This book is a life-changer. One of my daughters handed me this book in December 2018. I was so moved by its lessons, I built my 2019 sales plan based on the author’s “disciplined pursuit of less” philosophy.

Essentialism teaches how to identify only those handful of activities that are most worth your time and then focus completely and exclusively on them – by no means an original concept. You may have heard of Pareto’s Principle aka “The 80/20 Rule”.

Essentialism also teaches to find your 20% and put 100% of your time and effort into it. One of the other lessons here is to create filters through which you run new opportunities you come across as a way of determining whether or not to pursue them.

Sales people are taught to say, “Yes!” to everything. Here, you’d run things through your filters and only move on it only after your review process tells you to. In 2019, I experienced a revenue increase of nearly 70% and profit went up by 250%. At the same time, I worked eight hours less per week than the year before and was able to play more golf that summer that I had in the last 10 years combined!

I credit this book for the sales success (not to mention an improved golf game) as it laid the foundation for my sales philosophy.