Most of us to take everything in life for granted and live in complacency. We open our eyes to reality only when we face extreme difficulties. Even then, most of us succumb to the difficulties as we do not know what to do next. Only a few act decisively with knowledge, overcome difficulties and prosper in life. Radha is one among the few. She studied BA (English Literature) course fifteen years ago in a famous college in Chennai. She was groomed by her mother as a housewife. 'Men work at office; women work at home' was as natural to Radha as 'Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.'
Radha got married to Ramanathan, a school teacher and had two children. After her children entered high school, she had a lot of time at her disposal and she wasted it happily. Her favorite hobbies were watching English movies, reading English novels and aimless web-browsing. She believed nothing could disturb her peaceful life until the day her husband was suspended from service.
Two years ago, thousands of employees working in different government departments and schools were shown the door for participating in an unlawful strike. Though many were allowed to join work within a month, Ramanathan was not permitted to resume his duties as he was an active member and an office bearer in the union that organized the strike. He became depressed and weak. He 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?
"You are good at computer. You have excellent command over English. You can create original web content and sell it online," I suggested to Radha. "I don't think I have the capacity to author books or create saleable content," Radha replied. "If you can not create saleable content, can you think of helping other online sellers create text advertisements that will help them sell their content?" I asked her. Radha did not reply as she did not understand what I was up to.
"I'll explain. Generally good advertising agencies charge fees that are too high for small online merchants. Though there is a widespread talk about emerging multimedia technologies as the way to do online business, lack of common standards and bandwidth constraints have allowed the plain vanilla text to continue to rule the internet. Surfers have become smarter and no longer click on colorful ad banners and buttons," I told Radha. "I think people ignore text ads also. They don't have time or desire to read ads on computer screen," Radha said. "You are right. That's why I say it is an income opportunity! If you can write the essence of the benefits that the buyer will get from a product in a sentence or two, people will love to read it. Decades ago, Dale Carnegie wrote a book that was full of ideas the entire world had known for at least 5,000 years. He gave a title of less than ten words that fully explained the content of his big book and that met an important social aspiration. He sold millions of copies. Have you heard of that book?" I asked Radha. "How To Win Friends And Influence People," Radha replied. "Yes. You summarized the essence of your problem in a few sentences. Most people take an hour to do it. Give a serious thought to the idea of starting an online ad business," I told her.
Under normal circumstances she would have laughed at the idea. Now it was question of survival. The pressure for survival released great waves of hidden energy within her. She decided to give her mind, heart, body and soul to this project. She used all available resources to learn ad writing. Within a few days she gained thorough knowledge of it.
I was so impressed by her enthusiasm and sincerity that I requested one of my friends to offer her a small assignment as a test case. He owns a small software development company in Germany. His website content was in German. He was looking for someone who could write effective ad and promotional material for his software in English. She wrote like Dale Carnegie. My friend immediately gave her all the available work for a consideration of Rs.4,000 a month. It was the first reprieve from life.
Radha contacted hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American and British Websites. Her passion for work and excellence brought her a handful of new clients. Each of them pay her Rs. 2,000 (US$40) a month. Now she earns two times her husband's salary. Her husband slowly came out of depression. Meanwhile, 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!