Bengaluru MFD Deepesh Mehta’s SIP book size has grown from Rs.1 crore in Nov 2018 to Rs.2 crore in Oct 2021. During this 35 months, his assets under advisory has gone by 164% to Rs.185 crore.
While chatting with Cafemutual, Deepesh spoke about his business practices that helped in achieving newer milestones. Let us look at them:
- SIP ticket size matters more than its numbers
Deepesh highly advocates focusing on ticket size rather than SIP numbers. Wealth creation is a process that should account for inflation and must be backed with adequate investments. He makes his clients understand this through numeric illustrations of corpus created from different SIP amounts. He added, “I usually advise my clients to increase their SIP amount by 2.5 times every year.”
He also sets a target of achieving SIP book of 1% of the total AUA every year. He believes that having such a business goal encourages him to work towards achieving it.
- New business acquisition
Referrals, social media and IAPs are the three major sources of acquiring new clients for Deepesh. From 155 clients in Nov 2018, Deepesh’s client base has increased to 360 clients in Oct 21.
While most of his clients are through references, he also generates leads through social media. He regularly posts his articles on social media where he simplifies finance for lay investors. He also conducts IAPs quarterly to acquire new clients.
Talking about convincing prospects for SIPs, Deepesh said, “MFDs should make mutual fund investing easy for investors. People have already been investing through a SIP-like model without actually being aware, for example - recurring deposits. Making prospects realise such similarities makes them comfortable with SIPs in mutual funds.”
- Multi-asset approach
Deepesh recommends his clients to diversify their SIP investments across asset classes to reduce volatility and benefit from asset allocation. He suggests his clients to invest in a combination of equity funds, international funds and debt funds. The proportion of allocation depends on their risk appetite.
- Power of 100 monthly SIPs
Deepesh recommends his clients to continue at least 100 monthly SIPs to benefit from rupee cost averaging. He said, “Regularly reminding clients about the goals and explaining to them the rationale behind each recommendation keep them away from stopping SIPs.”
Deepesh’s focussed approach to increase SIP book helped him create a successful business model.
