Sales - Second year analyst doing Corporate FX sales

as they can't do most of the actual work without a license, what do sales interns do?

Interns do several things

The main job that they usually engage in is the creation of pitchbooks for clients. Obviously you learn to use the powerpoint template for the bank's pitches but it also forces you to get comfortable in pricing certain products (in my case FX forwards, options).

You jump on sales calls with salespeople and listen in. You just hit the mute button on your phone and you pretty much listen to a senior salesperson make the pitch to the client. You quickly realize different salespeople have different styles of selling and it helps you formulate your own idea of your "persona" for lack of a better word on the phone.

You tend to do some simple excel spreadsheet work to satisfy client requests to the senior salesperson (i.e. backtesting a hedging strategy assuming the client hedged their expenses in EUR using forwards on a quarterly basis)

You also get some non finance related tasks to perform such as ordering lunch for the desk, picking up food etc.

At the end of the day, the whole experience is just a basis for a possible future hiring. If you can prove a) you arent a dumbass and can pick up basic terminology and conventions b) You are able to perform simple tasks and not screw up the details c) you are a cool guy that people can see themselves sitting next to you on a full time basis without wanting to kill you

thanks, FX. two more questions: as an analyst, how much time do you spend with clients outside of work? and how'd you decide on your desk?

What's the male to female ratio on sales desks?

any advice for a senior screwup like me with no job looking at s&t?

the guys above have some awesome questions. also want to ask, how many analysts are on your desk, what does a first year analyst really do?

as an analyst, how much time do you spend with clients outside of work? - Most of the clients we cover are actually not located where we work, so id say not really that much, the largest portion of our interaction happens over the phone (Thus the importance of being able to actually carry a conversation)

and how'd you decide on your desk? - I took an unorthodox route and was actually directly hired onto the desk, so there wasnt really much deciding to do, it was either be unemployed or work in FX

How diverse is sales? Is it predominantly white? I'm a minority (South Asian)and am wondering if there are any more of those in sales. - Id say at the upper levels there are more white, but at the lower levels there is definately more diversity from what ive seen. Informally from my experiences so far i see more south asians, east asians in trading positions than in sales but i havent any data to back that up.

Do you interact more face to face or over the phone with clients? How about via e-mail? (see above)

What is your relationship like with your traders? Does it get tense. Do you ever sell products from other desks, or have to learn about a product in an extremely short amount of time? - I only deal in FX so i cant speak for salespeople in other product groups, but my relationship with the traders is actually very cordial. Obviously when the market is going crazy the traders are particularly stressed out and things can get chippy. But generally the traders i work with are pretty cool, we have a good working relationship.

What level of teamwork is emphasized? Would you say it is more or less individualistic than banking? Do you collaborate with other salesmen and research? - I definately think teamwork is highly emphasized. At some point you are going to need another salesperson to cover for you, or help you out. If everyone is out to cannibalize each others business or to play the lone wolf, you arent gonna last long. Nobody wants to work with a guy they cant trust. I only collaborate with other salespeople if i hear they did something that might be applicable to a client that is on our desk and talk to them about it and maybe get a already made pitchbook and just tweak it for our client. I collaborate with research only to bring information our client wants whether that be thru publications or actual conference calls when the information they want goes beyond general market color.

What do you think were your most valuable experiences in preparing you for an analyst role from your undergrad? Being part of a club, fraternity, sports team, or any setting that emphasizes communication is probably pretty important, no? - I definately think all of the above mentioned activities would be important. At the end of the day you gotta be able to work with people with different personalities, egos, values, ages. So the quicker you can learn to get along with everyone and get them to like you the better off youll be in sales

What's the male to female ratio on sales desks? - I have no idea, definately girls in my area but i couldnt give you a number

what does a first year analyst really do? - Pretty much the same thing that an intern does, youll quickly come to the realization that you have a ton of learning to do before you can even get on the phone with a client. So pitches and more pitches - Pricing out products, tying out with other salespeople or traders to make sure you didnt screw something up - Taking messages, doing stuff like getting research for clients, doing analysis on excel.

