Episode 94: "thepaymentsdude"

Welcome to the latest episode of The Big Dog Podcast! In this episode, join hosts Josh Wilson and Logan Wilson as they dive deep into the world of business payments with special guest Adam Niec.
As the landscape of business transactions evolves, understanding the nuances of payment systems is crucial for success. Join us as we explore the latest trends, challenges, and innovations in business payments with Adam Niec, a seasoned expert in the field.
Tune in now to gain exclusive insights and stay ahead in the ever-changing world of business payments! Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more exciting episodes. #payments #transformationjourney

07:00 Payment processing

26:00 My family is my focus

39:00 Limitless Opportunity

48:00 I'm not a new year's resolution guy

56:00 The Yin and Yang of the business

www.teamjw.com

IG: that_dog_trainer

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What?
Businesses are getting smartand they're not paying the
processing fees anymore.
They pass the credit card fee,they pass that cost on to their
customers and they give them theoption of paying with a wire or
ACH, or they can pay with acredit card and pay a fee.
That's what most of our peopledo, and we love those accounts
because if you're not payingfees and you've got great
service and the right technologythat helps your business grow

(00:23):
and run, why would you everleave us?
You know, like back in the daywhen I started 10 years ago, we
were competing on price mostly.
Now it's based on three pillars.
We talk about our three pillarsof payments, technology,
pricing, service.
That's it.
You see, there are going to beno fees to the business because
they decide to offset theircosts with either a dual pricing
or a cash discount program, orthey get offered a pricing

(00:44):
structure where they are payingthe fees their business does,
and it's transparent, fullydisclosed and consistent.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
What's going on everybody?
Josh Wilson, back here at theBig Dog podcast.
We got a good one for you guystoday.
What's going on, son?
What's up you doing?
All right, yeah, I'm good.
I want to introduce the manfrom the world of payment
processing the king, if you will.
Adam Nee, he's not just apayment processor, he's a friend

(01:20):
, he's a colleague.
We do a lot of businesstogether, particularly over the
last year, and gotten to knowhis business and his team really
, really well.
They always come in in thoseclutch moments.
So you know, they're there inthe regular day to day moments
and we're like, man, we need toget you on the show and talk
about rate tracker, payments andwhat you guys do for the world,

(01:42):
I mean, and everyone, not justus dog guys out here.
So, adam Nee.
So welcome to the Big Dogpodcast, my friend.
How's it going?
I'm good man.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, absolutely, when we were talking about doing
this, I was really excitedbecause I've heard great things
about your podcast and got tolisten to a couple episodes, and
I'm grateful to be out here now.
So, thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
So Adam and I met a couple ofyears back through business
association, apex actually, andyou kind of got connected
through there and would see eachother at different meetings
from time to time and stuff likethat Started talking, maybe
gosh, I don't know 18 months agoabout bringing you know my

(02:25):
businesses over and how thatmight be a fit, and some unique
things about what we do andissues we had ran into in the
past.
And you know Adam made it supereasy to to figure out a right
solution.
You know for us and becausebecause for me it was always
about, you know, speed of one,us getting our money to ease of

(02:48):
processing those things, becauseyou know for us our primary
business, you know we'reprocessing payments over the
phone.
We don't have a terminal wherepeople are, you know, presenting
their card in person and so forunderwriting, that creates some
different, you know issues andconcerns.
And then a delayed delivery ofservice creates all these

(03:08):
concerns.
And there's all this stuff thatgoes into the world of payment
processing that no one everthinks about, because we just
show up with, you know ourcredit card and we're like, okay
, you know, we tapped the littlething and you know our money
gets taken out and we don'tthink about everything that goes
into the back end of it.
And, having been a businessowner for going on 20 years now,
I've dealt with a lot ofdifferent companies and a lot of

(03:30):
different payment processorsand I've never, ever had the
support and communication andthe level of professionalism
that I've had these last youknow, a year to 18 months that
we've been dealing with you guysand it's just blown my mind and
we've tried to feed a lot ofpeople to you and get those

(03:52):
introductions going and stuff,but what was it?
I guess?
Talk to me a little bit about.
You know what you were doing,how you were doing it and what
got you to the point whereyou're like you know what.
It's time for me to do this ina different way and ultimately
get Ray Tracker going andlaunched, because it's different
brother.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Dude.
Thank you, man.
I that's one of the nicestthings anyone's ever said to me
and I appreciate that.
I'll give a little background.
My story starts when I was incollege.
My buddy and I had an idea.
He had the original idea and Iwas the one that's like dude,
let's fucking do something withthis.
Yeah, I had the idea of havingyour rewards cards that you

(04:32):
would get at, like the coffeeshop and the deli, whatever.
All that would be on one cardthat you already have in your
wallet.
So we decided that driver'slicense and credit card would be
how consumers would be able tojoin all these rewards programs
without having to take out 50pieces of plastic right?

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Right, that was what it was like 15 years ago I guess
12, whatever.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Now we kept trying to get this thing to market.
It was my first startup.
I had no clue what I was doingand it just didn't really pan
out.
But when I graduated fromcollege I started in payments.
I love small business.
Payment processing looked cool.
I didn't even know it exists.
Like you said, I just took mycredit card and tap it and it
just works.
Yeah, a lot of people don'tknow about the payments industry

(05:17):
because it's like an invisible,magical thing that just happens
for the card holder.
And I got into that spaceselling loyalty programs.
I wanted to learn how to sell.
I wanted to build relationshipswith small businesses and make
money and also work from home.
That's what I did.
So I sold for a company forfive years.
They were acquired for $4.3billion During that time.

(05:38):
When I was there, I resignedfrom the job to start my startup
, the loyalty program.
It failed within 30 days and Iwas basically was like I'm not
doing this payment processing.
It's way too cool.
I almost did that like followit through with it because I
felt like I had to.
So I got back into payments andthen I was there for that with

(06:01):
that company for the last coupleof years.
I didn't agree with how theywere ethically doing business.
I got us in they were doing,starting to do things that were
like other credit cardprocessors and I just wasn't
down for that.
Yeah, it attracted me to theamount of college was their
reputation, and they were honest.
Basically their core valuesaligned with mine, and when that
changed I was like I'm notdoing this anymore, so.

(06:23):
I started my own paymentscompany and, coming up on five
years of being self-employed inthe industry and I have learned
and grown a lot and one of themain problems that I see in the
industry is like what you justsaid.
Like, your business type isdifferent than a restaurant.
You guys have future delivery,it's card not present.

(06:44):
You're sending invoices.
You're dealing with a servicethat is somewhat not risky.
Business is a little bitdifferent than buying something
at a restaurant.
So your business needs a teamof people that understand you.
The bank knows you and theyunderstand your business so they
can underwrite, you, get youapproved and then you can grow

(07:04):
your business.
That's basically what we call awhite glove.
Payment processing is all aboutand that is what businesses
like yours need.
Now some businesses can get awaywith, like, just signing up for
Stripe and letting Stripeprocess their payments.
It's easy, it's quick, simple,easy.
Same thing with square, paypaland like.

