Anyone can be a salesperson if they put in enough work. However, in our industry, competition comes from all sides; henceforth, your brokerage firm cannot rely on average salespeople. You will have trouble breaking into the market, or taking your business to the next level, regardless of how smart your ideas or offerings are.
A strong team of sales professionals can help tremendously, turning ‘maybes’ into conversions. Today, the main problem you face is finding them. Here are a few traits you should be looking for:
Detail oriented
A great Forex salesperson is more than someone who knows how to talk with clients. They adjust their pitch to match the customer's needs and pay attention to every detail to make sure their adjustments are as perfect as possible.
Before every meeting, they practice their notes and their proposal. When other ‘regular’ salespeople go to bed, they stay up making sure everything is in order. Nothing surprises them, as they have prepared themselves for everything.
Rational and realist
The salespersons you're looking for are rational-optimists. They believe that things will always work out, and they'll sustain their emotional stability despite severe circumstances. Although that’s a rare quality, you still want them to be realistic. They shouldn’t think that everything will always work their way.
Successful salespersons, consider how things can go wrong at every juncture and they find solutions to stay ahead. They handle problems in the bud before things spin out of control; instead of closing their eyes and pretending that the dice will always roll their way.
Achievement driven
While your job as a manager is to make sure your employees are driven, it's not always up to you to sustain that. You want your sales professionals to be internally motivated. They should want to achieve as much as they can, and shouldn’t always be focused on bringing in more money.
Great salespeople want to become superlatives. They want to be the best at what they do, which means they'll never stop chasing sales and pushing numbers. This kind of self-motivation is not only good for your firm, it also allows you to focus on other things; other than keeping your staff’s morale up.
Dependable and loyal
Some salespeople are notorious for swindling their clients out of their money. In fact, when most people are asked to imagine sales folks, they perceive them with silver tongues and a mouth-full of doublespeak. While shiftier people do exist, it's not what fantastic salespeople have.
They want the best for both their company and their customers. They want to solve problems. The money is just a byproduct. Matching a customer with the right sales is the goal.
Steady and unflappable
Forex sales isn't an easy job. A person could go through a week of nothing but rejections and deals that don't work out, no matter how good of a salesperson he is. In our industry, what separates the amazing salespersons from the average is their resilience and their ability to cope with worst-case scenarios.
Nothing fazes them. They look at their mistakes, they learn and come back stronger, smarter, and more convincing than ever. They're mentally tough. At every failure, they think that they can do better.
Both established Forex companies and startups have unique challenges when trying to build their sales teams. In an established company, as you pursue taking your business to the next level, don’t rush and never settle for average.
On the other hand, small brokerage firms often live and die on the backs of their salespeople. If the company can't sell the product, it can't make money. Finding and hiring the right people is on you.
