Business Opportunities in India

Make money by Selling Photographs Online in India

2013-08-18T17:20:00.002+05:30

I am sure you would heard of Sandeep Maheshwari, the founder and CEO of ImagesBazaar in India who has opened a platform for the photographers to upload their pictures on their website & make money each time your picture is sold. Earlier we always heard of these opportunities outside India. But now we can do that in India too.

Can't believe this. This is not the only website where you can trade your pictures but there many. Digital camera brought a new evolution in the field of photography. With the acceptable image quality and the other advantages of digital photography the majority of professional news photographers have begun capturing their images with digital cameras. With the use of digital camera it has become very easy to enter in the world of stock photography. Well it’s thrilling to find places online where you can sell hi-res images & earn money while sitting back.

Recently there has been a boom in the micropayment stock photography business. The concept for photographers is this: instead of selling one image at $80-$120 once, why not sell it for fifty cents 200 times? In the long-run, the profit margin can even be much larger than simply selling it at a larger, fixed price.

Over all I have found the experience a positive one though there are some points that I found less than positive. I am leaving the site for the reasons below
First off what I found to be good
1. Being on a stock photography website has improved my photography loads. By making sure that my shots that were used for stock were of a sufficient quality has improved the quality of my photos in general.
2. The feeling you get from selling your first image is amazing.
3. The approval process whilst being slow (it takes about a week) is always fair, and provide links to good on-line tutorials that can help you with the area that the photo was lacking in.
4. The articles and tutorials on the site are great
5. The forum on the site is very helpful and full of great people who are happy to help
6. There are 3rd party applications that make uploading images a lot simpler than using the site itself
7. The site layout and design is good and makes managing your photos simple and easy

Can I make money from Stock Photography?

If you are trying to decide if stock photography is for you, maybe the following can help:

Can you take well composed, clear, and clean photos?
You do not need to be a professional or one of the best, but a blurry snapshot of your dog or a shot of the family will not do. The nice thing about doing microstock is that you don't need to be a professional. It is a great way to get started and it is well within the reach of many photographers.

Do you enjoy photography?
If you are only in it for the money, you are in for a huge challenge. To make a significant amount of money, you will need to put in many hours of work shooting pictures, processing pictures, preparing them for upload, and uploading them to stock sites. If you don't enjoy what you are doing, it will be reflected in your work and sales.

Do you have the right equipment?
The easiest way to do stock photography is to use a digital camera. Preferably one with 4 or more megapixels. A digital camera allows you to take a lot of pictures and experiment without having to pay a lot of money for film and film processing. With a digital camera, you can go on a photo shoot and take several hundred pictures, experiment with exposure, angles, and composition, and not spend any money. If you are using a film camera, this might cost you several hundred dollars to do each time. This doesn't mean you can't use a film camera, it just means that each picture you take will cost you. You will also need to have a good enough scanner to scan your photos, which is an additional processing step. Whether you go digital or film, you will need software to process your photos. You can spend hundreds of dollars on software or find some free photo editing software, but you will need something and a knowledge of how to use it.

Do you have the time?
Stock photography, regardless of whether you go with microstock or macrostock sites, take time, at least to begin with. After you get sore photos uploaded to the sites you want to work with, you can sit back and just make money, but over time, your sales might drop, adn if you want your sales to grow, you will want to continue to work at it. This doesn't mean you have to put in lots of hors if you don't want to, but it will take time and if you don't have it, doing stock photography will be difficult.

Do you want to earn money selling your photos?
There are many good photographers that could easily sell their photos, but they really aren't interested in making money selling their photos. Their photos are for them and their friends and that is as far as they want to go. This is fine.

Are you bothered by making only a few pennies a picture?
Some feel that selling your pictures for so little money is selling yourself way short. They also feel that photographers that are willing to do so are ripping themselves off and hurting photographers everywhere. Not to get into a philosophical debate about this, but if you feel this way, microstock sites might not be for you.

Are you already an established photographer?
If you are already an established photographer, maybe with a Web site and a large portfolio, you might not want to go the microstock route. You might meet the requirements to sell on macrostock, as they are sometimes called, or traditional stock photography sites. These sites are much more restrictive on the photographers they accept, but they also pay a lot more for each picture sold. Instead of making a few cents for each photo sold, you can make several hundred dollars or more. Of course, you will still need to decide whether to go the high or low price route. Some photographers go both routes. They sell some photos on macrostock and some on microstock. Just be sure that the sites you align yourself with do not require you to be exclusive with them. Some of the macrostock sites do not require exclusivity, but they probhibit you selling any photos through microstock sites. Do your homework before you sign-up with anyone.

10 Tips for making money in Stock Photography

The following are 10 tips for becoming a stock photographer working with microstock sites.

Good pictures sell.; bad ones do notMost photographers can be better. Take time to improve your skills. Read books. Try new things. Think like a designer and decide what to shoot based on what a designer might want. Think in terms of a clear subject and concepts. Abstract pictures have a hard time selling.

It's a numbers game
Assuming you can take sharp, well composed, clean pictures, the more pictures you have on a site, the more money you will make. Keep working at building your portfolio. You don't have to do something every week, or even month, but keep at it as much as you can afford the time to do so. As you keep building your portfolio, you will make more and more money.

Don't let rejection stop youJust because one site turns down your picture does not mean another one will. Don't take picture rejection personally. Find out why a picture was rejected, learn from it if it makes sense, and move on. Also, realize that a perfectly good picture will be rejected by one site and sell like crazy on another site. It is hard to tell what a site wants. If they say no to one of your pictures, think of it as a mismatch between you and them, not as a reflection of your skills. Also, remember that in some cases, it really will not make sense why a photo is not accepted. It will seem almost arbitrary. Don't give up; keep at it; get better; and keep going.

Upload to multiple sitesUnless you are going the exclusive route, find several good sites and upload to all of them. It doesn't require that much more work and will dramatically increase your sales for a minimal increase in work. It's part of the numbers game. If you have a portfolio of 100 pictures, then posting on 5 sites effectively means you have a portfolio of 500 pictures. It is a great way to grow your portfolio easily. There is one catch, if a site really can't sell your pictures, it is often not worth the effort, even the small amount of additional effort, to maintain a portfolio on that site. Do a bit of research and you will get a good idea of what sites are hot and which ones are not.

Use IPTC to add keywords, descriptions, and titles to your picturesBy adding information about your picture through IPTC, the information stays with your picture, and when you upload your pictures, the stock photo site can automatically extract that information from the picture. This will save you countless hours of effort, especially as you upload to multiple sites. The IPTC tagging also makes for a convenient place to store photo descriptions and keywords. What better place to store information about a picture than inside the picture, and it is great that microstock sites can extract this information from your picture. If your photo editing software does not support IPTC tagging, it is worth considering getting a new one that does.

Keywords are keyTake the time to do the best job you can keywording your pictures. The keywords are how a potential buyer finds your pictures. The best keyword in the world will not make you a cent if you do not keyword it so the person that might want your picture can find it. It is not fun, but it is worth the effort. When keywording, look at synonyms you can use. One way to get ideas on keywords for your photo is to look at the keywords others have thought of for a similar topic pictures.

Edit your photosVery few photos do not need some processing work after you take them. Take the time to learn a tool that will help you fine tune and really bring your photos to life. A good photo editing tool can be expensive, but might be worth the investment if it helps you sell more pictures. You can use a mid-level or basic tool and still get a lot of benefit. Also, take the time to learn the tool you use and understand what it can use.

Continue to improve your skills as a photographerWe can always learn more about taking great pictures, so take the time to learn and improve the quality of your pictures. Being a great photographer also takes a lot of practice, so get out and take some pictures. Read books. Study the works of others. Consider taking a photography course. An inexpensive way to learn is to join photography forums, contribute, post pictures, and learn from the feedback of others.

Shoot your turf
Not everyone can travel every week or month to exotic places, but you have access to things right around you that others do not, so look within your neighborhood, city, or where you spend your time and see what interesting things you can find to photograph. Some places have mountains, other places have oceans. Some places have tall buildings, other have farmlands. Some places have snow, other places have fog. Each area is unique and has its own special attributes. Take a look at your world and see what it has to offer you.

