By: Brian Tracy

Do Your Homework
How do you do fast, cheap market research? How do you find out whether or not the product will sell before you get into it? Before embarking on any new business venture, considerable time must be spent in research. Your payoff will be in excess of ten to one in time and money saved or earned. For every dollar, for every hour that you put into research, you’re going to save ten or twenty or thirty dollars or hours later on. So here’s what you do.

Check Every Detail
Number one is find out every detail of the product or business. Study it carefully. There is a very famous story about Walter Chrysler, who formed Chrysler Corporation. What he did is he went out and bought several of the most popular selling cars in America. He then took them home to his garage and took them apart down to the very last nut and bolt. He then put them back together again. By the time he had done that with several automobiles, he had some very, very good ideas on how to create a car that was superior to any other car in America. He went out, formed Chrysler Motors and the rest is history.

Research Your Product Carefully
Number two, before you embark on a new business venture, read trade magazines, articles and stories on the business, industry or occupation. Here is a piece of advice that is worth its weight in gold. At every major library, there is what is called the periodicals index. The periodicals index lists every article that has been written on every subject in every publication in America. The librarian can guide you to the periodicals index. There’s one for every year, and as publications expand, sometimes there’s one for every three months. This index is now available on the Internet as well.

Take Advantage of the Information Available
You can go back and you can retrieve, usually from microfiche or from the library files, all the articles that have been written on a particular product or service in the last week, last month, last year, last five years, and you can make yourself an expert on a particular subject area by using the periodicals index. I know many consultants, when their clients ask them about a particular subject, go down to the library, or onto the Internet, and they go through the periodicals index. They become extremely well-informed on what is going on in that area, and then they sell that advice, sometimes for hundreds of dollars an hour, to their client. So check the periodicals index. Check the Internet. Become intimately familiar with the business before you begin.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do before you start any business:

First, find out every detail of the product or business before you invest any serious money in it. All of this information is available if you will just seek it out.

Second, do your research in depth. Sometimes, superficial research indicates that it is a good business but in-depth research can show you that it is not a good business at all. Be careful.