Episode 2: Are you making it too difficult to pay you?
transcript
Why it’s so hard for Latinas to talk about money
Hey Jefa, welcome. Welcome to the series I created just for you for surprising ways to supercharge your sales at any stage of business.
I chose this topic for these first four episodes because these are the areas that I see Latina business owners struggling with most often. In fact, when I started La Jefa Status, I did a survey of Latina entrepreneurs and I asked them, in their own words, to tell me what they needed the most help with. It came down to pricing, sales, marketing and confidence. I wasn't entirely surprised to see these results, but it did make me think about how these struggles show up in specific ways for us that I didn't see in non-Latina business owners that I'd been working with over the past 15 years. There are things that we deal with that others just don't. I had one client who always hid the tip option at checkout because she felt too guilty to even allow her customers the option to tip her. She thought that it made her look greedy, but in her industry tipping is totally customary, it's a standard practice. I had another client who was too nervous to negotiate her contract for a commercial space with the white male landlord. Surprise, surprise, he insisted that they didn't need a contract. Thankfully we were able to work through her hesitations and we were able to get her to a place where she ultimately did feel comfortable and did negotiate a contract. But I remember standing at the Burger King bathroom with my kids getting a little too animated about why I thought it was very suspicious that the landlord insisted on not having a contract with the tenant and what that meant or didn't mean for the lack of respect that he was showing her in that process.
This is sort of like this guilt and hesitation that comes up for us doesn't necessarily come up with other business owners, but for us it's the norm. It's a part of our experience as entrepreneurs. But a business that doesn't make any money is just a hobby, and hobbies are awesome. But this is not the Jefa hobby podcast. This is the Brown Girl Business School podcast, and that's why I'm starting this series with the first surprising tip to supercharge yourselves at any stage of business, which is drumroll…
No. 1 surprising way to supercharge your sales at any stage of business
Please Make it easy to pay you. Yes, make it easy to pay you. Sounds obvious, right, but why is it so hard for me to give you all my money? I'm not rich, but I'm a person who has a comfortable amount of disposable income and trust me when I say it does not take a lot for me to dispose of it, especially if I'm shopping with Latina business owners.
Why you need to accept credit and debit cards in person and online
When I'm at a farmer's market and I see what appears to be a Latina business owner, I head straight over beeline straight for her.
At the last farmer's market I was at, I saw a booth with beautiful bouquets of flowers and a look to be owned by a Latina entrepreneur, and I was at this farmer's market with my mom when she was buying coffee at another booth, so I snuck off to surprise her with the bouquet of flowers. I thought it'd be so cute, like such a sweet little moment. I was so excited to surprise her, even more excited than I can probably buy them from a Brown Girl. They were gorgeous and fragrant and they were beautifully wrapped. I was so excited, so imagine my disappointment when I was told that the only form of payment that she accepted was Apple Pay, and I did not have Apple Pay set up at the time. It was such a drag. I was so disappointed and bummed.
I don't know how many sales she lost out on because she didn't accept more forms of payment. Did she get what she wanted out of the experience? Did she at least make enough money to break even after the cost of the flowers and the booth? Did she keep trying in her business, or did she decide that she didn't sell enough so therefore it wasn't worth pursuing? Did she care? Did she feel like she missed out on sales, or did she assume that it was best to do what was most convenient for her? I have no idea, but I do know this it's not about our convenience as business owners. It's about making it as easy as possible for people to pay us. Why is it so hard for us to accept money from people who want to pay us.
I remember as a young girl I think I was 11 or 12 years old being at my Nino's house for a party to watch a boxing match, watch a fight, and the men in the living room were in front of the TV and eating, drinking, hanging out, super invested in this fight. I don't even remember who was fighting and they asked me to run and get them beers like basically be like their cocktail waitress and I didn't think twice about doing what I was told and they paid me. They gave me cash to run back and forth and bring them beers and the first time it happened I politely declined. But one of the dads stopped me and he looked me in the eyes and he said that I deserved the money that I had worked for and if somebody wanted to pay me I should let them. And that was total counter-programming to how I was raised and how I saw the world at that time. I was raised to never ask for money and to always be self-reliant. I was raised to believe that money was the root of all evil. I was raised to believe that openly admitting to wanting money above enough to pay your bills was greedy and sinful. I felt bad taking those tips, because my whole life up to that point, I was just expected to serve those around me, especially as the oldest and the only girl in the family.
