After asking a few questions, and listening to the answers, I pointed out some marketing issues in their business. I also said, “I feel pretty darn confident there’s not a lack mentality operating here. I think it’s just a marketing issue.”

It can be very, very painful to you as a business owner. I’ve seen people spend a tremendous amount of time, money and energy working on their beliefs, only to see their business still struggle because some very simple fixes were needed in the marketing or in the business model.

However, I’ve also seen folks work exhaustively on the technical aspects of their business, and yet their beliefs, mindset, and heart-attitude kept sabotaging their efforts.

Whether I’m working with our clients or mentoring the Heart of Business practitioners, or just talking with colleagues, making a mistake in discerning the root can cause tremendous difficulties in moving forward.

So let me give you some insights into how to discern where the problem is coming from.

From Big Picture to Nitty Gritty

When I was a paramedic, we learned a cascading assessment. Meaning you could use some key indicators to tell which direction to go in, and then tunnel in for more detail.

So in this situation, a key indicator is how much time have you spent in either area?

If you’ve spent a ton of time working on the details of your business, marketing, etc, and it’s still now working, chances are your heart and your beliefs could use some help.

Conversely, if you’ve been doing a ton of spiritual/mental work on yourself, but hardly any learning and development on the business itself, guess what? Time to switch your focus.

However, you may have been spending time on both, so let’s look a bit closer.

Have You Hit Your Ceiling?

My colleague had had extended periods of being much more financially successful. This was a low ebb, and so was a good indication for me that it wasn’t a spiritual issue.

For where you are right now, have you been more successful? I don’t mean moderately, but have you experienced a different category, a different level of financial success? If so, your being knows what that feels like, knows the reality of that.

If you are bumping up against your income ceiling, then you may need to spiritually expand your ability to receive and steward.

There is an exception to this. Sometimes people who were in a highly-paid corporate job, or received an inheritance, and now find themselves with their own business can be disconnected from their previous success. When your paycheck is handed to you, and you don’t fully experience how the money comes in, it can all seem a bit unreal.

In a job, you generally are responsible only for a portion of a business, not the whole thing. Consequently there can be a lot of fear and doubt that can creep in and sabotage you once you become fully self-employed.

And if you haven’t hit your ceiling, then you may just need business help. I see this with folks who had been successful with referrals, but then the referrals dried up and they don’t have any marketing systems in place.

Are You Clear What You Are Doing?

Take a moment and think about your marketing. Think about your business systems. Think about your sales process. Are you clear about what you’re doing, how and why? Clear enough to write it all down and explain it to someone?

If you aren’t, then chances are there are technical solutions you need.

If you are, and yet things seem exhausting, overwhelming, and too much, then I’m guessing some good’ol spiritual healing and clarity will help your heart find an easier path forward.

Do You Have Reactions?

Money touches a lot of parts of business. Do those parts make you squeamish in any way? Do you have reactions when you face the various areas where money shows up, like pricing, or accounting?

If you have emotional reactions, then chances are it’s not just a technical issue, but some belief, attitude or experience in your hear that could use some compassionate healing.

Most Need Both

The spiritual and the material are not separate from one another, so it’s rarely 100% one or the other. For my colleague, I can’t imagine there’s not some great spiritual material to work on. Each of us has an infinite potential to keep evolving and opening our heart to deeper and deeper levels of love and connection.

The bottom line: don’t depend on just one approach to solve your business problems. Learn the technical aspects of how to do business, and also do the spiritual and emotional healing work to make sure you can apply those technical pieces effectively.

For you, how do you discern the difference between a technical or a spiritual solution?

When is revealing too much, though? There seems to be a delicate balance wherein you want to know the person on the other side of the business is a human being, is real, isn’t a polished veneer of pseudo-perfection.

And yet you want to trust that person. You don’t want to really know how often the ball almost gets dropped, or how they might look after a sleepless night, no shower, with a baseball cap jammed on their head to cover up the wild flora of their morning hair.

In my studies in child development and somatic-based therapy, and boy does that sound formal, I mean I’ve read a few books and know some experts I’ve talked to, we’re hard-wired to pay attention to danger. Hard-wired.

