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.

Selecting the Right Home Based Business

Picking the right home based business is more than just finding the one that seems to offer the most company stability. There are quite a few factors that go into selecting a home based business and none of them should be taken lightly.First, don’t focus so much on finding the perfect home business or network marketing company to join. The trick lies in finding the best match for you. You should never go with a company that you aren’t sold on because you think it has the best compensation plan or the best potential income. You’ll burn out quickly and never be as successful as you could be if you took the time, from the beginning, to find a product you believe in and can really get fired up about.What are the keys to finding the perfect home based business?Viable ProductsCompanies that do not offer viable products are companies that are out to take advantage of others. You do not want to be associated with or have your good name associated with these types of home based businesses. A viable product or service is the first thing to look for in any type of MLM or network marketing organization.Of course you want a little more than merely viable products. You want products that you feel will change lives, inspire people, make the world (or the people in it) beautiful, or simply make people happy or more productive. Regardless of which, the product needs to be a real product that people can use and that has value.You want a product you can really believe in and feel inspired to share with everyone you come in contact with. That is infinitely better than the average product that many companies offer. A viable product and a product that you believe in will make you not only happy but also make you more financially successful. It does this because you can maintain your commitment and enthusiasm when you believe in your products or services.Company StabilityThe stability of a company is important but don’t let that talk you out of joining new or emerging network marketing companies. The truth of the matter is that as long as there is a solid business foundation in place, competent leadership within the company and the specific organization or branch of the company you happen to be joining, and a solid product, there is no reason that even new businesses can’t achieve great things. Getting in on the ground floor can be exciting and very rewarding.However, it is a wise course of action to do a little bit of homework about the company’s founders and the science behind the products being created. You don’t want to stand behind a product that you don’t understand. In addition, it’s never a bad idea to do a little investigating to find out as much as you can about any company you plan to join. You’d probably do no less with a brick and mortar business venture.Company stability is about a lot more than just how long the company has been in business. A few questions you want to ask include:• Can the company deliver the products and services sold?
•Does the company have a good reputation in the MLM community? How about its leaders?
• Is there any bad press about the company now or has there been in the past?
• Is the company in good standing with the Better Business Bureau?
• Where are the products manufactured and/or shipped from?
• Can the company make payroll?
• How well does the company treat the people who are building it?Don’t simply talk to the people who are trying to recruit you to join the company. Try finding those who have been in the company and left. Find out what they have to say about the company and its stability. After your investigation, draw your own conclusions from the good, the bad, and the indifferent points of view you may have heard.Compensation PlanThis is an important factor when you are considering joining a business venture of any kind. You need to know how, when, and why you get paid. You need to be able to understand this clearly. Some MLM companies have compensation plans that are so convoluted you need a personal accountant to sort it all out.Ask yourself these questions as you do your initial research:•Do I understand the compensation plan?
•Can I explain the compensation plan to someone else?
•Do I believe the compensation plan is generous enough?
•How long will it take to reach the next level of the compensation plan?The ability to quickly climb the ladder of bigger commissions and payouts is one that will help you maintain your motivation and reach new heights in your business but it’s all a moot point if you don’t understand the plan yourself or can’t explain itto potential business partners. We all know how frustrating it is to put in long hours for pennies so make sure you find a compensation plan that is generous enough to make your dedication profitable.Residual IncomeThe final thing that is the icing on the cake in a great home -based business is residual income. This is the one thing that makes all your efforts today pay off tomorrow and for many tomorrows to come. Residual income is making money off efforts of the past, whether those are your efforts or the efforts of others in your organization.Wouldn’t you like to be able to make a tiny percentage of the money that is earned from the efforts of 10, 100, or even a 1,000 other people? Can you imagine what that will do to your bottom line month after month? How about if that amount grows with time, attention, and growth within your company and organization? Residual income makes all that and more possible.Keep these four factors in mind as you look for the perfect home based business to meet your needs and you will be sure to find the perfect business for you – a home -based business you can believe in and be excited about!

