Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind. George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation and education. And today we're gonna talk shop. I'm excited to have Colton Paige here with me.
How you doing today? You doing great? How to be here? I know this is good.
It's been a couple of busy guys get together and I'm excited because we, on the Daily Mastermind, a lot of the CEOs, owners, entrepreneurs, business owners that we talk with, they love the mindset, they love the fitness, they love the lifestyle, but it is about business. And we really wanna get down to business. So today we're gonna talk about something I haven't featured, which is payments. And so for everyone that does not know Colton, let me give you a quick introduction.
Colton Paige is the chief sales officer and co-owner of PlatPay, which is a cutting edge merchant processing company with over 20 years of experience. Now PlatPay has done over a billion dollars in transactions and it's definitely a leader in banking, in providing redundancy and tailored payment solutions. Colton has also been instrumental in securing some of the company's largest clients and driving innovations. So with a dual bachelor's degree in international business and finance, Colton brings a global perspective to his role.
I wanna talk a little bit about it today, but he started as a door to door sales rep and then managing 40 reps generating $6 million in sales. But his hands on approach has also given him a lot of understanding and leadership, resilience and relationship building. So he's pretty passionate about technology and financial systems, which we'll talk about today. So welcome to the podcast, man.
I appreciate you being here. I know you're a busy guy. So a lot of things going on, right? Oh yeah, we got tons of going on, but I always make time.
You know what's funny is I love the industry you're in because you're in an industry where you see all different types of businesses, right? You see everybody that's doing all kinds of different things. So you sort of have a pulse on what's working and what's not in the industry, when you say? Yeah, I mean, for getting for worse, we get to see behind the curtain, right?
Yeah. And so we'll go to a lot of these masterminds and we have a lot of people say, hey, this is what's working. This is what's not, but ultimately we get to see what's actually working. Yeah, cause they might, I mean, it's not a dig on them.
It's like they're trying to do their best, but numbers don't like. And so that's what we'll see, right? I love that because that is something, especially in today's marketplace with AI. And you don't know who's real, who isn't, who's doing business, who's not everybody looks like a success.
And that's a good thing. Like you said, I'm not making fun of anybody in particular, but you do have a sense on actually who's doing sales. So before we jump into that, I wanna kind of back up a little bit. You started in door to door sales.
I mean, at the end of the day, you've gone from door to door sales to chief sales officer and co-owner and pipe. So how did that happen? What was the transition that took place there? So door to door started when I was, let's see.
I started late actually. I started when I was 25. So I was already married in school and did that with my brother-in-law. And so we created this team.
And so, you know, after four years of building the team owning couple offices, understanding the day-to-day, the operations, because when we, when we get to a point where you own the offices, then now you're dealing with technicians and trucks and product and your reps, and then you're still selling yourself. So yeah, there's a lot. From sales to logistics and actually managing a bunch of other things that you're literally taking off hats throughout the day. And so I think that helped a ton.
And it got to, I mean, we were so busy. It got to point my wife's like, I'm not even coming out to the summer with you because I'll just come visit you because I was like eight in the morning till like 11 o'clock at night, so every day. But with that, the transition is I got to a point where I was like, you know, I love recruiting and I love hanging out with all these guys. But I'm like, I don't want to, I'm 30 years old.
I don't want to be recruiting 20 year old kids and depending on them for my financial success. So at that moment, I kind of pivoted and I actually had, I'd recently worked at Plapay a long time ago, just learning the business, just kind of helping everyone. And so I came back, chatted with Jed and we kind of built this strategic plan of saying, hey, come on in, let's build this together type of thing. And from there, yeah, it's been a great like two and a half years so far.
It's interesting because I got my start in sales as well. In fact, I think that's one of the things a lot of young entrepreneurs are missing now is they don't have that sales 101, working with a client, working with a customer. They just immediately want to be influencers or have the ability to just market online with funnels or whatever it is. Do you think that that's a skill?
Like, do you feel like that's something that's really helped you a ton to build the success that you guys are building right now? Is that communication skill, sales skill? Oh, I think so. Because I mean, in one aspect, it's what got me in the door to even talk about, you know, co-owning this with Jed and our partners and really building it.
