Category: Planning & Management

Article Contributed by Jeff Beals

Jane Schulte is really quite remarkable.

She’s an entrepreneur, who runs two successful businesses. She grew her company, PRISM Title, from eight to 60 employees in only 18 months. She has published four books, two of which are award winning. She speaks to a variety of audiences about business success. She has been featured in Jeffrey Gitomer’s “Sales Caffeine” newsletter and many other media outlets. On top of all this, she’s an accomplished artist whose works have been commissioned.

That’s certainly an impressive bio.  But do you want to know what’s most remarkable about Jane Schulte?

She doesn’t work evenings and weekends.

“I might log in on my laptop for a minute right when I get home,” Schulte said, “but I don’t work in the evening unless it’s a crisis or some client needs my help and absolutely can’t wait.”

Imagine that! How can a person accomplish so much, yet do it so efficiently, that she doesn’t take work home with her each night?

The answer is time management.

When asked how she can accomplish so much, Schulte gave a lot of reasons – a talented and loyal staff, energy, drive – but she focused mostly on time management.

It wouldn’t be fair to say Schulte is obsessed with time management, but she has definitely mastered it in a way very few others have. That discipline has allowed her to excel in many wide-ranging things simultaneously.

Schulte’s path to success is kind of old fashioned in that she worked her way through the proverbial “school of hard knocks.” She grew up – and still lives – in the northern Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio. She started working as a legal secretary in 1981. She was promoted to a real estate paralegal two years later and landed her first management job in 1985. A few short years later, she was an executive. Just recently, she started an additional company, PRISM Business Advisors. She and her husband Greg together have three sons, one of whom works at NASA. The other two are enrolled at the University of Kentucky.

Certainly tenacity and drive mixed with competence and business acumen are important, but more than any other skill, time management is number one.

In fact, when asked what advice she would give a young entrepreneur, Schulte quickly said they should get a handle on their time.

“If you don’t control your time, all things are not possible,” she said. “I can’t stress that enough. I’ve seen so many people, who could be so much more successful if they weren’t so scattered, and they didn’t get overwhelmed and bogged down. They become immobilized. There are so many things hitting them, and they don’t have any systems in place to take care of that or keep their stress at a manageable level.”

The sad thing is that many of these overwhelmed and ultimately burned-out people are full of talent.

“Get a handle on your time, because we only have so much,” Schulte said. “In order to be really successful, you have to be able to do more than just one thing. You have to be diversified, flexible and agile enough to go where there are opportunities.”

Schulte is so committed to good time management that she authored a how-to book, Work Smart Not Hard: Organizational Tips and Tools That Will Change Your Life. In the book, she describes both strategies and tactics for getting a grip on life’s most precious resource.

She preaches the importance of de-cluttering our desks and email in-boxes. She describes her PEND system, which stands for “Put an End to Needless Distraction™. PEND consists of a folder for each day of the month where paper items are strategically filed. She also has an electronic PEND system for emails. She uses Microsoft Outlook’s task feature, dual monitors on her desk PC, and takes full advantage of the power offered by smart phones and remote access to office computer databases.

Ultimately, the effective time manager uses all the tools available.

“The idea is ‘don’t remember anything,’” Schulte said. “Use your tools and system, so you are free to take care of the task at hand whatever that might be.”

There’s another tool that is incredibly important: delegation. Accomplishing things through other people is fundamental if you want to succeed and enjoy a fulfilling life. By leveraging the work of others, you multiply your own abilities. In fact, Schulte said delegation is one of best strengths as a leader.

“I’ve taught a lot of people what I know and what I do,” she said. “That way, I can send a lot of projects or parts of projects to other people.”

By the way, if you would like to learn more about Jane Schulte, go to PrismSuccess.com or find her books on Amazon.com.

About the Author:

Jeff Beals is an award-winning author, who helps professionals do more business and have a greater impact on the world through effective sales, marketing and personal branding techniques.  As a professional speaker, he delivers energetic and humorous keynote speeches and workshops to audiences worldwide.   You can learn more and follow his “Business Motivation Blog” at www.JeffBeals.com.

