PEP Episode 015 — Insider’s Look at WSAA Conference 2023: Opportunities and Insights

Podcast Description:

Discover the art of “making friends for a living” with Andrew Yu from Business Payment System in our latest podcast episode. It’s not a usual sales tagline you’d hear, but listen in to Andrew as he explains how their unique approach, combined with the value added by their team of 10 attorneys, has helped their business thrive. We also get a glimpse into their services, the Paradise POS system, which is a processor agnostic, iPad based end of cell system.

What if you could offer revenue-based financing to small and medium-sized businesses? Emma Poulsen from ULand Financial Solutions shares how they’re doing just that, and the crucial role they play in the current macroeconomic situation. Further, we hear from Robert Esminger, President of Executive Tech Lease Group, who shares his observations about the WSAA Conference 2023, with a focus on the emotional response sparked by Visa cap discussion and its resulting opportunities.

Your business may benefit from the insights shared by Michael Hill from Discount Credit Card Supply, who enlightens us about their niche in the distribution industry, their varied service range, and the importance of ADA compliance. Wrapping up our enlightening discussions is Mark Miller, sharing his thoughts on the energy of the WSAA Conference, potential business prospects, and how Business Payment System can assist with their comprehensive business services. Don’t miss out on this episode full of industry insights, experiences, and potential benefits!

Since 2008, and based in San Diego, CA, Global Legal has represented clients across the nation, and internationally, in the world of electronic payments.

ISOs, Fintech, payfacs, agents, merchants, processors, acquiring banks, and card brands, if these terms mean something to you, this podcast is for you! If these terms aren’t so familiar, this podcast is even more for you!

We hope you enjoy this episode of the Payments Experts Podcast!

*****

New episodes twice a month! If you’re interested in learning more about PEP and how Global Legal Law Firm may be able to assist you, please visit us at https://www.globallegallawfirm.com/

Give us a call at 888-846-8901 or email us at pep@attorneygl.com

Be sure to tell us you heard us here on the Payments Experts Podcast! (The PEP Podcast is intended for education and entertainment – nothing said in this Podcast is or should be considered legal advice.

Please contact Global Legal Law Firm to schedule a free consultation.) A payments podcast of Global Legal Law Firm

Transcript

Speaker 1:        So I am here at WSAA 2023 with Andrew Yu, a business payment System. Andrew, welcome.

Speaker 2:        Thank you. Thank you for having

Speaker 1:        Me. You having a good time?

Speaker 2:        Absolutely.

Speaker 1:        Tell me about what it’s like at WS ASAA this year, maybe compared to previous or other events.

Speaker 2:        Yeah. We always look at these events as education, meeting people. It’s definitely a fun time to come, but more so than that, with our group specifically, we come for bonding. So we brought about 20 people here this year. Wow. It’s a big team. Yeah. Last year we think we brought 16 or something like that, but that’s what we do. We get together, we got a big Airbnb, we all sleep together. We record each other, snore and do all kinds of stuff. Like that

Speaker 1:        Was, I say, you look fresh and clean so you sleep well. I think we

Speaker 2:        Did sleep good. We did sleep well. And then meet people like you. Jeremy. I’ve never met somebody in your industry and that’s a blessing. I know that’s going to be useful for us. It was a godsend at the right

Speaker 1:        Time. It’s happening more and more. Andrew, we just were talking to someone just about five minutes ago and they were saying, man, we’re noticing more attorneys are coming to these conferences. We feel like James Huber and Chris Dryden, who founded our firm, they’ve been doing this for 15 years, and they said back in the day, it was just them. I mean, there’s almost nobody else, maybe one or two others nationwide. And so we’re very excited about what we’re building now. We brought a team as well. We brought 10 other attorneys with our team today. So yeah, it’s exciting. That’s great. Andrew, would you tell us a little bit about business payment system and what do you guys do? What do you guys bring to the market?

Speaker 2:        Yeah, so we’ve been in business since 2000. We’ve got about 40 active agents. We’re in several states. We have about 15,000 merchants on our

Speaker 1:        Books. Wow, great.

Speaker 2:        And yeah, it’s about our whole sales motto is making friends for a living. Excellent. That’s our whole model. We don’t go out there looking to try to pitch somebody because true sales that’s going to last is based on relationship. Absolutely. We try to have relationships with you and just talking to people like you and just getting to know and making deposits into people.

Speaker 1:        That’s fantastic. That’s basically what we do. Helping people make a living, helping people run their businesses.

Speaker 2:        Yeah.

Speaker 1:        I’m curious, is there a specific segment of the industry that business payment systems focuses on? Are you guys all over the place?

Speaker 2:        So every agent has a specific segment. There’s some that will be the jack of all trades. There’s some that will take anybody and everybody. And of course there’s people that like to focus on a car dealership. We have some people that like to focus on restaurants and point of sale systems. In fact, Thomas is here. We were with Thomas and his wife right there standing at order counter since they started. Excellent. So they’re based out of Pensacola, Florida. So those are the things that we do. And some people like that space and they’re comfortable with them and some people don’t like that space and they like to go with other industries. So it depends on the agent is the answer. But we do hit pretty much everybody for adult and things that have moral

Speaker 1:        Circums. Yeah, like certain things.

Speaker 2:        Sure, yeah. Things like that we may not get into, but

Speaker 1:        Do you guys service high risk at all in other spaces?

Speaker 2:        So we just started with Maverick and some of the places like that. We’ll do CBD oil and things like that that were kind of hard to place. We just never placed them before, but we’re getting more and more with them. And I got Michael next to me. He just boarded a higher risk. Excellent. And he does, it’s an auction company, and so we had to board them with Maverick Payments. We just talk to

Speaker 1:        Them right now. Yeah, no, we know Maverick. That’s great. Yeah. Well that’s excellent. Well, what are you guys looking forward to most for the rest of WSAA?

Speaker 2:        This next session that’s coming up is going to be pretty interesting about surcharging and legalities of surcharging and dual pricing and things like that. So we’re looking forward to that. That’s all

Speaker 1:        The hot topics still. Yeah,

Speaker 3:        It’s still the hot

Speaker 1:        Topic. It’s a real pleasure. You mentioned that’s godsend that we met. I’m very, very pleased that we’ve met as well. I like your approach to your business, how you guys approach. Excellent. So thank you for joining us today. No, my pleasure. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend. And again, thank you. And also Michael, appreciate it. And congratulations. Welcome so much to WSAA 2023. We are here with Paradise, POS. I’ve got Jay SBA as well as Veronica sba. Welcome you guys. Having fun.

