Merchant Accounts Simplified: Avoid Fees, Reduce Risks, and Scale Easily

Summary

Podcast Summary: Special Ops – Episode: "Merchant Accounts Simplified: Avoid Fees, Reduce Risks, and Scale Easily" Release Date: February 4, 2025

Host: Emma Rainville
Co-Host: Travis Gomez

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of Special Ops, Emma Rainville and Travis Gomez delve into the intricacies of merchant accounts—an essential component for businesses processing online payments. Aimed at entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses efficiently, the hosts provide actionable strategies to avoid fees, reduce risks, and maintain healthy relationships with payment processors.

Understanding Merchant Accounts

Emma begins by demystifying merchant accounts for listeners unfamiliar with the concept:

“A merchant account is basically a way to process money. It allows you to accept credit cards, where people give you their credit card information, and the credit card company provides you with the funds.” [01:05]

She emphasizes that in the realms of direct response and e-commerce, businesses often operate under "card not present, high-risk" merchant accounts due to the nature of online transactions.

Types of Merchant Accounts

The discussion transitions to the various types of merchant accounts available:

1. Standard Providers (e.g., Stripe and PayPal):

   • Emma likens them to a convenient kiosk at a fast-food restaurant—simple and straightforward but limited in customization.
   • Suitable for businesses with standard operations and lower risk profiles.

2. Dedicated Merchant Accounts:

   • Require underwriting and are ideal for businesses with unique needs or those classified as restricted or prohibited by standard providers.
   • Emma explains, “If you want something more customized or your business falls into a high-risk category, you’ll need to go through actual underwriting.” [02:00]

Choosing Between PayPal, Stripe, and Dedicated Merchant Accounts

Travis shares his experiences with PayPal and Stripe, highlighting when businesses should consider transitioning to dedicated merchant accounts:

“If you're doing more than $20,000 a month with PayPal, it might be time to move to a real merchant account.” [04:34]

He praises Stripe for its cost-effectiveness and scalability, albeit noting some limitations like the inability to perform certain customizations.

Setting Up a Merchant Account

Emma outlines the basic requirements for setting up a merchant account, dispelling the misconception that it's overly complicated:

“You need to show your passport, bank statements, company documents, operating agreements, and details about the websites you’ll be selling products on.” [10:26]

Travis adds that while the process involves more than just opening a checking account, it’s manageable with the right preparation and support.

Challenges and Experiences

The hosts share personal anecdotes illustrating the challenges of managing merchant accounts:

• Travis recounts a critical moment when his business rapidly scaled from $2 million to $5 million a month, leading to urgent discussions about increasing merchant account limits to prevent disruptions (starting at [11:17]).

• Emma warns about the opaque nature of payment processors during high-volume growth, noting, “Banks and processors view scaling as increased risk and liability,” [07:10] which can lead to unexpected account reviews or fund holds.

Maintaining Healthy Merchant Accounts

A significant portion of the episode focuses on best practices to keep merchant accounts healthy and avoid common pitfalls:

1. Chargeback and Refund Management:

   • Emma advises keeping refund rates around or below 10%, though subscription models may tolerate slightly higher rates:
     “Typically, 10% is a healthy refund rate, but in a subscription model, it may go up to 20%.” [17:14]
   • Travis emphasizes aiming for even lower chargeback rates:
     “My goal is 0.6% or less for chargebacks in physical products.” [18:47]

2. Consistency in Sales Volume:

   • Fluctuating sales can alarm payment processors. Emma explains, “Volatility equals risk” and stresses the importance of maintaining consistent or gradually growing sales to avoid triggering monitoring programs. [20:01]

3. Proactive Communication:

   • Emma highlights the importance of keeping payment processors informed about any changes in products or marketing strategies to prevent misunderstandings or account flags:
     “Build out your offer and then send it to your processor for review before launching.” [22:07]

4. Handling Monitoring Programs:

   • If a business enters a monitoring program, Emma suggests having a contingency plan and maintaining open lines of communication with both brokers and processors to navigate the situation effectively. [26:04]

Best Practices for Merchant Account Management

The hosts outline actionable steps to ensure the smooth operation of merchant accounts:

