Welcome to Issue #013 of The Outerchange, the weekly briefing for payment processing agents who want more leverage behind their efforts prospecting and closing processing deals.

The goal every Friday is simple: Give you angles, outside the box ideas, tools, and ammo that help you close more deals without adding more hours.

In today’s edition:

Let’s rock n roll 🚀

Back when I door knocked full time, I had one opener that worked better than anything else I ever tried. It's so simple it sounds dumb until you hear how it actually plays out.

It uses DOUBT to move the pitch to a statement analysis in the first couple minutes.

Here's the setup.

I'd walk into a business holding a merchant statement. Real one. Pulled from one of my own accounts, with the MID, business name, and any identifying info blurred out with a Sharpie. The only thing visible was the fee sections, specifically a line item showing a recent rate or fee increase.

Once I had the owner in front of me, I’d hold the statement up so they could see it (but not read it), and say:

"Hey, I was just down the street working with a couple of your neighbors, and they showed me this. They had a fee increase hit their statement this month and a few others in the area are seeing the same thing. I wanted to ask if you'd seen this on your bill too?"

That's it. That's the whole opener.

4 or 5 times a day, the owner or manager would say something like "wait, what increase?" and walk to the back to grab their own statement. Pure curiosity. They didn't want to miss something their competitors caught.

The tone of this opener should be curious and confused, not selling. Not pitching. You need to show genuine curiosity.

Now I'm holding their actual statement in my hand. The conversation has completely flipped.

If the increase was on their bill, I'd point it out, explain what it was (PCI non-compliance, non qual fees, network access fee, whatever it was that week), and we were 90% of the way to a savings analysis right there.

If it wasn't on their bill, I didn't pack up and leave. I'd say something like:

"Okay, you dodged that one. But while we're looking, I see you have this one that your neighbors didn’t have. How long have you been getting charged that?”

Then I'd push a different pain button. The non-qualified surcharge. The monthly minimum. The PCI fee they're paying without ever doing a scan. The tiered pricing eating their margin on every rewards card.

There's always something. Always lol.

Why this works (and why it still does in 2026):

If you door knock, or you're thinking about getting back to it, this is the script. Print a sample statement. Blur the personal info. Walk in. Watch what happens when you do it for a week.

Here's a play nobody runs in our industry (but should). I was getting service based business leads for $10-20 a pop (sometimes lower during spring/summer) when running these campaigns.

Trades and service businesses (plumbers, HVAC techs, electricians, landscapers, roofers, mobile mechanics, mobile detailers, contractors) are absolutely living on TikTok right now. They consume it. They post on it. They get their leads from it because their industries are satisfying to watch on video content (lots of views and engagement compared to fb)

Zero payment agents (other than me or my clients) are advertising to them on it.

Here's the play:

Have someone make you a video ad (20-45 seconds) or make one yourself. Could be graphic animated, UGC content or founder led selfie style talking head video. Experiment here and find a winner.

Targeting setup:

The hook (and this is the important part):

Do not run an ad selling lower processing rates. If you don’t have a great lead magnet for the audience, then sell your processing offer, but a lead magnet will get you cheaper/more leads.

Run a lead magnet ad. Give them something for free so they optin with their contact information.

The click goes to a landing page. The landing page captures business name, name, email, phone, and volume. Then your CRM and nurture sequence does the work for the next 30 days.

You're not closing on the click. You're filling the top of a funnel with the exact people you want to talk to, for a few dollars per lead, while they're already in scroll mode.

Pro tip: Always advertise the lead magnet before the sale. The lead magnet costs them nothing and gets them on your list. The sale comes after you've already given them something useful.

Spend $20 per day to test different ad creatives and lead magnets. When you find the winner and you start getting closes from the leads generated, scale the ad spend to fill your top of funnel with more leads (full pipelines are happy pipelines).

Set up these campaigns on TikTok Business Manager once you have a TikTok account setup for your brand.

🎯 Want to chat about running TikTok ads (or FB/Insta Ads)? Book a Free Strategy Call Here

Most agents use AI to brainstorm. You should also be using it to kill bad ideas before they waste money or time on them.

There's a thing called a Premortem. It's a mental model from decision science where, instead of asking "how do we make this work," you ask "imagine this completely failed. Tell me why it failed"

You then list every reason it could fail before you start. Then you fix those things first.

AI is incredible at this. Here's the prompt I run every time I'm about to commit budget, time, or attention to something new. You do this during a conversation you’re having with the AI (because it needs context on the idea you’ve already been discussing with it):

Drop that into Claude, ChatGPT, or whichever AI you’re using before you start going deep on an idea. It will save you from at least one expensive mistake.

Pro Tip: Turn this into a skill within your AI platform for continual use later on.

Before you go :