Today's Guest

Coach Juli Shulem, M.S., PCC, CPC, began as an Efficiency Specialist and Professional Organizer decades ago. As a Productivity Coach & Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, she is an expert in dealing with the many challenges of those struggling with more difficult organizing, relationship, professional and personal management issues. Having been an entrepreneur and solopreneur her entire career, most of her clients tend to be entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and corporate leaders worldwide. Learn how Juli helps her clients balance the overwhelming aspects of entrepreneurship and implements systems to improve productivity.

Resources Shared

• Coach Juli
• Thryv
  

Episode Transcript

(Please excuse grammatical errors due to transcription)

Gordon Henry:

Hey hey, this is Gordon Henry at Winning on Main Street.

If you've ever felt you need to do a better job of maximizing your time or becoming more productive or getting rid of the clutter in your life or focusing on the things that really matter, and who of us hasn't thought about some of these some of the time, then meet today's guest, Juli Shulem.

Juli is a productivity coach, an organizing expert who focuses on helping small businesses and entrepreneurs improve their productivity.

She focuses on productivity, time management, organization, efficiency, prioritizing, decision-making, workflow management, impulse control, and day-to-day challenges.

Her specialty is coaching and training managers, owners of small or medium-sized businesses and solopreneurs who want to reach a greater level of success.

She knows that organizing clear communicators make great leaders. She also coaches solopreneurs, helping them handle staff problems and navigate difficult business complications. She helps them get more organized with all aspects of their business.

So what should listeners get out of this episode? Every entrepreneur or small business owner knows it's lonely out there sometimes. You get distracted, you get overwhelmed, you feel unproductive. You're constantly thinking, "What should I be spending my time on?"

Well, perhaps you need a coach; somebody who can help you confront these challenges, structure your day.

Coach Juli has confronted and overcome many problems with clients, many times before. Maybe she can help you.

So Juli, welcome to the show.

Juli Shulem:

Well, thank you very much, Gordon. It's great to be here.

Gordon Henry:

Excited to have you here.

And so you're known as Coach Juli. Why don't you tell us about your background and what got you into business coaching?

Juli Shulem:

Thank you for asking.

Well, I've been actually an entrepreneur and solopreneur my entire adult life, so this is my happy place, and I started my career as a professional organizer long before the National Association even existed, honestly, and I used to go in and work with medical and dental offices and help them be more productive and get more organized, and this is before technology, so long time ago.

Anyway, I started doing that.

I was speaking in various companies and associations and helping people to be more productive, get more done, be better organized, and then about 21 years ago or so, every single one of my clients started saying, "Hey, I have a lot of challenges with really getting a lot done and can you help me? I actually have ADHD too. Have you heard of that?" And I said, "Yes."

I did. I knew a lot about it, and in course of one year, every single one of my clients said, "I have ADHD. I need help here."

Okay, so this then became my next area of expertise.

I worked very hard at learning everything I could and I eventually became an expert in that arena, and that ended up launching the whole coaching option because I realized I could help so many more people by coaching when we had the opportunity of having a platform virtual, and this was long before COVID so I've been doing the whole virtual thing, working on Skype of course first and now Zoom, before this was very fashionable and necessary, and it allowed me to help so many more people, and the coaching grew and I got certified and jumped through all the hoops of course to be a professional certified coach, and then I went back to school again actually in the last decade and got my master's in industrial organizational psychology.

Gordon Henry:

Who would you say are your typical clients?

Juli Shulem:

Typical client is a solopreneur and entrepreneur that has maybe been in business already for a while but they've maybe hit a roadblock, or they are in a growth spurt and they want to be able to do more, better.

Gordon Henry:

Okay. So let's say I'm one of those people you just described.

Maybe I hear Gordon's podcast, I call you, I like you, we talk and I want to hire you. What happens next? What's the process like?

Juli Shulem:

It's super simple.

First of all, I'm very much an in-person, talk to you kind of a person, so I want to really get a chance to know you and make sure that we're a good fit, so first thing, most people reach me by email, so they'll send me email, "Hey, I'm interested in talking to you about potentially having you coach me." And then I will schedule a consultation, there's no charge for this, of course, and we find out if we're a good fit and if I feel that I can really have an impact.

I'm not going to take on someone that I don't feel I can really have great results with.

