Initial days
Raised in Sirsi (Karnataka), Prakash Hegde joined the Air Force after completing his higher secondary school. After opting for voluntary retirement in 2005, he wanted to start his second innings as an entrepreneur. A keen observer of the developments in personal finance, Prakash thought of becoming a financial adviser after reading an article in a newspaper.
Though Prakash cleared the mandatory insurance and mutual fund exams in 2005 he became actively involved in business from 2009. In his initial days, relationship managers, or RMs, of fund houses gave him leads. “My client conversion rate was high so I continued to get leads from RMs. My background as a defence personnel also gave confidence to prospects. From there on, my business grew through referrals,” recalls Prakash.
In his career spanning close to a decade, Prakash has built assets under advisory of Rs 43 crore in mutual funds. Interestingly, he has never conducted any investor awareness programmes to acquire clients. All his clients have come purely through referrals. Prakash gets at least one referral each day even today.
Majority of his 1,000 clients are retail investors aspiring to build wealth through systematic investment plans, or SIPs. Like other advisers, his business got a major boost post demonetization. His AUA more than doubled from Rs 20 crore to Rs 43 crore as investors started looking for newer avenues to invest their surplus cash.
SIP marathon
Prakash thought that the recent market correction presented a good opportunity for his investors to top up their existing SIPs. He reached out to his clients with this idea. Unfortunately, he did not get a good response. But he didn’t give up. Prakash then reached out to all his clients to start a new SIP, for which they were open to.
He set a target of starting 500 new SIPs and began meeting his clients from March 7. His wife Nayana helped him punch in online SIPs on BSE Star MF. Interestingly, they created 286 SIPs through BSE Star MF while only a handful of remaining applications came in physical mode. Ultimately, Prakash pulled off the feat by logging in 300 SIPs worth Rs 2,560 per account on April 9, 2018.
This post is authored by Ravi Samalad.
