Payment Pulse – Ep. 42

A successful embedded payments launch takes more than technology. Learn how planning, collaboration, and enablement create a foundation for growth.

Also Listen On:

TL;DR

Episode Transcript

Shannon: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Payment Pulse, where we explore the ideas, strategies, and trends shaping the future of embedded payments.

I’m your host, Shannon Kohler, and today we’re talking about something that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. Over the past few years, we’ve had some great conversations about embedded payment strategy, creating new revenue streams, increasing enterprise value, and building stronger software platforms.

But today we’re shifting gears a little bit because here’s the reality: no matter how great your payment strategy is, none of it matters if you can’t successfully bring it to life. Launching embedded payments isn’t just about completing an integration. It’s about aligning teams, preparing customers, building the right processes, and creating a foundation for long-term success.

And that’s exactly what today’s guest helps our partners do every single day. I’m excited to welcome Hannah Cummings, Senior Director of Payments for our partner channel at Xplor Pay. Hannah, thanks so much for joining me today.

Hannah: Hi, Shannon. Thanks so much for having me.

Shannon: I’m really excited for this conversation because I think people hear terms like implementation, onboarding, and launch management all the time, but very few people actually understand everything that goes into launching an embedded payments program successfully. So today we’re going to pull back the curtain a little bit to talk about what actually happens after a software company decides to embed payments.

You and I have worked together for quite a while, but our listeners may not know that much about you, especially outside of your role at Xplor Pay.

One of the things that I do know about you is that you love to travel, and I see your awesome TikTok videos all the time. You’ve had the opportunity to visit some pretty incredible places. So I’d love for you to share, if you would, just a little bit about your favorite destinations and some of your experiences that you’ve had.

Hannah: Thanks, Shannon. Yes, I certainly do like to travel and prioritize it each year. I try to get in at least one international trip per year, but I also have a goal to visit all 50 states in the United States, and I think I’m about at 35, so we’re getting there.

Shannon: Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s good.

Hannah: Yes, and I’m actually going to Alaska next month so that’ll be another off my list.

But I’ve had the opportunity to travel all over the world, been to some amazing places. I’ve been to one of my best friend’s weddings in Australia. I’ve been to Thailand. I’ve been to Albania. I’m also trying to go to every single continent at some point in my life. Hopefully I will be able to do that travel goal as well. And I’ve got to meet some really amazing people around the world and have some really awesome experiences with not only my friends that I like to travel with and just meeting new people, understanding cultures, trying new food. I’m a big foodie, so I love to try new restaurants, local cuisine wherever I can. I really just love seeing new places and learning new things about the world that we live in.

Shannon: Yeah. That’s awesome. And I think travel, it really gives you a different perspective. When you’re exposed to different cultures and different ways of doing things, and you realize there isn’t always one right answer. So do you think that’s influenced how you work with partners?

Hannah: Absolutely. As you said when you’re traveling, you’re experiencing new things, learning new things, and everyone in every part of the world functions differently, and that’s very similar to the different flavors of partners that we have here at Xplor Pay. Every company operates differently. No two partner launch experiences are the same. So we’ve built out sort of a methodology to understand the partner, understand what fits best for their current setup, and how we can be flexible in supporting them in integrating payments into their current workflow.

Shannon: Yeah, I love that. Now let’s rewind a little bit and because I don’t know many people who grow up saying, “Yeah, when I get older I wanna work in payments.” So maybe just tell us a little bit about your career path and what you did prior to coming to Xplor Pay. Then just tell us a little bit about your team.

Hannah: Absolutely. So as you said, I didn’t have intentions of getting into the payments industry when I graduated college, but here I am.

I started working in retail sales, working off of commission at my local mall, and I wanted to transition to a more steady schedule. So I applied at a payments processor that one of my friends had just started working at. I started there in merchant support, so in the call center, starting from pretty much the ground up and learned the ropes that way. So I got first-hand knowledge of all of the different issues that can happen to a merchant when they’re trying to accept payments, and that really gave me some foundational knowledge to continue on this career.