(07:26):
In exchange for that simplesignup and that easy experience
for the business, you get moneyfreezes, you get reserves put on
, you get no little to nocustomer service and a big
company that doesn't actuallycare about the customer.
Now, I respect those bigcompanies because they're worth

(07:47):
billions of dollars and theyshare it quickly.
I just believe in good service,good communication, correctly
set up accounts and scalability.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, yeah, you know one of the things that I had for
years worked with Chase and ontheir payment processing side, I
mean years and millions andmillions and millions of dollars
processed through them.
Never an issue, never headaches, never whatever.
Maybe once every 18 months I'dget an email saying, hey, we've

(08:20):
had a couple charge backs orwhatever.
The ratio is a little higherthan normal.
Please remember, this is likeour ratios.
It's like, yeah, no problem, Imean with the volume we deal
with.
Inevitably that is going tohappen from time to time.
Yeah, people just not likingour refund policies or who knows
what it may be, and so theywant to do that.

(08:41):
And then we go and battle.
Well, years I worked with thosejokers and anytime there was a
issue or a question, it was nextto impossible to reach anyone.
It was next to impossible toget any answers.
Everything would be mailed,nothing was just communicated

(09:02):
electronically, and maybethere's some regulations within
that industry that requires itto be mailed versus emailed or
whatever.
But I got to believe there'sbetter ways to handle certain
things.
And the thing that kind ofbroke the camel's back for me
messing up that saying is all ofa sudden I wasn't getting my

(09:23):
deposits, and this after yearsand years and years, millions
and millions of dollarsprocessed through them every day
.
Very steady, similartransactions, nothing changes,
and like what's going on.
So I call and I actually dofinally get a hold of somebody
and like well, mr Wilson, we'vegot a $75,000 reserve we're

(09:44):
putting in place.
Once that's met, we'll startyour deposits back up again.
And it wasn't like we're takinghalf your payments till we get
this reserve.
It was we're going to sit on 75.
And I just started cracking uplaughing on the phone.
They were like until we get to$75,000, we aren't releasing

(10:05):
them.
Can you tell me why?
Wow, can you like I had noproblem with any of my other
providers.
Everything else is cool.
It was.
I always thought that using themerchant processor attached to
my bank, so all of our accountsare there.
Everything is seen just from abundle type standpoint.
We were an ideal client.
So I thought and they said,well, nope.

(10:28):
And so I appealed twice andthey're like no, because I loved
it.
Man, any payment I ran by 11o'clock at night was in my
account the next morning.
Right, the fees, honestly, wereuber competitive because the
volume that we did, the feeswere very low and for that I had
no customer service, I had nocommunication, I had nothing

(10:51):
except for, hey, I had my moneyand that was cool with me, and
so it was fine until it wasn't.
And so I said, guys, I willliterally turn this off right
now, like you'll never see a$75,000 reserve for me.
That's not happening.
And at that point they wereabout $15,000 to $20,000 in to

(11:12):
the reserve because and that wasonly a couple of years ago.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
They were running payments.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
But I noticed no deposits and so they were like
well, we'll, we'll sit on this,you know.
And after six months you knowthey can be released, or it was
a nine months, I think, was thenumber they gave.
This has been a year and a halfnow.
I've never seen those dollars.
They don't have a, they don'thave a record of those dollars

(11:39):
at them.
Oh, wow, you know, and it's so,it's, it's a whole nother mess
that we're like dealing withwith chasing that, and it's fine
and it'll get figured out andhandled, but it's nobody knows
anything.
Their left hand to their righthand and no one talks, nobody
communicates.
And so we had an interimprocess so that we use for a bit

(12:01):
, and it was fine.
And then we made the switch torate tracker.
Now I have a rep who justtexted me hey, josh, hope you're
doing well, check it in.
I got a rep, I'm going to getlives across the world and I'm
shooting him a text or messageand it's probably the middle of
the day of night, you know likewhen he's sleeping, and sure

(12:23):
enough, you know he'll, he'llsee his phone.
He's like oh, give me onesecond.
And you know, josh has answeredme and I'm forgetting, and you
know that he's different part ofthe world.
And then their support piece hasbeen insane.
We've done thousands andthousands of transactions with
you guys.
I think we've had threeproblems.

(12:45):
Yeah, undriven by you guys, butyou all went to war for us to
battle to hold these othercompanies accountable to make
things right.
And it didn't take up a bunchof our time, it didn't add a
bunch of stress or concern.
I will go as far as to say, inthe beginning, when we had a

(13:12):
conflict and it really himmed usup, you know you personally
went out of your way to makesomething right for me and my
business.
You talking about the 20 grand.
Yeah, man, yeah, like.
How was that?
The?

Speaker 1 (13:25):
situation there.
Dude, the processor was wrongand that's why I I did that,
because sometimes the banks moveslow, man, they just they no
offense, but they're thatcompany is.
They have 100,000 clients andthey work to get to.
They made a mistake on theirend.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
In my opinion, and that's why I was willing to do
that, and then you paid me back,so that's great.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Well, that's the thing that's so crazy.
So that's just so unheard of.
It was a very unique situation.
It was a shit show of when itis that happened at once.
There was a cashflow crunch,adams, like, hey, we didn't
screw this up, but they're apart of us through how we're you
know the process that we'regoing.

(14:09):
They're wrong.
I'm going to make it right.
We all made it right.
It was like a 24 hour thing,but it was just.
It was incredible to meownership and accountability,
right and resourcefulness thatyou stepped in with one of our
core values.
You mentioned core valuesearlier.
One of the core values of mycompany is ownership.

(14:29):
You know, good or bad, weownership and you know, and we
learn from it and we moveforward and we grow and it's
again whether it's a good or abad thing like we own it.
And now how do we make surethat doesn't happen again?
How do we learn from that?
How do we grow from that?
If this is a good thing, yeah,own it.
You deserve that praise.

(14:50):
You earn that with thatownership there, and that's not
something you see in a lot ofcompanies.
Yeah, that blew my mind becausewe were just.
We were a brand new client toyou at that point.
Yeah, man, I knew you, though.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Like it was Right, that's something that I mean
that's risky for sure, right,but dude, I, I, I saw the
situation, I realized thesolution and it was just easy
for you that way, and that'slike my job is to make you
collecting money invisible,right, yeah, and it should just
be a thing for every businessthat money comes in.

(15:24):
It's correct, it's accurate,the you know all that stuff, and
it's just the way that paymentprocessing works is.
It's always changing, there'salways something broken and like
our team just loves to solveproblems, man, and it's.
It's really cool to hear thatJosh is texting you seeing how

(15:45):
you're doing, like he's.
I mean, obviously, you guyshave worked with a lot of our
clients together and the dude isamazing, he's the salt of the
earth and he, he works hard andlike that is what it's all about
.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Most for most people.
Some businesses don't care.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Like they just want a simple solution.
You know they don't.
They don't need to talk tosomebody, but, like again, for
your business type it'snecessary and you know what.
That is a weird thing that youmentioned about Chase with the
75 K or the reserve.
Yeah, I hear I'll break thatdown for you and anybody that
wants to understand why paymentprocessors impose that kind of

(16:23):
stuff on people reserves,freezes, shutdowns it's because
they don't want to lose money,right?
So when you're in a credit card,say I run a $10,000 transaction
and I pay your business 10grand, right, you will receive
that money the next day.
At least you should, right,it's 2024.
Everybody should have next dayfunding.
You would receive that money.

