Insights

How to Manage Your Forex Brokerage Team

September 30, 2016

The forex brokerage industry is one that is being extremely competitive due to at least two factors: all brokers are fighting for the same clients and there is not much to offer in order to differentiate yourself as a brokerage house that stands out of the crowd.

While the main aspect brokers are focusing on is fast execution, low spreads, no slippage, low commissions, etc., in order to attract new clients, there are some brokers that tried interesting things, like crowd-trading, etc. The overall idea is not bad as it brings something new to the market, but in the end, it will not make a difference for that respective broker when compared with other’s offering.

What will make a difference, though, is the way the brokerage team is managed and how it handles the pressure that is the norm in this industry. Each and every department is vital in such a business and only working as a team in the interest of the customer, the broker will really add something valuable to its overall offering.

 

Make Your Team Understand the Business

The very first step in improving your team’s performance is to make sure the overall business process is understood. This is not a complex business and all people from all departments need to understand how it works, from where is the income coming and what is the core asset of the brokerage house.

The core asset may be different from company to company, but one that strives to be successful should center its business around the end customer. This means that every department, starting with sales, and ending with IT, should focus on the customer needs.

In this manner, everyone knows the interest of the company as well as the interest of the clients and aligning them together will differentiate the brokerage from other businesses.

Organize Focus Groups

Everything mentioned above looks very good on paper and in theory but how to actually do that. How to center your business on customer needs and put the client first, above all?
One very good way to achieve that is to organize focus groups. This should be done with customers as well as internal focus groups.

Customers oriented focus groups should involve traders and can be organized either online (it is cheaper, but still effective) or as a live event. The aim here is to learn as much as possible regarding what forex traders really want, what matters the most for them and look at the brokerage business through a trader’s point of view. Empathy always works, and in this line of business, it should work even better.

Internal focus groups should be oriented towards finding out how to improve communication between different departments as well as improve socializing. A group functions better than an individual as diversity comes into play.

The purpose of these focus groups is to learn more about both internal and external factors that influence the business and in this way, one can improve the overall forex broker team performance relative to competition and to the end customer.

Only this way a broker will truly become competitive and, in time, it will be seen in the overall brokerage house profitability.

Comments are closed.