Mr. Kirti Visariya & Mr. Pratik Visariya
Valsad
ES: Please introduce yourself.
Answer: I have completed my Graduation in commerce from Mumbai university, and started working in Anchor Electricals (presently know as Greatwhite Ele. Pvt ltd) as Accounts Head. Later, we shifted to Daman and continued the job.
ES: What inspired you to choose the career of a financial advisor / distributor?
Answer: My wife’s friend suggested us to take an agency of Life Insurance, so we went to meet Mr. Suresh Patel (one of NJ’s leading Partners) for a second opinion, as I wanted to do the business along with my job. His positive words encouraged us and we took the agency of Life and Non life Insurance in the year 1997.
Moving a step forward in the year 2002, I left my job and started working full time in Life insurance, General insurance and Post Office Schemes.
ES: Setting the financial advisory business takes some time. How did you handle the challenges on the financial front in the initial period of your business?
Answer: In the initial years, it was very difficult to manage job and business simultaneously, but with my wife’s support we were able to do it. She has always been my back bone, manages our office and supports me in business. There were times when I had a doubt that whether will we be able to continue the business which we had started. She always motivated me when I felt so, but now I am glad that YES we did it!!!
ES: What made you join NJ as an NJ Partner?
Answer: In the year 2003, I got a call from Mr. Paras Kothari (he used to handle Valsad NJ branch) to join NJ as a Mutual fund distributor, which initially I ignored, as it was a new thing for me.
Later, I joined NJ only to sell INFRASTRUCTURE BONDS for tax saving purpose.
ES: What does investment in MUTUAL FUNDS mean to you for your clients?
Answer: In the initial years, I used to advise mutual funds for NFO’s and SIP’s only. But as time passed and as I gained experience, my approach towards clients' investments changed from suggesting only mutual funds to FINANCIAL PLANNING, as we believe that each and every person needs financial planning. We are now fully focused on FINANCIAL PLANNING for the client, and not on advising any particular product.
ES: Client communications is an integral part of your business. Please share any best practices / services related to communications adopted by you.
Answer: From the time I started my business, I used to send valuation reports to each and every client of mine, every month, as it is a way of keeping my clients updated.
Today, we install NJ CLIENT DESK in clients' smart phones which will keep them updated on their investments. Not only the NJ investments, we also suggest them to add their existing investments so that they can easily see their entire net worth. This would help them understand that how much equity or debt should be there in their portfolio.
ES: How do you educate your clients for mutual funds?
Answer: I follow these steps:
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Take appropriate time
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Make them understand the importance of Financial Planning
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Inculcate a new seed in the client: “Insurance And Investments Are Two Separate Things. Never Combine Them”
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Evaluate his existing savings and investments
ES: For the first time investors what do you do?
Answer: First time clients are normally called in a client meet along with wife/parents and then I go to meet them personally. 85% of my work is done in client meet itself and when I go to meet them personally, I solve their doubts and touch on insurance so that the person is fully covered.
ES: Your experience with NJ's technology initiatives in terms of various Desks for Clients & Partners?
Answer: My experience is superb and the initiatives which NJ take are simply awesome. Let me explain the same with an example, there are clients who have the potential to invest and also want to invest but only because they don’t have a cheque book or e-wealth account password, they postpone It. Here, I take the help of PARTNER INITIATED TRANSACTION facility and help them to invest or reset their password from Partner Desk application and then guide them.
ES: Can you share any incident /event which has had a lasting impact on you or on your business as a financial advisor /distributor?
Answer: I have a client who is at a good designation in a reputed company, he met me and we discussed about Financial Planning. After a day or two, I did my routine follow up, the answer I got from him was NO. But still he used to ask me about some products and I continued to solve his queries and he kept on buying policies for investment from someone else. Approximately 4 years later, he turned up and we did the planning which we had discussed 4 years ago, and from that time, he started investing and now has full faith in us. This made me understand that if we do our job faithfully and be in touch with a client, then he is going to come back and then will never leave us.
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?
Answer: The future is very bright and if changes come, they might break our comfort zone for some time, but what we need to do is be a master in our field, and just saying it doesn’t confirm it. Therefore, I suggest everyone to do CFMcm, because only then we'll start thinking like a FINANCIAL PLANNER and not like a MUTUAL FUND DISTRIBUTOR.
ES: How much importance do you give to Asset Allocation & how do you ensure it is taken care of?
Answer: Asset allocation and Risk Profiling is very important for everyone. When we meet a client, we normally assess his/her existing investments, his behavior towards markets and equity, and then we decide the funds or asset allocation and most times we have suggested MARS to the clients.
We normally sell only equity to our clients, but my experience has taught me that there should be some liquid funds in clients' portfolios as well. Reason being that every client can assess his/her portfolio very easily and withdrawal is also very easy, therefore when we keep liquid funds in a client's portfolio, he will mostly withdraw only the liquid fund and not equity, which will help him get more returns.
ES: What suggestion / advice would you like to give to new Partners who have not yet established themselves in the business?
Answer:
1) If you are considering this business as your full time business, only then join it.
2) Always attend partner meets, it will keep you updated on what is going on in the financial market.
3) I believe that when you interact with existing partners, you learn the most. Therefore, I always suggest every new partner to attend PBC, it gives you new ideas, motivation and a superb experience.
ES: Can you please share your short term and long term targets for your business.
Answer: Short term – 100cr by 31st march 2020
Long term – 1000cr by 31st march 2025