Know your businessJust like any business, you need to know your business. You need to know what others are doing. Keep current on what is happening in stock photography. Things change, new stock sites appear, some go away, some take off. You want to be aware of what is happening so you can be better prepared to make the right choices for yourself. Join forums, or at very least, occasionally browse through them and see what the hot topics are. It is great when people of similar interest can learn from each other. Go to the stock sites and see what is selling. Most sites list the top selling pictures or list the ones they are looking for. Visit these sites and learn what is wanted.

Where To Sell Images:
Submitting to many sites is a good move. You will find as you begin to submit to different sites, some images will be accepted on one site, but not on another one. You may have a number one seller on one site, but the next site rejects it for what ever reason. There is no way of knowing this, and it is just part of how the stock business goes. To handle the rejections you need to keep an open mind to what may be wrong with the image and try to correct the problem the next time. Be open to learning and improving, and best of all, develop a thick skin, because some of these sites are tough. That presents an opportunity for any photographer. If you are prepared to learn the ins and outs of the stock photography business, then it’s possible to do well. Here you can find 8 sites that accept stock photography submissions, as well as some of the higher paying micro stock photography websites.

1.) Big Stock Photo
With BigStockPhoto.com, you will earn $0.50 cents for every credit that a customer spends on your image, up to $3 per download. If you choose to provide additional usage rights to allow customers to print your image on a poster, greeting card or any other product, you will receive a special licensing commission at 35% of the sale. Contributors may request a payout when their balance reaches $30.

2.) Shutter Stock
With ShutterStock.com, you will earn $0.25 cents per download of your image until you have reached $500 in lifetime earnings. The reason that the royalty rates for images at Shutterstock.com are lower than other stock photography sites is because they sell subscriptions to customers who download many images. When your earnings are $500 to $3,000, you will earn $0.33 cents per download. Contributors may request a payout when their balance reaches $75.

3.) IStock Photo
With IStockPhoto.com, you will earn a royalty rate of 15% for each download of your image. If you have had at least 250 downloads with a minimum 50% approval rating, you can choose to make IStockPhoto.com your exclusive agent so that you will get a higher royalty rate of 22% to 45% per download. IStockPhoto.com also accepts audio and video contributions. Contributors may request a payout when their balance reaches $100.

4.) Alamy
With Alamy.com, you will earn a whopping 60% royalty fee on all of your images. This company is among the better ones in terms of paying the highest royalty rates to its contributors. Alamy.com also does do not force you to give them exclusive rights of your image, so you are free to sell your image through other stock photography resellers.

5.) Submit Stock Photos
With SubmitStockPhotos.com, the unofficial monthly earning average is about $1 per image. This is assuming that clients who have purchased a subscription have downloaded your image 10,000 times in a month. SubmitStockPhotos.com allows you to keep 100% ownership rights on your images so that you can sell your photos through your own website or other sources at any time.

6.) Fotolia
With US.Fotolia.com, you can earn about $0.30 cents per image download by the site’s monthly subscribers. When your image is sold as a single-image download, you could earn 25% to 63% per download. Contributors can request a payout when their balance reaches $50.

7.) Veer
With Veer.com, you can earn a substantial amount by selling different sized images. You can earn as low as $0.35 cents for every image that is downloaded. As the size of your photo increases, so does your earnings. Extra large photos can receive an unbelievable $5.25 per download! Contributors can request a payout when their balance reaches $100.
Hopefully that gives a few budding stock shooters a place to get started. Stock photography isn’t an easy way to make money (top micro stock shooters work damn hard), but it is an opportunity that is there if you want to grab it.

8.) ImagesBazaar.com
ImagesBazaar is a collective and ongoing endeavour of thousands of passionate photographers led by renowned photographer Sandeep Maheshwari, who has created a World Record in professional photography. ImagesBazaar´s army of top-of-the-line creative photographers is forever on the move, to capture the essence of India for serving it to the global audience. Today for instance if a real estate developer wants to create a brochure for his project it will cost him about Rs 200 to Rs 300 per piece. For a mere Rs 10 extra, we can print him a 3D brochure that can give the reader a 3D view of the project. These technological advancements are becoming possible faster than you can imagine.

How to make money on Internet in India?

2011-03-27T11:28:00.000+05:30

Understand everything behind making money online in India

The way this generation of Indian youth is savvy about the internet, it will change the scene of ecommerce in India. So far not so good ecommerce business is mainly attributed to the little knowledge of internet & technology. Secondly the old generation still can't think much beyond brick & mortar shopping. Also one of the culprits has been the news around internet & credit card frauds.

India will soon be the largest population in the world with a very large base of educated youth. Secondly India in known for its expertise in Information technology, web technologies & affordable IT solutions specially websites. There are so many young entrepreneurs coming up with lot of innovative online ventures. With 3G & 4G technology hitting India soon, slow internet speed will be a thing of past.

India will connect all the towns and villages of India with the Internet by the end of 2014. And that’s why we will see whole India online in the next decade. And this means a great business and money making opportunities for all us.

In next decade, Indian web traffic will be more than of any other countries of this world. And it means that a great business opportunity for entrepreneurs in every Niche. And this is the reason I motivate young generation to start their own Online Business from today only. So that when whole India becomes Online, you will have a great money making opportunity.

There are several ways to make money online in India. The best thing about this technology is that you can also earn money from your home also. You just need the Computer and the internet connection to start making money online. You can start part time, learn some useful tools & technology.

You need to take up your online business whether it is money making thru blogging, or article writing or freelancing as any other business. You will have to take care of every aspect of your business. If you miss out on any important online business element, it will be a mess and it will give you a big frustration. You need to work hard to get faith of your customers or visitors as well as google.

If you want to do some job than go to Elance.com, Freelancer.com or GetACoder.com and you will find some work online and you can earn money by taking various projects according to your skills on the above websites.

If you want to start your own Business than sky is the limit. You can start a Blogging Business, Website Business, eBay Shop, Facebook Applications, Discussion Forums or anything else online. Lot of People make money by blogging, most of those are claims but there is still a small percentage of professional bloggers who make enough money by blogging & various other online ventures. It's a again like any other investment. You just can't keep all your eggs in just one basket. You need to do your streams of money making on internet to earn enough to make a living out of it. You can also start the Affiliate Marketing online and earn money by selling other people’s products online. You can also get expertise in a particular category business & develop cost effective websites. For example Real Estate, Retail business, eCommerce, Schools etc.

So it is possible to make money on internet in India but again only few lucky ones who are ready to explore the world of web & bring in some differentiation to their business model & to their visitors. Online business requires in India requires much more hard work than brick & mortal model but then consider as insurance as well gives you the flexibility to work from everywhere. But make sure you are made for it & have other means to live your life. Don't try to become overnight rich by blogging. There is no such thing which can make you millionaire or crorepati just by blogging.
So all the best for making money on Internet in India !!!

How to make Ten Thousand Rupees in India by blogging every month?

2011-03-26T20:23:00.000+05:30

Make Ten Thousand Rupees per Month or More in India by blogging:

I am a semi active blogger in India and have been blogging for the past 3 years. Though I won't disclose how much money I making through my several blogs these days, I can definitely tell you I personally know that you can definitely make around Rs 10,000 (Rupees Ten Thousand) in India or more through blogging after few years of effort.

That said, it is not easy to start making money through blogging from day 1. It takes a lot of hard work, perseverance and as said earlier lots of blessings from Google too.

Also much of the revenue you will earn will be proportional to the website traffic you get (unless you are a big shot writer who can sell direct ads on the site or get sponsorship from companies). As per my experience you can expect up to 2% of visitors generally clicking on the Ads. But earning generally depends upon your niche & completion for the keywords you used in your content.

Most of the top sites get anywhere between 75-90% of their traffic through organic Google searches (this may vary). This is where Google’s blessings come into picture. The higher page rank you have on Google, the more traffic you get and more money you make. In India big corporate houses are making big use of online advertisements.

However, it is all a long process both to start earning decent money and to also get better listings in Google.

So just to summarize it once again, you can definitely expect to make up to Rs 10000 (Rupees Ten Thousand Only) a month or even more if you put enough hard work into your blog. However, don't expect results to come overnight or within a few months. It takes a lot of hard work and patience, so be prepared with these two things. But criteria remains the same what I mentioned in my last article. There is no easy way. Only professional bloggers in India can expect to earn Rs 10000 after few years of effort. So be ready to sweat if you want to make money by blogging in India.

