Mercury Payment Propels RSPA To Over 1,000 Members
In 2005, the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA) was a tight-knit group of a couple hundred resellers plus vendor sponsors. At the general session of their winter conference in Jamaica, the members discussed their aspiration to make a bigger impact on the retail IT community.
Pessimists questioned the RSPA’s ability to address the retail channel’s important issues and they doubted the organization’s viability. Sure a rising tide lifts all boats, but could a guppy make waves?
I share that background because it magnifies the accomplishment that the RSPA surged to over 1,000 members this month. Achieving that milestone has been a team effort for sure. But one RSPA member company who provided a major boost – and pushed the organization over the 1,000-member mark – is Mercury Payment Systems.
A membership drive this year spearheaded by Mercury CEO Matt Taylor netted 221 new members for the RSPA. An expected 150 Mercury resellers are expected to attend the RSPA’s RetailNOW 2012 expo in Las Vegas.
BSM received a copy of the email Taylor sent to RSPA CEO Joe Finizio and the entire Mercury team:
From: Matthew Taylor
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012
To: Joe Finizio
Subject: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!
Joe,
As you know, we’ve made huge strides in our RSPA Membership Drive this year. We blew away our goal of 100 new registrants for RetailNow. I think maybe the word is getting out about how great the show is and how valuable the education and benefits are, so kudos to you and the team.
When you and I talked on Tuesday and I heard that RSPA is near 1000 members, I told you that we wanted to pull out all stops to help make that happen so that this year's event would be historic. Well, I have some very exciting numbers to report. Over the last two days, we added 75 new RSPA members, bringing our grand total of new memberships to 221 for this year's drive! We're confident that we'll get close to 150 attending RetailNow, but also take pride in the fact that we were able to bring even more resellers to the RSPA as new members.
I'm sure you're quite busy getting set up at Mandalay Bay but I wanted to share this fantastic news, now that it's official; I look forward to a particularly celebratory event for our two organizations for a record year!
I also want to thank Bo Sandine, Brian Neirby and the channel sales team at Mercury who STEPPED IT UP this year and pulled off a monumental accomplishment.
See you soon, Joe. Please pass along the good news to the RSPA family. And congrats on 1000!
Matt