Setting an example of ‘Plan Big and Think Bold’, Amravati-based Mahesh Gattani of Balaji Investments has initiated 500 SIPs on behalf of his clients in equity funds in a single day. The average ticket size of these SIPs is Rs.2,500 per month per folio with a minimum time horizon of five years.
The idea of SIP day came to Mahesh’s mind last year when he attended Cafemutual Confluence 2016 (CC16). However, he did not have a concrete plan on how to go about it.
Gattani has been using NSE NMF II platform to digitalize his business for over one and a half years. One day while initiating an SIP for his client, he realized that the turnaround time to execute a transaction through the platform is so less. It took him a minute to complete this transaction. This was the ‘eureka moment’ for him.
Gattani made up his mind to conduct an SIP day by using the digital platform. As part of the plan, Gattani and his colleague Roshan approached existing clients to start SIPs. “We spoke to 175 clients. We discussed the progress of their portfolio and advised them to top up their investments in equity funds through SIPs. We told them that the markets are at all-time high and they should not invest lumpsum in equity funds. At the end of this exercise, almost 156 clients agreed to start SIPs. "However, we had to follow up with them for at least three times over phone. On an average, these clients started three SIPs in equity funds with a ticket size of Rs.2500 per month per folio with time horizon between five and ten years,” said Gattani.
Mahesh decided to hold SIP day on September 23, 2017 due to it being a non-working day i.e. Saturday. Sharing the rationale for choosing a Saturday, he said, “Most of my clients are free on Saturday. Also, we will have an additional day i.e. Sunday to get their confirmation.”
Both Gattani and Roshan started the day at 5 am to initiate SIP on behalf their clients. 9 am onwards, they started calling up their clients to get the confirmation of transaction. At around 6 pm, they achieved a milestone number of 500 SIPs.
In an email sent to Cafemutual, Gattani shared, “We are happy to get an overwhelming response from clients on SIP day and support from NSE NMF II officials. We came to our office early morning and started processing the application. We kept on following up with clients to confirm the SIP transaction by clicking on the link sent on their email/SMS.”
Mahesh ascribes the success of SIP day to the use of digital platform. “I always talk about the benefits of using digital technology in distribution business. I hope this achievement will boost the confidence of my fellow distributors,” he said.
