Ep.12 Barry Dowling â TransferMateGlobal Payments â Minimising costs and complexities associated with foreigncurrency payments seamlessly from with Xero
Highlights of my conversation with BarryDowling
·Spendingtime to understand your client
·Usingclient feedback to tweak the solution offered
·Achievingthe milestone of $5US billion in transfers
·Usingreferral links as a marketing strategy
Subscribe to Episode 12of Cloud Stories on iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/cloud-stories-heather-smith/id908333807
Transcript
Heather: Heather Smithhere. Welcome to Cloud Stories. Today Iâm talking with BarryDowling. Barry Dowling is the cofounder of TransferMateGlobal Payments. He is dedicated to making theprocess of booking foreign currency payments seamless, easier,faster and cheaper. TransferMateGlobal Payments is a global Fintechcompany that provides integrated solutions enabling companies toseamlessly process international payments. They provide a 24 hourphone service and online systems to enable clients to seamlesslyprocess their foreign currency payments. They sync withXero,enabling Xero users to cut down on wasteful double entry andtransaction costs when processing payments.
Whether your business is based in Australia and looking to transferfunds to China or based in California and transferring to the U.K.,TransferMate has the widest collection of payment licencesworldwide, enabling their team to assist clients get a better dealthan using their bank.
I started by asking Barry who is his favourite super hero andwhy?
Barry:Who is my favourite? I really didnât expect that question to behonest. I canât help get Wonder Woman out of my head which is notsaying too much but Iâd have to stick with Wonder Woman. Itâs thefirst thing that came into my head.
Heather: Sensational.Youâre not into super heroes then?
Barry:Listen, I like them all to be honest with you. Wolverine, Iâd be abig fan of Wolverine too but listen, to be honest with you, as akid growing up in the 80s, Wonder Woman would have held most of ourfascination, so Iâll have to stick with her.
Heather: This is going totimestamp this interview but you must be excited by the news, theSpiderman/Wolverine news that came out yesterday, that theyâre nowallowed to be in the same shows together.
Barry:Oh, I didnât realise they were prohibited from that before, werethey?
Heather: They were ownedby different companies. The comics were owned by differentâŠ
Barry:Marvel and âŠ
Heather: Sony. SomethingSony, Iâm not exactly sure of all the details but I know that nowthey can appear on shows together.
Barry:Well, all I know is whoever is behind the marketing of Lego isdestroying our bank balance with our kids. Every superhero Legocharacter is there.
Heather: Cool. Youâllhave to turn it into little videos for your products and then youcan have it as a tax deduction. Yes, they always go viral thosevideos do.
Barry:Thatâs a very good idea.
So Barry, you cofounded a business called TransferMateGlobal Payments. Is that the full name of it? Is thatcorrect?
Barry:Thatâs right, yes. Itâs generally referred to as TransferMate. Asthe name suggests, ultimately our core service is to help clientstransferring money. At the moment, still about 90% of companieswould use the bank. Thereâs a better way to do it. Quite oftenbusinesses get caught up with naturally running their own businessand taking care of sales and dealing with inventory and everythingthat goes with that, and in terms of all the daily activities,making the payment is kind of the one that slots in as a once afortnight, once a monthly activity.
It doesnât get as much attention but when you look at it, itâsquite apparent that the banks charge too much generally, as ageneral rule of thumb.
Heather: Absolutely. Soyou would probably be in agreement that businesses donât thinkabout the actual cost of the payment involved, itâs kind of like anafterthought.
Barry:Well, I think that it doesnât help that the banks are less thantransparent. Quite often if you do a transfer to the bank ⊠weâvechecked with all the banks in Australia, and as a general rule ofthumb, without naming banks, the fees are typically anythingbetween $22 and $35. You can even look at letâs say ⊠weâve talkedto Xero clients in the States and one in particular is paying theirUS bank $80 for no apparent reason, and itâs sometimes just rolledup in a monthly fee but typically $22 to $35.
But thatâs not really where the loss is. The loss can be seen inthe exchange rate and the exchange rates can ultimately be beaten.Quite often what youâll find is a company will say, âYou know, Iâminclined to do âŠâ if youâre a Xero partner and you have clientsthat do foreign currency payments and you speak with them, quiteoften the client will do what theyâve always done.
