[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the build a vibrant culture podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and insights you need to turn your dreams into your destiny. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer interviews, leadership, and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now here's your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:29] Nicole: Welcome everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach and I am here to give you more information to build a vibrant culture. And I've got this amazing guest who is situated in the beautiful Sarasota, Florida. I've got Robert L. Day with me today and let me tell you all about him.
[00:00:48] Robert is the driving force behind weAudit.com. Write that down. He views preserving companies as a key to safeguarding jobs, and I know all of you out there are all about safeguarding the jobs and supporting the families of the people that work for us. As managing partner since its inception in 2009, he has led the firm from a startup to the leader in merchant processing auditing. He's got over 30 years of experience in finance, including 25 in merchant processing. Robert is recognized as an industry expert by the National Credit Association and other prestigious bodies and his insights are featured in top publications. Don't miss this: Forbes, Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, and many more. He has appeared on all the major TV networks and Robert's contributions extend to the various organizations earning him awards like the President's Award from Fifth Third Processing Solutions and the BBB Torch Award for Exceptional Ethics. His latest book, which I have in my hot little hands, (We want to talk about chapter four. It's my favorite chapter about your aunt and the fried eggs.) His latest book, _The Great American Heist: How Credit Card Processors Steal Businesses' Profits_ was released in August of 2023, and it's available on major platforms and this solidifies his expertise. I am so glad you're here, Robert. Great to have you!
[00:02:16] Robert Day: Yes. Thank you for having me.
[00:02:18] Nicole: Yeah. And we were chatting before we got started and I was telling you that I have a lot of human resource folks that listen to the podcast but that they're super influential and they can get the ear of the CEO, the COO and the CFO. And then you just started talking about the goose that laid the golden egg because of your other book. So will you mention your other book and share what you shared earlier?
[00:02:43] Robert Day: Yeah, sure. So I had the opportunity a few years ago to write a book with Steve Forbes and some other upcoming entrepreneurs. And so I had one chapter and my chapter was really like, what should businesses know and all of that. And so part of the premise was not burying your head in the sand and all of that, looking at what's coming. But the other thing was that I see so common so often is that so many people in businesses, they just bury their head in the sand. And they don't really pay attention to what's going on. In other words, kind of like as I refer to as the golden goose, right? Because the golden goose, everybody knows the story. It lays golden eggs. And of course, what is a business? It is a golden goose, right? So it is what's laying all the golden eggs. It's what feeds us, gives us our perks, our benefits, our paycheck. And ultimately, what it does is it protects our lifestyle. It protects our home. It protects our family. But here's the problem. You mentioned so often, let's say in our case about merchant processing, and somebody said, well, that's not my job, right? And that doesn't just stop there, right? Nothing is their job. If they see this going on or they see that going on, it's not my problem. It's not my concern. And then ultimately what happens is that company then struggles financially, right? And then all of a sudden it's time for pay raises. Mm. They're minimal to none. Worse, they get laid off. I can't tell you how many times we've actually done like an audit for a company. And we've said, Hey, you guys could save like 20 million, 30 million and even small companies, five, 20, 30, 40, 50 thousand! And some may be like, well, yeah, okay. And they don't get excited about it. They don't think about it. And I even asked somebody one time, years and years ago, I said, granted, we're only going to save you $40,000, but here's the thing. You don't seem to care. Why don't you want to move forward with this? Right? And of course I said, now, if you'll give me an honest answer, I'll leave you alone. I promise I'll never call on you again. So we're going to trade, right? An honest answer for never being bugged again. All right. So she agreed. Here was her answer. And I get it, but I kind of was like, Oh man. And I gotta tell you, I mean, I'm an old guy and this had to have been 20 years ago. And I remember the conversation verbatim, like it happened five minutes ago because she said, "Here's the deal. I get it. You're going to save us $40,000. But there's a guy upstairs that owns the company and I'm sure he'll be thrilled, right? But here's the problem. You're sitting in front of me, you're talking to me, you're sucking up my time. And if we move forward-- as great as it's going to be for the company-- guess whose problem this is going to become? Mine. I got to fill out the paperwork. I got to do everything. I got to make sure everything gets done. And yes, I understand it's minimal, but at the end of the day, it's one more thing on my busy plate." She goes, "So what's in it for me?" I'm like, well, wait a minute. What's in it for you? I mean, forgive me
[00:05:55] Nicole: She could be the hero! Don't you want to be the hero?
