Throughout my career I have encountered many different sales personalities. Each of them had their own network, their own approach to dealing with prospects, their own strategic vision and their own way of handling the sales process. However, just ask any sales manager and most will agree that the majority of sales people could be categorized as “openers”, rather than “closers”.
Margin aggregation has become a popular topic amongst retail FX brokers recently with many having lost their Prime Broker relationships and with the squeeze on credit conditions.
When most FX marketers opened their Google AdWords (Google’s keyword advertising program) account last week they might have had a jaw-dropping experience. The cost per click (CPC) for the most searchable FX keywords went up significantly and, in some cases, doubled. The first reaction most likely was “is it competition?” However, there is actually a fairly reasonable explanation for this price hike, and it has to do with how Google has altered its website advertising in general.
I am sure that most FX sales managers have several “sob’ stories in their back pockets that never make it into their official, glamorous track records. Stories about hiring the wrong salesperson, someone who not only didn’t generate any accounts, but who harmed the business along the way, either by misrepresenting the company and its product, or by putting some of the key company relationships at risk.
In my opinion, last year’s SNB decision to remove the 1.20 floor on EURCHF acted as a catalyst, reshaping how we now view and approach the FX industry. As we observed throughout 2015, the SNB move radically altered FX technology and liquidity paradigms and the aftershocks of this “seismic” shift are still being felt today.
2015 has now wrapped up, and it is time to reflect on the year passed.
The year of 2015 will be remembered by the FX industry for so many different reasons. In the aftermath of the SNB rate decision, many brokerages had no option but to re-evaluate their business models, their risk management practices and, to tighten their belts.
Today many global FX brokers have their sights set on China. It is certainly a land of opportunity, where brokers, regardless of their size, can unlock their growth potential and capture above-average profit margins. It seems the perfect market, doesn’t it? Investors who are hungry for volatility, fast returns and a hassle-free trading environment but the harsh reality is that only a few brokers are able to make it in China.
I, along with my institutional FX team at Advanced Markets and Fortex, am dealing with FX brokers who may be in search of liquidity, technology solutions of all kinds, infrastructure enhancements or sometimes just a price feed that is stable and reliable on a daily basis. We have seen it all from novice brokers that need everything explained from A to Z, medium-sized price-conscious brokers that are trying to bypass pre-qualifications and over-state their volume figures to get better deals to larger brokers asking us to fill out lengthy RFPs (Request for Proposal) while the work on selecting a new liquidity partner.
One should never underestimate the importance of platform stability and system “uptime” to an FX brokerage. These are critical aspects of the business that should never be overlooked and it is therefore vital that you make the right choices when considering someone to host your company’s server(s). By entrusting hosting to a third party, you are effectively dependent on that provider’s expertise, reliability and trustworthiness. Remember that, should they fail, every minute of downtime could cost you a considerable amount of money and, perhaps even worse, seriously damage your brand credibility.
As a first-time buyers in Massachusetts, my husband and I had to go through the thorny road of home buying last year that was full of unexpected challenges and lots of learning along the way. In the age when information sharing is burgeoning and so many useful tools are available at your fingerprints, home buying process can become quite an enjoyable and rewarding process if you approach it from the right angle and with the right set of tools. I wanted to share some useful tips and tricks that can help my fellow first-time home-buyers in their house hunting.
