Namrata Dukle: Empowering Financial Freedom through Mutual Funds

“Mutual Fund investment is like a Football game, without a Goal, there is no meaning to the Football game. Similarly while investing in mutual funds one should always assign goals to your investments” quote by Namrata Nitish Pai Dukle, AMFI registered Mutual Fund Distributor,  and Proprietor at Shree Investment Services with an experience of more than 8 years. Namrata likes helping people and as a Mutual Fund Distributor, she helps people plan their finances in a systematic and disciplined manner through goal-based planning. This article tells about her journey of becoming a Mutual Fund Distributor and the challenges she faced during her journey.

Introduction:

Namrata Pai completed her graduation in Arts and post-graduation degree in Business Management (Banking & Finance). She has spent the last 8.5 years working in the Finance industry. She has worked with various financial organizations and also with mutual fund distributors. 

Namrata was drawn into this business because while working with mutual fund distributors and financial institutions, she got experience with the different investment products and the importance of investing through Mutual Funds to achieve different financial goals. As there is a lack of awareness in Goa about Mutual Funds, she decided to help people by spreading awareness and guiding them.

Namrata would consider her father a role model who taught her the importance of saving right from her college days wherein he made her invest Rs.1000/- in a mutual fund through SIP from the pocket money he used to give her for her monthly expenses. 

In the year 2019, she decided to turn her passion into a profession. She did her Certification course in Mutual Funds and became an AMFI-Registered Mutual Fund Distributor in January 2020 under the Firm Name - SHREE INVESTMENT SERVICES. Soon after she started her career journey the pandemic hit India and there was a complete shutdown from 20th March 2020. Even after lockdown for almost 5-6 months and the worst pandemic situation she managed to reach an AUM of Rs 50 lakhs. In the 2nd year i.e. in 2021, she did a fresh business of Rs 50 lakhs thereby touching 1st milestone of reaching Rs 1 crore AUM with almost 100 clients. This was the motivating factor and a turning point for her. From here she started planning to grow her business on a larger scale and to spread awareness among more people thereby helping them in achieving different financial goals in a Systematic and disciplined manner. In 2022 she had kept a target of Rs 1 crore fresh business but she did Rs 1.5 crore fresh business thereby touching 2.5 crore AUM with a total of 150 clients. Then in 2023, she kept the target of Rs 5 crore AUM but she did Rs 3.5 crore fresh business thereby touching 6 crores of AUM with approx 250 clients.

Challenges and Achievements:

The major challenge Namrata faced was covid pandemic which came just after 2 months of starting her business. For almost a year due to lockdown was not able to meet clients nor was able to take investments from the clients through physical mode. Focus on Digitization was very less before the pandemic which drastically increased post covid.

Despite the COVID pandemic and various challenges, Namrata won bronze (2 times) and silver (6 times) certificates in the SIP challenge conducted by NJ Wealth. She also achieved a certificate from UTI for doing business of Rs 10 lakhs plus in their NFO (i.e. New Fund Offer). In spite of these awards, Namrata considers her most significant achievement as completing the AUM of 10 CR within 5 years.

Personal Insights:

Namrata balances work and her personal life smartly and plans the whole day before, she said “I believe in working smarter and not Harder”. She added, “Because of digitization I have given digital platforms to my clients and I help them to make the investments through online mode. This saves my traveling time”.

She has helped more than 300 clients in achieving financial freedom by periodically reviewing and guiding them through their investment journey. Namrata added, “Helping others in achieving their goals is what motivates me to keep pushing forward”.

Impact and Vision:

Namrata is working on several projects so that her clients achieve financial freedom, including the Investor's Awareness Program (IAP) in various schools, colleges, and offices. She is also working on spreading awareness about SWP i.e. Systamatic Withdrawal plan wherein we get regular monthly income as well as invested amount growth.

Looking forward, Namrata has set ambitious goals. She aims to reach an AUM of Rs 30 crore by 2025, Rs 50 crore by 2026, Rs. 70 crore by 2027, Rs.90 crore by 2028, Rs.120 crore by 2029 and Rs 150 crore with over 1,000 clients by 2030. Her vision is to create a financially literate society where individuals are empowered to achieve financial independence through investment decisions.

Conclusion:

Namrata advises young women “Keep focussing on your goal. There will be a lot of ups and downs coming your way but always remember this is what makes us tougher and independent”.