And then two, I mean, like you learn a ton. I think anyone should go do some of sales. Like even if it's for a summer and even if you suck, like it will teach you so much because when you're on the door, I mean, literally it's just you. You are completely alone with your thoughts.
And so you have to learn how to control your thoughts. You're alone. You were talking to strangers. I mean, the ability to walk into a neighborhood and be like, out of 100 people, I'm going to get like five to six of these random strangers to give me their credit cards.
Like at the end of the day, it's what it is. And it's a lot of nose in between, right? Like it's just a ton of nose. I mean, you'll figure out like, and for every 20 people, I'll get a sale.
And then it's a mind game. But my point with that is the discipline, the mental tenacity that you develop, goes into like the day-to-day now. So even like, not just sales, but like helping our underwriters or our arm borders, like helping them like word and we're talking to customers correctly, like, cause like, you have this thing, and I'm like, hey, well, I'm just got some more service. I'm just going to do it this way.
I'm just an underwriter. Like, I just need these documents. So I'm just going to ask them. I'm like, well, there's a way to ask.
And it will help them give us more documents or more information that we need. So I think day-to-day and then on the bigger picture, like it's helped a ton. Yeah, I can't agree more because I have learned and starting out in sales and then going into management and ownership and things like that. The art of persuasion, which is really sales, I mean, sales has kind of a tough stigma because people are like, I don't want to be sold.
I want to be a salesman. But at the end of the day, everybody's selling. They're products or services you're trying to communicate. And I think those are some of the biggest lessons you can learn by far.
And for those of you that don't know what he talks about when he says summer sales, I mean, door-to-door alarms, pest control, there's a lot of companies that sell products door-to-door. And to be able to go, and you made a comment here, and I wanted to kind of just put a pin in that, and that was that you knew the numbers. So at some point, all of business is a numbers game. It's a number of contacts to get presentations, to be able to get sales.
And so there's that, there's the persuasion. Were there any big pivotal moments for you, like in your entrepreneurial journey, or was it just an evolution over time to wanting to be able to do more and leverage more and things like that? Was there any big moments that kind of changed things for you? For situations, I mean, that's a good question.
I would say, it depends on how I look at it, because I can look at it and say, it's just been over time, it's been a slow grow, in a sense of like, I look back from like, oh, wow, I was way different. But then there are pivotal moments where, you know, like going into before door door, and then going into door door, and then owning an office, I mean, like you kind of have to just buck up, and like, no one really tells you like how to run an office. They'll give you kind of like the bones and the structure of like, hey, this is how we do it, but then really it's up to you. Meeting with someone and how to fire them and or help them through something, or you know, like you have to run out of life.
So there's things like that. And then I'd say like, definitely like, this cliche sounds like having kids, that was pivotal. But, and I say that because it happened right in my transition. Got it, got it.
I think for me, having my first child and then transitioning into Plape and pivoting, and it was just like, hey, new chapter, I've learned a lot, now let's kind of level up. But then again, it's day to day, like I was talking to Mitch, my brother. Yeah. And then I was just saying, it's funny because like, you hear all the things, like all the quotes and like, all the stuff that you read.
And it's like, it's all the daily, daily transactions, the daily like things that you're doing that lead up to the big moments. And you have to be disciplined and go through like the boredom. Yeah. I'm trying to think what book to us.
I think it was like Ryan's her hand. And he just said like, the daily stuff that you do. The grind. Yeah, the people that can last through the grind and the boring part in the minutiae, evidently or eventually get to the end, right?
And so that's what I mean by everyday. Cause like, there's some days where I'm like, so jam-packed and I'm like, I feel like I was really busy. But then I don't feel like I got stuff done. But when I look at the bigger picture, I'm like, no, I was doing it because here's the end goal.
I know I was doing this because here's the end goal. And so sometimes it's hard to, you get, you like lose focus and sometimes the data that you're like, why am I doing this? Well, it's, you know, you said so many things that when people listen to this, they're gonna hear those like consistent success principles where, you know, when you look back on it, you notice the lessons, but during it, you're in it. You've got a grind, it's a consistency, it's the reps.
And it is the person that lasts and stays consistent the longest. So now you've evolved to Plapay, which has been around 40 years. And payment processing, I'll be honest, I've been with a lot of different payment processors over the years. You guys differentiate yourself, like, what have you, because that's an industry like many that there's so much competitive businesses out there that you guys have because you're so successful, you have to have found a way to differentiate yourself.
