EXCLUSIVE OFFER: SHOTSCOPE V2

We’ve told you about Shot Scope’s V2. 

It’s our opinion that the Shot Scope V2 is one of the best golf analytics packages in the industry.

“It’s the easiest shot collection data device there is, all you have to do is go play golf.” – John Barba

CLAIM EXCLUSIVE OFFER

For a limited time, Shot Scope is available exclusively to MyGolfSpy readers at the absolute lowest price anywhere. During this offer period, golfers can purchase the Shot Scope V2 (normally $250), for $159. That’s $90 off the standard retail price. For those preferring percentages, it’s a shade more than 33% off.

Shot Scope offers over 100 Tour-Level statistics, a dynamic GPS that provides the distance to the front, back, and middle of the green as well as hazards. There are no annual fees, required tagging or a need to carry a phone in your pocket.

Shot Scope is renowned for excellent customer support, and relies on its own database of course maps, so should questions arise– a single phone call is all that’s required.

This offer won’t last long – seriously; it won’t. It ends on Sunday, 7^th April.  So, if you’ve been on the fence about giving shot tracking and full game analytics a try in 2019, here’s your excuse to go for it.

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MyGolfSpy’s job is to help you put the best clubs and gear that help lower your scores. We don’t care about names, we only care about the stuff that actually works, and this works.

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First Look: Cobra KING MIM Wedges

Which construction produces a softer feeling wedge – forged or cast? According to Cobra and its new KING MIM wedges, the answer is a polite “neither.” The correct response would be Metal-Injection-Molded (MIM) wedges, which feature smaller and more evenly distributed voids (holes) in the 304 stainless steel grain structure to generate a softer feel at impact.

Typically, when discussing wedges, the dialogue centers around grinds, groove technology, CG location, and bounce options, but MIM is a fundamentally different way to go about producing a wedge – and for its part, Cobra believes it’s a superior method. As the name implies, metal injection molding involves, well, injecting metal into a mold to produce the rough shape of a club head.

More specifically, Cobra starts with a mixture of 304 stainless steel metal powder and a polymer binder which form a malleable paste. The paste is heated and injected into a mold to create the rough head part. From there, it’s put in a furnace and heated to remove the polymer, leaving only the pure metal. At this point, the head is heated to 1340 C° and sintered (higher temperatures than standard forgings) to achieve the desired grain arrangement.

Because the MIM process is more exact, it reduces the need for post creation/manufacturing polishing and grinding. What work remains is handled by the industry’s first fully robotic polishing process which Cobra states, eliminates variances in head weight and delivers more precise grind shapes and bounce angles. Compared to cast wedges, Cobra says its process generates 50% tighter tolerances and as a characteristic, stricter tolerances are often more costly to maintain, particularly for a mass-produced piece of equipment. That said, less human involvement likely yields some cost-savings in the long run. It’s why your favorite pizza joint dropped $30,000 for the automated dough maker in place of three, part-time college students.

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FEATURES

The KING MIM wedges come in six discrete lofts (50°,52°,54°,56°,58°,60°) and showcase a versatile Tour Grind with more toe relief for delicate shots around the green. It’s similar to the grind Cobra staffer, Rickie Fowler uses on his wedges.

The face and grooves of each wedge are CNC milled to exacting tolerances and a radial milling pattern provides a little extra traction on finesse shots along with a visual indication to enhance focus on the SWEET ZONE.

The depth and width of grooves are loft-dependent in order to produce ideal launch conditions for shots most commonly played with a particular wedge. Specifically, higher-lofted wedges have grooves which are wider and deeper whereas wedges with less loft are paired with shallower, narrower grooves.

The single finish option is a chrome plating, which may feel limiting to some, but does leave the door open for other finishes moving forward.

The stock shaft is the KBS Hi-Rev 2.0 and each wedge is equipped with Cobra Connect, Powered by Arccos, an industry-leading stat tracking and performance management system.

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We already know machines operate beyond human capability in a variety of contexts, but the general thinking has been (specifically in wedges and putters) that there’s something organic and uniquely personal about hand-finished clubs. So, is one better than the other and in broaching new territory?  Does Cobra’s MIM process encourage other OEMs come to market with something other than a stock cast or forged wedge? What would you like to see?

Retail Availability and Pricing: April 12^th  –  $149 MAP

 

 

 

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2019 MOST WANTED MALLET PUTTER

Why Does MOI Matter in a Putter? A Discussion with Odyssey’s Chief Putter Designer

Are you obsessed with your golf gear?

As a group, golfers are notorious for stressing over the most minute of golf club details. The game of golf is just so damn difficult that we feel the need to dial in our equipment with precision to a single gram, or single degree. The hope is that precisely fitted equipment provides the best opportunity for success. We know that little things can make a huge difference.

