 Good morning, everyone. We're coming to you live from Sunny Side Press today, and we're talking today to Tick Mill's Global Head of Business Development, Carla. So, welcome, Carla. Thank you for taking the time out to talk to us. Thank you for having me here. How are you? I'm fine. Good. Good. All good? So, Carla, I think the first thing for us to talk about is a typical day in your role. So, what would a typical day look like for you? What are the kind of responsibilities that you're doing on a day-to-day basis? Yeah. So, Sophie, regarding to what I do usually on a daily basis, there are a lot of maybe tasks and priorities that I should look into. So, I try to maybe divide the task into different days or even mix. The reason why is because I look into different markets globally. So, starting off, I develop individual plans with the county managers for each country or region that they take care of. And then I also evaluate market trends and provide the appropriate support to product development. And of course, I do provide some training and maybe guidance to the team to also overcome some development issues. Let's say we do some weekly meetings or monthly meetings to discuss what challenges each market is facing in every county or region. And we try to find solutions for that as well together. I also... So, I was just going to ask. So, what you're saying is that you actually go in with a tailored approach for each market. So, for the different country managers, you have to tailor it to the clientele that are in that country. Yes. Okay. So, there's a lot of work going into that. Yes, of course. Yeah. So, that's why we need to also always work together because, you know, everything... When you try to overlook a global market, you need to listen and understand every individual market how you can approach it, you know? Because every market has different traditions, different culture, different type of marketing tools approach, etc. So, we need to always communicate together as a team. So, it's a real tailored approach. Yeah, it is. In addition to that, I analyze the business strategies and develop improvement plans so I can also provide the right support for the growth of the business. So, we also... Of course, when I gather all the information and the challenges or issues, so I also try to coordinate that with the management team to maintain as well the quality of service that we provide for every individual market and to maintain, of course, the budget that we need to allocate for those countries. So, it's about maintaining the consistency as well? Yes, correct. And then if we look at the technology side as well, I need to raise also with the IT department in order to maybe inform them about the latest technology that we need to provide for our clients differently also in every market. If you look at Asia, they may be discussed about copy trading or even MENA or Latin America. So, every individual market also is in need for certain technical tools. So, we need to always communicate with our IT department in order to provide the most innovative tools and products for our clients. Wow. So, that's actually quite a huge scope of activity that you've got to cover. What do you feel that's the most important thing for your team to focus on and what are your priorities for you anyway? What do you feel are your priorities towards the traders? I believe there are a lot of key points that I try to communicate with my team in order to provide the best service that we can because at the end of the day, we are an online financial trading company. So, in that matter, you are not offering a tangible product. So, therefore, you need to focus on the service that you provide to the clients or traders. So, one of the key services that we need to focus on is education. So, in cooperation of course with the marketing department, we try to see maybe each market also individually what type of webinars they would look into education webinars for us. Also, we try to be offline as well. So, we target different markets by going on the ground, being there present as well and provide them the educational seminars that they might acquire. So, we have a lot of, for example, beginners traders that they need to understand more the risk of this market, of this industry before they get into that market. So, we try to provide them the most information possible for them to make the right decision in order to see whether it suits them or not. That's for the education part. Now, if we talk about services, we need also to maintain the quality of communication with our traders. We need to understand the needs and requirements for them in order to provide the best service for those traders. And then again, we look also for each market individually. We do not provide the same service for all markets and every market, as I said before, has a different way of approach. The third thing, then, your presence as well on, if you look at the technology part as well, so you need to be present on social media. And therefore, we have to look into how we present our services by providing the right information to our clients. From the business development side, we are active on social media. Our traders all over the world can understand what Stigmas vision is. Also, can also get closer in communication with the right business development, whether he's a country manager or a salesperson or a customer support. So, we try to understand the needs for each market and be there as well active on social media. I mean, if you want to reach the global market, you need to be present there. So, they need to see with who they're dealing with. It's really important to be active on social media. What image are you giving or representing the company? And do you think it's important that they have that accessibility as well to the company so it's more about the transparency, so people can always kind of be in contact should they have communications, more about the immediate communication. Yes, very important indeed. Nice, so that's a very kind of comprehensive approach that you have. So, Carla, what I'm hearing is that a lot of emphasis is put on education and making sure the traders know what they're doing. So, what do you feel are the current needs of the traders and how do you make sure that your team caters to that? Okay, if we look at different type of traders, say for example, we start off with beginners or the guys that they want to learn more about trading. They've heard, they tried for some times and they want to learn more. So, what my team does, or maybe the need for the trader to start learning more about trading is to walk them through basically the platform to understand more how to place a trade, what are the risks that also they might encounter. They can also ask maybe about different type of technology on the platform that you could see, like leverage, margin, etc. So, those guys are there to help them, to walk them through from A to Z. The trader obviously need to understand also the cost. So, they do ask sometimes if we're talking also about advanced traders, they come and they look for what are the costs for the spreads, what's the leverage that they can be entitled for. Now with ESMA also, they need to understand how they can be converted to professional clients or not. If there are details, what leverage they get. So, the team is there to explain to them and maybe to walk them through the whole registration process. So, every trader has its different needs and we make sure that every trader will find the right tool and services that they would be looking for. And what about tick mill as a whole with regards to the conditions? So, the spreads, the leverage, the margin requirements. How does tick mill cater to a plethora of clients with their conditions? Nowadays, I mean there is a lot of competition in the market. And the competition market requires to be maybe the broker that you should be getting or maybe offering the best lower spreads, offering the leverage that the