What You Should Know About Property Management of Commercial Properties

Now that you have made an offer to acquire a commercial property and are waiting to close escrow, you may want to start looking for a property manager to professionally manage the property. Your real estate investment advisor should present you with 2 or 3 local companies, each with its own proposal. Your job is to decide which company you will hire. The property manager will be the main point of contact between you, as the landlord, and the tenants. Her main job is to:

Receive and collect the rents and other payments from your tenants. This is typically simple until a tenant does not send the rent check. A good property manager will somehow get the tenant to pay the rent while a lousy one will throw a monkey on your back!
Hire, pay, and supervise personnel to maintain, repair and operate the property, e.g. trash removal, window cleaning, and landscaping. Otherwise, the property loses its appeal, and customers may not patronize your tenants’ businesses. The tenants then may not renew their lease. As a consequence, you may not realize the expected cash flow.
Lease any vacant space.
Keep an accurate record of income and expenses, and provide you with a monthly report.
A good property manager is critical in keeping your property fully occupied at the highest market rent, the tenants happy and in turn helps you achieve your investment objectives. Before choosing a property management company, you may want to:

Interview the company with focus on how the company handles and resolves problems, e.g. late payment.
Talk to the person who will manage the property day to day as this may be a different person from the one who signs the property management contract. You want someone with strong interpersonal skills to effectively deal with tenants.
The property managing company normally wants a contract for at least one year. The contract should spell out the duties of the property manager, compensation, and what will require the landlord’s approval.

Agent’s Compensation: you will have to pay someone to manage and lease the property. You may have one company to manage the property and a different company to lease the property. However, it’s best to work with one company that handles both managing and leasing to save time and money.

Management fee: the fee varies between 3-6% of the base monthly rent for a retail center, depending on the amount of work needed to manage the property. For example, it takes much less time to manage a $2M retail center with just a single tenant than a $2M retail strip with 12 tenants. So, for the center with 12 tenants, you may have to pay a higher percentage to motivate the property manager. You should negotiate the fee as a percentage of the base rent instead of the gross rent. Base rent does not include NNN charges. Ideally, you want a lease in which the tenants pay for their share of property management fee.
Late fee: when a tenant pays late, he is often required by the lease to pay late fee. The property manager is allowed to keep this fee as an incentive to collect the rent.
Leasing fee: this fee compensates the property manager to lease any vacant space. In a typical lease contract, the leasing company wants 4-7% of the gross rent over the life of the lease. It also wants the leasing fee to be paid when the new tenant moves in. In addition, the leasing company wants around 2% of gross rent when the lease is renewed. The tenant may also ask for Tenant Improvement (TI) credit, typically between $10-20 per square foot to pay for construction expenses. So if a new tenant with a 10-year lease goes under after one year then you may lose money. As the landlord you should:
Approve a long term lease (10 years or longer) only when the tenant’s financial strength is solid. Otherwise, it may be better to reduce the lease to 3-5 years.
Make sure the new lease has a provision for some kind of rent escalation, preferably based on Consumer Price Index (CPI), i.e. inflation which is 3-4% a year instead of lower fixed 1-2% annual increase.
Consider TI request from the tenant as one of the factors to approve a lease. The TI credit depends on whether you need the tenant more or the tenant needs you more.
Negotiate for a flat rate renewal fee, e.g. $500 instead of paying a percentage of the rent for the life of the lease. The negotiation is easier with one company that handles both leasing and management.
Negotiate to pay the leasing agent a lower percentage, e.g. 4% when no outside leasing broker is involved.
You can see that it’s very important to minimize tenants’ turnover rate as it has a direct impact on the cash flow of your commercial property. A good property manager will help you achieve this goal.

Monthly Report: each month the property manager should send you a report on income received, expenses incurred, and property status. You should Review the report to see if the numbers make sense. You should:

Request a report showing both rent and CAM fees received.
Request a separate bank account for your property and have a monthly bank statement sent to you. Without this, the property manager will deposit and commingle all the rents from all properties that she manages into her company’s bank account.
If you instruct the property manager to send you the excess cash flow then you will also get a check.

Landlord’s Approval: the management contract should specify the dollar limit for exceptional maintenance expense above which would require your approval. This amount varies from landlord to landlord as well as the type of property. However, it’s typically somewhere between $500 to $2,000 dollars.

Communication with property manager: in the first few months, you and the new property manager should communicate often to make sure things go smoothly. You should give instructions in writing, e.g. email, to your property manager and keep records of all your correspondence. If the property manager does not do what you instructed, you may refer to your records and minimize disputes.

If you want to work hard for your money, you may want to manage your own property. However, if you want to work smart, your partner should be a good property manager.