In this episode of Restaurant Catering Smarts, Michael Attias sits down with Jason Schultz, Founder and CEO of Blue Ridge Payment Partners, for a conversation that’s less about payment processing and more about character, relationships, and doing business the right way.
Michael shares the behind-the-scenes story of how Jason uncovered a major opportunity that led to CaterZen landing one of its biggest clients. Even though Jason didn’t win the processing business, his integrity and partnership-first mindset made a lasting impact.
Together, they dive into:
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Why playing the long game in business always pays off
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The power of being the guy who holds the door open, not just the one who gives the quarter
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How shared values and trust lay the foundation for profitable business relationships
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Why Michael believes "1 + 1 = 3" when collaboration beats competition
If you’re in the catering or restaurant business and want to hear how doing the right thing can still win, this episode delivers a refreshing take on success beyond transactions.
🎧 Sponsored by CaterZen Catering Software — empowering you to streamline operations, boost sales, and reclaim your time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:31):
Hello again, I'm Michael Atias, your host of Restaurant Catering Smarts and today's guestis Jason Schultz, founder and CEO of Blue Ridge Payment Partners because...
Yes, we want to hear from one more credit card processing payment sales guy.
Now, the reason I brought Jason on, and this episode is sponsored by Kater's in everybodyknows I own Katers in.
(00:55):
I'm not going to give an over plug if you're interested in seeing what we've got.
Jason and I are working on some cool stuff coming down the bike.
It's Katers in.com.
But
The reason I, what I want to talk about is less about payments and more about characterand philosophy and how you live your life.
(01:16):
And, um you know, there's an old saying, I don't know if you've heard this story, well,first of all, Jason, welcome.
Thanks, I appreciate you having me on, I'm excited.
Yeah, I appreciate us working together.
I forgot to ask you, give me a number between 1 and 300.
(01:36):
Of course you pick 8.
have to go with it.
see.
School for me.
Okay, complete this.
School for, we ask random questions to get to know you better.
I have a feeling I already know what you're gonna say.
School for me was blank.
(02:00):
Boring.
uh Well, that's usually the ADDC students are the ones that have the A and B studentsworking for them.
So I get it.
ah
So there's a story and I wrote about the guy who started Quirky's.
I don't know if you've heard the story about this guy and he starts a business and he'sdown, he can't make payroll.
(02:23):
He's down to like thousand bucks and he's got to come up with 50 grand.
So he flies out to Vegas.
He goes and bets it all.
You know, he gets close, but he's down to nothing.
Like he doesn't have enough money to buy a pack of chewing gum.
and he's going to the bathroom and to add insult to injury, you got to put a quarter inthe stall to get in.
He's like, shit.
(02:43):
So he sees a guy, washes his hands and says, hey buddy, I lost all my money.
Can you give me a quarter?
He's telling this story to the Wall Street Journal about his success.
goes, oh
gives him a quarter and right when he's gonna go to put the quarter in to get in the door,a guy comes out of the stall and he holds the door open for him.
So he goes, uses bathroom, he's got a quarter, goes back to casino, puts the quarter in aslot machine, pulls it, gets quarter of a million dollars.
(03:11):
He's got enough money to make payroll.
He's got enough money to turn his company around, goes public on the New York StockExchange.
He's a billionaire explaining the story.
And so the reporter says,
Would you like to meet the guy who gave you the quarter and talk to him?
goes, no, I'd really like to thank the guy who opened the door for me.
(03:35):
I don't know if you've ever heard that story before.
heard that story, that's, I get the analogy and it's a pretty cool story if think aboutit.
So, know, Jason, I'd say he was someplace between holding the door and giving me thequarter.
It was probably about three years ago.
I get a call from Jason and he's prospecting.
(03:57):
whale hunting for credit card processing business.
And I'm not gonna mention the chain, it's a big chain.
And he uncovers a pain point that they have with catering software and credit cardprocessing.
So we spend a year giving them demos, talking about how he can save them money onprocessing and how, you know, we've got this great catering software and they ended up
(04:20):
becoming our biggest client and...
Unfortunately, he didn't get the credit card processing business because sometimes in lifeyour brother-in-law or somebody else gets and obviously The backstory is there was
somebody that opened the door for them.
So there's some loyalty there and that does happen but you know, I did take care of Jasonfor the referral and I've sent him more business and he's helping us get into the payment
(04:44):
space and do do some cool things for our clients coming but
That's just sort of the heart of who Jason is.
Even when we looked at upgrading payment systems, he was like, hey, I'll take care of you.
And I think it's going to benefit both of us in the long run.
And you see a lot of people who only look out for themselves in business, like what's init for me.
(05:10):
I've lived by the philosophy one plus one equals three.
Where did you come up with that?
um
You know, where'd you get your philosophy on this?
Man, you know, I've always, so I grew up, you my dad always was a big do it right thefirst time guy, right?
(05:31):
And, you know, I played sports all my life.
I played high school sports.
I went to college, played college football.
And it was that mindset of just do it right the first time and don't cut corners.
you know, I teach my kids, like when we're working out and we're doing stuff for theirsports, it's like, you know, if you're running a 40 yard sprint, hit the line.
You know, coming in six inches short doesn't make you any better.
(05:53):
Right.
And so I think it's just been kind of like instilled in me my whole life.
And I've always just had this mindset to to just do what's right.
Let the cards fall.
It'll all come back in the end.
Right.
If I don't if let's say there's a deal and I may not make maximum amount of dollars on it,I don't care.
Right.
It's about taking care of the person because in turn, business is reciprocal.
(06:14):
Right.
I've done business for people and help them find solutions.
It may not have made me anything, but
it's come back to me three months, six months, eight months down the road where they openup a new business or they refer someone else to me.
And it always comes back.
Right.
And I kind of pride myself on that.
And most people that do business with me and work with me, that's what they get.
(06:35):
And that's what they know about me.
And I was having this conversation with a buddy of mine the other day because he wasasking me about like, you know, marketing and leads and all this stuff.
And I'm like, I don't, I don't spend a dollar on any of stuff.
All of my stuff is networking, it's referrals, it's clients that already have justconnecting with people that they know because they trust me.
And that's kind of where I stand ten toes down in the business is that I just keep to thatmodel and I won't break it for anybody.
(07:03):
You know, I feel like I know every generation says the generation, you know, coming upsucks.
You know, I'm sure my parents' generation thought that I sucked and, you back the WorldWar II generation thought the same.
But I really do think today's age, there's, there's just, you know, when I was a kid,there was hustle, right?
(07:28):
You know, you're, I mean,
You know, I'll call anybody a liar.
This isn't admissible in court, but I used to steal Coke bottles out of people's backyardsto go sell them to get the nickel or 10 cents to go to 7-Eleven and buy a Slurpee, right?
You're selling cards, you're cutting grass, you're babysitting.
There's a hustle, right?
(07:49):
You know.
Where do you think that has gone to where there's more of a softening of a, we're all inMontessori school and everybody's equal.
What's gotten lost?
um Yeah, I think the grit and the drive that we had in our generations of going out andfiguring things out.
(08:14):
Everything nowadays, to me, it's easy.
These kids nowadays, they have their tablets, have ChatGPT.
I got kids in school and their easiest thing in the world for them to do is just, let'sjust ChatGPT and figure it out.
I'm like, no.
try to figure it out your own.
Don't just chat with you how to do it or don't Google search it.
Learn, it's gonna help you grow and be better as an individual.
(08:36):
So I think, I was the same as you, growing up as a kid, when it snowed in a city, meanthat was, the snowflakes were falling, everyone's getting ready to go play, I just heard
money.
I was ready to go shovel, I was cleaning off driveways and steps for people and that's theway that I did it.
My kids, it's a little different.
To get them to go out there and shovel snow, they think I'm putting them through.
(08:58):
hell and back and it's like guys it's it's one driveway I used to do 15 a day when itsnowed when I was a kid.
were your parents poor?
Um, no, I won't.
They're not poor, right?
But we weren't like wealthy by any means.
Like my dad, when that was a truck driver, he worked 16, 18 hours a day driving a foodservice truck.
So he delivered for restaurants all over the country.
(09:21):
Working class people.
My mom had a job.
I went to school.
went to my sister and I went to school in the city.
We would go to our grandparents house until they were done work and they would scoop us upand then either go home or go to whatever baseball or soccer or sport we had going on.
Um, but both parents worked.
And I mean, we were the traditional, right?
We did our one vacation a year to the beach.
uh Nothing really extravagant.
(09:43):
Each parent had one basic vehicle.
wasn't like, know, dad didn't have like a sports car that he drove on the weekends.
It was just simplistic stuff.
We grew up in the city.
So, I mean, it's, you know, I'm from Baltimore and it's, you know, grow home in downtownarea.
Yeah, I would say the same, everybody, you know, my parents look forward to the onevacation a year we get in the car and drive to Florida.
(10:05):
And I just think ever since I was a kid, I didn't like that.
You know, I never like work.
I work smart, not hard.
Like I worked, I cut two yards and I made enough money to screw off all summer long.
So I think you know that that's more my speed is to travel and have fun and figure out howto fund that.
(10:27):
But I think the challenge is, is when you have kids and you know, I'm guessing from what Ican reverse engineer, you've done far better than your parents did.
And there's that balance of I want my kids to have this grit, determination and hard work.
but I also don't want them to have to work super hard.
