Mr. Aman Gupta
Chandigarh
My name is Aman Gupta & I have been working in the Financial Industry since 2006, have worked with various Stock Broking Companies such as India Infoline & Edelweiss, etc. I have always been fascinated by the action in Stock Markets & it was actually my curiosity which forced me to explore Stock Markets back in 2006 as a trader. Then I started my venture as a Sub Broker with Reliance Money in early 2007 which failed due to lack of experience & stock market crash of 2008. After that I joined India Infoline as a Relationship Manager & continued my journey in stocks. Very soon in my career, I had realised that earning money through stock market speculations is not everyone's cup of tea, very select few could do it and I didn't know how it could be done. I found that answer in Technical Analysis, I have been learning & implementing TA from 2010 & have received training from some renowned Technical Analysts like Mr. Kiran Jadhav & Mr. Kunal Saraogi. It has been a very long & painful Journey for me but I can say now that it is finally paying off. Due to all the ups & downs & prolonged periods of distress & depression, I have suffered all along being a Trader, that I now find Mutual Funds to be the best way to Invest in Stock Markets for a Retail Investor. Without doing much of the activity & by just following some basic Principles & Discipline, one can very well create huge wealth for himself & his future generations which otherwise is not feasible as a Trader. I strongly believe that if we want to attain financial freedom early in life then Mutual Fund is the only way of Investment which can make it possible.
ES: Please introduce yourself and also share your vision and mission or goals in life.
Aman:I have been aggressively promoting Mutual Funds since 1st January 2015, although my association with NJ started long before that but I actually started working on a serious note from this day. My vision in life is to be seen as the most ethical & respected financial advisor in terms of Knowledge, Wisdom & Integrity towards my clients. My Firm's name is Pragmatic Investment Solutions & we are currently managing around 33 Crores of AUM & an SIP book of Rs 56 lacs with an Active Client base of around 500 Clients. My mission is to reach an AUA figure of Rs 100 crore & SIP Book of Rs 1 Crore in the next 2-3 Years.
ES: What inspired you to choose the career of a financial advisor / distributor?
Aman:As I mentioned above that I was always fascinated by Stock Markets & have worked very deeply at all levels & Areas of stock trading activities. But after few years, I found out that none of my clients have made any money in trading activities in all these years whereas some clients made surprisingly good returns through their SIPs which I suggested them to start few years back. But I was always reluctant to pursue Mutual Funds as a business due to the low Payout Structure. A friend Introduced me to Mr. Sunil Dutt (Branch Manager, NJ) when I used to work in Ambala & did MF business as an IFA as a means to create some side income along with my Job. Mr. Dutt empanelled me with NJ in 2011. Frankly I did nothing for a long time after empanelment, but Mr. Sunil Dutt never backed off & kept pushing me to start taking MF as a serious business for whole 4 years. I did some business in 2014 but it was only on 1st of January 2015 that I sat in front of Mr. Dutt & said that I now want to pursue only Mutual Funds as my career & I need his guidance for the same. First thing he said was that lets plan to get you qualified for the PBC. We planned & with his support, I qualified for PBC that year only & then there was no looking back. My AUA on that day was only Rs 2 Crores & SIP book of less than Rs 4 lacs. It sometimes appears to be a dream to me seeing all the current figures of my AUM & SIP Book.
ES: Setting the financial advisory business takes some time. How did you handle the challenges on the financial front in the initial period of the business?
Aman:Yes Of course setting up a Financial Advisory business is a very challenging task, It's more of an emotional thing than financial. It takes a very long time to create some meaningful Income from this business but I was fortunate enough that I had some backup funds with me at the time when I finally started this business seriously which kept me afloat for a while. All I did was I kept adding good clients & not look at the Income I got from them in the beginning & in a matter of time I was surprised to see that I started receiving handsome Income from this business. All I can say is that if a new advisor sets aside his survival money for 2 years & works very seriously with a target oriented approach in his mind, he can very well create a meaningful Income from this business.
ES: What made you to join NJ as NJ Partner?
