What Does A Customer Look For In An Advisor?

Ask a customer who invests in financial products what he thinks is the difference between an Agent and an Advisor and he may probably tell you that to him an Agent sounds like someone who earns a commission and pushes a product to earn that commission, while an Advisor sounds like a person who has knowledge, gives impartial advice, and probably charges a fee for that advice.
This may be a matter of perception - but then marketing is all about managing perceptions.
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Remember the one fundamental difference - an Agent represents a company while the Advisor represents the Customer! S/he thinks for and on behalf of the customer! And that is what the customer is going to pay you a fee for!
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This blog urges you to THINK and ACT like an Advisor who is

1. Knowledgeable
2. Professional
3. Balanced 
4. Well Groomed!

And this site will equip you with advice on how to be all of these - and more! Wish you a Happy Journey!

Mutual Funds - Commmission Based V/s. Fee Based System - Implications

The following table looks at the possible implications of the Commission Based System as against the Fee Based System :

How this will affect you will be discussed in the next post! Stay tuned!

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People!

This video is a must watch for all people aspiring to be great in their respective fields.

Choose Your Attitude!

Here is a simple presentation on staying positive in the work environment!

SET GOALS!!!

A good Advisor sets goals for himself.  Goals give you direction. They set the pace. They give purpose to your business. And they help you succeed.   Imagine a game of football, where there were no goalposts! The players would have no purpose to play the game and they would lose interest in kicking the ball after a few minutes! But the goalpost at the other end gives them a new meaning and a purpose – they know what they have to achieve and go in that direction.

Research shows that many successful people were actually people who had set clear goals for themselves right form their college days!

But then goal setting isn’t only about saying that “I want to be rich”! That won’t get you too far.  When you set goals, make sure they are S.M.A.R.T.

Let’s discuss each of these in detail :-

SPECIFIC - A goal saying I want to be rich is not specific and won’t help you. But if you were to say that “I want to be on the Million
Dollar Round Table” then your goal is being specific.  This helps you see your goal clearly and gives you a direction in terms of what you should do to achieve it.

MEASURABLE - Another important thing is that the goal has to be measureable. “I want to be successful” is not measureable – I need to bring in a premium of Rs. 5 lakhs this year or an AUM of Rs. 20 lakhs this year – are measurable.

ACHIEVABLE - The goal has to be achievable. Don’t say that I want an AUM of Rs. 10 crores in my first year.  You know that this is overambitious – extremely difficult to achieve and will depress you since you won’t be getting anywhere close. At the same time – goals should be stretch – not something easily achievable. That won’t do you any good either.

RELEVANT - Goals should be relevant to your business. “I will network with 100 people this year” isn’t enough – the networking could be social in nature without getting you any business. On the other hand if you said, “I would network with at least 100 new people with a view to selling my services” is more relevant.

TIMEBOUND - Lastly, a goal has to have a timeline. I will be on the MDRT is not good enough. "I will be on the MDRT within 2 years from now is time-bound".


In the next post we will discuss more about Goals.

Insipring Words From Dr. Wayne Dyer!

This is an inspirational  video from Motivational Guru Dr. Wayne Dyer. Every Insurance & Mutual Fund Agent must watch this!

Direct & Indirect Competition

There are chances that an Insurance or Mutual Fund Agent will pay attention to Direct Competition only, although this isn’t the best thing to do. Some of you must be wondering – “What does one mean by Direct & Indirect Competition?”

Well it’s simple – for a Mutual Fund direct competition is another Mutual Fund. And for an Insurance Company, direct competition is another Insurance Company.

Indirect Competitors can be of 2 types -

• The easily identifiable indirect competitor
• The not so easily indentifiable indirect competitor

Sounds confusing? Don’t worry, it’s easy to understand.

The easily identifiable indirect competitors for a Mutual Fund are Insurance, Investments in Gold, Shares, PF, Fixed Deposits etc. In other words, other investment options.

It is the not so easily identifiable indirect competitors that an Advisor has to identify and be careful of. Some examples are shown in the table below -

You must be saying to yourself - “These are not competitors – these are the very reasons why an investor saves in the first place!”

I guess it is how you look at it. Do you know that a company manufacturing soft drinks sees water (plain water - not mineral water) as an indirect competitor? And they then probably ask themselves – what will make this person drink less water and more of our soft drinks? Look at the table above – what we have presented is a huge amount of money that he has spent – part of which he could have invested. The solution – educate your customer – tell him that Rs. 3,00,000/- spent in a marriage will get over in 3 days – but if he invests even part of that – his son would enjoy the benefits for years to come.

Customers Respect An Advisor Who Has Width & Depth...

A good Advisor should have Width & Depth. What do I mean by Width & Depth? By Width I mean that s/he should be 1) Well read and 2) Should have a little knowledge of every investment product possible, enough to carry on an intelligent conversation on that subject for 5 minutes at least.

Do you as an Advisor know a little about

• Bullion
• Real Estate
• Commodities
• The concept of an Index
• Various popular rating agencies
• Inflation etc.

I am not saying you need to have in-depth knowledge – but you must have some basic knowledge. That is when the customer will start respecting you. Imagine an Advisor talking of an insurance product or a Mutual Fund, and the customer asks him what he thinks about Bullion as an investment option. If at that time the Advisor hesitates, the investor/customer will say to himself “This Advsior does not know about other investment products – then on what basis is he saying that this Mutual Fund is ideal for me?”

On the other hand, an Advisor must have tremendous depth about

• His product
• His industry
• Competitor products
• Direct Competition (We will talk about Direct & Indirect Competition in a later post) 

One often comes across Advisors who lack either width or depth or in some cases, both! There is a likelihood that many agents/advisors would be high on Depth but not necessarily high on Width. So start reading up – and of course, visit this site more often!

The Next Post...

In the next post, around the 1st week of October, we will look at the Impact Of The Commission Based System v/s. The Fee Based System on Investors and Advisors. And let me tell you this - it is not only Mutual Fund Agents who are going to be impacted by this development - Insurance Advisors who don't sell Mutual Funds are also likely to get impacted - much before a Fee Based system for Insurance is introduced! Stay tuned!!!

Watch Out! A New Tool On This Site WIll Help you Remind Clients....

Very soon, this site will introduce a tool through which you will be able to remind your clients about any SIP or Premium Payment!

One more step to getting clients to come to you and stay with you!