12 Critical Questions to Ask Before Pursuing a Business Idea

I’m just like most other entrepreneurs I know -- I have at least three new business ideas before I get out of bed in the morning. And the ideas just keep coming throughout the day.

Thankfully, after years of trial and error as an entrepreneur, I’ve learned to evaluate my new ideas carefully to determine if they are actually an opportunity, instead of just an idea. Even more important, I’ve learned to evaluate if it’s a good opportunity for me and the lifestyle I want to create for myself.
I do that evaluation by asking 12 questions that I’ve found are critical to determining if a business is right for me. If I have more than a few "No" responses, I can immediately cross the idea off my list and forget about it. If it’s all "Yes" responses, I know I have an idea with real potential.

Here’s the list of questions, with my thoughts explaining why each is important to me:

Before You Start a Wholesale Distribution Business, Read This

Distributors serve to move product from manufacturer to market. Some are retail distributors, who sell directly to consumers (end users). Others are known as merchant wholesale distributors; they buy products from the manufacturer, or another source, then move them from their warehouses to companies that either want to resell the products to end users or use them in their own operations.

According to the National Association of Wholesale-Distributors (NAW), wholesale trade increased by 5.8 percent in 2012 (compared to the prior year) with sales reaching $4.9 trillion. The NAW says wholesale trade itself accounts for about 5.6 percent of U.S. GDP and is an integral part of other larger sectors of the economy—retail trade and manufacturing.