How Jeff Maine Revolutionizes Payment Processing and Customer Retention

Are you looking for clarity to grow your business in the sea of overwhelm?

Make sure to check out the podcast notes for access to our exclusive 12-person mastermind. All right, let's go ahead and jump into the show. Welcome back to Grow Your Impact, Income and Influence, the number one show helping you reach millions. Today, we are going to be talking about the sexiest thing in the world, payment processing. How do you get money in the bank? I am joined today by Jeff Main.

Jeff has more than 25 years in payments. If you have ever wondered how money gets from point A to point B, and you want to know how to get more of it in your bank account, we're going to be talking about payments. We're also going to be talking about building successful businesses and what it takes. Jeff, welcome to the show. How are you doing? I'm doing great, Steve. I really appreciate being here and all your listeners. Thank you for listening to us and talk about such a fun industry, right?

So I'm ready to go. It is. We were talking a little bit off camera and payments is like kind of the wild, wild west and a little bit crazy. There's a lot going on. How did you get into this and how'd you get to where you are today? Yeah, you know, back in the late mid nineties, I was in college and got a phone call from a friend who was in payments and needed some help selling some local clients. And so I, I, that's where I got my feet wet.

I went out and started just on the streets of St. Louis through an appointment center that was setting appointments and we were selling credit card processing, you know, back when it was the knuckle buster and the Lausanne Jr. And the detached printer. And, you know, it was just as a different world then. Right.

But, but that's how we got into it. And, and then since then, I, when I graduated college, I had some advice, you know, from my dad who, who basically looked at me and said, man, you can always go get that job. You should go work for yourself right now before you've got a family, before you have stuff that, you know, responsibilities that, that, you know, that you're going to feel like you have to keep those other, you know, your job and you're to pay your bills.

And he's like, you know, come live with me and, and start your own business. And, and so there we, you know, here we went and started my first company in summer. I graduated from college and, and now, and now we've just been rolling since then. And, and, and, you know, just, just selling payments. And we've built two, we've built three different payment processing companies. We've been in a few partnerships. We built a ACH check processing company and

we're able to sell that. We've sold some payment portfolios and all of that. I was in a partnership that was, you know, we were at the end of a partnership and we were exiting a partnership. Yeah. I'm still, I'm still a young guy, I feel like, and, and I needed to work still and still wanted to go. And my wife and I were sitting at the table and said, Hey, what do we want to do? Right. What's our next step? And, and I said, obviously we need to stay in the payments world because we

understand it. We know it, we know how to build a business in it. But I said, what we need to do is we need to bring clarity back into a world that there is none, you know, business owners don't understand payments. They don't understand why they pay what they pay. They don't have good customer service. They don't know who to call when they have a problem. It's the typical credit card guy walks in, sells you leaves and never comes back.

It's really given our industry a bad name. I tell merchants that all the time. I'm like, I'm the guy that you don't want to talk to until you know me and know that we're running our business different. Then I'm going to be your friend. I'm going to be more than just a business person in your business. And so, you know, that was how we started our mission was writing it around. We want to be in businesses. We want to be face to face. We want to know you.

We want you to know us. And we know we're never going to grow as big, but that was okay because we're going to have, we're going to kill it with attrition rates. You know, we're the normal attrition rates in our industry is over 15%. And ours are, you know, less than three because we do a good job of what we're doing and our merchants know us and they don't want to leave us because of the level of service that we provide them.

And then the second part of our mission, and I'm sure we'll get into it a little bit today, and where the name Pay Proudly came from is we wanted our merchants to pay proud and it was in our vision, just my wife and I, is that we wanted to build a business from day one with a give back. We wanted to have it in the DNA of the business. This is what we're doing and we wanted to give back.

We've been blessed and we want to support local nonprofits and causes that are important to not only us, but to our business owners, because without our businesses, we wouldn't be doing it. Right. So we want to give them credit. We just want to be the best.

We wanted to put together this program and we really thought it was awesome and we were super proud of it for us, but we didn't think it'd have the traction that it's had, but we literally have people now that want to work for us because of that. You know, you know, it's, it's, it's this new generation coming into the workforce. That's super important to them and, and they love it and they want to be a part of it.

And, you know, and, and, you know, I think people like our give back meetings, that's their favorite meeting of the month. Right. And I like our sales meetings personally, but, but they want to talk about it, you know, so, you know, but it's great, you know, and, and it's, it's, it's awesome. We're doing great. We're growing, we're writing checks every month and this month, all of our, all of our efforts are, you know, we're supporting the hurricane

victims up in North Carolina and the Asheville area. And that's where we're giving to. So, you know, and, and, and, and what a great way, you know, great thing we could do and way we can give back. But like I said, it's because of our merchants. It's not because of us.

