Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in financial services but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Teguh Budiman, Founder and CEO of Vantis Prosperindo Manajemen, located in Jakarta, DKI, Indonesia.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Vantis Prosperindo Manajemen is a wealth management service company located in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. The company was established in 2013.

Our wealth management services cover financial planning, cash flow implementation, and portfolio investment management, including construction, optimization, implementation, monitoring, and rebalancing. The investment focuses on stocks, government and corporate bonds, mutual funds, and other securities instruments. We also deal with risk management through insurance protections, retirement planning, and implementation, tax planning and reporting, estate planning, etc. We follow a set of procedures to learn about and understand potential clients' conditions and needs, develop potential solutions for clients, and finally implement the approved and chosen solutions.

Our clients include employees or professionals, families, business owners, and institutions. Our clients are mainly from Indonesia. Our primary focus has been preserving and growing our clients' assets, implementing their financial plans and cash flow requirements, and providing consistent and high-quality service. Our service can be tailored to what clients need.

Tell us about yourself

My educational background is in engineering. My bachelor's was in mechanical engineering in Indonesia, and my master's was in industrial engineering in the US. However, since I have an interest in business and investment, I took some classes in business and finance during my master's. Then, later on, when I returned to Indonesia, I was hired by Citibank Indonesia and worked there for 15 years in many different areas: operations, credit operations, branch base lending (credit and sales), and retail banking (wealth management). While working for Citibank, I also developed my passion for starting my own business. During that time, I also learned about business and entrepreneurship and created one or two of my own in my spare time.

Finally, in 2013, my partner and I started a wealth management service company based on our knowledge, experience, and background in banking organization and processes and retail banking wealth management. And to ensure the legality of our business, we obtained a license as investment advisors from a government agency in Indonesia and financial planner certification from FPSB Indonesia.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My biggest accomplishment is to have my company still in business from 2013 until today and entering its 10th year. That is something I thank God for. Another accomplishment is that I was able to switch from an employee's way of thinking and mentality to the thinking and mentality required by a business owner or entrepreneur.

Setting up a wealth management service company was not easy at the beginning since we had no experience as entrepreneurs. We had just experience, knowledge as bankers, and a mentality as employees. There was no such business model and platform available in Indonesia that I could learn from and copy for our own business. We had to establish our own business model and processes, introduce our business to our important business network and potential partners, and find a technology platform suitable for the business model. Now that the company is up and running, we can continue to improve based on what we've learned and gained along the way. To improve our business processes, we even enlisted the assistance of David T. Lord (https://davidtlord.com/) and his Visual System of Work, through long-distance coaching.

Starting from just two people, today the company is growing to +/- 20 staff divided into many different teams: Advisors & Paraplanner, Investment & Portfolio Management, Marketing, Finance & Accounting, Trade Operations, Office & Property Management, and Technology. The company is also supported by vendors and partners such as securities companies, asset management, custodian bank, and insurance agency. We also have partners as our experts in the field of Investment, tax & accounting, and legal/law.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

Maintaining and improving service quality is a difficult task. This covers return on investment, complaint management, the standard time to respond to client requests, etc. We have a set of indicators that we regularly monitor to ensure they are still within the tolerable range. Otherwise, we have to do something to handle the issue. But that is not enough, as we have to keep enhancing and improving our solution processes and increasing the capability and quality of our team regularly.
"Value" is what clients get from a business. And this has been one of the hardest parts, especially in creating and developing value for our clients. We have to continuously come out with new or improved value within a certain period of time, which is a really uneasy task.

Unlike in developed countries, only a small percentage of the total Indonesian population has been exposed to personal finance, financial planning, and wealth management. Most of these people are banking customers who have been exposed to wealth management. Growing a client base in this condition has been an uneasy task. We are still experimenting and improving our sales process.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Based on my experience and from what I have seen and heard, starting, running, and growing a business is hard. According to statistics, many have been wiped out in less than 5 years.

  1. If you want to start a business, start with something you know, are familiar with, or have experience with (e.g., your previous job). This is to increase the probability of your business' success.
  2. It's better to have passion and heart for your business because this can be the battery for your motivation, perseverance, and resilience.
  3. Being disciplined, keeping your promises, learning, being creative, having self-dependence, being self-driven, having the ability to make ideas a reality, and having faith in God (in my case) will all help.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://vantisprosperindo.co.id/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088329626853
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vantispm/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vantispm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vantis-prosperindo-manajemen/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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