Speaker 3:        Having a blast.

Speaker 1:        What’s been one of the highlights so far?

Speaker 3:        I think all the after parties have been very class, very good. The prizes have been good. Attendance has been phenomenal. It’s huge. And the weather, you can’t beat Southern Cal.

Speaker 1:        We are a law firm right down the road. We’re in Encinitas, so we’re kind of spoiled. We’re used to this. Where are you guys from originally? Texas. Oh, Texas. Okay. Well, it’s still good weather for 10 minutes this

Speaker 3:        Time of year. Yeah, we were discussing the other night. It’s Southern Cal has basically our spring and fall weather year round and you kind of skip our 105 summers and the winters 30 degree winters.

Speaker 1:        Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about Paradise, POS, what’s your business model? What do you guys do? So

Speaker 3:        We’re a processor agnostic, iPad-based pan of sale system. We do retail, restaurant, you name it. We kind of run the gamut. We’re probably about 60% restaurant, about 40% retail, multita, split check handhelds, order the table, pay at the table, you name it, we do it.

Speaker 1:        You name it. Veronica. Yes. How long have you been working with Paradise? POS.

Speaker 4:        So from the beginning obviously he’s my husband. So we created Paradise probably eight years ago I think. Wow. And it’s just organically grown and brought on more resellers and it’s just booming.

Speaker 1:        It really is. I can tell you just kind of anecdotally, my sister has worked in restaurants for years. She’s worked on a number of Paradise BS systems herself, bartending and whatnot. Yeah, I’ve seen ’em. We started

Speaker 3:        In the payment space about 23 years ago and we created, we were feed on the street salespeople, agents selling door to door, so we understand that side of the business. And we created Paradise because there weren’t any products out there at the time that were processor agnostic that we were happy with the service

Speaker 1:        Levels. So

Speaker 3:        Eight years ago we set out to create our own Jesse Miel and I are the founders along with Veronica and Veronica’s, the CFO. Excellent. And then we just have grown from there. It’s been a fun ride.

Speaker 1:        No, it is. It’s very exciting to see. And that’s great and I love how you put that because it sounds like what I was hearing in there is it’s about relationships. It’s about treating your customers right? Absolutely. You were seeing things in the market that weren’t being addressed. You guys came in, you’re addressing them and it’s

Speaker 3:        Booming. Absolutely.

Speaker 1:        It’s fantastic. It,

Speaker 3:        It’s been a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:        What are you guys looking forward to most in the next day that you’re here?

Speaker 3:        Just meeting new people, to be honest with you. Hopefully making some new relationships. It’s always good to see the people you do business with and get to spend time with them as well. But it’s also always fun to make new relationships. Yeah,

Speaker 1:        Absolutely. You guys come to a lot of these shows.

Speaker 3:        We do all the regionals. We don’t do a lot of industry specific merchant forward shows because we focus more on the agent channel and the distributor channel, and so we do all the regionals. We find they’re more successful for us in meeting the guys who are out there actually doing the work versus some of the bigger shows. You don’t get the feet on the street guys as much.

Speaker 1:        Absolutely.

Speaker 3:        Just give us a shot. I can’t promise we’re always perfect, but I promise we’re always going to answer the phone. We’re always going to have great service. We’re always going to try.

Speaker 1:        That’s excellent. I really appreciate it. You guys hope give a great rest of your WSAA 2023. Thanks again. Thank you. We are at WSAH 2023. I’m here with Mark Miller of Card Market. Mark, welcome.

Speaker 5:        Thank you. Why

Speaker 1:        Don’t you tell us a little bit about Card Market and what you guys do?

Speaker 5:        Yeah, sure. So we’ve been around for about 20 years printing gift cards. That’s our primary business. We also enable merchants to sell their cars online from their website.

Speaker 1:        Very cool. And how many, you said about 20 years?

Speaker 5:        About 20 years, yeah.

Speaker 1:        So you’ve been coming to these shows for a while?

Speaker 5:        Yeah, we just started coming to these shows about five years ago. But it’s been really effective to gain new partners and further develop relationships. Absolutely.

Speaker 1:        It’s been really good. Absolutely. This has been a lot of fun and from what I’ve heard, I haven’t been coming to these shows for as long, but this is huge and it feels huge. Does that seem accurate?

Speaker 5:        That’s right. Yeah. This is probably the biggest one of the year. WSA is always a really strong event. There’s three others throughout the course of the year, but this is the most that I’ve seen in several years.

Speaker 1:        Oh wow. Very cool. Yeah,

Speaker 5:        Of course during Covid it kind of shut things down a bit and stuff, but it’s really back and rocking.

Speaker 1:        Excellent, excellent. And where is Card Market located in the country? Were you guys headquartered?

Speaker 5:        Wells just south of Nashville. Oh

Speaker 1:        Wow. Out in Tennessee. Oh, that’s great. Where you can actually afford to live.

Speaker 5:        I’d be surprised. Really.

Speaker 1:        I’ve heard it’s changing a little

Speaker 5:        Bit. Is that true? It is. A lot

Speaker 1:        Of Californians and Texans are heading into

Speaker 5:        Tennessee just in general. It’s a really growing metropolis.

Speaker 1:        The reason I know is we have a marketing team we work with, and they were based in LA and a couple of their team members have moved to Tennessee actually. And what they were paying for a three bedroom apartment in LA renting. They have a five bedroom home on five acres for the same price. It’s

Speaker 5:        Wild. There’s a lot more land out there. A lot more land. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Expand.

Speaker 1:        So Mark, what are you looking forward to first this day? And are you here the whole weekend or?

Speaker 5:        Yeah, actually I brought my wife and so we’re kind of making a vacation out of it. This wraps up later this evening and then we’re going to stick around here in Carlsbad for the weekend. Very cool. So

Speaker 1:        Yeah, should be fun. Not a bad

Speaker 5:        Spot to look around, is it? Yeah, definitely. Yeah,

Speaker 1:        So our law firm, global legal law firm, we’re literally 10 minutes down the road and so we’re kind of spoiled. We live in this environment

Speaker 5:        All the time. This is a nice spot. Not too

Speaker 1:        Bad, not too bad. But yeah, I’m really glad you’re here and it was really nice meet you, been talking with

Speaker 5:        You very, yeah, nice to meet you.

