Interdealer broker Tradition says its data sales team is seeing better results and an improved sales pipeline after taking advantage of free training courses for industry association FISD’s Financial Information Associate (FIA) certification program.

James Watson, global head of sales at TraditionData, the division responsible for selling data generated by Tradition’s brokerage operations, says the firm saw the opportunity to put its data staff through the program as it aligned with the broker’s core message of “creating value” and could contribute to team building while working remotely.

Watson initially had two staff—one very experienced, and one new to the market data field—take the training and exam at the end of the first quarter of this year. After both passed and reported positive feedback, he signed up the remainder of the broker’s 16 data sales staff globally, including salespeople, sales managers, and product managers, who completed the course and sat the exam in early May. The entire team passed, with scores ranging from 88% to 96%. Another two Salesforce support staff serving the data sales business will also now take the exam—probably in July—so that they can better understand the markets and salespeople’s roles in order to identify how Salesforce can better support the firm’s salespeople, Watson says.

One team member said it helped him to understand the whole trade lifecycle, and how data would be used by front-, middle-, and back-office staff. Everybody said they learned techniques and subjects that will help them greatly in their conversations with clients.

James Watson, TraditionData

The training helps staff better understand clients’ data needs, and the use cases for that data. As a result, sales conversations become more productive, client relationships become stronger, and—in theory—sales should increase because staff understand all aspects of a client’s business, and to anticipate what data products might be needed by different business areas, Watson says.

“Our people bring value to our clients by understanding what they’re talking about—they understand the markets, and they understand market data. For example, a client wants Alternate Reference Rate (ARR/RFR) data, we know what areas of their business would benefit from that data, and what other data they would need, as well, so the conversation can address multiple needs,” Watson says. “One team member said it helped him to understand the whole trade lifecycle, and how data would be used by front-, middle-, and back-office staff. Everybody said they learned techniques and subjects that will help them greatly in their conversations with clients.”

For example, if Tradition wants to displace another vendor at a client, rather than just being called in to help a firm drive down the price of its incumbent supplier, the broker talks transparently about the full cost of switching platforms, including the cost and complexity of delivery mechanisms, and how many applications will consume the data.

“The best way to add value to a conversation is to understand the people you are talking to, what they do for a living, how they do it, and the value chain of that function within the institutions,” he says. “With that knowledge, we can have much richer conversations with clients. We take notes on every meeting, which affect sales, product, and even technology strategies, and everyone on the team gets to see and use the information from these notes. Across the business, we see the positive effect of this, and can see that this encourages our people to ask more questions.”

The result of this is a bigger and better quality sales pipeline of new business, and shorter timeframes needed to complete deals. “Those early calls get you to the end result quicker because you’re asking the right questions and understanding more about their business,” Watson says.

Battle Tested

To encourage data professionals to continue partaking in the FIA examination, FISD arranged for its testing partner, Kryterion, to offer the ability to take the test from home, and also partnered with training provider Learning Modules to offer its market data training program for free to those who sign up and pay for the test. The training usually costs $480, and the exam itself costs $425, but is being subsidized by the companies with the financial support of FISD’s key sponsors.

Hope Wilkes, program manager for professional certification at FISD, says 100 individuals from 35 companies signed up for the deal, which was due to expire at the end of this month, but has now been extended until the end of September based on the level of demand. This compares to 73 exams sold during the same three-month period in 2019. Firms and individuals who sign up by September 30 will be able to study the training materials—including more than 3.5 hours of video training, 150 pages of notes, and tests covering each section of the training—for 60 days and sit the exam anytime between now and June 30, 2021.

“There’s a feeling—especially now—that to maintain connection with staff when remote … you need to make sure teams share the same goals,” Wilkes says.

FISD needed to adapt the test to allow candidates to sit the examination from home rather than in one of more than 900 testing centers, including formatting it to be taken on individuals’ own devices, and changing the wording of the user agreement. Despite candidates taking the tests from home, FISD has not seen scores outside usual ranges that would suggest any candidates are taking advantage of the lack of a strict testing environment to cheat on the examination. However, being able to train and sit the test remotely has resulted in a greater geographic diversity in terms of the candidates signing up, and Wilkes says FISD has seen more applications from individuals and companies located in Africa, continental Europe, and Asia.

There are also signs that employers are taking the certification seriously, as FISD is receiving “a steady flow” of firms calling the organization to confirm whether a candidate has the qualification or not, and Wilkes says she believes this current spike in demand will ultimately lead to a longer-term upward trend.