March 17, 2015

Krishna Impact – The Easiest Way to Communicate the Importance of Hiring an Advisor

Jigar Parekh
Director at Anchoredge

The Easiest Way to Communicate the Importance of Hiring ‘YOU’

One of the challenges which most financial planners face is effectively communicating the importance of hiring a planner. The common conception about the financial planners is that they prepare the plan and create the road-map for the client to reach their financial goals using the complex mathematical formulas or with the help of sophisticated tools like excel or software. According to me the actual job of financial planner begins once the plan is prepared and implemented.  To keep the client on the right track by managing client’s emotional mood swings caused by the volatility into the financial market and making sure that emotions like greed, fear and envy don’t over power the logic when it comes to managing the finance is the crucial job of financial planner.

The role of financial planner into the life of the client is more of friend, philosopher and guide rather than just creating the plan.  Most of the planners fail in explaining the client their role and mostly leave the client with the impression that their job is limited to the creation of plan using the sophisticated calculators and software. Explaining the client about the planner’s role post creation and implementation of plan is a crucial aspect of planner’s job. This can be done through the effective communication which can help client connect and visualize the role of financial planner clearly over and above just the one creating the plan.

When it comes to effective communication nothing can be better than “story telling” and using some well known stories based on widely known historical events to correlate them with central message you want to deliver. I would like to quote the incident from the war of Kurukshetra which financial planner can use to explain the importance of the financial planners role to clients and which I like call as the “Krishna Impact”

War of Kurukshetra

The great war of Kurukshetra is believed to be happened between the Kauravas and Pandavas in 3139 BC i.e. almost more than 5000 years ago. In the conflict between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, the Kauravas were utterly destroyed, while the Pandavas were victorious. Though the Krishna decided not to fight himself and was there as a charioteer of Arjuna during the war, but it is a very well known fact that the Victory of Pandavas was impossible without Krishna being on their side as a friend, philosopher and guide.

Krishna guided Pandavas and help Arjuna to come out of the emotional dilemma which overpowered his mind as he was suppose to fight with the friends and relatives. It is evident from many incidents from the Kurukshetra war that no matter how great warrior you are, you still need the friend who can guide you about the right course of action during the various stages of winning the war.

Similarly I believe for winning a money game also, any investor needs Independent financial advisor or planner who can act as a friend, philosopher and guide and who can show the investor right path towards financial freedom.  In investor’s life also come many such incidents where rather than knowledge and tools he needs the right kind of guidance and strategy to take the right decisions in different situations.

While financial markets start behaving on either extreme, it is very difficult for any investor to take the rational decision on their investment portfolio.  No matter how many financial calculators he carries in his laptop or desktop, they may not help investors to manage his/her own emotions and take the logical decision.

arjuna_s_chariot_mahabharata

Strategy vs. weapons: fighting the most dangerous enemy

Though the Pandavas had a good army and they themselves were a great warrior but having the army and powerful skills to fight alone, would have not been sufficient enough to win the war. There were many instances in Kurukshetra where in absence of Krishna at Pandava’s side would have resulted in their defeat.

There were many powerful warriors at other side including Bhishma, Dronacharya – the guru of Pandavas and Karna who could have changed the result of the war, had Krishna not planned the strategies to kill them. He used deceit to kill most of the great warriors, such as Bhishma and Dronacharya and even the Karna who was considered to be greater and more powerful warrior than Arjuna.

Similarly in the world of investing, emotions are the greatest and most dangerous enemy of investors. Greed becoming the main guiding factor at the peak of every bull market and Fear becoming the main guiding factor at the bottom of every bear market is the primary reason of failure of any investment plan among investors across the globe. These two emotions are so powerful that even if Investor has all the tools and templates to create the financial plan, they will persuade investor not to follow through on the plan. Good financial advisor can help investor in not only creating the plan but will also help him/her in defeating these strong enemies called “Greed” and “Fear” with constant guidance and wisdom.