• Maintain Adequate Capital:
  Ensure your business has enough funds to cover refunds and chargebacks for at least one to two months, reducing the risk perceived by processors. [20:47]

• Regularly Update Product Information:
  Always inform your merchant account provider about any new products, website changes, or marketing strategies to keep your account in good standing. [22:21]

• Utilize a Good Broker:
  A knowledgeable broker can act as an intermediary, effectively communicating your business needs and mitigating risks with payment processors. Emma states,
  “Having somebody who can speak the bank's language and interpret your concerns is worth its weight in gold.” [15:37]

• Implement Chargeback Management Systems:
  Instead of relying solely on third-party chargeback companies, develop an in-house strategy to handle disputes efficiently and cost-effectively. [25:11]

Resources and Further Content

To complement the episode, Special Ops offers additional resources for listeners:

• Free Downloadable Playbook:
  Available at specialopspodcast.com, providing step-by-step guides on setting up and managing merchant accounts.

• Merchant Account Checklist:
  A comprehensive checklist is available in the members' area, helping entrepreneurs ensure they’ve covered all essential aspects of merchant account management.

• Upcoming Content:
  Future episodes will delve deeper into topics like chargeback management, reducing processing fees, and strategies for businesses under monitoring programs.

Notable Quotes

• “Volatility equals risk. High chargebacks equals risk.” – Emma Rainville [20:01]
• “If you're doing more than $20,000 a month with PayPal, it might be time to move to a real merchant account.” – Travis Gomez [04:34]
• “Having somebody who can speak the bank's language and interpret your concerns is worth its weight in gold.” – Emma Rainville [15:37]

Conclusion

Emma Rainville and Travis Gomez provide a comprehensive overview of merchant accounts, offering valuable insights for businesses aiming to scale sustainably. By understanding the types of merchant accounts, navigating the setup process, and implementing best practices for maintenance, entrepreneurs can effectively manage payment processing, minimize fees, and reduce risks. The episode serves as a tactical guide for taking action towards optimizing business operations without getting bogged down by complexities.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Special Ops, your tactical guide to driving your business by actions, not words. I'm Travis Gomez, along with my co host and business partner, Emma Rainville. If you're new here, please be sure to visit specialops podcast.com and sign up for our free membership where we provide additional content, resources, checklists and action guides.

[B]

I'm super excited about today because we're talking about your favorite subject in all the world.

[A]

Oh, yay.

[B]

And the reason we met. And the reason we met. It's the reason we met.

[A]

This is true.

[B]

So merchant accounts.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Everything you need to know. And so generally you lead and I answer questions. But since you know far more than I know about merchant accounts, even though I like to fight with you sometimes that I know more, it's okay. You know far more. Even though you know far more, I'm going to play questioner.

[A]

Okay, you do it.

[B]

Okay, so just really, really quickly, for those listeners who are unsure what a merchant account is. A merchant account is basically. It's basically a way to process money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so it allows you credit cards give you credit, people give you their credit card and credit card company gives you the money. But you have to have a means of doing so. And that is called a merchant account.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And in direct response and E commerce, we are mostly in card not present, high risk merchant accounts. And I love this, like, people be like, yeah, but I'm not high risk. But you sell online and your. The card's not present, so yes, you are. Yeah. So today we're going to talk about everything you need to know. Everything you need to know about what a merchant account is, how to set it up for the least amount of fees.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

How to keep them healthy.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And all the best practices because you want your merchant accounts to be capable of scale.

[A]

So we're going to cover a lot of that. I don't know if we're going to cover everything we're going to cover in.

[B]

20 minutes or less.

[A]

Go. All right, so let's start with what you need to set up a merchant account.

[B]

This is great. Because why don't people get merchant accounts? The number one reason.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They don't finish the paperwork, they don't finish the paper. It's not because they get denied, they don't finish the paperwork.

[A]

Or, Or. Yeah. So it seems probably more complicated than it actually is. But if you don't know what you're looking for or what information you need or how to get it or what it is, it can seem confusing. And so I think there's different types of merchant accounts, first of all. So there's things like Stripe and PayPal, which is a way to set up to accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover Express, American Express. And then there's also, like, dedicated merchant accounts where you actually go through underwriting. And I would say, like, the difference there is one's kind of like going to a kiosk at McDonald's where you punch in your order, and if it's, like, standard exactly how they want it, maybe add or minus pickles or whatever, cool, no problem. But if you want to get something, like, a little bit more customized or something that's specific or unique to your business, or maybe your business is in a category that's classified as restricted or prohibited by Stripe or PayPal. Those automated systems may not work for you, and you actually need to go through an actual underwriting where your business is looked at. So what type of businesses need those?

