The role of coaching for Financial Services sales and client-facing professionals
When I was in my twenties, I spent a great deal of time placing finance professionals and the typical route for many newly quals was a career in product control. A key interview question at every firm seemed to be “why do you want to get into financial services?”. Invariably candidates would answer with “because it’s fast-paced and dynamic”. The money was also really good, but everyone politely ignored that reason. Whilst financial services is very different than it was pre-financial crisis, it’s still an innovative industry and is also subject to rapid change. M&A is highly cyclical, asset management subject to markets, hedge fund strategies can quickly come in and out of fashion, and demand or appetite for lending can disappear as quickly as it appeared. Many would argue that Wall Street and “Main street” are very different worlds, but financial services firms feel every shift in the economy.
This cyclical nature and exposure to external forces means that teams often have to pivot, quickly. Success often hinges on an individual’s ability to adapt, learn, and thrive. Continuous coaching should be part of all firms’ consciousness. Whether informal at the desk coaching, or more formal programmes, employees’ skills need consistent replenishment. However, this is all assumes that everyone loves being trained and is open to new ideas, when we all know that in any team there will be some less keen that others.
Coachability & recruitment
Firstly, it’s hard to change how someone views on training and even more difficult to change how a group of people feel about training. It’s best to avoid that problem altogether by hiring people who are “coachable”. Having spent 20+ years in the talent industry, I’ve seen managers wrestle with cultural change all too often. It’s slow, expensive, and ultimately one side often reluctantly gives up. Therefore, if you are in a rapidly changing industry like financial services you need to hire people open to coaching.
The City has a long tradition for hiring ex-forces or sports professionals. Of course, there are many reasons to hire people who’ve built their early career in these environments, but one positive of the many ex-forces or sports professionals is that they are open to coaching and used to receiving feedback. In fact, I think professional sports is almost unrecognisable from 30 years ago with coaching being a key criteria in improvement. Even the individual sports star seeks the help of a coaching team. Talent + skills replenishment and development + structure and accountability = high levels of performance. The world of work is no different.
However, sports and forces professionals aren’t the only people open to coaching, lots and lots of people really enjoy self-improvement. The choir singer, the cookery school pupil, the weekend tennis player, almost all groups have large amounts of people open to learning, the key is to avoid those who aren’t. An interview process must be thorough, must delve deep into how people approach situations, how they dealt with previous successes and failures, to help you identify the flexible learners. There will be some that you hire to exert a positive influence and to help upskill those around them, but those too need to be open to new methods.
Coaching in existing teams
The techniques if you already have an established team, who maybe a little resistant to training, of course need to be different. It’s important not to dismiss the good work the team may already be doing and to check that they themselves don’t have good ideas for change. However, as a manager you ultimately need to decide if your team has the right skills for the landscape ahead. In my experience it’s best to work with the team to identify the skills needed, the skills gaps, and the benefits to the team in undergoing training. This can be improved referrals and therefore revenue, better customer satisfaction levels, and industry recognised qualifications, enhancing career development, or future proofing careers. You can also work with the team to develop a framework for what success and accountability looks like to get buy-in, but also to maintain the commitment to change. The COVID years were fascinating as a recruiter. Firms who embraced change and new techniques thrived. Those who wrestled change, seemed perpetually unhappy and struggled to bounce back as quick.
Our advice is to incorporate “coachability” into your interview process and to create a culture of constant training for your team so that it’s normalised.
If you’ve enjoyed this article and you’re hiring in your sales team, then please contact Chloe Tillman at: [email protected] or call 01525 864 372.
If you’ve enjoyed this article and you’re hiring into your wealth management or client facing team, please contact Kelly Biggar at: [email protected] or call 01525 864 372.
About Fram Search
Established in 2010, Fram Search is a specialist financial services recruitment consultancy. We focus on mid-to-senior hires in the UK and internationally.
We provide high quality contingent and retained recruitment services to boutiques and global brands. We have long established relationships, outstanding market knowledge, and access to deep talent pools. Fram takes a highly consultative approach, combining outstanding tech with a human approach. We are proud that our contingent fill rate is nearly three the industry average and we augment our retained search methodology with rigorous psychometric testing. We take ESG seriously, we are champions of diversity and all staff have undertaken unconscious bias training, we also carbon offset.
Please contact us on 01525 864 372 / [email protected] to learn more.
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