And I really enjoyed the industry. I really enjoyed how it was combining technology with finance, because I do have a strong math background. As I continued at that payment processor, I moved into partner support, which is kind of just a little bit of a different view of support from a different lens, and I learned a lot about partner relationships, building and managing those relationships. And from there I moved on to a team lead, and then account management. So I moved into a role where we were focused on large accounts, and from there I moved into enterprise account management. So we were really focused on large opportunities that have large payment implementation processes that need to be managed like a project. And then from there I moved over to Xplor Pay, started with the PDM team, and have continued to develop and evolve that team into where we are today. So today we currently function as one payments channel. Within that we have a lot of different groups and roles, and so the partner management team is separated out between partner launch and partner growth. So we know that there is so much that goes into launching a partner. Like I mentioned, it’s like managing a project.

Shannon: Oh yeah.

Hannah: We make sure partners are up and running on payments. And so we felt that it best fits our partner needs to sort of separate that initial onboarding process from the long-term growth plans of scaling and building revenue. So we’ve really built out a process for the team to focus on those individual areas, become experts in those areas, and develop goals for our partners to meet these thresholds to progress in our launch and growth process.

Shannon: Yeah, that’s awesome. And I think that’s actually a perfect segue because I suspect a lot of people listening or watching hear the term “partner launch team” and imagine project managers checking boxes on a spreadsheet. But after working with your team, I know it’s so much more than that.

So let’s start with a really simple question. Let’s imagine that I’m the CEO of a vertical SaaS company. We’ve done our research, we’ve evaluated payment providers, we’ve selected Xplor Pay, we even signed the agreement. So what happens next?

Hannah: Yeah, so that’s where my team comes in. After you’ve executed your contract with your business developer, they’re gonna loop in the partner launch management team to make sure that we can get you on the ground running and getting all of the key elements needed for a successful launch started right away. We’ll generally start with a kickoff meeting to get introductions done, introduce you to your launch manager, some of the key employees that you would need to interact with here at Xplor Pay, and some of the key team leaders that we’ll need to engage throughout this process. We’ll want to understand your goals. We’ll ask a lot of discovery questions to make sure that we’re solutioning you in the right manner and building out that payment design around it. We’ll learn about your software, we’ll learn about your industry, your vertical, and your customers, and everything that there is to know. We also will leverage our existing knowledge on specific industries and how they interact with payments so that we can build the best launch plan for the individual partner. We focus on establishing timelines and goals so that we can all be aligned on expectations, and we will define responsibilities so that we can all understand who plays what roles within the partner launch process.

We know that every launch starts with understanding the software and the partner and how they interact with their customers. We don’t want to force partners into a one-size-fits-all process. We want to create a custom-tailored plan that supports their business today while following our sort of proven process using our elements that we already have built out.

Shannon: That’s awesome. Thank you. So one thing that surprised me when I first learned about your team is how many different departments become involved. And people probably assume that it’s mostly engineering when you’re dealing with an integration, but it’s really much bigger than that, isn’t it?

Hannah: Absolutely. We touch all departments within the partnership as well as internally. Launching a partner takes involvement from all of the key stakeholders within Xplor Pay and also within the partner themselves. So we will have product involved especially if we’re building out any sort of enhancements. We’ll have development involved to make sure that we’re building out the right payment workflow and having all of the reporting needed and every, um, aspect of the technical process designed fully. We’ll have sales involved because we do have our solutions center with an internal sales team to make sure that they’re educated if they’re gonna be leveraged in this particular scenario. We, of course, will bring in marketing…

Shannon: My favorite!

Hannah: …because we want partners to have materials to support the launch. We have customer success, our team, underwriting, risk, and all of the partner leadership team involved so that we have both internal and external readiness when we’re ready to launch. Everyone has a role, everyone has to be aligned, and it’s the role of the launch manager to make sure that that’s all happening simultaneously to that development work.