Gordon Henry:

Give me some sense of the cost of this. Do you bill by the hour? By the project? Because people listening may be wondering, "Is this something I can afford?"

Juli Shulem:

Absolutely. So, I work on a 10-week contract series, if you will, and it roughly runs around $400 or so a session, so I'm kind of, I think, in the middle of the coaching range and-

Gordon Henry:

Okay.

Juli Shulem:

Yeah, I try to keep it really affordable.

Again, I'm working with solopreneurs, so-

Gordon Henry:

Yeah.

Juli Shulem:

It's not like, "There's Google."

Gordon Henry:

Right. Right. Not corporate.

Juli Shulem:

Going to put millions of dollars behind them.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah. Exactly.

Juli Shulem:

Yeah.

Gordon Henry:

Can you tell us one or two success stories of a real business or solopreneur you feel like you helped?

Juli Shulem:

Yes. Yes. Oh, this is my favorite part. Oh, there's so many.

All right, I'll tell you about this one gentleman I've been working with, and he came to me not really doing on the deliverables as well as he should, and we worked on his focusing ability and also on his scheduling, prioritizing, and really using his time to the best use of his ability because that was not happening, so what we did, I helped him to structure his day better and his week better, taught him how to use his systems, his technology, and from there he started seeing where his time was being spent and where it wasn't being spent, and from there he was able to shift and started changing how he planned his time.

Well, let's just say this; he started to plan his time, which many people do not do consistently, or at all, and once we get that into place, it's been amazing, so he's actually increased his billable hours by such an amazing amount he can't even believe the transformation, nor can the company he works for, so that's been amazing.

I've had a few people come to me when they know that they have just a few more months left, they're on a PIP, an improvement plan, and they're going to lose their job.

So I've got this other gentleman, great guy, really awesome, really great at what he does but just was not, again, meeting expectations, and we flipped everything around.

Again, taught him how to plan better, how to use his technology, how to manage his task, all of these skills, and he's also exponentially improved his situation. And, yeah, I haven't lost someone on a PIP yet, so I want to keep working on that. Make sure people are thriving.

Gordon Henry:

That's very interesting and very helpful.

My own company, Thryv, we went virtual during the pandemic. We decided to stay virtual and it's been really a Godsend in many ways.

We really have seen actually productivity lifts and general quality of life improvements, I would say, for many people; less time commuting, more time with your family, exercise, whatever it is you choose to do in your off time, but I do imagine in the world of virtual work there are some people who suddenly have productivity challenges because they don't have a boss standing over their shoulder.

Is that a problem you confront or deal with? And how?

Juli Shulem:

Yes. It does often come up.

Mostly in the verbiage that is used is, "I'm very distracted by everything in my world. It's house of a million distractions." Is how it's often viewed, and that is an issue that has to be addressed because when you're in your home and that's where you're working, if you don't have a designated space where you can close the door and not see the rest of your house, it's very tempting to just, "Oh, let me go and do this chore." Or, "Take care of this." Or, "Oh, I'm going to sit down in the living room and read a magazine."

You know?

Yeah, no-

Gordon Henry:

Yeah.

Juli Shulem:

... this is your workday. If you wouldn't do that during the workday in an office, you shouldn't do that at home either.

Gordon Henry:

Right.

Juli Shulem:

There are obviously some advantages as well when you are at home, and when you do take an actual break, yeah, you can go and make that phone call or do something that would fit in the personal realm, whereas you wouldn't be able to do it obviously in an office, so there's a way of balancing that out and making it work for you and not take you away from your job, but...

I practice what I preach and I do tell people, "You know, when I'm in my office..." Which I'm in my office not now, this background of course is not my office but when I'm in my office, I'm at work. When I'm at my desk, I do work related tasks, period.

When I want to do something that's not work related, I leave my office. I go out the door and I shut the door, and now I'm home, so I have that really clear boundary and that's what I help my clients to achieve is create those boundaries and those non-negotiable scenarios like, "Nope, you're home, you're at home. You're at work, do your job."

Gordon Henry:

Now, you mentioned the word systems along the way there and I really find that to be an interesting description of how you create productivity.

When you talk about systems, what do you mean?

Juli Shulem:

So, I set up systems for my clients to solve whatever problems they are having.

Now, generally that's task management. I'd say almost every single person across the board that I work with is not getting things done as they should, so we create systems that are going to work best for them.

