DUE DILIGENCE IS A MUST! NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS ABOUT IT!

THE IMPORTANCE OF DUE DILIGENCE –

Why "Check Out" a business or individual before doing business with them.

 Definition of Due Diligence:  The process of investigation, performed by investors (or in this case by SIs), into the details of a potential investment (purchase), such as an examination of operations and management and the verification of material facts.

It cannot be emphasized enough how IMPORTANT it is for you to perform DUE DILIGENCE both in your international business and in your personal affairs.

Most of the same due diligence resources we employ each day are addressed and explained in detail below.

Investigate Every Business or individual you are considering doing business with - whether that business is online or offline.

Here is a list of due diligence research tools that are invaluable to your business - be sure to use them (and bookmark them) starting today:

1.  Perform a Reverse Check on the company's or individual's telephone number.  The purpose of this is to learn if they have been at a location long enough to show up in a telephone directory.  Go to:  http://www.google.com - type in the phone number you are inquiring about and google will produce all the results they have on file and if the number is listed in a main phone directory, it will be listed at the top under the title "Phonebook Results".  (NOTE: this will not give you any details for an "unlisted" number and any business having an "unlisted number" should be a first caution flag for you to consider - if they want to do business with you then they should have a phone number that is 'public' and not hidden from the public).

There are other web sites providing this service also, just do a search in any major search engine for the terms "reverse lookup" or "reverse telephone lookup" (use the quotation marks to narrow your search), many will charge you a fee for additional details, most of which can be found through a Google search for free anyways.

Go ahead now and visit Google.com and enter our telephone number in the search box like this "915.440.0169" and see what you get.

2.  Do they give you a telephone number where you can call them?  If so, pick up the telephone and call them, but realize that today's technology can forward a call to any location without you (the caller) realizing it.

3.  Search for the owner's name on the major Search Engines.  Be sure to enclose their name in quotation marks, i.e., "James Doe" or common nicknames like "Johnny Beet ".

The quotation marks will help focus your search.  When using the Google search engine you should search their general search engine listings first and then also click on the Groups option which is one of the links above where you type in your search information request.

This type of search, especially on the Google Groups will sometimes turn up some very revealing information if someone or a business has been dishonest or has ripped off customers in the past.  Access to this type of information is one of the great things about the Internet; it allows you to perform verification and research on just about any individual or business for free.

4.  RIP-OFF REPORT - Before you spend any money with a business you found on the Internet or from which you received information through the mail, visit: http://www.ripoffreport.com - be sure to use their web site search engine.

Type in or copy and paste the company's name and/or the owner's last name and/or their telephone number and/or their web site address (hint: all you need is the web-site.com name (or .net, .org, .us, etc.) - you do not need the entire http or www stuff).  See if anything comes up.

Searching for just part of the company name and/or all of it, don't think by searching just one or two ways that you have covered all the bases, you must use a variety of different combinations and/or reference points to find anything that may be posted.  

SPECIAL NOTE: If you are unwilling to perform the little amount of research suggested to you here, you better forget about going into business for yourself, especially the import export business.  Quite frankly, if you do not perform due diligence, you are a mark looking for a rip off artist.  If that offends you, so be it, but it might just save you some of your hard earned money.

5.  Access to the owner or proprietor of the business or web site.  When evaluating who you can trust doing business with (especially on the Internet) ask yourself how easy has the owner(s) of the web site made it to contact them?  The more difficult it is to contact them, the more suspicious you should be of doing business with them.

6.  GOOGLE.com is the BEST FREE resource to help you locate information, both good and bad, on someone or on a business. Get acquainted with Google's "advanced" search option.  You can also use the advanced option to show one hundred results at one time, which makes it easier for you to scan over the results you find.

You can also use Google's advance search techniques with multiple data items so you could put in a business name in quotes followed by and with the city name in quotes.  It is a very powerful targeted way to search and find good and /or bad stuff on someone or a business.