Shannon: So it almost sounds less like implementing software and more like launching an entirely new line of business. So can you think of a partner that came in expecting one thing but that discovered that launch was much more collaborative than they first expected?

Hannah: Definitely. You know, we’ve had a lot of partners come to us from other processors where maybe they felt they weren’t getting as much attention to some of their pain points, particularly around payment adoption. That’s one that we hear a lot. We’ve worked with partners to develop a really tried and true process to get the word out about the integration and making sure that their customers are adopting the integration, because that’s really what’s going to drive the revenue, is getting your customers using the payments processing design.

Shannon: Absolutely.

Hannah: We’ve really collaborated both with our internal marketing team and the partners’ marketing teams to create that good experience and to ensure that we get adoption based on our model.

Shannon: Yeah, great. So you’ve helped probably hundreds of partners launch over the years, and you’ve probably seen just about everything. What you would say some of those most successful launches have in common?

Hannah: Yeah, I would say that the most successful launches that I’ve seen have had partners that really focus on preparation and are dedicated to making the payments process work. Really having executive buy-in from the beginning, understanding that this can be a strong revenue stream long term for the company, and clear ownership and accountability across the departments and who needs to be involved in these long-term growth plans. We really focus on cross-functional collaboration, so partners that are engaged that way already and have resources that they’re willing to dedicate to the project really, really ensure a successful partner launch. We always wanna be realistic about timelines, so we understand not wanting to rush, also making sure that we’re progressing forward in a timely manner so that we can get this to market as quickly as possible.

But we also want it to be successful so partners that are willing to go through a beta process as well has always been helpful. And just willingness to ask questions, communicate openly and just staying engaged with us has been the key to getting our partners launched.

Shannon: One thing that really stands out to me is that you’re talking a lot more about people than technology, and is that surprising to the partners that you’ve worked with?

Hannah: I think so. I think most partners assume that a payments integration is gonna be focused mostly on the technical work, but to your point, that’s just one small piece. Getting the technical work done, of course, is important. It’s imperative to have the integration itself, but we also need all of that support structure around it to make sure that that integration actually gets used, and all of the different factors and people involved in making sure that that integration becomes a successful long-term revenue stream for the partner is imperative.

Shannon: What are some of the most common mistakes that you see from SaaS partners that have come in from other companies? I’m just curious to hear the pitfalls to look out for.

Hannah: Yeah, I think one of the larger pitfalls that we tend to see is merchant or partners really wanting to focus on a set go-to-market strategy. We’ve found that in certain industries and verticals, being flexible with pricing will help you win more customers and get a larger share of adoption that way.

So we always encourage partners to consider multiple pricing options, some flexibility, and I think we’ve done a really good job in building out support for multiple pricing options for your go-to-market strategy. I would say overall, at a high level, being flexible and being willing to pivot a little bit from maybe some of the expectations that you come into the partnership with.

Shannon: So Hannah, can you think of a time when your team identified a potential issue early and helped a partner avoid a much bigger problem later on down the road?

Hannah: Absolutely. So I think one of the most important things for our mutual merchants is reporting and understanding their payments and their cash flow. And that can be very simple or very complicated, but depending on the type of business that they’re running. So one example that immediately comes to mind is a partner that had invoicing built into their software, and being able to track those payments from start to finish from the software to our reporting and back, and using external identifiers like the invoice number to make reporting easier for their customers. So we identified that as a potential gap early in the launch process, and were able to add that to the payment processing design so that we could make reporting for their customers easier down the road by adding a unique identifier that translate across all of the systems that their future customers will be using, so including Xplor Pay systems as well as the partner systems. That sounds like something very simple but is really important and maybe some newer partners might not think to do. So we are always looking for opportunities to make sure that the end user has the best and easiest experience.

Shannon: Yeah, and that really speaks volumes to the value that your team provides. So something I hear a lot in our conversations internally is that every software company is different. You know, they have different products, operate in different verticals, they have different merchants and different goals.