Often we are using technology, so if they are tech savvy, that's great. If they're not, I'll help them get there so that they can use the options that they have available to themselves.

This is super important because we're in a world where technology is necessary and you need to be able to use the tools that you have available, to the best of your ability.

And it doesn't mean you have to use every single thing out there of course, but those things that would make your life easier, you want to be able to have those in place and know how to use them, and also know how to delegate to others should you not be able to do a particular task or it's not the best use of your time, and many times that's the situation, but creating systems, creating schedules, creating ways to use your calendar, a task management system for example, and integrate everything so that your business doesn't become the challenge, you get to help the people you help, do your job even better because you're not bogged down by not having a method of getting things done.

Gordon Henry:

Yep. Yep. Hundred percent.

We were talking, before we got on the show, about systems and technology, and our company Thryv makes a CRM system, a customer relationship management system, and really the goal of it is to automate a lot of the manual tasks that take over the day of so many of us; putting information into spreadsheets about who your customers are or sending them an email reminder that you're coming out on Tuesday at two o'clock to fix the washing machine or setting up a quarterly reminder so that they come in for car inspection.

Juli Shulem:

Right.

Gordon Henry:

All those kinds of tasks, communicating can take up so much time if you don't have an automated way to do it.

Juli Shulem:

Yes. And those kinds of systems are exactly what I help my clients to implement; at least be aware of.

Sometimes it's just lack of awareness. It's like, "Did you know that you could do this? And then you won't have to worry about those 12 things on your task list. You push a-

Gordon Henry:

A hundred percent.

Juli Shulem:

... button and it happens."

Absolutely.

Gordon Henry:

Right.

Now, I want to come back to the ADHD comment.

So, you told us what it is. When clients come to you with this issue, this problem, how do you help them?

Juli Shulem:

So, firstly, I'm usually getting a call from someone who has hit the bottom in many regards, like, "Okay, I'm stuck. This is not working. This has been a challenge."

"I just got diagnosed." That's another one that I hear often.

I'll have people actually who come to me and say, "I don't have a diagnosis but I suspect I have that." And that's fine. Obviously I work with a plethora of individuals without ADHD, but because it's a specialty, I can work with people who are really stuck and having challenges with focusing, not being distracted, and using their executive functioning skills.

So, I first find out really where are the gaps? Where are the problems? Where are we stuck? And then we put in systems that will work for the way that they think and the way that their brain chemistry is wired and help them to move forward on the things that they wish.

This has been something I've been doing for so long, I can pretty much guess at what might be going on, but we do do quite a bit of discovery and find out where are the problems or challenges?

I don't like to actually call them problems because problems can't always be overcome, but challenges, yes, we can overcome them.

Gordon Henry:

So is the challenge that the ADHD person faces different than the challenge that the non-ADHD person faces who just finds themself distracted or bogged down?

Is it similar? Or is it something unique to the ADHD?

Juli Shulem:

No. It is something unique. It is a chemical difference in the brain and it has to do with the neurotransmitters, and there are ways that I help my clients to learn how to improve the functioning of their brain actually so that they are not at a disadvantage, if you will, by that, and many of the techniques that work for someone with ADHD work really, really well for the rest of us also, so whether you have a neurotypical or non-neurotypical brain, everything can help, but those with ADHD might have a few more hurdles to jump over in order to make everything happen.

Gordon Henry:

I want to ask you about my own productivity issue.

So, as I was getting ready, I was thinking, "I have productivity issues too." And probably like a lot of people, I have the meetings people schedule for me. They just show up on your Outlook calendar and like, "Oh, I got all these meetings to go to." In a bigger company.

Then I have my own short-term, hot issues.

I'm writing something, I got to submit something, I have a email to write, I have paper to do, whatever, a PowerPoint slide, so I have those sort of short-term hot issues, and then I have these longer term projects that are these big things that I want to work on that I never seem to really find the time for, so you got different things you're juggling there.

What's a way to think about how to keep them all in balance so you can do them all?

Juli Shulem:

Oh, that is such a great question, and I have the same things that I have to contend with; appointments on my calendar and big projects and then tasks.

So, first thing, I break up my week based on how each day is going to play out. So for example, I am client facing on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays.

Nine times out of 10 there will be nothing else on my calendar except client sessions. Period. I'm in that zone. This is where I'm fully engaged in that and that's where it works best for me, and this is over years of fussing with the various days and what works best.

