Nashville restaurateur Andy Marshall, owner of the iconic local chain Puckett’s Grocery and Restaurant with locations in and around Music City, is proving that great small business minds are leading by example during the hard, uncertain times brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Marshall’s team has set up the “AMH Cares Drive-Thru” in the parking lot of the company’s Americana Taphouse location in Franklin, adapting to the new reality of takeout and delivery-only dining, but with a community-driven twist. In the same week that a record number of Americans filed for unemployment, many of whom work in the hospitality industry, Marshall’s team is offering hot meals to go, as well as grocery items (milk, eggs, fresh produce, and more) in what Marshall describes as a drive-through pantry.  Pricing on meals and groceries, taken from surplus food supplies at his area Puckett’s, Deacon’s, and Americana locations, are suggested only.

In a Facebook post, Marshall urged those who needed a hot meal to come by and pay what they can or nothing at all. He offered a special invitation to those temporarily laid off in the hospitality industry. Marshall also pledged that as people pay what they can, he will reinvest those revenues in the new curbside, pay-what-you-can venture. Curbside service and drive-through pantry at Americana Taphouse, located at 94 East Main Street in Franklin, will run each day from 11-7 while supplies last. 

Marshall’s actions certainly provide an incredible example for small business owners who turn their eyes to serving the community in times of great crisis. Since his industry is among the hardest-hit by COVID-19, he is showing a level selflessness that leaves us humbled. We are proud to share our Nashville community with businesspeople like Andy Marshall.

We’re living in a strange and scary time for small businesses. While every business is feeling the effect of COVID-19, some businesses feel it more acutely than others – with small and local operations taking the biggest hit. We’ve been sharing and will continue to share resources on our social media channels, so follow Celero Commerce on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for tips on supporting small businesses safely during this difficult time.

Whether you’re a small business owner who’s had to temporarily close shop or one who’s struggling to stay open, you’ll benefit from keeping in touch with your clients and customers. Amid this national crisis, one of the best ways to do so is through cause marketing. This can be an inexpensive and effective way of maintaining visibility while also helping others in your community.

My career in marketing and sales has taught me the value of networking and building connections in your community and industry. Think about how you can get your company involved in local charitable efforts related to COVID-19, preferably ones that tie into your line of work. For example, if you’re a local restaurant, now would be a great time to start a food donation program. With public schools closed across the nation, children who rely on school for their meals are now more food insecure than ever. If there’s already a program in your community working to get meals to those kids, join in. If not, start one of your own. Many restaurants have extra ingredients that they’d otherwise throw out, which can be used to make free meals instead. The Loyalist Market, a Charlotte, NC-based restaurant, is a great role model for other local restaurants who want to get involved. They’re offering free sandwiches to kids who would normally be eating for free and reduced price at school.

Some small businesses are getting super creative with their cause marketing during the COVID-19 crisis. Several alcohol distilleries, for example, have revamped to produce hand sanitizer that they donate to people in need (i.e. hospitals, food banks). Local boutiques are sewing protective masks to donate to healthcare workers. As these crafty small businesses prove, there’s always something you can do to help out, taking advantage of the resources that you already have at your disposal.

I understand that many small businesses may have too much on their plates and too little in the bank to help out. But, if you can, I encourage you to get involved in cause marketing, even in small ways. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it will also increase visibility and grow your brand at a time when that’s desperately needed for so many small and local companies. #InThisTogether #ShopLocal

At Celero Commerce, our mission, our people, and our whole operations are aligned with helping small businesses grow quickly and sustainably. We are dedicated to the success of small businesses around the country, in good times and bad.

Right now, our small businesses nationwide are under serious threat of closure, and nearly two-thirds of the country’s population works for a small business, whether it’s a local store, restaurant, hair salon, or boutique. It’s obvious—we need to be doing everything we can as a people to not only stay healthy, but also keep our friends and neighbors in small business afloat until we see good times again.

Here are some ways you can help us support small business across America: 

1)  Restaurant Takeout and Delivery:  Join us in the Great American Takeout, an initiative to take advantage of takeout and delivery offerings still available at restaurants forced to shut down their dining rooms.

