Interview with Ed Black of Heartland Payment Systems. Tuesday Evenings with Jonathan Wilner
Ed Black
good evening everybody i’m jonathan Wilner from harrington limousine service and
with me this evening is mr ed black from heartland payments.
good evening ed good evening jonathan.
thank you for inviting me good evening
everyone wow it’s so great to have you here this evening can you tell us a little bit
about yourself and what you do sure um a little background on me
the reality is i’ve been in sales for
uh over half my life
00:42
uh since since i graduated college
00:44
really
00:45
uh since i graduated rutgers uh i was
00:47
born raised in jersey city
00:49
uh i’ve lived in woodbridge close to
00:53
25 years um since moving from jersey
00:56
city as a teenager
00:59
um and i’m married three children
01:03
my oldest daughter is 25 dallas
01:07
my youngest daughter is emily she’ll be
01:09
19
01:10
in september and uh my little boy shane
01:13
will be
01:14
three in october uh i guess that’s me in
01:17
a nutshell
01:20
wow so what prompted you to
01:23
join heartland damon i mean with the
01:25
background and sales and so forth
01:27
i’m sure there were a lot of different
01:29
opportunities for you
01:30
so what made you go to hartlett
01:34
great question um i hated heartland
01:37
when i worked for paychecks and
01:40
later on when i worked for pnc bank i
01:42
hated heartland even more
01:45
um and part of the reason i
01:48
realized what what i found to be true
01:52
about the company
01:54
is that it’s what you see is what you
01:57
get
01:58
and in the payroll and in the credit
02:00
card industries
02:02
that’s not always the case depending on
02:04
who you’re dealing with
02:06
um another thing that intrigued me about
02:09
heartland
02:10
is ownership i worked for paychecks for
02:15
four and a half years i worked for pnc
02:17
bank not very long i worked for them for
02:18
about a year
02:19
i ran away screaming that’s a story for
02:21
another time um
02:23
the i never thought i would be selling
02:26
credit card processing ever again it was
02:27
actually a very bad experience for me
02:30
um and when i came to heartland i was
02:34
looking
02:34
really to get into the payroll industry
02:36
um pretty much just that
02:38
and what i realized at heartland i could
02:41
use my experience in both payroll and
02:43
card processing it’s my advantage but
02:46
the key difference is
02:47
as opposed to those companies i actually
02:49
own my book of business
02:52
and when you’re a salesperson and you
02:55
work for a company
02:57
whether it be paychecks or adp or syntax
03:00
or you you name the company there are
03:02
great companies
03:03
you work for a bank or you work for um
03:06
any professional sales organization when
03:08
you bring those clients on board
03:10
many many times if you leave they’re not
03:13
yours anymore
03:14
so all that hard work and all that
03:18
energy and all that dedication and all
03:20
the grind that you put in
03:22
you don’t have any ownership in that at
03:24
the end of the day
03:25
and heartland is completely different
03:27
everything we do
03:29
all the clients that we bring on board
03:31
that i bring on board
03:32
are actually part of a book of business
03:34
that’s vested i own it
03:36
it’s actually um if i were to leave
03:39
heartland if i were to retire
03:40
as long as those accounts are still in
03:42
the book of business it will continue to
03:43
pay me a monthly residual
03:45
or i could buy the business out um
03:48
i cash out so it’s it’s flexibility it’s
03:52
options
03:52
it’s all the stuff that
03:56
i had been doing for 20 plus years now i
04:00
can actually plant my flag and say this
04:01
is all this is ed black llc
04:03
dba heartland and that’s huge huge
04:06
um that’s what
04:11
brought me to the opportunity and seeing
04:14
it actually in practice is what’s kept
04:15
me here for over five years
04:16
and i really don’t see me working for
04:18
another sales company in the future i
04:21
i i’m likely going to retire here and
04:23
i’d be happy to do it
04:26
well that’s really very interesting
04:28
story that you just shared with us
04:30
and i’m sure heartland would be excited
04:32
to hear that and use that in their own
04:34
promotional products to recruit