So, if you’ve ever wondered why every single rube needs to rubberneck past the accident, slowing down traffic for thousands of people, it’s because we’re genetically disposed to do so. If you wonder why it’s hard to pull your eyes away from action movies, it’s because it’s a survival trait.

It comes from our history as animals on this planet. Before manicured lawns and automatic weapons, human beings used to sometimes get eaten by other animals. We’re wanting to know how to survive that, so we watch.

Why get all grisly on a business blog? Because the same dynamic functions in the reveal/conceal cycle. People want to see the mess of you, they ask for it, they clamor for it, and yet while it might get their attention, it won’t necessarily build trust. The survival brain of the people watching your car accident will be saying to themselves, “Gee, how interesting! I wonder if I would survive that?”

So when and what do you reveal? Here’s how I do it.

• I don’t share messes when I feel completely forlorn or overwhelmed or stuck. I don’t show the gory details of the car wreck.
• I often share messes while I’m still feeling the pain of them, after most of the blood has been cleaned up.
• I do share messes once I’ve regained a sense of perspective on the situation, a sense of how to resolve/work through/be with it, and when I can present the situation in a way that serves others.

No, I don’t have to show up as perfect. But I want anything I share to be expressed consciously in service to others, and not as an emotional/situational vomiting up of a mess. You shouldn’t have to clean up after me, I have a support system who can help me with that. And then I can tell you how I got through the mess.

Exception: If the mess doesn’t have to do with my core competency, I’ll sometimes share more. For instance, when I changed out the kitchen sink a few months ago and included snippets of my experience, the fact that I didn’t know what I was doing, messed up the caulk job, and had to go back to the hardware store five times in the same afternoon is amusing, but doesn’t shake anyone’s confidence in my ability to deliver wisdom, insight and expertise in the realm of business-building.

Chris Brogan wrote about his flaws recently. Havi Brooks does it all the time. Best-selling author Jennifer Louden does, too. And notice how they reveal in a way that is educational, and maybe even inspirational.

Does this help? How do you do reveal/conceal in your own business?

We figured out the problem and got it fixed, but the end result is that there was an email black hole between Thursday afternoon and Friday about mid-day pacific time.

If you emailed us, or submitted an application for Opening the Moneyflow, or used any of our other contact forms on the website, we didn’t see it and it’s gone forever. Argh! Yuck! ugh!  Please send it again.

If you did submit an application and haven’t heard back from us yet, your application is probably, ugh, lost! Miserable! You probably poured your heart out onto the application like many other applicants have done, and my heart clenches to think of you having to recreate all of that.

This is especially bad if you’re worried about the early-bird deadline this Monday.

If that did happen to you, make it easy on yourself. Just give us a minimum of info, let us know that you are resubmitting it because of the email blackhole, and we’ll get all of the other information we need in the conversation with you.

Apply (or re-apply ugh!) here- Opening the Moneyflow 2011

peace
Mark Silver and the rest of the team

For instance, I was working with a client who has a number of staff working under him that he wanted to delegate to more efficiently. Despite his efforts, the same problem showed up in employee after employee.

Okay, so it got incrementally better, somewhat. But even after several years he was still exhausted, and the delegating wasn’t really taking the load off.

Harumph… His way of trying to fix the mistakes didn’t seem to be fixing anything, because they kept coming back.

Does this sound familiar? Do you have problems that keep cycling back over and over again in your business? What’s going on? How do you fix these “unfixable” mistakes?

The Problem with Human Mistake Radar

Here’s what I’ve learned through the Sufi teachings about mistakes: our human guidance system is nearly infallible in detecting that a mistake has happened. All the emotional, physical and inner-knowing symptoms that tell us something is “off” or not right are usually very, very reliable.

Maybe you’ve got a sinking feeling in your stomach. Or just a knowing that something is out of whack. However you get it, you know that a mistake has occurred.

Unfortunately, most of us have not been taught how to look behind this discomfort to see what the mistake actually is.

Let me restate that: as a human, you know when a mistake has occurred, but you rarely know what the true mistake actually is.

