Nisreen Mamaji, Money Works Financial Advisors
The biggest mistake that I made is misinterpreting the client brief. I thought the clients are investing for short term for which I recommended liquid funds. Some of the funds were invested in liquid plans for too long and clients were obviously not satisfied with returns.
HNI clients are sometimes cagey about articulating their goals and do not give proper brief but it was my responsibility to dig deeper and suggest funds suitable to their needs.
Through this incident, I learned to spend more time and effort on data collection which helps me allocate funds towards short, medium and long term needs based on client’s goals. Also, the goals of all clients are different and we should be monitoring it separately. Thus, advisers should constantly review portfolios to help clients stick to their goals. I learned that knowing your client is very important to construct the right portfolio.
Anup Bhaiya, MoneyHoney
One of the mistakes which we committed was not adopting technology. When we asked clients to fill in forms, there were repeated mistakes and it later on became a tedious and time consuming job to correct the errors. So we hired managers who could fix these problems but we did not get the desired results. We assumed that adding manpower will help clients make less mistakes but it did not go as per our plan.
We realized that adopting technology way was the only solution to avoid this monotonous job. We introduced paperless system so that information could be captured and stored easily. We have adopted technology in a big way based on client feedback. Thus, we have learned that technology is an investment for our business.
Mimi Partha Sarathy, Sinhasi Consultants
Yes, I have learned many things over the years. As an entrepreneur, we have to take a lot of decisions and sometimes we take decisions that are far from ideal. I recall facing one such situation in 2008 when relationship managers were demanding exorbitant salaries. We wanted to hire RMs to grow our business and it was difficult to get the right talent at our cost. So we had no choice and had to give in to their demands. This did not finally workout well.
So the biggest challenge which I faced was finding like-minded people who could work for the benefit of the company. I learned that compromising on your work ethics and philosophy can never be a solution to problems. It’s better not to hire anybody if you are unsure about people’s career objectives.