True Story about Making Money by blogging in India

2011-03-26T18:13:00.002+05:30

My Story of Blogging & Money making Journey in India:

Indians are known for its entrepreneur adventures. Today internet is full of stories where people are claiming to be Internet riches by blogging or by selling products or other means.

Is there really a way to make money by blogging in India? Read thru the challenges below & what you need to do to start on money making track.

Can we become rich India by Pay per Click (PPC) by using adsense in our blogs & website? You can't become rich but you can use it a way to earn some extra money. But I still see that one person in one Lakh blogger still has chance to become rich if you are really innovative & your blog or website is one of the top website in India.

What percentage of people really become rich by blogging? My experience with blogging says it would be .0001%. As most people stops blogging after few months & years of frustrations. So here is more sweat as you don't make any money but put lot of effort upfront. But there is still a light in the tunnel if you remain persistent.

I would like to be very frank about making money thru blogging. I have been doing blogging on varieties of subjects for last several years. So far it has been a very frustrating journey and doesn’t seem to be worth spending time. I am just making very small money which I can’t use for living. Sometimes I feel that I can make more money by teaching part time or by freelancing etc. But after few years of experience I have learned few things which might be useful for you to think whether you want to take this up a career choice or not. I have tried to summarize my learning from my blogging experience but then you have many sources to get more details. But I can assure you that all the information here is my original experience & genuine.

1. First one is that professional blogging is not easy. You will really have to really spend lot of time learning the tools & techniques of blogging.

2. Don’t believe on millions of websites claiming to make you earn thousands of dollars every month. It is just not possible.

3. The content is king. If you are blessed with writing skills & you can write original content on varieties of subject. Then you can still attract blessing of google & some traffic. Copy cat blogging is just a waste of your precious time & wouldn’t take you anywhere.

4. If you have a background of website designer & a programmer. That can take you much far but then still content is the key. How good you are at your writing stills will make a difference.

5. You will have to learn the art of online marketing & search engine optimization techniques. But I have found that if you have an excellent original content nothing else matters.

6. Consider this as your hobby for few years before considering this as your career choice. For most of the people it can’t earn you living but it can be an asset during your retirement time & can help you earn some extra money.

7. It took me 2 years to earn my first cheque of 100 dollars. I generally don’t spend more than couple of hours in a week. But now I am seeing some consistent earnings which give me some confidence to spend more time & take it to the next level. So making money from blog in India is possible but effort has to be honest & consistent. You need to be very very patient & get better in this.

8. You will have to spend lot of time experimenting the subject you want to blog about. Everything depends on your effort here. Selecting the right niche for a limited audience. This will give you a confidence that it can bring some traffic to your blog. If you select a very common topic which has millions of websites then it will take you years to get your first visitor.

9. Write problem solving blogs & people will love you and frequent your blog. But you need to make sure your visitor doesn’t get disappointed. This is if you really want to make money from Blog.

10. The earning from Adsense in India is much less compared to US. The reason is adsense is just getting popular & not many businesses in India still understand what they can do to your business with adwords. So the bidding for keywords is still much cheap. But if you start early today, there are good chances that your blog will have a much better ranking among Indian websites & thus will give good opportunity later once adwords becoming very popular in India business community.

11. India is still very nascent in internet space specially the small businesses. But I am sure as the usage of internet penetrates in India. It will change the landscape & will create lot of opportunities for bloggers & online content publishers.

12. Finally if you want to really become Internet rich in India, you will have to be innovative. There are enormous opportunities in India on Internet & you will have to use those to make money online.

How To Make Money With Blog

2011-03-26T12:34:00.001+05:30

How To Make Money With Blog:

The purpose of this page is to show you how to make money with blog..
This article will suggest you six best methods from which you can earn substantial money from blogging.

1. Big Blog:
This is the most money-making and most time-taking process. These types of big blogs posses a big variety of money making options. Knowing that not every person can be successful in creating a big blog so it well worth advise to choose this route only if you are absolutely confident that you have the knowledge ,skills and marketing capacities-how that’s needed. Making money with your blog thru this route is NOT an easy task.

•Advantages: Popularity and more money making potential /options for your blogs. Another plus point is that these blogs usually promotes themselves automatically after some time.
•Backdrops: Very time-taking process if you are not outsourcing some of the work like content creation marketing.

2. Pay per Post or PPC
This is to a some extent simple. Firstly you have to set up blogs by buying a personal domains. Run them over a good time and concentrate on improving up their Google PR, and Alexa Rank etc.
Post all of your blogs to websites like Blogsvertise, Blogitive, Review Me, Sponsored Reviews, PayperPost and then start postings sponsored posts.

•Advantages: The biggest advantage of this route is that you don’t want a big traffic to make money. Few people is more then enough if 20 people viewing and reading your blogs daily and you’ll still be able to make up to $20 a day from each blog. If properly done over few blogs, this method money making blog can earn you over $2 K a month.
•Backdrops: No stable income.

3. Made-for-Affiliate-Program type of blogs
This method involves setting up a blog on a particular topic with optimized for high paid keywords. Better you pick up a product blog (for example LCD Tvs,etc) and promote your blog. Make money blogging is not tough if you understand HOW to drive traffic to your blog.

•Advantages: less time consuming.
•Backdrops: There is a tough competition.

4. Text Link Selling Blog
In this method the major part of your income comes from selling text links to businesses and webmasters who looking to improve their ranking in Google.
The great importance here is on Google PageRank and niche relevancy.

•Advantages: easy and less work..
Backdrops: Your profit depends on the Google page rank so it may varies.

5. The Automated Blogging
Automated blogging or Splogs includes the setting up blogs which automatically take content via search engines ,RSS feeds, and other sources to serve as content on your website.
Profits can be made through ads like Google Ad sense or affiliate programs.

•Advantages: less work needed to maintain as these blogs
•Backdrops: A weak potential for profit & google also DOES NOT like Autoblogs so your a/c may be banned if you create autoblogs.

6. The Blog Network or Contract Blogging Route
This includes joining a blog network and getting paid to maintain and create content for blogs. Your pay out depends on the amount of page views.
Advantages. Relatively stable monthly revenue.

How to get your Best Friend: The Web Traffic

2011-02-20T19:12:00.002+05:30

Web Traffic my best friend:

As a webmaster or online marketing person, getting the web traffic is what we keep working on. Though it's not easy but a long term strategy can definetely help. You have to understand we need to be very patient with anything we do online in terms of our returns but not for the hardwork. The same theory applies here that don't keep all yours eggs in the same basket. Same is true here. You don't always know which strategy would give you the best advantage in the niche that you are working on. So you need to work on so many different mediums & strategies which on anlaysis will give you indicators where you need to focus more to get the best return. So here are few tips:

Before choosing any link building campaign you must know which type of link building methods would really helps in increasing greater search engine ranking position results.
Some of the most effective methods to increase the number of quality backlinks which would in turn increase the amount of traffic to the web site is given below:

o Social Bookmarking - A relatively new avatar of a concept developed in the 1990s, it essentially tags one or more web sites that a person or a group of people have found useful and informative and which they think they will want to return to. These tags can be saved, shared publicly or privately and are a great form of free advertisement through 'word of mouth' interactions on the internet. If the quality of articles is good, topical, updated regularly and overall have a good reputation, getting a good amount of relevant traffic is almost guaranteed if you include articles or comments that have links coming back to the desired web site.

o Blog Comments - There are more than 70 million blog sites on the web and the number is increasing every day. There would be hundreds if not thousands of blogs relating to what a person does or feels and commenting on these while including a backlink to the appropriate web site is an assured way to drive traffic to that site.

o Article Distribution - There are a large number of websites that a person can use to post articles on subjects they are interested in. While a number of these are free sites, there are others where a small or large fee is involved. There are also services which take these articles and submit them to many websites which the individual writing the article may not be even aware of. It is necessary to write good quality articles preferably on topics that are highly topical and which either the general public or a group of people with special interests would find interesting and / or informative. Having backlinks to your own web site and using appropriate key words in these articles that have been written for submission to other web sites is sure to increase traffic to your site.

o Forum Posting - Discussing specific topics or subjects with others who have similar interests leads to the establishment of online communities called forums. By being a regular and knowledgeable contributor to these forums, in the form of comments and short posts with a backlink to his or her own web site, a person can drive up the traffic and increase their page rank.
The more common methods to increase backlinks and thereby traffic to a web site has been mentioned above, it is best to use a combination of these and some others options like creating viral reports, to get the best results.
We always recommend you to use different link building tactics to your websites. No one knows how Google algorithm works. Your websites should be equally powerful with every link building technique. If you are searching for quality link building campaign then come to us.

