7 things you need as a crude oil broker to make a living
If you’re a broker, you might have heard this most of your life
Individual don’t engage in the business of oil brokerage, it is only for the government or oil companies. You should find something practical to do with your life and stop lazing.
And yet.
Look around us, status are being changed every day.
If brokerage is your profession and your passion, you can accept criticism and ignore your passion and settle for less.
Or you can choose something better. Because there is something better.
In the time I’ve been in brokerage professionally, I’ve noticed some necessary traits, abilities, and strengths that make the difference between life as a successful oil broker and life as someone who likes to brokerage but can’t seem to close any deal.
Here are 7 of the most important:
#1: Love
This might seem flabby, but if you’re meant to be a broker, you know what I mean.
There is no alternative for the love of brokerage. For the passion of facilitating the deal, the phone calling and the brainstorming for the acceptable procedure aren’t quite rightyet.
If you don’t love making phone calls, denying yourself of some luxuries and the act of putting up workable procedures, none of the rest of this really means anything.
#2: An attitude of service
This has to be your primary focus. In this business, there are lots of risks that can be avoided. Most buyers and sellers know about this but to avoid or minimize them to bearable limits they don’t know. This is where you intervene as a broker.
As soon as transaction is initiated, though, the buyer and seller become the focus.
Professional brokers work from an attitude of serving their clients. Serving them with truthful, beautiful platform (procedure), yes. But also with language that meets their needs, language that clarifies rather than prettifies.
Agents, brokers or facilitators all live in service to clients. No matter how clever or perfectly poetic we may find a phrase, if it doesn’t serve the clients, it goes.
#3: Confidence
If you got it you have to flaunt it. It’s always struck me as odd that many of the most capable brokers are also some of the most insecure.
But it doesn’t need to be that way. Confidence comes from putting the work in, to become a genuinely authoritative expert. It comes from research, craftsmanship, and seeing the difference you make to your client.
Serious crafts people are humble and proud at the same time.
The pride and confidence come from hours of consistency and can do spirit — the kind of work that expands your abilities and challenges you to grow. The humility comes from the knowledge that a true pro is always improving, expanding, and refining.
#4: Training
Many brokers imagine that if you have access to contact of some buyers or sellers, you’re qualified to work as a professional broker.
Not so fast.
Great and successful brokers are not only brokers but also strategists. They understand what types of procedure work to attract attention, to stand out amid the sea of quack broker, to motivate buying and selling behavior, and to help the client make the journey from interested client to loyal customer.
And for brokers who are serious about professionalism, you have to get experienced broker to train you about the craft of professional brokerage. (The “art” is up to your talent and abilities.)
#5: Discipline
You may be a burgeoning broker and strategist, but if you can’t get yourself the butt-in-chair time and denial needed to close a deal, you won’t get where you want to go.
To a great degree, discipline is a set of habits that can be cultivated. As a broker, you can string together rituals, create the right work environment, and adopt the behaviors of productive brokers.
As a working broker, you also need to throw in a set of habits that will ensure that you meet your deadlines, keep clients updated.
If you care enough, you’ll do it. The habits can be difficult to put into place, but fortunately, once they’re in place, they tend to keep you on the right track. (That’s the difference between habits and will power.)
#6: The willingness to become a marketer
If you want to make a living as a broker, the fastest, most enjoyable way to do that is to look for buyers that buy in small quantity and seller that can also supply the same.
It’s interesting, it’s lucrative, it’s very much in demand, and it will get you researching and investigating as many contacts as you can.
You might think that this kind of transaction will not fetch you much. Far from it, sealing one or two of such deals in a month means a lot of cash and experience which will call on your skills as a passionate successful independent facilitator.
A well-qualified broker needs all the necessary skills combined with solid marketing strategy.
You also, of course, need to get comfortable marketing yourself. This can be surprisingly tough even for brokers who create superb marketing for their clients.
“Close one or two deals and hope someone wants to do business with you” won’t work for your brokerage business any more than it will for your clients’. You need to apply the same strategies and frameworks to your own business that you do to theirs.
If this doesn’t come naturally to you, don’t let that worry you. It doesn’t come naturally to a lot of good brokers. But it’s something that’s well within your ability to learn.
#7: Support
One of the tough things about living as a professional broker is that the path you walk is one you make yourself.
There’s no one to tell you which direction to go, no one to give you sign posts along the way, no one to outline your day for you and tell you where you need to be and when.
That’s also one of the dynamic and fantastic things about living as a professional broker. But sometimes Fantastic is also Difficult.
Brokerage is a lonely business. And it can be just a little lonelier when you don’t have colleagues to bounce questions off of, or to share your gripes and triumphs with.
When you do find a community of brokers, though, it’s a lovely thing. They’re some of the funniest, smartest, people you’ll ever meet. And it just feels good to hang out with people who get you.
(Because yes, your friends and family actually do think you’re sort of a weirdo.)
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