August 30, 2023 • 11 mins
In this episode, we delve into the realm of cutting-edge payment technologies and business strategies with Les Matthews, an eminent authority in the field of digital and emerging payments. As the Executive Vice President of Services for North America at Mastercard, Les brings a wealth of expertise to the table. Join us as he discusses common missteps that small business owners often make by neglecting their digital presence, and sheds light on how Mastercard's data-driven approach is revolutionizing support for small businesses. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that offers valuable insights for both budding entrepreneurs and established business leaders.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks to MasterCard for sponsoring this episode. Head to MasterCard
dot com backslash small Biz to learn how they're amplifying
and supporting black women.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Entrepreneurs and small businesses are the heart and blood of
this country, right there's you know, seventy percent of all
workers globally are small businesses.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Right, So you have to have a digital footprint, you
have to have a digital presence, you have to accept
digital payments.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's inevitable and so there are ways for small business
to do that. And if you're not doing that, then
I encourage you to look into it.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Look at your merchant services provider, go to the MasterCard website.
We have lots of tools for small businesses on there.
It is it is imperative for your success.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
You're listening to Money Moves powered by Greenwood, a finance
podcast dedicated to dropping all the knowledge and gems from
the world's leading celebrities, entrepreneurs and experts, and tech business
and more. I'm your host, angel investor, technology enthusiasts, and
media personality Tanya Sam. Each week we talk with guests
who are making significant strides in their fields and learn
(00:58):
how they are making their money Mood. If you're someone
who's looking to make your money move. You're in the
right place, So open up your notes app and lock
us in because this podcast will give you the keys
to the kingdom of financial stability, wealth and abundance you
so rightly deserve. Before we start the episode, I'd like
to remind you to check us out at gogreenwood dot
com and follow us on social media at Greenwood and
(01:21):
me on all things social at It's Tanya. Time to
stay locked into new episode.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Tell us a.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Little bit about more the future of digital payments.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Is there any.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Things that we that small business owners should be aware
of maybe bigger business own owners, Like what's happening in
this space right now?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, you know, there's there's a continued revolution in digital payments,
right and so, and a lot of that is again
goes back to what we just said, allowing people to
pay they want to pay, Like if I want to
pay on my phone, my watch, You're going to start
to see more devices. You're going to start to see
payments incorporated in vehicle so when you're going through the
(02:01):
drive and you know it's it's.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Easily enabled, right.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
You know, So there's this this virgining need and it's
not just here in the US and can't it's all
around the world, right in merging markets. This is this
is going to be really big business. And so you're
going to see this continued innovation and technology for payments.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
You're going to consit and continue to see.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
This investment around security, investment around experiences as well, like
payment making sure that your payment experience is is good.
So that's going to continue and that's not going to
slow down. When it comes to small businesses. What what
MasterCard is largely about. We're in part and I want
to say largely, but we are really focused on the
(02:48):
democratization of payments inclusion, right, that.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Includes small businesses. Right. So my advice for small business
owners is you can do a lot of the things
that the big businesses are doing.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
You can protect yourself, you can enable yourself, you can
empower yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
In the same way. And I think the biggest mistake
that small businesses make today.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Is not jumping into the digital game, right, getting get digital,
because that's why consumers.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Want to interact. You've got to have a website, right, and.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Small businesses are the blood, are the heart and blood
of this country. Right, there's you know it's half of
our GDP. Ninety percent of all businesses. You know, seventy
percent of all workers globally are small businesses. Right, So
you have to have a digital footprint, you have to
have a digital presence, you have to accept digital payments.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's inevitable. And so there are ways for small business
to do that. And if you're not doing that, then
I encourage you to look into it.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Look at your merchant services provider, go to the MasterCard website.
We have lots of tools for small businesses on there. Right,
it is it is inherited for your success.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You know, I say that all the time, and oftentimes
I get a lot of folks from the audience saying like,
how did you make the pivot to tech?
