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Today, the MF industry has 14.42 crore folios of which 68% are in equity funds. The recent SIP numbers have also shown a positive trend with a 6.28 crore SIP folios count, Rs.6.74 lakh crore SIP AUM and record monthly gross inflows.
The interesting point to note here is that almost 90% of the total industry folios are identified as “Retail Investors”. And most of these investors prefer distributors to invest their money. In fact, close to 80% of assets of individual investors including both retail and HNIs are in regular plans.
While direct plan has been around for over 11 years, many MFDs have seen growth in assets since then. However, times have changed and with digitalization, MFDs need to step up their game to keep themselves relevant.
In this context, here are eight smart tips, which will help you continue to grow and build a future ready business.
Meet other MFDs frequently: Interact with other MFD friends and industry experts to keep yourself updated on the financial happenings. You can learn from their success stories and failures.
Review your personality: Do a “soft self-review” with investors every six months. This review will be specific to your own behavioural qualities and personality. Sometime what meets the eye may not be the reality! It will also help you to improve your skills and qualities constantly.
Review your performance: Review your performance every six months. Investors will be delighted to note that as his MFD, you take their financial goals as seriously as them and actually even more!
Quarterly reviews: Keep your clients posted on their investment journey. You can send their investment portfolio review through a formal letter on your letter head or an email providing the details of investments and their value in a pictorial format.
Also, sometimes excel gets boring too! But use it to update clients on market movements and their impact on investments. It is equally important to update clients on negative news as well. Sharing such news can open up new conversation, help you address their queries and make them disciplined long-term investor.
Use testimonials: Create testimonials with the help of your clients and their families. This is your greatest endorsement, the most effective direct marketing you can ever create to increase your client base and comfort your existing clients.
Invest in technology: Paper is old! Let’s go paperless as it is also convenient and trendy. If possible, create a crisp website of your own. Also, perform various reviews with your clients through webinars. Technology will be a great catalyst for the next growth of your business and provides multiple innovative service techniques as well.
Social media presence. In today’s age, it’s impressive to be on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and also write a Blog. Request your clients to follow you through such social mediums and constantly keep posting news feed on them. It could be market related article, fund managers commentary or even your views, (Actually your views matter the most to your client).
Bring more MFDs: Lastly and very important, encourage other people to become mutual fund distributors and contribute to the growth of MF industry. This will make you even more competitive and gain respect among the industry officials and peers.
Suren Kochar is a trainer and author. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Cafemutual.