Suresh Sadagopan, Ladder7 Financial Advisories
Insurance was my predominant focus till 2004. So when I decided to broad base my offerings by adopting financial planning approach, one of my existing clients referred me to his relative who was looking to put money in different investments.
Though my knowledge about financial planning was limited back then, I tried to make him understand the broader concepts of financial planning and why it was necessary to invest in different asset classes to meet life goals. I told him about my fees on the very first day of briefing and he readily agreed. Thus, I realised that it is a completely wrong notion that clients do not pay fees to their advisors. If you ask for a fee, clients will pay.
Also, it is important to work with clients who are aligned to your beliefs. I had to part ways with my first financial planning client as he wasn’t active and did not pay attention to our advice.
Nevertheless, this experience gave me the confidence to charge fees.
Vishal Dhawan, Plan Ahead Advisors
My first client was a businessman and he got to know about us through one of our mutual friends. He was above 50 years of age and this helped us understand the mind-set of older clients. He asked us a lot of questions about our preference for a particular product and what if it did not work out. He used to ask about a back-up plan and how will we incorporate changes if investments didn’t perform as expected.
We learnt that you need to convince older clients more as compared to other age groups. This is because they have some past investment experience which may have not worked in their favour. This experience taught us how patience is the key to help older clients.
He is still with us and has referred us to his friends and relatives. Learning from this experience, we now insist that all our clients ask a lot of questions which helps us understand them better and in turn strengthens our practice.
