A potential business partner decided to enter into a relationship with you in your home based business. The next step is training them to be successful in their new opportunity. When you came into this business you were just tossed into the deep end of the pool without any help. Your mentality is if it was good enough for me, then it is good enough for anyone I bring into business. This is definitely the incorrect way to look at building a long term home based business.The foundation of any sound home based business is made up of a consistent training program. The learning curve for any business varies from person to person. They are people who require hand holding through the initial process of developing their business. You also have business partners who do not require any hand holding. You must design your training to cover the person who is in the middle of the spectrum. If you have a business built on a foundation of not training your business partner, then your home based business will not grow. You must give your new business partners roots and wings.Roots denoted solid skills and values while having wings to aspire in their home based business. The first step is a solid training program that strengthened the foundation of your business. Many home based businesses take the money and run. False promises of how fantastic the training will be. Once the check clears no phone calls are returned, the partner is left in the cold alone. The business will only work for the short term, but will fall flat in the long term. The people who are in business for the long term will invest the time and money necessary to make their business partners better.The fact that the training you received when you started was not perfect. The same training principles need not be applied to your new business partners. I once worked for a restaurant chain that told me I was in charge of my own training. I was given some company material and left to learn the business on my own. The General Manager never sat down with me to go over any of the exercises. My foundation at this restaurant was unstable and inconsistent. The managers who came in after me went through the same process. You must have a consistent training program for your new partner. The first 30 to 60 days is the most critical time in teaching your business partner the keys to success. A proven training system is the best way to put people in charge of their destiny. A well trained business partner will lead to a more successful home based business.

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.

So… you are dreaming of working from home. Would you like to leave your old industry behind? Maybe, say goodbye to your boss? You know there are opportunities out there because millions of other people are doing it. Truthfully, there is a lot of argument about what is the best home-based business to run. This is because success or failure at any venture is a very individualized thing. What might be a perfect fit for one person will be disastrous for another; however, there are a few considerations that are universal and I am going to share them with you. If you follow them you will find what you’re looking for and take it from a work from home/ stay at home dad it will be worth it!Because I believe this subject deserves some in-depth discussion I have written a three part article series concerning it. This article will give you the main considerations that must be made before choosing any potential opportunity.Before you invest time and money into taking the jump into home-based entrepreneurship you must carefully analyze the opportunity and weigh it against others. Don’t make the mistake of jumping at the first decent one that someone puts in front you. Consider, just in the MLM industry there are currently 2,700 competing in the US alone! Taking a few weeks or even months to carefully education yourself in the area of home-based businesses is a smart thing to do. Make sure you do your due diligence before making any decision. It’s a sobering fact that over 97 percent of home-based business owners fail in their first two years! Here are some basic things to consider. I have shared them with many folks over the years and most have greatly thanked me for them later.Four Things You MUST Consider1) The product, Service, or Opportunity Connected to the BusinessesEverything else aside, what is the business you are looking into really about? What exactly are you going to be selling? Who are you going to be helping? What opportunities are you going to be building for others? If the business works out it will be your job. Make sure it is something you will really want to do for years to come. Is this opportunity something you can stay passionate about? If not, keep looking.2) The Start-up Money Needed Verses the Realistic Potential IncomeWhat is the realistic income opportunity? Do to the fact that millions of folks are attempting to work from home every year; there are thousands of opportunities out there they will cost you a lot of money and time, but may not have the income that is initially promised. Make sure you talk to people involved in any opportunity and see the facts concerning the income possibilities verses what you are going to have to spend to actually work the business.3) The Skill-set Necessary to Successfully Run the BusinessIf you do not have the needed skills, make sure you have a plan to get the training you need. Do this before putting tons of time and money on the line. If you are looking at joining an organization what kind of mentoring is available?Can you find the training you need through books or online?4) The Time Needed to Run the BusinessHow much time are you going to have to run your business? How much time are the opportunities you are looking at going to take? I certainly over estimated this when I took the jump. Between my family, church, and ongoing education I spend about 4 hours a day working at my home-based business. I went through three failed ventures before finding one that had the income potential I needed; and fit my skill-set and limited schedule. Map out your day on paper and be realistic about the time it’s going to take to build any new business. This easy step will save you a lot of heartache down the road.If these tips are making sense to you check out part 2 and part 3 of this article series. Rather than give you my personal opinion, or the opinion of some other so called “expert” my goal is to hand you the thought process that will lead you to what is right for you.