The first voting exercise of ‘Principal Business Champions – Winning Ideas’ has received an overwhelming response from the IFA community. While we received close to 2347 votes on the website poll, our Facebook and Twitter handles saw an encouraging reach of 53,584 and 7,208 impressions respectively.
‘Principal Business Champions – Winning Ideas’ is a joint initiative of Principal Pnb Mutual Fund and Cafemutual to help advisors learn from the best practices of other IFAs. Simply put, it is a knowledge sharing platform in which IFAs can share their best practices that have helped them grow business.
Under this initiative, Cafemutual invites monthly entries from IFAs across the country on business development topics that has helped them grow business such as leveraging technology, acquiring new clients, maximizing revenue, serving retail clients and HNIs, effective communication tools and so on.
Here are the success mantras of three IFAs who get highest votes.
Bangalore based Srikanth Matrubai, Srikavi Wealth – Winner of the website poll with 72% or 1690 votes
I started using WhatsApp as a marketing tool three years ago and my AUM has nearly tripled since then. What attracted me to WhatsApp was that I could communicate with multiple clients and get their response immediately. In my view, it is the best two way-mass communication tool of this era.
I have been able to attract clients through this medium, because I make it a point not to sell products. Instead, I put images and short texts about wealth creation and financial planning. I try to drive home the point that the best way to create wealth in the long run is through equities and the best way to invest in equities is through mutual funds.
I want my clients to consider me as a mentor who can guide them in matters related to personal finance.
In addition, I regularly send them health tips and interesting facts. This has helped me create the image of a knowledgeable point of contact among my clients.
While these activities are primarily aimed at existing clients, I also ensure all my images are watermarked with my name and website, and all texts can be traced back to me.
Mumbai-based Viral Bhatt, Money Mantra – Winner of the Facebook poll with an encouraging 16000 reach and 170 likes
I have been using both social media and WhatsApp actively since 2014. Though the conversion rate is quite slow in this medium, I have found that it gives greater visibility to advisors. In fact, in the past 3 years, I have acquired 30 to 40 clients through social media.
What has worked for me is that, I do not sell mutual funds or products through my posts. I concentrate more on concepts and ideas. For example, I never say buy this fund or that. Instead, I talk about the importance of goal based planning, how having a financial plan can help investors and so on. This activity has helped me position as a thought leader.
Today, I manage an AUM of Rs.22 crore. My simple advice to all my advisor friends is that you should use social media actively; it is not about getting business but more of a brand creation exercise. This medium helps you convey your thought process to your prospects and existing clients. I post one update a week to keep the engagement going.
Cochin-based Jagadeesh R Pai, Cochin, IFA with 282 engagements and 1600 impressions on Twitter
I became an IFA in 2010 after leaving a well-paying job in the Gulf as the entrepreneurship bug caught me.
Since I had no marketing or sales background, I found it difficult to sell mutual funds to new clients. During the initial days, my income from MF advisory was only a fraction of what I used to earn but I had a conviction on this business.
Since many people use social media these days, I decided to reach out to them through Facebook. I posted articles on personal finance such as why investors should not prepay home loans and how SIP can help them grow wealth. However, despite many views, comments and shares, I was hardly getting any clients. But I continued my activity on Facebook. To my surprise, I received a query from a Facebook user after a year. I made him understand the benefits of mutual funds and importance of following a financial plan to grow wealth. As a result, he became my client.
Encouraged by this response, I started posting my articles on WhatsApp also in addition to Facebook. I primarily shared these articles with my clients. But to my surprise, my posts were forwarded by them to many other groups. Very soon, I came to be known as the person who does financial planning.
Today I have an AUM of Rs.19 crore. Currently, I am running a Facebook page called ‘Sampadyam.com’, (Sampadyam translates to earning in Malayalam) to post articles related to personal finance.