Emergence of Online Marketing in India

2011-02-09T18:25:00.000+05:30

India has just started. "Yeh toh suruvat hai Agay Agay dekho hota hai kya" means it is just a beginging & let's see what's coming up in future. It is just an inception of internet in India and it has already received so much exposure that the internet users head count is on an ever rising numbers. It is truly hard to believe that internet is just a decade old in India. The response that it has received is unbelievable. The number of online marketing companies that have cropped up in the country is the proof of how well the industry is flourishing.

E commerce is on an all time rising spree and is increasingly growing in size. As internet is growing so is the trend of online marketing. Most brands now prefer to be a part of the online business place so that they can make use of the technique to enhance their business. Almost everything is now moving out of the real world in order to secure a place in the virtual world. Not only information and knowledge exchange but also interaction and growth are something that the promising online marketing services are providing to the businesses.

Several online marketing companies have set their face on India now where they see a lot of potential market. The growing generation here is being called the 'IT generation' which in the near future shall live in the virtual world for ever. From shopping to education to socializing and even marriage proposals everything is now online. This significantly states the importance the online marketing companies established here will receive.

online marketing companies that are now mushrooming here are aware of the growing trend and the fast moving lives of the people here, and are accordingly providing a host of services to the companies that come to them for website production and advertising. Features like search engine marketing, online advertising, email marketing, website designing, content management and several other features stand an integral part of their business.

In the coming years, online marketing companies are predicted to growing in leaps and bounds where it is predicted that amongst other things the search engine marketing shall be most dominant amongst all other features. Considering the fast growth of technology it would not be a surprise to see the virtual world live in reality soon.

We also awaiting some big innovations in this space which will hopefully change the way businesses are conducted in India.

My Blog is Not Making Money, what should I do?

2011-02-06T13:05:00.000+05:30

Love your Blog & Blog will return lot of love to you:

Why is your blog not making money online? Most beginners have the sole intention of making money when they step into the blogosphere. So, undoubtedly the most popular question in their mind is “Why is my blog not making money?” Many newbies keep wondering over it, and are just not able to find answers. In this article, I am trying to put forward some probable answers to this grand problem.

1. Alomst no traffic or visitors to your blog
How do you expect to make money from your blog if no-one or very less people come and visit it? Its similar to being hungry but you just have peanuts to eat. You can’t expect to make money when you have a very small audience.

2. Improper visibility of your Ads
Its very annoying to see Ads all over the blog. Place your Ads where they will be seen but where it won’t be a nuisance for people reading your content. Some people think over this point to such an extent that they fear placing Ads where they should. Thus, minimizing their profits!

3. No one is interested in your Content
Who will visit your Blog if you copy articles from other blogs? You wont have any takers if you write on topics discussed by other bloggers. You must create high quality unique articles to get traffic and publicity in the Blogosphere. You can also create List Posts, How-To articles or Comparison Articles to get traffic fast as these articles are expected to go viral on Social Media sites.

4. UnMasked Referral links
Making money selling different products with affiliate links is not a secret anymore. But people somehow are not free clicking Affiliate links on different websites. So it is good to mask your affiliate links using URL shorteners or different WordPress plugins. This will keep your visitors unaware that they are clicking on Affiliate links.

5. No promotion of your Money making or High Traffic pages
Many-a-times Newbies fail to identify their High Traffic and Money making pages. It is a very good idea to identify these pages and monetize them properly. Promoting these pages over Social Media sites and using different SEO techniques for these pages can help you get more traffic on these pages. In turn, it will help you make more money out of these pages.

6. No Strategy or Wrong Strategy and Planning
You are not going to start making money by just writing articles. You need to plan and device different tactics for making money out of your blogs. Create a proper strategy which you think will work for you rather than copying someone else’s strategy. Money making tactics depend on your blog traffic, your blog niche and many other factors. So, do not copy the strategies of famous bloggers but make your own ones.

7. Giving up
Most bloggers seem to quit blogging in the first three months of blogging because they don’t seem to make any money. You cannot expect to make money with new blogs so early. Everyone has to struggle hard for more than a year to be among the Money Making Bloggers. Don’t expect blogging to give instant or fast results!

8. Inconsistency
Writing a blog post once in a month is of no use! You must be consistent in blogging and post regularly at small intervals. Taking long breaks in blogging is not adviced. If you are going to be busy with some activities, you can write posts in advance and schedule your posts to be published when you are busy and away from your blog.

9. “I will follow the crowd” Attitude
People like uniqueness! They wont appreciate if you are just one among the many. You need to use strategies and write articles which are unique. Dare to be different! Stand out of the crowd and people will surely notice you and inturn you will get wide acceptance.

10. Only MONEY on your mind
Just blog as a passion. Do it because you love it! Don’t feel restrained by anything and most importantly, “Forget About the Money”. Believe me, the more you ignore money, the more it will follow you. Just concentrate on writing good content, keeping your readers happy and creating a group of loyal readers. Its all going to work well in the long run.

Checklist for hosting a website:

2010-09-04T19:38:00.003+05:30

Learn how to host a website:

How to start hosting your site, often not considered worth noting some factors you have, how to choose a web hosting company. Here's a useful checklist to help you.

Prime Support:
This is very important as it is to be able to sustain adequate That You May have any questions on how crucial Importance. You could try some testing before registration of the company by shooting them an e-mailMessage with a question. Check their response rate when the possibility of assistance payable.
According to Uptime:
Web host must be able to provide guaranteed availability of more. The acceptable standard is actually a 99 percent uptime.
Disk space:
Would determine the precise amount of space needed. Calculate how big you are and if the site would fit the space allotted.
Bandwidth:
This is often overlookedTo the point that the limit has been reached for the bandwidth. Remember that if you exceed the bandwidth allocated, there would be a high bill.
CGI Bin:
This feature is now standard with the company a better reception. Without access to these would not be able to install programs and scripts.
Perl :
If you do not have this would not be able to run Perl programs. Many good scripts, you can buywritten in Perl.
SSL :
If you accept payment by credit card directly on your site plan, then you would need SSL or Secure Socket Layer included in the plan you get.
SSI:
SSI or Server Side Includes would be nice if you want to spend very little time to update your site.
MySQL:
There are some programs that require a MySQL database to run into the situation, you use this function with the controlthe plan would have chosen.
PHP:
Many new scripts and programs require PHP support. This feature may cost extra, but most good hosts already have it as standard feature.
Domain name:
There are some names, hosting companies support you when you register your domain, but you should compare with the market, prices in the study and the registration of the domain name you know That Would even call in the control domain iswhen they were changing hosts later.
FTP access :
Unlimited and unrestricted FTP access to your website is very important. You would need to be an FTP program is able to transfer files.
Squadron:
This is important to manage your website with ease.
Statistics Program:
A powerful statistics program would be useful if you plan to track how many visitors you to come, References, the first entry and exit pages and where they come from.

Checklist of things you must know for an Internet Business:

2010-09-04T18:28:00.004+05:30

What should I do to start my own online business?

