Endpoint: What Acquirers Need To Do To Thrive

The key to success is to understand that small merchants are really more like consumers than like businesses, and act accordingly, says Adil Moussa.

The acquiring industry keeps acting like it is in the business-to-business field. The result is their messages to small merchants are missing the mark.

Adil Moussa is principal of Adil Consulting, Omaha, Neb. Reach him at amoussa@adilconsulting.com.

Most independent sales organizations and acquirers are missing out on great opportunities because they do not understand the psychological makeup of the small merchant.

Merchants are usually alone running their business. They don’t have a lot of help. Unlike large corporations that have many departments with several people in each department, small merchants do it all: human resources, payroll, marketing, accounting, operations. That’s on top of their specialty, their raison-d’être.

Being the owner of a business is not at all like being employed in a company. The employee can be very rational and focused on numbers. By contrast, the business owner reacts emotionally.

That emotional reaction comes from the risk the merchant has taken to start their business, the uncertainty of an income at the end of the month, being overwhelmed by all the tasks to perform, dealing with unpredictable events, and so on. An employee doesn’t have as much skin in the game, so he is less emotional when facing the same situations merchants confront.

All of these factors make a merchant much closer in his psychological makeup to a consumer than to a business entity composed of a lot of different people specialized in their fields and bringing a detached approach to solving problems. In other words, the merchant is not ruled by corporate-think.

Yet, the acquiring industry keeps acting like it is in the business-to-business field. The result is their messages to small merchants are missing the mark.

If the acquiring industry stopped and realized it is really dealing with consumers, it would be in a much better spot to communicate effectively with merchants. And it would be more successful in getting compliance from them.

Merchant-As-Consumer

Most small merchants have not studied business. They have at best worked in a business and done one thing very well, but they have never been exposed to the myriad other things that happen in a company. They have had to learn most of it by themselves.

Small merchants are not business people. They are people who are passionate about a field, so passionate about it that they chose to make it their business. As such, they have trained in their field (accounting, cooking, dentistry, horticulture, etc.), but they lack most of the business basics that people in business take for granted.

Also, most merchants don’t have time. They are bombarded by tasks from the moment they wake up until they go to sleep.

Merchants want to acquire customers. But since they don’t have much experience in marketing, they rely on some artistically talented friend to design their marketing material. While the material can be pretty, it doesn’t really get people to take action.

The acquiring industry has experience marketing to merchants. It can actually help merchants by showing them how to design marketing brochures, what color combinations are proven to grab the eye of the consumer, teach them how to use a powerful call to action, and so on.

Why should merchant acquirers do this? Because every company counts it as its success when its customers are successful. Helping your merchants do better will be better for you as well.

It is also a way to really differentiate oneself from all the others that are still pushing terrific service or trying to save the merchant $38 a month. Remember, small-business owners are really like consumers. Consumers develop loyalties to brands and companies that they see as helping them achieve something, whether that something is tangible (get more customers) or intangible (experience a certain feeling).

The best way for any acquirer to deliver real tangible value to its merchants is to work through content marketing. Gone are the days when customers flocked to your Web site to read about your achievements. Now customers go to Web sites they find relevant in helping them reach their goals.

Content Is King

Content marketing is the way to get merchants to your Web site, show them that you understand them, and give them information that they highly value. Once this process is in place, merchants will start to view you as trustworthy source and as a real partner.

The mistake most acquirers make is they don’t talk to merchants about what merchants want to read. Instead, acquirers talk to merchants about what acquirers want to talk about.

If acquirers really want to get their merchants’ attention,  they have to talk about what merchants want to read about: increasing business, retaining customers, better markets for prospecting, tips on lowering expenses or dealing with human-resource issues, and so on.

Once acquirers have proven repeatedly to merchants that they care about them and understand them, only then can they start addressing, for example, cross-selling or making merchants take action with regard to PCI compliance.

Keep in mind that a merchant is more likely to click a blog post that says: “Three types of advertising methods you need to avoid” than one that says: “Payment Processing 101.”

In other industries, companies are providing this type of information to their customers. For example: companies that provide restaurant supplies give restaurants tips to make customers order more, tips on how to design the menu so that it sells higher-ticket items, tips on how to deal with difficult customers and turn them into return customers. Restaurant suppliers understand that if they help restaurant owners sell more, they will order more supplies.

The same thing is valid in acquiring. Know your customer and realize he is more like a consumer than a business. Help him sell more. You will make more, and the merchant will be grateful for the advice as well.