Emotion overpowering actions

There was a time when Arjuna was totally under a dilemma. He became bewildered upon seeing people he loved and respected are ready to battle against him. At a time he mentally gave up the war seeing his friends, cousins, relatives and teachers as he was not ready to fight with them or kill any of them.

Sri Krishna removed the Maaya that engulfed Arjuna and made him sad, and nervous.  Krishna preached Karma Yoga, Gnaana Yoga and Bhakti yoga and finally had shown his ViswaRoopam, to make Arjuna understand who Krishna is. That way he removed the illusion or Maaya that was covering Arjuna. Arjuna realised what is what and, after that, he fought the war with full vigor and with complete devotion to Krishna and finally won the war.

Similarly emotions like grief, sadness, envy, fear may sometimes make investor indecisive due to lots of ups and down in his/her personal as well as financial life resulting into inaction into the portfolio when it is required the most.  A good financial Advisor can help investor in taking the action at the time when it is needed the most even if investor is emotionally not ready to take the action.  He can do so by sharing his wisdom and experience and making the client visualize the bigger picture rather than getting affected by short term hiccups.

I feel financial calculator or tool alone can’t motivate any individual to act. They surely can help in creating and designing the plan. But, Creating the action plan and to take the action are two different things.

Biggest Mistake of Duryodhana

There is a very interesting incident before the war of Kurukshetra started. In the war of Kurukshetra, the Narayani Sena was a big threat to Duryodhana; hence Shakuni asked Duryodhana to go to Lord Krishna and asked him not to field his Narayani Sena against him into the war. With the war imminent both Duryodhana and Arjuna went to seek the support from the Krishna. Krishna found it as an obligation to support both during the course of war as he was related to both, although his heart always went for the Pandavas.

Krishna gave them options and said that each one of them can chose either him or his Narayani Sena which was a group of  a million war ready Yadav soldiers to side them into the war. Duryodhana choose the Narayani Sena thinking that the million seasoned solders is all it takes to war while on other hand Arjuna chose Krishna who decided not to fight himself but only to act as a charioteer of Arjuna and lead him into the battle.I think choosing the Narayani Sena over Krishana was one of the biggest mistake of Duryodhaa.

What do you think would have been the result, had the Arjuna chosen the Narayani Sena thinking that Krishna is anyways not going to fight himself? Krishna acted more as a coach to Pandavas rather than just charioteer.

Importance of having coach

Most of us know what to do when it comes to any area of our life. We know the regular exercise and balanced diet can keep you healthy. There are lots of books and material available on the internet on how to stay fit and being healthy, then why most of us don’t have those six pack abs and good physics just like good sport person and Bollywood actors?  We all know what to do to create those kinds of physics and if we don’t know we can get this information through thousands of FREE videos available on YouTube.

In spite of having tons of information available about what to do, only those who hire the professional coach or those who join some fitness club, creates the good physics. In both the cases they will have a coach who would motivate them on regular basis to take the actions which are required and will also see to it that we follow through on our plan.

Having tons of data and information on financial planning and investment products may be of little use if investor don’t have the enough emotional intelligence to manage own emotion and stick to the logical roadmap without getting affected by the short term market movements. Most of the investors when it comes to managing their own money fail due to lack of emotional intelligence. A Good financial planner can help by constantly guiding him and being on his side to help him understand the logic and ignore the emotion.

 A Message to Financial Planners

The planner who can successfully communicate the importance of having a coach to win the money game by using anologies like the “Krishna Impact” or a Gym Coach and also focuses on delivering the value beyond just creating a plan will surely win the client’s loyalty without any doubt. Failing in explaining the importance of coach or acting as one will surely motivate clients to DIY mode of planning by using the lots of free financial calculators, templates and tools available online.

Authored by,

Jigar Parekh

Head – Training – Prudent CAS Ltd
Ahmedabad

18 Thoughts to “Krishna Impact – The Easiest Way to Communicate the Importance of Hiring an Advisor”

  1. Sandip Mukherjee says:

    So easy to read, yet it leaves a lasting impact.