(16:44):
And then let's say you fulfillthe services and I, the
cardholder, am not pleased, or Iwant my money back, and you say
no, or it was a fraudulenttransaction, or I stole a card,
whatever, and some money has togo back to the cardholder,
whether it's a refund or areversal or a chargeback.
Banks don't like that.
Yeah, they'll process refundsall the time.

(17:06):
It's normal, like if you returnsomething, but if it's a
chargeback that shows conflictand that shows potential losses,
right, usually the thresholdfor a merchant is about one or
one and a half percent yeah.
You want to bank, a high riskbank or a payment processor will
accept.
There's also like restrictionsfrom Visa and Mastercard on that
too, because they wantbusinesses to do good business

(17:28):
and if you have a 10% chargebackrate, you're having to do
something fraudulent or you suckat what you do and they don't
want you to have the privilegeof taking credit cards.
It's unfortunate, but it's theirworld that we just play.
But in your case I bet you thatyou probably had an irate
customer or somebody thatdisputed you a few times or
whatever, and Chase didn't seeit as a favorable scenario for

(17:53):
them.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
And I don't know, I'm speculating, so here's how they
did.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
And they probably did some sort of risk assessment
and they figured out that therisk exposure was somewhere
around 75 grand, because you doa lot of volume, and they felt
that that 75K would cover theirpotential losses.
And I'll give you a recentexample we had a client that did
like 360 grand with us in thefirst three months.

(18:20):
It turned out to be a fraudmerchant or not fulfilling or
doing something that was.
That led to 120,000 inchargebacks.
Okay, wow, there's still morechargebacks and there's no money
in that business's bank account.
So every time that happens thebank gets clipped for five grand
, 10 grand, whatever, and thosechargebacks have to be funded

(18:41):
somewhere because the money butthe money was already spent.
The reserve that they had was100K.
Because it's a high riskbusiness.
You know very.
It's a debt remediation company.
There's a risk, as risky as itgets.
The bank took the risk, though,because they it's a high volume
profitable account, right.

(19:02):
Yeah, so the 100K and thereserve got it absorbed.
It was 100% used to fund thechargebacks, because there's no
money in the bank account.
And then the 20K over thereserve is what was actually
true losses for the bank andit's growing.
So maybe it's at 40K.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
But what's going to happen, dude?
They're going to go intolitigation, collections,
whatever, to get that 40,000.
And to get the money, it's likeit's really tough, like it's
basically like an unsecured lineof credit is what a merchant
really is, and you know what?
Most businesses don't haveissues.
It's like some that just dobecause of a bad customer.

(19:40):
It's their business model.
Like you're like again, you'renot selling Girl Scout cookies,
you have a high ticket offerwith future delivery, and like
this stuff happens.
It's why you need a team likeours to help you with that in
that situation, because Chaseisn't going to communicate with
you and they're not going tohelp you find the perfect
solution.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
They're just going to say I know we're going to sell
75K in this reserve.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Screw you, we don't care.
Of course you're going to get anew processor.
That's probably what theywanted.
No offense.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Right.
Oh yeah, it's a weird dude.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Banks, like my brother's a banker and he's so
weird, right, he's not best bankthough, but all they do is
drink and golf man Side noteBankers don't have to work
because their money works forthem.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Pavement processors are working our asses off for
pennies, and it works out at theend.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
They're clicking buttons, holding on to more
money and reinvesting itelsewhere.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, dude, yeah, it's like you're never money too
.
Like it's wild how it works.
Banking is such a cool thing.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
I don't know I digress.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
We should be talking about payment processing, but so
where's it going?
Oh yeah, like they don't reallycare, no offense.
And even though they had yourbanking like, you still bank
with them.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
No, yeah, there you go.
They lost a partial, partial,okay, got you.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, and so you know I mean in those situations
because, like my company's, bigenough that we have problems
like that every day, likeliterally every day there's
something and that's where ourteam comes in.
You need it.
You know we like to be thebuffer, the trusted expert, the
consultant, whatever you want tosay for our clients.
And it's a partnership, becauseif they're successful and they

(21:16):
keep processing their payments,their sales rep gets paid a
residual every month, and thenso does their sales director,
which is Daniel I'm sure you'vetalked about.
Yeah, great, and the companymakes a gross profit.
That's how we, that's how wegrow and thrive.
So it's in our it's literallyin our best interest to make
sure our people take care of andI take pride in us executing on

(21:36):
that every day.
You know, yeah, and so I know,dude, thank you for saying those
kind words.
You know it's like it's reallycool when you get to do business
with people like you that arefriends, clients, referral
partners, like it's sure I'm,and to hear that kind of stuff
is like you know, you made myday and it's only you know 11
o'clock here.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
So well, you know, it's like one of those things
where you know, man, this ideaworks.
The idea is working rightBecause we all had, when we all
started doing whatever it isthat we're doing, it was just an
idea, it was a concept, andsure, maybe somebody else has
been doing it.
Payment, starting a paymentprocess in company wasn't an
original idea.
There's hundreds of thousandsof them, if not millions, of

(22:19):
payment processing companies,agents, whatever, and.
But it can be done differently.
You know, when I look at thedog training side, I'm like
we're dog trainers.
We're not caring cancer, we'renot nuclear physicists, we're
not like you know, we're notsaving the world.
There's nothing that seriousabout it.
Anybody who's a good humanbeing, is maybe not even

(22:42):
passionate about animals, couldbe a good dog trainer.
Right, if you're coachable,you're a good person like I can
teach you how to be a goodreally damn good dog trainer
pretty quickly.
You know, it's not.
It's not anything crazy likethat.
There's tons of them out there,particularly now, there's good
dealians of dog trainers outthere because we made it look
cool, made it look profitable,we took it to social media and

(23:05):
online and people realized, oh,this could be something we can
make a living at Right, and nowthere's tons and tons and tons.
10 years ago, man, thereweren't hundreds of dog training
companies.
There's just like mom and poplittle shops and they train dogs
.
They got their littlestorefront.
Now it's everywhere.
I'm going to train dogs.
I just wanted to do it a littlebit differently.

(23:27):
I wanted to create anexperience that's different for
the client.
I wanted to create anexperience that's different for
the dogs and I'm not reinventinganything, but I am doing it
different and that's what I havefound, you know, with you guys,
right, like it's paymentprocessing.
I told you, you know you couldhave set me up with anybody you
know to work with and stuff.

