Most sales advice is garbage because it treats prospects like walking wallets. In commodity trading, your reputation is everything. One bad deal and word travels fast. This guide focuses on building genuine relationships that create long-term value for everyone involved.
Core Principles
Never lead with what you're selling. Lead with understanding their biggest pain point. In commodities, this is usually:
- • Cash flow timing issues
- • Risk management gaps
- • Operational inefficiencies
- • Compliance headaches
- • Market timing challenges
Your goal isn't to close a deal. Your goal is to become their trusted advisor. Sometimes that means recommending they don't work with you. Counter-intuitive? Yes. Effective? Absolutely. People remember who gave them honest advice, even when it cost you a sale.
Commodity traders live and breathe numbers. Don't give them vague benefits like "increased efficiency." Give them: "This automation will save your team 40 hours per week, which at your current hourly cost equals $180,000 annual savings." Make the ROI crystal clear.
The DISCOVER Framework
Before you can sell anything, you need to understand exactly what's happening in their business:
- • "Walk me through your typical day from market open to close."
- • "What's the biggest bottleneck in your current process?"
- • "How much time does your team spend on manual tasks?"
- • "What keeps you up at night about this business?"
Listen for emotional language. When they say things like:
- • "We're drowning in spreadsheets"
- • "I'm tired of chasing down confirmations"
- • "Our compliance costs are killing us"
- • "We can't scale with our current setup"
These are buying signals disguised as complaints.
Quantify their pain:
- • "How much is this costing you per month?"
- • "How many deals have you missed because of slow processes?"
- • "What would happen if this problem got worse?"
- • "How much would solving this be worth to you?"
Don't manufacture false urgency. Find the real timeline pressures they're facing. Maybe it's year-end reporting, a new regulation coming into effect, or a competitor gaining market share. Real urgency sells itself.
Only now do you present your solution. Frame it specifically against the problems they told you about. Use their language, their numbers, their timeline. Make it feel like you built the solution just for them (which, in a way, you did).
Ask for their honest feedback:
- • "Does this address your main concerns?"
- • "What would you change about this approach?"
- • "What questions does your team need answered?"
- • "What would have to be true for this to be a no-brainer?"
Don't ask for the sale. Ask for the next logical step. Maybe it's a technical demo, a meeting with their team, or a pilot project. Make it easy to say yes to the next step, and the sale will follow naturally.
End every interaction by summarizing the value you'll deliver in their terms. Not "our solution provides efficiency gains" but "this will save your team 2 hours every morning and eliminate those 3 AM margin call panic attacks."
Common Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)
❌ Leading with Features
"Our platform has 47 different analytics dashboards and real-time data integration..." They don't care about your features. They care about their problems.
❌ Talking More Than Listening
If you're talking more than 30% of the time in a discovery call, you're doing it wrong. Your job is to understand, not to impress.
❌ Avoiding Price Discussions
Price objections happen when value isn't clear. If they understand the ROI, price becomes a simple math problem, not an emotional decision.
❌ Pushing for Immediate Decisions
Commodity traders make calculated decisions. Respect their process. A rushed decision usually means a bad decision for everyone.
Scripts That Actually Work
"Hi [Name], I noticed [specific observation about their business/recent news]. We've helped similar companies in [their sector] reduce [specific pain point] by [specific amount]. Worth a 15-minute conversation to see if there's a fit?"
Why it works: Specific, relevant, low-commitment ask with clear value proposition.