2)  Reschedule Your Events:  Many types of local establishments, whether it’s a restaurant, club, hotel, or other type of venue, have been force dot shut down due to regulations about gathering size. Don’t just cancel—work with these businesses to reschedule for future dates later in the year or next year.

3)  Buy Gift Cards:  This is perhaps the best way to promote small business, outside of legally-compliant purchases for the present. Gift cards get much needed cash into the hands of small business owners now, in exchange for future products and services. Think about buying multiple cards for yourself for all of your favorite local businesses, as well as cards for friends and family to celebrate their special days.

4)  Give Love on Social Media:  In the digital age, strong word-of-mouth can certainly give life to small business. If you enjoy that takeout or unique product you bought online from a local restaurant or boutique, give them a shout-out on Facebook and Twitter. Encourage your friends and family to do the same!

5)  Look for a Local Option:  Before hitting the buy button on an e-commerce site or site of a big box retailer, think about whether you have a local option for purchasing products online for delivery. Know that many businesses around the country are now delivering for the first time, in an effort to stay alive. Honor their innovation and determination.

6)  They Go Virtual, You Go Virtual:  Think about services you purchase, such as a gym membership or a yoga class, and whether that service provider now has an online offering. Just as other businesses are starting to deliver, many others are going virtual. Wouldn’t it be nice to still take that yoga class from the comfort and safety of your home?

7)  Philanthropy: Finally, as you are able, perhaps giving back to those business owners who serve your community is a way you’d like to contribute, whether it’s through a GoFundMe campaign to put operating cash in their hand to pay workers or through donating your time and expertise to help them in ways they can’t afford right now such as with strategy or marketing efforts.

Thank you for joining us in supporting small business in your area. It’s time for all hands on deck—we’re all in this together!

Restaurants from around the country, including national and regional chains as well as local establishments, are coming together on Tuesday, March 24 to launch the Great American Takeout.

With the outbreak of COVID-19 on US shores over the last few weeks, the restaurant industry has taken a massive hit. In addition to many Americans self-isolating in the first few weeks, about half the country is now under orders or advisement to shelter in place.  And in many states, governors have ordered restaurants, bars, and breweries to close their dining rooms.

But many in the restaurant industry believe that they can survive, and in some cases, thrive if they can stay legally compliant with dining room rules while ramping up their takeout and delivery services even more, whether it’s through their own delivery staff or services like DoorDash, Postmates, Grubhub, and others.

Yesterday, we documented how a Celero customer and Atlanta-area restaurateur managed to steady his own café’s sales through clever neighborhood takeout services.

Celero Commerce is proud to serve thousands of restaurants around the country with a variety of services, including payment processing, point-of-sale terminals, integrated business management applications, and loyalty programs. During these uncertain times, we think it’s important to tell the positive stories of innovation and collaboration in America’s business community.  It’s that remarkable American spirit that will get us through these times, no matter how long our public health crisis lasts.

Join us in the Great American Takeout today, and share your takeout stories with us on our social media channels. We encourage everyone to continue to support their local restaurants via takeout and delivery as you are able to do so. Also know that many of your national and regional chains are owned by local franchisees, so don’t forget to support these neighbors, too!

It’s important that we all continue to support America’s small businesses during the hard times brought upon us by the coronavirus outbreak. From time to time, we’ll share stories that inspire us as we continue to build a company focused on helping small businesses compete and win.

Celero Commerce and its legacy companies like UMS Banking and Tandem Innovative Payment Solutions are proud to serve thousands of restaurants across the country with payment acceptance solutions and integrated services like payroll, scheduling, loyalty programs, and much more.  In just a matter of days, restaurants have faced an apocalypse of sorts, sparked by the immediate spread of COVID-19.

In response to the outbreak and exponential growth of cases on a near-daily basis, many governments at state, county, and municipal levels have made the hard call to close places where the public gathers, with restaurants, bars, and breweries among the hardest-hit small businesses around the country. Many have been asked to close their dining rooms for a couple of weeks, while other orders have given indefinite time frames. Dine-in service is the life-blood for many American restaurants, forcing a survival mode that, as history tells us, spurs innovation.

