offer more than just a rate sheet and become a true payment partner.

To learn more about how to grow your business with Paysafe visit https://processing.paysafe.com/