Gajendra Kothari of Etica Wealth Management tells us how gadgets and applications have helped in winning clients and becoming more productive in his practice.
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Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God’s gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences. - Freeman Dyson
Technology is indeed a boon. In today’s fast changing world, we cannot hope to work efficiently without leveraging the benefits of technology. In fact, we just saw the demise of telegrams in India a few days back. What was the cause for this and the answer is obvious: Technology.
At Etica Wealth Management, we try to automate the processes as much as possible so that our teams can work really efficiently. I shall take you through all the stuff which we use at our office.
My day begins with Lastpass.com which enables us to do away with remembering long user ids and messy passwords. My team and I use this everyday to log in to all the regular websites (CAMS/Karvy /other portal logins) or to fill standard lengthy forms on the web. I have found this to be one of the best discoveries in a very long time.
Google calendar helps me to schedule my day. Whether I have client meetings or seminars/conferences to attend, I never miss anything, thanks to Google calendar! If I have a client meeting I send him/her a meeting reminder from Microsoft Outlook (which also sends him a message that I am prepared for the meeting). I use Google search/Linkedin to do client profiling and to find more information about his/her professional career. I am now prepared for the meeting.
As soon as I start from my office, I use Google maps to locate my client’s address (if it’s a first time visit) and GPS helps me reach there without taking the help of paanwallahs or traffic constables. In Mumbai, we have to extensively use local trains and this is where my phone and iPad again come handy. I use my phone to go through various online magazines/e-newspapers like Mint, Outlook Money Digital edition, ET Wealth, Forbes, Business Standard etc. and personal finance blogs (Jagoinvestor.com, Subramoney etc). This reading makes my train journey more productive.
When I meet my client for the first time and exchange cards with him, I use Scan biz cards to scan & store his contact information. During our meeting, if I have to take scan copies of his pan card/ passport etc, Genius scan (www.thegrizzlylabs.com) gets into business quickly.
We use Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) extensively to store all the scanned documents. It feels quite amazing when I am sitting with my client and I can show him/her last three years scanned documents on the fly on my iPad. During my client meetings I may get call from an unknown number and this is when Truecaller (www.truecaller.com) comes to my rescue to trace the identity of the caller.
I prefer giving presentations to my investors for which I would like to sincerely thank a new application called SlideShark which I have recently downloaded on my iPad. This looks very professional and I can play around with the several options they offer. I am sure, a lot of time our clients ask us to perform various kind of calculations on Time value of money, compounding interest calculations, IRR etc and this is where EZ financial calculator application comes very handy. So does the SIP calculator app to tell our investors in seconds what will be the amount at the end of a particular tenure. I don’t need to carry a financial calculator or bulky laptop to perform such mundane operations.
After the meeting is over, I use Notes on iPad /Evernotes (www.evernote.com) to take minutes of my client meetings. Also whenever I attend any conference/seminars, I just scribble key takeaways on any one device and it automatically synchronises with all my other devices.
If my client wants to buy say term insurance, then it takes roughly 45 minutes to get the cheapest protection cover including the comparison of all the products and filling up of forms!
For online investments in mutual funds, we have recently tied up with Nextadvisors. This will help our client invest online in any mutual fund scheme on a real time basis. Currently, we waste lot of time in paper based transaction but I guess this soon will be history. Once the online transactions system is in place, we can then take our offerings to various NRI investors who normally prefer to invest online. When the transactions are processed, the client can see and monitor his portfolio real-time from the transactions/performance reporting software from Datacomp Technologies.
Clients are very important for all of us. Then how can we forget key moments in their personal/profession lives. Mominder (www.mominder.com) helps us to remind birthdays/ anniversaries of our investors without fail. Through Redstamp app, we send a very personalized e-card to our investors. Birdys.co.in helps us to deliver cakes to our clients anywhere in Mumbai by simply placing an order online. We use www.flowerciti.com to deliver flowers to our clients on important occasions. I remember for one of clients, we arranged for a bouquet to be delivered on the last day in his office just before his retirement; the bouquet reached him when his entire office team was assembled for this occasion and he was greatly touched by this gesture. Needless to say, next day he visited our office with his pension kitty ready to be invested through us.
Once I am back in office and if I have to send informative mail to all my clients/prospects, Mailchimp does the job in a very professional manner.
I make all possible office payments either via Netbanking or through my corporate credit card. The days of writing cheques are gone. All my tax payments and filing also happen online. In fact, rarely does any client come to my office to file/pay property tax/professional tax online.
I encourage all my clients and colleagues to use these applications extensively and many a time, I meet my clients to solve their technological issues only! No discussion on business at all. Yesterday, I went to my client’s place to set up his new iPad Mini.
Finally, when the day is over I feel relaxed and start contemplating what if technology was not there. This very crazy thought makes me set out to discover the next set of technological inventions which can make my life and my investors life a lot smoother just like Amul butter…..
The author is MD & CEO, Etica Wealth Management Pvt Ltd. He can be reached at gajendra.kothari@eticawealth.com.
The views expressed in this article are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cafemutual.