Introduction to the magical world of payment mediation
Immediately inform that I am planning an article in two parts. In the first part I plan to touch upon the current development of the market of intermediation in the field of banking, payment and processing services, as well as the reasons for the failures on it. Despite the fact that I intend to be completely neutral, I will immediately make a reservation about the possible assessment of the article, since with experience comes a personal attitude to the topic. In any case, I will propose precisely those development mechanisms that, in my experience, will be effective, and I will also try to tell you why I consider others not to be effective.
Long-term practice of working in the market of payments and bank processing led to the fact that I had an idea about the insufficient saturation of the financial services market with qualified intermediaries (in the context of payment services they are sometimes called aggregators or distributors). A seemingly paradoxical fact: there is demand, there is no supply.
Indeed, at the moment, this area of ​​activity is filled with small organizations, mainly engaged in the development of adapters for information systems and all sorts of integration solutions. Usually these are adapters for GIS (such as GIS utilities or GIS GMP), interaction with which is required at the legislative level, as well as platforms for managing information kiosks and payment terminals. Often offered laying of a different level of functionality between banking systems, 1C and federal payment services. These companies offer a whole range of services, which are usually aimed at the formation of such a model of relations, in which their decision will really be mandatory.
An analysis of the history of some of these companies shows that their products were formed as satellites for projects of larger organizations. Then these satellites are no longer necessary. Such free information solutions enter the free market in order to find a new project for themselves or, if lucky, projects.
')
I do not see anything wrong in the fact that an already implemented solution that automates any business processes is embedded in other information systems and continues to demonstrate useful results. This is a fairly rational approach to the use of already created intelligent products. At the same time, I am aware that only experts in their fields can fully rationally use these works, understanding which of their needs will be covered by the acquired solution and how much the purchase and integration will be more profitable than development. Consultation and mediation activities of such organizations-adapters, which are often stated, are aimed solely at the formation of the "necessary" needs. Consultation, in other words, is conducted only in order to sell a ready-made solution. In addition, the terminological apparatus of these companies and their ideas about actual problems in the market of payments and processing usually reflect not the ideas of the potential consumer, but their own, which they try to implant as “correct”. The viciousness of this approach will be understood later.
At the same time, on the other side of the business community, enterprising individuals are studying materials on the Internet about how to start a business. It is no secret that novice blogs, sites and groups that produce business ideas as content or even business plans often offer their audience a model of mediation as a way to "start a business from scratch without costs." Of course, you can start your own business “without costs” and “from scratch” according to their guidelines, but it will not bring any benefit or significant benefit to anyone at all. And the reasons, by the way, are obvious.
Tips that can be obtained on such channels usually prescribe the following plan of action:
1. Log in to the ad sites and examine the ads;
2. Create a database of proposals;
3. Create a base of needs;
4. Bring together suppliers of goods with consumers of goods;
5. Periodically repeat paragraphs 2, 3 and 4.
With proper organization of the logical apparatus of the reader, this procedure really looks like a convincing business model. I think that there is no need to address all the reasons for the guaranteed failure of such an event. The main, in my opinion, the reason lies in the lack of expertise or, if you will, professionalism, in this work. What can we talk about at all, if all the functions of this kind of intermediary are successfully implemented by standard filters on the above sites.
In the modern business community, which is ready to work with intermediaries, an idea has emerged of what such an intermediary should do. Find a phone number, email address, or even a full offer of the desire to deliver or receive the goods now can be dozens of ways. On the Internet there are entire platforms for finding partners and all sorts of reference books of legal entities. Companies with exquisite taste can receive more specialized services on a commercial basis, all the rest do not even have to pay for these services.
Obviously, the mediator in this case is an extra link. And any supervised system strives to get rid of unnecessary links. Not only and not so much because the extra element requires extra expenses. The main reason is that such a mediator greatly hinders the build up of organic relationships between partners, although he should, on the contrary, settle them and heal them. It simply introduces additional entropy. Such an intermediary cannot be asked for a “problem solution”. Meanwhile, I often heard similar phrases from people involved in the financial sector:
“Who needs money to make it work?”
The point here, of course, is not about a “bribe” to a public servant, but about an informal bonus to any specialist partner company who devotes extra time and monitors the solution of the issue. Outside the scope of formal job responsibilities. And by the way, they paid.
