Choosing the best business idea

How can you be sure your intriguing idea is also something from which you can truly make a profit? There are three essential considerations:

1. Make sure the product or service has a repeat buy. This is by far the most important aspect of long-term business success. You have to have a product or service that people will keep buying. It's better and more profitable, in my opinion, to have a pool cleaning company than a pool building company. Put another way, a business owner should focus on getting a customer once, but making a profit from that person for a very long time.
    
2. Be certain you have a high profit margin.There are very few companies that can compete long term on a "we are cheaper" marketing platform. In any new business, you need to 
3. watch your cash flow--and if you're trying to work with low profit margins and make gains in volume, you'll need to have a high level of working capital to keep you running through the lean profits early on. Having a higher margin is extremely important when you're growing a business so you can self-finance your growth.
    
4. Build a strong support team because a good idea isn't enough. The idea counts most, yet a quality idea must still have a great team of people behind it to give it wings. Time after time, when people bring me a business investment proposal or an idea they want to take to market, I ask them who's on their team and they respond with something crazy like, "Oh, we haven't hired anyone yet." Get a board of advisors. Get a team of professional accountants, coaches, lawyers and bankers. A great team will greatly improve the chances for success of any business.