[B]

I just assume sex and drugs. Am I wrong?

[A]

I mean, those definitely. But also a lot of. A lot of times when there's, like, memberships involved or subscriptions, those add another category of likely additional risk from a processor's perspective.

[B]

Free plus shipping.

[A]

Yeah, free plus shipping. Any type of trial offer. A lot of times the category is additional level of high risk, sometimes content. Certain types of content, specifically membership content, or even, like a membership portal sometimes can be classified as additional levels of risk because they don't know what necessarily is being provided. And the way that Stripe and PayPal often deal with stuff is they let you start running, and then when you start doing volume, they take all your money.

[B]

They take all your money.

[A]

I mean, I wouldn't say that, but if you start scaling.

[B]

We've literally been expert witnesses because PayPal just took someone's money. Millions of dollars. What are you talking about?

[A]

That's never been proven by a court case that we were involved with. It wasn't. It didn't go to court. But either way. Either way.

[B]

What do you mean it's never been proven? They definitely took his money? It was whether it was whether or not they were justified to take it. That's fair enough for. But can anyone just take millions of dollars? Only PayPal. So be careful.

[A]

That was the point.

[B]

All right, let's move on the straight trick.

[A]

Fair enough.

[B]

I don't like PayPal. I'm gonna be honest. I don't like PayPal. Not for doing business. If you're doing small, small, small business. Small business. PayPal is great. If you're doing large amounts of business, it's time to Grow up and get a real merchant account. Stripe. I used to dislike Stripe, and I actually think it's pretty phenomenal. It's very cost effective.

[A]

Yeah. It's simple.

[B]

It's simple.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You can't do crazy things there, like, for whatever reason, have a test card to test purchases. But. Okay, whatever. But. But stripes are reasonable. So what takes me from. So I know with PayPal, if I'm doing more than $20,000 a month, I want to get out of there and I want to move over to something better. And so if I'm in Stripe, we've seen people do millions of dollars in Stripe and do just fine. What constitutes needing a merchant account? Because it's not cheap, it's not simple.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's not hard, but it's not cheap and simple.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And it does. You do have a learning curve. So what. What would you say constitutes going and getting a dedicated mid or mid Z?

[A]

I would say if you're scaling, like, if you're scaling to anything where you're. You're actually running a real business and you're like, okay, this is critical to the success of my business. I'm an advocate in general that anything that there's a critical component that you have redundancy for any system that's critical for your business. If accepting credit card payments and losing that ability is going to shut you out of business, then you probably need to have redundancy for that business, for that element of your business.

[B]

Stop you for a second because you didn't actually answer my question. Okay, that was great. That was great. And I really like that if any part of your business it's a critical component needs a redundancy. I like that. That's risk reversal.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

It's beautiful. I love it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So had nothing to do with the question I asked you, though. So let me go back. What elements in my. Because, Okay, I have PayPal and I have Stripe.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

At what point do I say, this is what's going on in my business? Here's the checklist. This makes sense to go get merchant accounts, which, you know, it takes a few weeks. It's. It's a process. You have to do an application, put all your crap together. It's not as bad as getting a mortgage, but it's not as easy as opening a checking account either.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So what do I need to look at to say this is what I.

[A]

When do I make that decision? Yeah. I would say a good rule of thumb is anytime you're scaling beyond about 20 grand a month, in sales is probably a good point to start looking at getting that type of redundancy in place. Is it? You know, can businesses grow beyond that? Absolutely. We've seen it and we've worked with businesses and we work with businesses that do. But I would say in general, usually as companies begin to scale, Stripe and PayPal will put additional scrutiny on it because banks and payment processors don't look at scale the same way business owners do. Business owners look at scale and go, fantastic, my business is growing. I'm succeeding. This is wonderful. And banks look at it as, oh, more, more liability, more liability and risk. Yeah. Usually at that point that that's enough volume for them to flag, to review your account. It doesn't necessarily mean that anything bad is going to happen. I'm not suggesting that that's the case. However, they're not as transparent. They tend to be a little bit more opaque. So it's hard to see what's happening and why they do things. The responses that they often give are very blanket, generic type of responses because they don't really want to disclose anything. And there's reasons for that from a risk and underwriting and risk management side on their side. But that being said, it's kind of like playing a game that you don't know the rules to.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And if you don't know the rules, like, how are you going to navigate that? How are you going to win?

