Finding The Right Opportunity

In the modern economy, every generation or so, there is a great opportunity for wealth creation. In the 50s and 60s, franchises provided the means for the independent entrepreneur to create at the very least, a nice income and a rewarding career. What Ray Kroc and Harlan Sanders did may have seemed very risky at the time, but in hindsight, things turned out all right for them and many others. What was once a new and uncertain concept is now an accepted standard as a business model. In fact, today, we scarcely go through a day without doing business with at least one franchised business.

In the 70s and 80s, there was a tremendous growth opportunity in the stock market. For example, if you invested $1000 in WalMart in 1970, it would be worth $1,587,000 today. O. k., let’s shorten that maturity; putting $1000 in WalMart in 1980 would have grown to $222,000 by the year 2000. Either way, you would have realized a tidy sum through the growth of Sam Walton’s "risky" venture.

The opportunity in today’s economy can be found on the internet. Notice I said, can be found on the internet. You can also spend a lot of time and money not finding the right opportunity. In this day of unregulated "free speech" on the internet, any person can make all sorts of false claims promising unfathomable wealth if you will just follow the magical system…after sending in some money.

How can you tell if a business is legitimate? How can you spot a scam? How can you determine just what is the right opportunity for you? These first two questions are a bit tricky while the third one – also a bit tricky – really depends on you. For the first two questions, let’s look at some "red flags."

There is a common pattern to many on-line business opportunity presentations. You will see a very impressive home page with promises of instant wealth. The landing page will be filled with testimonials about elegant homes, luxury cars, and lavish vacations. You read the complete web page until you arrive at the part where you are directed to send in some money to see what’s behind Door # 2.

At this point, when you have no idea what if any products or services exist, and you don’t know what industry is involved, it is time to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. If a company keeps this sort of information a secret, you must ask yourself, "why?" A company should be proud of its products and services. After all, if a company is not forthcoming with information, it probably has a reason for hiding things. Is this the kind of company with which you’d like to be in business?

Now, let’s look at what a legitimate business might have to offer. I spent several years looking at internet based businesses, not really knowing what I was looking for…outside of a tremendous income opportunity, of course. Then I put a lot of thought into what I was really looking for and I wrote down the things that I wanted to see in the company I wanted to be associated with.

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