It's no wonder it's so hard to talk about money, much less ask for it, much less look for ways to make it easier to get it. I don't know, this is just speculation, but I imagine this scenario could also be true the Latina business owner and that booth selling floral arrangements. She could have grown up in the same kind of household. It could have taken her every ounce of courage to just show up that day. She could have had no idea as to the importance of taking different payment types, or she could have known how critical it was, but maybe she didn't have the knowledge or resources to make it happen in time for that farmer's market.
What is a payment processor?
This podcast episode is for her and anyone else who hasn't yet set up more ways to take any form of payment. Okay, maybe not every form of payment. I don't try to pay me in crypto. I don't know what to do with that, but what I'm talking about today is how to set up your business to take credit and debit cards, because you should already be taking cash. That's maybe not how a lot of people pay nowadays, but especially if you're selling in person, should have the ability to make change and take cash In addition to digital payments and, specifically, credit and debit cards. It's predicted that by 2024, which is just a couple of months away from the recording of this episode 91% of all payments will be electronic, meaning credit or debit cards or apps like Apple Pay. So it's critical to your business growth to be able to accept credit and debit cards and not rely so heavily on apps like Venmo, Zell and other money transfer apps.
How to choose and set up a payment processor
Now let's talk about how to make that happen. Okay, first you're gonna need a payment processor, and a payment processor is just the middleman who makes sure that the money goes from your customer's bank account to your business bank account. Setting it up is actually pretty straightforward, and we'll talk through some of that, but first you need to choose a payment processor. There are a lot of different options. Some of them that you might be familiar with are PayPal, square or Stripe. If you sell in-person and online, you'll want to make sure that you choose one that allows you to sell in-person and online and be able to take payments no matter where you sell.
Me personally, I use Stripe because it connects and integrates to Squarespace, which is where I host my website, LaJefaStatus.com, and it also integrates to the platform that I use to manage and sell one-on-one coaching, which is called Paperbell. Both of those already came with an integration for Stripe, so it's very easy to connect my payment processor to each one of those websites. Any one-on-one coaching package that I sell, it's purchased through Paperbell, through that platform that has Stripe already connected to it. So when you go and you enter in your information, if you buy a one-on-one coaching package from me, you enter in your information and you make the purchase. You can choose between paying in full or making monthly payments and the payments are automatically deducted from your account the same day every month and then in a couple of days, once it clears it is from Stripe, deposited into my business bank account. And once the transaction clears and the money is in my business bank account, the monthly payments are deducted automatically from your account the same day every month and then deposited into my Stripe account. Once the transaction clears on your end and Stripe has taken that money, then Stripe deposits that money into my business bank account. It's very simple and totally seamless and it's easy for everyone involved.
I don't have to ask you for payment every month and you don't have to think about the payment for every month. Everything happens automatically and very conveniently. And no, this is not a Paper Bell ad. Although I do use them and I haven't had any issues, I would and have recommended them, but I'm not getting paid to tell you that and I also have worked with other coaches and service providers who use an app called HoneyBook or a platform called HoneyBook. From a client standpoint, I don't love it. I haven't loved the experience as a client, but it does collect installment payments automatically. So if you're selling something where you are allowing payments to be made on a regular basis, you don't want to have to be hunting people down and sending them an invoice every month for their payment. You want that to happen automatically. That's better for you and it's more convenient for your clients.
When you should talk to a bank about choosing a payment processor
Maybe you already take credit and debit cards and you have been for like a hot minute. I did say that each of these episodes would apply to business owners, no matter what stage of business they're in. So for more established businesses that are growing, and you're already using something like Stripe or Square and you're already taking all the forms of payment that you need to and you've been in business and you have a fairly high volume of transactions. It might be time to talk to a business banker, if you haven't already, because if you're doing enough volume in sales, it might be cheaper to use the payment processor that's offered by your bank. If you have a growing business let's say it's a restaurant and you have a line of credit and you have a credit card and you have a checking account that might be enough to get you special pricing on your payment processor fees. So a lot of times you will get a discount based on how many different products you have with the bank, especially if you have lending products. So it would be worth finding out if you can get a cheaper price per transaction using a payment processor through your bank versus something you went out and got out on your own.
