IntroductionI recently received a call from a client. I use the word client loosely because in actuality she is someone I help as a volunteer counselor through a local Small Business Administration (SBA) office.Kelly (I’ll call her Kelly for this entry) is everything that an entrepreneur should be. She is passionate about her business idea (a restaurant serving Caribbean food), willing to work hard to turn her restaurant into a money making and community supporting endeavor.I met with Kelly to help her write a business plan and to go over the steps in starting a business. She is a single mom with a six month old beautiful girl and a clear vision of where she wants to go.I mention Kelly because I think it is important for all of us to have the same level of passion toward our business dreams. It is why I often counsel clients to identify something that you love to do regardless if you have a long line of people wanting to buy your products/services. We all want to make money and we can…but it is important to feel passionate about what you are doing.There is a changing demographic in the economy with the growth of the home-based business. Home-Based Businesses are a thriving segment of the economy. The Small Business Administration cites that over 53% of ALL firms are Home-Based Businesses and provide 10 percent of the total receipts of the economy….. or about $314 billion in 1992.For those of you are considering a change in career choice or a way of augmenting your income – a home-based business is one solution. For Kelly, her plans involve renting a space to create her restaurant which involves signing a year’s lease. My advice to her was to delay on the lease and to start selling at local farmer’s market to establish her brand, her revenue stream and to gear up for higher volume sales that are typical of a restaurant setting. I would classify Kelly as having a home-based business at this time as she goes through these important growth stages. Adapting this approach allows her to mitigate her risks and to control her growth.I recognize that this is not a typical application of the home-based business model but it represents the freedom and flexibility that the structure can offer. Traditional types of home-based businesses can range from service-oriented child care businesses to product-oriented craft outlets. Other examples include: farming, catering, specialty mail-order, home horticulture, and computer software consulting, woodworking and bed and breakfast establishments. In Maine there are over 39,000 home-based businesses which demonstrate the wonderful growth of this economic sector. I had a client who did wonderful wood working as a means of reliving stress from his government job and another client who does taxidermy out of his house as a hobby/business. Both of these gentlemen had passion about their craft, both had full time jobs but both were able to create viable small home-based businesses that allowed them to augment their income while practicing their art.There is no one reason why people are attracted to home-based business. For Kelly she wants financial freedom, an expression of cultural pride through her Caribbean cooking and the opportunity to fulfill a dream that her daughter will witness and be proud of. Other reasons for considering a home-based business include:• experiencing the personal satisfaction of making your own decisions• expressing your own ideas• financial independence• being your own boss – or as I like to say being in control of your destinyKelly is a single Mom which is a common demographic for those starting a home-based business. With the ecommerce company that I owned my employees tended to be older who wanted the freedom that a non- traditional job afforded them.I tell my clients there is no greater joy than owning your own business. It is the ultimate expression of creativity. At the same time I’ve never worked harder than when I was running my own company. Don’t be afraid to venture forth in pursuing your business ideas but make sure you have the passion to keep you committed to the endeavor.

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.

In these rough financial times there are so many people looking to start a home based business to earn some extra income or replace their lost income. But how easy is it to start a home based business and actually succeed? If you succeed it could mean life changing income, but if you fail it could hurt you even more financially.So what does it take to succeed in a home based business opportunity? Well, there are many factors that go into your success. You play the biggest part in your success with any home based business opportunity. Your mindset, your desire and passion to create financial time / freedom and your willingness to take action and work a little towards changing your life and creating a better financial future for yourself.The sad truth is that so many people are that are looking to start a home business are not willing to put forth any work. They expect to join a home business opportunity and instantly start making money without having to do any work or put forth any effort. In reality, the home business industry is not for someone like that. There is no magic button that you can just press and create financial freedom. It just does not exist and if anyone tells you anything different, run the other way because they are scamming you!Not everyone looking for a home based business is like that. There are people out there that have that desire and passion to succeed and are willing to work a little. Those are the home based business entrepreneurs that are successful. Attitude, drive, passion, desire and willingness to work to change your life and create a better financial future for yourself is something you can not succeed without. That is not the only thing you need to be successful in this industry, but without it, you are setting yourself up for failure.No matter what home business opportunity you decide to join, no matter how great the company or product is, if you don’t know how to market and you don’t know how to advertise, you are going to have a hard time seeing any success. If you don’t develop the leadership qualities within you, it’s going to be tough to be successful. The most successful people in the home based business industry learn how to market and advertise. They put themselves on the cutting edge, develop leadership qualities and become a real entrepreneur. That, along with the right attitude, drive, passion and desire to succeed and really change your life and create a better financial future for yourself is all you need to be successful in any home based business.