The God Kind of Business

By Les D. Crause

The God Kind of Business

Copyright © 2012 by Global Business Resources International

All rights reserved

5663 Balboa Ave #416,

San Diego,

California 92111,

United States of America

1st Printing January 2012

Published by Global Business Resources International

E-mail Address: sales@global-business-resources.com

Web Address: www.global-business-resources.com

All rights reserved under International Copyright Law.

Contents may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the publisher.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Global Business and Ministries (GBM) version of the Bible.

Original teaching by Les D. Crause

Transcripts and editing by Daphne J. Crause

Cover design by Nadine Crause

Contents

Section 01 – Seven Business Boats 8

Chapter 01 – Boats as a Symbol of Business 8

Chapter 02 – The Battleship. 22

Chapter 03 – Getting Ready to Launch. 30

Section 02 – The Power of Selling. 38

Chapter 04 – Selling is Important to Business 38

Chapter 05 – The Product Must Fulfill Desires 48

Chapter 06 – You Must Develop Trust 58

Section 03 – Choosing the Right Crew. 70

Chapter 07 – You Need a Crew. 70

Chapter 08 – The Right Person for Every Job. 80

Chapter 09 – The Importance of Communication. 90

Section 04 – Plotting Your Business Course. 102

Chapter 10 – Different Markets for Different Boats 102

Chapter 11 – Selling Versus Marketing. 108

Chapter 12 – Three Markets to Follow. 116

Section 05 – Charting Common Courses 124

Chapter 13 – Common Needs and Desires 124

Chapter 14 – Desires and Needs of the Soul 132

Chapter 15 – Finding Niche Markets 140

Section 06 – Catching the Wind. 150

Chapter 16 – Power to Function. 150

Chapter 17 – Main Sources of the Wind. 158

Chapter 18 – Using Spiritual Functions 164

Section 01 – Seven Business Boats

Chapter 01

Boats as a Symbol of Business

Section 01 – Seven Business Boats

Chapter 01 – Boats as a Symbol of Business

I love being in my own business. It sure beats working from 9 to 5 for somebody else. But being in your own business is not always easy. There are many people who would love to go into their own business, but they haven’t thought through all that is involved.

They haven’t thought of what kind of business they will go into, what kind of business goals they have, or where they aim to be in the future. So I would like to deal with all of these things here in this book.

Symbols in Ministry and Business

Now in the ministry side the Lord often gave us symbols for different types of ministries. A lot of the time the symbols that were used for those ministries were different kinds of vehicles.

As I have begun to move now into the business mandate, I have found that there is one main kind of vehicle that God uses to picture a business. It is that of a boat or a ship.

The Ships of Tarshish were very famous in Bible times, and 2 Chronicles 9:20 and 21 speaks about Solomon’s business activities. It says:

King Solomon's drinking vessels were all of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; silver was not counted as anything in the days of Solomon.

For the king's ships went to Tarshish with Hiram's servants; once every three years the ships of Tarshish came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.

They brought back all sorts of exotic things - and lots and lots of wealth. The Ships of Tarshish in Scripture are always a picture of wealth and business activity.

A ship is a symbol of business activity. And fleets of ships are like a picture of full business activity, because there are many types of ships.

I am blessed being in my own business. I can set my own time and decide when I want to work. Or I can take time off when I want to. It is wonderful, because it gives me the freedom to do whatever ministry activity I need to, and to also devote myself to the business activities at the same time.

Daily Time with the Lord

One of the most wonderful experiences I have on a daily basis is to go down to the sea. The Lord has blessed us with the opportunity to live by the sea. In fact our home looks right out over it.

We look out of our window and can see the vast sea in front with some islands in the water. It is such a beautiful and relaxing picture.

It is wonderful to go first thing in the morning, before I even start my days’ activities, and have a time of walking on the beach. I get exercise, I get fresh sea air and sunshine, and I have an opportunity to sit there on the beach all alone.

It is just me and the Lord, and I sit and speak with Him and get ideas. In fact many of the principles that I will share with you in this book I got right there on the beach.

I sit with a little notebook and I wait on the Lord. He gives me revelation and I write down the ideas and the principles that come to me by the Spirit. It is a wonderful experience.

As I was sitting there on the beach on day, I looked out over the sea and saw how there were all kinds of different ships and boats on it.

We live close to an oil refinery, and there is a continuous supply of big oil tankers that come and park there for about a week or so at a time. They pump their oil out of the tanker into the oil refinery tanks, where the petroleum is processed and made into different kinds of fuels.

Then we see fishing boats going out. In fact at one time or another we have seen just about every different kind of boat that there is passing along our shoreline here.

Some go off into the horizon. Others come close to shore. It is such an awesome sight. I never get tired of it.

You know some people love to watch airplanes, and airplanes are also great to watch. But I find it so exciting to just look at the ships as they pass by, and to wonder what kind of activities take place on them.

Seven Types of Business Boat

As I meditated on this, I realized that there are many different kinds of ships. I’ve isolated seven different kinds of boats or ships that I believe are pictures of seven different kinds of business activity.

Perhaps you have wondered what kind of business you should be going into or what you could be involved in. I think that as we look at these different kinds of ships pictured as different kinds of businesses, you will get some idea of where you would like to be involved. Or perhaps you will see where you want to move to in the future if you are already involved in business.

I want to try and give you some kind of understanding of the different business opportunities that are available to you. I want to look at these different boats or ships, starting from the smallest and leading upwards. This will give you an idea of the kind of business you can be involved in.

The Sailing Yacht

The first kind of boat that I would like to look at is the sailing yacht.

Once a year there is a special race that takes place from San Diego to Ensenada near where we live. During that time the whole sea becomes filled with beautiful sailing yachts with all different colored sails.

It is a beautiful sight to see all these yachts moving slowly, only being driven by the wind. There is one little guy sitting there with his sails in his hands. He is trimming them and adjusting them to catch the wind, and to see if he can get his little yacht to the end first and so win the race. It’s a fascinating sight.

As I looked at the sailing yacht, I realized that because it is a one man vessel, it is a picture of a freelance business.

What is a freelancer? A freelancer is a person who no longer works for a boss in a fixed company, but he works for himself.

As a freelancer you can have a skill of any kind, perhaps like an artistic or a scientific skill. For me it was computer programming. That is the skill I had developed and learned over time, and I found out that while I was working for a boss I was limited.

I was working fixed hours doing all the programming work and being paid a salary. But after a while I found out that there were a lot of people out there who wanted extra programming work to be done.

I had a chance to go after hours and do what they call ‘moonlighting’. In other words in addition to my normal job, I could go after hours and do some programming for people.

Or I could write some of the programs at home for them, charge them a specific cost for it, and go and install it on their computers. I would get paid for extra work because I had a specific skill that people were prepared to pay for.

In time I realized that I was making more money from moonlighting than I was making in my normal job. And if I could do that in the afterhours which were less time than I had available during a full day, imagine how much I could do if I could work the whole day for myself, freelancing and charging people for my work?

The possibilities were endless. The dollar signs began to flash in front of me. Eventually I took that bold step and I stepped out to work in my own business.

Advantages of Freelancing

There are some advantages to being in your own business and being a freelancer.

Firstly you are your own boss and your time is your own. You don’t have to wake up in the morning with the alarm forcing you to get up, to get in your car and travel all the way to where you work.

You have to make sure you get there on time if you have a boss who is fussy about you working on time. You have to stay there all day until going home time, and maybe just have a little lunch break. Then you have to rush the traffic home.

We’ve all been that route haven’t we? But you know I’ve forgotten what it was like. It was so long ago that I left that. And it is so wonderful to be in my own business, to be free to choose when I will work and when I won’t work, who I will work for, and who I don’t want to work for.

Disadvantages

It is awesome to have that liberty, but there are also disadvantages to being a freelancer.

The first disadvantage is that if you don’t work you don’t eat. If you’re working for a company they give you so many days leave for vacation, and a certain amount of sick leave once a year.

If you wake up on a Monday morning with a bad dose of the flu, it is perfectly legal and acceptable for you to phone and say,

“Sorry I won’t be in to work today. I’m down with the flu. I’ll probably be in bed for 2 or 3 days. Can you make do without me?”

In most companies that will be fine. They will have somebody else to replace you. And the great thing is at the end of the month you still get paid the same amount of money, even though you weren’t there.

It is not so for a freelancer. You take a day’s work off to spend in bed and that is a day’s pay gone from your income.

And what do you do about vacation? You have so many days or weeks away or whatever it is that the company offers you for vacation leave. You say,

“We’re going on our annual vacation. We’re taking paid leave.”

You still get paid the same salary. In fact a lot of companies will even give you a vacation bonus or a Christmas bonus; extra money so that you can go on vacation.

It is not so if you are a freelancer. If you didn’t save up the money there is no vacation time this year. And let me tell you a little secret. You may complain about having to work 9 to 5, but when you’re a freelancer you are probably working from 6 in the morning until 12 at night.

You probably have very little free time because you cannot afford to take time off. You have to start off early in the day, and you end up working late at night. Sometimes you go into the early hours of the morning, to try and keep up with the deadlines and make sure you get the job done.

Other times you just don’t have any work. Now you have to go and find some work.

If you work for a boss you don’t have to go and find work. The work is already laid out for you. It is probably waiting on your desk when you get there in the morning, and the phone starts ringing the moment you step into the office.

This is not the case if you are in your own business. You have to go and find the business and the customers.

Here is the final limitation. I don’t care how much you charge per hour for your time, there are only 24 hours in a day.

Some of those you have to spend sleeping. Some of them you have to spend eating. Other times you have to spend going to the bathroom and doing other essentials in life, like taking time off to go shopping or whatever else you spend time on.

All of that time is wasted time when you are not earning money. So think about it before you go rushing off and say,

“That’s it, I’m going to leave my job and go and freelance. I’m going to make a fortune.”

I used to charge an exceptionally good hourly rate as a programmer. It was probably as good as some highly professional people like doctors. But did I have 8 or 10 hours a day available at that rate? Not always. In fact I often didn’t.

Yes I could get a programming project for 10 hours and charge my wonderful hourly rate, but that may be the only project I got for the whole month. And that was my salary and my income.

So if you choose to go into this kind of business and become a freelancer, I suggest you start by working for a company as a normal employee and add some moonlighting and sideline work. Begin to supplement your income and save up, and think very carefully before you decide to move into this kind of business.

I will be covering a lot of these things in much more detail as we continue, but I just want you to think through your possibilities. That is only the first boat.

The Fishing Boat

The second kind of boat is what I have called the fishing boat. We see them going out here. They range from a small rowing boat that has maybe a couple of people on it. Or it could be a motor boat, going right up to fairly large boats that sometimes have big nets and a whole crew onboard.

In the Scriptures we read how Jesus called some of His disciples like Peter, James and John, while they were catching fish and working for their father in their fishing business.

The fishing business is big. We see the fishing boats here going out and coming back in with the haul. They sometimes offer their wares to the public or they sell it to fixed businesses. But the idea of the fishing boat is that every day you go out and catch fresh fish.

What kind of business is this? This is a typical kind of business that supplies you a regular daily income; a kind of a bread and butter income.

It is a business in which you are offering services or products. It can be something as small as a little mom and pop shop; something that just gives you a regular income.

It could be something you are selling in the form of freelancing, but usually it is not just one person doing this business. There is a lot more involved. It is slightly bigger than the freelancer and brings in regular income.

Advantages and Disadvantages

You have the advantage of a steady income, and you have a fairly normal life. It is almost like being in a normal job. The only difference is that you own this business. It is yours and the income comes in steadily all the time on a daily basis.

The first disadvantage of this kind of business is that you are getting lots of small amounts coming in all the time. If you have been working on a salaried basis, either being paid every week, every two weeks or monthly, you know that you have to put aside money for your monthly commitments.

You may be paying a monthly rental for your house, or you’re paying a mortgage payment for it. You are making payments on your car and probably whatever else you bought on credit. These are likely large amounts that you usually pay out monthly.

It is great to have money coming in every day, to be able to go shopping daily and buy whatever you like because you have money all the time. But you need to be careful. When you get to the end of the month and it is time to pay those bills, if you didn’t set aside that money you are going to have a problem. So it requires a lot of discipline to be in your own business.

It is very easy when the money comes in to say,

“We’re getting a pretty good flow. I think we can go and buy that new car now and commit ourselves to an extra monthly payment.”

Can you? Next week suddenly the sales may drop. There can be a lot of fluctuation and variation and it can be a very insecure business. And once again you are the business. The business is dependent on you. If you do not work you do not eat. If you do not sell there is no income.

It is wonderful to have your little fishing boat, and it is great if you can have a little business that is providing just enough for you to live comfortably. For a lot of people that is all they want in life.

They say, “As long as we continue to get enough money to eat and buy clothes and pay our bills, then we just carry on life as normal. Don’t let anybody rock the boat. I don’t have any great big aspirations. I don’t have to be wealthy. I just need enough.”

That is the excuse most of us make for never accumulating wealth. We say,

“You know I don’t really need to be wealthy. I just need to have enough to get by on.”

Well how much is enough? Are you content to continue being a mediocre, ordinary person; someone who never rises up and who envies all the people driving their fancy cars; who envies people living in beautiful homes or who fly overseas to exotic locations on vacation every year?

If this is the case then the fishing boat is not enough. You will have to move up to some higher types of business.

The Merchant Ship

The next kind of ship is what I have called the merchant ship. This is more like the Ships of Tarshish.

The merchant ship is the ship that goes out and brings back cargo. I believe it is a picture of an international importing business; one that is trading larger volumes.

Instead of your little daily sales you are looking at big amounts; at big sales of large equipment and items that cost a lot of money. But because everything is on a larger scale, you’re not going to sell one of these every day.

You might only sell one or two in a month. Solomon’s ships only came back once every three years. They came back loaded, but with three years’ worth of provision.

Advantages and Disadvantages

If you want to have this kind of business you could make a lot of money. But what happens while you are waiting for the money to come in?

You have the advantage that when you make a sale it’s a large amount of money that comes in. But your income comes in isolated batches. It is not a regular guaranteed income. And what do you live on in the meantime? You need some kind of cash reserve or capital to carry you through?

So before you move into this kind of business, maybe you should be looking at setting up one of the smaller ones first.

Maybe you should have your fishing boat still going out every day to provide your bread and butter needs. Then start building this bigger business that provides the large sales and income. Then you can begin to accumulate wealth and some kind of reserve in your bank account, so that you can grow and move further.

The Oil Tanker

Now one of the best kinds of businesses is the ship known as the oil tanker. The oil tanker is a huge ship, and it comes and sits there and just keeps pouring its oil out.

When it is finished it moves off and another tanker comes to replace it. We see them where we live here all the time. Sometimes there are two or three of them at a time, parked out there in the sea and just pouring their oil in all continually.

What kind of business is this? This is what is known as a continuity program, a membership program or a subscription program. This is where you have a guaranteed regular income from people.

You offer a service or a membership to something. People then pay you on a regular monthly basis so that you are guaranteed an income.

It can be like a school program where you are offering training.

People commit themselves for an extended period and they say, “We’ll pay so much a month for 12 months,” or whatever the time period is.

There is a continual flow of income. It is actually a lot like the fishing boat. The only difference is you just set it up once and it continues to pump. And while that is busy you set up the next one.

If you can set up several of these continuity programs or membership programs, where people pay you a regular amount for a publication or a magazine or something like that, you will have a continual guaranteed flow.

And although each one of them will come to an end because people won’t stay with you forever, there will at least be an extended period.

During that extended period you can build more of these, until eventually you have all these streams of income coming in. You can almost get to the point where you can budget on a monthly basis and know exactly how much money will come in during the next time period.

Disadvantages

So having this kind of business has a great advantage. The disadvantage is you can’t set it up and forget about it. If you have offered somebody membership to a program that is offering them a continual service, then you will have to work all the time to provide that service.

If you are offering somebody a membership or a subscription to a training or educational program, you are going to have to continually supply the education, the materials, the training or whatever it is in order to get new people.

So it requires continual maintenance and administration, and always new materials because people get tired of the same old thing. You have to continually come up with something new and original, or else somebody else who is competing with you is going to offer something better and more up to date. You will start to lose all your subscribers and your income will begin to drop.

So this is a wonderful form of business to set up, but it is going to be a full time job maintaining that business.

You can see that we are getting bigger now. We have moved from an ordinary little one man show, to a mom and pops operation, to more of an international company. And now we have something huge that is reaching a lot of people.

Chapter 02

The Battleship

Chapter 02 – The Battleship

We come now to some of the bigger ships, and one of the other bigger ships is the battleship. The battleship is a very aggressive ship. It is a picture of a marketing or advertising business.

The battleship is a business that actually offers its product to other businesses. It helps other businesses to get going.

Much Aggression Needed

The battleship is involved in sinking other ships and in taking new land. In the business market place it is dog eat dog out there. And if your competition is getting more people than you and is making a better impression in the market place than you are, your business will die.

So you have to become aggressive in your advertising and your marketing. You have to compete with other people and offer something better than them. And very often the only way you can survive is if you can rise up. Then if some of the competitive businesses fold up, and close down and leave the market, it leaves more for you.

But in addition to that you have to come up with new marketing ideas and new ways of selling things that people aren’t doing out there. You need new products that people aren’t selling out there, because the competition gets stiffer and stiffer all the time. It is a competitive market and it takes an aggressive kind of business to be able to compete in that market place.

This is the battleship. You can offer advertising to businesses. You can offer marketing services to other businesses and there will always be work for you, because everybody out there is competing in the market place all the time.

It is going to require a continual aggressive approach, and if you are not the kind of person who can do that, by going and taking new land and breaking new ground in business, you are not going to survive in this business.

The Aircraft Carrier

Here is the sixth kind of ship – and we’re getting really big now. This is the aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier is also like a kind of battleship, but it is actually a bit of everything.

We once went on a tour of an aircraft carrier that has been retired and is parked in the San Diego harbor. You can pay to go on board and take a tour of the whole ship. You can meet some of the staff and the pilots and the different people that are involved.

It is a fascinating experience to see what a huge piece of machinery this ship really is. Above on the deck you have all the planes taking off and landing, and the control tower where all the control staff, the captain and everybody is.

Then underneath in the hull of the boat are many different places where all the crew live. You have hundreds and hundreds of people involved in one place on one ship.

You have the kitchens where the cooks have to virtually cook around the clock to try and keep up to date. And you have all the other different departments. It is a huge ship.

A Picture of Training and Deployment

We are looking at a very large business setup here. And the whole idea of the aircraft carrier is a business that sets up, trains and deploys other.

You see the ship itself usually just parks somewhere. Then from that ship is sent out all of the airplanes that go into battle, that go on reconnaissance missions and do various activities in the war that they are involved in.

In business you are involved in a war. And so the aircraft carrier is a picture of setting up training schools. It’s a picture of setting MLM systems up, where various people can come in and sell your product and run their own business as part of your bigger structure.

It can be a business where you set up franchises. This is where you offer somebody else to set up a business under your name and using your system.

You are setting up and training people and expanding into the market in that way. And the returns are huge and the growth is phenomenal. But again you need maintenance, administration and management of staff. This becomes a major part of your activity and of your involvement in this business.

Work Your Way Up

Now before you start aiming for something this big, you need to have worked your way up from some of the smaller businesses. But how wonderful it will be when you can get to this place.

It is actually so easy to set up. For example you may have started by setting up something on the freelancing side, like giving some of your knowledge or selling information products. That is one of the greatest markets out there, especially on the Internet.

If you can build that up to develop your information product into a full training course, you can start moving into some of the bigger businesses. You can even set up your oil tanker where people are paying on a regular basis for your training courses.

