The following conditions are indicative of a good business opportunity:
  1. Repeat business, not one-time sell.
  2. Prefer rental or leasing business.
  3. Built-in sense of urgency. Health or financial loss from lack of action on customers’ part is ideal. I prefer automatic shipping, for example having a book-of-the-month, so that customer needs to:
    a. Make a new decision to stop
    b. Action required from customer to stop automatic shipping from happening.
  4. Business instead of a practice. Not built on a person’s talent, but on an organization’s.
  5. Regional or national potential, rather than local.
  6. The less labor intensive, the better; however, labor is better than capital expenditures.
  7. Already a market – other companies doing it.
  8. Demographics or lifestyle changes creating the need, and thus, the market.
  9. Emotionally appealing to the customer – there’s got to be sizzle.
  10. The numbers need to work so there is real money to be made.
  11. The more unregulated, the better.
  12. Odds of success are stacked in your favor, not against you.
  13. A proven team, not an untried idea. A great team is more important than a good idea.
  14. Recession-proof.
  15. Success is not built on one client, one product, or customer.
  16. Payment at time of service or before, to eliminate large accounts receivable, accounts receivable aging, collection problems, or costs of bad debt.