When creating an information product is the client important? It might seem that a client is extremely important when creating an information product. After all, you're getting them to tell you exactly what she needs. However, more often than not, this method is a recipe for disaster. Even so, the client is extremely useful in another phase. So when do you include the client? And when do you leave her out? Let's find out in this two part series on info-product creation. Read online: Info-product Creation Part 1: When to Leave The Clients Out ------------------ In this episode Sean talks about Part 1: How to create an information product and when you need the target profile Part 2: How to go about pre-selling your  book Part 3: How to use the target profile to create info product versions ------------------   Did you ever wonder why evergreen trees don't shed their leaves even in freezing winter? The moment autumn rolls along, most trees in temperate and boreal zones shed their leaves. Every tree has chemical light receptors—phytochrome and cryptochrome. These light receptors can sense a loss of light. Which is precisely when deciduous and broadleaf trees shed their leaves. However, the evergreen trees hang on to their leaves even in the dead of winter, because their foliage is coated with a wax. This wax helps fob off the cold. Plus their cells bear an anti-freeze sort of chemical that enable it to avoid it having to drop its leaves. When creating an information product, we have to mimic trees Sometimes it's best to drop the client out of the creation of the product, because they're likely to get in the way. At other times we have to make sure we hold onto them like the evergreen tree does with all its leaves. But when do you get the client involved? And when do you drop them? In this series we'll look at the client—who we call the target profile. We'll have a closer look at three core elements: – When to leave the client out – When to bring the client in—and specially when pre-selling the info-product – Why the target profile plays an important role in creating versions or additional satellite products. Let's start with the first one. 1) How to create an information product and why you need to leave the target profile out of it What's the worst way to cook a great dinner? Let's assume you ask the guests to drum up a list of their favourite meals. Were you to go down this path of asking guests for their recommendations, you'd quickly get swamped with a mishmash of dishes. Dal makhani, fried chicken, broccoli, couscous—just about any dish would show up on the request list. And that's no way to cook a dinner, Instead a better way is to have an overall view of what the clients need—and then completely avoid asking them for any advice while you're prepping dinner. A similar process plays itself out when you're creating an info-product Many years ago when I sat down to write an info-product on membership sites. My idea was simple: I pre-sold the book on membership sites. I then asked clients to give me the topics they wanted me to cover. As you'd expect, I got a list of questions that seemed to go on forever. While at first it seems like topics given by clients are a goldmine, the requests turned out to be incredibly debilitating. As you'd expect, I was unsure where to start or how to go ahead. When creating information products, leave your client out of the planning stage completely. The goal of the information product—a great information product—is to get a client from Point A to Point B and to enjoy the ride in the process. Think of yourself as a GPS. The GPS has access to a tonne of information, but do you see that information on screen? Instead, what the GPS does is show you only what's valid for your journey. And should there be delays along a route, that very same GPS may take you down a longer route, but eventually get you to the destination as quickly as possible. Take for instance the series called ‘Black Belt Presentatio