The most obsessed among us dial-in lofts, lengths, lie angles, flexes, alignment schemes, grip textures, and even grip wrap additions down to the 1/16 of an inch.

Thankfully, our play data supports our obsessiveness. Clubs that fit better result in better swings and better scores. That’s why getting fitted for clubs is a must. Most of us have been fit for our swinging clubs, but the poor putter has, more often than not, made the game bag because it looked nice, or inspired confidence.

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Times are changing, however, and golfers are starting to grasp the idea that choosing the right putter is about more than finding one that looks and feels good. Golfers are starting to realize that the putter that can inspire confidence for the long term is the one that has the correct length, toe hang, lie, and loft. Kudos to us for approaching putter selection with the same precision as driver and irons selection!

The question I put to you today though is “Do you include a preferred MOI in your putter spec list?”

Why Should Moi Care About MOI?

If you are a French golfer, then you definitely should be concerned about how clubs will perform for moi, but that is not what we are diving into today. Instead, we will be looking at the MOI – short for Moment of Inertia. Many of us already insert MOI into the conversation when we talk about golf clubs since it’s a huge talking point and element of modern golf club design. If you put MOI into the search bar at the top of this page, you’ll find twenty-three pages of articles where MOI is mentioned. MOI discussions happen in the context of drivers, fairway metals, irons, and yes, even putters.

The general idea is that, from an MOI perspective, bigger. Larger is often more forgiving. Just last year we showcased the mightily massive Evnroll ER9, with an MOI over 10,000 mark. Scotty Cameron recently announced a new Phantom X line that features multi-material construction to boost MOI. If you head over to the Cure Putters website, you’ll see that they allow customization of weighting of the RX5 putter model to achieve MOI over 18,000. Does that MOI number mean that we should all be switching to the Cure RX5? What should we really be looking for when shopping putter MOI?

EXO Marks The MOI Spot

This MOI question seems like one best left to the experts, which is fine, since I happened to meet with a few putter experts when I visited Odyssey headquarters back in December. While a good portion of the discussion that day revolved around the new Stroke Lab shaft, there were a couple of slides in their presentation about MOI that popped out as we were going through the new 2019 EXO models.

To quickly review, the EXO line of putters, first launched in 2018, utilizes multi-material construction to boost the MOI values. You can find more details about the 2019 EXO line, and all of the other Odyssey offerings HERE. While previous Odyssey designs offered elevated MOI, EXO was the first to cast MOI as the main character of the story.

But again, what is MOI, and why should I care about it in my putter?

The 2019 Odyssey EXO putters will soon be in a shop near you (like at the end of the week), so it seems like a good time to address these and other questions with Odyssey’s Chief Putter Designer, Austie Rollinson.

What follows are Austie’s responses to my questions about MOI, and its role in the new EXO designs.

What is MOI, and how is it defined/measured?

Moment of inertia, in the technical sense, is the rotational analog to mass. In Newton’s famous 2nd law of motion, F=ma, the “m” is the mass of a body and “F” is the amount of force needed to be applied to change its speed, “a” (acceleration). The higher the mass of a body, more force will need to be applied to change its speed the same amount. This describes linear motion of an object. In a collision, like a golf impact, we need to look at rotational motion. An off-center hit in a golf shot will produce a torque on the head. The torque will cause the head to rotate about an axis through the heads center of gravity.  The farther away the impact is from the CG, the larger the torque will be. This torque will cause the head to rotate about the head’s CG at a speed proportional to the head’s moment of inertia (the rotational analog to mass). Thus, for a given torque (off-center strike) the large the head’s moment of inertia (MOI), the slower the head’s rotation rate. This will cause the head to rotate less during impact and the shot will be straighter.

So, how do you measure a heads MOI? The important thing to know about MOI is that in the linear 2nd law the sum of all the mass elements, or total mass, is used in the formula. In rotational motion, you need to know the sum of all the mass elements as well as the distance those elements are from the rotational axis. The farter the mass elements are away from the axis, the higher the MOI of the body will be. That is why larger and hollow club heads have a higher MOI than smaller, more solid heads. Most 3D CAD programs can calculate the mass of an object, the center of gravity location, and the MOI of a model. The programmer just has to input the densities of the components and the software does the rest. If you just have a head in your hand, you can use an instrument designed to measure MOI and CG. This is handy to confirm that the in-hand prototypes match the mass properties you designed in CAD.

Why does MOI matter in a putter?

The same way that MOI helps in drivers and irons be more forgiving on off-center hits, putters benefit from this effect as well. The speeds of a putter are very different than those of drivers and irons. With drivers, you are swinging the head anywhere from 90mph to 120mph. On putters, you swing the head anywhere from just above 0 mph on tap-ins to about 8-9 mph on longer 25-35-foot putts. However, off-center hits even at these head speeds produce significant losses in ball speeds and change the side angle at which the ball leaves the putter face. No golfer is perfect in their impact locations. The more you can help to mitigate these losses the closer to the hole your ball will end up…helping reduce your number of putts.

