In February 2018, Bengaluru IFA Sudhendra Lakshmana Rao of INPRISM Services created 262 SIPs.
However, Sudhendra saw an opportunity in the current market dip. “The current correction in equity markets has given a good entry point to investors. We see this as an opportunity to start new investments in mutual funds. In my view, volatile markets are the best markets to start a SIP as rupee cost averaging allows an investor to benefit from any temporary dips in the market.”
Deciding the target
His experience in February gave him confidence that they could manage the numbers. This time, the team’s aim was new client acquisition and increasing the average ticket size from Rs. Rs.2,200 (average ticket size of February SIP drive). Moreover, they also increased the SIP target to 450 SIPs.
They decided to run this drive on October 15 during Navratri. Since Hindus observe ‘pitru paksha’ before the onset of Navratri and do not consider this an auspicious time for investing, the team utilized this period to meet clients to complete the operational formalities such as KYC, obtaining bank mandate, form filling and so on.
Convincing clients to invest
The team approached both new and existing clients for SIPs. They first shortlisted their existing clients who did not increase their SIPs for at least two years. “We reviewed their portfolio and asked them to start new SIPs with the increase in their earnings to achieve financial goals. We also explained to them that with the correction in market, it was a great time to give a boost to their investments, as they would get more units thanks to rupee cost averaging,” said Sudhendra.
To acquire new clients, the team conducted multiple investor education programs. The team did not focus on large corporates, instead, they approached car showrooms and small hotels as they readily agree for such sessions.
Interestingly, Sudhendra’s team give presentation on ‘How to become poor?’ “The aim is to help people understand mistakes they make in their wealth creation journey. We first explained to them the common investing mistakes of people and how mutual funds can help them achieve long term financial goals. We tell them SIPs are the good EMIs,” he said.
Apart from these, they also got clients through referrals, Quora (Sudhendra is active on Quora and answers finance related question of users on the platform) and Justdial (their company has a good rating on Justdial, which helped them get a few walk-ins).
Overall, 200 clients participated in the SIP marathon of which, 100 came through IAPs.
Ensuring that the operational aspects were smooth
Sudhendra told Cafemutual since they had faced issues with the onetime mandate (OTM) due to signature mismatch during their previous drive, they have opted for e-mandate on NSE NMF II platform or cheque payment this time. This ensured that there were no rejections at later date.
They also made the on boarding process smooth with new clients receiving a welcome kit on email and WhatsApp with all the relevant information and contact details.
They also made the process paperless. Be it biometric KYC or registering the client on NSE NMF II platform the entire process was paperless. They were particularly thankful for NSE NMF II team for providing operational support and activating the IINs (investor identification number) in a few hours’ time. This helped them register new clients quickly.
To prevent any errors they decided to punch-in the transactions over a period of three days (Saturday to Monday).
Thanks to all these activities, Sudhendra and team have activated 425 SIPs with the average ticket size of Rs.2,588. Overall, they collected Rs.11 lakh from SIPs in a single day. In one week, he has done 703 SIPs amounting Rs.19 lakh.