The whole idea of cloud accounting broke that myth and hasrevolutionised accounting. In the same way, this should really doit for the client. I suppose all the client really needs to see isa comparison cost to really get themselves interested.
Heather: Yes, absolutely.So what youâre saying is there are two expenses involved: both theactual charge and then the exchange rate, and itâs understandingthere are better alternatives out there.
Go on, sorry, I didnât mean to cut you off.
Barry:I was just going to say, technically thereâs three: the exchangerate, the sender fee and the receiver fee.
Heather: Yes.
Barry:So if youâre an Australian business making a payment to the UK, theUK bank in addition charge a fee too because the beneficiaryreceives the payment and the bank says, âYou know what, Iâm goingto charge you for receiving that.â Why? Because you canât doanything better.
Heather: Yes.
Barry:So what weâve created is a bank-to-bank network worldwide. We havebank accounts in 90 countries. When we make a payment to the UKfrom Australia, as one example, we pay out of our UK account. So wereceive in Australia and pay out of the UK.
Heather: Okay.
Barry:That way it avoids all the international fees altogether. Weâreeffectively using our own clearing system.
Heather: Excellent, yes,and you are unaware of that. I know Iâve dealt with business andweâve paid the business, and then theyâve said, âYes but you owe usanother $20 after youâve paid them like $20,000,â and youâre likegoing, âSeriously? We paid everything we were supposed to paythere,â but we didnât realise that was happening.
What inspired you to start TransferMateGlobal Payments then?
Barry:I suppose weâve been involved with a number of online businesses inthe past. Itâs only really when we got a chance to look deep downat the rates and the fees the banks were charging that we realisedthat there was a better way to do it. I suppose back in 2010/2011,we had quite a number of corporate clients that we felt needed aservice that would beat the banks. At the time there was onelicence required to operate this service.
So we took about six months to get the licence and it was very mucha ⊠there wasnât very much technically involved. We were basicallydealing with the banks and weâd get a wholesale deal with the banksand we were able to ⊠the same way a wholesaler gets better pricingfor a product and can pass something on to the retailer, we had thesame on our setup.
Then I suppose over the years we advanced. We now transfer $5billion US dollars on behalf of clients worldwide.
Heather: Wow.
Barry:The system that we built automatically prices up wholesale banks. Alot of the banks we would have traditionally bought currency offcanât give us the currency at the rates we buy it off. So weâre nowbuying it, in many cases, at the same rates the banks are buying itat. With the volume you buy, you can really go in and get the bestpossible deal. The systems that we built are all in-house andtheyâre bulletproof. We set them up in 2010 and itâs just gettingbetter and better and better. I suppose a natural progression wasto integrate into the likes of Xero to make the whole process mucheasier.
Heather: Thatâs reallyinteresting.
What have been the biggest challenges and obstacles that youâvefaced running this business and growing thisbusiness?
Barry:I guess a challenge is always getting the brand out there. I haveto say, I guess it would be the case for a lot of services, itâsultimately the idea of apathy. How do you convince a client whattheyâre doing today and have done for years ⊠everyone knows aclient â I wouldnât say stubborn â but has run a successfulbusiness. Theyâre the boss. Theyâve been doing something for 10years and you walk in and you know where you stand with them interms of accounts, âYou do that but this is my business,â kind ofway. Itâs trying to convince him that thereâs another way to do itwithout maybe telling the client, you know, anyobligation.
We win over clients but it does take time. I suppose itâs that timethat it takes because when we contact clients, they typically donâthave a payment today. So the analogy I use is itâs kind of likeapproaching a client after coming out of a restaurant and saying,âWeâve got a nicer hamburger.â Theyâd say, âGreat, Iâve alreadyeaten.â So the timing isnât quite good. Itâs a case of timingreally.
Heather: Yes, I know insituations where Iâm dealing with businesses and theyâre doingthis, when they need to do the transfer, they have no time toactually think about doing it a better way, so they never haveanything in place. They also just keep going through the same oldprocess. I know Iâm quite detailed in that I split out all theexpenses related to exchange rate both movements and charges, andthey really, really add up, and theyâre just straight off thebottom line if youâre not monitoring them.
