A website is the face of any business, it is a warehouse of all the information that a business wants to impart to the people at large. Technology has changed the way businesses are done and a website is the heart and soul of a company. Having a website is inevitable for a business, no matter how small or large the scale of the business is. It establishes a connect between a business and it's customers.

Many businesses do not have a website because they doubt the importance of having one. They believe a facebook page is enough for providing the requisite online presence, or customers will not visit their website ever, or having and maintaining a website is a costly affair, and numerous other alibis that keep them from owning a website. And such firms are substantially loosing out on some serious business.

Like every other business, a financial advisor too needs a website.

Let's have a look at why having a website is a necessity for a financial advisor:

• Credibility: A website advocates legitimacy and builds credibility of your business. You want to choose between two restaurants, you google for it's reviews, you don't the know way to your friends house, you google, you want to choose a school for your kids, you google. Similarly, when you go to a customer and talk about your offerings, he would want to crosscheck to believe you in the first go at least, So what will he do? Probably Google. So, your website will be there as an answer to his uncertainty and to enhance your credibility.
• Available 24*7: A website is the core marketing strategy of a business and what's best is it works 365*24*7. Even when you are in a deep sweet slumber, your website has it's eyes and ears open, on duty propagating for you.
• New Customer Base: A website knows no boundaries. Not only a prospective client is going to look for you on the internet, but anybody who is looking to invest and is exploring options online, may come across your website. Optimum use of SEO can help you in getting an increasing number of leads.
• Elaborate Content: We all communicate with and update our clients through WhatsApp, sms', emails, etc., and these modes undoubtedly are fabulous ways to spread important know-how. But when it comes to communicating extensive literature like articles, product information, elaborate content like your business history, accomplishments, important information about the industry, etc., then you need a website as a platform to communicate.
• Features: A website sports some unique features which can aid in getting more customer leads like it shows the number of visitors, it can have an enquiry form, a chat section, so you can have an executive who can do online chats with leads, solve their queries, and increase the chances of having them onboard. Online chats can help you cater to your existing customers, solve their doubts and improve your customer service.
• Spread Updates and News: A website is one of the most effective ways to spread news and updates. You just have to upload the content on the website and it'll reach to a mass at the click of a few buttons. You can even have financial calculators like SIP Planners, return calculators, market indicator tables, etc. on your website, with a view to update your customers.
• Interactive: You can play around with your website and can make it interactive by having attractive professional templates, appealing colour combinations, pictures, videos, client testimonials, etc. An interactive website can captivate people's interests and further bolster the appearance and growth of your business.
• Save Time & Money: Lastly, a website is a cost effective and quick method of marketing.

These are among the many benefits which a website offers to a financial advisor. So, there is no reason to not have one. However, when you buy a website, you need to exercise thorough due diligence and select the right domain, look at it's update and maintenance costs, etc. To uncomplicate stuff for you, NJ introduces the NJ webNEST, which will give your business an own domain and e-mail and will give wings to your business.

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We often get to read and hear insights about the Do's and the Dont's for running a successful business. And we try to blend those ideas into our business as a part of our efforts towards continuous improvement and enhancement of our business. It's good that we try to expand and be better, but we often miss the preliminary step – analyzing ourselves.

When you send your kid for tuition or for activity classes like dance or painting, you analyze your kid's skills and then take the decision to send him for a class. If you see he is weak in a Maths, you send him for Math tuitions, if you see he has a flair for dancing, you send him for dance classes to polish his skills. The idea always is to identify the skills or strengths and then build on it.

Similarly, there is a technique which can help you analyze your business' skills and then decide where exactly you need to work. It is called SWOT Analysis. SWOT analysis is about understanding the four important elements of your business, namely, your internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats. A SWOT analysis is nothing but a study undertaken to identify these aspects of your business which can then help you build the right strategic plans to address each of these aspects. You may see it as a structured planning method for your business which can help you know where exactly you stand and that plans you need to take to reach your goals. This technique is a very commonly practiced by corporates and this article concentrates on how can the concept be extended to a financial advisor.

We will now explore each of these four aspects of our business and will throw light on the questions we shall ask ourselves while exploring each of them...

STRENGTHS:

This section will focus on your strong points.

• What do you think you are good at?
• Find out what others think you are good at?
• How are you positioned better than your peers? Any particular advantage you enjoy over others?
• What is your USP?

List down all your strengths here. I have a large product basket, so I am like a one stop solution provider or I have got good interpersonal skills or I have a rich experience of 10 years, so I have all the knowledge of the industry, and the like. Think and pen down all your strengths here, this section will be a confidence booster.

WEAKNESSES:

Next comes identification of your weaknesses.

• What are your weak characteristics as an individual? You may be weak in communication or you may not be comfortable with technology, etc.
• Do you have the required business vision and strategy?
• Do you have important skills needed for advisory like excel, presentation, marketing, sales, etc.?
• Do you have the required infrastructure and right people with you?
• Also step into the client's shoes to identify your weaknesses. If you were your client, then what are the things that may put you off from you.

