Hi, it's Jason Everett, from Business Refuel. Thank you for taking the time to watch this quick video tip. Have you ever had a goal, a dream, or a desire, or have you ever had something that you really wanted to accomplish that's been on your list for a long time, but you just haven't gotten it done? What often ends up happening is you make this mountainous to do list of endless tasks, emails, and things that you need to get done that end up taking a priority in your day to day activities, and you end up putting out fires instead of getting what you really want to have accomplished.

What I want to do today is to teach you technique. Teach you a system that will help you when you set that goal in the first place. Make that goal almost done already. So that all you have to do is carry out the steps. In fact, what most people do when they set a goal is they say something like, “I'd like to lose some weight;” or “I'd like to get in better shape.”  Well there's nothing wrong with that as a goal, but it's fairly intangible. In fact when you say something like, “I'd like to lose some weight,” you could lose a pound, or if you want to say: “I'd like to make more money... ” well, here's a dollar, go on your marry way.

What I want to help you do is take an acronym that has helped me over the last 15 years of being able to do this. It's helped me transform not only the people’s lives that I've worked with to help increase their sales anywhere from 30-130% in sometimes as little as six weeks, but it's help me achieve the goals that I thought were unachievable. Just because I had put them on the back burner for so long.

So here's the acronym. It's SMART. Which stands for:

S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Achievable
R = Reach
T = Timetable

Now you may have heard this acronym before. Maybe in a slightly different way, or maybe with different words associated with it, but I want to use those specific words associated with the acronym because in the over 15 years that I have been doing this, it has really helped me to not only push to get goals concrete, but to  also have a clear goal and plan in place that will help them execute it.

So let's go through and unpack those for just a second.

S stands for Specific, which means you need to be able to say it's not just loose weight. Do you want to lose five pounds, ten pounds? What is it you want to do, or is it you want to fit in those favorite pairs of jeans that you haven't worn in a long time? You know which pair I'm talking about, right? So you've got to be specific with your goal. You got to get it as specific as possible, or maybe you say I want to weigh five pounds less and fit into those jeans. That would be even more specific.

M stands for measurable. It's got to be something that you can track, and you can see the stats of. If you said I want to be a better communicator, well can you measure that? Can you measure the effectiveness of your communication skills? If not, maybe you've got to look at it in a different way. Say if I want to be a better communicator, maybe what you can measure is: right now I have time to make two or three calls a day from people returning an email or asking for clarification. Because I wasn't clear and people come in my office saying, “Hey, I'm not understanding what you asked for.” Maybe that happens a couple times a day. So if you want to be a better communicator you want to bring that down from three times a day to once a day, or down to once a week. That would be something that you could measure.

A stands for Achievable. Now it's got to be something that's achievable. Let’s go back to the weight loss example, because it's probably the easiest. People say “I want to lose 50 pounds in one day.”
Well, that's probably not going to happen unless you lose a body part. You've got to cut something off in order to get 50 pounds lighter in one day. So it's got to be something that is physically possible or achievable for you to do. It doesn't mean you've had to have done it before, but you know other people that have done it. It's something that is achievable, or maybe it is something that is at least in theory achievable for you to accomplish.

R stands for Reach. The reason I like the word reach, instead of reasonable is because I want it to be something that's not in your current scope of what would be easy to do. It's got to be just outside of your comfort zone. Just outside of what you're able to do now. For example you set a goal, and you say I'd like to make 50 cold calls a day. Instead of that if you've done 50 cold calls a day that's not really out of your reach. You would say my reach would be to do 75, or my reach would be to do a 100. It's just outside of what you're comfortable doing now.

T stands for timetable. Timetable is something that you need to assign to it. So I want to lose five pounds, and fit into my favorite pair of pants. That's something that I can do in the next six weeks. Now that's something that I have not done before. That's something I'd like to do and that five pounds has been haunting me for the last three or six months. Whatever it's been. Now you've used the SMART goal setting process to not only set the goal, but also set a concrete enough goal that you can now achieve what you're after.

So that's it for me, Jason Everett. From Business Refuel on our quick video tip.

Hi everybody. It's Jason Everett from Business Refuel.  Today I want to talk about how to build cooperation on a team. I'm going to give you some tips on how to create that, and show you how to do it. There is nothing that will kill a team quicker than not getting a long, and not working together as a team or working against each other.

Often times in business, this is what ends up happening: the people that you work with become a greater obstacle than your competitors, or the clients that you have.  If you can create opportunities and scenarios for them to come together instead of fall apart, you can ultimately create a champion level team in your business.

There are a couple of different things that it takes to create a champion level team. First off and foremost, they’ve got to have a brightness of the future. Meaning, if you've ever gone into and organization that feels like the life has just been sucked out of them, that's usually because they've taken away the brightness of the future. They've said, “Hey, this year nobody's going to get a raise.” Man, you want to suck the air out of a room?  That will happen. So what you want to do is you want to create clear and beneficial goals that have an ending in sight, but that also has a benefit to everybody who works on the team.

