Jon Stojan
Despite indicators of a healthy economy characterized by strong growth and greater earnings, the success story appears to skip the traditional, physical storefronts of America’s small and medium-sized enterprises.
A former police officer turned entrepreneur has stepped up to provide a helping hand to those merchants. Noticing their finances and cash flow struggles, Paul Alex offers these merchants a way to cut their hard costs and earn passive income using techniques that banks and large corporations have used for years. Paul’s Merchant Automation’s services benefit small business owners by reducing overhead expenses and providing marketing support.
“We focus on the cash discount program. Less than five percent of merchants across the United States currently use this program,” Paul Alex says. “But for those who are, this can wipe out all their credit cards. The big hope behind it is that the typical merchant now pays hundreds to thousands of dollars a month for credit card processing fees. We can help them eliminate all that.”
While Paul Alex had created his first online business, ATMTogether, two fellow entrepreneurs with over 18 years of experience in the Merchant Services industry suggested that he launch an online program that helps entrepreneurs within the merchant services industry as well. That idea turned into Merchant Automation, which offers a free social media group with free courses and other training programs for aspiring entrepreneurs,business owners or anyone looking to start a secondary source of passive income. The point is to help as many people as possible.
“We provide a solution to small business owners with the cash discount program and wipe out all their credit processing fees. In addition, we help business owners with their marketing by promoting a cash discounted rate for their services when their customers pay with cash. That frees the business owners to raise the prices of their services or products if needed, and then they can give a cash discount to their customers who choose to pay that way. If they don’t, the client pays the actual credit card processing fee for using their credit card as payment. It’s a great program, a win-win for the small business owner and merchant services agent.”
Paul Alex leveraged his digital marketing skills and life experience to build bootstrapped “boring” businesses while navigating the intricate digital marketing world. In a new book, From Blue to Digital Gold: The New American Dream, he shares tactical information and critical insights for developing the mindset of a successful entrepreneur, mastering digital marketing strategies, and building multi-million-dollar online businesses from scratch.
“When I launched Merchant Automation, I was able to utilize the call centers and resources that I had from ATMTogether to expedite the results for our clients who wanted a shortcut to success in the Merchant Services industry,” Paul explains. “Within a few months, I was able to allocate 60 locations and then put actual credit cards inside of those businesses for my clients. That ended up helping the company and proved that the online concept works.”
Paul Alex and Gedam Yonas, another former police officer and chief operating officer of ATM Together, recently debuted Merchant Automation to offer answers to credit card processing services and costs for this demographic of free enterprise.
“We want to help small business owners. That’s why it’s so powerful. It’s a straightforward terminal. They come pre-programmed, and we have support staff and training. We have absolutely everything the small merchant needs. It’s a wonderful program that anyone can get into.”
Paul Alex has helped over 3,400 new entrepreneurs in the United States start their own businesses. This achievement has resulted in more than 28 million dollars in revenue within three years of launching several new businesses. Since January 2021, Paul Alex has used the income flow to expand his brand and increase his online presence on social media, assisting hundreds of thousands of individuals wishing to establish their own businesses daily.
“With Merchant Automation, I launched it as a one-man startup, but I needed assistance, so I called on Gedam, my COO from ATMTogether,” Paul Alex says. “Within five weeks, we were able to generate a million dollars in cash collected and skyrocketed from there. Now the company is doing roughly about half a million dollars a month.”
His book, From Blue to Digital Gold: The New American Dream, delves into the inspiring journey of a former street cop who transitioned to an eight-figure online entrepreneur in less than three years. Paul Alex details his resilience, adaptability, and innovation, along with how he adapted the principles from his law enforcement career to entrepreneurship. He shares tactical information and critical insights for developing the mindset of a successful entrepreneur wanting to master digital marketing strategies to build a multi-million-dollar online business from scratch.