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Education

StreetSmarts SM

“Setting up your ISO for success”

WITH
AARON NASSEH

Let's listen, learn and share

By Aaron Nasseh Before I share with you my plans for the next 12 months,
Finical Inc. let me tell you a little bit about my background. I have
been in the payments industry for over 10 years, and I
have been in sales my entire career. I have sold everything
Editor's Note: In our March 27 issue, we published John Tucker's last
article as the Street Smarts "quarterback," as he often described the from cell phones to real estate and everything in between;
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role. We will miss having his unique voice in each issue, but we hope he however, when I started in payments, I immediately knew
I had found the perfect industry for me.
will contribute further articles from time to time as compelling issues
that capture his imagination arise. A career is born
And with this issue, we are delighted to present Aaron Nasseh's inaugu- I began my payment career in business development,
ral article as Street Smarts author. A consummate salesperson and which was a fancy way of saying "agent/ISO recruiter." I
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sales trainer who helms a dynamic and growing ISO, Nasseh is eager to was hired to start a recruiting division for a very large
share what he's learned about building a successful payment company, publicly traded ISO, which up to that point, had essentially
as well as share the wisdom of other payment pros in this column. He built a burgeoning business through acquisitions. I hit the
has said his business philosophy is built on three pillars: customer ser- ground running, and with our team, built a substantial
vice, state-of-the-art technology and high ethical standards. We expect sales force and recruited some of the largest and best ISOs
to hear more about such business building essentials as the coming in the industry. It wasn't long before we were producing
year unfolds. several thousand new accounts per month just through
am indeed honored and humbled to have been the agent/ISO channel.
asked by The Green Sheet to serve as the writer for
Street Smarts over the next twelve months. Like The success in the business development role led to a
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I many of you, when I started my career in the pay- promotion. In my new capacity as the General Manger,
ments industry, I turned to The Green Sheet to learn from I was responsible for overseeing direct sales, outside
my fellow colleagues who took the time to share their sales, recruiting and the day-to-day operations of the
knowledge and expertise. company. While I definitely had my hands full in terms
of responsibility, I was fortunate to have an excellent team
A tradition continues working with me; together we more than doubled new
account production within the first 12 months.
To this day, I still learn something new from every single
issue of The Green Sheet, so I would like to take this A new venture begins
opportunity to thank my immediate predecessor, John
Tucker, and all of the other writers who have passionately One year later, as the company continued to grow, I was
shared their knowledge and experiences with the rest of fortunate to receive another promotion to Vice President
the industry, both in this column and elsewhere in this of Sales. My responsibilities increased even more, and
publication. I was very much up to the challenge. However, my
entrepreneurial ambition was growing louder and louder

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