Building A Godly Business | Ep 004

Designing a Faith-Based Business Blueprint

Good morning, go grab a hot cup of coffee, sit back kick back and relax and we'll have some fun together today. It was interesting, I was on I was on the internet the other night and I came across an old joke that many of you have probably seen in the in the comic strips, but it's a picture of a guy in his home, gets a knock on the door and he goes and answers the door and there's a fellow standing there with a big bright.

IRS button on his lapel and he says, Hi, I'm from the IRS and I'm here to help. And I'm not from the IRS, but I am here to help. I'm honored to be able to to share with you folks, to work with many of you in both coaching and business consulting. It's a real privilege to be here and so I hope you'll just enjoy the show today.

I keep telling you every week, this is your show. So if you have questions, comments, suggestions for future broadcasts, email us at questions at optex. com. So one of the things I want to talk about this morning, as an introduction to the second part of our discussion on building a godly business, is what is the importance of running a godly business.

What's, what really is important about that? And a lot of times I share some statistics with people that have been provided by the Small Business Administration. Of every 1, 000 new businesses that start, 400 fail within the first year and 800 fail within five years. Now that's pretty shocking, but even more shocking than that is that an additional 160 will fail before they ever see their 10th birthday.

So the bottom line is only 40 of every 1, 000 businesses started will survive for more than 10 years. That's a mere 4%. And when I talk with business owners, it's funny. All of them seem to think that their companies will be in that 4%, and I always ask them, well, what makes you believe that? Because the old bard had some words of wisdom when he said, saying it, don't make it so.

My point is this. Do you have a plan? Do you have a plan that's going to guarantee your success as you move forward with your business? A lot of times when I share these statistics with people, they say, no, it can't be why would it possibly be that way? Then only 4 percent of the businesses that ever start.

actually last more than 10 years. And I think there's a real logical explanation for that, and that is that most small businesses are started by people because they have a specialty. And let me give you a couple of examples. One might be A fellow who is a tool maker who works for a manufacturing company and he's got tool making experience, he can build pretty much anything in metal that you want to give him.

And so that's his expertise and he starts a business, maybe starts a small machine shop from some of his life savings and invests in that business to be able to move forward and use the skills that he has. Another example might be a young woman who's a doctor. And she has graduated from medical school, she's gone through her residency, and maybe some specialty training.

And she hangs out a shingle, being in a situation where she wants to offer her services to be able to help those members in the community in which she lives. Now, the interesting part of that is, is that both of these people have Interesting sets of skills that they can use. The problem is, do they have all of the other complimentary skills?

We've been talking last week, we were talking about planning research and development, sales and marketing, those sorts of things. And we're going to talk about building some more walls of your business this week. But the bottom line is, is that a lot of businesses fail because people don't have the skill sets.

In order to be able to do all of the things you may be a great doctor, you may have some great clinical skills and bedside manner as a doctor, but what about things like financing, being able to get loans and get reasonable interest rates to be able to buy equipment for your office? What about your sales and marketing approach?

How are you going to advertise your services? What kinds of services are you going to present? How are you going to present them so that they draw patients and potential clients into your business? those sorts of things. And my point, when you, think about running a godly business, when God is the head of your business, you have an active partner who has a vision far beyond what you can comprehend.

If you've been called by God to be a business owner and you're running your business by godly principles, God is going to bless you in so many ways with growth and success because God is using you to achieve his plan. And that's the real critical part of building a godly business. And it's amazing how God works.

God will either enable you to get the skills that you need to be able to fill out all of the facets of your business. But I also think that more times than not, what he does is he puts godly people in your pathway. To be able to to help you get where you need to be. And I'll give you a couple of examples of that as I have been building my business.

A few years ago, I met a fellow named Phil Jones who is a sales trainer out of the UK. But when it comes to sales, I have learned so much in that period of time from Phil sharing with me his experiences and how to word things, how to approach clients, how to appreciate what it is that people really want.