[00:05:58] Robert Day: Well, two things. I'm like, A. It could be your job. And yes, it could be. Yes. You being the hero. Which makes me even think... years ago, I was at a conference and a credit manager came by our booth and she said, what do you do? And I could tell she was kind of timid and everything and I just said, well, before I tell you what we do, right? Tell me about yourself. What is it you do? She goes, well, I'm a credit manager and I think she said she was like one of six. But there was 12 at some point. She goes, "but they've been laying us off, laying us off, laying us off." And of course, my wife wasn't with me, so of course I say stupid things. I'm known for that. I mean, there could be a book written on the stupid things I've said. And so I just said, well, how do you know you're not going to be next? Oh, she almost started crying. Then, then, then I'm in recovery
[00:06:48] Nicole: Don't make the ladies cry at the conference.
[00:06:50] Robert Day: So then I'm in recovery mode and I'm like, "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Listen, uh, let me tell you what we do." And that's kind of even a theory and a concept that we played with for a while now in our marketing is, we make people heroes. Cause I said, imagine going back to your boss, right. And keep in mind, everybody else is just hiding under the desk, hoping they're not next to be fired. But why don't we take a proactive response? And why don't we go to your boss and say, Hey, I just found a way maybe we can save 50, 100 thousand. I don't know, but the audit's free, blah, blah, blah. And we can find out and imagine if we did deliver, imagine if we did deliver a hundred thousand dollars savings. Now, instead of people maybe getting let go and maybe some will still get let go. But what did the other five do? And what did you do? Right. So you have to come to this conference and not just visit our booth, but visit every booth. And that's a thing too. When I take my team to conferences, when we're the spectators, I say, I want you to take a piece of paper and go by and see every booth. I want you to write up every booth, tell them everything about us and ask them and give them time to tell you what they could do for us. Right? Now, are we going to hire all these people? Clearly
[00:08:03] Nicole: Of course not!
[00:08:05] Robert Day: And some of them are competitors.
[00:08:06] Nicole: There's one gem in that whole room.
[00:08:09] Robert Day: This is why we spend good money to go, right? Because I'm looking for help. I didn't go to a conference cause I'm looking to get away. That's called vacation, right? When I go to a conference, I'm looking for healing. I'm looking for a fix. I'm looking for a solution and I don't know who's got it.
[00:08:27] Maybe it's in one of the classes. Maybe it's in one of the booths, but my team, it's like, no, you're not sleeping in. You're not skipping a talk. I don't care if you think it's a worthless talk. I don't care if you think it's a worthless booth. I want you to know everything. Then we'll rule out after that, but know everything there is to know.
[00:08:44] But, and I gave a little bit of a long answer to that. I apologize. But yes, it is all about, what we originally were talking even before we got on, is that people just don't take ownership. Like I was teasing when I said, Hey, there's the old saying, "Drive your car like you stole it." A lot of people know that expression, because it's like having fun with it. Right? But also that same kind of concept runs into businesses and that is "Work there like you own it." Because you'll be the last person to go before the owner, guaranteed, right? If you're the person that's going, Hey, I've got skin in the game. When I talk to somebody and I think they might be a good opportunity here to work with them, or man, we need to make room for them. Like trying to recruit them and bring them into the team versus going, you know what, it's nine to five. It's five o'clock. I'm out of here. That mindset will get you out of there.
[00:09:40] Nicole: That's 100 percent right.
[00:09:42] Robert Day: I'm saying, you know what? I'll do whatever it takes. I mean, I really had a struggling career in my early years, because I didn't have the education that a lot of my counterparts had, but I worked harder than all of them. When I interviewed for jobs that I really wasn't qualified to get.