Is it possible to conclude from this that the intermediary business is not realizable in real market conditions? No you can not. Let's embody and damn necessary!
It should be understood that advice on the organization of an intermediary business is usually given by people who have nothing in common with this business, and interpret it from the point of view of a show-man who is unwinding a channel. Usually these are conclusions and decisions based on intuition and artistic materials. The fact is that bloggers are experts in the media, not in business. Similarly, a good football player on a game console does not fit the role of a coach of a real football team at all.
From the above facts, completely different conclusions should be drawn, namely:
1. An element that does not perform a useful function burdens any system;
2. All commercial groups are focused on increasing profits and optimizing costs.
It can be noted that these findings are common truths characteristic of any field of activity, they are not specific to mediation. It turns out that mediation is not burdened with its special qualities that impede work at a fundamental level. It turns out, the reasons for the failure of novice middlemen in another? This is true.
Both from organizations that implement ready-made solutions, which I spoke at the very beginning, and from freelancers who try themselves in the market of intermediary services, based on low-quality materials from the Internet, there is one single contradiction to the goals of the intermediary. One thing, but determining success or failure in this matter.
The average player in this market completely ignores the real needs of the partners, the interaction between which he mediates. At this stage, I will depart from well-known platitudes and give an example from real experience.
I, as a payment service specialist, will organize, among other things, work on attracting partners. Among such partners, a separate category is represented by companies which, due to their type of activity, have opportunities for mass acceptance of state duties, taxes and fines. Before my eyes, such companies (more often businessmen) earned money on accepting payments, allowing them to completely withdraw from the direct work in the field and hire a couple of cashiers. We are talking about tens of thousands of rubles per month for one POS. The average indicator is more modest, but still tangible, if not by Moscow, then by regional standards - for sure.
When the work on attraction had just begun, but the examples and calculations were prepared, we were faced with an interesting fact. Target companies did not cooperate. Moreover, the work was carried out not only by our manager, but also by the distributing company, actually acting as an intermediary between our service and agents organizing the service at POS.
Our model of relations with the distributor was organized as follows: they attract a partner agent to the service on the basis of a tripartite agreement, and a percentage from turnover. Everything was done securely, each participant was protected by the terms of the contract, but it did not go. Neither our managers nor the distributor.
If we did not conduct separate work, each according to his own methods, one could conclude that one of them is implementing the wrong strategy. But we used different strategies, and the result was the same. For a couple of years of such work, we tried cold calling, landing pages, advertising in communities and investment sites, and mailings. At the same time, calls were recorded and analyzed, scenarios were developed, seminars were held, we improved the skills of specialists, but there was no result.
We received only those organizations that were puzzled by a targeted search for a payment service. On the distributor out the same company. On our partners in the face of banks and large agents who, on occasion, also connected the participants to the joint service, only those enterprises that independently realized their need for this service also came out. What is characteristic, at this point, novice agents did not even have an idea of ​​the costs and potential benefits of accepting payments.
In our materials, in the materials of the distributor, in all sorts of advertising of banks and our other partners there was no reflection of our expertise. That is, "our expertise in the field of partner." A clear expertise in our own sphere of activity of the partner did not care at all. We offered a common service, a common product, talked about the benefits, made calculations, gave examples. For us, the benefit was obvious. We, as a payment service dealing with payments and processing, did not understand why the partner refuses an obviously advantageous offer. After a monthly analysis, endless adjustments, the development of the text of the proposal and presentation, draft contracts, all kinds of FAQs, schemes and other representative muculature, we had an ideal proposal from the point of view of any company: with an amazing balance of details and brevity. It was all. And SPIN, and FAB, and the development of flexible call scenarios for managers, and modern standards of processing objections, and methods of "persistent manager." To be honest, our manager was not just "persistent." He was like a bath sheet sticking to the victim and did not leave her alone neither day nor night. The proposal was ideal in terms of modern sales methodology. But it did not work.
They supposedly understood us, but they immediately refused any substantive negotiations. As the saying goes: "I caught some words, the phrase as a whole is not." Feedback went only when we replaced only one phrase in the DM's greeting in the script. And the first successes began, negotiations began, interesting projects. People began to talk, to be interested, to offer counter decisions, their own conditions. I don’t say that we became a transnational corporation overnight, but the “dead center” was overcome, and then things moved, since our project was initially beneficial to the partners.