On the sales and marketing side, there's a local businessman Joseph Sikowskis from JC Marketing Communications right here in Connecticut who has taught me the through example and through conversations that we've had about marketing and how to approach things, how to really reach out to people and communicate the right message to them.

And it's neat the way God works because so much of the time it's just very uniquely timed. When he puts somebody in your life who has the kinds of skill sets that you really want and that you really need in order to be successful in business. Let's talk about last week just a little bit. We'll do a real quick recap about building a godly business, part one.

First of all, gotta give credit to another great businessman in this state, Drew Crandall from Keep in Touch in Vernon. Drew has has been a friend of mine for a number of years and I've learned a great deal from him about running a godly business and just the way he approaches things and in the productivity that he has and the heart that he has for serving God and serving people through his business.

So I got to give him some credit because the whole concept of the foundation and walls of building a godly business are his. He's been great in sharing that with me and in giving me permission to use it here on the show and that I'm filling in some of the cracks with my business experience as we talk our way through this.

Last week we were talking about looking at your business as a literal building that has a foundation and it has eight walls. And in the process of looking at things, we started off with a foundation and the foundation begins with, are you a Christian? Do you have that relationship, that personal relationship with Jesus Christ?

But then it goes beyond that, and we talked about, in addition to being a Christian, are you called to be a Christian leader? Has God called you to be an entrepreneur, a business owner, a CEO, something like that? And if he has, then are you ready, willing, and able to reach out and grab that baton and run with the calling that God has given you.

From there, we jumped in and we talked about the planning wall, and that is that every business must have a plan, and the plan has to take into account all of the walls of your business. So, Planning is something in business that can't be accidental. It has to be very intentional. It has to be deliberate.

It has to be methodical. And we gave examples of how God talked with Noah about building the ark and gave him specifications for what he needed to do. We talked about David giving the plans for the temple to Solomon, his son. who was actually going to build the temple because God was not allowing David to do it.

And we also talked about Nehemiah and rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and how when he first got back to Jerusalem he took some time and he walked and he planned and he created a plan for moving forward. Then we talked about the research and development wall. And within that wall, we were talking about deciding what products and services you're going to sell, how you're going to produce and price and deliver them.

And we talked about things like, are your products and services constructive? Are they relevant? Do they have greater value than if they were produced by your customers in house? Do your products and services relate to the passion, to the giftedness? Remember at the beginning of the show, we were talking about being a toolmaker or being a doctor to the products and services that you're offering. Do they relate to your strengths? Do your products and services have inherent quality and are they creative? And then we moved on and we wrapped up the show last week talking about the sales and marketing wall.

And the sales and marketing wall is looking at things like the territories, niches, and prospects. How are you going to present your message to the marketplace in order to be able to generate the kind of business that you need. And we talked about the definition of marketing and sales is filling the pipeline of your business with potential clients who have pre qualified themselves for the products and services that you offer.

And we also talked about the five marketing steps. One that people have to know who you are and where to find you. They have to know what products and services that you offer. They need to know how you differentiate yourself from your competition. They need to know what benefits that they're going to get.

from working with you, and they have, and then at the end there has to be a call to action. You have to be communicating to people, through your website, through your brochures, through your business cards and things like that. What is it that you want me to do next? What action do you want me to take?

So now we're going to continue building the walls of our business and we're going to go to the next wall, which is the human resource wall. Just as research and development is critical to what products and services you offer, the human resources wall is critical to how you produce those products and how those products and services are delivered.

The HR wall impacts customers. Quality, it impacts productivity, it impacts customer service, and hence the profitability and the ongoing growth of your business. If we look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verses 7 through 9, Paul is writing to the Thessalonians and he says, For you yourselves know how you should follow our example.

We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling, so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this not because we don't have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.

So, as we look at the human resource wall, the first question that we have to ask ourselves is within the framework of your business, are you leading by example? Are you leading by example in the work ethic, in the attitude? and the integrity that you bring to your business. And one of the things I always ask business people is, are you a positional leader or are you a persuasional leader?

