We recently had the pleasure to catch up with Jessica Baguchinsky of Paychex.  Jessica is a sales superstar, and if you are trying to grow your business, increase your sales or you’re looking to learn how to pull your business (or yourself) up, you ought to listen to this podcast. We titled Episode 181: “Never Quit, Even if Homeless” because for a period of time Jessica was homeless due to Superstorm Sandy. Yet Jess continued to plow ahead, setting and surpassing sales records throughout her homeless period.

 

How this fits in with financial planning: some of the basic building blocks in financial planning involve knowing how (financially) to recover from a major event, like suddenly becoming homeless, or starting out from scratch with no experience, and starting without a safety net.  Jessica Baguchinsky is a great example who through hard work, determination and perseverance has succeeded.

A very inspiring story and well worth a listen!

 

Transcript:

Thomas Mullooly: Hello and welcome to the podcast. My guest today is Jessica Baguchinsky, better known by her friends as J. Bags. Say hello J. Bags.

J. Baguchinsky: Hello Mr. Mullooly.

Thomas Mullooly: I invited you onto the podcast as one of our pioneer guests, because I think you’ve got a pretty good story to tell. And hopefully, we can share it. The microphone is actually turned on this time.

J. Baguchinsky: Helpful.

Thomas Mullooly: For our listeners, this is actually our second time through this, because we went though the entire podcast the first time without even realizing that the microphone was turned off. That was my fault. So, let’s start. Fill us in on the J. Bags story. How did you get started, and just kind of take us from the beginning.

J. Baguchinsky: Sure, well, I guess college. You know I grew up in New Jersey, went to the University of Delaware for college, and I graduated with a degree in education.

Thomas Mullooly: Blue Hens.

J. Baguchinsky: Fighting Blue Hens.

Thomas Mullooly: There you go.

J. Baguchinsky: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So it was a great four years, definitely, kind of, I would say paved the way for the next chapter in my world. When I started college, studying abroad wasn’t really something that interested me. While I loved traveling, and had done some amazing trips with my family. It was not so much of a burning desire let’s say. But throughout some great experiences in college, I think it’s really kind of shaped the path that my world has taken.

Thomas Mullooly: One of the reasons why I invited Jess onto the podcast today is because, in my opinion, she is probably one of the best examples I’ve seen in the sales industry. She’s a superstar, rockstar. She does a lot of things right, and it’s interesting how … Do you think sales people are born or made?

J. Baguchinsky: I think a little bit of both. I think it’s definitely, I think my approach is I was sort of born into this. I was raised by a family of entrepreneurs and sales people. And I lived that world. Work hard, play hard, and manage your own schedule. And if you manage it well, you get to where you want to be.

Thomas Mullooly: But when you came out of school, you didn’t go right into sales.

J. Baguchinsky: Not quote/unquote sales. I went into teaching, which is right up there.

Thomas Mullooly: It’s sales, no matter what you call it. That’s great. How do you think that got you prepared for what you’re doing now?

J. Baguchinsky: I graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in education and a minor in English. Like I said, the travel bug bit me in college. So I actually, when I graduated, moved home, worked hard for that summer, and then was fortunate enough to be able to take a two-month road trip with two of my absolute best friends still to th...