Faith in the World of Sales: An Interview with Aaron Hassinger

As I have become older I have slowly grown out of the “ignore what your dad tells you phase”. As a kid its easy to confuse your parents “practical experience” for a meaningless lecture. Now I have began to realize that the “meaningless lectures” were from a place of experience and wisdom. The idea of sales and selling is not a new one to me. Without being aware of it, I have been around it my whole life. While some people consume their sales tips and tricks through Gary V.  I am blessed enough to have a resources much closer to me . My dad has been involved in sales for almost 15 years now and after just the few weeks of this course I have become much more appreciative of his work and the practical experience he offers. Instead of asking the mundane sales questions I chose to focus our conversation on a much more applicable sales topic. The topic I really wanted to cover was how do you manage being a believer while also being a salesman.

Before I dive into his advice its important to explain how my dad even got involved in sales. Sales is such an interesting field because it expands over the whole economy. Some salesman sell fertilizer, my dad sells Mutual Funds. Before he was in sales he worked in back office in accounting and analysis. His first exposure to sales work began when he moved over to the DB Pension Market (Defined Benefit) at State Street. While at State Street he began to service clients and fell in love with the person to person contact. His job became more client intensive when he was tasked with writing commentary on his firms US Large Cap Fund at Putnam. Quickly he learned the importance of transparency, while also managing negative optics with constant focus on the funds positive performance metrics. He then moved to Fidelity and began to work much closer with clients once he had managed to learn the industry. Now he currently works with PIMCO, a leading investment firm that focuses on fixed income strategies. He noted that his career follows a “natural progression”. Starting behind the scenes, and moving his way out to salesforce when he understood the product.

While his background was interesting and an imperative part of his journey, the bulk of our conversation was surrounded around this idea of balancing faith in sales. I began by asking him the typical challenges to faith that he encounters in sales. The first notable road block that my dad mentioned is sales is a constant process of building trust and comfort and sometimes faith and your lifestyle might get in the way of building trust. Another challenge to faith in the world of sales is the fact that sales is inherently money and performance focused. This manifests itself in a myriad of persona’s but the most consistent is individuals in sales constantly flirting with some “line”. For my dad’s industry those are FINRA guidelines that are regulated by the SEC and Federal Government. Unfortunately a side effect of our fallen nature is people flirt with that line in order to secure more deals and make more money. From an ethical perspective there a many hesitations but for most the possibility of securing more money on the margin is far too popular. My dads response to this was a simple one. As a Christian you need to be comfortable with losing deals if you feel like the completion of the deal impedes on law or is at the expense of other people. Simply God won’t care if you make a million more dollars when you’re at the gates, so don’t hurt others or cheat the system to truly gain nothing. Lastly my dad mentioned a more specific struggle. The reality for salesman like my dad is they are always traveling and don’t have a 9-5 or have an office they commute to.  Constant time on the road, in the air, and away from your house forces more discipline when you are home to find time to be a father and spend time with the Lord. This has been his biggest challenge of yet.

I ended our interview with asking him some practical ways that we can be Christians in investment sales or in any industry. The most notable response my dad gave me was the belief that Christians actually make the best sales people. He believes that people are naturally drawn to believers, believers have a sense of light and hope in them that people need. He explains that no matter what side of the table you are on, whether you are selling or buying we are human. Sometimes things happen and the best way to be a salesman is to ironically not be a salesman at all and have the awareness to just be a loving individual to someone. It is here that your client will feel less like an sales opportunity and more like a friend or even family which is imperative to being a faith minded salesperson and building trust.

Overall, having the opportunity to interview my dad was one I will remember forever. As I have gotten older I begin to realize the mark he continues to leave on me. As always Dad, I love you and thanks for your amazing insight.