[00:09:59] I said, here's the thing. I get that. But that's where it comes in to help because I will work 10 times harder. I will do what no one else will do. I will put in the time and I will work here like I own this place, right? I will take ownership of every solution, every problem, right? And do my best to really further the company.
[00:10:19] And this is working for some small companies, but also working there again, For the world's largest, what is the world's largest today? Processor world pay. I was, worked my way up from just a rep to being an executive right before I ended my career there. So to start this company, of course, but you know, so again, it you know, dream it, believe it, conquer it.
[00:10:39] I mean, it's available to everybody. You just have to go for it and really, do everything that you can to help the company that you're in.
[00:10:47] Nicole: That's exactly right. Yeah. And so, what Robert is talking about here is this thing called business acumen. And, the thing is, a lot of us-- I love that you said I didn't have the right education at the beginning. You had this thing called OTJ, on the job training, which is super valuable. There's nothing more valuable than actually being in the Petri dish while you're learning what the science is here. And I think that that's essential. And, even if you're the HR director, the park and rec director at the municipality, or you are working in retail you need to understand everything inside of this business. And that's how you get promoted. People always say to me, Nicole, how do I make more money? I'm like, understand business
[00:11:30] Robert Day: Go after it, get hungry.
[00:11:31] Nicole: Yeah. And then know how your actions and the actions of your team impact the bottom line. Because here's what Robert's talking about in his book, everybody, _The Great American Heist_ is like, Want to save $30, $40,000 if you're a small business? What's the biggest number you ever saved anybody? And then let's talk about PNLs for just a hot second to give some context.
[00:11:52] Robert Day: Yeah, so we do this for, I mean, our smallest account's a dry cleaner, our largest account, $64 billion, right? And everything in between. But yeah, they're north of 10, 20 million in some cases, so yeah, it's a lot. It's staggering how much, and I think about that. If you read the book it gives you a little context to me, right? And something that, and it really has been the driving force since I was nine years old. My parents called me in and said, Hey, we're getting divorced. Dad's moving out, decide who you want to live with. And I'm,
[00:12:26] Nicole: What a choice for a nine year old right?
[00:12:28] Robert Day: Yeah. Right. And even, okay.
[00:12:29] Nicole: How does a 9 year old choose? Right,
[00:12:31] Robert Day: And even at 9, I knew this was so disturbingly wrong, right? I wasn't a therapist by any means, but I thought, what's wrong with you people? You need to grow up. You need to figure it out. Hey, I'm the youngest of five, right? And you know, I had to learn to work things out with my siblings, right? We didn't get divorced. We didn't say, Hey, like I'm never talking to you ever again. You're going to have to go live somewhere else, right? Hey, you fight with your brother, you work it out, right? And I thought even at nine, I just wanted to stand in the middle of the room and just tell them what, what the world's wrong with you people? Work it out, get over it, suck it up. And... Yeah. And, but I looked over at my dad, he's looking at his feet. I looked over at my sisters, my brother and they're crying and everything. And of course I'm nine. I'm going to want to live with my mom and my siblings. Right. But it broke my heart to see what my dad was going through. And you know, grateful that after back and forth, off and on. They eventually did grow up and work it out. So yay. But that put me in a situation too, where I moved 19 times from nine to 19 or 18 rather when I joined the military. Right. And just seeing all the turmoil and knowing then that finances connect to that, right? One of the number one reasons for divorce is of course, finance. So, I didn't really give it much thought until we really started this company because I didn't want to start this company. Merchant processing had become so corrupt that I just thought, you know what, I want to be done. I just, I don't want anything to do with it. I even kind of said, I want to go cut grass. And you know, my buddy's like, you don't even cut your own grass now. I'm like, I know, but
[00:14:12] Nicole: I can learn, I can learn, I've always learned.
[00:14:14] Robert Day: I want something, I want something that's pure. There's no gameplay, there's no selling, there's no angle. There's just, you just cut grass and get 40 bucks, 50 bucks, whatever. And you go home. Like it's a hard day's work. But it's pure, right? And so I thought that's what I want to do. Well, our CFO, he really talked me into starting this company, but I said, let's be sure if I help you build this company that we're going to do it my way, or we're not going to do it because I just have no desire to do business the way business is normally done. I really want to make a difference in businesses, but I said, let me be clear why, because I want to help businesses because I know if I can help a business save money then they won't lay off somebody or they'll keep a job or whatever. And I
[00:15:06] Nicole: Expand and grow and get a second store, a second location. That's right!
