July 30, 2019
Key Learnings from Network FP Regional Conclave’19: Navi Mumbai
Nisha Sanghavi
Founder, Fynomics and Co-founder, Promore Fintech Private Limited
Key Learnings from Network FP Regional Conclave’19:
Navi Mumbai
Network FP after going to 7 cities, arrived at Hotel Tunga by Regenza -Vashi, Navi Mumbai for its 2nd edition of the Regional Conclaves on July 25, 2019. Despite a very heavy rainfall this week here in Navi Mumbai we had a house full with over 90 delegates coming in from Pune, Satara, Panvel and Rest of Navi Mumbai.
We started with Ninad Mondkar, Assistant Vice President at Network FP delivering the welcome address and handing over the day to the Chair (me) addressing the delegates about having an open mind to Learn, Unlearn and Relearn. Our host for first half Ms. Nisha Patodia told us to adopt the buddy concept which was a good experience in 2 ways –
- Know the person next to you
- Learn from their learnings too
Nisha made sure she gave us a minute each after each speaker to exchange our learning with our “Buddy”
Our first speaker for the day, Khyati Mashru, founder & Chief Financial Coach at Plantrich Consultancy LLP, specializes in discovering Financial DNA of Individuals and be the “Family CFO” to many families.
She started with an activity for each of them by drawing a tree with crayons and drawing paper. People who drew the trees along with the roots were the winners. By doing this Khyati emphasized on strengthening the roots.
- Financial planning is an art – “Anything that can’t be programmed is an Art”
- Main colors of Art- Story listening, Emotional intelligence and empathy.
- She showed a sample plan which is only of 4 pages comprising of –
Page 1 – Personal data, Risk Appetite and Dreams & Goals
Page 2 – Balance Sheet – Current situation in Table and Pictorial format
Page 3 – Income & Expenditure with Goal Cash Flow in table & Pictorial
Page 4 – Recommendations
The 2nd speaker for the day was Gajendra Kothari: He is from a business family of Glass & Plywood in Assam and took the step to set up advisory business in Mumbai. His topic for the day was Think Big, Be bold and Act fast.
- He recommended focusing on the later part of “Act Fast” which we as advisors sometimes miss out when acquiring and retaining clients.
- KISS (Keep it simple stupid)- Don’t complicate.
Their recommendations are very simple – Term Plan, health Insurance and in mutual funds – Liquid fund, Debt Fund, Balanced Fund & Equity diversified fund. No Sectoral, small cap or midcap funds to complicate clients’ life.
- Power of Compounding for our business – if business increases by 25% YOY then In 10yrs difference between 10 & 30 yrs is not 3X but 87X!!!
- Always Stretch yourself. If you are not living on edge you are wasting space.
- Reward your employees well which in turn gives you a good business growth
- He also quoted – Artificial Intelligence with not replace financial professionals. Those financial professionals who use Artificial Intelligence will replace the ones who don’t.
- BE transparent with client which has worked really well for Etica wealth
- Read, Read, Read – very critical for our business
PV Subramanyam: He’s a famous blogger on personal finance and his blog is called subramoney.com. He is also a passionate trainer and conducts training for IFA’s and Investors too. His topic was IFAs also Retire and the key learnings from his session are –
- Adapt the change – Go with the world’s speed not on your own.
- Think of yourself as a client of yours and do your retirement planning first and do it NOW.
- Do your Succession Planning.
- Advice every sip as step up SIP which would create wealth for client and also assets for you.
- Retirement is a huge opportunity in our country which is not spoken about and high time we speak about this ticking bomb.
- Retirement is not a surprise – Retirement is for sure so lets start work on it.
- Subra sir gave a lovely example of Isaac Newton having to push the entry door of the house to enter. It required good amount of energy. After years a friend asked him why he didn’t get the door repaired. He replied saying door was perfect, he had connected a bucket from lower tank to upper tank. Everytime someone opened the door the bucket was filled from the lower tank and pushed to the overhead tank- an example for filling up your own water tank with others contributing it.
- Best clients to have are beyond the age 55 yrs
Aakash Bansal: Founder, Mercury Financial was our next speaker. He spoke about the disruptions caused in the Industry from 2009- 2019, such as Entry Load ban, SEBI Circulars, Disclosure of Commissions, Direct Plans, Scheme Categorization, Robo Advisory, Reduction in TER, etc. Key Takeaways: Challenges and solutions for growth and sale
- Embrace a custodian model
- If change is accepted then the challenges we can bravely face –
- Revenue
- Fee Recovery
- Advisor Alpha
- Compliance
- Disconnected Systems
- Investor Behavior
Manish Mehta: He opined that we generally look at Technology as a key component to improve the ease of doing business; but we should also look at it for increasing the reach of doing our business. SFAs use technology to go to places and acquire clients in different geographies. Clients have become more used to and comfortable using technology for their investment needs.