Well, I mean, there's so much to unpack in what you said. I want to start with just the idea of a payment company that is focused on give back and impact. I think if you would have splashed that idea around 20 or 25 years ago, I mean, I graduated in 96 and all anyone talked about back then was get a job, make money, right? And then you had the top combo, boom.

That's right. There was no talk about give back at all. Then you saw, you know, you saw companies like Cliff and Tom's start to really forward that. And here we are today, to your point, people in today's work environment want to know that their work matters. They're working hard. And you said your employees, their favorite meeting is probably the give back. I love that you and your wife put that front and center. What are some of the differences that you've made?

What are some of the causes that you've supported? it. Yeah. I mean, you know, so we do a lot of local stuff, right? So we, we're super involved with like the, the self-help in the town of the give back and, and, and, and then we're, we do a lot with animal shelters. It's, I, I laugh sometimes as you know, we, cause we'll post things on Facebook and social media. And I think we get more likes when we support animals than we do when we support people, but that's, you know, that's true.

Yeah. So, you know, more people like But we do a lot of that and we do like people for exceptional people. There's a program that helps handicapped adults and they make pottery, right? So we support their organization because they have to go out and bring all these handicapped adults into their organization and then they make this pottery during the day. So we have them making pottery and we give that pottery away to our clients. So we try to give all of our clients an annual gift every year.

And so we try to pour that into that. Right. And, and then we, obviously we support the leukemia and lymphoma society. We support the American heart association. We support, we we've adopted children in Africa through these different organizations. Care Africa is a big one that we, we get behind and we support, and then we, you know, the hurricane efforts. And so we really do try to reach out and do as much as we can do.

And, you know, and we're big believers as well in Christian education and we support Christian education and we give to a local Christian school that's building a building and doing new things. And we believe in that. That's something that's important to my wife and I. So we do a lot of that stuff.

I love that. So, I mean, you basically took an industry that is most people think payments is pretty dirty, right? They're like, oh, they're just taking a piece of the payment. They're making things more expensive and you turned it on its head and you're turning it into something that's a give back. I actually want to go back to talking a little bit about building a business because your dad, I think, gave you a great run up by saying, hey, you know what? You can go work for the man any day.

Come here and start a business. What have you seen? I mean, that's a 25-year journey of building businesses, but what have you seen along the ways that you would pass on to the younger generation that maybe is like, I don't know that I want to go work for somebody. Maybe I do want to start a business. What's some of the tips you would give them? Yeah. I think we all have been through these business startups and we learn and we go.

And even today at my age, I'm 48 years old and I'm running my fifth company today, And, you know, and I'm, but I'm still looking for advisors, right? I'm still talking to people. I'm still talking to a business coach. I'm talking to, you know, people who are successful in other ventures and what are you doing and asking questions. And, you know, I try to tell our employees, even all the time, always have your ears open, right?

And your eyes open and listen, listen to what people are saying and ask questions because you never know who's around or who in these environments that will pour into you and will give you information that will make your life so much easier. Instead of taking the hard road, they've experienced this stuff.

I think business mentorship is probably one of the most important things a young entrepreneur can do is find people that they're friends with or that they associate with or just somebody that will lead and guide them. And there's so many people, these successful business guys are so willing to help people. They just have to be asked. They're not going to go look for you and say, Hey, I want to help you. But if you ask them, most of them, I think would say yes.

I think I would agree. So a follow-up question to that then I agree with mentorship 100%. I think you can always learn from the people that you're surrounded by.

I never want to be the smartest person in the room. I want to be the dumbest person in the room that's willing to ask, right? That's right. I agree. So how do you go forward with asking somebody? Because I think there's a lot of, well, I don't know what to ask. Or I mean, I've had people come up and they want me to spend hours with them. What makes a good mentee? How do you start that relationship? Yeah. I think somebody that was coming in and asking.

Me as a business owner and a level of success. And if I had a younger person or even, you know, my age, you know, somebody asking me for help, I'm going to make a pretty, I'm going to make a judgment call within probably 10 or 15 minutes of talking to them, whether I feel like I want to help them or not. Okay. And I think that's true for most situations.

And the way I'm going to make that cause, I'm going to start asking questions of them and I want to, and I'm going to want to know, have they put the time and the effort into what their business plan is, to where I believe that they can put the time and effort in and what it's going to take to run their business? Because that's equally as important.