[00:15:10] Robert Day: And hire more people, you know, not lay off people, but hire more people. And so, for me, as I say in a lot of interviews, I'm going back and saving Robbie , which is what my parents called me back when I was nine, and I said, I'm going back and changing. I said, and there's a lot of Robbies, lot of Susies, Cindys that will never know that I've impacted their life, but that matters not.
[00:15:36] Everybody who works here knows I go through, you know, if we decide to even interview them at all, right? Like the first thing we do is they have a meeting with me and I go, I just want to tell you, you need to think about the culture that we have, why we do what we do, who we are, the way we behave, right? And I go, and if that is not something that you buy into, if that's not something that motivates you, inspires you, that you want to be part of, then we're just not a good fit. Because I can teach you what you need to do, but I can't teach you to be who you need to be. And to have the heart and the passion. But I explain to them my story, my growing up, why we do what we do. And so, yeah, for us, it is all about, there again, it's kind of saving families. And even as I've gone to a lot of black tie dinners early on starting this company, doing networking and stuff and people would say, what do you do? And I'd say, I save families. And my wife would be like, no, you don't. And I said, well, hang on. I said, give me a minute. Just your honor, and I'll connect the dots. Right. And then I kind of tell them about that story of growing up and how that connects and how saving companies money is in essence, saving families. Um, so it sounds corny.
[00:16:50] Nicole: No, I love it. I love it.
[00:16:51] Robert Day: I've really gotten to the point I don't really care. I'm like, you know, you can believe me or not believe me. You can hire us or not hire us, but it is who we are. And I don't think we have a client that doesn't know that.
[00:17:03] Nicole: Right.
[00:17:03] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference, or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results, your organization will get lit from within. Email her at Nicole at vibrant culture. com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrant culture. com.
[00:17:29] Nicole: Yeah. Okay, so Robert saves folks $40,000 to millions and millions, right? So, I'll just say this real quick because, again, I think sometimes we're, you know, when I think about like my son who went to the fine establishment Appalachian State University. He got a business degree, but then he got like, two minors. It was really dialed in, so understanding how everything works, I think it's really the responsibility of everybody in the business and you need to teach and you need to teach it.
[00:17:58] So as a training person that goes into organizations, let's do business acumen. So you have this thing called revenue. And so the revenue comes in, and then you have this thing called expenses. And then you have what's left over, which is called net operating income. But then, you have all of the things below that line item, and then finally you get to cash flow.
[00:18:18] And so you have in the preface, you say, a penny saved is a penny earned, and then you say, While Mr. Franklin never said those words, that's a whole 'nother story, they are nevertheless true, and you say there are two main mistakes that business owners or businesses make. Number one, not comprehending the value of a saved dollar versus an earned dollar. They're not the same. So I would like you to talk about that because we were always asked to cut expenses, not because they didn't want us to do the right thing or have resources. It's about what you're about to tell us.
[00:18:52] Robert Day: Well, the big thing is that when you think about earning and this is where, you know, let's just be honest, right? Every company, every major company has what's called a chief revenue officer. And that chief revenue officer, more times than not, is just that. They're chasing the revenue, right? And I've got friends that are chief revenue officers and I listen, right? And you know what they always talk about? Growth. Always growth. One of the guys that sits on my board who mentors me, counsels me, chief revenue officer, right? But even in the board meetings, growth. This is a focus of almost every company. But here's the problem with growth. Growth is a one time event. It's a one time event. If I can sell a million dollars more this year... Now, let's assume I'm selling hamburgers, basketballs, I don't know, real estate. It doesn't matter. You're selling the widget, right? You sell a million dollars worth of widgets. And you're going to do that in 2025. Here's the problem. You wake up January 1st, 2026. What do you got to do? You got to go sell not only a million dollars in widgets again, but of course you got to do better than that because well,
[00:20:10] Nicole: We need growth,
[00:20:12] Robert Day: We got to have growth. So now we got to have even more.