Then you can move beyond that, to where you are now training people to go and set up their own training schools. Now you are getting into this bigger situation like the aircraft carrier. And before you know it you have this huge organization that is spreading its wings everywhere.

The Cruise Ship

Finally we come to the ultimate business – the ocean liner or cruise ship.

We often see them sailing past here. They look like a huge building floating in the water, with so many tiers and rows of windows of all the cabins that are onboard the ship. It is a huge ship, and thousands of people travel on these cruises.

What is it a picture of? It is a picture of your large corporation; of your public company. This is the ultimate goal of every business person currently in the market place.

The idea is that if you can build your business to the point where it is so successful and is doing so well that everybody would like to become part of it, you then set up what is known as an IPO or Initial Public Offering.

This is where you make your business available on the Stock Exchange to sell shares in your business. And you can become a multi-millionaire overnight.

Overnight everybody rushes in to buy shares in this great big business. And now suddenly you are projected from being a reasonable sized business, to being an international corporation making millions or billions of dollars.

It seems that the ultimate goal of wealth is the huge accumulation of wealth. I mean there are ways of making money fast, but can you imagine moving from a business where you float it as a public offering and people buy the shares? And now suddenly you increase your wealth by 500 million dollars in one day.

It can happen very easily. And it can happen even greater than that, depending on the size of your company.

No Control of Your Business

But here is the disadvantage. The moment you do that you lose control of this business. Again and again you have seen a person who started up a business, built it up from scratch with blood, sweat and tears.

He has put his (or her) stamp of approval on that business until it became a household name. Now suddenly it goes out there and is bought by the public, and everything changes.

Sometimes they consider you incapable of running ‘their business’. And they will fire you and you lose control of the business completely.

You say, “Well at least I got my money.”

Well if that is all you wanted that’s fine. Then sell the business and go and start another one. But here is the problem. Most people still retain a portion of that business because they want to still be activity involved in running and keeping that business going. It is ‘their baby’ that they started from the beginning.

But now you have thousands of people shouting at you every time the business is not making enough money.

The shareholders want to know, “Why are the profits down this quarter? Why haven’t you made us money? We bought those shares. We gave you our money and we expect you to work for us now.”

It sounds to me like you are back working for a boss again, except now you haven’t only got one boss. You have thousands of them, and they are all putting their demands on you.

You see it in the whole economic recession and downturn. You see how people begin to complain.

They say, “I’m going to sell my shares and I’m going to take my business elsewhere. I’m going to take my money out of this company because you are not performing well enough for me. You, the Board of Directors, are doing a bad job.”

They say that while they sit at home and do nothing, because they gave you their money.

If you want to be a Christian business and you want to sell your shares on the open market to unbelievers, you have lost control of your business. You can no longer run that business the way God intended you to run it.

All of this takes place simply because you wanted to make millions overnight. There is nothing wrong with having a big organization, but if we are to do business God’s way, I don’t see this as being one of the types of business I ever want to go for.

I don’t ever want to have a public corporation. I want an international business with branches all over the world. But I want to remain in control of that business because my business belongs to the Lord.

My business belongs to the Kingdom of God, and will feed it and will always be controlled by the Kingdom of God and by the Lord Himself as my senior partner. Don’t ever allow yourself to lose control to the world for the sake of money.

These then are seven business boats; seven different kinds of businesses you can be involved in. There are lots of variations among them, and as we continue I would like to cover a lot more of the possibilities that are available to you.

Chapter 03

Getting Ready to Launch

Chapter 03 – Getting Ready to Launch

So now you have decided what kind of boat you are going to build or the kind of ship you are going to sail. Do you just go ahead and launch? No there are a few things you need to take into account.

I am going to be covering all of these steps in a lot of detail as we continue. I’m going to just mention to you very quickly some of the things you need to take into account.

Choose a Niche and a Product

Firstly you need to choose a market or a niche. What is a niche? A niche is a particular group or a particular kind of market that you are aiming for.

Now if you are just aiming for everybody you have a lot of competition out there. But if you are aiming for one particular group of people, one type of business or realm of society or culture, that is a niche. You can specialize or zero in on that particular group.

If you do that there is going to be less competition because not everybody is aiming for that one little group.

Then you need to choose a product range. You need to avoid competitive products that everybody else out there is selling. If you are selling something that everybody else out there is selling, unless your price is cheaper than everybody else, nobody is going to buy from you.

So don’t go for competitive products. And don’t think, “The more products I can sell the better.”

Specialty Niches

You know some of the wealthiest corporations and some of the wealthiest men and women in this world today, sell one or two products. They so specialized in that niche and took the market on that kind of product, that actually nobody even competes with them anymore.

They virtually hold the market. And because they zeroed in on that product, built it well, sold it well and got a name for themselves, nobody will go and buy anywhere else because that is the definitive standard.

Very often we find ourselves using trade names as the name of the product, where actually it is not. Just think of some of the products that you buy like food products. Very often you won’t speak about what kind of food product it is. You’ll speak about the trade name, because it is that company that introduced the product at the beginning.

And very often, even though somebody else has offered something that is similar, you still stick to the original because that is the real thing.

Start off with a few products and build the market well. Yes by all means have lots of other products as well. Those are additional ‘bread and butter’ sales if you like. But your goal should be to take several products, to specialize in those and make them your niche products.

Keep the range small for your main products, and then have the extra products just for additional income.

The Where and How of Your Business

And then you need to choose where you are going to do business. Will you set up a shop front? Are you going to buy a building, or are you going to rent?

Where exactly are you going to conduct your business? Which state or county is it going to be in? Or are you maybe going to go international? All of these things are very important. You need to take all of them into account.

Will you set up your business purely on the Internet and reach out to the whole world? And are you going to reach the media such as advertising on TV, or will you set up broadcasting and use radio or newspapers? Are you going to use direct mail?

Once you have done that you need to choose your selling procedures and your administration.

Are you going to work on direct sales where you sell to specific individuals? Or are you going to advertise like the big companies, and try and create a market for your product by advertising it?

Will you be selling to the end user retail market, or are you going to go to the wholesale market, to people who will take your product and then resell it again?

These are things you need to decide on before you think about setting your boat up and launching it.

And then don’t ever think you are going to run this business alone, unless you are starting out just as a freelancer. You are going to need people to work with you. You are going to need staff.

The Sales Issue

Then there is all the administration you need to do. There are sales activities that you can’t carry out by yourself, so you must employ sales staff to do this.

As any sales person will tell you, the big disadvantage of selling is the paperwork that goes with it. You go out there and spend a lot of time getting some awesome sales.

You went out and spent two days bringing in some great sales. Then you have to spend the next two weeks doing all the paperwork that is involved in processing those sales.

Your sales staff should not be tied down to admin. Your admin staff should be doing that. And your admin staff should not have to go out and make sales, because that is not what they are good at.

You need to set up a staff structure with each person specializing in their realm, so that they can work together as a team. You need to think this through before you go launching your ship.

Test Your Product

And then you may think you have this wonderful product that everybody out there is dying to buy it. You may think that the niche you have chosen is just going to open their arms wide and say, “Give me more.”

You get out there and you buy your equipment. You set up your business, you hire your staff and you buy everything that you need. You stock up on the products. Then you get yourself into debt and nobody buys. You are stuck. It is called going off half cocked.

You need to test your market and do some thorough research in the market before you go launching your boat. Test and make sure. You need to also research your product.

There may be a great interest in your product right now, but a couple of months down the road it may die. It may just be a fad that is going right now, and it’s great to jump in on the fad. But the fad will come to an end.

You’ve bought all of these things, and now you’re stuck with them in your warehouse and you can’t get rid of them.

Nobody wants to buy them because the fad has gone and people are saying, “Who wants those anymore? We’re buying something else now that’s far more exciting.”

Choose Your Ship

Now if you have gone through all of these questions then you are ready to launch your ship.

Which ship do you launch first? Well start near the bottom if possible. What are you capable of right now? What are you financially capable of and what resources do you have? Don’t try and start with one of the big boats even though you may have great plans.

You know when I first started out in ministry I had a vision for setting up an international ministry organization. But you know I hadn’t even reached my local community yet.

Nobody knew I existed, but I was going to touch the world. We were going to have branches all over the world.

Well we are getting there, but it didn’t happen overnight. I had to start by ministering to people one at a time in my home on the sideline, where nobody knew about it.

You may have to start the same in business. You may have to start by selling a few little products as a sideline. Maybe you can go onto e-Bay and start selling some of the junk in your home. You might set up a website and write an e-book or something and start selling that.

Start with the smaller ships and begin building up. And like I said earlier, if you can only start with being a freelancer, begin it as a sideline to your job and eventually you can move into it full time.

Build up to the fishing boat and some of the larger vessels. Then eventually you can have a whole fleet of these ships.

You can have all of them. You don’t have to stick to only one. You can have all of them going at the same time, and you can have a finger in every pie. You could become so wealthy that the money will come in faster than you could ever spend it. But don’t even think about launching the ship until you have gone through all of these processes.

And then you need to set yourself a target of where you are going and which ship you are going to launch next, then build up. Start small and you don’t burn your bridges.

Don’t think, “Well that’s it. I’m going.”

You walk into your boss’s office, throw down your resignation and say, “I’m out of here. I’m going into my own business.”

You might find yourself going back a little while later with cap in hand and saying, “Do you still have a job open for me?”

I have been there. Be very careful. Take it one step at a time. Get it going before you try and get it perfect. You see this is the opposite end.

You say, “You know I’d really like to start a business but we’ve got to get it right. We have to get all the right products and I must have enough money in the bank. We have to have the right staff and they must be fully trained.

“Everything must be perfect. We have to have the right furniture, and my computer needs to be upgraded before we can start.

“I can’t drive in that old car and be in business. I’ll have to have something better than that. I’m just not ready yet to go into business.”

You know the old saying, “You don’t have to get it right. Just get it going.”

Start somewhere and work your way up.

And so in conclusion, if you desire to be in business there are so many possibilities that are available to you. What kind of boats would you like to build?

I hope to teach you a little more about what is involved in building these boats; about what is involved in all the different stages that you need to go through before you try and launch.

I hope that by the time you are finished going through this book, you would have already started some of those boats. I hope that you will have plans to build more, and you will be so inspired that you will rise up and go out and take the wealth of this world.

After all, if God has called you to the Fivefold Business calling, He intends you to take the wealth of this world and to extend the Kingdom of God; to rise up out of poverty, to rise up out of obscurity and to be like a city set on a hill.

You need to take the wealth of this world that the enemy has held onto for so long, and rise up and be what God has called you to be.

Section 02 – The Power of Selling

Chapter 04

Selling is Important

to Business

Section 02 – The Power of Selling

Chapter 04 – Selling is Important to Business

We come now to the second section on The God Kind of Business. Last time we looked at all the different kinds of boats. In this section I would like to look at the one thing that is common to every single boat; the one thing that gives power and motivation, and gets every boat going and keeps it going.

This is the most essential element of having a boat. What is it? It is the power of selling.

Selling is the one thing that distinguishes normal work from business. If you have a normal day job and you are employed, the chances are you are probably not employed in selling, unless you have a specific skill in selling and it is part of your job.

Probably 90 percent of people who are employed out there in businesses and companies are not employed as sales people. The admin side of business is a very big part, and you’ll find that most people who hold down a normal day job and get paid a normal salary are not sales people.

You can be employed in sales, in which case the chances are you are being paid more money than the other staff. You have a capability of earning more. Salaries and commissions paid to sales people are higher for one very simple reason: Selling is not easy.

If you have the ability to be successful in sales, any business out there will happily pay you a much bigger salary, because you are the key to bringing in the business.

The moment you decide to pack up your normal job and go into your own business, the whole picture changes.

You cannot say any longer, “You know I’m very good at admin and clerical work. I’m a good programmer. I have great technical skills.”

If you want to go into business you had better learn how to sell, because without selling your business cannot exist.

You may start even as a little freelancer and say, “I have this great technical skill and I’m going to sell my skill and my technical ability to people. I’m going to sell my time and my services.”

But if you do not know how to sell, nobody will be buying and paying for your services. Selling is an essential part of business. If you are not prepared to learn how to sell, then forget about ever going into your own business.

You Need Money

Now you might think that you can just employ other people to sell for you, but that means you are going to have to start with a whole lot of money to begin with. If this is the case you probably don’t need to go into business because you already have enough wealth.

It’s going to take a lot of money to employ good sales people and pay them the kind of salaries that you need in order to get your business going. So if you’re not prepared to learn to sell, forget about going into business.

And don’t even bother to read the rest of this section because this is not for you. Go back and stick to your day job, work for your salary, do what you are good at and have somebody else do the selling work.

Some Mistakes to Avoid

Now here are some classic mistakes that all wannabe business owners make. There are actually three of them.

The Product Will Sell Itself

The first one is that you have the idea that your product is so wonderful it will just sell itself. Once people find out about the product you’re offering, you will be inundated with phone calls, with people knocking on your doors, and with people flooding in to come and buy one of these awesome products.

Under ministry concepts we would say, “Die already. It’s not going to happen.”

I don’t care how good your product is, if it’s the product to end all products. I don’t care if it is the most marvelous invention that has ever been thought of in this world, people will not break down your doors to come and buy your product unless you sell it.

If you do not sell your product it will sit right there in your warehouse or wherever you have it. People will not come and buy it.

People Care

Next, don’t ever think that people care about you or your business. Don’t think that you can convince people how wonderful you are, how clever you are or how full of wisdom you are; and what an awesome, successful business you have put together.

Do not think that anybody out there cares even slightly about you or your business. So if you want to get out there and build a business by telling everybody how wonderful you are and how wonderful your business organization is, get ready to starve.

Success by Reducing Prices

And then finally, don’t ever think that the key to successful business is reducing your prices and selling less than everybody else. You will be out of business within a month.

These are the biggest mistakes that people make, especially those starting out in business for the first time.

They think, “If I can just get this awesome product together. Once I launch it I can stand back and the money will roll in. I just need to build a good business and an image of myself that really impresses people and they will just flood in to buy from me.

“If I can sell at awesome prices that are cheaper than what everybody else is offering, people will come pouring in to buy from me.”

Get ready to fail and get ready to die. Get ready to close the doors and go back to your day job.

You must know how to sell. And if you do not know how and you are not prepared to learn and to make the effort to sell, your business cannot ever succeed in this world.

The Fear of Selling

Now why do people avoid selling as though it is some kind of poison? Why are they so afraid to get into this mysterious thing called selling?

You say, “It is so complicated and so mysterious. There are secrets there that only the elect few know.”

There is actually no mystery in selling at all. In fact if you want a simple foundational principle that will make you a successful sales person, Jesus gave it in the Sermon on the Mount. It is called the golden rule.

It says, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

Apply that rule and you will be a successful sales person without any complexities. Selling is quite simply convincing other people, changing their minds and persuading them in some way to come and buy your product.

If you can just learn to think about the other person and his needs, and if you can treat the person in a way that you would want to be treated, you will find that sales will take place almost naturally.

Okay it is a little bit more complicated than that. There are sales methods and principles that you can apply to be more effective in selling. I have a whole teaching just on selling entitled ‘The Laws of Selling’, so don’t think I’m going to cover the whole thing in this section.

Foundational Principles

What I’m going to give you here is going to be a foundation of the most important principles of selling. It is a foundation on which you can build, and from there you can then move on. So what I’m going to give you in this section is what you will need as a business owner.

Whether you are an effective or capable sales person or not, these are the principles you must apply. Whether you want to employ staff to sell for you, or whether you want to devote most of your effort in the business to selling yourself, you will need to learn a lot more about the methodology behind selling and how to do it effectively.

So what I want to give you here is what you will need as a business owner, whether you are naturally sales oriented or not. Apply these principles and your business will grow and succeed and sales will take place. Then you can make them better by using the methodology which I cover in the book ‘The Laws of Selling’.

Three Factors in Selling

There are three main factors that are involved in the process of selling. There is a lot more, but I am going to mention three very important foundational principles. To be effective in business you will have to take all of these into account.

Consider Your Prospect

The first and most important point is this: The prospect is number one.

Who is the prospect? The prospect is the person that you hope will buy your product and will become a customer or a client.

You must realize that the prospect cares only about his or her needs or desires. He doesn’t care about your financial situation, about your business or about your needs.

The prospect doesn’t care whether you drop dead right now standing in front of them. He only cares about his needs and desires.

Get that very clear in your mind. When you approach somebody you must approach them with the golden rule in mind: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Think about what that prospect needs or desires. If you are not prepared to take that into account and put aside your own needs and desires, you can never succeed in business.

Desires Come First

And then you must realize that a prospect will fulfill their desires before they fulfill their needs.

How many people do you know who drive around in the most awesome car, and then always complain that there is never enough money for food?

They say, “You know my kids really need clothing, but man things are so tight financially. We just can’t seem to keep up with the rising costs of clothes, and the kids just grow up so fast and grow out of their stuff. I just can’t keep up.”

“So why are you driving this fancy car?”

This is just one example. People will find what they need to fulfill the things they really desire, before they will fulfill the things that they really need. Hopefully at times the two cross over, and a need and desire kind of match and are the same thing. But if you wish to sell to anybody out there, forget about their needs.

My Experience in Life Assurance

Many years ago I kicked off my main sales career by selling life assurance. And I found out that most people really didn’t care about what would happen to their wife if they died.

I would say, “What are you going to do? What is your wife going to do if you die?”

“Well she’ll probably just get married to somebody else and forget that I ever existed.”

Some of the top sales people actually seemed to sell more policies that were based on how much money you could make at retirement, and how much money you could accumulate and become wealthy.

People didn’t care about what they needed.

You say, “Well you know you really need to be insured, because if you were to die right now your family would be in trouble.”

Most people are not planning to die right now so they are not thinking about that. They are thinking about the things that they desire. I found that I could have a far greater effect in selling life assurance by speaking to a guy and finding out what plans he had, and what aspirations he had for his children one day.

Now we were talking turkey.

I would say, “You know if you were to die right now, your kids are not going to reach those wonderful goals that you have for them.”

“Oh, that could be a problem. I need to seriously look at life assurance.”

Find out what people desire first, because that is all they care about. Then people will gladly part with their money to fulfill the things that they really want and desire.

And so here is the only way that you should treat a prospect. Find out what he or she wants.

Offer to help that person get what he wants. If you do that the price will be secondary.

People will always find the money to get what they really want. If you can find out what people want and offer a way to help them to get it, they will pay whatever you are asking.

Chapter 05

The Product Must

Fulfill Desires

Chapter 05 – The Product Must Fulfill Desires

The next principle is this: The product must fulfill the desires.

And so what you have to do is find a way of matching your product to the person’s desires. You do not mention your needs or your desires. That is a big mistake. You must only speak about their needs and desires.

And then don’t talk about how wonderful your product is. In selling terms they call that trying to sell the ‘features’ of your product. You don’t keep speaking about this wonderful product, about how powerful and efficient it is, and how much better it is than everybody else’s product out there.

You say, “You must just see the beautiful colors it comes in and the awesome sound that it gives. Our product is absolutely superior. It is the most wonderful product you have ever seen. I am so excited about this product. I myself have bought five of them.”

So what. Who cares? Unless your product helps meet that person’s desires, I don’t care if it’s the product to end all products.

People are going to say, “Who cares about your wonderful product? What does it mean to me?”

Until you can match your product to a person’s desires you don’t have a prospect. You don’t have a person who is willing to part with their money to buy your product. And so you have to appeal to basic human desires.

You say, “Well how can I find out what a person really wants? You know they shut the door on me before I even got to say hello.”

That is another subject all on its own and it is part of the selling process. But you can appeal to basic human desires which every person has. And by doing that you can open the door wide for them to listen and be prepared to consider your product.