There is a great difference between positional and persuasional leadership. And then I think it can have a dramatic impact on whether your business grows or not, whether your employees are happy, whether they're engaged and whether they're really producing the highest quality products and services that go out to your customers.

Now, positional leadership is. the authority that you have due to the fact of your leadership position within the business. If you're the owner of the business, you have positional authority over your employees because you're the boss, you own the company. And so many times that's the way people tend to try to lead or manage their organizations.

The attitude is you don't need to know all of the details of what's going on. I'm the boss. I've told you what to do. Just get out there and do it. I'll tell you what you need to do. You don't need to know the how or the why. You can figure those things out on your own versus persuasional leadership where persuasional leadership is.

Reaching out and embracing the people in your organization, embracing your customers and your clients as well, and coming alongside them and saying, this is what we need to do, this is why we need to do it, this is how what you do figures into where your piece of the pie fits into the whole and how it impacts the overall business.

And that can reach, All the way down to the levels in the organization down to people who work on your shop floor, who are making a specific part or doing assembly. One of the companies that I worked for a number of years ago impressed me upon that. One night I was working late and it was about eight o'clock at night.

And I was headed out to my car, and I happened to be walking by the main conference room in the building, and right outside the conference room, we had a very nice tile floor, and Ron, the fellow who was the head custodian for the plant, was out there with the floor polisher working late, and he was polishing the floor, and I stopped, and I said, Ron it's 8 o'clock at night, why are you still here?

And he said, well, Debbie, who happens to be the secretary in the sales department is a friend of mine. And she always lets me know when we have either a new client or a customer coming in for a visit. And he explained to me, he said I always try to keep this plant looking really, really good, making sure the trash is always picked up.

The floors are clean, the bathrooms are washed down and they're always neat and clean and that sort of stuff. But he said, when I know that somebody's coming in, I put a little bit of extra spit and polish on things. I want to make sure that the floors look really, really good. And I said, Ron why is it that you do that?

Why is it that that you feel that's so important? And he said, just imagine, what happens if a customer comes in here and one of the major factors in them deciding to do business with us is that they look at the facility and they say, My goodness, this place is beautiful.

Whoever, takes care of this place really cares that this place look first class in every respect. He said, you realize that if you do that if a customer makes a decision, even partly on that basis, the revenue that they're going to bring into this company is going to more than pay for my salary for an entire year.

And he said, I need my job. I like the work that I do, so I do it with excellence because it's good for the, it's good for business. It's going to help us get customers. And I sat back and I thought about that and I said, my goodness, I wish more people within businesses would realize that's the case.

But then I also realized that it's the responsibility of management to make sure that people like Ron know where they fit into the organization, know the impact of the simple things that they do, and how that ha the impact that has on the business, on growth, on customer attitudes toward them, and then going beyond that to make sure that they're properly rewarded for bringing that kind of work ethic and that excellent attitude to the workplace.

Next, let's talk about how do we go about bringing people into your organization? What's your hiring process? In the book of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 15 to 17, it says, Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit, you will recognize them.

People do not pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. So what are the implications of this scripture for you and your business? Well, first of all, be careful in the hiring process, know both the skills and the type of character you're looking for.

Ask probing questions about former employment. What did people like and not like about their work? What was their relationship with their immediate supervisor, their management, their co workers? How did they get along with others? Were there any conflicts? And if so, how did they deal with those conflicts?

Why did they leave? And perhaps more importantly, what kind of organization do they want to work for and why? Find out what have been their greatest successes, and even more importantly, what have been their greatest failures. Remember that those who are hesitant to talk about their failures, that should throw up a red flag for you.

It's not so much the failure that's the issue, But what they learn from it, and I've mentioned this here on the show before, I have learned more in life from my failures than I have from my successes. As Tony Robbins says, when people succeed, they want to party. But when they fail, they tend to ponder. And we always need to look back on our failures and say, What is it that I can learn from this?