How have you done that? So back in the day, so how we did that at the beginning was my dad owned a huge telemarking company and they kept getting shut down on their merchant accounts. So they're like, I mean, long story short, they're like, we either got to go make our own or we got to go partner with one that understands our business model. So that's first how Plapay evolved and we're like, okay, we know how to do high risk, we know how to do coaching and continuity and we have the banking relationships that understand those business models and like those business models.
Then going forward, we went to a lot of Masterwinds. So I feel like a lot of payment processing companies that'll get leads online or they'll just like go door knocking around, which is not bad, that wasn't our style. So what you went and connected with people at Masterminds, you wouldn't talk to them. You go speak on stage, we go connect with them, is all about relationships and then referrals, right?
Having people want to be referral partners, got it? And then I would say the last like four years, obviously with COVID, there wasn't a lot of Masterwinds to go to. So we had to pivot and go more like digital marketing and then also just value ads and saying, hey, here's all our strategic partners, like how can we, besides just taking payments, how can we give you an opportunity and value to your company so you can do more revenue? So obviously that would benefit us, but basically, if we benefit you and we'll get benefited later down the road, so how do we add more value to you guys?
And I think that's been like the key. I like the value, but also like you said, relationship. So clearly, you're creating relationships and the value, and then it becomes what, not all about the best deal, right? So now because you have a relationship, you're creating value, but you guys talk a lot about banking redundancy.
What does that mean specifically when it comes to merchant processing, banking redundancy and how does that benefit a business overall? Yeah, so I mean, from what I've learned, and I know that, because I've been in meetings with bankers and I've been to banking conferences and so there's so much that I don't know that goes over my head about processing standpoint or from a merchant standpoint, it's like, people think I need to go get a lot of processors. Well, I literally, like quite literally this week, I just dealt with a guy that's like, hey, I got you guys and then I have two more processors that filled out apps. And I was like, okay, I'm like, let me know where because we don't want to go to the same place and throw red flags.
And all three processors, their first option was the same option, that's including us. And so even though they were diversified, they were not redundant. It was the same place they were going to process. Got it, got it, got it.
And that's where I try to teach our merchants saying, hey, by all means you can go use as many processors as you want, but be very transparent with me because I'm going to try to build redundancy on the back end, not at a processing level, but at a bank level. And then even then, certain banks are on the same vein, if you want to call it, of like, if you look at it, like a pyramid, you have like the big five, right? Well, it's Chase, those banks, and then there's veins of banks. And so they all go through the same sources and channels, right?
Yeah, so you want to be strategic on where you're putting your client, especially your very big and important clients because if anything would ever happen, I mean, it's your throat to choke. Yeah, and obviously if you're running a business and you've got processing, you know this, but the key and reason for redundancy is because for whatever random reason, customer chargebacks, refunds, maybe you're just processing too much too fast and your merchant account gets shut down or held or frozen, you got to have a backup, basically. And you're saying, you know, if your backup is another processor that uses the same one, you got a lot, right? So that makes sense.
I think about like, you get shut down in one bank and then, or one processor, that processor, you know, is connected to these two banks and your other bank was the one that's connected to, I mean, like, that's not gonna be true of currency instead of in your SLL, right? And so it's being strategic on this. Well, that kind of really reads to what I was gonna ask you next, which is what are the biggest challenges? You know, if somebody's running a company right now and I think it says important to address this stuff before you run into the challenges.
So what are the biggest challenges? Somebody's processing, they're doing great right now or they're starting a business, they're growing. What are the things they should look out for? They're challenges they're gonna face when it comes to processing cards and sales because that's obviously where the money is gonna be, right?
Yeah, I would say like the system because I think everyone, like when they're starting that the last thing they're thinking of is processing. So they'll go get striped, right? And then they start building everything around stripe but then they don't understand that stripe is an aggregator. It's not really your actual merchant account, your group in a group of hundreds, if not thousands of people.
And so if there's one bad apple in that, that can lead to an internal audit with Stripe in that whole group. So I got the other people, they're like, they're referral partners, they refer people to us, but they're like, I'm too far down the road. I've built my entire system around Stripe. Granted, like Stripe has really good integration.
