Revolutionizing Payments and Life Lessons from the Field with Mark Padgett

Join the conversation with Mark Padgett from Clearant by Xplor as we tackle the future of financial transactions for businesses big and small. Discover how this trailblazing company is revolutionizing the payment processing landscape, offering merchants a smorgasbord of options to keep their cash flows smooth and their customers satisfied. From the plastic in your wallet to digital wallets and beyond, Mark delves into the strategies that are making commerce more convenient than ever before. He doesn't just talk shop; Mark shares his personal expedition into the fintech world, revealing the innovative solutions that are saving business owners time, money, and headaches.

Then, sit back as we switch gears and get personal, discussing the parallels between the competitive edge in sports and the cutthroat world of business.  Learn how the lessons from the field translate into boardroom tactics and why resilience is the ultimate skill to master in both games. Family, vacations, and the joy of coaching—this episode covers it all, binding together the love for personal engagement with the drive for professional excellence. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Murphy.

Speaker 2: 0:13

Thank you, charlie, for the introduction. Yes, I am Mike Murphy with the Good Neighbor Podcast. What we do is we talk to local business owners and influencers so that you, the consumers business owners and influencers, so that you, the consumers whoever you may be can understand and get to know local business owners as human beings and not just logos on a business card. With me today is my buddy, mark Padgett. Mark and I have met a couple times, you know, we've sat in the same room together and he is a consummate professional, he's a good guy and he's offering a service to business owners that I think it's important that we all know about. If you own a business, or if you know someone that owns a business, I want you to know Mark. So, having said that, mark is with Clearant by Explore, so I want you to know Mark. So, having said that Mark is with Clearant by Explorer, so I want Mark to introduce his business to the community. So, mark, without further ado, who's Mark and what do you do?

Speaker 3: 1:21

I greatly appreciate it. Give you some information on who Mark is. So my name is Mark Padgett. As Mike said, I am an account executive for a company called Clearant. We are a technology company that focuses on payment solutions, helping businesses of any size be able to accept all forms of payments, whether it's credit cards, gift cards, ach, checks, invoicing, whatever it might be. We want to be able to help your business be able to accept those payments. We are one of the fastest growing credit card processors in the United States. We have over 31 billion processed annually for credit cards. We have over 66,000 businesses that partner with us and we partner with over 800 partners software companies, technology companies so anything that we would be able to to help a business out with, we would love to do that.

Speaker 2: 2:19

OK, so it's way bigger than just Mark sitting in his office helping his clients, because 66,000 businesses, that's a lot.

Speaker 3: 2:29

Correct, yes we are nationwide.

Speaker 2: 2:32

You mentioned gift cards. That's kind of surprising to me. So how does that work?

Speaker 3: 2:38

Yeah, that's something that's growing. It's the number one gift for Christmas birthdays, mother's Day is the number one gift for Christmas birthdays, mother's Day. So that's one area that we focus on to be able to have credit card terminals or point of sale systems that are able to process gift cards, whether it's through our software or e-gift cards. We are able to create those with business owners for them to be able to sell and to be able to utilize.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Okay, so any business that's saying to themselves I want to start offering gift cards to my clients. They call you and you can kind of help them put that into place. Is that correct?

Speaker 3: 3:19

Absolutely yes, and we come up with different ways for them to market them as well. And we come up with different ways for them to market them as well. Like I said, they can be hard plastic gift cards or e-gift cards and kind of do what I like to call grassroots marketing for that business. Come up with ways that they can utilize them. You know, not just saying hey, we sell gift cards, but come up with ways that they can get them involved in the community.

Speaker 2: 3:43

Okay, that's pretty cool. I had no idea you did that. So how long have you been in this business? I mean, tell me about that. How did you get into the business?

Speaker 3: 3:53

So it actually started. I was working at a place in Northern Kentucky called Silver Lake, the family place. I'm sure you've probably heard of that.

Speaker 2: 4:01

I do know it well. I'm sure you've probably heard of that I do know it well.

Speaker 3: 4:04

So I was working there and one of the members actually worked for a bank and he had a position come available in credit card processing and, after having a couple of conversations with them, ways that they want to save money and every day is something new and learning about those small businesses or medium-sized businesses and finding ways to help them with their business is really something I've enjoyed over the years.

Speaker 2: 4:46

Okay, cool. Well, just being honest here, it's like your business is one of those business categories that initially somebody might think, okay, well, it's kind of boring. But I'll tell you, when you are a business owner and you have to know what you do and you have to know the nuance behind it and you need your services, it's anything but boring because it becomes, in that moment, very exciting. Yes, because you're affecting people's money, their ability to get paid. So do you have any particular say? A client like a good, like an example of how you've helped a business in the past?