So, when you're in a job interview, And someone asks you, tell me about one of your greatest failures. Don't take that as a negative. Take it as an opportunity to tell somebody what you've learned and how you're a better person for the things that you've done. I always recommend that when you're bringing people into your business and you're interviewing them, have them interview, not just with management, but have them interview with people who are their peers, people who might be their subordinates.

If you're hiring someone for a management or a supervisory type of position, because this helps to uncover potential problems. And it provides a range of perspectives to help you make a decision. It also builds consensus when it comes to hiring and integrating someone new into the organization. It's a lot easier to bring in a supervisor to an organization and begin integrating that individual when they've already met the people who are going to be working for them than it is to bring someone in and in effect say to your employees, I didn't care enough about you to have you interview the person, but here's your new boss.

Also make sure to take the time to check references. Now, this can be tricky because no one's going to put a list of references together who would ever say anything bad about them, right? So how do you deal with that? Well, the first thing is to probe when you make calls to those references. Ask about both the strengths and the weaknesses of potential employees and push hard on the weaknesses.

If you don't seem to be getting honest feedback, keep pushing because nobody is perfect and that's okay. And sometimes when I call people for a reference, I will say exactly that to them. I'm looking for an honest assessment of this person. I know that I'm not perfect. I have my flaws.

So do they. And all I'm trying to do is figure out what those things are. So please share both the good and the bad and what you think the person has learned from it so that we can ultimately make a good decision about bringing people into our organization who are not just going to be a good fit from the standpoint of their skills, but they're going to integrate into the culture of our company and be comfortable staying here, hopefully for a very long period of time.

Also, ask potential employees if you're free to call a former employer and speak to the human resources department to talk with former supervisors and things like that so that you have some freedom to be able to explore a little bit on your own. So those are a couple of things on the human resource wall.

Next thing I want to talk about is, How you work with employees in your organization. And one of the things that I think is important is don't crowd your way into the lives of your employees. Always remember that they're your employees. They're not your pals. When my three girls were growing up, my wife always used to tell them, I'm your mother, not your friend.

I love you with all my heart and I'm trying to do what's right for you in life, but my job is to prepare you to live life successfully and be a good citizen and be a good Christian. And that has to take precedence over my being a buddy for you. And we walk a fine line with our employees. They need to know how much we care about them, but they also have to see us as leaders that they respect and not buddies that they're going to party with.

Proverbs 25, 17 says, seldom set foot in your neighbor's house. Too much of you and he will hate you. And so it works the same way with our employees and with our families too. We have to establish that role of, leadership and they have to understand that we care about them, that we want to work with them, that we want to help them get from where they are to where they need to be for what, to where they want to be.

But they also have to have that respect for us as the leaders of the organization. Continuing with the conversation about the human resource wall let's talk about teaching your employees to have a godly, realistic perception of work. Second Thessalonians 3. 10 says, for even when we were with you, we gave you this rule, if a man will not work, he shall not eat.

You have every right to expect a fair day's work for a fair day's pay for your employees. Those who don't want to do that should not be part of your business. It's simply that. A business can't survive when the people there are not focused on being productive and delivering the ownership of the company and ultimately the customers a fair day's work for a fair day's pay.

Help employees. Understand that they are employees, that they're not owners of the business. Now, this is a little bit different than when we were talking about not crowding your way into your employees lives. We want to be able to create a culture of participation where employees can be creative, where they can present their ideas and they can have those ideas and if evaluated and put to work in the business, but they're giving input.

And they're not always responsible for making the decisions. Ultimately, there needs to be a group of people, the management team, and ultimately you as the CEO or the owner of your business, who has to give a thumbs up and thumbs down to what things are going to be done and what things aren't going to be done. One of the things that I have always tried to do in every business in which I've been involved is to listen to the employees, to create an atmosphere where they feel free in sharing their ideas. If I take an idea and I decide to use it, I want to make sure that employee is recognized for that, that they get the credit for it, that it was their idea and not mine.