04:36
uh more more salespeople to do the
04:41
i tell you it’s business most
04:42
challenging business i’ve ever been in i
04:43
won’t even lie to you it is actually the
04:45
most challenging
04:46
job i’ve ever had um to your point
04:49
jonathan i
04:50
actually when i because i manage other
04:53
uh
04:53
rest and when i sit down with them i ask
04:56
them that question
04:59
what if i told you you could own your
05:00
book of business and 100
05:02
of those people look at me like what did
05:04
you just say i i’m not because
05:05
i know they do because i said the same
05:07
thing like what what are you talking
05:08
about
05:10
but then you also have to show it and
05:12
and that’s also part of the
05:15
the heartland way that i i just i’ve
05:17
come to value and it’s
05:18
it’s hugely important to my life
05:22
so so tell me a little bit now that
05:24
we’re
05:25
going through this pandemic i’m sure
05:28
sales in your industry just like it is
05:32
in
05:32
any other industry has taken
05:35
a turn and has changed how has it
05:39
changed for you
05:40
and what you do and what are you doing
05:43
to improve
05:46
the sales part of what you do
05:50
it’s a great question obviously
05:55
with kovid 19 um there’s
05:58
new opportunities there’s new challenges
06:02
the way that we did business january 1st
06:06
2020 the way i went to business march
06:09
15th of 2020
06:12
uh completely changed the next day
06:16
and there has been a learning process
06:18
there has been a growing process
06:22
uh and we’re still in that that hasn’t
06:25
changed actually we’re still
06:27
every day it seems like there’s some new
06:30
uh
06:31
there’s a there’s a change or um
06:34
new restrictions or restrictions being
06:38
relaxed and tightened again and so on
06:40
and so forth
06:43
i think
06:46
you know i i’m not i’m not i don’t know
06:48
how religious people are
06:49
but if if you if you if you believe in
06:52
the concept of
06:53
darwin’s theory of evolution
06:56
whether you think that people came from
06:57
adam and eve or we came from fish and
07:00
monkeys
07:02
the core lesson of the theory of
07:04
evolution
07:05
is that the strongest survive and those
07:08
with the ability to adapt
07:11
will continue we’re seeing that now
07:14
literally in the world that we’re in
07:17
today you have to find a way to
07:19
adapt you have to find a way to be
07:21
nimble you have to be
07:23
flexible um
07:27
and you also have to be honestly you got
07:30
to be human
07:31
you have to understand that you’re not
07:33
the sometimes we we get wrapped up
07:35
in in how the pandemic is affecting us
07:37
personally
07:39
we take things very personally
07:42
and sometimes to ground myself even when
07:45
i when i start feeling down or upset or
07:47
or frustrated i i kind of look at things
07:50
as
07:51
hey what else is going on in the world
07:53
who
07:54
else is suffering how can i maybe help
07:57
those people
08:00
um can i ask you uh
08:03
in your industry real quick uh in your
08:06
industry
08:07
has there been any changes that make it
08:11
easier for the retail
08:15
business to use credit cards has there
08:17
been any
08:18
any discounts or any additional services
08:21
that they may provide
08:23
that would be advantageous
08:26
for new clients to switch over to
08:29
heartland there’s
08:32
a restaurant i happen to know in staten
08:35
island
08:36
that’s been around for 90
08:39
uh cash only business and
08:43
they started taking credit cards uh
08:45
because of the pandemic because in order
08:47
for them to survive they had to be able
08:50
to do takeout and delivery they had many
08:53
of their customers were
08:54
demanding contactless payment they
08:56
didn’t want to pay with cash
08:58
um they also wanted to create an
09:01
online presence for online ordering
09:05
which was something they never even
09:07
thought of
09:09
again as of march 15 of this year
09:13
now it’s become a vital part of the
09:15
business
09:17
when you talk about different products
09:20
and different services that heartland
09:22
offer
09:23
uh and the way that the world is
09:26
changing and what some of the things we
09:27
do
09:32
some of the things i’m seeing out there
09:34
now are
09:37
the desire of businesses to have the
09:39
opportunity to pay