Speaker 4 (03:57):
How do you get into tech?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And you know, my answer or four years has been
like pretty much, if you were building any company right now,
it's a tech company. I don't care if you are
a mom selling cupcakes out of your basement, Like, you
need a digital footprint. So I think it's also just
reframing that and oftentimes people are you know, afraid to
say that, but I mean, you've got a website, you
(04:19):
were selling online like you are a tech company, and
so you have to embrace it and embrace it now
because you know the way technology is moving. And we've
talked a little bit about just innovation, Like whatever you're
building now, you have to think like three and five
years from now, so it might be incorporating you know,
crypto at that point, stones whatever.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
You know.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
However, we want to laugh and talk.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
About it, but you've got to sort of have that
forward thinking because that's how you end up not being
a dinosaur in an industry. And nobody wants to be
the blockbuster.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And the great part about it is there's so many
companies building for small businesses.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I'm on the board of a and that's their whole mission,
and they're probably going to blow up, right, but they
are that's.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Their whole missions. Small businesses. Yeah, they're tools. There are resources,
and you don't have to look far to find them.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And I love that you even said, you know, and
this is part of the other thing. You don't have
to look far to find them. Like MasterCard has a website.
You can go there, you can check out. And this
is just me saying, like small business help. So many
of these big businesses are really truly passionate about helping
smaller business to succeed. So whether it's brands, whether it's
in programs and education. Like I tell people, I was like,
(05:33):
did you look like true? Try it and you'll see so.
But let's let's move on a little bit from that.
But thank you again. I just I appreciate those comments
because I just feel like sometimes people need to be
reminded that there's education and people out there that really
want to help them to succeed. And let's talk a
little bit about data. I love conversations like this as
(05:53):
we dive deep and you know, I know that your
business is predicated and therefore successful on like data driven insights.
How has that contributed to how you are driving value
for business and consumers. You've already sort of said to us,
you know, you have an MBA, so you like data.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
I think you do.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
You've got to like data to be a master I do.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
But yeah, how do you kind of take all of
this data and skim it down so that you can
really figure out how to move agilely in your business?
Speaker 4 (06:26):
So it's a big question, but yeah, yeah, it's a
It's a great question, and honestly, one I think we're
constantly working on and figuring out right, because you're absolutely
we're very data center business.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
This is the heart blood.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Data is the new goal when it comes to business,
right and we know this, right.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
We make a lot of money off of our data
and the insights that it provides.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
The challenge with data is is it gets old, so
you have to refresh it and how you use it
and how you derive those insights. You have to build
ways of doing that right. And so you know what
we do and whether it's you know, anyone that we
partner with, any customer of any size, right to the
smallest to the largest, what we're really focused on is
(07:14):
how do we deliver those insights that are meaningful for your.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Segment, for your vertical, for your business.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
And the way that we do that is, I mean,
we have this you know, as you can imagine that
huge and robust data set that goes well beyond transaction
are goes you know, there's insights, there's you know, we've
acquired like thirty five companies over the last ten years,
so we get data from these these companies as well, right,
and so what we're really good at is developing insights
(07:42):
from those datas, whether it's through business intelligence tools that
we've built or bought. So we may take all that data,
use artificial intelligence, overlay it with our customers data as well,
you know, put it into the machine.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And then and insight comes out right and understanding. But
that's that's right.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Run algorithms, you run it through you know, different models,
and then you come up with insights.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That will tell customers, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Give them good information that they can use to achieve
better you know, to achieve better outcomes.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
And we do this, you know, in a variety of
different ways.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I mean, I can tell you during the pandemic, we
help groceris figure out how to stock their show.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
We're dealing with supply sham issues. Right.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
We've gone to cities and we've been able to help
them understand the impact of different events on their cities.
So like Birmingham, Alabama had the World Games last year,
we're able to help them understand the impact of the
World Games on the economic impact of the World Games
on on their city. We've been able to you know,
(08:49):
help small businesses understand where they should open up storefronts.
