C09 - Internet Income

Five years ago Ken read in a brochure that, 'The internet revolution through the late 1990's has sprouted more new entrepreneurs than any other event in the history. It is now possible for absolutely anyone, including you, to do business on the internet and earn money.'

An internet business is any entrepreneur's dream - a super profit at a shoestring budget. You don't need any educational, social, financial or political qualifications to do an online business. The internet can bring knowledge and income together far beyond your expectation.

You can sell almost anything to anyone in any country directly from the comfort of your small flat in Chennai. An internet business does not know man-made geographical boundaries. The buyer comes to you, on his own, through search engines.

Millions of people around the world are already making a living online. Many ordinary men and women are doing it in India. You too can start your own online business. At last, a profitable business of your own. A business where it is difficult to lose money. A real business where a real person like you can make real money. Even a housewife can do it.

Five hundred million people are waiting to do business with you. In a few years, it'll be five billion. Your income potential is virtually unlimited. And, You will have an office that will be open for business for 24 hours x 7 days x 12 months. Once it is properly organized, you'll have an automatic income flow.

If an average next door housewife can make money on internet, why not you? Yes, yes. You. You too can start a business of your own for peanuts and turn exciting profits in a few months - if you know what you're doing. You certainly have a profitable business in your head. Of course, there is a catch - you must work hard. There is no shortcut here.

Even if you don't know anything now, you can learn everything in a short time. And, think for a moment, who knew anything about internet a few years ago?

If you have a passion for prosperity and the drive to work hard, nothing can stop you from making money.

What Will You Do
Doing business online is easier than you think. Develop a great product or service that can be sold online. It must solve a problem, improve comfort, increase security or enrich lives. Read this book well and you will have a non-stop flow of ideas for your own products and services. Find out your own niche by doing good research.

Design a beautiful user friendly website with useful content. If you don't know how to do it, you can get it done through a professional website developer. Promote your website through search engines, emails, forums and word of mouth. With patience and hard work, you can easily learn about search engines.

The visitor may not buy your product on his first visit. Provide useful information to him in your web pages so that he has a compelling reason to come back to your website. Eventually, he will be a customer. The content of your website must be so useful that the visitor will refer it to his friends.

Offer you visitor some goodies through email. This will make him give his email address to you. Send him periodical newsletters with great content. He will, after a few contacts, buy from you. Never send pure promotional emails or spam. Don't try to sell anything to him. Make him buy from you.

How Much Can You Earn
If you have a physical product like books, cost of production and delivery will make your profit margin thin. However, market acceptance will be high. If you sell a digital product like software, your profit margin will be high. If you have a wonderful digital product, then market acceptance is not an issue.

Your earnings will be directly proportional to your inner and outer commitment to the project. With a great product, professional website, good traffic and excellent service, making Rs.20,000 a month is within the reach of all online entrepreneurs. A few of you may even be able to earn more than Rs.1,00,000 a month. Ben wishes all of you achieve this magic figure.

Requirements
You need a good computer with internet connection. Learn to create and maintain websites, at least the basics.

Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia DreamWeaver or Adobe GoLive are easy-to-learn yet powerful website development software tools.

Theoretically, you can sell anything on internet. However, a small business person must concentrate on easy products. So, do some research on net and find out your own niche. Based on your research, create your own product or service to sell online. If that does not suit you, then you can resell third party products or services. There are hundreds of hot products and good online reseller opportunities.

You need a domain name and website to sell your product or service. Your domain name is the name of your website. Amazon.com is a domain name. Your Website is the collection of web pages that will be placed under your domain name. You must learn about online transaction process. You must make clear decisions about how you'll receive the money, how you'll deliver your product and how you'll support your customers.

Selling your products globally through internet has been made easy by credit card processing services and online order fulfillment companies. You will open an account with one of these companies.

All the above steps are easy to do. With these simple things, you can immediately start earning from internet. Once you are comfortable with the basics and see real money flowing in, you can expand your business by learning advanced techniques.