Speaker 1:        You want to have a last word on? What do you want people to know about Card Market or how can they find you?

Speaker 5:        Well, you could find us online@mycardmarket.com. From there you can find all of the different products that we have. We have a myriad of different plastic printing and paper printing products, not just to gift cards, like hotel key cards, membership cards, anything like that. And then all the materials that you need to go to market them in your business. So yeah, just check us out on my card market.com and we’ll take it from there.

Speaker 1:        Really appreciate it, mark. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

Speaker 5:        Have a great time. Alright, thanks.

Speaker 1:        So we are at WS a 2023. I’m here with Samir Kumar, who’s director at Zuzu Technologies. Welcome Samir.

Speaker 6:        Thank you Jeremy for giving me an unity. Absolutely. Yeah, so that’s an amazing event. We are based out of Canada. Oh wow. Yeah, we cater to restaurants and retail. That’s our space. We are a US company. We are trying to venture out into US markets and check it out how make some connections in WS.

Speaker 1:        Absolutely. This is a great place to do it.

Speaker 6:        Oh, absolutely. And try to check out the market how it’s going to be. We have some, our own advantage coming from Canada based on technology we’re going to bring into the US market, and we are really excited to venture out here.

Speaker 1:        Excellent. I’m curious, the name Zuzu Technologies, do you know how that was come up with in terms of the name? It’s a very interesting name.

Speaker 6:        It was actually, this actually originated from a marketing campaign done from Vodafone back in India. That’s where I’m from. Oh, wow. Yeah, and I was quite intrigued. It was quite a successful campaign for Waterfront back in the days, so I wanted it to be unique and something that people would remember a long time.

Speaker 1:        Absolutely. It works that way for sure.

Speaker 6:        So that was the reason why we came along with this. I tried few other names, but everything was quite common, so I want to have some unique names. So once somebody does hear it,

Speaker 1:        It’ll stick

Speaker 6:        With them. It’ll stick with

Speaker 1:        Them. Absolutely. What part of Canada are you traveling here from?

Speaker 6:        Coming from Alberta Edenton. Okay. Oh wow. Yeah. Quite a

Speaker 1:        Weather shift, huh?

Speaker 6:        Oh yeah, quite a bit. It’ss mine right now there. So it’s nice to come here and see the sun.

Speaker 1:        Well listen, Samir, I’m really glad that you decided to stop by and chat with us. We’re excited to hear about Zuzu Technologies. How can our listeners find you and find Zuzu Technologies?

Speaker 6:        Our website is zuzu.ca, so we have all the information on there. What we do, we are huge in nightclub bars, convenience stores. The beauty about our solution is it does both retail and hospitality. So if you have a business type that’s combination of both, we can do that. If it’s one, if it’s a night just strictly nightclub bars, we can do those. Excellent. If you’re an owner that owns multiple businesses and different verticals and you want one platform coming through, because the major challenge for these business owners is that they have to learn multiple platforms and we are able to basically have everything in one go, and it does beautifully on both sides, which is quite rare. So I would say you can check out our website Zuzu at all the contact information.

Speaker 1:        That’s exciting. Okay, excellent. Well, Samir, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Hope you have a great rest of your show and see if travels to you. Thank you so much. Of course. We are here at WSAA 2023 Global legal law firm, the Payments Experts podcast. Very excited to have Emma Polson with us from you L. How you doing, Emma?

Speaker 7:        Very good, thank you. And yourself?

Speaker 1:        Doing great. We’re about to eat some food. I just met you in the food line. I know. Very cool. How has this conference been for you? What’s been kind of the highlight so far?

Speaker 7:        Yeah, so this conference has been great, actually. People have been very talkative, very open to talking business as well, and it’s great to kind of see familiar faces that you’ve seen at other conferences as well. So I think it’s been great. It’s a little bit of a smaller show compared to some of the other ones we do attend usually. So you’re able to create more valuable connections and being able to really talk to them about both what they do in their normal day-to-day, but also how they see the business evolve over the next year.

Speaker 1:        That’s a really great point. I mean, this is a good size conference, no doubt, but you’re right, it’s far from the largest, and so I feel like it’s been a really nice mix. It’s not too small where you kind of feel like, what are we here? Or one that’s so large where you’re just kind of one of a mass number and you have time for a podcast at a show like this.

Speaker 7:        Exactly. Yeah, I think it’s great. A lot of these people who come here, they attend some of the other ones that are in either the Southeast or other conferences. So being able to see them again here, it feels more familiar, I would say. And you don’t feel like you’re walking around between all these people you’ve never seen before. So you get to speak to, I spoke to a guy today and then we saw each other last week in Vegas by chance. How funny. Being able to see them here and then have a talk for longer than 30 minutes is actually why it’s more valuable, I think.

Speaker 1:        Absolutely. Absolutely. So how long have you been doing this, Emma? How long have you been in the payment space?

Speaker 7:        Yeah, so I’ve been with UL for almost four and a half years. Oh, great. Yeah, headquartered in London. Have an office here in Atlanta, so kind of work in the US market now, getting it up to speed. So yeah, I’ve been here for a long time, it seems.

Speaker 1:        That’s really exciting. Atlanta is awesome. It’s awesome. Yeah, I was at a conference not too long ago in Georgia. Oh,

Speaker 7:        In Georgia. Nice.

Speaker 1:        In Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah. No, I loved it. I loved it. I was a huge, you’re probably tired of hearing this, but I was a huge, what’s it called that Walking Dead? Oh

Speaker 7:        Yes.

Speaker 1:        I loved that show. And it was filmed in Atlanta, which is kind of cold,

Speaker 7:        But it’s definitely the reason we’re there like the Office because of Walking Dead.

Speaker 1:        That’s the only reason,

Speaker 7:        Right? Yeah, the only reason. Absolutely.

Speaker 1:        So why don’t you Emett, tell us about Youland. What do you guys do? What do you bring to the table and what market are you looking for?