And if they come with just an idea, but they haven't sat down and written up a business plan, they haven't sat down and ran some numbers and thought about how the business can make money and what the expenses are, what, you know, what kind of systems they need, like somebody who's spent some time, they've got some skin in the game. And I'm not saying it doesn't even take money today. You know, it's just sitting down and actually getting some good thoughts out.

Those are the people I want to help, you know, or somebody who shows me like, no, you've done your homework. I'm impressed. And, you know, I really like this. I don't like this. And here's what I think you should do here. But I think it just, it makes that conversation so much better. I, that is, I think, great advice. I always, I always recommend books to people. And then when they follow up, I'm like, did you read the book? Did you order the book?

Yeah. Because it's like, if you want the easy path, you've built a lot of businesses. I've built three different businesses. Like there's no easy path. It's work. Right. But we love doing it, which is why we show up. That's right. But it's like, if you're, if somebody comes to me and they're looking for the shortcut, I remember I had one kid come up to me at a conference and he was like, I understand that you just said on stage, it takes three to five years. How can I do it in 30 days?

I said, I appreciate the question, but there's no real answer to that. You take the daily actions, you do the work. Buy a lottery ticket. I think that's where these young entrepreneurs and even employees today of businesses, businesses get to a point in time where it looks easy for the owner. The owner's job has become what looks easy to people.

And all of a sudden they're making a lot of money, they're gaining respect and people want to talk and people want to be their friend, you know, and all these great things because they worked so hard to build their business to where it's at today. And they've got, and so then everybody, you know, and that I tell my kids all the time, nothing is easy. If it's easy, everybody would be doing it. Right. And, and, And, you know, it's just it's not easy because there's always that groundwork.

When they built the business to make it look easy. Well, that's a hundred percent, right? The overnight success takes 10 years. That is the answer. It's not to say that you shouldn't take action. It's not to say that you shouldn't expect good things. It's not to say you shouldn't set big goals, but I think my favorite quote to sum all of this up came from Tony Robbins and it's people grossly overestimate what they can do in a year and they underestimate what they can do in 10.

If you go into it with the 10-year idea, but treat it in 30-day, 60-day, 90-day sprints, you're going to do really, really well.

So I want to shift. I have two areas that I kind of want to talk about. The first one is you said the attrition rate in payments is 15%, but at your business, it's three. How do you do that? Is that through, I think from what I heard you say, it's through building relationships with your clientele and building actual true customer service. We talk about that a little bit. That's a good point. And we will get right back to today's show.

If you are looking for clarity in the sea of overwhelm that is out there when it comes to business, make sure to check out the show notes for our workshops, our webinars, and our exclusive 12 person mastermind. All right, let's go ahead and jump back into it. Yeah. I mean, it's just, I mean, the easy answer is customer service, right? That's the easy answer.

Something that we talk about every week and we talk about in our team meeting every week that we focus, we always have to remember that our current customers are more important than anything else we have going on, right? Because that's who pays our bills. That's who's in there today, weren't for our current business. There's too many times in the business world that we focus only on building rather than on what we've got. We've got this great thing. It's a business.

It's making money. Well, why is it making money? Because you've got a customer base. And let's pay attention to that customer base. Let's talk to them. Let's service them. Let's walk in the door. Let's see them. And so we have to remember that. We have to focus on that. And we have to focus on that every day. And that doesn't mean I don't want to focus on sales and grow.

It just means that has to be number one. If I'm working on sales and I've got a current customer that's having an issue, I probably need to put down what I'm doing and I need to fix that issue. And then I need to go back to my sales. Okay. But because if customers are having problems, what are they going to do? They're going to leave. They're going to go find somebody I'll take care of their problem. And I can't blame them.

So I think if we stay in front of that and we talk to our businesses and we show up and we do what we say we're going to do, they don't have a reason to leave you. I can tell you, I could give you a list of our clients and you can go walk in the door and every one of them is going to know who they process payments with and they're going to know a person in my company by name.

You go talk to the owner, they're going to know. I do business with paper hourly and Jeff is my contact or I do business with paper hourly and Carla's my go-to. They've got our phone numbers, they've got our information. And so when you're, when you have that relationship and that next guy walks in the door, they don't want to talk to you because they're happy.

Well, let's, I want to unpack that just a little bit more. Like it's one thing I love being able to pick up the phone and call somebody, right? Like that is, that is true customer service, especially in today's world.