Like I want to give them things.
(10:48):
I don't want them to have to go hustle a job so they can buy a pair of Nikes.
I can afford to buy them a pair of Nikes.
So there's that balance of, know, how do I give them, but not give them too much wherethey're entitled.
And I think that's sort of the entrepreneur's dilemma.
um And you've got to be very, very mindful of that.
(11:10):
I had my son,
sell Cutco before he went off to college.
And I've, you've never heard anybody cuss more than my son about those meetings andwhatever, but he made three grand over three grand and I matched them dollar for dollar.
And it was worth it just for the lessons you learn, basically calling people up andgetting rejected.
(11:34):
I made the same deal with my daughter.
She lasted, I don't think she lasted a week.
uh I hate that for her.
uh I understand it, but I hate it for her because it just builds something that you don'thave.
Yeah, I'm very similar with our kids.
My wife's a nurse, so she works full time.
(11:56):
uh I mean, have my own company.
I'm working all hours of the night around the clock some days.
But we also have the luxury of, know, can check out when I need to to go do something forthe kids.
So it kind of, it's a good work-life balance.
But you know, when a client calls or something's breaking or you know, there's a systemdown, then like I'm all in, I got to be there to fix things and get stuff taken care of,
(12:16):
or at least triage it and help my clients out.
But yeah, with the kids, you know, I will say we do hold our kids to a higher standard,you know.
We make sure that they have all the resources and tools, but it's expected of them thatthey're gonna go to school, they're gonna work hard, they're gonna get good grades.
(12:36):
My oldest daughter is a sophomore getting ready to be a junior in high school and she'slike a 4.4 GPA.
She's like top seven in her class.
And she does really, really well.
And I actually have her uh working with me in my business.
So I'm teaching her some things as far as like...
Marketing and like social stuff so I'm kind of bringing her in and she's actually went outon her own is doing some like online classes with this stuff because it's kind of what her
(13:03):
focus is So I've been teaching her and bringing her along but she also wants money andit's always like dad I need money for this.
It's like, Well cool.
You're gonna work for it so I have a list that every month of different days that she hasto go through and Like there's certain things I make sure that she posts out there on
social There's things that I make her update on my trackers and stuff like that that Ikeep
(13:23):
takes some admin work off me, it's really, I can do it, it's not a big deal.
It's really about giving her a task to complete and make sure she holds herself to itbefore she just gets the handout.
mean, my wife and I are gonna give her the money or buy her whatever she needs anyway, butfor the most part, we wanna kind of instill that upon her that you gotta work for it.
And the same thing goes with the other kids, you know, I mean, they're not old enough yetto work, but you know, it is required as far as school and sports and athletics.
(13:48):
I mean, we pay a ton of money for travel sports.
mean, travel soccer is like...
Dude, you should have been Jewish.
Our kids can't fucking play anything.
I didn't have to go anywhere on the weekends.
You know, I know these parents that are in travel sports, like I know a woman in Kentuckyand her kids are like ball or baseball players.
(14:08):
And she's talking about, oh, you know, $800 for a bat.
I'm like.
It's a commitment, but I do think, you know, there is a certain level of excellence anddiscipline you get in sports that I didn't get growing up.
But again, I'm not complaining for what I do and don't have.
(14:33):
I've designed my life to fit myself, but I see what you do with your kids.
They're all, you know, ballers, sports into sports.
Big Tuna, who's my favorite is, do you have a picture you can flash on the screen of BigTuna on your phone?
So this kid is like baby Gronk on steroids.
(14:58):
He goes to the Washington hockey game.
He's got his Mr.
T starter set.
Yep, he's got his Mr.
T starter set.
He's always styling and profiling, you know.
He's the kid my kid hated in soccer.
You know, I send my kid up for soccer.
They're five years old, right?
(15:19):
My son is an Australian sheepdog.
Wherever the ball is, he's on the outside of the scrum trying to like hurt everybodytowards the ball.
He will not get in the middle.
And there's that one kid who's about six inches taller.
Looks like uh who's the guy in one of the Rocky films, the big tall blonde guy, you know,Russian.
(15:40):
Drago yeah
Yeah, he looks like that.
He's like fucking five years old.
He's got an eight pack as a five year old.
And every time he runs down the field, like give him the ball, boom, he goes through everykid's scores.
Scores, scores, scores.
That's, that's your son.
Here's a good one, it's his hockey one from this past weekend.
(16:01):
Um, yeah, he's he's a little baller.
He's he's
they had an inner squad scrimmage on Saturday and he's still too young to get into thetravel aspects of ice hockey, but he's been doing it now for seven months, I think it is.
And he scored 13 goals in their inner squad scrimmage and they finally had to just likegive him a timeout.
(16:23):
like, all right, buddy, like go chill for a minute.
And he's like, he's on the ice looking at me going, what did I do wrong?
And I'm like, just keep playing hard, bud.
Yeah, it's crazy.
grip though, but he has it like he's that kid where like today for example, he got up Noone else is out of bed.
He came downstairs Literally throws two of those breakfast corn dogs in the microwaveMakes himself some and he goes out in the basement and he's got his warblades on he's got
(16:49):
a stick and he's Like dribbling and shooting pucks for like an hour and no one's even upyet Just him and we don't we don't have to tell him he just does it so he's he's got that
and it's
I can see your son being a Chihuahua.
He is gonna get into some fights that he might not, should win, but will probably winthrough pure grit and determination.
(17:14):
So he's a character.
uh But the one thing I admire is, you either won the lottery, which I know you didn't, butyou make time.
for your family.
And when my kids were growing up, there's a lot of things I could have done better as adad.
I think we can all look back and say we could have done better.
But I always made it a point to be at their school, go on field trips, whatever I coulddo, and make myself available.
(17:38):
Even after I got divorced, my ex-wife had to work, I would take them to the doctor'sappointments if they got sick um and take off work.
There's something, when you're an entrepreneur, people think you can just not work whenyou want to.
um
which is interesting, but I don't, where did that come from?
And how do you make time with that?
(18:01):
I mean, you work your ass off, your wife works their ass off.
How do you make it happen?
I mean, it's definitely a challenge because the schedules are crazy.
But I think it goes back to like my upbringing.
know, my dad was a truck driver.
He got up at 3 a.m., went to work every day, 15, 16 hour days.
But you know what?
He never missed a baseball game.
(18:22):
You know, there was times where I'll never forget it.
Like he would drive down the street where we played at and I would see his 18 wheeler.
He would park it.
He'd get out, come to my game, coach me.
go get back in a truck and take it back to the yard before he even came home.
And it's, you know, seven, eight o'clock at night before we're done playing.
He's not home until nine or 10, bed back to work at 3 a.m.
(18:42):
So I grew up like that.
My mom was the same way.
She made every single thing.
My grandparents were there for every single thing.
We grew up in the city, so everything was tight.
Like we're all like five blocks away.
You know, so for me, you know, part of the reason why I really wanted to move into this,into this entrepreneur space and have my own company is
I want to be present.
I think it matters for our kids.
(19:03):
I think it matters for their development.
And two, I think them knowing that I always have their back no matter what and being therein their corner, it gives them something different than what other kids whose parents
unfortunately can't do that.
They know that I'm going to be there, but they also know that I'm watching.
And I will say this, like my girls,
you know they come up the soccer field and no matter what happens they always look at meto see what my face looks like if I have that like stern look they're like I must have did
(19:29):
something wrong and sometimes I just had that look and I got to tell him like you know youguys play great it's all good but they know like I played sports so for me I'm very
competitive and it's like I don't care if you win you lose your score goal doesn't matterI just want effort right it's all about the effort and I try to that's why I want to be
present because I want to try to instill that I'm a big firm believer that
(19:50):
nothing's free in this world and we push that with our kids.
If you want it, you gotta work for it.
Yeah, I think that, you know, if I, if I look back, you know, my dad went bankrupt when Iwas 10, 11, he cooked donuts in the middle of the night to put food on the table.
I mean, not for long, but you know, you do what you got to do.
And I think, and I'm learning this in my personal life as well.
(20:13):
I really don't give a shit what people say to me.
It's how you show up because you can tell me as a vendor, you know, Hey, we're going to dothis.
We're going to do that.
I need to see it in action, right?
And it's human, it's whether it's a friend, whether it's your partner, whether it's abusiness partner, whether it's employees, like, I don't want lip service, just show me,
(20:36):
just show me, right?
Because that speaks louder.
And you know, my parents came from Morocco, so number one, they didn't speak English aswell as others.
They didn't grow up in this culture, so it's a different culture.
And you know, I didn't have that.
father knows best, my dad's gonna put his arm around me and say, well son, here's a lessonto learn.
I mean, that just, my dad worked his ass off.
But the way my parents worked and they lived their life and they gave back and they didfor the community and others and the sacrifices they made, you know, how do you put a
(21:07):
price tag on it?
That's, it's really your kids, it's almost like you hear these parents.
that are like, don't go smoking pot.
And then the kids find fucking three ounces in the father's sock drawer.
And then they wonder why their kids are smoking pot because you're fucking smoking pot.
(21:29):
You know what I mean?
Like the kids do pay attention.
They see everything.
They know way more than we give them credit for.
And so.
I think that's part of it too, right?
Like, you know, like right now no one sees it, right?