(23:48):
But I had some particularrequests, you know.
Again, I wanted to be easy formy sales team, right.
I don't need them entering 50million pieces of data.
You know we're over the phone99.8% of the time.
It's card not in hand and I hadsome stuff and I trusted you to
put together a solution for me,which you did.
And then we have the ongoingsupport of the team that's in

(24:13):
place, who's incredible, andthey're bought into it.
It's just different.
It's a different way of doingit, and that's where it's always
cool.
You're talking about five yearsin.
You're like, yeah, this isworking, this is working.
We've got, we've got people whoare interested in our company,
right, other companies who areinterested in our company, and

(24:34):
oh, there's valuations.
They're just like am I, am, I,am I?
Oh, shit, this might work, I'mdoing this right.
And that's a cool feelingbecause you saw a better way to
do it.
You left a situation you didn'tfeel good about core values,
right, and leave that situationyou didn't feel good about
anymore to go on your own inyour own direction in a way that

(24:57):
you knew you could kind ofcontrol those value-based
decisions and stuff like that.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthat core value piece.
You know what.
What makes core value soimportant to you?
And what is it about you thatyou knew with that previous
company, when things started tochange, it was easy to walk away

(25:18):
.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
So, man, that's a great question.
So we have nine core values andI can think of two that apply
to that notion of like.
Why I left Number one is longgame, meaning like when you,
when you deal with people, youplay the long game in most
situations right.
Sometimes you have to, you know, put your foot down and do the

(25:40):
right thing as well and cut arelationship off.
I've done that many times.
So, there's that and then alsoalways do the right thing right.
In payment processing businessin general, it's very easy to
lie Mostly, I mean especially inmy industry.
Like I've analyzed I don't knowhow many a couple thousand
credit card statements I've justfor reference I've personally

(26:01):
signed about 750 accounts ofmyself in my career.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
I don't sell accounts anymore because it's not fair
or good for anyone right Like I.
Just don't have the bandwidthand I would rather them have
Joshua, for example, to be thereto take care of them.
You know that's what everymerchant deserves, and I just
can't do that anymore.
I got three kids that are underfive, and you know my wife too,
so that's my family's.

(26:26):
My focus, and my goal is towork less and be with them more
and play more golf.
Right, but now back to what Iwas saying, the thing that there
was a couple things.
After I joined Apex, I realizedthat I was meant to be a
business owner and I actuallywanted to be a digital marketer
At that point I've done a lot of.

(26:46):
You know I had a lot ofdifferent ideas and payment
processing has been the onething that I've stuck with like
for 10 years.
I've had projects, ideas,things that I launched that
failed all that shit.
And payments is my thing, man,I love it.
And I got we got an email oneday from the chief sales officer
of that company that they letus know that they would start
they're going to begin charging$125 a month for PCI

(27:08):
non-compliance fees right On themerchants.
They're on their credit cardstatements.
Now I bet here it's like 5% ofall businesses actually read
their statement and then maybe10% of those people actually
understand it right?
I mean, like I said, I've beendoing this for a long time,
looked at thousands ofstatements and sometimes we get
statements that our team can'tdecipher.

(27:29):
They send it to me and I'm likeholy shit.
So then I have to go to mymentor who's been in the
industry for 25 years and hehelps with that stuff.
But it's just so easy to lieand I think it's wrong to do it
Like, yes, we need to make aprofit, just like your business,
but like why not just be fullydisclosed with it and then like
make sure that everything isconsistent?

(27:50):
You know like I created ratetracker because I do not believe
in an egregious rate increases.
You know businesses that getadded.
you know a transaction moretransaction costs, or it's
called a discount rate, which isthe percentage of the business
pays.
You know, I think it's wrong toadd $5, $6, $700 a month
unknowingly to the merchant, tothe business, and it adds up

(28:12):
dude, and like the mom and poppizza shop or a lot of your dog
trainers dude, they don't knowhow fees work or what's fair,
and I think that it should be.
It should be fair for thebusiness, profitable to the
processor and then consistentover time.
So I built a software ratetracker that's free for any
business out there.
If you take credit cards, youcan use my software for free and

(28:34):
it will send you a text and anemail every month.
Very simple information howmuch did you process, what was
your fee, what were your totalfees and what was your rate?
Your rate is what matters Outthe door.
Your rate should stay the same.
It should.
You know.
I always tell people this whenthey ask about rates and fees.
95% of our clients fallsomewhere between 2% and 3.5%.

(28:56):
There are low risk, high volumebusinesses, such as a grocery
store is a great example, or anauto repair shop that they can
have a rate lower than 2%because of the nature of their
business, how they take cards,the rates that Visa MasterCard
assessed to them.
It's called interchange right.
Yeah, and then there'sbusinesses that are above 3.5%

(29:19):
because they're high risk.
They take cards over the phoneor on an invoice or their
average ticket's really high, sothey get a lot of credit cards
there's many things that affectthe rate, but the effective rate
, which is the out the door costessentially.
How much did you pay to process?
How much you sold?
That should be prettyconsistent.
If you pay your own fees, rightRight.

(29:39):
Both businesses are gettingsmart and they're not paying the
processing fees anymore.
They pass the the you know, thecredit card fee, whatever you
want to call it.
They pass that cost onto theircustomers and they give them the
option of paying with a wire orACH, or they can pay with a
credit card and pay a fee.
Right, that's what most of ourpeople do and we love those

(30:03):
accounts because if you're notpaying fees and you've got great
service and the righttechnology that helps your
business grow and run, why wouldyou ever leave us?
You know, like back in the daywhen I started 10 years ago, we
were competing on price mostly.
Now it's based on three pillars.
We talk about our three pillarsof payments, technology,
pricing, service.

(30:23):
That's it.
You see, there are going to beno fees to the business and you
know, because they they decideto offset their costs with
either a dual pricing or a cashdiscount program, or they they
get offered a pricing structurewhere that they are paying the
fees their business does, andit's transparent, fully
disclosed and consistent.

(30:44):
That's how we do it.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
I've always been that way.
You know what man we like.
If I wanted to, make more money.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
I could just increase rates.
Like we can do that, we letthem know the statement.
They they may or may not readthe statement, let alone get it.
And if they know, if it's a$200 a month increase and you do
, you know 80 grand a month incredit card fees, you think
they're going to know, right.
Pizza shop doing a million bucksa year.
We give them a quarter percentincrease.

(31:11):
We can do that.
They would pay an additional$2,500 a year and they're not
going to know, right?
If they do know, it's becausethey are shopping for a new
processor, and I could put thatrate increase in place today.
If they're not shopping for anew processor until October,
they would have already paid uslike two grand more than what

(31:32):
they were expecting to, and Ithink that's wrong.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
So that's why I built this software.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
That's why I want businesses to know their costs.
It's not just about the rate,like you said, it's about
technology and service.
But if they do pay their ownfees, it should be fair and
transparent.
I said I will always operatethat way, you know.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
It's funny.
So you talk about those threepillars and the ranking for me
is tech service fee.
If the tech is smooth, likewith regards to payment
processing, you know, becauseyou know I've had people tell me
well, josh, you know I pay lessthan that I'm like sure you do.
Let's tech art.