So even if, for example, you're in a position where raises are going to be taken away for the year. What are some of the things you're looking forward to? It could be a pizza party on Friday. It could be being able to have a $100 goal, or a $100 bonus for something that they were doing. No matter what it is can you give them something that's close enough distance that they could get excited about, but has a very clear ending in sight.

Number two is you also have to be able to create high frequency of interaction. A lot of companies that I work with from time to time will tell me. “Jason, it's really hard to get us all together on the same place at the same time, because our schedules are all over the place.” But I tell you, the companies that I work for that can create regularly consistent meetings. Even if that's just like a five minutes once a week team huddle. Have a much higher degree of performance, because they can regroup, get on the same page, talk about what the priorities are for the week, and they can move forward.  So at least weekly is critical. If you only do once a month, you need to rearrange the schedule, and start having people come in even 15 minutes early. And if you have multiple shifts. Do a meeting where you can do a team meeting in the morning, and then a team meeting for the second shift in the afternoon. That will keep your frequency of interaction high, and keep the morale rocking and rolling for your team.

Number three is you've got to also be able to make and keep agreements, because if you want to build up trust, and trustworthiness, and keep a track record. Even the small things make a huge difference in a business. Meaning if you say you're going to do something, you've got to be able to do it. So it creates that track record of trustworthiness by making and keeping agreements. If you say you're going to send somebody and email. You're going to get back with them at a certain time. Do that, because trust is the thing that takes the longest to build, and it's the easiest to get to go away from you.

So the other thing you need to be able to do, is build and maintain rapport. Meaning you want to use language, tonality, you want to truly be a listener, instead of a talker in your team if you want to build and maintain a rapport with your team.

And lastly, you've got to demand compliance with the rules. Now if I just said rules, and you said, “What rules, our company doesn't have rules?” You probably should start with setting rules, but if you have rules as a part of your organization. You've got to demand compliance with the rules at all levels. Meaning that you've got to be willing to call it, or say something if somebody’s not abiding by the rules.  Or also as a leader of the organization, leaders listen very carefully, you must also be willing to be called. Meaning if you're not following the rules, somebody’s got to call you on it. Look, none of us are perfect. We can't all follow the rules every single moment of every single day, but if we're all striving towards the same level of excellence. Then we're creating compliance.

So, if you want to build cooperation on your team. Take those five things, use them in your business, and try and just take one of them on this week, and see if it can increase the value that you bring to the organization. Share those with your team, share this video. Until next week. Have a great week.

Have you ever had a problem that you couldn't solve in your business?  One that you ran out of steam, ideas, or resources and still exists and is keeping you from moving forward? If so, then I'm excited to invite you to our very next Bytes & Business luncheon! 

During this luncheon we will be holding a Business Mastery session that includes a Mastermind Roundtable of brainstorming, and lucrative feedback for today's most grueling obstacles.

This special Networking luncheon is being held at Piatti's restaurant on Friday, 9/20/2013 from 12:00pm to 1:30pm.  

Each attendee will be given the perfect opportunity to share their business opportunities, success, and invite others to any upcoming events.

Your registration fee of $20.00's includes your choice of 3 entrees, a non-alcoholic beverage, and gratuity. Seating is limited so please register at your earliest convenience: 92013bytesbusiness.eventbrite.com. The date is quickly approaching!

 Hi everybody. It's Jason Everett, from Business Refuel. And today I want to talk to you about John Maxwell's, "Five Levels of Leadership". For a lot of people they think leadership is all about telling people what do to, or you get signed to a specific position so congratulations you're a leader. Because my question is always; How do you lead when you're put into a position of leadership, and you weren’t necessarily ready for it. In fact, that's how I got involved with what I do today. Is all of a sudden I went from managing a team, to managing a team of over 45. I needed to look into, how do I increase and grow my leadership skills? So in John Maxwell's, "Five Levels of Leadership," he talks about that there are different levels that people are given in Leadership. 

Level number One, is what he calls Position Based Leadership. It's basically where people follow you because they have to, because you've been signed a position. And they want to be involved because, well frankly, their job depends on it. That's level one leadership, where somebody gets assigned to a leadership position.

Now Level Two is where people actually Give You Permission to be their leader. Meaning they follow you because they want to follow you. It's because they say hey you're a great leader, I'd like to follow you as a leader.

Now Level Three leadership, is what is called Production Based leadership. It's people follow you because of what you've done. Maybe you are an expert in this specific area, they've seen that level of success, and so they want to create that same level of success.

Now Level number Four of leadership in John Maxwell's, "Five Levels of Leadership," is People Development. Meaning, people follow you because of what you've done for them. Meaning that if you help them grow, or you help them succeed, or you help them accomplish something. They want to follow you because they feel there's a benefit. There's something in it for them.

