Mrs. Meghana Mehul Sodha
Porbandar-Gujarat
Mrs. Meghana Sodha hails from the land of Mahatma Gandhi – Porbandar, which is a small town in Gujarat. Mrs. Sodha and her husband Mr. Mehul Sodha have been providing Chartered Accountancy Services in Porbandar and surrounding villages/towns. They forayed into the Financial Services industry three years back to provide Investment advisory services to their Indian and NRI clients. Both husband and wife are instrumental in shaping up their business, one is focusing on Chartered Accountancy and the other on investment advisory.
Team e-Saathi, takes immense pride in sharing the story of Mrs. Sodha, the lady who took her advisory business to great heights in a short span of time.
We wish all the best to this duo in all their future endeavours.
THE JOURNEY FROM AN INVESTOR TO ADVISOR:
I have completed my M.Com., after marriage I started helping my husband in his firm in operational work. In those days we used to invest in mutual funds through our family friend, who is also a CA by profession.
My friend is also an NJ Partner, so I am an NJ Investor since the time I started investing in Mutual Funds. We never focused much on investment management and advisory. But with time, as we came across income tax related queries which required MF oriented solutions, we started to learn about it. Me and my husband, we found it interesting and started getting into details.
I started sharing my views and opinions about Investments with our friends, as and when I got a chance, and slowly and steadily all of them started seeking advice from me for their investments. However, to avoid operational complexities, I used to recommend all of them to become a client of that CA friend of mine, who is already an NJ Partner.
With M to M publicity and reference of all those friends, the number of clients started growing and then they started persuading me to start the advisory business. They always wondered that when they are taking advice from me, why is someone else earning from it.
Based on their suggestions and considering our own interests in the MF product along with the already existing tax consultancy business of my husband, we decided to go full fledged into the advisory business. We applied for ARN and on clearing the exam, I officially became an NJ Partner.
So, this is how I turned from an Investor to an Advisor, thanks to all our friends and their suggestions to start our own business, which was a defining moment for us to come into this business.
THE TURNING POINT:
The business kicked off well and was going good, then one day, one of our clients came up and asked us to redeem all his investments from Mutual Funds owing to the downward movement of the market at that time.
Now, if we look at the Indian stock market history, you will find multiple incidents leading to panic situations among investors. In general also, we have witnessed multiple instances in India like ponzi schemes and frauds in the past as well as recently, leaving a bad experience for the investors.
We were also a victim of such a scam/fraud. It was back in the year 2013, the National Spot Exchange Ltd. (NSEL) scam which shook everyone. We had a good exposure in NSEL and lost significant money. And losing money can never be an expectation or a good experience for an investor.
After co-relating with these incidents and our own NSEL experience, we decided to take a back step as we didn't want our clients to lose their hard earned money which they had invested through us. We asked our RE to help us understand the market situation and why one should stay invested in MF. On our request, he recommended us to meet Mr Mehul Shah, the then BM – NJ Rajkot branch.
We went to meet Mr Mehul Shah and asked him to help us and our clients in the turbulent market situation. The meeting went on for 2 hours and when we walked out of his office, we came out with a very different mindset altogether. Mr. Shah explained to us why we need to stay invested, he brought some real life examples on the table, explained to us some investing philosophies and the mistakes that most investors make by redeeming in panic, how investors have brought destruction and eroded their wealth in the past by redeeming in panic. Our skepticism turned into conviction after that meeting with Mr. Shah.
So, after the meeting, we decided to not redeem the investments, rather we'd start new SIPs immediately. Since then, the curiosity level also increased, we wanted to know more about Mutual Funds, so we started reading books, magazines, online videos, material on social media etc., to gain more knowledge about investing in general and Mutual Funds in particular.
We are really thankful to NJ, Mr. Mehul Shah and all the then staff members of NJ, who helped us develop a strong conviction in Mutual Funds.
CLIENT ONBOARDING / YOUR OFFERING TO CLIENTS:
About client on-boarding, as I mentioned earlier, most of my clients are our friends and family members, most of the clients came as a reference and we believe that's the best way to get a lead. The natural market for me is always our client base from our tax consulting business. Our focus is on bringing in more of HNI clients. The obvious reason is to ease work management and you get handsome earnings. If you look at our avg. SIP amount, it's around 18K and that's because of this strategy, otherwise it would have been difficult get such a figure.