(32:10):
Let's text our reps.
Let's pretend we have a problem.
Can you do that?
No, okay, let's run a payment.
Can your sales team do that in15 seconds in a very easy manner
for the customer, who isn'tgetting worn out with stupid
questions and rolling their eyesand all that stuff?
Or do you need to fill themwith?

(32:32):
You know their full, you knowhouse mortgage application,
right for them to run a paymentfor you over the phone?
And so for me, it's the tech,it's the service.
And then that fee.
I don't.
I mean, I appreciate, I thinkthe fee is competitive.
I think it's more than fair,particularly for the support and
the technology that we have.
Now, if something happened, I'malso very confident that if

(32:55):
something happened and I neededto change up how we're
processing payments, I'm goingto reach out to Josh and say hey
, josh, this particular softwarethat we're running stuff
through isn't it for us anymoreI need.
I need to pivot.
This is what I'm looking for.
He's going to find a solutionfor me that'll meet that need

(33:19):
and right now, that meets ourneed with some of my other
companies.
You know it's, it's not, it'salmost all invoices, no payments
over the phone, stuff like that.
There's other options that youknow I would need to look at
that are different than the dogtraining side.
The dog training side is justthe prominent, that's the big
one.
But it's easy for the salesteam, it's easy for the customer

(33:40):
.
And now, the last time they'respending on processing, the more
time they're spending talkingto potential clients yeah, you
know, if I can take a threeminute process down to 15
seconds, why would we not dothat?
And people are like oh well,you know, I pay you know.05 less

(34:02):
of a rate.
I don't care, I'm about the fourX the amount of deals we do
over the course of a week,simply because I have more time
to do it.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
And the guys they're talking about five basis points.
Right, that's what we do onevery hundred grand processed.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
And that's the part that has been really, when I'm
talking to folks about, hey,reaching out to you and
providing them, you know,contact info and stuff, or
they'll come back to me and askme what I'm doing, cause I'll
show them my stuff.
I don't care, and we can walkthrough it.
I'll show them, like the feet,like it's simple.
It's so simple and it doesn'thave to be a stressor and it's
like what are you?

(34:45):
What are you hung up on?
And some people can't, butyou're so hung up on the
smallest of details.
Yeah, and not to details matter.
Details are very, very important, don't get me wrong, but how
does it actually impact whatyou're trying to accomplish?
Is this the biggest thing thatyou need to?
That needs to play into how youmake your decision of who you
partner with and who you workwith.

(35:06):
Probably not.
No, probably not.
But for so many, it's just thatthing.
And what I have found with thepeople who have come on and
joined rate tracker man I hearall the time about how great
Josh is, or Daniel, you know, orthe backend team, or the setup
process was easy.
I think we got a dozen pluspeople we've sent over y'all's

(35:28):
way.
We're going to keep rolling anddoing that and you know, for
those who are listening, todaywe'll drop a link that you can
use to contact you know Adam andhis team, and to learn more,
cause I'm telling you, if you'vegot your, if you're processing
payments right now in yourcompany, at a minimum have a

(35:52):
phone call, send your statementsover, get them, get them
reviewed.
If you don't, I'm not.
I don't care aboutunderstanding what was all
dialed into my old merchantprocessing statements.
Again, I never was taking thetime to do that.
Adam just said probably 5% ofpeople do it and 10% of those 5%

(36:13):
know what the hell they'relooking at.
Yeah, I'm a dipshit dog trainer.
I don't know what I'm lookingat.
I don't know what that, whatthat stuff means.
So for me, that service piece isreally important, that I got
someone that I trust and I cancount on.
If, if you're running all yourstuff through square, if you're
running all your stuff throughStripe, if you're running all

(36:35):
your stuff through you knowPayPal or whatever, all
companies that I've used overthe past, it's fine.
But you're, you're paying, guys, trust me, you're paying and
there is not support there.
There are better options outthere in this world than that.
Oh well, this integrates Joshwith my, with my CRM, or this

(36:56):
integrates with whatever Guesswhat.
Y'all Guess what Rate trackercan integrate in a lot of things
too.
It's really really awesome andit's really really simple.
So I would highly encourage youto have a conversation, because
conversation costs you nothingand I think you'll be really,
really pleased with what you do.
Find out through theseconversations with Adam and his

(37:18):
team and again, we'll drop alink you know on here for people
to do that.
Real simple you fill out acouple of little things and
someone from the team is goingto reach out to you.
What type of businesses are notgood for y'all to work with
Adam?
Are there?
Are there any?
Are there any niches whereyou're like, hey guys, if you're
listening, we're probably not agood fit for you.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
You know it's.
That's a great question.
Like some business types thatwe've had great success with are
obviously dog trainers, right?
First thing that comes to mind.
I love working with conveniencestores, delis markets, auto
repair bars, restaurants, quickservice restaurants are great

(37:59):
and I think that they're goingto grow over the next 15 years.
I actually think your industryis going to grow like crazy, and
you know why?
Because because millennialsdon't want to have kids, they'd
rather have dogs.
Yeah, like dude, what I'vethought about this and I want to
build.
I was thinking about buildingsoftware specifically designed
for dog trainers, and that'smaybe something we can talk

(38:20):
about.
Yeah, we need to integratepayments.
We'd help them with invoice,all the stuff that they do.
That's designed literallyperfectly around that niche,
because I think it's going togrow, and if it's going to grow,
then that means that there'llbe more payments flowing through
there and there's moreopportunity.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Right, yeah, now, we've got the software, we're
about to start pushing it.
So we do need to talk aboutthat because we're about to
start pushing it publicly,probably in the next 30 days,
announcement, announcementcoming.
You know it's like and so, butit's cool, but it's going to,
it's going to change for the,whether that small time operator

(38:58):
or their large scale like, likewhere we're at and growing,
it's going to be able to helpwith efficiencies and client
experience and management andreally pet industry wide, the
entire pet industry.
I agree with you is it's alwaysquickly growing.
But you're exactly right,people waiting to have kids or
not having those kids and thedogs are that piece, whether

(39:22):
it's the groomers, whether it'sthe daycares, the borders, the
veterinarians, the trainers.
It's really a limitlessopportunity for anybody who's in
that market, as long as you'renot a piece of shit human being.
You're a piece of shit humanbeing, my team and I will hunt
you down and drag you throughthe streets if you're shitty to
these animals.
And you know it's funny.

(39:44):
Logan, pop in here real quick, Isee you smirking.
Pop in here real quick.
That question, your mom.
I don't want to forget Adam'slike.
What the hell?
Well, this is what happens withme at him.
I go off.
I want to tangent.
What did I?
What was I hearing this morning?
It woke me up.
I thought our dogs were like inpain what?