Why We Misidentify Mistakes

It’s hard to name the mistake, because as humans we usually grab onto the most visible part of it: our actions, and the results that came from them. But the action wasn’t the mistake. You need to look behind the actions.

The mistake that occurs within a project or with a person happens before the action.  When that relationship is out of whack, then your actions reflect that out-of-whack relationship. In the example with my client, he had to eventually look at not what he did with his the employees but at his own relationship with delegating.

Why Mistakes Are a Gateway, the Sufi View

Mistakes are required. Without mistakes an essential part of our humanity would be missing. The part of you, deep in your heart, that really wants to know that you don’t have to earn love and acceptance. That no matter what you do, love is available.

Forgiveness is the bridge. Without it, we can’t truly relax into being our full human selves. And without mistakes, we wouldn’t be able to taste forgiveness in our hearts. There will always be a place in us saying: “But if I goof up, I’m doomed, unlovable.”

Allow me to quote from a Sufi teacher, who is describing God’s perspective on our mistakes (please forgive the Old Testament flavor):

“Through the gate of the mistake, most of My beloveds come to reach Me. First, I put them in the fire of the mistake, then this fire brings them to the deeper fire of My love. Then I show them My light in the fire, and in a moment they jump and are face to face…” (from Music of the Soul, by Sheikh Sidi al-Jamal).

The first “fire of the mistake” that the Sheikh mentions refers to our internal guidance system-that place that feels yucko that something went wrong.

The second fire is the return to love that burns away the yuck. it’s the insight that comes in this second fire that shows you the true mistake without a tinge of shame or guilt. It will feel pure, simple and very true.

Back to my client above, the insight he finally achieved was understanding that he actually wasn’t really delegating anything, because he continued seeing his employees as something less then the responsible adults they were.

Seeing and acknowledging his employees as responsible adults was the change needed to correct his mistake.

Marinate Before the Fire

Before you jump in with both feet, take a gentle breath, and just let your heart marinate on this insight. Ahhhh.

Still the mistake happened. A goof-up occurred, and the mess is here and now. So you still have to clean it up. How do you jump from the first fire of yuck to the second “deeper fire of love,” so you can clean things up?

Keys to Cleaning Up the Mess

• Take responsibility for the unknown.

When you feel that yucko feeling of a mistake, your first inclination may be to push it away. But that doesn’t work so well. Instead, take full responsibility, even though you don’t know what that looks like yet.

That’s right, find the place in your heart that is willing take full responsibility for the mistake. It’s yours, and remember, it’s your gateway to love.

• Ask for forgiveness.

The way the Sufis ask for forgiveness is to call into the heart: “I ask for forgiveness from Source. Please help me to see what I don’t know.” And be willing to be surprised.

Be patient. This process has taken me as little as one minute, and sometimes as long as 30-60 minutes of quiet reflection and asking in my heart, especially if it’s a big mistake in my life that I’m having some reluctance looking at directly.

When you receive an insight, and that insight doesn’t have any tinge of shame, or wrongdoing, or that “just have to suck it up and fix it” energy, then you know you’re complete. You’ll probably feel a relaxation and peacefulness come into your heart and being.

• Fix the mistake.

Follow through with the clean-up actions as soon as possible. This is the integrity that comes with love.

Your mistake had consequences in the world. You and people around you were affected by it. Do your best to make up for any miss-steps you made. Ask your heart, and ask the people involved, what will help to make things whole again?

My client followed these three steps and found that the hardest thing was simply finding the humility to apologize for his past behavior, which was much easier than continuing that painful cycle.

After this insight, my client felt an increased depth of love and trust in relationship with his employees, and his delegating skills grew in leaps and bounds.

When you do all three steps to resolve a mistake, the Sufi teacher I quoted above calls it “consuming the essence of the mistake.” Once the essence of the mistake is consumed, you may have a healing in your heart that keeps these kinds of mistakes from happening again.

An achievement that will definitely help your business bloom.

Resource: If you want to look at this process in more detail, you can get my workbook, Cleaning Up Mistakes in Business, which is available to anyone who completes the Remembrance Challenge.

