President & Co-Founder ✔ Husband ✔ Father ✔ Entrepreneur ✔ Payments ✔ B2B ✔ 2x Inc 5000 ✔ Helping Small Businesses ✔ Connector ✔ Creator ✔ Merchant Services ✔

Valued Merchant Services - https://www.valuedmerchants.com has a history of providing merchants with local personal service and support, cost effective solutions, state of the art technology, reliable 24/7/365 technical support and customer service and a host of other benefits. 

Valued Merchant Services has a commitment to provide each merchant with a customized solution to meet each of their unique needs in the most cost effective manner.

See our A+ Rating, Accreditation and Reviews with The Better Business Bureau - http://www.bbb.org/idahofalls/business-reviews/credit-card-processing-companies/valued-merchant-services-in-idaho-falls-id-90007103

Learn about our back to back top 1000 ranking in Inc Magazine's 500/5000 Fastest Growing Businesses List 2011-2012 - http://www.inc.com/inc5000/profile/valued-merchant-services

Specialties: Sales, Sales Management, Sales Training, Merchant Acquisition, Portfolio Management, Capital Sourcing, Merchant Services, Credit Card Processing, ATM Machine Sales/Service, Bank and Association Partnerships, Gift Cards, Check Services, Referral Partnerships, Merchant Services, Merchant Accounts, Ecommerce, Mobile Payments and more

The Most Profitable Thing I Did? Stop Sounding Like a Salesperson.

Once I stopped sounding like a salesperson,
my income and trust skyrocketed.

Here’s what changed.

Early in my career, I tried to sound “professional.”

Perfect openings.
Polished transitions.
Confident closing language.

I sounded exactly like someone trying to sell something.

And prospects felt it immediately.

Their tone tightened.
Questions became defensive.
Conversations turned into negotiations before trust ever existed.

I thought the problem was objections.

It wasn’t.

The problem was distance.

Sales language creates separation.
Human language creates connection.

The moment someone feels managed,
they stop being honest.

And honesty is where real deals live.

So I started doing something uncomfortable.

I stopped performing.

I talked like a normal person.
I admitted uncertainty when it existed.
I explained things the way I’d explain them to a friend or another business owner.

Instead of pitching outcomes,
I told stories.

Stories about merchants who switched too fast.
Stories about mistakes people made.
Stories about what actually happens six months after the decision.

Something interesting happened.

Prospects leaned in.

Because stories don’t feel like persuasion.
They feel like experience.

And experience builds credibility faster than scripts ever could.

“Unselling” doesn’t mean lacking structure.
It means removing pressure.

You stop chasing agreement
and start building understanding.

You ask real questions.
You react naturally.
You allow conversations to breathe.

When people stop feeling sold,
they start thinking clearly.

That’s when decisions happen.

Close rates improved.
Referrals increased.
Relationships lasted longer.

Not because I became more convincing
but because I became more trustworthy.

Here’s the paradox:

The less you sound like a salesperson,
the more comfortable people feel buying from you.

Professionalism isn’t polish.
It’s authenticity with competence behind it.

Be informed.
Be honest.
Be human.

Trust compounds faster than technique ever will.

Chris Del Grande

Why Reviewing Resumes Is Mostly a Waste of Time

I’m going to say something unpopular.

If you’re recruiting commission-only 1099 reps and spending hours reviewing resumes…

You’re optimizing the wrong thing.

Resumes measure employment success.

Not ownership potential.

A resume answers one question:

“How well did this person perform inside someone else’s structure?”

1099 roles ask something completely different:

“Can this person create structure where none exists?”

Independent contractors win because of:

Self direction
Initiative
Risk tolerance
Comfort with volatility
Personal accountability

None of that shows up on a resume.

Someone have:

Perfect corporate tenure
Promotions
Big brand logos

…and completely collapse in a commission-only.

Here’s the twist most recruiters miss.

The best 1099 performers have messy backgrounds.

Career pivots
Gaps
Side hustles
Multiple industries
Self-employment

If you filter by resume polish, you accidentally select for:

Salary dependence
Structure reliance
Risk avoidance

Which is the opposite of what independent contractors require.

Titles don’t help either.

Manager
Account Executive
Director
Consultant

Those words hide reality

Were they hunters or order takers?

Did they receive inbound leads?

Was marketing building pipeline?

Was compensation padded with base?

Two identical titles can represent completely different capabilities.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

1099 success is behavioral, not credential based.

The real predictors are:

Do they take action without permission?
Do they follow up?
Can they tolerate rejection?
Do they create momentum independently?

You cannot detect it through formatting and keywords.

You detect motion.

Who books quickly.

Who shows up prepared.

Who asks intelligent questions.

Who completes onboarding fast.

Who takes first action immediately.

Behavior reveals seriousness.

Now here’s the nuance.

We are not anti-resume.

Don’t confuse sorting with selection.

Resumes are for routing. Not decisions.

We use them to:

Identify experience clusters.
Match likely role fit.
Scan for alignment signals.


For example:

Lead generators
We scan for outbound volume, SDR, call center, quotas.

Sales agents
We look for commission-heavy roles, revenue ownership, outside sales, transferable industries like payroll, insurance, solar, lending.

Recruiters
We scan for sourcing, team building, pipeline, retention.

Regional leaders: We look for coaching, scaling teams, performance management

Affiliates
We scan for partnerships, channel sales, networks, trusted advisor.

Stage one finds probable fit.
Stage two reveals actual fit.

Traditional recruiting looks like this:

Resume → Interview → Hire → Hope.

Our model:
Resume → Route → Observe Behavior → Qualify Through Action.

Employees are selected by history.

Independent contractors are revealed by behavior.

Once recruiters truly understand that distinction, output changes dramatically.

And scale gets a lot easier.

The legend inspires us, the underdog moves us, but the disruptor changes us.

Why 90% of Sales Advice Burned Me Out

I followed the playbook.
Grind harder.
Make more calls.
Push past no.

It worked.
Until it didn’t.

Early on, most sales advice sounds the same:

More activity fixes everything.
More pressure closes deals.
More persistence beats resistance.

And to be fair, it can produce results.
Short-term spikes.
Quick wins.
Leaderboard moments.

But it also produced something else for me.

Disconnection.
Fatigue.
Quiet dread before calls.

Because a lot of traditional sales advice is built on force, not fit.

Push through objections.
Override hesitation.
Control the conversation.

That approach treats people like targets
instead of decision-makers.

It also trains reps to ignore signals.

Signals like:

This isn’t a good fit.
They’re confused, not resistant.
They need clarity, not pressure.

When you ignore those signals long enough, performance drops
and so does your energy.

What burned me out wasn’t the work. It was the posture.

Always leaning forward.
Always pushing.
Always performing.

No space to listen.
No room to think.
No permission to slow down and understand.

The shift that saved my performance was simple:

From pressure to presence.

I stopped trying to win every conversation and started trying to understand it.

I asked better questions.
I let silence work.
I stopped arguing with hesitation and started exploring it.

Old advice says: handle the objection.
Better advice says: diagnose the concern.

Old advice says: control the call.
Better advice says: guide the decision.

Old advice says: always be closing.
Better advice says: always be clarifying.

The irony is performance improved when force decreased.

Close rates went up.
Churn went down.
Conversations felt human again.

The smarter path isn’t softer.
It’s cleaner.

High standards.
Clear positioning.
Real listening.
Trust-based momentum.

Effort still matters.
But effort without alignment is what burns people out.

Human selling lasts longer.
And it wins better.

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