The holidays always seem to be a time of reflection.

Why? It seems like the elephant that they had been able to successfully ignore year after year has finally gotten so big that they simply can no longer ignore it anymore. In fact, the elephant has grown so big, it is forcing some major changes in short order.

So this holiday season they are dealing with it up close and personal. Ugh, right?

What do I mean when I say, “THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM?” The elephant in the room is something so big that when you finally do address it, the world feels like the tectonic plates beneath your feet literally are shifting in real time. Nothing feels the same afterward.

Examples of elephants I’ve heard of lately include, but are not limited to:

• “This last year I decided to let go of a part of my business model that really worked for me in the previous years. I’ve been feeling the financial pain of that decision all year. Now I’m getting ready to re-introduce that component of my business in 2011 in a much larger way than I ever have before. It means big changes and the biggest risk and commitment I’ve ever made to my business in all my years of business!”

• “For the last couple of years as I have been pursuing my entrepreneurial career. My wife has been unhappy, because she doesn’t feel safe with the uncertainty. So we’re getting divorced and I’m moving out by Christmas Eve!”

• “There was something financial in my business that I ignored for a really long time, because I kept thinking that once I got these other things in place, it would naturally work itself out. Unfortunately, things got more and more skewed with time and it got really painful to the point where I had to do something to address the issue. Finally, I had to deal with it, but now that I have, I feel a million times better than before!”

The elephant in the room is life changing. It requires big changes financially, emotionally, physically and/or spiritually. It is usually something so overwhelming to deal with that we ignore it until it forces us to make those big changes whether we want to or not.

HINT: The degree of difficulty in making those changes mounts with time ignoring the elephant. So, you can either address it a little bit at a time or wait until it engulfs the room you are in and literally forces you to move into another space. The choice is yours to either go along willingly or be forced to make the shift at some point.

Some telltale signs that you’ve got an elephant in the room:

1. It is the thing that you bristle at when someone you love brings it up, like business success and finances, excessive or unhealthy food or alcohol use, or a serious imbalance that is compromising other areas of your life, like your relationships with friends and family.
2. It is that thing that nobody wants to talk about and so the subject is changed almost as soon as it is brought up.
3. There is almost always evidence related to it in your immediate environment. You don’t have to look too far to find it, but you may have grown so accustomed to seeing it, that you need a fresh set of eyes on the situation at hand.
4. The elephant is usually costing you something in terms of your significant relationships with family and friends in your personal life and clients and business associates in your professional life.

How do you recognize the elephant in the room?

Exercise: Take a sneak peak at the elephant(s) in your own life you are ignoring.

1. “Name that elephant!” ~ as soon as you identify it, you begin disempowering it.
2. Name the telltale signs the elephant is in the room ~ make a list of the obvious clues surrounding you and be brutally honest with yourself in that moment. You can always send it through the shredder, but for a moment, allow yourself to “see” it.
3. Play it forward ~ what do you expect to have happen if it continues unaddressed?
4. Your immediate payoff for ignoring it ~ what do you get out of turning a blind eye?
5. Your cost or payout for ignoring it ~ what is the price of your ticket to admission to this experience in your life?
6. Action steps you can take to correct course ~ I recommend writing down easy, moderate, and difficult action steps so that you can see ALL of your options for remedying this situation.

If you can’t figure it out on your own (which is completely normal because you are subjective in your own experiences), look for trusted guidance in your life through friends, family or more of an objective source like a counselor or coach. Often times, a fresh set of eyes on a situation that is keeping you scratching your head is welcome reprieve. The good news is that once you go through the shift, it is no longer anywhere near as scary and you learn a lot about yourself along the way.

The person you become on the other side is one to celebrate and love for all the years to come!

By Christine Cibula

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Have you ever observed someone you have followed for years suddenly skyrocket to success taking their business from six figures to the million-dollar mark and then multiple millions? I’ve had the privilege of working inside the businesses of what Tim Ferris refers to in his book The Four-Hour Workweek as the New Rich. These are first-generation, self-made millionaires who started out at ground zero and created highly successful multimillion-dollar corporations. One core component of their success in their businesses is a signature info product suite. So let’s take a look at the 5 massive benefits of having a signature info product suite in your business.

1. Establishes You As A THOUGHT LEADER In Your Field

You may have heard a mentor say to write a book because it establishes you immediately as an expert in your field. But why is that? It is because when you have a book, you are establishing yourself as a thought leader in your field of expertise. The same holds true when you have a line of information products in your business, because they help to establish your credibility as a thought leader in the industry. The more robust your product line, the more credibility and staying power your clients see you have in the industry.

2. Provides MORE IMMEDIATE ACCESS To You At Reasonable Price Points

Your clients want to connect with you, but just like relationships, we tend to take it slow. We observe other people. We see how we feel when we’re in their presence. We decide over time if we know, like, and trust them before we go to the next level. That is where the beauty of information product comes into play. Why? Info products offer your potential clients an opportunity to get to know you “virtually” through your marketing and your products while making smaller initial investments. If they have a good experience, then they typically take it to the next level to work more closely and privately with you. It becomes a win-win, because they learn your foundation materials and by the time they start working with you privately, you can fine-tune advanced skills and create higher levels of success for your clients.

