Network FP organized Bring It On 2021 on Wednesday 30^th December 2021. It was attended by over 800 personal finance professionals. Here are the key takeaways and learnings from the event. Here’s hoping that this motivates our readers to implement these learnings into their “Professional New Years’ Resolutions”.

Panel – 1

Col. Sanjeev Govila (Retd.) –

1) Focusing on Webinars to connect with the clients and investors.

2) Planning to offer ESOPs to employees.

3) HR function to be made more objective rather than subjective.

4) Using technology to help scale the business.

5) Developing a robo-advisory platform to go beyond their target audience.

6) Offer flexi-working hours/work from anywhere to team members.

7) Look for/develop a good CRM platform.

Nandish Desai –

1) Plans to make full use of the “Teach and Grow” model.

2) Launch an online program called DIY Financial Planning.

3) Focusing on client segmentation and adding more quality clients. Online on-boarding those clients who meet specific criterias & ground rules (one of which is to exercise daily).

4) Analyze the data they have collected over the years and focus on sustainability along with top line and bottom line.

5) Hired a business coach and worked with him to analyze the business using pestel analysis.

6) Connected with investors via multiple webinar sessions.

Mukesh Jindal –

1) Always have a growth/beginner’s mindset – It’s always Day 1 at Amazon!

2) Try out new things like alternative investments (private equity, venture capital funding, etc.), crypto-currency and technology innovation investment.

3) Spend money on technology to make it more engaging, especially with portfolio reporting.

4) ETF based robo-advisory (ETF will become very big in the coming years).

Amit Bivalkar –

1) Merged business with other leading personal finance professionals.

2) We have to be fearful in order to succeed.

3) Honesty doesn’t always pay but dishonesty always costs!

4) Gratitude and self-discipline are required to build and grow any business.

5) Working on Symphonia Wealth Management – a collaboration of like-minded personal finance professionals with an equity stake. And by invitation only!

6) Product differentiation is the key.

Panel – 2

Khyati Mashru Vasani –

1) Create 360 brand ambassadors for the business. A happy client is the best brand ambassador of your business.

2) Scalability is now possible with technology. You don’t have to open up branches and offices everywhere. You need to focus on building your brand and presence on social media.

3) Set up Plantrich Foundation to bridge the gap between those who want to give and those who need help.

4) We plan to conduct sessions with the kids of our clients – this will help us build a relationship with the next generation too.

Gajendra Kothari –

1) All personal finance professionals have adopted technology and moved the business online which wouldn’t have happened without the pandemic.

2) Business scalability via technology.

3) We are in P2P business (Person to Person) and we should never lose connect with our clients and team.

4) We have moved to a new and bigger office with a separate conference room. The focus will be to do trainings for the team members regularly.

5) The focus will always remain on goal-based financial planning. We are looking for a good platform that will be able to bridge the front end and the backend.

Nikhil Naik –

1) Personal Finance Professionals need to feel proud of themselves as they get a chance to wear their uniform every day. There are many who are struggling to get back to work.

2) Didn’t waste the opportunity that the pandemic brought with itself. We focused on building a solid team, processes and technology.

3) Focus on doing more work with less resources.

4) Identify the right set of clients and do business with them only.

5) The financial advisory business is a business of patience.

6) Stick to basics the ways will differ.

Hemant Rustagi –

1) Focused 2020 on building solid processes, CRM and team.

2) Double our SIP book – 50% should come from new clients. And build an AUM of Rs 1,000 Crores over 7-8 years from these individuals.

3) We have launched a new app and we plan to use it to onboard new clients.

4) Take relationship with your clients to a whole new level – build relationships with the next generation. The focus will be to get each family member to make at least 2 investments in a year with us.

Panel – 3

Kavitha Menon –

1) 2020 was a good year as there were tremendous learnings for all of us.

2) As an industry we were pushed to use technology.

3) We plan to focus on the retail segment in the upcoming year.

4) There are too many systems and platform that we are using. The focus will be to work on developing a software/system that talks to each other.

5) Some of the good softwares available for personal finance professionals today are IFANow, MProfit, Plan 360.

Vishal Dhawan –

1) Every personal finance professional should know that there are certain years to pursue growth and there are certain years to pursue profit. And they need not always be the same years!

2) Cost optimization may not be the answer for 2021. Spend right in the business.

3) Every personal finance professional should know how to build for peak capacity. Give away the fear that the team will not be productive at full capacity.

4) We, as a community and industry, should prepare our clients for low returns phase for investments.

5) There is a lack of availability of ready talent. We need to solve this problem by following the footsteps from the banking industry. They hire talent from various different industries (not necessarily from finance) and skill them according to the bank’s requirement.

6) Every personal finance professional should know that time and people are the only inventory that they have.

7) For the next decade, remember the mantra – We need to run now!

Harsh Roongta –

1) Prepare your clients for fear – How do I invest more?

2) This pandemic has shown us how men and women (including our neighbours) will react when they are faced with a financial crunch.

3) Looking for lessons on how to handle greed of clients. Greed of a client is difficult to handle vis-à-vis fear.

4) People are interested to listen to you only when you make it relevant to them.

5) I will do more sharing from personal experience via webinars, books, sessions, etc.

Panel – 4

Srikanth Bhagwat –

1) As a company we moved to technology quickly in this pandemic and created a virtual private network for the staff to seamlessly work.

2) End of the year is a man-made phenomenon and should not be benchmarked. At the end of the day everything is a process.

3) Moving on to a fully fee-oriented model in the next year.

4) We are trying to find out how we can increase the quality time spent by our personal finance professionals with their clients?

5) Also, we are trying to make all our personal finance professionals’ specialists in at least one area.

6) Investing in infrastructure is never a waste. Build on it!

Ramesh Bhat –

1) How to increase the organization’s revenue next year? We will help small business owners build their contingency reserve.

2) Offer property management solutions to all clients. We are currently offering it to the NRI segment. We charge two months rent as the fees for the service offered.

3) Employ homemakers, skill them and use them to spread the mutual fund word around. They will act as sub-brokers of the company and will generate second income for their family.

Balvir Chawla –

1) Work with HRs of the corporates to set up Fin-Desks in their premises to handle all finance related queries of the employees.

2) Also, request the HRs to allow us to conduct a session for the new joinees on money management.

3) Offer property management service to all clients. Currently been offered to HNI/NRIs.

4) Focus on NRI segment.

5) Helping senior citizens with their finances.

Ashish Modani –

1) In the new decade personal finance professionals will have a tsunami of clients.

2) The current team strength is 30 while we want to take it to 40 in the coming year.

3) Refine the process for portfolio management, re-balancing and structuring.

4) Technology will act as an enabler.

5) All personal finance professionals should act as an advisor and not as a salesman!

While these are just the key take-aways from an extremely insightful day, we’re sure all of you also had some “aahaa!” moments and had some revelations about how you are going to take your practice to the next level in 2021. Do share these thoughts with us in the comments below. Have a peaceful and stupendous 2021!

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