And they make it easy, right? I mean, they just like turn it on, you're gonna go. They're more fintech than actual processor, right? They're more just the tech part of it.
So, but then, so I know it's one thing is like, be careful, like it is a heavier lift at the beginning to go through us or any processor than Stripe. Because Stripe, Stripe doesn't even look at your account, they're just, they auto-prove, they'll look at it later and violate their laws, then they'll pull your funds. And then all of a sudden, your entire system is built around your Stripe. You violate their laws or your business model is not actually approved by them, but they don't catch that till later.
And now you're SOL and then you're like, oh, well, I need a new processor, but now we have to go work on integrations. And now you have to have your dev team involved in it. There's so many different things. So that's one thing, I'd be like, when you're building around either CRM or whatever, just make sure that you have multiple integrations and you don't build around one little thing, right?
Because then you're not being redundant in the sense of internally. So, you know, most people don't think about it when it comes to processing with their business, they don't think about this till after effect, but one of the biggest things that affects processing I've found over the years is chargebacks or fraud. Fraud is a big thing right now because it's become an easier and easier to create fraud or to have your business deal with it. What do you do with stuff like that?
Like from your company standpoint, what do you do for your clients that helps protect them against this, educate them on this? Like, what do you do a little bit to help them with that? Because that's a big one, right? Yeah, so that comes into like the gateway level of like, a processor in the gateway, it's like a handshake, right?
So, with that being said, like, there's different settings that you can do in the gateway. There's different settings that you can do on a processing side. There's things that the merchant can do just being proactive. Now, if they're a bigger client or not even a bigger client, but if they have more transactions or their transactions are below a certain like dollar threshold, then yeah, there's companies out there that we can refer them to.
We actually did. And then back in the day, it was called Chargeback 9-1-1. And so we would help. Back when it was like a wild, wild west, we'd help people with their chargebacks, with their reserves, everything.
Now, there's companies out there, and there's a few that we really work well with. They're dedicated to helping companies with that. Yeah, I don't even help them. They don't help with processing day.
It is a platform where you can see all your accounts and you can mitigate the chargebacks and you can set certain thresholds. And you can actually go even see, you know, like let's say you charge back something, right? And you have one card and it says George on it, but then you can go get a different card. But I mean, this system can go all the way back even to the I call it a flag it.
Yeah, so it can flag it by George, right? It can flag it by both your cards that you used and IP. And then let's say you go to a different IP, and then you're still using your name or it's now it's a third name. Got it, got it.
Still knows your name. And so it's a whole complete system to where like you can find the offenders. So especially if you're doing e-commerce or you're doing stuff online or international business and stuff like that. So the space banking and finance is changing so rapidly, right?
With AI, blockchain, you know, fintech, everything out there. What are some things that you think, maybe it's stuff that you guys do differently or people should be aware of. How do you adapt to that so fast? I mean, this, everything's changing so quickly.
What do you do you do differently? Yeah, it's hard. I mean, that's what we've been trying to figure out. A big focus is because every day it's changing.
So every day we'll talk about new things coming out. Obviously like FedNow is coming out, which is a big deal and not a lot of people, some people like it, some people don't. They're right now, they're just kind of inserting themselves. So you have the whole process and they're just inserting themselves to say, hey, we're just here to help and look, right?
Look, but then you know one point, they're gonna be like, well, we can also be a processor and we can give you instant payouts and that's gonna be their carrot because we can instantly transfer all your money. But now the feds can obviously look at everything. So there's that, there's FedNow. So then you have Visa trying to adapt to that and they have VisaNet.
And then you have everyone also adapting, trying to adapt to the blockchain, right? And so it's really just trying to figure out, like, so that's why we've been attending a lot more banking conferences. And so you guys have to stay up to speed, you gotta go and be up on the regs, as well as relationships and everything related to that. Yeah, I mean, we're learning as much as we can and that's why if we can strategically partner with certain banks, then as, because I think there's gonna be a banking consolidation at one point in the next five years, I mean, I don't know, it's just my opinion, but I think the bigger banks are gonna try to obviously consolidate all the little regional banks, right?