You and I grew up like you, you didn't have a choice you picked up the phone and you called somebody or you got in the car drove to them i mean my dad worked on the road he had pennsylvania new jersey new york ohio and one one or two other states and he was a traveler he was on the road four days a week sitting down talking to people and nowadays it's like okay yes you can be on zoom like we're on zoom right now but that is not necessarily the same as face to face what have

you found really makes the difference when it comes to customer service is just having that phone number or do you do some customer events what what do you do really show that off we do do customer events but everybody's busy right and and and we hold them we held one this week and we had 50 people come and it was great we you know have beer and wine and door prizes and you know and it was great right but i don't think that's what does it because that

same customer that came to that that we built a little bit of relationship if they if we if they have a big issue this week and we ignore them. They're done. All that's for nothing. Right. I think it's like I think they a business owner wants and I tell business owners this all the time. I want you to focus on your business and not me focus on your payments. If you're having a problem in your payments, let me fix it.

Call us. We want to fix it. And when you can handle that the majority of the time with their employees where they don't even know about it, that's even better.

Right because it doesn't even get brought to them because it was handled it was fixed it was it was just done and and i just think that's missing today i you know i think people outsource call centers i think people you know they they don't answer the phone they don't return phone calls i mean how many how many times lately have you called somebody to get a bid for something or to get a proposal for this or for that and you don't even get a return email

from them well that So that blows my mind. It's so true, though. Honestly, there are people that I would have paid money to, but it took them three weeks to get back to me with an email. And it's like, dude, just send it at the end of the day. And some people say, well, I'm too busy or I'm scattered. I get all of that. But it really comes down to building a relationship and working through that. What I heard you say that I want to unpack, going to take a little bit of liberty.

It's really easy to throw a party and have people in and we had some fun and yes that might build some relationship it might build you a little goodwill but what people really want is somebody that owns up to to a problem and solves it i would guess like we all have problems right i have problems in my business problems in your business but instead of running away or blaming somebody else i i ordered a coffee machine this is like a this is

a small story i ordered a coffee machine back during COVID. It was 2021. And they said, I got an email from them. They were two months late delivering it. And I got an email that said, hey, due to supply chain issues, we haven't been able to get it out. Okay, no problem. Two more months go by. I get another email. Due to the California wildfires, we're not able to deliver. And I said, your company is based overseas. And your port is on the East Coast.

And they got back to me and they said, sorry, I'm not sure who wrote that email. That's, you're correct. That's not true. We'll get it out to you this week. Just to own up to the problem, right? And I think what I heard you say is, hey, give us your problem. We're right here. Did we mess something up? Tell us, we'll fix it. Or something's wrong somewhere. We're here, we'll fix it. And that matters more than anything is just being able to take ownership.

Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, in any business, right, I can sit here right now and tell you that everything can be going perfect, but somebody's going to have a PCI issue. They're going to have a deposit issue. Their checking account got hacked and they need a new checking account. Their machine broke, you know, their, you know, their website, their email got had, they had changed some passwords. They can't get logged in. There's a multitude.

There's just things that happen in everyday world that create a problem. And, and in the payment space, we, we, you know, we account for, you know, 90% of the money that most businesses accept. They it's electronic payments. So when you can't accept payments, it's a big deal. People get really upset, you know, or when they don't get their deposit, they get really upset for some reason, right? Like they, they want their money. And so we have to get on top of that stuff and they have to know.

And if you can teach your businesses, Hey, I know when I call them, they're going to get on it and fix it. I know that. That's what changes. That changes the mindset, but it's the way they know that is by action, right? They know that because we actually do it and we preach it and we tell when we do it and we do it over and over and over and over again.

Well, that, I mean, that really is in my business. I work with fewer clients, but the clients that are my clients, like I'll go to bat for anytime. Like they have my cell phone. They can call me. I'm going to call them back. And I think people are willing to pay more money and they're willing to stick, right? They might have some guy that walks in the door that says, Hey, we can do that for half, or we can do that for a couple of percent less, right?

We're talking about payments and people will stay with the person. Cause I want to be able to pick up the phone and call. I still bank with a bank. They charge me for a checking account. I don't mind paying the $10 or $5, whatever it is. And I can pick, I have a personal banker. I can pick up the phone and they are going to answer. And I can't tell you how many times that's come in extremely helpful.

And that's the difference. It's a different maker. So I want to pivot out of payments for a second, because you mentioned something earlier that you said was really important to you. And that was your Christianity and helping your kids understand that and helping businesses understand that. I'd love to talk about Christianity in the workplace. I myself am a believer. I think that there's a fine line to walk.

