Business Growth with Systems and AI

Colton: We've cracked the code, but a long story short, this data lets you as a business owner say, "Okay, I can make better business decisions." And then we can put AI on top of that with the right protocols, the right security system- George Wright III: Mm ... Colton: inside of our dashboard to where you can talk with it and make better decisions based off the data we're giving you. So I, I just wanna be clear, like the, our AI and the, and our edge are completely different, but- George Wright III: No, I like that because you're saying that your, your data and tech and intelligence that you bring to a business is far superior, and it actually is where you will pick up the efficiencies, but you've also integrated some AI into, separately, into the business owner's ability to be able to access that data and do things to be able to make decisions. Is that right? Colton: Yeah, like no doubt, AI gives people an edge in certain areas, and I, and I, again, I love it, but I just wanna be clear, I think it's almost more impressive that that's not even the edge. It just helps you move faster. George Wright III: Okay. Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I wanna, I wanna go through a really interesting topic with you today, because most entrepreneurs spend years trying to make more money while they're really quietly losing money every single day through systems that never stop to be questioned by their, their company. And what if the biggest financial leak in your business isn't your marketing or your sales or even your operations, but the infrastructure that's processing the dollars that are coming in? So today, we're gonna talk with somebody who not only sees behind the curtain of billions of dollars in transactions and, and all types of processing, but he's built systems that uncover hidden costs, identify hidden risks, and help founders understand what the business is actually looking like under the surface. So welcome to the podcast, uh, Colton Page. How you doing? Colton: Thanks. Doing good. George Wright III: Brother, listen, you're launching a new podcast called Above the Edge. Colton: Yeah. George Wright III: Which I was super excited about, so I wanna, I wanna talk to you a lot about that today, and before I do, just so people that may not know you, 'cause I, I'm having you back on the podcast for a reason, let me give them a quick introduction. Colton: Yeah. George Wright III: So Colton's a managing partner at Platpay, and they do... They, well, they've done billions in transactions processed. Um, they work with companies from a million dollars to $100 million, and they have dozens of direct banking relationships, but they're experts in payment infrastructure, risk management, um, even the Visa VAMP compliance that's, that's come out. So you've got a pretty impressive background, and you guys are... You got a lot of things moving right now in your business, right? Oh, Colton: yeah. Yeah, we got a ton going on. George Wright III: So, um, we'll get to the podcast here in a minute, but let's talk a little bit about the business because I think- There's a lot of things that people misunderstand about payments. They just think of it as like, "I'm hooking up my payment processing," but- Colton: Yeah ... George Wright III: there's a lot of misconceptions, right? Colton: Yeah. I, yeah, I mean, 'cause so, uh, so many people are used to Stripe or just these quick fix it, like, "Hey, sign up, you're good to go," and everything's in- implemented, right? Um, so there's a lot more to it, and it's, it's, quite frankly, it's very important because it's, that's how your business is getting its money, right? Um, and so putting, putting it together, architecting it the right way. Um, it's not just about setting up a processor. It's saying, "Hey, what gateway does it integrate with my CRM?" Like, are all the plugins done correctly so everything is done properly in the proper order? And, you know, are, is it set up to where you're not gonna have these breakages? And, you know, uh, is, is the bank gonna be okay with how it's set up? So... George Wright III: Well, and you have a unique perspective because you have... You're processing and working with businesses that are as, you know, small as, you know, six figures or seven figure, you know, 100 million or 1 million to $100 million businesses. Yeah. So what... You know, you're probably seeing some trends. Is it always different at different levels of business, or are there pretty, are there some pretty similar trends that they're all dealing with? Colton: Um, I mean, similar trends in the sense of there's a lot more friendly fraud. Uh, so not just to get right into that, but, like, there's a lot more friendly fraud just in general. And so you have these bigger clients that naturally, like, their, their ratios are actually really good, but because of the quantity of how many customers they have, like I have a client that They, their ratios are like, their chargebacks are less than a, a sixth of a percent. George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: So way under the, the 2%, but they still have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of