Speaker 7:        Yeah, so Elen is in a, I think, very special position right now, especially with the macroeconomic situation because we do provide a essentially embedded finance solution, but it’s exclusively through partners. So we partner with the acquirers or e-commerce providers to be able to enable them to go out to their merchants and SMBs and offer this financial, so revenue-based financing, looking at shorter term loans, but ideally for inventory or even cashflow issues. Absolutely. Or even the likes of expanding their business. And then we simply enable them to do it. We provide all the capital behind it, even the underwriting from start to finish. And the good thing about it is that nowadays it’s a really easy product for them to add into their existing ecosystem or offering without having to go out their way and produce a new product themselves. They can simply do a quick seven day live solution with us and simply just have another revenue stream essentially.

Speaker 1:        That’s great. That’s fantastic. So Emma, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. I think we’re probably going to a session next with the license Got dimmed on us. We’ve been here with Emma Sson from you, lend. Emma, tell us how can we find you and how can people listening right now find you and you lend?

Speaker 7:        Yeah, so you can obviously go on our website u lend.com, Y-O-U-L-E-N d.com, or you’re more than welcome to write to me personally, Emma, EMMA, dot Paulson, P-O-U-L-S-E n.com, at uen.com. And otherwise we are also on LinkedIn. You can find us there and we’ll be present at most conferences as well. But yeah, definitely reach out. We do demos on the website very easy. You can book it directly or also just apply.

Speaker 1:        Okay. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you much for joining us. Sorry. Thank

Speaker 8:        You ly. Yeah, you too.

Speaker 7:        Bye-Bye. Take care.

Speaker 1:        We’re here at the WSAA conference 2023. I’m here with associate attorney Matt Luciani from Global Legal Law Firm. Matt, what’s the conference been like? Man,

Speaker 8:        How are you, Jeremy? Thanks for having me. Well,

Speaker 1:        Absolutely,

Speaker 8:        I mean, it’s been great so far. Plenty of friendly people, some familiar faces, and some people that I’ve done some business with in the past, and now I can actually put a name to the face, which is

Speaker 1:        Very cool. Yeah,

Speaker 8:        That’s probably the most fun thing about these kinds of conventions is not just the educational aspect of it, but the networking side of it of like, oh, I already know you. Oh wait,

Speaker 1:        You do work for me?

Speaker 8:        Yeah, you do work for me. Wait, your name looks familiar. Turned around at one point and there was one of our clients and he thought he was going to sneak up on us and surprise the attorneys who haven’t met him in person yet. And I was like, wait, I just objected to a deposition for you last week. So that was probably one of my highlights so far. That’s very

Speaker 1:        Cool. That’s very cool. How was that conference today with James Huber going against, well, not against, I shouldn’t say against, but discussing the visa cap. That was wild.

Speaker 8:        Well, I think it’s a very sensitive topic right now. It’s a very

Speaker 1:        Lot of emotions running high. Yeah,

Speaker 8:        There were a lot of emotions running high in there. I mean,

Speaker 1:        If

Speaker 8:        You’ve talked to James about his opinion on it after the fact, he was kind of surprised how many people were actually there and how emotionally charged it was. He was packed. Yeah, absolutely. Especially compared to some of the other speaking events that he’s done. It was way more people than I was expecting. But I do think that everybody on the panel was very well prepared. I thought everybody had some insight. I think some people tried to play it a little bit more neutral, and some people tried to play it a little bit more aggressive and that’s what made it entertaining and made it informative. I think that Rob from Visa was very well prepared. I thought he did an excellent job considering he was basically sitting there like a target agreed for the rest of the

Speaker 1:        Room.

Speaker 8:        There’s something wrong there.

Speaker 1:        Yeah, absolutely. Well, we’ve been here with Matt Luciani, associate attorney at Global Legal Law Firm. Matt, thank you much. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and have a great rest of your time here at WSAA.

Speaker 8:        Thanks, Jeremy.

Speaker 1:        We are here at the WSAA 23 conference. I’ve got Robert Buer here. He’s the president of Executive Leagues Group. Robert, welcome. How’s the conference been for you?

Speaker 9:        Actually, this is one of the best conferences. We’ve been to these since 2009. Wow. And we’re just having a really good showing this time, meeting a lot of old friends that I’ve seen over the years. That’s cool. I’ve been out of the country for eight years, so I’ve been working abroad. Oh, wow. Like a home office abroad. But yeah, I’m back now getting

Speaker 1:        Reconnected.

Speaker 9:        Yeah, I’m reconnected and I’m seeing a lot of new people and we’re getting new relationships from the show. It’s going really, really well.

Speaker 1:        Excellent. I got to ask, what’s been one of the best things you’ve done here in terms of maybe one of the breakout sessions or maybe the food? What’s been one of the highlights for you? For

Speaker 9:        Me, it’s just going around and meeting new people. It’s a really good place to get new connections, to reconnect with old connections, and I think the fellowship from all the people in the industry is my favorite part.

Speaker 1:        Very cool. Can you tell us a little bit about Executive Lease Group? What do you guys do? What’s your place in the market?

Speaker 9:        Absolutely. We’re a traditional lease provider for POS and merchant service terminals, but we also expand on that. We can do kiosk, we can do software as service. We pretty much have reached out to be able to do things that our competition really hasn’t done, so that’s kind of made a big difference for us. Oh, great. So we’ve really expanded our offerings, so it’s really cool to be able to meet with the people that I’ve talked to in the past and let them know the new opportunities that they have with us actually past clients and even potentially Nuance.

Speaker 1:        Robert, you’ve been in the industry a while as you pointed to. What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen over the past, I don’t know, 10 years or so, or since 2009? Probably too many to count. I imagine

Speaker 9:        Just the software technology is going crazy. I mean, every single time I come I see something new and I don’t think it’s going to slow down anytime soon.

Speaker 1:        I think you’re right about that. Excellent. Well, what are you most looking forward to as this is coming to an end? WSAA is just a little bit longer. We’ve got the after party tonight. You getting out of here after this, you sticking around, what do you got going on?

Speaker 9:        No, we’ll stick around. I still want to spend as much time as I can with my friends, old friends that I haven’t seen for a long time, so I’m going to be able to, I think basically what I’d like to do for the rest of this is really kind of polish some relationships I’ve had in the past.

