Relationship managers never had it so bad! Whatever they do, the client is not happy…and keeps threatening to walk away! Relationship managers have a lot of work to do – and one important job is sales.

When they sell…they sell. So they have targets, they must keep talking…and life is really tough..

One important thing is to keep their mouth shut after the sale is closed. Also if the client takes credit for his investments doing well, the Relationship Manager should allow him to take the credit. As long as his bank gives him the credit for the sale and cash for the bonus – how does it matter what the client thinks. Sometimes opening your mouth can mean death…like it happened for the tortoise…

Once upon a time, of course long long ago, there was a tortoise who lived in a tank. He made friends with two geese who used to come to the tank to drink water. Their friendship was many years old.
Then there was a drought that lasted for days on end. All the sources of water and rivers started drying up under the burning sun. The people and animals were starving, and even the birds were migrating. So the two geese also decided to fly away in order to save themselves. So they decided to say goodbye to the tortoise.

The poor tortoise could not believe that they could leave him behind to die. The geese wondered how they could save their friend also. The problem was that they did not know how to take him along because the tortoise could not fly. The tortoise came up with an idea. He told the geese to get him a stick that he could hold between his teeth. The geese could then take him to a more fertile land flying slowly while holding the two ends of the stick.

The geese thought it was a good idea, and told the tortoise to be careful and keep its mouth tightly closed around the stick.

The geese flew off carrying the tortoise with them. They flew higher and higher, over hills, valleys, fields and plains. Finally, they flew over a city. The people of the city were amazed to see such a strange sight. They clapped their hands and commented how wonderful it was too see the geese carrying the tortoise like that. They clapped and loudly said what a brilliant ideas the geese had to help their friend.

The tortoise got upset –after all it was his idea to make the geese carry him with the help of a stick. And he wanted the people to know that it was his idea. But as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, he lost his grip on the stick and fell to the ground. And so the poor tortoise was killed all because of his foolishness and intolerance.

Relationship managers should also know how to give the full credit to the client:

– Sir, thanks for making the choice of investing Icici Pru Dynamic plan. The client may not even know why the plan is called a Dynamic Plan.

– Sir, thanks for shifting money from fixed deposits to equity funds exactly when the market was going up. Maybe it was his first transaction, BUT IT HAPPENED when the index was 9000.

There are a million instances where the client takes credit for the work done by the RM, but hey so what? that is life, is it not?