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.

Product creation could be a frightening subject for a lot of Internet marketers to face. Some folks who get in the game with the intention of making a full time income are completely ignorant as to how an online business operates. One of the most profitable ways to create online cash is by creating a product that others are happy to pay for.

Product creation is legitimate method of generating money through internet marketing but many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They start by imitating their Internet marketing gurus by creating information products on Internet marketing in hopes of getting rich the way their heroes did. The problem is that they usually don’t know what they are doing and enter a highly competitive niche with very little marketing experience or connections.

Here are a few tips for effective product creation that may help you get on the right track:
Start by finding a profitable niche with low to moderate competition. If you conduct some rudimentary market research and keyword research, you’ll find many opportunities in areas that will surprise you. Amazon and eBay are two great places to brainstorm for product ideas.

Developing Your Product does not have to be a difficult project. You can find experts in the right field for your niche and pay them to write the material while an artist designs the packaging and website or blog. You can outsource the entire product creation part of the project after you conduct the research and testing to ensure profitability.

Sales and marketing strategies should be created while developing the product and learning about the market. Some experienced marketers use pay per click to drive traffic to their offer page; some folks outsource the entire marketing campaign to affiliates through ClickBank or other affiliate programs.

Product creation does not need to be hard, particularly when the merchandise is electronic. E-books, videos, audio and multi-media products sell very well. They are distributed immediately to customers electronically. Once you have a good feel for a niche market, try to service your customers with associated products and upgrades. If you want to earn money online through product creation, you must understand supply and demand. The majority of new online marketers fail miserably because they go after highly competitive markets or forget to research their chosen niche properly. You have to create your products according to the needs, wants and desires of the prospective customers.

Today there is a lot of uncertainty with regards to the economy and many people finally are realizing that times are different. The age of industry, where a secure job with retirement and a pension were common, has now become the new information age. People have realized that the gov’t and/or their job can no longer provide these kinds of benefits. And with the instability and large dips and peaks in stocks over the past few years, many have already lost 12 years of their hard-earned wealth. Home values are still dropping, foreclosures continue to increase, the employment rate isn’t moving below 9% even with all the injected money and promises and taxes across the board are increasing…No longer can people accept the status quo. No longer are people going to just give their liquid assets to brokers of stocks or real estate firms, or rely on the government’s social security program – “broker” will be the result for most people!People in droves are realizing that they must take control of their future, and more specifically their finances. More and more people are searching for a viable means of creating more cash flow. The issue is people are short on time already and long on commitments. They need to find another income source, but cannot find a job that will shell out the $200 plus per hour they may need to achieve their goals given the time constraints they have. Even if they could find such a job, another job would only magnify the problem described above, further increasing your tax liability, meaning you would actually have to make more income in order to keep pace with what taxes the government’s going to take from you.The good news is, you have choices. Besides getting hired for that magical secure job, besides THAT, what else is possible?One option is investing. If you’re holding onto a large chunk of money – and with today’s low rates and yields it needs to be quite a bit – this is one way. Chances are if you have this kind of money, you’re probably pretty well off already and not relying on an employer or the government anyway. But just for kicks, let us say you needed $10,000/month to cover your living expenses, to pay down some debt maybe and to put aside for savings or tithing, and so on. $10,000/mo is the same as being paid a 12% return on a million dollar investment. That’s just not going to happen for the average investor any time soon in today’s economy – particularly when you take into consideration the government’s portion (taxes). Truthfully, you would need more like ten million dollars invested in order to net $10,000/mo in today’s economy. Therefore not very realistic for the majority…The next option is how most of the world’s richest acquired their wealth: by starting their own business. So let’s look at a few different choices when it comes to business building:Business Building – Option 1:Start a conventional business. You can start a business to design, build and market your product. This too will require a large capital investment up front and financing for start-up businesses is not so easy to get right now, regardless of how good a product you might have. A service-based business may be cheaper to start up but the service sector is shedding jobs and you may have quite a struggle. On top of that, nice of ten businesses fails their 1st year in business. One mindset to have is to just realize this and look to start up 10 businesses. The education would be invaluable and your accumulated wealth by the 10th business – if you even needed to start all 10 – would be among the richest one percent of the U.S..Business Building – Option 2:Buy a Business Franchise (like TCBY Yogurt or KFC). A Franchise is a proven business with pre-developed success structure or system of doing business. In purchasing a franchise, you are buying a cookie-cutter business where you simply follow directions and you are likely to create as much as a multiple six-figure income. The downside again is the initial outlay: some of the most successful franchises will cost $500,000 to $1,000,000 or more just to gain access and the rights to have a franchise with that company. You still have all the other costs of a location, employees, supplies, equipment, et cetera. Banks are more apt to lend money to this type of business structure because of the successful track record these established business models have rather than a new start-up business, but even today that may be hard to obtain. So someone with limited business experience could earn income with a franchise business if they follow the system – and they would have a much, much higher chance of succeeding than with starting up a traditional business – but it’s still too cost prohibitive for the majority.Business Building – Option 3:Home Based Business Work. With a much lower entry cost compared to either business vehicle mentioned above, but still the strength of an an established business model as with the franchise business model, the Home Based Business Work model is often times the best solution for the majority of people wanting to take control and get ahead today. The convenience of being able to work from home and leverage the power of the internet to plug into an existing company’s successful business brings together all the advantages of the above business models with few of the disadvantages. One disadvantage, due to the low cost of entry, is a home business owner has access to the strategies and tools to be successful but must take responsibility to work the business consistently to produce consistent results.One more important advantage the Home Based Business work model has over the others is the ability for Home Based Business work to create lasting residual income – where you are paid over and over for work created once. This does take time to develop, as little as 2-5 years for those serious and committed to their success, though combining internet marketing with the home based business work model in recent years has produced even better results within 12 to 24 months.