“One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” – Bruce Lee

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Connect with me on or .

1. Cut Back Your Hours. Schedule how long you will work each day and in a given week. You will be forced to get things done faster and will notice an increase in sales productivity. To help ensure you leave at 5:00 pm, if that is your cut off time, is to make sure you have commitments after 5:00 pm. Have a recurring event to be working out at 5:30 pm each day with your workout partner, or to be home for dinner by a certain time, whatever it is, stick with it.

2. Work From A Virtual Office. The key here is to set rigid boundaries and to minimize distractions while working at home. You will save on commute time and save your company money, however, you will actually be tempted to work even more hours being at home, so you must stick with #1 above or this will not work.

3. Schedule Times To Check Your Emails & Voicemails. This will help you to increase your sales productivity because you will have less distractions and be able to focus more. Remember, you don’t have to be available every minute and second of the day…In fact, that just will slow you down. (more…)

Stress is the trash of modern life – we all generate it but if you don’t dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life. ~Terri Guillemets

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Follow me on or .

Identify Your Work Stress. Before you can eliminate or reduce stress, you must know what you are dealing with. Write down all the stresses that you deal with on a daily and weekly basis. Then create a top 10 list of all the things that cause you stress and determine which items you can eliminate from your list.

Shorten Your Scheduled Meetings. Consider cutting many of your 60 minute meetings to 30 minutes and your 30 minute meetings to 15. With a shorter time frame to work in, you will be forced to be more productive.

Stop Procrastinating. Allowing work to pile up will stress you out. Plan time to get things done and off your desk.

Get Organized. Disorganization can cause a significant amount of workplace stress. Block time to get things organized. (more…)

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer

In a 2009 International Vacation Deprivation Survey from expedia.com:

One in three employees do not use their allotted vacation days each year, even though they said they are more productive after returning from vacation.

In the sometimes grueling world of sales, the negative impact of not taking vacations could be even greater.

Sales professionals are becoming less and less productive as they push on without vacations. They often feel compelled to keep working without vacations, to be available for every client call, and for every lead that may come their way. They don’t want to miss a beat. They end up “over working” and hurting their progress.

Here are 5 reasons why sales professionals should take all of their vacations days each year: (more…)

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on or .

I have worked successfully from a home office in various sales roles in the past, and there are many benefits from working at home; however, there are also many dangers.

Sales managers and sales professionals need to be aware of potential pitfalls.

Avoid the following dangers and you will be able to create a highly productive home office environment.

Never Shutting Off The Work
One of the main problems with working from home for sales people is that you are technically always at work. It becomes very hard for your mind to separate your free time and your work time. This can result in an unbalanced life-style and addictive work behaviors. Some common negative habits that are formed consist of constantly checking emails, always taking calls even during non-working ours, and working well into the night. (more…)

As people get busier and busier with their lives, career and work, often the things most important to them, get neglected. The path to a more fulfilling life is to honor your values on a daily basis. But how can you honor your values if they are not crystal clear to you, or if you have not even thought about them in a long time?

Here are a few ways to help clarify your values so you can raise your awareness and start to honor them more in your life, career or business. The faster you start to honor these values more, the more fulfillment you will experience. (more…)

The following question was posted on linkedin.com: “Work-Life Balance…Any suggestion on how to find symmetry?”  Below is my public answer.

Hi, these are very important questions.  As a professional coach, both for business, sales and life, I find that these areas area critical for success.  I started a linkedin.com group that is fully dedicated to “Balance & Fulfillment for Business Leaders” that you might want to join.  We are sharing and helping each other with these exact types of questions.

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