To conquer work with ease, a good employee does not become tense, but ready. Rather than stressing and wasting time on the tedious, take a tip from Bruce Lee to become more productive. Also: Suggestions on how to secure more sponsors for your conference.

As determined, energetic employees, we are always ready to win more business for our organizations. However, to paraphrase the Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon, it is defeat that we all must prepare for.

By applying aspects of the martial arts icon’s philosophy to your skillset, your work strategies will hit all by themselves.

Lee’s pointers on productivity and more in today’s Lunchtime Links:

Unorthodox but effective: Mountains of assignments have befallen you, and success is slipping through your fingers. In the eyes of Bruce Lee, the best tactic for tackling the workload is to not have one at all. Using tidbits from the late martial artist’s unconventional philosophy Jeet Kune Do, Lifehacker contributor Thorin Klosowski explains how reduced movement, astute perception, and flexibility can help you become more productive both at work and in everyday life. “The easiest way to make something simple?” he says. “Get rid of every extraneous [part] until it’s just what you need. This isn’t just about what you already have either—Lee was fond of telling people to absorb what they found useful and discard everything else—which in a roundabout way is a good practice [of] productivity systems, clutter, and life advice in general.”

Show me the sponsors: In the event-planning world, the more guests the merrier—especially if they work for potential sponsors. Yet, Event Manager Blog’s Kelvin Newman posits that many planners are missing big business opportunities by not focusing enough value, time, and planning on reeling in more sponsors. When sponsor packages fail to catch their attention, it’s time to up the ante. “For me, the first question before launching an event is not, ‘Have I got the venue lined up?’ or ‘Will I be able to get people to come?’,” he writes. “It is, ‘Can I sell sponsorship to companies who want to speak to this audience?’” In addition to appealing to customers, event planners must be more forthright in selling sponsorships and asking what value investors see in your business.

Reeling in revenue: Combining technology with content has boosted B2B sales in recent years. Although the debate rages on over the effectiveness of content marketing strategies, the numbers don’t lie. Marketing analyst firm SiriusDecisions says that 70 percent of the buying process in complex B2B sales is complete before prospects consider engaging with a salesperson. Consequently, CMS Wire writer Tjeerd Brenninkmeijer says marketers must take this into account in order to expand their content from direct marketing into an informative, personalized customer roadmap. “This is why seamless technology communication, with content collaboration at its heart, is so important,” he says. “Web content management, social media, marketing automation, analytics, and all the tools in the marketer’s toolbox must work together if content is actually going to be connected and actually drive revenue.”

How does your association rely on content-marketing strategies? Share your game plan in the comments section below.

A statue of Bruce Lee in Hong Kong. (photo by Johnson Lau/Wikimedia Commons)