Lloyd Vogelman is bucking conventional wisdom when he claims that when it comes to selling a good relationship won't always seal the deal. Vogelman is the founder and director of independent coaching and presentation consultancy Corteks, which, unlike many other sales trainers, specialises in helping players in the wholesale financial services markets lift their game.When Vogelman advises dealers on a foreign exchange panel how to stand out from their peers he tells them to consider three sales scenarios. The first is service provision. "The client probably knows what they want. The sales people will focus on meeting client requirements through price-oriented reactions. The winning strategy is not about advice. It's about execution, price and relationship skills."The second category he calls expert value-add. "You have to resolve a key issue. Say someone with a forex requirement is concerned about costs and wants to hedge. To win [impress the client and get the sale] in this environment you have to convince them that you are smarter on forex, certainty and cost. They are the specialist. You bring diversity and technical knowledge. "My view is that you don't have to over-invest in relationship building in this category. It won't do any harm, but it's not the trump card."The third category he calls advisory value selling. "It's about their strategic objectives. You will only win if the client thinks that you also understand their business. So you're smart, but not only in forex."However, calls to re-think the value of relationships arouse scepticism among forex market participants."The foreign exchange market is an online market," said Jessica Beckstead, New York-based managing director of sales at retail and institutional trading platform FXCM. "There's no exchange. Relationships are important."Clients have different needs, though.Geoff Wood is risk manager at Morphic Asset Management, a new global equities manager based in Sydney. As a fund manager that hedges its overseas equities exposure and also manages a small portion of forex as a stand-alone asset, Morphic needs information more than advice. Wood's requirements put him into Vogelman's service category. He needs a good bid-offer spread; 24-hour electronic access; a good in-house research facility; and analysis of fundamental drivers, plus technical analysis. A relationship is good, but he's not intending to be faithful.The Australian subsidiary of global soft furnishings maker Hunter Douglas falls into the third category. Peter Hughes, director of finance and logistics, says the company buys about 15 million US dollars and about three million euros annually. Foreign exchange can significantly impact on local pricing."I look for a genuine relationship. We have a lot of seasonality in our business. We'd be looking for someone to say, 'Well, you have currency exposure in September to November'. We're not looking to win on the exchange rate, we just want the certainty."  Hughes has trimmed what used to be a three-member panel down to one bank because, he says, "the other guys were competing on points".So, how's a dealer supposed to know what the client wants? Vogelman has the answer to that: "Expert value-add is reactive. Clients