What will a golfer likely experience as he/she moves from a low MOI putter to a high MOI putter?

The golfer will most likely see putts that stay on their intended line better as well as better distance control. These all depend on the accuracy and consistency of how the golfer delivers the putter to the ball. Inconsistencies in head speed and face angle will cause inconsistencies in ball speed and direction that MOI will not fix. The MOI will help smooth out the inconstancies in impact location across the face.

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Are there any disadvantages to increasing MOI in a putter?

More often than not the size of the head needs to get larger to make large gains in MOI. Also, designs also need to become more ring-like in appearance to really enhance the MOI while keeping the footprint of the putter small. The other disadvantage to chasing large MOI in a design can be that the CG of the putter gets deeper in the putter head. This can cause more movement in the face laterally for off-center hits. This creates larger side angle discrepancies even with large MOI values. In good designs, we look to optimize MOI while still working to keep the CG as shallow as possible in the design.

How does the Odyssey EXO line of putters achieve optimum MOI numbers?

In the EXO line of putters, we utilize steel and aluminum to achieve designs with high MOI values yet small footprints. All of the EXO putters have an aluminum truss in the center of the putter to enable us to move mass to the perimeter of the putter in steel. For example, on the EXO SEVEN design the aluminum truss in just 8.8% of the total putter’s mass while the stainless accounts for 88% of the mass. This enables us to increase the MOI of the design 21% over the standard large #7 design.  In the EXO SEVEN MINI, we were able to increase the MOI by 26% over the standard #7 design.

Where in the shopping/fitting process does MOI enter into the discussion vs. looks, length, weight, lie, loft, and etc.?

During the fitting process, you should access what your typical misses are. If you are constantly off-line and have poor distance control, you should definitely look at a high MOI putter. It is likely that your hit location is inconsistent. A high MOI will help to mitigate the energy loss and putter twist to make these misses more consistent. Also, if your line is off, it could be due to not being able to align the putter square to the target line consistently. Most hit MOI putter designs have enhanced alignment features on the crowns to help with alignment.

EXO Makes MOI Pretty

Does that clear up the MOI question for you? I think that one of the things about the EXO line that Austie forgot to mention is that they were able to boost the MOI values, and still make putters that are nice looking, traditional-ish shapes. Some of the other high MOI putters, like the Cure RX5 that I mentioned above, have higher MOI values, but it comes at the cost of traditional aesthetics. Most of us want to carry the putter that sinks more putts, but if I’m honest, I’m not going to carry a putter that I can’t stand to look at. I’m unwilling to purchase a putter where aesthetics have been completely sacrificed for MOI or any other characteristic. Those of you still bagging the Nike Sumo SQ 5900 driver won’t feel me on this, but I think that most golfers are of the same mind.

That’s the beauty of the EXO line. If I am going to be spending hundreds of dollars on a putter, I want one that I can spend hours looking at, exploring the angles, and finding cool features like the milled lines in the perimeter ring. I’ll admit that my putter obsession is more severe than the norm, but you can’t help but appreciate the aesthetic detail that goes into these. The fact that there were designed from a performance-enhancing directive makes the visual success of the EXO line that much more significant. It could hang on the wall, but it’s meant to drop balls in cups.

2019 EXO Putters Available In Stores on March 29^th

I’m sure that the putter MOI story is far from over, but that’s not true for your EXO wait. You should be able to find the new 2019 EXO models in a shop near you at the end of the week. Don’t forget that the new mallets will also come with the S-neck option, fitting those of you with more of an arcing stroke. Included as well will be the new Odyssey Stroke Lab shaft. I’m never going to say that a $349 putter falls into the cheap range, but there is definitely a bunch of value and technology coming at that price.

Have Your Say

So what are your thoughts on the EXO line, and putter MOI in general? Is there a particular EXO model that you are thinking of trying, or have you already pre-ordered one? Check them out online at the Odyssey site, or better yet, go test-roll one at a shop near you.

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How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Will Affect Your Small Business

It’s no secret that operating a small business is hard work. You devote tons of time and energy to making smart decisions, driving profits, and doing your best to keep your taxes low.

Now that tax season is just around the corner you’re probably wondering (or outright worrying!) about how the recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which took effect in 2018, will affect your tax picture this year and beyond.

If you’ve been dreading tax time because of this uncertainty, it’s time to breathe a sigh of relief: most of the changes associated with the recent tax reform will actually benefit you this tax season—and it’s good to be informed of the not-so-great changes as well so you can plan wisely for the future.