[00:20:15] Nicole: Right, right. And you do want growth, but
[00:20:18] Robert Day: You do. And I'm not saying you don't want those things. But you overlook the other great multiplier, which is savings. Why is savings so important? Well, let's say I save that company a million dollars in revenue. I save them that in their merchant processing expense. So now that's a million dollars. Now, interestingly enough-- I've had companies and please, if anybody's going to ever watch this and they're one of my clients and they're like, that was me, but there's a few of them. They'll come to us and say, I know you saved us a million dollars last year and they're ongoing clients because we stay on board, and because, you know,
[00:21:00] Nicole: There's a lot of levers. If you read the book, there's a lot of levers you got to keep your eye on.
[00:21:05] Robert Day: Yeah, because the processors just go right back to their old ways. They just say, make up a new fee, blah, blah, blah. And they just keep on going. So they don't just go away and stop. They just realign like any enemy does. I mean, if they can't hit the wall, they go over it. They go under, they go around it. And the processor is no different. So in that scenario we've got to kind of stay on board. So what happens is we'll have a client that'll say you saved me a million dollars last year, and that was great, and I really appreciate that. I really do. But let me ask you. What are you doing for me this year? Well, I'm saving you a million dollars again this year. They're like no you did that last year. We're already saving that. I go, I understand you're already saving it, but you can't keep... I mean, if your processing fees are only 1. 5 million, I can't save you a million and then a million again, you know, like a new million, right? But it is consistent revenue that keeps coming back to the bottom line. And a lot of companies overlook that. They don't comprehend it. They don't understand it. They don't embrace it, that that million dollars that you took and put into the savings category starts over 2026 again, with you. You are already have improved your bottom line by a million dollars on January one. Again. Right? Because that's new found money that you don't have to go out and resell. See, that's the thing with growth. You have to redo it year after year, after year, after year.
[00:22:32] But savings, on the other hand, it goes right to the bottom line and just hangs out there. It just stays. It's there forever. I mean, if somebody cuts your mortgage, a thousand dollars a month, it's a 30 year mortgage. That's money is going to stay repeating thousand dollar month after month, after month, after month for the next 30 years.
[00:22:53] Nicole: Yeah. And I see kind of what you do as risk management, you know?
[00:22:57] Robert Day: Oh yeah. Well, we do a lot of risk management
[00:23:00] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:23:01] Robert Day: Surcharging compliance. That's a big thing. Now everybody wants to surcharge and that's just out of control. Everybody's doing it wrong for the most part. I would say to be fair, as crazy as it seems, 99 percent of the businesses are doing it wrong. They just say, Oh, this business is doing it so now I'm going to do it. Et cetera. So they, they just tack onto that and just say, well, we can do this. Oh no. And as I remind people, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover never wanted to allow people to surcharge. Right? So they came up and finally had to say, we'll allow you to, because they've lost in a lawsuit. But the joke's on businesses, because they said, well, great, we'll just give everybody four different sets of rules. So Visa wrote their rules, MasterCard said, we'll write theirs Discover and American Express that disagree with one another. Now you have to try to process payment. You have to accept from everybody, but yet you've got four voices going. Yeah. As long as you do it this way. No, wait, no. As long as you do it this way.
[00:23:59] So very complex. And yet businesses just go, ah, just jack it up to 3%, slap it on and tell them if they pay me with a credit card, they got to pay 3%. They're in violation. That can be a really a hard day of reckoning for people. And so, because, while we're saving money on credit card fees, we also believe, and there again, keeping them safe on compliance issues like that, as well as PCI compliance, et cetera. These are all important aspects too, because these are things that are protecting you from getting sued by the state or by the processing networks.
[00:24:35] And by the way, a caveat to throw in there without getting too legalistic on this type of podcast, but processing agreements are written to indemnify the processor. So the processor can give you bad advice and you cannot sue them for that bad advice. That's what most businesses never think about because they are like, my processor told me I could. Well, actually your sales rep who's worked there for about 18 months. Before he worked at Taco Bell. He told you that. Right. So if you want the truth from your
[00:25:08] Nicole: There's nothing wrong with Taco Bell.
