Finding A Killer Business Idea

Saturday, November 17, 2012

You know you want to start your own business and be your own boss - great news. However, you don't yet have the perfect business idea - panic not. Here is a method that I use with a variety of clients that helps them create a number of basic business ideas that can be polished and worked into a fantastic business proposition that is their very own.

The method has three basic steps:

1. Idea Generation 2. Confirm & Learn 3. Start Small, Grow Fast

Step 1: Idea Generation - This is about coming up with lots of ideas, writing them down and finding a common thread around which you can start to build an idea. Just remember your business idea doesn't need to be unique, only the way you deliver it.

I'm a big believer is doing things you enjoy - that way you will put in the long hours and effort required to build your dream business and minimise the agony. Starting your own business really gives you the opportunity to do something you are passionate about.

So here some questions to ask yourself and scribble the answers down:

· What are you good at? · What do you enjoy doing? · What are you experienced at? · What's your passion in life? · What have you always wanted to do? · What are you hopeless at / really dislike doing?

Once you've done that you need to start looking for common threads and how existing skills and knowledge can compliment your potential business.

You may find that you are good at organising, love travel and are passionate about wine. Maybe in the back of your mind you've always wanted to be a travel agent. Your job so far has been in administration, but your really hate numbers and finance. So looking at this list a possible business idea might be around organising wine tasting tours for high-net-worth individuals. To address the issue with numbers and finance you might have to think about getting someone else involved either as a business partner or advisor.

Step 2: Confirm & Learn - Here we take the raw business idea and start to research its potential. As you start to learn more about the market of the business idea you can start to shape and develop the idea further as well as confirming if it is something that will appeal to you as a long term business.

  • Look to see if there is a good market for this type of business - Google Trends and Google Traffic Estimator are excellent free tools for this research.
  • Examine the competition and see how you could be better, different or cheaper. Also look to see how they differentiate themselves.
  • Do some training or maybe get a basic qualification. This will expose you to the environment of the new market and you can quickly see if you enjoy it before investing further.
  • Talk the idea over with some people you trust. However, you must bear in mind that, certainly in my experience, most people will be negative about taking the 'risk' of working for yourself.
  • Get some experience doing some part-time or volunteer work in that sector
  • Go on a highly informative and fun seminar / workshop to kick the idea around!

Step 3: Start Small, Grow Fast - This is about not being bankrupt within a year! You have found an appealing and desirable business idea. You now understand the market better and have gained knowledge and possibly some experience. So how do you put that into action?

I firmly believe you need to test the market for real in a small and part-time way. If this proves successful you can start to build the business and invest more time, effort and money as the business progresses. If your first attempt is not as successful as you wished a) you have learnt some useful lessons, b) adjust the formula and try again.

I would also suggest putting together a very brief 'twitter' business plan that lets you shape you business further. This consists of 6 simple headings - each no more than 140 words:

1. Describe your business 2. Describe the market potential and competitive landscape 3. Describe your ideal customer and why they would buy from you 4. Describe how you are going to market and attract your ideal customer 5. Projected earnings and costs for the next 12, 24 & 36 months 6. Goals for the next 12 months with associated actions

If you can sit down and write the above plan in an hour or so, you probably have a fairly well thought out business idea. If you struggle to do this I would suggest you need more time researching and shaping the idea.

Developing a business idea that is suited to you could be the best investment of time you will ever make. It is unlikely that your original idea will be the one that you are operating in two or three years time, but the original idea that gets you started will be worth more than your weight in gold.

Are Home Based Business Ideas and Opportunities For You

Second, the difference between the work and home based business is determining. When you have a work, your boss guides you how to do and what to do. When you run your own home based business you are the only one, who makes the decisions.

1. You Can Study A Lot, But Still The Talents Are Important.

The home based business marketing is learning by doing. The instincts and emotions play very important roles. This lifts your talents into the center. You just must be talented in that way, that you can judge, what works.

When you evaluate home business ideas, you have to understand the nature of the marketing in the niche, which you have chosen. This is the requirement, which no other pearson can teach you. It is something, which is in the soft features of the marketing strategies and executions.