chargebacks just because of how many customers they have. So the trend there is just meeting with them on a weekly basis, helping them through it, and adding that tech, and I mean, we'll talk about it later, but adding the tech into to automate some of that so where they can use that time to go do something different. George Wright III: Yeah, you have, um, you know, you've gone from building business to enterprise operations. Um, I think there's a big difference between somebody running a business or an enterprise operator of a business. What, how do you see that differently? Colton: Yeah, I mean, a lot of hats. So yeah, I mean, when you look at it and you think about like an enterprise operator, they are really good at what they do, and but they're over one area, right? If we talk about just sales or just onboarding, and there's so many things that are integral, like inside of onboarding, if we're gonna use that example. Uh, but they can focus just on that, and basically as an enterprise operator, you just need to understand, okay, all the information is coming to me this way, and I just need to push it out that way. Everything in between I can customize, right? George Wright III: Mm-hmm. Colton: But where, where we're sitting, where I'm sitting with some of my partners, like we are growing. We are owner-operators right now. Um, and so it's like I'm over here doing sales, worrying about the, the customization and then the output, and then I worry about the input over here for onboarding or underwriting, and then I get to customize it in here, and then I have to say, "Hey, now here's the output over here." And so they're... I'm dealing with all three. George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: And so it gets pretty time-consuming, gets... You get, sometimes you get lost in the weeds, but you have to just You have to push through it because you're like, "Hey, I can push through it. I can increase the revenue, build all the systems how I want, and then start getting those people in to do, to do that." But you still gotta be the visionary on, on all those things. George Wright III: Well, and you always, um... You know, I've heard you talk a bunch of times about payment infrastructure. You know, I don't, I don't think a lot of people think through the intricacies of that. But when you say payment infrastructure, what do you mean by that, and why, why is it much more strategic than people realize when it comes to planning your strategy for your business? Colton: Oh, yeah. I mean, well, first off, you gotta be at the right bank, right? So, okay, let me say this: there's, there's different levels. Like, uh, the, the payment processing world is so murky and, and unfortunately, like, our industry is kind of shady. Yeah. And so that's the whole point is saying, "Hey, let's bring more transparency to the forefront." But you have ISOs, so you have independent sales offices, and then you have processors. And processors, they'll go out and get their own deals, but they don't necessarily care to, I should say. Like, their... That's not their main priority- Mm-hmm ... because they have a ton of ISOs that are just sending them deals. And so we've always been this sales engine where we're sending deals, but sometimes we'll have a merchant, and this is where I'm kind of going with it. We'll have a merchant say, "Hey, well, I'm gonna go... I n- I need a bunch of different processors. I want redundancy." And I'm like, "That doesn't matter because I have three processors I can send you to, three different processors that are gonna go to the same bank." So- Right ... you're in the same bank. They George Wright III: don't see that really. Yeah. Colton: No. And so you have to say, "Hey, let me give you true redundancy. Let me, let me strategically-" Mm ... "put you in different banks. So maybe it's through the same processor, but I have you on different banking rails, so you're in different, like, banking e- ecosystems or banking cores. So if something ever happens over here, it didn't ruin your other two relationships." And so it's helping, and especially the bigger clients- Yeah ... 'cause they're like, "Hey, I want a couple different processors." You're like, "That's great." George Wright III: Which you need. You need redundancy, right? But, but at a company level- But a true redundancy they, they may not know that it's not really true redundancy, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that businesses that wanna scale, um, successfully at least, they gotta know what's really happening with their money. They gotta actually know what the infrastructure is. Colton: Yeah. George Wright III: And you're pretty transparent, you know, at PlatPay. That's, that's one of the things you guys pride yourself on. Colton: Yeah. George Wright III: So I'm curious, why a podcast now, right? So you've got this new podcast, Above the Edge, that you're launching. Yeah. And you're already running multiple comp- You got so many things going on. Why did you wanna start a podcast? ' Colton: Cause I feel like with the technology that we've invested in and we've now implemented into us, and it's, it's gotten us leaps and