Speaker 1:        Excellent. Well, again, I’m here with Robert Inger. I’m sorry if I’m butchering. Your name’s

Speaker 9:        Ger, but you did good. Its

Speaker 1:        Close. Could you tell us, Robert, I want to give you that last word. How can people find you and how can they find Executive Lease Group?

Speaker 9:        Thank you. You can catch me on LinkedIn or you can catch us@www.lgleasing.com. Excellent. And I think any questions you have might be available there and you could always contact us through there if you have any additional. Okay,

Speaker 1:        Robert, it’s a real pleasure. Thank you for stopping by the

Speaker 9:        Podcast. Oh, thanks Jeremy.

Speaker 1:        Okay. Okay, you ready? We’ll just do this all. All right, crystal? Yes. Nu I’ll let you do it. I’ll let you do

Speaker 10:      It. Crystal Barau.

Speaker 1:        Oh, that’s easy. Okay. Alright, excellent. And you with Order Counter is what it’s called?

Speaker 10:      Order Counter? Yes. Order Counter or a restaurant and Retail Point of Sale Company out of Pensacola, Florida.

Speaker 1:        Gotcha. Save it for the podcast. Okay. There you go. But that was great though. Okay, perfect. So we are at WSAA 2023. It’s been an amazing experience. I have the pleasure right now of interviewing Crystal Barau. Yes. With Order Counter welcome.

Speaker 10:      Thank

Speaker 1:        You. Thank you. You’ve been having a fun time.

Speaker 10:      Oh, absolutely. Now, especially with you, Jeremy. Now we kind of loosened everything

Speaker 1:        Up. Yes. We’ve been talking for the past five minutes and it’s been a lot of fun. Absolutely. Now we’re getting all stiff because we’re being recorded. Right, exactly. We’ll let the audience imagine the fun conversation we’re having

Speaker 10:      Here earlier.

Speaker 1:        Yeah. We’ll get down to the business now. Okay. Okay. What’s been one of your favorite parts of this whole conference?

Speaker 10:      I mean, honestly just being with talking to people like you guys, everyone, and just having that human connection and just seeing everyone at all the different events and just keeping up and it’s like being with friends and then the work just happens to be a bonus. Right. Yeah. Yeah,

Speaker 1:        For sure. It’s nice. And there’s free food. Yeah.

Speaker 10:      Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:        Drinks. Have you enjoyed the food?

Speaker 10:      Oh yeah, absolutely. Do you

Speaker 1:        Do a lot of these conferences?

Speaker 10:      Oh yeah. We hit all of the Acquirers Association shows and we’re at all of the different retail shows, so we’re in the restaurant show, so we’re all over.

Speaker 1:        Gotcha. So you’re doing this a lot? Yes. Okay. So level with me. Okay. How does this one compare to some of the other maybe in particular in the payment space? Yes. How would you rate this particular conference

Speaker 10:      At Attendance is really good. The people are really engaged here, so I definitely rank it up in, can’t do my visual. Sorry, top five. Top The

Speaker 1:        Top Eye. Yeah, for sure. Oh, cool. Awesome. Well, why don’t you tell us a little bit about Order Counter? What do you guys bring to the market? What’s your specialty?

Speaker 10:      Sure. We started, we are a point of sale restaurant and retail point of sale company, but we did primarily start in restaurants. So we know everything in and out from top to bottom, really robust. But we are a hyper point of sale company, so we kind of bring the best of both worlds of in-House server and then also the cloud-based systems altogether. Sure. One of the neat things about us is that we are truly, we are processor agnostic. We know we trust that your businesses best and able to work with that, so that’s great. We’re able to process through any pretty much any platform and we just kind of work on our main thing is just working with our partners and building that relationship through and through and by supporting them.

Speaker 1:        And did I hear you, so you guys are based out of Florida, is that

Speaker 10:      Right? Yes, Pensacola, Florida, yes. Oh, excellent.

Speaker 1:        Excellent. Yeah, there’s quite a few people here from that

Speaker 10:      Region. Yeah. You might hear my little Florida’s, Alabama, sorry, Florida, Alabama accent from Alabama. That’s we,

Speaker 1:        The Alabama

Speaker 10:      Accent. Alabama.

Speaker 1:        I’m really glad you decided to do this. This is great.

Speaker 10:      Probably just edit out

Speaker 1:        What we can say is this is towards the end of the night right after a couple of days straight. Yeah. So you can tell we’re a little bit whatever. Giddy. Excited. Excited. Yeah, excited. Exactly. So are you sticking around for the whole after party?

Speaker 10:      Oh yeah, absolutely. We are. Yeah, I was kind of tapering down in between a little afternoon little slump, but now by talking back with you guys,

Speaker 1:        I know this is

Speaker 10:      Really cool. Energy’s back right? Boom,

Speaker 1:        Boom, boom. Absolutely. Absolutely. We’ll be waking up now. How can people find you, our listeners right now? So we’re, as I mentioned, global legal law firm. We’re a law firm right in Encinitas, literally 10 minutes away from here. But we do this kind of work across the country.

Speaker 10:      Perfect.

Speaker 1:        We are a founder on global legal law firm.com. How can we find you?

Speaker 10:      So we are on order counter.com. You can also find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X former Troy, obviously. Yeah. Just reach out and we’ll get you taken care of. Okay,

Speaker 1:        Excellent. It was really great talking to you. Yeah, you too. I really appreciate you taking the chance. Glad you did it,

Speaker 10:      Crystal. Yes, thanks so much. Appreciate

Speaker 1:        It. Of course. Good talking to

Speaker 10:      You. You too. Thanks.

Speaker 1:        Bye bye-Bye. WSAA 2023. I’ve got the pleasure of interviewing Michael Hill with discount credit card supply. Michael, pleasure. How’s

Speaker 11:      It going? Pleasure is awesome to meet you as well. Jeremy, we’re across from you. The energy in here is amazing. Absolutely. A lot of great connections, A lot of talk, which is great. Funny story is while you were away, I grabbed the microphone and I gave this whole spiel about who I am and what I do and I plugged myself and it wasn’t recorded.

Speaker 1:        Yeah. It turns out that your microphone was muted.