Equally as important is, if an employee comes forward with an idea, and it's either not a good idea or you choose not to use it, Feel free to go back to that employee and in a nice way explain to them why it is that you decided not to use that idea. But continue to encourage them to bring ideas forward because eventually that employee may bring something to you that is really important.

The next thing on the human resource wall is to lead by serving. We want to follow Jesus example. 1 Peter 5, 3 talks about not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples. And in Matthew 20, 27 says, whoever wants to be first must be your slave. So, the lessons we can learn from Scripture here are, first of all, don't ever ask someone to do something that you have not done or that you're unwilling to do.

Take the time to spend time in the trenches working side by side with your employees so that you can understand what their work life is like every day and the challenges that they face. And earn the right to get their input on issues and problems. Listen to them, take action to fix things, and as we talked about before, give them the credit for the great ideas that they bring.

And lastly, within the framework of the human resource wall, inspire and innovate. Especially when you're pushing to establish and grow a business, people are going to get tired. People are going to get discouraged. And that's where it becomes important to communicate with them, both in company meetings and Things like encouraging email updates and bulletin board postings.

Find creative ways to relieve stress in your business. I know in one situation a doctor friend of mine actually was working within a hospital and she said she came into work one morning and the management of the hospital had hired some massage therapists to come in just to give everybody in that particular unit a shoulder massage to try to relieve stress.

So a really creative way. to give somebody a little pat on the back and say, Hey, we appreciate what you're doing. We appreciate the work that work ethic that you have here. Let us do something to help relieve the stress, make things a little bit more comfortable for you. And then finally, celebrate the small successes along the way.

Don't wait until a major program is finished. If you have little milestones along the way. Use those milestones, the accomplishment of those milestones, as a way to celebrate whether it's having a pizza lunch or maybe bagels and donuts and hot coffee for breakfast or something like that.

Find simple and expensive, sometimes free ways to be able to express your appreciation to people for the work that they're doing. We're going to jump over now, and we're going to start talking about the production wall. All of us in our businesses have to produce something. Whether it's physical product that you're going to sell to somebody, and a physical product could be a widget that your manufacturing company offers to a book that you have written, or services.

We all have to produce something. And how we manage the production can make a huge difference in the, company stress level and profitability and the overall success of your business. One of the things that I think is really important is that we learn to communicate the intention of our production to our people establishing quality levels of things that we are producing and making sure that everybody is on board with what needs to be delivered, when it needs to be delivered and things like that.

Communication is so vital. The other day I was reading Genesis chapter 11, where it was the Tower of Babel. And it was interesting to me that when everybody spoke the same language they were capable of building this tower and they started working on it and it was reaching up to the sky.

And so it, it points to what we can accomplish if we have good communication. But then what happened when God came down and confused the language of everybody? The communication stopped. And as soon as the communication stopped, the project came to a screeching halt because nobody was able to do anything.

The same thing will happen in your business. If you do not have good communication and good communication relationships with the people in your organization, especially when it comes to production, it's going to wind up hurting you. You're going to have misdeliveries of products. products and promises to your customers.

You're going to have quality issues. You're going to have higher scrap in your operation. That's going to cost you money and drain profitability that could be used to either reinvest in building the business or share more profit with your employees. So try to communicate clearly, try to communicate regularly, make solid decisions about how you're going to go about running your business and what production really means to you.

Are you going to insource or outsource those sorts of things because your goal is to maximize quality, productivity and profitability. So what are the correct blends of the things that you're doing? And I'll, give you an example. Back in the late 1990s, the early 2000s, I was part owner of a manufacturing business.

And initially I met the fellow who became my partner And he had invented a device and had gotten a patent on it, spent about 25, 000 of his own money and gotten a patent on the device and he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. So he came to me because of my experience in manufacturing and said, gee, what do you recommend?

And I said, well, there's several alternatives that you can explore with how you want to do this. You have a patent on this device, which is great. So number one choice is that you can choose to sell the intellectual property. Based on looking at the product and what you think the market for the product is, you can get some multiple of whatever you have invested to get the intellectual property and just sell it outright, let it become somebody else's project to take forward from there.

