Biblical Business Strategies

Roughly 80% of the wealthiest people in the United States got that way by building their own businesses. Eighty-seven percent of the millionaires surveyed in the book The Millionaire Mind rated “ investing in my own business” as important to their success. If the idea of owning your own business is just too far out for some of you to imagine, you must realize that less than 100 years ago, 85% of the U.S. population owned their own business. The whole idea of the employee and what that entails today is relatively a new idea, and our entire educational system is designed to create employees and not entrepreneurs . No wonder many people have such a hard time thinking about the idea of owning their own business!

Just think that there would not be any companies at all in our capitalist system, such as Ford, General Motors, General Electric, or Microsoft, Apple, and Google, had it not been for that one person who had that one idea and the courage to break out on his or her own. Somewhere, sometime, it all started with one, lone entrepreneur . Well, why not you? God has that one unique idea for you and your business.

The idea for your business is to quickly create a continual cash machine so you can use that money to invest in other things or invest in real estate or even start other businesses after your tithes, offerings, and family obligations, of course. Your business should be your seed money to invest in the work of the Lord and to promote other investment opportunities for you and your family . Create a business to generate income and leverage that income to increase revenue streams. That’s what the wealthy do. They are out there creating businesses and pursuing entrepreneurial ventures, and using that money to invest in and develop more assets. Businesses will be your #1 means of filling up your financial funnel, so your own business is paramount to your entire wealth-building plan. We don’t want to create a business that will be in the red for two years before turning a profit. We don’t have time for that. We want a viable business that can immediately make a profit, and we’re going to talk about how to do that.

Remember Deuteronomy 8:18, which says, “But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth.” One of the ways He can bring us wealth is through us owning our own businesses. This is a way for us as individual believers to obtain wealth rather than working for someone else and building the wealth just of the company you are with. God can bless the employee and give them favor with their company for promotions and pay raises, but the employee works for money rather than money working for them.

Many of our parents who grew up in the industrial age taught us to go to school and get good grades, so you can find a job with good benefits. They didn’t know it, but they were encouraging us to become employees.

Like we discussed earlier, employees aren’t second class citizens. I’m just explaining some differences between the two as far as wealth building strategies go. I’m suggesting that everyone start some business of your own, even if you keep your full-time job while you’re building your own business up. There’s nothing wrong with getting a steady paycheck, unless it interferes with your ability to create true wealth. Many times, wealth is sacrificed for security, and that need for security is rooted in fear. That’s why more people don’t start their own businesses. The greatest fear is the idea of not being able to depend on a steady paycheck. We’ve been brought up to believe that the steady paycheck is a normal way of generating income, and this type of thinking can be a stronghold that keeps us from stepping out and becoming entrepreneurs and starting our own businesses. I like the way Robert Kiyosaki says it in his Rich Dad books , “The entrepreneur doesn’t want to climb the corporate ladder; he or she wants to own the corporate ladder.”

Again, if you are currently an employee, thank God you have a job and perform your duties with excellence to the best of your ability. But what I am saying is just don’t get comfortable with that job and rely on it as your source. Your job may be nothing more than a foundation and a training ground for your own business.

I feel the need to cover this again because I don’t want anyone saying, “Well, Mark said I should start my own business, so I told my boss to shove it!” No, if you recall, I mentioned in the first teaching in this series how you don’t want to run out and quit your job to start your own business. Keep your full-time job while you start your own business part-time. Don’t go out and quit your job until you have enough income from your own business to replace the income you’re currently receiving from your job. At the same token, please be ethical and fair with your current employer if you’re building your own business on the side.

Now, there’s a difference between owning a business and owning a job. Many self-employed people still have a job; they just moved from one job to another, because they are still being paid only for their time. The idea is to get people and systems in place so the business can run without you. Own a system and have people work that system for you. Remember, the goal is to work smarter, not harder. Working hard for your money may be required when you’re just getting started, but this should be a temporary situation. If you’re paid just for your time, you are hindering your chances of building wealth until you find a way to duplicate or leverage yourself…