This is a bit of a radical approach to mistakes–the idea that maybe they don’t need to be fixed, at least in the way one often thinks about “fixing” mistakes. And yet, you don’t ignore them either.

Does this resonate for you? What’s your experience with unfixable, or repetitive mistakes?

This is not about collapsing and begging to be forgiven because you messed up. This is about asking deep in your heart to see something that you haven’t seen yet, and to know that you don’t have to be perfect in order to earn love.

p.s. Are you making mistakes with money over and over?

Giving away your precious time. Under-charging and under-earning. Earn more, spend more. The credit card bills keep growing. Making decisions in the spur of the moment, and feeling upset afterwards at the money you spent for one more useless thing.

These are the common mistakes business owners make every day. Again and again and again. If just knowing what to do would change things, the problem would be gone.

Sometimes you need a healing. Sometimes you need a real transformation. May I suggest the Heart of Money Transformational Journey Home Study?

This is a course that sold out 20+ times for $1500/person. We’re currently running a course for 1/4 that cost — 80 spots sold out. What’s more, the breakthroughs we’re hearing about are incredible.

Finally, after more than eight years, the Heart of Money Transformational Journey course is being turned into a home study course. We’re aiming for an August 17 release/ship date. Right now through July 31st we’re offering a pre-release price.

Check it out for yourself:  The Heart of Money Transformational Journey.

Trust your heart. And if you have any questions, please ask. Just do it by July 31st, or you’ll miss the pre-release price.

The $155 Mistake

Kate and I were putting the finishing touches on the Heart of Money Homestudy promotion by doing the Right Price exercise. That’s where we use our hearts to land on what I call the “resonant” price for something.

We ended up great on the Homestudy price for AFTER the release: $350. That felt great. But, we totally messed up, big car wreck, on the pre-release price.

I knew it had to be at least $100 off. But, I don’t know why, because of fatigue, because this crud was coming on that currently has me hacking and coughing, we posted a pre-release price of $275.

All day yesterday I couldn’t settle down. The price just didn’t feel right to me, and yet, what with getting sick and all, I couldn’t figure it out until Kate and I spoke in the late afternoon.

We did a “quick-flash” right price exercise on the pre-release price, and whew… we both took a huge sigh of relief.

Much lower. It just feels better.

Instead of $75, the pre-release price is $155 off the regular price. You can check it out here: The Heart of Money Homestudy

If you are struggling with your finances, if you want to hide under the covers when the credit card bill shows up, if you wonder if your money situation can ever change…

And, if you feel like you’re running nonstop and can’t outearn the problem- the more that comes in, the more you seem to spend…

(The Sacred Rules of Copywriting say to insert testimonials here. And, truly, we’ve gotten some very moving reports of breakthroughs from the eighty people in the current course. But, hey, I’m sick. Can’t do it. Maybe later…)

May I suggest the deeply spiritual, the deeply nourishing, the very practical:

Heart of Money Transformational Journey Homestudy

The Second Mistake: Half-Off Our Five Day Retreat

Too many balls in the air. We didn’t check the calendar. I hate doing this. But we’d also set July 31st as the early-early-bird deadline for the Path to Profitability Retreat.

There’s only room for about two dozen people at the Path to Profitability Retreat in November. And, seriously, I don’t expect anyone who doesn’t really know and trust who we are to want to commit to a five-day retreat in a beautiful retreat center, with organic meals…

To spend five days in a spiritual container working on the five big mostly ignored elements that help your business go into momentum. Momentum. You know, like, the business moves on its on and you don’t have to keep pushing it?

Well, we’ve been offering half-off the retreat to folks who know they want to be there. Again, the early registrations help our inspiration, so it’s worth it to us to offer it.

So, also through July 31st- half off the Path to Profitability Retreat.

Your Two Choices before July 31st

The Heart of Money Homestudy- pre-release price
The Path to Profitability Retreat early-early registration price.

Heck, maybe it’s in your heart to do both.

Trust your heart. And if you have any questions, please ask.

peace
Mark

They all get scared. Gut-clenching scared. Scared witless. (And me, too.)

If you’re going to be a business owner, especially in the early years of the start-up phase, then fear is going to be your friend.