On this key note, I’ll break off, since the rest of the article requires editing. In the next part, I will touch on a solution that helped us overcome the "dead point", and also try to give its analysis and highlight useful information for potential intermediaries.
Long-term practice of working in the market of payments and bank processing led to the fact that I had an idea about the insufficient saturation of the financial services market with qualified intermediaries (in the context of payment services they are sometimes called aggregators or distributors). A seemingly paradoxical fact: there is demand, there is no supply.
Indeed, at the moment, this area of ​​activity is filled with small organizations, mainly engaged in the development of adapters for information systems and all sorts of integration solutions. Usually these are adapters for GIS (such as GIS utilities or GIS GMP), interaction with which is required at the legislative level, as well as platforms for managing information kiosks and payment terminals. Often offered laying of a different level of functionality between banking systems, 1C and federal payment services. These companies offer a whole range of services, which are usually aimed at the formation of such a model of relations, in which their decision will really be mandatory.
An analysis of the history of some of these companies shows that their products were formed as satellites for projects of larger organizations. Then these satellites are no longer necessary. Such free information solutions enter the free market in order to find a new project for themselves or, if lucky, projects.
')
I do not see anything wrong in the fact that an already implemented solution that automates any business processes is embedded in other information systems and continues to demonstrate useful results. This is a fairly rational approach to the use of already created intelligent products. At the same time, I am aware that only experts in their fields can fully rationally use these works, understanding which of their needs will be covered by the acquired solution and how much the purchase and integration will be more profitable than development. Consultation and mediation activities of such organizations-adapters, which are often stated, are aimed solely at the formation of the "necessary" needs. Consultation, in other words, is conducted only in order to sell a ready-made solution. In addition, the terminological apparatus of these companies and their ideas about actual problems in the market of payments and processing usually reflect not the ideas of the potential consumer, but their own, which they try to implant as “correct”. The viciousness of this approach will be understood later.
At the same time, on the other side of the business community, enterprising individuals are studying materials on the Internet about how to start a business. It is no secret that novice blogs, sites and groups that produce business ideas as content or even business plans often offer their audience a model of mediation as a way to "start a business from scratch without costs." Of course, you can start your own business “without costs” and “from scratch” according to their guidelines, but it will not bring any benefit or significant benefit to anyone at all. And the reasons, by the way, are obvious.
Tips that can be obtained on such channels usually prescribe the following plan of action:
1. Log in to the ad sites and examine the ads;
2. Create a database of proposals;
3. Create a base of needs;
4. Bring together suppliers of goods with consumers of goods;
5. Periodically repeat paragraphs 2, 3 and 4.
With proper organization of the logical apparatus of the reader, this procedure really looks like a convincing business model. I think that there is no need to address all the reasons for the guaranteed failure of such an event. The main, in my opinion, the reason lies in the lack of expertise or, if you will, professionalism, in this work. What can we talk about at all, if all the functions of this kind of intermediary are successfully implemented by standard filters on the above sites.
In the modern business community, which is ready to work with intermediaries, an idea has emerged of what such an intermediary should do. Find a phone number, email address, or even a full offer of the desire to deliver or receive the goods now can be dozens of ways. On the Internet there are entire platforms for finding partners and all sorts of reference books of legal entities. Companies with exquisite taste can receive more specialized services on a commercial basis, all the rest do not even have to pay for these services.
Obviously, the mediator in this case is an extra link. And any supervised system strives to get rid of unnecessary links. Not only and not so much because the extra element requires extra expenses. The main reason is that such a mediator greatly hinders the build up of organic relationships between partners, although he should, on the contrary, settle them and heal them. It simply introduces additional entropy. Such an intermediary cannot be asked for a “problem solution”. Meanwhile, I often heard similar phrases from people involved in the financial sector:
“Who needs money to make it work?”
The point here, of course, is not about a “bribe” to a public servant, but about an informal bonus to any specialist partner company who devotes extra time and monitors the solution of the issue. Outside the scope of formal job responsibilities. And by the way, they paid.
Is it possible to conclude from this that the intermediary business is not realizable in real market conditions? No you can not. Let's embody and damn necessary!