Second thing you can do is you can license the intellectual property. You can go out to someone and say, hey, if you would like to integrate this particular product into the product mix of your company and actually oversee the manufacturing of it, I would be willing to license this to you and then you either you get some sort of royalty payments coming back from them that's a percentage of how much product that they are able to sell.

You can become a virtual manufacturer where, you know, You do no manufacturing yourself, but you do coordinate the manufacturing. You can hire one company to do the electrical components, another to injection mold the plastic components, and yet another organization to do things like assembly and test and packaging and order fulfillment and those sorts of things.

Or you can go all out and you can actually say, I want to manufacture this product myself, and so I'm going to do the brick and mortar thing where I actually own a facility, And all the machinery and everything that goes along with this to, to manufacture that stuff. That becomes a decision that you have to make in the production environment.

So you really have to sit down and you have to take the time to model things out and look at where the greatest profitability is going to come from, where the risks are. And that's something, by the way if you're thinking about starting a manufacturing business or if you're in a manufacturing business, maybe looking to bring on other products or something like that give us a call.

That's a definite area where we can help you. Another thing is that sometimes. The production wall is being driven by where we are financially at that particular point in time. And I'll give you a classic example of that from my own business. Thankfully when I created my new website, I have a friend who is in the marketing and video production business, and he worked with me to create this.

to produce four two minute videos for my website. If I had to hire someone on the outside and pay for those videos, I would have spent probably 10, in the open market for those kinds of services. Well, now we're getting to a point where everybody has a YouTube channel. Everybody wants to present their products and services out there, but they want to do it in an audio video media to be able to reach more clients.

And so what I've started to do is I started to include some video segments that actually give me more of a presence and more video interaction with my potential clients and associates out there. And so what I had to do was face the fact that I'm going to be doing one or two videos. Like this anywhere from three to five minutes long every month.

And I can't afford to spend that kind of money to hire somebody to professionally do it. And so my production became, okay, I have a video camera at home. I can find programs on the internet for free that will allow me to set up and edit and produce some decent quality looking videos, they may not be as good as if I hired a professional to do it, but it's good enough to communicate The message, and so we're all forced into making decisions like that as far as how we're going to deal with production.

So let's jump over now and let's talk about the finance wall. Finance becomes a very interesting an interesting topic because in order to operate any business, we need three things. We need revenue, which is money that comes into your organization as a result of the products or services that you sell.

We need profit. So, if you're, as an example, you're a manufacturer, your sales price has to be high enough that when you look at your fully loaded manufacturing costs, that there's enough difference between the two that it makes, sense for you to keep your doors open. But you also have to have cash flow, and cash flow is one of those things that is often ignored.

People look at it and just say, gee, I'm selling product. I'm making money on it. Therefore I've got a going concern, but cashflow becomes a problem because cashflow looks at the timing of profit. How often are you getting paid? I actually coach a gentleman who was an owner of a business down there, One of the things that he didn't think about was the length of the sales cycle in the business that he owned and he found out he was hoping that it was going to be two or three months from the time he made an initial contact with a potential client until he actually closed business and had money flowing into his bank account as a result of that.

Unfortunately, he was wrong in his assumption and It turned out that the sales cycle was more like nine months. And so when you have those kinds of things where you're starting today and realizing that you're not going to see a penny from the time and the effort that you're investing for nine months, you have to ask yourself, do I have enough cash in the bank to be able to continue to pay the monthly utility bills and salaries and all those sorts of things to carry me Until some of this business that's out in the future will actually start to come in where we'll start to get receipts from that and be able to fill the bank account back up again.

Some of the other things on the finance wall from a scriptural perspective that we need to think about are things like, have you earned the right to handle the money in your business? Are you handling your money responsibly at home, and as a result of handling small things, are you prepared? Do you have the skill sets that are in place to handle much larger amounts of money, and also be involved in financial responsibility for other people?