Eventually you get to a point where you are comfortable enough to talk on the phone to clients for basic stuff anyway, id be lying if i said i was doing high level calls with clients on my own, but i guess the closest thing i could approximate it to is an apprenticeship, slowly you get more and more autonomy as you grow

When you say pitches, is this like pitchbook work in IBD?

i'm curious on that girl to guy ratio as well. is it close to 50/50?

I know you're in FX, but what is equities or FI like?

More generally, I'd like to hear more about these pitches...are they like the pitchbooks in IBD like JJLM mentioned? What are your day to day immediate goals and also LT goals that you try to achieve in the work that you're doing.

Where do you get your research and market analysis from? Is it mostly your own analysis or are you acting as a filter and disseminating research that comes from external sources or from within your banks research dept. based on what you see the client's needs to be.

Is the hustle and bustle of Sales impacted in the same manner as trading? ie FOMC announcements... or does it depend more on bigger picture trends?

Thanks a lot for coming forth and taking time to answer questions.

Can you discuss exit opps in terms of sales. What are your long term goals, what's your near term future look like? Do people from sales transition into trading and vice versa? Also, how would you compare your compensation or potential compensation relative to traders and IBD (present and future)?

I know you're in FX, but what is equities or FI like? - As i mentioned before i was hired directly onto the desk, so i never did rotations in Equities or FI, so i would rather just say i have no idea than provide false info

More generally, I'd like to hear more about these pitches...are they like the pitchbooks in IBD like JJLM mentioned? What are your day to day immediate goals and also LT goals that you try to achieve in the work that you're doing. - We use the same template to create the pitches that IBD does, but i would definately stress that not nearly as much time is spent on working on the pitches. From the few IBD pitches ive seen they are huge with tons of analysis and charts. We tend to keep it more streamlined and simple. State the problem, do some analysis, make a recommendation, provide pricing. On average id say a pitch is about 20-30 pages, but you dont really create a new one each time, so it saves alot of time to just take an old pitch, replace the client name and refresh the pricing.

Where do you get your research and market analysis from? Is it mostly your own analysis or are you acting as a filter and disseminating research that comes from external sources or from within your banks research dept. based on what you see the client's needs to be. - As far as formal research goes, i definately rely heavily on our internal research people. But at the end of the day, everyone has a view, so i try to present various views. Ideally ill give em the in house view from our economists, tell em what ive been hearing from our traders and then my own personal view. Obviously this is contingent upon the clients needs, if they have large exposure in Europe, its unlikely they will care what happened in South Africa overnight. You just gotta figure out what the client really cares about, and what they dont.

Is the hustle and bustle of Sales impacted in the same manner as trading? ie FOMC announcements... or does it depend more on bigger picture trends? - I think only in the sense that we get on the phones with clients and give them market updates. In the corporate client space, you arent gonna have some guy/girl who will just pull the trigger on a whim, so you tend to plant seeds with your clients and hopefully down the line a few of them blossom into trades. The sales cycle tends to be fairly lengthy with corporates unless the relationship has been there for years and they are doing repeatable business (i.e spot trades)

Awesome thread. How would you say a 2nd year analyst's success is measured?

So you're saying that you make most of your recommendations based on research from your firm and on what you hear from your traders. Do you have a formal meeting every morning with traders, or is it more on a chat basis when you get some coffee? And how much own research do you do as an analyst?

What also strikes me is that if your research team sucks and your traders aren't the greatest either, aren't you in a pretty bad position? What I mean is, does sales depend to much on other divisions?

When I interned in sales, I got the feeling that the analysts I shadowed never really had their own investment ideas, they just conveyed whatever their research team gave them to their clients. I realize that you don't gain that much insight as an intern, so I'm wondering if salesman are basically the voices of research teams or traders?

So you're saying that you make most of your recommendations based on research from your firm and on what you hear from your traders. Do you have a formal meeting every morning with traders, or is it more on a chat basis when you get some coffee? And how much own research do you do as an analyst? - Your question this sounds like more of an equity related question. I dont really recommend any investment ideas, i market to corporate clients and therefore im not telling to what to buy and sell from an investment standpoint but more from a risk management standpoint. We dont have formal meetings with traders, its more unofficial chatting to sometimes get a different perspective on the market. I dont do much of my own research, i read whats publicly available and use people internally as my resources.