You hear all these buzz phrases about fear, such as ‘Well, you know, fear stands for False Experience Appearing Real. So, just overcome your fear! Come’on!’

Baloney. Tell that to me when my mortgage is due in three days, and the money coming in is half what I need it to be. Who wouldn’t be scared?

Anyone who is building a small business gets scared. It’s normal.

Scared about the money. Scared about whether anyone likes what you’re offering. Scared about whether you are doing the right thing. Just plain nervous, anxious, and frightened.

So, if it’s so common, how come it’s so hard to deal with it?

Well, the main thing about fear isn’t that it’s hard to deal with. It’s that it’s so hard NOT to deal with it. Avoiding fear is hard. ‘Overcoming’ fear is a herculean task. But it’s easy to just be scared.

You are allowed to be scared. There is no one else who isn’t scared at times. Give yourself time to be afraid (and it doesn’t always have to wake you up at 3am in the morning because you didn’t let yourself be scared during your work day.)

When scared, say to yourself: “This is normal. It’s okay. I’m allowed to be scared.”

What is fear? Did you ever have a friend, or a parent, or a spouse who, when you were about to rush out the door to an important event, grabbed you and said, ‘Hold it, don’t forget your lunch, and your ticket to get in!’

Fear is that friend.

Fear in business doesn’t come up because you did something wrong, you’re doomed, or you look funny. Fear comes up because you’re not seeing some gorgeous, valuable and much-needed jewel right where you’re standing, and it will absolutely not let you go out that door without it.

Maybe, just maybe, instead of trying to ‘overcome’ your fear, you should listen to it?

But, there is a trick to listening to fear, without which you won’t find what’s right in front of your face. Want to learn the trick, and read an example of how it works?

Keys to Hearing Your Fear

• Notice the physical sensation of fear- and revel in it.

Fear has physical sensations- what are they for you? In other words, how do you know you’re afraid? For me, my low belly has a hollow-dropped-out feeling. Then, my reaction to the hollowness is to clench my shoulders, my chest, and my jaw so I stop breathing as deeply- it keeps me from feeling the hollowness.

If I slowly relax the clenching, and focus in on the hollow feeling I notice, hey, it’s just a hollow feeling. I let myself get intimate with it- really feel that hollow feeling, get comfortable and familiar with it. Breath into it. Already you should start to feel more spacious and calm.

• What’s the story the fear is telling, and what is the core of truth in it?

Your fear is talking to you. It’s often saying things like, “You can’t do this.” “You shouldn’t be doing this.” “It will never work.” Things like that.

The funny thing is, most of the time these phrases are TRUE- but incomplete. For instance, “You can’t do this… alone.” Or, “You shouldn’t be doing this… right now.” Or, “It will never work… if you don’t rest.”

A warning signal brings through an important message for you, but then you clamp down from the fear, and miss the most critical and helpful part of the message. Bummer. But, it’s never too late to get the rest of the message.

How can you access this message? Once you settle into the physical part of the fear, accept the message you are hearing, “You can’t do this…” as true, and then ask in your heart, with a willingness to be surprised, for the rest of the message. It may take awhile, so be patient.

• My example: “You shouldn’t be here.”

It was one of my first times co-teaching with Dr. John Wadude Laird, someone who has been a spiritual teacher of mine for years. Fear was telling me ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ and I was feeling small, awkward, and out of place. Scared witless, actually. I spoke up in the class to deliver a point, and immediately felt worse- the fear shot way up.

After class Wadude (it’s a spiritual name that means ‘The Loving’… I could’ve taken the hint, eh?) came up to me and said: “I need to talk to you, after I talk to this person.” My fear jumped another ten notches. I wasn’t imagining it- he was going to blast me! I went to the bathroom, washed, and came back, steeling myself for the firing squad.

Here’s what he said:

“Mark- it was a hard decision to hire you for this position, because other people had been around longer. But, after teaching with you, I absolutely know deep in my heart that we made the right choice.”

Stunned, I thanked him, and walked away. What happened? I went through the two steps above, it took me about 30 minutes, but I eventually heard the whole message: “You shouldn’t be here, in this psychological place of doubting yourself, because you are trusted and loved, and you are in the right position.”