Corporate tax reform in the United States was long overdue. For too many years, corporations in the United States faced a much higher corporate income tax rate than did companies based in most overseas economies. As a result, increasing numbers of U.S. companies chose to expand more overseas rather than in the United States and to be headquartered outside the United States, which wasn’t good for the long-term health of the U.S. economy and labor market. When Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in late 2017, it was the most significant tax reform passage since the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Keep reading to learn the facts about how the 2017 tax reform bill will affect you and your small business this year.

Expect a reduction in your individual income tax rates

Following the 2017 tax reform bill, the corporate income tax rate was lowered from 35 to 21 percent, a 40 percent reduction. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act also reduced individual income tax rates by several percentage points inside most tax brackets. This comes as great news for most small business owners in the U.S who operate their businesses as pass-through entities (including sole proprietorships, LLCs, partnerships, and S-corps).

If you’re a pass-through entity, you can take a 20 percent reduction

When Congress was reworking the tax code, it recognized that many small businesses operating as pass-through entities would be subjected to higher federal income tax rates compared with the new 21 percent corporate income tax rate.

To account for this, Congress provided a 20 percent deduction for pass-through entities. Here’s an example: assume that your sole proprietorship netted you $60,000 in 2018 as a single taxpayer. That would push you into the 22 percent federal income tax bracket. But, because the pass-through deduction allows you to deduct 20 percent of that $60,000 of income (or $12,000), you would only owe federal income tax on the remaining $48,000. This major change has encouraged small business owners to feel optimistic about being able to grow their businesses.

But keep in mind that this deduction gets phased out for service business owners (such as lawyers, doctors, real estate agents, consultants, etc.) at single taxpayer incomes above $157,500 (up to $207,500) and for married couples filing jointly with incomes more than $315,000 (up to $415,000). This deduction may be limited for other types of businesses above these income thresholds, so be sure to consult with your tax advisor if you have questions.

Now you can enjoy better equipment expensing rules

The so-called Section 179 rules have historically permitted small businesses to be able to immediately deduct the cost of equipment, subject to annual limits, they purchase for use and place into service in their business. But the 2017 tax bill expanded these rules. Now, more businesses can immediately deduct up to $1 million in such equipment expense annually (up to the limit of their annual business income).

Further, this deduction can also now be used for purchases on used equipment. These provisions, which don’t apply to real estate businesses, remain in effect through 2022 and then gradually phase out until 2027 when the prior depreciation schedules are supposed to kick back in.

The maximum depreciation deduction for automobiles has been increased

The 2017 tax bill included a major increase in the maximum amount of auto depreciation that can be claimed. Under this reform, the annual amounts of auto depreciation have more than tripled.

Effective with the tax year 2018, here are the maximum amounts that can be claimed:

Year 1: $10,000 up from the prior limit of $3,160

Year 2: $16,000 up from the prior limit of $5,100

Year 3: $9,600 up from the prior limit of $3,050

Year 4 and beyond: $5,760 up from the prior limit of $1,875, until costs are fully recovered.

After 2018, these annual limits will increase with inflation for cars placed into service.

Your interest deductions have been capped

Starting in 2018, companies with annual gross receipts of at least $25 million on average over the prior three years are limited in their deduction of interest from business debt.

Net interest costs are capped at 30 percent of the business’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). Farmers and most real estate companies are exempt from this. Then, effective in 2022, this provision becomes more restrictive and would thus affect even more businesses. At that point, the 30 percent limit will apply to earnings before interest and taxes.

You will lose some of your meal and entertainment reductions

The tax reform bill of 2017 eliminated the entertainment expense deduction for businesses. Under previous tax law, you were allowed to deduct 50 percent of those expenses (for example, when a business entertained customers and even employees at restaurants, sporting events, and fitness clubs).

There are exceptions under the new rules: For example, on-site cafeterias at a company’s offices and meals provided to employees as well as business meals associated with travel are 50 percent deductible. Meals provided to prospective customers as part of a seminar presentation are still fully deductible. And as long as they are inclusive of everyone, holiday parties and company picnics are also fully deductible.

The health insurance mandate has been eliminated

After the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) was passed by Congress in 2010, some Republicans in Congress vowed to repeal it. Following Republican Donald Trump’s election in 2016, it seemed that the pieces were in place for Obamacare’s successful repeal. But, when the late Arizona Senator John McCain gave the repeal measure his infamous thumbs-down vote, Republicans fell one vote short in the Senate.

So, the 2017 tax bill included a little-known or -discussed measure that eliminated Obamacare’s mandate effective in 2019. This mandate required people to have or buy health insurance coverage, and if they didn’t, they’d face a tax penalty. So, the penalty tax also disappears in 2019.

Under the new tax reform, net operating losses (NOLs) can no longer be carried back for two years. However, NOLs may now be carried forward indefinitely until they are used up. The carry-forward limit was previously 20 years. NOLs are limited each year to 80 percent of taxable income.

