The assessment pressure of product consignment has recently become the biggest test on the business department of securities companies. "To tell the truth, the pressure is huge", said a senior person in the securities business department. Product consignment, especially the consignment of new products, has become the biggest focus and difficulty of the securities business department at present.
During the investigation by Chinese reporters of securities companies, almost all the securities companies interviewed felt the difficulty of product sales, and some even thought that the sales scale of their business department decreased by more than 80% year-on-year. The resulting performance pressure also makes front-line marketing personnel miserable. Some securities companies revealed that more than 95% of front-line personnel were unable to complete the product consignment task in January this year.
The current cold market has also become an opportunity to test the wealth management skills of securities companies. According to the reporter's investigation, many securities companies have shown their magic powers to meet the current challenges by improving customer companionship, adjusting product preferences, optimizing configuration strategies, and deeply studying customer group portraits.
product consignment is in trouble
"It's very difficult for us to do it now," said the head of a business department of a medium-sized securities company in Shanghai in an interview with a Chinese reporter. Due to the recent cold market, the product consignment data of the business department under management has fallen sharply. The person in charge said that since this year, the monthly sales volume of public fund products has only been about 10 million yuan, compared with 50 million yuan in the same period last year.
another brokerage wealth management headquarters told reporters, "since last October, many front-line data reflect the cold market. A large number of front-line personnel can not complete the product consignment index. From our latest January data, at present, more than 95% of front-line personnel can not complete the product consignment task."
From the perspective of macro data, the decline of product consignment data is an irresistible trend. A large number of new funds were issued at the beginning of last year, but it decreased sharply this year.
According to wind data, the number of newly established public funds in January and February this year (as of February 21) were 99 and 7 respectively, with issuance shares of 92.946 billion and 2.409 billion respectively; In January and February 2021, the above two groups of figures were 162 and 120, 566.165 billion and 311.991 billion respectively. It can be seen that since this year, the number and scale of new public funds have decreased significantly.
The person in charge of the aforementioned brokerage business department said that the main reason for the decline in sales was the cold overall performance of public funds. On the one hand, after the profit-making effect decreased, the willingness of new funds to enter the market in the short term decreased significantly. According to wind data, as of February 21, only 17 actively managed stock funds had a positive return, with an average market return of - 7.55%. On the other hand, due to the decline of net worth, many investors are locked in for a short time, and it is more difficult to "redeem the old and buy the new". For securities companies, these two aspects basically lock up the main path of product consignment.
front line employees are under great pressure
The decline in the scale of product consignment has little impact on the performance of many business departments. It is understood that in order to promote the scale of product consignment, many securities companies give high commissions to front-line personnel, which increases the business cost, resulting in the overall low gross profit margin of the business and limited contribution to the profits of most business departments.
According to the person in charge of a business department in Shanghai, the core source of revenue of the business department is brokerage business, such as margin trading and securities lending, which will contribute higher profits. When the market is cold as a whole, the securities investment consulting business also has an appropriate growth, which will increase the revenue of the business department.
However, the decline in the scale of product consignment has brought great challenges to front-line business personnel. According to the person in charge of the above-mentioned securities business department, product consignment has been the largest source of income for front-line employees in the past two years. Now the decline in sales scale will have a great impact on the sales income of front-line employees.
"Last year, many people in our sales department realized an annual income of one million by relying on product consignment, of which a large part of the income was contributed by the business in the first half of the year. After September, our performance is not good. The KPI of product consignment cannot be completed, and the sales income is greatly affected." A front-line staff of the business department of a securities firm told the Chinese reporter of the securities firm.
The above-mentioned people from the wealth management headquarters of securities companies also believe that with the decline of performance and the decrease of income, the mobility of front-line business personnel is also increasing. In order to stabilize the team, the headquarters is considering strengthening the training of business personnel and appropriately adjusting the business assessment indicators.