How do we, I'm asking you, how do we, or how do you put forth your Christian values in the workplace and at the same time, respect other people's beliefs and have that? I believe in my environment, right? In my office, that's something we talk about in the interview process. We are a Christian faith-based company. That does not mean everybody that works for us has to be, but we're going to open some meetings in prayer. We're going to close meetings in prayer.

Not every single time, but we're going to. We do devotions in our team meetings. And, and I just think it's a, it's a building at, we're building a culture, right? And, and I think that culture also bleeds out when we go back to customer service and different things. And, you know, because we're, we're building a culture of people that care and that people that, that have a different heart.

And, and we just, that's, that's our, you know, I, I, and, and we know that not everybody's believers and that's okay, but we believe that, that that's the. And we talk about it. And so our employees, now today, we have an office full of believers, everybody that works for us. And that doesn't surprise me because we do talk about it in the interview process. And I think if somebody was uncomfortable, we've had non-believers work for

us. We've had non-believers that have become believers work for us. So we're doing what we can do on that front and we believe in it. So it's just, it's part of who we are. It's our DNA. Yeah. I absolutely love it. I think that is, I mean, our business is the same. I'm happy to hire people who are not Christians. I'm happy to have them feel supported and feel loved. But it's always interesting to hear when there's a Christian business,

how they work that into the business. At the same time, our mission here on earth is to love people, right? That's right. And it's really interesting to see you do that with payments because I think you are correct. It's going to bleed into everything you do. Treat others as you'd want to be treated, which is what you're doing with customer service. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you just have to do it. And, you know, I'm actually, I sit on the board of a Christian school that I've got one that's graduated from. I've got two that are in high school of it today. And my staff and my friends, they know it's super important to me. It's a big deal to me. And it's something that I believe in. And it's something that I'm going to put in my kids. And I want them to go off to college with that same belief.

And I want them to be able to stand up for their beliefs and say what they believe and not be shy about it, right? Don't be intimidated by your beliefs. And if I show them that I'm intimidated by it, running a business, then why wouldn't they be intimidated when they go off to college and be the same way?

And so I think it's really important that we show our kids and we show people that we're not intimidated by it. There's nothing to be ashamed of. It's a, it's a, it's, it's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. And it's okay that you're not a believer. That's okay. But there's nothing wrong with us being believers either. So. I think that's, I think that is a very big piece. I've had people, you know, comment on that. They're like, well, don't push that on me. I'm not pushing anything on you,

but I'm being honest about who I am and what I stand. Absolutely. And if you ever want to talk about it, I would love to talk to you about it. Yeah. But if you don't want to talk about it. Yeah. I'm not gonna push it on anybody, but we don't shy away from showing that we do support it. And, and that this is, it's part of our, of our company. And it's part of who we're going to be.

Awesome. Well, Jeff, if people want to learn more about pay proudly, we're linking your LinkedIn down below and your website, anything that you would say to somebody who is looking for a payment processor? Yeah. You know, so I would say a couple of things. One, you know, we've talked a lot about customer service today and the ability to answer the phone and what's going on in a company. And if you're really out there looking and you have questions, a conversation's free.

Give us a call, test us, call our phone number, see if we answer the phone, see what we do and ask us some questions. Learn, I really encourage business owners to get educated in this space. Don't just take payments. There's not a one size fits all in this space today. There's lanes that businesses need to be in. There's money that can be saved. There's a lot of things that you can do for you and your business to put money back in your pocket.

Tool. All we have to do is put your numbers into it and it will apples to apples give you an approach of exactly what you're paying, how you're doing it. Worst case scenario for us is you take that back to your current processor and save a bunch of money. Best case scenario for you, you save a bunch of money no matter what you do. So take advantage of it. It's out there. We'd love to talk to you. We're willing, we're ready and just give us a call.

Awesome. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. Wishing you a great rest of the day. To everybody else out there, remember to take action, change lives, make money, and live free. We'll see you soon. Thanks for tuning into today's show. If you're looking for support to grow your business, we have the best small group mastermind on the market.

Mastermind focuses specifically on one to many sales and visibility, how to build your own workshops, live events, and virtual events, as well as how to market to the affluent. How do you bypass all the people who say we don't have enough money for that and really market to the top 10% who has money and is ready to spend it? Last but not least, how do you do all of this without Facebook ads? That is the focus of our small group, Mastermind. It's led by me along with 12 other people.

We're there to give you support, surround you, and take your business to the next level. You can click in the show notes down below for more information. We'll see you next time here on Grow Your Impact, Income, and Influence.