Now that you know about the most significant provisions that will affect your small business this year, you can approach tax season with confidence. And best of all, you can make informed decisions as you continue to grow and shape your small business into the vibrant enterprise you have always envisioned.

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3 Spring Cleaning Tips

How Hard Should You Push Your Child to Play Golf?

When my father first introduced me to golf he had one goal in mind: He wanted to make sure it was enjoyable. To facilitate the fun, every time we went to the course or the driving range, he would set up a game or challenge. More importantly, we never kept score, and only occasionally did instruction take place.

What instruction my father did provide was always useful though. As a Class A PGA pro, he has a firm understanding of the fundamentals of the game and never tried to teach me a “perfect” swing. Instead, he embraced my individual swing and adopted Arnold Palmer’s “swing your swing” motto.

As a result of my dad’s guidance and approach to teaching me golf, I fell in love with the game. And I say game because my dad would always proselytize, “Golf is just a game.”

As my game evolved, my relationship with my father on the course began to evolve as well. He realized I had a talent for golf, and wanted to push me to excel. Every day he would remind me to practice, and every day I would tell him that I had. When I reached my teenage years, I became increasingly more independent and wanted less hands-on involvement with my game. For my dad, this was difficult. He wanted to guide me and help me realize my potential, but his encouragement felt like smothering.

Being the parent without falling into the trap of being the coach is a challenge many parents struggle to navigate. If you care about your child staying passionate about the game you will have to monitor yourself and make sure you’re not overbearing, and learn to realize when it’s time to bring someone else into coach your child.

If your child already has a coach and you still sometimes catch yourself pushing too hard, ask yourself, “When someone nags or pushes me to do something, does it make me feel annoyed and irritated and less likely to perform that task?” The answer is likely yes, and you’ll likely perform said task begrudgingly. It’s no different when trying to keep your kid passionate about golf.

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So how can you maintain a balance? Jacqui Nicoletti McSorley, author of Golf Guide For Parents And Players: Secrets Of Success For Junior And College Golf, The Pro Tour And Beyond, has played the role of a mediator often between the child and parent. McSorley, who is Class A LPGA instructor and an instructor at the Golf Academy of America, has taught countless juniors over the years, many of who have received golf scholarships to play in college.

“One of the biggest mistakes I see parents make is that they push them too hard. There was a parent I dealt with who would make his son do push-ups if he hit a bad shot. He was like a drill sergeant with the kid, and it sucked away any joy from his son playing golf,” McSorley said.

According to McSorley, parents need to be careful to not treat golf like an end-all-be-all with their child. “There is so much pressure around kids trying to get golf scholarships, so we place these false hopes that there’s this scholarship at the end of the tunnel, which for most kids there isn’t. So not only are the parents stressed, the kids get stressed too.”

Parents also need to be willing to be coached, “Often times I am coaching the parents more-so than I am coaching their child. But they have to be willing to learn, and see where their shortcomings are and how they can be a better support system for the children.” This means relinquishing control to instructors like McSorley, and trusting the process rather than dictating every step of their child’s future in golf.

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In my case, my father eventually stepped back and put his ego to the side. He allowed me to make my own decisions regarding the future of my game, and only stepped in when he felt so strongly that he couldn’t stay silent.

I know it wasn’t easy for my dad. He believed in me more than anyone, and his main goal was always to make sure that I reached my potential. His willingness though to allow me to carve my own path and to focus on encouraging me rather than pushing me, led me to keep playing a game that I loved. It also allowed me to involve him in my game when I wanted him to be more involved.

He caddied for me in several junior tournaments, and when I went to qualifying school for the LPGA, he carried my sticks and provided emotional support on the golf course. Joyfully, on my third attempt to qualify for the LPGA, I earned my card with him on my bag. It was a moment I will never forget, and one I know he cherishes as well.

So, to all the parents out there who coach their kids, focus on what makes it fun for you to be with each other on the course. As a result, the game can be something that brings you and your child closer together – their success will just be the icing on the cake.

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5 Mobile Payment Processing Trends: Increase Your Sales and Keep Customers

New payment options for ecommerce and brick and mortar retail businesses seem to emerge weekly. Many of them aim to reduce the friction between a customer’s initial interest in your product or service, and landing the sale with cash in hand.

How many of your customers are mailing you checks or handing you payment in physical dollars and cents? Probably fewer and fewer. In 2019, even the act of swiping a credit card in-store, or typing in your credit card number for an online purchase, are giving way to mobile payment options.

While these mobile payment trends are generally great for customer convenience, there are also some potential wins as far as customer retention and even reduced costs for small businesses and startups. 

As you grow and your sales increase, you’re probably looking for ways to reduce how much you shell out for payment processing. And if you’re like most businesses, you’re always thinking about the most efficient (and cheapest) way to turn a single sale into repeat business. This year’s trends in mobile payment processing suggest you might be in luck.