bounds ahead of where we would be without it, I think it's just important to, one, push that out and let people understand, but then also saying, "Hey, we're at a point now..." Like, I think I've been pretty blessed with a lot of the, kind of the network that we've created over the last 20, 22 years. George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: And so it's- You George Wright III: guys got a pretty robust network of- Colton: Yeah ... George Wright III: contacts, not just banks, businesses, clients. You see what's happening in the industry. I mean, that's a pretty unique perspective that... That's why I was excited to hear that you were launching the podcast because- Colton: Yeah ... George Wright III: it gives a lot of perspective, right? Colton: Well, and I feel like to, to utilize that network in the proper way and say, "Hey, I've got to have great conversations with you." Like, I'm, I'm dealing with people and, and like I would just never think I'd be in this situation, but I was at this, uh, we went to this little diner up in Idaho, and the guy we were meeting with, I mean, he's a multi-billionaire. He's so successful, and we're just at this diner. Everyone knows him, and we're just talking. And I mean, the whole point, I guess, is what I'm trying to say is I have these opportunities to sit with these people, and I get to learn so much, and I'm like, "Why wouldn't we do that in such a way?" Like, I want, I want it to be real. I don't wanna just interview anyone and everyone. Yeah. I mean, like, I do... There, there are people I'm like, "I'd love to interview that person. I've never met that person." But I have a lot of people that I know and trust and love, and they trust me, and I'm like, "Hey, let's share your story," because I've got to hear things that I don't think anyone else has ever got to hear. George Wright III: Yeah, I think that's very rare for people to get access to individuals like that. But plus, they've been through the scaling, they've been through the growth, they've been through the tech. Um, and I'm curious why, why the name Above the Edge? 'Cause I kind of have a thought of what I, I think it means, but tell me why you named the podcast Above the Edge. Colton: Yeah. My wife was asking me the same thing. She's like, "That sounds really cool. Like, what do you mean?" And I'm like, "Okay." I'm like... I was trying to explain it to her. I'm like, "I feel like all the time, like, I meet all these cool people, and, and sometimes people, you know, they're like, 'Hey, what's your edge?'" And I'm like, "I don't really... I mean, like, we have an edge," but I'm like, "I'm... There's people that have way better edge than I do in their business or what, you know, the experience they have." So how I look at it is maybe you and I are sitting here, and we're kind of looking up to this person like, "That... Dude, that guy has the edge," right? And you're always, like, looking up to this person, and I'm like, what if I could create an environment where I can sit down with this person and be like, "Look, let's, let's kind of put your edge on the table right here. Like, it is amazing. And I'm not asking you to give away the sauce, but, like- Let's kind of sit here and above that, let's talk about your edge and how, at least how you got there- Mm and, like, what you learned in, in the thought process. So kind of above the edge- Which most people wouldn't George Wright III: be able to do. You could have those conversations with this individual above the edge. But for someone to be able to listen in on that, that's why I think that's a pretty cool- Yeah ... unique edge, edge for the podcast, right? Yeah. Well, so who, who is the ideal listener? Who is the audience that you're looking to talk with? Are these all just, uh, founder entrepreneurs? Like, who, who is the type of person that'll get the most from your podcast? Colton: Yeah, I think it's the, the founder entrepreneurs. I think it's the people that are owner-operators, right? Where they, they own the business, they're doing multiple... wearing multiple hats, but they're like, "Hey..." Like, they're, they're always trying to learn. I guess, I think that's actually a huge part, now that I think about it. I've never even said that out loud. But, like, the owner-operators that are, are eager to keep learning. And I think every owner-operator is. Yeah. But, like, the people that go out of their way more and more saying, "Hey, what is new? Let me test it out. Let me break it. Like, let, let's figure out what works for us." Um, people that can adapt, right? George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: Um, because if you hear an edge, you're like, you either have two choices. You can say, "Okay, I'm gonna try to implement that," or, "I'm not." So if you can adapt fast and figure that out. George Wright III: Yeah. It's interesting 'cause after 1,300 episodes, I, I feel like most successful, you know, success-oriented individuals are at the edge of their competency. They're trying to go past that, and hopefully you're living outside your comfort zone. You're trying to do- Yeah ... things you've never done before, right? So you're at the