An automated income generation system is the best dream that anyone, including you, can have. Your dream can come true if you learn how to automate others' boring and inaccurate manual systems with a computer.
Sometimes nature gets into freaky artistic mood and bestows flawless beauty in abundance on a few lucky individuals such as Swapna and Chitra, two young women in their early twenties. During their joyous college days, their exquisite beauty was the direct cause for the erratic functioning of the hearts of the boys in their college. The young women were treated like princesses until the farewell day. From the following day their beauty was not of much help to them except for getting a seat in bus occasionally. They quickly understood that progress and prosperity respond to something other than beauty. Their pretty faces were dull when we met a few months ago. "Self-employment is the only thing worth living for," Swapna made a declaration. "I have discovered that one's best employer is oneself," Chitra announced her discovery. "What makes you think so?" I asked them.
"Like all other modern girls, after graduation we tried our luck in the latest and fashionable opportunities - computers and BPO. As we were not engineering graduates, the employer-companies offered us clerical jobs at an unmentionable salary, even though we are good at computer," Chitra said. Swapna continued, "Then we managed to get jobs in a big BPO company at Rs.7,000 a month. During the first few weeks in job, we felt that we were working in an earthly heaven. The world class ambience at the office, modern electronic gadgets, being an employee of a big company, serving American customers directly and, of course, neighbours' envy made us happy and thrilled us beyond measure for some time."
"I understand. After the initial jubilation was over, the thorns began to prick. What types of difficulties did you have in your job?" I asked them. "We lost our freedom for Rs.7,000 a month. We have become automated smiling and talking robots. Every movement is captured by security cameras and every word is recorded." Chitra complained. "We have odd working time. We work from 6 PM to 2 AM. Though the company sends van to pick us and drop us at our doorsteps, we don't feel safe. Our parents don't sleep until we return home. We have lost our social life." Now it was Swapna's turn to complain. "Every job has its own peculiar advantages and disadvantages. You must try to make the best out of it," I told them. "That is not possible. I am a customer support agent. After a few years I can become a supervisor. That's the peak I can achieve here," said Swapna. "There is no job security. When new people with equal communication skills come in and work for a low salary, we become a burden to the employer," said Chitra. Then they continued to give a dozen reasons for why they disliked their job and expressed their willingness to become self-employed.
"Have you resigned your jobs?" I was a bit worried. "Not yet. Without a proper business plan, there is no point in allowing the bird on hand to fly away," Chitra said. "That makes sense. You mentioned that you have become automated robots. Would you like to create an automated income flow through self-employment?" I asked them. The women sat up straight. "Yes, yes. Is it possible?" Swapna asked. "I request you to be specific in details as I know nothing about self-employment projects," Chitra said.
"Sure. There are tens of thousands of Chartered Accountants, Lawyers and Consultants in India. What do they have in common?" I asked Swapna. "They produce millions of documents every day. Our country has hundreds of laws, rules and procedures. So, an enormous amount of paper work is unavoidable," Swapna said. "Don't you think here is a big income opportunity for you? If you automate their workflow and document creation process, you will make a lot of money and can be your own employer," I told them. "There is nothing new in what you say. All of them are actually doing it already. Had you ever carefully used a word processor, you would have known that there is a feature called template that does exactly what you say," Chitra said disappointedly.
I smiled and said, "It's true that almost all the professionals use templates to create documents. It solves a problem but creates several new problems. Take an example. A lawyer has different templates for agreements on sale of property. Individuals, companies, trusts and government are some of the different types of customers. Land, flats and houses are some types of properties. Each type is covered by different laws and rules. If you create templates for all the combinations, you will end up with more than 200 templates for sale deed alone." Chitra said, "If the lawyer spends a week he can create them easily and can have peace of mind."
"If the Government changes just one rule all your templates will become invalid and you will have to spend another week in modifying the documents. It is difficult to create, manage and maintain them without errors. A single error can change the life of a client and his lawyer. So, using templates is neither time efficient nor content efficient for professionally created complex documents though it is fine for simple documents. If the lawyer automates the process of creation of documents instead of using common templates, it will solve all his problems," I told them. "What is document automation?" Swapna asked me.