If you have already decided to get into internet business, you must get yourself educated in some of the areas as liested below:

* The three biggest myths about having an internet business that you must know - if you don't these they can KILL your business without you realizing it!
* How to Avoid the most common internet business scams
* How you can have an internet business even if you don't have a product to sell Specific Business "Opportunities" to Avoid if you don't want to get ripped off
* How to Choose a Great Domain Name
* How to Avoid Registering a "Problem" Domain that could get you into Legal Trouble
* How to Avoid Paying Too Much for your Web Site
* The Secret to Choosing a Good Web Hosting Company (a bad company can literally break your business!)
* The Seven Do's and Don'ts of Building a Web Site
* The Biggest Mistake Most New Internet Business Owners Make
* The Two Most Common Web Site Legal Issues and How to Avoid Getting Tangled up in one of them
* Step by Step Instructions for Setting up your Web Site Email
* The Two Best Ways you Can Protect yourself from Spam
* How to Accept Credit Cards on your Web Site
* The Four Indicators of Possible Credit Card Fraud (don't let the bad guys rip you off!)
* How to Get Visitors to your Web Site
* How to Get Listed in all the major Search Engines
* How to Improve your Search Engine Ranking
* Why the Words you use on your Web Site can help or hurt your Web Site Ranking and how to find the best words to use (the ones most new business owners use are usually the worst ones!)
* How to Get other Web Sites to Link to your web site and why you MUST care about this
* The Best and Worst Sites to Link to and the web sites you must avoid linking to no matter what
* The Best and Worst ways to Advertise your Business (both pay and for free)
* The most effective advertising method currently available
* The MOST important advertising rule and why you MUST follow it if you want your business to be successful
* How to Avoid getting ripped off by the most common traps and scams that most new web site owners fall for
* If you are shipping your product, the one US shipping law thatyou MUST be aware of
* How to Deal with Difficult Customers
* The Top 10 Ways to Win Points with your Customers
* The ONE thing that you absolutely MUST do for your customers or your internet business could be ruined
* How to Choose the Best Structure for your Business and Determine whether or not you need to Incorporate
* Income tax issues you need to be aware of
* How to Find out if you have to charge Sales Tax on your Products
* How to Know if you need a Business License and How to Get one if you do need one
* What you need to have to set up a business bank account
* The Easiest Way to keep track of all your expense
* How to Decide if you need a business phone line and a cheap way to get one if you need one
* How to Balance your Life and Business in a way that's fair to you and your family members

How to get started up for your first website:

2010-09-04T17:27:00.003+05:30

How to get started with money making websites?

Day-1:

Installing wordpress & start blogging:
Before we can get started and I can show you how to make money online, we need to sort the essentials out,

that means we have to get you online! Today I will show you how to build your first blog, which is surprisingly easy!

Make sure you take action as you read through my emails or you will find yourself a month down the road and you still haven’t started! If you do have any troubles with the eCourse, then hit the reply button and I will be happy to respond to your email.

First thing you need is a domain:

I am always creating websites and it is super important to choose a good domain, I often see long winded

domains like, RobertSmith4CentralOregonHomes.com? It’s really long, boring and has so many words you will spend so much time just typing the domain that you will give up.

Here’s what I do, I put a twist to my domains to make them more interesting, for example, I could of had

http://smallbusinessgurukul.com/ instead of indianentrepreneur.in is really catchy and something no one forgets, its even a speaking point for a lot of people. It’s all about being creative and not trying to get ever keyword under the sun in your domain. Another way you can come up with new domain names is by putting the benefit and your keyword in a domain.
you should use the site.

For all my domains I use GoDaddy, it is the largest domain registrar in the world and that’s for a reason!
The most important thing about running an Internet Business is that you have a reliable host, without one, you

are wasting your time. I recommend to everyone always to use HostGator, it’s cheap, reliable and I have never heard a bad word said about them. If you do decide to go TRY find a better deal then please research who you are getting hosting with, the worst thing is to find your website goes offline and they don’t have a recent backup of your server. I have personally lost some really big website’s due to hosts who just don’t seem to care for their customers.

Connecting your domain & Host:
So to host your domain is really simple, login to you GoDaddy account and click Domains > My Domains and then click on your domain. Now click on the Nameservers Icon and change the custom nameservers to the ones HostGator would of emailed you, they would have been something like:

NS1.smallbusinessgurukul.com

NS2.smallbusinessgurukul.com

Once this is done, you will now be able to upload and install your blog!

Installing your Blog:
I will show you how to install Wordpress in about 30 seconds using Fantastico, not all hosts have Cpanel and Fantastico but if you are using HostGator like I recommended, they do!

So to start, go to YourDomain.com/cpanel and login with the admin details your host provided, scroll to
the bottom and click Fantastico, now on the left hand side is a link to Wordpress, click that and click New
Installation, fill in the form and then click Install Wordpress and you are done, now go to your domain and your blog will be installed.

Adding posts to your blog:
If you now go to your blog on the right hand side of your blog, there will be a link called Login (yourdomain.
com/wp-login.php), click that and now login with your username and password. You will be presented with the Wordpress Dashboard, on the left side you will have a link to Add New under Posts. Click this and you will be able to add your first blog post.

In the lesson for Day 2, I will show you how to add a theme to your blog to make it look “nice” and will show you around the blog admin. I will also show you a few tricks I use to get the most out of my blog and making money!

Days-2:

Adding your Designs & Plugins:

Hopefully by now you have bought your domain, hosted it and installed Wordpress! Today I will share with you

how I made IncomeDiary look so good and user friendly!

Finding a premium design for your blog:

When you saw smallbusinessgurukul you probably smiled and thought, WOW and then thought to yourself, just if I could create a blog like that! Well I have to be honest with you, I paid $80 for my Wordpress Theme and it’s not just that theme, they have dozens with lots of great features to personalize it yourself! The huge benefit of buying a premium theme is that you don’t have to spend 100’s of hours and thousands of dollars to get the same results as the professionals!

So where did I get my Wordpress Theme? Woothemes of course!

Once you have purchased your theme, uploading is simple. Upload the file to your FTP folder marked Themes which is in the Wp-Content folder. There are two ways to upload a theme, I personally use a FTP client called FlashFXP which you can get a FREE trial from Download.com

The other way is to upload via your hosting control panel. Login to your cpanel and click File Manager and
go to the folder Themes which is in Public HTML and then WP-Content. Next, click upload which is in the top navigation and upload the zip file of your theme, once it is uploaded, unzip it.

Once you have done this, login to your Wordpress Admin and click Appearance and you will see your theme, click it and a preview will open up and then in the top right corner is a button saying Activate, click it and your theme will now work!

If you bought your theme from Woothemes, then you can play around with all their really cool settings by logging in to your Wordpress Admin and scrolling down to the bottom of the sidebar and click the name of your theme. We recently interviewed the founder of Woothemes about the importance of great blog design.

Wordpress Changes:

One major thing I see a lot of new blogger’s do is not make their website URL’s search engine friendly which is the easiest source of traffic. If you look at your first blog post URL, it will be Domain.com/?p=1 when you really

want it to say Domain.com/how-to-make-your-links-seo-friendly. You want your URL’s and blog post titles to be what you expect people to be searching in Google, not something that always sounds good, a mix of both usually goes down well!

To make your links search engine friendly like I just said, go to your Wordpress Admin and click Settings and then Permalinks on the left side. Change the settings to Custom Structure and use the code /%postname%/ -

This will now make your blog post link’s SEO friendly.

Another important SEO change is your page title and description, I personally use a FREE plugin to do this called All in One SEO Pack but as you guys are just starting, you may just want to edit these details from your Wordpress Admin by clicking General under Settings. It is really important to choose the right page title.
You also have a Blogroll on your blog, this is a great way to start building links and traffic to your website. Find 5 to 10 blogs just like yours and ask them to link to your site and you will do the same for them. You can add or edit your blogroll by clicking Links in the sidebar of your Wordpress Admin. It is also important to have a SEO friendly link. you are interested in learning more about Search Engine Optimization, then check out this interview that we did with a leading SEO expert!

RSS Feeds & Building your list:

A RSS Feed is basically a reminder for regular readers to alert them when you have a new blog post, this is one of the most important parts of a blog. I use Feedburner to manage all our feed updates, sign up and create a code and update your RSS link to the feedburner one. Feedburner also has an email update script that you can use, when you are logged in at Feedburner.com click Publicize and then Email Subscriptions, they will give you some code and then you can add it as a widget on your blog. To edit your RSS widget is really simple, login to your Wordpress Admin again and click Appearance and then Widgets, then click on RSS and paste your email code in and then save the changes. Your readers will now be able to subscribe for updates, when you add a new post and they will get an email or RSS message alerting them to check your blog out.

Ask any Problogger what their biggest blogging mistake, they will tell you they wish they started building a list
sooner! Creating a list is so powerful and a great way to make money online. Say you had 100 people visit your site a day, you want to get around 10 of them to sign up for your list, that means you can promote your website and products to them in future. What I do is create an auto responder series which automatically sends them an email every day to encourage them to work harder and make more money online - then I will promote them a product or two. Don’t be scared to promote products to them from day one, after all you only want people who are willing to spend money on your list.