And so we have these different platforms, these different SaaS
platforms that we leverage and in a variety of different ways, right,
And so you know, the usage of data is really
at the center of everything we do. It's kind of
the starting point of every conversation. And I like to
(09:10):
tell this story because it is an interesting story. And
how we kind of got into the data game. I
mean we real yeah, so we we realized this is
probably twenty five years ago before my time, but we realized.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
That we had all this data we weren't really monetizing.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
And we would have, you know, issuers come to us
and say, hey, I'm trying to understand, like make sense
of all these merchant locations.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And so think of someone.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Like Walmart or McDonald's Walmart. Every location is a different
merchant provider, merchant services provider. And so the location in
Atlanta might be Walmart, the one in here in Charlotte
might be Wall dot marked.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
The one in Arkansas might be all dash Mart, or
it might just be w right. And so they were
having trouble sort of cleansing this data.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
And so that's how we on into the into the
data game, is that we said, hey, we have access.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
To this, we can go and we can probably cleanse it.
We can use different tools that.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
We have, you know, transaction transactional insights to understand the
real locations. Then we'll clise it, we'll give it back
to you, who know it's all the different Walmart locations
throughout the US. Right. That's how we started in this,
and that's how our advisory business kind of started. Is
we started really in data and then we started growing
there and said, you know, we can use.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Data for marketing, we can use data for.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Strategic insights, right, and so we do misspoked data, or
we can just you know, we have consultants analyze the data,
or we have machine learning data that we spit out
and like, so we've been doing AI for you know
many minute.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Say that again because I'm still like, I am plagued
every day by people having this hysteria over AI, and
I was like, this is nothing new, you guys. Tune
inviting for the conclusion of our conversation with less Mac MasterCard.
Thanks for listening to today's episode. If we helped you
(11:04):
make your money move, please share it with your community,
Subscribe and leave us a review on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts.
Follow us on social media at Greenwood, and visit us
at Gogreenwood dot com for more financial tips and remember
money movers. If this were easy, everyone would do it.
So take the lessons you've learned from this episode and
apply it to your life. Money Moves is an iHeartRadio
(11:28):
podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts from. Make sure to
tune in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and subscribe to the
Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood, so that you too
can have the keys to financial freedom you so rightly deserve.
(11:49):
Until next time,
Thanks to MasterCard for sponsoring this episode. Head to MasterCard
dot com backslash small Biz to learn how they're amplifying
and supporting black women.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Entrepreneurs and small businesses are the heart and blood of
this country, right there's you know, seventy percent of all
workers globally are small businesses.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Right, So you have to have a digital footprint, you
have to have a digital presence, you have to accept
digital payments.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's inevitable and so there are ways for small business
to do that. And if you're not doing that, then
I encourage you to look into it.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Look at your merchant services provider, go to the MasterCard website.
We have lots of tools for small businesses on there.
It is it is imperative for your success.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
You're listening to Money Moves powered by Greenwood, a finance
podcast dedicated to dropping all the knowledge and gems from
the world's leading celebrities, entrepreneurs and experts, and tech business
and more. I'm your host, angel investor, technology enthusiasts, and
media personality Tanya Sam. Each week we talk with guests
who are making significant strides in their fields and learn
(00:58):
how they are making their money Mood. If you're someone
who's looking to make your money move. You're in the
right place, So open up your notes app and lock
us in because this podcast will give you the keys
to the kingdom of financial stability, wealth and abundance you
so rightly deserve. Before we start the episode, I'd like
to remind you to check us out at gogreenwood dot
com and follow us on social media at Greenwood and
(01:21):
me on all things social at It's Tanya. Time to
stay locked into new episode.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Tell us a.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Little bit about more the future of digital payments.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Is there any.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Things that we that small business owners should be aware
of maybe bigger business own owners, Like what's happening in
this space right now?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, you know, there's there's a continued revolution in digital payments,
right and so, and a lot of that is again
goes back to what we just said, allowing people to
pay they want to pay, Like if I want to
pay on my phone, my watch, You're going to start
to see more devices. You're going to start to see
payments incorporated in vehicle so when you're going through the
(02:01):
drive and you know it's it's.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Easily enabled, right.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
You know, So there's this this virgining need and it's
not just here in the US and can't it's all
around the world, right in merging markets. This is this
is going to be really big business. And so you're
going to see this continued innovation and technology for payments.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
You're going to consit and continue to see.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
This investment around security, investment around experiences as well, like
payment making sure that your payment experience is is good.