trader will look into it. Also the regulations. A lot of clients, they will come and ask, where are you regulated? If it's an FCA company or broker or if it's an offshore license as well. So, tick mill try its best to provide the most innovative products as well. So, the more variety of products, the better for the traders to have more options in order to see how they can or maybe which products to look into and trade. They try as well to have the best execution. With this competition, you need to always offer the best execution as well in addition to the spread, the low cost of spread and the leverage that they would be looking into. So, and not to mention the segregated accounts that the clients would feel more safe once they fund their money in order to place some trades. So, those maybe points, tick mill try to focus on in order to be competitive in the markets. So, it's kind of the fundamental things that you're addressing in that case. So, the conditions that will allow them to excel and also the putting in place the procedures that will allow them to feel safe while they're trading. So, it's covering all the bases. Very good, very good. So, with regards to the team that you monitor and that you work with directly, how is the team organized and how do you, could you also talk us through the process of onboarding a client? Yeah. So, we have different, my actually team consists of different departments. The reason why I have different departments is to try also to give like a customized service for every individual or maybe type of client. So, we have for example the activation department. We have partnership department and we have county managers and customer support. Yeah. And not to mention also the technical analyst guys as well that they provide educational webinars and seminars to the traders. So, once the client gets onboarded, we have an activation team that would help the client to be, to go through the registration process starting from filling the form online, sending the KYC documents, the right documents for every market, gets approved and then they're ready to start. Just for our traders to understand KYC, what does KYC mean exactly? It means that the right documents for the know your client basically, abbreviation of know your clients, the right documents for every trader in order for them to get approval. So, once they get the approval, they get their account activated. So, they need to be approved from the compliance point of view. They have a registration form to fill, provide the right information about their profile, then the documents and then once the documents are correctly submitted, then the account is right to be approved. And after that the trader will be ready to fund his account and start trading. Nice. Okay. Yes. And regarding to the other departments. So, we have also a partnership department. The partnership department focuses on maybe tailor servicing the IDs or maybe partners. So, the partners usually they look into providing clients or maybe refer to friends or they would like to introduce business but they can either trade as well or maybe just focusing on growing their businesses. Yeah. So, those guys, they have some connection and they would like maybe to introduce them to Tickman. So, they are called partners or IDs. Introducing brokers. So, those guys in the partnership department, they make sure that every ID is satisfied. They're providing the right also information for the clients before they get on boarded. They also get some rewards from Tickman once they introduce their clients or traders to us. And the partnership department also they ensure that the IDs they get maybe the right material. So, they can also in there from their side to provide it to their clients. Right. Okay. We have also the county managers. So, county managers are mainly focusing on every individual market. They're assigned to or allocated to. Yeah. So, they do the business development for their market. They study the market. They see what are the right approach for Tickman to get in that market to expand the business there. Yeah. So, they do analyze. They look at the competition there. What are the right product services and marketing budget that we need to allocate for that market. Right. And they come forward so we can together maybe build that business in the country's origin they're taking care of. Wow. Okay. So, we try to always provide and maybe listen to also the traders what exactly they need. I mean, we try to provide what the client is asking for. Yeah. I mean, there's no point of just focusing on certain things that the trader would never take into consideration while his focus is somewhere else. So, you need to have very efficient communication with your traders especially if they're advanced experienced traders. So, they are the best people to hear feedback from in order to provide your, I mean, improved always services to the clients. And social media gives you those open channels of communication. Yes. It's really important tool actually. Yeah. And I'm guessing that tool must trigger down into your team. So, you're encouraging your team to actually use social media to engage with their clients to possibly open up more markets and to be a communication channel. Yeah. My team, they're quite active on social media. They try to always present the right image for each individual. We have also some information maybe positive about the profits, the volume, the trading volume of the company every now and then because it's really important for the trader to maybe to compare, to compare Tick Mill with other brokers as well. So, he can make the right decision where he would like to maybe invest his funds. Nice. So, could you tell me a little bit more about your team? So, we've been talking about the tools that you're using to engage with your clients. But how specifically do you organize your team and how do you structure the team and what's the onboarding process like? So, when someone first comes to a member of your team all the way through to when they're actually trading with you as a client. So, my team consists of different departments. The reason why we have divided different departments into different tasks is to cater the needs of each profile client. So, for example, we have the activation department. They are the first maybe department that will be in contact with the client. So, the client once he shows interest of opening an account with us and registering with a company, they get in contact with him and they try to accommodate his needs from A to Z. So, starting off from the registration form and then later to submit his documents as well. So, they walk the clients through the whole process until he gets approved and he's ready to open the account to find the right account as well for him because we have different type of accounts. So, he would be in contact with that account manager in order to give him the right information to make his decision which type of accounts and whether the client is approved so he can start trading. Wonderful. The other department would be we have another department called the Partnership Department. The Partnership Department, they take care of all our partners and ideas. So, we do also have a department that calls County Manager's Department. For this County Manager, they get involved more in to develop business in every individual market. So, they look into, for example, Asia, they look into Africa, Latin America, maybe the Minas region. So, they try to study the market, analyze what the market needs and then they communicate together. I mean, we communicate together so we can see what are the right approach in order to expand the business in each individual county. Wow. Okay. Well, I think that's, we've covered quite a lot today and that's probably all we've got time for. So, I'd like to thank Carla for coming to talk to us today. It's been a wonderful day. And you'll be hearing for some more of the tick-mall team very, very soon. Have a nice day. Bye.