I have built my lists to over xx,xxx now and my number one tip for getting readers to opt-in is to offer them
something, for example “7 Ways You Can Use Outsourcing To Save Your Company a Lot Of Money” - anyone on an outsourcing website will want to read that and would happily give you their email address to get it. My friend has built a list for his blog and every time he needs money he will find a product he likes and send his list an email about it and he will earn thousands of dollars! For those of you who will be using your blog to earn money I recommend you look at getting yourself an auto responder to do this. I personally recommend Aweber and iContact which both have a great service! If this is something that interests you, then set up your Aweber today and I will show you in the following emails how I make thousands of dollars from my mailing list.

The lesson in Day 3 will be a big day, so make sure you have everything ready and I will share my secrets with you ;-)

Making money on internet is possible if planned for longterm:

2010-08-21T13:43:00.001+05:30

Planning for a long term on Web. Here are the tools:

Here are basic tools I use, they work for ME but I am not suggesting its easy or that they will work for everyone. It took me three years to get to the stage where my income was both large enough, and more importantly stable enough, to make the move. I now have around 25 websites and combined they provide a good income.

1. Website Builder
These are ten a penny. From free services such as Wordpress and Joomla, to complicated software with steep learning curves such as Dreamweaver.

Perhaps the best tool to build LOTS of niche websites at low cost is XsitePro. My experiences with XsitePro are detailed here.

2. Hosting Service - you will need a decent host for your websites. I use 1and1.co.uk but that is not available outside the UK. There are many hosting services, Google around for the best options.

3. Search Engine Optimisation software.
Once you have built your websites you need to ensure that they are found. That means getting high listings on search engines, particularly Google. I use the SEO software from Axandra that has a money back guarantee.

Making Money from Websites
There are many ways to make money from websites, here are the main ones and again the ones that work for me.

1. Google Adsense - place Google adverts on your site to earn money when visitors click. Read Googles Terms and Conditions VERY carefully or you risk your account being removed by them.

2. Sell a Product - this is the only way to make it BIG.

3. Sell other peoples products via Affiliate Schemes - this is a lot easier than selling your own product but the downside is you get only a percentage of the sale. There are literally thousands of Affiliate schemes ranging from the excellent to the truly awful.

4. Why people FAIL with Affiliate Marketing - two main reasons
* They start and give up - you must keep plugging away until you find profitable ones.
* No marketing - adding an affiliate banner then sitting back will NOT work! My most successful affiliate scheme brings in over $4000 a month...............BUT it costs me $2000 a month to promote it. If you are not prepared to invest - forget it.

Cost Breakdown for Essentials
XsitePro - $197 (soon to increase to $297). One licence, 2 computers allowed.
Hosting - bank on around $200 a year to host 25-30 small sites.
SEO Software - Axandras iBusinessPromoter costs $249.95 for the Standard version which should suffice.

The biggest error to avoid in your Online business

2010-03-20T11:06:00.002+05:30

The biggest error to avoid in your Online business:

In spite of the fact that many entrepreneurs have used the online marketplace to build lucrative businesses and build the lifestyle of their dreams, for every successful marketer there are dozens who never even make enough money to even stay in business. Thankfully, you can avoid being a part of this unfortunate majority by learning from their failure and duplicating the strategies which have made other marketer successful before you. The article will outline five fatal errors which experts like Mitch Meyerson, Frank Rumbauskas, Ali Brown and Timothy Ferris have deemed as being the leading causes of failure in online marketing….

Developing a Product without Finding an Audience: This is a mistake which can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars and cause your business to fail before it even gets off the ground. No matter how creative or interesting you believe that your product is, you can still end up wasting your time and money creating it if no one wants to buy it. Just ask the founder of Border’s Books who spent $375 million on developing the first nationwide redelivery service called Webvan that completely flopped because there was not enough customer interest to support it. This is a mistake which could have been easily avoided with proper research and advertisement testing.

Since most startup entrepreneurs don't have tons of money to throw away, it's imperative that you conduct proper keyword research and even some ad testing for your product before you invest your time and money in creating it. If this process is handled correctly, you could have scores of qualified customers ready to buy your product before it even goes on the market.

Chasing Opportunity Instead of Passion: Success in the online marketplace takes a lot more hard work, diligence and persistence than most people think. No matter how much research and study you do before starting your business, there is always going to be a degree of trial and error involved when which will test the patience and persistence of even the most diehard entrepreneur. There also are hundreds and even thousands of tedious details which go into building and optimizing a website, creating a product and running an effective marketing campaign.

When this happens, it is only your passion for the business that you are starting which is going to provide the fuel to keep you going. The online marketplace is also very competitive and requires you to be constantly learning about your niche and understanding your customers. This kind of commitment is difficult to keep if you are not building the type of business that really interests you. So be sure that as you are choosing your online business you take these things into consideration and give yourself the best opportunity possible to achieve success.

Failure to Control Advertising Costs:
The most valuable investment you'll ever make in your online business is in smart advertising. No matter how spectacular your product is or how interesting your website is, no one is going to care if they never get the chance to hear about what you are doing. The problem is that the most effective online marketing strategies such as pay per click marketing, search engine optimization, article marketing and e-mail marketing are also the most potentially costly when it comes to time and dollars spent. The only way to make sure that these methods are cost-effective for both time and money is to practice consistent and strategic testing for your marketing campaigns and your ad copy.

Tools such as theGoogle website Optimizer, Google analyticsand other various applications for split testing and visitor behavior tracking are a must if you want to make sure that your time and money are spent wisely.

Expecting a Sale on the First Visit: According to online marketing expert Mitch Meyerson’s book “Mastering Online Marketing” 37% of prospects take anywhere from 0 to 3 months to become customers, 28% Takes 3 to 6 months, 18% 6 to 12 months and 17% take more than one year. In addition to this, general advertising research consistently reveals that it takes anywhere from seven to twelve times of a prospect seeing a message before they become a purchasing customer. This is why an effective list building strategy is regarded by many online marketing experts to be the most important part of building a successful online business.

Even if you have a website which is converting well and a good traffic strategy, you’re likely (according to the above statistics) to miss out on 50% of your potential customers if you don’t have a good email marketing strategy to stay in touch after their first visit. These are customers that will end up buying from your competition and likely becoming their loyal customers when they could have been yours. This is why it's so important to create a goodmarketing funnel includes a system for viral marketing and relationship building with your prospects.

Lack of Focus: Lack of focus is a common cause for failure in any undertaking because it keeps you from using your resources of time and money wisely. It also makes it difficult for you to consistently track your progress and make the improvements necessary to increase your successes. If you are attempting to market your website by dabbling in social media marketing one day, and then switching sporadically to article marketing then to PPC marketing or being inconsistent with your e-mail marketing, you’ll probably end up getting taken down by your competition.

If you feel that you don’t have enough energy and attention to pursue all of the marketing strategies which you want to use such as: social media marketing, Adwords advertising, e-mail marketing, article marketing, video marketing, search engine optimization, finding joint ventures and ezine advertising, it might be time to seek the help of an online marketing firm. This will allow you to focus on aspects of marketing your business which you are most interested in and have the best knack for.

The more focused you are, the quicker you will learn and the better edge you will have on your competition. So if you've gotten into the habit of being all over the place with your online marketing, it might be time to find your most effective method and to focus only on that until you develop a solid foundation upon which you can build your other methods.

Conclusion:
No matter where you are in your process of starting your own online business, it’s important to remember that there is always room for improvement. Check yourself on each of these five common errors, find your weak points and get to work on a plan for correcting them. It might just be a decision which will make the difference between failure and success.

Is it a good Idea to convert my business into a franchise?

2010-02-13T12:16:00.001+05:30

A number of franchise systems have grown by converting independent businesses in the same industry into franchise units. Perhaps the clearest example of this is in the real estate industry--franchises such as Century 21 grew rapidly in this very manner. Yet this system doesn't just work well in real estate; in fact, many franchises use some degree of conversion franchising to grow. Travel agency and home service franchises--including plumbing, air conditioning and handyman services--have all successfully offered existing entrepreneurs the opportunity to convert to a franchise.