Secondly, how do you review accounts? payable and bankruptcy. Now, accounts payable are accounts that you owe money to other people. You've bought stuff from them. They've sent you an invoice. They're expecting to be paid. So when you think about that scripturally, how do you view Accounts payable and bankruptcy.

Is that something where, if all of a sudden your business takes a downturn, that you feel very comfortable in walking away from that? And just foisting that debt and that loss on someone else? Or do you have an ethic that says, I'm responsible? I'm responsible for my business and I'm responsible for meeting my commitments and when I buy something from somebody else, I agree and I make a commitment and there's a contract there that says I'm responsible for paying for it and I'm going to be responsible and make sure that that individual gets paid.

If you're running a godly business, I believe that's what God expects you to do. What should be your investment priorities? How are you going to handle the investments that your business is making? Whether it's investments that you're making for other people, if you happen to be something like a financial planner, or investments that you're making in the future of your company, in the purchase of technology, be it computers, machines, things like that.

What's your overall strategy for that? What role does mercy play in your accounts receivable process? Now there's an interesting question. When you have people who owe you money, customers that you have sold products or services to, and something happens in their business or something happens in their lives where they're struggling to be able to make the payments, how understanding are you of that process?

And do you look at things from the standpoint that God in His infinite wisdom and His infinite grace has showed mercy to you? Do you not also have an obligation to show mercy to them and to be willing to sit down with them and work out some sort of a payment process and work with them hand in hand?

And in some cases realize that, that they're in a difficult situation, that there are other priorities that they need to be focused on in their lives and therefore in some cases you need to be willing to forgive. the amount that they owe you and that account's receivable. Another area, and this becomes sensitive because I know a number of Christian business people who do this.

Do you take jobs under the table? Or do you pay people under the table who work for you? And how does God view that? I personally don't think it's right. I don't think it's right to take money under the table for work. I think it needs to be above board because Jesus was very clear when he told his disciples, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.

So if you're doing, if you're getting income under the table and that money's going into your pocket. That means you're not paying taxes on that money and that creates a conflict in my mind with what the Bible says regarding our obligation to those who lead us. How do you view debt in your organization?

And that can be a couple of different things. Number one, is debt a good thing? In some situations you can't set up a manufacturing operation as an example without, being willing to incur some amount of debt, but how much debt is too much? When you look at the credit crisis that we've had in this country by people being able to get mortgages that they can't afford going out and maximizing their credit cards beyond their ability to pay for things, I think that we as Christian business owners and business leaders, We have to be very careful about how we go about taking on debt.

I'm not saying debt is bad, but I think we have to be very careful and very responsible in realizing that whatever debt we assume, we have to be able to pay back. And so we have to be careful about how we do those things. So now we're going to jump over to a discussion of our final two walls.

We're going to try and fit that in before the end of the program today. The first is the legal and administrative wall. I have a question for you. From a practical standpoint, is it possible for any business, or any individual for that matter, to obey 100 percent of the local, country, state, federal, county, and international laws?

The answer is no, but I think we need to look at our core convictions about legal and administrative matters. The first thing we need to ask ourselves is, is your business legal? Does it conform with all of the mandated codes that affect the particular work that you do? Do you have the professional credentials, licenses, permits, and things like that?

Are you reporting 100 percent of your business income? I mean, part of your legal and administrative is handling your finances paying your taxes, that sort of thing. Are all of your employees legitimate? We face a, a situation in our country today where we have, uh, and I'm, I'm not going to be politically correct in saying this, but we have a number of illegal aliens working in this country.

Do you have those kinds of people working for your business? And, how do you square that with running a godly business and what God requires of individuals as far as their responsibility to the government both state and federal where they live? Are you aware of your legal rights?

Do you have good counsel? Do you have someone you trust as your attorney who can advise you in different situations and help you out? Do you file the necessary local state? Federal reports and payments. And here's a real critical one. Even if your competitors choose to play by different rules, are you and your business above reproach?

