November 6, 2014

How to Conceptualize & Conduct an Investor Awareness Program

Kanak Jain

Before conducting any activity one should be very clear about the WHY of that activity. Why do you want to do it and HOW will it value add to the life of others. In my view the purpose of an Investor Awareness Program should be to introduce and reintroduce the concept of why it is important to invest.

Purpose can be general to specific. Care should be taken to cover the following 6 points:

• Information about the agenda and the subject matter.
• To instruct about the rules and specific points during the program.
• To entertain with light experiences and humor
• To inspire/ motivate with songs , stories and experiences
• To activate/ stimulate- for the purpose of your presentation
• To persuade with emotion and for the benefit of a common cause.

Investment, Wealth creation, Financial Planning is the most non glamorous topic for most of the people. People celebrate the purchase of a new house, a new car and sometimes also a new shirt.  They will enjoy a movie, game or a get together but not like any insights on goal based planning. They hardly have a specific or clear financial goal.

Solution is to create a game for the investors, where they get together, where every participant is a part of a team and they play together to win and learn the message of importance of financial planning and asset rebalancing, in a subtle manner.

What now becomes important is the vision to be able to see the better part of the years to come. In the history of the Indian Finance markets, next few years will be the best years of our lifetime. We all should make the best use of these years and let the flow of our work and passion be smooth and flawless. It’s like a slate, a blank slate and the good news is that we have the choice to write what we desire to. The one thing which will strongly define the next ten years of our life is the input we put in next two to three years. It’s time to gear up for new ventures, market and strategy. Just one mission, one vision and that is moving towards the collective good.

My experiences with the Investor Camps I have conducted in the last 6 months across India were based on the following:

• To write at least 20,000 Financial Plan by December 2016. I have created a website for investors and advisor where any investor or advisor can make his own one page financial plan or a detailed financial plan
• Reach out to more and more people by way of conducting Investor awareness Program by  social media, email marketing, and referrals.
• Story is the most important ingredient of any presentation. I propose to share the story of our country and Rastriya Bhakti by way of investing in our country by our country men. This is the main theme of my presentation in any Investor Awareness Program.
• Strategy for wealth creation has two purpose 1) Make a goal based financial plan and 2) Manage wealth by way of Asset Rebalancing and Asset re allocation.

Another innovation which I have tried is to make all participants play a game “The Volatility Game”, a unique game has been created for these Investor Awarness Program is to make the art of investing look very simple and joyous. The objective of this game is to bust the myths of investing and to introduce the concept of Asset Allocation & rebalancing to the participants.  In addition, through that game we try to give a message that we can perform better than the benchmark Equity and Debt with Asset allocation.

Asset Allocation and Rebalancing proves to be better than investing in only Debt, Equity or Gold investment. Observation: All the teams perform better than the bench mark Equity and Debt with Asset allocation and rebalancing. In 90% cases, the teams double money in 5/6 years. Asset Allocation and Rebalancing proves to be better than investing in only Debt, Equity or Gold investment.

Various Puzzles, Illusion games on investment are developed and are on a continuous basis evolving. These games take the curiosity level of individuals coming for the program to a new height and these people become excited to know more about their wealth creation and wellbeing. This creates the right time to share the concepts of investment with them. The participants are not only inspired to invest themselves, but they also move on to organize such programs for their friends, family, associations and club they are connected with.

If we as an industry try to engage with the investors in Investors Awareness Programs, I am sure that we will have a better investor class which is essential for the growth of our industry.

Authored by,

Kanak Jain

Director

Suskan Consultants Pvt Ltd

kolkata