But why would you want to trade in your independence to belong to a franchise? What do you get in return? And how can you decide if the leap from independent to franchisee is right for you? Whether you're an existing entrepreneur considering converting into a franchise--or a franchisor bringing existing entrepreneurs into your system--you should carefully consider the pros and cons before deciding on this course of action. From each perspective, here are some of the most significant factors to take into account.

Converter Perspective
You are an experienced and successful operator of an independent business who is considering converting your business into a franchise. The factors you should consider include:

Pros. The advantages of such a conversion can be many. You can achieve significant marketing advantages by being associated with a brand that has regional or national top of mind awareness, and there is usually a common marketing fund used to drive brand recognition and customer growth. In addition, you can probably achieve significant purchasing power savings by being associated with a large system that has much better bargaining power than an independent operator. Finally, you can take advantage of an operating system tested and proven by many other operators to produce the highest possible level of success from the business.

Cons. The disadvantages to the operator converting to a franchise usually relate to two factors: fees and operational flexibility. A franchise system is probably going to require a converting franchisee to pay both initial and ongoing fees. These fees represent expenses that you do not have as an independent operator, and you need to be confident that the increased projected revenue, cost savings or profitability associated with being a franchise will more than offset the fee costs, or this conversion may not be in your best interests. In addition to fees, a franchise system typically has many rules in terms of how the franchise business must be run. Since you can conduct your business in any manner you choose in an independent business, you need to make sure you're comfortable giving up this total freedom to abide by the operating rules of the franchisor.

Franchisor Perspective
You are an experienced and successful franchisor with a solid brand and operating system and are considering using a strategy of converting existing independent operators into new franchisees for your system. The factors you should consider include:

Pros. The advantages of this strategy are the potential for very rapid growth in unit counts and royalty fee income. Existing independent business already have real estate, staff and customers and most (if not all) of any other requirements for becoming an operating unit in your chain. When they decide to convert, you immediately have another operating unit and ongoing income stream. You also have franchisees who know how to operate in your industry and have proven their competency via their independent businesses.

Cons. The disadvantage of a conversion strategy is the very same industry experience we mentioned as an advantage. Franchisees who have prior experience in your industry usually also have many preconceived notions and opinions about the industry and about how the business should be operated. These opinions may or may not match up well with your system. Whereas new franchisees entering your system without this experience tend to do what you tell them without argument, converting franchisees tend to require much more effort when their opinions and preconceived notions don't match what you're telling them to do. To put it bluntly, conversion franchisees are often a big pain in the neck during the operational conversion process.

The secret to successful conversion franchising, for both parties, is extensive communication prior to the conversion decision. Independent operators need to make sure they understand exactly what the benefits and costs will be and also what is required of them in terms of changes. The franchisor needs to ensure potential franchisees are embracing the idea of conversion for all the reasons that are important to the franchise company, without reservation.

A wonderful strategy for both parties in this process is for the franchisor to conduct a business review of the existing operation, then provide the prospective converting franchisee with an overview of all key changes required in a conversion. This overview could also list the benefits the franchisor feels the operator would gain from converting.

Such a review usually eliminates any confusion about what is required of independent business owners during the conversion process. They might very well decide not to proceed with conversion based on this information, but that decision is certainly better for both parties than the alternative: having a major conflict after the conversion documents are signed.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/franchises/buyingafranchise/franchisecolumnistjeffelgin/article76454.html

Part Time Businesses in India which can help earn extra money

2009-11-21T16:02:00.006+05:30

Part Time Business in India:

An opportunity so big which can take you a long way without risking much of your savings & time:

But confused, let's try to answer some questions here:

1. Can I do some part time work & make some money as well?
2. I really don't have any special expertise what can I take up as part time business?
3. Do I need any special education to start any part time business?
4. I don't have any source of financial investment. Can I still start my own part time business?
5. I have time only on weekends. Can I still start my own business?
6. I don't want to overburden myself but rather want to start some business which can grow big in a longer run.
7. Can a part time business make me rich & full fil my ambitions?
8. When do you think I should change from part time business to full time business?
9. Are they any mentors who can provide any guidance on how to start & grow your part time business?
10. Are there any groups of individuals whom I can contact & start some part time business in a cooperative format.

Some Hard Lessons For Startups To Learn

2009-07-22T20:12:00.002+05:30

Paul Graham has written a great article on this subject, a must read. I am reproducing my favorite excerpts:"I was talking recently to a startup founder about whether it might be good to add a social component to their software. He said he didn't think so, because the whole social thing was tapped out. Really? So in a hundred years the only social networking sites will be the Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Del.icio.us? Not likely.The reason we don't see the opportunities all around us is that we adjust to however things are, and assume that's how things have to be. For example, it would seem crazy to most people to try to make a better search engine than Google. Surely that field, at least, is tapped out. Really? In a hundred years-- or even twenty-- are people still going to search for information using something like the current Google? Even Google probably doesn't think that.In particular, I don't think there's any limit to the number of startups. Sometimes you hear people saying "All these guys starting startups now are going to be disappointed. How many little startups are Google and Yahoo going to buy, after all?" That sounds cleverly skeptical, but I can prove it's mistaken ..."
http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html

Know what sells best at eBay in India

2009-07-22T19:42:00.003+05:30

E-commerce in India is currently worth Rs 2,300 crore. According to a survey, while there are a number of players in the online marketplace, eBay India is the most preferred website to shop online with 42 per cent (out of 12,700 people) people voting for eBay.

Other players to follow are:
Rediff (23 per cent),
Indiatimes (18 per cent),
Yahoo (3 per cent),
Fabmall (3 per cent),
Sify (3 per cent),
Google (1 per cent)
and MSN (1 per cent).

On ebay.in :
One MP3 player sells every 17 minutes
Mobile accessories sell every 18 minutes (data cables, headsets and hands free kits)
PC game selling every 32 minutes (GTA and FIFA 2006 are the most searched)
Digital camera every 40 minutes (digital SLR cameras are showing significant growth. Digital cameras also outsell film cameras by 8 to1, most digital cameras sold are in the 5-7 MP range.)
Laptop sells every 56 minutes (Compaq and Dell are the most popular laptop brands)
A camcorder sells every 2 hours.
Handhelds and PDAs every 3 hours (O2 and I-mate being top selling brands)
DVD player every 5 hours

Calculating Return on Investment (ROI)

2008-10-15T18:59:00.006+05:30

How to calculate Return on your investment & plan your business
expenses:

Some people call it ROI (Return on Investment) & some people call it ROIC (Return on Invested Capital). Both are actually same but it is very important that we periodically calculate it to check the health of our business.
The formula for calculating ROI is :
ROI = [(Benefit in Rupees - Investment)/Investment)]*100

To summaries it in a single statement "It is a measure of the Rupees returned for Rupees invested".
So ROI calculation is not important just for the health of your overall business but it is equally important when you plan for any investment whether it will return positive ROI or not. So whenever you want to make any decision regarding a moderate to major investment you must calculate ROI for that investment & see whether it makes any sense to go for that investment or not. I suggest each & every capital expenditure should go through this & this will help you run your business profitably & this will also help you to avoid impulsive investment decisions.
While calculating the total investment make sure you also include the run cost , maintenance cost & as well as the cost of funds.
You can consider the following while calculating the benefits:
Typical benefits that are considered in an ROI assessment include:
Increased revenue, e.g. increased sales, or sales margins
Retention of sales that would otherwise have been lost
Reduction in operating expense, e.g. daily time savings, eliminated rework.

Since what you can include in the benefits or cost is always a subject of argument & can be easily manipulated. Since everyone agrees to the importance of this tool, i suggest to form a core team who can agree on the parameters used for the calculation.

How to Calculate Start Up Costs for a New Business?

2008-10-15T18:29:00.004+05:30

The very first issue that comes up with a startup is to find out the intial investmment/funding required. Though the best way is to start this with a detailed business plan in hand. But here is the list of things I have done to come to the estimated cost of initial setup & the additional capital to keep the business running till you get the operational break even:

1. Writedown each & everything you would need & when. Try to capture the cost of each of the item. Keep 10-20% extra to keep the buffer for any missed out item or higher cost. To determine the costs of the equipment your organization needs, look for online distributors or commercial wholesalers available locally.

2. Determine business start up costs for your area. This can include a business registration charges, insurance for your business, getting PAN numbers, TAN Numbers etc.

3. Determine the office space cost and for other assets required. Make sure you include all the brokerage charges, advance rentals etc.