They always like they always see the social media posts of you know me and the kids at theCaps game or you know me and the wife at you know in Nashville and on a trip But they
(21:52):
don't see that, you know, I'm up at five every day.
I'm at the gym I'm working all day long I may step away to go like pick the kids run thesoccer whatnot, but when I come back, I'm usually on my computer I'm using my office at my
house till
eight, nine, 10, 11 o'clock at night because there's things that I've got to take care of.
There's things that are being done.
My kids see that and they see the work ethic, but they also see me step away and bepresent for them.
(22:17):
So that's what's like, that's what makes it matter for me is that.
They see the ethic, they see what I'm putting in, and they know, like, I mean, they seewhat I'm doing because, you know, we're progressing in life.
You know, obviously, this travel soccer is just crazy expensive, but, you know, theyappreciate it because there are times where they will come to me and they'll be like, you
know, dad, thank you.
(22:38):
And it's just out of the blue.
Like, I don't say nothing to them, they'll just come to me and say, I know you're workinghard, thank you for all you do for us.
And that, like, that's that boost you need as a man to be like, all right.
I'm doing it right.
Let's just keep it moving.
Yeah, we'll just keep in mind as we're recording this Father's Day is this coming upSunday and you'll end up screwed on what you're getting compared to what your mom or your
wife probably got for Mother's Day.
(23:00):
So let's put it in perspective.
ah But you know, what's funny is when I had my restaurant, one of the reasons I pushedcatering and this is called Restaurant Catering Smarts is because I knew I could.
make double the profits out of the same four walls.
And that allowed me to have an operating partner and have a quality of life when I had myrestaurant and not be a slave.
(23:23):
Because you don't honestly, you don't get any more money at the bank if you worked hardfor it.
So it's very interesting.
Okay, let's let's talk about credit card processing.
I'm going to tell you about my frustrations.
And maybe you have an answer.
I have a lot of frustrations.
Okay.
(23:45):
So, you know, I put buying credit card processing, use car.
food, you know, from a food distributor, like you don't even know what the fuck's goingon.
Like it's like there's a secret society kind of thing.
Oh, it's it's interchange plus this plus this and give me your credit card statement.
I'll save you money.
(24:06):
And I feel like every time I went down that road, you wake up one day and all of a suddenyou're paying way more than you contracted for.
uh I'm sure I'm not the only guy who's gone through that.
One, how do know you're dealing with a reputable person and how do you keep tracking thatso you don't wake up one day and now you're paying half a point more on processing from
(24:30):
where you started off?
Yeah, mean, great question.
think, you know, a lot of it has to do with the person or the company that you go with.
You know, when you look at the big banks, the big, the big processing entities out there,you're a, you're a small fish in a huge pond, man, especially if you're not doing, you
know, a couple of million dollars a month.
(24:51):
So what happens is that you sign up, you get your interchange plus rate, and then overtime,
You know, they track all that stuff.
They look at the account, they see what the profitability mix looks like, and then, youknow, any time one of the card brands, like Mastercard for example, they'll raise their
rate on one card, and it's like .001.
(25:11):
It's nothing, like no one even noticed it.
Well then the processors can jump in and say, well we're doing a 10 basis point increasebecause everyone else is raising their rate, we gotta adjust ours, which is, it's BS,
right?
and you know they send it out the statement they they kinda do the whole c y a cover theirass and no one no one says anything about it
opens up their damn statement and reads the fifth page in the bottom in six point type.
(25:36):
Yep.
So, so like, you know, what I do and there's other other, you know, guys like me, I'm notthe only one, but there's other people that we value the business and we value the
relationships we have more than like gaining the next client.
Right.
So like when I work for the big companies and work for the big banks, it was, it baffledmy mind how they were so
(26:00):
like sales driven all the time.
Like we got to sign the next deal and that's all they focused on.
But meanwhile, as they're signing a hundred deals, there's 75 of them walking out the backdoor because they were switching or getting poached because of the rates.
And I was sitting there scratching my head saying, wouldn't it make better sense just tolike figure out how to give them a fair rate, keep them on the books.
And as you grow, the numbers just continue to compile.
(26:23):
like in my business, yes, it's extremely expensive.
It's, mean, on all that and
You know, so like when I sign someone up, we sit down, we look at everything and I usuallytry to give everyone options.
You know, I'm in a good place in life where, like I said earlier, I don't market thingslike it's all word of mouth, it's all referrals.
So I don't chase people.
(26:43):
Like if someone says, hey, I'm interested, okay, great.
I'll sit down, we'll look at their stuff.
I'll give them like a full scope and I'll usually try to put together like two to threeoptions and say, hey, here's what you're looking at.
This is what it's gonna cost.
You tell me, like what do you think?
And then I generally let them choose or we'll negotiate each path and figure it out.
And then for me, like I monitor it.
(27:04):
So what I do is every quarter I pull the files, I look at everything, I make sure therates or what they sign with.
I look for any type of announcements that come out to see if there's any alerts sayingthey're going to raise rates.
And look, I've not gone wood to this day.
I've not had to do that to any of my clients and I don't plan on it.
But if there's an account that's just not profitable or they're not making anything, thenit might be time that we have to do something.
(27:26):
But
That's not my goal, right?
My goal is to continue to grow and continue to expand and not have to worry about thebottom falling out.
So the one thing I will say, and I do, when someone says to me, what makes you different?
I pride myself on the fact that in the last three years since being in this independentspace, I can tell you of three clients that have left me in three years.
(27:49):
Two of those were consumed by other companies that I had no control over.
They were bought in by the hospital and they merged.
So I couldn't do anything because they were using software.
One of them, they were impacted by a hurricane, the business closed and it just wasn'tworth their time and investment to reopen it.
So I lost three clients that I had no control over.
Other than that, knock on wood, I don't lose people.
(28:09):
Right, but on the books, it's three, right?
And for me, that tells the story because if you do write, you take care of people.
You make sure that when they call, they need something, you're on top of it, you don'tlose.
And in my world, if I don't lose anybody, then the income and the revenue that's coming instays the same.
Anybody I knew just continues to grow me.
(28:31):
It's not the rat race where the banks have it, where you're trying to sign 1,000 accounts,but you're losing 700 a month.
So you're only growing three.
To me, it's a crazy concept.
for me, I want to keep the business I have and the partners I have to stay
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And that applies to every business, especially catering, you know, catering clients wortha lot more than a dining room client, generally speaking.
(28:55):
And it's like, sometimes people are short sighted.
I, you know, there's been times where literally I bit the order and I've been anotherorder.
So basically two orders for free and, but it led to more business and referrals in thepharmaceutical rep community.
So one thing definitely does lead to another.
(29:17):
And I think sometimes people are a little short-sighted on that.
You know, the one thing I will say, what does they say?
Trust, but verify.
think generally speaking, people are not very good with math and money and finances.
I like to go through my PNL every single month and.
I look at a trailing six months, month by month.
(29:38):
So if there's a line item that's out of whack, I can say, is what you, why is this lineitem 50 % more?
Did somebody send me the wrong bill?
Was there a one-time expense I forgot about?
I think the same thing is whether it's your bookkeeper or you look at your credit cardstatement and just do some quick math, envelope math and go, hey, is this in the range of
(29:59):
what I should be paying now?
Since, you know, we're getting in the processing space,
we're doing flat rate pricing.
That way people always know this is what you're paying.
It's very fair, you know, especially compared to what other people charge in catering.
It's card not present, which is the most expensive transaction.
(30:19):
You know, the guy's not coming in to hand you the card, which in catering they're not.
They're just punching in and are giving it to you over the phone.
So I think it's easier to know that, yeah, maybe you're paying a few cents more, but atthe end of the day, you can sleep at night knowing that this is the percent.
and you're not worried about it.
um Anything else that people need to know about credit card processing?
(30:45):
Think about credit card processing.
um
something they might want to check.
You know, is there a quick, you know, Hey, I've been with the same guy.
It's my brother in law.
It's my the guy from the Kiwanis club.
I trust the guy.
You know, I found out an expensive lesson today.
So, you know, I've got a place in Costa Rica.
I'm down here been dealing with water issues.
(31:07):
come in here and I got leaks in my house.
I just spent all this freaking money to get a new roof, new gutters, new downspout.
And I get a couple of new, I was going to bring my, guy out.
I've given him a ton of money to
to renovate, upgrade this house since I bought it.
You think he'd take care of me.
I even gave him a $5,000 motor for free as a thank you gift Christmas present for his boatfor doing my project.
(31:32):
So you'd think he'd be like a brother in law and like, hey, I'm gonna hook you up on theroof.
Dude, take heavy duty aluminum foil and double it.
And that's what he put on my roof.
Like these guys are on here and they're showing me how flimsy the roof is.
And I'm like,
I'm so disappointed in this guy.
So disappointed, like absolutely disappointed.
(31:56):
you know, is there something people can do, check their credit card statements orsomething, you know, as a, just to make sure everybody's being above board, kosher,
nobody's taking advantage of you.
Definitely.
mean, obviously checking your statement is going to kind of tell the story, but you know,what I would tell people is, is if you have a uh rep or someone that's supposed to be your
(32:20):
guy, you know, that's the conversation that they have with them.
You know, what, one thing that we do in my company and this is me and then the reps that Ihad that worked for me, if we bring someone one and we say, Hey, we looked at your
statement and we're going to save you X.
