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.
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.
A Guide on Successful Product Creation and Internet Marketing
Product creation in Internet marketing is getting stiffer and stiffer nowadays owing to tough competition between Internet-based businesses. Putting up a new product requires plenty of brainpower and finances along with an ability to take risk. With that, even if you have the product well-set already, you have to position it strategically in the Internet landscape for others to notice. You should get the interest of Web users and turn them to actual customers. Aside from the usual physical products, many different products that thrive well on Internet marketing include E-books, membership sites, and video lectures.
The long and difficult process of product creation begins with ideas. They are easy to get – compared to the effort that comes with analyzing the market for that idea. Before the idea turns to a product, businesses often spend money, even amounting to millions of dollars, to ensure the success of the new product that emerges from an idea. Businesses undertake many types of market research and surveys before releasing their products to the public. Now, you may think that because your business is small, you can’t afford research or you don’t have to do research; you can and you should. The Internet allows you to disseminate materials needed for your market study to many people at once without your having to spend a cent.
It is a common maxim in business: Look at your destination first before mapping out your journey. So what are the goals you intend to accomplish with your product creation ventures? The everyday travails of your business may make you forget the end in sight. On the other hand, prepare to entertain new developments that come to your mind in your product creation. Your conception of a product may have started this way, but a few tweaks here and there along with some market research results and it ends up another way. Take it as the result of a creative process, not as a failure to reach your goal. After all, your product creation activities are intertwined with a long-term goal that you should strive to sustain at your utmost: profit generation. So if your less profitable initial idea evolves to a more profitable product, be thankful!
With your product made up already, start doing some aggressive Internet marketing. A product purchase typically comes after more than five times a customer is exposed to an informative call-to-buy message. Thus it is important to get the contact details, like the e-mail address, of potential customers who are on the brink of a sale. Use the results of your market research to determine the demographics to which you should concentrate your marketing efforts.
With consistent product creation, you can make an inventory of your products that you can market in due time. Just keep making products – the moment you succeed in making and marketing a product, customers are surely wanting more from you, so give it to them. Keep them on your side through constant product creation.