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Heartland Payment Systems

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.