Is It a Golden Inspiration, Or Just an Average Idea?

Success-building secrets from The Entrepreneurship Mastery Program

I recently spent an evening listening to classroom activity in our Entrepreneurship Mastery Program. What a session! Students were calling in. Tim Goertel, Vice President of Strategic Insight for Reed Exhibitions, was helping them determine whether their business ideas could make it in the marketplace. And Beth Polish, professor for the course, was using her keen mind to move the discussion along.

It was such a great session that I started taking notes that I will share with you in this post.

So, can your business idea make it in the marketplace?

To understand your chances for the success of your business idea, you can't just go with your gut. You have to get your emotions out of the process and ask some critical questions:

• What is your market? How many customers are already buying products or services similar to those you will offer? How much money are they spending on them?
• Who are your customers? Where do they live? What do they earn? Do you really understand what they need and want? Can you deliver it?
• Where is your industry headed? Are customers just waking up to their need for what you have to sell, or is the market well established? Is there some new technology that is creating new opportunities for fast-moving entrepreneurs like you? Are new international competitors arriving and heating up the scene?
• Who are your competitors and what are they doing? Are there a lot of them? Have they saturated the market? If many, do you have competitive advantages that will let you win some of their market share?
• Where, exactly, will you be in one year, two years, three years and beyond? The answer to this question hinges on your answers to the earlier ones.

These questions can help you make sure that your flash of inspiration won't end up being a flash in the pan. There's another benefit to asking them too -you will have to answer them again when you ask investors to put their dollars behind your dream.

On Another Topic, A Special Welcome to Our Blog's International Visitors

Just yesterday - a typical day - we had 75 visitors from Edmonton, Aberta, 50 from Dubai, 49 from Auckland, 23 from Warsaw, 21 from Bangladore, 21 from Madrid and 21 from Seoul. And that list represents a very small portion of our international readers.

Please feel welcome here, and please contribute your views. Your international perspective is valued. If English is not your first language, please share your views and opinions anyway. Our goal here is to share ideas about success, not read perfect English.

Many thanks. And please keep coming back.

Barry Lenson is Executive Editor at Trump University.