Just too many people whom I meet crib about the distributor! Poor guy! Call him an agent, advisor, consultant, …or what have you, but he is representing the manufacturer and has a role to play. Let me tell you what I like my client to do or know. Clients should expect good quality feedback on the happenings, not necessarily express speed. All websites today carry an article on the RBI rate policy. Expect a detailed analysis rather than the first analysis. Clients should clearly have a goal while investing. If the investment meets the goal, your agent has done a good job immaterial of the fact that your neighbhour has got a better return on some vague fund which invests in East Europe and West Africa. Start with the end in mind.

Communicate your vision to your agent in a way that he understands. Too many agents start giving directions before knowing where the client wishes to go. Instead of getting into who has communicated badly, it is the clients job to ensure that the agent understands the destination before he starts driving!

Long term wealth creation requires a certain mind set – it is about choosing the more (sometimes) painful path rather than the easy path. Show your committment. Do not pull off the SIP or the Unit linked plan because the market came down 5%. Do not chew the agents head because your fund finished 9th instead of 1st. When your kid comes 5th rank instead of 2nd, you spend time with the kid, do you not? See the fund performance over a longer period. Elsewhere there is an article on mutual fund performance read that. Keep reading and learning – and make sure your agent does that too.

Be humble enough to learn from various sources and from your agent as well – make sure he is constantly updating you on the same! Great clients seek to learn from books, seminars, good magazines, and many such sources. Great advisors learn and keep their clients upto date on whats happening. So be great!