Novera Payment Solutions

Small Business Saturday is on November 29, this year ... is your business ready to participate?  The goal of Small Business Saturday is to help small businesses do more business!

Founded in 2010 by American Express, Small Business Saturday was started to help businesses get more customers. The day is meant to encourage people to shop at local small businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, instead of the Big Box stores. The day has grown into a powerful movement, and more people are taking part than ever before.

American Express is asking small businesses to join a movement that's made history and help make the fifth year of Small Business Saturday the biggest one yet.  There are three ways you can help!

1. Rally Your Neighborhood

   Organize a celebration to get your community to Shop Small on the day. American Express has created a great resource with event ideas that you can download. These are events that other communities have successfully run on Small Business Saturday to get local businesses to participate. Ideas include passsport runs, family days, fun runs, and kick off breakfasts!  Download your free copy here.

2. Promote Your Business

   Invite customers to shop at your business by creating free, personalized marketing materials. Get a digital banner, signage, and more to help attract a crowd of customers. American Express makes these available to you via their website. You can list your business as a participant on the Small Business Saturday website, create branded printable signage to remind people Small Business Satuday is coming, and drive traffic to your website using free online ads from American Express. All of these resources are available here.

3. Shop Small On The Day

   You are a business owner, but you are also a consumer.  American Express encourages you to check out events and small businesses in your neighborhood that you can visit on the day. They have several recommendations for fun things you can do to support your local businesses.  When you visit a business on Small Business Saturday, take a photo at the business and post it on social media ... tie it to the movement by using hashtag #shopsmall. You can visit the American Express website to see a list of businesses who have signed up to participate, but keep in mind, if they aren't on the website, they might not even know about it!  It's up to all of us to spread the word!

Everyone loves Black Friday and they flock to big box stores for the incredible deals they can get. The idea of Small Business Saturday is to raise awareness of the importance of local small businesses, support them, and ultimately drive business to the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  #SHOPSMALL

About Novera Payment Solutions

Novera Payment Solutions is a leader in the credit card payments industry. We are committed to helping businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative and trasparent flat fee merchant account pricing models. We are confident we can save your business money on credit card processing fees!

Save money on your credit card processing fees this holiday season.  
Contact us today for a free quote!

At Novera Payment Solutions, we serve clients nationwide providing credit card processing solutions, but many of our customers own very local businesses. We all know that getting your business website found in the search engines can be very challenging, especially in large markets where there is a lot of competition. They key is to optimize your website for LOCAL search. There are several elements to this and ensuring you have a presence in local directories is one of them.

Gain a step on your competition by ensuring you have claimed your business listing on the following seven websites. 

1. Google+

With Google being the MacDaddy of all things search, you should start here. It's simple to claim your space on Google+. Simply create the page here (https://plus.google.com/pages/create?ppsrc=bupg8), complete your profile, then verify your page and vanity URL, Add the Google badge to your site (to grow your following), then link your YouTube channel to your page (if you have one). Google walks you through each and every step of the process!

2. Yelp!

Yelp! helps millions of visitors every month find local businesses. To claim your free business page on Yelp! go to https://biz.yelp.com/claiming and click the "Claim my Business" button. Yelp! will walk you through the process of setting up your page listing. You'll be able to enter your business name, address, hours, description, and even add photos to the listing.

3. Yahoo

In spite of Google's dominance in online search, Yahoo remains competitive in local search and news. Yahoo recently made several changes to it's local business listing area and has broken it's listing opportunities into three types: 1) Yahoo Local Basic Listing; 2) Yahoo Local Enhanced Listing (paid monthly); and 3) Yahoo Localworks (paid monthly). With the free basic plan you have all you need. You can add information about your business’ products, include a link to your website, and provide your business contact information. To setup your free business listing, go to https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local-listings, then scroll down to the center area of the page and click on "Try Local Basic Listing for free".

4. Facebook

If you don't already have a Facebook business page, it's time to make the move. Facebook has millions of users and they check their Facebook news feeds multiple time per day. To create or claim your Facebook business page, go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create/.  As with all the other sites, the most important thing to fill out your business profile completely.

5. CitySearch

Citysearch has provided local reviews for about a decade. Citysearch partners with InfoUSA for local business data. They offer an Express Update service that allows merchants to update their listing data as well as add new businesses. Once you’ve added your business it can take  1 – 2 months for the information to be on Citysearch. Find out more at: http://www.expressupdateusa.com.

6. SuperPages

SuperPages is top online resource for finding information and insights on businesses and retailers. Every month they help millions of consumers find local business information, including driving directions, hours of operation, and customer reviews. To claim or edit your business listing with Superpages, go to http://www.superpages.com/about/new_chg_listing.html.

7. Foursquare

FourSquare learns what it's users like and leads them to places they'll love. A presence on FourSquare is critical if you have a brick and mortar busineses. To add your business or claim your listing on FourSquare, go to http://business.foursquare.com/claim. FourSquare does a nice job of guiding you through the proces os setting up your business listing.

Make Your Listings Consistent

As you work through the process of claiming and verifying your business listings, the key is to ensure that your business information is consitent across each of them. That means your business name, business address, and business phone should be listed exactly the same on each website. For example, if your address 4325 Smith Parkway, don't spell out "Parkway" on one directory and then abbreviate it on the other. Make all listings exactly the same for best results.  While writing this blog post, we logged in on each of these sites and create a business listing ... it took about 90 minutes.  That should give you a feel the time investment for your business in getting your local listings claimed.

About Novera Payment Solutions

Novera Payment Solutions is a leader in the credit card payments industry.

Why do we care about your business' local search engine rankings?  Because your business success is our business success. We care about the success of our clients and strive to provide information and content which can be useful in growing and promoting your business online and offline!

We are committed to helping businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative and trasparent flat fee merchant account pricing models.

What is Slideshare?

SlideShare launched several years ago with the goal of share knowledge online. Since then, SlideShare has grown to become the world’s largest community for sharing presentations and other professional content.

How Does Your Business Benefit from Slideshare?

According to the SlideShare website:

SlideShare consists of more than 15 million uploads from individuals and organizations on topics ranging from technology and business to travel, health, and education. Share the content that matters to you with your colleagues, customers, friends and followers. SlideShares can be embedded into websites and blogs, and are easily shareable on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social media platforms. They can be viewed publicly and privately. Connect with other SlideShare users via comments, “likes,” and profile pages.

Have content, presentations, photo collections or expert knowledge on a topic?
Upload it to SlideShare and you'll reach a wide audience!

A few tips for making the most of your SlideShare marketing:

1. Use the lead capture capabilities of SlideShare (You have a couple options for this)

• If the viewer wants to download the original presentation, he/she is prompted to fill out a short contact form first.
• When the viewer is browsing the presentation, the contact form displays at an increment specified by you (on a specific slide, at the end, or via a button that's displayed throughout) 

2. Upload White Papers to Showcase Your Expertise

SlideShare is more than PowerPoint. You can also upload documents, including PDFs. Why EVERY business doesn't take advantage of this feature is beyond us. It's simply another way to publish your information and make it easy for people to share. TIP: Be sure that you include your contact information on EVERY business piece you publish, as well as a call to action!

3. Promote Your SlideShare Content Across Other Social Channels

Don't stovepipe your marketing efforts across the social channels ... be sure to share and promote across all of them. Certain segments of your audience may only be on Facebook and may have never heard of SlideShare. If you aren't promoting your SlideShare channel on your business Facebook page, you could be missing an entire group of people.

4. Post your Presentations to LinkedIn

Add your SlideShare content to your LinkedIn profile summary page. LinkedIn has really become the go to platform for business to business marketing, network building, and reputation growing. Tying your SlideShare presentations to your LinkedIn profile can only enhance your credibility in your field.

5. Write "How To" Guides for your Area of Expertise and Share them on LinkedIn

People learn visually. Any time they need to know how to do something these days they Google it. This is a perfect combination for your business! A great "how to" guide featuring something in your service arena or area of expertise on SlideShare can be indexed by Google and findable by your prospects. This type of content is highly popular and very sharable.

6. Use audio in your slides

Did you know you can add voice-overs in PowerPoint?  If it makes sense for your content, include a voice-over in your slides. When you upload the presentation to SlideShare, the voice-over stays with the presentation and can be listened to by anyone viewing it. Talk about powerful!

7. Embed Your SlideShare Presentations on your Website

When you upload a presentation to SlideShare, they offer you a nice little "widget" that you can send to your webmaster to add to your website. This literally embeds the presentation right on your website. Visitors don't have to leave your website to view the presentation. If you've added a lead generation form to the presentation in SlideShare, this carries over to the embedded presentation too.

Shhh ... it's a secret!

SlideShare is "best kept secret" of professional marketers ...but it's actually free for any business who wants to use it!  Of course, there is a paid option available that unlocks additional features. We encourage you to check it out and use this powerful tool in your content marketing plan for your business! Visit their website at http://www.slideshare.net

About Novera Payment Solutions

Novera Payment Solutions is a leader in the credit card payments industry. We are committed to helping businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative flat fee merchant account pricing model.

Contact Novera to learn more about how we work with businesses  to provide the most fair and transparent pricing structure available on the market today!

Sys2K’s Infinity complete dealer management software now offers U.S. customers integrated PCI compliant payment processing through a new integration with Novera Payment Solutions, LLC.

Sys2K™, a leading provider of Windows®‐based dealer management software that features real‐time integration across all dealership departments, is pleased to announce a partnership with Novera Payment Solutions, LLC. The Novera integration allows US customers to securely process credit card payments directly through the Sys2K. Infinity software suite.

As part of this partnership, Novera provides its integrated payment processing solution to Sys2K customers utilizing a cost‐effective, transparent monthly fee structure; all additional fees normally associated with payment processing integration such as gateway fees, interface setup, and maintenance fees have been absorbed into one bundled package.

“The partnership between Novera and Sys2K is exactly the type of relationship we look for with Integrated Software Vendors or (ISV’s)… The collaborative effort between Sys2K and Novera has produced a great offering for Sys2K clients, and we are extremely pleased to be partnered with them,” said John Wisniewski, Director of Business Development for Novera Payment Solutions, LLC.

“With Novera, we are excited to offer our clients a straightforward, secure and robust integrated credit card processing solution that will save them time and money,” said Carl Sconnely, President of Sys2K.

About Novera

Novera specializes in partnerships with Integrated Software Vendors or (ISV’s) for payment acceptance.

These partnership programs include the initial design plan, including optimization for maximum adoption of uses and the ongoing management of the program. Novera is one of the largest registered Member Service Providers (MSP’s) for WorldPay and delivers flexibility in accepting credit card payments, debit card payments, and virtual terminal solutions through PCI‐compliant payment processing plans.

About Sys2K

Sys2K™ (Systems 2000, Inc.) is a premier provider of Powersports, Bus, Marine, Automotive, and Class 8/Heavy Duty, and RV dealership software. Sys2K’s Infinity software is a fully integrated, indows®‐based DMS that features modules including CRM, F&I, Parts and Service, Payroll, Accounting, Rental, Advanced Reporting, Premium Websites, Cloud Hosting, and Mobile Apps. Founded in 1984, Sys2K prides itself in developing the highest‐quality software solutions for the dealership environment. For more information, visit http://www.sys2k.com.

For more information, visit: www.noverapaymentsolutions.com/sys2k

There's no doubt that Twitter is one of the largest and most influential social media platforms.  Business owners know they they need to be on Twitter, but too many of them create an account, start tweeting, and then crickets ... no one is hearing them, following them or interacting with them.

If this sounds like you, don't despair! 

Here seven tips to help you gain more followers on Twitter.
 

About Novera Payment Solutions

Pronounced like "fishing", phishing is a technique used by those with malicious intent to trick you into providing sensitive information online, like username/passwords, credit card payments information, and bank account information. This is obviously important for you to be aware of as an individual, but even more so as a business owner.

People who engage in phishing techniques vary in skill. The idea is they masquerade themselves as a known and trusted business, send you an email that appears to come from that business, and then ask you to click on a link in the email to confirm or enter information. Some phishing attempts are obvious, with blatant typos in the phishing email, shabby graphics, and suspect English. Others are highly skilled ... and even the most savvy internet user can be "taken" by the deceptive phishing attempt.

Phishing attempts used to be limited to email for the most part, but now you'll find phishing attempts across social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. Some of the phishing attempts you may have seen in recent years appear to come from well known banks and the IRS. If you've ever been manipulated by a phishing scheme, you know the stress and trauma it can cause, not to mention the potential financial issues that can arise.

As a business owner who accepts online credit card payments, it's important to understand what phishing is. The worse case scenario is a malicious attempt to masquerade as YOUR business and solicit your customers for personal information. Business system security is the first step in protecting your business against this activity, but understanding what phishing criminals do to try to manipulate you and your customers is also essential. Information is power.

Types of Phishing

Phishing
As we've already defined it, phishing is a simple attempt to collect sensitive information using a disguised electronic communication.

Spear Phishing
This is a more targeted phishing attempt in which the perpetrator gains personal information about the target before sending the phishing attempt.  Personalizing the communication makes it more effective.

Clone Phishing
Clone phishing is when a perpetrator takes an ACTUAL email that was sent from a trusted source, copies it, and then resends it. These are highly effective for phishers, as well.

Whaling
Whaling is a phishing attempt targed at high level executives or high profile individuals.

Rogue WiFi
This phishing technique is slightly different in that the perpetrators setup rogue free WiFi hot spots rather sending electronic correspondence. They configure them to run man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks to steal sensitive information.

Phishing Techniques

Link Manipulation
By far the most common technique used is link manipulation. An individual will receive an email that appears to come from a trusted source (i.e. their bank) asking them to click on a link to verify information. Often, there is a scare tactic used. For example, "your account may have been compromised ... click here to reset your password".

The example below is a low quality phishing attempt, but rest assured, there were likely thousands of people who fell for it.

Notice the email appears to be from Wells Fargo. However "Wells Fargo" is misspelled as "Wellsfargo".  The email address it's from appears to be legit as serviceaccount@verify.wellsfargo.com.  In this case, the quality of the writing in the email is suspect, but it provides a link for the recipient to click to update their account information. Many people will simply click the link and do what is asked of them ... this is a mistake. When you roll your cursor over the link, you can see that the link does NOT take the user to Wells Fargo. Instead, it takes the user to a website called "www.successlibrary.info". This is definite evidence of a phishing scheme.  Once on this "suspect" website, the user may be asked to enter login information ... OR the website may just automatically download a trojan virus or keystroke tracking malware to the user's computer.

There are several other phishing techniques out there including filter evasion, website forgery, phone phishing, and tab nabbing. However, by far the most common technique involves link manipulation in emails that come from what appear to be trusted sources.

Protect Your Business & Your Customers

As a business owner who accepts online credit card payments and debit card payments, and who may have login areas for customer access, it's important for you to understand that there are criminals out there who attempt to take advantage of businesses to gain access to customer card holder data and bank account information.

You should educate your customers about never clicking on links in emails. As a customer, they should ALWAYS go directly to your website by entering the URL in their browser window before entering any type of payment information, login information, or personal information of any kind.

It's also critical that you keep your business systems secure so your client lists and their contact information cannot be compromised. If a perpetrator gains access to your client list they can engage in spear phishing ... it empowers them with information that enables them to personalize phishing emails to your customers, making it more likely that your customers will click through to the nepharious link.

Who is Novera Payment Solutions?

Novera Payment Solutions is well known as a leader in the credit card payments industry and is committed to helping businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative flat fee merchant account.

Contact Novera to learn more about how we work with small businesses to provide the most fair and transparent pricing structure available on the market today for credit card processing and debit card processing.

What You Need to Know

The most important thing to understand is that risk is the single largest factor that merchant account providers look at when determining whether to establish a credit card processing account account for a business. Risk is determined by the potential for fraud and the number of chargebacks a business may experience.

What is a Chargeback?

A chargeback happens when a consumer contacts their credit card company and requests a refund for a purchase they made on that credit card. It could be that the consumer didn't recognize the charge, was dissatisfied with the product or service, or never received the product or service. It's not uncommon for the consumer to bypass the merchant and directly reach out to their credit card company first. Right or wrong doesn't really matter ... when the consumer reaches out to their credit card company to demand a credit, a chargeback is initiated. This is not good for merchants because too many chargebacks can result in higher fees and even closure of their merchant account if too many occur.

Reserve Accounts

One way credit card processing companies protect themselves is to hold a "reserve". A reserve is basically funds processed by the business that the merchant account provider holds in a reserve account instead of transferring the funds to the business bank account. The amount of the reserve can vary greatly.  It can be a small fixed amount, a large fixed amount, or even a full month of funds equal to the amount of the businesses credit card sales. The amount is determined by perceived risk associated with the busineses.  Having a reserve protects the merchant account company from future risks, including fraud and chargebacks.

Higher Risk Business Sectors

In the credit card payments industry, some business sectors are considered higher risk than others, but the list really varies from provider to provider.  A partial list of business sectors that often fall into the higher risk category include:

• Adult Related Businesses (Book Stores & Entertainment)
• Check Cashing Businesses
• Credit Repair Services
• Gun Stores
• Jewelry Stores
• Multi-level Marketing Companies
• Telemarketing Firms
• Time Share Sales
• Vacation Packages

Businesses in these sectors are often subject to reserves, as well as higher credit card processing rates. This provides the merchant account company some protection from the higher levels of fraud and chargebacks often associated with these sectors.

Merchant Account Holds & Freezes

One of the most financially devastating things that can happen to a business is a merchant account hold, or freeze. When this happens to a business, they cannot access the account.  The funds from open authorizations are also held without deposit for an undisclosed period of time. This means that the business cannot accept new credit card transactions and the income from recently processed transactions is not be deposited for days, weeks or longer.

Despite the horror stories, merchant account freezes are usually a result of the business violating the terms of their merchant account agreement. Violations can include utilizing the merchant account for personal use, selling items that were not included or defined in the merchant account agreement when the account was setup, accepting credit card payments for other businesses under their merchant account, as well as other fraudulent activities.

As a business owner, you can protect yourself from this by first following the terms of your agreement with your credit card processing provider.  If something changes in your business that impacts your credit card sales, you should contact your merchant account processor right away. This might include anticipated changes in average ticket amounts or new product or service lines introduced into the business. If you are running an unusually large ticket as a one time occurance, contact your merchant account provider's risk department prior to processing the transaction and let know the details.

The Novera Advantange

• Novera’s consultative approach allows us to thoroughly educate our clients, equipping them to better understand this complicated industry.
• We educate our clients about chargebacks, reserves, and holds, so they are informed and can better prevent these things from happening.
  
• We take the mystery out of the credit card processing business.
• We work with all types of businesses across the country

Contact Novera to learn more about how we work with businesses to provide the most fair and transparent pricing structure available on the market today for credit card processing.

Your customers should feel confident about the security of your website every time they pay online. As a merchant, it's your responsiblity to understand the fundamentals of online credit card payments and security. At the root of online security is SSL, or secure sockets layer. 

Here's what you need to know about SSL and Online Credit Card Payments for merchant account security.

What is SSL protection?

When SSL is enabled on a website, it helps the consumer’s web browser scramble their personal information before it gets sent to you (the merchant) to complete the transaction. Once sent, SSL allows only your software to unscramble the data sent. With SSL, you can complete transactions with the assurance that others cannot access the personal information (i.e. credit card numbers) as it travels across the Internet, from the consumers computer to your website eCommerce software.

How to Tell if a Website has SSL

To find out if your online credit card payments are protected by SSL, look for the picture of the unbroken key or closed lock in your browser window. Either indicator confirms SSL is activated.

Another way to verify if SSL is protecting your online credit card payments is to check the URL of the website you are on. You should see it change from "http" to "https" when processing secure transactions.

How to Get SSL on Your Website

There are four basic steps involved in getting SSL on your website.

1. Purchase SSL Certificate
2. Generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request)
   
3. Enroll for a SSL server certificate
   
4. Install the SSL server cerificate

It sounds pretty technical, but typically your website hosting provider guides you through this process as you setup your online storefront and merchant account credit card payments capability.

SSL is Just the Beginning of Your Security Requirements

SSL is only the beginning of your responsibility for protecting card holder data transacted through your website. PCI Compliance is an absolute must. According to the PCI Security Standards Council, more than 340 million computer records containing sensitive personal information have been involved in security breaches in the U.S. since 2005, and more than 80% of the attacks targeted small merchants. If you are at fault for a security breach involving card holder data, the fallout and penalties can be severe for your business. For more on PCI Compliance, read our recent blog article: 7 Reasons Why You Should Care About Protecting Card Holder Data

At Novera Payment Solutions we work hard to take to take the headache out of PCI Compliance for you.  Give us a call ... not only will we save you money over your current credit card processing solution with our flat fee merchant account, but we will guide you through PCI Compliance maze and make it simple to get up and running!