20 Questions to Succeed in Business

Dec. 6, 2007 Special to ABCNEWS.com — -- Companies fail for a host of reasons. Bad luck plays a role, sure, but disaster usually strikes because of a more fundamental flaw -- in the original idea, the strategy, the execution or all of the above.

When it comes to building a business, even Warren Buffett would agree that no one can spot every opportunity or anticipate every threat. There are simply too many variables. And in an increasingly competitive global economy, those variables are changing faster than ever before.

What entrepreneurs can do is ask the core set of tough questions that govern the fate of any enterprise. Armed with those answers, they stand the best chance of beating some fairly dire odds: Studies estimate that just two-thirds of all start-ups survive the first two years, and less than half make it to the fourth.

Click here to see a slideshow of the top 20 business questions at our partner site, Forbes.com.

Make no mistake: Digging for those answers is a grueling exercise -- one that takes serious intellectual and emotional honesty. With any hope, the process begins long before money's been spent, products are built and customers are lost.

The real challenge, though, is to keep digging as the business grows. New opportunities and threats emerge, and yesterday's answers may not -- and probably won't -- suffice. Relentlessly asking the tough questions is how behemoths like Wal-Mart, Microsoft and General Electric stay on top.

With that in mind, we present the 20 most important questions entrepreneurs need to answer -- and keep answering -- to build their businesses. Some highlights:

This is the single most important question of the bunch. If you can't explain--in three, jargon-free sentences or less--why customers need your product, you do not have a value proposition. Without a need, there is no incentive for customers to pay. And without sales, you have no business. Period.

Few companies can rely on--let alone afford--clever marketing schemes to separate themselves from the competition. Yes, Starbucks made people believe they wanted $4 caffeinated concoctions, and Louis Vuitton lulled people into shelling out $1,500 for denim handbags, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule. If you want to win in business, you need to offer something tangibly valuable that the competition doesn't. Examples: rock-bottom prices (Wal-Mart); ingenious product design (Apple); extreme convenience (Fed Ex).