Speaker 1 (40:01):
was.
I hear it woke me up.
I ran out to go see if our dogsare okay.
It was a dog across the streetin the driveway, like by itself.
No, it's an owner.
It wanted to go at another dogand it was like mad that it
wasn't.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
So was it on a leash?
Yeah, and all right.
Well, I need don't say it onthe podcast.
I need you to point out to me,though, when we get home tonight
, whose house it is, becausethat dog, it was bad, it didn't
sound okay and I need to findout who it is and talk to them
about how they treat your dog,because that I jumped up out of

(40:36):
the bed was early and I thoughtsomething happened to.
I thought Coyote was in thebackyard or something Got ahold
of one of the dogs.
I didn't know what washappening.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
So, across the street from us, yeah, they were
walking by All right, you saidsomething that is really, really
something to pay attention toyou can be.
You basically said you could besuccessful in your industry as
long as you're not a piece ofshit person.
That's true for anything.
That's true in payments, it'strue in banking, it's true in

(41:08):
anything, right, and I've hearda lot of people say negative
things about the paymentsindustry.
Business lenders love to talkshit about each other and they
say, oh, they're predatory.
I mean there's good people andbad people in every industry.
Right, yeah, like, it's allabout who runs the companies and
the examples that they trulyset.
Right, yeah, and I think it'sour responsibility as leaders

(41:29):
and entrepreneurs to be the bestpeople we can be so that our
people take follow suit, right,and they also project that into
whatever they're doing.
It could be underwater, basketweaving or whatever.
And you're absolutely right.
If the industry is going togrow like dog train the dog or
the pet industry, will, man,beautiful, that's a great

(41:50):
opportunity for the right person, the right mindset and drive to
go make something of themselves.
Right yeah, you see the numbersthat you and your clients and
everyone's doing and it's like,wow, man, that's a good like.
I thought here like shit,should I sell my company and
become a dog trainer?
Because you guys don't, reallyI would never do that, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
I'll tell you.
You know, the thing that'sfunny about it is that I I could
.
This is our 10 year anniversarysince we opened our first
location.
Thank you, we opened and Inever would have imagined what
we've built and what we've grownto.

(42:28):
I would have never imagined thelessons we've learned in the,
the heartache and the pain andthe failures and the wins and
the relationships.
Like it's crazy thinking aboutthis 10 years.
And then I think about, holycrap, we still have so much to
learn and, like I personally,have so much growth still to

(42:51):
reach what I believe mypotential is Right.
And so that's why I put myselfin rooms and I invest in in in
development and in learning,because I don't think I have all
the answers.
I don't, I don't know.
I've never ran a business, adog training business, the size
of the one I'm running right now.
So you know, when I screw stuffup, I'm like hey, sorry, you

(43:12):
know, but I haven't done thisbefore, and in my world it's a
small number of people that have.
And so I'm very fortunate tohave mentors and friends in the
industry who, like, likeyourself you're talking about
your, your main mentor beenaround like 20 some odd years in
the industry, like that's yourgo to right If you, if you and

(43:34):
you know a lot, you've been init.
But there's still times whereyou're like I don't know what's
the best way to maybe handlethis or how should we go about
it.
And you know, I still very muchfeel that way.
So I'm super excited for whatthe next 10 years are to bring.
But this is the one thing that'sso funny and I talk about.
I was like man.
You know we've always beenlimited by.

(43:58):
Our.
Growth is dependent uponsomeone's hand being on a leash
Right and with with my company,we're part of a larger franchise
model and so I'm also limitedregionally, okay, and so where
we have our franchises, we'reblessed we have multiple.
They do extremely well.
You know, the last year, likeeverybody's been a little

(44:18):
different, you know, a littleslower than some have really
taken off.
Some will slow down dependingon the market, but there's still
growth and I'm very proud ofthe teams and what we're doing.
But I'm like man how do we, howdo we help dogs, help more
people?
But we're not limitedgeographically and we're not
limited by having to have ourleash, having a leash in our

(44:40):
hand, you know, attached to adog and that's where we started
getting into the software side.
That's where we started gettinginto media and marketing.
You know pet industry salesassistants, front end admin work
, where we're coming in andtaking in kind of like lead
acquisition through, you know,dog drop off, helping other

(45:02):
businesses build up kind oftheir sales pipelines and
marketing processes, and thatallows us to impact more dogs
and help more people.
But I'm not necessarily tied inand limited by can our hands be
on a leash, and so that's whereit's like okay, because when I
started it was just me in thebackyard and very quickly I'm

(45:25):
like, oh man, if I really wantto help dogs, I want to help
people.
I got to figure out how toteach people to do what I do.
And it's to your point, likeyou would rather you're not out
bringing clients in oronboarding people, you're
connecting them with Josh or oneof your other reps because
that's a better experience forthat client.

(45:47):
Who's like, no, adam, I reallywant to work with you.
Well, no, you don't.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah, no.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
That's like me and the phone call.
Josh, we really want you totrain our dog.
You trained our other dog eightyears ago.
I'm like, no, you don't.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah, dude, you're probably not even that good at
it anymore.
No, it's not.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Like I've always said , I want to be the worst dog
trainer in my company.
There you go.
Yeah, if I can be the worst dogtrainer in my company, we're
freaking killing it, bro.
If I offer the worst experience, my experience is the worst
experience.
Now, it's a good experience,but if it's the worst of all the
experiences they can get, we'recrushing it.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yeah, man.
That's a really good.
I never thought of it like that.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Right.
So what if your yourexpectation for yourself is,
because the thing is, you'll gofor it, you'll bring in 500
clients this year if you need to?
Yeah, that's just bottom line.
You could, but is that the bestuse of your time, of your
skills, of your re?
Is that what you want to bedoing?

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Not anymore, man and I know that it's the ultimate
and I talk about this a lotbecause I literally we had a
call what's today, tuesday,yesterday, with our we have
there's like 10 of our salesreps Josh is one of them that,
like, we really pour into, wegive them a lot of training and
stuff, things like that to helpthem, and I was telling them

(47:06):
that I'm jealous of them and Iam envious because I miss the
hustle, like I used to leave myhouse at eight o'clock and come
home at five or six and you know, with so hopefully with some
kills out in the streets, youknow, and some fresh clients,
all that.
And now it's like I come to theoffice, I do the boring stuff
behind the scenes and then I gohome for lunch, come back

(47:28):
usually and then like it's just,it's a different game.
It's like a, it's like a changeof identity and a struggle
because I got my salesman, Istarted out and I can sell all
day long, you're right, and I'vegot the referrals coming in and
the online presence.
It's beautiful, but I'd ratherteach other people how to make
that happen for themselves sothey can build a six or seven

(47:49):
annual residual you know, sevenfigure annual.
Like that's what you can buildin my industry and dude, it's,
it's.
It's a weird change.
I just have to say it.
Anyone that's gone from scratchto building a business like you
for 10 years man, you, you'renot the same person.
You were back then and you'reyou've had a lot of wins, losses

(48:12):
, scars, battle wounds, success,and now you're doing it with
leverage, you know.
So, when my I was thinking aboutthe year, kind of like
reflecting on 2023, that littlethat week before between
Christmas and New Year's, and Iwas thinking I'm not a year new
year's resolution guy that's thedumbest thing I've ever heard

(48:33):
but I'm thinking about what didI do good this year in this time
period?
Right, that we can represent asa year?
Right, I'm like you know, I'vebeen doing so many things
without leverage, right?
So I thought about that word,leverage, and that's what my
word is for 2024.
I'm going to leverage all of myassets to grow my impact, my

(48:54):
company and my mission, you know.
And so, like, one of the thingsI went and did right away was
got.
We got a $1.2 million line ofcredit, which is fucking amazing
to know that.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
As a business owner feels great.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
And we're going to leverage that and get a 500%
return on it this year.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
My goal, you know, and so there's risk there.
But, like I am now at a pointwhere I can come up with a help
to say, yeah, I'll bet $1.2million on these seven different
things and we're going to makeit work, make it successful so
that we grow, we bring out morepeople as team members,
employees, clients, referralpartners and then also create

(49:32):
more impact.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
You know, Like.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
I have a vision that that rate tracker software
becomes the credit karma of thepayments industry.
Credit karma slash car factsKind of like how you say, show
me the car facts.
But I want people to look atrate tracker as the standard of
certification in terms of, like,transparency and trust in the
payments industry.
Love it.