[00:25:10] Robert Day: Nothing wrong with Taco Bell, don't mean to bash Taco Bell. I'm just saying, and
[00:25:16] Nicole: he just had a burrito earlier this week.
[00:25:18] Robert Day: Hey, it's just like everybody wants to bad mouth McDonald's, but we've all been there a million times. Right.
[00:25:23] Nicole: That's right. Those chicken nuggets are good.
[00:25:26] Robert Day: You know, the idea is that you think if a processor tells you something that you're safe. If you're going to get your processors advice, get them to agree that, Hey, they're accountable for what they're telling you. Get it in writing on their letterhead from an officer. Then you've got a true statement that you can say, no, I know this is okay. Before that, or after, or any other way, no. You just talked to Billy on the phone. Billy has no idea. And then when you call up a year later, when you're in trouble, you're going, Billy told me they're like Billy who?
[00:26:00] Nicole: Right, right, right. Yeah, so that's mistake number two. Don't trust your bank or your processor or Billy. You have to ask good questions.
[00:26:11] Robert Day: So if you think about it, they always try to be like, we're your partner, we align with you, right? Well, here's what I always say when you can trust somebody. There's one easy way to identify who you can trust. And everybody knows this. When you are part of the P & L, when you personally are impacted by that P & L result, then you can say, no, we're together on this. You and me, right? Or the three of us, the five of us, if we all share on that P & L. But your bank and your processor and every other vendor, they don't, you know? And Hey, nor do I, for that matter. Right? I'm not part of your P & L and I'm not going to tell you that I'm part of your P & L. I'm going to tell you, I'm here to help you, but even with me, you need to come in eyes wide open. I'm not asking anybody to give me blind trust.
[00:27:02] And just because I'm a bank, you shouldn't have blind trust. And that's the problem. So many people do. But what they also don't realize is banks are regulated. So there can be a little trust there. But keep in mind, even the top 10 banks typically will pay out millions, tens of millions over most years, over a hundred million in fines for breaking the rules.
[00:27:28] Merchant processing, on the other hand, which is part bank, but they're non regulated. So, when I speak, I'll always say to people, Hey, how many of you guys process with Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America? Hands go up. I'm like, nope, you're all lying. Right? So, of course, I'm like, I'm just kidding. Don't mean to upset anybody. But I only say that to get your attention because Chase doesn't process credit cards. Chase Payment Tech does. Wells Fargo doesn't. Wells Fargo Merchant Services does. And so on down the line, right? And why is that important to take note? Because Chase has rules and they're regulated, so they have a lot of restrictions, right? They can't just take your car loan and say, oh, you're paying 4%, now you're paying 6. Or, hey, your interest rate's 8%, now it's 12. They can't do those things. Right? But on the merchant processing side, Chase Payment Tech, they can make up, and I'm not just saying Chase Payment Tech, Bank of America, put any name in there that you want as a processor. They can add just a made up fee like interchange clearing fee, interchange settlement fee, or here's one of my favorite, Watts fees. Now you'd have to be our age to know what a Watts fee even is, right? And maybe not even some people our age, but Watts means 800 number, right? When's the last time that you called an 800 number, when's the last time you paid for those minutes? I'm so old and senile, I don't remember right?
[00:28:57] Nicole: 25 years? 30 years?
[00:28:58] Robert Day: Somewhere, probably in there. But there's processors getting charged what they call Watts fees, meaning the dial terminal called a 1 800 line, and they're charging him for the minutes on that thing. Well, there's no such thing as a dial number anymore. When you swipe a card at a terminal somewhere, do you hear it squealing and doing the thing that you remember it used to do and it would dial out?
[00:29:23] Nicole: 25 years.
[00:29:25] Robert Day: Yeah, so it would dial out and you know, and all
[00:29:28] Nicole: Oh, yeah.