I replied, "A document automation system is an application that asks the user questions and automatically creates customized documents based on the answers he gives. It interviews the user and asks him questions such as 'do you want to create sale deed or mortgage deed?' If he selects sale deed, he would be asked about the type of parties, type of property and other variables. He responds by clicking on the available options and finally inputs the details about his client. When he completes the interview he will have a complete, complex, accurate document that he can deliver to his client. What takes a few hours of his valuable time can be accomplished in a few minutes. Document assembly system significantly reduces the time spent in generating customized documents, such as contracts, sales proposals, government and court forms, legal documents, loan applications, and insurance forms."
"Do you think professionals will like it?" Swapna asked me. "With an automation application, creation of a document is incredibly simple and fast. You can easily create customized documents with all the blanks filled in, the pronouns and verbs grammatically in place and the paragraphs properly placed, formatted and numbered. With such a system, you can increase your productivity many hundreds of times. Unlike people, it doesn't get tired, forget small details, or miss changes. It lets you focus on your business and expertise," I explained.
"How do you create an automation system?" Chitra asked me. "There are many document automation authoring tools that help you create a system complete with content, format and logic that is compatible with common word processors. Structured documents have common paragraphs, sentences and formats. You can store these well-researched paragraphs in one place just once and use them many times over on any number of documents. When there is a change in rule, it is enough to change it in one place. In its simple form, the system handles the simple tasks of matching subjects and verbs, consistently using 'him or 'her' and selecting singular or plural cases. In its sophisticated form, it is not only a text management tool, but an expert system as well," I told them.
Swapna said, "There must be stock form software tools in the market," I replied, "Stock form software cannot accomplish what we are discussing here." Chitra asked, "Will we be required to learn how to do software programming?" I said, "No. Believe it or not, many great tools, such as 'ActiveDocs' and 'HotDocs', are already available in the market. If you learn how to use them, you are ready to launch your own business. You can visit the websites http://www.activedocs.com/ and http://www.hotdocs.com/ to download trial software and brochures. You client is not required to learn these tools. They can continue to work with their present applications such as WordPerfect or Word."
"Where is the market for this product? What is the market size? How much can we earn?" Swapna asked me. "All professionals and business organizations create same or similar types of documents repeatedly. So, market is everywhere. You can start with professionals such as Chartered Accountants and Lawyers. There are 50,000 practising Chartered Accountants in India. Most of them have computers. Even if you sell your system for Rs.5,000 you have a market size of Rs.25 crores. At present, only a few big firms are using this type of system. This means you have no competition. Market size can easily exceed Rs.500 crores if you consider all other professionals." I replied. "We have not included business firms!" Exclaimed Chitra and asked, "Is this a service business?"
"When you automate the document creation process for an accounting or legal firm, you will visit their office, interact with the employees and create a system. It will easily take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to do it. Once you finish the work of your first client, you will have a product that you can easily sell it to hundreds of firms without changes," I replied, "Can you give us some tips to create an opening in the market?" Swapna asked. "Make an offer to a good accounting or legal firm in your area to automate sale deed creation for free. Make a powerful presentation that highlights the benefits. Any intelligent professional will buy it. Last month, I told an engineering student about automation of customer service. She made a simple system for demonstration purpose. Her project was adjudged the best one and she was hired by the biggest software company in India. People love anything that make their lives easier and will pay for it." After a few minutes of further discussion, they left my place.
I met the women after seven months. Their faces were bright. "I think you have started to like your jobs," I said. "We resigned our jobs last month and are self-employed now," said Chitra. "It took three months for us to learn everything about document automation. Then we spent the following two months in offering free service. Some people took undue advantage of our offer. After getting the work done, they did not pay us. But we did not give up. In the sixth month we had a breakthrough. A big firm that has branches all over India recognised the benefits our system would deliver. They have asked us to automate all the document creation tasks. We have enough work for the next eight months. I think we need at least 100 rebirths to cover a fraction of the market," said Swapna. "The contract is for a six digit amount. They have paid us an advance of 25% of the agreed price. They keep appreciating about how our system has improved the smooth functioning of their office," said Chitra. Both of them smiled bewitchingly. I said, "I hope your clients don't complain about the erratic functioning of their hearts."