(49:55):
The software itself is it'swe'll call it version two and
it's solid, it works.
It helps people with their feesand they can process payments
through it and all that funstuff, and I want to turn it
more into like a CRM slash, likebusiness finance resource, just
like credit karma.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Yeah, that's what I'm working on.
I'm trying to see, and that'swhy I don't sell accounts-
anymore.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
But isn't that cool, though, how you you've been able
to very similar like path inthe sense that, as you've
developed other people to servein an incredible way, the
clients, from onboarding toservice after they're already,
you know, live with you itcreates this margin for you.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
And it's like less to create more opportunity.
We're going to go through thisgrowth phase.
I'm going to teach more peoplehow to do this so we can impact,
help more people.
Now you get the right people inplace, and this is something
I've really experienced over thelast 18 to 24 months.
I got the right leaders inplace that have finally come up
and developed and they're in theright roles, and last year was

(51:05):
that first time in like nineyears that all of a sudden,
there was margin and I could sitback for a second and I'm like
we need to do this.
This is the next phase.
This is the next step.
This is how we transition intogreater influence and impact.

(51:26):
This is how we help more dogs.
This is how we help morefamilies.
This is how we help meet morepeople within our industry, not
repeat all the mistakes we madeearly on, so that they can come
through and help in a better,greater way.
And all of a sudden it's like,oh, that's a creative idea.
Oh, that's a creative idea.

(51:46):
But all the stuff that had beenkind of buried for years or
maybe was only getting like,because I'm a visionary, big
picture person, I can get intothe weeds and the details.
But I've got like 90 daysbefore I go in massive
depression mode, yeah, and sonow I've got, you know, my CEO,
katie, who's just a freakinganimal and she loves all those

(52:10):
details.
She's like spit at me the bigidea, let me go figure it out
for you.
Hell yeah, now go, go get thenext big idea, or I'll give her
the big idea and she'll tell meall the reasons it's not going
to work.
And you know, nitpick andnegative me, and then I get
pissed and then I make it better, right, I mean, I'm not that
that that push and pull typedynamic, but that's what I've

(52:33):
had and it sounds like that'swhat you've had.
Yeah, you've created thatmargin where you can get back to
.
It's like okay, I envisionedrate tracker, I envisioned
having my payment processingcompany.
Holy shit, we're actually doingit, we're having success.
I'm not done yet.
Yeah, man, what's that nextpiece look like?
But you have to build up thatsupport and you have to build up

(52:54):
that team.
And this is why I feel like somany owner operators get stuck
in operation forever becausethey're scared to teach someone
how to do what they do.
But what happens if they leave?
What happens if they go do itthemselves.
I mean, okay, yeah, clearlywe're not going to people live

(53:16):
in fear.
We're psychopaths.
We went out on our own andrisked it all.
And now you're you're doing itagain, coming in big and hot,
and you're like, I'm going toleverage this to go here because
that's what it takes to do andpeople can go.
I mean, god, I probably.
I call myself the church plannerof the dog world because we've
I think we've spun off more dogtraining companies from past

(53:38):
trainers over the same year thananybody else in the history of
the world.
So you know, I'm like, yeah,I'm the, I'm the church planner
of the dog world.
But and here's the thing, Iwish them all success.
If they're good people, ifthey're good human beings, I
wish them great success.
If they're shit bags, I'mreally going to use any
influence I have to make it verydifficult for them to operate.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Because I care about the dogs and I know you're not a
great person.
I know that you don't work forme because you're a shitty to
animals.
You're not going to work withanimals.
I'm sorry, and not not whileI'm here, you know, and so.
But the ones who the majorityof people are just like hey, I
think I see a different way ofdoing it.
I'm not mad at you.
I'll even I'll help you getgoing.

(54:20):
I'll share with you somelessons, yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Cause, dude, you're an abundant thinker, which is
how we all should be, becausethe world is abundant.
And you know what I tell youthis?
The idea of margin, that wordyou said that is literally what
I was talking to my wife lastnight about Cause.
Like tomorrow we're taking ourthree kids to Florida.
We're going to do like six weekor six day vacation and I think

(54:45):
my assistant just talked meinto leaving my work phone here
and bringing just my, my phonethat literally calls and texts.
That's it.
And I'm pumped for that becauseI, you know, I've been through
some shit.
It's entrepreneurship is noteasy and I've been through, you
know, we all know it.
But I've had some setbacks andbullshit I've had to deal with.

(55:08):
But like, we figured out,that's what we did.
We do the work figured out,keep moving.
It's easy when you have thatapproach and most people they,
most of us are visionaries.
Right, we think about the bigpicture.
We want our business to grow,we want the impact of our, of
our mission to be felt by asmany people as possible, right.

(55:29):
And then you realize along theway that it doesn't really have
anything to do with money.
Sure, money's cool, money'sgreat, but I'm excited about
creating change and feeling likeI have a sense of purpose
outside of my family, right.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
Yeah, you know like.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
I'd like to be known as the guy that cleaned up the
payments industry or or madeAmerica better because small
businesses could thrive moreLike that's what I'm shooting
for.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
So I'll get in the weeds and handle shit but it's
at the point now where, like myteam can just do most of it
better than me and like the onlytime they need me to step in is
when they ask and I do my bestto stay out.
I don't know, at least becausesometimes I see, you know, a
client disrespecting Daniel.
Of course I'm going to comedown on that person and defend
my guy, but then Daniel sayswhy'd you do that?

(56:14):
You didn't need to.
It's like, oh man, it's cause Icare, but then I realized he
could handle it himself andthat's the cool stuff.
You know, like you, thevisionary integrator
relationship that you mentionedwith your COO that is like the
yin and yang of business andpartnerships relationships, the
way businesses operate.
You need to have both sidesbecause, yes, you need to have a

(56:35):
vision and a plan.
You also need to execute it andmost of the time it's better to
have somebody else or a teamthat executes the vision.
Visitors need to be doing stufflike this recording the
podcasts and sharing our visionand thinking about it and
talking about it and you knowhigh level stuff.
And it's really challenging togo from that like from scratch

(57:00):
to like true visionary, becausethere's so many things in the
way of that and it's designedthat way.
It's not easy right?
My wife always says, if thisshit was easy, everyone would do
it.
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Yeah, my wife Devin, she'll say to me she's like
every day she goes.
I do not understand how everyday you choose this fight, you
know, and it's.
You said something that was sokey and I hope people picked up

(57:33):
on it.
You're like it's so beyond themoney, right, Like the money
comes in and the money goes out.
The money pays the people tomake the business operate, the
money pays for marketing, themoney pays for buildings.
The money pays.
You know, the money goes a lotof places besides myself and to
you.