So that's going to continue and that's not going to
slow down. When it comes to small businesses. What what
MasterCard is largely about. We're in part and I want
to say largely, but we are really focused on the
(02:48):
democratization of payments inclusion, right, that.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Includes small businesses. Right. So my advice for small business
owners is you can do a lot of the things
that the big businesses are doing.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
You can protect yourself, you can enable yourself, you can
empower yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
In the same way. And I think the biggest mistake
that small businesses make today.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Is not jumping into the digital game, right, getting get digital,
because that's why consumers.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Want to interact. You've got to have a website, right, and.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Small businesses are the blood, are the heart and blood
of this country. Right, there's you know it's half of
our GDP. Ninety percent of all businesses. You know, seventy
percent of all workers globally are small businesses. Right, So
you have to have a digital footprint, you have to
have a digital presence, you have to accept digital payments.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's inevitable. And so there are ways for small business
to do that. And if you're not doing that, then
I encourage you to look into it.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Look at your merchant services provider, go to the MasterCard website.
We have lots of tools for small businesses on there. Right,
it is it is inherited for your success.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You know, I say that all the time, and oftentimes
I get a lot of folks from the audience saying like,
how did you make the pivot to tech?
Speaker 4 (03:57):
How do you get into tech?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And you know, my answer or four years has been
like pretty much, if you were building any company right now,
it's a tech company. I don't care if you are
a mom selling cupcakes out of your basement, Like, you
need a digital footprint. So I think it's also just
reframing that and oftentimes people are you know, afraid to
say that, but I mean, you've got a website, you
(04:19):
were selling online like you are a tech company, and
so you have to embrace it and embrace it now
because you know the way technology is moving. And we've
talked a little bit about just innovation, Like whatever you're
building now, you have to think like three and five
years from now, so it might be incorporating you know,
crypto at that point, stones whatever.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
You know.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
However, we want to laugh and talk.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
About it, but you've got to sort of have that
forward thinking because that's how you end up not being
a dinosaur in an industry. And nobody wants to be
the blockbuster.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And the great part about it is there's so many
companies building for small businesses.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I'm on the board of a and that's their whole mission,
and they're probably going to blow up, right, but they
are that's.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Their whole missions. Small businesses. Yeah, they're tools. There are resources,
and you don't have to look far to find them.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And I love that you even said, you know, and
this is part of the other thing. You don't have
to look far to find them. Like MasterCard has a website.
You can go there, you can check out. And this
is just me saying, like small business help. So many
of these big businesses are really truly passionate about helping
smaller business to succeed. So whether it's brands, whether it's
in programs and education. Like I tell people, I was like,
(05:33):
did you look like true? Try it and you'll see so.
But let's let's move on a little bit from that.
But thank you again. I just I appreciate those comments
because I just feel like sometimes people need to be
reminded that there's education and people out there that really
want to help them to succeed. And let's talk a
little bit about data. I love conversations like this as
(05:53):
we dive deep and you know, I know that your
business is predicated and therefore successful on like data driven insights.
How has that contributed to how you are driving value
for business and consumers. You've already sort of said to us,
you know, you have an MBA, so you like data.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
I think you do.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
You've got to like data to be a master I do.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
But yeah, how do you kind of take all of
this data and skim it down so that you can
really figure out how to move agilely in your business?
