Life Lessons
The elephants and the rope

imgbd Life Lessons is a joint initiative between Axis MF and Wealth Forum, where we look at lessons we can draw from everyday life that can help us become more successful and serve our investors better. Many of the stories are popular ones that one may have come across at some point of time or the other. Drawing topical lessons from these stories that help us find solutions to business challenges or motivate us to face and overcome challenges or help us serve our clients better is what we are trying to do with this series of articles.

A story you may have heard a long time ago

A man was spending his holiday in Africa. One day he watched the elephants passing by. To his great surprise these giant strong animals were being held only by a small rope, tied to their front leg. Obviously, they could easily run away any moment. However, they did not.

Then he saw a trainer and asked him, how could this happen that not a single elephant makes an attempt to break free. The trainer explained: "When the elephants are very young, we use the same size rope to tie them, and at that time it is enough to hold them. Gradually they grow up, get stronger, nevertheless they never try to get away, as they believe that the rope will still hold them."

The man was stunned. These strong animals could break free any time, but they did not, because they believed that this is impossible.

Sometimes people act like elephants, they give up after the first failure. They get conditioned by their early experiences and don't bother to try again.

Lessons for financial advisors

There are many aspects of our business where this lesson can well apply. Here are a couple for you to consider:

  1. You may have gone on a cold calling spree a few years ago, and been disheartened by a very poor response at that stage. You then perhaps came to a conclusion that cold calling does not work and that you should rely only on referrals from existing clients, even if those referrals were not quite enough to match your growth aspirations. Over the last few years, you have steadily strengthened your proposition. You bolstered your research process, you added a financial planning proposition, you created a website, you offered online transaction services on your website, you started producing an informative newsletter and you created an investor education presentation module that has been well received. You've grown stronger, you have a much better story to tell about your proposition, but you still remain conditioned under your old notions that if you make cold calls, you will only see doors slamming on your face. Maybe, its time to test this hypothesis again. Not only have you grown stronger over the last few years, but investors are also now more receptive to considering capital market products. Maybe its time to break out of your old beliefs and go out into the market again, this time with a lot more confidence about what you can offer investors and the knowledge that investors need good advisors like yourself.

  2. A few years ago, when entry loads got banned and commissions came down, you hesitatingly started a conversation with clients about fees. Most clients told you in no uncertain terms that they don't want to pay you a fee. You now have a firm notion that clients won't pay fees. As mentioned in the earlier point, in the last few years, you did a number of things to keep strengthening your proposition and add value to your clients. You found clients appreciating all these value adds - the service enhancements, the more robust advisory process you have adopted, the careful homework that you do before making any recommendations, the financial plans you are now creating and monitoring, your insightful and engaging newsletters, your educational blog and so on. Despite all this, you don't even think of starting a conversation with your clients again about charging a fee. You are perhaps conditioned by the early unfavourable experiences. Maybe its time for you to have a little more confidence in yourself, make a crisp presentation of the incremental value that you have added in the last few years into your customer proposition and discuss this with your clients and then seek a fee for the enhanced proposition that they are availing from your firm.

There could be many more examples that would surely come to your mind. The short point is this : don't allow old notions to come in the way of your progress. Times are changing, you have evolved, your clients too have evolved and have embraced new ways of life they didn't imagine they would a few years ago. The growth of e-commerce is just one case in point : how many of us would have imagined ourselves ordering fresh vegetables online, 5 years ago?

Its time to shake off old notions that you are holding on to. Its time to go out boldly and confidently, and not be a prisoner of past experiences.

All content in Lessons from Life is created by Wealth Forum and should not be construed as views of Axis MF.



Share this article