And how much does that change your approach when you start working with a partner?

Hannah: It definitely changes our approach on a partner-to-partner basis because we truly understand that every partner is unique and has unique needs. You know, as you mentioned, there’s different industries, different verticals, different go-to-market strategies that partners wanna implement, and just different business models in general, and different customers that we’re trying to understand and service.

So that’s why we have this framework that’s structured but never rigid. We know that it’s a proven process, but we’re able to tailor it and be flexible for each partner to ensure that the launch plan fits that partner’s business. We wanna make sure that the partner has everything that they need to be successful, and some partners may need a little bit more technical guidance, and some partners may need a little bit more support around sales enablement or go-to-market strategy or understanding how to best market to their customers. So we will always look to the partner and help guide them where they might need to spend a little bit more time and give them the support that they need. Our goal is always the same. We wanna meet the partner where they’re at and help them move forward with confidence.

Shannon: I really like that perspective. And it’s easy to think about launching payments as checking items off of a project plan, but I know it’s so much more than that. You know, from listening to you, you’re helping each partner build the right foundation for long-term success.

Hannah: Absolutely.

Shannon: So Hannah, you were just talking about how we have all these different parts of the company that are involved from both the Xplor Pay side and from the SaaS partners perspective. I’m curious just if you could walk us through that a little bit more and just help us understand what teams are really gonna have the biggest impact and which of those teams are gonna become like your biggest advocate after launch.

Hannah: Absolutely. So to your point, I think sales is one of the teams that are most impacted by a payments integration because it starts and ends with them. Typically they’re the face of the company, not only for us, but for the partner as well. And so we want both our internal sales team and the external sales team to be aligned in messaging, and that requires some involvement from all ends. So we often try to collaborate with the sales team, whether their own sales team is going to be doing the selling start to finish or if we’re gonna have a collaborative sales process, we want their sales team to be educated and able to answer questions on the fly. We arm them with FAQs, demos, anything that we can do to make their job easier so that they can easily answer questions, send out supporting materials, and close that deal as quickly as possible. So I would say sales is a huge important factor in a successful partner launch.

But there’s also the support teams as well because once that sale’s completed and the business is ready to start processing using the software integration, we wanna make sure that they have everything they need to be able to process successfully long term. And if something does come up, because naturally things do happen, that they have a path of escalation to get that resolved as quickly as possible. So we also arm the support teams with knowledge around the integration, when to escalate and to who, how to get in touch with different team members and other organizations that may need to be involved.

We really try to build out a whole support resource guide and implementation so that not only sales, but support as well are all interconnected. Partners even wanna leverage our own solution center, that includes our sales team that are tried and true payment sales experts. They have done selling for many partners of ours and are very successful in getting payment adoption for our partners. They also manage the application process end to end, which we can sometimes see as a burden for the partner, so we really wanna take that on for them. And then we ensure that the merchant gets successfully activated. And when I say that, it means that they’re up and running and processing payments. They understand the portal, they understand PCI compliance, and making sure they feel supported in this new payments integration. So we have a full team built out to do just that for our partners.

Shannon: Yeah, I love that. There’s really so much more that goes into it. The next question that I wanna ask you is about marketing, and with that being my world and where my heart is. Marketing is another team that people probably don’t think about, you know.

So why does marketing matter before a partner launches embedded payments?

Hannah: Marketing is a huge factor to help partners not only just get awareness out about the integration, but also educating their existing customers, driving adoption, and reinforcing the message that we’re trying to get across. Merchants probably don’t even understand payments or the options that are available to them, so having a really built-out marketing plan is essential for that.

Not only for the education, but it helps create excitement, it helps build that momentum. We can have official press releases and fun announcements. We can even do built-in software messaging if that’s something that’s helpful. We are creative with our marketing team. You guys do a great job, Shannon.

Shannon: Thank you!