Well, at the end of month one,
we do another cost analysis and we send it back saying, hey, based on where you were,based on where you landed with us, this is where it shook out and we were within six bucks
(32:47):
of our quote.
And then usually at 90 days, we do it again, just to kind of show them like, hey, ournumbers are making sense, what we told you is holding true, nothing's changed in your
business, because things do change.
I mean, I've had it where I've signed up businesses that are all face to face and thenthey add in a component of Cardinal Present, like restaurant.
And all of sudden their rates go up and they're yelling at me and I'm like, well guys, 60% of the businesses is retail now, 40 % is key enter.
(33:13):
You're going to have another 40 basis points in there.
That's the way it works.
I can set you up a separate account just for that.
We can keep it separate, but that's how it goes.
But yeah, I would say if you have a good rep that's taken care of you and you trust thatperson, they should be providing you that information.
mean, you know, definitely look at your statement.
If you have an account and look at it, you know, know where your numbers fall.
(33:34):
And then it's not a bad idea to take a look at your equipment, your technology, whatyou're using, and just make sure you're up to snuff with the latest and greatest.
Technology matters if you're using something that doesn't do EMV or doesn't do Apple Pay.
You know, there's different type of card brands that'll drop rates for that.
I know there's a certain processor out there.
I won't name them, but you know, whenever I get a statement from one of their merchants,it's like Christmas morning for me.
(33:59):
I see the name and I'm like, ooh, this is going to be good because I know that they bakein all kinds of hidden feed.
Like if you don't have a device that does EMV, they'll immediately hit you with like a 1 %downgrade.
and it's crazy because they provided the equipment and they're
equipment didn't do it.
So it's shocking, but that's what they do.
But that's what I would say is review it every quarter, if not at least twice a year.
(34:21):
And if you have someone that's your guy, they should be giving you the information andtaking care of you.
Yeah, you know, I think it's very important.
um Had a conversation with a customer today about technology integration and what haveyou.
And I basically was like, look, I've been in your shoes.
I've had people tell me, oh, this point of sale system will do this and you can track foodcosts and whatever.
(34:45):
And then let's read the asterisk with a small print.
If you have a full-time bookkeeper to enter every single Cisco invoice, and if there's asubstitution, they change the software.
It's like, dude, like you're blowing smoke up my skirt.
There's no way this is gonna happen.
And so I believe in like, I'm gonna, and we were on the same call with this client.
(35:07):
It's like, look, this is the good, this is the bad.
I'm going to tell you what's doable.
I'm not trying to sell you.
I am trying to educate you and hopefully by me educating you to what I can do and not doyou want to choose me, but I'm not a salesperson.
Like if it's not going to do what you need it to do, I'm going to tell you.
(35:27):
And I'm also going to tell you where the bodies are buried and what doors open.
Cause I don't need a phone call in six months that you said it could do this, but read thesmall print.
Like I don't, I just don't need that.
would rather just shoot people and I think the same thing with food, right?
It's like, hey, you know, Jason, you ordered this food and I'm telling you, yeah, you cando it for $15 a person, but you have a bunch of your kid, you know, you got 15, your 16
(35:55):
year old son and his friends are all a bunch of ballplayers and they're going to gothrough more.
So yes, for normal people, it'll feed them, but you probably want to add 20 % more becausethese kids are, they're going to, they're going to be bees, right?
Or if it's
your grandmother's garden club, you know, probably don't need that much food.
Granny ain't gonna eat, you know, half a pound of barbecue.
(36:17):
And I've done that before.
And I think what that does is sometimes when you undersell somebody, it gives you so muchcredibility.
that even if you don't get the business, they're gonna refer you to somebody else becauseit's like, hey, this guy wasn't out to take money from me.
He was out to help me.
And I'm definitely a big believer in karma, like a thousand percent.
(36:39):
Agreed.
Yeah.
And you know, think it also plays into, you know, what is your, what is your moral compassas a business person?
You know, I mean, not all business is good business and you got to know what to walk awayfrom, you know, and I, I, I'm in a good place right now where, you know, if I meet with
someone and I'm not feeling the vibe check or I don't think that they appreciate like whatit is that we do.
(37:02):
It may be someone where I'll present some options to but like I'm not gonna like chasethem and go after it hardcore It's it's it's not worth the headache for me because to your
point.
I don't want the service issue I don't want to call this as you didn't tell me this, youknow, one of the things that I started doing it's probably probably two and half three
years ago was anytime I met with a restaurant and We had that in-depth conversation aboutPOS, know, we would sit down We would take a look at what they're using today.
(37:29):
And my number one thing is okay
What does it do for you that you cannot live without?
Like I need to know the details.
I need to know the reports, the server functionality.
Like do you tip servers in bar, 1 % of sales?
Like I need to know all that.
And then my next question is, what does it not do for you?
what, if it could do it, what would make your life 10 times easier?
(37:50):
And then from there I go to work and then I use my levers and start figuring out, okay, Iknow this POS or I'm a reseller with this POS.
But before I do anything, I pin that merchant down and make them do
a demo using it on zoom or Google meet whatever they're using but it's like hey I need youin an office not chopping lettuce in the back we need to sit down because I want you to
(38:11):
see this I want you to see the interface and I want you to tear it apart ask all yourquestions you know I need you to think through every little nuance that pops up in your
business
to where we can make sure it does it because I will never place a POS unless they haveactually seen the demo, went through it.
We basically, I don't want to say signed off on it, but they blessed it to say, it doeswhat we need to do.
(38:31):
Because to your point, years and years ago, it was always push it out the door, get themset up and then figure it out later.
And then every time they would come back and say, well, it doesn't do this.
I'm like, well, what do I do now?
So we don't do that here.
Let's figure it out.
Make sure you can do what you got to do before we go forward.
And then...
We also do a second step where we obviously do their menu build and we do another zoom orGoogle meet to say, all right, let's look at your menu.
(38:55):
I want to make sure all the buttons are where they need to be.
Your items are working.
Your modifiers are flowing properly.
You know, your bar drinks are moving the right way because what I don't want to do is Idon't want to just stick it in.
And then we get out there that day and all of a sudden it's five hours worth of menurevisions.
Right.
It's always about like it's like that.
My grandfather used to say the ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
It's that type of concept.
(39:17):
Right.
So now when we go on site,
and we install, I mean we're 90 % of the way there.
I mean as long as the internet's good, we can pretty much link in and connect to thenetwork and we're ready to rock within an hour and now it's just training.
And some slight modifications, maybe they don't like where the appetizer button is and wejust move it, but it's very minimal at this point, where years ago it was like you're on
(39:38):
site for eight hours.
And just to be clear, um not only can you help anybody listening with credit cardprocessing and we're working together, I guess indirectly on cater pay, which is super
exciting.
I'm not gonna pre-announce some stuff we're working on, but some cool stuff.
And then...
um
(40:00):
You can sell them point of sale systems and all sorts of other terminals and things thatcould help them, whether they need a mobile payment system, if they're at a farmer's
market or, you know, whatever, you know, they're doing a vending situation or whatever.
So.
we're that full stack, full suite.
There's not really a business model that we can't help with.
(40:23):
That's what makes it fun for me is, while I may have a call Monday at 8 a.m.
with a restaurant, Tuesday at 2, I have a meeting with a manufacturing company that isshipping massive amounts of product to different countries and we have to kind of solve
for a system that integrates their ERP.
You can do all that.
You know, and it's, it's just depends upon what they want and how they get to work.
(40:45):
And then that's where I get with the product teams and developers and we go to work andyou know, it's not just credit cards.
Like we can, we have systems now where we can link card, ACH all in one system, paymentlinks.
I mean, I just did one for a contractor, a building materials company last week where theycan actually just send out like an invoice with a link to a text number and the contractor
(41:08):
can open their phone and Apple pay and click it and it's done.
they're paid within 20 minutes.
where things are headed.
Like, you know, feel like the, you know, I think.
oh
when my parents figured out what an answering machine was and then they went to voicemailand all this stuff.
Like I rarely pull a credit card out anymore.
(41:30):
If I can tap to pay, that's the way I'm living my life.
Now it isn't, you know, it's probably 99 % you can tap to pay.
That's the best invention since sliced white bread.
I hate carrying anything.
I love it.
mean, that's like, you know, my wife and I, I I finally got her like on the Apple Paything maybe a year or two ago.
(41:50):
And ever since then, like it's changed her life.
Like she very rarely carries cash, carries her wallet anymore.
And not that it's a bad thing, but for me, it's just so simplistic, you know, and she hasthe iWatch.
So now when she goes out and does her run and stops at the little coffee shop, she canjust tap and calls it a day.
It's so much simpler and it's a faster checkout experience too.
it's totally nuts where everything's.
(42:13):
headed, um which is a good thing.
uh And you know, just as we wind this up, you know, I'm glad you reached out to us yearsago.
And, know, if you were going to do a case study for school, you know, the synergisticreferral type of thing, you know, it's really worked the way it should be.
(42:34):
It wasn't I don't feel it was one sided.
I feel like you've added so much value and I hope that, you know, you feel the same likeliterally one day I'm
in a bar eating wings for lunch and I'm talking to this guy who needs payments for asoftware company.
Have you done anything with him?
Is that going anywhere?
so him and I have talked.
got a file back up with him.
(42:55):
sent him a couple emails waiting to hear back.
He wanted to do uh like a model to see what it would look like.
