Who Can Kiss Your A$$

Clearly the topic of my newsletter from earlier this week was a very hot topic.  If you missed it, you can click here, “Paypal Can Kiss My A$$”.

I received well over 100 email responses to this topic and not one of them was in defense of PayPal’s business practices.

Roger said, “Our company processed tens of thousands of transactions with PayPal over several years with only 3 charge-backs and 2 of them were reversed.  After all of these years they decided to close our account and froze access to our funds from dozens of clients without any written notice.  PayPal is illegally holding people’s money.”

Jeannette said, “I hate PayPal in every way.  I am looking forward to Visa coming out with their competing service this summer.”

Lisa said, “I used to sell items on EBay as my business. Small ticket items under $100.  Two months ago PayPal determined that my wares were too risky and without notice or warning they shut down my account and froze my funds for 180 days.  This has effectively closed my EBay business until I find another payment method that EBay will accept.”

I could go on and on.  There were dozens of stories like these.

I tell you this for three reasons:

1. I am pissed. I wanted to vent my frustrations and get my revenge.  I am sure my thousands of readers can put a microscopic dent in PayPal’s more than 200 million customer base…
2. I want my subscribers to be alerted to the pitfalls of relying on PayPal.  Find another resource for payment processing if your business demands it.  I did.  I actually set up 3 merchant accounts over the past week.  Overkill?  Maybe, but I don’t want to deal with this issue again.  I hope you are at least aware of the potential problems from using PayPal and give yourself options.
3. Most importantly, I want you to be aware that once a great company loses its way; the doors of opportunity are opened wide.  PayPal’s insistence on providing terrible service and alienating 100’s of thousands of customers per year has given opportunity for competitors to jump in this game.  When PayPal first started, they were cutting edge.  No one offered anything like it.  It was a great solution for millions of people.  But now with their complete lack of interest in taking care of their customer, they have opened the door of opportunity for American Express, Visa, Alert Pay, Google Checkout, Square, Intuit, and hundreds of others looking to take on this market.

For you, this may have little direct meaning.  Most of us aren’t interested in or capable of taking on the giant – PayPal and creating a competing business model.

But the idea is the same and can be observed all around you every day.  Have you ever used a product or service and thought, “This is really irritating, if they could just do X it would do well.”

Where turmoil persists, opportunity exists.

Some entrepreneurs are excellent inventors and creators.  They have the ability to create things from their own sheer brilliance.  We know of these visionaries because they make the headlines; Steven Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bernie Marcus and many others.

But many entrepreneurs take good ideas and make them great.  Ray Kroc didn’t invent the hamburger, the restaurant, fast food, or even McDonalds.  But he did take the concept and turn it into something amazing.

Oprah Winfrey was certainly not the first media personality and talk show host.  But she took the concept and grew it into something no one had ever seen before and became a billionaire in the process.

You could even say the visionaries like Jeff Bezos recreated the way books were sold or Steven Jobs reinvented the personal electronics sector.

Everyday you will encounter businesses that provide some product or service that fills a need, but could use improvement in its current state.

As an entrepreneur your eyes should be constantly open looking for inefficiencies in the marketplace or needs that are not even met.

Many young entrepreneurs are so money focused; they forget the most important thing;

Deliver value to your customer and they will deliver money to you.

Unfortunately most get it backwards and focus on the money, which is egocentric and they forget that in order to reach real professional (and personal for that matter) success, you must first deliver value.

I make an effort to deliver value to you every week through my newsletters.  Maybe I enlighten, sometimes entertain, and occasionally anger, but my goal is to provide real value to you every week.

For my clients, I provide value to them by helping them achieve their goals of protecting their assets and keeping what is rightfully theirs.  What value do you provide to your clients?