Laxmi is a housewife. Her brother Laxman is a student. Their father Arjun is a retired bank clerk. They met me a few months ago. "We have read your articles and book. We are fully inspired by them and. want to do something about our family prosperity. But, we don't know what to do and how to do," said Arjun.
"I will not be of much help to you if you are looking for get-rich-quick or shadow-schemes. If you want to build a prosperous future, a profitable business, a wonderful career through legal and honest methods, I have hundreds of solutions," I told them. "We are looking for a long term, permanent solution," the three said in one voice.
"I will give you a very simple project to start with. Anyone can do it. You can do it without spending any money on it. Consider this project as a test case or as a training session. In the process, you may make a few hundred rupees, a few thousand rupees or nothing. Once you understand how it works, you can work on it to make it as big as you like. I will summarize the entire project in a few words: You will build a useful blog, create a small community of regular visitors to your blog, place advertisements on your blog and make money," I said.
"Please tell me about blog, community, and advertisement," Laxmi requested me.
"A blog is a type of website that can easily be created and maintained. You can easily blog even if you have no experience running a Web site. Any type of information can be presented on a blog. Visitors can add comments to blog articles. The person who runs a blog is known as a 'blogger' and writing a blog article is known as 'blogging'. A blog is a fast, easy and fun way to establish an online presence," I told them and continued, "A blog must concentrate on a specific topic. When you present useful information on a topic, people who need that type of information will visit your blog regularly and an invisible community will be formed. For example, if you blog on stamp collection, stamp collectors will frequent your blog and over time you'll develop a community of stamp collectors who share common interests and thoughts."
Laxman said, "When I have added some good content to my blogsite, I can apply to online advertisers for an account. They will place ads on my blogsite and will pay me every month based on my performance." I said, "Yes."
"What should be the topic of my blog?" Arjun asked. "Forget about what you like or not. Think from your visitors' point of view. Can you provide useful information to them regularly? If you can do it, you will be successful," I replied and explained to them how to pick the winning topics.
(The details about the free blog services and advertisers, and a list of 300 sure-to-win topics are given in Cash Courses section.)
"How will people know about the existence of my blog?" Laxmi asked. "You have to tell the people about its existence. After you build a blog, make a list of all the people you know. Contact them over phone, email, in person or in dream, request them to visit your blog and then tell about it to their friends and relatives. If you provide excellent content, you will have no problem in attracting visitors," I replied.
Then I asked each of them to tell me about their topics. Arjun said, "Life after retirement is difficult for most people. I will blog about the problems of retirement and tell people how to overcome them. I know hundreds of retired people personally." Laxmi said, "I watch many TV serials. But, I like X and Y very much and they are very popular. I know more than 20 people who watch them. I will blog on the serials and episodes." Laxman said, "As a student, I know what students like. I will blog about exams, career and romance. I will ask all my school mates and college mates to visit my blog regularly."
"You have come out with interesting topics. I wish you all the best," I told them.
The self-employment aspirants spent the first three weeks in learning about blogs and building them. The following three weeks were spent in contacting people and promoting their blogs. Weeks slipped as they worked hard.
Last week they received cheques from the advertisers: Arjun - Rs, 2,500 ($55). Laxmi - Rs.1,800 ($40) and Laxman - Rs.3,500 ($80). It is only a small beginning. Arjun and Laxmi have plenty of time at their disposal. So, Arjun will soon start 5 more blogs and Laxmi 2 more.
I am sure they will soon be in need of the services of a tax expert.