Barry:Thatâs kind of interesting. From a Xero perspective, and Xerohandles foreign currency far better than most accounting packagesout there âŠ
Heather: Yes, love theway it manager multi-currency in Xero. Love it.
Barry:Itâs brilliant. But nevertheless, if you have say 10 payments tomake today, when it comes back to actually making those paymentsyou have to go into your online banking, make each oneindividually, then you have to go back to your account software,change the exchange rate, account for the bank fees.
Believe it or now, for each payment, it probably takes about fiveminutes. You can do it faster if you rush but it probably takesfive minutes. With the add-on that we created, you can literallyclick a button, log in, it pulls 100 payments in for example, showsyou the live rates, the fees are automatically 75% cheaper than thebank, you click one button and it does all the auto posting of thecurrency loss, gains, bank fees, and the payments directly intoyour account software.
Heather:Excellent.
Barry:Itâs much, much more time efficient, and funnily enough, thatâs thepart the clients really like.
Heather: The timeefficiency.
Barry:Yes, because the fee thing, they can kind of get over the $10 orthe $15 or whatever they save in fees but what they see is thehassle gone. Thatâs what they really like.
Heather: Letâs jumpahead.
Can you describe to our listeners ⊠Iâve got Xero running and Iwant to integrate it to TransferMate, what does that look like andhow quickly does it take me to set it up?
Barry:Okay, so it takes two minutes to register. All I need to do âŠthereâs a special website for Xero add-on and itâs calledTransferMateonline.com.
Heather: Iâll put that inthe show notes for listeners.
Barry:Perfect, yes. Thereâs a special link also on your websiteobviously. Weâll make sure we fast track those but basically oncethey register on that website then theyâll have a one page, we callit an AML form, itâs like a signup form and we just need thosedetails there for regulatory purposes. Itâs nothing serious. Itjust says who are the shareholders, who are the directors, signhere, thatâs really all. Then we take that to our compliance teamand itâs set up usually either same day or within 24 hours, andthen the clientâs pretty much good to go.
We provide all the help in terms of setting up the add-on but itâsreally, really simple. They just simply add their bank account, adda few supplier background details, and theyâre ready togo.
Heather:Excellent.
Do you think the payment fees on your solution are less than ifyouâre paying say subscriptions via PayPal?
Barry:Iâm not too sure what the subscriptions are to be honest with youbut I do know that PayPal, the exchange rate, is basically 3-oddpercent. So itâs definitely not ⊠if youâre doing any payments ofany consequence, itâs definitely cheaper to use oursolution.
Heather:Excellent.
Where about is your business based Barry?
Barry:We have an office in Sydney and we have offices in Chicago, London,Dublin, Madrid and Paris. Theyâre our main offices.
Heather: Excellent. Soyouâve got quite a lot of offices then.
Barry:Yes, but mainly what we do is we wanted to provide a 24 hoursolution for clients, so if youâre a client in Australia, forwhatever reason you want to check a payment at 9 oâclock at night,you can pick up the phone and youâll get through to our team inEurope. Itâs the same as the CRM system. Everyone would be able totell you whatâs happening with your file. Equally if a client wantsto call at 2 oâclock in the morning, theyâre talking to our USoffice, and same again. We provide a 24 hour solution for clientsworldwide. We have a big base of clients in the US and Europe andincreasingly in Australia and New-Zealand.
Heather: Wow, so itâs24/7 access to the solution and itâs operating globally, so all ofXeroâs global customers can access your solution if they needto.
Barry:Absolutely.
Heather: Excellent. I wasgoing to ask sort of what business industries does the solutionsuit but Iâm guessing itâs anyone who is transferring moneyinternationally.
