“Your job is to educate the client…incidentally during this process…he may buy your product” – when the Ceo of a life insurance company said this it sounded funny.

Why funny? he was addressing the Financial Consultants who were to sell his products. It is easy for a salaried executive to say such things…but who will feed us during this period? So damn true.

Who should be spending money to teach the client what to buy…and tell the Adviser what to sell, how to sell, and what is responsible sales? the regulator (who technically has an infinite budget), the manufacturer (who will create revenue pressure even fromt this activity) or the sales person (who may lack the competence, and resources). It is stupid to expect the underpaid /under-trained sales guy to do this function. Stop being stupid. Move on…

I must have addressed 5000 Independent financial advisers in 2017-2019 period and talked to them about “need for Retirement planning”. In many cities it was a great hit – and many amc had increased sales of their Retirement products. Again now I am starting to do the rounds, and I do feel that if the IfA can make the client think for the longer run, show the impact of delay, and the advantages of starting early,…..- hey all this is EDUCATIONAL content, right?

Though there are many things favoring ‘educating’ the client, there is a big problem too. The client does not even KNOW that he does not want to learn! If you do a text book survey he will say all the right things – a) i wish to lean b) i know the advantages c) I am willing to learn etc. However when you get him into a class he gets bored, and the lessons are LOST in 48 hours. I have been doing a lot of training sessions for doctors. Some doctors have got back saying “I attended your seminar 2 years ago…so I decided to attend again”. Is this an endorsement? maybe. The pharma companies could be happy. However, I probe and ask “what impact has it had on your investing habits” . The answers I have heard are as follows:

a) I have given up on the Endowment plans, and bought mutual funds

b) I have sold some real estate and repaid the home loan

c) I broke my FD and repaid the car loan….

However, many of them have NOT IMPLEMENTED ANYTHING of what they learnt. My trainings are free of jargon (I hope) …and I have NO product to sell. In fact even last week in Bangalore one doc said “Oh so you don’t have a product to sell”…

I seriously do not know how to address this. Learning is fine, but you need to implement it.

Doctors or IFA……………………..any suggestion how I can improve my teaching/ training / coaching efforts?