<p>Most people out of training program will start off as a sales assistant, and gradually given clients to cover over time. At BB firms, there is very little cold calling. You are usually assigned to a sales team and are given better list of clients as you are able to generate more revenue. A salesperson cannot do business with any client that’s not assigned to them, except if they are new. When a ticket comes through, credit is given to the salesperson who covers the client, it doesn’t matter who actually generated the sale. </p>
<p>As there are many sell side firms, large institutions will only deal with a handful of them. It is important to get on buy side firm’s approved list, and it is not always easy if an IB never had any relationship with them before. It is up to the salesperson to cultivate that relationship and deepen it over time. It is not as simple as taking them out to dinner or give good box seats. Those clients, after all have managers they are reporting to, need to make sure whoever they are dealing could add value to their institution’s bottom line (and make their life easier by providing them with analytical tools or good research sometimes). A good salesperson needs to show their client range of products his firm could offer, or the depth of a particular product a client is interest in. As an example, if a client is interested in investing in emerging market, and your firm does not do much new issuance in that area, then there is no point in doing business with your firm. On the flip side is a salesperson may see great potential in doing business with a new client, his firm may find the client is not credit worthy to do business with. It takes effort on a salesperson’s side to convince senior management to do business with a new client. </p>
<p>The most important thing a salesperson needs to do is to be able to get a client to take his phone calls. I always say it takes a “village” to make a good salesperson: 1) good trading desk(s) to give competitive pricing to clients, 2) research, 3) quant group, 4) middle office, 5) operations, 6) IT… Often seasoned salespeople from a BB firm make a move to a smaller firm by taking the client list with them. The smaller firm maybe willing to pay up because it’s a business they never had before. Those salespeople quickly find out their new firm is not on the clients’ approved list, their traders are not competitive in pricing, not very good at providing repo, or their trades fail because the back office is not efficient or automated. It is a reason why salespeople ask for guaranteed bonus for a first few years when they move to a new firm, because many of those issues are out of their control and could impact their production credit. </p>
<p>A big producer in one region with a nice client list would not be able to demand similar type of compensation or get a job when moving to another region. In my brother’s case, he covered central banks in the Far East. When he wanted to move back to the US it was very difficult for him. He knew the products, but he didn’t have the right client list to offer to future employer to help bring in revenue right away. </p>
<p>I hope this is helpful.</p>