09:41
with uh with a with a mobile terminal or
09:43
something that’s contactless
09:45
reducing
09:48
the amount of times you need you need to
09:50
touch a credit card
09:52
um something that accepts apple pay
09:55
something that accepts google
09:57
wallet something that you could actually
10:00
have a
10:01
system that allows your customers to put
10:04
a
10:04
an app on their phone and actually do
10:07
the ordering through an
10:08
app and pay for it through the app
10:11
and go pick it up or have it delivered
10:13
to them
10:15
all those things heartland can can work
10:17
with you with
10:18
um so it’s really about sitting down
10:21
with the customer
10:22
understanding what their needs are
10:23
understanding what their new challenges
10:25
are
10:25
and then matching the uh the solution to
10:29
the problems that they’re having payroll
10:32
is another one that’s a huge thing right
10:34
now because
10:35
many of these businesses took out ppp
10:37
loans
10:38
just to survive and in order
10:42
for you to justify that loan whether
10:45
it’s going to become a loan
10:47
or it’s going to be a grant there’s
10:50
paperwork and there’s there’s a paper
10:52
trail that’s going to eventually be
10:53
audited by the government
10:55
and heartland’s payroll is just a
10:58
fantastic solution to be able to
11:00
make sure that you have all those things
11:02
in place
11:04
so that when the time comes you’re
11:06
properly prepared you have all the
11:07
paperwork you need
11:08
you’re able to manage that process which
11:12
that process is constantly
11:15
being changed and constantly growing and
11:17
evolving
11:18
so having heartland as your advocate to
11:21
stay on top of those changes
11:22
for you uh is a huge is a huge plus
11:26
uh for our business owners um
11:31
how you bring your your employees back
11:34
how you communicate to them so if you
11:36
have laid
11:36
if you’ve furloughed people you laid
11:38
people off and now you have to bring
11:40
them back
11:41
how you communicate that is extremely
11:43
important and it actually can
11:45
potentially affect the ppp loan
11:47
um if you didn’t properly communicate to
11:50
your employees
11:53
when they’re coming back how they’re
11:54
coming back and how they respond if
11:56
that’s not properly done
11:57
that could affect whether that’s a loan
12:00
that you have to pay back or a grant
12:02
so those are ways that we’re helping our
12:04
clients navigate
12:06
and that e-commerce online ordering uh
12:10
all the different ways that you can
12:11
accept credit cards either through
12:13
a mobile device through an application
12:17
now i have literally written more
12:19
e-commerce deals
12:21
in the last four months than i have in
12:23
four years
12:24
if you don’t have a way of being able to
12:27
let clients
12:28
get onto your website and place an order
12:31
for goods or services food
12:34
anything you you’re just missing the
12:37
boat you’re you’re
12:38
one you’re going to wind up ultimately
12:40
uh
12:41
you’re not going to last very long so is
12:44
audible is heartland actually helping
12:46
their clients establish these things
12:49
you know on all these different
12:50
platforms they’re helping them
12:52
are they really going that extra mile
12:56
absolutely um we and it’s been extended
13:00
for a while we actually had an online
13:02
ordering system
13:04
with one of our partners mojo we could
13:07
actually have a restaurant
13:08
um have a website where they were
13:12
where customers could order online
13:14
within 24 hours
13:16
uh and there was free setup we didn’t
13:19
charge a
13:20
the monthly fee which is it’s a nominal
13:22
fee honestly
13:23
it’s not very expensive it might be 30
13:25
bucks a month
13:27
uh to maintain the website and maintain
13:29
the uh the gateway
13:30
but we weren’t even charging that for
13:31
three months and i believe that’s that’s
13:33
been extended
13:34
um so that’s one example
13:38
but it’s really very very easy if you
13:40
don’t have a website we can help you get
13:41
one
13:42
um it might be a simple website
13:45
we can help you get one if you’re a
13:47
professional organization that’s looking
13:49
to
13:49
invoice your clients and have them pay
13:52
you
13:53
uh as much as possible either online or
