How do you evaluate a business opportunity? The world is replete with SWOT mechanisms for evaluating a prospective new product offering, as well as with opportunity assessment templates for evaluating a project against overall business goals, customer impact, strategic potential, and competitive urgency. These instruments play a vital role in acquisitions, new products and features, and even the new divisions of business you’d like to deploy.
Prioritize Your Opportunities with This Checklist
How do you evaluate the myriad of business opportunities you face every day? Should you speak at that event? Author a book? Attend a strategy summit? As you face an opportunity, or as you seek the opportunities you’d like to pursue, try ranking them according to five critical factors. 1.) Will this opportunity utilize your unique talents and abilities? 2.) Will it have an impact on people? 3.) Is this an opportunity for you to grow? 4.) Is it creating value for the business? 5.) Does it create opportunities for referrals to new customers? Rank your answers to these questions on a scale of -1 to +5 (Starting with a -1 highlights that some aspects of a project are actually a net negative – such as speaking to the wrong audience or the wrong industry). Then, tally your score. An opportunity that scores a 15 or lower may not be worth considering, while a score of 20 or higher would be a clear win.