edge. So to be above that and to be, to be past that, it's rare for you to be able to get insights from people that are further along the path than you are, so I think that'll be really, really valuable. Colton: Well, and I, I think that, that goes to the last thing I was thinking of is, like, just Above The Edge is creating a, an environment to a little more vulnerable. And I said this one time, I was speaking on stage, and I was like, "I feel like there's n-" I feel like some people do really well at this, so it's not like a black or white, 100% or nothing. But I feel like a lot of people are less vulnerable now because of social media and all these other things. Mm. And so it's like I wanna create a space where we can kinda open up, be a little vulnerable. Again, not to give away the sauce, but, like, tell us how you got there. And, like, I just feel like that- Lessons George Wright III: learned and all that ... Colton: there's just not that much vulnerability nowadays. Mm. And everyone... Everything's for show. Yeah. Everything's like, you know, like we're doing a podcast right now, and like, I want it to be the most real podcast, the most real answers I can give you, and not just 'cause we're here. Yeah. You know what I mean? George Wright III: Yeah, it's interesting because, um, they, you know the numbers for most of these companies, so- Yeah ... it's not like they, they, they, they can pull the wool over your eyes. They're gonna have to be pretty honest and, and upfront and vulnerable, like you said. But I, but I also think that founders don't need more info. Um, they, they gotta, they gotta have strategies and tactics that they know are gonna give them leverage and, uh, some competitive advantage. So I, I think that from what you've told me, that's really the goal of what you're doing with your, with your show, right? Colton: Yeah, they don't need... Like, they need a certain amount of info. They don't need a whole lot of info. It's like, here's enough to then say, "Hey, that is something that I wanna try right now. Let's go try it," right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and be strategic. Like, we're gonna try it for X amount of months or whatever that is, that edge that other person had. They just need a certain amount of info, but really it's the action. George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: It's, it's always the actionable steps. George Wright III: Yeah. Well let's, let's talk about some specifics for a minute here. I wanna talk about a really important topic, which is one you and I have had conversations about, which is the hidden costs in growth. So you, you, you talk about how a lot of businesses are leaking out money. You know, they're, they're, they're actually having leakage in their business. What do you mean by that? Colton: Yeah. So I mean, like, as these businesses start growing and scaling, you have these businesses that grow super fast. Well, they're focused on revenue, as they should be. Mm-hmm. But in a- in that journey, all the sudden there's, you know, from a, from a processing side, there's extra fees or there's this, or it's like, yeah, that, that extra $2,000 fee every month doesn't break the bank. I have no time to worry about it. Like, I have two examples. So one example, and I'm not gonna say the client's names, but they... I got them approved at one of our banks for 30,000 back in 2024. $30,000 a month. Mm-hmm. Like, hey, you can do $30,000 a month. They, they started doing it, but then they switched to a CRM that we didn't integrate with, and at that time we, we were working on integration to CRMs. But nonetheless, they come back a year later, so 2025, and they're like, "Hey, can we do a million?" And I was like, "Oh, you guys are doing a million a month? Yeah, let's get, let's get you, uh, reapproved," right? And then all of a sudden as we're going through this process, they're busy, they're... You know, it's hard to get ahold of them. Um, and not bad dudes, just they're super busy. Yeah. And I, I feel that. I, I c- I can relate to that. George Wright III: Yeah, for sure. Colton: Uh, you probably know that from me- Yeah, yeah ... me not texting you. Yeah. Um, but like all of a sudden now, now they're doing eight million a month, and they're just growing. But as I look at their fees, you know, Stripe's charged, uh, like it's like an extra $40,000 a month, and they're just like, "We're just so busy." Yeah. And then I have another client, it's kind of the same situation. I was able to save them $500,000 a month in fees, and they're like, "Hey, that's great. Thank you. We are just too busy right now. We will get back to you in like four months after, you know, this event happens." And I'm like 500,000. And that, that also, side note, that opened my eyes and I'm like, "There's a whole different world out there- Yeah that I j- I just didn't even realize at that time." George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: So anyway, that's, those are just, that's one of many examples of just these leakages as as people are just r- scaling so fast. George Wright III: What's interesting, though, is it's so true, you can relate, I can relate, businesses