13:56
through email
13:57
we set those things up we have an online
14:00
billing system which is fabulous where
14:01
you could actually send invoices to your
14:03
customers by email
14:04
they can click and pay either by credit
14:07
card or even by ach by check
14:10
where they just put in their checking
14:11
account information um
14:14
so that’s been a great solution for a
14:16
lot of different professional
14:18
businesses lawyers attorneys
14:22
doctors manufacturers contractors
14:26
heartland for service professionals for
14:28
contractors is fabulous you can actually
14:30
create
14:31
uh you can create jobs and you can
14:33
assign
14:34
your con your different contractors to a
14:37
job and the job
14:38
whether he pays whether he actually
14:41
accepts the credit card on a mobile
14:43
device
14:44
or the person calls in or does it by
14:47
email and clicks and paste
14:49
it all comes together into one
14:53
heartland service and the entirety of
14:57
the deposits are all
14:59
going to be deposited into the
15:01
customer’s account
15:02
overnight the next day so whether
15:05
it doesn’t matter how many different
15:06
ways they accept it and that’s a
15:09
fabulous service and it just makes
15:11
people’s lives a lot easier it also
15:14
gives them access to
15:15
cash a lot faster
15:19
so uh tell me what are you looking for
15:22
who who you want to be connected to
15:27
the folks that i work with
15:31
um that i believe
15:34
are mutually beneficial partnerships for
15:37
a guy like myself
15:39
um well first let me say this
15:45
i’m a member of the greatest bi chapter
15:48
in the state of new jersey
15:50
the b i founders
15:54
they are in my fourth year there
15:57
and and i’m i’ve been lucky and blessed
16:00
enough to be one of the founding members
16:01
of the founders
16:03
um they are probably responsible for
16:05
about 25
16:06
of my overall business i can directly
16:09
attribute to
16:10
to the relationships i’ve built
16:14
at bni through the founders and then
16:18
kind of through the greater channel with
16:21
the bni’s
16:23
you know meeting people in different
16:24
chapters and so on and so forth
16:26
um i i couldn’t be in business without
16:30
it
16:31
there it is i’d be i’d be looking for a
16:33
job
16:34
honestly um which if i were looking for
16:37
a job b and i would be a great place for
16:39
me to probably find one too
16:41
um i was gonna i was gonna come to that
16:43
point i was gonna ask you
16:44
how did bni uh what was bni’s role in
16:48
your
16:48
you know your involvement with bni and
16:50
so forth how does that
16:52
impact your business and how you do
16:55
things
16:56
so i was going to go to that next and so
16:58
tell me a little bit
17:00
more about the bni
17:03
relationships and so forth and what
17:05
you’ve built
17:06
and how it has impacted financially
17:10
to what you do and then tell me
17:14
how it can impact somebody else’s
17:17
profession
17:18
uh well let’s let’s take that second
17:21
part of that question
17:23
how it can affect somebody else earlier
17:26
this morning during our meeting
17:28
i invited one of my new reps who i’m
17:30
directly managing uh
17:32
just started yesterday i invited him to
17:34
the bni chapter
17:35
uh to take a look at now this is a guy
17:38
who’s been doing sales for 30 years he’s
17:40
been involved in
17:41
multiple chambers of commerce he’s been
17:43
involved in
17:44
local community efforts and so on and so
17:47
forth the guy knows how to get wired
17:49
uh into um his community he knows how to
17:53
build
17:54
networking relationships he’s never
17:56
heard of bni which blew my mind
17:59
you gotta check this out well i had a
18:02
call with him
18:03
five o’clock today and the first thing
18:05
he said to me when he
18:06
we got on the phone was i can’t believe
18:09
what i saw this morning
18:11
and i i wasn’t sure where he was and the
18:13
next the next word i have his mouth work
18:15
that was amazing i can’t believe what i
18:19
just saw
18:21
you know to to quote jack buck when kirk
18:23
gibson hit that home run and limped
18:24
around
18:25
i don’t believe what i just saw those
18:27
were his words
18:29
he was so excited and he will be
18:31
reaching out to you jonathan because he
18:32