One of our card processing clients in the Atlanta area recently shared such a success story with us at Tandem.  A café with a long history in the community with multiple locations found itself having to comply with municipal orders to move to takeout and delivery-only sales, effectively ending dine-in service for the foreseeable future.

The owner of the business obviously felt the stress of the situation quickly, as have many restaurant owners around the country. In recent touch with a Celero employee, who also happened to be a neighbor the owner took his suggestion of utilizing their neighborhood email address list to reach lots of prospective customers quickly and inexpensively.  As suggested, the owner asked his neighbors if they’d like lunch delivered and threw in his own incentive as well:  a 10 percent discount for anyone from the neighborhood who wanted lunch from his café that day.

The owner then received nearly two dozen orders in reply to his email overture, personally delivering them from the base of his driveway for safe pickup while maintaining social distancing guidelines. The owner reported that this gesture—and of course the huge response from the neighborhood—helped him achieve his normal daily sales numbers. He’s now so thrilled with the idea and the response that he’s reaching out to friends in many local neighborhoods to replicate the neighborhood takeout strategy.

Jeff Brown—March 20, 2020 We talk a lot about selfless leadership at Celero, and I hope that I live up to that aspiration as much as possible. But what does that mean, day-to-day, beyond simply giving credit where it’s due across the organization?

I believe my job as a leader at Celero, especially with regard to developing a high-performance culture defined by selfless leadership, is to develop people to their full potential. When people achieve their potential, they are more likely to be engaged with the company’s mission and goals and see how the company’s purpose aligns with their own. 

The first step on the road to developing people is ridding them of any sense of entitlement. I’ll start with myself. I’ve had a long, successful career in payments and financial technology, and that perhaps entities me to walk in the door as co-founder of this company. But after that door closes, it entitles me to nothing whatsoever. I have to earn my place and prove my worth all over again.

That mentality is the opposite of entitlement—it’s accountability.  And if I want to help others reach that mentality and run together with me toward goals with confidence and assuredness, I need to take the time to develop them as professionals within our performance framework. Not everyone will make it down this road, because some folks are not coachable or teachable. But if they are, greatness awaits us all. 

In order to develop people, you start with teaching. And by teaching I’m referring directly to the fundamental training our people receive from day one.  I love our training department, because people like Benji Allsep are passionate about taking our people down the first steps of the path and then rejoining them at later times to refresh or add to their knowledge.

Next comes coaching.  Coaching is about reinforcing that training with feedback—both positive and negative—so that people always know where they stand, where they need to improve, and of course what they’re doing correctly.  Coaching is so important here at Celero, because we demand individual and team performance. There’s no place here for the individual performer who has no regard for the team, whether it’s their department or the company itself. So whether you’re the CEO or the manager of a small department, your title may as well be “Coach.”

The final component of development is equipping. People can’t do their jobs to their fullest without the proper resources and tools. While we are now officially too big for me to do everyone’s job, what I can directly control is that my people have the technology and processes in place that put them on a platform to succeed.

When you meet people where they are and teach, coach, and equip them in ways that are powerful and profound, you position them to succeed for themselves and the company. Good people will happily be accountable to high performance standards when you invest in them with knowledge, guidance, and what they need to do their jobs. When we as leaders approach the set of tasks that add up to development with an attitude of humility and accountability, we can truly unleash the power of our entire organization.

Financial well-being is important for business owners and employees and there are plenty of ways it can have an effect on your daily work operations. It's important to provide solutions that allow your workers to be free from stress of any kind while also saving yourself time and money. This is where the benefits of direct deposit can come in handy! Uncover below the perks direct deposit has to offer.

What is Direct Deposit?

Let's cover the basics of what direct deposit is and how it works for businesses. Essentially, direct deposit is the procedure of paying wages where the employer electronically transfers funds from their bank account straight into their worker's checking or savings account. This method of paying employees is becoming increasingly popular amongst many businesses because it's known for its convenience and ease. 

