Prakash Hegde initiated 301 SIPs in a day embodying the motto ‘It is never too late to dream a new goal.’
After serving the country for 17 years as a member of the Indian Air Force, he decided to retire from service and work in the finance industry. He believed he could help people achieve their financial goals by providing quality advice.
To start with, Prakash took up insurance advisory only to realise later that he cannot do justice to his clients’ portfolio through policies. At this time, he decided to evaluate the wealth creation potential of mutual funds and found that he could offer solutions for various clients’ needs through them. From then on there was no looking back. Along the way, he became friends with Sudhendra Lakshmana Rao, another SIP hero who activated 262 SIPs in February.
Motivated by Sudhendra’s story published in Cafemutual (http://cafemutual.com/news/tarraki/243-another-ifa-on-sip-marathon), Prakash decided to set a goal of 500 SIPs for himself. As Prakash was already conducting all his mutual fund business through BSE Star MF platform, he opted to execute transactions through the digital platform too.
To lay the groundwork, he allocated 20 days to get in touch with clients. He called and met 350 clients and explained to them the benefits of enhancing their current equity allocation through incremental SIPs. “Sharing real-life stories of how his existing clients have achieved their financial goals such as buying a house or children’s education through long-term investment in SIPs helps encourage prospects and clients to go for such investments,” says Prakash.
When asked if clients were hesitant to invest in equity markets owing to the recent volatility he said, “While talking about SIPs in equities, I highlight the significance of long-term investing and rupee cost averaging. I tell them that they should celebrate such corrections as they can accumulate more units with the same SIP amount. Now, my clients wait for such corrections.”
Of the 350 clients, around 130 existing clients and 20 new clients came on-board and started new SIPs. Though he could not meet his target of 500 SIPs as some clients backed out at the last minute, he is happy to have collected 301 perpetual SIPs with an average ticket size of Rs.2,600.