Let’s take a look at five payment trends that you can use to boost sales and encourage repeat business.

1. More online and in-person mobile payments

Mobile payments are definitely on the rise. In fact, Adobe reports that more than 50 percent of 2018 holiday season sales went through smartphones.

But the term “mobile payments” doesn’t just refer to customers doing their shopping on mobile devices. Mobile payments also include in-store customers paying at the register with their phones through platforms like Google Wallet and Apple Pay. And when you reduce in-store lines by taking customers’ payments on mobile POS stations throughout your store? That’s mobile payment, too.   

“Why are we picking Uber over the taxi stand at the airport [when the taxi stand] is right in front of us and might be less of a wait?” Mobile Payments Today asks. “It’s because of the automated payments experience, the ability to make the payment without physically having to [pull out a card]. Merchants have to start thinking about [those experiences] or they will get left on the curb.”

Mobile payments, when used in conjunction with a loyalty or rewards program, can be even more effective as far as increasing sales and encouraging repeat customers. eMarketer predicts that Starbucks will have more customers using mobile payments than Apple Pay within the next four years. “Because they’ve combined a habitual purchase with a loyalty program,” eMarketer reports. “Giving daily buyers of a cup of coffee a reason to switch over from other payment methods.”

2. More membership-based payment processing options for retailers

Membership-based pricing provides shoppers who buy a lot of merchandise with a way to save on their day-to-day purchases by opting into an annual or monthly fee.

Retail models that provide this—like Costco—are immensely successful. However, membership-based processing services can also help reduce fees for retailers who process a high volume of transactions, or who sell a lot of high price point goods. You may not have heard of this, since most widely-used payment processing companies are flat rate—meaning they take a percentage of each sale you make in payment for their services.

With membership-based pricing, on the other hand, you pay a set monthly fee for all of your transactions. So, you don’t have to pay out a big chunk of your profits as your business grows.

“Membership-based payment processors don’t markup the processing fees of banks or card networks… nor do they take a large cut out of your sales,” Payment Depot reports. “Instead, merchants are charged with a monthly or annual membership fee in exchange for access to lower wholesale rates.”

3. AI-based payment chatbots

Artificial intelligence is nothing new in retail, but this is the year that chatbots infiltrate the payment sector—enabling retailers to guide customers through every aspect of the shopping process and to offer customers more payments than ever before.

Big box retailers such as Nordstrom are investing in multiple chatbot platforms to provide consumers with a more personalized shopping experience and to reduce cart abandonment.

Digital Transactions reports, “Juniper, a firm based in Hampshire in the United Kingdom, predicts chatbots will proliferate and reach a level of sophistication and presence in financial services that will see them account for 79 percent of ‘successful’ exchanges with customers by 2023.”

Contrary to popular belief, chatbots can also an affordable option for small business owners and startups. Creating a chatbot on Facebook Messenger is actually free, although you may need to hire someone to help you build and implement it.

4. Increased focus on security and data privacy

One of the biggest challenges to getting customers to buy online is convincing them that your website is a safe place for them to enter their credit card information. One of the trends we saw in 2018 was an increase in cyber crime.

34 percent of U.S. consumers experienced compromised personal information last year alone, so it should come as no surprise that security is a concern for most customers when shopping online. The perception of payment security can be the determining factor when customers are choosing where to make a purchase, which is why payment arbiters have become so popular.

Payment arbiters are widely-known financial services companies—such as PayPal and Apple Pay—that allow consumers to purchase products without re-entering their credit card information every time they pay.

Deloitte reports, “Arbiters provide ‘trusted’ services that support the entire ecosystem, enabling more efficient and less risky processing. Their presence in a payments transaction…allows consumers to have greater control over how their identity and data is shared.”

5. Incremental payments increase consumer financing options

Back in the day, QVC was the only major retailer offering customers the option to pay for their purchases in a few easy payments, but incremental payment options have hit the mainstream.

According to retail expert Shelley Kohan, “With buy-now, wear-now, pay-later, the customer takes the product with them at the point of transaction and ecom goods are sent at the transaction point. The big win for retailers is they don’t have to figure out where to store layaway goods, deal with customers who change their minds and handle the mound of abandoned product.”

Partnering with an incremental payment provider such as Klarna, Affirm, or Quadpay can smooth the path to purchase for customers who want to make a higher ticket item now, but don’t have all the funds available at the moment. It’s a good alternative for customers who want to avoid putting a big charge on a credit card. Incremental payment companies also tend to accept consumers with a broader range of credit scores than most traditional banks, making your products accessible to a broader range of consumers.

Another benefit of using incremental payments? Millennials are generally more averse to credit card debt than other consumers. But incremental payment options are often interest-free, so you can give younger customers the opportunity to buy the products they want without taking on dreaded credit card debt.