So, what message about your business has your friend Fear been shouting herself hoarse trying to get through to you?

Then, my pal Havi Brooks, as well as emails and phone calls with folks like Naomi, Colleen, Dawud, among others, and a very passionate involved discussion with the members of The Business Oasis (Note: the Oasis ended in November 2010.), have made me realize that this is not a dress rehearsal. I’m already here.

Kinda one of those uhh… “duh!” moments. There have been benefits, and there have been problems with this.

First, the Benefits

You know how sometimes you just talk to yourself when no one else is around? Or at least you think that no one else is around? That’s kinda how I’ve been treating this blog. Only it’s not true.

People are around. And listening. And the more that I actually talk as if no one is around, the more people seem to be around. Kinda odd, kinda crazy.

Are you talking to yourself, saying what’s true for you, taking risks at looking silly and dumb? Or are you holding back, being careful.

I went on a rant, well… a heart-centered rant, at folks in a class of mine, about being too careful, and how that kills intimacy, truth, and connection to folks who need your help.

The Negatives.

The downside is that I haven’t really been treating the blog as part of my business. It means that I haven’t really made a big deal about launching Heart-Centered Article Writing. It means I haven’t mentioned our upcoming Path to Profitability Retreat.

I never even mentioned that we held a free teleclass on the major topics of organic momentum.

I’ve also been amazingly lax about mentioning amazing things friends of mine are doing. Like the above-mentioned Havi and Naomi. Or that we’re having our website redesigned by someone very cool. And that a long-time member of The Business Oasis, Hilary Barrett, has launched her own cool project around the I Ching to help folks who want clarity with their oracle.

And probably a dozen other cool things that sparked me in the moment and I’m not remembering right now. But when I do, I’ll mention them.

Anyway, this is just one of those mea culpas.

Not much else to say about it. Just wanted to say, “Hey, here’s some cool stuff.” And if my sudden gulp of fresh air helps someone to realize they aren’t in a dress rehearsal either, that’s fantastic. Welcome to center stage.

(Does this resonate with anyone else?)

with love
Mark

When I asked her about whether an unsupported version was going to be available, she said maybe in a few months.

Now, I really like Naomi, and she’s one smart cookie, so I’m guessing she’s got some kind of grand plan behind it. But, to my way of thinking, it’s a little bit backwards. And yes, she’s trying to create urgency to spike sales, and it worked.

But, you can spike sales with urgency, without needing to cut off your foot, or cut off the product that people want. In fact, cutting off the supply, in a somewhat artificial way, can actually leave people feeling abandoned- not a good way to feel. I feel it myself in my belly- even though I know Naomi wasn’t intending it, and without having met her, I have a feeling she’s just a great person.

Sometimes we try a strategy and it has unintended effects.

So, without further ado, I thought I’d share with you an article I wrote back in 2006 for my email list.

Why and How to Create an Information Product.

Have you put off, or given up entirely, the idea of writing that book, or creating a CD or DVD, for your business?

Maybe you’ve let that idea slip away because you thought your business wasn’t suited to it. I mean, what you do is so individual and personal, or too complicated to explain, or so intuitive in nature, that it can’t be captured in a product.

Or maybe you already sell a product, and you can’t imagine what a book or CD would possibly do for your business.

These kinds of products- books, CDs, DVDs and their digital downloadable equivalents: pdfs, mp3s, mpegs – are called information products, ‘info products’ for short.

And, if you are putting off creating one, you are doing a disservice to all the people who are waiting for you.

What’s the purpose of having an info product?

Some people will tell you the purpose is to have ‘multiple streams of income’ or to ‘fill your business to overflowing.’ It’s true, a good info product can create these kinds of results.

But that’s not why you create one. If you create it for that reason, you are chasing the money, and you’ll end up chasing away your customers.

The purpose of an info product is to help the wallflowers.

A wallflower is that term used at dances and other social events where someone who is feeling a little shy or awkward will take a seat next to a wall, and plant themselves there, and never get out on the dance floor.

