Plan To Succeed With Information Product Creation: Why You Need To Split Your Process Up

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.

Hiring a Property Manager, Is It Worth It?

I am often asked is hiring a property manager really worth the money? My answer is it depends.

The most common tasks associated with property management include collecting the rent, responding to maintenance requests and handling all of the paperwork such as the lease and disclosures. Although these duties are valuable, I don’t believe they are the most valuable services a property manager has to offer. In fact, I think the 3 MOST VALUABLE services a good manager can offer are often overlooked. So what are they?

The 3 most valuable services a property manager can provide you are:

1. Act as a neutral party between owner and the tenant.
2. Save you time.
3. Protect your privacy and your property.

Why? Because when it comes down to it property management is less about managing the property and more about managing people. Sure, the property has its requirements, but the property doesn’t clog the toilet or beg to have a late fee waived. PEOPLE DO. Situations involving tenant relations is where a property manager can really shine.

Reason # 1

If you decide to manage the property on your own and deal directly with the tenant they will always know you have complete control and final say over enforcement of your end of the lease. When the tenancy is peachy-keen and everyone is happy this isn’t a problem, but the moment the rent comes in late is where the rubber meets the road and things can get rocky. So there you are, it’s the 5th of the month and still with no rent. As part of the lease a late fee is now due and so you send a notice to notify the tenant of the late fee being assessed. Next thing you know you get a call from your tenant and they want YOU to make an exception. They tell you they’ve been a great tenant, they always pay the rent on time, they’ve been a good neighbor and that they have even done maintenance around the house. Now you have two options, make an exception which would set a new tone for the relationship and may encourage future bad behavior, or stick to your guns and turn your good relationship with your tenant sour. Remember the tenant knows you have final say and will take your decision to not be flexible personally. Suddenly you’re no longer on their nice list and they won’t be going the extra mile for you in the future. Either way you go, you loose. This is where having a property manager can be great. The manager can politely tell the tenant it is their job to enforce the lease and although they wish they could give the tenant a break, they have to comply with fair housing laws and treat everyone the same. The tenant may not be happy with the outcome, but it is a lot easier for someone to understand another person “just doing their job” than a landlord they perceive as being greedy and ungrateful.

Reason # 2

It may not seem like it, but managing a property can be a time intensive task. Collecting the rent requires you to keep a record and make a trip to the bank. Maintenance requires you spend time building good relationships with contractors in the area, scheduling maintenance, doing follow ups to make sure the work is complete and paying the invoices. Individually these things may not seem like much, but together they can eat away a lot of valuable time you could be spending with friends and family. Instead of handling it all yourself you could hire a property manager to take over these duties and regain the most valuable asset you have, time.

Reason # 3

In this day in age privacy is priceless. The last thing you want is a disgruntled tenant showing up at your home during dinner because they are unhappy about a fee they’ve been assessed. By hiring a property manager you can prevent this situation from arising. Instead of you, the manager will be in charge of collecting the rent and all related charges. By having a manager they can shield you from unpleasant experiences with your tenant and provide you with the privacy you deserve.

If you are considering renting your home please ask yourself the following?

1. Do you have good people skills and can you enforce the lease while preserving the relationship?
2. Are you OK with spending the free time you have on your property?
3. Do you value your privacy?

Depending on your answer you may want to consider hiring a property manager in your area.

Information Product Creation: Never Compete on Price Because There Is Only One You

Information product creation requires extensive preparation, no matter which niche you work within and you want to make sure that your information product has a successful launch. That probably sounds scary and intimidating but here’s the thing: this is a one time effort and it will pay off in a foundation that is strong enough to get your ideal clients to invest in your high-end programs and services without the perils of a traditional funnel. This article will teach you a few of the things that you need to remember if you’d like to invest in yourself and start on the information product creation path using your unique talents and abilities. Remember that you never have to worry about anyone ripping off your ideas because if you understand how to properly position yourself around your story.

Understand Both Strengths and Weaknesses: It is good to have an impartial view of your own strengths and weaknesses when lay the foundation of selling yourself within the information product creation process. It helps you figure out where you are, what you lack and how to move forward so that you get as much growth as possible. It is more than important, it is urgent if you want to create fast success for yourself to have personal positive reinforcement and deep belief to provide yourself the support you need so that you can get over your own limitations to ensure that your information product is as valuable as it can be.

You also need to know exactly who your competition is so you can study them and use their methods to help you improve your own standings. Down recreate the wheel, but understand the wheel and position yourself going uphill from the competition. Check out which kinds of opportunities you’ve already got and try to figure out how best to use them while taking care to remember your strengths and weaknesses. This is a great way to figure out where you stand against your competition which helps you figure out how best to grow.

Launch on Time: No matter what, even if you haven’t officially announced your “launch date” you should launch the site when you’ve said you would. This will force you to stick to your goal and actually work on it. Thinking that “I’ll launch it when I think it’s ready to launch” will only hinder your efforts. You’ve got a responsibility that you need to live up to with your launch, and you can’t move back on that one. If you get close to your launch date and you are getting hung up on your self limiting beliefs in your information product creation, don’t worry this about getting it out there and not perfection. As long as it is usable you should launch it. Launching on time is the professional thing to do and it is more important than creating a “wow” effect in your site visitors. You can always update/upgrade your website when you have to, so there shouldn’t be any issue with that.

Analyze Your Own Concept: If you want to make your information product creation successful you need to understand how good your concept is: is it really going to work for your chosen audience or would something else be better? You already know about your competition; how does your concept measure up? If you haven’t come up with your own idea and are trying to work with someone else’s concept, do some more work on your own before your launch. People want original ideas because they’ve seen too many other me-too websites already.

Test Your Concept Before You Commit To The Information Product Creation Process: One of the biggest failures people have with information product creation is not testing an idea before putting a lot of effort into producing an information product. PPC to a small 5 page site with a landing page is a great way to test an offer before you even produce it. If people will sign up to get it, you can be sure that you can create an information product that will target eliminating the pain of your target market. The small amount of money will be invaluable in using crowd sourcing to direct the final outline of the information product creation process.

You’ll have lots of hurdles to clear after the launch of your information product and the only way to truly take care of them is to follow the advice in this article to work smarter. Plenty of people work hard, but it is the ones who work smarter who make real money online with the information product creation business model.