Bringing it all together

Every dollar in profits can be essential to your business is important when you’re running a startup or small business, so you need to be able to identify and implement payment trends that can help save your business money as they arise.

Read your business’s credit card processing statement regularly and evaluate your payment processing partnerships every six months to make sure that you’re still getting the maximum return on each sale you make as your business grows. Setting aside a few hours to evaluate your payment processing fees can save your business thousands of dollars in the long term.

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10 Good Reasons Not to Seek Investors For Your Startup

Before you buy into the myths about startup investors, first consider whether you actually want startup investors for your new business at all. No, I’m not bitter … I had VC money in Palo Alto Software for a few years and they were helpful, collaborative, and good people. I’m not a bitter victim.  And I’ve invested in more than a dozen startups, so I don’t hate investors; I am one. But I try to tell the truth. Most businesses are better off without startup investors.

Bootstrapping is underrated

Which would you rather — steer by committee, with people looking over your shoulder? Or just do it yourself, you drive, you decide?

Also, before I go too far, yes, there are opportunities that demand investment. These are the opportunities that you can only address with substantial deficit spending, which are also worth it, with a big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If that’s what you’re looking at, hooray.

I’ve said it before: bootstrapping is underrated. I get frequent emails from people asking how they can get investment for their new startup, and I’ve admitted to being a member of an angel investor group. But let’s not forget, while we’re thinking about it, these 10 good reasons not to seek investors for your startup.

Startup investors are partners, co-owners, and sometimes bosses

1. After investment, it’s not really yours anymore. That dream you had of building your own business ends when you take on outside startup investors. You have partners now. You have people who have a claim to ownership, shares, and having a voice in key decisions. You no longer set your own goals, strategy, milestones, and pace. You’ve got a share in a business, but not your own business. Investors write checks to own a serious portion of your business. I admit that’s patently obvious, but you should see the emails I get in which people think of investors as if they were some sort of public agency.
2. Investors aren’t generic. Some become collaborative partners and even mentors, some are nagging insensitive critics. Some are trojan horses. Some help, some don’t. (Hint: choose carefully which investors you approach.)
3. Investors can be bosses. You are not your own person when you have investors; you’re part of a team. You can’t decide everything by yourself. Politics matter. Investor relations matter. If you screw up, you do it in front of other people, and it hurts those people.
4. Just getting financed doesn’t mean diddly. For an example of what I mean read this piece from the New York Times. You haven’t won the race when you get that check.
5. Investors sometimes take your company from you. Well-known strategy consultant Sramana Mitra has a couple of eloquent minutes on that them in this two-minute video. She seems to be talking about India, but she’s well known in the Silicon Valley, and what she says applies perfectly well here.
6. Valuation is critical to them and you. Simply put, valuation means the price. If you want to give only 10 percent of your company to investors who pay $100,000, you’re saying your company is worth $1 million. And so on. Simple math, but wow, not so simple negotiation.
7. Investors don’t make money until there’s a liquidity event. That’s why we always talk about exit strategies. You can be the world’s happiest, healthiest, most cash-independent company, but your investors won’t be happy until you get them cash back. The win is getting money back out of the company. Some big company stock buyers like dividends. Startup investors don’t.

Besides which, startup investors are hard to land

8. It’s almost impossible to get investment for your very first startup. If you don’t have startup experience, get somebody on your team who does. Chris Dixon said it best: either you’ve started a company or you haven’t. And if you haven’t, and nobody in your team has either, that makes it very hard.
9. If it’s not scalable, forget it. The real growth opportunities are scalable. It used to be products only, but now there are some scalable services, like web services, for example. But if doubling your sales means doubling your headcount (that’s called a body shop), then investors aren’t going to be interested.
10. If it’s not defensible, it’s tough going at best. Not that I trust patents as a defense, but trade secrets, momentum, a combination of trade secrets and patents, plus a good intellectual property defense budget … if anybody can do it, then investors aren’t interested. (Of course, what would I know, I thought Starbucks was a bad idea because I thought that was too easy to copy … there are always exceptions.)

The post 10 Good Reasons Not to Seek Investors For Your Startup appeared first on Planning, Startups, Stories.

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Recap: The Top 5 Drivers of 2019 (Most Wanted)

Join the MyGolfSpy staff as they discuss their thoughts on the top-performing drivers for 2019, including the longest and most forgiving options. You’ll also hear some of what our testers had to say about the drivers in the 2019 Most Wanted test.

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How WiFi Marketing Can Help Restaurants Boost Customer Loyalty

In today’s ultra-competitive marketplace, restaurants have the challenging and sometimes unenviable task of making their brand stand out from all the others. For newer businesses, it can be even more difficult due to a smaller budget and fewer loyal customers.

In comparison to online retailers, brick-and-mortar businesses are typically short on what has become the most important component of marketing today—actual customer data.

