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.

Why Commercial Real Estate Investments Make Sense Now

“Why should I invest in Commercial Real Estate?,” someone recently asked me. With the well-publicized drop in residential prices in some areas of the country, it might seem prudent to be avoiding real estate right now. Fortunately, all real estate is local, and San Antonio has actually been showing appreciation in prices, even though sales volume has slowed to merely what it was in 2005. But commercial real estate is a different animal altogether:

First, commercial real estate is strictly property for businesses, i.e., retail centers, office buildings, warehouses, manufacturing sites, apartments, and land.
Second, there is less of it than homes. There are about 14,500 pieces of commercial property in San Antonio versus perhaps 300,000 homes.
Third, commercial real estate is either for the use of a business or for producing an investment return, as opposed to a house you and your family may live in.
So, why invest in this area? Some of the great fortunes in the U.S. have been based on real estate. Be it the King Ranch or Donald Trump, property investment can produce returns far in excess of the rate of inflation. Diversification is fundamental to good financial planning and that means splitting up your investable dollars into different sectors that will not act similarly. Investing in the stock market, where you can see the hour-by-hour and day-by-day gyrations of your portfolio can be stomach wrenching. Real estate trades hands infrequently, so the valuations are less subject to daily events and more governed by yearly trends of supply and demand. Putting a 5% to 15% portion of your investment portfolio in property is a very prudent thing to do. This will help stabilize your overall returns and real estate may often move in the opposite direction of the stock market. For instance, commercial real estate, as measured by the index of equity real estate investment trusts over the past 10 years, returned a total of 12.4% versus the SP-500 returns of just under 10%. Here are the basic ways you make money from investing in commercial real estate:

Income: Commercial investment properties will be leased to tenants, like businesses, and retail stores. These leases produce rental income for the owner which should create positive cash flow after the mortgage and expenses are paid. This may produce an income of 5% to 10% per year of the amount you invested.
Depreciation: Also called cost recovery, this tax write-off shelters some or all of your income from the expense of taxes. You write off the cost of the building and some of the building components, but not the land it sits on.
Equity build up: Because you can use your rental income produced by your tenants to pay your mortgage, then the part of your mortgage that is principal – but not interest expense – reduces the amount of your loan and thus builds up your equity in the property.
Appreciation: The property becomes worth more money 1) as the rent income goes up, 2) as the market puts a higher value on the rents and 3) as the land value goes up. Additionally, the value usually goes up somewhat in proportion to inflation so that property is a good hedge against inflation.
Leverage: When you borrow money to buy the property, you can control the entire property for a small percentage of the purchase price. Then because your mortgage is fixed, the appreciation in the equity portion of your investment is amplified. You can control more property for less money. For example, if you buy a property for $4, with $1 of your own and $3 you borrow, and the property goes up in value to $5, then you sell it, pay back the $3 you borrowed and keep the $2 left over. You have doubled your money when the property value went up only 25%. And the interest expense of the mortgage is tax deductible.
You may notice that these five elements of commercial investment form the acronym IDEAL coined by Certified Commercial Investment Members (CCIM), the experts in commercial real estate, a good way to remember it. This is not to say that commercial property investment is ideal, but it may be ideally suited to help you diversify your investments so that you are piece of mind or lack thereof is not tied to only one type of investment, like stocks, bonds, gold or oil wells. Spreading your investments into a well thought out variety of investments is a very smart thing to do and putting some of your hard earned money into commercial real estate investments can pay off for you. What are the three most important things in real estate?

Location It is crucial because that is the essential element of property-it doesn’t move, in Spanish it is “inmobiliaria”, the immovable.
Timing. A tract of land on north Loop 1604 in 1980 simply was a ranch or ranchette on the famous “death loop,” the two-lane farm-to-market road outside of town. Now, as time has progressed and the path of growth has overtaken it, Loop 1604 is a 6-lane expressway with office buildings, retail centers, and restaurants. But you can also find vacant tracts of land inside Loop 410 that have never been built on, growth has stopped in that area, maybe properties are declining and time has passed them by. Another example: Californians thought 15% per year appreciation was their birthright. Now they have seen that trend reversed. Like most things in life, timing is everything and real estate is no exception.
People. Every property is owned by someone, and after my many years in this business, every property has a story. People who own, buy, sell and use real estate are the real reason it has value or not. People are the true key to value.

How Will You Start Up an Internet Home Based Business?

Many people today are looking for best alternative ways to earn money. As our economy is declining each year many companies were closed and we as employee are very much affected on it. Before it will happen we should find ways to have income at our own risk through home based business.It is an effective alternative way from an employed person at a certain company. Aside from a boss at your own business you will just invest a little capital on it. Like buying a computer set and install internet at home because it will be the main source of your internet home based business. Here are some tips and ideas on how to start it.*Affiliate Marketing
As a start you don’t have any product yet that is why affiliate marketing would be a great help of you. Because you don’t have to think of a certain product and services because they will be the one who will provide it. All you have to do is promote those products and get commissions through it. Effective affiliate companies are ClickBank and PPC (pay per click) marketing.*Blogging
It is a chronologically based website filled with articles, reviews, or journal-style writing. You can earn money through this by copywriting, social networking, affiliate marketing, web marketing. If you are more knowledgeable on how to enhance those skills then probably you will earn money more than you expected. Study, learn and gather all ideas on how to improve it. Through extreme practice you will surely become professional on this field.*eBay and Auction Selling (a web-based business ideas)
Selling or reselling products via an online marketplace like eBay, Amazon Auctions, or Craigslist. You can sell used goods, buy goods wholesale, or use a drop-shipping service. If you are knowledgeable enough in merchandising, copy writing and most important costumer service will then probably make you become successful on this field.*E-Commerce
It is a selling products or a technology-based service on your own website. Gather all the ideas you learned from the start and apply it in doing this e-commerce method for a great result.*Arts and Crafts
It is a great chance to make your own products and services. Creating and manufacturing your own product lines and selling them online. If you have passion in creativity then it will be so easy to you in making unique products that will be hit in an online market. Sales ideas and techniques is also needed in this business that is why if you are a business minded person then you will be getting closer to top.*Internet Research Business
Doing internet research for corporations, law firms and other small businesses. You will learn lots of ideas through this research and be able to meet a start up business and corporations that will help you organize well.*Freelance Services
In this kind of business, you are just not focusing on one product only you have to offer services also to expand your business and especially earn more money through it. You will provide professional services such as copy writing, design, photography, and programming usually billed on an hourly rate. Enough knowledge is really acquire in this services. Because if your clients will satisfy your services then they will always looking for more services on you again and again.*Recruiting
Recruiting candidates for companies who pay a fee when a hire is made. Again sale performance is needed, relationship building towards them, and networking of course won’t be or never be rejected.*Consulting
Providing your specialized industry knowledge to corporations, entrepreneurs, investors or other businesses. Trade specific knowledge is very much important in this method and sales performance also.*Virtual Assistant
Providing administrative and business support to other business owners and small businesses. You really need a support from them in order to avoid big problem in running your home based business.