Janine: Hi and welcome to today’s Three-Minute Money Tip. This is Janine Bolon, and today we have Joyce Feustel who helps people especially those over the age of fifty to become more effective using their social media, LinkedIn and Facebook. She works with business owners, business development professionals, business consultants, job seekers, and more ranging from entrepreneurs to people in large corporations. Hey, by the way, check her out here at boomerssocialmediatutor.com, that is where she has a lot of awesome free stuff that is available. But today she is going to be describing for us what is the criteria for evaluating a business idea. Is it worth your time? Is it worth your money? Is it worth your energy to go forward with this? So, Joyce, take it away. You have three minutes.
Joyce: Thanks, Janine. So, do you pay attention when someone suggests a business idea to you? Well, if you’re not doing this, I highly encourage you to start paying attention. You’ll, in fact, I would not be sitting here today if eleven years ago when my manager gave me a business idea for helping Baby Boomers with their social media and run with that idea. So that’s an idea I’m really glad I paid attention to. But then other ones come along and we’re thinking, “Really? I wonder.” So, I’m going to tell you the criteria that I made up and then give you a real-life example. A decision I looked at, I mean idea I looked at and then decided not to go with it.
Joyce: So, the first criteria and perhaps the most important one when it comes to your energy is, do I immediately resonate with this idea. Does it make my heart go kind of pitter-pat? Second, how well does this idea align with my personal values and the mission of my business? Third, if I implemented this idea, how would it impact the rest of my business offerings? Fourth, what do my closest business associates think about this idea? Do they think it makes sense for me? And of course, the obvious, what would be implementing the idea cost me in time, money, and energy? One more time through those; Does it resonate with you? Does it line up with your values and the mission of your business? How would this idea affect the rest of your business offerings, what other people think, and what is the cost in time and money?
Joyce: By way of example, recently, someone I know gave me the idea of taking my e-book which is one of the free resources available through my website, putting it up on Amazon, and selling it. She has this proposal that was close to seven hundred dollars and a whole bunch of my time as well. I ran this by some other people, I ran it by myself, the god of my understanding, all of that, and I decided that I’d have to sell quite a few of these books at let’s say five dollars a pop. I believe it was two hundred and seventy-eight if I remember the math, just the hard copy version. I’m thinking, that’s a lot of my time. And, really, I don’t need the money for this or that much exposure. I’d rather have this e-book be special, be something that people get when they go to my website, get on my mailing list, that’s a cool thing, and be like they’re a VIP when I give them this special gift. So the next time a business idea comes to you, think it through. Don’t just reject it out of hand, but apply your criteria to see if you want to go ahead and implement that idea.
Janine: Thank you so much for joining us today, Joyce. This is Joyce Feustel who is with Boomer’s Social Media tutor.com. I encourage you to go to her website get her free e-book. It is worth your time. It is worth your investment of energy to do that and we will see you next Friday on the Three-Minute Money Tip. This is Janine Bolin.
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