So you wanna strategically view those guys, but they also wanna fight back. And so it's this whole thing of like saying, hey, how do we stay more up to date? How are we more proactive? What can we do?
Can we get into more of a niche, right? I'm just like with payment cowboys, like a lot of the banks like payment cowboys, because it's a niche and it talks to an entire community and it's not just e-commerce, right? Yeah, explain what that is. So payment cowboys, I mean, we'll probably be talking about that in the future, but why did you do that and what was the purpose behind that?
So the purpose is, well, one, we're really good friends with Casey Field, so he's a six-time world champion bearback rider. And we like that world a lot. Like I'm not from that world in the sense of like cowboys, Western, whatever. But it's a big thing right now, obviously, you know, from Hollywood to mainstream, right?
Yeah. And so you saw that trend as well and you have some good connections and... Yeah, and I know Jed and Casey have been friends for a while and Casey retired and so we just said, hey, we'd love to partner with you and make, you know, powered by Plapay, make payment cowboys. So we can bring all of the tech and the support, but we want payment cowboys to be established around a handshake, grit, hard work, doing what's right and to really help and to focus on those people in the Western world or, you know, in that like the cowboy world because there's a lot of people.
And then on top of that, some of our profits will go to what we call cowboy charities, which will then disperse it into certain avenues. And so not only are we trying to get back, but it's just like, we want to make sure we help that. Because those like, how I understand it, and again, I'm a little naive, but you got a ton of forward-working people that kind of almost don't understand and we don't have time to sit there and be like, can you figure out a new processor or a gateway or this? And they have a brick-and-mortar business and they have to be out there selling whatever it is they have.
And so I think something they get taken advantage of by processors or banks, right? Because they're like, you know what? It is what it is. I gotta get out and work.
Like they're working with their hands. So we want to come in and kind of disrupt that and say, hey, we want to be transparent. We want to show you everything that you're going to do. We will help you on board.
We'll help you get a new POS system, like whatever, maybe just trying to make a difference in that realm. Because I think it's like in the masterminds, the grinders, we want to help in that area. But that is so interesting because I think that's a perfect example of how you can take a product that's pretty much generic out there when it comes to payment processing and find a niche, find a brand, create a strategic relationship, create a cause and impact that you can do and so so many people are struggling when it just takes some creativity and innovation to be able to do that. So I'm curious because you guys are really focused on growth.
You're growing rapidly. The marketplace is growing rapidly. How do you maintain what I believe you guys have as one of your superpowers, which is your relationships with your clients? How do you manage?
It's a gas and brake, right? Like how do you grow while maintaining relationships? Because growing involves expanding and new things and new focuses. But that's kind of the opposite of tailored attention.
So how do you do both? That's a good question. I'm gonna try to figure out how I'm gonna say it. Working process, right?
No, I mean, so we're a lean team. And so we're in a lot of hats. So but at the same time where we have systems implemented to help us do that, but you're right. Like my main focus is like, yeah, I want a lot of automated systems so we can have better customer service for like the immediate things.
But then like how do I make sure that like they still feel like we are thinking about them? And that's where like as of right now, like I'm sometimes I'm up, like I go home, hang out with family and then I'm working again because there's so many new ideas and so many things and there are people I want to take care of or someone to thought about and like I'm trying to hurt and text them. What really is is I focused a lot on growth. Like even though we're 20 years old, as a company, like I still treat us as a startup.
Yeah, I got in. So with the startup mentality, it's like, hey, we need to go get more clients, bigger needs. So we can reinvest back in the company and getting people that with certain systems and people that will cut us as for lack of a better term. Like they'll just try harder.
Right. Yeah. We're very selective on who we bring on to our team. Yeah.
And so I want people that. The work ethic, the dedication. It's interesting because you're right. It's sometimes I think businesses, they get technology to create systems to make things easier, but rather than using that as the ability to free yourself up to focus on the most important thing, like relationships, they just double down and creating more innovation.
And so I can see that that's a big priority for you guys, just like that customer interaction is a big priority. But I think you're right. It's like you do whatever you got to do, right? And then you know when you know when to expand the team, when to bring in more resources.
Is it kind of just an equation for you guys or do you just manage by the gut? Because at certain points, you have to hand things off and you start to build your leadership team. That's when you really scale, right? Is when you start to build a leadership team with you.
