The first meeting: thirty minutes, four parts

The first meeting is not a presentation. If you talk for twenty minutes about funds, you have learned nothing about the person and given them nothing to remember. A good first meeting has four parts, and you speak least in the longest one.

Part one: set the frame (5 minutes)

Say what will happen and what will not. “Today I want to understand what you are working towards. I will not ask you to invest anything today. At the end I will tell you whether I think I can help.” This lowers the guard of someone who expects a sales pitch.

Part two: discovery (15 minutes)

Ask, listen and write. The questions that matter most:

1. What are you saving or investing for, and when will you need the money?
2. What do you already have: PF, FDs, insurance, any mutual funds or shares?
3. Do you have money set aside for an emergency, and are your family's risks covered by insurance?
4. How did you feel the last time markets fell, or how do you think you would feel if your investment dropped 20%?
5. How much can you invest every month without touching your emergency money?

Question three matters more than it looks. Someone with no emergency fund who starts an equity SIP will stop it, or redeem at a loss, the first time something goes wrong at home. Saying so is part of doing your job well.

Part three: explain simply (7 minutes)

Explain only what is relevant to what you heard: how a mutual fund pools money, how a SIP works, what the riskometer means for their horizon, and what you do as a distributor, including that the fund house pays you a trail commission out of the scheme's expense ratio, which investors bear, plus a one-time incentive for some new investors, and what that means in rupees. Use their numbers, not generic ones.

Part four: agree the next step (3 minutes)

Summarise their goal in one sentence and ask whether you got it right. Then agree one next step with a date: you will send a one-page note, they will check their PF balance, or you will meet again after they talk to their spouse. Never end without a next step, and never make the next step “think about it”.