So just waiting on him at this point, but yeah.
well, I hope you make a shit ton of money off of it because, you know, I haven't made ashit ton from you, but I've definitely made maybe a wheelbarrow full.
So that's been exciting.
So I appreciate it, man.
(43:17):
It was great.
Do you have a website if people want to get ahold of you?
it's Blue Ridge Payments dot com.
Super simple, super easy.
Perfect.
Okay, I'm going to take us out.
Thanks, man.
(43:44):
Thanks.
Hello again, I'm Michael Atias, your host of Restaurant Catering Smarts and today's guestis Jason Schultz, founder and CEO of Blue Ridge Payment Partners because...
Yes, we want to hear from one more credit card processing payment sales guy.
Now, the reason I brought Jason on, and this episode is sponsored by Kater's in everybodyknows I own Katers in.
(00:55):
I'm not going to give an over plug if you're interested in seeing what we've got.
Jason and I are working on some cool stuff coming down the bike.
It's Katers in.com.
But
The reason I, what I want to talk about is less about payments and more about characterand philosophy and how you live your life.
(01:16):
And, um you know, there's an old saying, I don't know if you've heard this story, well,first of all, Jason, welcome.
Thanks, I appreciate you having me on, I'm excited.
Yeah, I appreciate us working together.
I forgot to ask you, give me a number between 1 and 300.
(01:36):
Of course you pick 8.
have to go with it.
see.
School for me.
Okay, complete this.
School for, we ask random questions to get to know you better.
I have a feeling I already know what you're gonna say.
School for me was blank.
(02:00):
Boring.
uh Well, that's usually the ADDC students are the ones that have the A and B studentsworking for them.
So I get it.
ah
So there's a story and I wrote about the guy who started Quirky's.
I don't know if you've heard the story about this guy and he starts a business and he'sdown, he can't make payroll.
(02:23):
He's down to like thousand bucks and he's got to come up with 50 grand.
So he flies out to Vegas.
He goes and bets it all.
You know, he gets close, but he's down to nothing.
Like he doesn't have enough money to buy a pack of chewing gum.
and he's going to the bathroom and to add insult to injury, you got to put a quarter inthe stall to get in.
He's like, shit.
(02:43):
So he sees a guy, washes his hands and says, hey buddy, I lost all my money.
Can you give me a quarter?
He's telling this story to the Wall Street Journal about his success.
goes, oh
gives him a quarter and right when he's gonna go to put the quarter in to get in the door,a guy comes out of the stall and he holds the door open for him.
So he goes, uses bathroom, he's got a quarter, goes back to casino, puts the quarter in aslot machine, pulls it, gets quarter of a million dollars.
(03:11):
He's got enough money to make payroll.
He's got enough money to turn his company around, goes public on the New York StockExchange.
He's a billionaire explaining the story.
And so the reporter says,
Would you like to meet the guy who gave you the quarter and talk to him?
goes, no, I'd really like to thank the guy who opened the door for me.
(03:35):
I don't know if you've ever heard that story before.
heard that story, that's, I get the analogy and it's a pretty cool story if think aboutit.
So, know, Jason, I'd say he was someplace between holding the door and giving me thequarter.
It was probably about three years ago.
I get a call from Jason and he's prospecting.
(03:57):
whale hunting for credit card processing business.
And I'm not gonna mention the chain, it's a big chain.
And he uncovers a pain point that they have with catering software and credit cardprocessing.
So we spend a year giving them demos, talking about how he can save them money onprocessing and how, you know, we've got this great catering software and they ended up
(04:20):
becoming our biggest client and...
Unfortunately, he didn't get the credit card processing business because sometimes in lifeyour brother-in-law or somebody else gets and obviously The backstory is there was
somebody that opened the door for them.
So there's some loyalty there and that does happen but you know, I did take care of Jasonfor the referral and I've sent him more business and he's helping us get into the payment
(04:44):
space and do do some cool things for our clients coming but
That's just sort of the heart of who Jason is.
Even when we looked at upgrading payment systems, he was like, hey, I'll take care of you.
And I think it's going to benefit both of us in the long run.
And you see a lot of people who only look out for themselves in business, like what's init for me.
(05:10):
I've lived by the philosophy one plus one equals three.
Where did you come up with that?
um
You know, where'd you get your philosophy on this?
Man, you know, I've always, so I grew up, you my dad always was a big do it right thefirst time guy, right?
(05:31):
And, you know, I played sports all my life.
I played high school sports.
I went to college, played college football.
And it was that mindset of just do it right the first time and don't cut corners.
you know, I teach my kids, like when we're working out and we're doing stuff for theirsports, it's like, you know, if you're running a 40 yard sprint, hit the line.
You know, coming in six inches short doesn't make you any better.
(05:53):
Right.
And so I think it's just been kind of like instilled in me my whole life.
And I've always just had this mindset to to just do what's right.
Let the cards fall.
It'll all come back in the end.
Right.
If I don't if let's say there's a deal and I may not make maximum amount of dollars on it,I don't care.
Right.
It's about taking care of the person because in turn, business is reciprocal.
(06:14):
Right.
I've done business for people and help them find solutions.
It may not have made me anything, but
it's come back to me three months, six months, eight months down the road where they openup a new business or they refer someone else to me.
And it always comes back.
Right.
And I kind of pride myself on that.
And most people that do business with me and work with me, that's what they get.
(06:35):
And that's what they know about me.
And I was having this conversation with a buddy of mine the other day because he wasasking me about like, you know, marketing and leads and all this stuff.
And I'm like, I don't, I don't spend a dollar on any of stuff.
All of my stuff is networking, it's referrals, it's clients that already have justconnecting with people that they know because they trust me.
And that's kind of where I stand ten toes down in the business is that I just keep to thatmodel and I won't break it for anybody.
(07:03):
You know, I feel like I know every generation says the generation, you know, coming upsucks.
You know, I'm sure my parents' generation thought that I sucked and, you back the WorldWar II generation thought the same.
But I really do think today's age, there's, there's just, you know, when I was a kid,there was hustle, right?
(07:28):
You know, you're, I mean,
You know, I'll call anybody a liar.
This isn't admissible in court, but I used to steal Coke bottles out of people's backyardsto go sell them to get the nickel or 10 cents to go to 7-Eleven and buy a Slurpee, right?
You're selling cards, you're cutting grass, you're babysitting.
There's a hustle, right?
(07:49):
You know.
Where do you think that has gone to where there's more of a softening of a, we're all inMontessori school and everybody's equal.
What's gotten lost?
um Yeah, I think the grit and the drive that we had in our generations of going out andfiguring things out.
(08:14):
Everything nowadays, to me, it's easy.
These kids nowadays, they have their tablets, have ChatGPT.
I got kids in school and their easiest thing in the world for them to do is just, let'sjust ChatGPT and figure it out.
I'm like, no.
try to figure it out your own.
Don't just chat with you how to do it or don't Google search it.
Learn, it's gonna help you grow and be better as an individual.
(08:36):
So I think, I was the same as you, growing up as a kid, when it snowed in a city, meanthat was, the snowflakes were falling, everyone's getting ready to go play, I just heard
money.
I was ready to go shovel, I was cleaning off driveways and steps for people and that's theway that I did it.
My kids, it's a little different.
To get them to go out there and shovel snow, they think I'm putting them through.
(08:58):
hell and back and it's like guys it's it's one driveway I used to do 15 a day when itsnowed when I was a kid.
were your parents poor?
Um, no, I won't.
They're not poor, right?
But we weren't like wealthy by any means.
Like my dad, when that was a truck driver, he worked 16, 18 hours a day driving a foodservice truck.
So he delivered for restaurants all over the country.
(09:21):
Working class people.
My mom had a job.
I went to school.
went to my sister and I went to school in the city.
We would go to our grandparents house until they were done work and they would scoop us upand then either go home or go to whatever baseball or soccer or sport we had going on.
Um, but both parents worked.
And I mean, we were the traditional, right?
We did our one vacation a year to the beach.
uh Nothing really extravagant.
(09:43):
Each parent had one basic vehicle.
wasn't like, know, dad didn't have like a sports car that he drove on the weekends.
It was just simplistic stuff.
We grew up in the city.
So, I mean, it's, you know, I'm from Baltimore and it's, you know, grow home in downtownarea.
Yeah, I would say the same, everybody, you know, my parents look forward to the onevacation a year we get in the car and drive to Florida.
(10:05):
And I just think ever since I was a kid, I didn't like that.
You know, I never like work.
I work smart, not hard.
Like I worked, I cut two yards and I made enough money to screw off all summer long.
So I think you know that that's more my speed is to travel and have fun and figure out howto fund that.
(10:27):
But I think the challenge is, is when you have kids and you know, I'm guessing from what Ican reverse engineer, you've done far better than your parents did.
And there's that balance of I want my kids to have this grit, determination and hard work.
but I also don't want them to have to work super hard.
Like I want to give them things.
(10:48):
I don't want them to have to go hustle a job so they can buy a pair of Nikes.
I can afford to buy them a pair of Nikes.
So there's that balance of, know, how do I give them, but not give them too much wherethey're entitled.
And I think that's sort of the entrepreneur's dilemma.
um And you've got to be very, very mindful of that.
(11:10):
I had my son,
sell Cutco before he went off to college.
