How I Choose My Opportunity

I first posted this in the discussion area to answer a question in that group. I'll put it in my blog as well for the record.

Well alot of factors really. I will list them down to the best I can in order of impression

1. Website Design

One of my hobbies is website design and my type of websites are something simple, but a bit trendy, and quick loading. Clean code is also a plus for me. Websites that are rushly made give the impression that they are merely there as gateways in getting leads to come in and benefit for them. If you really want to give an opportunity to a person, you'd make the site good. It's kinda like welcoming someone to their home or business. Need to be clean. Also the originality and uniqueness of graphics etc. (No templating) would even convince me more :). However watch out! Some really professional looking sites can be scams as well therefore you need to look at the other signs.

2. Free to join

This is pretty straight forward. Registration fees give me second thoughts

3. Minimized hype usage

Well my definition of hype is repetitive information on the same page. I don't know if people do that so that the keywords add up or again some form of luring people. Opportunities that like to keep it cool and go direct to the point are usually ones that convince me the most.

4. Level of Support

Support is by far one of the major deciding factors. If I can chat with this person on YM and ask questions about anything and even make friends with the person (of course if the person isn't full of hype), I'd take another look at the opportunity he/she is trying to make me join. Much better if its live support through voice.

5. Testimonial Frequency

Testimonials that are in the form of blogs and have dates and most importantly recent dates and also high in number: all of these combined together would lead me to believe in the opportunity's legitimacy. It's always good to have a nice amount of testimonials from real people and people that have links to their own profile and new people coming in to make fresh comments as well. Some opportunties work better years ago and then just fade away over time. The world is always changing and its best to update progress and that leads to my final impression.

6. What Google/YouTube say about it

YouTube is just an added bonus, but I'd like to make sure also that Google has some background info on what I'm joining and also hear about what the world says about the opportunity. This impression also includes forums because I see the forum links through Google.

Well I hope some people found this useful. These are just my 6 major factors. Hope my English was alright as well. Comments are welcome. :)