Most of you are clueless at the moment about how and where to begin. It's a beginner's block. Do some research on internet about online business and eCommerce. You will get answers to almost all your questions within a few days.

There are thousands of websites that have useful information about online business.

How To Get Customers
The internet market is almost infinite and is expanding every minute. Do a thorough online research on your special niche and then jump into this ocean of prosperity.

Search Engines, like Google and Yahoo, will be your primary source of traffic. You must get your site listed on all important search engines. When a customer finds out your website, he comes with an open and interested mindset. The traffic is the lifeline of any small website. You must leave no stone unturned to get your website listed with them. Inclusion of your website in search engines is not automatic. You must submit the details of your website to them.

There are different flavors of search engines. Many of them are free. Some of them will ask you to pay fees. It will take many weeks or months to get listed with free search engines. Though there are thousands of search engines, 92% of the web searches are done through less than 10 search engines. So, you must study the submission procedures of big sites like Google, Yahoo and MSN thoroughly.

As your business grows, you can buy search engine promotion software like WebPosition or AddWeb. Or, you can hire the services of a Website Promoter.

The second major source of traffic will be from other websites. You must get links to your site from other websites that relate to the theme of your website. If you have a great product and useful content, many websites will give you a link even without your request for it.

You can use Affiliate Program to easily sell your products. Your affiliate is another website owner. She would write about your product and promote it in her website. If her visitor buys your product based on her review, you will give her a commission. Then, there is reseller model. A reseller buys your products in quantity at a discount and sells through his website.

There are many other ways to promote your site online and offline. Any good website or book on internet business will give you a kick start in the right direction. After reading them, you must develop your own success strategies.

Now, let us discuss about two types of online businesses in detail. First one is a product business and the second one is service business. Don't think that these two are the best of the available opportunities because they are discussed here. There are hundreds of other equally good or better opportunities on the internet.

Online Auction Business
For a new online entrepreneur an auction business is the perfect beginning point. It is a perfect business for an Indian housewife.

eBay has created thousands of successful online entrepreneurs. Many of them are earning above $5,000 a month. That is really big money even by the American standards.

Millions of people around the world visit auction sites to buy products. This number will only grow.

In an online auction site, sellers advertise their products or services and buyers bid on them. As the middlemen like distributors are eliminated, sellers realize a higher price and the buyers pay lower price. Both are happy.

People sell new cars, old shoes, broken furniture, new computers and what not. Anything that is sold offline can be sold online through eBay. Anything that cannot be sold offline can also be sold online through eBay. A freak tried to sell even a piece of moon.

An auction business is any new online entrepreneur's dream: Targeted customers at your door step, no start up costs, no financial risk, short gestation period, open for business 24/7/365, world market, easy to duplicate success, part time or full time, no competition from giant store.

It is time for you to sell online whatever you can. Do you create designer dresses? Can you make wonderful soft toys? Are you an expert in searching and downloading useful content from the web? Do you want to sell your service as an Online Admanager? Do you want to sell your coin collection or stamp collection? Do you want to make money out of your great grandfather's walking stick that he got as a gift from Mysore Maharajah?

Just anything can be sold. Just anything. You can sell to the world, not just to India.

What Will You Do
Your first step in Online Auction Business will be to master the basics. Learn how auction sites like eBay works. Visit eBay website and read all the help pages.

Visit the auction sites and study the real life auctions. When you feel comfortable, get registered with some of the big sites. Most websites do not charge any money for registration.

You cannot sell everything under the sun. Decide about your niche. Then, follow all the auctions under you niche category and develop a realistic actionable auction plan.

An auction business is like any other online business. So, make clear decisions about how you will receive the money, how you will deliver the goods and how you will handle your customer's complaints.

Study other successful sellers' strategies and wherever possible modify them and use the ideas in your business.

A few pioneers in the United States have made fortunes on eBay. Thousands of people like you and Ken are making a living from Online Auction Business. Some people are already making money in India.

If you concentrate on products that can be distributed worldwide, making Rs.5,000 a month is easy.