that are scaling quickly, that they can't s- they, they literally would step over a dollar to pick up a dime, but almost because they don't have time. And so they're preventable, right? Yeah. And I think, I think sometimes they feel the lift is pretty heavy to prevent these losses. But now with technology and building what we talked about earlier, a payment infrastructure, knowing where the money's going, knowing how to ... It's, it's, it's fairly preventable, right? It's not a heavy lift to be able to move some of these things and restructure and eliminate the losses. Colton: No. Now, now with what we're building, and, and not just us, there's a lot of people that have certain things that will, will help this, the clients, right? But I think it's m- it's easier now than ever, but it's helping them understand. And it also depends on if they have a dev team or, or whatever it may be. But regardless, with some of this technology, a lot of that stuff is automated. The downgrades, the, the different fees, the just the transparency, like a lot of that can be automated on the back end to where you just say, "Hey, here's the report of what we wanna change, what we wanna do, automate whatever," click it, and then in our dashboard, it will, it will automate that to where they don't have to worry about it. Yeah. There's no ... It's not messing up the, the flow of their daily business. George Wright III: Yeah. Right? Talk to me about processing down- downgrades. So- What, what is that? Colton: Yeah, like, if I ... Okay, like let's say I'm buying something from you, and I, I type in and I mismatch my CVV, or I type in the wrong address. Uh, Visa, Mastercard, Discover, they can downgrade, which just adds a little more interchange to, to your interchange, right? So if let's say normally you're at, you're kinda average, like 3%, right? But you have a t- a ton of clients that are, like doing it but they're putting in the wrong CVV or something's going on, well, the Visa, they, they get up to three downgrades on each card. Mm. And I mean, we're talking basis points, but if you're taking a lot of cards, all of a sudden your fees are creeping up a little. George Wright III: Right. Colton: And so s- some of those things we can actually help fix on the back end, 'cause if we know that with our ecosystem, I'll t- I'll talk about it here in a second. Yeah, yeah. But, like, we have this ecosystem and this, all this data to where, long story short, we can say, "Hey, we've seen this customer before. We've seen that customer and that card and the CVV and that address, and we know that's not the right CVV. We actually have that, 'cause we're PCI compliant. We can input that for you and then rerun it- Wow ... so you don't have to worry about it," and that saves you on downgrades. George Wright III: Yeah, that speaks directly to what I was saying, which is that data and automation and tech actually makes it simpler than it's ever been, more doable than it's ever been- Yeah to eliminate these losses. So talk to me a little bit about the tech that you guys are, um, doubling down on, because I do think that people realize that with AI and with advanced data analytics, now it's possible to get information so much quicker- But it's still a bit of a challenge, but you guys have kind of cracked the, cracked the code on this. So tell me about that. Colton: Yeah, and I think I wanna make it very clear, like I love AI. I- I'm also a big fan of like human in the loop. Like I'm not just everything AI, um, but I'm also like if we're not using it, it here at Platte Pay then I don't know why you're not. George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: Um, t- so just to make that clear, I love it, but our, our edge and our data has nothing to do with AI, and I think that's the brilliant part about it, is it's... The AI only helps you as a business owner make decision- Mm ... decisions faster on the data that we give you, right? So to, to briefly go over it, we, for the last eight years, and I say we, we've, we've invested into this company, so now it's, we're all together. Right. But these guys, I'll say we, but we've negotiated with a lot of different platforms, uh, you know, and one of them being Visa, like, to get these certain data files. And I'm not gonna go into all the depth, but these data files are massive with- They're, no one can read them. They're antiquated. I mean, the system was built back in the '60s. George Wright III: Right. Colton: Right. We've cracked the code. But a long story short, this data lets you as a business owner say, "Okay, I can make better business decisions," and then we can put AI on top of that with the right protocols, the right security system- George Wright III: Mm Colton: inside of our dashboard to where you can talk with it and make better decisions based off the data we're giving you. So I, I just wanna be clear, like our AI and the, and our edge are completely different, George Wright III: but- No, I like that because you're saying that your, your data and tech and intelligence that you bring to a business is far superior, and it actually is where you will pick up the efficiencies, but you've also integrated some