How to set up and use your payment processor account
Step two: so once you've picked a payment processor, a vendor to accept payments, you have to actually apply for the account. Now, don't let this scare you. It's very straightforward, but there is some information that you're gonna need about your business, including your business bank account, if you don't have one already, and your EIN, which is an employer identification number, which is basically like a social security number for your business, and it is given to you, assigned to you by the IRS. You'll need that to set up a business bank account and you'll need the business bank account to set up the payment processor, the EIN, the employer identification number. It's free and you can apply online. Okay, so don't pay for someone else to do this for you, unless you're hiring a professional who can also help you to set up your business formation, like filing for you to become an LLC, or maybe helping you get registered with local and state governments, helping you to get whatever specific licensing you need for your industry, if that is a requirement and I know all of that kind of sounds like a lot and it can be overwhelming because of the jargon that's used in a lot of those forms and applications but for your EIN, it only takes a few minutes to go online to apply for that. I did it from my phone. I'm confident that you'll be able to do it too.
The more difficult part of the process might be walking into a bank and opening a business bank account. I will admit I was a little nervous to open my accounts and I worked for a bank for over 10 years. I guess all the years of financial instability growing up made me nervous to be in banks. It's not a place that I associate with comfort or reliability. I think of overdraft fees and I think of all the people who have told me stories of being discriminated against when they walk into banks. I think of stories my clients tell me of branch managers being extra suspicious of their identification and their account transaction history. I think of the Latinos who tell stories of not getting calls back from business bankers or treated like they don't make as much money as they actually do. Nothing about that says yes. The first thing I wanna do in my business is open a business bank account, but it's critical. If you feel mistreated or discriminated against at one bank, leave and go to another.
You need to keep your personal and your business finances separate, and the sooner you do it the better. We may not be treated fairly, but we cannot let that stop us from accessing the tools and resources we need to be successful business owners. It's up to us to take what belongs to us and I guarantee you that you will find a place. Maybe I can't guarantee, but I very, very strongly believe that you will find a financial institution that will offer you the customer service that you deserve. Step three get the necessary equipment.
If you're a physical store, you'll need a card reader that connects to the payment processor. You need to be able to physically swipe a card. If you're online, you need to be able to allow people to input their card information so that they can make a purchase. Most e-commerce websites, like Shopify and Squarespace they have payment processors built in, so you don't have to do anything too complicated to take payments online. They're already integrated with vendors like Stripe or they have their own payment processor. So if you decide to start selling online, which you should definitely very strongly consider let's say you use Shopify you can also get a card reader from Shopify so that you can sell in person, and the extra awesome bonus is, when you do that, you can better track your inventory, whether you sell online or in person. And no, this is not a sponsored Shopify shout-out, but I used it before and I have had no issues.
Benefits of using a payment processor
There are many benefits to using a payment processor. Not only can it help you make more money by accepting more forms of payment, it can help you keep better track of your inventory, which I've just mentioned, and give you visibility into trends in your business, with the reporting that it offers, so you'd be able to see at a glance what's selling, what's not selling, without having to comb through your physical inventory in order to find out that data. You can see which items are your best sellers, you can keep track of who your best customers are and a whole bunch of different types of transaction data that can help you make smarter decisions in your business, including giving you a warning so you know when you're running low on inventory for any particular product that you offer. So, to recap, today's supercharged sales strategy is to make it easy to pay you, which means being able to accept credit and debit cards in person and online, and making it easy to find your products or services and the link to actually pay for them.
If you wanna know more about this topic or anything else related to entrepreneurship for Latinas and women of color, check out my online business membership Brown Girl Business School and follow me on Instagram at La Jefa Status. If you have any questions you would like answered in future episodes, you can text or leave me a voicemail. The link and the information is in the show notes. If you fill out the have a hotline form, or call or text the have a hotline phone number, I will get your message. You can submit your questions anonymously and that allows you to be a producer on this podcast. You tell me what you want delivered and I will bring it to you. In the next episode we'll be talking about tip number two, which I can't wait to dive into. If you like this podcast, please rate it and review it and share it so that other Jefas like you can find it. Thank you so much for being here with me today and I'll see you in class.