First things first, I would like to address all the newbies out there, who may have gotten hooked on the notion that making big money in affiliate marketing is going to happen for you over- night. Please read my lips, “Don’t believe the hype. ” The internet is flooded with crazy hyped-up claims about how you can make money easily, and quickly, using the top home based business online. Well folks, let’s keep this thing in its’ proper perspective. You can make good money, but it takes hard work, and a commitment to patience. Don’t be afraid to start your business, but please be prepared to go the distance. Remember, this a business venture.However, when you make your first sale or, someone signs up for your newsletter, or whatever the call to action is that the visitor to your website makes, you will have such an awesome feeling of pride. You’ll know that you did that; your efforts got that customer to your website, and it’s just begun. Work and work some more and, the effects will begin to snowball. Before you know it, you’re on your way to having a successful home based business online.There are a few basic points you should to be made aware of while doing your research into the affiliate programs that you may want to promote. I suggest affiliate marketing because it’s easier to start your internet marketing career as an affiliate marketer. Then, there are a few more things you should look out for once you begin building your new business. There is much to learn, just remain consistent, and diligent to accomplishing your goals. Trust me, you can do this. Let’s get started.Pinpointing your niche market. What do you want to promote, what market do you want to focus your efforts in? What are you good at? What do you know, that you’re passionate about? What are your skills? You get the picture. Remember, some niches are easier to break into, than others. You want to market products, and services that you believe in, however make sure there’s a strong market for your chosen niche.Choose a dependable affiliate program that offers you the specific niche market you desire. Do your homework, and you will be sure to find some of the top home based businesses on the internet, ones that offer residual, and multiple income streams. Make certain that you find reputable companies that assist their affiliates through training, along with resources essential for affiliate marketing. your looking for companies that have their affiliates best interests at heart.Get your very own website and set up free e-book downloads and, newsletters with content-rich material that centers on your area of interest. A website of your own is important to have, if you want to be a serious affiliate marketer. This is where folks will go any time they find what you’re featuring intriguing. This is also exactly where you could inform them about additional benefits associated with your business.Make absolutely certain your targeted market will get to your website and sign up for your newsletter. You can do this by offering something unique, use different marketing methods, like video. Get creative, you want people to visit your website and stick around to look at your offers, and take action.I don’t want to be long winded here, however there is something that I feel I must tell you to help you get started on your road to affiliate marketing success. Remember when I told you that there was a lot to learn? Well, there is, but you can cut down your learning curve drastically, simply by getting involved in a mentoring group.It is definitely the way to go. It’s what saved me from becoming totally frustrated. Like I said, this is not as easy as some advertisements claim. It does get much easier, with someone who has been there, and done that in your corner. Having your own home based business can be very rewarding, for those who have the will power, desire, and drive to rise above mediocrity, and change their circumstances.

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.

When it comes to real estate investment courses, there are a lot of people who are selling a lot of TERRIBLE products out there.

As I into this arena of real estate investor trainings, as a real estate coach, I have found that there are a lot of “wolves” out there, and it’s hard to be a sheep among wolves.

What do the real estate guru “wolves” do?

Sell the product that will make them the most money, even if it’s not the most helpful to their students.

Sometimes it seems like it’s all about who has the best sales pitch, NOT who has the best product.

Fortunately, the Internet is making it easier for real estate investors to research these “guru’s” and find out if their products are the real deal, or just a bunch of hot air. Before you buy any product, search for that guru’s name and “scam” or “review” and see what you find!

Here’s what I do when I am tempted by the alluring, emotional marketing presentations…

Personally, I am very big on return policies… If I can’t return a product that’s low-quality, I’m mad… so I’m willing to buy things and evaluate them and use the return policy judiciously.

Note – I’m not advocating “Stealing” all the ideas and then returning a product, but I have returned products whose authors over-pitched them in attempt to sell the course, or who advocate unethical methods or techniques that I would not be comfortable implementing.

(That’s different than “techniques I am too lazy to implement.”)

The problem most of us experience in buying one real estate investing course is that once we subscribe to a real estate investor guru’s email list, it seems like we get new offers, deals and promotions every week, encouraging us to use and implement the next new and exciting program that will help us make money EVEN MORE easily.

We have to stay focused!

The key in actually achieving success is to unplug from all these sales messages, think about your lifestyle, your needs, your marketplace, and decide what type of investment strategy will work best for you. Then find a program, find a mentor, and stick with your plan! Don’t get distracted.

Distraction and lack of focus are our biggest enemies. They usually kick in right after we order the course and start to feel “buyer’s remorse” about whether it was really a good idea to spend more money on that program.

If it was a bad course, return it, if it was a good course – use it! The best way to overcome buyer’s remorse is to start implementing what you’ve learned in order to make some money!

There are a lot of scams out there, but most of them you can recognize by reading through the course. The ones that are harder to recognize, you should be able to flush out in 60-90 days of attempting to implement the program.

So, that means you should feel comfortable buying real estate education information that has a 60-90 day return policy.

If the program doesn’t have a return policy, don’t buy it.

If you don’t have time in the next 60-90 days to implement the program, don’t buy it.

And finally, if you’re down to your grocery money or rent money, you’ve run up your credit card bills, or you can’t pay for the postage or bandit signs the course recommends – don’t buy it either.

There are a lot of good courses out there, too.

The problem with being a sheep among wolves in the real estate education industry is that if you DON’T charge an arm-and-a-leg for your product, it’s harder to get JV partners to promote your product on their webinar or at their real estate investing seminar. It’s harder to pay for Google ads to promote your sales letter. Frankly, it’s just harder and less profitable to be in business.

You really have to have the heart of a teacher and want to help at that point…

The only “profit model” that I have seen as being “effective” for the less price-gouging real estate trainers out there is to use a “profit split” model, where they charge an upfront fee, and also offer take a portion of your profits on your deals as part of their compensation.

Think about it, otherwise, why would this investor who is otherwise “so good” at investing in real estate bother to go into the education business?

If he was making millions with passive investments like he claims, why does he need to teach you and get money from you? You’ve probably asked yourself the same question a few times.

Clearly, it has to be profitable for the trainer, but there’s no reason to charge exorbitant prices for products that don’t deliver.

Great products at reasonable prices is the direction I hope to see the industry go, but until then, caveat emptor… let the buyer beware!