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Company: Heartland Payment Systems, Inc., Princeton, NJ
Company Description: Heartland provides payment processing services to 155,000 merchants throughout the U.S. Processing its first card transaction on July 15, 1997 with an investment of $1 million. After the most successful IPO in the the payments industry, Heartland has become the sixth largest payment processor in the U.S, processing $60 billion of annual processing volume and employees over 2,400 employees.
Nomination Category: Best Run Sales Organizations
Nomination Sub Category: Financial Services Sales Organization of the Year
Nomination Title: Heartland Payment Systems, Inc.
How many people are in your organization's entire sales department?
1,590
What were your organization's sales during the eligibility period? If this figure is confidential, simply enter "Confidential" in this space:
1.26 Billion
Describe the nominated sales organization's top 3 accomplishments during the eligibility period (up to 100 words):
1. Increased the number of employee millionaires from efforts at Heartland to
83, while maintaining our position as the largest W-2 sales force in the
payments industry and growing the sales team over 20% to 1,590.
2. Accelerated growth of new sales to 24%, compared to 20% the previous year
and increasing average gross margin per sale by 11%.
3. Successfully launched our 3rd distinct payments product, Remote Deposit
Capture, experiencing success with the merchant community. Based on
difficulties banks have had selling the product to small merchants Heartland
has replaced many in house programs generating thousands of sales
opportunities and tripling margin opportunity per merchant.
List the nominated sales organization's top 3 lessons learned during the eligibility period (up to 100 words):
1. A standardized and scheduled training methodology is required to keep up
with current recruiting pace. The methodology has been agreed to and requires
an initial 120 day process engaging all levels of management with the hire.
2. Sales skill least likely determines success in our model. Behaviors are
much more prominent. This expands our candidate pool outside of traditional
sales professionals.
3. With our entrepreneurial management team a standardized interview process
is a required necessity as part of the hiring process for every hire and as
the first step in a proper candidate selection and recruitment process.
Briefly describe the qualities that distinguish the nominated sales organization from other sales organizations in your industry (up to 100 words):
* Fair deal approach emphasizing full disclosure of pricing and terms, in an
industry filled with deceptive pricing tactics.
* Unique culture combining tremendous entrepreneurial spirit and corporate
structure. Our entire sales force is commission only (including senior
managers and CSO) W-2 employees, (compared to contractor models of our
competitors). A culture of highly principled sales / service orientation,
united behind a common cause has created a principle centered unity.
* Heartland remains one of the few companies that has proven they can sell
multiple products in the payments industry with the same sales
channel and successfully sells three distinct payment product lines.
Provide a brief biography of the leader(s) of the nominated sales organization (up to 100 words):
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Robert O. Carr has served as Chairman and CEO since co-founding Heartland
Payment Systems with Heartland Bank in March 1997 after selling his interest
in Credit Card Software Systems, an Independent Sales Organization he founded
in 1987, specializing in the travel and entertainment industry. He received a
B.S. and M.S. in mathematics and computer science from the University of
Illinois. He has received numerous awards including; Walter M. Aikman -
Entrepreneur of the Year Award; 2004&2006 NJ Ernst and Young entrepreneur of
the year; Midwest Acquirers Life Achievement Award; 2007 American Business
Award for Best Executive - Other Industries.
Chief Sales Officer
Sanford C. Brown has been with Heartland since inception serving in almost
every sales management role moving from street level sales to CSO in 10 short
years. Brown was selected to further lead and improve the sales-centric
environment critical to Heartland. Prior to that Brown served as SVP of Sales
Management, and was responsible for our sales infrastructure, policy, and
formulating business development strategies. Mr. Brown attended Northern
Arizona University where he studied marketing. He was awarded the Stevie
Award at the inaugural 2006 Selling Power Sales Excellence Awards, for
National VP of Sales of the year.
Briefly describe your organization's customers, including the industry or demographics you sell to, the job titles you sell to (if applicable), and the products and/or services you sell (up to 100 words):
Heartland sells to merchants in the business community accepting electronic
payments including, restaurants, hotels, retail, B2B, medical, petroleum, and
others. Heartland seeks endorsements of banks, trade associations and point
of sale providers, and has obtained endorsements of over 110 trade
associations, over 300 banks, and over 400 POS and referral service providers.
Recently HPS has aggressively expanded efforts in the University marketplace
purchasing Debitek and General Meters and launching its new all in one campus
card solution, unifying on campus payments and off campus merchants with a
single student ID card and cell phone payment device. See
heartlandpaymentstems.com for more.
Briefly describe how your sales department is aligned with your marketing department (up to 100 words):
An open door from the street to the most senior level executives in sales,
finance, marketing, operations and product. Marketing and product initiatives
come from direct feedback from sales. Marketing develops promotional and
training materials for sales, internal constituents and the customer based on
a very dyanmic content management program driven by corporate and sales
initiatives keeping Marketing aligned with sales, and internal and external
constituents.
Recently HPS released Market-Pro a unique on demand marketing system, allowing
customization of all marketing material for every sales employee, includning
promotional materials, outbound lead generation, outbound educational
initiatives, customer appreciation, target marketing and more.
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