I don't like we're having Monday client sessions because there's so many holidays on Mondays and then everyone says, "Oh, I'm not going to be around on Monday." So I move everything around.

Like, yeah, I'm tired of that, so Monday is not a day I do that.

Same thing with Fridays. People go on vacations early.

So, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays that... Mondays and Fridays are the days for all other kinds of meetings and appointments, consultations and such.

So that's where I break my week up, based on how I want it to be available, and my availability is set accordingly, so no one can just pick a meeting on a Wednesday for me. I show as not available. So I keep very clear...

Again, this is setting up boundaries and having a really good system in place.

The other is with regard to getting tasks done. Those should be managed. And this is something I do a whole workshop on this alone, is how to get your tasks done and how to get a project done, which I find so many people, just like you said, Gordon, where they go, "I got this big project and it's been on my list and I keep pushing it down and kicking the can over and over and over and over. It's never getting done." And my first question is, "Have you broken down that project into tasks or is it just listed as project X, Y, Z?"

If it's just listed as project X, Y, Z, you're going to keep kicking the can for a very long time because you haven't broken it down into bite-sized pieces. It has to be doable steps.

And I teach a whole workshop on that as well.

Gordon Henry:

Doable steps. Yeah.

Juli Shulem:

Doable steps.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah. Very interesting.

But he-

Juli Shulem:

And then you schedule them.

There's a whole process.

Gordon Henry:

It's not exactly that point but it brings to mind, there's this video online, you've probably seen it, it's this admiral from... I think he was a Navy SEAL-

Juli Shulem:

Yep.

Gordon Henry:

It's the Make Your Bed speech?

Juli Shulem:

Yep. I thought I sent it to you.

Gordon Henry:

And he's speaking to the University of Texas and he's going through 10 tips for life basically, and his first one is make your bed because...

He goes through all the reasons you should make your bed; self-satisfaction, if you can get the little things done then you can get the big things done, if you have a bad day and come back to a made bed that you made, that's a nice thing, so there's a whole bunch of reasons to go, but I thought that was a very interesting like, who would ever think that that would be a reason your life would be better? But he starts with that one.

Juli Shulem:

Yeah. And I send that same video. I know that video. I've sent that to many, many people and there's actually research that I call upon often that states similarly, that when you get something done, you get one thing done, it actually gives you the motivation and spurs you on to do the next thing, to do something else, so just get something done, and that's where the whole make your bed concept comes from.

Gordon Henry:

Little bit of pride in accomplishing something.

Juli Shulem:

Yep.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah.

Juli Shulem:

You have some confidence, you've checked something off the list, you feel accomplished.

Gordon Henry:

Right.

Juli Shulem:

"Gee, I made my bed this morning! Go me!."

Gordon Henry:

Gosh darn it. We have to take a quick 30 second break to hear a word from our sponsor.

We will be back with more from Juli Shulem. Don't go away.

Speaker 4:

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Gordon Henry:

And we're back with Juli Shulem, the productivity expert. All sorts of interesting tips and ideas about how you can be more productive.

You know, Juli, the one productivity thing that always stuck with me from what I've read over the years is the author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People has this little two-by-two box of what is important and what is urgent, and you have a box of important but not urgent, important and urgent, and unimportant and... You know. The four boxes.

Juli Shulem:

Yeah.

Gordon Henry:

And I always thought that was a great way to think about what you have to do because I think most of us get caught up in urgent but not important.

I have an email. I must answer somebody but this'll be here today, gone tomorrow. It's not like...

Important, you just got to deal with it, and I think...

I'm asking, really. Seems like most of us get caught up, especially in this world of email where it's just like, "Hey, I got an inbox. I got 43 things I got to answer today. I answered the 43. I go home. Did I really accomplish anything?"

So how do you deal with that? And again, spend more time on the important but not urgent things, which are really the long-term needle movers.

Juli Shulem:

Exactly. That's such a good question and I'm glad you said something about it. This is what I refer to when my clients are... You know. This is what happened so often.

I had a client one time who said, "Yeah, I'm busy all day long and I don't feel like I did anything." And what a lot of people do is they go for the quick, fun, easy tasks because they feel like, "Oh look, I get to check off all these things." But they're not the highest priority, so one of the things I do straight up, very similar to the urgent, non-urgent situation, is I help people to prioritize properly, because if you are looking at your list...