Speaker 11:      Yes, yes. I hit the record button, but the microphone wasn’t

Speaker 1:        On. It’s a safety feature. It’s childproof. I’m sorry. I apologize. You know what, I’m

Speaker 11:      Embarrassed because I’m a DJ and I didn’t think to turn the microphone

Speaker 1:        On. Well, this is a very different machine than a lot of other things is made just for the podcasting, but Well, excellent. Well, Michael, I’m really glad you joined us and like I said, I wish I could have heard what, can you replay

Speaker 11:      Any of it? Let Yes, please allow me to. So I’m Michael with discount credit card supply. We’re out in Chicago, we’re in distribution. We sell a lot of terminals, our niche, we have our own stands that we create. We sell a lot of refurb equipment, we do injections, repairs, accessories. And so when you

Speaker 1:        Say ejections, what does that mean exactly?

Speaker 11:      So an injection would be like your pandemic, right? So you need an encryption. So where an encryption house,

Speaker 1:        Sorry, I misunderstood you. Yeah, injection

Speaker 11:      Encryption house. We do programming, terminal programming. So we’re a one-stop shop. Okay. We’ve been around 16 years. Again, we’re in Chicago, so we’re right in the middle of both coasts and people love us because they can get ahold of us on the phone. We respond to emails and so if you’re new in the business, you old the business. We’ve been around 16 years. Feel free to hit me up. Michael. Discount credit card supply. Absolutely. 8 4, 7 2, 6 6. 1 2, 2 0. My extension personally is one 17. There you go. And I really appreciate you generating, I’ve been standing across from you. This has been a great show, so I

Speaker 1:        Appreciate it’s your time. No, it’s been a lot of fun. No, my pleasure. I’ve got a couple of questions for you though. Yes. I’m going to throw this at you. This is

Speaker 11:      Interesting. Let’s do it.

Speaker 1:        Because we’ve

Speaker 11:      Talked with some

Speaker 1:        People in the space of production of POS services such as discount, credit card supply. What do you guys do, if anything, in relation to persons with disabilities? Is that an issue with what you’re

Speaker 11:      Working on? You know what, that’s really interesting. That’s a great question. So yes, we actually have a stand to recreate it that’s a approved for that purpose where it mounts on the table and the way that it’s ergonomically designed, it goes down to a wheelchair

Speaker 1:        Accessible person

Speaker 11:      So that they can insert their card and that’s their pin number. Wow. So we are sensitive to that. We do have a piece specifically for that.

Speaker 1:        Now, can I ask, how often does that sell? How many merchants are purchasing it or is it just kind of, it’s there if people need it and it’s not used very often. I’m curious.

Speaker 11:      So yeah, that’s fair. So the people that we do sell this a device to our, ironically banks, banks use them makes sense because of the lower countertop. So of course we’d like to put ’em in restaurants and other spots, but the feedback and the purchasing is coming from the banks at the moment, but we’d love to get it out there. Yeah, that’s great. It’s huge. We also have a, it’s like a selfie stick. Obviously we’re on the, you can’t physically see anything, but it’s an extension pole. So food trucks, McDonald’s, Starbucks uses them, but that’s also an a kind of accessible tool that we offer.

Speaker 1:        That’s very cool. The reason I’m asking is because we’ve talked to some people, some clients, potential clients, former clients who are very focused on that market and we were fascinated as a law firm, it doesn’t come up very often in the payment space. You don’t hear it talked about a lot and you’d think it’d be this humongous issue because technically, evidently, according to the regulations, everyone should be doing it.

Speaker 11:      Agreed. And everyone should be using it. Agreed. And there should be an option, and it should always be there for people to access. It’s interesting because there’s a kiosk that we saw actually in an airport a year or two ago, and they now have this little box that you could plug in a headphone for somebody who is hearing impaired or visually impaired for that matter, and it’ll incorporate and read what the screen is happening. And when we saw that, we were like, oh my gosh, we have to pitch that to the kiosks and to the POS systems. And as a distribution person, that’s another niche and a way to get more business and just gain the trust of the people.

Speaker 1:        I get it. It could even be a selling point. Hey, do you want to be aada a compliant? We can hook you up. We can get you a compliant. That’s fascinating. So I appreciate you kind of waxing on that with me for a bit because a fascinating issue and we feel like at some point in payments it’s going to be a thing.

Speaker 11:      Right. I totally agree with you. And it’s cliche. I’m always baffled. I know why, but I’m always baffled when you go to a and they have a braille menu. This is like obviously you’re thinking like, wait a minute, how did they get here? How did

Speaker 1:        You get here?

Speaker 11:      Exactly. Obviously for the passenger or somebody so you could pass it. But that menu, the braille menu has been around and it’s there, but you’re right, it’s not talked about enough and it’s not something that’s out where people can be like, Hey, you know what, this is great. And advocate

Speaker 1:        Absolutely. Really quickly. I don’t want not to belabor this too much and it’s been great talking with you. The point was made by one of our contacts in this space and he said, you go to a place like Jack in the Box, burger King, wherever McDonald’s, they’ve got special ramps, they’ve got obviously handicapped parking, they’ve got rails in the back. They’ve got all the things except for their POS. That’s right. Their POS is regular standard and not a compliant. And it’s kind of like we’re doing all these other things, but we’re not doing what seems like one of the most obvious ones. So anyways, pretty fascinating.

Speaker 11:      I appreciate you Jeremy. Michael, thank you so much. Real

Speaker 1:        Pleasure talking with you one last time. How can our audience find you?

Speaker 11:      Yes, please. www.discountfeercarsupply.com. You can call me at (847) 266-1220. My extension one 17.

Speaker 1:        Awesome.

Speaker 11:      Thanks so much. Thank you.

Speaker 1:        We’re here at WSAA 2023. I’ve got the special pleasure of being here with Coastal Pace. Come on. How do you say your last name

Speaker 12:      Is it?

Speaker 1:        Thank You’ve known you for a while and I hope I’m not the only one that does that from time to time every

Speaker 12:      Wrote it. You’re totally fine.

Speaker 1:        Apologize. It’s wonderful having you here. It’s been quite a day today. It has. What’s one of your highlights of WSAA 2023?

Speaker 12:      It’s been super hectic here. It’s nice to see a lot of familiar faces. I haven’t actually been to a lot of these conferences lately. So coming in’s a really good reunion.

