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First and foremost, I applaud the fact that you are looking for a business to start this year instead of a job to work at. I’d also like to point out that the hardest part for most people when it comes to starting a business is the starting part – so I highly recommend that do your due diligence and then do yourself a favor and do something, ANYTHING to get started this year. You can take one first starting step by printing this article out and writing your notes on it along with doing the simple exercises.

6 Guidelines to Follow for the Best Businesses to Start in 2010…

1. A buying market for this business
- the rule of thumb is to get into the area of just enough competition but not to much competition

Example of a market that’s to narrow…
- organic sandalwood shampoo for short hair cats

A niche this narrow makes it almost impossible to create a healthy profitable business due to limited number of interested buyers and product price point gives at most a $10 profit margin

Example of a market that’s to broad…
- weight loss

A niche this broad makes it almost impossible to get any market share due to high costs of advertising competition and major brand awareness already in place

2. Availability of knowledge and resources needed to be successful in my chosen business
- If your going to start a business Djing at large corporate parties you’d better make sure you can find and learn from others that have already created success in that market.

If you have your pick at going across the land mine first or last, you want to go last, so you can watch where the people ahead of you got stuck, hurt, and lost. While it may seem exciting to be the first person into a business model, you will inevitably waste a great deal of time and pay a costly price. Skip the excitement and be humble enough to learn from somebody’s whose BTDT (been there done that) in your desired business.

3. Ability to capitalize on the E-commerce boom
- Lets face it ALL business is headed to the internet

Steer clear of businesses that have no idea what Google or social networking is! Frankly if you do not have a growing E-commerce presence now, in 10 years your business will be obsolete.

Absolute online must have check list:

( ) A dynamic website with a shopping cart feature
(”dynamic” means you update it not your techy web guy)

( ) A blog
(WordPress is your best bet)

( ) A social media presence on the big 4
(facebook, myspace, you tube, linked in)

( ) A merchant account
(to process credit cards and pay pal accounts)

( ) An auto responder
(aweber, Icontact, or get response are the easiest to use)

4. A proven plug and play system
- another way of putting it is called a scalable business model or a franchise – in other words a system that is already in place and is easy enough that anyone can plug into regardless of there prior experience.

The beauty of buying into a franchise model is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you get to hit the ground running as soon as you go through the companies training.

5. Team support
- Team support is code for a mastermind or a group of people that can offer suggestions, give feedback and listen to your struggles as you build your business.

The entrepreneurs journey can be a lonely one so its crucial that you find an outlet of other like-minded individuals to connect with.

In franchisees they usually have annual meetings for all franchise owners to get together and discuss what’s working and what’s not in regards to employees, new product ideas, marketing and selling points.

On the internet side of things make sure the business already has active discussion boards (forums) and a social networking site (ning community)

6. A high profit margin
- OK so can we both agree that we are in business to make money, or should I say to make A LOT of money.

You can approach this in a few ways:
- get into a market where the affluent person buys
- sell a main product that profits at least $100 per sale
- choose a smaller amount of higher quality, higher paying customers over a large quantity of low paying customers