I am the guy who does odd jobs in the BFSI. So sitting with a friend who is evaluating a Vee Cee proposal to talk about ‘what PnL and B/S a start up guy should know’ talks to ‘Do not listen to your parents’ at IIT – I do all such stuff. And l love the variety.

One small portion of my life is Mutual funds, but it get a disproportionate visibility. Then of course is the ‘Wealth Prescription for Doctors’ and ‘Retire Rich’ series of lectures for one mutual fund house.

One rather interesting work I did recently was help (means no fees) a friend recruit a Relationship manager.

Ha.

One young girl walks in and says “I am the RM of X bank and I handle only WEALTH clients’. Perfect said my friend. He had lots of money to pay so he did not bother about that.

I was sitting there and had to ask something and not sounding too dumb. I decided to ask a DUMB question.

Hello candidate, how many clients do you handle?

Sir, handle 640 clients she said.

Wow. How many cardiac surgeons can handle 640 patients? well, that is for another day.

This is how the conversation went:

Candidate: Sir I handle about 640 clients. The figure keeps fluctuating, but yes 650 is an approximate number.

Me: that is awesome. Tell me what needs of the client do you handle?

She looked a little confused …

C: Sir I sell mutual funds, general insurance, car loans, personal loans, educational loans, forex card, home loans, life insurance, ulip, endowment, fixed deposits, ….

Me: I know, I know, there are 24 products which you can rattle off, but your senior Vee Pee in Fort branch could not write on one piece of paper.

She giggled…but we had a job to do

Me: How  often do you talk to the clients?

She was confused but said “whenever I have a concall with one of the products we sell, I call a few clients and try to pitch that product”.

Me: So what is the Aum that you handle – I had to quickly come to the ‘sahi hai’ question. After all she was being recruited for ‘sahi..’

She said “About Rs. 500 crores of aum and I did about Rs. 10 crores of mf last year. Sir I also did about Rs. 10 crores of ULIP’

Me: If you can sell Rs. 10 Cr of ULIP is your MF figure not too low?

She said “Sir cannot sell mutual funds to everybody”. So many of them are retired or too old for a pension plan..so I have to sell mutual funds only.

She got recruited because my friend felt that Rs. 100 crores of aum will walk with her….best of luck.

I was intrigued by the idea that a young girl (all of 27 years) is handling 650 clients. If I had to handle 650 clients I would need at least 5 RM under me. A product person, and an accountant who would be updating all statements. No, I am not joking.

Each client (means family) has its own needs, health issues, personality issues, etc – and not all of this is captured in the CRM. You will get a 65 year old calling to ask about a gift fro his 8 year old grand daughter, and a 50 year old concerned mother wondering whether Carnegie Mellon is a good ‘college’ to spend Rs. 2 crores on a degree. You need to handle all that.

When you hear about discount brokers, banks and even amc  getting into financial planning and for that  hiring CFPs to work directly with clients, it does not mean they are working with a financial adviser. These are just upgraded call center operators who will take orders from you and deliver what you think you want. No. These are not financial advisers, they are people who will take down your order and make sure it is delivered to you when you want it.

by the way, the girl got recruited. She will make sure that ARN changes. Or she finds a more difficult way to ensure that the trail comes to the new ARN.

This bank has enough sales people. If a few get eaten by the lion, they will not know.