Background: Work in FICC sales at a regional dealer. Curious to see if primary dealers tend to hire or pickup talent from regional shops.
Only been at regional dealer for a little over a year. Not going to lie, the beginning is tough.. but can be very rewarding if you, “Pick up that phone and start dialling.” Seeing avg/top tier brokers at regional clearing 500k-3mm. Probably not as much as a primary dealer, but work life balance is extremely pleasant so there’s tradeoffs. As I mentioned, the beginning is tough building your own book from scratch, not a big name that stands out when Cold-calling, etc.. you’re pretty much on your own trying to survive in the beginning because salary isn’t a thing. Plus it’s better being a generalist in many products because you don’t sit on one desk. Sell govts, corp, strucs, CP, etc..
Curious to see if anyone has transition to a primary dealer from a regional? What is it like at a primary dealer your first/second year?
Hi YungFICC, any of these discussions helpful:
More suggestions...
I hope those threads give you a bit more insight.
You should not have a problem getting looks from larger players if you network a bit and get your name out there. You are a low risk junior hire as you understand the basics of the business and have you securities licenses. You are not going to do much the first couple of years in sales at a primary, mostly you are doing the grunt work and backing up the more senior people on your team when they are off the desk. If you do well and there is some growth/turnover on that desk you will get kicked some smaller clients of your own and you go from there.
Couple of questions about the regional
1. How are you doing so far? If you are getting some traction and making some $$ (75-100K you first year would be pretty solid), I would consider sticking this out a bit. A lot of these regionals tend to be older and they are looking for younger talent so you could be inline to inherit some accounts as the more senior guys start to retire.
2. What type of clients are you focused on? Community banks/credit unions, municipalities, money mangers, etc? A lot of the regionals will have a niche that specialize in and some of them are pretty active in doing new issue muni bonds that are a bit esoteric which can be a good in with clients.
3. I did not know that this type of hiring existed anymore, for the most part the larger regionals (Stifel, Piper Sandler, Raymond James, etc) tend to have people spend a couple of years in research or being the junior person for a more senior guy as a way to teach them the business a bit before sending them out on their own to cold call. Its a tough job when you have had a couple of years to watch and learn, I would imagine it would be impossible doing it right out of undergrad.
Appreciate the color on this.
1. About to wrap up my first year and I am starting to gain great traction. So the way my firm works is pretty different than your typical BB/regional dealer. We get a draw of a couple thousand each month to stay alive, but you're thrown to the wolves right away which is good and bad. Lots of learning on the fly. The first year, I started building my book of clients right away, cold calling trying to work with any type of clients that will do business with me. Started calling smaller/midsize public sector muni's, usually way more passive investors, not as savvy as your money mangers which makes it easier to talk to and that's where you start. After about 6 months, I got a Bloomberg and started reaching out to Money Managers and more active clients. 100% could be making more money as an analyst at a BB right now, not clearing 6 figures yet, but most people at my firm that are past two years start making 300k+ by just calling and building their book. It's pretty interesting, obvious way different than traditional broker at your normal BB/regional firm.
2. Mainly Public, but I talk with some large money managers and have printed business with them which kinda blew me away. Obviously not one of their top brokers as im consider still junior but they have given me business/ acknowledge that I exist. But, they are tough to break into. At the firm I am working for, we have a wide array of clients. Mainly large public institutions, but work with some of the largest money mangers as well. I have clients across many products which I like and do not like. I like it because I am more of a generalist and can work with all different types of clients. For instance, I've work with MM in primary abs new issues, primary/secondary IG paper. Muni's, Govt's, CP. I don't like that I'm not really knowledgeable on one product. However, I would say Governments and IG corps is where most of our business is printed, but literally can work with any type of clients - trade most products.
3. The firm I'm at is different from your Raymond James, Stifel, Loop, Etc.. Probably one of the last of our kinds.. There's no analyst to MD Ladder. I started as a broker right away and it was one me to call prospects and start building my book. As I mentioned, learning on the fly. Really tough in the beginning, but things are looking better, starting to get more flow from all my different clients. There's no support senior sales/research, learning the ropes before you start calling smaller clients. I could literally reach out to a large money manager and start showing bonds if he wants coverage(this has happened somehow lol)..
I've always wanted to work in sales at BB/MM on a desk, but came from non-target then worked at a BB in wealth management for 2yrs and knew I wanted to to get to the institutional side as soon as possible and this was the best chance of breaking in and going from there to gain the experience.
I'm very curious where you work and can't for the life of me figure it out. I also can't imagine trying to do the job without a Bloomberg, I get that a lot of the clients are not on BBG but how you would communicate with the trading desk or know what bonds/levels to show without it? Was their any sort of training on various products, client types, marketing strategies, etc? Is there any sort of a research or strategy team that you can leverage? Do you have much balance sheet to work with or are you mainly showing the streets inventory/axes? You mention primary new issue ABS and IG so you must have some balance sheet?
