Mr. Vijay Mallipeddi,Ms. Manavi Financial Services, Vijayawada.
A Young Software Engineer from Vijaywada, working in an MNC in Hyderabad, earning handsome salary had finally decided to leave job last year. His first step on the path of becoming an IFA was taken at the time when an e-mail from HR asking an investment proof was received in his Inbox. That mail made him curious to know about Investment products. His desire to learn more and urge to guide colleagues made him more convinced to look for part time Fin. Advisory business. He started part time business along with the job in year 2007. Later he joined NJ as partner in 2009.With his strong business acumen and understanding of various aspects of financial advisory business and trust of his clients made him to achieve a sparkling success in short span of time.
A line that speaks everything of him - his passion and his ambition. "The first celebration is when I reached 1000 Cr, below this may not be a big achievement"
Glad to share the views of this inspiring and dynamic personality with all the readers.
What inspired you to choose the career of a financial advisor / distributor?
By Profession, I am a software engineer with Science background. In Jan 2006, our company HR has sent a mail to all employees to submit their investment proofs for FY 2005-06. At that time I had very little knowledge about investments and financial planning. I’ve a good friend of mine who guided me to invest in ELSS. I did my first MF investment in Feb 2006 without knowing anything about it. With me few of my colleagues also invested in ELSS.
This is the turning point for financial career. Somehow I’m not comfortable with that investments I did as don’t know what I did. This situation forced me to know what it is and out of curiosity I started reading on my own. By Apr 2006, I stated my tax planning for 2006-07 through SIP in ELSS. With me 5-6 of colleagues also started their SIPs.
Slowly people started asking me how to plan, what are the better investment options…slowly I started enjoying this subject and I understood that equity is best investment asset for long term and started believing in the asset class and suggested people to invest in equity through SIP. Until Aug 2007, I’m suggesting people passively and they are investing through my friend who working in a company.
In this process, with my 1 ½ year experience with people, I understood that people have very less knowledge about their investments. Most of the people used to tell me I’m paying 50K insurance premium but they don’t know how much sum assured they have. And most of them feeling that insurance is an investment and really they don’t know why they are paying those premiums.
These type of scenarios made me to feel that there is so much of vacuum exists in financial knowledge and there is good business opportunity and at the same time we can help our friends and colleagues. My journey as a mutual funds distributor started in Oct 2007. From day 1 I believed in SIP, so my main focus and suggestion to customers is invest in equity through SIP.
Please share about your career and experiences before becoming a Partner / IFA.
I started my financial advisor career in 2007 as a part timer, by profession I’m a software engineer. I’ve build the business out of sheer passion. In Sept 2014, I’ve decided to quit my job and take forward the advisory business. 31st Dec 2014 is my last working as a software engineer and end of 12 year career.
How did you get to know about NJ and what convinced you to become a Partner?
In 2009, when there are discussions about removal entry load and reduction of upfront commissions, I thought that this is the time where we have to do business aggressively. I started looking for opportunities where I’ll get some help in the form of on-line reporting and good guidance in business. At that time, I got reference of KSV Narendra Kumar of NJ Vijayawada. I had a more than 2 hr discussion with him. That is the first time where I felt, I’ll get good guidance and knowledge from narendra and from NJ. Because of Narendra and his knowledge only I became partner. In 2011, I’ve transferred my business to proprietary entity “Manavi Financial Services”
What makes you to leave your past job and to start Advisory business ?
First point is out of passion and at the same time, there is a lot of opportunity in financial advisory. Still there is so much of vacuum in financial advisory for the customer centric advisors.
You are very convinced on equity asset class for long term wealth creation. The question is how do you convince your clients? Is any standard sales pitch / approach towards this?
Although I am from a science back ground, from past 7 years I’ve invested lot of time to enhance my knowledge. I’ve enough information in convinced to equity asset and I’m very happy to share the information to customers. You say about, Indian population demographics, future earnings increase of Indian public, increase in productivity levels of Indian workforce, increase of surplus incomes of Indian families by double income….
Do you promote the idea of savings through MF SIP in your clients?
From day 1 I’m convinced with SIP and only sold SIPs. If some customer is ready to invest 1 lac at a time, I ask him to give 50K one time and 5K SIP. In fact I am very week in selling one time investments and NFOs.
Please share with us any practices /activities related to client acquisition that you follow. What is your advice to fellow Partners on this front?
As a part timer I never tried any activities for getting customers. From my initial days, I advised my customers which is better for them. Most of my business was build purely on references and also I never asked for any references. My motto of doing business is educating the customer, and help him in taking the decision and give him which is best to him.
Whenever I’m going to a customer, I never think about whether I’m getting a business or not. Always my intention is, today I’m going to a person to give some financial knowledge. I never bothered about closing of the business. But I’ll go with full confidence and information and suggested customer which is good for him.
Client communications is an integral part of your business. Please share any best practices / services related to communications adopted by you.
I’ll be in touch with customers, through Email, SMS and WhatsApp. We are active on social media also. At the same time, I’ll not try to bother the customer with more and more information.
I’ll try to meet or call the customer at least once in 6 months and do review of his investments.
From past one year, MCS images and videos are also helping us a lot.
Please tell us your approach /method /process to selecting mutual fund schemes for your clients for investment.
I’ll follow suggestions from NJ, as well as I do my research. I’ll keep pool of 15-20 funds and distribute those funds to all the customers. At most I’ll not give more than 4 funds to any customer.
I tempted to give good performing funds with good respect and service to advisors. Win-win is the motto here.
What advantages do you feel TADA offers to both Clients and Partners?
With TADA, the ease of doing business is great. In this summer, the weather is not supportive to go out and interact with customers, but still TADA made us to do very good business. TADA will save lots of time of partners and also we can promote liquid funds and short term debt funds very aggressively with TADA, where as it is not viable in physical form.
Please share with us any instances / examples related to TADA which highlights its' importance and advantages in real life.
With the help of TADA, in recent fall (May 2015), we are able to do more than 30 Lac one time investments in 2 days from 20-25 customers which is not possible by meeting them and closing the business.
How do you assess /see the future of financial advisory business in India? How can we as Partners be ready / prepared to make the most of it?
Still most of the Indian investments are either in land or gold. With more and more younger people are coming into jobs with more surplus money in their hand and with the increased inflation pressures, people are thinking about alternative investments. In coming years, there will be lot of people who is looking for quality advises and we need to be ready with required infrastructure. TADA is definitely one of the best tools we have.
Opportunity is unlimited. Today’s generation (around 30) need 5-10 cr before they retire. If you are successful in acquiring 1000 customers, min AUM you will have is 5000 Cr. This example is, if you work alone. If you can build your own team? Sky is the limit.
Self evaluation and assessment is something we all should do regularly. How do you assess your own self and/or your business? Are there any specific parameters you refer to?
Every day before going to sleep, just I’ll think a minute about what I did today for the business. It need not be closing the business, but whether I did something for the business or not. I never had a target in mind, keep on meeting new customers and keep on increase your live SIP. Business opportunity is unlimited. The first celebration is when I reach 1000 Cr, below this may not be a big achievement.
I’ll keep an eye on my live SIP, and also redemptions. How the SIP book is increasing, redemptions are out of compulsions or out of panic.
Winning the trust of a Client is not an easy task. How do you think you can win the trust of the Clients?
I always believed one thing. What is good for the customer, advice the same to him. If somebody is risk averse and don’t want to take any risk, I suggest them to invest in either PPF or in PF. Of course in these cases also I’ll get some SIP from such customers as well. And I’ll explain them the risk they are taking by investing in so called safest investments.
My goal in advising Equity is, I want to create very good examples in equity. Already we have created few.
Please share your experiences in working with NJ as a Partner.
Working with Nj will definitely helped me in grooming my skills. Helped me in change of thinking prospective. Initiatives like Print shop, MCS images & videos are awesome.
What suggestion and advice would you like to give to the existing NJ Partners to further strengthen their business?
This advisory business is an ocean; it’s your ability how much you will draw from that ocean. Each and every person we met need not to be our customer. We have many opportunities outside waiting for us, just try to meet as many people as possible. One more suggestion is, better try to do less business in relatives and close friends, at the same time let them know that you are in this advisory field and you can help them in case they are looking for good advice. Never ever insist them to take advice invest through you.
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