In this series, we ask advisors to share their biggest mistakes and the lessons they learned which have helped them strengthen their practice.
Ritesh Seth, Tejas Consultancy
Earlier, I did not give special attention to women clients and dealt with them the same way I dealt with male clients. I didn’t realize that the goals and aspirations of women are different from men.
Women are great savers but they may not be able to channelize their savings into the right products which help them accumulate wealth. While dealing with women clients, I discovered that they are good listeners and understand the importance of financial planning. There is a stereotype and I also believed that that men understand finances better. When I started dealing with them, I realized that taking them for granted was one my biggest mistakes in my advisory journey.
My women clients are savvy and understand the technicalities of investments. They just don’t know where and when to invest and require handholding. Another interesting trend is that is that women have started taking investment decisions independently. This is because they want to keep some amount of money aside which can be used for emergencies like a job loss.
Earlier, in most cases, only the husband used to participate in the planning process and the spouse had very little say in it. Gradually, many women have come forward to show interest in managing the finances for their families. Since then, I have made it mandatory to include all the family members in the planning process.
Learning from my past experience, I have now started financial literacy programs exclusively for women.
Jayant Vidwans, Chaitanya Financial Planners
One of my mistakes was not having provision for liquidity in clients’ portfolio. Earlier I did not recommend liquid funds. Though my clients had investments in debt funds they had a three-year lock-in which was of no help in case of emergencies. I remember one of my clients had to incur some losses because I did not recommend liquid funds.