If Jesus were to come in and ask to see your books and look at your regulatory systems that you have in place in your company would he give you his stamp of approval? It always comes back to what would Jesus do, what would Jesus think, and I think that we need to think about that in terms of the legitimacy of our business and are we doing things the right way.

I have a lot of exposure to regulatory affairs and from that standpoint I've worked in creating ISO, International Standards Organization, quality systems. I've worked with the Food and Drug Administration and their good manufacturing practice systems. I've worked with OSHA. And is everything. Is it always perfect when an auditor comes in to look at the quality systems or something like that that you have in your business?

No. And the larger the business, the more complex and the more challenging that becomes. But one of the things in the audits that I have done over the years that I've always stopped and asked myself is, is the attitude of the company the right way? Is it the right kind of attitude? Did they have the right kind of approach?

Are they really doing what they think is best? And do they understand the standards, and are they doing their very best to try to comply with those standards? If they are, and I find little things here and there that aren't quite what they should be, I'm going to be a lot more understanding, but if it looks like people are just trying to do stuff just to get it over with, get it out of the way, that they really don't care, then that invites an auditor to look at things harder to add a great deal of scrutiny to what he's doing.

So make sure that from a legal and administrative perspective that you're doing the right things and perhaps more importantly, that you have the right kinds of attitudes toward that portion of your business. And lastly, we want to talk about the facilities wall. We all have to have a place to work, but where are we going to work?

Are we going to work from our homes? Are we going to have a shared space? Are we going to go to commercial rental property? Should you buy or build your own building? How far commute are you going to have from where you live to where you work and dealing with things like lengths of leases, how much space do you really need that sort of thing, and you have to consider the impact Not just on the additional costs for your business, but the impact on your family, the impact on your lifestyle.

And I really encourage you here as part of your planning process to sit down and to think hard about those kinds of things As you walk through this process don't be intimidated and defensive about starting small and growing organically. One of the greatest consultants I know in the world was a gentleman named W.

Edwards Deming. He traveled all over the world, made millions of dollars in consulting with people around the world when it came to quality systems. And yet if he went to his small home just outside of Washington, D. C., his office would was an old wooden desk next to the washing machine in his basement.

So there's nothing wrong with starting small and growing the way you can making sure that you can pave your way and pay your way as you go. So we're going to recap real quickly here. Last week and this week, we talked about, Building a godly business, we talked about the foundation of Jesus Christ, being called to be a business owner, and being in a situation where you're willing to abide by that call.

We talked about the need for planning, to have a good business plan that considers all of the walls in your business. We talked about the R and D wall, which relates to the products and services that you're going to be producing and how you're going to do it, how you're going to deliver it. And at what cost we talked about sales and marketing to fill the pipeline of your business and to communicate the right message to your people.

We talked about the human resource wall as to what kind of a leader are you and how do you deal with the people in your organization? How do you go about hiring the right people? And then how do you go about retaining people through effective communication? We talked about the production wall of making decisions about how the products and services that you're going to be producing and offering to your clients, how they're going to be delivered most effectively and how you can do that most profitably with a minimum amount of investment.

We talked about finances, understanding the finances involved. And then we talked about how to be involved in your business and being responsible financially. And we also talked about the legal wall, making sure that your business is completely above board from a legal and administrative position. And then finally we talked about the facilities wall.

Making a choice for where you're going to be. Not being afraid to start small and grow as the business warrants it. So thanks very much for joining us today. Next week's show is going to be a very, very interesting show. We're going to shift gears once again, and we're going to be talking about how to find a job in this challenging economy, and a dear friend of mine, Lauren White, who's a former professional recruiter is going to join us, and we're going to have a number of conversations with her related to getting some really good stuff out there.

That will help you find a job if you're looking for a job or change jobs if you're in a situation where you're looking for something new or different, maybe looking to reinvent yourself. So please join us next week. We'll be looking forward to being with you during the course of the week.

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