Speaker 4 (06:26):
So it's a big question, but yeah, yeah, it's a
It's a great question, and honestly, one I think we're
constantly working on and figuring out right, because you're absolutely
we're very data center business.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
This is the heart blood.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Data is the new goal when it comes to business,
right and we know this, right.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
We make a lot of money off of our data
and the insights that it provides.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
The challenge with data is is it gets old, so
you have to refresh it and how you use it
and how you derive those insights. You have to build
ways of doing that right. And so you know what
we do and whether it's you know, anyone that we
partner with, any customer of any size, right to the
smallest to the largest, what we're really focused on is
(07:14):
how do we deliver those insights that are meaningful for your.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Segment, for your vertical, for your business.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
And the way that we do that is, I mean,
we have this you know, as you can imagine that
huge and robust data set that goes well beyond transaction
are goes you know, there's insights, there's you know, we've
acquired like thirty five companies over the last ten years,
so we get data from these these companies as well, right,
and so what we're really good at is developing insights
(07:42):
from those datas, whether it's through business intelligence tools that
we've built or bought. So we may take all that data,
use artificial intelligence, overlay it with our customers data as well,
you know, put it into the machine.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And then and insight comes out right and understanding. But
that's that's right.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Run algorithms, you run it through you know, different models,
and then you come up with insights.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That will tell customers, you know.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Give them good information that they can use to achieve
better you know, to achieve better outcomes.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
And we do this, you know, in a variety of
different ways.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I mean, I can tell you during the pandemic, we
help groceris figure out how to stock their show.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
We're dealing with supply sham issues. Right.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
We've gone to cities and we've been able to help
them understand the impact of different events on their cities.
So like Birmingham, Alabama had the World Games last year,
we're able to help them understand the impact of the
World Games on the economic impact of the World Games
on on their city. We've been able to you know,
(08:49):
help small businesses understand where they should open up storefronts.
And so we have these different platforms, these different SaaS
platforms that we leverage and in a variety of different ways, right,
And so you know, the usage of data is really
at the center of everything we do. It's kind of
the starting point of every conversation. And I like to
(09:10):
tell this story because it is an interesting story. And
how we kind of got into the data game. I
mean we real yeah, so we we realized this is
probably twenty five years ago before my time, but we realized.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
That we had all this data we weren't really monetizing.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
And we would have, you know, issuers come to us
and say, hey, I'm trying to understand, like make sense
of all these merchant locations.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And so think of someone.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Like Walmart or McDonald's Walmart. Every location is a different
merchant provider, merchant services provider. And so the location in
Atlanta might be Walmart, the one in here in Charlotte
might be Wall dot marked.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
The one in Arkansas might be all dash Mart, or
it might just be w right. And so they were
having trouble sort of cleansing this data.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
And so that's how we on into the into the
data game, is that we said, hey, we have access.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
To this, we can go and we can probably cleanse it.
We can use different tools that.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
We have, you know, transaction transactional insights to understand the
real locations. Then we'll clise it, we'll give it back
to you, who know it's all the different Walmart locations
throughout the US. Right. That's how we started in this,
and that's how our advisory business kind of started. Is
we started really in data and then we started growing
there and said, you know, we can use.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Data for marketing, we can use data for.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Strategic insights, right, and so we do misspoked data, or
we can just you know, we have consultants analyze the data,
or we have machine learning data that we spit out
and like, so we've been doing AI for you know
many minute.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Say that again because I'm still like, I am plagued
every day by people having this hysteria over AI, and
I was like, this is nothing new, you guys. Tune
inviting for the conclusion of our conversation with less Mac MasterCard.
Thanks for listening to today's episode. If we helped you
(11:04):
make your money move, please share it with your community,
Subscribe and leave us a review on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts.
Follow us on social media at Greenwood, and visit us
at Gogreenwood dot com for more financial tips and remember
money movers. If this were easy, everyone would do it.
So take the lessons you've learned from this episode and
apply it to your life. Money Moves is an iHeartRadio
(11:28):
podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc.
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts from. Make sure to
tune in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and subscribe to the
Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood, so that you too
can have the keys to financial freedom you so rightly deserve.
(11:49):
Until next time,
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.