Yeah. And I guess, in case you make clear, like I want to keep growing, but there's a certain point where I don't want to get past it. Yeah, I might stay on counterintuitive, but like you see the big payment companies is when they get past a certain point, then the customer service goes way down and I don't want to get as high as we can, but maintain that because once we go past that level, then that starts going down. Then there's just levels of management and the client and the customer just doesn't get that same touch and feel like it again.
That's like we get clients from those people because they're like, hey, I want something like that. So that's why it's really important for me for customer attention, understanding every account that we have and understanding through what it is, what they do. But I mean, on your question of like expanding, at the beginning, it was just, you know, I can get to 100% and then when I get to 115, 120, at one point, there's a breaking point where I'm like, okay, now I'm dropping deals. And that's where I need to go get someone.
And so that's how I've gauged it in the last year and a half, but then going forward, I mean, there's also a financial aspect to it saying, hey, you know, when does it make sense economically, right? Yeah, how far can we push ourselves before things start to slip and nor retention or like service starts to slip a little? Well, then that's when we need to have someone else on, but I want to keep it to where like, when people call in too, like, if we only have two or three people answering the phone, right? I mean, there's pros and cons to everything.
It's growing at an appropriate rate, you know. I think I've learned that same thing. I think there's, I think when you do enough business, you get to a point where you realize that there are things that you can delegate or delete entirely, you're doing stuff that doesn't make any sense, right? Or you can just deprioritize them.
But when you can delegate, it's great. And then there are times that I think a lot of entrepreneurs just don't push them so far enough, right? They're like, oh man, I'm tapping like 80% of my max. I better hire somebody, right?
And then now they're financially putting their business in jeopardy. Yeah, I think it's a, it's a, it's another reason why having mentors, masterminds, things like that, people that have already gone where you're trying to go can help you. So that's why I'm a big proponent of that. So, well, you know, look, we don't have a lot more time.
I wanted to ask a couple more quick questions. First, what's your vision? Like what do you see happening? What's your goal over the next like three to five years?
And do you see any big changes coming down the pipe for the business that you're in? So goal for the next five, 10 years, obviously it would be, I still want to, we have certain growth goals that we want to hit. So I think I look at it in a couple of different ways. There's like three different categories.
There's our like FinTech category, the border goals are, there is our operational relationship. So that might be like our inner workings, but also our banking relationships, like where we strategically partnered with, our FinTech and ourselves, right? And so right now it's as simple as it sounds, it's we're going to keep growing and we're going to keep kind of honing in on that niche of payment cowboys and then also some of the niches that we've got in with Plape. Our FinTech is just, we're different gateways that we're talking to, trying to bring a little more, I don't want to say Stripe S, but a little more fluidity into the onboarding process to make it easier.
Make it simpler a little easier. And then also being strategically aligned with certain banks that we think will last through consolidation and last through the times, right? Yeah. That's our goal.
That's my goal is to, I know I'm just going to keep looking at it as a startup. Yeah, I love it. Tell it until we get into a certain point. Because at the end of the day, if your goal is big enough, your vision is big enough, you are a startup no matter where you're at, right?
So it's like, I like that vision. Because when you're going to start up, you just approach things differently and that's huge. So I'm going to put some links in the show notes for anybody that wants to maybe check it out, maybe get you guys to give them some help, give them some feedback. But what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?
Somebody wanted to kind of follow what you guys got going on. I'm going to pay my cowboys or yours or plant pay or even just ask you questions. What's the best way for them to connect? Yeah, I'd say, let's just add it to the video.
But I'd say either we'll give the link and you can schedule a call with me or I'll just put my email and I don't really care. And I'll talk to anyone. I know you will. So that's cool.
I appreciate that. Well, listen guys, you know, if you have a business, maybe you've got a processor or something like that. These are some big, big priorities and topics that you need to be aware of. There's a lot of things happening in the marketplace.
So that's one of the reasons why we wanted to feature this. We appreciate you being here today. I appreciate the feedback. Once again, follow the show.
Make sure you hit us up on the Daily Master line on Instagram, Facebook. You can email me. All of the links are going to be in the show notes. And share the show.
Look forward to talking with you more again. I appreciate you guys doing this today with us.