The focus should also be towards innovation. One of the key aspect mentioned was to include the woman of the house in the decision making the process as they can help in better communication and also might yield better results. Key takeaway:
- Client Acquisition , Engagement & Retention Strategies, Under Served Sector
Here we had the Lunch Break
Post lunch sessions are the toughest ones to sustain. The hosting was handed over to our second host Mr. Puttaswamy Gowda. He made sure that the audience didn’t doze off to sleep after the delicious meal. We had our dance moment and grooved to the beats of the famous song “Zhingat” along with all the participants. Special mention to Amit Trivedi Sir who enjoyed the moment too.
The next speaker of the day was Vipul Sarvaiya founder of Sarvaiya Investment Solutions which he set up 29 yrs ago, based out of Uran, a small district near Mumbai with a population of approximately 30,000. He currently serves approximately 2000 clients. This session was the most candid – Direct DilSe !!
- He works on only 3 ideas – Miracle of SIP, 5K combo, SWP as a pension. The 5k combo was the biggest takeaway as an idea. Each client he meets gives him an investment for Term Plan + Health Insurance + Retirement. So SIPs are initially in liquid funds saving for paying premiums or future premium and one SIP is surely for Retirement.
- Regulations are for investors first and not for IFA’s so do not think and speak in a way that spreads negativity.
- Estate planning for clients and for yourself is a must. He has already introduced his son to the business and taken care of succession planning
After an amazing session, we played the balloon activity conducted by Sadique. We were taken back to our childhood with this amazing idea.
Up next was Sadique Neelgund from Network FP and he delivered a talk on the importance of categorization of investors and knowing the value of the time to be invested on each client before taking them on board. Sadique said that advisors should know and clearly decide on MRPC – Minimum Revenue per client.
He also suggested considering factors like GST, TER, Taxes, Expenses to calculate the net Minimum Earnings. He asked all to calculate the value of their hour and shared the concept of (ROTI) return on time invested.
Tea Break
Post this break we had a session by Harsh Roongta – He’s a CA, CFP & RIA. He writes a popular weekly column for Business Standard. He was a co-founder of Apnapaisa. His topic was –Make Friends with money. Key takeaways:
- Don’t claim credit when equity markets are doing very well as it may backfire
- Recommend Arbitrage funds in these challenging situations where credit Risk funds are in a tougher spot. While recommending these, keep in mind the T+3 redemption.
- Transparency with clients– “Clients’ interest first and foremost”
- Large Cap fund recommendations must transition into ETF or Index funds
- The sweet spot of income from 1 to 5 crores – Clients are interesting and we are happy to manage them.
- Current Challenge – Scaling up
- Let clients come and visit you instead of you going and visiting them
- Goal-oriented recommendations and not returns oriented.
- Currently, there are Four Villains in our Business – Technology, markets, competitions, and regulations
- We are in the business of multiplying and not compounding by being in the right place at the right time.
- The best example which was explained was that as research says, a human being’s health can be judged by what he eats in his first 1000 days of living and the same implies to our practice. We have to take care of the client for the first 1000 days and then the client goes on Autopilot mode and doesn’t go anywhere.
- 3 types of clients – Smart, opportunistic and ignorant.
- Best to have and be happy with competition – Bank RMs, Fintech, etc came to business but won’t last longer
I then shared my closing remarks along with the key learnings for the day, with a story to sign off with –The Story of a Star Fish
On an early morning at the beachside, a little girl was picking up the Starfish which were washed away by the sea waves during the night on the shore and throwing them back into the sea. A man passing by asked her about the same and she replied that she wanted them to stay alive as the sunshine would dry them and they would die. Upon further walking down and seeing thousands of Starfish along the shore he on his way back asked how she would be able to push back all the ones along the shore? The little girl replied, tossing another starfish into the sea “I made a difference to that one.”
Lesson from the Story – At the conclave today, we, at Network FP have tried to make a difference to the delegates and in turn, you can go and make a difference to your clients and society.
Best ever read article of Key Learning. Congratulations.
Superb.
Nice Reading..lot to learn