does want to look at a couple of other
18:33
chapters in the area
18:35
uh specifically in the essex county area
18:38
where he’s based he loved the fact
18:41
that if he becomes part of a chapter
18:43
he’s the only guy that’s going to get
18:45
those credit cards at first
18:48
he loves the fact that he can build
18:51
trust
18:52
with strong partnerships
18:55
ideally build a strong relationship with
18:58
a cpa in the chapter
18:59
cpas are very very big um
19:03
mutually beneficial partnerships for us
19:06
to have in this industry
19:07
um build a strong relationship
19:10
potentially with a commercial insurance
19:11
agent same thing
19:13
uh with a any kind of insurance agent
19:16
with a financial advisor
19:20
uh with a maybe another payroll person
19:24
with a 401k person like all these people
19:28
are potential with a bank
19:29
these are all potential um referral
19:31
sources for us
19:33
and vice versa we’re potentially
19:35
referral sources for them
19:36
uh as well
19:41
and tell me how a financial person would
19:45
be a good referral
19:49
how would you turn the tables a
19:51
financial person is a good roof
19:52
has good referrals or good connections
19:54
for you
19:56
how would it be the other way around
19:59
great question i talk to business owners
20:01
all the time
20:04
uh and many of these business owners are
20:09
they’re entrepreneurial um
20:12
maybe a couple of them are even
20:14
independently wealthy
20:16
but one thing one common thread i’ve
20:19
noticed in good business owners
20:21
they treat their personal finances as if
20:24
it were a business
20:26
and they’re usually more open to the
20:29
financial advisor conversation
20:32
than somebody who you know
20:37
if they forget their pin number on their
20:38
debit card
20:40
you know um they just see it as uh
20:44
yeah but i’m gonna have to give this
20:45
person x amount of dollars a month and
20:48
i don’t understand what i’m even getting
20:52
business owners don’t look at it that
20:53
way they look i’m investing this and the
20:55
hope is that it’s going to go up
20:57
so that’s if you think about the
21:00
financial advisors when i have
21:01
conversations with them
21:02
i ask them all the time who are great
21:04
referrals for you almost every one of
21:06
them to a person will tell me
21:08
uh a great referral for me today would
21:10
be
21:11
um this particular business owner
21:15
or this type of business owner or
21:17
somebody who has
21:19
um recurring revenue
21:23
and a lot of times recurring revenue is
21:24
in a situation like i have where
21:26
i have a book of business that gives me
21:28
recurring revenue every
21:30
month or a business that kind of runs on
21:32
its own where
21:33
like they have i just recently uh
21:36
brought on board a copy
21:37
company that sells and leases copiers
21:40
and every single month
21:41
he’s just building his customer base and
21:44
every month he’s billing them a certain
21:45
thing so it’s just
21:47
financial advisors love people
21:54
all right well these are very good
21:56
examples of
21:57
how it can go back and forth so
22:01
in our chapter we’re both members of the
22:04
founders chapter
22:05
which meets every tuesday morning at 7
22:07
a.m very important for you people
22:09
understand there’s a certain level of
22:10
dedication that we have here
22:12
a level of commitment uh so that people
22:15
understand
22:16
that being a member of our chapter for
22:18
instance
22:20
is not uh show up if you like to
22:23
kind of thing or not we’re very
22:25
committed and therefore
22:27
this is how we build much better
22:28
relationships because
22:30
you know that we’re going to be there
22:32
now in the past it was in person and
22:34
you’d see
22:35
people show up so early and it wasn’t
22:38
for the breakfast
22:43
it wasn’t coffee or whatever was there
22:45
it was because on your own
22:49
they wanted to connect early in the
22:51
morning and they had that level of
22:52
commitment
22:53
and obviously you’re going to refer uh
22:56
you’re going to refer to somebody who
22:59
you see
23:00
often that you know is there on time and
23:03
so forth
23:04
you’re going to see that person as a
23:06
trusted member of your referral partners
23:09
right
23:10
so what we’re trying to do now is not
