Finding your niche

Did you know that God gave gifts to the church: apostles prophets evangelist pastors and teachers for the edification of the saints for the work of the ministry. God made all of us different ! We all have our own bents and callings. God uses that to help guide us. Our best niche is one that we find appealing, one that we enjoy doing. They say if you do something you enjoy you will never work a day in your life!
God made us all different for a reason, so we could fill different needs. So your niche could be right under your nose!

Increase vs Distribution

God is all about increase! Sow a seed and you get multiplication. Even in business, put out one ad and you get a certain result put out multiple ads and you get an exponential increase. Government is all about distribution! Take what is yours and distribute it to others, the problem is that government is not producing anything and what it oversees it does so with great waste and inefficiency!

I will take Gods way everytime!

Getting the picture right!

Did you know we think in pictures? If I say dog do you see the letters d o g in your mind or do you see your favorite dog?
Have you ever used a pattern to make something? Maybe a cookie cutter that makes all your cookies look like a snowman?
A picture in your mind is just a pattern for your faith. Heb. 11:1 says Faith is the substance of things hoped for… Hope is developed in your imagination! Do you see yourself the way you are right now or the way God sees you? Does your picture reflect the heavenly pattern or the earthly pattern? If it is the latter you need to find out what God says about you and meditate on that until your picture changes. Only then will your circumstances line up with the blessings of God! Remember the woman with the issue of blood for 12 years? There were a lot of people around Jesus at the same time but she was the only one that saw in herself that when she touched His garment she would be whole !
As Jesus often said “be it unto you according to your faith ” that starts with getting the picture right!

The Most Expensive Book is the One You Have Never Read!

I am an avid reader!  I love to read books about people who have accomplished things in their life.  We can learn things the hard way or learn from someone who has already spent a lifetime figuring it out themselves.  It is amazing to me that I can read a book from the 1800’s and then read something a few years old and hear some of the same wisdom.  I just finished “Up from Slavery:an autobiography of Booker T. Washington”.  He was a teenager when slavery was abolished, so he was a slave during the early part of his life and then spent the rest of his life either learning or helping others learn.  Even though he had very hard adversity he had such a great attitude and kept his faith in God.  We can’t even imagine the difficulties he and others went through during those years, yet when you see what he accomplished during his life it is truly amazing.  He founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, the school was helpful in teaching people here in the U.S. and also many foreign countries.  The thing I noticed about him was his philosophy that if you work hard and provide a service better than anyone else you will be valued by the community regardless of race.  This is true in business as well.  Whatever we do in business, if we do it as unto the Lord we will see more favor with our customers and have greater success!

What book has inspired you!

Time for a fresh start!

God is all about new beginnings, seasons and times!  I love the start of Spring, the flowers come out, the birds sing and the trees turn green.  Spring is the time to plant so you will have a harvest later.  Spring is also a good time to start new things.  Get out of our comfort zone, get out of the boat and do something by Faith.  Hebrews says without faith it is impossible to please him, because they that come to him must believe that he is and he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.  We have decided in our business to step out in faith and expand our  marketing, we are looking forward to God doing great things this year!

What are you doing new this year?

Letting a team member go can be difficult

Having to part with a team member can be difficult ! Yet even in the parable of the talents you can see sometimes this is necessary. They were given money to invest based on their ability, it was up to them to decide what to do with it . They could have improved their abilities by study or counsel. But the last one chose to do nothing, by doing this he actually lost his master money. If you are in business you have to make a profit, if you haven’t figured this out yet you will or you will close your business . Profit is what we use to grow our business and help our team members and reward ourselves for the risk we take. If a team member has lost the vision that we are a for profit entity then it may be time to evaluate that person. Sometimes people are with us for a season and the business outgrows them and they have to move on. Recognizing that and dealing with that is difficult, but I know in the past I have waited too long to do something and it has cost us money and friendships.

Why the name “Big Faith for small business” ?

If you are in business today you know it takes “big faith” to be successful.  It helps to see how others have done it.  It helps to know others are dealing with the same issues and hearing how they dealt with it.  It helps to hear someone like Dave Ramsey or Mark Cuban talk about not borrowing money but keeping the overhead as low as possible.  When you hear about someone that started out with nothing and has grown the business into millions or even billions it helps you know you can do it to.  Sometimes the conventional wisdom is wrong.  People say it takes money to make money, that is not always true.  They say an idea is worth a million, that is wrong too!  The idea is worth one dollar, the implementation of the idea is worth a million!  If you have a great product or service people will pay you for it.  If you have sales you don’t need to borrow money, you just have to figure a way to grow the business slowly and stay within its means, as it grows you can add overhead.  This method keeps you from making dumb mistakes and will save you money in the long run.  Have you ever noticed when things are tight you do more praying and trusting God than when you have plenty of money, you tend to throw money at problems rather than solve them.  That’s what can happen with borrowed money.  You throw money at the problem and it goes away but you only got rid of the symptom and not the root cause.  It will come back again with a fury and this time you may not have enough money to stop it.

 

Blessings

A good place to start

This is the official start of my blog Big Faith for small business! I will be adding thoughts and things I have learned or am learning about business and specifically God’s direction concerning business. I will be seeking others who want to comment on the same , particularly what God has been showing them in their business. I hope to interview some business people along the way also. I have noticed that there is not much connection between business people of faith. I enjoy what Dave Ramsey is doing and I have attended their Entreleadership course in Nashville headed by Chris LoCurto and it was awesome. He gives great advice on how he runs his business. I want this to be a forum where people tell their stories of what God has done in their business. I love to read autobiographies by business leaders to see how they have done it, like Home Depot, Hilton hotels, Ski Nautique, Hobby Lobby, Mark Cuban and of course Dave Ramsey just to name a few. I want to read about the rest of us out there and especially how God has led you in your business. Please tell others about this blog and lets use it to have iron sharpening iron.

 

Blessings