List down all your weaknesses here.

OPPORTUNITIES:

Divide the opportunities between the present opportunities, i.e. the ones which are there, which can stimulate your business but you haven't used them yet and the future opportunities, i.e. the factors which will contribute to your business in the future.

• What are the up-selling & cross-selling opportunities in my existing customers?
• Are we asking and getting referrals from existing clients?
• Will getting Certification Courses help in building the business?
• Can I activate clients who are not very active in business?
• What new products and services can I add to my basket to increase wallet share of the customer?

There will be many more, which you need to spot. Identify the opportunities which are there but you haven't explored properly. The idea is to list out opportunities available to you.

THREATS:

Lastly, you have to collect all the warning placards and put them here.

• The existing and probable competitors in your area / city which may pose a threat to your clientèle.
• New business models and technology which offers competition to your business.
• Possible change in regulations that can have an adverse impact on your business.
• Over concentration of business on select few large clients.
• Having limited products / services in your basket.

The idea here too is list out all the threats.

Strategy:

So, take out some time on a weekend, sit in your garden or your balcony, think with an open mind, and put down everything on a piece of paper. This exercise will need a few hours of commitment and brainstorming because you have to look at things which are not explicit. But once you are through with this exercise, you'll a get a lot of clarity about your business and about yourself.

After doing the SWOT analysis exercise, the next step it to devise a strategy to manage your business accordingly. The strategy can be implemented through action plans which can be further broken up into

• short term or immediate plans

• medium term plans of say over 6 months to 1 / 2 years

• long term plans of over 1 / 2 years

The contents of your strategic plan to address each of the four components of a SWOT analysis can be as follows:

Strengths: How to build on your strengths such that you are known for it and it helps you distinguish yourself / your business from the competition. The idea is to capitalise on your strengths to gain the maximum advantage.

Weaknesses: How to either build on your weaknesses or nullify it's negative impact on your business? The idea is to prioritise things which are important for your success and then work on it. If there are things which cannot be worked upon and are not critical to success, you may think of alternative ways to address those weaknesses smartly without allowing them impact your success.

Opportunities: The idea is to explore all possible opportunities and have plans to exploit them using your strengths. Chose the opportunities that have the maximum potential and/or are the easiest to crack to get going in your business. Your medium to long term plans should include action plans for future business opportunities.

Threats: The idea is to have an action plan to counter the existing and potential threats to your business. This may be required to diversify your business, get more services on board, diversify your clientèle, move clients to online platform and so on. Like for opportunities, all your plans should include action plans for future business threats.

Conclusion:

All of us may have done some thinking on our business and its' future direction. SWOT analysis is nothing but just a framework for you to think appropriately. The principles of SWOT analysis can be applied to smaller areas or different product categories, etc., so as to be more detailed. With growing dynamism in the industry, it is high time we also regularly introspect our business and its' environment. Our success in future, regardless of our success in past, will depend on how effective we can manage our internal strengths and weaknesses, exploit the external opportunities and address the threats to our business.

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After the helicopter shot of PM Modi on Nov 8, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is on strike. All eyes in the stand are on the bat of Jaitley, hoping for some good news in this budget.

Now since the budget is just a few days away, the financial advisors must refurbish their basics, you can expect a bombardment of questions from your clients. After Demonetisation, the citizens of the country are expecting a liberal budget from tax point of view. People will be planning their investments and taxes according to the new policies and procedures. There can be queries on general budget terms and various other technicalities.

Whenever you read about the Budget, you will come across a number of standard terminologies. This article is presented with the view to simplify the lingo and acquaint our advisors with the basic budget terms, so as to enable you understand and explain the budget better.

The Budget 2017 has made many key changes to the previous budgets in many respects:

• Firstly, the budget date has been preponed by a month. The budget was always presented on the last date of February every year, and the Parliamentary approval process took the budget till May end. This year, the budget will be presented on 1^st February, with the view that the budget exercise is over before the beginning of the next fiscal year.

• Another major modification this year is the 92 year old practice of presenting a separate Railway Budget will also retire. This time the Railway Budget will be merged with the Union Budget.

• And Thirdly, with the Niti Aayog replacing the Planning Commission, the bifurcation between Plan and Non Plan Expenditure has also come to an end. India since Independence, segmented its development goal into five year plans and all expenditure pertaining to programmes listed in the five year plans is called the Plan expenditure and all other disbursement is the Non-Plan Expenditure. March 2017 will be the end of the twelfth five year plan as well as it will put a period on 'five year plans' altogether. The Niti Aayog has presented a 15 year vision documenting the action plan of India for the next 15 years. The new classification of expenditure will be 'Capital' and 'Revenue' Expenditure.

Coming to the terminologies,

• Finance Bill: A Finance Bill is a Money Bill as defined in Article 110 of the Constitution and it carries the government proposals for implementation of new tax rules or continuance of the existing rules. It is to be introduced only in the Lok Sabha and is accompanied by a Memorandum containing explanations of the provisions included in it. The Rajya Sabha can recommend amendments in the Bill which has to be passed by the Parliament within 75 days of its introduction.

