What’s Your Return on Investment?

When considering whether you want to invest in a project – whether it’s one you’re doing or one you’re paying for, you always want to ensure you know your goal return on investment (ROI) before embarking/spending.

This will ensure that you focus on/invest in only those things which are going to contribute to/enhance your business and/or life.

Here are some questions I ask myself when determining whether or not to move forward with a project or investment:

• Will it generate revenue/profits immediately?  If not, will it generate revenue/profits within 3 months?
• Is it a one-time revenue generator or does it have the ability to generate passive revenue after a one-time investment of time, energy or money?
• Will it increase my visibility and credibility?  If so, how?
• Will it increase the amount of time I have?
• Will it move me closer to my vision? If so, how?

Notice that it’s not just about the money.

We also need to consider time, vision, visibility/credibility and overall efficiency.

Assuming a project passes the above ROI test, it goes on the project list and when done with your current project (notice I said “DONE”, not half complete, not almost done, but actually finished!), it’s time to pick your next project.

So how do you choose?

1. If something you’re creating, test your idea/project to ensure it’s viable – I’ve discussed how to do this on our GIDR calls (write an article, host a teleseminar, etc. to test the topic and see what type of feedback you get).
2. Once you determine an idea is viable, it’s time to run it through the ROI tool.

ROI Tool:

Step 1:  List up to 5 viable projects (if you have more than 5, pick the 5 you’re most excited about).

Step 2:  Test each idea against the ROI questions at the beginning of this article using the following scale:

1 = Not at all   2 = Not really   3 = Neutral   4 = Somewhat   5 = Absolutely (or OH YEAH!)

Project Idea	Goal Related?	Can it become passive?	Are you qualified?	Is there a desire in market?	Can you roll out in 30 days?	Total Score
.	.	.	.	.	.	.
.	.	.	.	.	.	.
.	.	.	.	.	.	.
.	.	.	.	.	.	.
.	.	.	.	.	.	.

 

The project which has the highest total score has one more test to pass.

Do you want to do it?  Is your heart in it?

If you’d like a copy of this chart, click here.

It so, it’s the one you focus on next.  And stick with it till it’s done.  This is the surest path to fast and consistent revenue as long as you remember one key point: test your project idea to ensure it’s viable.  A project which you love but doesn’t generate revenue is for your next hobby, not your business.

Our businesses are a mix of our heart, our passion, our skills/talents, our experience and our desires.  To be successful is to combine all of these without sacrificing any.