Asoke Roy, Roy Finance, Kolkata. Roy is the Joint Secretary of Independent Consultant Advisor Association (ICAA).
Last year on Dhanteras, I did 335 SIPs in a single day. However, I was not so happy with the numbers. I realized that there were three shortcomings
- I had not set any specific target
- The role of team members was restricted to back office chores
- The SIP drive suffered from the lack of a goal based theme
However, this Dhanteras, I first set a target of at least 2000 SIPs. I started preparing for SIP drive from April 2019. Unlike last time, it was a goal specific or theme specific SIP drive, which focussed on retirement planning. Since many people do not have retirement planning in place, I saw a good opportunity in this theme. Another benefit of retirement based SIP is its long-term nature. Finally, I divided work among team member and assigned them clear responsibilities.
In my view, four things worked well for me in this SIP drive:
- Conducting IAPs on weekends
- Following up with attendees. We had a target of meeting at 2 clients and making 5 calls a day
- Social media campaign on retirement through blogs and YouTube videos generated significant interest among people. All these communications revolved around retirement theme
- Team effort multiplied the impact
There were some challenges like attrition of a team member and not so good market conditions. However, we managed it. The last week was very crucial. We had to work until 2 am to log in SIPs on exchange platforms. In fact, I asked my colleagues to work from home so that they could save time on commuting.
Overall, we did 2172 SIPs amounting to Rs.78 lakh on Dhanteras. Close to 1400 investors participated in this drive. In fact, we are still getting SIPs because many investors were on leave or could not give confirmation for some reason on Dhanteras. In my view, there is enormous business, which is still untapped.
Dhiraj Suresh Aggarwal, Taxpoint, Delhi
Over the years, I have been reading articles and hearing stories about SIP drives at conferences. This inspired me to try something similar and better. So, one day I called a meeting with my team members and shared with them the idea of doing a massive SIP drive. Everyone was excited by the idea and we decided that we could easily sign up at least 1000 SIPs, knowing that the majority of our taxation clients would be interested.
Surprisingly we were able to activate 1272 SIPs in a single day last year. Hence, we decided to break the record of the highest SIPs next time and set a target of 2100 SIPs.
Since our core offering is tax planning for individuals and corporates, we targeted our existing client base. We also asked for referrals from our clients.
As a first step, we explained to our existing tax-consulting clients in face-to-face meetings how investing even small amounts in MFs could help them reach their goals.
We also invited our clients to our annual IAP event where experts answer all queries and covered topics such as tax planning, retirement planning, and children's education plan to make the conversation more real and interactive.
We also had sessions that compared ETF and fixed deposits with mutual funds. A Q&A followed each session. We also hosted a game to spread financial awareness and highlighted the importance of investment in mutual funds.
Post the event, we rigorously followed up with prospects and clients through face-to-face meetings and phone calls. Instead of talking about mutual fund products, we asked them to start a few investments with a small amount for their retirement, children's education, children's marriage, and some short travel plans.
We started this process in July end and created a suitable investment plan for each investor based on their risk appetite.
Conducting IAPs and follow up meetings with clients helped us activate 1533 SIPs amounting to Rs.18 lakh from 250 clients, 80 of who were new clients.