And I'll give you my little secret sauce here. What I have people do is you look at your list and you ask yourself the following question, "If nothing else gets done today but one thing, which must it be?"

That's number one. That's the task. That's where you put your time.

If you get that one task done and really nothing else gets done, you will feel fabulous because you got the most important task accomplished, even if you did all the other ones and didn't do the first one, and it's marginal as to how you're going to feel because that first one is so important. And honestly, it's usually the icky one. It's the one that we don't want to do. It's the one that has some negative feeling about it for some reason, or it's just really time consuming and we don't want to block all that time for it.

Again, break it down. That's really what it comes down to is prioritizing and making sure that you're putting your focus on the one thing that has to be done that day, and the rest, that's icing on the cake, but you got a-

Gordon Henry:

Right.

Juli Shulem:

... cake.

Gordon Henry:

Love that.

I know you work with a lot of solopreneurs. Aside from the productivity issues, and I don't know if this is something you deal with or not but it's referenced at the beginning of the show, if you're alone in your business, it's lonely. It's lonely.

If you work in a big company, there's all sorts of people to talk to and bounce ideas off of. Maybe you have a team.

If you're a solopreneur, it's like you're constantly pushing that rock up the hill by yourself.

Is that something you deal with? Help people with?

Juli Shulem:

Yes, and I have solved that for myself, obviously. I'm the same. I'm in that boat, that solo boat, rowing around, but what I do is, and I help people to do the same thing, there's always some kind of an association or organization that you can be part of so it speaks to your field of expertise.

I'm involved with the coaching organizations that are local as well as international, so I get to hang out with my colleagues and we have regular meetings and events.

I also am involved in various networking groups, which are more like mastermind groups, so these are people that are not in my field necessarily but we are all very collaborative and we're all entrepreneurs or solopreneurs or individual contributors within a larger company, so maybe a sales rep for a big insurance agency or something, but we're all in the similar situation.

So yeah, collaborating, getting to know people.

I network a lot just to have those people around where I can say, "Hey, how do you solve this issue?" Or, "What do you use for this?" And that's how we all learn.

So I don't feel lonely. I'm alone, but I don't feel lonely. I got so many people to talk to on a daily basis, it's-

Gordon Henry:

Yeah.

Juli Shulem:

Yeah, not an issue anymore.

Gordon Henry:

Makes sense.

We're just about out of time. I'd like to end this way; if people who are listening get one tip out of this discussion today, one tip that they can use today to improve their productivity, what would that tip be?

Juli Shulem:

Plan ahead. Plan ahead. Without planning, then, again, you've got that doing the putting out fires method of task management, which is rarely a good thing. It adds so much stress and anxiety into our lives that, if you plan ahead, this is, I think, the number one thing that my clients come away with is really an excellent ability to plan and know what's going to be happening next and execute on those plans and intentions.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

Well, that's a great way to finish up but I am not quite finished. I want to ask, where can people find you? What's the best way to locate you and learn more?

Should they call you? Email you? Text you? What's the best way to get in touch?

Juli Shulem:

All of the above. I am super easy to find. Put my name in a search bar and I will come up. I'm the only one with my name spelled as it is.

My email address is Balance@CoachJuli.com, and Juli is spelled J-U-L-I. There's no E at the end.

My website is CoachJuli.com. I'm on the most popular platform, so you can find me there. Find me on LinkedIn, that would be amazing, and let me know that you heard me on this show and we'll definitely connect.

So, yeah, it's pretty easy to reach to me.

Gordon Henry:

Terrific.

Well, again, it's Juli Shulem, and that is J-U-L-I S-H-U-L-E-M, right?

Juli Shulem:

Mm-hmm.

Gordon Henry:

Coach Juli, and I hope people will look you up because it's, I think, a valuable service that a lot of our listeners and entrepreneurs and business owners can use.

Juli Shulem:

Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on the show, Gordon.

Gordon Henry:

So, I want to thank Juli and I want to also thank our producer Tim Alleman, our coordinators Dieck Barnett and Daniel Huddleston, they do a great job, but if you enjoyed this podcast, please tell your colleagues, friends and family to subscribe and leave us a five star review. We'd really appreciate it. Helps us for the rankings.

Small business runs better on Thryv. Get a free demo at Thryv.com/pod. That's Thryv.com/pod.

Until next time, make it a great week.

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