From what I can gather I would stick this out, seems like there is some resources in place, account availability and that you are pretty good at the "salesy" part of the job. Getting people who have no idea who you are or what makes your firm any different than their existing brokers to do business with you is very hard. I'm very curious what your pitch is to get started. You cold call the city of XYZ what is your pitch? Now that COVID is over you can actually get out and meet people in person which should only help build your book more. I would look at what the others around you who are successful are doing and try to mimic that to some extent, and would work to develop a diverse book of business across account types and products as market conditions will dictate how active certain things will be.
BB sales is mostly just distribution and relationship management, you don't have to convince someone who has never heard of you what makes you different than any other broker. None of the relationships are truly yours and you are constantly worried about getting laid off. I think you have a longer shelf life and a way better work life balance in this vs the BB route and has huge upside if you are good.
It wasn't easy working w/o a bloomberg in the beginning, plus training was mainly just sitting on the tradedesk for about 2 weeks. Looking back at it now being in the role for over a year, really set up with minimal resources to learn the ropes. Makes it a grind, but much more rewarding when you build relationships and start printing trade tickets with your clients. However, believe they should provide way more resources for new hires. We dont even have a CRM system! Build a call sheet from excel and maintain it. Its really interesting.. but WLB is the best you'll ever see, I promise you that. SO pros & cons fersure. We dont hold any inventory, so showing investory/axes of other dealers. We co manage in deals so able to get clients bonds in new issue markets, allocations can not be favorable sometimes, which makes it tough sometimes but really just depends on the deal and how over subscribed it can become. Its been a grind, but I've learned alot, tons of research on my own, few courses, reading everything to really learn the markets and try to print business.
Agree with you on opening up accounts.. However, I feel like if i was to make the jump to a BB and land a role, I would have great experience actually dealing with buyside accounts - maintaining and building the relationship, etc.. Could be wrong, but feel like I have gained a lot of direct experience covering some larger money managers and actually getting trades done. It's tough because I dont make a salary and only make commissions on trades so starting out its straight self accountability and grinding to generate any type of business. If things arent looking bright in another year, you can only go so far making low sum of money, especially when it seems analysts/associates are making 6 figures for work that might be easier(less uncertain) due to the reputable brand name. Easier isnt the right word but I think youll know I mean.
Is it tough getting promoted at a BB in sales or trading? Do you work at a BB/EB? If so, what is your process managing the buy side accounts as a VP? Is it mainly maintaining current relationships and trying to be their top broker? Also, what products do you cover?
Saw this pop back up and realized I never responded to you, glad you are doing well. Let me try to answer your questions. I work at a BB in sales, I would say my firm ranks in the top 10 in the league tables in most products, does not mean we have the best secondary trading of all of them but we are very much a BB firm.
1. Is it tough to get promoted: Not really, you just exist in the seat and don't suck and you will usually get promoted every couple of years until you hit director, getting promoted to MD is just all about politics and visibility. It can be a bit difficult to escape the analyst level role since usually people need to leave in order for you to get promoted to a "real" associate seat where you have your own clients you are directly responsible for, sometime they will just promote you in name only but your responsibilities are the same.
2. Process: Its mostly maintaining current relationships and trying to the top guy without getting your traders run over. Being the top guy with the biggest accounts can sometimes be a money losing venture for the desk. You want to be high enough where you see the flow and get clients to focus on your axes but not too high where the firm is losing money buying market share. The P&L is all that matters, the sales credits are widgets at the BB level. Its salary and bonus and how pay is correlated to performance for sales is not something that is easy to judge. A lot of is just trying to show some incremental improvement year over year and to make the person who signs the checks think you are working hard.
3. Currently I am SPG (RMBS, CMBS, ABS, etc) only. I have been in cross product seats in the past and found those more interesting but at the larger firms I feel like the cross product seats (if they have them) don't pay as well as the specialist seats.
Congrats on the success, if you do want to leave I'm sure you could get looks from a BB at the associate level as well as from some larger regionals (Stifel, Piper, RJ, FTN, Hilltop, etc.) with more balance sheet, new issues and more flow in general.
Wanted to chime back in on this thread and ask how things have been going/if you decided to jump to a different firm. Your situation is nearly identical to mine. Almost nonexistent training and support system for a new hire. Just about 2 weeks sitting on the desk and then immediately just left to "call accounts". Even without any actual knowledge of the business. I've found that part especially challenging. Seems that a lot of accounts aren't open to adding coverage and that makes it a serious challenge when it's eat what you kill.
One thing that I've found incredibly challenging where I'm at, is when I finally opened my first large account, my manager immediately demanded to open a group chat with his book and is consistently demanding I only communicate with them in there. I understand having help covering an account, but that just feels like they are trying to steal a very lucrative account. Especially considering I received zero commission on the trade I did with them to open them. And, to just add the salt to the wound, they just throw everything in the chat, even though this account has almost zero interest in any of them (IE. doesn't want paper longer than 30yrs but showing them maturities in the 90s, having a yield bogey above 5% yet showing them something in the 4.5% or lower range, etc...)
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