Satan is a Master Salesman

Now you may think that this is totally off beam, but if you want to learn the best sales method that was ever used, you will find it in the Bible - but not where you expect it to be. This is because the best selling method that was ever used was used by the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

Satan is a master salesman. He convinces you almost daily to sin doesn’t he? Every day each one of us faces temptation to do what is wrong. And we are suckers. Because he is such a good sales person, he convinces us every time that that is the way to go.

Let’s look at the method of the serpent, because there is something we can learn here. In Genesis 3:6 it says these words after Satan had given his sales pitch to Eve:

And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit of it, and ate, and gave also to her husband with her; and he ate.

Three Basic Human Desires

In this little passage you see the 3 essential human desires that Satan appealed to. You see bodily desires and appetites (the tree was good for food); the desire for things (the image or the look of the product).

You say, “That looks so good. I want one of those.”

And thirdly you see the need for acceptance and recognition.

You say, “If I could rise up and be wise and know more than everybody else, people will accept me and look up to me. People will recognize me and set me on high.”

These are basic human desires. Are they sinful? Temptation is not necessarily wrong. Do you realize that when Satan came to tempt Eve, she did not have a sinful nature yet? She had not fallen in sin yet and got to that corruption that we now call ‘the flesh’.

Eve did not have the flesh. She did not have a sinful nature. She had a pure, righteous nature the way God created us to be. And yet the temptation still appealed to her. So we cannot say it was her sinful nature that made her respond to this temptation. So what was it?

Using the Wrong Motives

The desires that Satan appealed to were perfectly natural desires. But the motive is another story. It is not the desires that were wrong. It was the reason that Satan used for getting her to respond to his temptation.

The motive was rebellion against God. The motive was that Satan wanted to take control of Adam and Eve and of the world that God had put them over. That was his motive, but his method was perfectly valid.

So let’s not be caught in Satan’s motive. Let’s not make the mistake of trying to sell because we want to control people and to get what they have; because we are covetous and we want to make people sin and do what is wrong.

No, that must never be our motive. But our method can still appeal to the specific desires that are natural to every human being. So there is nothing wrong in using Satan’s method. We need to appeal to basic human desires. We need to appeal to specific desires after that.

Get People to Talk

Now how do you get to know a person’s specific desires? You need to find out the facts. That means you are going to have to question the person. You will have to get them to open up to you and share their heart with you, so that they can tell you what their desires are.

You must be prepared to take that time and that effort. You must care enough about them to sit and listen. But that is not what happens is it?

You get a caller on the phone who says, “We’d like to talk to you about your car insurance.”

People never take the time to listen.

There is a knock on your door and people are in there to try and tell you about their product.

Nobody bothers to take the time to say, “I came here to find out about you. I care about you. Please tell me what some of your desires in life are, because I’d like to help you reach those desires.”

Actually if you tried it now people wouldn’t trust you, because it has been messed up by all the other sales people. They will think you are coming with some ulterior motive.

How do you get to that place? Well that comes more under the sales methodology. I’m going to cover just a little bit of it but not go into much detail. You need to get to know the desires of your prospect before the selling process can even begin.

Find Out People’s Desires

Now what happens if the person doesn’t have any desires? It is a known fact that if you were to ask people to write down a list of their goals in life, most people would have a pretty empty piece of paper.

The expressive usually have plenty of goals. They thrive on goals. Analyticals are quite happy just to carry on with things the way they are, and drivers are happy as long as they are in control. Amiables are happy as long as there are people there.

Most people actually don’t have any goals in life.

They say things like, “My goal in life is to be make it through this day okay, without any problems and hassles.”

“My goal in life is to be happy.”

Ask people what their goals are and you will get general things like, “Well I just want to live comfortably and be happy. I want my wife and children to be happy.”

Well define ‘happy’. You will soon define ‘unhappy’.

“There’s no money and we can’t buy what we need.”

You see that is not a desire is it? So you will find that a lot of the time when it comes to selling, you come to find out what a person’s desires are, only to discover they don’t really have any desires.

There is nothing outstanding. Sometimes if you dig a little bit you may be able to find a hidden desire. And usually it is something that they desired once but gave up all hope of ever obtaining, so they just let it go.

So it’s going to take a bit of digging and you won’t always have time to dig. And if you’re in the selling confrontation situation, you sometimes only have minutes at the most to create a sales situation.

Create New Desires

So what do you do then if a person has no desires that you can uncover?

Well you are going to have to learn to create new desires in them, because without desire there is no sales process. Yes you could find their needs, but how often do you lie awake at night getting all excited about how wonderful it is going to be to meet your needs?

You say, “I can’t wait to pay the rent this month. I can’t wait to pay the car payments or that creditor that’s nagging me and threatening me. Man it’s so exciting.”

Are you crazy? Needs don’t excite anybody, but desires excite people.

“Imagine how it would be to drive in that new car? I’d love to just lie on the beach in Hawaii, and drink piña coladas, watch the waves and soak in the sun.”

You see that is a desire. We can get excited about that. We can’t get excited about needs. So if the person doesn’t have any desires, your job in sales is to create some new desires.

Create With Words and Actions

The main tool you have to do this with is a little thing called words, because words have the power to build pictures. And if you use the right words in selling you can create pictures in the person’s imagination. We’ve looked at this already in some of the previous things that we’ve taught.

Words will create pictures, which in turn will build the person’s imagination. They will put images in their mind, and we learned that those images create emotion.

What you put in your mind affects your feelings and your desires. We have to put pictures into the person’s mind that will stir up desires by getting their emotions all stirred up.

Words are the most powerful way to do that, but you can portray it visibly as well. You can use actual images and demonstrations if possible. If your product is a product that has a demonstration capability, this is a very powerful way of creating desire.

I remember seeing people selling vacuum cleaners. They would come into your lounge and ask you to take your old vacuum cleaner and vacuum a piece of carpet. Then when you had done it about 10 times, they would take this brand new, awesome vacuum cleaner, put it over the same piece of carpet and show you the difference.

Well immediately you want to dump your old vacuum cleaner and buy the new one, never mind the fact that it cost about 10 times as much as a normal vacuum cleaner.

I’ve seen them do it. They take a whole cup of salt and throw it on the carpet and trample it in.

They say, “Okay, take your old vacuum cleaner and vacuum the salt up. Try it again and again. Get it all out.”

Then when you are finished, they take the new vacuum cleaner and suck out a half a cup of salt that the other vacuum cleaner didn’t get.

You see it’s a picture. It is a demonstration. If you have that kind of product you can demonstrate it, but you must build a picture. When you do that you create a desire in the person.

You may have to give free samples of your product in order to build desire in the person. There must be a picture in the mind. Remember that the two main desires were bodily desires and what the eyes see.

Meeting Bodily Desires

Bodily desires are very easy. Have you ever noticed that when you go shopping and you look at a tangible product that you need to buy, like a tool or something like that, you look at it and you agonize over the cost?

You think, “I wonder if we could get this cheaper somewhere else.”

Or you think, “You know that’s really quite expensive. I wonder if I could really afford it.”

But you walk into a shop around lunch time and they are giving away free samples of some kind of food. How often do you look at the package to see how much it costs before you buy it?

No you say, “Man that tastes good. Where are they? Let’s take one home. We’ll worry later about what it costs.”

Have you noticed that? Yet the thing that you agonized over is something that you could have used again and again. And you could maybe have even used it to generate wealth, but you agonize over the cost.

Why is this? It is because the bodily desire is one of the strongest ones, and it is the one that Satan used with Eve.

She thought, “Man that fruit looks so delicious. I’ve never tasted one of those before. Imagine what it must taste like. I’m so hungry now.”

Esau sold his birth right to his brother because he was hungry. People will give all they have to meet their bodily desires. That’s why the food industry is probably one of the easiest industries to get into, and there will always be a demand for your product. But you must appeal to natural bodily desires.

Of course there are also sexual desires and other bodily desires of the flesh, and these are not unnatural desires. They are natural. I have yet to see anybody sell a car without putting a beautiful woman in it.

Why does the guy buy the fancy car? So that the women will notice him. Why else would you want a fancy car? Is it because it goes faster? You will just end up paying speeding fines for that. But it’s what people will notice.

You say, “All the dollies will notice me when I drive up in my fancy new Ferrari.”

You see these are basic human desires. You must create the desire in the person.

Using Personal Testimonies

Then the other very powerful way of creating desire is personal testimonials and having other people tell their story of what the product did for them.

If you have ever bought a book on Amazon, tell me what influenced your choice the most. Was it the big description that they gave you of how wonderful the product is and what it does?

Or was it all the people who said, “I bought this and it was one of the best I’ve ever had. I’ve been telling all my friends about it. I’m so glad I bought this product. It is awesome.”

But then you get enough people saying, “Don’t buy this. It is a piece of junk.”

I don’t care how good the story about the product is, that testimonial has a very powerful effect on your desires. And if on the testimonial page there are 500 people with an average star rating of 4 ½ to 5 who have all said the product was good, there is something in you that says, “If so many people found it good I have to have one too.”

You never had the desire before. You just looked at it and thought, “Well it’s an okay product. But everybody is raving about it and excited about it.”

It works. Use testimonials to create desire in people for your product.

Chapter 06

You Must Develop Trust

Chapter 06 – You Must Develop Trust

The third essential principle in selling is that you must develop trust in the prospect.

You must realize that your business is not a person. You might think of your business as a person. You might think that your business is the most wonderful thing in the world. But I defy you to tell people the name of your business and have them even remember its name.

You say, “I’m Les Crause and I am from Global Business Resources International.”

“Global what?”

They may remember the Global part.

They will say, “Oh, you’re the Global… Resource… What was that again?”

“It is GBRI.”

“Oh GRIB.”

Give Your Business a Face

People don’t remember the name of your business. People don’t from businesses. They buy from people.

Your business does not have a face. Tell me, what color is your business’s hair? Does it have a long nose, a mustache and a beard? Is it 6 foot tall? What does your business look like?

You say, “We have this awesome logo.”

How many logos can you remember? You have to see them about 50 times before you say, “Oh yes, I recognize that logo. What company is it from again?”

Yes it’s a very important part of building an image for your company. That is another subject altogether. But at the end of the day people don’t trust a business. People trust other people. You are your business.

I have covered this in a lot of detail in my teaching called ‘The Seven Pillars of Business’. I dealt with it under the subject of reputation and a whole lot of the pillars we have there.

So don’t try and build your business as an image. You as a person must develop a relationship and inspire trust in the person.

Be Accessible to Customers

Now I don’t know about you but I don’t trust a big corporation. They have so many people in there that they don’t even care if I exist.

You just try and phone up a big corporation and find out how many people you get passed to, before you finally find somebody who is prepared to listen to you and even help you.

They don’t care. They are like a big piece of machinery. It’s like walking up to a great big ocean liner and expecting some attention from it.

You say, “There are thousands of people on it. Which one is even going to notice me?”

But if you step on board and the captain steps up and says, “Hi, my name is Les Crause. Can I help you?” well now you have someone you can address.

Now you have somebody you can relate to and somebody to do business with. So the most important principle in developing trust is that you must be accessible to people.

How do you become accessible to your prospects? Well first they need a picture. They need an image.

Tell me, do you know the name of the owner of some of the big corporations out there? Think of some of the big businesses that you’ve dealt with. Could you tell me the name of the owner? Better still, could you tell me what he looks like – or is it a woman? We don’t know.

I tell you what you probably do remember. You probably remember the sales rep that contacted you. And if you met the person physically, you have a picture in your mind of what they look like.

You say, “He was a nice guy. He really impressed me. I felt that I could trust him and was happy to do business with the company.”

You didn’t do business with the company directly. You dealt with a person.

Put Up Pictures

I see this very often on the Internet. I come to the website of a big business and they give you the big story about their business.

They say, “We (the business) do this. We do that. We do that. And we do the other thing.”

I look for a picture so that I can find a person somewhere, but probably the best they will do is to put some general graphics up in a banner of business environments and business people. But that is not the person you are dealing with. It’s just people.

You look at this business and now they are asking you for your money. I’m nervous to give my money to a big organization like that. It could drop into a black hole and disappear. How do I know if I can trust this business?

But go to a business where there’s a smiling face on the front page, whether it be the sales manager or whether it be the Managing Director or the owner himself.

The smiling face says, “I would like you to fulfill your desires. I would like to help you and give you the best service you have ever seen anywhere. And if you have a problem, I would like you to let me know.”

Now there is somebody I can relate to. Be available, but don’t be needy.

Don’t say things like, “I really need you to help grow this business. I’m here for you. Please will you contact me?”

No, people don’t want to meet your need. They want to meet their own needs and desires.

So be accessible. Have pictures up and an image that people can relate to, but realize that you are there to meet their needs. And when people look at you they must see you as a hope for them to finally fulfill the desires that they have in life.

The Element of Limitation

And so even though you are accessible, there must be an element of lack and limitation on your availability.

“I am here to give you the best possible deal, and the best possible service and products that you could ever have. I’m inviting you to phone us right now and one of our sales reps will deal with you personally.”

“Oh gee, I was hoping I would speak to the Managing Director.”

He made himself available to you. But he has put himself on a level where if ever he took the phone call and spoke to you personally, because he took the time to speak to you, you would feel that you must be one of the most valued customers in this business.

You see people always value what they can’t have. They always value lack. And so you must steer this balance between being fully accessible, and yet at the same time not accessible to everybody.

People must be prepared to pay a price to gain access to you, so steer these two very carefully.

People Create Professionalism

And then how important is professionalism? How important is it that you present a professional image that says, “We are the best.”?

It comes only after you have developed trust and after a relationship has been developed.

It will happen once people look at you and say, “He seems like a nice guy. He’s available. I’d like to find out more about him and interact with him.”

Only then do you begin to present a degree of professionalism, which makes you now rise above all the other businesses and companies out there. But if you are trying to compare business for business, all they are presenting is a big professional image.

That means nothing until you have a relationship and a trust with the person. So professionalism is important, but it is of secondary importance. And professionalism is not created by an organization. It is created by a person.

You say, “I called up the sales rep and he answered every one of my questions.”

“She said she’d get back to me tomorrow because she didn’t have the answer. And do you know what? First thing in the morning there was a phone call. She called me back just like she said she would.”

“He said that he would speak to his manager and he would send me an email to let me know what the outcome was. And do you know within an hour I got that email to answer my question.”

That is professionalism. It inspires trust and inspires people to want to deal with you. That causes them to build a relationship of trust with you.

No Pushiness

Now here is probably the most important factor of all when it comes to relationships. Don’t ever try to impose your will on somebody else. Some people think that if you find somebody who is weak enough and push them hard enough, they’ll make a decision, sign on the dotted line and give you their money.

A lot of people sell that way. I read a book called ‘Sales Dogs’, where they likened different kinds of dogs to different sales techniques, and this one was known as the Pit Bull. People are so afraid that you are going to bite their head off that they buy quickly.

No, the key word today is ‘Permission Marketing’. Don’t try to impose your will on somebody else. And above all, if you are a Christian business, the Lord Himself never imposes His will on anybody. So if you want to sell by imposing your will on others, you are violating your Christian commitment to start with. Don’t ever try and do it.

Always ask a person for permission before you take the next step. That probably means you will have to listen a little bit. That means you’ll probably have to take time to find out more about the person and show that you care for them.

You can say, “You know I would like to speak to you some more. I believe that I can help you to meet some of those desires. Would you like to get together with me? Could I send you an email or a brochure or something? Do you want me to see if I can help you fulfill your desires?”

If they say, “Yes I would love you to,” then you have permission from them and you can act.

If they say, “No, I’m not really interested right now,” then don’t try and push.

Don’t say something like, “What’s the matter with you? Sure you have some desires.”

He said he wasn’t interested. He hasn’t given you permission so don’t push it. Don’t impose your will. If you do that you are using Satan’s method of imposing and pushing to try and get people to do what you want.

At the end of the day you don’t care about that person. You only care about meeting your own needs. Don’t act without permission.

Getting People to Love You

How do you get people to love and trust you? This is the last principle I want to share with you.

This is the basics of human nature. There are whole books that have been written on this subject. Probably one of the best that you could ever read is a very famous book by Dale Carnegie called ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’.

If you’ve never read that book, go and buy it. It is cheap and it is a classic. There are so many good books out there and I will be recommending a lot of them. But here are a couple of basic principles that I can just leave with you right now.

Talk About Them

Firstly, talk about them, not about you. I mentioned that already.

Somebody once said, “Speak to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.”

If you want people to like you then listen to them.

Talk to them about themselves and they will think, “He’s such a nice guy. Man she’s such an awesome person. I just love being with her, because she never talks about herself. She just wants to find out more about me.”

Offer to Help Them

Next, offer to help them solve their problems. When somebody is nice to you and offers to help you, you kind of feel obligated to them don’t you?

You say, “You know he’s such a nice guy. He’s always so helpful. He’s given me so much free advice already and he’s never even once asked me to pay for it.”

You start to wonder if he is being real.

You say, “I like him.”

The next time you contact the person you say, “Hi, how are things going? I’ll be in the area today and just wanted to pop in and have a chat.”

“Sure, come on over.”

Otherwise they will say, “Well I’d love to see you, but I really have such a full schedule. Perhaps I can see you next year.”

Offer to help them to not only solve their problems, but also to help them fulfill their desires. If you are ready to help somebody else accomplish the things that burn in them in life, they will love you and trust you.

Give Lots of Free Things

And here is an important one. Give them lots of stuff for free.

You say, “You know all he wants to do is just get my money. I can see it. He’s trying to be friendly and trying to pretend he cares just so that he can get the sale.”

You’ve seen it haven’t you? The sales person is all nice.

“Man she’s so friendly. She has smiles all over her face,” until you sign on the dotted line and give her your money.

Then you can just drop in a hole and die somewhere, because, “We don’t care. We’ve got the sale, thank you very much. Good bye. I have another prospect here.”

You don’t trust that person.

Have you ever noticed that if you tip a waiter too soon, you lose attention and he starts giving attention to another table? You know in the end what all the service was about. It was about what he could get out of you.

Give people stuff for free and they will think, “Wow this stuff is so good. If they are giving all of this away for free, imagine how good the stuff must be that they are charging for. I’d really like to get some of their products, because if their free stuff is so awesome I can’t wait to get my hands on the real thing.”

People will trust you and they will love you, because you see humans will always responds to love. And how do you demonstrate love?

For God so loved the world that He gave.

Love is always shown in giving, so if you want to get people to love you, start loving them by giving to them. Find out what the person needs or desires, begin to give it to them and they will respond. When you do that you’ll get them hungry for more.

They will say, “I want more of that.”

“Sure, here is a little more. Here’s another little tidbit.”

“I would like more of that.”

Eventually people will start coming to you and saying, “Do you have more of that?”

“Yes I have lots of that, but I can’t afford to give it to you all for free.”

“I understand. How much is it? I’d like some.”

You are hungry. It tastes good. Why do you think they give away free food samples in Costco? It is because after you have tasted it you want to buy the whole packet. It is really not difficult to get people to trust you.

And so we have those 3 principles:

1.   The prospect is number one

2.   Your product must fulfill the person’s desires

3.   You must develop a relationship of trust and love with the person

These are simple foundational principles in selling, and I haven’t even really looked a lot at actual selling methods yet, because that is a big subject which I have covered elsewhere.

So in conclusion, selling is the lifeblood of any business. Without it your business does not exist. If you can learn the basics of selling, your business will flourish. If you ignore the basics of selling, your business cannot exist.

Section 03 – Choosing the Right Crew

Chapter 07

You Need a Crew

Section 03 – Choosing the Right Crew

Chapter 07 – You Need a Crew

We saw that businesses are like boats, and we looked at seven different kinds of boats or ships that are pictures of different kinds of businesses. In each of these sections we are looking at principles that apply to all of the ships, and in most cases each of these sections is expanded to a complete book on its own.

