Mr. Siddharth Bangani - Dalhousie - Kolkata
Mr. Siddharth Bangani, an MBA from the city of Joy – Kolkata who had never decided to pursue his career as a Financial Advisor in his student life. The decision he took to start Advisory business was once backfired from his family at a times, but conviction for the business and confidence he has in Advisory profession never make him to rethink on his decision. Today his family takes proud of him on becoming a successful advisor. Siddharth is very bullish on equity market and looking forward with confidence to expand and scale his business.
Team e-Saathi takes pride to presents an interview of Mr. Siddharth bangani – a rising star from kolkata. We wish him all the best for all his future endeavors.
ES: Please introduce yourself and also share your vision and mission or goals in life.
Siddharth:I am Siddharth Bangani from city of joy Kolkata. I started only with insurance advisory as a part time business way back in 2006 while doing my graduation. After completing my MBA from New Delhi in the year 2010, I thought of indulging myself completely into Financial Advisory Business, and started my company named STUDIO MONEY with only one vision i.e. BORN TO CREAT WEALTH.
Mission or goal in life is to “Be the one who is reliable, safe, efficient, and professionally sound in creating wealth for individual and their families”
ES: What inspired you to choose the career of a financial advisor / distributor?
Siddharth:I landed into this career just by luck. I had never thought of pursuing a career as financial advisor but after completing my MBA in Finance giving N number of interview for Job and not getting a job of my choice, I had no option left, I was very depressed. When I came back to Kolkata I met one RE with NJ, he had literally forced me a lot and encourage me to start my Mutual Fund Distribution and then I decided to start my own financial Advisory firm Studio Money. And today I am really proud of being a financial advisor
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?
Siddharth:I still remember those initial days when I stepped into full time business of insurance and mutual fund distribution after completing my MBA. Everyone was criticizing me on my decision, as in India people doesn’t give much importance to consider IFA Business as a good profession. My friends even scolded me for not opting for job and doing this, there was a time when people use to laugh on me and saying ”ye sab kaam se kuch nai hone wala, tum aapne is decision pe pachtaoge ek din..ye sab hi karna tha to MBA kyun kiya” (Nothing will happen with this work, you will regret yourself for your decision one day, why have you done MBA when you are doing all this thing only). Even my family my parents were also upset and not satisfied with my decision but still they supported me. I started initially with taking investments from family, friends and relatives. I have taken this criticism as a challenge for myself. Initially there were issues having low revenue but I was totally confident about the future income in form of trail, so I kept my patience. And believe me friends Today everyone are happy with my 5 year old decision of being a Financial Advisor.
ES:What made you to join NJ as NJ Partner ?
Siddharth:NJ Services, NJ Partner Desk, NJ Technology….. list goes on. And the best thing is we can get access to all advisable financial product of almost all companies under one roof, with the best of knowledge.
ES: Do you promote the idea of savings through MF SIP in your clients?
Siddharth:Yes, I do promote the idea of saving through MF SIP to all my clients very aggressively. For me SIP is an investment plan were investor and advisor both are into win - win situation. For me SIP is SLEEP IN PEACE
ES:Client communications is an integral part of your business. Please share any best practices / services related to communications adopted by you.
Siddharth:We all know communication is very important not only for business but also for our life. Communication is a two way bridge between you and your clients. I make sure I speak to all my customer once a month to make him realize that I am always there. I would like to thank NJ for introducing Biz Mall services one of the best mode of communication, NJ MCS service has no comparison. I can bet that anyone who had subscribed for this service must be appreciated by his or her client. I also use social networking sites Facebook, YouTube, blogging etc. for communicating my investment advisory ideas.
ES: How much importance do you give to Insurance in you advisory practice?
Siddharth:Financial Advisory is incomplete without Insurance Advice. If you are not adequately covered all your financial plans may get ruined. I only advise TERM PLANS for life insurance needs, whereas I advise all my clients to have a proper mediclaim, critical insurance Personal Accident policies, In short I believe in the concept of sampoorn surakhsha of NJ
ES:How do you educate and convince your clients for mutual funds, especially the first time investors?
Siddharth:I educate them by making them realize the fact of life that your investment should always beat inflation. I make them understand the risk associated when they are not investing into mutual fund. I try to make them understand about cost of averaging, power of compounding etc. and mutual fund is the best product to justify all this.
ES:Your experience with NJ's technology initiatives in terms of various Desks for Clients & Partners ?
Siddharth:NJ technology initiative is one thing which had cemented us so well that we cannot think about our business without NJ. Introduction of TADA has taken our business technology 10 years forward. Accessing every report related to our business is at our figure tip, Mobile APP version has done our work more simpler.