Hannah: We love introducing our marketing team to our partners, and we have, again, frameworks that we believe will create successful go-to-market launches. However, again, we’re very flexible in how we support our partners, and we’re happy to collaborate within their own marketing teams to ensure that we have a great joint launch.

Shannon: Awesome, and thanks for that little shout-out there, too. Next I’d like to talk a little bit about customer success, ’cause I imagine they’re incredibly important once merchants begin processing. And you talked about support, but I think this is really important to touch on again.

Hannah: Of course. You know, most customers probably won’t just start processing on their own. They need that extra support to get up and running and feel confident in the solution, and that’s where our customer set success and activations teams really come in. They help answer questions. They encourage the adoption. They reinforce best practices. They understand the integration itself as well as the software and they help identify opportunities for improvement and gather feedback that we can relay to the partner. I’ve had numerous examples where we’ve heard from our customer success team that a partner that primarily focused on card-not-present transactions would really benefit from a card-present solution for some of their customers, and we were able to relay that to the partner and get that stood up to make a better customer experience for them. So we really try to work collaboratively with that team so that we have a strong ongoing relationship between the merchants, the partner, and us. They’re invaluable long after launch because they will be supporting our customers well on and through the entire partnership.

Shannon: Yeah. Thank you for that. So something else that I’ve noticed is that your team spends a lot of time asking questions and you’re not just giving answers. You’re asking things like, “Have you thought about this? Who’s responsible for that? Um, what’s your plan after launch?” Why is that such an important part of your process?

Hannah: Yeah, thanks. You know, I think great launches start with great questions, so thank you for asking this question. I think it just goes back to really understanding the partner. Understanding the partner is imperative for a successful launch, and sometimes partners maybe haven’t encountered these situations before or are trying to get to a result and are asking questions that maybe aren’t going to yield the best results.

So we really wanna understand what the end goals are and what we need to do to get to those goals. Our job isn’t to tell you how to run your business, but we want to help you run a successful launch. We’ve worked with hundreds of partners to understand what works and what doesn’t and help them come to those decisions to overcome maybe some obstacles, whether that’s adoption, marketing, support challenges.

We wanna act as a guide, not because every partner is the same, but because we’ve seen through enough launches to know where challenges typically appear.

Shannon: Can you think of a question that your team has asked that completely changed the direction of a launch?

Hannah: Yeah, definitely. We’ve had some partners come on that have had existing payments integrations, so they thought that just doing the integration and keeping the support models the same would work fine. And in theory, that might sound okay, but everything changes when you have a new integration, even if it’s just payments. So we realized that their support teams would benefit from some extra coaching around how Xplor Pay works specifically. So we’ve held ongoing quarterly refresher trainings, monthly refresher trainings for our various partner support teams, to make sure that they have a long-term understanding of how to best support our existing customers. We’ve also worked with sales teams to help them build payments into the sales process sooner. That’s another gap that we’ve seen from time to time across partnerships, where they’re selling on the software and not layering in that payments aspect early enough in the sales process. We don’t want payments to feel like an add-on.

We want it to feel like an important part of the software. And so we’ve worked with sales teams to help build out that sales cycle process so that they can get that payments adoption as well.

Shannon: So listening to you talk, it strikes me that your team’s job really isn’t just helping partners launch, it’s helping them launch well, and there’s a big difference between those two things.

Hannah: For sure. We of course ultimately want our partners to launch, but we want them to launch in a successful and confident manner. We want them to feel good about the launch, feel supported, and understand what exactly the payments integration is going to do. So we really wanna focus on helping partners launch and launch successfully, confidently, and as quickly as possible.

Shannon: So you can technically launch embedded payments, or you can build a program that’s positioned to grow for years to come, and they’re just not necessarily the same thing, you know? So that leads into my next question. Because once a partner is live and their first merchants are processing payments, a lot of people probably think mission accomplished.

But I have a feeling that that’s really just the beginning of the journey. So let’s talk a little bit about what happens after launch. Launch day is not the finish line. Some people might think that because the integration is complete, those first merchants are live, payments are flowing, but I have a feeling that your team sees things a little differently.

