Sell Funds, Travel The World

When I started off fresh from business school, I was extremely anxious and wondered at the level of knowledge I would need to be able to converse with the market gurus. But soon this impression faded….there were not too many who challenged my grey cells. Meetings with the retail bankers hovered around parties largely. If we needed investments, all we were expected to do was to provide the POP and negotiate the rate of a per application payout. We were educated on the proper use and effectiveness of vouchers. And once the deal was struck, the job of the Relationship Manager (RM) got elevated to a logistics and document manager, i.e. the RM needed to be at the bank branch at every beck and call to be ready to fill in the forms. In one bank meeting, I was asked about what more we can do for the banker. It did not matter whether our funds were good or not. It was about ‘WIITFM’ - What is in it for me?

This article was originally published on October 20, 2011.