How to reclaim your time and stop doing it all

By Ken Haag, senior vice president, head of direct sales

Key takeaways

• Working nights and weekends, feeling constantly stressed and worrying about every decision are signs of operational overload that can be simplified.
• Balance comes from simplification and strategic partnership, not more hustle.
• Growth requires shifting from working in the business to working on it, which means offloading some operations to a dependable partner.
• The right payments partner does more than process transactions; it helps reduce administrative burden, simplify complexity and take work off your plate.
• When the difficult parts of payments are handled well – ideally by your payments partner – you get more time, more balance and renewed enjoyment of your work.

Ken Haag, like many small business owners, has been through the mud. He knows what small and medium business owners need – he used to be one. Now the Head of Direct Sales at Elavon, Haag describes his experience owning a business as one more marked by survival than growth. It may sound tough, but it may also sound familiar.

Haag doesn’t mince his words when it comes to recognizing what small business owners go through day-to-day. It’s what helps him connect with the hard work and determination small business owners demonstrate every day. “The idea of handing off parts of our business to someone else is hard to do, even if it’s the right next step for growth,” he says of himself and the many owners he knows and has worked with, “We’re kind of control freaks, myself included.”

How can business owners stop overworking?
For Haag, the answer to better controlling your time seems straightforward but could be surprising for owners who haven’t considered using payments as a lever: find a payments partner you can trust.

Small business ownership is often presented in two phases: 1) start the business and 2) grow the business. But some owners get stuck in between the two phases – maintaining the status quo that keeps the lights on but lacking scale and maybe even losing the enjoyment of why they started the business in the first place. Rethinking your payments infrastructure could be the way out of that trap.

Your payments operations – and your payments provider – connect to more than just your checkout. If you find yourself losing time on manual processing, reconciliation, sales data and inventory, your payments provider could be the culprit.

What should your payments partner do?
A dependable payments partner does more than process transactions. You need one that provides strategies and solutions to take work off your plate, instead of selling you more to keep track of. Look for a partner that:

• Accepts all the payment types your customers expect
• Helps you cut down on manual tasks
• Reconciles payments faster and more easily
• Gives you a clearer view of your cash flow
• Delivers customer analytics and insights
• Provides a real-time view of your inventory

It should save time across the business rather than creating more work behind the scenes. The right partner will help you stop racing around your business and, instead, get it working for you.

Two signs your business needs a partner you can trust
When every decision matters, it can be easy for owners to get stuck. According to Haag, this happens when:

1. Owners work in the business itself performing their craft or primary skillset because it's something they're good at or passionate about. They get fulfillment from it, but the business may not grow.
2. They spend all their time working on the strategy and administration of growing the business, but their fulfillment or enjoyment isn't there.

Haag says these are two signs of a business flat-line – opening their doors every day but not really going anywhere. The day-to-day churn can cause stress and affect how owners evaluate their success and happiness.

Thinking back on the time he struck out on his own, Haag said, “The hardest part wasn’t the long hours, it was knowing that every decision mattered – not just for the business, but for my family.”

It’s at this crossroad that owners should ask for help. To avoid getting overworked in a business that’s plateauing, Haag advises taking a closer look at your payments partner, which could be responsible for your overwork. Building a relationship with the right payments partner can help offload some of the administrative, back-office burdens of growing a business. Rather than becoming a self-taught expert in payment technologies, integrated platforms or revenue-generation strategies, bring in the partner that will perform that work for you. If a payments provider can’t take on more than payment transactions, it might not be the right partner.

What it looks like when a payments partner understands your workload
In hindsight, Haag says his 20 years in merchant services allows him to better serve the small business owners he works with today. He feels like he understands what his clients are going through, can lighten their workload and give them a better experience. He understands first-hand what he calls the small business “fear factor” and wants to help answer questions like:

• Is this growing fast enough?
• How do I do enough to still have a good work/life balance?

In a time when everything seems harder and more expensive, Haag looks for ways to provide strategic payments advice and support to business owners. It’s his way of helping them get more time back in their day to spend how they want.

How payments strategy can provide relief in other functions
When Haag thinks about the value a payments partner should provide, he remembers a specific example:

• THE CHALLENGE: A former client of Haag’s started a deli with his father and managed it successfully enough that they were able to maintain and even grow a loyal base of happy employees. They prided themselves on treating their people well and serving delicious food with high quality ingredients. Last year, though, the deli struggled. Costs increased on their packaged goods and tariffs compounded the negative impact of sourcing many ingredients from overseas. The owner had to make a strategic change but was hesitant about how his customers would react.
  
  This hesitation resonates for business owners exploring changes that range from high level strategy to payment operations. With so many point-of-sale (POS) software and service options, it can be difficult to differentiate between options that may all be presented as a sliver bullet. Too often, payments providers might not disclose the levels of control they exert over business finances or large exit burdens due to high cancellation fees or software-switching obstacles.

• THE SOLUTION: Haag knew his deli client needed more than a quick fix or a new device. He recommended a credit card surcharging solution that would offset the costs associated with accepting credit card transactions at the deli. Haag described the program strategy and broke down what it would mean for his client financially. “When he saw the numbers,” he remembers, “he said, ‘this will allow me to give a raise to my three key employees. I haven't been able to do that since 2020.” 

The right payments strategy provided relief for his client’s staffing and payroll concerns. Haag knew there were a lot of local business owners like his deli client that could be served better by having access to:

• modern, secure technology
• fair, value-based pricing
• payments strategy and advice
• support available when they need it.

He wanted to help his clients get back to working on growing their business, rather than fighting with providers, which is what he saw them facing.

“I think the way we can play a role is to be that trusted partner and say, ‘leave this to me,’ so you can check the box: you got the right partner,” Haag said. “Business owners are definitely up against it this year. Everything is harder, everything is more expensive. But it really feels like we have the right mindset to support in an impactful way.”

Get more time back with the right payments partner
Your payments partner should free up time for the work that matters most. Haag’s advice to find the right one?

1.  Find a strategic partner, not just a device provider.
2. Make sure your payments processor takes the time to get to know you and your business before recommending solutions.
3. Prioritize a partner that supports your whole business in addition to transaction tactics.

Behind every business is an owner working to build a future, protect a legacy or pursue a calling. The solutions your payments partner recommends should reduce your operational overload so you can do those things. That way, at the end of the day, Haag says, “you can get back to the enjoyment of the business and fill your life back up, knowing you've got people doing the right thing for your payments strategy.”

Ken Haag is a former small business owner and the Head of Direct Sales at Elavon. His early career included roles in landscaping, grocery stores and pizza delivery, which fostered a strong work ethic and the ability to handle projects of any scale. Haag received the Entrepreneur of the Year award at a previous company for outstanding performance and innovative solutions, is committed to building meaningful relationships and is passionate about achieving excellence.

* By selecting this link, you will leave Elavon content and enter a third-party website. Elavon is not responsible for the content of, or products and services provided by this third party, nor does it guarantee the system availability or accuracy of information contained in the site. This website is not controlled by Elavon. Please note that the third-party website may have privacy and information security policies that differ from those of Elavon.