In junior high I was painfully shy, and lived as a wallflower. High school wasn’t much better, but I was able to retreat into punk rock and avoid the ‘popular’ high school scene.

Even today, as my 20th high school reunion approaches, I can find myself in wallflower situations. I have better coping mechanisms, but it’s still painful.

How many wallflowers are in your business’ dance hall?

People who are struggling with something are unsure of themselves. They are upset, insecure, hesitant. They want to dance the tango, but they don’t want to look foolish and be rejected.

Do you think it might be easier for those wallflowers if you met them at their seat with a glass of punch, and talked with them awhile, before you even asked them to dance?

A good information product doesn’t recreate your business to give the full dance-hall experience. It doesn’t deliver the same intimacy, or the same instruction, or the same in-depth support, or the same results that your main products or services do. That’s not its job.

The job of a good information product is to help people dance along off to the side, out of the spotlight. This will not only help them get some of the results they need, but it will also get them ready to get out on your dance floor and engage more deeply with what will really help them: your main products and services.

And, it’s not a bad thing that info products can create a nice flow of income for you as well.

Ready to deliver that glass of punch and create an info product?

Keys to Creating an Info Product

• What seats are your wallflowers sitting in?

Identify the main hesitations of some of your reluctant customers. Some common hesitations have to do with:

- Is this weird, or is it normal (do people like me do this?).

- Does it really work?

- Do you really know what you’re doing?

- How does it work?

There are others, including ones specific to your business or industry. Search your heart, and also ask your newest clients what concerns they had before they purchased from you.

• Where does your record skip?

With new clients or customers and in newly-started classes, you give them explanations, key ideas, and foundational notions. These notions may be new to your clients, but you’ve repeated each of them 1000 times in different situations.

At a dance, if the record skips, maybe it’s a DJ working the grooves, or maybe it’s just a bad scratch. (But you hear it repeating the same line over and over.)

When you repeat yourself it’s like a scratched record- and you’ve just found a prime place to focus on a product. Stop the skipping record, and turn it into a workbook, article, or recorded audio product.

• Don’t forget the how-to’s.

In your info product, you want to teach them something, and include instructions on how to actually do it. But, remember, that this is a ‘getting-ready / dance-along’ product, and not the dance itself.

This means that while you want your how-to’s to be complete, and you expect your reader or listener to apply them to some extent, don’t worry about trying to recreate the dance hall experience. Because you can’t.

Instead ask your heart to show you how much (or how little) they really need to know to feel comfortable dancing. Lead them up to the edge of the dance floor, maybe have them dance along to the music a few steps off to the side. And, believe me, people can get a lot out of dancing along off to the side.

Then, they’ll be ready for the dance hall. And that’s when you’ll find your dance card overflowing with new customers and clients.

Go mix up that punch, and start serving out info products to all of your wallflowers.

—–

So there’s the article. The point I’m making is that I bet Naomi has a BUNCH of wallflowers who would love to spend money with her, but are hanging back, just reading her blog posts, and would be happy to purchase a more in-depth experience with her… that still wasn’t quite a full-blown consulting experience.

My point is not to dump on Naomi- I hope she forgives me for this. I read her blog, I follow her tweets, she’s smart, she’s got a heart, she’s someone I respect a lot. I was just confused by this particular strategy.

Maybe she’ll visit and give me an insight that will have me eating my heart-centered hat. Maybe you will. What do you think?

Well, that’s just it: the problem isn’t productivity. The truth is, we’re already incredibly productive.

On your laziest, slackest days (well, maybe not your absolutely laziest) if you live anywhere in the so-called ‘developed’ world, you are still party to the most ‘productive’ society ever seen.

And it’s our doom.

The problem isn’t whether you can be more productive, or how. The problem is different. It’s about capacity.

Has This Ever Happened To You?

There was an edge to my voice as I asked the question: “And so why haven’t you finished what you promised to do?”

I meant for it to come out nicer, more reasonable. But, it didn’t.

This is so often where we land, kerthunk, in business: are you getting it done, or aren’t you? In the western world, we call this ‘productivity’ and we think it’s a good thing. Even if we complain about it, or hold spiritual values that say otherwise, I find that my clients (and me… ) orient around this question.