It should be understood that advice on the organization of an intermediary business is usually given by people who have nothing in common with this business, and interpret it from the point of view of a show-man who is unwinding a channel. Usually these are conclusions and decisions based on intuition and artistic materials. The fact is that bloggers are experts in the media, not in business. Similarly, a good football player on a game console does not fit the role of a coach of a real football team at all.
From the above facts, completely different conclusions should be drawn, namely:
1. An element that does not perform a useful function burdens any system;
2. All commercial groups are focused on increasing profits and optimizing costs.
It can be noted that these findings are common truths characteristic of any field of activity, they are not specific to mediation. It turns out that mediation is not burdened with its special qualities that impede work at a fundamental level. It turns out, the reasons for the failure of novice middlemen in another? This is true.
Both from organizations that implement ready-made solutions, which I spoke at the very beginning, and from freelancers who try themselves in the market of intermediary services, based on low-quality materials from the Internet, there is one single contradiction to the goals of the intermediary. One thing, but determining success or failure in this matter.
The average player in this market completely ignores the real needs of the partners, the interaction between which he mediates. At this stage, I will depart from well-known platitudes and give an example from real experience.
I, as a payment service specialist, will organize, among other things, work on attracting partners. Among such partners, a separate category is represented by companies which, due to their type of activity, have opportunities for mass acceptance of state duties, taxes and fines. Before my eyes, such companies (more often businessmen) earned money on accepting payments, allowing them to completely withdraw from the direct work in the field and hire a couple of cashiers. We are talking about tens of thousands of rubles per month for one POS. The average indicator is more modest, but still tangible, if not by Moscow, then by regional standards - for sure.
When the work on attraction had just begun, but the examples and calculations were prepared, we were faced with an interesting fact. Target companies did not cooperate. Moreover, the work was carried out not only by our manager, but also by the distributing company, actually acting as an intermediary between our service and agents organizing the service at POS.
Our model of relations with the distributor was organized as follows: they attract a partner agent to the service on the basis of a tripartite agreement, and a percentage from turnover. Everything was done securely, each participant was protected by the terms of the contract, but it did not go. Neither our managers nor the distributor.
If we did not conduct separate work, each according to his own methods, one could conclude that one of them is implementing the wrong strategy. But we used different strategies, and the result was the same. For a couple of years of such work, we tried cold calling, landing pages, advertising in communities and investment sites, and mailings. At the same time, calls were recorded and analyzed, scenarios were developed, seminars were held, we improved the skills of specialists, but there was no result.
We received only those organizations that were puzzled by a targeted search for a payment service. On the distributor out the same company. On our partners in the face of banks and large agents who, on occasion, also connected the participants to the joint service, only those enterprises that independently realized their need for this service also came out. What is characteristic, at this point, novice agents did not even have an idea of ​​the costs and potential benefits of accepting payments.
In our materials, in the materials of the distributor, in all sorts of advertising of banks and our other partners there was no reflection of our expertise. That is, "our expertise in the field of partner." A clear expertise in our own sphere of activity of the partner did not care at all. We offered a common service, a common product, talked about the benefits, made calculations, gave examples. For us, the benefit was obvious. We, as a payment service dealing with payments and processing, did not understand why the partner refuses an obviously advantageous offer. After a monthly analysis, endless adjustments, the development of the text of the proposal and presentation, draft contracts, all kinds of FAQs, schemes and other representative muculature, we had an ideal proposal from the point of view of any company: with an amazing balance of details and brevity. It was all. And SPIN, and FAB, and the development of flexible call scenarios for managers, and modern standards of processing objections, and methods of "persistent manager." To be honest, our manager was not just "persistent." He was like a bath sheet sticking to the victim and did not leave her alone neither day nor night. The proposal was ideal in terms of modern sales methodology. But it did not work.
They supposedly understood us, but they immediately refused any substantive negotiations. As the saying goes: "I caught some words, the phrase as a whole is not." Feedback went only when we replaced only one phrase in the DM's greeting in the script. And the first successes began, negotiations began, interesting projects. People began to talk, to be interested, to offer counter decisions, their own conditions. I don’t say that we became a transnational corporation overnight, but the “dead center” was overcome, and then things moved, since our project was initially beneficial to the partners.
On this key note, I’ll break off, since the rest of the article requires editing. In the next part, I will touch on a solution that helped us overcome the "dead point", and also try to give its analysis and highlight useful information for potential intermediaries.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/325696/
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