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.

Is Your Investing Turning Into An Addiction?

Investing your money in worthwhile ventures and investment vehicles is a worthwhile pursuit. The desire to see your money grow and to secure your financial future is normal and encouraged in most cultures. Is investing turning into something that is out of control? Is your pursuit to leverage your savings to make more money turning into an addiction that borders on something unhealthy?

The rush of having an investment pay off is exhilarating. The adrenaline rush that you get when you cash out along with all the other emotions that go along with seeing an investment through to its conclusion can be addictive. The nervousness of your entry into the market gets your heart beating. Your nervousness as you watch your investment by the hour and then the thrill when you see your money literally growing can rival any thrill imaginable in this world.

On the other hand, there are some of us that allow investing to rule our lives. An investment pays off and we feel like a winner. When an investment doesn’t pay off we feel like a loser and we begin to chase that emotion so fiercely that sometimes thought and reason leave us and we begin down the path to addiction.

If you find yourself checking hourly on your stock or the prices of gold or any other investment that you currently have money invested in then you might have a problem. You might try to rationalize this by saying that you’re keeping an eye on your investments but you probably already have sell orders and stops in place to take care of the need to keep an eye on your position every minute of the day. Obsessing about a stock or investment shows that you’re emotionally involved and a good investor removes all emotion from the investment decision.

Do you find yourself constantly looking for an edge or tips for hot stocks? This kind of behavior is similar to what goes on at a race track, wouldn’t you agree? While searching for an good investment and being an educated investor is wise, looking for underground news or tips on what is going to happen in your chosen market are signs that something is wrong. That feverish feeling overcomes you and you simply must find a winner. You are willing to do anything. You subscribe to clubs and mailing lists to find that sure thing and you chase that rush.

Most of us have one or two investment types that we prefer. We all have a knack for picking stocks, a feel for a certain currency pair or we enjoy investing in companies that we know a little bit about. If you find yourself chasing after profit and trying many different types of investments because someone told you that they know this particular investment is going to pay off then you might have a problem. Stick to investments that you enjoy learning about. Venturing off into uncharted territory when money is at stake is an unwise investment no matter where your information came from.

Lastly, if you find yourself using money that is earmarked to pay bills or that is put aside for savings or your child’s education then there is a real problem. Stealing money from savings accounts or other investments because you lost some money on your last investment or because you feel a need to make money is a sign that there is a problem. Lying or not telling a spouse or partner about your investments and thinking that you can return the money as soon as you cash out is your investment addiction talking and no common sense.

If any of these points strike home for you then you are encouraged to take a closer look at what you are doing with your investment activity. While it is a pleasant experience to make money through investing, it should never be something that is addictive or that you chase after. There are plenty of opportunities out there in investment vehicles that you are interested in. Learning about investing can be fun but chasing after money is always a bad move in investing.

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.