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6 Tips to Consider When Choosing a Payment Processor

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The Right Tools and the Right Partners

If you want your online business to be successful, you need to choose the right tools for the job and the right partners for your situation. For example, one of the decisions you’re going to need to make early on is how you want to process payments. Unless you’re going to set up a fully-functional merchant account, that means a payment processor.

Payment processors are ideal when you’re first getting started. They give you the flexibility to accept credit card payments without jumping through the technical and financial hoops a merchant account requires. However, if you don’t choose the right payment processor, you’ll wind up with just as many technical hurdles and probably a higher cost, too.

Here are some of the most important things to consider when choosing a payment processor:

1. Start with security.

If you’re going to build a reliable online business over the long haul, you need a secure payment processor. Today’s web customers are security savvy. They’ve been bombarded for years with horror stories of online transactions gone wrong.

There are two areas in which your payment processor needs to address these security needs:

Poor security on the part of your payment processor means more unhappy customers and more charge-backs.

2. Find payment processors that are compatible with your existing system.

Payment processor choice almost always comes at a later stage of development than shopping cart choice. What this means is that you’re limited from the get-go to choosing a payment processor who offers compatible service with your shopping cart.

While payment processor support isn’t usually a consideration when choosing your shopping cart software, it probably should be. Your choice of payment processor directly affects your bottom line. While it shouldn’t be the sole determining factor in cart choice, it should be in the mix.

3. Look at all of the fees.

Different payment processors charge different fees. It’s easy to get caught up in the per-transaction fee, but you need to look at the big picture. A company with a low set-up fee might seem ideal, but after a couple thousand transactions you’re going to have paid way too much in transaction fees.

Try to build a reasonable sales model, and plug in all of the associated costs of each payment processor over the first six months you’re in business in order to get an accurate comparison.

4. Understand support for multiple cards and currencies.

If the vast majority of your website customers are going to be located in the U.S., you don’t need to worry too much about multi-currency support. On the other hand, if you’re promoting a global product or service, you don’t want currency to be a barrier to entry for your customers. Some payment processors are only able to accept U.S. payments, so find out ahead of time what restrictions exist.

The same holds true for different types of credit cards. If you’re dealing in a high-end product or service, you want to make sure that your processor can handle American Express and probably Discover, as well as MasterCard and Visa.

5. Identify special billing needs.

Depending on your business model, you might have some special billing needs. For example, you might be offering a subscription-based service, and so you’ll need to make sure that your payment processor supports Automated Recurring Billing (ARB).
Alternatively, you might want or need the ability to process customer transactions manually via a virtual terminal. This is useful, for example, if you take telephone orders.

6. Don’t get hung up on pay out details.

Sometimes, you’re anxious to get things up and running and get revenue flowing in. More than one online business has rushed into a contract with an online payment processor because they believed they’d get paid quicker.

Over the long haul, this shouldn’t be a concern. Don’t choose a payment processor just because they make weekly (as opposed to monthly) payouts. If your business is running that close to the edge in terms of cash flow, find other ways to keep things moving, such as increasing investment capital.

Your online business is only as strong as the tools you use. Choose a payment processor that creates a smooth, secure transaction for your customers, opens up your products or services to the largest possible market, and lets you maximize profits.

—-
Image Credit: Some rights reserved by 2Tales
Author’s Bio:
Sara Schoonover is Vice President of Ticket Kick , a California company that helps drivers get red light tickets and other traffic tickets dismissed by helping drivers through the trial by written declaration process.

Thank you, Sara!

Love learning this stuff!

Be irresistible!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Can You Change a Difficult Co-Worker’s Attitude?

Filed Under Business Life, Tips | 3 Comments

We have all been there at one time or another in the working world.

You are thrust into a situation where you have to work with someone who either has a negative attitude towards their job, towards their employer, towards you or all three. So, what can you do to better the situation?

The worst case scenario is leaving the job due to the actions of a single person. Remember, you got the job for a reason and it is your career, not the other individual’s future, which is at stake here.

What Are the Issues with a Co-Worker?

In dealing with a difficult co-worker, take some time to run these items through your head:

In cases where a difficult co-worker’s actions are directly impacting you and your ability to successfully do your job, it is important that you not just let things go. Remember, your professional success is on the line here, so don’t let someone else take you down with them.

Having worked for 22 years now in different fields, I’ve worked with some fantastic people, some okay people and some real jerks for lack of a better term.

In one situation, I had only been on the job at a company for a few months when a co-worker, who later was promoted to the head of the department I was in, became an issue.

As fate would have it, this individual loved to micromanage people, always point out the bad instead of the good in a person’s work, and always seemed to just want to make your eight hours a day on the job as unpleasant as possible.

After a few weeks of dealing with this situation, I went to the owner of the company to discuss the matter, even offering to resign. He stopped short of accepting my resignation and asked that I give him a few days to investigate the matter. After doing just that, my supervisor became a former employee of the company.

As it turns out, other individuals also had expressed concerns about working with this person, pointing out that they too sensed she was not only not good material for a supervisory position, but that she was creating an environment for an ineffective department.

Standing Up for Yourself on the Job

What I learned from this situation was that not only is everyone replaceable, but that you have to stand up for yourself not only outside the office, but inside too.

Even when I have worked over the years with people I didn’t necessarily like, I respected the fact that we were all brought together to do a job for our employer. I told myself that I did not have to be friends with these people outside the office, just do enough to make for a productive work environment.

Do I think bad co-workers can be changed?

Honestly, it depends on the environment you’re working in, what type of setting management has in place, and whether or not trying to change the individual is worth your time.

Most importantly, stand your ground at work if you’re dealing with a bad co-worker. While not putting your own job in jeopardy, work with management if necessary and keep them in the loop of any incidents that involve you and a bad co-worker.

In the event the difficult co-worker is the company’s owner, you might want to start polishing up that resume.

I can say I’ve been lucky to work under some good owners over time, something that you definitely should not take for granted.

As for all the co-workers I’ve had in four jobs over 22 years, do you have a few hours?

So, how have you handled dealing with problem co-workers?

Photo credit: blogs.villagevoice.com

Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects’ corporate credit cards and business phone service, writes extensively for business.com an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

 

 

How to become yourself

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, Tips | 1 Comment

Most people that I know, including Yours Truly, prefer to know Where They Are Going. If hiking, the compass keeps us on course; visiting a new city means checking the maps. There is a comfort and a reassurance in knowing the way. When forging a life, however, things are not always so cut and dried.

Some of us follow the maps our parents or family expectations set: attend the same college they did or inherit the family business. And sometimes, those expectations sync with who we are. Sometimes, they don’t.

If you have ever felt the stirrings of unrest or dissatisfaction in regards to where you are along the great Flow Chart of Life, congratulations. That means that your compass works.

It is good to feel lost… because it proves you have a navigational sense of where “Home” is. You know that a place that feels like being found exists. And maybe your current location isn’t that place but, Hallelujah, that unsettled, uneasy feeling of lost-ness just brought you closer to it. ~Erika Harris

That gut feeling means that you are in touch with your core (whether you refer to it as a soul or a higher consciousness). Your life’s work is to heed and hone it.

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of. ~Michel de Montaigne

In the year or so that this series has existed, I’ve made references to a few “diagnostic” tools to refine your compass. These include journaling, meditation, exercise and yoga. Each discipline is a means to activate and develop your ability to assess, measure and quantify what’s going on under the hood, so to speak.

In order for you to progress as an individual, it is vital (crucial, essential etc) that you devote at least 15 minutes a day to one of the four activities. Non-negotiable.

All men should strive
to learn before they die
what they are running from, and to, and why.
~James Thurber

During your 15 minute sessions, start out by stating your intention for that day’s efforts. For example, literally write out, “Why do I not understand This Particular Problem?” along the top of your journal page. Start writing. Watch your brain unspool along the page as you answer yourself. It’s exceedingly bizarre, and I can’t explain how, but if you persist in asking yourself questions, you’ll actually answer yourself if you honor your 15 minute commitment to yourself each day.

If you are feeling stressed or tense, force yourself to get up and walk around the block. Use the copier on the second floor. Find an empty office and do Office Yoga. Exercise will literally jog your brain and solutions to your questions will appear.

The key is to remain consistent in your efforts, regardless of how “busy” you may be. If you are too busy for yourself, you will always keep a portion of your brilliance and potential dormant. Pick one of the four and rotate your choices throughout your days.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. ~Anna Quindlen

This is the kicker. You aren’t your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, the Black Sheep or The Hero. You are you: the singular expression of your own hopes, dreams, talents, foibles and aspirations.

Make the commitment to yourself to begin becoming. It will be a chaotic and exhilarating exercise, but it’s worth it. I promise. When have you learned a lesson about yourself? How did you discover it?

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Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive Foundation) or “Like” them on facebook.

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Who’s in control here?

Filed Under Guest Writer, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, Tips, leadership | 6 Comments

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Central to distinguishing an independent person is her or her concept of control. There is a saying or mantra among some circles that ‘you are in the driver’s seat of your life,’ and to a certain extent, I can see how that’s the case. However, some interpret this to mean that they must extend their influence or attempt to control every one and every situation that comes within their orbit.
This is NOT control, and is, in fact quite the opposite.
Real power and real control is realizing that control over self, or control over Ego is the deciding factor between power and hubris.
“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.” – Seneca

It’s actually pretty easy to be a control freak. It’s quite simple to flex your “power” by controlling other peoples’ lives. From a very cold, third-person perspective, there is always going to be a group of people willing to transfer ownership of their choices to a strong Ego whose Will will dictate the direction of the group. If I’m a huge control freak and find resistance among my peers when I try to impose my preferences on my social/work circle – if I’m really addicted to the need to control, I’ll find an way to switch groups – to a more malleable one.