'Distribution worldwide' should not make you think of a big ship full of boxes. It can be as simple as a handmade designer cotton jacket sent in an envelope by registered post parcel.

If you are serious about this business, you can earn above Rs.25,000 a month.

If you are creative, there are zillions of ways to make money on internet. If you find a great product at a bargain price, you can bid for it and buy it. You can ask the seller to hold the delivery.

Then, you can resell the product either on the same site or some other site and ask the original seller to ship the product to your buyer.

How Will You Get Clients
Go to reputed auction sites and get a good understanding about online auction process. eBay.com is the best place to start with. Auction sections of Amazon.com and Yahoo.com are other great place to spend your time productively.

Like anything in life, you must become strong in the basics. There are many good books and free web pages on eBay. Read them.

All you need to do is create a small ad for your product or service on eBay and customers will come to you. It is true. eBay will take care of the traffic. The author got his first customer within 35 minutes of launching his business.

You can sell almost anything. The seller and the buyer can live anywhere under the sun.

Online Admanager
Every serious internet businessman spends money on online advertisement. For most websites, the only way to attract visitors to their websites is to use search engines like Google.

There are millions of websites. Unless the websites catch the eyeballs of the surfer, they don't exist for him. So, the website owners pay search engines to display a small advertisement about their website.

The web owner predicts the search terms the surfer will use, for each term he writes advertisements based on official guidelines of search engine and then tracks the performance. This is a manual work that can not be automated.

Online Ads involve writing a catchy headline in less than 10 words and a description of the product in 25 words. Each product may require as many as 50 descriptions. If you sell 5 products and advertise in 3 engines, you have to deal with 750 descriptions. Evaluating and revising them every month is a labor intensive and time consuming work.

After a few weeks many webmasters give up the work. However, most of them would love to pay a small fee if someone can do the work professionally.

Many small website owners have not yet realized the possibility of getting the work done through freelancers. As more and more search engines begin to charge for search engine listings, the demand for the Online Admanagers will grow.

Many online entrepreneurs in other countries are making serious money right now as Online Admanagers.

A smart young man wrote a downloadable digital book on 'How to Earn Money from Google Adwriting?' and sold a few thousand copies successfully.

Usual search engine submission does not involve creativity. But, this work is different. In Online Admanagement, submission is not a problem. Creating effective advertisement is the problem.

Anyone with a sense of humor and reasonable English knowledge can earn well as an Online Admanager. There are thousands of websites around the world who need your services and will only be happy to hire you.

What Will You Do
You will learn about the paid position business models of different search engines and constantly update your knowledge of their ever changing policies.

You will analyze your client's competitor's websites and find out the keywords they use to attract customers. Keywords are the search terms that a surfer will use on Google and Yahoo to get search results. You will periodically review the ads, add new ones and remove ineffective ads.

You will prepare a list of best keywords and suitable ads for each marketable webpage. You will also tell your client how much he will spend if he uses these ads. Don't worry. It's easy to do.

On approval from your client, you'll place ads with search engines. You'll follow up with the accounts regularly and submit statements to your clients.

How Much Will You Earn
This is a service business. So, your income will be proportional to the number of hours you spend on work. It is not a mere mechanical physical work. Your creativity plays an important role. So, depending on the level of sophistication, you can set your own rate.

You can charge based on time or project. Try to get the work on retainer basis even if that means lower hourly rates. This will ensure regular inflow of money. You must ask for fees plus actual expenses. Expenses include internet connection and telephone charges.

A happy client will easily pay $2 (Rs.100) per hour, if your creativity is at the beginner's level. In developed countries, women charge $8 (Rs.400) per hour.

If you plan to work for four to six hours a day you can earn above Rs.10,000. Once you have three or more regular clients, you can buy automation software. This will reduce your physical work. You can use the saved hours for mental work and earn more money.

What Do You Need
You need a good computer with stable and speedy internet connection. As your business grows, you will deal with hundreds of short advertisements. You must learn to organize them properly. A basic understanding of Microsoft Access or Microsoft Excel will be handy.

