Tools For The Best Life Possible^TM

The primary indicator of a successful business is rarely discussed: The enduring passion of the owner for the purpose of the business.

Only the owners enduring passion for a business can pull it through every obstacle of the difficult journey of conducting a business. Without passion, the business is doomed from the start; regardless of whether the business idea is good or not.

I created this business vetting mindmap for my wife. She has lots of business ideas and I wanted to give her a way to vett any business in 10 minutes or less. To accomplish that I needed the tool to be visually exciting. The goal is to channel initial excitement into discovering whether excitement has the potential of turning into an enduring passion.

The Roots of Business of Failure

There are many (Mostly owner-related) reasons a business can fail:

• Inflexibility
• Inability to work with people
• Cheap when should be generous
• Wasteful when should be frugal
• Inability to delegate
• Poor administration skills
• Poor marketing & Sales skills
• Poor financial skills
• Not a large enough market for the product
• Strong competition (Without the above handicaps)

We all have weaknesses in some of these areas. No one person has all the skills necessary to run every facet of a business. That’s one crucial reason why the owner must have an enduring passion for the purpose of the business: To be motivated to overcome or compensate for their own business weaknesses.

An Extension of Purpose

Discovering the right business for you is as hard and easy as living a purposeful life. Your Optimal Business is an extension of your own unique purpose. You could go through the yellow pages all day long and not find it because the discovery is an inside job.

By the way, your purpose doesn’t have to be grand; It just has to be yours.

Whether you love being behind your own bar and talking with the customers, writing a book about plants, flying an airplane or taking care of your family while working with your hands . . . it’s all up to you. Frankly, I don’t think any purpose is better than another in the grand scheme of things. They all fit together in a worldwide mosaic with everyone providing for each other’s needs.

It’s a matter of knowing yourself, knowing the people in your world and asking the question, What can I do to help?

Ideally, you want to live and run your business in a way that, even if you’re only mildly successful from the worlds point of view, you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Employ Yourself

Working for a "Company" is new thing from an historical perspective. Before the industrial revolution people just provided for themselves as best they could. Your "Job" was everything you did that day to provide for yourself and family.

As more "Companies" go out of business there are less "Jobs" in the modern sense. However, there is plenty of work to be done.

You might call this article the small business companion article to Jobs For Hard Times. See that article for an extensive list of business oppurtunities that will always exist in good times and in bad.

Download the Mindmap

The Business Vetting Checklist is meant to be viewed as a Mindmap. To do that you’ll need to download the MindManager Viewer. View the mindmap starting at the top right and go clockwise around to each question.

• Business Vetting Mindmap
• Business Vetting Mindmap in PDF

Or in text formats:

• Business Vetting Checklist in Powerpoint
• Business Vetting Checklist in Word

Business Vetting Checklist – Outline Text

If you can’t view the ‘picture’ forms of this checklist then here’s an outline, in text form. Outlines like this are proof that words are inferior to pictures, images, maps, diagrams, etc..

1. What is the purpose of your life?
   1. Does this idea support your purpose?
2. What would you regret NOT doing if you were to die within 5 years ?
   1. Does this opportunity serve avoiding that regret?
3. What are your unique strengths ?
   1. Does this idea use at least 3 of them ?
   2. What did strengthfinder list as your top 5 strengths ?
4. What are your weaknesses ?
   1. Is a MAJOR prerequisite for success an area that you are weak in?
      1. How will you compensate for them in this business ?
      2. Can you outsource your weaknesses in this business directly ?
5. Does this idea require or emphasize your  unique talents ?
   1. What other opportunities that  DO REQUIRE your unique talents will you NOT be pursuing as a result ?
6. What are your goals for starting this business ?
   1. Is something other than your life’s purpose or the use of your unique strengths driving you toward this business ?
      1. You may have discovered an INTEREST or an aspect of life that you could integrate into your life,
         Just buy the product or use the service and forget the overkill of starting a business around a mere interest
      2. Is this a money making only venture or are you passionate about the nature of the business itself ?
      3. Do you ONLY want to be successful ?
      4. Do you need to be seen to succeed in this business for some reason not tied to your life’s purpose ?
         1. Family expectations only ?
         2. Outdated self-image reasons only ?
         3. Childhood expectations of yourself
7. Is the idea scalable ?
   1. What are the economies of scale ?
      1. How exactly do your efforts get multiplied ?
   2. What are the dis-economies of scale ?
      1. bureaucracy, taxes, compliance, employees, ownership, buildings, inventory
8. Can this idea be implemented by anyone ?  (A possible franchise)
   1. If yes, then why are you able to be more competitive than everyone else ?
      1. What are your geographical dependencies ?
      2. Can you get ownership control of the territory by the franchisee ?
   2. Do you actually like the product ?
      1. Would you buy this product ?
      2. Would you use this service ?
   3. Have you factored in the narrow profit margins involved with multiple competitors ?
9. What are the liability exposures involved ?
   1. Is there another aspect of the same business that is more efficient or has less liability ?
   2. Do you need extreme liability protection to protect personal assets ?
10. What are the opportunity costs of pursuing this business ?
    1. What is the up front investment ?
       1. Is it worth NOT paying down your mortgage to invest in this business idea ?
       2. Is it worth NOT paying off your credit cards to invest in this business ?
       3. Can you get someone else to put up the money WITHOUT making them a partner and without it being a loan ?
    2. What is the lifestyle necessary to support the ongoing success of this business ?
       1. How does that lifestyle fit with the other aspects of your life ?
       2. What aspect of your personal life are you willing to focus LESS on to make this business succeed ?
    3. What other opportunities will be closed to you if you spend the next 2 years on this opportunity only ?
       1. Are you willing to give up working on ALL your other opportunities and focus solely on this one for 2 years ?
11. If you were running this business what would a typical day be like for you?
    1. What would that day be like after you integrate the other elements of your life into this opportunity ?
       1. Is that what you want your ideal day to be like ?
          1. See also: Does their daily activities match the description of your ideal day ?
12. What mistakes can you avoid by learning from others ?
    1. have you talked with someone who is already successful in this business ?
       1. Will they show you their taxes or their gross/net receipts ?
          1. Present these questions to them and what are their answers ?
          2. What would they do if they had to start this business over again ?
    2. Does their daily activities match the description of your ideal day ?
       1. What could you do differently to make it match your ideal day and still be successful ?
    3. Are there any books on the market written by leaders in this industry that you can learn from ?
    4. What is the track record of success for others who have tried to start this business ?
       1. What will enable you to succeed where others have failed ?

Tags: business, DIY, economy, Finance, How-To, independence, money, Optimal, Personal, Purpose, Strengths, survival, Weaknesses

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 2:26 pm and is filed under DIY, Finance, How-To, Personal, Purpose, Strengths, Weaknesses, YO, economy, independence, money, survival. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.