There are a few steps the business requires their employee to complete before direct deposit can take effect. The employee provides their employer with a direct deposit enrollment form along with bank account and routing information for a valid bank account or payroll card, designating what kind of account it is and the name of the account holder. It's possible for employees to arrange for direct deposit to be divided between multiple accounts. This process is simple and easy and hardly requires much effort from the employer or the business owner, but it's necessary in order for the direct deposit to be set up entirely.

Something important to note is that if your employer has direct deposit setup, but you choose not to enroll right away, you're able at any time to provide the proper documentation required to get set-up for direct deposit. 

How is Direct Deposit Beneficial?

There are various advantages when it comes to direct deposit and both the employer and employee can value from it. 

Advantages for Employers

• Less time spent on payroll tasks. What business owner doesn't love to save as much time as possible, especially when it comes to payroll. If you're a business owner and you aren't outsourcing to Full Service Payroll, these tasks can take up a lot of time. Direct deposit allows you to focus on what's necessary and let's you get back to business. Instead of writing, signing, folding checks and stuffing envelopes, you're able to allocate other responsibilities to your employees. Think about the significant amount of time you'll be saving every pay period.
• More money saved. Once again, you don't have to waste efforts by assigning an employee to complete these payroll tasks of writing, printing and mailing checks as this expense is spared with direct deposit. You're also minimizing costs that accompany re-issuing lost or stolen checks and having to investigate when a check has gone missing.
• Your employees are paid on time. It's guaranteed that your employees love to get paid, so give them the satisfaction of always getting paid on time. It's not uncommon for there to be a moment when you're not able to process payroll before the check date, but luckily technology is here to save you. Direct deposit gives your business more control over your funds.
• Your business is more green. In today's society, it's always helpful to take care of the environment when we can, however we can. With paperless payroll you're being more environmentally responsible by reducing your carbon footprint. You can even take it a step further by offering online pay statements that are available 24/7. 
• Reduce the chance of fraud. Direct deposit offers you more electronic security which prevents the opportunity of lost or stolen checks, a common source of identify theft and fraud. With direct deposit, you're also excluding the opportunity for someone to forge a signature. You're minimizing the risk involved with paper checks by having your employee's personal information processed electronically.

Advantages for Employees

• No need to cash their checks. Being one of the most convenient ways to pay your employees, direct deposit greatly benefits employees as they no longer have to deal with the hassle of waiting in line or dealing with crowds to deposit or cash their checks.
• They don't have to be in office to receive their checks. This is particularly beneficial for the employee that works remotely, is out of town or is not in office on pay day. They are still guaranteed payment and it's immediately accessible. 
• Checks won't be lost or stolen. The perk of having a paperless payment option is you no longer have to worry about checks being stolen or lost and it eliminates the chance of the employee's check getting damaged or delayed through mail.
• More control. Direct deposit allows an employee to decide where their paycheck is distributed, providing convenience and freedom. Their funds can go in a savings account, emergency funds account or towards another financial goal.

Conclusion:

Offering convenient solutions for your employees not only benefits them, but it gives the business owners a break as well, especially when it comes to direct deposit. One of the greatest advantages of direct deposit is the much needed relief it provides a business as a whole. 

Celero Commerce’s Matt Moore has earned a place in the Electronic Transaction Association’s annual list of young gamechangers at the intersection of payments and technology, the 2020 ETA 40 Under 40.

The prestigious recognition is based on each individual’s impact and professional character, and the group represents all of the evolving segments of the industry. The 40 Under 40 class for 2020 highlights young executives and professionals whose actions and leadership are driving the payments industry forward.

The Electronic Transactions Association is the leading trade association for the payments industry, representing over 500 companies worldwide involved in electronic transaction processing products and services. The purpose of ETA is to influence, monitor and shape the payments industry by providing leadership through education, advocacy and the exchange of information.

