Pune IFA Neepa Khatri of Neepnil Investments entered the business by chance. Having completed her Masters in Social Work, Neepa worked as a counsellor for NGOs. However, she found it difficult to pursue a 9 to 5 job once she became a mother. Around this time, Kotak Finance announced an opportunity for homemakers in financial advisory. She saw a good opportunity in it and took up financial advisory in 1997.
From a counsellor to an IFA
As an advisor, Neepa uses her counselling skills to convince clients to take better financial decisions. Her educational training also helps her understand the concerns of her clients and form a stronger bond with them. Join her for a client meeting and you will notice that 85% of the time, the discussion revolves around the client’s life, worries, dreams and aspirations and only 15% of the time is devoted to the portfolio. She is an avid follower of emotional quotient (EQ) selling. You can read about EQ selling by clicking here.
Her focus on relationship building has won her the trust of many clients. Today she has a client base of 300 families or approximately 500 clients and nearly all of them have come through referrals. She acquires most of her clients through referrals.
Being choosy about her clients
Before on boarding a client, Neepa tries to understand the client's investment style to check if they will be a good fit. For instance, she does not work with clients who expect their investments to grow instantly. She explains to them that her focus is on achieving superior long-term risk adjusted returns instead of highest returns.
Neepa stays in touch with her clients through annual portfolio review meetings. She uses these meetings to track the key life events of clients such as job change, wedding and so on that require reviewing their financial plans.
Further, to ensure that her clients’ investments are in good health, she devotes three hours every week to review schemes that she recommends to her clients.
Surprised in 2000, prepared in 2008
In 2000, when the dot com bubble burst, many investors were taken by surprise. Having entered the business just two years back, she was not prepared to handle the volatility and lost a few clients. However, the event taught her an important lesson in managing client expectations. It also motivated her to pursue CFP so that she could gain more in-depth knowledge.
Based on her extensive experience, this is how Neepa manages clients’ expectations during difficult times
- Setting reasonable returns expectation from equity funds
- She advises her clients to invest in equities only if they have a 3-year+ investment horizon
- She only recommends large and multicap schemes to her clients
- She urges her clients to invest through the SIP route to mitigate risks
- She shortlists schemes, which have delivered consistent returns across market cycles. In short, she prefers consistent performers to top performers
Due to her efforts, her clients were better prepared to handle the 2008 crash and the 2018 market volatility. In fact, a client who started a SIP in 2018 was calm despite his portfolio falling by 10% last year.
Today, she manages mutual fund AUM of Rs. 55 crore and SIP book of Rs. 70 – 80 lakh.
Going forward, Neepa wants to build a sales team to acquire more clients.