ES:How you evaluate NJ's technology initiatives such as various On-line Desks & Mobile Solutions ?
Siddharth:In single word I will say all technology initiatives by NJ are SUPERB. We are into the business of Financial Services and without technological enhancement we will not able to serve our clients properly and NJ is one who have taken care for everything. So we don’t have to worry about the same.
ES:What advantages do you feel TADA offers to both ? Clients and Partners?
Siddharth:I would surely like to answer this, because I was the one who was initially very skeptical not to go with TADA. I was not confident about it, but my branch manager, zonal manager everyone had really worked very hard to convince me to work with TADA. And I am really thankful to them today. TADA had help me work more efficiently. We all have 24 hours in a day and we all have to work accordingly. So TADA is a blessing in disguise. My clients are really very happy for the ease of transactions. Today whenever I meet my new or any existing clients I ask them to open TADA so as to get best of services. Now my business have even crossed local boundaries thanks to TADA. I am handling efficiently my clients out of my state. Just a phone call and transaction is done.
ES:Please share with us any standards / best practices related to client segmentation. If yes, also share any differentiation made in service offerings to these client segments.
Siddharth:Personally I don’t believe in segmentations, For me all my clients are equally important whether small or big. Yes I do invest more time with HNI clients but I don’t neglect the smaller ones as they are the one with whose faith I have started my business. They are the base for the business
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?
Siddharth:Till now I am a One man army in my own business but as also being an agency manager I have to manage my partners also. As a leader I think I am a one who is very confident of what I am doing, I always believe in taking everyone along. I think nothing can beat TEAM work. Because as a TEAM I say Together Everyone Achieve More.
ES:Can you share any incident /event which has had a lasting impact on you or your business as a financial advisor /distributor?
Siddharth:There are various events which had some impact on me and my business but would like to share one. As an advisor I have asked one of my friend to take a family mediclaim but even after continue follow up for six months my friend always denied by saying yaar siddharth will do it next month. It was 30th March 2012 in the morning I have called him again and said him that boss do a mediclaim its very important but I have received the same reply yaar next month karta hoon. I said ok. The very same day in the night he called me up and said I want the mediclaim by tomorrow. I simply asked him now why there is a hurry. He said nothing bus thoda sa papa ke chest mein pain hai.but all medical reports were normal, Believe me friends it was 2nd of April his father got admitted for heart attack and his claim got denied as policy was not issued till then. That was a day I realize if something is important than we should not wait we should just do it. It’s better to grab something which seems important in life than regretting for not taking it.
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?
Siddharth:I am very bullish. The mood is very bullish; people expect a lot of changes. Indian economy is started to turn around, cyclically and structurally. Inflation is abating, the current account deficit is narrowing, FX reserves are accumulating and growth is just starting to rise. Over the next five years, I expect the market to provide a 15% CAGR, driven initially by multiple expansion and then by earnings growth as economic growth picks up. I am a person with 100% conviction on equities. So to grab this opportunity one must go out and tell everyone what he is doing, why do he think market will give good returns and ask them to invest and its always better when you are a part of a change then just seeing what changing
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?
Siddharth:One should always evaluate his or her performance on a regular basis. I do it on monthly basis. I set a net sales, SIP target of my own every month and on the last day I evaluate what I have achieved, where do I lack, what are the areas for improvements. I even check whether the no. of queries of my clients are increasing or decreasing. I consider this as very important because I always compete my last best performance.
ES:How much importance do you give to Asset Allocation & Risk Profile while offering solution to clients need ?
Siddharth:Asset Allocation and Risk Profiling are the basics of financial planning. So to do justice with my own profession one should always adhere with this while offering solution to the clients need.
ES: Winning the trust of a Client is not an easy task. How do you think you can win the trust of the Clients?
Siddharth:Its very simple and common but simple and common things are very hard to do. I would simply say be HONEST, REALLISTIC and CONFIDENT about what are you advising and it should be best in interest of clients. If we do this I am sure clients will never even think of any other advisor, they will have full faith on you.
ES: What suggestion / advice you would like to give to new Partners who have yet not established themselves in the business?
Siddharth:Never give up, and be confident in what you do. There may be tough times, but the difficulties which you face will make you more determined to achieve your objectives and to win against all the odds.
ES: Can you please share your short term and long term targets for your business.
Siddharth:My Very short term target is to become a platinum partner by this year and reach 100 crore AUM by 2018. And my long term target is to reach 500 crore AUM in next 10 years
At last I would like to thank NJ for giving me this opportunity to share my view and experience with other partners.
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