News

Hooking a big one

Landing multi-location placements can be lucrative, and frustrating. Here's how ISOs go after the big sale.

January 7, 2002

One sales call, multiple sales. That efficient use of time has been a goal for sales people since long before the first Tupperware party. A lot of ISOs thrive on single-machine sales, but hooking the big one, such as a national chain, still holds allure for everyone in the ISO business.

A multi-placement can be as simple as a string of four or five locally owned shops, or as complex as an international chain of franchises. But when the number of locations grows, the difficulty of making a multiple-location sale seems to increases exponentially. As the buyer's order increases, so do the demands for pricing and other concessions from the ISO.

Most such deals are either made on a regional or co-op basis. For instance, an international restaurant chain might allow regional franchisees to purchase and install ATMs on their own. A group of franchisees might align themselves as an ad-hoc purchasing group in order to get better pricing with an ISO for each of their locations.

According to Noah Weider, vice president of ISO Sales for XtraCash/Amicus Bank, he'll consider multi-placements of any size - provided the conditions are suitable.

"Let's say a guy has five or eight locations, and he wants machines," says Weider. "Depending on the locations, we'll consider it. You've got to consider a host of things to make sure it's going to be a win-win situation."

Some of the things the ISO must consider when looking at multiple-location prospects:

A Greater Time Investment

The multi-location deal can take much longer for a sales agent to work: according to Tommy Glenn, president of Financial Technologies, a multi-deal can take six months or more from the day the first phone call is made to the day the contracts are signed and the machines are bolted in. Glenn says that a "very small percentage" of his sales force works on multi-location placements.

Also, in cases such as these, the ISO is working with larger corporations - many of which have complicated purchasing and bidding procedures. Selling to large companies is invariably more difficult than selling to small, one-office locations. Multiple meetings with purchasing agents, protracted negotiations and agonizing waits are all par for the course. The sales agent with strong office support will usually do much better than the lone wolf who knocks on doors and returns phone calls on his own.

And once the ISO has a foot in the proper door, consistency becomes key.

"You can't have dealers running around offering one guy this price, another guy this price," says Weider. "That knocks your credibility around. With corporate deals, if it's somebody we don't already have, we try to mimic the deal throughout the organization. Companies that savvy usually have shopped around."

So how should an ISO prepare itself for a potential multi-placement deal? The prevailing opinion seems to place more emphasis on the value provided rather than the lowest price. It is especially important when dealing with multiple placements that the merchant knows that they are getting what they need, and that things will run smoothly for them.

"If you compete on price, you're dead in the water," Weider says. "We've always told people, we're not the best price, and we're the best value. We're going to answer the phones when you call."