The Chinese reporter of a securities firm learned from the business department of a securities firm that, from the perspective of profit, the proportion of traditional brokerage business in the income composition of securities firm branches is gradually shrinking, and the proportion of Commission on consignment continues to increase. At the same time, for the consideration of assessing the transformation of wealth management, in the current market, indicators such as product consignment scale and market ranking have indeed brought great pressure to the branches of securities companies.
To this end, the above-mentioned brokerage headquarters specially readjusted the assessment indicators of front-line marketing personnel, which is reflected in appropriately relaxing the assessment of product agent sales, and focusing on the assessment of the coverage rate of marketing personnel to customers and the number of effectively reached households. For example, it pays more attention to how many customers it is associated with and how many customers buy or apply for purchase, rather than focusing on the sales target in the same period last year.
In fact, reducing the sales assessment of marketing personnel is not just out of humanistic care. In any case, it is not only difficult to crack down on employees' compliance, but also more important, it may lead to the loss of employees' enthusiasm.
multiple strategies to meet challenges
It should be noted that despite the drag of A-Shares and the substantial drag on the consignment of equity fund products of securities companies, the timely strategic adjustment still helped the securities companies stabilize their position temporarily. For example, the fund sales of the semi Committee and the investment consulting business of public funds have slowed down the downward trend of fund consignment to a certain extent.
"Our fixed income + and CTA strategies are selling well at present." The person in charge of a Shenzhen business department of a head securities firm told the Chinese reporter of the securities firm that compared with the single purchase of fund products, the market performance of the configuration service launched by the company's headquarters is obviously better than that of its peers, and the recognition and acceptance of investors are relatively high - even the most positive strategy, the cumulative decline since the beginning of the year is only half of the market.
Although market fluctuations cannot be avoided, by adding CTA and fixed income to the strategy for risk hedging, the final yield curve of relevant configurations launched by the above securities companies performs well in terms of maximum pullback and volatility, which is equivalent to expectation management for customers in advance. Therefore, in the face of today's declining market, not only the comfort of customers' investment experience is high, but also the post investment service pressure of the business department is greatly reduced.
In fact, in addition to testing the effectiveness of asset allocation strategies of securities companies, market decline is also the touchstone of securities companies' ability to serve customers. According to an analyst of the core business department of a listed securities company, the core work of the business department is mainly divided into four items: first, continuously deliver the concept of asset allocation to customers and let professional people make professional investment; Second, in the process of product selection and recommendation, strive to help customers overcome speculative psychology, reduce income expectation and prolong holding time; Third, select low-risk products such as fixed income + in combination with customers' risk preference to match the latest needs of customers; Fourth, deeply analyze the customer portrait and provide targeted investment suggestions for customers.
"According to past experience, when the fund is difficult to sell, it is a good time to enter the market." The above-mentioned analysts told the Chinese reporter of securities companies that 2022 is expected to be a structured market and there are no extreme variable factors. After the early decline, many fund heavy positions are expected to have been adjusted, and the growth of some originally highly valued stocks began to highlight. In this context, instead, we need to guide mature investors to pay attention to promising equity assets.
He stressed that at this time, it is particularly necessary for the account manager to spend more time to do a thorough analysis of the customer and share the same frequency with the customer. "We require marketers to communicate more with customers and output our investment allocation logic and views on the market completely. I believe many customers can finally agree. After all, most customers of securities companies are shareholders and still have a certain risk tolerance."
In addition, although many securities companies have made gratifying progress in wealth management business in the past two years, many customers still need more support services in stock trading, especially in the current market. "Our recent stock trading service strategy has been promoted smoothly." He said.
The Chinese reporter of securities companies learned that although the relevant stock strategies may not be effective immediately, for securities companies, they can enhance the stickiness of customers, guide customers to pay attention to the latest hot spots in the market, and guide customers' funds into the market with better performance through products, trading varieties and other forms.