And so in the last section we dealt with the power of selling, and from there it led to the full teaching on the Laws of Selling. This section is the same. We are going to be looking now at choosing your crew and the personnel that you need.

This is just the basic teaching, but we have developed it into a new full teaching in a book entitled ‘Developing Business Relationships’.

Now no boat ever sails itself. You must have a crew to keep it going. In the same way nobody ever became wealthy in business all by themselves. You have to have some help.

You have to have people to work with you. It is essential that you choose the right people for your crew if you hope to succeed in business, to grow and become wealthy one day.

Each of the boats that we mentioned needs a crew. And different boats require different kinds of crew and different numbers of crew members. So I’m going to go very quickly through the kind of things that you need to take into account, according to what kind of business you are building and running.

Crew for the Sailing Yacht

I want to start then at the lowest business – the sailing yacht which is the freelancer.

The freelancer sails alone, which means you have a crew of one. The freelancer is a Jack of all Trades who does a little bit of everything. You are it. Whatever is done in the business, you are the one who is doing it, because you are the only employee in the business.

And so you need to know your product or service that you are offering very well. You are the expert, and it is your expertise that you are selling, so you need to develop that ability. You also need to know how to sell, because if you don’t sell, nobody is going to buy your service or whatever it is that you are offering.

And then as soon as you make sales and run a business there is always paperwork. There is always admin involved in every business. And so you are going to have to be the Admin Clerk and you will have to know how to do that work as well in your business.

So you are going to be doing your expert service or whatever it is that brings in the money. You will have to sell that service to people, and you will have to do the paperwork and the administration yourself.

An Expert in Everything

And then the biggest problem that you will face is time management. You will not have a boss telling you that you must be at work at 9:00 o’clock and go home at 5:00 o’clock, and you’re allowed a half an hour for lunch. You are the boss. You must discipline yourself and schedule your own time.

And then once you have your new customers, you will have to take care of them. You will have to give them the after-sales support, so you really have to be this Jack of all Trades.

You will have to be able to do everything. If you are not capable of doing that, forget about going into the freelance business, because a freelancer does not have the finance to employ a big staff. Eventually it will lead to that and you will move up to something higher if you are one of the other boats.

But before you take that step, make sure that this one staff member that you have is pretty clued up and can do just about anything.

If you don’t do this, you may have this wonderful expert ability that you could sell for a lot of money, but if you don’t sell it to anyone, nobody is going to buy it and you will not get an income.

And if you don’t take care of your customers and if you don’t keep the right paperwork, you are going to get into financial trouble. You will get into trouble with the legal side, with Government and taxation; with everything that goes with making money.

So it may sound like a wonderful idea just to get out there and be your own boss and to freelance, but there is a price to pay for it.

Crew for the Fishing Boat

Now we move up a little higher from freelancing, from the sailing yacht to the fishing boat.

The fishing boat is like a small retail business and it probably starts out as a partnership. So the fishing boat business has at least two staff members. Hopefully it has more, but it could start just with you and somebody else who is working with you.

The idea here is to replicate or duplicate yourself. If you could pour everything that you have or know into somebody else, you could have another person who shares one of your abilities.

Now the two of you can pool together your resources. In that way you can do twice the amount of work, or the same amount of work in half the time as the case may be, but you have a greater capability in your business.

No More a Solo Player

Now the moment you add one extra person to the equation, you no longer have the independence to do whatever you want to do when you feel like doing it. There is somebody else to take into account.

It is kind of like getting married isn’t it? You’re not single anymore. You don’t just stay out with the guys late at night. You have a wife to come home to.

You don’t go out with your lady friends. You have a husband who is waiting for you.

So it is the same way in business. The moment you get involved with other people you now have additional responsibilities. And now you must learn to work not as an individual, but as a team.

And so the first thing to consider the moment you move beyond one employee is the importance of all employees working together as a team.

Choose the Opposite

Now who is the best person to pick for your team member or team members, starting with one person? It should be somebody who has strengths to match your weaknesses. It is no good both of you having the same strengths and the same weaknesses.

You say, “Well that’s great. We’ve both got the same strengths. We really can double our capability.”

Yes but you also double your weaknesses. As a result the areas of failure in the business are going to also be multiplied. So whenever you look for a team member, try and look for somebody who has what you don’t have, so that you can complement one another and work together.

As you build the team, each person in the team should be filling a gap that exists in the existing team members. So you add one person who fills the gap of what you can’t do. If you add a third person, that third person should fill the gap of what the two of you don’t have.

And so you build it up and you get your fishing boat business going. You get into a small retail type business which begins to grow and get a little bit larger.

Crew for the Merchant Ship

Next we move to the merchant ship, which is like a medium sized business. Now we have a ship with a crew and you are the captain.

As the captain you must be the manager. You must maintain everything, and you must be able to control everything. Therefore you should actually be able to do anything.

Whatever your crew does, you should be able to lead them and instruct them on how to do it because you have been there. Now that is wonderful if you have started out as a freelancer and you’ve built up and learned how to do all of these things.

Now you can employ a crew, and as the captain or the manager, you can tell each one what to do. You can even train each one and tell them what you expect of them.

So now instead of you doing everything you have other people to do it. You have someone who runs the engine and trims the sails if it’s a sailing boat. You don’t have to do that anymore.

You have somebody else who handles the loading and unloading of the cargo. It is no longer your care. You don’t have to do that. All you do is supervise it.

There is somebody else who goes out and does the selling and makes the sales calls, as we covered in the previous section on selling. Somebody else presents the product to prospects and you have an expert at keeping records, so you are not tied down with all that administration and paperwork anymore.

You have a crew, each one specializing in their own realm, and all you need to do is to maintain and be the manager or the captain.

Crew for the Oil Tanker

Then we get the oil tanker type of business; the continuity program that brings in a regular guaranteed income.

Here you don’t actually need a lot of staff because everything has already been built and put together. All you actually need to do is to maintain. You only need a maintenance staff. You need somebody to pump the oil.

You need somebody to set up the contact to make the sale, but the chances are you are going to be doing that yourself. However you need somebody to do the maintenance.

So if you have set up a training program you need someone to take care of your students. You can’t handle it all by yourself. You need someone to keep watch; somebody to cover your back as it were, to make sure that nothing goes wrong.

Then you need someone to sail the ship, so there are still a few requirements there. You need basic maintenance of the business, but since the business is established and is just pouring out to the same customers all the time week after week, month after month, you don’t require as big a staff to set it up.

Crew for the Battleship

We come then to the battleship. The battleship is a ground-breaking business and going into new things.

In this kind of business, most of your crew members are going to be very strong and they are going to be leaders. They are all going to be on the cutting edge.

And so you can expect a lot of expressives and drivers to be in your crew, because these are people who can go out and break ice. They can get new contacts, break new ground and start new businesses.

You will have to be a very strong leader, because you must lead the way, give them direction and show them where to go. You have to be capable of giving hands on training to every single person that you bring in.

And for each one that you bring in you are going to duplicate yourself and pour into them everything that you have. So you are virtually multiplying yourself, and they will all be capable of accomplishing what you can accomplish - going out and breaking the ground and starting new businesses.

You cannot do it all on your own. You still need a team. But your team members will have to be more than ordinary little employees. They are going to have to be people that you trust.

Many of them will hold shares in the company and will even be partners with you. They will be part and parcel of this business, because every one of you will have to be experts in your own field.

Crew for the Aircraft Carrier

We come now to the aircraft carrier which is the expanding franchise-type business. This kind of business usually majors on things like training and support, advertising and that sort of thing.

You will have to provide all the needed resources for those people that you bring in. You’ll have to equip them with everything that they need. So if they are going to be in training, you will have to provide them with the resources that they need in order to carry out this training job.

You will have to keep communication channels wide open, because the team has now got bigger.

You now have a lot more people, each one doing their own thing. And if each one goes off and does their own thing, if you are not careful you will get a lot of confusion. Each person will pull their own way, and before you know it the business will start tearing apart.

So your control and management here is a very important part of this business. It is getting a little bit bigger now and can start to get out of your control.

Crew for the Cruise Liner

The final type of business is the ocean cruiser or liner which is the huge public company. Here you have reached the point where there are so many people involved, that you actually cannot keep control of all of them anymore. It’s just too big for you to handle.

Now you have to learn to start delegating some of your responsibilities to other people. You will have to trust the leaders that you have appointed over different groups. You will communicate with only a small group of your employees, and they will then communicate it downwards. We’ll discuss more of this as we go on.

You Need to Grow

So you see you can start with the smallest type of business. It’s very easy to run it all by yourself. But as it begins to grow and gets bigger and bigger, you need more staff.

You need different kinds of staff, and you need to maintain control and communication with them. There are a whole lot of things that suddenly you have to take into account now. And if you don’t take those into account your business will never grow. It will just grow so far and then stop right there.

You think, “Well we’re doing quite great – just the three of us.”

You know I found out as a freelancer that although I could earn a very high hourly rate, sadly there were only 24 hours in the day. Some of those I needed to use to eat and sleep, otherwise I could have worked round the clock and made a lot of money.

But even if I had worked 24 hours a day at a very high hourly rate, it would never have made me a millionaire. Nobody can become wealthy that way.

You have to duplicate yourself in others. You have to increase and have other people carrying different parts of the load.

That is the only way your business can grow. If you’re not prepared to involve other people your business cannot grow. And if you involve too many people and you don’t structure them correctly, your business will stop growing, and will go into confusion and fall apart. So you need the right person for every job.

Chapter 08

The Right Person for Every Job

Chapter 08 – The Right Person for Every Job

How do you choose who you should employ for which job? Do you employ the ladies who are pretty, who have blonde hair and the right curves? If you just go for that you could be in trouble. Some of them are known as ‘dumb blondes’. Okay I’m only kidding. I love blondes.

How do you choose the right people to be on the staff of your business boat? You need some knowledge of temperaments. We can’t get away from temperaments can we? So I want to give you a breakdown now from the knowledge that we have already built of temperaments.

I trust that by now you should have understood the temperaments. If you haven’t, stop right now and go and review the teaching on temperaments. I’m going to show you here what kind of person to look for, for each different kind of staff member that you will need in your business.

Each Temperament has Good Qualities

Let’s look firstly at the temperamental considerations and see what each of the four temperaments is good at. This is a generalization and I will give you more detail shortly. But in a general sense, each of the four temperament types has a particular skill more than the others.

The expressive temperament always makes the best sales staff. You can fight this one as much as you like but there is no doubt about it. The best sales staff are always the expressives.

Your analytical always makes the best admin staff. I’ll explain to you shortly why this is the case.

The amiable always makes your best customer support staff, and the driver always makes your best production staff. I’ll explain each of these as we go on.

It is important that when you put together your crew, they work together as a team as I already said. You need team spirit and team operation. They need to work together, not as multiple people, but as one person.

To do that you will have to match their strengths and their weaknesses together. This is the wonderful thing about temperaments. I showed you earlier that each one has specific strengths and specific weaknesses.

Flow Together as One

And so when you choose your staff members or your team, make sure that they are well matched together, so that all the weaknesses are covered and all the strengths are highly magnified and amplified.

Each person must know what their responsibility is. You need to make it very clear to each person what their job entails, what they are responsible for and what you expect from them.

And then each person must identify what role the other team members play, so that they know where they fit and where everybody else fits. Eventually the picture becomes very clear as to where each person slots into this puzzle. And if you put the puzzle together, you have a perfect picture.

That is the perfect work team, each one knowing their role, and each one identifying and recognizing the roles of those that they are working with.

The Four Teams of Business

I want to look now at the four main teams that you will need in most businesses. Some businesses may not require all of these teams to the same degree. But generally every business requires these four main functions, and each of them will require a special sales or admin team.

If you are a small business you may have one of each of these. And each of these teams believe it or not is a different one of the temperaments.

As I covered in the four different functions of each of the temperaments, you could get away with a minimum of four staff members. If you did that and put them together well, you would have a perfect work team.

Normally though you will have more than that. And so if you have each of these categories you’ll probably have a group of people working in each of these teams.

The Sales Team

So let’s start then with the sales team. As I said before, expressives make the best sales personnel.

But from our knowledge of temperaments you will remember that nobody remains one single temperament. You always tend to lean one way or the other and are very seldom the opposite temperament.

And so the expressive temperament can at times lean to amiable, and at other times he will lean to driver. And each of these different types of expressives function in different ways in the sales team.

Why do expressives make good sales staff? It is because they thrive on excitement and on goals. They’re excited about the product and excited about getting out and selling to people.

They have the challenge of going out and getting big sales and building the company. You can really motivate them. Then they will go out and motivate everybody else. That is why they make such good sales staff.

Driver Expressives for Prospecting

The driver oriented expressive is your best person to do all the prospecting and going and breaking the ice.

As I covered in the Stairs of Selling book, drivers have a very low call resistance. They don’t have a problem getting rebuffs and people saying no. So drivers make very good prospectors.

And amongst your sales team the driver will be the sales manager. Drivers make excellent managers. So your expressive drivers will be your managers and your prospectors.

Amiable Expressives for Sales

Your amiable oriented expressives are your best sales book. They go out there, and because they are amiable they win the people over. They make people feel comfortable and get them all excited. You see they are primarily expressive but they lean towards amiable.

Those make your best sales representatives. They go out there and they sell your product and your company.

The one temperament you must avoid on your sales team is the analytical. Don’t ever put an analyticals on the sales team.

Analyticals are the total opposite of everything that expressives stand for. By all means employ an amiable expressive or a driver expressive, but avoid the analytical as much as possible.

If you do that you will build a very good sales team. The sales in the business will flourish, things will grow and you will get lots of income.

Analyticals for the Admin Team

We come now to the admin team. They are the people who do all the regular humdrum paperwork; the routine work that has to be done every day. They call it the ‘red tape’ stuff.

Who is the best temperament for this? This is mostly the analyticals. Analyticals make the best admin staff. Do you know why? It is because they thrive on routine work and regular schedules. Tell an analytical that he starts at 8 o’clock and ends at 4:30 and he is fine.

Don’t let him decide when or how he is going to work. You set the schedule for him. You give him his pile of work on his desk and your analytical will sit and work steadily, faithfully day after day, week after week, month after month – at the same desk in the same corner in the same officer. And he will be quite happy.

Analyticals don’t need or want change. They say, “Let’s just find a nice, comfortable way of doing it and then keep doing it over and over again - and do it for the rest of our lives.”

That is your analytical – the perfect admin staff.

Now we have two kinds of analyticals. We have analyticals who swing to driver, and we have analyticals who swing to amiable. And each of these makes different kinds of admin staff.

Driver Analyticals for Supervisors

If you want your admin supervisors, take the driver analyticals. They are the best supervisors of your admin staff. They will pull them together and make sure the job is done perfectly. That is the wonderful thing about putting analyticals into your admin staff because the job will be done perfectly.

It may take a while for it to get done because they want it done too perfectly. That’s why you need some driver oriented analyticals to give a bit of push and say, “We’re running out of time. Let’s get it done now - and get it done right.”

Amiable Analyticals for Clerks

The amiable oriented analyticals are the ones who make the best clerks. They are nice people. They sit down and do their job. They are basically analytical but they are also friendly and faithful. You can rely on them just to work on and on all the time.

Who do you never employ as admin staff? Expressives of course. This is because expressives get bored with routine work.

Don’t ever give an expressive a routine job and tell him that he must do the same thing day after day. He will get bored to tears because he thrives on exciting new challenges, not boring admin work.

Amiables for the Support Team

Now we come to the support team. Your support team is made up of mostly amiables. This is because they thrive on people involvement.

Amiables love working with people. And when you work in support it is always with people. You are working with customers who have already bought something. You are working with the public all the time.

Amiables thrive on that. Give an amiable a job to sit on the phone all day speaking to customers, handling queries, answering questions and dealing with problems and they love it. It makes them feel good.

They say, “I helped that person with his problem. I helped her overcome her difficulty. Isn’t it wonderful? I feel so good about myself today. I did such a wonderful job.”

Amiables can swing to analytical and they can swing to expressive.

Analytical Amiables for Technical Support

What do you do with the analytical amiables? They are the best technical support staff. They are the ones you send out after you have sold a product.

They go and tune it up, and tell the person how to use it and help them with any problems. They show them why it went wrong and how to correct it. The analytical amiable thrives on helping people run their products correctly.

Expressive Amiables for Customer Support

Then we get the expressive amiable who just loves being with people. He loves dealing with the customers and creating good customer satisfaction; motivating the customers and keeping them happy.

Actually he produces more sales for you, because happy customers come back to buy again and again. If you are going to put somebody on customer support to deal with your customers as a public relations officer, pick an expressive amiable. They are the best person for it.

If you want somebody to go out and do technical follow up, then an analytical amiable is the best.

Who do you avoid in the support team? It is the drivers of course because they don’t like people. They don’t care about them.

They would say something like, “What’s the matter with you, you stupid idiot? Why couldn’t you use our product? Can’t you read?”

Don’t ever put a driver in on customer support. You’ll lose your customers.

Drivers for the Production Team

The final very important team is your production team. They are the people who produce your products or your service; whatever it is that you are doing.

They are the ones who originate the actual business that you are doing, whether it be sourcing new products, being the buyers and bringing the stuff in. Or it could involve actually manufacturing the products. Whatever is involved, they are the producers.

Who makes the best producer? The driver does. Drivers are work oriented and they thrive on work orientation. They will get in there and produce and produce.

Drivers can also swing one of two ways. They can swing to analytical or they can swing to expressive. And each of these once again has a different function.

Analytical Drivers for Research

The analytical driver makes your best researcher and tester. Get the analytical driver in researching the product and finding out what needs to get done. Find out what has always worked in the past and what is the best way to do things.

They will analyze it, research it, examine it and tell you what you should do, what you shouldn’t do and how to go about it. Just don’t make an analytical actually do the job. But this is fine because these are drivers. So an analytical driver will do the job and do it very well.

Expressive Drivers for New Products

How about your expressive driver? This is the person who will originate new products for you.

The expressive driver comes up with new ideas and originations. The expressive is a very creative temperament, so you add the expressive temperament to the driver temperament and you have somebody who comes up with new ideas.

He will get in there and produce a whole new product and say, “Give this a try. I think this will work.”

“Why don’t you try this? I think this is a brilliant idea. I think we should produce this new product and start selling it because it has a real market. People out there really like this kind of thing so we should give it a try.”

These are your production people. They are drivers who are totally work oriented. You can rely on them to push beyond what is required of them.

Employ the Right People

And so as you come to employ your staff you need to look at these four main areas. And when you interview somebody for a job, make sure you know how to assess their temperament. Make sure that you know what their basic temperament is, and see which way they tend to swing before you employ that person.

Don’t ever try to employ a person in a job that is totally unsuited to them. They will end up unhappy in the job and you will not get from them your money’s worth of what you are paying them for.

But match the right person to the right job or situation, and you will have a well oiled piece of machinery working together. Each employee will be totally happy with their job, and you will get from them what you employed them to do.

The company will grow and expands. Your finances will increases and you will grow wealthy. Everybody will be happy, so choose your crew correctly.

Chapter 09

The Importance of Communication

Chapter 09 – The Importance of Communication

Finally I want to look at the importance of communication in the business environment amongst staff.

Top Down Communication

The first and most important communication is communication from the top down. It is most important that you communicate effectively downwards to the staff who are under you.

Make Your Vision Clear

Firstly you need to make your vision very clear. You need to know exactly what your vision is for this company. And every person who is working for you should also know what your vision is for this company.

Don’t leave them in the dark. Don’t leave them guessing just what it is that you are trying to accomplish.