ETAs membership spans the breadth of the payments industry to include independent sales organizations (ISOs), payments networks, financial institutions, transaction processors, mobile payments products and services, payments technologies, and software providers (ISV) and hardware suppliers.

Matt Moore joined Celero Commerce in 2019 through its acquisition of fellow Nashville-area fintech company Elmhurst Financial. Matt  joined Elmhurst in 2005, shortly after graduating from the University of Georgia with dual bachelor’s degrees in international business and French.

During his 15-year tenure at Elmhurst, Moore has pioneered the development of the firm’s all-inclusive BankMax platform, designed to provide large community banks and regional banks with an all-in-one platform for card processing, analytics, and developing strong, sustainable sales cultures that effectively meet commercial depositors’ merchant service needs.  President of Elmhurst’s BankMax division, Matt, is now an emerging leader in Celero’s financial institution channel for developing bank and credit union partnerships nationwide.

“Looking at the list of honorees for this year’s 40 Under 40 leaves me very humble,” Matt said. “These are some great people, many of whom I know and admire professionally, working across a spectrum of payments and fintech companies. Most of all, I think this is a recognition of what we’re doing at Celero to bring greater value to small businesses across the country.”

“Matt’s inclusion in the ETA 40 Under 40 is well-deserved,” said Celero Commerce founder and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Jones.  “He is a real star in this industry, because he’s intelligent, hard-working, and humble.  It’s an honor to work alongside people of Matt’s caliber, and he sets a real example for all of us as we develop a high-performance culture.”

For more on the ETA’s 2020 40 Under 40, visit https://www.electran.org/eta-events-awards/forty-under-40/.

During the 20-minute interview, Kevin shares about his life and payments industry journeys, taking listeners from his time growing up on a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina to more recent memories of working with and leading high-performance teams and cultures centered on developing people to their full potential at Paymentech, First American, SignaPay, Anovia, and now Celero. The two also discuss Celero’s emerging value proposition of creating vertical bundles that help drive small business growth quickly and sustainably.

Listen wherever you enjoy your podcasts or play below on Spotify.

It’s a new year, and you’re trying to figure out the best route to take your marketing as a small or mid-sized business, among all the other strategic plans you’re making and implementing right now. Let me share this with you, as you consider your options:  the longer I’ve been in business, the greater value I’ve placed on having a nice blend of internal and external resources on your marketing team.

It’s really important to be able to balance and marshal your internal and external resources out appropriately to give yourself the best opportunity to be successful in the marketplace. First, you need to understand your internal resources and their capabilities. In many small businesses, this may be the owner or founder, or even someone with a different job title than marketing (I’ve seen everything from salespeople to admins who happen to have a knack for this field). No matter their role or background, if someone has a penchant for your brand and how it should be expressed, they should command your respect.

The best part about your internal resources is that they are stewards of your brand. It’s important to them, so they will consider your brand their mission. But are they perfect? Of course, not—none of us are. Sometimes, we can have a blind spot internally, or especially in this era of constantly expanding digital marketing opportunities, we may have a skill set deficit. Regardless of the reason, I find that seeking external resources to blend in with your team can be a real difference-maker, as everyone can play to their strengths and have each other’s backs.

While your internal folks will understand your product or service better than any external person ever could, your external people often bring a missing perspective to your strategic preparation. Often, that missing voice happens to be that of your customer—as a lay person, external marketers can often more closely relate to your customer than you can. They aren’t as prone to use industry vernacular or take certain pieces of knowledge for granted. In addition to adding to your skill set firepower, your external teammates help keep you grounded.

As you can see, having a good team of internal and external marketers, and balancing their skills and perspectives accordingly, can really give you a more well-rounded view of your product or service, how it’s perceived by the public, and how you can be most successful marketing it.

Regardless of medium, strategies, and tactics, having a well-rounded team of external and internal resources really will provide you the tools as a small business to be more successful.  Don’t think you have to do it all yourself, but also, don’t think that it’s best to pitch everything over the fence to an agency while you handle the rest of the business and its needs.

From our team at Celero, best wishes for great success for you and your team in the coming year.