What also strikes me is that if your research team sucks and your traders aren't the greatest either, aren't you in a pretty bad position? What I mean is, does sales depend to much on other divisions? - My job isnt to sell our research and trading capabilities, i just act as a conduit between our internal people and clients. Usually its the client asking for information and i generally forward on interesting pieces of research that would be applicable to a particular clients situation. Plus one of the assets that you have at your disposal as a salesperson is the market color and research you can provide in order to build the client relationship. But it is not THE determining factor on whether or not the client decides to do business with us.

When I interned in sales, I got the feeling that the analysts I shadowed never really had their own investment ideas, they just conveyed whatever their research team gave them to their clients. I realize that you don't gain that much insight as an intern, so I'm wondering if salesman are basically the voices of research teams or traders? - I work in FX and like i stated earlier, my job is more risk management and consulting than pitching investment ideas. So no, im not pitching an investment idea to clients of our desk because frankly, they dont care. Their job is to mitigate their foreign exchange exposure in their operations, not taking speculative bets on the currency moves

FX thank you very much for all of your answers.

I have a few more questions for you. Do you like your job? In hindsight what would you have done differently in searching for and actually on the job? What are the normal exit opps? Where do people move on to from Sales?

Thanks a lot for your answers. Yes, I was indeed talking about about equity sales, since that's where I interned. So when you say "But it is not THE determining factor on whether or not the client decides to do business with us." What is THE determining factor? The trust you built up? Thanks again.

"What is THE determining factor? The trust you built up? "

The determining factor is almost always price.

Jimbo

Jimbo is correct, in a perfect world as a salesperson you bust your ass to keep your client happy and eventually down the line they will throw you a bone and let you make some money on a trade. But it usually comes down to price.

do you ever get customers who want to use currency swaps, etc. to speculate, rather than just for hedging? Frequency? - Most of the corporates i deal with are in manufacturing or tech, their job is to make widgets or software ( a gross oversimplification but you get the point), so no they dont speculate, another thing to consider is many companies are public, the last thing you want showing up in your public filings is a huge mark to market on your income statement of some derivative on the books that is purely spec ( a very good way of getting fired immediately). So no.

What are the most promising (i.e. highest margin) products in currency right now? - Highest margin products are option based structured deals, problem is in corporate land, the accounting for structured deals are pretty terrible usually. So its a hard sell.

How long is the deal/trade completion process (hours, days, weeks?) once you have successfully marketed to a client? After the client is in, do sales people help with any other parts of the transaction or is your role over after the marketing? - The more complicated the deal the longer it takes, a simple spot trade you book that day and the thing values in 2 business days and the confirm should go out pretty soon after you do the trade. - The more complicated stuff takes a bit longer, cause it involves more people (Middle Office, Back Office, Credit etc) - There is usually still alot of handholding during most of the process as the client is used to dealing with the salesperson, so any post trade isses go through the marketer (Back Office Issues, Mark to Market Issues, Client Onboarding onto certain systems)

Thank you, FX

FX, what's the compensation for sales like? Do they rely on commission? How's it compared to trading?

Hey FX, What are the hours like...many tell me you leave soon after the market closes, but then people say you entertain many nights a week which can last late into the night.

Second, How easy it to move between firms...in your opinion which are the top five S&T ibank departments on wall street ranked?\

FX, thanks for all your great advice and general commentary on life in Sales. It's been a while since you added to this thread, but I hope you're not completely gone forever. It would be nice to hear more about your experiences, especially regarding the questions just above this post.

Fandango

-------------------- "It is a fine thing to be out on the hills alone. A man can hardly be a beast or a fool alone on a great mountain." - Francis Kilvert (1840-1879) "Ce serait bien plus beau si je pouvais le dire à quelqu'un." - Samivel

FX, what's the compensation for sales like? Do they rely on commission? How's it compared to trading?