Article Contributed by Terri Zwierzynski

If you are like me, your inbox is full of emails you intend to read “someday”. Newsletters are a particularly insidious culprit; full of info-packed articles, tips and resources, we often save them to read later, only to find ourselves accumulating more and more email, and never finding the time to sit down to that task.

Why do we keep them? Because we believe that possibly, somewhere in there lies the magic answer to some problem we’ve been experiencing. And then we feel guilty every time we open our email, because we haven’t gotten around to reading that vitally important information that might change our business or our life for the better.

And so our inbox is overflowing with:

•    articles with info that we think we need to learn

•    links to products or services we might need to buy

•    ebooks we think we need to read

I’m here to tell you that you don’t need any of those emails. In fact, you need to delete them — and you’ll move your business ahead much faster as a result.

Three tips for cleaning out your inbox:

1. Let go of your need to hold onto this information. I can hear you moaning now: “but maybe I’ll never find this info again!” Trust me…i f it’s an important concept, someone will write about it again, and it’ll end up in your inbox (or your Twitter stream, or your Facebook news, or a blog you follow) again. If it doesn’t — it wasn’t really that important.

If it’s a great, not-to-be-missed product or service, you’ll find it again, because people will keep talking about it! If you don’t hear about it again…it was probably a ho-hummer anyway.

So be brave, and hit that delete key with confidence that if it’s really important, it will show up on your radar again, just when you need it!

2. Look at all the newsletters you have accumulated…and unsubscribe from AT LEAST half of them. Then delete all the back issues, too. We sign up for newsletters for all kinds of perfectly good reasons — but with the plethora of really great information out there, it’s easy to get carried away.

The bottom line is you don’t need most of this information…you already have 90% of the info you need to run your business. You know what to do…searching for more information is just another way to procrastinate, give in to the fear that you don’t know what you are doing, etc. Trust that you are ready…and get busy implementing, not researching more!

3. Devise a system to read or discard email immediately. Spend just a few seconds deciding whether something is worth reading right away — and if it is not, delete it! If you plan to read it, do it right then. Alternatively, put the “read soon” emails into a separate folder and then put time on your calendar every Friday to clean out that folder — read and delete so the folder is EMPTY at the end of your Friday session. Imagine the feeling of accomplishment you’ll have when you’ve done your “research” for the week!

Even better — with a cleaner inbox, you’ll find you have more room to get things done…because you won’t be constantly looking at an inbox full of things to read!

About the Author:

Terri Zwierzynski is a self-employed business strategist and marketing consultant to solo entrepreneurs, and a grassroots promoter of the solo entrepreneur lifestyle. She runs Solo-E.com, the resource website for the self-employed which attracts thousands of solo home business owners monthly from over 100 countries on six continents (and was recently named a finalist for “Website of the Year” in the 4th Annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business). Terri is also the co-author of 136 Ways To Market Your Small or Solo Business.

Article Contributed by Roberta Chinsky Matuson

Management looks really easy, doesn’t it? You’re awarded a title, and, if you are lucky, an office, and away you go. You bark some orders here and there and then you sit back until it’s time to give another directive. Of course, everyone does exactly what you ask of them, because you are the person in charge. If this were really the case, everyone would want to be a manager!

Here are ten tips to help you become the type of manager that everyone wants to work with.

1.  Be credible – It is difficult, if not impossible to get others to follow you if you aren’t perceived as being credible. Credibility is not something you earn overnight, although it is certainly something you can destroy in one day. Be mindful of how your words and actions have a direct impact on how others perceive you on a daily basis.

2.  Lead by example – Behave, as you would want your employees to behave, but also understand that your role is different from that of your employees.

3.  Surround yourself with the right people – Hire for fit, train for skill and if the opportunity presents itself, hire people who are better than you. Prepare for the arrival of new hires so they immediately feel connected to the organization.

4.  Build on strengths – Weaknesses may be more visible, but strengths are where you will receive a greater return. Find one or two strengths in each of your people and help them become the type of employees you know they can be.

5.  Cut your losses early – Mismatches happen, no matter how good you are at interviewing. Take action quickly to avoid having the rest of the team distracted by a poor hire.

6.  Cultivate the success of others – To succeed as a manager, you will need to shift your focus from “me” to “we.” Going forward, your success will no longer be measured by your individual contribution. Instead, you will be evaluated on your ability to create and maintain a highly engaged team that is willing to give it their all.

