How To Evaluate A New Business Opportunity
If you are searching for ways to earn an income using the internet, you must have already come across many programs with unbelievable claims of overnight income. This article outlines 7 criteria that I use to evaluate any opportunity that presents itself before me.
* 1> Is there a Product in Demand
If you are thinking about a business on the internet, there has to be a product that has a huge demand and that can be sold on the internet. Many fly by night programs focus on building a downline and recruiting other people without having a solid product, there has to be a product that people can use. If the company has a product that you cannot understand, then stay away from such a company. Even if you have a product in demand, it has to be sellable online, For Example, if you try to sell Pepsi or Coke on the internet no one will buy it online, as they would prefer to buy such products in the super market. What type of products are sold only online ? Domain registration, Website hosting, email etc – these are few examples of products that have a huge demand and that can be sold online.
* 2> Is it a Stable Company
A stable company means that the company promoting the product has to be a debt free company in existence for a period of many years. Avoid Here today gone tomorrow companies that try to sell the concept “get in at the top to make huge income”. Look for companies that have been growing for a long time. Even better if you can find a stable company that has been selling its products for many years without the help of any affiliates, and has recently launched an affiliate marketing program.
* 3> Can it produce a good income for me
How many sales will you need to make to produce a sizeable income ? Is the effort that you put in to make a sale justified by the compensation that you receive ? You should study the compensation plan of the company and determine if it is worth promoting their products.
* 4> Is the product affordable
The end customer who purchases the product should find value for the price they are paying. It does not matter to the customer how many levels of up line are being paid commissions. The business opportunity should come second to the product value. If the same product is available elsewhere for a greatly reduced price, then it would be difficult selling such a product.
* 5> Can the product produce repeat sales
A one time sale will produce only a one time income. Products that keep producing repeated income are preferred to products that produce a one time income. For example, if you sell an ebook information product you will have a one time profit from each client, where as if you were to sell monthly membership access to several ebooks that are updated every month, then you have an income that will continue every month as long as the member remains subscribed. Products like domain registration, website hosting, email etc are excellent sticky products that will produce residual income because the value to the customer increases with time for the same cost. For example, when a person has built their website they are more likely to renew rather than loose their work, similarly when a person has branded their domain name and given their email address to their friends and associates, they will want to pay the recurring fee to continue using their domain and email.
* 6> Do they have a strong backend marketing system
The backend systems for the product you promote should be able to present the product to your client, automatically follow up on leads, provide live statistics so you can track your prospects and customers and generate your sales report any time you want. The latest trend in email marketing allows you to enter the email ids of your friends into the prospecting system and they automatically follow up with intelligently personalized emails sent from your email id so the replies can come to you. Intelligently personalized means that in addition to including the names of the prospects in each email, they have a system to track if the email is opened, if a link is clicked etc and the next email uses this information to send a different message for each follow-up.
* 7> Will you feel comfortable promoting this product
Given a product and a company that satisfies all the above criteria, this is the most important criteria that you should apply to determine if this company is right for you. For Example, No matter how good the income, I would never feel comfortable promoting a product like Viagra ! on the other hand I would gladly promote a domain registration and hosting business as it ads to my reputation as a tech savvy online entrepreneur.
Conclusion:
To summarize, you should look for an affordable, in-demand product that can produce repeat sales for a stable company with a good income potential and excellent backend systems. Just recently I came across one such company that sells .ws domain names with email and website builder, it has only just started its affiliate wing. They have spent over a quarter million dollars in making this 7 minute entertaining flash presentation at
http://website.ws/wsbiz/show - I was impressed by their cutting edge technology.
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