And I've, you've never heard anybody cuss more than my son about those meetings andwhatever, but he made three grand over three grand and I matched them dollar for dollar.
And it was worth it just for the lessons you learn, basically calling people up andgetting rejected.
(11:34):
I made the same deal with my daughter.
She lasted, I don't think she lasted a week.
uh I hate that for her.
uh I understand it, but I hate it for her because it just builds something that you don'thave.
Yeah, I'm very similar with our kids.
My wife's a nurse, so she works full time.
(11:56):
uh I mean, have my own company.
I'm working all hours of the night around the clock some days.
But we also have the luxury of, know, can check out when I need to to go do something forthe kids.
So it kind of, it's a good work-life balance.
But you know, when a client calls or something's breaking or you know, there's a systemdown, then like I'm all in, I got to be there to fix things and get stuff taken care of,
(12:16):
or at least triage it and help my clients out.
But yeah, with the kids, you know, I will say we do hold our kids to a higher standard,you know.
We make sure that they have all the resources and tools, but it's expected of them thatthey're gonna go to school, they're gonna work hard, they're gonna get good grades.
(12:36):
My oldest daughter is a sophomore getting ready to be a junior in high school and she'slike a 4.4 GPA.
She's like top seven in her class.
And she does really, really well.
And I actually have her uh working with me in my business.
So I'm teaching her some things as far as like...
Marketing and like social stuff so I'm kind of bringing her in and she's actually went outon her own is doing some like online classes with this stuff because it's kind of what her
(13:03):
focus is So I've been teaching her and bringing her along but she also wants money andit's always like dad I need money for this.
It's like, Well cool.
You're gonna work for it so I have a list that every month of different days that she hasto go through and Like there's certain things I make sure that she posts out there on
social There's things that I make her update on my trackers and stuff like that that Ikeep
(13:23):
takes some admin work off me, it's really, I can do it, it's not a big deal.
It's really about giving her a task to complete and make sure she holds herself to itbefore she just gets the handout.
mean, my wife and I are gonna give her the money or buy her whatever she needs anyway, butfor the most part, we wanna kind of instill that upon her that you gotta work for it.
And the same thing goes with the other kids, you know, I mean, they're not old enough yetto work, but you know, it is required as far as school and sports and athletics.
(13:48):
I mean, we pay a ton of money for travel sports.
mean, travel soccer is like...
Dude, you should have been Jewish.
Our kids can't fucking play anything.
I didn't have to go anywhere on the weekends.
You know, I know these parents that are in travel sports, like I know a woman in Kentuckyand her kids are like ball or baseball players.
(14:08):
And she's talking about, oh, you know, $800 for a bat.
I'm like.
It's a commitment, but I do think, you know, there is a certain level of excellence anddiscipline you get in sports that I didn't get growing up.
But again, I'm not complaining for what I do and don't have.
(14:33):
I've designed my life to fit myself, but I see what you do with your kids.
They're all, you know, ballers, sports into sports.
Big Tuna, who's my favorite is, do you have a picture you can flash on the screen of BigTuna on your phone?
So this kid is like baby Gronk on steroids.
(14:58):
He goes to the Washington hockey game.
He's got his Mr.
T starter set.
Yep, he's got his Mr.
T starter set.
He's always styling and profiling, you know.
He's the kid my kid hated in soccer.
You know, I send my kid up for soccer.
They're five years old, right?
(15:19):
My son is an Australian sheepdog.
Wherever the ball is, he's on the outside of the scrum trying to like hurt everybodytowards the ball.
He will not get in the middle.
And there's that one kid who's about six inches taller.
Looks like uh who's the guy in one of the Rocky films, the big tall blonde guy, you know,Russian.
(15:40):
Drago yeah
Yeah, he looks like that.
He's like fucking five years old.
He's got an eight pack as a five year old.
And every time he runs down the field, like give him the ball, boom, he goes through everykid's scores.
Scores, scores, scores.
That's, that's your son.
Here's a good one, it's his hockey one from this past weekend.
(16:01):
Um, yeah, he's he's a little baller.
He's he's
they had an inner squad scrimmage on Saturday and he's still too young to get into thetravel aspects of ice hockey, but he's been doing it now for seven months, I think it is.
And he scored 13 goals in their inner squad scrimmage and they finally had to just likegive him a timeout.
(16:23):
like, all right, buddy, like go chill for a minute.
And he's like, he's on the ice looking at me going, what did I do wrong?
And I'm like, just keep playing hard, bud.
Yeah, it's crazy.
grip though, but he has it like he's that kid where like today for example, he got up Noone else is out of bed.
He came downstairs Literally throws two of those breakfast corn dogs in the microwaveMakes himself some and he goes out in the basement and he's got his warblades on he's got
(16:49):
a stick and he's Like dribbling and shooting pucks for like an hour and no one's even upyet Just him and we don't we don't have to tell him he just does it so he's he's got that
and it's
I can see your son being a Chihuahua.
He is gonna get into some fights that he might not, should win, but will probably winthrough pure grit and determination.
(17:14):
So he's a character.
uh But the one thing I admire is, you either won the lottery, which I know you didn't, butyou make time.
for your family.
And when my kids were growing up, there's a lot of things I could have done better as adad.
I think we can all look back and say we could have done better.
But I always made it a point to be at their school, go on field trips, whatever I coulddo, and make myself available.
(17:38):
Even after I got divorced, my ex-wife had to work, I would take them to the doctor'sappointments if they got sick um and take off work.
There's something, when you're an entrepreneur, people think you can just not work whenyou want to.
um
which is interesting, but I don't, where did that come from?
And how do you make time with that?
(18:01):
I mean, you work your ass off, your wife works their ass off.
How do you make it happen?
I mean, it's definitely a challenge because the schedules are crazy.
But I think it goes back to like my upbringing.
know, my dad was a truck driver.
He got up at 3 a.m., went to work every day, 15, 16 hour days.
But you know what?
He never missed a baseball game.
(18:22):
You know, there was times where I'll never forget it.
Like he would drive down the street where we played at and I would see his 18 wheeler.
He would park it.
He'd get out, come to my game, coach me.
go get back in a truck and take it back to the yard before he even came home.
And it's, you know, seven, eight o'clock at night before we're done playing.
He's not home until nine or 10, bed back to work at 3 a.m.
(18:42):
So I grew up like that.
My mom was the same way.
She made every single thing.
My grandparents were there for every single thing.
We grew up in the city, so everything was tight.
Like we're all like five blocks away.
You know, so for me, you know, part of the reason why I really wanted to move into this,into this entrepreneur space and have my own company is
I want to be present.
I think it matters for our kids.
(19:03):
I think it matters for their development.
And two, I think them knowing that I always have their back no matter what and being therein their corner, it gives them something different than what other kids whose parents
unfortunately can't do that.
They know that I'm going to be there, but they also know that I'm watching.
And I will say this, like my girls,
you know they come up the soccer field and no matter what happens they always look at meto see what my face looks like if I have that like stern look they're like I must have did
(19:29):
something wrong and sometimes I just had that look and I got to tell him like you know youguys play great it's all good but they know like I played sports so for me I'm very
competitive and it's like I don't care if you win you lose your score goal doesn't matterI just want effort right it's all about the effort and I try to that's why I want to be
present because I want to try to instill that I'm a big firm believer that
(19:50):
nothing's free in this world and we push that with our kids.
If you want it, you gotta work for it.
Yeah, I think that, you know, if I, if I look back, you know, my dad went bankrupt when Iwas 10, 11, he cooked donuts in the middle of the night to put food on the table.
I mean, not for long, but you know, you do what you got to do.
And I think, and I'm learning this in my personal life as well.
(20:13):
I really don't give a shit what people say to me.
It's how you show up because you can tell me as a vendor, you know, Hey, we're going to dothis.
We're going to do that.
I need to see it in action, right?
And it's human, it's whether it's a friend, whether it's your partner, whether it's abusiness partner, whether it's employees, like, I don't want lip service, just show me,
(20:36):
just show me, right?
Because that speaks louder.
And you know, my parents came from Morocco, so number one, they didn't speak English aswell as others.
They didn't grow up in this culture, so it's a different culture.
And you know, I didn't have that.
father knows best, my dad's gonna put his arm around me and say, well son, here's a lessonto learn.
I mean, that just, my dad worked his ass off.
But the way my parents worked and they lived their life and they gave back and they didfor the community and others and the sacrifices they made, you know, how do you put a
(21:07):
price tag on it?
That's, it's really your kids, it's almost like you hear these parents.
that are like, don't go smoking pot.
And then the kids find fucking three ounces in the father's sock drawer.
And then they wonder why their kids are smoking pot because you're fucking smoking pot.
(21:29):
You know what I mean?
Like the kids do pay attention.
They see everything.
They know way more than we give them credit for.
And so.
I think that's part of it too, right?
Like, you know, like right now no one sees it, right?
They always like they always see the social media posts of you know me and the kids at theCaps game or you know me and the wife at you know in Nashville and on a trip But they
(21:52):
don't see that, you know, I'm up at five every day.
I'm at the gym I'm working all day long I may step away to go like pick the kids run thesoccer whatnot, but when I come back, I'm usually on my computer I'm using my office at my
house till
eight, nine, 10, 11 o'clock at night because there's things that I've got to take care of.
There's things that are being done.
My kids see that and they see the work ethic, but they also see me step away and bepresent for them.