Now Level Five leadership is just pinnacle. Which is people follow you out of Respect. People follow you because of just simply who you are. Now I think of level five leadership, I think of people like John F. Kennedy. I think of people like Martin Luther King. I think of people like Gandhi. Where literately even after they've passed away, people follow what they believed in. They follow what they were for, because of who they were as individuals.

So my challenge for you this week, is to take a look at the people around you:

A- If you follow people, well why do you follow them? On what level of the one, two, three, four, five levels do you follow them for? 

B- Take a look at if you're in a leadership position. Who follows you on the team, and what reason do you think they follow you for? And if you think there's a lot of people who follow you because of right's base position. You probably need to read the book John Maxwell's, "Five Levels of Leadership," or call down to our office. We'd happily talk to you about what you can do to increase your leadership skills.

So that's it for this weeks Video Newsletter. Until then, have a great week.

 
Hey everybody it's Jason Everett, and welcome back to another Video Newsletter. Today on this Video Newsletter I want to talk about energy, and the reason I want to talk about energy (and if you've been to any of my programs you know this) is that two people come together in business, life, or relationship, or anything like that, and the person with the highest energy generally WINS. So I want to break down for you six different areas that I will uncover how do you change your level of energy in a moments notice, and take an evaluation what we call an energy audit of how you look at that.

So the acronym I want to use to help you remember this is P.E.R.S.O.N. Okay, so in the word PERSON, there are six letters. So P stands for your Physical energy. Like how physically fit are you, are you working out, are you taking care of your body, and is your workout habit helping you to get more energy in your life, or is it taking away from you? So again your physical energy plays into that.

So E stands for your Emotional energy. Meaning how many emotions do you have inside a given day, are you the type of person who experiences a wide range of emotions, everywhere from happiness, to sadness, and every emotion in between there, or do you find that you're often trapped in a couple of emotional homes? Meaning your constantly frustrated, or aggravated, or angry, because if you're trapped in those emotions you don't have a good emotional range. You should be able to flow in and out of any of those emotions. Okay, so emotions.

Third is Relational or Relationship. Okay? So as far as energy is concerned. Are your relationship around you, meaning your friends, family, or your significant other... are those relationships helping you, or are they hurting you? Are they adding energy to you, or are they draining energy away from you?

And so, again, the top three; P-E-R, and now we come to S, which S stands for Spiritual. Know your spiritual energy, and again whether it's God, the great spirit, or just the universe at large. What is your own spirituality? Do you have a good understanding of what that is, do you know where you stand, or are you constantly in a state of question? And I don't mean to make this a religious discussion, but if you look at it and say “What is your own spirituality? ”, and is that energy helping you to raise your spirits and to lift your energy, or because you are in conflict with it, or you're not sure what you believe, then that puts you down/puts you lower in that energy category.

Then the next one is O, which stands for Occupation or your job, right? What is your own occupational energy? Are you in a job that you're passionate about that you would do whether you go paid or not, or are you in a position that you took because it happens to pay the bills, or just is what it is? And the reason that is important is, you may have to take a job from time to time that you don't want to do. But if that's bringing your energy level down, well then your energy’s going to be low in all those categories.

And last category, the end category is letter N as in your Natural energy. Or kind of your resting nurtural. Is that in your end category or your natural energy? I'm talking about energy when you were five years old. Were you a hyper kid, were you somebody who was pretty mellow, or what were you in between there? What was your natural energy? Not your natural energy now, because your energy that you're experiencing now is what you've been patterned or been conditioned over time. I want to know what your own natural energy was before.

P: Physical
E: Emotional
R: Relationship
S: Spiritual
O: Occupation
N: Natural

And so what I want you to do is take an evaluation of those six areas, and I want you to rate them on a scale of one to ten. One being the energy is very low in that category, and ten being extremely high and it's totally handled and you have it covered. And then you can kind of rate yourself in between, and then you total up your score, and divide it by the six that's in there. And that will kind of tell you what your emotional energy, or just in general, all your energy is across your entire person as an individual. And if that number is anything below an eight, you want to figure out what are the areas that you want to create and improve in your life.

So number one is you rate yourself one to ten on any of those areas. Number two you want to write down why you want to change those areas. So if you have one that is really low like below a five, it's a one or a two, that's something you need to take immediate action on. And you start with the lowest number first, and say why do you want to change that area of your life?

And then number three the third step in this process that I'll leave you with today, is you create a massive action plan, or a map for how you want to create that going forward in the future. You start mapping out, if physical is the lowest, then you need to start putting an energy plan together immediately to start bringing your energy level up. Cause if you want to start winning in life, in business, and in your relationships. You better make changes in all areas of your life, starting with those six. So have a great week and I'll talk to you soon.