They must know, “This is our vision. This is our motto. This is what we’re aiming for. This is our goal and these are our standards and our principles.”

Make it very clear. If you don’t know what your vision is you should not be employing staff yet. So you better find out exactly what you have in mind for the future and where you’re headed. Make that vision very clear to those who are working under you.

Be Available

And then you need to be available to everybody who is in leadership.

Now if you are in a smaller business, you should be available to every single employee. If you are in one of the larger businesses where you cannot communicate with every employee this is a little different.

You should be available immediately and all the time to those who are in leadership immediately underneath you so that they can communicate downwards.

Give Standing Orders

And then you need to keep very clear operating orders.

You say, “Well you know this worked last week, but I think we’ll try it differently this week.”

Nobody knows you changed your mind and they still do it the old way.

You know in the Army they have something they call ‘standing orders’. These are things that they do all the time and they seldom change.

Then you get specific orders where the General says, “Okay we’re going to launch an attack in that area. Let’s gather the forces. Mobilize everybody and we will go.”

You see that is not standing orders. That is a specific command or order. But if there are no standing orders, the bigger the group gets the more confusion takes place. You cannot police every single thing that everybody does.

If you do not have standing orders, every one of your staff members will be coming to you all the time to say, “I’m not sure what I should do here. What should I do?”

“What must I do with this customer? How should I handle this query? What should here? What should I do there?”

In the end you may as well do the whole job by yourself. What is the point of employing staff? You must lay down very clearly the parameters and the way you work. You must let people know how you think, what you expect from them and what their responsibilities are. Then leave them to do it.

Make clear instructions on how this business is to be run. It’s very important that you communicate that correctly downwards to your staff.

Bottom Up Communication

And then you need communication from the bottom up. If you are not getting feedback from your staff you don’t know what is going on in the business. So the first thing you must do is call for regular reports from your staff about what is happening in the business and in the market place.

And so if you have each of the four departments you need to know, “What is happening in our sales division? Are we having problems there?”

“What is happening in the admin side? Is everything going smoothly? Maybe they are battling on stupid, old computers. They need new ones.”

But they are too afraid to ask you because you are too mean to spend money on new equipment. Allow people to communicate up to you the kinds of problems they are having.

Maybe your production staff are trying to make do with outdated production equipment. Maybe they are having a problem because some resources are no longer available. Whatever it is, let them give feedback up to you so that you can know what their problems are.

If your support staff are battling to cope with objections that are coming from your customers, you need to know that there is a problem so that you can address it. But don’t get in and solve the whole problem yourself. You communicate back downwards. You lay out your standing orders and you rectify things.

Your fingers should be on the pulse of what is happening in your business. You should be getting feedback from your employees all the time to know exactly what is working well and what is not working well. In this way you can restructure and get things together and flowing properly.

The Chain of Command

It is very important that you keep a clear chain of command. What is a chain of command? It is the thing that the Army knows so well.

The General coughs and the next rank under him sneezes. It goes down the line until eventually the poor little Private at the bottom does the job.

There is a chain of command and each person knows who they are responsible to that is above them. And each person knows who they are responsible over that is under them.

Give Clear Job Descriptions

To accomplish this correctly the first thing that I see so many businesses failing in, is they do not make each person’s job description very clear.

Every employee must know exactly what they are responsible to do, what is required of them and what exactly their role is in the business. They must know who they are responsible to and who they are responsible over.

Now you have a business where each person just does a bit of everything. And so if you feel like making sales calls today you go and make the calls. If you feel like handling the customer support you do it.

Then you say, “Why didn’t somebody handle that query?”

Well who was the ‘somebody’ that was supposed to do it?

You say, “I thought you were going to do it.”

“No that’s normally your job isn’t it?”

“No, it’s your responsibility.”

Before you know it you have confusion. You must make job descriptions loud and clear for each staff member so that they know.

And if they fail, it is very easy for you to go and say, “Why didn’t you do the job? That was your responsibility.”

Allocate responsibilities to your leaders. Make it very clear to them what you require of them.

Dealing With Failures

And then you are going to have to deal with rejection of authority. You should have laid out the parameters very clearly for each person to know exactly where they sit, who they are responsible to and what they are responsible for.

If somebody fails it is very easy for you to say, “You didn’t do what you were told. You failed in your responsibility in this job. You failed to submit to the person who was over you.”

“You failed to exercise the right authority over the person below you and they went off and did their own thing.”

Make sure that you bring things back in line when they go out of order.

If you are a nice amiable person though, maybe you don’t want to rock the boat. If you’re an analytical you just want to pretend that it will go away so you play ostrich. So as the leader you had better be a bit of everything. You must be a good, strong leader.

Confronting Issues

You need to be able to confront people and address issues, because there will be issues. Add more than one person to the situation and you have an issue. Add two, three, four or five people and you have many issues. Add 100 people and you’ve got lots of issues.

Deal with those issues the moment they come up and bring order back again as quickly as possible. If you don’t do this your business will begin to suffer in confusion.

The Scripture says that we must, ‘Walk in the light as He is in the light.’

What does it mean to walk in the light? It means being open and transparent with one another. You cannot allow backbiting or strife to take place amongst the staff members in your business. And you must never take action unless you have multiple witnesses and you have all the facts at your fingertip.

Don’t believe it when somebody comes and whispers in your ear, “Do you know what so and so did? Do you realize what that employee is doing behind your back?”

“What? I can’t believe it.”

You get all bitter and twisted and you encourage people to tear one another down. The Scripture calls that strife and vainglory. You tear other people down so you can put yourself back in their place.

You are dealing with fleshly sinful human beings. Even if your employees are Christians they will backbite each other and tear one another down, compete with one another and try and lift themselves up.

Be Open and Transparent

Make sure that you know exactly what is going on in your business. And every time something happens, make sure that you communicate with every person that’s involved. If you hear a story from one person about somebody else, call them both in together. Speak to them together and deal with it and sort it out.

It is walking in the light and bringing everything to the light. Don’t ever accept everything in confidence about somebody else.

It is a standard principle in ministry and the same principle applies in business. If somebody tells you something about somebody else, you reserve the right to communicate that knowledge to the person they spoke about.

Don’t ever let somebody come to you to say, “Don’t tell so-and-so that I told you, but…”

“I don’t want to know it. Get out of here. If you’re not prepared to tell that person to their face I don’t want to hear it.”

Nip it in the bud right from the beginning. We are Christians and we are running a Christian business. And even if you have unbelievers in your business as well as Christians, you need to walk in fellowship and in love with one another.

If your employees are not prepared to do that, get rid of them. If an unbeliever complains that you are too Christian you can say, “There’s the door. Please go.”

Employ people who are prepared to walk in fellowship with one another and are prepared to walk in love with one another, otherwise how can you do your business God’s way and expect the blessing of God?

Deal With Things Immediately

Avoid selfish competition between people. Don’t encourage people to compete with one another and exalt and lift themselves up. You’ll produce strife and conflict amongst the staff.

We must walk in the light. Everything must be brought to the surface and nothing must be left festering. The moment you hear a negative you must hit it immediately. Bring it right out into the light, and if necessary call the whole lot together and have a good talk with them.

Say, “I’ve been hearing these stories. This is not acceptable. We’ve got to sort it out. Let’s walk in the light. Let’s walk in love and fellowship and do things God’s way.”

By the same token it is very important that people have the liberty to come to you to share their problems. You must make it very clear though that you will deal with the problem; that you will address it and sort it out.

But don’t let them come and speak to you about somebody else behind their back and expect you to keep a secret.

Promoting Your Staff Who Excel

And then you need to promote those who deserve it. You need to recognize commitment and outstanding ability amongst your employees.

Don’t just assume, “Well they’re getting a good salary. I should be getting a good job from them.”

Most employees don’t care about you. All they are going to do is work just enough to get their pay.

But then you have an employee who goes beyond the call of duty; who works extra hard and for longer hours. He works almost as though he has a part in the company. You need to reward that person. You need to recognize him and give him some kind of promotion or reward.

You must reward your employees’ faithfulness and commitment otherwise after a while they are going to say, “Why should I bother? I’ve gone out of my way for this company and he treats me just like everybody else out there. I’m really not getting any preference at all.”

You see if people are just doing it to try and exalt themselves it is pretty clear. But look at your employees and praise them. Thank them for their faithfulness and you’ll motivate them to go that extra mile for you.

When to Discipline or Reconcile

And then we have the negative side which I dealt with earlier. In Scripture it is called the discipline reconciliation dynamic, because when things go wrong and there is conflict, it has to be resolved. You can either discipline or you can reconcile, and the idea is to use those two together for the best result.

It is very important that you are always fair in your judgment and that you give every single person the benefit of the doubt first.

Instead of making a judgment and saying, “You’re always doing that. I expected that of you,” give them the benefit of the doubt.

You can say, “Perhaps it was a mistake and isn’t true. I want to hear you out. Please explain to me why you’re doing this and acting this way. What is going on? I’m open and ready to listen. I’m ready to understand.

“Perhaps you’re having a hard time at home. Perhaps you’re having financial problems. Whatever it is, explain to me why you are behaving this way.”

Make the Penalties Clear

And then you must make very clear what the penalties will be for violating your standing orders and your operating instructions.

Make it very clear what you expect from people and what they can expect from you if they refuse to comply with your instructions. They must know very clearly that if they step out of line, this is what they can expect.

In some of the bigger companies if you don’t perform you don’t get your pay increase. You don’t get promotion and you may even get fired. It is very important that discipline is laid out and structured very clearly so that everybody knows exactly where they stand.

But before you discipline, always attempt reconciliation first. Always try and bring the person back into line. Try to pour oil on troubled waters as the saying goes.

Try to bring peace. And where two or more people are in conflict with each other, try and break down the barriers between them and bring reconciliation. We are to walk in love in the Lord, and that is the way your business should be run.

Follow Through

And then if you have warned a person and promised a penalty for violation, keep your promise. Don’t make idol threats.

Don’t say, “If you do that I’m going to fire you.”

Next time they do it you say, “If you do that again I’m going to fire you.”

The third time they do it you say, “You know I’m seriously going to fire you if you do that again.”

Do you know what happens to children when you do that to them? They get more and more naughty and they eventually throw tantrums. They know you’ll never carry out your threats because they are just idle words.

Do what you promised. Make it very clear that you will do what you promised you would do. And if in the end you cannot bring reconciliation and you have a person who’s bringing division, bringing your company down, and in fact is becoming an open door to a curse, get rid of them.

You say, “Well you know I don’t really like firing people.”

Get rid of them.

“But you know he’s worked for me for so long. And she’s really been pretty good until now.”

Get rid of them. The Scriptural pattern for discipline reconciliation which Jesus gave us was this:

“If your brother has something against you go and sort it out with him alone. If he won’t listen bring two or three witnesses in. If he still won’t listen bring the whole church in. And if he still doesn’t want to listen have nothing to do with him. Treat him like an unbeliever.”

The same thing must apply in your business situation. By all means give the person every opportunity to bring reconciliation. But if in the end the person will not come right, show them the door.

The sooner you get rid of that person the better, otherwise your business will not grow and you will not flow together as one. There will no longer a team. And everybody in the team will suffer because of the one stumbling block that’s there.

And so in conclusion, you cannot run your boat alone. You need to find the right people to work with you.

When you have found them you must make sure that you structure them correctly. You must build them together into a finely tuned machine that flows as one big mechanism. Each little cog does its part, but they all contribute together to the one vision – the business vision that you put into them.

If you do that you will greatly multiply yourself and become very wealthy.

Section 04 – Plotting Your Business Course

Chapter 10

Different Markets for Different Boats

Section 04 – Plotting Your Business Course

Chapter 10 – Different Markets for Different Boats

We’ve looked at the various different types of boats of business. We saw that selling was an essential part of all businesses, and we looked at how important it was to get the right crew for your boat. Now we come to the very next important aspect of boating or launching a ship, and that is plotting a course.

A ship without a course is destined to get lost in the ocean. You don’t launch out without knowing where you are going and what you are going to do when you get there. It is very important that you plot your course before you even think of leaving port.

In a business it is essential that you have some kind of market strategy before you even think of launching the business, or before getting actively involved in selling or other business activities.

Now each different boat has a different market or a different destination if you like. Some of them have more than one destination and work more than one market. Some may be specialized a particular market.

Whatever kind of business you are going to do, you must decide which market you are going to work before you start your business.

So I would like to start this introduction to marketing. And as always this will lead to a complete series specifically on marketing and we’ll be looking at the subject in some detail. And hopefully by the time we are finished you will be more in a position to launch your ship because you will have plotted your business course.

The Motivations Behind Buying

Why do people buy? If people are not buying, of course you don’t have business, because business is the process of selling products. So before you even begin to plot your course you need to understand the motivations behind business and what it is that causes people to buy.

We have covered a bit of that on the sales side and I’m going to be showing you shortly the difference between sales and marketing.

So don’t think, “Didn’t we cover sales already?”

Yes we did, but what I’m going to be covering now is not sales but marketing. And sales and marketing are not exactly the same thing. They overlap and flow together, but they are not the same thing. So this subject here may overlap a bit with sales, but I want you to see it from the marketing point of view.

They Desire Your Product

Firstly people buy because they desire your product. In fact this is the strongest motivation for people to buy. It has been said that the only way in this world to get somebody to do something is to make them want to do it.

The only way to get people to buy your product is to make them want to buy it. We covered this in some detail in the sales side.

This means if you want to sell your product you must find a hungry target market. If you can find that you have found people who desire to buy your product. So that is probably one of the strongest motivators and the greatest market to look for.

They Need Your Product

Secondly people buy your product because they need it. As I have mentioned elsewhere, need is not the greatest motivation. People will often get what they desire before they get what they need.

Need is nevertheless something that we can use. And if we can somehow convert need into desire, we have a prospect and a possible sale.

So don’t ignore this market. Every human being has needs. Those needs must be met and they will always cost money to meet. And if you can provide a product that meets that need you have a market.

Social Proof

Thirdly, people buy because everyone else is buying your product. This is something that is known as ‘social proof’.

One of the biggest motivators is, “Everybody has one of these. I need to get one also.”

“Man, I seem to be left behind. My next door neighbor, my friends, my relatives, even the guys at work have bought this already but we don’t have one yet. We need to buy one.”

“Well do you need it?”

“No not really.”

“Do you desire it?”

“Well if everybody else has one I should have one too.”

It creates a desire. This is one of the strongest motivators. People are influenced by what other people do. They follow like sheep. Don’t ever forget that. All you need is a leader sheep to get going and the other sheep will follow.

So if you want to find a market for your business, look at what everybody else is buying. If everybody is buying one of these; if it is something that everybody right now has an interest in, you have a ready market.

Fear of Loss

Then the last reason people buy is because the product is in short supply. Fear of loss is one of the strongest motivators. Sometimes it goes even above desire. There is just something about losing a chance or an opportunity.

There is something powerful about telling a person, “If you don’t move now you’re going to lose forever your chance of getting this.”

That fear somehow motivates people to want to buy, even though they perhaps don’t need it or haven’t even desired it, but it helps motivate sales decisions.

So here are some of the factors that you must begin to look for in trying to find a market for your business. Look at what people desire. Look for what they need. Look for what everybody else is buying out there. And look for what is not freely available everywhere else.

If you look for those qualities you will find a very good opportunity for business, and you will have found a market that you can work.

Chapter 11

Selling Versus Marketing

Chapter 11 – Selling Versus Marketing

Let’s look now at this subject of selling versus marketing, and see if we can see the similarities and differences between the two, because as I said they are not the same thing.

The Similarities

Firstly, what is similar between the two?

Both Require Prospects

Both selling and marketing require prospects. Without someone to buy you have no business. You cannot sell unless there is somebody to sell to. And there is no market unless there are people out there who are going to buy your product. So selling and marketing require prospects or people.

Now the prospects are out there, and you have to find them before you can sell and before you have established a market. So firstly look out there for prospects for your business. Basically marketing and selling are very similar where that is required.

Both Require an Effort

Both selling and marketing require an effort on your part. You must go to the market. The market will not come to you. Don’t think that because you have this wonderful product, everybody is going to be breaking down your doors to come and get it.

A product never ever sells itself. That applies to both the sales side and to the marketing side. Before you launch your business ship, decide which market you are going to work and then go to that market. It is going to take an effort.

You say, “Well we’re launching this ship just as soon as the market arrives.”

Your ship will rust in the harbor and you will starve. Your business will never get off the ground if you are waiting for the market to arrive.

You have to make an effort in both selling and in marketing. You have to make an effort in business if you hope to succeed.

Allow Them Time

The last point I want to make is that it takes time for your prospect and your market to be ready. You may have found a possible prospect, but until he or she is ready to buy they are not a qualified prospect. That is why selling and marketing both have a kind of a future orientation.

A market can only be worked when it is active and you can only sell to a person when they are currently ready to buy. Sometimes you have to allow more time.

At times you will have to work with one prospect over a long period of time and wait for their circumstances or desires to change, or for them to experience things until they are ready to buy.

So don’t assume that because you offered the product and they said no, that they are no longer a prospect. It takes time, and a market especially can take a long time before it is open and ready.

You need to understand this before you launch. Don’t assume that because the market is out there that you can go and work it right away. It may not be ready yet.

The Differences

So what are you going to do to make it ready? We will get to that shortly. But now I want you to see the differences between selling and marketing, so that you can understand the different approaches that you must take with each of these.

Selling is to One Prospect

Firstly selling is directed at one prospect at a time. You have here somebody who is in the market and ready to buy, and you now direct your sales presentation to that person in order to bring about a sale.

Granted it may take several presentations and it may take time for the person to be ready, but in your selling you are working with one prospect at a time.

You may have many different prospects, but you can only work with one at a time. And when you present your sales pitch you present it to that prospect.

Marketing is to a Group

Marketing on the other hand is always directed to a group.

Marketing looks at an entire group and says, “I’m going to address this whole group and prepare them for my product.”

So marketing is a much broader scope than selling. It reaches far more people, far more areas and different facets of business. It is something much bigger that you have to look at.

Selling is Immediate

Selling can be done right now. If there is a prospect you can make a call, you can present your product, and you can hopefully make a sale right now.

If you don’t make a sale right now then the selling failed. But every day you are there making sales. And every day you expect to make at least a couple of sales, otherwise your business cannot survive.

Marketing is Future

Marketing is always future. It prepares the ground for selling. You see marketing is like digging up the soil, fertilizing it and preparing it for the planting of the seed itself. Selling is when the seed has already begun to sprout and you go and pick the fruits.

It takes a long time to prepare the ground. You have to fertilize it, water it, plant the seed and wait for that seed to be ready. If you are not prepared to make that effort and take that time, there may never be a fruit to pick.

If you don’t have a market you are going to send your sales force to where there is no fruit.

You will say, “I don’t know why you people are not bringing in any fruit. We send you out every day into the field.”

Your sales team will reply, “But there is no fruit there. How can you expect us to pick fruit off trees that don’t have fruit? How do you expect us to go into the desert and find trees? They aren’t there.”

The market has not been properly prepared. It is not ready right now for the sales force to go in and bring in the results.

Selling Requires Full AIDA

Now we looked at selling and we considered the AIDA – the principle of getting attention, interest, desire, conviction and action.

All of these are involved in the selling process. And unless you follow all of them through to the end, selling cannot succeed.

Marketing Requires Fewer Steps

Marketing does not follow the entire steps. It goes at the most to the first three.

Marketing can get attention, it can create interest and it can even arouse desire. But it doesn’t go any further than that.

Marketing does not bring in sales. It simply prepares the ground for sales to be made. And if you are not prepared to either find or create a market, sales will not take place.