Barry:Yes, youâd be amazed ⊠well not amazed, you mentioned the Spidermanfigures, I suppose as shocked as I was with the question and had noanswers, if I told you exactly what sort of companies or the crazystuff theyâre doing, Iâd probably bowl you over too but itâs reallyanything. I suppose, in my experience, itâs typically somebody whobasically imports a product and then basically resells it. But youalso have services, business that might ⊠itâs really kind ofanything. Like if you look at ⊠I suppose 70-80% of the paymentsout of Australia, for example, are in US dollar. Iâd hazard a guessthat about 60-70% of those are to China and they are to buyproducts.
Heather: Yes,absolutely.
Barry:Right now itâs quite an interesting time because I saw in theSydney Morning Herald today that the rate, the US dollar/Aussierate is expected to go down to 0.68, so itâs quite an importanttime to be making sure youâre getting I suppose the bestrate.
Heather: Absolutely, froman Australian perspective, yes.
Barry:Iâm sorry. Equally I suppose there are pressures on all currenciesagainst the US dollar at the moment but I suppose time has changed,while the US dollar is strong now it may not necessarily be butitâs forecast to have a lot of strength over the nextyear.
Heather: It just seems tobe an ever growing roller coaster. Iâd like to probably clarify forour listeners. Xero has various subscription levels, one which hasmulti-currency in it, however I believe your product will work evenif you donât have the multi-currency level in Xero. Is thatcorrect?
Barry:Yes, in order to get the integration and the benefits, what theadd-on does is it pulls in the invoices that are due and it pushesthem back as paid. So it needs to know what currency they are toshow you a rate but if you donât have multi-currency enabled, youcan use the standalone website which is just TransferMate.com/xero as opposed toTransferMateonline.com.
The other part weâve seen is despite the fact that themulti-currency is so easy to setup in the packet, some clients justsay, âI donât need to pay X for it. I donât do enough payments.âBut if you look at the savings you can make on a couple ofpayments, it warrants ⊠and weâve seen it, clients upgrading to thepremier package, they can see the benefits of time saving. Even iftheyâre making a couple of payments a month, that in itselfwarrants even looking at maybe upgrading.
Heather: So upgradingtheir Xero package.
Barry:Exactly, yes.
Heather: I do find that alot of people have this mentality that if something is online theyshouldnât pay for it. You explain to them, âBut look at the timeitâs saving you,â and itâs a real mindset that theyâve got, âWell,I can just spend that hour doing that.â
Barry:Totally.
Heather: Itâs like,âWouldnât that hour be better off enjoying yourself on the beach orworking with your customers, like not doing an administrativeprocess that doesnât need to be done. It can be completelyautomated.â
Barry:You could be playing with Spiderman and Batman on thebeach.
Heather: You could be.You could be making little videos of Spiderman, turning your videosviral.
Barry:Youâre totally right. Some people are inclined not to put a valueon their time. I suppose really good business, like the Xeroadvisers, this whole kind of revolution ⊠the whole era of theadviser level doesnât really appear at all in the UK/Ireland, butitâs very, very ⊠you can feel itâs very strong in theAustralia/New Zealand, and itâs great for businesses to have thatkind of crutch to lean on. I donât think it exists in theUK/Ireland.
Heather: Yes, itâsinteresting watching the wave spread across the world on socialmedia and how people are kind of reacting to it and how the earlyadopters are reacting to it and how other people are like going,âNo, I donât want to do it that way. I donât want to let anyoneloose on our accounts,â and stuff like that.
What have been some of the key milestones or successes in growingyour business Barry?
Barry:Well, the way we look at it is every week we have clients comingonboard and asking, âYou know what, this feature here, this is theway we want to do it.â Thereâs always a tweak that a client isgoing to put to the add-on because surprisingly enough itâs notsimply just putting your payments and pushing them through. Thatâsa really good challenge for us because for me itâs important tomake sure the Xero add-on is the best available. Our developers aregreat. They turn around change really quickly. So we want to makesure that itâs as good as it could ever be.
I just love, to be honest, talking to a client and seeing howquickly the changes go into play because quite often with thedesktop software, people are used to not having to put up withwhatever they get.
Heather: The annualupdate.
Barry:Yes. Itâs just great when you have a client and you know youâresaving them time. Again, with the Xero software in particular, whatI find really interesting is how open clients are to kind oflooking at the add-ons in particular because they expect that kindof eco system which is great.
