Questions to Success? When making an important decision such as starting a new business or undergoing an expensive project, we must be able to ask the right questions first. This helps to evaluate the pros and cons of what we wish to do and if it will actually work out the way we want it to. There are plenty of ideas that sound amazing in our minds, but once we start to consider the cost, time, and effort that must go into it, it may not be such a great idea after all.

There are plenty of examples of this in business and they continue to happen everyday. For example, think about all the product ideas that have failed in the past. One that comes to mind is New Coke that was released back in the 80’s. Coke was already a very successful product, yet the company still went ahead and changed it completely since they thought it could be better. Well, that was a bad idea, people rejected it, and it ultimately failed. If something isn’t broken certainly don’t try to fix it and that is where Coke had gone wrong. Along those same lines, if you are ever decide to make a major change in your business or even an important decision in life, you must consider a number of different things in order to evaluate the success rate.

We all know from when we were back in school that the magic questions are Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. That may be true, but of course it is not that easy. There are an endless amount of questions you should ask yourself before starting a business or making a major decision that will vary depending on the situation. To start you off, here is a list of sample questions you should generally be thinking about.

Questions to Success, ask before starting a business, making a major change, or decision.

• Why am I doing this? What is my motive behind this?
• What are my short and long term goals?
• How will I meet these goals?
• Who is my competition and why am I better?
• How long will it take to go into effect?
• Do I have enough resources to make it successful?
• How will this impact, both positively and negatively, every aspect involved (finances, marketing, operations, etc.)?
• Are there any legal or regulatory issues? How likely are they to become a problem?
• What are the pessimistic, optimistic, and realistic projections for success?
• Do I have the necessary skills, either personally or available to me, in order to be successful?
• Will I be able to handle the worst case scenario if something goes wrong?

Once you have started your business or initiated a new change, time will only tell whether or not you made the right move at the right time. It is impossible to avoid making mistakes altogether, so be prepared for the things that could go wrong. And if the worst case scenario ends up happening, deal with it the best you can and consider it a lesson learned for the future. For more questions and advice, you can read more on inc.com, sba.gov, and bizfilings.com.

What important questions to success do you think should be added to this list?