Christian Business Trends For 2009

If you expect to win in this tough economy your radar has to stay tuned to the trends in the marketplace. Every early adopter who values staying out front of the pack, is probably already making plans to capitalize on some or all of these 5 hot Christian business trends for 2009.




Local search

Social networking

Crowd-sourcing

Social entrepreneuring

Green collar jobs


Three of these business opportunities for Christians are internet based, while the other two ventures can be classified as emerging businesses.



Some of your competitors and the residents of your community may feel they are firmly grounded in analogue technology, but the digital world is revolutionizing the way small business transactions are being handled.

It's not just companies/ministries that are embracing social networks, blogs, and other Web 2.0 tools. The number of people using the internet to do research about products or to do transactions online has grown since 2000, and revenues for online sales have increased at a much faster rate.

Let's take a quick look at the areas that are fueling this surge in growth.

Trends For Christian Entrepreneurs		Growth Areas For Non-Profit Christian Businesses
www.imediaconnection.com Local search Free listings are making it easier for customers to find you. Make sure you're listed and that your listing stays updated. This gives your company the benefit of an on-line presence, even if you don't have a website. Crowd Sourcing This hybrid form of outsourcing products and services, can allow you to go from an idea to a finished product faster and easier, by offering the job in a global forum, where you can enter into a contract with the lowest bidder, saving you money and even time. Social Networking This Web 2.0 feature is being used by Christian businesses to attract bigger better audiences for product launches and develop joint ventures and collaborations between organizations and people in unique and profitable ways. A 2000, Pew Internet & American Life Project study reported, 22% of Americans said they had bought a product online, that number grew to a helathy 49% by September 2007. A whopping 60% of Americans said they had used the internet to find more information about a product in 2007 compared with only 35% in 2000.		www.hotjobs.yahoo.com Christian-owned businesses and Christian oriented businesses competing in the non-profit arena can easily focus on either of these two niche areas as part of their ministry/ business. Social Entreprenuring Identifies and targets large scale social problems that need solving. Just as business entrepreneurs create and transform whole industries. Green Collar Jobs Jobs that promote environmental responsibility, "green maintenance supervisor" and "urban arborist" Any position where you can demonstrate an understanding of conservation and renewable resources are part of this cutting edge technology growth area. The growth projections in just the green collar field, is expected to be half-a-million jobs in the next three years, according to the Cleantech Network a venture capital firm for green business, in a study cited in Yahoo Hot Jobs.

Christian entrepreneurs and Christian businessmen that embrace any of these trends will find themselves poised for success.