Heather: Yes, that istrue because Iâve been on desktop software for a long time and Iwas just like complacent. I know the first time I heard Rod Druryspeak about Xero, etc., I was astonished at how upset he was aboutdesktop software and how frustrated he found it. I was like, âWow,itâs not that bad,â but I kind of get it now. It took me a while toget onboard with that. I now find it frustrating. Itâs like, âWhywonât it work,â but itâs the evolution of it.
Barry:Just on the back of that another milestone for us to hit I supposeitâs a really big number and one weâre proud of, $5 billiontransfers âŠ
Heather: Yes, thatâsseriously big.
Barry:On the scale of things, itâs very, very small. In Australia alonethereâs $200 billion in foreign currency payments taking place forsmall to medium business, and again, I think itâs $70 billion inNew Zealand. US â you can imagine the size of the market. I supposeitâs great to know that when we see our numbers escalating likethat, it just tells us that weâre doing something right. Itâs greatto see.
Heather: And someone ismaking a lot of money on the foreign exchange if thatâs the numberof foreign exchange transactions that are happening. The banks areâ is what Iâm saying, and they could be saving a lot of money usingyou.
Barry:Well, I think so. I suppose the great thing about the add-on isthey donât need to take our word for it. They can just quickly signup and they can check themselves. Sometimes our clients will justpick up the phone and call us and get a rate quote. Thatâs Isuppose the great thing about it: itâs an alternative but not anobligation.
So they can get a rate quote without pushing through themoney?
Barry:Yes, absolutely.
Heather: They can get arate quote before the transaction happens.
Barry:You can pick up the phone 24 hours a day and say to the guys, âIheard about you. Give me a rate.â
Heather:Excellent.
How many people do you have on your development teamBarry?
Barry:About 12 including web developers and database developers. Isuppose the system that we have in place is ⊠weâre kind of uniquein that we spent a long time getting regulated and weâre probablyone of the more regulated businesses of our kind in the world. Inthe US along, you have to be regulated in each state. To give youan example, in California, it took 18 months to get regulation, andyou have to have a million dollars in deposit.
Itâs not something that you can take lightly. Then you have to domonthly filings with each state. I donât know where I was goingwith that. But in terms of our developers, our system has to be uponline 99.999% of the time. Weâve got a huge investment indatacentres. All this terminology, I wasnât really aware of it for⊠synchronous replication, so if the system goes down it comes backup again in 2 seconds on another site. Weâre quite heavy in thatrespect but weâve got the best, I think anyway âŠ
Heather: My transcriberis going to love that word â synchronous replication.
Where about are your datacentres based?
Barry:Theyâre based in the States and also in Europe.
Heather: Excellent. Soyouâve just come home from London Xerocon.
Can you share with us what your experience was like at LondonXerocon? Thatâs 2015 for people listening in.
Barry:Iâve been to Xerocon in Sydney and it definitely had the sametheme. The whole place was buzzing with energy.
Heather: Yes.
Barry:I think it was packed to capacity. Everyone seemed to kind of bebuzzing off each other, the kind of family feel, it was just ⊠yes,you literally could have closed your eyes and you would havethought you were in the Sydney one.
Heather: Oh really? Thereyou go. There didnât seem to be very many kilts hanging around whenI saw in the photos there. It just seemed the Satago guys had comedown with the kilts.
Barry:Yes, I think they were dominating the dress wearing.
Did you have any revelations at the LondonXerocon?
Barry:Not necessarily revelations. I just ⊠having walked around talkingto a number of accountants at the show, they all seemed ⊠thecommon theme was ultimately theyâve got to catch up or theyâll beleft behind. Thatâs a very powerful message to somebody whoâs beendoing the same thing or doing it the same way for years, to betold, âThis is what weâve seen,â because weâve seen the evidencebefore. Itâs a great way to have a room sit up alert.