Aman:As I mentioned earlier that it was a matter of chance that I met Mr. Sunil Dutt who empanelled me with NJ & kept pursuing me to start MF business, it is because of his efforts and not quitting on me that I am able to do well for myself today. I cannot thank him enough for this in my life. NJ is the best thing which has happened to me in years, I have not seen any company which works with such transparency & empowers its partners to excel in advisory field. On technology front I am a fan of NJ, I have never seen any organisation working years ahead in terms of Technological Advancements & in terms of creating an environment for ease of doing business. Hats off to them for the constant efforts they put in to upgrade their processes & softwares to provide world class experience to their Partners & Clients.
ES: Do you promote the idea of savings through MF SIP in your clients?
Aman:I recommend to my clients Investment ideas of which I am absolutely sure about, so SIP is the most important & rather the first Investment I prefer to pick for my every new Client. SIP has created enormous wealth for layman investors & will continue to do so, I strongly believe that SIP should be a part of every household in India. If "Mutual Fund Sahi hai" then "SIP to Absolutely Sahi Hai:)"
ES: Client communications is an integral part of your business. Please share any best practices / services related to communications adopted by you.
Aman:One of the most important communication tools I use with my clients is the Whatsapp Broadcast Service. Its a one way communication technique through which I can communicate anything which is of Importance with my clients. The best part is that unlike a normal Whatsapp group it does not create unnecessary noise for other members in the group, if any Investor has queries he/she directly messages me. I make sure whenever I meet a new prospect or client I add his no. to that group so that even if he does not start business with us right away, still he gets an Idea about our thought process through the regular updates, thoughts & strategies we share on our group. We currently have almost 550 people in this communication group.
I have also done extensive Digital marketing activities on Facebook by myself & have generated some very good leads form it. All I know about marketing & communication strategies is that "If you want to generate business from the people who may or may not know you, then you must shoutout through maximum channels and mediums to the world about what services & products you are offering. You may not get any results for a long time but still you should continue doing it." Along with various other leads, I got 2 major HNI clients from Social Media Marketing, we offered our services to them, they were highly satisfied from our advisory & conduct & in turn they referred us to multiple new clients from their friends, family & co-workers. from just these 2 clients we got almost 30 new HNI Clients generating an AUM of more than 10 crore Rupees. So don't stop even if you don't get any response from your Digital Marketing Activities, you never know who's listening!!
ES: How much importance do you give to Insurance in you advisory practice?
Aman:Insurance is by far the most Important aspect of our Advisory Practice. We believe even if a person is not able to start his investments early in his life, still he should seriously look into covering himself & his family with Term & Health insurances at the least. Medical Emergencies do not come with any advance notice so it is crucial to have a decent health insurance for the family. A year back one of my clients Mr. X who was on the verge of signing the documents for health & term insurance of Rs 1 Crore delayed it for few days & then ultimately got tied up with some medical issues of his father. It did not seem right to me to bother him for this thing as he was busy with his father's medical problem, after 3 months I got a call from his brother in law who is also our investor that Mr. X died in an unfortunate accident a month back. I was shocked, Mr. X was survived by his wife & 2 sons, his wife was not working & had no source of Income. In the name of life insurance, he had only Rs 3 lacs worth of cover from various endowments & ulips which was nowhere near the required amount to maintain the lifestyle the family was living. It was a total mess & I somehow blamed myself for not pushing Mr. X that day to sign the documents & get the policy done. The life of his wife & children would have altogether been different in that case.
ES: How do you educate and convince your clients for mutual funds, especially the first time investors?
Aman:The first & foremost condition for getting a new client on board is that he/she should spare at least 1-2 hours time, if he wants to discuss about Investments with us, If a client says that I don't want the details or I don't have time or I trust you because my friend has referred you & I want to do Investments right away, I simply reply to them that I wont do any business with them till the time they don't listen to me what I have to explain to them about Investing. I have a simple logic behind this, a client should know what he is doing, what behaviour he will have to maintain while doing the Investments & later also, I explain to them about Inflation, Compounding, How to benefit from the Volatility of the market. I explain to them the various scenarios of markets he may be seeing while he is invested, how he should behave in those market conditions & what will be the outcomes of his investment, if he did not behave in the way he is meant to. I don't refer to a single Mutual Fund scheme name till the time I don't get a feeling that he has understood the maximum of what I wanted to convey.
Due to my long experience in core market activities I have seen the best & the worst of markets very very closely i.e in the front of a Dealer Terminal. Be it the staggering rise from 2006 to 2008, or the terrifying fall which started in January 2008, or the prolonged waiting periods from 2010-2014 of no performance, I have seen it all with my own eyes, I have seen how people react in adverse market movements & I have seen how every time they were proved wrong by the markets. So I explain to my clients about my experiences & what I learnt from them. I motivate them to not just preach but practice what I make them learn, like a common saying is that "BUY when everybody is selling & SELL when everybody is buying" but I have seen that almost nobody follows this practice but I make sure that my clients do so, I call every single client myself when I see a decent fall in markets & make sure he Invests some money in that fall depending upon individual capacities.
ES: Your experience with NJ's technology initiatives in terms of various Desks for Clients & Partners?
Aman:I joined MF Industry as an IFA in December 2007 but when I started working I faced many operational challenges, for example, back in 2007 there were limited or no cost effective modes available through which one could keep track of client Portfolios, so I had no idea what was happening in my client Portfolios until I saw their statement of accounts. Clients used to call every other day to send the statements of their Investments & it was one of the most cumbersome jobs.
When I was introduced to NJ Partner & Client desks, I was amazed, I genuinely thought that this was the most useful feature in those times. Now NJ has come far ahead of those basic features, Now NJ is offering real time E-Wealth Account opening, E-Mandate & PIT like facilities which has empowered us to a huge extent & enabled us to provide the best service to our clients. It saves lots & lots of time. We have now almost 80% shifted to NJ E-Wealth Platform & rest will be converted very soon. The best thing I have experienced is that with the help of NJ E-Wealth & PIT, we are now a Global Advisor, there are no geographical constraints for acquiring & servicing clients. We are based in Chandigarh, but with the help of E-Wealth & PIT we are serving clients in cities like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Sirsa, Rohtak, Jammu & many more, & also in countries like US, Canada, Qatar & Dubai. We don't think even once before acquiring a client from a far flung location as we have absolute confidence that there will never be any issue regarding servicing the client due the technology provided by NJ. One can judge our confidence by the fact that there are many clients currently Investing with us having Portfolios as big as 1 Crore & those clients have never seen us face to face ever in their lives. They are absolutely happy getting our Advisory on phone or any other communication medium & executing their Investments on NJ Platforms.
ES: Please share with us any standards / best practices related to client segmentation. Also share any differentiation made by you in service offerings to these client segments.
Aman:As of now we don't do much of client segmentation, but we are slowly & steadily moving towards restricting ourselves to acquiring clients in big ticket size segment only, i.e we do not want Quantity but Quality in our Clients, this will help us serve our existing clients in a better way & still earn better revenues.
ES: What type of a boss / leader do you see yourself as? What is the image of the ideal boss that you aspire to become?
Aman:Well this is a tricky one;) I guess this should be asked to my Employees. Well frankly, I have a very laid-back approach towards my Employees, I maintain a very friendly & open relation with 2 of my employees. I always try to make them learn more & more about our work but most Importantly, I try to share my life experiences with them so that they can learn from my experiences & mistakes & become a better human being, I believe a good human being is rarely a bad employee or a bad Manager, so If they can become a good human they will surely excel in their lives. Although I am very particular on the Client Servicing front & my employees know that, they know that if any client complains me on service part then I get hyper, so in spite of being in an easygoing environment, my employees do their best to serve our clients.
ES: Can you share any incident /event which has had a lasting impact on you or your business as a financial advisor /distributor?
Aman:One of the major turning point in my life was the time I attended NJ PBC for the very first time, I was awestruck with the grandness of the event, even more I was amazed to see the level of determination & focus of the other Advisors who were nominated for the awards. I felt like I was doing nothing compared to what others were doing in this business. I was very depressed for a while but then I gathered myself up & made a commitment to myself, that I will put all my energy & focus to take this business so high that I get a chance to meet Neeraj Sir & Jignesh Sir on that stage receiving an award for doing some wonderful work in the MF business. I am yet to achieve this dream of mine but in the process, I got nominated in 2 Categories for the next PBC & 1 Category in the last PBC. I am sure, soon I will be on that stage receiving an Award of Recognition from the two persons I admire the most.
ES: 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?
Aman:Future of Financial Advisory is very bright, there may be some Regulatory Changes which may Impact revenues & working styles but If one is adaptive then it should not be a big concern. One way or another a good Advisor will make way for his living.
ES: 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?
Aman:I believe that if your numbers are not showing what you want to see then it's only your fault. I set my targets for a year in April itself & get it entered in NJ Partner Desk so that I can track my progress on a regular basis. I roughly assess my performance on a weekly & monthly basis, if numbers don't add up to the ones which I want to see to achieve my targets then I immediately review my strategy & do a complete overhaul if required.
One very important thing is that I don't run after my targets blindly, first & the foremost thing which I keep in mind is that my client's Interest is always first & cannot be jeopardised at any cost, even if I don't get business of a single rupee. I work out extensively on developing the best strategies for them & then approach them for Investments & I also make sure that I keep adding new Clients so that I am not dependent on a limited set of clients for my Business targets.
ES: How much importance do you give to Asset Allocation & Risk Profile while offering solution to clients' needs?
Aman:Asset Allocation is one of the most crucial concepts in Financial Planning. I like using the Dynamic Asset Allocation Products for controlling risk in Client's Portfolios with products like MARS & Dynamic Asset Allocation Mutual Funds.
ES: Winning the trust of a client is not an easy task. How do you think you can win the trust of Clients?
Aman:There is one & only one way to win the trust of a client, "Work with Integrity". This is the only Mantra of Success in any area of life, I have myself experienced this in my life & I can vouch for it. At first you may find that people who are cheating clients are growing faster than you, but believe me very soon you will see yourself passing them up above the ladder of success & they will be nowhere near to you ever in their lives. If you don't have knowledge then don't worry you can learn about it, if you don't have necessary skills then don't worry you can acquire them by practicing, If you don't have an approach to a certain set of Big Clients then don't worry, you will reach them with the help of your Knowledge & Skills, but if you don't have Integrity i.e you are not honest to your Client, you are not doing the right thing for him or you are undermining his Interest to get a gain out of it, then there is no way you will be actually successful in life, yes you may gain some money out of it but you will never have a relation based on trust with your Client.
Just remember if you are not honest to your clients then you will have to find new Clients everyday to stay afloat but if you are always doing the right thing for them without thinking about your Interest then that Client will remain with you for the whole of your life & will do whatever you wanna make him do because he will always know that you will do the best for him. I can not say anything better than the below quote -
"If you have Integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have Integrity, nothing else matters." - Alan Simpson
ES: What suggestion / advice you would like to give to new Partners who have not yet established themselves in the business?
Aman: My advice is that if you really want to succeed in this business then before entering into this business one should create an emergency fund for 1-2 years of time if possible. This way the person does not have to bother about the regular monthly Income from this business for a reasonable time. This gives more focus & energy to the Individual & if one directs all his energy & concentration in growing this business then there is no way he/she can fail in doing so. Opportunity in this field is huge & it has to be tapped with right Intention, having a backup fund which could take care of monthly expenses, it gives mental peace & a more focused approach.
Also there is no replacement for hard work in this business at least in the first few years, so meeting at least 1 new client everyday is the key to success, along with this, organising Group meetings, Seminars in Corporates, Pamphletting & Digital Marketing should be used to create your presence & acquire new clients.
ES: Can you please share your short term and long term targets for your business.
Aman:We want to focus on Quality & not Quantity, so till the time we are satisfied that we are capable enough to cater to a bigger set of clients, we are not thinking about any long term targets. As of now, we want to achieve the no. of Rs. 100 Crores of AUM in the next 2 Years. We have a strategy in mind for it & will start implementing it aggressively from next financial year. In the same time, we expect to grow our SIP book to a minimum of Rs 1 Crore.
ES: Your suggestion/feedback to NJ to improve on advisory platform/services.
Aman:Although everything is amazing with NJ but I would like to give a suggestion, NJ very frequently changes the UM level Employees in the system, either assigned UM quits the job very frequently or he is moved or promoted to a newer location very frequently. In my active working of 3 years time, I've been assigned to a 3rd UM. This disrupts the ongoing liasoning & a new understanding has to be made with a new person every time and it's irritating. So I believe if a person is assigned to a particular task then he should be given ample time to do his job, this will be good for both Employees & Partner. Also the Customer Care no. issue has never been resolved. At times me & my team has faced serious connectivity issues on several occasions. Sometimes we keep trying to connect to NJ Customer Care for 4-5 hours and are still not able to do so. This wastes a whole lot of energy & time. I request you to please do the needful to make this service seamless.