- Compensation is in line with similar roles at the analyst level in other parts of the bank (Corp Fin, Trading), I havent been in the business long enough to tell you what comp is like at the higher levels. But ive heard that youll find alot more salespeople making a ton of money vs traders. Obviously you have outliers in trading who just make staggering amounts of money but i think its easier to make a career in sales where you can do very very well for yourself vs trading if anything just because you dont take on the risk of the actual position. You just book it and let trading worry about it.

What are the hours like...many tell me you leave soon after the market closes, but then people say you entertain many nights a week which can last late into the night.

- As an analyst im in by 6:30-7 am and im out the door by 6ish usually. Ive stayed later sometimes but its fairly rare

Second, How easy it to move between firms...in your opinion which are the top five S&T ibank departments on wall street ranked?

- I havent moved yet personally so i dont know. But from what ive seen with upper level salespeople, they move around a lot. I personally worked with some people who left my firm and came back 2 years later. There is alot of movement between banks from what ive seen. As far as top 5, i dont think you can clearly rank the banks in any specific order, every bank is good at something or another, just depends on what you wanna do. But to echo a statement that Jimbo made a long time ago, the most important thing is to work where you like the people. It makes all the difference in the world in being able to drag your ass out of bed before the sun is up and look forward to doing your job.

Thanks FX!

--------------------

"It is a fine thing to be out on the hills alone. A man can hardly be a beast or a fool alone on a great mountain." - Francis Kilvert (1840-1879) "Ce serait bien plus beau si je pouvais le dire à quelqu'un." - Samivel

btw. are there any more good books (like liar's poker) concerning sales in particular?

btw. are there any more good books (like liar's poker) concerning sales in particular?

I found this topic very interesting coz i'm also doing corp FX sales but i'm just a 1st year. i think most of the things said by FX is true, esp. that you really have to like the people you're working with. For books concerning sales, I'd say it's more an experiential thing, coz when you first start off u're pretty scared even just talking to clients on the phone, esp. when they are experts (and they'll know u aren't) so u need to build up your knowledge and confidence slowly.

also agreed with FX that u don't do much research on ur own, becoz u're not paid to do it and there's already a lot in-house research available, but from what i observe the senior sales always have some personal views, and usually the views are adjusted for every different client, so they will feel u're thinking for them rather than reading out market news/research reports

M/F ratio: from my observation on the floor (mostly fixed income) i'd say it's more like 70% male to 30% female but i think it really depends ..

i also got a question for FX: i know and feel the many constraints for corp sales, so i was just wondering if the investor sales ppl will easily got higher revenue/paid better just becoz they can market more exotic products to clients, i really have no clue...

and thank you for the input.

However if you can elaborate more on what are the exit op and/or long term goal of a sales would be? I am applying MBA and so far I have had a good conversation discussing with a career management advisor from one of the potential schools that I applied to. I was advised the chance of me breaking into ib would be very slim since I have no finance background and she suggested S&T would be a very good fit for me because my background is sales.

Hence, I wonder what is a long term prospect for a S&T and if you can give us some opinions that would be greatly appreciated.

cheers,

ak

As far as i know, S&T demands finance/math knowledge much more than IB so there do hire more people with math/business background. haven't heard much about having a sales background helping u get into S&T myself, though.

exit op/LT goal: since i'm just a 1st year i don't think i'm suitable to answer these, but people in more senior levels do move around the BB quite a lot. i think a lot of ppl here asks about exit op, which makes me wonder what kind of op they are thinking/planning? hedge fund?

well i'm not sure if that's just my thought or what, but being either a sales/trader your job is pretty much the same year in year out, which for a sales u'll still be selling to clients, only that in times u get bigger portfolio to handle or u get some management work to do. the thing thats different is probably that market is moving everyday and products are evolving pretty quick too so u will continue to learn stuff rather than feeling u're heading nowhere. advancement opp is S&T is certainly abundant, but at the end of the day it's still ur performance that counts.

HF: it's already a big world here in S&T and i feel i hv too much to explore at the moment so i don't really thought about 'exit opp', but i'd be glad too if someone with more knowledge can tell us some insights..

Akao: i won't doubt u hv the right material to get into S&T, but it's more about the environment of S&T that u should consider before focusing on landing a SA somewhere