AI into, separately, into the business owner's ability to be able to access that data and do things to be able to make decisions. Is that right? Colton: Yeah. Like, no doubt, AI gives people an edge in certain areas, and I, and I, again, I love it, but I just wanna be clear, I think it's almost more impressive that that's not even the edge. It just helps you move faster. George Wright III: Yeah, that's a really good point, and I think that people are starting to realize there's a difference between an AI tool and an, a- and a s- and a system built around- Oh, 100% AI, right? Colton: Yeah. I mean- I mean, 'cause you, you have people that have all these tools, and they're like, "Yo, yeah, I connected it here and here," and it's like, "Okay, that's great." But are you... And, and it depends on where you're at in your business, if you have a tech team or a dev team. Yeah. But, like, building the proper infrastructure, 'cause like, okay, where are you storing all this? You storing it in Claude and just your library? That's great, but what happens if your Claude goes away or something happens or it gets- Yeah ... corrupted? Um, uh, and/or are you storing it on an actual data pod that you have access to that's closed, that's, that has no access to the internet, and you're only feeding it correct information? I think I heard this on a podcast and, uh, and I already thought about it, but I agree. Like, the edge now is not gonna be AI in general. It's grabbing the correct information from your industry, from your- Yeah ... skill set- Yeah ... and putting it into your data pod with- You know, and I wouldn't say customer data, but your knowledge on your customer base- For sure and saying, "Hey, that's my edge, is I've given my LLM or my data pod all the correct information based off how I do things." George Wright III: Yeah, it really is. In fact, I've started to do that in my business quite a bit because using AI tools like Chat, Claude, Gemini, you know, what- what- whatever you're using- Colton: Yeah ... George Wright III: and building an operating system are totally different, right? Where you have, you know, your, your local markdown files or the things you're using to give context to what you're doing- Colton: Yeah ... George Wright III: um, makes a huge difference. So, so while, while we have, while we have a little bit of time left here, I wanted to ask you, what are some of the biggest challenges that businesses are facing right now? I mean, your podcast is gonna be hitting things like growth and tech and AI and money and finance, but what are some of the biggest challenges you wanna talk about, whether it's cash flow or scaling or whatever else that you've seen? That, 'cause you, you got a pretty wide perspective on business right now. What are you seeing as trends and challenges they're dealing with? Colton: Uh, one thing's, I think, is just gonna be Vamp in general. I mean, I think every business deals with chargebacks, refunds, all that stuff, but I would say Vamp just comes in and, and makes that even harder. Um- George Wright III: Explain that for somebody that maybe doesn't understand it- because they may be processing and don't realize the change. What is that? Colton: Yeah, so Vamp has these two new things, um, and basically... I mean, I'll make it as simple as possible. You already have a, a refund ratio that you have to stay under. You already have a chargeback ratio to stay under, so not even talking about the new things yet. I mean, I've had merchants to where they'll just... And if someone, like, there are programs called RDR and other things that, like, rapid refund, so you're, you stay below your chargeback level. But at one point, if you get above your refund level, then that also sends a flag, right? Right. And so you have companies, especially more neutral, like you have companies being creative to where they'll refund you, but they refund you in different ways, um, like just through a different bank account, ACH or whatever. So they don't George Wright III: show their refund rates going up on Colton: their merchant account. Yeah. Yeah, when they know they're getting close. Uh, but so on top of that, I mean, Visa's now basically penalizing the merchant Um, if the customer is... I mean, so you, you can kind of, it's just like a double deuce. Got it. You, you need to stay below your chargeback level, but also you're, there, you have another score over here, but they're kind of tied together. George Wright III: Mm. Colton: Um, I would honestly, I'd, I'm gonna save that for a different conversation because- George Wright III: And it's making it harder for businesses now because of it to Colton: do business. Oh, 100%. Well, and they don't even know. Like, they don't even know. Like, you could get flagged for your VAMP score, let's... Okay, what's today? June, June 10th, George Wright III: right? Yeah, June 10th. Colton: Yeah. Okay. So let's say you, you hit something today where you start hitting that VAMP score and Visa's charging you. Well, right now you're not, you as a merchant, you're not gonna know until July 3rd, because that's probably- So far down the road ... when you're gonna get your, you're gonna get your statement July 3rd. So you've been getting fees all the rest of the month of June. July 3rd you get it, and that's only if you know what to look for and/or if either processor say, "Hey, by the way, you got charged." 