4. Determine the cost of hiring employees.

5. Think about advertising and marketing expenses that can get your business out there. Newspaper ads, flyers, phone book advertisements, or online advertisements are examples. Business Cards and referral cards can be helpful as well.

6. Determine all the ongoing expenses required to meet monthly expenses of running the operations.

7. Ongoing costs can include Salaries, utilities charges like Electricity & telephone bills, rent, supplies required for your operations, marketing & advertising etc. Ongoing expenses should be considered for good enough period atleast till the period you get operational breakeven & beyond.

8. Must keep atleast +20% buffer while calculating your expenses. More the buffer better prepared you are.

How to start a business with no money or investment?

2008-07-22T13:39:00.004+05:30

Some of the successful people have said that "there is always a baggage that comes with investors’ money & also you will be responsible for other's karmas”. So sometimes it’s a good idea to start with whatever little money you have. There is a freedom & a control that comes with no money. There are tons of ways to make money, but people never pursue them because they seem "menial" or "not worth their time". In every locality or community you will find few problems which most people are living with. A smart person can actually tap these kinds of opportunities & make money as well as create good-will & the network.

One more thing which sometimes goes against people who wants to pursue their hobbies into their business. Though it helps sometimes but someone has to be practical enough to be aware of the market scenario & what makes business sense. But it is found that if instead of concentrating on your hobby only if someone concentrates on the processes used in the business it will return far better results comparatively. Processes could be building teams, collaborating with others, wrestling with creative challenges, supplying customers with value, entertaining paradigm-shifting ideas, dreaming of the potential for fast growth, and being socially responsible to all the stakeholders.

Some of the points which can help one get succeeded in their startup businesses:
Try to be Pro-people & hire good people
Try to be a specialist of the business you are in
Do on-hand as & when needed
Be passionate about your work
Be an example for your employees
Use problem solving tools to deal with the problems.
Think ahead of time
Some of the things every new entrepreneur must remember if he has to succeed & sustain in the race:
· Always plan for each & everything for your success. If you & your employees are working long hours that means there is something wrong with your planning & management
· Always deliver value not junk
· Buy good stuff sell good stuff
· Be innovative
· Involve & collaborate
· Stick to your values

What product youth of India would like to buy thru Internet?

2008-07-20T21:02:00.001+05:30

I have been researching on the subject that what is it that youth of India wouldn't mind buying online without having an itch of evaluating & seeing the stuff physically. I would like to hear recommendations of you folks who have been working on the similar analysis & are budding entrepreneurs in making. Please join in my search & partner with me.

Some of the reasons why startups fail?

2008-07-20T18:53:00.002+05:30

Why most startups fail?

Starting a business of your own has a lot of benefits such as being your own boss, facing new challenges, a high growth potential and reaping all the rewards of your hard work, however, success in a small business can never be taken for granted. Entrepreneurs who want to run their own small businesses cannot afford to ignore the difficulty of starting a business. The following are the primary reasons for small business failure:

• Lack of planning: Not having a proper business plan is a major pitfall that can lead to failure of a small business. A SWOT analysis is necessary to be able to overcome difficulties during its growth. A business plan gives proper direction to the business.

•Trying to make a hobby into a business: Not every hobby can be transformed into business. Before planning to start a small business, the idea must be thoroughly researched for its feasibility.

•Inexperience in managing a small business: To run a small business successfully it is necessary to be familiar with several aspects of the industry, its trends and possess the skills necessary to market one’s products and services. Inexperience in these aspects can result in failure of the business.

• Poor record keeping and financial controls: Not maintaining good accounts of profits and expenses, taxes etc is also a cause for small business failing.

• Entrepreneurial enthusiasm: Entrepreneurs must learn to differentiate between "true opportunities" and just new ideas that are not practical. It is necessary to compare the idea with the business plan objective and see if it the skill and time is really available to put the idea into practice.

• Inefficient money management: It takes about a year or two for small businesses to make profits, so not having proper resources can hamper the growth of the business. Also,personal use of business funds must be prevented.

• Dependence too much on a single element: Small business owners must be careful against offering just a single major product service or having just one big client. Though this might be the major source of profits they must think of what might happen when they no longer have the source and try to broaden their horizons.

• Competition: Competition is a major factor influencing the success or failure of small businesses. Therefore it is necessary to identify the exact nature of competition, their services and how our products/services are superior.

• Poor marketing: The success or failure of a product can depend on good marketing.Therefore it is important to research every marketing method used and stick to those that are yielding results.

• Entrepreneurial exhaustion: Having a small business requires patience, capital, time and energy. Not every individual is cut out for it. Long work hours can cause exhaustion and lead to a lack of interest in the business which can stunt its growth.

• Faulty location: Visibility is very important for the small business. If the store is not easily found by clients and suppliers, profits could suffer.

• Poor selling techniques: Business fail if owners are not able to get potential customers to buy their products.

• Postponing tasks and improper time management: Deferring important tasks can be lethal to a business. Staff can be hired if necessary for doing tasks that a business owner doesn’t like to do.

• Inferior quality customer service: A bad quality customer service such as not replying quickly to emails, phone calls etc can lead to customer dissatisfaction. Also, not giving the customer what he wants may weaken the bond with the small business owner.

Sam Walton's 10 Rules for Success in any business:

2008-06-30T17:14:00.002+05:30

Rule #1 :
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anything else. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do the best youcan, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever.

Rule #2:
Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them aspartners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

Rule #3:
Motivate your partners. Money and ownership aren’t enough. Set highgoals, encourage competition and then keep score. Make bets withoutrageous payoffs.

Rule #4:
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule #5:
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.

Rule #6:
Celebrate your success and find humour in your failures. Don’t takeyourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails put on a costume and sing a silly song.

Rule #7:
Listen to everyone in your company, and figure out ways to get themtalking. The folks on the front line - the ones who actually talk tocustomers - are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know.

Rule #8:
Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses - apologize. Stand behind everything you do. ‘Satisfaction guaranteed’ will make all the difference.

Rule #9:
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot ofmistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.

Rule #10: Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. Ifeverybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.
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I came across this on another forum and decided to share here with the EDC community. I hope you enjoyed it!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton

How to succeed in B2B trade: A checklist

2008-06-30T16:27:00.004+05:30

1. Collect corner samples,sample books and price info with pictures from old factories, since you've been worked with those suppliers for so long when you worked as an employee. You may also develop some new factories as they may have lower price but the same quality.

2. Make advertisement on B2B like alibaba or popular searching engine like google,kilim search, ect. Recommend yourself on the net is relatively economic to lower cost when your company's not so big at the beginning. To ensure your products info in the advertisement are correct,detailed,attractive. Buyers will come to you by these advertisement. You could also look for buyers on the net actively. It'll be best if your previous clients wanna do business with you even though you've left the previous companies. Yet, I don't suggest that because it's not good if your previous company treats you well. More important, you must be clear if your clients had good relationships with you in previous work, mostly because they trust your company and the products which you may not be strong enough to compare with now when you're boss yourself. Find the proper buyers! Big buyer maynot be the most propriate one for you!

3. Fix your aim buying groups and markets and recommend different quality and price accordingly. Please be sure to make prompt and responsible reply to every clients. Making records of all the inquiries and analyse who and where your products attract more. Adjusting your aim market and buyers according to your experience and new discoveries through the inquiry records.

4. Keep creating new designs, new quality, and new process. For textile industry, I believe excellent designing staff help a lot for your company development. Good sales are also very very important.

5. Keeping eyes on your local market to see where you are among competitors. Try to ensure yourself own at least 2-3 advantages all the time. Maybe your advantage's in the price, maybe in the quality, maybe in designs, maybe in service. Anyway, the more advantages you have, the more competitive you are.

6. Be cautious when quoting price and fixing payment terms.

7. Last but not the least, keep promise to both customers and suppliers. Good credit helps you to get more good clients and suppliers.

Entrepreneurship ideas: A beginning for beginners

2008-06-28T15:22:00.004+05:30

Hello everyone,

This is my first time on any blog. I want to start a discussion thread on the Entrepreneurship ideas especially thru the online medium & in India scenario. I welcome all ideas which can include collaborative partnerships to help each other in various aspects of a startup.

I am looking forward for an overwhelming response.