Speaker 1:        Very

Speaker 12:      Cool. Had the pleasure of obviously seeing on the panel with James Huber with the visa ahead of rules, talking about cash discounting, surcharging, which was really

Speaker 1:        Great. I think that was a highlight of the weekend for many people. That was a moment I’ll have. I recorded the whole thing,

Speaker 12:      So

Speaker 1:        I’ll get some video to you. Absolutely.

Speaker 12:      I would love to see that.

Speaker 1:        That’s awesome. Yep. Super

Speaker 12:      Cool. It definitely looked like a whole group of pitchforks and torches coming in towards Visa.

Speaker 1:        I was shocked he didn’t be lying from the stage to his car, but he hung around. In fact, I saw him at five 30. He was out in the lobby talking

Speaker 12:      To people. Exactly.

Speaker 1:        I give him credit for that.

Speaker 12:      A line of credit, obviously he knows exactly what he’s doing here. Rob obviously is great. He’s good at what he does. Obviously the rules he makes, he’s making it for a reason. We’ll always try to combat it, obviously for the good of our industry.

Speaker 1:        Well, you know what, and honestly that’s kind of that push and pull. That’s what makes the industry better over time, at least. Hopefully. Yeah,

Speaker 12:      Rob’s obviously stuck in the middle where he’s trying to help out the consumers, but at the same time for helping out. Yeah, it’s a tough, tough

Speaker 1:        Balance.

Speaker 12:      Exactly.

Speaker 1:        Kevin, we’ve had a relationship with you for a long time. I know you’ve known James for how many years?

Speaker 12:      Probably 15. Oh

Speaker 1:        Wow. So long. Maybe even more so. Maybe even before the firm. Oh yeah. Oh, very cool’s. Quite a while. So you’ve been in the payment space a long time. Tell us about Coastal Pay. What do you guys bring to the market? Where are you guys at?

Speaker 12:      We’ve been around for quite a while. We’ve been around for about 10 years now. We focus on a lot of different spaces, but what we really specialize on is honestly helping out ISOs. We don’t have our own direct sales force. We focus on technology and different things that could really help them close more deals or help them with their own infrastructure to grow their business. So a lot of the ISOs we work with end up growing a lot just based on the infrastructure we’re able to provide. That’s fantastic.

Speaker 1:        And

Speaker 12:      Obviously for us it’s all about providing insight, making sure that everyone does stay compliant because that’s our biggest thing too. Everyone thinks about the rules.

Speaker 1:        Well it’s interesting that comes up again and again and again and I call it education, right? Whether you’re educating the merchant, whether you’re educating the iso, there’s so many people in this space, it’s constantly changing. The technology’s constantly evolving. It’s someone, if someone’s not educating and helping to guide people, they’re going to go off the rails.

Speaker 12:      Exactly. Actually’s pretty funny. I’ve had a handful of guys actually come up to mar passing. Do you charge any cash discounts past 3%? And little they know. I’m actually sitting on the panel with Visa hit of rule. You know what, you should actually come hit up our panel, sit in this a little bit. You probably wouldn’t be asking me these questions. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:        You’re like, and if we were, we’re not now.

Speaker 12:      Exactly. Exactly. But it’s definitely great. This sky’s running into a lot of people here.

Speaker 1:        Absolutely. This has been a great showing. What an awesome venue.

Speaker 12:      A lot busier than what I actually would’ve expected. It’s been a

Speaker 1:        While. Thankfully the Covid stuff’s behind us. It seems like everyone’s back out in force. It’s been a lot of fun.

Speaker 12:      Yeah, there’s definitely a massive great turnout. Have you

Speaker 1:        Enjoyed the food?

Speaker 12:      I

Speaker 1:        Love it for sure. Great. Yeah, I have two kind of as it’s it’s day food. It’s totally

Speaker 12:      Afford to tonight really,

Speaker 1:        We

Speaker 12:      Some good dinners planned. I probably have maybe three dinners planned out tonight, so got to save my stomach for that.

Speaker 1:        Kevin, tell our audience where can they find you? How can they get Coastal Pays benefit?

Speaker 12:      You can reach us directly@copay.com. You could obviously reach me directly through LinkedIn. Travis Chrisman is also available through LinkedIn, but we’re honestly easily accessible if you reach me at cabin, at coastal pay.com. I even give you my cell phone number. (858) 231-8499. There you go. Feel free to shoot me a call, a text. We’d more than happy to talk shop.

Speaker 1:        Fantastic. I appreciate that. That kind of thing. Kevin, it’s always a pleasure. Thank you for coming on with the Payments Experts podcast today. Of course. Have a great time tonight. You

Speaker 12:      Too.

Speaker 1:        Alright, we are here WSAA 2023. This is the Payments Experts podcast. We’re very, very fortunate. We have with us AP Tech Payments Corp. I’ve got Kaylee Wright with us. Kaylee, how are you doing? I’m

Speaker 13:      Doing well, thank you.

Speaker 1:        Excellent. And who are you with

Speaker 13:      Today? I’m here with May Rock. Hamza.

Speaker 12:      Thank you. Thank

Speaker 1:        You. She got your name right? Yay.

Speaker 14:      Excellent.

Speaker 1:        Alright you guys. It’s a pleasure. You have been having fun. Wow.

Speaker 14:      Absolutely. Great time. Great. Thank

Speaker 1:        Pleasure. It what’s been one of the highlights.

Speaker 14:      Wow. The sponsors. The sponsors, Elon, US Bank. It’s so great to see. We recently acquired Finio, which made us AMSP of We Pfac of Fiserv and Pathwork, formerly Medibank. So it was so cool to come to the show and see on the sponsorship board company names that we’re tied to now through that acquisition, through that acquisition. I don’t know if you can hear me all.

Speaker 1:        Yeah. Closer to better. But

Speaker 14:      Very exciting to see all the people and the players and be a part of the universe.

Speaker 1:        Very cool. All the friendly

Speaker 13:      Faces.

Speaker 1:        Yeah. Right.

Speaker 13:      Yeah. Making those connections in person.

Speaker 1:        Absolutely.

Speaker 13:      Getting it off VR and getting in real life.

Speaker 1:        Do you guys come to a lot of these shows?

