When newspapers report that InfoSys Narayanamurthy earns in crores and Microsoft Bill Gates earns in billions, we don't question the veracity of the report. However, when we hear that our next door neighbour or a housewife is earning money - not in crores or billions, just a few thousand rupees a month - through home based business, some of us think it can't be true. Why is it so?
We set false limits on our income potential. We extend these limits to all in our world and our world is made up of our close friends, relatives and neighours. Certainly Tatas and Birlas are not part of our world. We just don't care what rich and powerful do or don't do or what they have or have not. We believe all near and dear to us are incapable of any achievement. We are disturbed when the actual happenings are different from our perceived income potential of the people in our world and start raising all types of questions.
Raising questions is not a solution to our financial problems; raising questions is the problem. Instead of wasting our energy on such things, we must use that energy to analyze our skills and realistic income opportunities that are available to us. When we hear some positive news about others, our heart must flower. Every successful entrepreneur knows that the financial success of any venture depends very much on the attitude 'good will for all and good will from all'.
Instead of writing about one of the entrepreneurs that I personally know, this week I would like to reproduce an e-mail that a regular reader of the New Indian Express sent to me last week:
'There are countless books on self-improvement in the market. All newspapers and magazines publish rags-to-riches stories of highly successful people. To the best of my knowledge, the New Indian Express is the only newspaper that publishes the stories of people that really inspires housewives like me to take up self-employment and home-based business opportunities. I am sure thousands of other readers would happily agree with me.
'Recently I read in Money Spinners column about a housewife who is earning thousands of rupees a month from Insurance quotation preparation work for an American Insurance Agent and also about many other income opportunities that people made use of successfully on the website. I was very happy to read the success stories of the people that are as ordinary and average as I am. I was wondering whether I too can earn through such Business Process Outsourcing work. But, I did not know whom to approach to get BPO work.
'Last month, a friend of mine asked me for ideas to earn money through self-employment and home-based businesses. I shared with her whatever I know. During the course of discussion, a thought crossed my mind. My friend's sister is working in the United States. It is common knowledge that every resident in the United States would maintain different types of insurance policies. She would certainly know a few Insurance agents. She could contact them and tell them that they could outsource Insurance Quotation Processing work to my friend.
'My friend's sister was at first hesitant to talk to the Insurance Agents she knew. When I sent her an e-mail telling her how much sales talk these agents did when they sold policies to her, she immediately contacted them. Well. I confess that I never thought anyone would give a serious attention to this proposal. But, to my astonishment, two agents agreed to outsource Insurance Quotation Processing work to my friend! Even though I did not think that my friend would share the work with me, she offered 50% partnership without my asking.
'The Insurance agents sent step-by-step instructions for preparing insurance quotation and a few sample data to us by e-mail. We followed the instructions meticulously and sent the sample work by e-mail. Our accuracy rate was just 100%. The Insurance agents were very happy and started to give regular work to us within a week.
'We get 6 quotations a day. We are paid $4.5 per quotation. It takes an hour to prepare one quotation. Together we - the housewives - make Rs.1,200 a day. We don't get work on weekends and holidays.
'Millions of housewives have relatives and friends in the United States. I believe contacting them will open the flood gates of prosperity to many of these housewives.
'I express my gratitude to you and the New Indian Express for the motivating articles on self-employment. Please feel free to share my tale with other readers, if you think it can help them. - Veda'