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NJ IndiaInvest bagged four prestigious titles at the Cafemutual Big League Awards held in October last year - SIP Champion - NDs, Equity Champion - NDs, New Folio Champion - NDs and Champion of the Year - ND.
The award ceremony was held at the Cafemutual Confluence 2023 at Taj Lands End, Mumbai to felicitate MFDs and NDs who through their persistent hard work touched new business heights. Overall, it gave away 26 awards purely on FY 2022-23 quantitative performance across five broad categories - SIP, equity inflows, new folios, fintech player and overall business.
With four wins, NJ IndiaInvest swept the largest number of awards. In an exclusive interview with Cafemutual, Misbah Baxamusa, CEO, NJ Wealth, spoke about the eventful journey, success factors, distributor engagement and lessons learnt. 
Could you walk us through the recent numbers?
Started in 2003, NJ Wealth has grown to become a huge network of nearly 34,000 active distributors today, with over 180 offices in 23 states. It manages an AUM of over Rs 1.70 lakh crore for more than 29 lakh happy investors. Also, the live SIP book stands at over Rs 1,500 crore currently.
The financial year 2022-23 was a year of robust growth for both the mutual fund industry and NJ Wealth. 7.30 lakh new investors entrusted us with a gross SIP of over Rs 600 crore and a net SIP of around Rs 240 crore. These numbers reflect strong investor confidence in mutual funds and the NJ Wealth network of partners.
The trend of healthy growth continues for this financial year too, in terms of sales, client acquisition and onboarding new MFDs on the platform. This points towards a positive trajectory and our commitment to delivering value to investors and partners.
Irrespective of the numbers, it is the trust that investors put in us and the satisfaction of contributing towards financial inclusion that fuels our passion to continue doing what we believe in.
What is that one activity that helped you to achieve business success in each category i.e. SIPs, net equities, new folios, and total AUM?
Sure, let me take you through these one by one.
SIP - SIPs are the cornerstone of NJ's business philosophy, serving as a powerful tool for retail investors to systematically build wealth. We actively promote top-up SIPs, which provide investors with the flexibility to enhance their investment contributions periodically to accelerate their wealth-building process.
Also, one of our tools - NJ's ‘Family Need Utility’ also plays a pivotal role. It enables investors to quantify financial needs precisely and determine the SIP amount to align with such needs.
Moreover, with our ‘Portfolio Review Utility’, we empower MFDs with a comprehensive understanding of investor portfolios and investing behaviour. This equips them to guide investors efficiently, ensuring well-informed decisions. Also, we consistently emphasise the significance of incorporating SIPs into investor portfolios. This also motivates distributors to actively promote and integrate SIPs as a fundamental strategy for long-term wealth building.
Net equity - The ‘Portfolio Review Utility’ has proven to be instrumental in driving the net equity growth. With the help of these tools, distributors can analyse the overall investor portfolio and guide them in optimising it.
Net folios - To increase net folios, we address maximum clients through digital events, physical meets, joint calls and client acquisition campaigns. Digital events allow us to reach a broad distributor and investor audience. Through physical meets and joint calls, we educate distributors who further impart this knowledge to acquire potential investors. Moreover, marketing campaigns have also played a huge role in approaching and targeting potential investors.
Total AUM - At NJ, we firmly believe in financial inclusion and literacy for all. We also believe that financial education is a strong force necessary to drive AUM. Thus, by conducting dedicated sessions aimed at educating partners on mutual fund products and wealth-building strategies, we have created a well-informed distributor community that can impart this knowledge to investors. This approach not only attracts new investments but also strengthens existing relationships, resulting in a steady growth of our total AUM.
As a national distributor, how do you ensure a meaningful engagement with sub-distributors, and how do you keep them motivated?
We employ a comprehensive approach that allows our partners to learn and grow. From time to time, we hold digital events with our internal speakers and top industry speakers through which distributors stay updated with internal developments and industry trends thereby fostering continuous learning with professional development.
We also hold regular meetings with distributors at the ground level to ensure they understand the key concepts to service their clients better. This allows us to ensure proper business planning with individual partners, understand their unique challenges and build plans to achieve common goals.
Moreover, we proactively share insights into future opportunities within the industry. By highlighting the growth potential, we motivate them to set higher goals. This not only keeps our partners well-informed but also instils a sense of confidence amongst them.
What has been your key learning that helped you strategise or re-strategise your business approach?
The entire business model of NJ Wealth has been created to reach out to the common man and extend the opportunity to build wealth through an empowered network of MFDs - the NJ Wealth Partners.
NJ Wealth focuses on need-based, right-selling, putting investors’ interests first and following age-old principles of building wealth. At NJ Wealth, SIPs have been a key driver in contributing to investors' wealth, thereby enhancing business and retaining investors in the long term. Moreover, SIPs can be a game changer, especially for retail investors, allowing investors to make small contributions to fulfil financial needs and accumulate wealth in the long term.