I have covered this in much more detail in my book ‘The Stairs of Selling’, so I am simply laying a foundation here to help you to understand it.

Immediate Income Vs. Future Income

Selling brings in immediate income. You make a sale and the person signs on the dotted line. They give you their credit card or they sign a check or whatever payment method they use. There are immediate results.

Marketing does not bring immediate results. Marketing is future income. It is going to cost you without any income. But unless you are prepared to put the income and the effort into your marketing, the sales will never come.

A lot of businesses expect everything to just fall into their laps, but they haven’t done their homework when it comes to marketing.

They say, “I can’t understand why the sales have all dropped and why our business is dead.”

It is dead because you left out the important aspect of marketing. Yes you were concentrating on sales. Your sales force was well trained. They were all hyped up and made enthusiastic and sent out to go and get sales.

But you forgot to plot your course properly. You forgot to prepare the ground through marketing.

Target Markets

Selling has already identified a hungry target market. Marketing is looking for one.

Marketing is saying, “Now where do we plot our course? Where do we send this ship? What are our destinations, and when we get there how are we going to approach this matter?”

Selling takes place after you land.

You say, “Here we are. We’ve found the market. Let’s send the sales force in and get the sales.”

A lot of people seem to think, “All we need to do is just stock up our ship and launch and it will happen.”

No it’s not going to happen if you went to the wrong destination. You must identify or create your market before you even begin to think about selling.

So you must understand the differences between these two. And I don’t care how good a sales person you are, if you know nothing about marketing your business will fail.

Chapter 12

Three Markets to Follow

Chapter 12 – Three Markets to Follow

Which markets can you follow? I’m just going to give you a broad scope now, and that is going to lay the groundwork for the rest of this module on marketing. It will just give you a bit of an idea of the kinds of destinations that you can aim for and the kinds of markets that you can work.

I won’t give you a big list of markets. Rather I will give you three main areas that you can look at when it comes to marketing. You must decide whether you are going to approach one, two or all of these markets.

Ideally you need to reach all three if you want to be fully successful in business. But you need to start with the right one and work your way up to the others.

An Existing Market

The first market is an existing market, and that is obviously the one you should be starting with.

How do you identify an existing market? Look for a need or a desire that is always there; something that is common to human existence. It shouldn’t have anything to do with culture, the times in which we live, the political situation or any of the things in life that can cause variations such as fashions.

You are looking for a market that is constant and always there. Even better still, look for whatever is currently the rage.

What is everybody keen to buy right now? What are people excited about and what are they advertising at the moment? Look at what the shelves are being stocked up with right now, because everybody is buying it. That is the existing market.

Addressing the Market

Now how do you address this market?

Firstly find some core desires that people have. What is a core desire?

A core desire is a consuming passion; something that burns inside people continually. If you can find a core desire and offer to fulfill it, then you can work that market.

How do you address an existing market? You advertise and you mobilize your sales force. Then you send them in because you already have a market that is ready to buy.

You have a hungry target market. You just need to get there before somebody else does. If you don’t do that, somebody else is going to get to the prospect first, they will close the sale and you will lose out.

Jump in boots and all. Get mobilized and work that market. If it is a continual market you know it will always be there. If it is the current rage, jump in while it is the rage and before it is gone.

Now is the time to work it. Don’t think, “Oh well we’ll plan for the next year and we’ll start selling this.”

By then the market could be saturated and people don’t want it anymore.

A New Market

The next market is a new market. How do you identify a new market?

Firstly it is a need or desire that is not always there or that isn’t current. People are not getting all excited about this market right now. They are not planning and going out to buy this kind of product at this time. It’s a brand new market that doesn’t exist.

Who would even want to look at a market like this? The answer is anybody who wants to be highly successful in business. You see when you go into the existing market you have to compete with every other business out there that is trying to get a slice of the pie.

Untouched Ground

A new market is open, unsown ground that is unplowed and untouched. It is just waiting for you to go and take the fullness of what is available. But it is not going to be as easy as finding an existing market, where the ground has already been prepared, and working it. This is where true marketing skill comes into being.

How do you address a new market?

Well there are no core desires out there yet, because people don’t even know about your product. So what you have to do is create some core desires. And once you’ve created those core desires you must offer to fulfill them.

When a person has a core desire they will spend their last penny fulfilling that desire. But the desire does not already exist, so it is up to you to create some core desires.

Once you have created those core desires you are ready to get in there and say, “You know that thing you desire? I can give it to you.”

You must fulfill those core desires, but how do you create them? That is a subject all by itself and we will be looking at it in due course.

How do you go about reaching this market?

You are going to have to advertise your product extensively to prepare the ground before you even think of sending out your sales force. You will have to make a lot of effort to create an awareness; to become known and visible. And you will immediately stand out, because you are offering something that nobody else is offering.

This has some advantages and some disadvantages as we’ll see when we deal with the subject in detail.

There are people who resist change and would rather stick to what they know. They are called analyticals. And there are those who are sick and tired of the humdrum run-of-the-mill and want something exciting and new. We call them expressives.

Well you can’t only sell to expressives, even though it is easier to do. A large percentage of the population are analyticals, drivers and amiables. We have looked at temperaments in a lot of detail.

It Takes Money

So this market has to be well prepared before you get in there. It’s going to cost you money to advertise. And it’s going to cost you money to become visible and to become known before that market is ready.

As you continue to plow that ground and continue to sow into it, it is going to cost you time and money. But when the ground is ready and the harvest is ripe, when you send in your sales force there will be no competition.

Everybody else out there will be working the existing markets, but you have created a new market that is wide open. Nobody has bought this before. There are so many more people that you can sell to.

It won’t be long before everybody starts to copy you and starts to work your market. So when you have the market ready, get in there and reap it very fast. Again we’ll look at that in detail.

Previous Markets

And then the third market is one that very few people ever touch, and that is previous markets.

How do you identify a previous market? It is a need or desire that existed in the past but doesn’t exist anymore. It is something that used to be sold, but isn’t sold anymore because nobody buys it.

It is a market that was once alive but has now died. It is ground that was once fertile but has now become desert.

You say, “What, are you mad wasting your time on ground like that? Don’t you understand that nobody is going to buy because it is just old hat?”

No it’s not necessarily old hat. You can address this market.

Revive the Core Desires

Firstly you need to revive some of those old core desires. And if you can revive the old core desires you can offer to fulfill them.

Reviving old core desires is not easy if you try to rebuild a fire on dead ashes. So how do you go about reviving and bringing back to a life a market that didn’t exist? Here are some points to consider when doing this.

Look for a new generation who do not know or remember what existed before and has died. The whole fashion industry knows this only so well. If you’ve lived a little in this life, you will see how the new generation are so excited about the super new fashions that you had when you were a younger person.

You think, “You know what? My granny used to have that.”

It is just as well that the younger generation doesn’t know that your granny wore those clothes otherwise they wouldn’t wear it. You see they don’t want to be part of the old. They want to be new.

So you may have to look for something that died a while ago. You must look for prospects who are not aware of the products or never bought them when it was available.

You can easily revive things by using this whole fashion principle. You can revive a market that once was very fruitful and that flourished. You just have to find the right time and the right place to do it. Look for fashions and trends that the present generation does not remember.

Those then are your three markets. You should be starting with the existing market because it is available. But realize that the competition is very stiff in this type of market.

The existing market will produce your bread and butter sales; your basic necessities. This is your basic income that will get your business going and keep it going, but the big money is not going to exist. Yes there can be a lot of money, but you will need to make a lot of sales.

If you can find a new market you can sell bigger products at greater profits and reap a market that is untouched. You can make a lot more money in a shorter time, but it is going to take you a longer to get there.

If you are not prepared to take the time to lay the groundwork you could miss this market. You will wait for somebody else to build the market up, then try and jump in on their coattails.

Yes you could benefit from it, but you won’t get the cream of the crop. You won’t get the first fruits that carry the greatest profit.

No Analytical Thinking

Perhaps you are thinking, “We’re not going to bother trying to sell this because people sold it before. We tried it before and it didn’t work.”

Stop being so analytical. Analyticals always give you ten reasons why it won’t work.

They say, “We did it in the past and it didn’t work.”

Analyticals are very strange. They want to do things the way they were done in the past. But they will always tell you why you shouldn’t do it because it was done in the past. So when you come to marketing strategy you should consider what the analyticals say, but balance it with the opposite end of the spectrum.

Get the expressives going and get them excited. Get those drivers and amiables in place, then go and work this new market. Let’s go and find those markets that have died, because to the new generation this is a new market that never existed before.

If you can get in and work these markets, the only problem you will have is finding enough sales people to go out and do all the sales. It will be coming in so fast that you will need more admin staff to handle all the paperwork from all the sales that are taking place.

The biggest problem you are going to have is, “What are we going to do with all this money?”

I don’t know about you, but I can handle that problem.

And so in conclusion, before you launch your business boat you must plot a course. You must know which markets you will work before you even begin.

Once you have looked at those markets you must decide which products you need in order to fulfill those markets. We’ll be looking at the subject of finding the right products in a teaching all on its own, but it is an essential part of working that market.

Then once you have established your market and have established which products you are going to use; once you have got your crew in place and your ship is stocked up and ready to go, then it is time to go and work the market.

Do not launch your business until you have firstly researched the markets very well to see what the possibilities are. Once you have researched make a clear decision as to which way you will go. Then pull up the anchor and head out to sea, because it is time to go and reach your market.

Section 05 – Charting Common Courses

Chapter 13

Common Needs and Desires

Section 05 – Charting Common Courses

Chapter 13 – Common Needs and Desires

We looked last time at the different markets that we can consider in plotting our course, and we saw that the best place to start was with an existing market. I want to develop this theme a bit further in this section, and I want to look at the common courses that are available for us to follow – the market that already exists.

I’m going to try and touch on a lot of different areas just to prompt some ideas. I’m not going to tell you what kind of business you should run. I want to rather give you a lot of things to look for, to try and give you some ideas of which course you should plot.

These are some of the common courses that you can follow and the common areas of business that you can carry out. And if you understand human nature, you are in a better position to build a business that will be highly successful.

You must start with what is common to all human beings, because people are the main target of your business. Without people you will not do any business. So before you start your business, consider what is common to everyone. If you can find that then you have a market that embraces all of mankind and you have guaranteed business.

So look for what is common to all human beings, and then you can then find products that will match those common features. If you can match your products to the features common to everyone, people will buy and there will be business.

Every human being has different parts to their being which you should know by now. We have taught on it over and over again. But I am going to teach it here again, because these are the structures on which we build our understanding.

I want to look at the two main parts of the human being. There are actually three, but I’m going to look at the two initial parts that are common to all people. Every single human being has a body and a soul, and each part of our body and soul has very similar needs and desires.

The body and soul in each person has basic functions which are common to everyone. If you can find a way to meet the needs and desires of each part of a person’s being, then you have a market that exists continuously while people live and breathe in this world.

So I’m going to start by looking at each of these areas. I am going to break it down in detail, and see if we can find out what kind of business we can build and what kind of products we are going to need.

The Needs of the Body

I am going to start with the desires and needs of the body.

If you have heard any of my teaching you should know by now that there are three main functions in the body. They are nourishment, reproduction and defense. So let’s look at each of these in detail and see which kind of market exists, and what kind of products we can use to meet these basic human needs and desires.

Nourishment

We start with the body desire and need for nourishment. I don’t need to tell you that probably the largest business industry in the world is the food industry. If you want a readymade market that not only exists but will continue to exist while there are human beings with bodies in this world, it is the market for food.

The human body needs food – at least three times a day. Some people need more and some get away with less, but very few people eat less than two meals a day. Some even try and push it on one meal a day. The point is that every single day, people have a need for food.

You will find that for most people, the need for food actually isn’t the only force that drives them to eat. It is the desire for food. Most of us who have a little more weight than we should have, are very conscious of the fact that we eat far more than we need. Because we desire, we think about food.

From the moment we get up in the morning and our stomachs begin to rumble, we’re thinking about food. When lunch hour comes around we’re thinking about food. After work when we go home the same pattern is repeated. And sometimes even between meals we are thinking about food, because the desire for food is one of the strongest forces in the human body.

The food industry is a huge industry, and within that industry there are a great variety of possibilities. We’ll look at a few of those but I’m not going to go into it in a lot of detail right now.

If you want to start a business and you’re not sure where to start, here is a guaranteed business industry for you. Get into the food industry and you know that there are prospects out there who will buy your product.

Reproduction

The second bodily desire is the desire and need for reproduction. Once again, do we need to go through the process of reproduction in order to reproduce ourselves, and is that the greatest motivating force?

No not really. Most of us who engage in the process of reproduction have no intention whatsoever of producing copies of ourselves.

We are rather consumed with the wonderful experience that goes with it. The sexual experience is even stronger in some ways than the desire for food. The only difference is we don’t have to engage in it three times a day like we do for food.

So food actually is a stronger driving force, but the desire for sexual satisfaction that comes from the natural bodily desire for reproduction is one of the other biggest driving forces in the human body.

Now how can we supply products and produce a business that caters for this need?

Well as Christians we are certainly not going to get into the porn industry. For the world that is a huge industry. But one of the biggest industries that caters to this need is the beauty products industry and selling products that will enhance physical appearance.

Beauty products are selling probably as fast as what food products are. If you want a guaranteed industry that you know will always have a demand, get into selling products that will enhance physical appearance.

Sell products that will cause attraction between the sexes and will make people more beautiful; that will make them feel better about themselves, so that what they see in the mirror is pleasing to both their eyes and the eyes of the opposite sex.

There are other areas of expression. There are people who are doing business in the realm of dating and single clubs, helping men and women to meet and to get to know each other.

This is a huge industry. There is such a continual demand in the industry of single clubs and dating, and products that help people to find their life’s partner. And while human beings walk this earth, and while men and women are meeting one another to develop relationships and get married, there will always be a need for these products.

If you can have a product that enhances sexual capability, again you have a guaranteed industry. The sexual relationship even in marriage is vitally important, and when a person cannot function or perform adequately in their sexual relationship, they are looking for some kind of solution.

Right now on the market you don’t have to look far. Just look at your emails as they come in and you’ll see that 90 percent of your spam is some product that offers to enhance your sexual capability.

I am not saying that we should be selling those products. But certainly we can still within the realm of Christian business, offer some way to help people fulfill their God-given natural desire to express themselves sexually and in the full love relationship to their partner in marriage. This can also be a huge industry.

Everything that is associated with that part of the body is a guaranteed industry. It is a guaranteed market that will always be there.

Defense and Protection

Finally we come to the third bodily function or desire, and that is the need or desire for defense or protection from harm.

What kind of industry caters to this desire? It is another industry that along with food and beauty products is the biggest industry out there. It is the health and medical industry.

It is providing products that enhance health and help to fight sickness and disease. They help the body to defend itself against the problems of life, and the things that shorten our lives and bring ill health and death.

These products are probably amongst the most expensive that are available today. And you just need to go down the street and see how many pharmacies there are. If you don’t see pharmacies you will see health stores. Or you can find a health division in your local supermarket.

It is such a huge industry helping people to make their bodies more effective against the attacks that come against us; helping the body to cope with illness and the stresses of life.

Can you see that these three basic needs of the body have given rise to the three largest business industries in this world today?

So if you want to start a business and find a guaranteed market, just look at any kind of product or business that will cater to the basic needs of the human body. You will get sales of your product without any problem at all.

We need to help people also cope with the pressures of work with products that give you energy. So many people regularly buy Red Bull or one of the products that gives you extra energy to keep going.

All of these are to help the body to effectively cope with life as we know it, and to live a happy and satisfied life.

Those are all the desires of the body and we have only covered one third of human existence.

Chapter 14

Desires and Needs of the Soul

Chapter 14 – Desires and Needs of the Soul

The second most important part of a human being is the soul. It is the part that lies inside the body; the area of personality where the true self lies. It is the inner motivating force.

This is very strongly linked with the body, but there are also three main functions in the soul as you should know by now.

And now we have three further areas in which business can take place. We have three more markets that we can tap into and another three kinds of products that we can produce which will meet the needs of the human soul.

Well you don’t even need to go this far. You already have enough to probably become wealthy and to have a guaranteed business. But if you can reach the body and the soul then you have a lot more available to you.

What I’m trying to do here is to give you every possible area that exists as a continual ongoing market. So by the time I’m finished, I hope I will never hear you say, “I really don’t know what kind of business I should be doing.”

Well if you can’t make up your mind on any of these, give up trying to go into business altogether because obviously you don’t have what it takes.

What are the three functions in the soul? They are the mind or the intellect, the emotions or the feelings and the will, our capability of choice, the volition part of the soul. Each of these areas also has needs and desires which give rise to a business market.

The Mind or Intellect

Let’s look at the mind or intellect first. The mind has a continual need and desire for intellectual fulfillment.

The human mind is like a sponge. Just bring a bit of water near to it and it grabs it. Just bring a bit of knowledge or intellectual capability to the mind, and it cries out and wants to grab it.

Information Products

So what kind of product are we going to use for the mind? It will be a knowledge based product. Today on the Internet, knowledge based or information products have made many people millionaires and even billionaires.

There is such a huge cry today for the human mind to absorb knowledge and to gain information. It wants to continually fill itself with new knowledge and information about a whole wide variety of things.

If you are not sure what kind of business to start, then consider starting one that offers knowledge and education; one that offers intellectual fulfillment and gives people things that they did not know. Do this and you have a readymade market.

Multiple Forms of Media

You can supply this information in the form of books. These days the big thing is electronic books which take virtually no money to produce and you make available online. People pay for it, download it and you can make money while you sleep.

You can produce videos. Whenever I do my live lectures we capture it onto video. The videos are then made available and sold as a product, and we will make money from this activity.

You can convert the video into audio. You can make an entire study courses out of it, and people will gladly pay money to gain the knowledge that is being imparted to them.

What kind of knowledge do people need? Anything that they don’t know or anything they’d like to know. Whatever gives them the power that knowledge brings.

There is an old expression that says, “Knowledge is power.”

It is a fact. The more you know the more capable you are of accomplishing things in life. And if you don’t know anything you are not capable of doing anything.

Right from early childhood we are taught that education is the key to our future. Well knowledge, not education, is the key to our future. Education is a kind of a mental programming by which people are squeezed into molds by society, by Government and by worldly organizations who are trying to manipulate people.

But we grow up with the idea that the more you learn and the more knowledge you accumulate, the greater capability you have to succeed in life. Even your ability right now to go into business is dependent on how much you know about business, about producing products, and about how much you know about making money and using that money to survive in this world.

Without that knowledge you cannot go into business. That is why we are offering these teachings, to give you some of the knowledge that you need to succeed.

So we can develop a whole range of knowledge based or information products that will meet the needs and desires of the human soul and the mind, to absorb that knowledge like a sponge. And it never stops. While you are a thinking creature your mind is continually crying out for new knowledge.

The mind is curious. It wants to learn new things. It cannot bear to not know something or to only have half knowledge. It wants to find out the rest. That desire is in every human being all the time, giving you a guaranteed continual existing market that you can tap into.

The Emotions

Then we come to the human emotions – the feelings. What are the needs and desires of the human emotions?

Well it is to feel good isn’t it, because desires that make you feel bad are things that we want to try to avoid. We all want to feel good. When you come to the end of a work day, and you are tired and you’ve had a rough day, you want something that makes you feel good.

When you come to the end of a week and the weekend is approaching, what is the first thing you are thinking?

“We’re going to have fun this weekend and do something exciting and enjoyable.”

What is the first thing you will do? You will look for some form of entertainment such as going to buy or rent videos. You will to go out to parties. You will do all sorts of things that stir up your emotions and make you feel good.

Then by the end of the weekend you can come back to work and say, “I’m ready to face another week of work because we had a good time this weekend.”