3. Generates MULTIPLE STREAMS OF PASSIVE INCOME To Grow & Expand

It takes a solid financial foundation to continue growing your business. If you can create a product line that pays for itself by providing income to bring in more virtual assistants or employees, your business can grow by leaps and bounds over time. No more worrying about finding venture capital or pre-funding a new business venture. When information products are involved, you have created multiple streams of passive income to grow and expand your business.

4. Increases Opportunities for SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS & JOINT VENTURES

A little known secret of multiple speaker events is that the organizers typically do a profit sharing joint venture on the back of the room sales. This is usually a 50/50 split. In other words, the speakers usually come to the events and take care of their own travel, lodging, and meal expenses with the hopes of making enough sales at the back of the room to cover their costs and make some income from the speaking engagement. So let’s do the math. If you simply have books to sell at the back of the room, they usually go for $20 a book on average. Compare that to a bundled information product offering that you can sell at the event for $1000-$1500. Therefore, seminar organizers often look for speakers who have high-end information’s products to come share the stage with them.

5. Creates a SOLID CORE RELIABLE INFRASTRUCTURE In Your Business Model

Information products are a core component of a service based business model if you want to leverage your time. Why? You want change your service model from dollars per hour (only so many hours in a day) to create it once and deliver it over and over and over again. This enables you to leverage your time and advance your training programs. It also helps to prevent boredom for you in your business as you package your knowledge on a variety of core topics that you normally teach to your clients in the beginning phases of working together. Then when you work with clients, you can offer higher end services to meet their needs and work with a more exclusive clientele who are ready to go to the next level with you in their business.

Learn More About Info Product Co-Creation With CC by Clicking Here

THE WINNING FORMULA

1. STAY CONNECTED. Make an Info Product that is connected to you, your life’s purpose, and the people you are here to serve. The clients and colleagues I know who create products and services that correspond with their expertise and their ongoing business efforts, have had a lot of success. Why? Because once you create an information product, your ongoing interactions with prospective clients makes a difference in terms ongoing sales. There is a myth that you can simply set it and forget it. I’m not naive enough to say it can’t be done, because it has been done and I’ve met people who do it very successfully. However, they are few and far between and do a lot of paid advertising and they constantly tweak their systems. In contrast, my most successful clients generate organic connectedness and relationships with their following by creating systems to share with their clients in their areas of expertise.

2. DO IT RIGHT. Make sure that what your Info Product is worthy of you in terms of high content and your most valuable information. The people and products that I respect deliver top notch content. I stick with those people for years and years with a lot of loyalty. I read their newsletters, listen to their teleseminars, and invest in their products and live events. If I get a product from someone that isn’t so great, I don’t typically buy again. I often stop following their newsletter. I lose interest. Makes sense, right? Invest in professional graphics so that your products look great. Just like a great suit can make the difference in a job interview, great graphics can make the difference in terms of capturing your client’s attention. Be sure to put thought into a benefits laden title so that your clients know what they will be receiving when they get this incredible information that will help to change their lives. Remember, they don’t care about the features. They want to know how they will directly benefit from your products. Make sure you deliver!

3. BE OF SERVICE. Create your Info Product to serve the people you are here to serve. Help solve their biggest problems and you will gain a loyal following that will refer friends and colleagues to you. Your business will naturally grow as you share your gifts with more and more people. The more you provide valuable services to your clients, the more abundance will naturally flow to you. Every day, wake up and ask yourself, “How Many I Serve?”

Can you feel the the energy behind THE WINNING FORMULA? Anything with longevity and sustainability promotes more life to all and less to none. This is essential. When you create an information product using the THE WINNING FORMULA, you infuse it with love and light. You put yourself into it and you give 100% to your clients to empower them and help them to achieve what they want to achieve.

What do Info Products do for your bottom line? The clients that I’ve worked with who consistently give in service to their clients have an abundant life in many ways. Their sales are consistently high, so they begin to accumulate wealth. With the sustainable income, they are able to enjoy a more beautiful home and a lifestyle with more freedom to travel and engage in work that brings them a lot of joy. They still work consistently, but the key is that they aren’t working harder than they were beforehand. They simply work smarter by implementing systems. As a consequence, they are able to hire and keep on long-term staff, thereby increasing the lives of their staff. An added bonus is that they are able to give more than they ever gave before to their community and causes that bring them joy.

It is my hope that you always approach information product creation using THE WINNING FORMULA!

