What should you be looking for in a Home Based Business?
by Joseph Demasi

Everybody seems to be searching these days for that elusive "perfect business", you see them scrambling online jumping from one to another as the Pied Pipers (gurus) of the internet claim - "Get in now! massive spillover" or "this is the best program in years!" or my favorite " You are guaranteed to succeed!". You want a guarantee ( or as close as you're gonna get) - buy a McDonald's franchise and open it up in Los Angeles. Oh, don't have the $1.5 million franchise fee, oh well, maybe you can win the lotto!

The bottom line is- if someone is promising you that you are guaranteed to succeed- run as far as you can away from that person. Now there are programs that are better than others and you will have to decide what is best for you. But, I digress- this is a post about what you really should be looking for in a business. now this does not cover everything, but it should be a rough guideline. Feel free to disagree and follow you're own path, I am listing traits that any businessman would say makes good business sense. Here goes:

1. The company must have some kind of track record. Given the fact that 95% of businesses fail in the first 3 years, you don't want to get involved with a company that goes down in 1 year. I like to look for companies that have been around at least 5 years. This way you know that they have worked the bugs out of their system.

2. This may go without saying, but what kind of reputation do they have and are you personally familiar with the company. If you find that a company is getting all kinds of bad press then I would stay away at least until the press quiets down and fallout is given a chance to happen. Remeber Mannatech- it is a great company with good products, HOWEVER, remeber the 20/20 special about the questionable claims its distributors were making about the miracle healings the products delivered. They literally got scorched on national TV and to this day have not recovered. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3228488 here is a link to the story. It does not matter if the story is true or not, perception is reality and you do not want to always be selling against the story, it puts you at a severe disadvantage.

3. Are the owners/managers successful business people. Have they successfully managed busnesses. This is all important - if you have a great product and a great comp plan and everyone is excited- all it takes is one bonehead decision to bring the whole thing tumbling down and it is very hard to pick up the pieces and put that thing back together again.

4. The products must serve a purpose and be in a growth industry. Let's take health and wellness- a lot of people say to me "I don't want to be in the health business, it is boring". I can tell you one thing and it may insult a few of you especially if you are thinking that right now- a real business person would never ever say something like that! Bottom line is you want to be in a growth industry and right now the health and wellness industry is booming and expected to grow by 4 fold over the next 10 years. Many Millionaires will be made in this industry over the next 5 years. People will always want to look better and feel better! That is why the weight loss industry continues to grow.

5. Is there a marketing system in place that you can plug into to help you build your business. This is a very important part. Remeber the McDonald's example- they have a great marketing system- it is called advertising. All the franchisee's pool their money and give it to the company in the form of fees so that the company will advertise and drive customers to your store. What kind of system or perks is your company working on.

That is 5 to start with and I that should give you a great starting point- if you feel that one of these does not fit for you and you have something else to look at then by all means go for it- remeber it is your business and you need to be able to faiul or succeed based on your own efforts, so don't start out with a deck stacked against you!