And if you can have a good time during the week that is even better. You will gladly spend your money to overcome that feeling of depression and gloom and to have a bit of fun in life, because life without fun is not worth living is it? Your emotions need to be stirred up.

Products that Stir the Emotions

What are some of the products we can use for entertainment that stir the emotions?

Movies are one of the biggest ones and the movie industry is a billion dollar industry. Just look at the money they pour into making a movie. And then the billions of dollars they get back from people paying to go and see, firstly in the theatres and then afterwards from buying the DVDs.

It is a huge guaranteed industry, because everybody craves that satisfaction.

And then there is the realm of games and sports. If you have a computer, don’t tell me you haven’t played a game on it yet.

You come to the end of the day and you think, “Before I go to bed, let’s just play a game.”

When the weekend comes you want to go and play some kind of sport. You want to do something that is exciting and entertaining and makes you feel good. These all cater to the human emotions.

And then these days we have social media. On the Internet there are ways of meeting people. When you go out on the weekend you want to go out and interact with other human beings.

It meets an emotional need. You can’t sit all alone in your room and be emotionally satisfied. You can get away with it for a bit by watching movies. But the reason you are watching the movies is because you put yourself into that movie and you are there mixing with the people acting in it.

Entertainment without people is not entertainment. It’s boring. So social media is a huge industry. If you can put together a business and produce products that will meet the human desire for entertainment or fun, for joy or good feelings, you have a guaranteed market. People will then gladly part with their money in order to meet that need.

The Will or Choice

And then the final part of the human soul that is a market is the area of the will or choice; man’s volitional ability. This one may not be quite as obvious, but what is the need and desire of the will? It is the need and desire for accomplishment.

We don’t go through life just coasting along not doing anything. If you come to the end of the day and you have done nothing all day you feel frustrated and unaccomplished.

You don’t just go out to work to make enough money to live. There is a sense of accomplishment that goes with it. There is a driving force within you that causes you to do a certain kind of job.

And even your very desire to start a business is motivated by the need of your will to get involved in some kind of activity. You want to do something and make choices in life, take responsibilities and be a real person. It is at the very fabric of our being.

Now how can we meet this need through business and through products?

Help People to Accomplish

It is very simple. We offer services that make life easier. We offer benefits that help a person to accomplish what they want to accomplish. We offer help to make it easier for a person to do the things that they want to do in life.

And so the kind of product that you are going to be offering here is going to be more in the realm of services. And through your services and your business, you will supply firstly people’s lack of experience.

When a person wants to accomplish something they want to do great things. But they haven’t had the time, they don’t have the knowledge or they don’t have what it takes to accomplish that.

If you can supply them through your own experience and knowledge what they lack, that will enable them to accomplish what they have always dreamed of doing, they will gladly pull out their wallet and part with their money in order to have that need and desire met.

You can also help people to accomplish all that they want to do in less time.

There are only 24 hours in a day, and by the time you come to the end of the week you think, “What did I do this week? You know the days just fly by. The weeks and the months fly by.”

Before you know it you are old and you haven’t accomplished the things you wanted to do in life, because there just wasn’t enough time. You didn’t have enough knowledge and couldn’t get it all together quickly enough.

All it takes is for somebody to say, “I’d like to offer you an opportunity to help you realize your dreams. I’d like to help you to fulfill the goals that you have in life. This is what I have to offer.”

People will say, “How much is it? I want it.”

This is a readymade industry that will be there all the time. While human beings walk this earth, the need to do things and to accomplish, will always be there. And if you can provide a business and an industry to meet those needs and help people fulfill those desires, you have a guaranteed market.

Meeting the desires of the body and the soul exist continuously. You actually don’t even need to go any further than that right now to be able to build a successful business.

But there is a lot more, and I would like to end now by taking what we’ve looked at here and expanding on it a little bit.

Chapter 15

Finding Niche Markets

Chapter 15 – Finding Niche Markets

Here is where you decide exactly how you are going to meet these needs and you choose a more narrow market. If you narrow it down and choose a more specialized market, you have a greater capability of making more money.

Look at any kind of job or profession out there. You will see that the people who get paid the most are not the people who have a lot of knowledge, but the people who are specialized in their knowledge.

For example just consider a doctor; an ordinary General Practitioner. He does a bit of everything. You go and see him when you’re not feeling well, and he can examine you from head to toe and give you a general idea of where your health is.

He can prescribe medicine and deal with most of your physical ailments, and he has a specific charge according to what the medical profession is allowing at the time.

But let there be a specialized physical need and he has to send you to a ‘specialist’. The moment you go to this specialist the price triples at least. Why? It is because this man has special knowledge about a specific physical problem that you have.

He has specialized in one specific area. He has zeroed in on it and applied himself completely to it, studied further and has greater knowledge in that area. Because of this he can charge a whole lot more for his services.

Well it’s a business isn’t it? The whole medical thing is a business. Every profession out there ultimately is a business. It is a way of earning income.

And so what you need to look for in your business is this.

Find a Specialized Niche

It’s fine to say, “Well I can meet all of these things,” but what industry are you going to go into?

Are you going to go into the food industry, the beauty industry, the health industry or the information industry? Will you go into the entertainment industry or the services industry? Are you are going to do all of them at the same time? If so you are going to spread yourself too thin.

You may be able to have a big business spread everywhere and get a whole lot of money coming in from all different sources. That is a wonderful way to start, but it is not how you will become wealthy.

You will certainly create a very big business that will produce regular income. But this will simply be the kind of income you can live a comfortable life on.

If you want to make the big money you have to find a special area of business. We usually call this a niche business.

Definition of Niche Market

What is a niche market? I looked it up on dictionary.com and here are a couple of definitions:

1.   A situation or activity specially suited to a person’s interests, abilities or nature.

2.   A special area of demand for a product or service

We have looked at what is common to all people - the needs and desires of the body and the needs and desires of the soul. Now how can we focus those into something narrower? We need a specific niche market that we can specialize in and perhaps draw a greater income.

Areas to Specialize in

I’m going to give you a whole realm of areas that you can look at. And in the end you must decide what niches you prefer to function in.

Gender

The first obvious niche that you can look at is that of gender. Yes there are needs that both male and female have. But there are specialized needs that both women and men have.

The needs and desires of the body and soul of men can vary. And if you can zero in on meeting those needs for men alone, you will have a more specialized niche market.

Now I’m not going to go into a lot of detail. I’m just going to touch on a lot of areas, and I’m hoping it is going to spark off some ideas in you. If you are a man I want you to think what it is that we have covered so far that is unique to you as a man.

If you are a woman, I want you to think about what is unique to you as a woman, and what you would spend your money on.

You see a market that is geared towards women is going to attract all the women. The women will not be interested in a market that is geared towards men, but all the men will be attracted to it. And so you can work a specific niche market like that.

You can work for men or women, or you can go down to a lower level and start looking at the needs of younger people like boys and girls in children and the youth industry. These are all specific niches.

You may be able to cope by supplying all of them, but it is going to cost you a lot of money to have many different products to meet everybody’s needs.

You could zero in on just one of these: either on men or women, boys or girls. Whatever the case may be this is a niche area that you can zero in on and build a specialized business from.

Age

We can look at age as another factor. Seniors and people who are nearing retirement do not have the same needs and desires as those that are younger. They may not have a lot of money either, but perhaps they do.

Perhaps there is an area that has been untouched. If you want to get into a market where there is very little competition; where you have a guaranteed market because nobody is working it, try and find one of these niches because everybody else out there is trying a whole lot of other things.

Try and find a unique niche that is not being addressed in business and you will have guaranteed income.

And so you can look at seniors or those in middle age. Middle age has its own particular conflicts and difficulties. If you have been in middle age or you’re there right now, then you will probably understand this a little better. If not, find somebody in your company who is there and try and identify the needs.

There are the needs of young people and the needs of childhood. All of these are specific regions of markets that are often untapped. If you can get into that market and zero in on it, you can become like that specialist. You can make a lot more money than you could if you met the needs of everybody.

Marital Status

Next we can look at marital status. Married people have specific needs that come with being married. Single people have needs that come with being single, apart from the most obvious need which is to find a partner. But isn’t that a niche?

If you can make your niche helping single people to find their partner in life, you have a guaranteed business. And people will gladly part with their money to fulfill their needs in life.

And then there are divorced and widowed people. You know very often nobody understands a divorcee or a widow or widower better than somebody who has been there.

People just don’t care. They don’t realize that there are very specific needs, and every often that is an untapped market. If you can develop a business that caters to the specific needs and desires of people in these areas, you will have a niche business and guaranteed income.

Cultural Differences

And then we have different cultures. There are specific needs for the people that are in the country or the land that you’re living in right now. Just look around you and you will see that there are things that are peculiar to your country as well as to other countries.

You could start by meeting specific needs and desires of people within your country, but everybody is probably doing that already. What if you could reach out and try and meet the needs of somebody in another country?

Better still, within your country there is always a mix of races and cultures; of people who once lived in another country. They grew up in another country and have now emigrated. They may even have become a citizen of the country in which you live right now, but they have brought with them all their templates and desires of the past that they grew up with in their other country.

There is a readymade niche market right there to supply products. Do you know that to this day I look online for places that sell food products from the country that I grew up in? There is just something about those good old things that we used to eat back there that we can’t buy here.

I will gladly part with money and pay far more than I would pay for a normal product just to get my hands on that template food that I used to eat when I was a kid. It’s a niche market; a market that is guaranteed to bring in income.

Status Groups

You need to also look at different status groups. You need to cater to people from different strata of society. Look at different job types. You have those who have professional jobs that are highly qualified. They have specific needs and desires that go with that position and with the kind of work that they do.

You have skilled people who have been trained and are qualified in certain areas and there are products and needs that they have. You can build a business for that.

You have people who are unskilled and who are not capable of doing much. Well maybe they don’t have that much money, but it’s a guaranteed market.

If nobody is tapping that market you may be able to sell a lot of small things. But you are going to sell a lot of them because nobody is meeting that need.

Social Distinctions

Next you have people that are in different social status. You know these days we don’t clearly identify class distinctions, but let’s face it there are kinds of class distinctions.

There are people who live in the high strata of society. If you just look at salary levels, you see those who earn large amounts of income and those who earn smaller amounts of income. Each of these is different niche.

People live in different places. You could be supplying a business that caters for a certain part of the city, like those who live in the big, wealthy homes. That is a great business because those people always have money. But it could be very competitive because everybody wants to sell to them.

You might do just as well by selling to people who live in the ordinary part of town. It just depends what you are aiming for. Are you aiming for expensive or are you aiming for cheap?

It is a known fact that Wal-Mart, one of the biggest companies out there, has zeroed in on the idea of getting cheaper prices for the ordinary person. As a result they have expanded and are making billions. They are not catering for the upper strata but to the ordinary person.

Find a niche, a realm of society that you can zero in on, and particularly a realm that nobody else is really tapping into. Look at all these niches and find something that is being untapped right now. You have a guaranteed market and a guaranteed business.

Food and Catering

And then there are other more specialized needs. Certainly on the food side there are people who have food templates. We actually all do. If you can zero in on a specific type of food template, you could have a business that caters just to certain kinds of foods.

You may want to zero in on parties and special events like wedding receptions and that sort of thing. That is a unique niche market; one that is always there. There will always be a demand for it. If you can specialize and offer a service or a product that stands out above everybody else and caters for that specific area, you have guaranteed business.

How about cooking utensils? That is a business all by itself. You are supplying what people need in order to make their favorite meals. You could supply cooking courses. You could have all of these within the realm of the food niche.

Health Products

Then there are the health products. You could be catering not just for everybody but specifically for those people who are weak and sickly; those who are crying out for help to overcome their weakness and their continual sickness and disease. People will spend money for that.

Old people have specific health needs. You could zero in on that industry.

And then here is a big niche, for those who are overweight or underweight. Underweight is not such a big one, but with overweight you have a guaranteed business. Zero in on just that aspect of health and you have a niche market that is going to make you wealthy.

Then of course you have the beauty and fitness products. If you are selling beauty products you are going to zero in on the women first. Women are designed to look beautiful, because God made it so that men are attracted to women by sight.

A beautiful woman immediately attracts members of the opposite sex and every woman knows that. It is built into her. She’s made that way.

A woman feels good about herself when she looks in the mirror and sees something that is pleasing. When she looks good she feels good. She will spend money in order to look good because she wants to feel good. These are specialized needs.

Men probably look more at fitness than at beauty. That is men’s form of beauty.

You know the old picture of the guy showing his muscles? Let’s be honest, every guy wants to have a good looking body. Very few actually accomplish it and most are just too lazy to do what it takes.

So if you can offer some way to make it easier for men to develop the kinds of bodies that they desire, they are going to give you their money. You have a guaranteed market.

You see these are all different kinds of niches. They still fall within the realm of the body and the soul, but they are more specialized.

If by now you don’t know what kind of business to go in or you don’t know where to start, then the only problem you may be having is trying to decide which niche to use.

But don’t ever say to me, “I don’t really know what kind of business to do. Is there anybody out there that I could sell to?”

Well take your pick. Try a few of them and see which ones succeed. Do some good market research and establish which kind of market you are going to follow. This is an existing market. You don’t have to do any work. You just need to find it and work it.

Catering to Animals

These are things that are common to all human beings. And actually there is one industry that I left out altogether, because you see it is not only human beings that have a body and a soul. Animals do too.

We have a whole industry here that I didn’t even mention; a whole niche which is the pet industry. You have food for animals and beauty for animals. All of these principles can be applied also to animals and to pets. There is a whole industry by itself that could make you a millionaire or even a billionaire.

Spiritual Needs

Now I have touched on two main parts of our human nature which is our body and our soul. But you’ll notice that I have left out a very important part. In fact you may not realize it, but it is probably the most important one.

Most businesses and industries out there do not even consider the spirit of man. They zero in on the things that I have mentioned here.

If you look out there at businesses, you’ll see that most businesses are catering to these desires and needs of the body and soul. But meeting the desires and needs of the spirit requires a different branch of products altogether.

Spiritual needs and desires are even more unique and more specialized, and actually they can make a lot more money. So what are they? I will let you know that in the next Section.

For now start with existing markets and look at meeting the desires of the body and the soul. You have a guaranteed business prospect. You have a course that you can plot for your business boat. You can go out and make a lot of money, succeed in business and become wealthy.

Get started there right away. Stop wasting time. Make some choices and do some research. Then hang out your flag, pull up your anchor and get your boat out into the sea.

Section 06 – Catching the Wind

Chapter 16

Power to Function

Section 06 – Catching the Wind

Chapter 16 – Power to Function

We have been looking at the boats or ships that are pictures of typical kinds of businesses, and we’ve looked at various aspects related to boating or to sailing. We saw how necessary it is to have the right crew, to plot your course and to chart specific kinds of courses.

In this section I want to go onto the next important thing in running a boat or a ship and that is the power that drives it.

In these modern days of course we have power driven boats and ships that are driven by modern fuels. But in the old days the standard power was the power of the wind. So I want to get back to the old fashioned sailing ship concept. This is because it gives us a beautiful illustration that I can use, hence the title of this section.

All ships need power to function, and if that power is to be the wind, without the wind the ship is going nowhere. Once the wind is there it must be used correctly. And if the wind is used correctly by the ship, then you will have success in sailing and managing your ship.

Now there are different aspects of the wind that we need to look at. We need to consider the fact that wind comes from many different sources. We have different wind directions that need to be taken into account.

And then we have very strong winds and we have very gentle breezes. We need to consider the difference between these kinds of winds and take some of these categories into account.

The Spirit of Man

Now part of the reason why I chose wind is because I promised in the last section that we would begin to look at the third part of man’s being. We looked at the body and the soul, but we didn’t really consider the spirit. And so in this section I want to look more at the spirit of man.

The interesting thing is that in the original Greek and Hebrew, the word ‘wind’ and the word ‘spirit’ are basically the same word. In fact in Greek the word for wind and spirit and breath are basically the same word.

Because spirit and wind go together, I thought it was appropriate to choose this allegory of wind so that we can consider the spiritual aspect of building your business boats.

God made us to be a body and a soul and a spirit, and what distinguishes man from the rest of the creation such as animals, is that man has something that animals don’t have.

Animals have a body and a soul, and I mentioned last time that a lot of the principles that we have applied to marketing the body and soul can be actually even used in the animal or pet industry. But what I am about to look at now is unique to man, because man alone has a spirit.

So if you want to identify spiritual needs, or what kind of products should be used to meet this kind of need, all you need to do is distinguish between the needs of animals and the needs of man. You will then start getting an idea of the area in which we are beginning to look.

And so we are going to look firstly at marketing now, not to the body or the soul, but marketing to the human spirit.

What is it that makes man unique? By man I mean woman as well. We are talking about humanity here. We have to be very careful these days about using the term ‘man’. The female gender gets very upset.

When I say man I mean humanity, human beings, males and females. Don’t leave out the females. They are the most beautiful part of humanity.

Ownership and Possession

What is it that makes mankind distinct from animals? What do humans have, desire and need that distinguish us from the animals? Here is probably one of the clearest things. It is the need to possess and own things.

Animals kind of have their favorite toy, but they don’t actually fight over their possessions.

They don’t say, “This is my possession. I’ve earned it and I’m going to keep it. It is unique to me.”

The ownership of things is uniquely a spiritual thing. That probably blows away everything you have ever been taught spiritually. And from the ministry point of view you have been taught that the desire for things is sinful, fleshly and carnal.

In actual fact things have a very strong link with your spirit. The desire to accumulate possessions in life and to own things is actually part of our spiritual function. It is a very interesting revelation.

Continually Doing Something

Our spirits also need tools in order to function. A lot of the objects and possessions that we get are not simply so that we can say, “I have one of those.”

Rather it is to say, “I have one of those in order that I can use it to do something with.”

The human spirit is active all the time. It is continually doing something, creating something, expressing itself via the soul and the body. And so products that involve tools are uniquely necessary for the human spirit. It is the whole ownership concept of having things and using them.

You know animals do not save up to buy their own house. But yet we spend so much of our time and effort to own our own home. We make it beautiful and a place where we can live and feel comfortable.

These are things that are much higher than the simple desires and needs of the body and the soul. These are spiritual things, and if we are to market to the human spirit, we have to go at that higher level.

If you think about it, where is the bigger market? Where is the market that makes the most money, and where are the products that cost the most? They are the products that don’t only cater to the flesh.

For example you can be in the food industry and you can sell food very cheaply. We have seen this. It doesn’t cost a lot of money to pay for one meal, unless you are eating out at a really fancy restaurant. But you don’t do that three times a day do you? That is for a special occasion.

But when you come to buying something that you are going to keep and own, you usually spend a little more money. It’s a more costly thing. If you are running a business and you are selling those kinds of products, you are looking at a far higher kind of financial return.

So it is great to have this ready market for the desires of the body. It’s great to have this ready market that meets the desires of the soul. But the true finance and the true success in business is going to be accomplished when you appeal to the higher part of man, which is his spirit.

Wealth Linked to Your Spirit

Wealth is actually very strongly linked to the spirit, because wealth brings spiritual power. I am sure that I am blowing all you ministry peoples’ minds right now.

Firstly the accumulation of wealth is unique to humanity, which is what distinguishes us from the rest of creation. This is because we have a spirit. So there is a strong connection between wealth and the needs of the spirit.

Now what is it that can become a god or an idol in your life? The Scripture says that you cannot worship God and money. Why? It is because money has the power to attract worship. Money has the power to affect your spirit, because wealth and money are intensely spiritual things.

Can you see the strong connection there between wealth and the human spirit?

We are Unique Individuals

Wealth can create status. And status is also a very uniquely spiritual thing, because each of us has a unique spirit of our own. We are each a unique individual.

