State legal systems in the United States are based on one of two legal systems. Forty-nine states base their laws on the common law system, first used in England.

However one state, Louisiana, uses the French Napoleonic Code as the basis for their legal system. While common law-based legal systems rely on the rulings of judges to set precedents that are used to make later decisions, the Louisiana system does not.

The Napoleonic Code was intended to simplify the laws in a time when many people were illiterate or did not have access to printed information. Ironically, the effort to create a simpler and easier to understand legal system has resulted in one of the more complex and least understood set of state laws here in Louisiana.

There are many other distinctions between the two systems, but it is not as important to know every single distinction as it is to understand that there are significant differences between the state laws in Louisiana and those of most other states.

Real Estate Law Basics

Real estate laws are the laws that address the land and anything built upon that land including ownership, usage, and transfer of ownership of that land. As discussed above, Louisiana’s unique legal heritage has affected the current laws in many ways. One such way is the term used to refer to real estate in this state. While the rest of the United States uses “real estate” in legal documents, in Louisiana real estate is referred to as “immoveable property.”

Inheritance and “Forced Heirs”

Another area which requires the special attention is that of inheritance within Louisiana. The laws regarding inheritance derived from the Napoleonic Code were intended to ensure that assets remained in their family of origin, so while the other 49 states allow property to be transferred as the owner prefers after their death, this is not always the case in Louisiana.

The laws regarding inheritance of real estate can dictate that close relatives including parents or children inherit property before anyone else.

Community Property or Separate Property?

The real estate laws in Louisiana separate property ownership into two categories:

Community property
Separate property
While the difference between two distinctions may seem apparent initially, upon closer inspection, the line becomes less clear. For example, once a couple is married, all properties do not automatically become community properties, and in the case of divorce, one spouse may not have any claim to or rights in regard to certain properties. Some of the factors that are considered in this situation are when the property was purchased and which party’s funds were used, which can be a difficult fact to ascertain.

Difficult economic conditions and poor consumer spending have affected the financial health of many small business units. It is therefore critical to cut down on unnecessary expenses to increase profit margins. Home based business units should regularly review the budget in order to maintain a healthy cash flow.Appropriate evaluation of cash position can help overcome problems and it also creates opportunities. Self employment can be expensive with the requirements for corresponding utilities and infrastructure.
The following measures should be adopted by small business ventures to cut down futile spending and achieve operational efficiency:Negotiate with Pricing: All forms of services, products and consultations should be solicited through competitive bidding whenever possible. The least expensive quote with potential for high deliverables should be pursued.Leverage Partnerships: Essential resources can be effectively utilized through merger and partnership operations with other small business units. Mutual efforts can be initiated by compatible home based business owners to tide over competition.Monitor Expenses: Managerial actions should be initiated to keep track of expenditure. An annual budget for anticipated expenses should be formulated and frequently monitored over time. Heavy expenses should be broken down in to smaller affordable components.Avail Discounts with Bulk Purchase: Lucrative discounts available for purchase of products in bulk quantities should be undertaken. This provides for advantages and benefits with price difference. This can help save money on a long term.Advantage with Lease/ Rental: Equipments, office essentials and technological accessories can be obtained on lease to avoid shelling a heavy price with one time buy. Sale opportunities at auctions, garage sales and warehouses should be pursued in order to cope up with the pressing purchase needs.Consider New Suppliers: New suppliers should be considered for benefits with pricing, delivery and credit period with orders. There should be negotiations for cutting down expenses.Apply technology: Internet communication can be utilized wherever possible to save costs with postage. Marketing activities can be carried out through economical blogs, websites and internet marketing.Reduce outlays: Home based business owners must look for ways to cut operational costs. This can work to provide savings and higher profits.Update Asset List: An asset audit must be carried out to ascertain appropriate items for the computation of taxes and insurance premiums. Shadow assets that are no longer utilized can cause unnecessary expense for business units. Strategies must be devised to depreciate the given assets for tax purposes.Business costs must be reduced to increase profit margins. The cost cutting measures must be thoroughly evaluated before initiation.Home based business owners must consider outsourcing rather than hiring full time employees. Efficient management of cash flow and liabilities through smart cost cutting measures is essential for the viability of a 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.