(22:17):
So that's what's like, that's what makes it matter for me is that.
They see the ethic, they see what I'm putting in, and they know, like, I mean, they seewhat I'm doing because, you know, we're progressing in life.
You know, obviously, this travel soccer is just crazy expensive, but, you know, theyappreciate it because there are times where they will come to me and they'll be like, you
know, dad, thank you.
(22:38):
And it's just out of the blue.
Like, I don't say nothing to them, they'll just come to me and say, I know you're workinghard, thank you for all you do for us.
And that, like, that's that boost you need as a man to be like, all right.
I'm doing it right.
Let's just keep it moving.
Yeah, we'll just keep in mind as we're recording this Father's Day is this coming upSunday and you'll end up screwed on what you're getting compared to what your mom or your
wife probably got for Mother's Day.
(23:00):
So let's put it in perspective.
ah But you know, what's funny is when I had my restaurant, one of the reasons I pushedcatering and this is called Restaurant Catering Smarts is because I knew I could.
make double the profits out of the same four walls.
And that allowed me to have an operating partner and have a quality of life when I had myrestaurant and not be a slave.
(23:23):
Because you don't honestly, you don't get any more money at the bank if you worked hardfor it.
So it's very interesting.
Okay, let's let's talk about credit card processing.
I'm going to tell you about my frustrations.
And maybe you have an answer.
I have a lot of frustrations.
Okay.
(23:45):
So, you know, I put buying credit card processing, use car.
food, you know, from a food distributor, like you don't even know what the fuck's goingon.
Like it's like there's a secret society kind of thing.
Oh, it's it's interchange plus this plus this and give me your credit card statement.
I'll save you money.
(24:06):
And I feel like every time I went down that road, you wake up one day and all of a suddenyou're paying way more than you contracted for.
uh I'm sure I'm not the only guy who's gone through that.
One, how do know you're dealing with a reputable person and how do you keep tracking thatso you don't wake up one day and now you're paying half a point more on processing from
(24:30):
where you started off?
Yeah, mean, great question.
think, you know, a lot of it has to do with the person or the company that you go with.
You know, when you look at the big banks, the big, the big processing entities out there,you're a, you're a small fish in a huge pond, man, especially if you're not doing, you
know, a couple of million dollars a month.
(24:51):
So what happens is that you sign up, you get your interchange plus rate, and then overtime,
You know, they track all that stuff.
They look at the account, they see what the profitability mix looks like, and then, youknow, any time one of the card brands, like Mastercard for example, they'll raise their
rate on one card, and it's like .001.
(25:11):
It's nothing, like no one even noticed it.
Well then the processors can jump in and say, well we're doing a 10 basis point increasebecause everyone else is raising their rate, we gotta adjust ours, which is, it's BS,
right?
and you know they send it out the statement they they kinda do the whole c y a cover theirass and no one no one says anything about it
opens up their damn statement and reads the fifth page in the bottom in six point type.
(25:36):
Yep.
So, so like, you know, what I do and there's other other, you know, guys like me, I'm notthe only one, but there's other people that we value the business and we value the
relationships we have more than like gaining the next client.
Right.
So like when I work for the big companies and work for the big banks, it was, it baffledmy mind how they were so
(26:00):
like sales driven all the time.
Like we got to sign the next deal and that's all they focused on.
But meanwhile, as they're signing a hundred deals, there's 75 of them walking out the backdoor because they were switching or getting poached because of the rates.
And I was sitting there scratching my head saying, wouldn't it make better sense just tolike figure out how to give them a fair rate, keep them on the books.
And as you grow, the numbers just continue to compile.
(26:23):
like in my business, yes, it's extremely expensive.
It's, mean, on all that and
You know, so like when I sign someone up, we sit down, we look at everything and I usuallytry to give everyone options.
You know, I'm in a good place in life where, like I said earlier, I don't market thingslike it's all word of mouth, it's all referrals.
So I don't chase people.
(26:43):
Like if someone says, hey, I'm interested, okay, great.
I'll sit down, we'll look at their stuff.
I'll give them like a full scope and I'll usually try to put together like two to threeoptions and say, hey, here's what you're looking at.
This is what it's gonna cost.
You tell me, like what do you think?
And then I generally let them choose or we'll negotiate each path and figure it out.
And then for me, like I monitor it.
(27:04):
So what I do is every quarter I pull the files, I look at everything, I make sure therates or what they sign with.
I look for any type of announcements that come out to see if there's any alerts sayingthey're going to raise rates.
And look, I've not gone wood to this day.
I've not had to do that to any of my clients and I don't plan on it.
But if there's an account that's just not profitable or they're not making anything, thenit might be time that we have to do something.
(27:26):
But
That's not my goal, right?
My goal is to continue to grow and continue to expand and not have to worry about thebottom falling out.
So the one thing I will say, and I do, when someone says to me, what makes you different?
I pride myself on the fact that in the last three years since being in this independentspace, I can tell you of three clients that have left me in three years.
(27:49):
Two of those were consumed by other companies that I had no control over.
They were bought in by the hospital and they merged.
So I couldn't do anything because they were using software.
One of them, they were impacted by a hurricane, the business closed and it just wasn'tworth their time and investment to reopen it.
So I lost three clients that I had no control over.
Other than that, knock on wood, I don't lose people.
(28:09):
Right, but on the books, it's three, right?
And for me, that tells the story because if you do write, you take care of people.
You make sure that when they call, they need something, you're on top of it, you don'tlose.
And in my world, if I don't lose anybody, then the income and the revenue that's coming instays the same.
Anybody I knew just continues to grow me.
(28:31):
It's not the rat race where the banks have it, where you're trying to sign 1,000 accounts,but you're losing 700 a month.
So you're only growing three.
To me, it's a crazy concept.
for me, I want to keep the business I have and the partners I have to stay
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And that applies to every business, especially catering, you know, catering clients wortha lot more than a dining room client, generally speaking.
(28:55):
And it's like, sometimes people are short sighted.
I, you know, there's been times where literally I bit the order and I've been anotherorder.
So basically two orders for free and, but it led to more business and referrals in thepharmaceutical rep community.
So one thing definitely does lead to another.
(29:17):
And I think sometimes people are a little short-sighted on that.
You know, the one thing I will say, what does they say?
Trust, but verify.
think generally speaking, people are not very good with math and money and finances.
I like to go through my PNL every single month and.
I look at a trailing six months, month by month.
(29:38):
So if there's a line item that's out of whack, I can say, is what you, why is this lineitem 50 % more?
Did somebody send me the wrong bill?
Was there a one-time expense I forgot about?
I think the same thing is whether it's your bookkeeper or you look at your credit cardstatement and just do some quick math, envelope math and go, hey, is this in the range of
(29:59):
what I should be paying now?
Since, you know, we're getting in the processing space,
we're doing flat rate pricing.
That way people always know this is what you're paying.
It's very fair, you know, especially compared to what other people charge in catering.
It's card not present, which is the most expensive transaction.
(30:19):
You know, the guy's not coming in to hand you the card, which in catering they're not.
They're just punching in and are giving it to you over the phone.
So I think it's easier to know that, yeah, maybe you're paying a few cents more, but atthe end of the day, you can sleep at night knowing that this is the percent.
and you're not worried about it.
um Anything else that people need to know about credit card processing?
(30:45):
Think about credit card processing.
um
something they might want to check.
You know, is there a quick, you know, Hey, I've been with the same guy.
It's my brother in law.
It's my the guy from the Kiwanis club.
I trust the guy.
You know, I found out an expensive lesson today.
So, you know, I've got a place in Costa Rica.
I'm down here been dealing with water issues.
(31:07):
come in here and I got leaks in my house.
I just spent all this freaking money to get a new roof, new gutters, new downspout.
And I get a couple of new, I was going to bring my, guy out.
I've given him a ton of money to
to renovate, upgrade this house since I bought it.
You think he'd take care of me.
I even gave him a $5,000 motor for free as a thank you gift Christmas present for his boatfor doing my project.
(31:32):
So you'd think he'd be like a brother in law and like, hey, I'm gonna hook you up on theroof.
Dude, take heavy duty aluminum foil and double it.
And that's what he put on my roof.
Like these guys are on here and they're showing me how flimsy the roof is.
And I'm like,
I'm so disappointed in this guy.
So disappointed, like absolutely disappointed.
(31:56):
you know, is there something people can do, check their credit card statements orsomething, you know, as a, just to make sure everybody's being above board, kosher,
nobody's taking advantage of you.
Definitely.
mean, obviously checking your statement is going to kind of tell the story, but you know,what I would tell people is, is if you have a uh rep or someone that's supposed to be your
(32:20):
guy, you know, that's the conversation that they have with them.
You know, what, one thing that we do in my company and this is me and then the reps that Ihad that worked for me, if we bring someone one and we say, Hey, we looked at your
statement and we're going to save you X.
Well, at the end of month one,
we do another cost analysis and we send it back saying, hey, based on where you were,based on where you landed with us, this is where it shook out and we were within six bucks
(32:47):
of our quote.
And then usually at 90 days, we do it again, just to kind of show them like, hey, ournumbers are making sense, what we told you is holding true, nothing's changed in your
business, because things do change.
I mean, I've had it where I've signed up businesses that are all face to face and thenthey add in a component of Cardinal Present, like restaurant.