Heather: Yes, we had alocal Xero roadshow in Brisbane yesterday and I think it was like50% of the attendees, if not more, it was the first time theyâdbeen to a Xero roadshow. They were just walking around stunned atwhat was going on and what was being told at the actual sessions.Itâs like, âMy goodness, we need to get on this.â
Barry:I kind of look at it like ⊠and again, Iâm not probablyrepresenting it right but a lot of the advisers seem to be almostlike MacGyverâs with all the add-ons and the functionality of thesoftware. It was kind of like a big bullet belt or suitcase full oftricks that they can show clients that âŠ
Heather: What do you meanby MacGyver sorry?
Barry:MacGyver, again, an 80s show. He used to have tricks and ways ofgetting out of situations âŠ
Heather: Is he likeInspector Gadget?
Barry:Yes, kind of like that. So he could basically pick locks with atoothpick or a matchstick. I suppose ultimately the idea being thatthere wasnât anything he couldnât do with his box of tricks. I knowthis is going to be a 20 year old saying, âWho the hell isMacGyver?â
Heather: I know I waskind of going ⊠I kind of vaguely knew who he was but wasnâtexactly sure how the reference was working in. But yes, InspectorGadget, I get what youâre saying and definitely the bookkeepersthat Iâve seen who have kind of moved to the cloud integratorspace, theyâre saying to businesses, âOkay, youâre a business, youneed to get in this product, this receipt scanning product, thisdebt tracking product, this cash flow solution. Integrate it withXero, and thatâs the roll out, and youâre getting that. If anythingelse is happening then we can talk about it.â
Barry:Yes.
Heather: Weâre seeing theeducation of the add-on solutions, which you probably donâtperceive yourself as an add-on solution, but for the people withinthe Xero community itâs like, âOkay, then this solutionTransferMate, we need to add it to all of our companies who have itsitting there as an option for all of our companies who are doinginternational exchanges.â
Barry:Yes, and Iâd be happy if you did. I suppose an interesting kind offeedback, we saw recently because someone asked us and we hadnâtreally kind of looked at it before, was whatâs the retention rate?Whatâs the repeat use rate? Itâs over 90% which is phenomenal Ithink, which ultimately tells us that itâs working and clients likeit. The main reason why the 10% arenât mainly is because they donâthave payments [for tolls? 00:27:24].
Heather: Yes, peopleevolve their business. Look, whenever I put in a new solution, Ialways evaluate the time cost and will drop it if itâs not beatingthat. But even if Iâm using a solution, sometimes for 40 minutes amonth, I know itâs saving me so much money in the actual use of it.I just keep adopting and plugging in more. Then people come and sayto me, âHow can you manage to do so much?â Iâm like, âWell, all ofmy life is automated, so thatâs how I manage to do it.â
Barry:Actually that was one of the take points from the show. I supposeone of the gold partners sat up on stage and he was asked, âWhathas it meant to him,â and he said, âWell, typically I have a bigclient, for example, that would normally take two staff, two daysto do a return for him. Now it takes one staff, one day.â So hesaid itâs quite a simple way to break it down in terms of the costsaving.
Heather:Absolutely.
Barry:But even if you look at the add-ons, traditionally I would haveseen old desktop software, and you have clients clambering aroundtrying to find inventory, third party inventory, to slot in andtheir pieces donât really fit in well. But it just seems to be theeco system here is quite unique in that the pieces have towork.
Heather: Yes, absolutely.I think the technology behind the open published API which Iâm notpretending to understand exactly, everyone seems to say is likethis phenomenal, âClick and it works, and the flow of data iswhatâs saving us all that time, that automation.â
Barry:Well, the great thing about it is the team in Xero, the developerteam, can see that it works. You canât build an add-on and say itworks because theyâll say, âNo, it doesnât. We can seethat.â
Heather: And everyoneraves about the Xero developer team, so thatâs good toknow.
To ask you a bit more about your business, what activities havebeen successful for TransferMate in generating leads for yourbusiness?
Barry:I suppose typically itâs going through and contacting accountants,letting them know how the service works. We do a little bit ofsocial but ultimately itâs picking up the phone and callingcompanies. I suppose itâs ultimately getting to talk to clients,getting directly to a client is something we can measure a loteasier than necessarily going through a channel because I supposeweâre talking directly to the client, so we can know if we make Xamount of calls today ⊠it might sound like a funny way of doingthings but thatâs what we find has traditionally worked.
