1. Take one giant step backwards by writing down your goals.

Not your goals for the information product, but your goals for life and business. Creating an information product should be just one piece of a bigger puzzle. By crystallizing your goals in writing, you’ll know how your product contributes to the bigger picture. When writing, make your goals as specific as possible, list any challenges that you’ll need to overcome, and list the benefits of achieving your goals. Once you have a clear idea of the benefits, visualize them often, as if you’ve already reached them. This will condition your mind to accept them as attainable and block the self-sabotage mechanisms that sometimes hold us back.

2. Set a launch date for your information product and make it public.

By committing to a date, you are entering into a contract with yourself to deliver the goods. And once you have the launch date, create the mini-deadlines that you’ll have to maintain along the way. This timetable will serve as your roadmap and the deadlines will minimize the “tinkering factor” (spending 50% of your time perfecting the last 5% of the product).

3. Form a mastermind group with 1 to 5 other entrepreneurs with similar interests and needs.

Mastermind groups are terrific for exchanging best practices and resources, but their greatest value is as an “accountability partnership”. Ask your mastermind partners to keep you on course by challenging you when they see a deviation from your original plans. If done in a positive and constructive manner, this will provide balance to rationalizations that you come up with. The best place to find mastermind partners is at information marketing seminars, as nearly everyone there has a product in development and faces similar challenges.

4. Listen to audio.

You can advance your education by listening to audio from information marketing experts on CD or via a MP3 player. Many experts offer free content via their newsletters, press releases and podcasts, and most of them offer audio programs for purchase. In the past year I’ve listened to over 250 hour of audio via my MP3 player by turning my “dead time” (the time I spend doing chores and running errands) into listening and learning time. Not only do I learn information marketing strategies better and faster through audio, but it also helps me stay inspired and motivated because people I respect are talking in my ear every day. It’s like having a staff of coaches and mentors “on call”.

5. Take action everyday.

Generating and maintaining momentum is critical to bringing a product to market, but you may be challenged because you already have a full-time job and a family that needs your attention. Even if it’s just for 15 minutes, do something every day that will move your product development forward.

6. Get unstuck.

When you hit a wall, brainstorm, pick the best solution available and move on. Here’s simple brainstorming technique for generating quick and useful solutions. Take a sheet a paper and at the top write down, “How might I _____ ”. In the blank space after “I”, fill in the desired outcome. For example, “How might I build a list of 1,000 in 30 days?” Again, make your goal as specific as possible. Now begin generating ideas. At this point don’t censor yourself as quantity, not quality is important. Once you’ve created a list of potential solutions, select a few with the greatest potential and treat them as their own problems to be solved. For example, let’s say an idea you selected is “Google Adwords”, but you don’t have any experience creating Adwords. Simply restart the exercise by writing down “How might I learn Google Adwords to build a list of 1,000 in the next 30-days”. Perhaps you’ll list things like “buy a book”, “hire a consultant”, and “take on online course”. Now you can keep drilling down by asking the question, “How might a find a consultant to teach me Google Adwords?” By now you get the idea. By deploying the “How might I ____” technique, you can find solutions faster and better than you would otherwise.

7. Make a list of skills and knowledge that you’ll need to bring your product to market.

Then create a plan to how to acquire some of knowledge and skills that you are lacking. I say “some” because it would be a mistake for you to attempt to master every element that goes into product creation and marketing. Instead, create a second plan for how you will outsource some of the steps that require a large time investment to learn and master. Creating an outsourcing plan may require some additional time up front for researching and asking for vendor referrals, but in the long run you will save time and earn more, faster.

8. Create an environment of productivity and positive energy.

First, discuss your project only with people who are supportive and understand your goals, and don’t let those who don’t appreciate or “get” what you’re doing bring you down. Second, minimize distractions. Start by turning off the TV. In fact, consider disconnecting the TV altogether. I did and not only did my productivity improve, but my sleeping pattern and communication with family members improved as well. Third, exercise and eat right. By doing so you’ll have more energy and stamina, allowing you to get more out of your productive hours.

Dan Safkow is an entrepreneur and information marketer specializing in portable audio learning. His properties include Marketing Mindshare, a resource for marketing secrets on audio, and My Seminar Player a service that provides custom branded and preloaded MP3 players.

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