You must be able to write catchy and witty short paragraphs of two sentences in good English. If you are not confident, go through online ads and learn how others write. Note down the powerful ads. Based on them, practice to write ads for other products.

Refresh you English grammar knowledge with a good high school grammar book like Wren & Martin.

Writing such advertisements is not a difficult job. You are not going to create advertisement videos, graphic rich content and long ad copies.

All you need is a common sense approach. Anyone can write such simple sentences. Can't you write the following advertisement for a hair clip?

Beautiful Hair clips at Bargain Price: Want to look great like Miss World? Click here to visit http://www.YourHairclips.com/

Anyone, even a teenager, can create a simple yet powerful advertisement for a book like the one on your hands as follows:

High Income for Housewives: How Indian housewives can earn money from home based projects working part time? Click here to visit http://www.somecompany.com/

Do you feel confident now?

Learn to think from the buyer's point of view and try to dance with him in perfect harmony. If you were the buyer, how would you react to the ads you write?

When you become busy, Ken is sure you will, you can think of buying automatic Adwriting software like Headline Creator Pro and other automation goodies. Until then, your fingers and your brain will be your primary tools.

How To Get Clients
Make a list of the websites that spend money on search engine advertisements. For example, Google displays advertisements on side bars of search results. Get contact details by visiting these websites. Send them a professionally written proposal by email.

Do not target big websites. They usually have in-house staff. Do not spend your energy on very small websites and hobby sites. Concentrate on professionally run small to medium online businesses and services.

Professional website developers will be a great source of referrals. Offer them generous referral fees.

Networking with other individual online service providers and freelancers will be helpful. If you see an opportunity for another entrepreneur, go out of your way to help her bag it. In time, she will repay her debt.

Search Google and Yahoo for resourceful websites using search terms relevant to your business. What do you think of search terms like 'Ad writing services' and 'ad copy writing'?

There are websites that specialize in bringing companies who want to outsource some of their business processes and freelancers who want to work on contract basis.

Regular visits to these websites will give you some idea about your market, going rates and other opportunities. Keep in touch with the following three websites: http://www.elanceonline.com/, http://www.guru.com/ and http://www.ework.com/. When you are confident register with them and bid for the projects.

There are hundreds of discussion forums for new webmasters and online entrepreneurs. Join these forums and help others by answering their questions with whatever knowledge you have. Within a few weeks, you will have many faceless online friends who can bring you new clients.

You have limited work time. So, prepare a list of strategies that worked for others and then use only those that suit your unique circumstances. Try to modify a strategy by introducing a new element or combine many strategies to create a new one. The beauty of the internet is that you can experiment with all sorts of new ideas without breaking your bank account.

Power Of Cooperation
One man can achieve whatever one really wants to achieve. If you are like Ken, you will like to work alone. But, that is not the best way to go, if quicker financial result is your top priority. If you associate with others and seek result with their cooperation, you can achieve results quicker.

Affiliate Author
When Ken met Sanjala, a B.A. graduate with 3 year old son, she was in depression. She had a jobless husband, a computer, a telephone and, of course, some debts. She was ready to work from home. If necessary she would acquire new skills. However, she would not be able to go out.

During her college days, she wanted to go to the United States for higher Studies. She had learnt a lot about the American colleges and Universities. She had useful content in her head. Her husband knew to create simple websites.

Someone told her that she could build a website for students. However, she did not have any product or service to sell. She did not want to sell anything either. How would she make money?

Sanjala decided to use affiliate programs. She liked the idea of selling others' products without any sales talk. Her husband liked the idea of earning money without any investment or financial commitment.

She became an affiliate of a few great online bookshops, online travel agents and Universities. She wrote dozens of useful articles. In some of the articles, she reviewed and recommended good books, cheap travel agents, budget hotels and great Universities. All her reviews were unbiased and genuine. Each recommendation had links to the sellers' websites.

Sanjala patiently promoted her website. The traffic grew over time. She updates her website regularly. A repeat visitor will always find new content in her site.

