Building trust needs to become a habit, it shouldn’t look like an attempt.
I recently came back from the holy city of Varanasi. I was there for a family function and we also had a ‘Shantipaath’ for which a team of 11 Brahmins had come. You must be wondering how is it relevant to an IFA’s business?
Let me explain. The team was led by a chief priest who was keeping an eye on each team member, guiding them whenever required. They chanted the shlokas for three hours and each member knew when his role starts and ends. They were chanting in sync with each other. Sometimes all of them chanted together, which of course was part of their routine.
I have been mentioning about the importance of processes, execution, and role clarity in my previous articles. This was perfectly exhibited by these priests. At the end, all of us were happy and delighted and ended up giving them more dakshina than they expected.
Now let me relate this to an IFA’s business. A client doesn’t really understand the technical jargons of financial markets (just as in our case shlokas); what he/she observes is the processes followed by the advisor which bring in convenience and add to the delight. Also meticulously followed processes make them look reliable i.e. someone who works with good intentions and keeps the client’s interest on top.
The priests bought all the material required in performing the puja - we paid them for that, probably more than the market price. All of them carried their books but rarely referred to them. This suggests that they had knowledge but never wanted to leave it entirely to their memory.
Similarly, an IFA needs to have knowledge but keeping reference material is not a bad idea. It gives professional look to the overall activity.
And lastly, the experience which we had suggests that they came well rehearsed and appeared to be knowledgeable and honest to the clients and all these qualities brought in the ‘TRUST’ factor.
Our family has decided that we will only engage their services, despite the fact that their charges are more and we will refer them to others as well.
Similarly, clients will pay those IFAs who demonstrate their professionalism and bring delight to overall experience.
Building trust needs to become a habit, at the same time it shouldn’t look like an attempt. A process which allows one to function smoothly and brings convenience and ease for the client helps building the trust in a big way.
Here I talked about a profession which is thousands of years old and people in the profession are in huge demand. If they can think of bringing change in their style of functioning, an IFA definitely should think over it.
Vinayak Sapre runs Insights, an advisor coaching firm.
The views expressed in this article are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cafemutual.