[B]

I remember saying that. I remember saying that. I remember saying that to you.

[A]

Yeah. And so I think that at that point it's stable enough of a business that it makes sense to at least have a conversation with somebody that is going to educate you on what's critical, what things can be risks that you don't even see or know about your business so that you can mitigate those things properly.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do you remember when I said that to you? So you had sent me an email that I had to answer a question for a merchant account. And I answered it very honestly, candidly. Yeah, no, no, I was naive. I had no idea like that I shouldn't have said that. I was, I believe I was answering an IBO question. And I literally put, I'm an IBO reselling my brother's products because he's match listed. I think I said something like that. And you, you wrote me back. Stop joking around, be serious. And I'm like, this is like, there's no playbook to this dude. Like, I don't know anything about this. This is why you told me we were doing this, why Are we? Right, so. But there's no. There's no rules. There's no. But there's loads of rules.

[A]

There's lots of rules. Yeah.

[B]

There's no rule book. There's no study. I want to move on, but I wanted to acknowledge that for a minute because when you're new.

[A]

When you're new, you just don't know.

[B]

You have no idea. And that seemed like the stupidest thing in the world to you, but you asked me to account what I was going to use the merchant account for.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's what I was going to use it for.

[A]

Well, I'm going to use like another example that people use probably all the time. And this is probably everybody who sets up like a stripe account is they'll set up a website, they'll start taking sales, then they go, I'm going to change this website or a new product or whatever.

[B]

And they don't update the med.

[A]

They don't update anything. And they just start processing with it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so technically, from the Visa MasterCard rules, that's transaction laundering. I have this website and now I'm sending sales from this other website and I didn't tell the merchant processor.

[B]

Right. So, yeah, I want to. This is such a great topic, and I want to get all the way through all the content so I can keep us on track here.

[A]

You do that.

[B]

So I go and I decide to get a merchant account. I go through the process and just so that people know who haven't ever filled out a merchant account. And you're like, you have to show your passport, your bank statement.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's nothing too crazy.

[A]

Your company documents.

[B]

Yeah. Your. Your corporation documents, your. Your operating agreement, your bank statements. You have to turn over, like, all of the websites that you're going to be selling the product on, the check.

[A]

How you're selling it. Yeah. Answer a bunch of questions.

[B]

Not too bad. Yeah. And then once you get through all of that, in a week or two, you'll have a merchant account and then you'll.

[A]

Who.

[B]

Probably you'll apply for a couple because Travis likes diversity and most. I think most brokers do. So you'll end up.

[A]

It just depends what the strategy is.

[B]

Probably with a couple. But here's what I want to know. From the moment I opened the merchant account, there was a point. I love the story. There was a point where it was January 17th and I was very specific date. I'll never forget this day. I was up. This is the third day in a row I had been up. We went from 2 million a month to 5 million a month in one month. And I was at our call center in Kingston, Jamaica and I was literally like I was dying. I was drowning in trying to. We needed three times the staff that we had, but we had grown so quickly. And so I was trying to create strategies to get customers handled and not get chargebacks. And I was sitting there, I was so worried about the merchant accounts and I was, we have these spreadsheets that tell us the health, what's our, what's our chargeback ratio, what's our fraud to sales, blah, blah. And so I'm doing that stupid spreadsheet that you have and filling it all in. And I was looking at the capacity and I will never. My heart started racing and I was like, we're going to hit cap by the third of the month. And I just called you and I was like, we need the mids to go up. And you're like, to what? And I was like, I don't know. But we're, we are. We, we were trending it. So we were on the, the, the 17th of the month and we were trending at 5 and we kind of knew that this was going to continue on.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so what do we go for? And I think you went for like 10 million that time. I don't remember. But either way, you made a phone call.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it was gravy. It was no problem. But same merchant accounts two years later, but threatening to shut. They were being threatened to shut down, which is why we got two years earlier, rather being threatened to be shut down, which is why we got called in. And so how did we go from that to here? So I just, I just like to hear from you onboard admits now what do I do so that when I scale, I can go from 2 to 10 million a month with the simplicity of a phone call.

