Does a business opportunities “Success Rate” determine if the idea or information you’re selling has intrinsic merit?
Having been around the business opportunity field as a purchaser, entrepreneur, and writer for a long time, I would have to say… no.
This doesn’t seem like it makes sense at first.
After all, good ideas should produce good results.
And if bad results or no results occur, then it must have been a bad idea or a scam, right?
No, it doesn’t work that way.
For example, I recently posted about this opportunity to generate income through selling leads to local businesses.
It’s $10 but given the email I’ve gotten, you’d think it was priced at $10,000!
Here’s my favorite: “What’s the success rate of people who purchase this?”
This sounds like an intelligent question but, in practice, it does not yield the information one really needs to make a buying decision.
The answer for this program is probably the same as for people who buy any other legitimate program… about zero.
That’s because people buy things all the time and never do anything…except buy other programs.
That’s sad but true.
But it doesn’t mean that the idea is bad per se.
What does happen over time is that the real entrepreneurs show themselves and take the information they have cobbled together over time and assemble their own plan of action using what worked best for them along the way.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if most people buying most things do absolutely nothing and that most products have a zero percent success rate.
It doesn’t matter if someone sold a book “How to make $100,000 per year as an M.D.”
Everybody knows it’s possible.
Everybody could buy the book.
But how many people are going to do what it takes to “earn $100,000 per year as an M.D.” It’s a very small percentage of the population who can or will do this. The failure rate of that “business opportunity” compared to people who want to make $100,000 is about 99%.
But it’s not a bad idea.
In fact it’s such a commonly known fact that doctors can make good money, you COULDN’T sell such a book. It’s like trying to sell a book with the premise “Did you know that water and soap can be combined to wash dirt off your hands?”
The knowledge is so common, nobody will pay for it.
Where most business opportunities is not the product or concept… it’s in the application of the idea by the buyer.
Yes, there are crazy ideas that you shouldn’t invest in. Like franchises that try to “sell ice to eskimos” for example.
And generally unless you’re working online and long distance, the smaller your town, the less opportunity there for any given concept.
But even if the “concept” is totally sound, demand is skyrocketing, and it’s as much a “no brainer” like “selling ice water in the Sahara”, a business opportunity can fail due to someone never getting off their duff to actually DO something.
So the failure rate is astronomical. But it may have nothing whatsoever to do with the information.
More on this to come…
Gwen Nolan on March 23rd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I believe you are absolutely correct by saying the success rate with a particular home based business opportunity has absolutely no direct relationship with the merit of the business or opportunity. With my particular home based business I am, the rewards are absolutely huge for any serious entrepreneur who is willing to do whatever it takes to get through the learning curve and follow the simple system to get the job done.
To build any real business takes time, perserverence and — dare I say the word — “work!”
The work we do from home as entrepreneurs in our own home based enterprise should be indeed a pleasure to do if our business is doing what we are passionate about or is getting us on down our path closer to our life’s passion and purpose.
Sadly, it is true that very few people are willing to put forth the effort required to reap the rewards.