Generally, I prefer to meet clients on a one to one basis. I try to ignore addressing and giving explanations to investors in groups or in big meetings. When an investor approaches us, the very first thing we do is share knowledge about Mutual Funds & Equity Markets, the working, risk associated with investments, past returns, etc. The other important thing we do is bursting of myths that each investor carries. We explain to them the importance of overall financial planning and goal planning., why one should plan for a goal and how can he/she achieve their life aspirations.
The other thing we do is share with them past performance of the market. Sharing data and charts of the Sensex pertaining to different time periods and thereby explaining to them the shifting of the trajectory. We highlight various phases of the market and how different national and international events have impacted the markets – we believe that this is the best way to convince an investor that equity investment is for the long term and short term losses are temporary. For us, Investor's understanding of the fact that equity market and equity investments are for the long term, is at the core of our client on-boarding process and we ensure that all our clients have a tangible understanding on this part.
In the current market downfall and the volatility that we are experiencing for the last 8-10 months,we have received just 3 phone calls from our clients and that is also to get an understanding about the situation and not for redemption. And that's why we believe our efforts to educate the client about equity markets and the volatility associated has always remained fruitful for us.
To summarize, below are the key points that we attempt to make our clients understand:
1. Come into equity market with a Long Term perspective/time horizon, else don't come.
2. Ups and Downs is in Equity's nature, so be ready for a roller coaster ride.
3. Be prepared to see a loss – a temporary loss – in short time frame and never forget the 1st point.
4. Never convert your Notional (Paper) loss into an Actual Loss.
During a market slump when you see a loss in your portfolio, always remember it’s only a notional loss, a loss on paper. Don’t panic, this loss on paper cannot be actualized until you redeem the investment. So again, remember the 1st point and stay invested.
“All Investments are through SIP route, else everything goes into NJ MARS”
SIP: The best way to invest in MF/Equity is through SIP, and we believe and explain about it to the investors with all spirituality. Once the investor is convinced about Equity's nature and the volatility associated, then convincing for investing in MF through SIP route is never a tough thing to do. Power of Compounding and Rupee Cost Averaging work together to make SIP as the best weapon to win against the market volatility.
NJ MARS: MARS is a beautifully designed, one of a kind, investment solution available in the industry. My own understanding and knowledge has convinced me to do all lump sum investments in MARS.
MARS DAA portfolios is the best solution available for MF lumpsum investments. A readymade portfolio backed by NJ's Research and re-balancing of asset allocation from time to time are the best features. I personally believe that market timing is important to create wealth in the long term by taking meaningful risk, but timing the market should not be based on emotions or judgment, rather it should be a quantitative phenomenon. And the same is being done in NJ MARS DAA Strategies, the asset allocation decisions are based purely on a quantitative model, and there is no role of emotions.
To define Asset Allocation, key parameters such as risk profile, investment tenure, goals etc., are important to consider, but keeping the allocation in check from time to time is equally important to create wealth.
I believe in MARS and am willing to take this forward for all my existing and new clients.
YOUR ADVICE/SUGGESTIONS TO NJ PARTNERS:
For the Partners, one thing which will keep us motivated to remain on the ground always, is the conviction in the Indian economy. India is a developing country and the fundamentals of the economy are very strong. Right policy decisions and initiatives will propel this growth. Corporate earnings are improving and that will lead to better returns from Equity eventually. I advise my fellow partners to share knowledge with their investors, make them understand the nature of equity and how to ignore the short term pain. I think making them understand the basics will be a win-win game for both, the investor and the advisor.
I believe that one should also look at the different tools/utilities developed by NJ for partners. The tools are wonderful and can be of immense use in the day to day business. We use most of the tools that NJ has developed for Partners . As I told you about my conviction in MARS, it has made my life easy and one should use it to manage investors' portfolios. I am also using Direct Equity Portfolio Tool to compare Equity portfolio against the NJ PMS Schemes – a wonderful tool created by NJ to make our lives easier.
I am also using the Partner Business Planning Tool since the last 2 years. It’s a really helpful tool as it helps us plan the business more systematically. Thanks to Mr. Bhavesh Joshi, RM – Rajkot for helping me out with this tool and planning my business better.
FUTURE BUSINESS TARGETS:
I am looking at a Rs 2 Cr SIP book in the next 2 years
I aim for a Rs. 100 Cr. AUM in next 3 years.
Thanks to Mr. Bhavesh Joshi and Team e-Saathi for providing me an opportunity to share my views with the readers of e-Saathi.