Speaker 3: 5:34

Yeah, I've had several, so a lot of people. When they think of credit card processing it's more of a hassle. You know, if they find something that's working, they don't want to deal with it. They don't want to talk about it. But every once in a while you come across somebody that has no idea. You know, they know I'm a business owner. They're busy running their business.

Speaker 3: 5:55

I had one recently that working with a general manager for a pizza location that their existing point of sale system was not doing anything for them. It was making their day a lot more difficult than it was helping them. We actually have a software that is designed for restaurants and for pizza locations that took their daily job and their daily assignments and made it a lot more efficient for them and made it a lot more efficient for them. Anytime you're able to come in and bring in a software or hardware that is able to help someone's day and make their day a lot easier, it saves them time and money. I would say meeting people like that and helping them work through the system is definitely a bonus for me.

Speaker 2: 6:50

Okay. So time is money, so you're saving them time. You're also saving them headache, so it's also leaving them of the headache and the hassle of doing that part of the business so you're able to build in efficiencies is what I'm hearing.

Speaker 3: 7:11

Yes, absolutely and, like I said, save them time and money, whether it's keeping track of inventory, keeping track of customers, keeping track of employees clocking in, clocking out, so actually it sounds like it's pretty easy to do business with you.

Speaker 2: 7:26

Is that correct?

Speaker 3: 7:28

Yeah, absolutely so. I am a local representative here in the Northern Kentucky area as far as getting statements, having conversations with business owners, basically it's just having a conversation and finding ways that I can help you out. A lot of times customers might not even choose me, but I tell people all the time use me as a resource. I know I've been in the field for over 13 years now looking at credit card processing statements, looking at businesses of what fees they can be charged, what fees they can get rid of. So I would definitely be a great resource to any business, to whether you're new or existing, to have a conversation to see if we can help you.

Speaker 2: 8:12

Okay, so you're kind of like me in that you know I run some local magazines, I do a lot of local marketing, but I understand, not every single business owner can be a client of mine. Absolutely. That doesn't mean that I can't help them out. It doesn't mean that I don't have some you know knowledge in my brain to share with them, and I'm a firm believer that if you help your fellow man, it is going to come back to you in spades at some point or another.

Speaker 3: 8:48

Yeah, I've actually had some, several conversations with businesses over the years that you know. We'll take a look at how they're processing, we'll take a look at their statements and I'll be up front and honest with them. I'll tell them hey, you've got a great deal, you know you've got a great rate. But these are some things that I can add or some things that we can help you with.

Speaker 3: 9:06

It might not be the right timing for them at that moment to make a change, but you know, a year down the road, I have several customers that you know I reached out to a year or two years ago and are now calling me now saying, hey, you know, I know it wasn't a good time then, but we're looking to add this or we're looking to change. And they reach out to me. I do give everyone I meet with my cell phone number. That's the easiest way to get in contact with me. So I have existing customers from from previous employers that will call me and ask me a question and even though I'm not with them you know that company anymore I can still give them some guidance and some advice and I have no problem answering those calls anymore.

Speaker 2: 9:44

I can still, you know, give them some guidance and some advice, and I have no problem answering those calls, okay, well good, you're putting positivity out there into the universe, and the universe will reward you in ways that you don't ever see coming. I can promise you that. So let's take a little departure from talking business right now. Let's talk some personal stuff, if you're willing, and that is do you have a family and what's that look like? Who are they?

Speaker 3: 10:10

Yeah, so I've been married. My wife's name is Stacey. We actually met in Mexico several years ago. We now have two children. Our daughter is 11 and our son is nine. They are both very active in sports, so our days, nights, weekends are filled with their activities, and I couldn't be happier. I really enjoy their activities or every sport that they are in.

Speaker 2: 10:39

One of the very few times I get to actually relax is when I'm sitting and watching my grandson play baseball. Yes, so I mean I can appreciate that. I don't know. I've been a coach for a while and it's kind of stressful, but I like to just sit and watch now.

Speaker 3: 10:57

Yeah, so I do help coach in quite a bit of their activities or sports and, yes, they are very enjoyable, but they can, in my opinion, they can be stressful at times too, because you want them to do so well and you want them to succeed. So those moments sometimes can be a little stressful, but I love it.

Speaker 2: 11:16

Well, you know, just like in sports, the same goes for business. There are always lessons in the losses, okay, so we can't win them all, we can't win every client, but we can always learn, always, always, always there's something to learn. So, as a coach, I had to learn that. As a business owner, I've had to learn that, and you have to continue to just realize that that's part of life. So I guess that's my little, that's my little coach speech.

Speaker 3: 11:48

Yeah, Sports were a big part of my life growing up and you learn a lot about life lessons from those, those activities and I I know I have, and I know my children are as well.

Speaker 2: 12:01

So when you guys aren't doing sports and you know, I mean hopefully you get to take vacation when do you guys go? What do you like to do?

Speaker 3: 12:08

So a lot of our vacations are sports related right now. So our son is on a traveling hockey team, so we travel for with his team. In the wintertime, our daughter's on a traveling softball team and traveling volleyball team, so a lot of times our vacations are centered around those types of activities. We do try to get at least one family vacation in the summertime. We'll normally go down to Florida, or this year we're actually going on a cruise, so we do try to take at least one week out of the year that we're we're able to able to get away.

Speaker 2: 12:41

Okay, well, I'm 61 years old. I've never been on a cruise, have you?

Speaker 3: 12:45

been on a cruise before. Yes, I've been on probably about 10 or 12, I'd say somewhere on there we like to take them. They're very enjoyable. I enjoy them Okay.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Well, if I have questions or a little bit of anxiety before I actually take my first one, I'll reach out to you. So you're an expert in that regard, all right. One other thing I wanted to ask you do you only do business locally, or can anyone in the US that runs a business and has need for payment processing do business with you?

Speaker 3: 13:25

Yeah, absolutely so. Any business, whether it's locally here or in California. I actually have one that I signed up recently. The business is actually located in Oxford, ohio, but the owners are located in California. That's one thing with technology. These days, we're able to do a lot virtually. So, whether it's a demo on equipment, whether it's an activation training, we can do a call, just like this, to where we can be face to face even though we're thousands of miles apart. So you know, I don't have any restrictions on on who, what business, I would be able to work with. So if you're a business owner, wherever you are, I'd love to meet with you and talk with you.

Speaker 2: 14:06

You bring up a good point. I mean you and I. I mean I'm here in Kentucky, you could be in California for all I know or care, because it's the same experience and so I guess it's kind of the same with doing business, you know, in your type of business.

Speaker 3: 14:27

Yes, I do. Anywhere I can go face to face, I will. You know. I can come to your location and meet with you and it is important a little bit to where you know I'm able to see your business, I'm able to see how you operate. That does help in certain circumstances, but it's not a must.

Speaker 2: 14:45

All right. So you're not just trying to sign a client. You're actually rolling up your sleeves and learning how they do business to try to figure out what the best fit is for them.

Speaker 3: 14:56

Yes, I am not only the account executive to learn about your business and get you up and running, I'm also our training and activation department. Now, we do have a training and activation department, but I will come to your location, make sure everything's up and running properly, follow up, making sure everything is working properly, all your employees are trained. I will come to your location and make sure that everything is working properly, to where, a lot of times, a lot of our competitors will come in, they'll sign somebody up and then you will never see them again. That's something that I take great pride in. Setting ourselves apart is, you know, I'm going to follow up with you and sometimes you might not like it, because once a month I'm probably going to reach out to you just to talk to you, to see how things are going. You know, send you a text message. I want I definitely want to have that more personable touch and stay in contact with my customers to make sure everything is working properly.

Speaker 2: 15:51

Well, that sounds great. So if somebody likes what they hear and they want to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to reach you?

Speaker 3: 15:59

The phone call. My cell phone number is 859-391-0701. Or you can email me. It's just M Paget, which is P-A-G-E-T-T at Clarentcom. So give me a phone call, send me a text message, send me an email. I'd love to with you and your business and see how we can help you.

Speaker 2: 16:24

Okay, well, perfect. Well, that's where it all starts, then. Well, thanks for spending time with me today and explaining a little bit about your business, and I've known you a little bit here or there from meeting you at various different networking events. It was nice to sit with you and hear a little bit more about you and who you are and how you do business. That's important to me. That's the whole purpose of this podcast. So thanks for taking the time to sit with me. I know you're very busy and I look forward to seeing you out there in the community and helping you grow your business. So, with that in mind, until you and I meet again, I'll say to the listeners out there thanks for listening. Everybody, please be kind to your neighbors. Until next time We'll see you.

Speaker 1: 17:18

Thanks for listening to the good neighbor podcast union. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to G N P unioncom. That's G? Npunioncom, that's gnpunioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.