QUOTE(Jordy @ May 23 2009, 10:20 AM)
mtsen,
As I mentioned in another thread, others may charge as cheap all they want, but we fight on service. I still have my clients with me since I began my career in this field because they TRUST me. How many times can you trust your consultants? I dare to say it is less than 10% of the time. Some of my clients asked me "if I would be like the other consultants" which I said no. I brand myself on service as what Public Mutual is doing.
Would you really want to compromise on service by investing online without the care of consultants? Although I tell my consultants what I want done most of the time, I would still want her to run about to submit forms and to update me all the time. Remember,
consultants are not there to give you advice or consultation, but consultants are there to keep you updated and informedTry go on a holiday without internet connectivity when you invest online. Take a look at OSK or Fundsupermart. Do you think they would call you every now and then whenever there is something on? Take stocks trading for example. You may have saved that 0.42% trading online, but you compromise on that very important element, the
personal touch. Well, high-tech people like you would not understand because you would rather befriend a machine than a human
I know, what you are saying there is today's situation, what I was saying is that the trend is changing and should change faster. as much as I loved to be 'touched', single biggest investment purpose is profit and when personal touch is hindering my profit, profesionally they should be separated.
u may fall off your chair when one day u find out how much I have been earning commission by selling mutual funds using 'personal touch', but that doesn't stop me from seeing how the world should evolve into.
its not about high tech, cheap fee etc. its all about PROPER personal finance.
the biggest fact that ppl must realize is that "everyone is FULLY responsible with his own investment", and very often the so called 'personal touch' from the agents are influencing the investors and simply make the naive investors to 'trust' the agents blindly, which violate this 'biggest fact' I call above.
You can take your agent's advice, you can support and love your agent's touch, but the moment you 'trust' and let your agent decide for your investment, you have failed yourself. No need to see real life stories, tons of stories in this forum itself support this observation too.
when I want to be 'touched', couched, guided and led then yes I don't mind paying the extra fee, but when I want to just invest and make biggest profit, i should HAVE THE OPTION not to have anyone disturb me and pay only 1-2% fee only. And although Public Mutual management agrees with this in concept but in reality its strong agency force is stopping them to evolve into that and looks now the fact that fundsupermart and especially OSK have eaten into the market share rather significantly. while pm could have done that easily years ago ....
but in reality and today's limitation, I do agree with all your words, but I just hate to see agents not seeing the need to change and simply wait and let the world change them instead, simply because they want to keep some cents today and not entrepreneur enough to make much more wider, brighter future ...
The fee WILL go lower and it will happen so much faster in mutual fund than in insurance industry, if mutual fund's agents are not proper financial consultants yet today, they will be gone in no time.