Right about now, people all over the world are thinking: “Oh @#$!. It can’t SERIOUSLY be December already!” Yes, my friend. It is. It’s here. Cold weather; leaves all over the place (well…not in Southern California, but in other places I’m sure); and the holiday craziness that happens around this time of year. For us service-based businesses, it’s also a time when things tend to slow down. Some people think this is a bad thing, but if you take advantage of the down-time in the right way, it can be quite an opportunity.

A lot of people use this slow time as an opportunity to reflect – to review their goal list, rewrite business plans, make resolutions, and just generally wait around for January to arrive so they can start fresh.

I say – why wait for January? And why start over? Chances are, you did some great things this past year, and December is a great time to drag those creations back out. (Plus, everybody loves a sale!) Here are some ideas for ya:

1. Got Teleseminars? If you do teleseminars on a regular basis, now is a good time to gather up all those recordings and sell them. Package them together and put them in your online store, or offer them as a new free download on your site.

    2. Got Blog Posts? Did you have a love affair with your keyboard in 2011? Pull out your best, most relevant blog posts and compile it into an eBook. Sell it or make it into a giveaway.

   3. Got Products? Comb your hard drive for any live courses you did, and package them up into a home-study. Or, take home-study products or ebooks, and re-launch, bundle them, or put them on sale.

   4. Don’t have enough content? Crowd-source it. (That’s where you combine a bunch of content from multiple sources and make them one.) Here is a great examples of a crowd-sourced e-book hosted by socialfresh.com: The Crowdsourced Twitter Marketing Book

5. Got Services? If you feel you don’t have enough time to gather things together, you can always sell your time. If you are a coach, it’s a great time to solicit new business by offering a few laser coaching or planning sessions.

So, there you have it. Go forth and be productive.