Whenever a visitor to her site goes to the sellers' websites through her links and buys something, she gets a commission. The sellers track the activities using affiliate tracking software and credit her account as and when sales take place. She can check her accounts online at anytime. Seeing the quality of the content of and the traffic to her site, many vendors send her emails to include their links also. But, she is selective as she cannot dilute the quality of her content.

At the end of the fourth month, she received a Bank draft for Rs.20,000, her first affiliate earnings.

Education Helps
Through formal education, we learn many things that are not useful to us in every day life. However, these things will be useful to others. If you can identify those useful things, you can make money. It is not necessary to have razor sharp professional knowledge to make money. Useful knowledge at any level can be converted into a marketable product.

Content Creator
When Ken met them, Sumathi and Vinod were newly married couple. Vinod was a Salesman and earned Rs.4,000 a month. Their finance was so bad that the young couple could not afford even a two-day honeymoon in Ooty.

Sumathi is a B.Sc. graduate in Mathematics that has a potential for a 9-6 job with a salary of Rs.1,500 a month. She was ready to learn anything that would help her work on her own and earn good money.

Someone had an old computer that was sleeping on the dusty loft and gave it to her. There was some problem in the hard disk. But, an engineer sorted it out for Rs.250. In a few weeks, she learnt to use it well with the help of self-paced CD-ROMs and books.

Sumathi thought she did not have any productive skill or hobby that could be used to earn money. After a brainstorm session, she decided to use her knowledge in maths and become a Content Creator.

There are thousands of websites for school children. These sites giveaway free mathematical worksheets and also sell quality and engaging mathematical workbooks and software. Sumathi developed a few dozen worksheets and workbooks in PDF format. She sent professionally written proposals with beautiful samples by emails to hundreds of websites.

Only one website out of 286 websites responded. The company asked her to create content on contract basis. She was paid $150 a month. It was 50% more than what her husband earned.

Over time, the company was impressed beyond measure with her intelligent and engaging content. They asked her to take part in the development of an educational software product for a fat fee. Chances are bright that your children are using the software that has Sumathi's worksheets.

A few months ago, Ken met her in a jewelry shop. She had come to buy a pearl necklace. He did not have to ask her about the honeymoon. He could see that she was pregnant.

Borderless Economy
We know that geographical borders have lost meaning for many people with the advent of internet. Naturally this will create many problems that will be clear money opportunities to you.

Analyze a complete transaction cycle. Purchases and sales are two ends of a transaction. There are many other aspects like payment, currencies, delivery, return and support. Each of these aspects can generate an income stream.

Order Fulfiller
Geetha is a B.Sc. graduate with two children. She is free only for 2 hours in the afternoon. She has a multimedia computer that she bought for her children.

She knows how to send and receive email. She does not want to learn anything new as she says she does not have time. Of course, she watches four unproductive television serials every day. Each serial costs her 45 minutes. She does not want to give up the little pleasures even now. Yet, she sincerely wanted to use those 2 hours productively. She would be happy with whatever she could earn.

AusMedia, a small Australian software developer, sells software online. The developer gets 15-20 orders every month from India. The CD-ROMs sent by the company through expensive courier frequently were lost in transit or were held up in customs department for no good reasons. If someone could send the CD-ROMs from within India, all the customers would be happy and the company would save courier expenses.

Around this time, they came to know about Geetha. She gladly accepted the offer to work as an Order Fulfiller. AusMedia sent her 250 CD-ROMs by ship. They would send another parcel when the stock drops to 50. She has converted the small space under her bed into a warehouse.

Whenever someone from India places an order, Geetha gets an email from AusMedia with the customer's shipping details. Immediately she would send a CD-ROM to the customer by local courier. A boy from courier company will come to her place to pick up the order. After three days, she will call the customer over phone to make sure that he has received it. Then, she sends a confirmation email to AusMedia. She needs 20 minutes in all to process an order. For each order she gets Rs.100 plus actual expenses.

She works for 6 hours, just 6 hours, a month from her home and earns Rs.1,500 a month. And she spends 3 hours a day on television serials. Good money and happy go lucky!

Household Issues
As a family member, we know what other members in your family like and dislike. All human beings have families. Their family members may have similar likes and dislikes. If you can identify them, you can create an income opportunity.

Online Auctioneer
Sujatha's husband Gurumurthy is a software engineer. He earns Rs.12,000 a month, loves his wife and does not have bad habits. Yet, when it comes to money, he is a tyrant. He would spend only for the barest minimum existence.

Even the pathetic sight of old and faded gowns of his daughter, would not make him buy her new dresses. Whenever Sujatha raised the issue, he scolded her that she did not understand the value of money.

All Sujatha wanted was Rs.500, now and then, to buy some new dresses and toys for her daughter. Sujatha accepted her fate. She thought the problem was due to some bad karma in her previous birth and prayed to God for a solution, at least in the next birth.

But, God did not want to wait that long.

Someone told her that she could try her luck on eBay, an online auction website. Her husband was happy with the proposal as she would not lose money and there was a possibility for some income. He promised Sujatha that she would be free to use her income as she liked. That promise gave Sujatha a great push.

She learnt every rivet of eBay in a few days. Sending goods out of India involved cumbersome government procedures. So, she decided to begin with something that could be sent by post without problems. CD-R appeared to be a good choice. Sujatha knew that kids loved PokeMon cartoons. She searched the web and downloaded hundreds of trial and free versions of PokeMon games, simulators and other goodies. She organized them into categories and copied them in a CD-R. On an auspicious day, Sujatha placed her goods on eBay. Within six hours, she got her first customer who paid her Rs.275. Within a week she had sold all her goods at an average price of Rs.250.

Now, she is active on eBay. She creates products similar to the first one and sells them regularly on eBay.

Her husband has not changed a bit. However, that does not hurt Sujatha anymore. She earns above Rs.6,000 a month. She buys whatever she wants, including new shirts for her husband.

Common Activities
We see and do many things unconsciously every day. If we see each such unconscious activity as an income opportunity, we will start making money.

For example, all of us buy products. How do we decide? We see advertisements and sometimes we talk to our friends. Some people write ads and make money. We know which ads are good and which ones are ineffective. Can't we use that knowledge, after fine tuning it to earn money?

Online Admanager
Radha's husband Ramanathan is a school teacher. They have two children. She had a lot of time at her disposal and she wasted it happily. Her favorite hobbies are watching English movies, reading English novels for teenagers and aimless web-browsing. She believed nothing could disturb her peaceful family life until the day her husband was suspended from service.

A few months back, the government terminated thousands of employees for participating in a strike. Though many were allowed to join work within a month, Ramanathan was not allowed as he was an active member in the anti-government union. Her husband, depressed and weak, stayed at home and refused to go for any other job.

Then, Radha realized how merciless life could be. The family did not have any savings. Who will give you loans when you don't have a job or a regular income?

She managed the first four months by selling off her jewels. What next?

Someone told her as she was good in English, she could try to become an Online Admanager. Under normal circumstances she would have laughed at the idea. Now it was question of survival. She decided to give her mind, heart, body and soul to this project. Within a few days she gained tons of knowledge about Online Adwriting. It's an amazing feat! The financial pressure released great waves of energy within her.

Her friend on seeing her enthusiasm and sincerity got her a small assignment as a test case. She wrote like David Ogilvy, the ad guru. Her friend immediately gave her a lot of work for a consideration of Rs.4,000 a month. She also contacted hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American and British Websites. Her passion for work and excellence brought to her 14 new clients. Each of them pay her Rs. 2,000 (US$40) a month. Now, she earns above Rs.30,000 a month.

Her husband slowly came out of depression. A few weeks ago, the government decided to take back all terminated employees and he got his job back. Nowadays, Radha does not watch movies or read novels. She doesn't have time.

Newer Forms
In evolution, every lower form tries to take a higher and newer form. Except the core content, everything changes. Internet is a fast developing organization that has already started to change the way we live. Old forms of businesses can be rendered into internet forms.

As the new system or organization of global nature needs new forms, identify successful offline businesses and then try to convert them into internet businesses. There are countless business opportunities for you.

Web Bizwoman
Renuka, a B.Sc. graduate, married her cousin, Rajan, an accountant with a monthly salary of Rs.5,000. They wanted to buy many modern household articles and electronic gadgets. But, they could not go beyond window shopping.

Though Renuka is not a professional dancer, she knows Indian classical dance well. She could not offer dance tuition because her flat was very small and other flat owners would not like it.

Someone gave her a good idea. There are millions of Non-Resident Indians around the world. Many of them want their daughters to learn Indian Arts. However, they don't have easy access to dance teachers. What an opportunity for Renuka! It was decided that Renuka would develop a basic course material for dancers and she would get video clippings of other artists to illustrate the movements. Then she would put all the materials together in CD-ROMs and sell them online through a website, online forums and email.

There was a problem. She did not have a computer or digital camera. Yet, the lioness began to write down the course content with good old pencil and paper without worrying a bit about computer.

As soon as she completed the manual, Keerthana, a friend with good computer skills, offered to join her in the venture on profit sharing basis.

The ladies designed a great website with lots of information on Indian classical dances. They got links from websites where Non-Indian Residents would frequently visit. They offered to send the first two chapters of the CD-ROM as a free digital product by email.

In a short time, they were able to get more than 1,000 emails addresses. The ladies sent content-rich emails, no spam, to them every week. Of course, they promoted their product in every newsletter. They sent emails about their product to Indian Cultural Associations in other countries.

Within a month they sold 30 pieces at Rs.600 ($14) a piece. They were able to make a profit of Rs.9,000 sitting at home. When Ken met Renuka last, she was riding on a shiny new scooter. He asked her, "When did your husband buy it?" She said with an achiever's smile, "He didn't. I bought a motorcycle for him and this scooter for me."

Newer Problems
New developments bring in new problems along with positive results. If you actively look for such new types of problems, you will create new types of income opportunities. Internet has created jobs and professions that have never existed from the day the world was created.

Website Promoter
Uma is a B.A. graduate. Her husband, Mahadevan, is an Assistant Engineer in Electricity Board. When they bought a new flat, they thought somehow they would be able to raise the money. When they did not get the expected help from relatives, they borrowed from third parties for interest.

Then, their life became miserable. Managing the household expenses after paying interest was more difficult than surviving in Deserts of Sahara without water. The harmony between Uma and her husband was lost. She tried to forget her worries in keeping the new house impeccably clean. She thought non-stop manual work would make her so tired that she would sleep peacefully.

If the family could create an additional income of Rs.5,000 a month, loan repayments could be met. Almost all problems could be brought under control.

Uma was ready to learn about computer and internet. She was happy to work from 10 AM to 4 PM every day. Ready to learn and willing to work! Now, listen, what could stop her from achieving prosperity?

Someone told her that she could become a Website Promoter. She learnt each and everything about website promotion and search engines. Within 8 weeks, Uma knew about search engines more than an average website owner. She spent the next two months in contacting websites without any success. Mahadevan was moved by her hard work and stopped quarrelling with her.

Then, Uma offered to a few website owners that she would promote their sites for a month without any fees. If they liked the work, they could give her paid work.

One of the website owners immediately accepted the offer. She did an admirable job. The website owner immediately hired her and even offered to pay for the free work. The client was speechless when Uma refused to take money for the free work. An agreement was an agreement! He recommended the services of a 'great professional' to many of his Australian friends.

Now, she works on 15 websites. Each site pays her Rs.1,000 a month. She does not accept any new work. 'Sorry! I am busy.'

It is a mistake to think that only computer and internet can provide self-employment opportunities. There are thousands of opportunities that do not require computer or internet. In the next chapter you will learn how to make money with a skill, even if you do not have a computer or internet connection.