Hannah: Absolutely. Launch is a milestone, but it’s not the destination. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve divided our partner launch team or partner channel into partner launch and partner growth. And after partner launch, that’s where the growth team is going to really come in. It sets the foundation so that we have a successful base to build off of, but we wanna shift focus to long-term adoption, education, optimization, increasing payment volume, increasing revenue, because payments will become a very important revenue stream to most partners.

We wanna continue to improve the merchant experience, improve upon our offerings, add functionality, and help the partner grow within their payments business. The real opportunity begins after launch when we’re focused on adoption.

Shannon: That’s such an interesting perspective because I think most, you know, most companies, they just celebrate launch day and then immediately move on to the next project.

Hannah: Yeah, it’s definitely natural to celebrate and be excited. I know I’m always so excited anytime a partner launches. It’s a huge, huge accomplishment. But the partners who see the greatest success continue to invest after launch, build out on payments, and continue to improve.

Shannon: So which metrics should leaders pay attention to?

Hannah: Yeah, some key metrics are definitely merchant adoption and how quickly that adoption is taking place. So we call this activation timing and measuring that and tracking that I think can be a key factor to understanding success. And of course, just how many that we’re actually getting. It doesn’t happen automatically. It requires a lot of communication, education, and enablement. So really focusing there and making sure that we provide feedback to the partners is imperative. We pride ourselves on keeping an open line of communication. If we’re doing the sales for you, we want you to make sure that you know exactly where each lead is in the sales process and why we’re winning that business, and maybe where we’re having challenges to relay feedback on potential enhancements and improvements in the future.

Shannon: I’ve heard you mention communication several times today, and it sounds like one of the biggest factors in long-term success isn’t necessarily adding new features, it’s those continuing conversations. So tell me a little bit about a partner that you’ve worked with and how you used that process, like those ongoing communications and how it helped them embrace a mindset of continuous improvement.

Hannah: Yeah, I would say that the best partnerships are collaborative. So partners that are just as engaged as us on the payment strategy are absolutely our most successful stories. As partners grow, their needs evolve, their software evolves, their customers evolve, things change. So we want to keep that open line of communication so that we can evolve with you and have our solution evolve with you. So we will collaborate the best way that we can, either through calls, reports, automated feedback loops. Anything that we need to do to make sure that we keep that collaborative spirit between our partnership is imperative for us to have a successful launch.

Shannon: Yeah. So one thing I’ve noticed throughout our conversation is that your team isn’t just focused on helping partners launch faster, but you’re helping them build something sustainable.

Hannah: Absolutely. Building something sustainable requires a lot of involvement from a lot of people and teams. We really try to focus on how we can have the best product that doesn’t require a ton of involvement from the partner’s end to maintain, but works as a well-oiled machine long term. There’s always gonna be areas for improvement, but we wanna make sure that that foundation is strong so that long term it’s just more about maintenance and we have that built out process.

Shannon: So as we wrap up today, I’d love to zoom out for a minute, and if somebody listening today is just beginning to think about launching embedded payments, maybe they’re evaluating providers, maybe they’re building a business case internally, what is one piece of advice you’d give them before they get started?

Hannah: I would say to one, don’t think of payments as just another feature. Payments can be a key cornerstone of success for your software. I would say really prioritizing it, involving the right people early, asking lots of questions. I know this industry can be confusing, so really just making sure that you understand. And don’t underestimate change management. You know, there’s a lot that goes into a payments integration. And choose a partner that will help support you beyond just the integration itself. Long-term support is essential for a successful strategy, and think about where you want your payments business to be in two or three years from now, not just on launch day.

Shannon: I love that advice. And honestly, I think that’s been one of my biggest takeaways from today’s conversation. Before today, somebody might have thought that launching embedded payments was primarily about integrating technology. Now, I think it’s clear that successful launches are really about building alignment, preparing your teams, and creating the right foundation for long-term growth.