To Health, Wealth & Love… CC

Christine Cibula

http://InfoProductMentor.com

P.S. To learn more about working with CC on your info products click here…

I like to think of Proprietary Signature Information Product Suite Creation as the process where we uncover your UNIQUE SIGNATURE in the world.  Years ago, I enjoyed attending Watt’s Atelier in Encinitas, California. I remember having a wonderful conversation one day with my mother as we were talking about the difference between “a student of art” and “an artist”… I said to her, “An artist really becomes an artist when you can see a UNIQUE SIGNATURE in their artwork. It is when you say, to someone, ‘Oh! That’s a Michaelangelo… Picasso… Salvador Dali… Rembrandt… Renoir… Monet…’.” Immediately an image comes to your mind. It is clear and defined and you can actually see the soul of the artist’s portrayed in the piece of art. It is as unique as a signature and it is as if their spiritual DNA has forever been infused into their artwork as ONE.

Likewise, there’s only ONE you with the sum of life experiences you’ve had. You have a signature gift that is within you.

What’s more, the lives you touch with your gift will open up to carry their light forward in ways that you cannot even being to fathom right now. It is as if we’re all pieces to the puzzle, and if we don’t share our gifts with the lives we’re meant to touch, then they won’t share their gifts with the lives they are meant to touch. It is literally like each of us is a drop of water on a smooth body of water. Our life’s work has a ripple effect.

When I work with clients on creating their information products, I think the most important thing to focus in on is their unique signature that is so remarkable and special, like a snowflake, that no one else can duplicate.

We combine your soul energy with your knowledge base, the place in the world where you have become well-known for your work in a particular area with clients. We co-create your proprietary signature information product suite. The key is that resonates and is an extension of you, so that your gift is recognizable by those you are here to serve. As you continue to live into your life’s purpose, those who you serve will continue to live into theirs, bringing about worldwide transformation and healing.

Here’s to changing the world, one life at a time…

To Health, Wealth & Love… CC

Christine Cibula

www.InfoProductMentor.com

But the truth is, sometimes we get in the way of ourselves without even realizing it. That is where coaching and mentorship are essential. Read on to discover the 5 reasons coaching and mentorship are essential to your success…

5 Reasons Why Coaching & Mentorship Are Essential to Success:

1. Don’t Reinvent The Wheel. Every successful businessperson I know share the characteristic that they go straight to the source so that they can shortcut their learning curve. They realize that it isn’t about learning all the mechanics of reinventing the wheel. Instead, they go to the person who knows how to make the wheel and either takes a crash course in it, or better yet, starts out with a set of four wheels ready to roll! This isn’t rocket science, but so many of us make the mistake of thinking that we’ll get brownie points for hard work. Unfortunately that simply isn’t the case. People who work smarter grow faster and have the edge that keeps them riding the crest of the wave as innovators and visionaries.

2. Stay The Course. Entrepreneurs tend to have multiple focuses all at once. That doesn’t mean they are scattered. It means they are creative, and sometimes get so lost in their creativity that they forget to do the “one foot in front of the other” thing. That is where a coach can really step in and help with keeping you accountable. You say your book will be done in 2 months, and the coach expects it will be done within two months and brings you back to the clear focus of carving out time in your days and weeks so that you achieve your objective.

3. Correct Course Quickly. Imagine the difference between the person who sets a New Year’s Resolution to lose 20 pounds and gain strength through regular workouts who joins a gym and starts working with a personal trainer versus the person who simply joins a gym. The personal trainer will help to keep you focused and will likely keep you coming to do your workouts even on off days, so that you are stronger when you come back to work one-on-one again. In contrast, if it is just left up to you, you could easily start skipping workouts and miss lots of gym days. Accountability forces you to correct course quickly. Plus, if your trainer sees you are overworking some areas and not doing enough in others, he or she would point that out. So you simply make a slight shift, but your results will be noticeably different.

4. Go The Distance. I know, you’re probably thinking FIELD OF DREAMS. And yes, in order to achieve your dreams, you have to go the distance long after most people would have quit, gone home, and flipped on the television for some entertainment. Entrepreneurs have the potential for huge upside gains in their businesses, but they have to go the distance to reap the rewards, and often it doesn’t come anywhere near as quickly as they’d like. A coach will encourage you to go the distance when you are weary and thinking maybe you didn’t make the right decision. That extra boost of energy can be just what the doctor ordered.

5. Embrace Bigger Visions. One thing a mentor can do for your is open your field of vision so that you can truly see a larger picture for yourself than you currently do right now. This is a tremendous gift and results in faster growth, because rather than coming to this place in your own time and comfort, your mentor will keep asking you to push the envelope just a little bit outside of your comfort zone. Every great athlete has a coach that can see a bigger vision for the athlete, such as regionals, nationals, or even the Olympic games. The coach pushes the athlete toward that bigger vision until the athlete eventually lives into it.

So when you are contemplating whether or not you need a coach & mentor in your business, give some thought to the differences you have seen in the people you admire and ask yourself what they do to achieve the levels of success you observe. I’m willing to bet that they have a coach & mentor who has their back every step of the way.

To Health, Wealth & Love… CC

Christine Cibula

www.InfoProductMentor.com