5 Better Ways to Spend $100

Assuming you are a relatively small business (doing around $5000 in credit card sales per month) , you could be overpaying in Merchant Processing Fees by $100 (or more) every month. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, that doesn’t seem like a lot of money. Here are 5 better ways to spend the money you can save by switching to Swipe-Rite:

1. Buy a Goat. Okay, I concede that sounds a bit ridiculous. Before images of an out-of-control animal eating your herb garden enter your head, let me explain. PositivelyAfrica.Com offers “goats” for $100. The website states: “These goats are for AIDS Orphans in Zimbabwe….The goats provide a source of pride, milk (protein) and income in a country where unemployment soars over 90%.”

2. Save it. This may be an obvious answer, but I really like Suze Orman’s “SaveYourself” plan with Ameritrade (www.saveyourself.com). Through Suze’s promotion, if you deposit $100 a month into a “Save Yourself” account for 12 consecutive months, TD Ameritrade will give you $100 in month 13. According to Suze (in a message to me via Twitter), "the rate for the SYA account- is about 15.5% just for that 1st yr if you put in $100 a month for 12 cons months u have $1300." What a great return, clearly well above the rates offered at most banks.

3. Match your savings with an additional $99, and buy a laptop. Through “One Laptop per Child” (http://laptop.org), $199 buys a laptop for a child in a developing country. Their website states “Most of the more than one billion children in the emerging world don’t have access to adequate education. The XO laptop is our answer to this crisis…Almost everywhere the XO goes, school attendance increases dramatically as children begin to open their minds and explore their own potential. One by one, a new generation is emerging with the power to change the world.”

4. Splurge on something. Have you had your eye on a really great ink pen that lets you write upside down and in zero gravity? Indulge your inner astronaut, just this once. It’s good for you! Just read this great article from the St. Petersburg Times, dated November 21, 1956 (http://tinyurl.com/nyvtj2). Writes the author “We all need to be foolish once in awhile- to buy a bit of perfume instead of a new broom.”

5. Buy the person who manages your company Blog a really great massage. Or a maid for a day. Or a year’s supply of ear plugs so she can work at home with better efficiency. Ok, so perhaps this isn’t the most “socially responsible” use of $100. And yes, I admit it is almost entirely selfish for me to throw this in at the very end. But hey, it’s still better than wasting money on inflated merchant processing fees.

How would you spend $100? Tell me here: @amyswiperite

Why We Tweet

First, let me stipulate that by “We” I don’t mean “We the People” or “We Americans.” I am talking specifically about why “We” at Swipe-Rite take part in “Tweeting.”

As a company, we are a Merchant Processing Service Provider, an ATM and Point of Sale Retailer, and a Customer Loyalty Solution Specialist. This industry, with its association with Credit Card Companies (because we provide a way to interface and accept credit card payments) and ATM Fees (yes, those nasty surcharges), can carry with it a sort of negative stigma. This is especially true in recent months as we hear the words “Bank Bail-Out” and “Frozen Credit Lines” repeated on our nightly newscasts. As a result, it has become evermore important for us to earn the trust of our clients.

So, when I approached our Fearless Leaders: Todd, (@ToddSwipeRite), Shannon (@ShanSwipeRite) and Mark (@MarkSwipeRite), about delving into the world of social media, I took my inspiration from Social Media Extraordinaire Chris Brogan (www.Chrisbrogan.com) who wrote “Talk to people because you like the people. Choose people that have something to do with your product, and then, ask them about THEM.” The importance of establishing relationships is, to us, more important than just getting down to business. We realize that trust requires transparency, and when our clients have spent years reading confusing Merchant Processing Statements, often with hidden charges and inflated rates, we had to set ourselves apart by being crystal clear in everything we do as a business. So I thought “What if we gave the world at large access to our lives, our thoughts, our daily events, our favorite music, our families and children and pets…24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on Twitter?” And so our little experiment in Social Media evolved.

Sure, you can read @JerrySwipeRite’s technical service feeds (which are also comedic genius), but you can also check in with Adam (@AdamSwipeRite) and Quintin (@QBSwipeRite), both former Army Rangers turned Sales Agents who share an even greater thing in common: the adventures of first-time fatherhood. And, of course, there’s me. (@AmySwipeRite) I am the most active “Tweeter,” which isn’t always an easy task. Why? Because I manage our eCommerce, Twitter, Facebook and Blog all from home while raising 4 children under the age of 10 (it is SO noisy here).

We Tweet so we can meet you, so we can get to know you, so we can continue to know you. If we have a product or service you need at some point, great; If not…that’s okay too. The important thing to us is that our company stands out as being one of integrity in an industry where trust has been so unfairly violated.