Viral Bhatt of Money Mantra addressed a group of IFAs in a webinar organised by Arthmitra Gurukulam. Here are some excerpts.
Why digital?
Digital tools can help advisers reduce costs significantly through automation. Digital tools have empowered us to operate from home. This has helped us save various costs associated with running an office. It helps us work remotely from any geography.
Recent entrants like Paytm, ET Money and several others have been acquiring clients through mobile apps. Of course, their scale and captive clients are huge, but advisers too can take a leaf out of it and start their own mobile app. It is understood that independent financial advisers, or IFAs, may not have deep pockets to build platforms similar to the large players. But IFAs should plug and play and try to integrate or tie-up with other service providers. They can provide online transactions on their website through API feeds. Learn from your peers who have already done this.
Many IFAs confuse digital with technology. A digital transformation is first and foremost a cultural change. Imagine if you were not able to meet redemption requests from your non-individual clients during this lockdown. It would have created a wrong impression and you would have lost future business from the client. So being equipped with digital tools helps create a positive impression in the minds of clients.
Digital is an enabler, not an end. It will help you in all aspects – transaction execution, customer support, client engagement, and research and advisory. Digital tools keep evolving so one needs to keep learning and adapting.
Here are six tools to increase your productivity:
Mailchimp
It is an email marketing platform for small businesses. It comes with a basic plan which is free and advanced plan which lets you do much more to expand your network. It helps you create a mailing list and send out mass emailers with built-in security. If you wish to communicate an important message to all your clients, especially during a market crash or some event, you can host an article on your blog and shoot out a mailer to your clients at one go. This will help save your time in communicating with each client over the phone or WhatsApp.
Canva
Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and other visual content. It is available on web and mobile and integrates millions of images, fonts, templates and illustrations. You can also create videos. You can put your company logo in the image through Canva to share them with clients. There are many pre-designed templates.
Snipping Tool
This tool helps you take screenshots in rectangular, free form from any files/pdf/screen or web browser. Snips can then be annotated using a mouse or tablet and stored as an image file/HTML file or emailed. You can highlight sections of the screenshot. How is it different from the regular screenshot which is built in your mobile phone? Through the snipping tool, you can take a screenshot of a small section within the image that you wish to share with your client.
Any.do
Any.do offers a slick mobile app that makes it easy to add tasks, organise them into lists, and due dates. This app helps you organise your day. Its ‘plan my day’ feature forces you to schedule when you will accomplish your various tasks so that you remember to execute what you plan. It also integrates with Outlook and Google calendars allowing you to see your appointments and tasks in one place. The paid version sends you an alert on WhatsApp about your upcoming task/meeting.
Hootsuite
If you are using multiple social media platforms, then this tool helps you organise everything at one place. It is a social media management tool that measures your social marketing and plans for your messages. It can manage up to 100 social profiles and integrates with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube. It helps you broadcast one message on multiple platforms simultaneously.
SurveyHeart
This helps you create surveys/forms with nine different types of questions that are commonly used for collecting responses. They have predesigned templates with suitable themes to reduce your typing work and consist of 30+ surveys in different categories. It has a feature called native form builder which lets you build your forms without the internet and save it in offline forms. When you access the internet, you can submit your form with just one click to that saved form. Once the survey is done, you get a summary of your responses in real-time. You can export the results in excel.
