Sales force training is, hands-down, the most important thing you can do to improve your brokerage’s chances of success in a competitive market. While good marketing and good management are also key factors for success, at the end of the day it is your sales representatives that bring in the money and are thus the bread-and-butter of your organization.
Since your product is essentially virtual (meaning it is not a tangible product that you can put on a shelf or on your desk), since practically all of your sales are done by phone, and since the platform’s optimal and successful use by your clients requires experience and knowledge, the skill set your sales force needs in order to demonstrate its benefits is considerably different than those needed to sell a car, TV, or even a software such as a CRM or antivirus.
Basic Steps for Efficient Forex Sales Training
So what are the most important things you need to do in order to train an effective and profitable Forex sales force?
Step One
The first thing that you should do is instruct your sales representatives to become very familiar with trading, and especially on your platforms. Let’s step into your clients’ shoes for a minute. They are interested in a smoothly running platform that provides them with easy trading and good payouts, but how do you demonstrate this to them over the phone? The answer is to trade live with them and show them firsthand just how easy and profitable it can be. To do this, you must first be able to trade easily yourself, and even earn some money in real time (on a demo account, obviously). In short: the only way to sell Forex trading convincingly, is to be an active trader yourself.
Step Two
The second thing that you need to train them is phone skills. When making a frontal sale, the representative has more tools at their disposal: appearance, body language, a physical product to show, and more. Furthermore, it is easier for a sales representative to read the clients’ responses: are they nervous? Do they believe you? Do they seem to be leaning towards buying or not? In phone sales, the only such tools at your disposal are your voice and your communication skills, combined with your ability to “read” your client by paying attention to subtleties in their voice. Therefore, you need to teach your sales reps how to sound confident, charismatic and project authority over the phone. This is best done by “blind” simulations, in which a group of sales reps analyzes a call without knowing who is on the phone, and pays attention to details such as tone of voice, confidence, key sentences used, whether the representative leads the call or is led by the client, and more.
Step Three
The third step is to teach your representatives basic psychology. From the point of introduction to how you lead them through successful trades (as mentioned above), there are phrases that promote trust and phrases that break trust. There are certain words that you should avoid and certain words that you should try to use frequently. For instance: one trick is to forget about the typical introduction and just state your name, that of your brokerage, and ask if it’s a good time to talk, without telling them what you want to talk to them about, as if it is obvious to both of you. Nine out of ten times, what will happen then is that the client will not remember that they left their information, but then it gives you the opportunity to present yourself as someone responding to their request – increasing the chance of cooperation on their part and a successful sale. In addition, avoid trying to logically explain the benefits of your product and focus on trying to get them excited. Don’t try to present your product as “easy money”, but as an effort that is not beyond their reach or abilities.