[A]

Yeah. So it's funny because a lot of brokers or processors will tell you, oh, we don't put caps on your account, you know, whatever. And you can just process whatever you need to. And they may technically not place a cap on your account, but everybody's underwriting for some type of dollar amount of sales. And as soon as you exceed that threshold, whatever thresholds that they have, something gets flagged. Definitely. And they're looking at it. I would say, what, in that instance, what made a difference? Because when we got called in originally, it was because of the mid problem, which wasn't really a mid problem. And it was, it was a mid problem, but it was really a Customer service issue.

[B]

Marketing and a customer service issue.

[A]

Right. But I would say two things. There's multiple things that make the difference there, but one of them is how you handle and communicate with your merchant processor. If you actually have like a real merchant account and you're proactive in your communication with them, they want to know what's going on because they want to know what type of risk is happening. And a lot of people avoid talking to their agent or to the risk people because they think, oh, they're going to hold funds or they're going to freeze my account or, I don't know, they're risks or they're scary. Whatever. Whatever they think in their mind.

[B]

Well, in fairness. Yeah, in fairness, if you don't understand the world, you shouldn't be calling your underwriter. That's fair and here's why.

[A]

Yeah, fair.

[B]

Remember when I called the underwriter because they yelled at me when I called underwriter. They were holding. They were holding, I think, 20%.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it was too much.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I lost it. And I was like, you're going to. You're going to put us out of business because you're holding 20% and that's my profit margin.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I need to pay for my products or I'm not going to be able to deliver my products.

[A]

I know.

[B]

It was the first time you ever said the F word to me. I called you, I was living in Puerto Rico and you and I told you what I said and you went, no, you didn't do that. And I was like, yeah, like, you just gotta call and make sure they don't hold our money. And you were like, what you just said to them was, I'm gonna go out of business and you're gonna be responsible for all my chargebacks. And by the way, I can't fulfill my product.

[A]

Cause I don't have any money.

[B]

They're gonna hold 30%. Yeah, you fixed it. It was 10. But you shouldn't just be calling underwriting because it seems reasonable to say, and like, you're holding 20% of my money, I'm not gonna have any money. This when all that did was set up red flags. So I'm just going to correct you there. Don't just call underwriting, call your broker. Broker for it.

[A]

If you have a good broker that you can actually talk to and that is will listen to you and coach you and teach you like, that is worth its weight in gold. Yeah. Because on some level, like you, they want to know that when they have a question that you're going to answer their questions. And really what they're trying to ascertain is how much risk am I taking on here? That's always their question. So having somebody who can speak banker essentially interpret for you like that's really what your broker should be able to do. If they're, and if they have a good relationship with the banks and they have a good relationship with you and they understand your space, they can translate your concerns in a way that makes sense but still communicates the urgency without, without freaking out anybody because you're right like that all they, they stop. I always tell people like they stop listening when they hear I can't pay because as soon as they don't think you can pay, it's like, well, if we let go of anything, we're never getting that back. And then any chargebacks that come in, if we have to close the account, we're going to, all we're going to do is take losses. And it does happen to payment processors. I was talking to a group of payment processors and in the risk team at Affiliate Summit and like three or four of them were telling me of like the six, six, seven figure losses that they took just in the last several months from merchants that they were working with. So I mean it, it doesn't happen all the time, but it absolutely does happen.

[B]

Yeah, it does happen. Okay, so still didn't answer my question. That's okay because I sidetracked you. How do I keep it healthy? What do I do? What like, so what's an appropriate chargeback rate? What's an appropriate refund rate? And how do I keep my merchant accounts and my relationships with my banks healthy?

