Here we go again, call with an Urologist. Onto yet another quest to get a client. For those new here, we usually have calls with people before they sign up.
I have not had a Doctor consultation in a long time, so I couldn’t remember how a consultation should typically go. But I could never forget my half horrid and half pleasant experience getting a vaccination as a child. The consultation room itself usually has an intimidating aura with bright lights and white sheets. The metal railing with light green curtains act as a cover as the Doctor uses a stethoscope on my chest to check my breathing. When he does that I should never screw up by accidentally coughing.
Because if I cough, especially with a phlegm-ish sound, it would invite an unnecessary attention as the Doc would press on and ask.
Are you cold??
Do you need more injections? muahahaha (evil emoji)
I was a scared little boy. I would fervently hold my breath so that I didn’t cough. Terrible. You can imagine after I exited the Doctor’s room and I just let my cough go wild (AAHEEEMMM). But also pleasant, after the session I would earn candies and cake (kue serabi) that is freshly sold at the hospital canteen for my bravery of getting injections. To this day, I still go to RSPI canteen to buy some of their small food. It brings back happy memories of having finished a tense Dr session.
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Back to this call with urologist prospect as I secretly reminisce my bitter sweet memories of going to the Doctor. Of course, I expected a tense beginning because Doctors are usually critical. But also a sweet ending because some of them are, ahem, quite well paid.
The Doctor opened by saying:
I start work at 5:30AM and I finish at 10PM from Monday to Saturday. I absolutely have no time in investing. So could you explain to me what is your service?
Easy peasy. I have explained our service thousands of times to people. But it is a bit of a mouthful though so I did try to keep it brief.
“We help people invest in the stock market with peace of mind.
We charge people when their investment portfolio grows so we are responsible to look for undervalued companies that could be invested. Budi, licensed investment advisor, will help you down to the allocation, max buy price as well as notifying buy and sell as and when it is needed.”
I could tell the Doctor is not convinced, he started to be a little bit more chill though. At the very least, I knew I got him intrigued about the product that we offer. Not getting convinced straight away is perfectly normal. We have just met 5 minutes ago. So he continued to ask about how does it work exactly?
Another easy question:
“We create personalised WhatsApp group for each of our client. Budi, OJK certified investment advisor, will be there. I will also will be there to assist your needs if any. You could monitor the growth of your investments that we record by looking at our dashboard. We populate the data from Trade Confirmation (TC) documents you send to us.”
Of course I explained how our fee structure works to be clear on how we align our incentives with our customers’. He nodded quietly, without making too many remarks. He seems to be processing the information as it comes. Silence is a good thing so I also paused to let the information sink in. In his head, I knew that all the information I gave him adds up really well.
Until he finally said:
So how do I know that you will not run away with my money?
I had a feeling that this is going to be the final rebuttal. The room was still a little tense, but I have a knack of keeping an upbeat attitude. Further, I have thought through our processes 1000x over.
“Yes Pak, we don’t hold your funds. You keep them to yourself. We don’t even have access to your sekuritas. You execute transaction yourself once you review and approve the investment thesis.”
I got him. Of course I was expecting him to be mind blown. This is a full proof way that we will never be able to run away with people’s money: By not having access to their money at all. I was expecting him to comment:
Wow that’s really cool. Is this is the first time in Indonesia a business with such kind of services?
Like a normal person, who spends an inordinate amount of time in front of the mirror, I was ready to congratulate myself. I was already thinking about saying good news to the team saying yes we got another Doctor customer!
But not so fast. He went straight for the kill.
No. I meant, when I transfer you the registration fee, how do I know that you will not run away with my registration fee?
Now that’s a question that I have never heard before. My body froze and I started to stammer. I didn’t know what to say to him, not because I want to run away with his Rp 2 million to sacrifice my hard work, reputation, and other things I have given up to start this business, but I just didn’t have a good answer…
So I said
Huh… I never thought of it that way. You’re right. How do you know that I won’t run away with the money?
But of course, as I stammered and stumbled, I wasn’t convincing. I felt terrible after the call, I didn’t know how I lost my confidence just like that. When he pressed on asking hard questions about the product, investment outlook, market etc it felt easy for me to answer. But when it comes to asking a very simple question: “Hey mate, can I really trust you?”
I stood still and froze. It was deeply unsettling for me for not having a good answer.
That’s when I realise that I might have an impostor syndrome. I can doubt my own trust worthiness when others are deeply skeptical, even after helping serve hundreds of people and see them be successful in the capital market.
Perhaps the investment world to say the least is unkind and competitive. People from all walks of life and different knowledge levels trying to be the next hot investing guy. It often comes as people flexing their returns. Flexing their investment methodology. Creating curiosity of a “methodology” that global top fund managers would use.
It is very similar to the fitness industry. You could see fitness influencers flexing their inch perfect body and muscle that has an unintended consequence of jeopardising your self confidence.
At that point I didn’t have a good answer to the question:
Are we good enough for this guy?
After the call, and looking at the investment thesis, the preparation that we did for our customers, I realised that of course we are good enough. This guy spends 12+ hours a day in the hospital. I don’t think his due diligence is going to be as thorough as ours. I don’t think he will be able to stay logical when he’s tired handling patients and when he looks at how volatile the market could be. We take care of those things for him. So of course we are good enough.
But that’s when I also realise that the effects of “expert invetors” flexing and looking down on other people for being ignorant in the investment space is more pernicious than I thought. Even if I can feel this way, let alone others who have never had the experience of being in the capital market at all.
That made me think that maybe, a person who wants to learn about investing could benefit from our experiences in running Recompound and seeing hundreds of people be profitable in the stock market with a peace of mind.
So I condense those years of experience into 30 days worth of lessons about investment without financial jargons and in a language that you and I can understand. Each lesson is short and sweet intended to take as little of your time as possible. Each day’s knowledge will build up to the next.
The goal is simple: clarity as to what investing to us really means. And how to invest with a peace of mind.
Without a foundational knowledge on investing, often times I see people having an unmanaged supermarket portfolio, being traumatised by their investing experience, and envious of others who speak about investments. I believe these lessons will help.
If you want me to send you over a free education material over the next 30 days, I’ll need your email to learn that you want to receive those materials and send them your way. Oh and of course, it is free of charge. So I cannot run away with anything ;) I truly wish it would be of use to you, dear reader.
P.s. In case you missed the hyperlink above, there’s a button below.