You are not alone with your home based business, there are lots of competitors. Again, it is impossible to measure the competition with any other meter, than your own judgement. The target group compares your home based business ideas and opportunities to other ventures. So you need the talent to understand the nature of the competition.

The third talent is your ability to understand, how your home based business can stand out from the crowd. If you think, that all your major home business competitors and you are human beings, what is your box, i.e. what benefits you offer, which others do not.

2. Your Skills Are Needed To Express Your Talents.

The most important skill, which you can offer to your home business opportunities, is the skill to write persuasive copy. But why copy? Because the Internet is based on the information, not on images. You can study lots of writing techniques to make this skill even more effective.

3. Your Only Joker In The Home Based Business Game Is Your Attitude.

The attitude is the benefit, which we all can develop, because it only needs the determination. The attitude carries us through tough times and makes us to see, over the difficulties, the home business sun.

It is very important to think already in the start, that the home business venture is not a quick way to make good money. Not at all. This is the kind of an operation, which I compare with the marathon run. You have to have a great attitude to stand the trip and to be able to develop yourself.

All these features are very important, but the most important one is, you guessed, the attitude. Actually, everything comes out from your mind and you transfer everything into marketing actions and communications. If you can see your home based business in advance, you have the correct feeling to make actions.

Online Business Ideas and Opportunities - Passive Income Optimization

Many of us have heard enough about Passive Income, perhaps it was not really cleared explained or people just take for granted. Passive Income can often describes as money that bank into your bank account and ready for you to spend without requiring you to work for it. Usually your passive income generate from a well established and strong foundation of unique business model. Before Internet is blooming, offline direct sales systems is widely known as a business ideas and opportunities to generate passive income. Today Internet has become a great source for passive income opportunities. The greatest advantage of Internet Online business is Global Connections as compared to offline direct sales business. Regardless of what products or services the business is provided. Most online business ideas and opportunities are basically applying these two business models to generate their Internet business passive income.

  • Internet online business ideas and opportunities that apply direct sales systems generate passive income.

These are some of the basic criteria that your should look into when you search for Internet direct sales company.

  • Proven Track Record or History with effective Marketing Plan and Compensation plan, often you can get from the public testimonials or people that been using the product of services.
  • System must be able to duplicate easily by people. There is nothing wrong with copy a good success business model, in fact a good ideas is worth sharing and by helping more people to be success in their life through success business model, the more success you're in your business.
  • A professional team to serve business members and customers, these is crucial element that determine the success of the business.
  • Educations system that must be well received and strong to ensure the success of the business in long term. the original idea of the success business model must not be alter by anyone else along the process of duplication.
In this type of network marketing, you earn you commissions for your own sales, at the same time you also earn commissions for every sale that anyone that you sold a system to makes. Meaning to say you can get paid many times over for the initial investment of time and effort involved in making a single sale. Furthermore, through the effective systems and education, the more productive your buyers are, the less productive you are required to be. Team leadership play a major rule on this type of business model, you have to put in more effort to duplicate this systems through out your own network in order for you to success in this business. Your passive income basically will be determined by how strong you developed your network.

  • Internet online business ideas and opportunities that apply affiliate programs or produce their own information products generate passive income.

You properly do not have to create a product at all if you do not have one, through online affiliate programs, people still generate huge passive income through other people products, You earn commission through selling other people products. There are peoples who have specific skills and professional, they can create enormous passive income opportunities by designing a sales webpage and write their own eBooks or reports for public consumption. Interested reader will have to purchase and download the eBooks directly online. These two types of direct sales online do require some initial effort, time and investment but often require little maintenance, they just have to do some marketing work and make sure people are visiting their web pages or business website. It's possible that operate this type of online income business ideas can earn your income even while you are asleep, it's basically set to be automated and run 24 hours and 365 days.

Finally, to optimize your passive income, you may want to search for a website that provide several proven success business models for you to kick start your Internet Online Income Business. Most of them are integrated in a single website and provide multiple source of passive income in future, it helps you to save significant amount of time to test and source hundreds or thousands of products and company that available online.