So Hannah, before we wrap up today, I thought it’d be fun to end with a few quick questions. Going back to where we started, just to help our listeners get to know you a little bit better. Don’t overthink these, just answer with the first thing that comes to mind.

It’s kind of like a little lightning round.

Hannah: Sounds good!

Shannon: You’ve traveled to quite a few amazing places. What is one destination you’d go back to tomorrow if you could?

Hannah: Yeah, one destination that I would go back to is Albania. I think people get surprised when they hear that, but it’s a beautiful country. It’s right on the Mediterranean, and I had the best time. Met amazing people there.

Shannon: Oh, that’s awesome. What country is still at the top of your travel bucket list?

Hannah: I would say one country that’s at the top of my bucket list is probably Kenya or South Africa. I would love to go on a safari, and I mentioned that I wanna go to all seven continents at some point.

Shannon: Yeah.

Hannah: So I’ve been to six out of seven. I’ve been to Africa once, but I’m dying to go back.

Shannon: Wow, take me with you. I’d love to go on a safari too! Next question. Window seat or aisle?

Hannah: Window.

Shannon: What’s one thing that you always pack that most people probably wouldn’t?

Hannah: I always keep a handheld fan with me no matter where I’m going because especially in the summertime it gets hot, and other countries may not have AC like we do.

Shannon: Yeah.

Hannah: So I keep a fan with me.

Shannon: Awesome. So what’s your favorite part of helping a new partner launch?

Hannah: My favorite part about helping a new partner launch is one, learning about the partnership. I get really excited about understanding a new software, a new business vertical maybe, but also really seeing their success and adoption. I get really excited when partners get excited and are super engaged.

I love when we’re getting ready to move into production and they’re drumming up some friendly customers that we can start with, testing in a live environment and making sure that we’ve done our job to get those first couple of merchants onboarded.

Shannon: Awesome. What is one thing that you wish every software executive understood about embedded payments?

Hannah: One thing that I wish every software executive understood about payments is how important it can be for their long-term growth strategy as a company. Payments can be a significant revenue stream. I’ve seen some partners that have gone from never having payments to it being a multi-million dollar revenue stream for them, and it’s very important revenue for their bottom line. So I really just hope that every software executive out there understands just how lucrative embedded payments can be, and also how it makes their customers even more sticky and more likely to stay with their software.

Shannon: My next question is, um, if somebody joins your launch team tomorrow, what is the first lesson you’d want to teach them?

Hannah: The first lesson that I would teach a new launch team member is that not every partner is built the same, and this process is flexible. You know, being able to pivot on a dime is important with this team, and just understanding all of the best ways that we can support different nuances within partners.

Shannon: This is gonna be my last question. Imagine someone listening today, they’re just starting to evaluate embedded payments. Maybe they’re six months away from launching or maybe they’re still trying to build that business case. What is the one thing that you hope they’ll remember from today’s conversation?

Hannah: I think one thing that I would hope that they remember is that launching payments is more than just technology. It’s involved in so many different aspects of their business, and preparation is key. Bringing the right people to the table early is important, and being sure that you understand the process and choosing a partner that’s willing to support you long term is imperative.

I think just understanding just how great the program can be when leveraged correctly and choosing a partner that’s gonna support them beyond launch day.

Shannon: Yeah. Well, Hannah, this has been a really great conversation. I think one of the biggest takeaways for me is that launching embedded payments isn’t a single event. It’s truly the beginning of a journey. The technology’s incredibly important, but really what stood out to me today is the role of planning, communication, collaboration, and long-term partnership, that role that they play in building a successful payments program.

Thank you so much for joining us today and for giving everyone a behind-the-scenes look at what really goes into launching embedded payments.

Hannah: Thank you so much for having me, Shannon. Happy to do it.

Shannon: Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Payment Pulse. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes as we continue to explore the people, ideas, and strategies shaping the future of embedded payments. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time on Payment Pulse.

FAQs