[00:29:29] Robert Day: Well, when you stopped hearing that squealing noise and all that back and forth, that was the end of Watts fees, right? Because now everything runs on the steady stream of internet. Like while we're talking here, we're not paying by the minute! We pay a bill for the month and that's it, right? So anyway, you see all those types of fees and the way they're able to do that is because there's no regulation, so they can just make up fees, inflate fees.
[00:29:59] Inflating fees is another one. Like it could be 2 percent that Visa charges you, and the processor will actually tell you that they're charging you 2.95. And they'll tell you it's Visa or MasterCard doing it when in fact it's just them doing it. So yeah, it's just full of junk fees. Yeah. Made up stuff.
[00:30:16] Nicole: Okay. So, just to be clear, merchant fees. So, if your company takes credit cards, they have merchant services that processes those credit cards through and that is what he is talking about right now. So you got to take credit cards in this life. I mean, your company has to do this or they won't survive, right? Every once in a while, I still get a check, Robert, in the mail. I don't know about you, I see every once in a while there's a check shows up, but a lot, it's almost all electronic these days, right? So he's talking about controlling those merchant fees that could save you all this money.
[00:30:46] Now in chapter four, you've got the cutest little story about your aunt, and so this hearkens back to what you were saying about your parents. So it sounds like you did a little stay with your aunt, and she served you fried eggs for breakfast. So here's the question he poses. On page 23, what do fried eggs and merchant processing have to do with one another? Could you tell us?
[00:31:08] Robert Day: Yeah, I mean, I always try to give people analogies. Matter of fact, people often call me the king of analogies. But you know, I'm staying with my aunt and of course she's like, all right, here's fried eggs. Well, I'm used to eating pop tarts. I'm used to eating cereal, but my aunt, kind of a good farm gal. She's like, okay, we're having fried eggs, and I looked at these things and I'm like, they're kind of greasy looking and everything. And as a nine year old kid, man, I'm like, wait a
[00:31:35] Nicole: Little Robbie doesn't like fried eggs.
[00:31:38] Robert Day: Yeah. And I said, I don't like fried eggs. And you know, she was so awesome in one sense. She just smiled at me with the biggest smile. I remember again, just like yesterday, she says, that's not a problem, Robbie. Takes the plate, sets it over on the counter, says, all right, you're free to go. Go play. I'm like, all right, I'll have a little snack later, be all right.
[00:32:02] Nicole: I'll find a Pop Tart.
[00:32:05] Robert Day: Yeah, not in that house. So as you might imagine, no snack. So I get to lunch. And what happens? Here comes the fried eggs, right? And I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Now at this time, keep in mind too, back then nobody used olive oil, right? This was lard. And again, for a lot of you young people that might listen to this, you're going to have to look up what lard is, but it is not good. It is why your grandparents died of heart attacks.
[00:32:29] Nicole: but it can kill you.
[00:32:31] Robert Day: Yeah, exactly. But it's not delicious when it's cold and covering the eggs, right? And I thought I saw some maybe broken off fly legs in there as well, you know? So I'm like, there's no way if I didn't eat this for breakfast, I'm not having it for lunch, right?
[00:32:47] No. And of course this goes on dinner, breakfast. I think it was lunch the next day that I finally caved and decided I was going to have to choke this down. It did not end well for her or me. It, it, it quite the mess. I won't get graphic in
[00:33:01] Nicole: No, we've got it. We got it.
[00:33:03] Robert Day: Around mealtime, right?
[00:33:04] So you get the idea of what might have happened. And so I say now, what does that have to do with merchant processing? Processors are all the same. You call them up and you say, Hey, I just listened to this podcast and this guy said merchant or interchange settlement fee, right? That's not a real fee. I'm not going to tolerate that. You got to take that off my report, right? I'm not paying it anymore. Oh, oh, oh,
[00:33:27] Nicole: Oh, we're so sorry.
[00:33:29] Robert Day: You never should have been paying this anyway. That was a mistake. I don't even know how that got on there. Wait a minute. So a mistake, so you're saying I'm getting a refund, right? Well, no, I can't give you a refund, but it was a mistake. Now, any other business, you know, go out to eat and somebody says hey, there's a bottle of wine and you're like I didn't have any wine. They're like, oh, my bad. Let me take that off and credit, let me adjust your bill That's how mistakes are handled.