'Cause what happens is- Mm ... Visa charges the bank, they're gonna charge the processor, the processor's gonna send it down to you, the merchant. Um- George Wright III: And how it's reported to you is probably not gonna be the most black and white either, so Colton: obviously- No, just a, just a line item ... you George Wright III: know, that's just added in, Colton: right? Yeah. Yeah. Just a line item. So let's say you don't even know that, right? And then you keep doing the same thing 'cause you don't know you're breaking the rule And all of a sudden now it's August, and you're like, "Dude- Yeah why did I pay an extra two grand a month?" And then you call me, and I go look at it and we're like, "Oh, yeah, let's go fix this," right? So- Like is George Wright III: VAMP like a tax, a h- a tax code that's hard to understand, or is it pretty, uh, apparent what you can do to change that? Colton: I mean, so there's more stuff coming out all the time. I'm not a VAMP expert. That's why I say I'd love to have- George Wright III: We'll have Colton: to do that on a separate- ... one of my partners. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because we could go through it, and I think it'd be very valuable for everyone to understand because- George Wright III: Especially if it's affecting businesses so much, which it's, uh, growing, right? Colton: No, you could do a whole episode just on this. Mm-hmm. That's what I'm saying, so, like, to get down in the deep. But honestly, like, where I was going with that is you, you don't even know that you're breaking the rules. So our system, we can now flag it, so you would be flagged today and get a notification from our dashboard saying, "Hey." George Wright III: Even before the bank or your mer- anybody notifies you. Colton: Just 'cause we're getting those files, right? Yep. Um, and so we can say, "Hey, you, you have violated." So I can't, like, stop that, but we can say, "Hey, this was the code, so here's what we would suggest." Mm. You have to figure it out as a business owner. But now you could probably fix that, so by the time July 3rd hits in that example- George Wright III: You're already down Colton: the road fixing you've kind of mitigated your risk- Yeah ... and you're not paying as many fees, or you know, "Hey, I'm not gonna do that anymore," right? Yeah. Or, or whatever it may be. George Wright III: And if you're doing significant volume at all, this could be huge, and so it's, it's, it's pretty clear to me that businesses, um, y- you know, they, they've gotta learn more, get more knowledgeable about what's happening with their money, what they're doing with their money if they're ever gonna scale and grow. Yeah. And, and it's like anything else. People that are avoiding the ability to utilize some of these tools and intelligence and structures, um, you know, it's just, it's just money that you're losing that you already had, so it's, it's tough to do. Yeah. Let me, let me just, um, lightning round you a couple of questions just because you have exposure to so many businesses- Yeah as we finish up here. What's one of the biggest mistakes you think that founders are making with, with their money and processing right now? Colton: So yeah, what they're doing in all these CRMs, they, they have their own payment processing, but they're not payment processors. So they're either just trying to find someone to make a deal with them, or they're just going to Stripe, and that's not the best thing for the merchant. And so I have this company, they're doing 10 million a month, but they're like, "Hey, we wanna use you." But they're letting basically their CTO or their tech team make the decision, the financial decision for their company. George Wright III: The easy decision too, just because maybe they automatically Colton: have something. Oh, hey, they have a- Yeah they have a ton of APIs- Yeah ... so we wanna go this route. And I had it happen with another big client. They were doing 50 million a month, and they went to Stripe only because of APIs, and they let the CTO make the decision. And I told the CTO, I'm like, "You know, right here on Stripe's, um uh, the, like their prohibited list? George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: I'm like, "Your business- You're on it ... literally is right here." You're AEO on it. And he goes, "Oh." And he red lines it and sends it to Stripe and says, "Hey, you red lined this. Like, take it out." And I'm like, "You now just acknowledged- George Wright III: Uh-huh. ... Colton: that you're on the prohibited list." You're on the AEO too. I'm like, "So now you can't even play the ignorance card." So to answer your question, I think making the wrong people let the m- m- letting the wrong people make the- Mm ... financial decisions for your company. George Wright III: Man, it's like anything else. It's like people do their taxes all the time, and they don't take two minutes to just realize that keeping money they