One of the hardest decisions you may make will be about the potential promise of success from an irresistible offer. These opportunities often fall into the category of having you follow in the footsteps of a successful person, learning their process, and eventually profiting from their experiences.
Some of these offers are real, while others may fall more into the category of get rich quick schemes.
Any decision to follow these opportunities is a personal matter that needs to match up with your accepted level of financial risk. I’ve found these opportunities tend to fall into one of two categories: Recipes and Thunderstorms. Perhaps these definitions will help you when you next need to make a big decision over a potentially attractive offer.
Recipes
Think of recipes like baking a cake. If you have the right ingredients and you follow the instructions, then you should get the desired cake.
It’s like in banking, where you put a certain amount of money into an account, at a certain interest rate. You can project the outcome.
This can also apply to certain educational opportunities. For in-demand careers, you must complete a certain level of learning, whether it’s a degree or a certification, in order to be qualified for a job. You simply have to follow the steps to acquire the knowledge. Then you should experience success.
Thunderstorms
Other offers are more like thunderstorms. A thunderstorm requires specific weather conditions in order to happen. When everything lines up right, the storm can be spectacular. There will also be days when the skies are cloudy but not one drop of water falls.
The trick is finding out if the opportunity is relying on conditions that can be easily repeated. For instance, you might be tempted to create a new search engine. You could learn everything that goes into this process from someone who works at Google.
In this case, the knowledge is valuable but the conditions that produced Google’s success may not still be available to your new venture. Google also has a huge portion of the market and there may be very little room for a new competitor.
This theme is often heard in the world of real estate, where one person has made a lot of money buying and selling properties but that success may have been the product of dumb luck or good timing.
With these offers, you must consider whether there’s enough of a chance that you can follow the same process and achieve similar results.
Final Thoughts
When trying to decide on an offer, you should not be afraid to ask lots of questions. Find out why the person succeeded in the past and consider whether the same could apply to today’s market. When it comes to your investment, it’s okay to be a little pushy.
Keep in mind that your perspective guru may have no malicious intent and be a very good teacher. It’s also possible that he or she is too close to their own process to realize that it may only offer limited success.