7.  Manage performance – People want and need feedback in order to improve their performance. Don’t be the manager everyone complains about. Give your people continuous feedback and provide them with timely performance reviews.

8.  Be respectful – One of the quickest ways to lose credibility and trust is by being disrespectful. Regardless of the situation at hand, treat your people the way you would like to be treated.

9.  Master the art of influencing – As the boss, many times you will be asking people to do things on your behalf. Be specific in your request and let them know why it’s in their best interest to comply, and you will be well on your way to getting what you need.

10.  Get respect – As human beings, we have a natural tendency to want to be loved. But what happens when your desire to be loved interferes with your ability to lead? Effective leaders recognize it is more important to be respected by their people than adored. They make the tough decisions that are needed to secure the future of those around them, including their direct reports.

About the Author:

Roberta Chinsky Matuson is the President of Human Resource Solutions (http://www.yourhrexperts.com)  and author of the highly acclaimed book, Suddenly in Charge: Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around (Nicholas Brealey, January 2011). Her firm helps organizations create exceptional workplaces that deliver extraordinary results. Sign up to receive a complimentary subscription to Roberta’s monthly newsletter, HR Matters.

Article Contributed by Jeff Beals

Have you ever seen The Blind Side?  It’s an acclaimed movie based on a true story first described in a best-selling book by Michael Lewis.  It’s quite inspiring.

The Blind Side introduces us to Michael Oher, one of 13 children born to a mother addicted to crack cocaine living in a Memphis housing project.  When the story begins, the teenage Oher doesn’t know his father, his birthday or even his true last name.  His reading and writing skills are almost non-existent.  A victim of utter neglect, he spends his days and nights unsupervised, wandering the crime-ridden, inner-city streets.

Through a twist of fate – or perhaps divine intervention – Oher finds himself enrolled in an upscale, suburban prep school where he meets an affluent family that eventually adopts him.  With this new love and support, he overcomes culture shock, catches up academically and discovers the game of football.

He not only discovers football, he turns out to be darned good at it, and receives a full-ride athletic scholarship to the University of Mississippi.  Today, Oher is a star offensive lineman for the National Football League’s Baltimore Ravens and consequently a very wealthy man.

While the compelling story behind The Blind Side is the amazing metamorphosis of a young man, there’s a second story line: the evolution of the game of football.  You see, there’s a reason why Oher is such a wealthy player today.  He plays a position that is critically important and perhaps the most difficult one for a coach to staff: left tackle.  There is a scarcity of truly great left-tackle talent.  That makes Oher unbelievably valuable to coaches and team owners.

Why is the left tackle so important?  Because he protects the quarterback’s blind side.  Most quarterbacks are right handed, so when they drop back to pass, they can’t see pass rushers coming from their left sides.  Given that, defensive coordinators usually line up their most ferocious athletes on the quarterback’s left side.

As the highest paid and typically most valuable player on the team, the quarterback must be protected at all costs.  But it’s not enough for a left tackle to be big and strong.  He must possess the rare combination of size, strength, speed, balance and agility.  In other words, a left tackle must be a huge guy with the agility of a little guy.  Very few human beings possess this priceless combination of abilities.  Michael Oher is one of them.

As a quarterback, you need a world-class left tackle covering your blind side, your greatest vulnerability.  If you get blindsided too much, you not only lose the game, you might lose your career.

Just like a professional quarterback, you are incredibly valuable.  You are valuable to your company, your colleagues, your staff, your family, your friends, your community, and just as important, to yourself.  Like a quarterback, you have a blind side that must be protected at all costs.

In today’s competitive, high-stakes economy, you can’t afford to be blindsided.  You need protection.  You need your own Michael Oher, so to speak.

So, who or what protects your blind side?

Your left tackle could be a trusted colleague, who keeps you informed, covers for you and stands with you when the going gets tough.  Perhaps you serve as his or her left tackle when that person is distressed.

Your left tackle could be a staff with which you have built great synergy or a boss with whom you have developed a symbiotic working relationship.

Actually, your left tackle does not necessarily have to be a person.  Your protector could be a carefully designed management system with checks and balances designed into it.  It could be a strategic plan with contingencies built in.