But weâre more open to we now have a partner channel where we havethe centres in place for the accounting partners to earn additionalrevenue stream by telling their clients about the service, and indoing so having the clients save money. Thatâs a more logical wayto go for us and itâs something we really, reallyencourage.
Heather: Do you want toexpand on your partner programme?
Barry:Yes, so in effect what we do is, if youâre a partner and youbelieve youâve got clients or you may know of companies that makeinternational payments, we provide a unique tracked web form and wesimply give it to you to put on your website.
If someone stumbles across it, they may not even be your ownclient, they may be a company down the road or somebody who hascome across your website because you perform well in the searchengines, as long as they see that link there in the website andthey register, automatically we sign up the client and every timethe client books payments, there is a referral fee split for thepartner, and the partner can track that online in our onlinesystem. So the more clients transfer, they simply log in every[one? 00:31:26] and they can see exactly whatâs been earned and howactive their clients are, referrals are.
So youâre effectively encouraging partners to assist in the sellingprocess on your behalf?
Barry:I suppose what Iâd liken it to is basically opening the door andletting our flyer in I guess to some degree. If you can imagineweâre in a neighbourhood, and thereâs a roundabout in the middle,and there are eight houses around that roundabout, and all thedoors are closed but thereâs a party happening inside every house,weâre kind of just saying, âOpen your door and let usin.â
Heather: Sensational.Iâve not heard it described that way but yes, itâs a warmintroduction.
Barry:And to be honest with you, thatâs why I guess the relationship thatadvisers have with clients is naturally a very strong one. Itâs oneof advice. Itâs one of reliance to some degree, and because of thatthere is trust there that helps us move past, âWho are you,â toâOkay, I understand youâre a good company. What does your servicedo?â
Heather: Excellent. Yes,absolutely.
On the technical side of that, I think you used a different term âreferral link, but in terms of the referral link or the affiliatelink, is it built in-house or did you use a commissioning programmeto provide that?
Barry:We built it all in-house.
Heather: With your smartteam of developers, sensational.
Barry:I guess to be honest with you, weâve been involved in onlinebusinesses for I suppose the best part of 10 years. The one thingweâve seen from day one, our referral programmes were like manywhich is basically, âTell us a client and weâll record all thedetails and sales and weâll share Excel sheets.â It just doesnâtwork. Partners shouldnât need to have to second guess or figure outhow it works. It should be very, very transparent.
The way it works is quite simply if a client books a payment, signsup and books a payment today, within five minutes youâll be able tologin and see the details right through our system. Thatâs exactlythe way it should be.
Heather: Excellent. Itsounds like another solution you could sell to the cloud communityâŠ
Barry:Yes, weâll have to get on it.
Heather: You could splitof and sell.
What have you learnt from running yourbusiness?
Barry:I suppose Iâve learned that power of the brand. So early days wewould go out and we would tell clients about what we do and itshouldnât really be about, in my opinion ⊠I guess itâs nice tobuild a big brand out there but itâs also, in terms of scaling up,itâs nice to be able to lean on an existing brand whether that bean adviser brand or a Xero brand. I suppose clients, when theyunderstand the association between Xero, as an example, it opensthe door a lot easier.
Heather: Yes.
Barry:I understood very quickly that the cold call is a cold call. Thewarmer it can be obviously the quicker you can get to where youneed to get to. Other than that, I suppose itâs the same principlefor any business: youâve got to say what you do. If you win aclient it doesnât mean theyâre going to stay, particularly in theXero community. If you donât do what youâll say youâll do, it wonâtgo unnoticed. You have to basically stand by your service and Isuppose take care of business.
Heather: I guess thatâsactually when weâve moved from desktop to cloud computing, weâvealso evolved into social media. So whenever something goes wrong,itâs just all across there and these grumpy people have thesegrumpy complaints about stuff, so youâve got to be on the ball allthe time with it, just monitoring it whatâs going on withstuff.
Barry:Itâs interesting though, while the Australian banks arenâtnecessarily the best, theyâre not the worst.
Heather: No.