• Revenue Receipts / Expenditure: The income earned or expenses incurred in the day to day running of the country, the government departments and services are called Revenue Receipts and Expenditures. Tax is the most important component of Revenue Receipts. Salaries of Government employees, subsidies and grants given are examples of Revenue Expenditure.

• Capital Receipts / Expenditure: Capital Receipts and Expenditure on the other hand are not routine in nature. Capital receipts increase a liability or decrease an asset. Disinvestment in ONGC is a Capital Receipt, borrowing from the World Bank is also a Capital Receipt. Capital expenditure decreases a liability or increase an asset. Repayment of a loan is a Capital expenditure. Expenditure on Infrastructure development is a Capital expenditure.

• Fiscal Policy: It is the Policy which lays down the use of government's revenue towards meeting the government expenditure with the view to influence the aggregate demand, savings and investment and income distribution in the economy.

• Monetary Policy: Implemented by RBI, the Monetary Policy controls the money supply in the economy by managing the interest rates with the view to target inflation and economic growth in the country.

• Fiscal Deficit: When the total expenditure of the government exceeds the total receipts, excluding borrowings, is called Fiscal Deficit. Simply put, it is the difference between total revenue and total expenditure.

• Revenue Deficit: Revenue Deficit is the excess of Government's total Revenue Expenditure over Revenue Receipts. It shows that the government's routine earnings are insufficient to meet its day to day expenditure.

• Primary Deficit: Primary Deficit is part of Fiscal Deficit and is calculated by deducting the interest payments on borrowings by the government from the Fiscal Deficit.

• Revenue Breakup: Revenues of the government are divided into 3 parts – Tax, Non-Tax & Grant-in-aid & contributions. We can guess that the Tax revenues stand for revenue collected from Direct & Indirect taxes. The government also earns Non-Tax Revenues from say interest payments on loans given, bonus & profits received from PSU companies and from public services provided by government. Grant-in-aid & contributions are a small part consisting of pure transfers to the government without any repayment obligation.

“A new year is like a blank book. The pen is in your hands. It is your chance to write a beautiful story for yourself.”

2016 has been a package of surprises and shocks. The topsy turvy in commodity markets, new policies like GST, good monsoons, the historic note ban, have all been the contributors to the stir. New year is the time to make new beginnings. Try to make it more awesome than the last year. 52 new weeks of opportunities are lying ahead in your way, make your mark. Plan now to exploit the opportunities and give wings to your business. You have to develop a Plan of Action for the 365 days, and you must include the following points in your blueprint:

• Set Definite Targets: A year must begin with setting newer and higher goals. You must know what you are working for. Setting goals will help you track your performance in relation to the targets, find reasons for deviations and help you get back on track. It is not just important to set targets, but to set clear and exact targets. “I will work very hard this year”, “I will take my business to newer heights this year”, “I will add more clients this year”, these are good ideas and you must base your targets on these notions. However, it does not give a clear picture of what exactly you should achieve. A target can be “I will reach an AUM of Rs 100 crores by the end of this year” or “I will add 100 more clients this year”, these are definite targets. So if by June, you are able to add 40 more clients, you know that you need 60 more clients to meet your target.

• Social Media: If you have not been using Social Media to promote your business till now, start now. Social Media Platform has the biggest audience, it's cheap, effective and is the best way to endorse yourself. There are different portals like Facebook, Pin Interest, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, etc. If your target audience is corporate professionals, go via Linkedin. Almost everyone use facebook and Whatspp. You can share videos, banners, form social groups, have a facebook page and communicate about your products and services effectively.

• Go Digital: The present era demands a quick solution to all problems. So, if you have been using physical means of getting clients on board, filling forms, meeting clients for every petty thing, and if your office desk has a big pile of papers and files, start cleaning the mess. Take a New Year's resolution that you will get all your clients on E-Wealth Platform, and no more physical forms filling. This will reduce a lot of redundancy, save time and will leave you with more time and space, to expand your business.

• Connect with your Clients: It is time for making new beginnings, it is time you must connect with your clients and review their financial plans. They'll have newer goals, new investment requirements. Check if their tax saving investments are on track, since only three months are left. Now is the time to align their investments with their financial plan. You must also remind your clients that with an increase in their income, they must increase their investments.

• Try something new: Find out newer ways of conducting business and tackling problems. For this you have to go back to the previous years, recollect the problems you faced, how they were solved or not solved, gauge how can you do things better this year. Try new techniques of handling clients who have proved to be difficult over the years.

• Work Hard: Working Hard is the Mantra for Success. There are no shortcuts, you have to toil to reach your big goals.

“The harder you work for something, the greater you'll feel when you finally achieve it”

So, start making a plan of action keeping the above points in mind. Put in your heart and soul. We wish you best for all your endeavours. Have a Happy and a Prosperous New Year!

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