If you think IFA benefit from my lectures, you are right. If you think I benefit by my lectures for the wealth Industry – you are right. I do benefit a lot too.

Here..I was talking to an IFA with Rs. 300 crores as AUM. I asked him how is competition in your city. I will keep the city a secret, it is irrelevant and a huge give away, so let us called the place as ‘P’ if it is relevant. In that place there are not too many people with that kinda AUM, but this man has created this over a 20 year time frame.

He said: What competition? I do not have any!

I asked him: How much is your market-share?

He said: what a joke. I have nothing.

I said – how can you have no competition and no market share?

He said: The aum of the Industry is 25,00,000 crore.

Do you want to know how irrelevant I am?

1% market share is Rs. 25,000 crores. 1% of that is 250 crores.

Why do you want to talk to somebody who has .01% market share? I am completely irrelevant. Please ignore me.

So true is it not?

In the wealth business, medical profession, pharma business, MUTUAL FUND BUSINESS, Mutual fund profession…..Market-share is irrelevant. When an IFA starts his business or profession he/she does not have to worry about the size of the market. WHEN A MUTUAL FUND STARTS A BUSINESS, it does not have to worry about MARKET SHARE. It has to see how well it is managing its assets. If I start a restaurant do I have to worry about McDonalds having thousands of shops (oops) in ’00s of countries? Or should I be worrying about my own customer coming back to eat at my hotel?

So in a country with 134 crores population, who is the competition for 12000 IFA (the other 57000 don’t matter, they don’t pay Income tax). Seriously, if you do well in your business, and give it all…then who is your competition? Does Aditya Birla Sunlife Mutual fund have to worry about Reliance Mutual fund? Does Pramerica have to worry about NPS? I mean what shit are we talking?

Does a new Tea shop have to worry about Taj and Trident pricing tea at Rs. 1000 a cup? Is it relevant? Does Cartier worry about the watch market or about the Jewelry market?

Who is the competition to www.subramoney.com ? Is it www.freefincal.com? is it www.capitalmind.in?

I don’t think I have any competition. If freefincal or capitalmind write something similar to what I write on any topic, people will read both. As simple as that. I am asking 8000 people to give me about 4 minutes out of their 24*60 = 1440 minutes. Not too much, but yes they are doing me a favor by reading my blog. It is the readers who give me the energy to write. No doubt about that. It is the readers who went and bought 170,000 copies of my book. That is not small. So is my book my competitor? I doubt it. One complements the other I would think.

For IFA or for bloggers the opportunities are unlimited. Rs. 25,00,000 crores will go to 50,00,000 crores in say 2 years time. Not bad at all. Does it matter whether you have .0005% of market share or .0006% market share?

If your clients can meet their goals, you have succeeded as an IFA. Your market share is irrelevant.