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Over 18 months ago, SEBI introduced a series of regulations aimed at nudging distributors to not just sell, but sell right. Mis-selling became a fraudulent activity, the onus of establishing product suitability was placed squarely on the distributors' shoulders and EUIN was introduced in an attempt to pin point individual responsibility for each sale transaction.
In all of this, what was missing was a clear definition of what constitutes right selling. The absence of a prescriptive norm led to a gap in distributors' understanding. Wealth Forum therefore decided to create specific content on our website to guide distributors onto the path of right selling. We found in SBI Mutual Fund a committed and willing ally in this cause, and thus was born the microsite Fund Guru on the Wealth Forum website, with a series of articles titled Sell Well - Grow Well.
http://www.wealthforumezine.net/FundGuru.aspx
Having covered a gamut of topics around right selling, the microsite then went on to profile case studies of right selling from successful advisors, under a new column called Main Bhi Fund Guru.
This joint initiative was taken to the next level on 6th September 2014, at the the 5th annual Wealth Forum Platinum Circle Advisors Conference at Mumbai, with the launch of a book titled "Just selling? Or selling the right way? Your guide to become a Fund Guru".
The book is a collection of 10 thought provoking articles from the Sell Well - Grow Well section of the microsite and 6 great case studies of best practices in action from successful advisors, as shared by them in the Main Bhi Fund Guru section of the microsite.
Our Sell Well - Grow Well initiative is now a book : Navneet Munot, CIO, SBI Funds Management, Dinesh Khara, MD&CEO, SBI Funds Management, D.P.Singh, ED&CMO, SBI Funds Management and Vijay Venkatram, Wealth Forum unveil the book "Just selling? Or, selling the right way? Your guide to become a Fund Guru"
SBI Mutual Fund and Wealth Forum present the Fund Guru Advisor Awards, 2014
SBI Mutual Fund and Wealth Forum instituted a new set of awards called the Fund Guru Advisor awards, which recognize right selling and service excellence. These awards are given to successful advisors who, through their business processes and practices, serve as role models for distributors on right selling and adoption of best practices.
For the inaugural year, we created two awards :
Fund Guru Advisor Award for Right Selling Fund Guru Advisor Award for Service Excellence
The two advisors we have nominated for these awards have already shared their best practices in the Main Bhi Fund Guru series of articles, and their ideas have been very well received by the IFA fraternity. We believe both of them have indeed set great examples for the wider IFA fraternity on right selling and service excellence parameters.
1. Fund Guru Advisor Award for Right Selling
While many in the fund industry keep talking about the right on-boarding strategy to bring new clients into MFs and stress on taking clients up the risk spectrum rather than directly into equity funds, few distributors actually practice this diligently. There is one example however of a firm that has completely institutionalized a model customer on-boarding strategy, with a catchy title called the 10-10-10 strategy. First get clients comfortable with investing with you in 10 day horizon products, then move on to 10 month horizon products and then finally to 10 year horizon products. It's a strategy that's paying rich dividends to the firm in terms of new client acquisition, and it's a strategy that is helping the firm create many happy retail investors.
For successfully adopting a model customer on-boarding strategy, for being a shining example of right selling, the 2014 Fund Guru Advisor Award for Right Selling goes to Ashish Modani, SLA Financial Solutions, Jaipur.
From left to right : Navneet Munot, Ashish Modani, Dinesh Khara, D P Singh and Vijay Venkatram
2. Fund Guru Advisor Award for Service Excellence
Our winner is setting new standards in client servicing, with 2 initiatives that we believe are worth emulating across the distribution fraternity :
Annual portfolio maintenance service - where his firm does a detailed housekeeping check on all those little aspects that we often ignore but which cause service heartburns later - like nominations being in place, like bank mandates being regularly updated and so on,
His firm runs a free investor helpline as a CSR initiative where any investor - whether a client or not - can call his office for any kind of query on any financial product, and be assured that his firm will try to resolve the query to the best of their ability, in a time bound manner. There are no strings attached to this service - it is an absolutely free service, available to any investor in his city.
These are the kinds of service initiatives that help build investor confidence in mutual funds and enable the industry to deepen wallet share from India's retail savers.
For his wonderful efforts in going that extra mile to serve investors, for setting standards in service excellence that the industry can emulate, this year's Fund Guru Advisor Award for Service Excellence goes to Pradeep Kumar Jain, Ranchi.
From left to right : Navneet Munot, Pradeep Kumar Jain, Dinesh Khara, D P Singh and Vijay Venkatram
Wealth Forum congratulates both the Fund Gurus and sincerely hopes that their efforts will serve as an inspiration to all distributors and enable them to make the journey successfully from selling to right selling. To know more about what these and other Fund Gurus are doing in their respective cities, stay tuned to Main Bhi Fund Guru on our site.
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