Are you getting it done? Are you being productive enough? And did you realize that your desire for productivity is contributing to global warming, debt, and business struggle?

The problem isn’t productivity… it’s capacity.

What is ‘capacity’?

Capacity is, simply put, the quantity something can contain. How much water a glass holds (oh, about a dram or two), how many people can fit around a Passover table (24! What? Aunt Joan brought six cousins with her? No problem!)…

How many things can you get done in a day, week, year?

The idea of abundance is very alluring- there’s plenty! There’s plenty to go around, there’s plenty for everyone, there’s no reason you can’t do it/have it all.

Unfortunately, this runs smack into a very troubling spiritual teaching.

The physical world is a limited place.

There is an unlimited amount of love, mercy, and peace available. There is, however, a limited amount of fresh water, fossil fuels, and arable land for growing food. There is an unlimited amount of creativity and connection. There is, despite our best efforts, a limited number of seats at the table (we’ll have to find an extra table for those six cousins…)

In the Sufi take on the creation story, Source is described as ‘veiling’ itself, in order to create the physical world. The physical, 3D, dirt and grass reality we live in is distanced from Source, because otherwise we’d all be dissolved into Oneness, with no individuality discernable at all.

The things that are unlimited are the things that are less ‘distant’ from Source, and thus are without physical form: love, compassion, mercy, creativity, etc…

Surrender to the fact that you have limited capacity.

One of the first groups I ever ran, before Heart of Business even existed, was a six-week “Success” group. Every week, people would write down their goals and tasks for the next week. And every week we’d come back to find that everyone, everyone, without fail was leaving about 50% unfinished.

The issue wasn’t productivity: the issue was capacity. They were all overestimating their capacity by about 100%- they thought they could do twice as much as they actually could.

It’s this inability to judge our capacity that leads to debt: you spend more than you have. It also leads to global warming, which is also a kind of debt, in that we are spending more energy, from other sources, than we have in ourselves.

It also leads to business struggle- trying to do more than you really can, means you end up exhausted, cranky, and feeling like a failure.

This was a profound insight for me, when I realized that what was making my life so crowded, was also what was maxing our credit cards at the time, and was also contributing to the ravaging of the planet.

Just accepting one’s true capacity is a big step towards contributing to healing our families, our communities, and the world. And yet, and yet…

Is that it? Give up on your ambitions and your goals? Play small? Or is there way to deal with your capacity and still grow your business?

Keys to Business Capacity

• Get honest.

How many times in the last days, weeks, or months have you said: “I meant to get it done… why isn’t it done yet?” That’s a clue that you are way overestimating your capacity.

It’s okay. Take a deep breath, be gentle with yourself, and realize you haven’t done anything wrong. You’re caught up in a culture that makes routine overestimating capacity and living on credit.

Admit to yourself: “I’m way over capacity. It’s literally impossible to do all of this.”

• Clear cut.

Clear cutting is a miserable thing to do to a forest, but it’s fine thing to do to with a to-do list.

This is the challenge: make a list of everything you are trying to get done in the next week, and erase half. Yes, a full half. Do it right now. Get a piece of paper, do a brain dump of the 12-25 things on your plate.

Now, cross off half of them. I know it’s rough, but it’s going to happen anyway. Better that you choose, rather than you simply run out of time.

• Notice what’s really important.

There are some things that are more urgent, and some things that aren’t. There are some items that help you feel alive and well, and some that don’t.

When you realize what your capacity really is, it becomes easier to say “no” to things that just don’t fit, and easier to say “yes” to the things that are important in your life.

There’s tons of other things that go here: having the right tools (like a larger computer monitor, or the right pruning sheers in the garden), having an office that is set up efficiently, getting regular exercise, etc.

That’s all good stuff, but the foundation of it all, I’ve discovered, is to really face the reality of your capacity. As you settle into the truth of what’s possible in this finite world of ours, I bet you’ll discover a lot more of the limitless abundance of love and peace and compassion in your heart.

And with more of that love, we’ll have more time and capacity to make this world a much more wonderful place.

I’m curious- how do you face your capacity?