[A]

Yeah, so basic, general, general hasty generalizations on like healthy thresholds because they will vary from time to time and from category and product and those kind of things. But in General Somewhere around 10% is like a healthy refund rate. Okay. In a subscription model or a trial that may go up to 20% depending sometimes a little bit higher. But if it's much higher than that, generally it has a product or fulfillment operations, some sort of issue that's happening there. And I've seen, and we've worked on campaigns where they've had either trials or very aggressive opt in to subscriptions where refund rates have been 15%. On the chargeback side, chargebacks or disputes are kind of viewed interchangeably, but basically chargeback is a forced refund initiated by the customer through their bank. So just definition, Visa, MasterCard set the rules on what those thresholds are. They're a little bit different, but basically, Basically it's about 1%. Visa says you can have 0.9%. MasterCard says you can have 1 1/2%. But the way they calculate them is a little bit different. So I don't necessarily have to go into that detail. But.

[B]

But it's a good, it's a good ballpark, under 1% charge. But by the way, this is for merchant account brokers. This is not for operations. My thresholds are different. I'm 7 to 9% in physical products, and I'm 0.6 or less in physical products for chargebacks. And that's my, that's my goal and my insistence to my team.

[A]

And that's much healthier. But those are.

[B]

Right, but we're, what we're talking about is what you can get away with with the emergent accounts.

[A]

And to be fair, like, there's some merchant processors that are comfortable not necessarily underwriting an account that's higher than that. But, but if you have an account, they're comfortable with operating at higher thresholds than that as long as they don't flag for the monitoring programs.

[B]

Right. So now let's talk about the monitoring programs. So in order to keep your mids healthy, that's what you need to do. So there's more, though, because if one month I'm running 30,000. Next month I'm running a million. The next month, I'm running 20,000. The next month I'm running 224,000. The next month, I'm running 4,000. The merchant accounts get scared.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In addition to that, when you run high volume 1 month and low volume the next month, your refunds come in on the low volume for the high volume.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Makes sense.

[A]

There's like these waves.

[B]

Right. So I brought in $200,000, but this month I only bring in $20,000. So the refunds that come in from this month here are coming in on this dollar amount. It isn't. It doesn't work on an accrual basis. It's a cash basis.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So you can be in a lot of trouble. So it's important to keep your merchant accounts consistent or slightly growing, not these huge dips and peaks.

[A]

Right. So I always think of it like from a. So after you get a merchant account, how do you keep it healthy is kind of the question that we're tackling right now. And, and when it comes to that, if you can put on the lens or the glasses of like, Risk, because that's basically how underwriters or Risk managers look at everything is through the lens of risk, right? So volatility equals risk. Right. High chargebacks equals risk. High refunds equals risk. Low cash equals risk. Like if you don't have enough capital in your bank account on average to cover refunds and chargebacks, then if you go to business, they know they're going to take a bath on that. So that's more risk. So if you have enough capital in your bank to cover refunds and chargebacks for one to two months, okay, at least you're strong enough to withstand some catastrophic issue to be able to actually have cash to issue a refund if you needed to.

[B]

Makes sense. Yeah, makes sense. Anytime you add a product, anytime you change a product.

[A]

A product.

[B]

Anytime you change a label to a product.

[A]

Yep. A website.

[B]

A lot of people don't understand this. All changes have to be reported to the merchant account. So as a broker, do you like. Because you're also a broker. Well, you're kind of a broker. We're just going to call it that Some people understand. But do you prefer for your people to send it to you and you send it in? Or like, how does that work?

[A]

So do you technically need to have every single product reviewed and approved?

[B]

I would rather just let you know. It's your problem. Like, here we changed a website, here we changed a label, here we changed. And then they can't really get salty.

[A]

Well, in the easiest way to do this because, like, this is again about, like, proactive communication with your brokers and ideally with your payment processors. And that's basically letting them know what you're doing and what you're selling. And my best favorite way to do this is to build out your offer, your marketing of your offer, and then send and say, hey, we're thinking about launching this product. Because if you're not selling it yet, that's great. We're thinking about launching this product in this website or this offer or this whatever, whatever it is, have them review it. Because if they review it and they go, great, no problem. We got it updated in our system. Now they know and there's no problem.

[B]

Travis lives in a monkey's world, so. But that doesn't even make sense to me. It sounds like the jungle. So here's how I'm going to do it. This was just updated this morning when a split test came back in. It is live. Please let the merchant account now.

[A]

No, no, no.