Barry:We have clients ⊠the French banks are charging up to 12% onforeign exchange to clients.
Heather: Wow.
Barry:I asked one of our clients before to ask their client threequestions for a partner and the three questions were: who are youusing? Question two was basically how do you find our service now?Three: would you recommend it? When it came to the third questionafter saying he used a particular bank in France, the answer fromthe client was, âNot only would I recommend you but when I told mybank the rate you gave me, they told me to use you too.â
Heather: Thatâs a greatcase study.
Barry:Yes.
Heather: So Iâve got onefinal question for you Barry. No, Iâve got two actually.
First question is will we be seeing you at AucklandXerocon?
Barry:I hope so. We have a team in Australia, so I hope to have one ofour team in Auckland, absolutely.
Heather: Sensational. Iâmplanning to go so Iâll see someone there.
My final question for you Barry is what advice would you have foryour 18 year old self?
Barry:Ah, you hit me with another one. Donât throw out the Supermanfiguruines.
Heather: Because you canmake a lot of money.
Barry:Put away the Wonder Woman outfit. No, what would my advice for my18 year old self ⊠my advice would be I suppose from day one Iâvealways wanted to be involved and working for myself in one of myown businesses.
When I was 18 in school, I didnât think ⊠I was fully of ideas butI just didnât think I was ready for it yet. I ducked into amasterâs for a year and it gave me a lot of time to sit back andwork on concepts and I suppose just ready myself, but like anythingelse, get out there and if youâre ⊠I suppose it depends what youwant to do. Iâm from a family who like to sell things andultimately thatâs what we do. Weâve got that in us whether we do itwell or not. I suppose itâs in our blood. Itâs what we love to do.So do what you love to do and ideally keep on doing it.
Heather: Do you thinkthat the masterâs helped you or do you think it was just the timethat helped you while you were doing the masterâs?
Barry:I think ⊠looking back on it now to be honest with you, I think âŠit seems to be more logical for someone to take a masters on afteryouâve ⊠so they may have gone through college, they may not havebut they find themselves in the workforce and they may not be doingthings particular right or there are processes they could be doingbetter. Then when they go to do a masters, they can understand,âWell, thatâs what I should be doing.â
It kind of puts a framework on top of it. Iâm kind of glad. Itsounds a bit square to do it so Iâm kind of just glad I got it. Iknew I had to do it straight away after I finished college becauseI knew as soon as I got out and started selling, I wasnât going towant to go back to college.
Heather: Yes,absolutely.
Barry:Our best sales guys did not spend any time in college. I suppose ifitâs ⊠I know quite often in terms of candidates looking for work,theyâre preoccupied with finding candidates that have collegedegrees but I suppose there is nothing better than finding somebodywith a passion and being likeable. So I donât really necessarilythink that everybody should have one.
Heather: No, theeducation question I think is evolving very quickly as we speed up.I think concise learning is really important but this extended longlearning is interesting, whether itâs still going to be relevant inmany years to come.
Barry:I suppose cloud accounting wasnât taught in college. It wasprobably learnt in the minds of creative thinkers.
Heather: Absolutely. Iâma professional accountant so I used to get up at 4 oâclock in themorning and study through till 11 oâclock in the evening for likefour years while I completed my qualifications while working fulltime. Iâm looking back on it, âHmm, Iâm not sure it was worth it.âBut anyway, itâs done, box ticked.
Barry:I guess the accountant is different. Like itâs lovely to be able tohave an actual skill, a passport that can say, âYou know what, as amatter of fact, this is a tangible skill to have.â Itâs a greatthing to have. I suppose in the marketing/sales side of it, youhave to rely on a little bit of luck, a little bit of ideas andtiming, and [crosstalk 00:40:29] I guess.
Heather: Absolutely.Well, thank you so much for speaking to me today Barry. I reallyappreciate it and Iâm sure the listeners will get a lot ofinformation from this session as well as learning more aboutTransferMateGlobal Payments and also about how you grew yourcloud business globally. Thank you very much.
Barry:Thank you very much for your time.
Heather:Cheers.
Barry:Take care. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Heather: Thanks a lotBarry. Bye.
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