You can use either of NSE, BSE or MFU. You should take a demo of all three and then decide for yourself. IFAs across India are currently divided in their choice. Decide after taking demo which of the above platform suits you best. There are initial challenges in all the platforms. With time they will get corrected. Talk to few IFAs who are already using any of the above platforms and take feedback. Paperless transaction is the future. (14th Apr’2018)

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(1) Meet 10 Clients (new/existing) every week

(2) Hire employees for back end work.

2

While it is good to have a large base of clients, it is nearly impossible to service them being an IFA. Typically, one IFA can service not more than 200-300 families. You should refine your client list. Your SIP book is small considering your client size. Ideally, you should do the following :-

• Identify top 200 clients and focus on them
• Hire sales / support staff to manage smaller clients.
• Increase your SIP book.
• You should focus on sales and systems. Leave backend works to staff.

2

Good employees are important for long term growth. You can consider the following (1) recruit through reference and people with high level of integrity (2) pay them well (3) Have a well defined working hours and do not insist on working late (3) have some sort of performance incentive for sales people and/or design some scheme for their long term benefit.

1

Don’t worry about this. Mostly, it doesn’t happen. It happens only where employees are into sales. Even then, all clients don’t leave with them. This is part of business and you have to take such things into your stride. This is not a reason not to have employees.

3

It is important that employees stay for longer period. For this, you need to pay them well, respect them, appreciate their good work and be a little flexible with respect to their convenience and don’t ask them to work long hours. Treat them as an extended family.

0

It is better if you operate from an office and have employees to support you. It will be difficult to manage the business alone for long. Once your volumes grow, you will find it difficult to grow further and expand. Also, your personal and family life will suffer due to being busy in advising and servicing all clients on your own. So, you should consider having a work place and take help from employees. If you can’t invest/spend on employees and ownership office (rental will do) now, you should save more and have a time frame of doing this in future.

2

This is a continuous process. You should not stop hiring employees fearing that they will leave. You won’t be able to grow with this fear. In every business employees come and go but businesses run. If you take care of your people well, they are likely to stay.

1

It depends. Having a sales team require different skill sets of management, longer break-even period and infrastructure requirements and technology. Creating a sales team will cost money from day one whereas payoff will come in later years. You should have the necessary software to track their business, performance and revenue. Also, do ensure they have the necessary license to sell. You must be very transparent in identifying their business volumes and payment of incentives. Half hazard planning won’t last long. Some of the employees will leave over time. Don’t worry about this. You should hire more.

You should also meet other IFAs who have successfully created a sales team. It will be good to know views of the experts before you proceed.

1

You must invest in your business. As a general rule, you could consider budgeting upto 30-35% of your revenue towards business development (salary, marketing, misc office expenses, etc). It will help you grow faster.

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