And all of sudden their rates go up and they're yelling at me and I'm like, well guys, 60% of the businesses is retail now, 40 % is key enter.
(33:13):
You're going to have another 40 basis points in there.
That's the way it works.
I can set you up a separate account just for that.
We can keep it separate, but that's how it goes.
But yeah, I would say if you have a good rep that's taken care of you and you trust thatperson, they should be providing you that information.
mean, you know, definitely look at your statement.
If you have an account and look at it, you know, know where your numbers fall.
(33:34):
And then it's not a bad idea to take a look at your equipment, your technology, whatyou're using, and just make sure you're up to snuff with the latest and greatest.
Technology matters if you're using something that doesn't do EMV or doesn't do Apple Pay.
You know, there's different type of card brands that'll drop rates for that.
I know there's a certain processor out there.
I won't name them, but you know, whenever I get a statement from one of their merchants,it's like Christmas morning for me.
(33:59):
I see the name and I'm like, ooh, this is going to be good because I know that they bakein all kinds of hidden feed.
Like if you don't have a device that does EMV, they'll immediately hit you with like a 1 %downgrade.
and it's crazy because they provided the equipment and they're
equipment didn't do it.
So it's shocking, but that's what they do.
But that's what I would say is review it every quarter, if not at least twice a year.
(34:21):
And if you have someone that's your guy, they should be giving you the information andtaking care of you.
Yeah, you know, I think it's very important.
um Had a conversation with a customer today about technology integration and what haveyou.
And I basically was like, look, I've been in your shoes.
I've had people tell me, oh, this point of sale system will do this and you can track foodcosts and whatever.
(34:45):
And then let's read the asterisk with a small print.
If you have a full-time bookkeeper to enter every single Cisco invoice, and if there's asubstitution, they change the software.
It's like, dude, like you're blowing smoke up my skirt.
There's no way this is gonna happen.
And so I believe in like, I'm gonna, and we were on the same call with this client.
(35:07):
It's like, look, this is the good, this is the bad.
I'm going to tell you what's doable.
I'm not trying to sell you.
I am trying to educate you and hopefully by me educating you to what I can do and not doyou want to choose me, but I'm not a salesperson.
Like if it's not going to do what you need it to do, I'm going to tell you.
(35:27):
And I'm also going to tell you where the bodies are buried and what doors open.
Cause I don't need a phone call in six months that you said it could do this, but read thesmall print.
Like I don't, I just don't need that.
would rather just shoot people and I think the same thing with food, right?
It's like, hey, you know, Jason, you ordered this food and I'm telling you, yeah, you cando it for $15 a person, but you have a bunch of your kid, you know, you got 15, your 16
(35:55):
year old son and his friends are all a bunch of ballplayers and they're going to gothrough more.
So yes, for normal people, it'll feed them, but you probably want to add 20 % more becausethese kids are, they're going to, they're going to be bees, right?
Or if it's
your grandmother's garden club, you know, probably don't need that much food.
Granny ain't gonna eat, you know, half a pound of barbecue.
(36:17):
And I've done that before.
And I think what that does is sometimes when you undersell somebody, it gives you so muchcredibility.
that even if you don't get the business, they're gonna refer you to somebody else becauseit's like, hey, this guy wasn't out to take money from me.
He was out to help me.
And I'm definitely a big believer in karma, like a thousand percent.
(36:39):
Agreed.
Yeah.
And you know, think it also plays into, you know, what is your, what is your moral compassas a business person?
You know, I mean, not all business is good business and you got to know what to walk awayfrom, you know, and I, I, I'm in a good place right now where, you know, if I meet with
someone and I'm not feeling the vibe check or I don't think that they appreciate like whatit is that we do.
(37:02):
It may be someone where I'll present some options to but like I'm not gonna like chasethem and go after it hardcore It's it's it's not worth the headache for me because to your
point.
I don't want the service issue I don't want to call this as you didn't tell me this, youknow, one of the things that I started doing it's probably probably two and half three
years ago was anytime I met with a restaurant and We had that in-depth conversation aboutPOS, know, we would sit down We would take a look at what they're using today.
(37:29):
And my number one thing is okay
What does it do for you that you cannot live without?
Like I need to know the details.
I need to know the reports, the server functionality.
Like do you tip servers in bar, 1 % of sales?
Like I need to know all that.
And then my next question is, what does it not do for you?
what, if it could do it, what would make your life 10 times easier?
(37:50):
And then from there I go to work and then I use my levers and start figuring out, okay, Iknow this POS or I'm a reseller with this POS.
But before I do anything, I pin that merchant down and make them do
a demo using it on zoom or Google meet whatever they're using but it's like hey I need youin an office not chopping lettuce in the back we need to sit down because I want you to
(38:11):
see this I want you to see the interface and I want you to tear it apart ask all yourquestions you know I need you to think through every little nuance that pops up in your
business
to where we can make sure it does it because I will never place a POS unless they haveactually seen the demo, went through it.
We basically, I don't want to say signed off on it, but they blessed it to say, it doeswhat we need to do.
(38:31):
Because to your point, years and years ago, it was always push it out the door, get themset up and then figure it out later.
And then every time they would come back and say, well, it doesn't do this.
I'm like, well, what do I do now?
So we don't do that here.
Let's figure it out.
Make sure you can do what you got to do before we go forward.
And then...
We also do a second step where we obviously do their menu build and we do another zoom orGoogle meet to say, all right, let's look at your menu.
(38:55):
I want to make sure all the buttons are where they need to be.
Your items are working.
Your modifiers are flowing properly.
You know, your bar drinks are moving the right way because what I don't want to do is Idon't want to just stick it in.
And then we get out there that day and all of a sudden it's five hours worth of menurevisions.
Right.
It's always about like it's like that.
My grandfather used to say the ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
It's that type of concept.
(39:17):
Right.
So now when we go on site,
and we install, I mean we're 90 % of the way there.
I mean as long as the internet's good, we can pretty much link in and connect to thenetwork and we're ready to rock within an hour and now it's just training.
And some slight modifications, maybe they don't like where the appetizer button is and wejust move it, but it's very minimal at this point, where years ago it was like you're on
(39:38):
site for eight hours.
And just to be clear, um not only can you help anybody listening with credit cardprocessing and we're working together, I guess indirectly on cater pay, which is super
exciting.
I'm not gonna pre-announce some stuff we're working on, but some cool stuff.
And then...
um
(40:00):
You can sell them point of sale systems and all sorts of other terminals and things thatcould help them, whether they need a mobile payment system, if they're at a farmer's
market or, you know, whatever, you know, they're doing a vending situation or whatever.
So.
we're that full stack, full suite.
There's not really a business model that we can't help with.
(40:23):
That's what makes it fun for me is, while I may have a call Monday at 8 a.m.
with a restaurant, Tuesday at 2, I have a meeting with a manufacturing company that isshipping massive amounts of product to different countries and we have to kind of solve
for a system that integrates their ERP.
You can do all that.
You know, and it's, it's just depends upon what they want and how they get to work.
(40:45):
And then that's where I get with the product teams and developers and we go to work andyou know, it's not just credit cards.
Like we can, we have systems now where we can link card, ACH all in one system, paymentlinks.
I mean, I just did one for a contractor, a building materials company last week where theycan actually just send out like an invoice with a link to a text number and the contractor
(41:08):
can open their phone and Apple pay and click it and it's done.
they're paid within 20 minutes.
where things are headed.
Like, you know, feel like the, you know, I think.
oh
when my parents figured out what an answering machine was and then they went to voicemailand all this stuff.
Like I rarely pull a credit card out anymore.
(41:30):
If I can tap to pay, that's the way I'm living my life.
Now it isn't, you know, it's probably 99 % you can tap to pay.
That's the best invention since sliced white bread.
I hate carrying anything.
I love it.
mean, that's like, you know, my wife and I, I I finally got her like on the Apple Paything maybe a year or two ago.
(41:50):
And ever since then, like it's changed her life.
Like she very rarely carries cash, carries her wallet anymore.
And not that it's a bad thing, but for me, it's just so simplistic, you know, and she hasthe iWatch.
So now when she goes out and does her run and stops at the little coffee shop, she canjust tap and calls it a day.
It's so much simpler and it's a faster checkout experience too.
it's totally nuts where everything's.
(42:13):
headed, um which is a good thing.
uh And you know, just as we wind this up, you know, I'm glad you reached out to us yearsago.
And, know, if you were going to do a case study for school, you know, the synergisticreferral type of thing, you know, it's really worked the way it should be.
(42:34):
It wasn't I don't feel it was one sided.
I feel like you've added so much value and I hope that, you know, you feel the same likeliterally one day I'm
in a bar eating wings for lunch and I'm talking to this guy who needs payments for asoftware company.
Have you done anything with him?
Is that going anywhere?
so him and I have talked.
got a file back up with him.
(42:55):
sent him a couple emails waiting to hear back.
He wanted to do uh like a model to see what it would look like.
So just waiting on him at this point, but yeah.
well, I hope you make a shit ton of money off of it because, you know, I haven't made ashit ton from you, but I've definitely made maybe a wheelbarrow full.
So that's been exciting.
So I appreciate it, man.
(43:17):
It was great.
Do you have a website if people want to get ahold of you?
it's Blue Ridge Payments dot com.
Super simple, super easy.
Perfect.
Okay, I'm going to take us out.
Thanks, man.
(43:44):
Thanks.
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