[B]

That's how I do it.

[A]

No, no, no.

[B]

That's why I do it.

[A]

Don't do it like that.

[B]

I'm doing it like that.

[A]

Don't do it like that.

[B]

Speed of implementation is everything. Ask for forgiveness.

[A]

Look, you're going to launch, you're going to take time to launch and to build it out. Yes.

[B]

You're talking about a new product. I'm talking about changes to an existing product. As, as you change the website. We're not waiting for you to run into underwriting.

[A]

But if you're adding a new product, if you're adding a new product, you're.

[B]

Building out a new, if I'm adding a new product, it's going to take me four or five days.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yes, I agree. But if I'm changing a label or I'm changing a website, you can do your job. I'm just so sorry.

[A]

But here's my point is if you pre bet it, they review it and give you a thumbs up, no problem, then you know you're not going to have a problem, you don't have to worry about it. But if they point out, hey, you've got a countdown timer, right? You're doing deceptive marketing practices. You have.

[B]

It's not this ingredient. If I, if I shut it off, I can do it.

[A]

If I shut it off, they will ftc, I can do it if I shut it off. I understand that, but their view of it is that when they see an account down timer, typically the interpretation from the FTC is that that is a false sense of urgency.

[B]

You're wrong. As long as I shut it off.

[A]

I'll tell you how the banks see it.

[B]

It doesn't matter.

[A]

It matters. If you want to process, I promise.

[B]

You that the banks don't. If, if you shut it off and you don't allow them to buy or the other way to do the countdown timer is to increase the price and you're absolutely allowed to do that. And the banks and the FTC do not have a problem with it. What they have a problem with is when you have a five minute countdown. Countdown, countdown timer. Yeah, alert countdown timer. And you don't shut it off and nothing happens. Yeah, the, the, the timer just stops or restarts or whatever. That's false scarcity. But if you remove their ability to buy on the page or you can increase the price. I like increasing the price. Yeah, or you increase the price or.

[A]

You'Re doing like a Father's day special or something, whatever, it doesn't matter.

[B]

But you have to, you actually have to do something.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If you don't stop them from being able to purchase, you'd be correct, right? But if you have a countdown timer and you stop them from buying at the end of that timer, I will.

[A]

Say regardless of what is legal, certain banks will interpret that regardless as deceptive. Just having a countdown timer, one of their.

[B]

I feel like you could do your job and just explain it to them and they.

[A]

It depends on the bank is my point. It depends on the bank and how they, how they interpret it because ultimately it's their risk.

[B]

I haven't had a problem with that ever. Just saying, just I feel like you could do your job. I have faith in you. You'll be able to fix it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay. So. All right, so what else should we cover? We're about out of time. What else should we cover for merchant accounts? We talked about how to keep them healthy, we talked about how to get them up. There's so much that we could talk about as far as like how to set up the back end best practices for that. And so I'd love to do that.

[A]

Eventually because that's probably another.

[B]

Yeah, it's a whole nother podcast. There's just so much into how to, from count to setting up your decline to the chargeback management alerts. Chargeback management. Don't just leave it to some chargeback company you're going to pay all kinds of money to. And then also how to run your merchant accounts in a way that is the least amount of fees. It's very, very expensive to process money in today's world, particularly with you get charged on the first transaction, then you get charged on the refund or the charge back, then you may get a fee. And if you end up in a monitoring program, everything gets more expensive. So I'd also like to have like a oh crap, I'm in a monitoring program podcast eventually. But in the meantime we do have the merchant account man, which is in our members area.

[A]

Yeah, we can do a checklist, massive, massive amounts.

[B]

And then three page best practices checklist, things that you need to run through. And then I was thinking, Travis, we don't have this already done, but I think you can do it before this podcast airs. Do you think we could have like questions to ask your broker?

[A]

Oh yeah, easy.

[B]

So let's offer that to everybody. So if you go into your members area, all that will be in there attached to this podcast.

[A]

Perfect.

[B]

Yeah. Thanks, Travis.

[A]

Absolutely. Thanks for jumping in today. I think we'll kind of wrap up with that and our hope is that you guys take this information and implement it into your business. See the profits, see how it impacts, see how it helps you grow, and so we look forward to catching you next time.