In an industry filled with hot air and short on talent, where perception holds more value than reality and mind share outweighs market share, it only makes sense that those “professionals” who forge a career here are equally empty.
When sales traders are attempting to make in roads with clients or secure a position with a new firm we don’t have much hanging from out tool belts, but the again neither does the competition. In fact, in our world the list that separates you from that pack can be narrowed down to four things – your golf game, country club memberships the school you went to and lastly who you know (AKA-name dropping).
If you can believe it, name dropping on Wall Street is even more overused then the terms “understood” and “got it” combined. If you don’t think so just pick up a phone in any trading room, pretend there is somebody on the other side and shout out, “Who covers XYZ Capital? They have an order and aren’t sure who covers them.” At least ten people will stand up. Then some clown from the peanut gallery will yell out, “Who is it over there?” Once the sharks have a name to sink their teeth into the fun begins. You will find that at least one tool will claim to have just shopped them, another will tell you that he was in the clients wedding party, two more used to cover him somewhere else and the remainder attended college with him.
Even though name dropping is common practice, you still need to be careful. It’s still a people business and if you start slinging some body’s name around without them knowing, you could be creating a real problem for yourself. It’s a grey area but once you start using some body’s name in order to gain credibility or jockey for position – technically you are giving yourself an endorsement by the person who’s name you’re using. This works great when you really do have a strong relationship with or have asked permission to use the sponsors name but it’s a bad idea when you hardly even know the guy or even worse, if the guy hates you. It’s such a bad trade – five minutes of notability for a ton of grief. But unfortunately in our cut-throat sales trading world of pathological liars, sales traders are conditioned to do what ever it is they have to do to get the door open. Even a five minute window is enough to get the door open.
Let’s look Inside the mind of a name dropping ticket-monkey who is throwing out names he has no business using: “The door is open! … My foots in it!.. I’m gaining ground!!!. Boom!… I’ll just backtrack and disguise my white lies tomorrow.” Anyway, you get the point which brings me to a noteworthy incident last week….
It was Thursday night and I had met up with a group of friends at the Library Bar in the Hudson Hotel. It’s not much of a scene but a good place to hangout with friends and shoot some pool. It must have been a full moon because it turned out to be one of those nights where everybody was out looking for somewhere to go and get their drink on. I’m looking at my phone right now and I got five text messages that night (which is a lot for me) asking me If I was out and where I was. Before long everybody had shown up with 2-3 friends and before I knew it, it was like 1998 with 20-30 brokers pounding drinks as if they were going to the electric chair in the morning. I miss those days – the days where networking was fun and made sense.
Then later that evening another group came in. To everyone’s surprise it was an entire buyside trading desk from a large and respected hedge fund (a real hedge fund – not one of those little piggy-back cockroach funds). There were probably eight people from the account and they were being escorted by nine others from a broker dealer. I can only assume they randomly picked this bar for drinks after a thank you for your business dinner. Little did they know, without peanuts and popcorn, they had just wandered into the side show circus tent.
Do you remember what it was like as a kid when you heard the ice cream truck making it’s way down your block? Or even better… You ever see how intensely excited the family dog gets when he hears the kibble being poured into his bowl? It’s that same exact level of uncontrollable hysteria that sweeps over sales traders when an unannounced client enters the room. Upon regrouping composer a sales trader starts telling himself three things: 1) Act normal…2) don’t be too obvious… and 3) I probably only have a five minute window – What’s going to be my hook?
Like a pack oh hungry hyenas with Navy Seal precision, the bumbling brokers wasted no time breaking up the after dinner party. Dividing was easy… Conquering – well that’s always the tough part. All the delinquents who where drinking from there shoes five minutes prior had now straightened their ties, put on their good guy masks and when you looked across it was like looking into a sea of bad infomercials.
Luckily for me, one of the clients I was talking to is somebody who I’ve actually talked to off and on for the past fifteen years. His name was ANDY TYLER and he’s one of the few clients who actually get it (no offense to the rest of you). We were talking for a couple minutes when Johnny, another broker (and very good friend of mine) sashays over doing a poor job of keeping his martini in his glass. Since Andy was in the middle of a story, it wasn’t yet time to introduce Johnny. While Andy was sharing his story he made mention of his firm, Pennington Management, and that’s when Johnny’s ears perked up and he caught a shine to his eye. Since Johnny’s a pitbull, he didn’t wait for me to make the intro and the second Andy wrapped up his sentence Johnny extended his hand and said, “Hi I’m Johnny. So you work at Pennington Management?” The client respectfully shook his hand and replied, “I sure do.”
What happened next was absolutely priceless and the worst name drop I have ever seen in my career. I don’t know what Joe was thinking… or who he knew… or thought he knew… or what the fuck was going through his head but the next thing to come out of his mouth to Andy (who’s name he didn’t get yet) was, “So how’s Andy working out over there?”… I thought to myself… Either there’s another Andy at Pennington or my buddy is completely retarded. Andy raised an eyebrow and asked, “Andy who?”… Johnny didn’t miss a beat and with the conviction of the potential other Andy’s best friend responded, “ANDY TYLER.” Holy shit! It was the crash and burn of the century. I was embarrassed for him – But it was the funniest fucking thing I’d seen in a long time. “I’m Andy Tyler” said Andy Tyler and Johnny’s face went from smug to white and expressionless. It was fantastic – there was virtually no recovery… Johnny muttered something about how different Andy looked from the last time only to have Andy highlight how they’d never met.
Text Messaging friends to meet up for drinks… $.70
My share of the broker tab… $560.00
Watching Johnny name drop a client’s own name on himself… PRICELESS!!!!
You gotta love this business,
Dopey