[00:33:54] They don't go yeah, that's a mistake, but thanks for coming in. Yeah, still pay the bill. Right. Only in the world of merchant processing. But what happens, that goes away, maybe it's a few weeks. Maybe it's a couple of months. But then they just bring it back, just like the fried eggs. Now they lay it back down with a smile and say don't worry, now it's the Watts fee, right? Or it's one of the other made up fees that they do. So in my book, I'm not pimping my book, but you can go out and read it. And matter of fact, I think there's a lot of the free stuff on our website with my blog. I blog about a lot of these type of fees as well. So, you know, you can go out and look at that, and find some of those things that you should be looking at your statements for. So that's what the fried eggs has to do with merchant processing.
[00:34:40] Nicole: Yeah, I love it. And I had a good farmhouse girl aunt that I stayed with so that resonated with me. All right, everybody. We have been talking with Robert Day. He is a former bank executive, and he tells all in his book, _The Great American Heist_. And don't miss what we're trying to tell you is that this book will help you save money so you can save jobs, which saves families, which saves the human resource.
[00:35:05] So, I want you to go out and get this book. We could get into the details, but Robert, we're already out of time! But he'll teach you to figure out who actually is your processor, to never bundle up, talk about to integrate or not integrate, talk about whether fees are real or not. That's the whole egg story. Keeping your rebates, the different types of billing types, the payment gateways, whew! We could go on and on, but there's a ton of stuff in the book. And I just want you to mention the other books that you've written. You said you had a story in Steve Forbes book, or a chapter, excuse me, about the golden goose. And so do you have another book out?
[00:35:42] Robert Day: I've graduated, right? So I had a page in _365 Days of Gratitude_, right? And so that kind of got my thinking,
[00:35:53] Nicole: Your author hat on. Yeah.
[00:35:56] Robert Day: Uh yeah. Maybe I'll write something. So that was like, again, a page. So I went from a page to a chapter and really I thought that was over. But then Amazon called me up and said, Hey, that book sold very well. Would you be interested in writing your own book? And I'm like, absolutely not. And again, I get talked into things. So they kept on me, kept on me, kept on me. So eventually I wrote this book and then I promised my wife after I wrote this book, I would never write another one.
[00:36:22] I do write for some of the different business trade journals like Forbes, Entrepreneur I think Business.com, et cetera. The Entrepreneur actually, they have a call they set up with me today because they want me to write a book, you know, they're like, Hey, we like your articles, but we want you to write a book and I emailed them, I kid you not, this morning going, no, no, I do not want to talk about writing another book. So, I figured this one, it's one and done, it should do justice for all.
[00:36:49] Nicole: All right. That's fantastic.
[00:36:49] Robert Day: But I do want to say to the HR managers, because I know that's kind of who your audience is. You know, one of the things that HR managers probably struggle with is when they're recruiting, right? And they need revenue. They need the ability to have the resources to pay for the talent they're trying to get, right? So by saving companies money, they may think that's not their job, but if they want revenue to be able to recruit or promote or do those things that they need to do. This is very much, this is connected. This is connected. This is one of the golden eggs that you need to be monitoring. So
[00:37:29] Nicole: Yeah, 100%.
[00:37:29] Robert Day: They may think that that has nothing to do with them, but this has everything to do with them.
[00:37:33] Nicole: That's right. We're gonna save little Robbie. All right, so here's the deal. You can find Robert L. Day. He is located at X if you want to go to Robert_L_Day. He's also on the Linkedin, and it's just Robert L. Day on there. Also he is on his website, weaudit.com. So you can go there.
[00:37:56] And here's the thing. On weaudit. com, you can sign up for a free audit for your company for credit card fees. So there's no strings attached, no credit cards. And he wrote to me and he said, as we like to say, it's like the free cookie at Costco, which, you know, Costco warms everybody's heart. So there you go. All right. Thank you so much, Robert, for being on the show. Appreciate you so much. It's been an absolute delight to hang out with you.
[00:38:20] Robert Day: Yeah. Likewise. Thank you.
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