Sumeet Vaid
We are big believers in process. In fact our success mantra is PPT i.e. People>>Process>>Technology. People are the most important asset of Ffreedom. Without them we are nothing. I have very high gratitude and humility towards all our team members as our industry is all about human trust. Very early I understood that, if we have to fulfill our vision of profitable and scalable financial planning oriented model, we have to understand and invest in technology, which we continue even today.
We start this process with our proprietary “Art of Financial Freedom” Seminars which focus on basic financial education bundled with complimentary financial health check-up i.e. Ffreedom Financial X-Ray. We have a well-defined process for client acquisition which is Art of Financial Ffreedom Seminars >> Financial X Ray >> Complimentary Financial Health Check-up and Report >> Minimum 5 meetings/calls with prospects (Our experience is, 60% of the time financial advisors stop after 3rd call and 70 % conversion happens post 3rd call).
Lovaii Navlakhi
While most of our clients are acquired through referrals, we get many clients as a result of our presence in the media. Once we get a lead, we seek a personal appointment to explain our process. The most important thing is to give time to the prospect and answer all questions in an unhurried manner, and being as honest as possible. The strongest source of business is referrals, but you need to ask for them. There are certain minimum service levels that we follow, like a personal meeting with a client every quarter and a communication every month. Taking care of client portfolios is not enough – they need to know that too; and that’s where communication helps.
Brijesh Dalmia
Our client acquisition strategies have evolved over the years. Initially, I used the strategy of ‘target marketing’ with members of several club members in my city.
I took care never to start a meeting with a product pitch. I talked about my services, how they can benefit with my services and enquired what they were looking for.
It worked. Regular mailers / emails / follow-ups for months and years also helped in converting many clients. Generally, I have seen planners not pursuing older prospects regularly. An existing contact is far more fruitful than a new contact.
Currently, the pitch remains the same. The only difference is that each new addition is a referred client which makes my job much easier since there is already a endorsement attached to my name.
Suresh Sadagopan
We are depending entirely on existing clients to bring in new clients. The other path is enquiries based on my writings. These are keeping us busy at present. But, in future we may have to do a bit of prospecting.
However, for those enquiries which come to us, we do have a sales process. We talk to the clients to understand what they are seeking from us and explain in fair amount of detail as to what could we do for them. Then we follow up with a detailed mail which includes a document about our service offerings, the steps we follow and the fees. Once the client shows interest, we walk them through a plan and offer references.
We keep them on our mailing list for some time. We follow up to three times. After that we assume they may not be interested in our services, if they have not already converted into clients.
Dilshad Billimoria
We do not concentrate much on sales acquisition. We try to update our website often with good content. This helps us especially in Bangalore, where software engineers search online for relevant information. That is the starting point of interest and point of contact between clients and us. We use our blogs to heighten interest in financial planning among our clients. Sites, like Jago investor, (excellent work!) create more awareness among clients and show non bias of attitude to client queries.
Vishal Dhawan
Since a significant portion of our prospective clients come through referrals, we send out an introduction to our firm before our first meeting to the prospective client as well as a thank you note to the introducer. We then set up a no obligation 1 hour first meeting wherein we introduce our services.
We then have a cooling off period for 72 hours during which both the client and us can decide whether we wish to go ahead with the engagement. If there is an agreement on both sides to move ahead, we send a client agreement including details on the services model and fee model chosen. This then leads to a data gathering process, risk profiling and the plan creation process.
Vivek Rege
We don’t accept clients without referrals. This ensures that we are dealing with a serious prospect. Closing is never an issue ever since I started. In my earlier days it used to be cold calls to a list of prospects from HDFC Life. Back in 2003, that's how it began. Now market is far more matured and time is a constraint, so the process has to be short. The only mantra we have followed is strong responsiveness without pressurizing them especially when your prospects need you most.
Gajendra Kothari
We approach our clients with a very open mind. As we don’t know what requirement he has, we give him time to talk about his needs and then only we offer him the appropriate solution. We never try to close the deal in a hurry as we know the client will always come back to us. We give him enough space to think and decide whether he want to continue with us.
We wish him & his family members on their birthdays, festivals. We constantly update and educate him on his progress with his investments. Also we keep sending him educational mails to help him to understand personal finance better.
We maintain the database of all the participants of our seminars i.e. email id, profession, contact no etc. We regularly send them small article on personal finance.
Our back office team does most of the servicing. We offer all kind of services like getting his bank work done, assisting him getting Aadhar Card etc. These services help us score brownie points.
Narendra Kondajji
Our client acquisition process is very simple and straight forward. We believe that efficient and professional service leads to a positive word of mouth.
We receive the leads either from our website or through referrals. In case of referrals, the process is very informal because the decision would have already been made. It is only the comfort of meeting in person and getting on with the process.
For other prospects, we have a very structured process of engagement:
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First we set up a tele-call in which we get to know each other.
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We then send softcopies of collaterals and ask for a face to face meeting.
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Before the face to face meeting, we ask the prospect to update us with basic personal information and fill up a risk assessment questionnaire.
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In the face-to-face meeting we give a complete download about our process and clarify each point raised by the prospect.
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After this meeting, it is her call to decide if she wants to engage us or not. Sometimes, clients ask for another round of meeting and we are fine with it if it is useful to the prospect. But our experience has been that such prospects generally defer the decision.
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When she decides to engage us, we begin the process with “Client Engagement Agreement” and data collection etc.
Nandish Desai & Manish Chauhan
Our business model is a 100 % pull model and not a push model. Honestly, we do not follow any sales system. Our primary point of contact with potential clients or investors is our blog and now our books. On blog Manish engages people with the conversation of living a good financial life. Out of a few thousand readers, a few choose to move ahead with our paid services or products. More than sales process we have chosen the path of educating investors and let people experience our knowledge and work before anything else. We believe it is not about closing a sale but it is about opening a new relationship.
From the very beginning we have chosen to do good and deep work with our clients. This has got us many video and written testimonials from our clients. Most of the people read past clients experiences on our service page and choose to become our client.
My advice to new planners is to only focus on doing good work and share your good work with more and more people; it is one of the best ways to get new clients.
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