Padma, a graduate from Delhi University, married Vasan and came to live in Chennai. Though she is a graduate, she could not go for a 9 to 5 job because of her family commitments. She was looking for a self-employment opportunity that had flexible time schedule. The couple paid Rs.3,000 towards rent. But, they did not like the water problem in the area. They wanted to move into a new house. However, the rent was Rs.5,000. Only a middle class woman can understand the meaning of an additional expense of Rs.2,000 without an increase in income. "I don't know whether water is scarce or money is scarce," Padma said to me and continued, "If I can make a few thousand rupees a month, we can easily overcome our problems." I told her, "Generally, Indian parents want their children to be good in English. You speak good English. You can teach spoken English to kids."
"There are many coaching centres and institutes for it. Who will use my services?" Padma wondered. "If you do it differently, people will come to you. If you have positive attitude about the market, it will move towards you. There are dozens of CD-ROMs that teach you English. People buy them but don't use them. Why? These CD-ROMs are mostly from the United States. Because of the different accent and usage of words, they have not been received well here. If you have a product to sell and you are not sure whether customers will want it, find out what customers actually want. Then customise your product or service according to customers' expectations. If you do, you will make money from any product or service. Why don't you create your own material and teach English on one-to-one basis?" I told her.
"Though I am good in communication, I am not sure whether the spoken English project will be successful," Padma was doubtful. "The secret of the success of any project is in your attitude. If you do whatever you can with the right attitude, even if this project fails, you will gain knowledge and experience. Life will reward you in abundance through some other projects that need your new knowledge and new experience," I tried to make her confident.
Padma bought a good computer on hire purchase. She got CD-ROMs on spoken English using her husband's credit card. She created her own Indianised course material after doing research on internet. She decided to provide simple but effective value added services. For example, she would record the children's voices as they learn to speak and to give the voice on CD-ROM to the parents. All parents would love it!
When she was ready, she asked her husband to tell his friends that she could teach spoken English to their children. But he refused to help her. It was a matter of prestige for him! Padma was not upset. She used her computer to make a brochure about her services. She made 100 photocopies of it. She paid Rs.20 to the newspaper delivery boy to distribute her brochure along with the newspaper. Within a week she had a few students and began to earn a few hundred rupees a month.
After a month, Saroja, a parent, asked Padma whether she could teach her computer at Saroja's place. Saroja was too shy to go to computer coaching classes as she did not want to sit along with smart teenagers. As Padma had plenty of time during the day, she accepted the offer. Saroja's friends came to know about it and they too made similar offers. Within a few months, Padma closed down her spoken English coaching centre and became a one-to-one visiting computer tutor.
Recently I heard that Padma was earning Rs.7,000 a month and that she had bought a cute beautiful two wheeler to save travel time and to take up more assignments.