Whatever or whoever you choose to be your left tackle, you need one. There’s no need to go through life paranoid, but take some time to develop your own left tackle.  When your blind side is protected, you have a foundation to stand upon.  You have the liberty and security necessary to take risks and chase your dreams.

About the Author:

Jeff Beals is an award-winning author, who helps professionals do more business and have a greater impact on the world through effective sales, marketing and personal branding techniques. As a professional speaker, he delivers energetic and humorous keynote speeches and workshops to audiences worldwide. You can learn more and follow his “Business Motivation Blog” at http://www.JeffBeals.com.

Article Contributed by Jeremy Ulmer

“Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.“ –Bruce Lee

Here are 20 quick tips to help you increase your sales productivity. Keep in mind, not every tip will be useful for every person. Just pick the tips that are helpful for you and integrate them into your routine.

Here are a few suggestions when reading through all of these tips:

-Don’t do them all at once. Focus on one at a time.

-Experiment with different tips.

-These are not in any particular order, so browse through them all.

So, here they are, 20 tips to increase your sales productivity:

1. Less is more. Focus on your most essential tasks each day. Eliminate or delegate as much as you can.

2. Exercise. Make this a habit if it is not already. For me, exercising is the key to my energy, health, and productivity. It also greatly reduces stress and can be a form of meditation. Here are some tips on how to make exercise a daily habit.

3. Stop rushing. Focus on what you are doing in the moment and don’t rush through it. It will be much more relaxing for you and in the end, your quality of work will be improved.

4. Fail. Don’t be afraid to fall flat on your face and fail. If you are afraid of failing, you will never take important first steps. Without failure there would be no success.

5. Find what you love to do. Find something you love to do, and your quality of life and work will improve. If you love your work you will become more productive and less stressed.

6. Wake up early. This is not for everyone, but it can make a huge impact on your life and what you get done in a given day. Here are some tips on how to wake up early.

7. Eat clean. Don’t buy junk and don’t bring it into your house. That will instantly help you stay lean and trim. Be aware of what you are eating, your mouth is not a garbage disposal.

8. Get organized. The more organized you are, the less time you will waste finding things and the more productive you will be.

9. Review goals. Don’t just set sales goals, but take a look at them each month to see what is working and what is not working. It is ok to change your goals.

10. Be positive. Focus on the positive. Focus on what you have, not on what you don’t have. Surround yourself with people who have positive energy. Here are some tips on how to stay positive in sales.

11. Practice being compassionate. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” – Plato.

12. Visualize. Envision your most positive future self. What would life be like for her or him? Where would you live and what would you be doing? Let that vision pull you into the future you want to have.

13. Set goals. Long-term goals are important to set, but also be sure you are setting daily and weekly goals as well. Here are some tips on how to set goals.

14. Get the toughest things done first. Aim to accomplish the 3 most important things of your day before 12noon. Give them top priority.

15. Be focused. Work on one goal and one task at a time. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

16. Enjoy the ride. Don’t just focus on the end goal, but enjoy the process and learning that takes place as you strive to achieve them.

17. Enjoy the little things. A joyful and happy person is a more productive person. Editors Note: I used to walk my grandma on long walks in her wheelchair and the little things gave her the most joy. Seeing a Cardinal bird, a beautiful flower, or simply getting some fresh air, made her day and taught me a lot about what really matters.

18. Single-task. Stop multi-tasking and this will instantly increase your productivity. Here are some tips on how to minimize distractions to focus on one task.

19. Be in the now. Be present and focus on being in the now more than the past or future.

20. Volunteer and help others. Just one hour a week of volunteering can make a huge impact on the world and on yourself. I find volunteering to be one of the most fulfilling things I do. Try it out, and you just might become hooked too! When you volunteer you will not only be helping others, but you will provide yourself with many health benefits that will increase your energy and productivity.

About the Author:

Jeremy Ulmer is one of the most dynamic and requested sales experts in the country. His company specializes in working with sales management, individual sales performers, and sales organizations to transform their sales results. They deliver customized sales coaching programs and corporate sales training. Sign up for free sales tips and free sales webinars at: http://www.SalesCoachingHabits.com