Steve Schwimmer is a busy man.
He is the Chairman of the Long Island Better Business Bureau Advisory Board, a Member of Board, NYC Metropolitan Better Business Bureau, He is on the Board of Institute of Management Accountants and a Board member of the Syosset Chamber of Commerce. Past President of the National Association of Payment Professionals, a Member of the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators and belongs to many other Long Island groups including HIA, LIA, ABA and LIDA.
On top of that, he also does a lot of charity work for the American Heart Association and the School and Business Partnership First Robotics.
Could you believe he finds time to develop his business? “I do all of these things because I love people and I love networking and I get most of my new business from networking,” said Schwimmer.
How did he get his start?
He told me that he had been in credit card processing business more than 20 years and prior to that he owned a large pest & termite control company. After he sold the pest control company a friend called and told him about a New Jersey based check and credit card company looking for sales reps on Long Island. He did not know anything about the industry but jumped at the opportunity to learn it.
The company trained him and he worked there for more than a year. Then he found that there were two large companies – NaBanco and CES and sent resumes to both. Thereafter, he was hired by NaBanco and spent 5 or 6 years there. CES became First Data and then, First Data bought NaBanco. He did not choose to work for First Data and left with a nice severance package, he left the industry for one year but kept “networking”.
He got a call from regional manager from Bank of America who he met while “networking” they were looking for a Long Island sales person and he knew a lot of people in the industry, he took the job and worked for five years until they changed their company policies not to his liking. He knew people from Renaissance, a credit card processing firm, he spoke to them because they had a good reputation and took the job and has been there for more than eight years.
At Renaissance, his job consists of 50% relationship manager taking care of customers and the rest of the time sales and business development. He deals with all different types of clients including: retail, gas stations, associations, business to business, business to government, small mom and pop shops and more.”
What sets him apart from others is that he returns phone calls. He fixes every problem and takes ownership. He told me that he services his customers 366 days a year, 25 hours a day and 9 days a week. “I go beyond what others do…” he said.
Recently, he branched his business out to include: mobile marketing – text messaging services, QR Codes and he is promoting a product similar to Groupon. He also does gift cards and loyalty cards for clients.
What I liked most about Steve was when he talked about his wife and that they have been married, “or shall I say, newlyweds for 46 years.” I just found that to be such a sweet statement. They have three grown boys and one six year old granddaughter. He also told me that whenever he gets the opportunity, he loves spending time with his granddaughter. “I love my family so much but my granddaughter holds a special place in my heart,” Golf comes after Family, he said.
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