23:13
only get to
23:14
know you a little bit better and find
23:16
out the better referrals for you so this
23:18
would be the ultimate one-to-one
23:20
uh also to find who would be the better
23:24
we have a good array of individuals that
23:27
you had mentioned in our chapter that
23:29
are good referral partners for you
23:31
but we need to find more
23:34
referral partners because for each
23:36
person not only grows for you but grows
23:38
exponentially for every member
23:40
so we need to think outside the box a
23:42
little bit and think of
23:44
since we have everybody’s attention for
23:46
the last 20 minutes or so
23:48
we need to see if we put it out there
23:53
who are we looking to have come and and
23:56
participate
23:57
in one of our meetings where they can
24:00
grow their business
24:02
like you and i and so many have already
24:05
done
24:06
by attending and making i can tell you
24:08
right now i would love a commercial real
24:10
estate agent
24:12
uh i would love to have a good
24:14
commercial real estate agent
24:16
we have a great real estate team on the
24:18
residential side
24:20
um but i think on
24:23
that side the commercial real estate
24:26
agent opens up a lot of different
24:28
avenues for
24:29
everybody in the chapter uh me
24:32
specifically
24:32
i’ll find out who’s opening up a new
24:34
storefront
24:36
um when we had a commercial real estate
24:38
agent for a little while
24:39
um he would literally just call me up
24:42
and say look i just leased out a liquor
24:44
store and uh this is the guy’s name and
24:46
you should go and
24:46
you know tell him that don’t tell him
24:48
lou sent you and go
24:49
and talk to him and i got quite a bit of
24:51
business that way and it was also
24:53
great for me too because i was able to
24:56
um in my process of talking to business
24:59
owners
25:00
i ask them questions all the time are
25:01
you are you looking to expand are you
25:03
looking to grow
25:04
you tell me what’s going on or are you
25:06
looking to consolidate
25:09
you know the rent killing you and those
25:11
were opportunities for me to bring back
25:13
to him
25:14
you’re laughing but johnson you’re a
25:16
business owner you know i’m not lying
25:17
this is these are these are
25:19
absolutely questions as you as a
25:20
business owner are thinking to yourself
25:23
do i need a bigger face do i need a
25:24
smaller space
25:26
is the mortgage killing me do i need to
25:27
maybe move do i you know
25:29
i’m right now where am i going to put
them social distancing now do i have enough room in my current space to have the social distancing that i need
if i don’t i need to maybe get a bigger space or maybe do i have people work from home and consolidate all of these things are great opportunities for a commercial real estate agent to be working with usand vice versa on the you know coming back to the same way all right well this has been really goody ou know it was good to have you up here and it was good to talk about you and understand a little bit more about you.
i i don’t think uh our one to ones that we typically have go down this road in the details to understand more about you and how we can refer business to you and this was pretty good we should adopt some of this
so you know our one-to-ones with other members and with that being said who do you think we should have next week who would be a great person to talk
about their business next week. i actually, myself no
no i don’t know but i i think myself uh
a great person to potentially have
would be our one of our bankers from rsi
either amy krasinski or steve young that’s good well
you know maybe we can set that up for
next week we get one of them on there
maybe they can tell
hey mark nice to see you good picture
uh so maybe we’ll set that up gets them
27:13
to come online absolutely i think that would be great awesome well i want to thank you very much for
uh joining me this evening and hopefully
27:23
we’ll make a go of this
27:24
every tuesday night at seven o’clock
27:29
yeah i would look forward to it and uh
27:31
thank you again for inviting me
27:33
uh excited to be hopefully the first of
27:35
many
right well thanks again i think that’s
27:40
it
all right take care guys bye
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