10 Key Decision Criteria When Selecting a Home Business

Lots of people are interested in home businesses to make a little extra cash, to help pay the monthly bills, or to create financial freedom and security. Either way, an internet business can help you.

There are some good ones, but unfortunately, there are a lot of “scams” – so be sure to do your homework. Don’t waste your time on losing opportunities or scams.

I used the following checklist to find my internet marketing business – a similar process should work for you as well.

1.  Legal?

Remember – there’s no free lunch. If they’re promising something for nothing, look out.  If in doubt, check with the Better Business Bureau.

2.  Desired Product?

Is there sufficient demand for the product?  You’ll need a large potential market.  Will lots of people think this product is valuable and worthwhile for them?

What we want is a large, hungry, market that will buy from us now; and buy additional products later as well.

3.  High Profit Margin?

Is there a big enough profit to be made by selling this product to make it worthwhile?  Expenses will eat away at your profit margin – be sure to consider them.  Remember to consider the impact of advertising and start-up expenses.

4.  Manageable Competition?

It’s very difficult to sell a product – even a very good product, if there are tons of other people giving it away (or selling it for far less than we are)?

Similarly, it is very difficult to make a sale if you can’t even get your potential customer’s attention.

5.  Realistic Commissions?

Can you make a profit without an army of customers?  How realistic is that?

Is the proposed commission reasonable? Will your time be adequately compensated?

6.  Automated?

I want to work less and enjoy the benefits more.  I want to remove myself from the success equation.

The best home businesses I’ve seen have systems and processes that will work for you 7×24x365 – whether you’re spending the day at the beach with your kids, laid up in the hospital, or sailing around the world.

7.  Targeted Visitors?

Businesses need lots of qualified prospects to succeed.  For online businesses, the key is targeted traffic.

Will your up line help send you quality traffic?

8.  Affiliate Training?

Adopt a learner mindset and seek out training from your sponsor.  You could muddle along on your own, but such an approach is more likely to fail than succeed.

So, another key is to make sure that your sponsor provides adequate training.

9.  Available Technical Support?

Any business these days requires computers somewhere along the way.  If you’re doing any form of internet marketing, that computer will likely be yours.

For internet marketing businesses, a lot of the technical support will be needed up-front, getting your system set up before you can even start doing the business.  You’ll need good technical support.

10.  Customer / Sales Closing Support?

Regardless of the product you sell, there may be problems, returns, changes, upgrades, etc. involved.  You’ll also need adequate back-office support.

Select businesses that also include customer and sales support.  Some will even help you close the sales – those rate really high in my personal scorecard because I simply hate having to make cold calls, or deal with phones, in general.

Winners act; losers don’t.

Evaluate the opportunity against this checklist. No matter how great the opportunity is, you won’t get rich from it unless you take action. Do it.