Customer data—the kind you get through market research—is essential to understanding who your customers really are, where their interests lie, and how they prefer to spend their money. It also helps businesses assess the feasibility of new products, services or menu items before putting them on the market.

Sure, you can talk to your customers and try to get to know them on a more personal level, but most restaurateurs simply do not have the time to invest in this type of data collection.

Options for learning about and collecting data on your customers

One option would be to hire a third-party market research company to gather the data for you, though this approach can be expensive. If you’re working with a smaller marketing budget, using a consulting company might not be feasible. Plus, if you hire a company, you’ll only receive the customer data at that point in time, and from a small sample size of your patrons. If you want more data, you’ll need to keep paying for it.

Fortunately, there is an emerging technology that allows retail and restaurant startups to gather detailed customer demographics and behavior data from a very large sample size of their actual customers. Using your existing guest WiFi access point, you can passively gather this type of invaluable data with a WiFi analytics platform.

The data is updated in real-time and it can be used for the ideation, execution, and measuring of your digital and traditional marketing campaigns.

How customer data is collected using guest WiFi

Every mobile device that has WiFi enabled is constantly sending out a signal which looks for WiFi access points. This populates the dynamic list of available WiFi networks you see on your mobile device. Included within the signal is a unique identifying number called a media access control address, or MAC address.

Conversely, your WiFi access point is constantly listening for these signals sent out by WiFi-enabled devices—smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart watches—that come into range. When your access point receives a signal, it will log it into a database along with the device’s unique MAC address. This is how the WiFi analytics platform will identify individual customers.

The great part about this data collection strategy is that it is all done behind the scenes. You don’t have to lift a finger and you’ll immediately be gathering customer behavior data whether they log into your WiFi or not. You’ll be able to see things like customer dwell times, popular visit times, first-time visitor rate, repeat visitor rate, and more.

These anonymous metrics can be used for making data-driven marketing and operations decisions.

The beauty of a WiFi analytics platform can be seen when a customer decides to log into your WiFi. When they attempt to access the internet, they will be taken to your WiFi landing page, also known as a captive portal. This page will typically be created for you by the analytics platform provider. The page can display new menu items, promotions, events, and surveys.

Most importantly, it requires a user to enter information prior to accessing the internet—typically their name and/or email address. When they complete their login, a new customer profile is created and all previous data related to that device’s unique MAC address is added to the customer profile. If the customer logs in using their social media account, then more information can be added, such as their gender and birthday (age).

Then, through a process called progressive profiling, you can passively gather even more data from your loyal customers. If they have already logged into your WiFi once, you already have their email address, so the system will quickly look for a piece of missing information in their customer profile and ask for that instead. Over time you’ll have access to thousands of highly-detailed customer profiles.

Using WiFi analytics for restaurant marketing

Once you have a growing list of customer profiles, you can begin analyzing them to create various customer segments that are grouped by specific demographic and behavior data. With WiFi-collected data, you know you have the most accurate and reliable data to base your decisions upon.

Without knowing who your customers are, what they prefer, and how they behave, marketers are forced to create mass marketing campaigns, sending a single marketing message to their entire customer base in hopes that it will resonate with at least some of them.

But targeted marketing is a better way and it can help you save resources in the long run.

Would you send the same message to work-at-home mothers who visit during lunch hours as you would send to your late-night happy hour crowd?

Maybe you would, and maybe it would resonate with some of them. But wouldn’t it seem much more effective if you were able to send entirely different messaging to customers in each individual group?

Segmenting your customer base is a crucial step in your new data-driven marketing efforts. Customer segmentation has been proven in many cases to increase marketing ROI, email clicks and overall customer engagement. For restaurant startups, this can mean the difference between a huge success and an ongoing struggle.

Not only will you be able to optimize your marketing campaigns to appeal to your various customer groups, but you can also use the data to optimize purchasing and staffing decisions as well.

Test, test, and test again

You probably already know that executing marketing campaigns and measuring their success is not the end of the process. You should always be testing.

Just as you would test different marketing messages and media, you should also test different segmentation criteria. You might experience entirely different results from making one simple change to a segment. Without testing, you’ll never know if your campaigns are as optimized as they can be.

Remember that testing more than one element at a time can become confusing and may skew your results, so if you make a change to the customer segment, try to send the same marketing message that you sent in a prior campaign. This way, you’ll know that it was the segment change that caused any difference in results, and not the message itself.

Next steps

WiFi analytics and marketing platforms are much less expensive than procuring data from a third-party market research agency, generally ranging between $50 to $150 USD per month for the top performing platforms. Most of them will give you a free demo of their product, so it is advised to take a look at several of them to make sure the solution you decide on is perfect for your business.

You’ll immediately able be able to start collecting live customer data that can help you make much smarter, data-driven decisions about what to test to get the most return on investment from your marketing campaigns and strategies.

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