[reporter's observation] consignment "late spring cold" tortures the wealth management ability of securities companies
The wealth management business of securities companies is experiencing the most difficult spring in recent years. According to the feedback from the business departments of many leading securities companies interviewed by Chinese reporters of securities companies, the sales data of first-line financial products are declining rapidly, and the average monthly sales of some business departments are less than 20% of that in the same period last year.
The "cold spring" in the market reflects the wealth management business with the sales of equity public offering products as the core, which is obviously not the ultimate answer for securities companies to get rid of the cyclical impact of business. Securities companies can continue to promote the in-depth transformation of wealth management business and improve the comprehensive ability of securities companies' wealth management business by weakening sales orientation, strengthening the service ability of front-line personnel and promoting the implementation of fund investment advisory business.
First of all, the layout of wealth management business by securities companies needs to overcome the impulse of scale and moderately weaken the sales thinking. There is no doubt that scale is the core data of wealth management business of securities companies. However, excessive pursuit of scale will also bury many hidden dangers. In this round of wealth management tide, some securities companies are often keen to sell "hot money" funds in order to cater to the market. In fact, after these funds become popular funds, on the one hand, the valuation of key investment areas may have been high, on the other hand, the rapid expansion of scale is also easy to rush out of the management boundary of fund managers.
As Buffett said, "the big wallet is the biggest enemy of excess returns". Before and after the past two spring festival, there have been relatively large adjustments in the market. First, the big blue chips such as Baijiu after the Spring Festival in 2021, followed by new energy sources before the Spring Festival in 2022. Most of the funds that are heavily loaded up in these sectors are embarrassed. If you recommend customers to buy these products when the market is hot, it will obviously reduce customers' trust in securities companies.
Secondly, the layout of wealth management business of securities companies needs to strengthen the construction of their own service capacity. At present, the reason why securities companies are keen on "killing money" is not only the lack of understanding of the sales staff, but also the lack of "chasing money" of the products. In recent years, many securities dealers have strengthened the construction of investment and research system for fund and other products. On the one hand, they have strengthened the screening of fund products at the front end, and on the other hand, they have strengthened the training of front-line personnel at the service end. For example, in the construction of the team system, some business departments concentrate a part of young people with high education and understanding of finance to form a fund product sales team, and screen the products uniformly recommended by the company again, so as to improve the performance stability of the products sold, so as to improve the customer experience and be of great benefit to the long-term development of the business.
In addition, securities companies can provide more help for investors in the allocation of large categories of assets. Since last year, the income of products such as "fixed income +" has been good, and the relative volatility is lower than that of equity products. If the layout of investors can be recommended at an earlier stage, it will obviously help investors obtain better investment income and holding experience.
Finally, from the development experience of global wealth management business, the fund investment advisory business may have great prospects, and securities companies can actively layout. The recent fluctuation of fund product sales data has proved that simple sales of products is only the primary stage of wealth business management transformation of securities companies, and the attribute of "watching the day to eat" is still obvious. At the same time, there is a conflict with investors in the distribution of interests, which is not conducive to the long-term stability of the business.
In the traditional seller's investment consulting logic, the company's main revenue comes from the commission income generated by selling products on a commission basis. Therefore, there is often the phenomenon of over promotion. More products with higher commission rate are sold to obtain income, which can not help customers maximize their interests. Under the buyer's investment consulting logic, the consulting company charges service fees based on the customer's asset scale. Therefore, the customer has a greater voice in the service and requires the investment consulting work to have higher initiative in order to realize long-term cooperation with the customer.
While the market fluctuates, the admission scale of new funds decreases rapidly, the funds of stock users are also locked up, the product consignment business is difficult to carry out, and the rebate is also reduced. However, the fund investment advisory business collects service fees based on the scale of customers' assets. Although there is no new sales, on the premise that the customers' stock assets remain unchanged, the income can still maintain a high level, and the volatility of securities companies' wealth management performance will obviously be greatly reduced.