Yes we tend to have bodies that look very different, but somewhere in the world the chances are there is somebody who looks just like you. There are in fact many people who look a lot like you.

There is a lot of overlap, but your spirit is unique to you alone. And your spirit allows you to be a totally separate creature from the rest of mankind.

That uniqueness must be catered to and met. And if you can meet that in business you have a person who is wide open to give of their temporal possessions to gain what you are supplying to them - that uniqueness, that status and that ability to stand out and be different.

Authority and Control

Wealth also increases your authority and your ability to be in control, both of things in this world and of other people. It is a very strong driving force in human nature.

Again it is ultimately a spiritual thing isn’t it? Because when God made us and put our spirits into us, the Scripture says that He took of His own nature and breathed into Adam His very own life.

God is the supreme leader, the One who controls all things and is the highest authority in the Universe. But He has put into our human spirits the ability to be in control and to be in authority.

Needs and Desires of the Spirit

Wealth can help meet all of these needs and desires of the human spirit. So what are some of these needs and desires?

Creativity

The first and most obvious one is creativity. You see within your spirit is a uniqueness that allows you to create. Why? It is because you have the nature of God who is the ultimate creator. And God has put into our spirits the ability to be creative; to originate something that did not exist before.

That need must be met because the human spirit cries out to create. We are all like that. Right from childhood your child is playing with mud and plasticine, doing drawings and trying to do something original and creative.

Creativity is built into each one of us. If you can help a person to meet that need and desire to be creative you will have a ready market.

I have mentioned already that the need of the human spirit is to be original. It is to do something that nobody else has done, to stand out from the crowd and be special.

We all have that need. It is part of our spiritual nature. If you can help a person to be more unique by giving him the tools that he needs to produce something that is totally original, you have a business market.

These markets are far bigger than the ordinary daily needs of the body for food, defense and reproduction, and even some of the desires of the soul. They kind of go up and scale out.

Functioning All the Time

The human spirit needs to function. It needs to be doing something. The human spirit is never static. It never rests. Even when you are sleeping your spirit is still alive. Your spirit is working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In fact when your spirit stops working your life is over. It is called death.

While you are alive in this world your spirit is functioning all the time. That need must be met. If your spirit does not have the ability to function and do something, life becomes stagnant. It becomes boring. Life is not worth living and you may as well sit down and die.

So if you can provide a product that will help a person express what is in their spirit and function in this world the way God created us to, you have a readymade market waiting to be tapped.

Chapter 17

Main Sources of the Wind

Chapter 17 – Main Sources of the Wind

Now let’s look at the wind and do it from a natural point of view. We have looked at the realm of the spirit and I have shown that the spirit and wind are very closely linked together. But let’s look now at the concept of a wind in the natural.

A wind is what drives the business. It drives your ship, takes it to its destination and gives it power to function. But where does this wind come from and what kind of winds are out there that can drive your business boat?

The World System and Trends

I want to look at two main sources of the wind. And the greatest and most common one, since we live in this world, is the power of the World System.

The power of the World System is driving business all the time. And the first and most obvious wind from this world that drives the business is the wind of fashion and trends.

Fashion is probably the greatest thing to affect any business. Most businesses out there are selling products that line up with the latest world trend or the latest fashion.

And it doesn’t only apply to clothing. It applies to everything that you buy, whether it is the toys you play with or the food you eat. Whether it is the house you live in or whatever it is, there is always a trend, a fashion where everybody is moving in the same direction. You want to get in and be part of the flow.

Why do you want to be part of the flow? Because there is a unity that takes place between human spirits and they want to flow together.

When you join spirit to spirit you increase spiritual power. And so when you join and tap into the power of other peoples’ spirits, it gives that extra power that you need to accomplish your goals in life.

World Events

Another one of the winds that drives the business boats in this world is world events. This can be political events, disasters, etc. Whatever happens in this world, it doesn’t take long for somebody to capitalize on it and start to make business out of it.

And actually they are foolish if they don’t, because here is a wind that is blowing. Get in the wind and let it drive your business boat. You could make a lot of money from the latest event.

You know I don’t like to watch the news because it is always negative. As Christians we shouldn’t be absorbing any of the worldly influences should we? We shouldn’t be influenced by it, but we need to be aware of it.

When you are aware of it, you can take it and use it to generate business to tap into the wealth of this world. And when you tap into that wealth, you can take it and use it for the Kingdom of God.

So be aware of world events and use them. The current economic recession that has been hitting the whole world has led to so much marketing it is unbelievable.

Every second business these days is saying, “During this time of recession here is the answer. We are going to offer you a product that will help you financially. We are offering you cheaper and better products and a chance to make money.”

Whatever it may be, that event in this world has caused many business boats to set sail and to make a lot of money. Be aware of these winds so that you can use them.

Following a Cause

And then there is another very strong wind that drives certain people, and that is following a cause. There are many of them.

People say, “We’re going to save the white whale,” or some other nonsense.

People are always jumping on a cause. Everybody is writing petitions and doing something or trying to stop something. We have this sense of righteous indignation in us that is really just being controlled by the World System.

Yes you shouldn’t knock it. Use it. Here is a wind that you can just set your sails up and let it drive your boat. Get in there and make some money out of it.

You say, “These businesses just jump on every bandwagon.”

Yes, get in there and make the money, especially you Christian businesses, because you are doing it for the Kingdom of God. If you don’t get in there, some worldly business is going to do it. They are going to tap all that money and use it to extend Satan’s kingdom in the earth instead of God’s kingdom.

Seasonal Celebrations and Holidays

And then we have seasonal celebrations and events. Haven’t you noticed that every special holiday or event brings a whole new series of special sales and marketing from all the businesses out there?

We’re in the Christmas season right now and the big thrust right now is on spending money and buying gifts.

Businesses are adverting, “It’s the Christmas season. We’re having a special Christmas sale. Buy your loved ones this special gift.”

It is a wind. And the business boats out there that have identified that wind, set up their sails and got into that wind, are the ones who are going speedily forward. They are making a lot of money right now and their businesses are being highly successful.

The Tipping Point

Now there is a little concept which produced a book known as ‘The Tipping Point’. I don’t even remember the name of the author right now. I did read it and he had some good ideas, although I didn’t agree with everything that he said.

His concept was that there comes a point of imbalance where things tip in a market, and suddenly a particular product or market will take off. He looked at history and at some of the different products that became popular, to try and predict what some of the factors were that cause that.

I think it goes beyond fashion and I like a better illustration. You know very often you have to syphon water out of one container into another. In the old days you would syphon gas out of your tank into a bottle or the other way round.

The way you did that is you would put a small piece of hose into the container that you are syphoning from. You would pull the pipe down at a lower level and suck. If you were sucking gasoline you hoped you didn’t get it into your mouth which often happened by accident, and you would have to spit it out.

The syphoning concept works this way. Once the flow begins you can stop sucking and it will just pour. Eventually the whole container will empty itself through that hose, without you making any more effort.

These things take place naturally in this world and sometimes they take place artificially. They take place when somebody has created a new market which I spoke about previously.

I’m not going to go into detail on that here. But when you create a new market you create a flow that didn’t exist before. And it takes a lot of effort, just like sucking on that pipe takes a lot of effort. But once the flow begins, you get the tipping point and it just flows and pours.

You need to open your eyes and look for the tipping point. Look for the syphoning effect that is taking place all around you.

A lot of it is in the realm of the fashion industry, but in every area look at what people are suddenly starting to buy. Look at what everybody has to have one of right now, then try to get in on it and capitalize on it.

Usually the business that scores on this is the one that created it in the first place. And as I said it goes back to the idea of creating a new market that didn’t exist before. Then once everybody sees it they all jump in and try to get some of it.

So you have two options here. Either you look out for the syphon flow that was caused by other people and jump in quickly and take part in it. Or you can create your own.

The creation of your own is another subject on its own. I hope that we will actually have time to get into it and give you some idea of how you can create a new market.

But these are all the different winds that exist in this world that we can use to drive our business boat.

Chapter 18

Using Spiritual Functions

Chapter 18 – Using Spiritual Functions

Now we as believers are not confined only to this World System. Although we live in the world, the Scripture says we are not of this world. We have another dimension and another series of winds that we can take into account. But that doesn’t mean that we ignore the World System and become super-spiritual.

We say, “We’re not going to make money, because money is carnal.”

You need money to drive the boat. You need money to drive the church. You also need money to accomplish God’s purposes in this world. But there is a market in the spiritual realm that very often remains untapped because Christians are leaving the world to meet that market.

The church of God is one of the biggest markets out there. It may not be all of the population. It may only be a small percentage of it. But today the church of God has members in every nation, and believers are a big market.

You say, “I don’t want to take advantage of the Christians.”

Yes but the world does. And if you don’t get in there and provide their needs in a Godly way, some ungodly person out there is going to try and provide their needs. He will take their money and use it against the Kingdom of God while the church is asleep.

We need to look at the winds that take place in the church of God, because there are trends and fashions and things that happen in the Body of Christ. If you just look at church history you can see it happening all the way through. And tied in with it are the moves of God.

God moves in different generations, in different times and in different ways. He brings seasons of refreshing and revival and different things that take place in the church. These are the true winds. They are the spiritual winds of God.

Role of the Fivefold Entrepreneur

You say, “Can I use that for business?”

Of course you can use it for business. And if God has called you to be a Fivefold Entrepreneur you should be using it to generate wealth, in order to get the Body of Christ to the place where it should be. You can take of the finance that comes in and you can pour it back in to the Body of Christ.

Very often God will speak by prophetic revelation and a new wind will begin to blow. Be aware of prophetic revelation. Be aware of what the prophets are saying to the world and to the church in this day and age.

Don’t just discount them and say, “Oh there go those flaky prophets again.”

How can we use this wind that is beginning to blow to drive the business boats that God has set up? How can we function as a Fivefold Entrepreneur, to raise the finances that are needed to fulfill God’s purposes in this earth?

Let’s cater to the needs of God’s people. Let’s provide them with the products that they need in a Godly way.

We need to do business God’s way as we have taught in so many different areas. And we will continue to teach doing business God’s way and doing the Fivefold Business Calling.

Let’s tap into this realm and start using some of these winds that people have ignored, because they say, “It is spiritual. We can’t use that for business, because business is carnal.”

And so what we do is we go into business and we try to do business the world’s way instead of God’s way. This is because we won’t use the winds that God has given us to fulfill His purposes in business also.

Power of Your Spirit

Now we have considered the needs of the body and the soul and we have looked at the kinds of products that are involved. I have also tried to touch on some of the needs of the spirit. But I want you to realize that you have a spirit that contains tremendous resources and power.

Unbelievers have a spirit as well and some of them have accidently stumbled onto the power of their spirit. Many of them unfortunately have opened themselves to demonic forces in order to tap into the power of the spirit.

Most of them eventually start getting involved in Eastern religions and demonic cults in order to tap the power of their spirits. They realize that ordinary knowledge of the body and soul, and ordinary marketing concepts in the world are not enough. They need something deeper and something stronger.

You just need to go to some business seminars and you’ll see how they eventually start to gravitate towards rubbish like ‘The Secret’ and the ‘Law of Attraction’, Eastern mysticism, Buddhism and all sorts of things.

All the time the church of God lies asleep because it says, “We don’t want to touch business and money because it is worldly.”

You must learn to tap into the power of your human spirit in order to build your business boat; in order to sail that boat and to accomplish something in this world.

Functions of the Spirit

So what are the three functions of the spirit? We have taught this so much elsewhere, but I want to look at it from a business point of view.

Intuition

The function of intuition of the human spirit is an internal knowing. It is a revelation where you know something you didn’t know before, because it is revealed to you from within by the spirit. It is from this human function that new and original ideas come forth that weren’t there before.

You should be tapping into your spirit to find out how to do business in a way that is original. If you can find an original business, you will identify with the originality that is needed in every human spirit out there, and you will create a brand new market that didn’t exist before.

It is a known fact that in order to succeed in business you always have to come up with something new. You can try something that somebody else has tried but it becomes ‘old hat’.

You say, “We did that. We already bought one of those.”

Come up with something new. Where are you going to get these ideas? Well people are going to business seminars. They are buying the e-books that unbelievers are putting out there with all the new and old ideas, and taking what the world has to offer.

You have more than what the world has. And if these unbelievers can come up with new ideas, how much more can you who doesn’t have to rely only on the human spirit. You have the very Spirit of God living inside of you who can give you revelation via the intuition of your spirit. You must learn to use it.

Communion

The other function of the human spirit is the function of communion. This is the ability of humans to communicate with each other in the spirit. It leads to the whole idea of fellowship and social interaction between human beings.

How can you use this effectively? You can learn to build bridges to other people by learning how to tap into that power of the spirit. You can use the communion of your spirit to tap into and make contact with other people in their spirit.

Now the world are marketing to the flesh. They are marketing to the desires of the body and the soul, and the spiritual aspect that they have is totally colored by the flesh and by selfishness.

We can build bridges to people to identify what their spiritual needs are. Then we can build a business and provide products that reach out and meet those peoples’ needs.

The most effective person in business is not the one who knows how to trick people into buying. It is the one who cares enough about people to help them succeed; to give them what they desire and to help them fulfill their dreams.

How are you going to do that unless you are sensitive to the needs of other people?

Most businesses are sensitive only to their own needs. People are things that are used to fulfill their needs and desires; the objects that they can take and can squeeze everything out of, in order to get what they want.

That is the way of the world. It should never be the way of Christian business.

Christian business is no different to Christian ministry. We are there to meet the needs and desires of people. The only difference is we are doing it through tangible, material things instead of spiritual things.

But it has a very strong spiritual link. You are meeting the desires, not of the body and the soul only, but also the desires and needs of the spirit.

Spiritual Wisdom

And then you need to tap into the wisdom of the human spirit.

What is wisdom? Wisdom is the ability to see from God’s point of view. It is having a broad scope of looking into the future to see God’s plan and what is going to take place. It always has a future orientation.

If you can tap into the wisdom of your spirit you can predict marketing trends. You can know by the spirit and identify what God is doing, what Satan is doing and what the world is doing; which way the world is going and which way the market is going.

You should be ahead of everybody else. Everybody else out there is guessing where the market is going from the way the shares are going up and down on the stock market.

You should be able to get down on your knees and pray. You should get revelation and know by the Spirit where the market is going. You should know which market to work next and which needs are about to arise.

We have this ability as believers and we should be on the cutting edge in business. We should always be a step ahead of the world. When you can tap into this power you can begin to plan ahead.

You will not be caught thinking, “We thought this was going to take off but it didn’t.”

Learn to Listen

Did you hear from God? Listen to the Holy Spirit because He knows the end from the beginning.

If you can listen and tap into that aspect of your spirit you can feel that go ahead that says, “Yes we must move this way. No we shouldn’t do that right now.”

Listen to your spirit. Use your spiritual Urim and Thummim and you could become highly successful in business. You could become very wealthy simply by listening to the functions of your human spirit.

So you need to market to the needs of the human spirit, and also use the power of the human spirit. You need to use all of this together to move to that higher level of business.

The highest level of all is our ultimate goal, which is to build the Kingdom of God. And we are going to do this by building a business foundation; a financial foundation that will cause the Body of Christ to never suffer lack.

The ministries that God calls will never be in lack, and we will be able to accomplish everything that God has called us to do in this world.

Identify and Tame the Winds

Identify the winds and then learn to tame them. You have to harness that power. You know if you get into a hurricane you could get blown away. You had better know how to use that power.

You need to identify also the direction that the wind is going in.

You say, “We’ve got this powerful wind blowing. Let’s go and get in the wind,” but it might be blowing the other way.

Now here is something amazing about the old sailing ship. You could turn the sails in such a way, that even if the wind wasn’t blowing in the direction you wanted to go in, you could still pick up some of the power of the wind and go the way you want to go.

I don’t know all the mechanics. There is a bit of science and vector forces and all sorts of things that are involved, but most sailors know how to use this to tame the wind.

Don’t just say, “There’s a wind. Let’s jump in quickly.”

No you must use and harness the power of that wind. You must identify the direction that the wind is blowing in and adjust accordingly.

The Right Timing

And then don’t jump at every little breeze that arises. You could go just offshore, and suddenly the wind will die and it will be over. The stronger winds are the better winds to go for aren’t they? They will drive you harder and further. So look for the stronger winds first and don’t go off half cocked.

Identify and listen to your spirit. Look, do some research and put it all together. Look for the winds and then get in there and tame and harness that wind.

Always be on the cutting edge. Don’t wait until everybody else has jumped in and say, “Oh that’s a good idea. Maybe we should try it too.”

You are too late. All the other boats are ahead of you.

You see as a believer, if you listen to the wisdom of your spirit you should see when it is coming. You should be ready to go before the rest of the world jumps in and capitalizes on that market that is not going to be used for God’s kingdom.

You may say, “Well I don’t like to be ahead of everything.”

Don’t you? I do. I love being on the cutting edge. I love to jump in there before anybody even starts it. Maybe it is the apostle in me. And if God has called you to be a Fivefold Entrepreneur, the apostle should be burning in you.

As God’s business apostle you should be on the cutting edge. You should be starting new things. You should be going where no man has gone before in the realm of business.

Stick With It

And then you need to stick with the wind that is blowing. If the wind is blowing and it is working don’t say, “I’m bored with this wind. Let’s try another one.”

Don’t get too expressive. Some people just go flying off in all directions.

They say, “There’s a new wind. Let’s try that one.”

Work the wind properly. That is why you mustn’t jump in half cocked without thinking what you are doing. Choose your wind carefully and get in and follow that wind all the way through to the destination.

Know When it is Time to Stop

And then finally you need to recognize when the wind is over. The time will come when that wind will no longer blow because no wind blows forever.

When the wind stops don’t say, “We’ve done so well. I’m sure we could do it again.”

You will find yourself drifting in the sea without any direction.

You say, “I thought this wind would last forever.”

No you should have already been aware of some of the other winds and started getting ready to play. Or better still, you should have been putting out some other boats, each one in a different wind, so that when one wind dies there is another boat going there with another wind.

There is a saying that goes, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

It should be the same with business. Be aware of the wind. Know when it is time to ride the wind, know when it is time to stay in the wind, and know when the wind has stopped and it is time to pack up because it is over.

Sometime in a future generation that market can become available again. But right now that market is dead. Don’t try and keep it going because t is over.

If you can learn to catch the wind, to tame it and harness it, you can rise up and be successful in business. As you use the power of the spirit, nothing should be impossible to you to reach in and tap the wealth of this world and bring it into the Kingdom of God.

Let’s build our business boats. Let’s catch the wind. And let’s be a success the way God has called us to be.

Table of Contents

Section 01 – Seven Business Boats

Chapter 01 – Boats as a Symbol of Business

Chapter 02 – The Battleship

Chapter 03 – Getting Ready to Launch

Section 02 – The Power of Selling

Chapter 04 – Selling is Important to Business

Chapter 05 – The Product Must Fulfill Desires

Chapter 06 – You Must Develop Trust

Section 03 – Choosing the Right Crew

Chapter 07 – You Need a Crew

Chapter 08 – The Right Person for Every Job

Chapter 09 – The Importance of Communication

Section 04 – Plotting Your Business Course

Chapter 10 – Different Markets for Different Boats

Chapter 11 – Selling Versus Marketing

Chapter 12 – Three Markets to Follow

Section 05 – Charting Common Courses

Chapter 13 – Common Needs and Desires

Chapter 14 – Desires and Needs of the Soul

Chapter 15 – Finding Niche Markets

Section 06 – Catching the Wind

Chapter 16 – Power to Function

Chapter 17 – Main Sources of the Wind

Chapter 18 – Using Spiritual Functions