Five Things To Evaluate

Harvard School of Business?

I don’t think I can count how many opportunity meetings I’ve sat through where the five things to evaluate were given as coming from the Harvard School of Business. Three digits, anyway, easily over a hundred times. While the five things to evaluate are all good things to investigate and answer, I have been unable to find anything on Google that actually connects the Harvard School of Business with this simple method of evaluating a business opportunity.

My second problem with them is – WAIT – I’m starting off way too serious here for my own comfort.

A Stupid Joke

What did the Kentucky Fried Network Marketer say to the chicken? “We’ve come up with a better way to sell chickens. You get a cut of every chicken marketed; as America eats, you get rich.”

The chicken says, “I don’t eat chicken.”

The KFNM says “No, no, you don’t understand, we pay you for every chicken you sell.”

“Why would I want to get paid for selling chickens? I don’t want to sell chickens.”

That is probably the worst joke I’ve ever invented, but it makes a point. If someone doesn’t want to sell what you’re selling, are they ever going to put in the work required to be successful, if you somehow manage to convince them that they should join you in spite of themselves?

Back To Harvard

Here are the five areas that the Harvard Business School (or the Harvard Business Review, depending on who you’re talking to) allegedly (by the way, if you know when or where Harvard Business School or Harvard Business Review said this, please send the information along to me) recommends that you evaluate:

1)    The company

2)    The need or the marketplace

3)    The product

4)    The compensation

5)    The timing

I think I’m approaching the record for the most tortured use of different punctuation marks in one sentence.

Okay, so what’s missing, what’s wrong with this list? Well, it’s a good start, but as a saying that Mark Twain popularized goes, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” In other words, you need to do your own research and see if the statistics your prospective company is showering you with are real. Do they bear any relevance to what you need to know about a company that you’re considering working with?

Examples

For instance, if a company says the company is rock-solid, is that rock sitting at the top of a thousand foot cliff, or is it sitting on a few million in the bank and debt free?

If a company says they are the fastest growing company in the automotive  widget industry, but the other companies are growing at 1% a year, what kind of growth is the company really experiencing?

Our sales grew 115% last year! From where, to where? If the year before was $100,000 and it grew to $215,000 last year, that’s not very exciting, promising, but not newsworthy. What about if sales went from $100 million to $215 million? Hmm, maybe they’re on to something here. The right answer depends on what you’re looking for.

What Are You Looking For?

Which brings us to one of the things missing from the 5 areas to evaluate. What are you looking for? What are you good at? What are your strengths and weaknesses? In evaluating any company, or any product, you have to look at yourself and decide if the company and product are a good fit for you. Can you believe in the product? Does it help people? Try the product yourself so you can tell others what it’s done for you.

What Else Is Missing?

One of my favorite mentors has come up with and trademarked what he calls  “The 12 Critical Success Factors™.” He goes into much greater depth on how to find and select a company to enhance and maximize your chances on creating that long-term, stable, residual income.

For more info, go to www.AlansMLMTips.com and sign up for the free “7 Days, 7 Insider Secrets” email newsletter.

Quote

“Dream with me for just a minute,” (Rick) encourages. “Imagine traveling across this great land of ours on your own schedule. You have no alarm clock screaming for you to blast out of bed each morning. You can afford to stay at any hotel and eat in any restaurant you choose. You can purchase clothing and extras without too much notice of the price tag. While you are at your leisure, thousands of people are putting thousands of dollars in your bank account each month.”   – from The New Entrepreneurs, by Rene Reid Yarnell