Speaker 13:      We have. I have it. This is my first payments conference. I’m usually on the investor relations side, but we do have representatives that do attend the use on the sales side.

Speaker 1:        Very cool. I was kind of curious how this one ranks, by the way. I’ll notice me, Rick. You got the dimples like I do. Very cool.

Speaker 12:      20,

Speaker 1:        One of the main focuses for tech when you come to a show like this, bringing

Speaker 14:      Everybody together.

Speaker 1:        Yeah. I

Speaker 14:      Mean, bringing everybody together. This ecosystem is very open architecture and I think everybody’s got A to Z, but some may want to replace Lmm, NOP or just a, B, C. So we have that full suite of products now with Fios acquisition and the partnerships with Elon and US Bank and really password the players that make it possible to build closed loop payment systems and bring together really communities. Max Givings here, doing wonderful things in the payment space and enabling these groups to really just engage and come together.

Speaker 1:        Very, very cool. Kaylee, which one of your roles with tech? What do you do?

Speaker 13:      Yeah, so currently my title is Chief of Staff, so I work in the c-suite with the CEO, make sure his operations are running excellent. But then I also have my own operations on the side. I work in investor relations and public relations and we run the brand. My team runs the brand.

Speaker 1:        Very cool.

Speaker 14:      6,000 shareholders. Wow. We’re publicly traded on the nas. Fantastic. You guys really awesome. Yeah, we’re super.

Speaker 1:        It’s only growing from here.

Speaker 14:      Oh, it’s awful. Awesome.

Speaker 13:      Only up from here. Yeah.

Speaker 1:        Okay, so I got to ask, what’s been the favorite thing you’ve eaten this trip? What have you eaten that you’re like, this is good?

Speaker 13:      Oh man, there’s so much, so much good food.

Speaker 1:        I know at this conference we’re spoiled. Gosh,

Speaker 13:      I dunno if I can pick a best, but I can say a highlight was the ice cream. Yes. Did you see the ice

Speaker 14:      Cream?

Speaker 1:        I had

Speaker 13:      The ice cream. It was on the side. It was a little refrigerator freezer and

Speaker 1:        You can put whatever you want into it. That one.

Speaker 13:      Oh, I didn’t see that

Speaker 1:        One. That was last night outside.

Speaker 13:      Oh my gosh. I missed that one.

Speaker 1:        Sunday

Speaker 13:      Bar. That would’ve been, would’ve been it.

Speaker 14:      That would’ve been it.

Speaker 13:      I don’t

Speaker 1:        Know. What were you talking about though? Where was ice cream that you found?

Speaker 13:      They had a little freezer on the side. It was cute. And you just walked up and they had personal servings of ice cream and that was fun. It was like a midday break. That’s cool. That was the highlight for me.

Speaker 1:        Okay. Very cool.

Speaker 13:      Now I’m sad. I miss the ice cream bars

Speaker 1:        Maybe tonight. Merrick, what about you? How’s the food been?

Speaker 14:      I’ve been pescatarian. I had fish has been

Speaker 1:        Good. They’ve had some good fish

Speaker 14:      And just kind of kept it light with the salads and the cantaloupe and the fruits. Been a little bit of blackberry and some watermelon this morning. Oh nice. We’re

Speaker 13:      Keeping it healthy, mayor.

Speaker 1:        Yeah. Where is Apte located? Where are you guys standard at?

Speaker 13:      So we’re actually just down the street. We’re here in Carlsbad, California. Oh,

Speaker 1:        Perfect. We’re in Encinitas. Beautiful. So we’re like neighbors. A beautiful partnership is growing. That’s cool. Yeah. That’s fantastic. Very, very cool. I said we’re spoiled. I was talking to a guy earlier, he’s from Canada. He said it’s snowing where he is his home right now. Oh, can’t even imagine. I was going to say we were racking. T-shirt.

Speaker 14:      Shirt. You

Speaker 1:        Live in the best city.

Speaker 14:      Absolutely. San Diego was the best in the nation.

Speaker 1:        Very cool. Thank you guys for coming on to the Payments expert podcast. What do you want? I’ll let you guys have the last word. I’ll let you go first and then you can have the last word. Okay. First off, how can our audience find you and what message do you want them to know about Tech as you say Goodbye?

Speaker 13:      Oh, that’s a good one. So you can find us@apptechcorp.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. Big fan. What do I want to leave you with?

Speaker 1:        What do you love about your job?

Speaker 13:      I love everything. I love the people. I love the collaboration. I love the innovation. So yeah, there you go. Awesome.

Speaker 1:        That’s great.

Speaker 14:      Great answer. Thank you.

Speaker 1:        Alright, Merrick,

Speaker 14:      What’s the question? How

Speaker 1:        Can we find you? How can we find you online?

Speaker 14:      How’s your audience find you? Ticker symbols. APCX. There you

Speaker 1:        Go. Do that one more time. I think I was talking

Speaker 14:      Over you. A-A-P-C-X, ticker symbol. Apple pair. Charlie X-Ray APCX on the Nasdaq. na. Very

Speaker 1:        Cool. Very cool. And what do you want to leave our audience with thinking about tech payments?

Speaker 14:      It’s a tough one. I know this is on the spot. On the spot. I had to just reset there. I mean, wow. To leave with, wow. Sky’s the limit. There you go. There go. Absolutely.

Speaker 1:        Okay, awesome. Beautiful you guys. It was a real pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.

Speaker 14:      Thank you for having us. Bye-Bye bye.

Speaker 5:        Okay,

Speaker 1:        So Mark Miller, good to have you on. Again, thank we’ve talked to you earlier. We’re coming towards the end now of WSAA 2023. How are you feeling now? Are you tired? You energized? Where are you at? I’m actually

Speaker 5:        Pretty energized, especially this last session here has been really good. We’ve had some really good conversations with potential partners and we’re really excited about it.

Speaker 1:        Very cool. Very calm. Awesome.

Speaker 5:        Okay. Appreciate it. Thank

Speaker 1:        You. Thanks for joining us today and we wish you guys obviously continued success. If you guys ever have any needs in terms of contract or whatever it is, sort of, we really, all of our clients are businesses, so we cover all range of business services. If there’s anything you ever feel free to reach out, give us a call.

Speaker 5:        We will. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye.