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Leaders In Payments
Leaders In Payments
Perryn Holtrop, CEO & Founder at PayNation | Episode 369
Get ready to uncover the hidden intricacies of the B2B payments world with Perryn Holtrop, the innovative mind behind PayNation. Known for transforming payment efficiency in the manufacturing, distribution, and wholesale sectors, Perryn reveals how his company sets itself apart by seamlessly integrating with accounting and ERP systems to cut down on double entries. This episode promises to enlighten listeners about PayNation’s client-centric approach, focusing on consultative solutions rather than price wars, and tackling the unique challenges faced by middle-market businesses in the US.
Join Perryn and me on a reflective journey through his entrepreneurial past, from early days in auto security to managing comedy acts and ultimately staking his claim in the payments industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Personal anecdotes highlight how the flexibility of the payments field allows for a rewarding balance between business and family life, including his daughter's athletic pursuits and his son's brief stint with cold calling. Explore the often misunderstood world of payments as we distinguish the field’s opportunities and challenges, making this episode a must-listen for seasoned professionals and newcomers alike.
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast, where we talk to C-level leaders from across the payments landscape. We'll be discussing the products and services that impact the payment space today, as well as trends and predictions for the future of payments. We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the top.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast. I'm your host, Greg Myers, and we have a very special guest on our show today, Perrin Holtrop, the CEO and founder of PayNation. So, Perrin, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, Greg, for having us. Absolutely. So why don't we start off by having you tell our audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you're from, where you grew up, where you went to school, a few things like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm 52 years old, been in the payments industry 10 years. I live in a town called Riverside, which is about 60 miles east of LA. I grew up lot as a kid but born and raised here in California. I have three kids and one 13-year-old my last one at home that I stay pretty busy with.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. Well, tell us about PayNation. So what does the company do?
Speaker 3:So PayNation is what we like to call an ARAP automation company. We try to stay away from the term merchant processing or payment processing. It's almost kind of a negative word these days. We started off at AR obviously accounts receivable helping mostly middle market, lower middle market B2B companies. We're a B2B shop. We only focus on B2B. Obviously we have some retail in our portfolio, but our primary focus is any business that's selling goods or service to another business, helping them with decreasing their DSL and getting paid quicker. Usually everything we're doing is tied to an invoice or integrated into some kind of accounting or ERP software of some sort. So our whole goal is to kind of eliminate double, triple entries, have an integrated solution and typically trying to get our clients paid faster.
Speaker 2:Are there certain verticals that you focus on, you know we like manufacturer, distributor, wholesale.
Speaker 3:That's kind of where we spend a lot of our time. You know, like I said, pretty much anything B2B. We dabble a little bit in the healthcare and professional space like law firms and accounting offices, although not quite B2B, but I would say probably 85%, 90% of our portfolio is in that manufacturer, distributor, wholesale space.
Speaker 2:And then you said mid-market, so kind of the middle of the road, not the really small but not the really big Years ago.
Speaker 3:I recognized that in payments and you've probably seen this yourself. It's always companies that really focus on SMB or enterprise, and middle market always seems to be the redheaded stepchild that no one wants to really care about, and that's where the most revenue is generated. That's where a lot of the companies need the most help. A lot of those companies want to be like Big Brother Enterprise, so they're really interested to hearing the solutions and the technologies that are available to get them to the next level, and so I just kind of felt that that was kind of an underserved area, if you will, or vertical, if you will. So that's where we spent a lot of time and we just over the years have found that a lot of the companies in that middle market space really are interested in advice and consulting the enterprise.
Speaker 3:Very bureaucratic, it's less transactional, they feel they have all the answers. And the small, medium-sized businesses or small businesses they typically are smaller, they don't know where they want to be. Sometimes the owners don't really know what's going on, sometimes not a lot of revenue, very cost-driven. There. Middle market's more solutions and more consultative and less focused on what I say vendorizing our services, where they're just worried about price. They're really looking for people to come in and help them with solutions, and that's kind of how we lead in all of our sales cycles.
Speaker 2:Okay, and are you focused mainly in the US or outside the US as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, us. I mean we have some things that we do in Canada, but mainly US. We've had some international opportunities that were international, but they still were based here in the US. So there's some gateway solutions and some stuff that we've done. I would say just to make it easier.
Speaker 2:US is our primary area that we focus on and you mentioned some of the integrations. I would assume these middle market companies have some sort of accounting software or some kind of operations software, so I assume you're bolted into those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not everyone. Most of the time. These companies, when they kind of outgrow QuickBooks and they're getting into some type of ERP solution, enterprise resource planning solution like a NetSuite or SAP or one of those types we've integrated into a few of them. We're still building out more. There's so many of them. What we typically do is we saw the void there, built some integrations into those solutions. So if a client is looking to get in there or they already have a relationship with them, we know that we have some opportunities to integrate. So really, the goal is always to try to integrate again, try to eliminate double, triple entries. So that's our focus. Obviously, as you know, payments is very nuanced. There's never one magic bullet out there. There's never one solution that works for every single one, so we've got to play around with it. But we try to have as many of those integrations to those types of software that we come up because we know we have a better chance of winning that business.
Speaker 2:Okay, what would you say? Differentiates PayNation from your competitors out there.
Speaker 3:You know, I would say I was talking to a colleague of mine yesterday and I was telling him you know, when we go to payment, you know trade shows or any kind of industry events, and we're amongst colleagues, amongst our very small circle of payments folks. There can be a thousand people in a room. There might be two people in that whole room that really know B2B. So I would say, right now, the difference is we're B2B focused. There's companies that do B2B and know B2B, but that's not all they do. They might do restaurants, they might have some hospitality business or retail or SMB do restaurants. They might have some hospitality business or retail or SMB. We are 100% hyper focused on middle market B2B payments and that's where we're headed. That's our goal and we want to eventually get to a space where we're the largest B2B payments company in America, that when it comes to middle market B2B payments, we want that to be synonymous with PayNation. So that's our goal and that's where we're headed.
Speaker 2:And you kind of mentioned this but I want to double click on it. So is there a lot of consulting? That sort of goes along with it, just by the nature of kind of being a mid-market type company?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a really good question. Yes, there is. The thing is, as I mentioned a moment ago. Yeah, that's a really good question. Yes, there is, you know, the thing is, as I mentioned a moment ago. You know, payments, as you know, is very nuanced. It's not one magic bullet Typically getting into a client and we're asking like, what's your payment flow?
Speaker 3:Walk us through how you're currently processing payments. You know, if you had a wish list, what are the three things that you would wish for If you had a magic lamp and a genie came out the bottle? What are some things that keep you up at night? Asking some of these basic sales questions you can kind of hear, and we typically are trying to get in when we have our first discovery call with, maybe with the office staff or the accounts receivable department, just to find out what the pain points are. And so we're doing a lot of digging to figure out, you know, because it's very easy for us to just, I guess, regurgitate or throw up on the client with all the different solutions that we have or that are available. That doesn't ever get things done. We want to make sure we're kind of tailor making a solution.
Speaker 3:So, yes, very consultative, even though we're selling something and we're obviously all in sales, our roles are less sales and more consulting. And we do this on purpose because, as I said, I coined the term vendorize. We don't want any client to ever think that we're a vendor. What we always say is hey, you take advice from your attorney, your bookkeeper, your CPA, business coach, whoever you take your advice from, to run your business.
Speaker 3:70, 80, 90, sometimes 100% of your income comes from a digital payment. It than just us selling you something. And that's our approach and that's really how it has to be in the B2B space, because you're ultimately dealing with CFOs or controllers or VP of finance, sometimes the CIOs or the CTOs. You're dealing with people that have a certain level of sophistication in their space already and a lot of times, understand payments in a relative sense that you can have a basic, rudimentary conversation with them about interchange or level three data or anything like that. So you're not dealing with someone that's completely ignorant to payments. So you can have a more informed conversation and, again, it's usually less driven by price and more about solutions.
Speaker 2:So where do you think this B2B payments industry is headed, say, in the next three to five years?
Speaker 3:It's exploding. I mean I think that changes all the time, but I think the global B2B payments right now is like $100 trillion. More and more companies are seeing the value of accepting virtual cards. More buyers are issuing virtual cards to pay rather than checks. We got $26 billion worth of check fraud every year. Still that's being mitigated. Checks aren't going to go away anytime soon.
Speaker 3:Starting to see the value of a card acceptance or even an alternate way of payment, not necessarily just card, but even more ACH or FedNow RTP You've got some blockchain solutions out there. People want their money quicker. There's more and more people like myself and like PayNation that are understanding the value prop of getting your money tomorrow rather than waiting, you know, 30 days or 60 days to get paid or whatever, and seeing the value of getting paid tomorrow and factoring the cost of acceptance it really, at the end of the day, we're having a conversation about time, value of money and I think on the most basic fundamentals of money or in business, we understand that money costs and the longer it takes to get it, the less it's worth when you do get it, and I think on the fundamental approach there, people get that. So I think more people have that conversation is really escalating the knowledge that basic people have on acceptance and B2B payments, which is resulting in the explosion. I think what happens, though, is that a lot of you know special on the ISO levels or other companies that have, you know, made a fortune. You know tailoring their business to SMB or retail.
Speaker 3:You know some of the agents or some of the sales, the sales team out there, get a little. You know B2B is a little daunting and they get a little nervous, like, hey, I don't want to talk to this guy. The CFO might know more than I do. Whatever the scenario is, or maybe you just don't have solutions for it, and people get you know, get a little intimidated by that.
Speaker 3:I think that you don't know what you don't know, as the old adage goes, and I think the more conversations that are had about B2B, podcasts like this, guys like you who've been in industry a long time that understand you know being on thought leaderships and different panels and having more and more people talking or asking questions about B2B just kind of opens the dialogue for people to be okay with asking questions that they don't know, to broadening their knowledge about it, where everyone feels more comfortable while having that conversation. The other thing I would add too is that when we say B2B payments, a lot of times people in their head synonymously or make the comparison that B2B equates to enterprise, and there's a lot of people that are daunted by enterprise and B2B payments is absolutely not just enterprise at all. Hence why we're so focused on middle market, because that's where we believe there's a gaping hole in this industry and then we can slowly start to kind of shrink some of the, I guess, the lack of knowledge out there to make people more understanding that it's a real thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about you. So tell us about your background and how and why you founded the company.
Speaker 3:I've been an enterprising man for a long time. My first business when I was 19 years old I actually used to be in the auto security business. I installed car alarms back in the days of the Viper days, when you used to hear Viper car alarms. I started there, had a business doing that. It was very successful. I had a couple of patents that I patented and some unrelated stuff and the security and some household product stuff and made a little money there. So always been kind of enterprising, you know.
Speaker 3:It got to a point in my career where I was trying to figure out what the next, you know, the next thing was. You know, not really, not never really been a guy that tried to chase trends. I would always just, you know, look for businesses that made sense. I'm a very creative guy, probably a creative guy first. My mom is an artist and I kind of grew up as an art guy but very strong business acumen as well. So I kind of double-brained it, as I say, both sides of my brain, and so I was doing some other stuff.
Speaker 3:I was actually involved in the comedy industry, believe it or not, and was managing some developmental acts, and I was looking for a casino here in California that had a comedy club at the time and was very involved in comedy and still kind of am to this day, but not as much as I was. I was looking for some type of I guess business or some type of job that was going to hold me over while I was going to have a big famous client that I was going to make a bunch of money and be rich, and so a friend of mine had introduced me to the concept of payments and residuals and so forth and I was like that sounds kind of cool. I had a pretty strong business background, knew a little bit about credit cards not what I know now, but knew enough and I was always a pretty good salesperson, really always sold by education and just storytelling. I wasn't really one of those used car guys sales guys, not that that's a bad thing. I said, hey, let's get into this. And you know I had I had some a lot of relationships with, with manufacturers and distributor because I had some patents. So I went down that road, had a lot of different people that I spoke to, been to China a couple of times, and so I got into payments and I started off payments selling restaurants, cause that's what everybody was doing. So I was out selling restaurants and dealing with POS, point of sales and this, that and the other.
Speaker 3:And then I got into a situation where I started going after some of these clients that I had that were in the B2B space or the manufacturer space and the company that I was working with at the time just didn't have any solutions for it. And so it was kind of frustrating because all of my contacts and the people I knew were kind of in that B2B space, because I was already kind of around B2B, just not in the payment sense. And so then I moved on, went to another company that had a little bit more solutions and was able to leverage some of my relationships there, and I was maybe five, six years in the payments, was happy, was good, had a nice big book, was, you know, living life was crushing, it had all the free time in the world and you know I didn't really really have a desire to start my own ISO. Really I was content, I guess right, it's kind of rested in my own laurels and I was like you know what's the next thing? And and um, you know the goal was always at the time was to make enough residual to to follow. You know this thing in comedy.
Speaker 3:And then I got really, really, really excited with payments because every single day it was a new deal, it was something new, something creative. And so, you know, I had an idea to um I what happened was I had a really large account that I was working and I lost it because we didn't have an integration at the time. And I'm like man, if I would have had my own integration on this deal, I could have won this gig. It was a healthy opportunity. And so I was like, hey, I need to maybe start my own thing and take some of the money I had saved up and maybe work on building some of my own integrations. Never, never, did any.
Speaker 3:I have some tech background, I've been involved in some tech stuff and I always tell people I'm not a tech guy, but I know enough to be dangerous. I can't write code or anything, but you know, I know how to. You know how to have a conversation. Then COVID happened and COVID came and everybody was, you know, as we all were just what's going on, world's coming to an end, and I personally wasn't really that scared of it. I just did it and I was like, hey, you know, this could be a major, major, major opportunity. And I was right. Everybody wanted to go digital, everybody wanted to accept ACH and credit card and no one was taking cash anymore and all these things. You know what? I'm going to start my business and I started my company in June of 2020.
Speaker 1:So you know.
Speaker 3:I was able to fund my business. I had a pretty good sized book. I didn't have to start from scratch and work out some really good partnerships with some of the bigger processors out there. They knew who I was. My reputation preceded me. I had a really good relationship with everyone and I was able to lock down a smoking smoking deal, schedule in and everything else and register my company. I became a registered ISO, did all the process and all of this during COVID, by the way, so it was challenging there.
Speaker 3:And then you know, we just you know, I had a handful of guys and colleagues that I've worked with over the years that saw that I started my own thing. They wanted to come on board with me. We kind of just you, you know did what we did and just had hockey stick growth and then, when things kind of settled down, you know, we kind of um, you know, repositioned ourselves. What are, what's our direction, what do we want to do? Started building some more integrations. We started getting involved in that more and, you know it, just things kind of kind of snowballed from there. But, uh, you know, I've been in payments 10 years. Nine of it's been in b2b. So it's like my, I never got into b2b payments. I kind of all that's all I knew because I came from b2b. I just was kind of forced to sell restaurants because I thought that's what you do when you sell payments, right, and that's what a lot of people think. And so, you know, now we have a, you know, a completely different mindset. We're growing our team, we're building out more integrations, kind of more of the same. We're doing a lot of thought leadership now, having conversations like this about B2B payments and just really getting the word out there and then you know, just trying to slowly take a piece of the B2B payments.
Speaker 3:But our focus really is trying to be less of a sales organization and more of a fintech. Obviously, sales is always going to be the basis of any successful companies to be able to sell. But in your traditional sense of a sales organization, where we're just selling somebody else's stuff, we want to get to the point where we're selling stuff, but it's our own stuff, our own technology. If we can, I mean, we obviously still partner. We still have some stuff that we sell. We have some white label opportunities that we have. If people have developed some good software or product out there that doesn't require re-inventing the wheel, then we'll partner. But if we can provide our own solutions in-house and develop our own stuff in-house, that's what we'd rather do and that's more of the focus of where we're headed towards in terms of the next five, 10 years.
Speaker 2:Sure, makes sense. So what are some things you're passionate about? Maybe one work-related passion, one personal passion.
Speaker 3:I would say about work-related on. The passion is really I was asked this, a similar question yesterday I I really enjoy helping people. I know it sounds cliche and sounds corny sometimes, but it's really true, like when I go into a client and we really sit down and we're consulting them and whenever they have a pain point or pain points that I know unequivocally, I have a solution for. It's the best feeling in the world because you know that they're going to love it when you can say, hey, I have a solution for that. I really enjoy it. I think that building what we're building here, as far as the company and technology and everything else that we're working on, the passion is there because we all, you know, obviously we all want to make money and we want to be successful in all those things. But really having those tools in a tool bag that can really help a company when they when you know they clearly need it, I love it Feels good every day. On a personal side, same thing. I like helping, but I really enjoy. You know my.
Speaker 3:I have a young daughter that's 13. That's, that's an athlete. She runs track, plays golf. She's exceptional at both and I really enjoy watching her process as a little young girl that just doesn't herself understand how talented she is. As parents we look and see. You know, hey, our kid's got some talent but they don't really see it. And just being able to work with her and going out to, you know, on the track and practice or going out on the range I'm not a golfer but you know I learned a lot from coaching and God knows I spent enough money on training to buy a small buy a nice small sports car.
Speaker 3:But you know I bring that up because payments is what's allowed me to spend that time. You know payments, as you know, and anyone that's in payments, it's a tough business, it's hard and it's a pain in the butt, but if you do it right it can give you a lot of free time. It's a great business. I don't really know any other business that you can make money while you're sleeping. So those are the two things helping people, helping businesses. I love it. It makes me feel good and then be able to get out there and help my daughter get closer to chasing her dreams and being successful. Obviously, I have two older kids as well that are grown. I have a son that's in the Air Force and an older daughter that wants to go to law school. But you know they're kind of grown and they've kind of done their thing, but the young one still needs the touch of dad there you know what I mean Sure, sure, sure, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So you've been in the industry, like you said, 10 years. So if someone comes to you and they say, parent, I'm interested in building a career or making a career in payments, maybe they're coming to you looking for a job at your company. What kind of advice would you give them to help them be successful in payments?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. I like that question. I would say what I've seen in the payments industry is anytime I see a person enter in. So two things. Let me back up Payments. Is that industry that no one says? I want to be in payments when I grow up. Everyone gets into payments by accident or through nepotism, right, if your dad's in payments and now he brings his daughter or son into payment, that's how we get in.
Speaker 1:No one says hey, when I grow up.
Speaker 3:I want to be in payments. All of us chose this industry by accident and the people that get into payments typically come from some other vertical or some other type of industry. Maybe they're in transportation, or they sold, you know, building supplies, b2b sales somewhere else, or you know, maybe they're in the vacation industry, selling timeshares or whatever it is. So whenever I see somebody get into payments, I always ask them hey, what did you do before this and what were you an expert at? So if you were into transportation, you should really become really good at payments in the transportation industry and really focus on that vertical. So the advice I always give people when they ask me this is say find one or two verticals that you know a lot about, a lot more about, and really become the expert in that space and just focus on that. Because if you get into payments and you're just going after every deal and any deal, you're going to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
Speaker 3:You know the restaurant guy whose parents owned a restaurant. They've been in the restaurant industry their whole life. It makes sense for them to go after restaurants and be POS dealer and those kinds of things. Maybe you've got a person who dad was a plumber, you know, and maybe he's a third generation plumber. His grandpa was a plumber Makes sense for you to get into payments and go after plumbers because you really know how to speak that language. So really go where you're celebrated is what I always say. Go where you're celebrated. Doesn't make any sense for you to try to be an expert in payments and you're selling into an industry that you're not an expert in. Go into the industry that you're an expert in and add that payments layer of expertise on top of that. It's going to make it for a better career trajectory, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's great advice. So, Perrin, we've covered a lot of ground, obviously, about you and the company and the industry. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up the show?
Speaker 3:No, I mean, this is a great show. Glad to be a part of it. I hear a lot of people talking about this show. You've done a great job. You know there's a lot of podcasts out there that focus on software and different kinds of things. I mean, we know there's lots of podcasts out there. I really like that we have a podcast that's dedicated specifically to the payments industry.
Speaker 3:I think we are a very misunderstood industry, probably the most hated. No one likes to tell a marketing call from a guy who's selling payments. A quick story.
Speaker 3:So my son, before he went to the Air Force, he had a moment where he was like, hey, I think I want to maybe get into payments. I was like, all right. So we created a script for him and I was like you could do some cold calling. I knew it wasn't going to go well, but I wanted him to see how hard it was. I knew it wasn't going to go well, but I wanted him to see how hard it was.
Speaker 3:And he quit after the first day he said he got the phone hung up on him maybe 100 times that day. He's like, oh, I'm not interested. He's like, how do you do this? And so I think that more and more conversations like this for the outside world to see that payments is a profession just like anything else. Unfortunately, there's a lot of bad actors in this industry that get into it not really knowing how sophisticated it is. But if you do your due diligence and work hard, like anything else, and become an expert, it's always good to be on platforms like this, where people can showcase what their knowledge is and how professional this industry is, because it is a very professional industry. So thanks for having me on and let me share my story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing that and thank you for your time. I know it's incredibly valuable and I really appreciate you taking the time to be here.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much for having me. I love it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in Payments podcast. Make sure you visit our website at leadersinpaymentscom, where you can subscribe to the show and where you'll find our show notes. If you enjoyed listening, please share on your social channels as well.