  2. RAKESH SHAH says:

    EXCELLENT.YOU ARE KRISHNA FOR ALL OF US.KEEP GUIDING US.

  3. seo says:

    Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO is is missing a few factors, for one you do not use all three H tags in your post, also I notice that you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization. On-Page SEO means more now than ever since the new Google update: Panda. No longer are backlinks and simply pinging or sending out a RSS feed the key to getting Google PageRank or Alexa Rankings, You now NEED On-Page SEO. So what is good On-Page SEO?First your keyword must appear in the title.Then it must appear in the URL.You have to optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). Then you should spread all H1,H2,H3 tags in your article.Your Keyword should appear in your first paragraph and in the last sentence of the page. You should have relevant usage of Bold and italics of your keyword.There should be one internal link to a page on your blog and you should have one image with an alt tag that has your keyword….wait there’s even more Now what if i told you there was a simple WordPress plugin that does all the On-Page SEO, and automatically for you? That’s right AUTOMATICALLY, just watch this 4minute video for more information at. Seo Plugin

  4. ontqwshlln says:

    Krishna Impact – The Easiest Way to Communicate the Importance of Hiring “YOU”
    ontqwshlln http://www.g6z4qpv3df83362d3vzntc326i99p5u5s.org/
    aontqwshlln
    [url=http://www.g6z4qpv3df83362d3vzntc326i99p5u5s.org/]uontqwshlln[/url]

  5. Summer says:

    You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find
    this matter to be really something which I think I would never understand.

    It seems too complex and extremely broad for me.
    I am looking forward for your next post, I’ll
    try to get the hang of it!

  6. Damon says:

    I enjoy what you guys tend to be up too. This kind of clever work and
    reporting! Keep up the fantastic works guys I’ve incorporated you
    guys to our blogroll.

  7. Mark Curry says:

    Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It in fact was a amusement
    account it. Look advanced to far added agreeable from you!
    By the way, how could we communicate?

  8. Kendrick says:

    I believe everything published made a lot of sense.
    But, consider this, suppose you typed a catchier post title?

    I am not saying your information is not solid.,
    but suppose you added a headline to possibly grab a person’s
    attention? I mean Krishna Impact – The Easiest Way to Communicate the
    Importance of Hiring "YOU" is kinda plain. You should look at
    Yahoo’s home page and note how they create post
    headlines to get viewers to open the links. You might add a video or a pic or two to grab readers excited about everything’ve written. In my opinion, it would
    bring your website a little livelier.

  9. This website was… how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally I
    have found something that helped me. Thank you!

  10. I’m impressed, I have to admit. Seldom do I come across
    a blog that’s equally educative and interesting, and without a doubt,
    you’ve hit the nail on the head. The issue is something which not enough people are speaking
    intelligently about. I am very happy that I came across this in my search for something concerning this.

  11. hello!,I like your writing very much! proportion we be
    in contact more approximately your article on AOL? I need an expert in this area to resolve my
    problem. May be that is you! Taking a look ahead to peer you.

  12. It’s very simple to find out any topic on net as
    compared to books, as I found this article at this web page.

  13. check that says:

    I just want to say I am just beginner to blogging and site-building and seriously enjoyed you’re page. Very likely I’m want to bookmark your site . You surely have fantastic stories. Thanks a lot for revealing your web site.

  14. Excellent post. I was checking constantly this weblog and
    I’m impressed! Very helpful information particularly the last
    phase 🙂 I take care of such info a lot. I used to
    be looking for this certain information for a long time. Thank you and best
    of luck.

  15. car fault says:

    Great post! We will be linking to this particularly great
    content on our website. Keep up the great writing.

  16. Having read this I thought it was extremely informative.
    I appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this content together.
    I once again find myself personally spending
    way too much time both reading and posting comments.

    But so what, it was still worthwhile!

  17. minecraft says:

    Thank you for some other great post. Where else may just anyone get
    that type of information in such a perfect manner of writing?
    I’ve a presentation subsequent week, and I’m at the
    look for such info.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *