Mr. Prasad Shetty & Mr. Guarav Karnik
(S9 Financial Planners), Mulund- Mumbai
S9 Financial Planners is a privately owned 6 year old Mumbai based financial planning & Advisory firm that specialises in personal finance, family wealth advising and financial consulting for individuals, corporate & family groups. We are currently working with 450+ clients under us having an AUM of 30CR currently.
Mr. Prasad Shetty - The CEO & Co-Founder of S9 Financial Planners. A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER (CFP) from FPSB India and have completed NISM Capital Market & Technical Analysis Certification. Mr. Prasad Shetty is a staunch believer of the fact that ‘Financial Literacy’ is the key to financial success of each person.
ES: Please introduce yourself and also share your vision and mission or goals in life.
Both: Mission: Our mission is to provide financial planning services to every professional individual who want their finances to be managed by professional financial advisor by understanding their needs and making it achievable.
Vision: To reduce the ideal retirement age from 60 to 45 years.
To spread awareness of financial planning is each and every household irrespective of any income class.
ES: What inspired you to choose the career of a financial advisor / distributor?
Prasad: Since college days, I was closely associated with trading in stock market. I often used to see people around me with extreme scenarios of either making lot of money or having lost a good amount. I had even come across an incident where I saw a known person getting heart attack because of losses faced in stock market. That made me question the uncertainty and made me explore more alternatives in personal finance. It was then, I decided to be a financial planner and offer comprehensive financial planning services to my clients so that the financial literacy will drive them to their financial goals.
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?
Prasad:I had my core belief in the business model I am working on, that is where we decided it is completely okay to not have substantial returns for the efforts initially but focus on building a sustainable model keeping the long term benefit in mind.
ES:What made you to join NJ as NJ Partner ?
Prasad:NJ has been the largest national distributor in Mutual Funds since the time I had started. The time when I was contemplating different distributors to partner with. NJ was the only one who was purely into B2B and not B2B and B2C which made me feel secured to wholeheartedly do business with them with no second thoughts. They have sticked to their core wonderfully since their inception. The feeling of being taken care of in every aspect of my clients requirements was aptly done by NJ in these years and that has helped my firm grow tremendously. The time when technological revolution was at its toddler stage, I had NJ who made sure they are digitally equipped with it and the man power required to do tasks where minimum. The team of NJ has always been in sync with innovation and been a great support to mentor and motivate partner like us. Lastly a special thanks to our RM Vishal Bhagat for his consistent support whenever we have asked for.
ES: Do you promote the idea of savings through MF SIP in your clients?
Guarav: MF OR SIP is an integral part of financial planing, in fact I would say it is one of the most sacred form of investment where client is not cheated. In our financial planing process we highly recommend SIP in MF for our clients.
ES:Client communications is an integral part of your business. Please share any best practices / services related to communications adopted by you.
Both: We believe our team is well equipped with latest CRM systems like Hubspot which makes easy for us to communicate within TAT to our clients. We also have Google calendar sync which keeps the team informed about client status and meets.
ES: What advantages do you feel NJ E-Wealth offers to both Clients and Partners?
Guarav: For partners its majorly the ease in transactions and continuous knowledge upgradation and for our clients its easy access in terms of viewing reports or valuation through different devices like Mobile, tab or desktop.
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?
Prasad: I have always made a point that I lead by example, so before expecting anything from my team I make sure that I do it myself so that the scope of doubt is removed and right expectation is set in the beginning itself. I surely aspire to become a boss who believes in giving fair chance to everyone who wish to grow in life irrespective of any physical, religious or educational barrier
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?
Both: This industry is currently in a stage where it will only move upwards as the awareness and financial literacy is moving at a faster pace in India. To be prepared I find consistent upgradation of skill and technology individually and of the employees as a solution to make the most of it.
ES:How much importance do you give to Asset Allocation & Risk Profile while offering solution to clients need ?
Both: Asset allocation and Risk profiling is a basic need or I call it as foundation for any financial planner to begin financial planning with. Our services in S9 financial planners is completely based on 5 step module of Client profiling, risk profiling, number crunching, Drafting of the plan and then comes the execution. So yes, the utmost Importance is given clearly to clients risk appetite and asset diversification.
ES: Winning the trust of a Client is not an easy task. How do you think you can win the trust of the Clients?
Prasad: I can proudly say this now as I have 450+ clients, that our strict adherence to being unbiased & Transparent in our advices or suggestions given to our clients has brought our clients closer. It has helped us build a relationship with them not only on a professional level but on personal level too.
ES: Can you please share your short term and long term targets for your business.
Both: When we have client interaction, we stress on Short term, medium term and long term goals. Similarly S9 Financial Planners'
Short term goal: 100CR by 31st March 2019
Medium Term goal: 5CR SIP Book 2022
Long term Goal: 1000+ CR 2027