Trying to control every aspect of a situation isn’t strength or independence. It’s actually a fear-based mechanism used by control freaks in an effort to game the system and to protect their own core. Control is also a way to keep from changing, addressing a past wound or growing as an individual. It takes one to know one and I fight this impulse once in awhile.
“I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.”- Billie Jean King

The day that I fully embraced the fact that I am a control freak, paradoxically, controlling things seemed less important. It stung my pride to think that I really had the capacity of being a raging, overbearing Ego, bent upon cowing others. But it’s true. In my darkest recesses and most immature fibres of my being, I really do wish that people would just realize that ‘my way is the right way,’ and it would be faster and easier if everyone acted accordingly.

The saying, “If you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself,” is a big fat, Ego-stroking lie. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find out that more important than the “do-ing” is to divine the “what or why” within the task. If it’s something that you are called to do and it’s in alignment with your development, then yes, you are meant to do this particular “something.”

However, if it’s a goal that is necessary to achieve within a wider arc to “something” and someone else may be smarter than you or more skilled at this particular “something,” realize that there may be other ways to achieve an outcome. Release your need to control and watch how much faster things happen.

It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are – not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within – that you can begin to take control” -Oprah Winfrey

THIS is the driver’s seat to which I alluded earlier in the purest sense. You ARE the driver of your own life, but your control extends to the inner landscape of your emotions and the external landscape of your reactions. Real transformation comes when you can move beyond being reactive and become proactive.

When you are proactive, you begin to become aware of how your previous reactions have affected your life. You begin to divest yourself of situations, places, people and circumstances that cause (known) pain. You begin to choose situations where you shine; people who bring out your highest self. Here’s the kicker: you will also experience some pains in this transition as well, but they are more like the type of pain you have after a really good workout. You know that you’ve built something and that this particular pain comes from growth.

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”- Albert Ellis

This is power. This is independence, regardless of your income or status. Once you have internalized that you are indeed the captain of your own soul, you are free to chart your own course. How do you define control?

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Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive)

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Why should you keep trying?

Filed Under Basics, Business Life, Connecting Dots, Inside-Out Thinking, Motivation/Inspiration, Strategy, Successful Blog, Tips, leadership | 5 Comments

“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.” – Walter Elliott

Independence is not granted. Independence is earned. Step by step and action by action, independence is a state of being one creates for him or herself by consistently choosing actions that enlarge his or her range of options. To paraphrase legendary college football coach Lou Holtz, “If you know where you want to be, choose the option that will get you closer to your goal.”

When we take the time to discern our choices and make them in alignment with our ultimate goal, we earn our own independence. But independence seldom arrives in one fell swoop.

“This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are many programs and philosophies that teach “one day at a time,” or “just for today…”. This makes sense, because the only personal time zone that remotely comes close to being under our control is right now. RIGHT NOW. The past is gone; the future has yet to arrive. Each day, when we commit to ourselves and our goals, we are taking steps to our independence.

Let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that we really bungled a choice yesterday. In keeping with the “just for today” philosophy, we can review yesterday’s decision, glean the lesson from it and apply it to today’s actions. Punishing ourselves for screwing up doesn’t do anyone any good and keeps us from growing and changing. Therefore, dispassionately assess your choice, adjust your behavior and move forward. Easier said than done, but it must be done.

That’s why we get plenty of practice.

“Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs.  Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.” – Dale Carnegie

It’s no accident that our “little jobs” are little. We learn and hone our skills on “small jobs.” Furthermore, small hurdles are training grounds for bigger hurdles, quite frankly. As an aside, my youngest daughter is fortunate enough to usually get one mini-lecture from me en route to school every morning. Her sisters, who are both away at college, probably miss Mom’s Life Lessons™ (actually, probably not – but they will, once they have a kid!). But I digress.

A recent mini-lecture that evolved into this post is that hurdles aren’t there to punish you. They are there to see if you’re serious. If you throw up your hands and bail at the first hurdle, then you are certainly not going to be able to clear anything higher down the road to your goal. Sometimes hurdles are directions – indications that this particular goal is actually not for you. Your path lies/leads elsewhere. That said, persistence in continuing to grow into larger jobs is essential to achieving independence.

“A door opens to me. I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors.” – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by poet W.S. Merwin

I used this quote in a previous blogpost, “When is it okay to give up?” and I use it again here because it is so apt when discussing persistence. Oftentimes, we focus on achieving a goal, only to realize upon reaching it, that we’ve just begun. Imagine setting climbing a mountain as your goal. In anticipation of this feat, you’ve set as your first goal achieving the fitness necessary to complete this task.

In preparation, you’ve spent the previous 3 months at the gym, doing leg lifts and squats until you could bounce a quarter off your hamstrings. You’ve got the conditioning of the 1980 U.S. Olympics hockey team. The day of the climb, you’ve got your gear packed; your Clif bars, dried fruit and Camelbak filled. You’ve packed your insanely expensive Sharper Image combo declination compass and Sherpa translator. You are ready.

At the crest of the first hill, you see a small wash before you, but it is backed by a craggy, narrow path that leads to the actual summit. You have two choices. Stay here or press on. Each time you reach a plateau (figuratively or literally), you are greeted by a bigger vista that reveals more possibilities. When you commit to your ultimate goal every day, keeping in mind your motivations for doing so, your independence is assured.

Hang in there. You’re worth it.

——-
Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive Foundation)

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