could've, they already had, was easier than doing it, and it just took- 100% a little bit of focus, man. Just a little focus. Colton: Yep. George Wright III: Um, what is one thing every founder should audit right away about their business or their processing? Colton: Um, I, yeah, I would say, I mean, fees are easy, so you could say fees. I would also just say, uh, probably, like, how many declines you're having. Like, how many declines you're having- Mm and how many, how much you could recover, 'cause going back to what you just said about taxes, like, those are declines. Like, those are people trying to buy, they decline, but you don't know why. And saying, hey, if you were doing, you know, a million a month, but you had... Well, I'm gonna do it simple. You had a 50% decline, you did a million a month. Well, that really means you could've had two million, or let's call it 1.5, because maybe someone else like me, I grabbed a different card and I finally went through. George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: But there are some people that are like, "It, it got declined. That's my only card. Whatever. Can't do it." So let's, let's call that million, let's... Just to be safe, let's say it's a million and a half. Like, you're missing out on $500,000 of revenue because you're not paying attention to your declines in the codes, and/or you don't have a team in place contacting people- Mm ... getting more cards. And maybe you do, but maybe they're not efficient. Like, who knows? George Wright III: Yeah. Totally hidden money. Um, so you gotta be making the decisions. You also gotta be a- aware of it, so auditing declines would be huge. Colton: Yeah. George Wright III: Well, I appreciate you being here. I, I do think that, you know, success is not about getting more revenue in your business, it's also about understanding the risks, the hidden costs, the, the money, and so that's why I wanted to highlight it. And I think the podcast coming up will not only uncover a lot of those, but it'll also make a really big effort to share strategies and tactics to help people. So- Yeah ... what else would you like to maybe mention before we take off? Anything on your mind? Colton: Um, no. Just, I mean, really, like, as we grow and scale ourself, and that's, it's kind of the irony is, like, that's why I wanna do the podcast, 'cause I wanna bring people on. But it's like, I also want some help. Like, we're growing and scaling, and I think we have an amazing team behind us, but that is not to say that we know everything, right? Right. And there are new levels that we're getting to, and, and as we get to these levels, I'm like, "Oh, wow," like, "we need this whole new infrastructure." Like- Yeah ... I've never even thought of things like this. So I guess the last thing I'd say is like, yeah, I... As we go through, I just wanna add value, like true value. I feel like, and maybe this is just me, maybe it's 'cause I'm, like, older than, like, the Gen Z and, and, and whatever, but I, I feel like there's just a lot of fluff out there. Yeah. I feel like I want more substance. I want real conversations, and I want genuine conversations, right? And, or genuine, uh, conversations about things that help these business owners. So I wanna actually... If, if someone listened to the podcast and they, like, literally got one thing... I mean, sometimes, like- I'll listen to something and I'm like, "That one thing, that's perfect. I'm just gonna take that," and like that's the mental capacity. That's all it needs. George Wright III: Yeah. Colton: Yeah, I can only handle that one thing, but that's perfect. I'm gonna hold onto that. And I... That's what I hope to do. George Wright III: No, I love your philosophy because, um... And, and even at the level that you guys are operating, constantly learning, it's one of our prosperity pillars is, uh, you know, believe in lifelong learning. Because if you are at the edge of where your competency is, whether you're at a, a, a million, 10 million, 100 million, you know, a billion in sales- Yeah ... there's always the next level you're not at, and so you have to be learning. 100%. And so I like that, um, with the podcast. So listen, if you're listening to this, hopefully you've gotten some thoughts or at least some awareness on your costs, your expenses, your business infrastructure. Um, that's why we have these conversations in addition to the mental clarity and the, you know, mind, body, money, business stuff that we talk about. So do me a favor. You can, uh, check out Colton's new podcast, Above The Edge. It should be dropping here in the next couple of weeks, and so I'm excited about that. Colton: Yep. George Wright III: And then, um, hit us up on the Daily Mastermind. Let me know what you're dealing with, what you're struggling with, what did you like, and share the episode. That'll help us to be able to grow the community, get the message out. And remember, it's never too late to start living the life that you're meant to live. You've gotta, you gotta take some action and take control of your finances. So once again, this is George Wright III with Colton Page. Appreciate you being here. Have a great day.