(57:53):
You know, if I made the moneythe company made, yeah, that
would be really a cool thing.
Unfortunately, for those whodon't understand it, it doesn't
work that way.
But it is about a greaterpurpose and if we didn't love
the problem solving right, we'reprofessional solutions, people,

(58:15):
PhD in solutions.
That's all we're doing everysingle day and the visionary
starts out with this idea aboutwhat they want to do.
But then it's that thevisionary skill sets that allow
you to come up with thesolutions that not everybody
else can come up with.
Because we see thingsdifferently and I'm not saying I

(58:36):
see things right all the time.
I see it differently.
My perspective is lack, Like mywife, and I look at two exact
same situations and how we wouldapproach it and attack it or
solve it or whatever, Cause Iwould have never thought of it
that way.
I'm like no, and I would havenever done it that way, and
they're just two very, verydifferent people.

(58:57):
But it's very unique and that'swhy it's like when you're that
visionary and you get the peoplein place who can run your
business and handle yourbusiness and control your
business, because they're sobought in Cause you've made it
clear what your values are, whatthe mission is, what that
experience is supposed to be.
When the things that have tocome to you come to you, you're

(59:19):
clear.
Yes, the margin is there whereyou have clarity and you can
actually make a good decisionfor your business.
When you're early on and you'rethe one bringing in the
accounts, you're the onetroubleshooting, you're the one
installing point of sale systemsYou're the ones doing all this.
Then a client calls complainingabout this.
You're trying to jump in thecar and take that call.

(59:39):
Now that point of sale is onlyhalf installed and that pizza
restaurant is pissed becausethey're about to open for lunch
and there's new system isn't inplace Instead of taking care.
But you're dealing with themart down the street on the
phone whose credit cardprocessing thing went down, and
how do we make good decisions inthose moments?
We don't.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
And we're slaves to our business, and that sucks,
like I would say that there's apart of your business that's
career or whatever where yourbusiness will own you Right, and
that's not how it should be.
You own your business and sothere's a lot of things that
need to happen to go from pointA to point B, and it literally,

(01:00:21):
in my opinion, when people ask,hey, what's the most important
characteristic of anentrepreneur?
It's grit, like pure grit.
Do you really want it Right?
Yeah, I mean, there's a millionways to scale a company and
grow and create that impact thatwe want and have time, money,
freedom, all that stuff.
But it's like the reason whymost businesses fail and never

(01:00:42):
get there is because the peoplein charge are.
They don't have the grit or thedetermination to actually make
it happen.
Like when my wife and I gotmarried or we got engaged, that
night I asked her.
I said what do you want to dowith our lives?
You know what do you want to do?
And she said get married, havebabies and travel the world.
So that is what I think about alot all the time and that's

(01:01:04):
what I want to do.
I'm adding a fourth thing inthere, because I found
entrepreneurship after ourmarriage.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
That is, create a positive impact for the world,
and I can do that because I'm anexpert in payments.
I built a cool company.
We take care of our people andour impact is being felt, and I
want to multiply that by amillion right.
Yeah, I do love that yeah, dude, and so the kids right now like
we're traveling to Florida andit's going to be a really fun
two hour plane ride.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Three under five.
You said right Three under five.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Yeah, yeah, four and a half, two and a half and one
year, and so we're just going tomake it happen.
We'll get there and be fine,but when they're older, like
saying like seven to 10 years,we'll do cool stuff.
By then I'll have the money tofly private and it'll be an
experience to do that, and bythen my business is going to be

(01:01:55):
even further built out, where Itruly own it and I can guide it
and make my work and my effortsuper impactful.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
That's what I want.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Dude.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Yeah, bro, and that's where I'm tracking.
I know you're headed the samedirection.
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
So my son he graduated last year, came on to
work for us in August.
It's really, really fun.
It's kind of I mean, I don'tlack energy, but there has been
a new energy that I've had sincehe's come on board and stuff
that he's learning and taking usin a direction potentially that
is so different than what Iinitially imagined.

(01:02:35):
And it's cool because he'sbringing stuff to the table that
I had never thought about andit's neat to see his involvement
.
It's cool that we've builtsomething that probably the
greatest honor of my life ishaving built something that my
son wanted to be a part of.
Hell, yeah, that's cool.
And now I'm like, oh man, Ireally can't screw this up.
You know You're talking aboutgrit.

(01:02:57):
I'll tell you what has grit,bro.
There's gray in my beard.
I started coloring my beardbecause I was full white and the
gray just keeps creeping back.
I got to go color it again.
I was looking at it on thiscamera.
The way the lighting is, it'slike damn it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
So I used to have brown hair.
I don't know if you really tell, but I got a fresh hair Like
it's gray basically, and so Iget haircuts frequently.
I'm going to get cut today,actually, before I go on
vacation, but my wife is so bentout of shape because she's
starting to have gray hairs I'mlike I'm going to embrace it and

(01:03:34):
I tell people.
I'm like it's 90% wisdom, 10%stress.
Yeah, yeah, I mean the lastfive years I've had three kids
Started a business.
It failed, started another onefrom scratch.
It's booming.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Yeah, bro, If the white of my beard is 90% wisdom,
I need to start writing morebooks, Because if there wasn't
some simpler in it, this suckerlooks like Santa Claus, and it's
been that way for a while.
That's so funny.
Well, look, man.
I can't thank you enough fortaking the time to come on here.
Talk payment processing, talkleadership, talk

(01:04:11):
entrepreneurship.
I'm proud to know you.
I'm honored that you joined theshow.
I'm proud to do business withyou on a daily basis.
Like I said, we're going todrop a link on here and then on
all of our socials.
It's easy for people to connectwith you.
How can they follow you onInstagram or Facebook if they're

(01:04:32):
interested in doing that?

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
So you can just search me on Facebook, Adam
Meese, the one with the checkmark, not the one that's going
to try to sell you cryptoinvestments.
I promise you I will never,ever do that, and all you can
look at on Instagram is at thepayments dude.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
The payments dude.
I love it.
That's great.
Well, look, man.
I pray for safe travels for youand your family and an amazing
week that you guys and the kidswill remember for a lifetime,
and I know it'll be rejuvenating.
Leave your phone with yourassistant and just have a blast,
and hopefully I'll catch upwith you down in Texas here soon
.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Sounds good, brother.
Man, I appreciate you having meon and thank you again.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
Absolutely.
Guys, be sure to subscribe,follow, leave feedback, Hit us
with any questions that you havefor us or Adam, and we'll catch
you next time on the Big Dogpodcast.
This week we've got Hugge Ira.
No-transcript.