Tips For Christians Who Want To Start A Christian Business

If you're considering starting a business, remember there’s no such thing as a “good” or “bad“ business, but there are businesses that may be good or bad for you based on your skills and the things you like to do.


I've put together a few tips For Christians Who Want To Start A Christian Business, that will get you headed in the right direction.

Once you figure out what type of business you are most suited for, find a Christan Businessman to mentor you and start attending some of the seminars offered by the local Small Business Development Center. They'll help you put together a sound business plan that will outline your options and the increase the probability for success.


How Much Money Should You Invest In A Business And How Long Should It Take To Make It Back


Avoid starting out with too little cash. It's too risky, because trying to find a loan when you're running short of cash can easily send your business into a tailspin.

Having enough capital that you can avoid worrying about money for a year is a good benchmark that will allow you to focus on running the business for awhile.


Here are a couple more important facts to use in deciding how much money you need to start your Christian business.

Determine how much you will need to operate the first year.


Estimate how much income you will generate by year.

Begin reading as much as you can about running a business, to get an idea of what kind of business challenges you can expect.

There are a lot of good articles on staring a business and I'd like to get in a shameless plug for "Several Things You Should Know Before Starting A Small Business" by yours truly, I highly recommend you read it.

5 Tips To Increase Profits For Home-based Christian Businesses

At some point, you will be faced with the decision of how to make your business more profitable. You might be in need more money or you might just want to grow you home-based Christian business to keep up with your competitors.

Watering and Working

How often do you water your business? Christian businesses thrive and grow best when they receive frequent doses of living water, the Word of God.

I Corinthians 3:7 reminds us that although watering and working nourishes your faith and business, don't forget it's God that provides the increased harvest.

Horizontal vs Vertical Growth

Rather than pursue a vertical path of selling more of your current products, you can always opt to expand horizontally. This type of expansion is where you offer items that compliment your current products, with related things that your customers might want and need.

If you're selling religious books and tapes, you could consider offering self-publishing or custom recording services to your existing customer base.

5 Tips To Expanding Your Profits

Expanding horizontally is a good alternative when vertical growth can't be justified, but you still need to grow.

Offering more products is a good idea for expanding Christian businesses that need to generate more sales without incurring additional marketing cost.

Get your vendors to provide drop shipping so you won't have to purchase more inventory or add personnel to expand your product line.

Instead of directly adding more products or services you can also form joint ventures with other companies.

If you can add more products or services to your home-based Christian business without a large infusion of cash or assuming increased risk, then your ready for horizontal expansion.

Planning Your Growth

The key is to make sure the numbers and the timing is right for your business. You don't want to end up working a whole lot harder and only get a small increase in your profits.

How Christians Can Start a Successful Home-based Business

The cornerstone for success in any type of business is having a plan.

That goes for Christians who want to start a successful home-based business too. Adhering to the tried and true principle of "planning your work and working your plan" was mentioned by Jesus in The Gospel of Luke 14:28.

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. What is the first thing you will do? Won't you sit down and figure out how much it will cost and if you have enough money to pay for it?"

How To Make A Christian Business Plan?

A Christian business plan makes room in the budget, operations and planning of the business for Christian values. Through prayer and supplication Christian business owners seek the Holy Spirit to guide them in establishing a steadfast mindset, one that trust in God and not easily shaken by what's happening with the Dow Jones, Wall Street or their own vain imagination.

Business Plans-Planning to Succeed

Writing a business plan allows you to apply forward thinking to the opportunities and problems that will confront your Christian business. It should be clear about your companies objectives and establish obtainable milestones and outline methods to track your ongoing progress towards your business goals.

It also enables you to apply disciplined responses to situations and limit having to make too many decisions, off the cuff, when you're prone to creating oops moments.

The Best Format For A Business Plan

There isn't a required format for putting together a business plan for a Christian home-based business, but make sure yours includes these key features:

• Table of Contents


• Executive Summary


• Company Description


• Market and Competitive Analysis


• Products and Services Offered


• Plans for Promotions and Sales


• Financial Projections

The financial and performance guidelines that you put into your business plan will keep you from being distracted from your primary purpose and make sure you are involved in a profitable situation.

Using Business Plan Software

If you have never written a business plan or organized a small scale event before, reviewing the features of the various business plan software on the market can be helpful to you.

Without going into detail about any one plan, let me just say that, software will help give your plan that polished look, but the results are mostly generic documents that may and may not suit the needs of your particular industry.

Outsourcing Business Plans

There are plenty of consultants from accountants to small business advisers that will assist you in drafting a pan for your business. Sometimes the business owner can't fully understand the finished product.

If they are too busy during the writing process they may not even get a chance to make any input into developing the plan. Worst of all you may not be able to understand or explain the plan.

Will Your Bright Idea Make A Good Business

The overall task of an effective business plan is to show whether your good idea will make a smart choice as a Christian business. You can have a fabulous business plan and your home-based Christian business may still crash and burn without having factual and accurate information to generate the projections that are essential to running a successful business.

If you want your business to thrive you'll constantly review, update and manage according to the guidelines and in your business plans.

3 Ways Christian Businesses Can Attract More Customers

You may recall a quote in my last post? Where I mentioned that Dunn and Bradstreet attributes the lack ofsales and customers as major reasons that many businesses fail. I've dug up some tips and tools that I've found useful in my business, to help Christian businesses over come these dangerous hurdles by attracting more customers and sales.

Direct marketing

Saves you time and money by getting your message to your target market without using a third party like a newspaper or a commercial.

Marketing Research

Smart Christian business owners strive to learn as much as possible about their customers needs. They make an effort to find out what there wants, needs and what motivates them to buy.

Analytics

Understanding your customers and how they behave to specific offers to buy reduces the guess work of how to fill your Christian business with a pool of buyers.

Take the time experiment with these tools and see which one's are the right fit for your business. Before long your friends and family will be saying the same things about your business skills that Hiram said about Solomon.

6 Deadly Sins Christian Businesses Can Avoid

According to Dunn and Bradstreet most businesses fail because of a lack of customers and sales. I've identified 5 other deadly sins or problems that Christian Businesses must avoid. Because attracting customers and generating the sales that will reach your business goals is an important part of every Christian business.

A Business Lesson From The Bible

We can learn a lot from taking a closer look at how King Solomon, one of the wisest rulers in the world handled the problems he encountered when he attempted to build his palace and the temple in Jerusalem.


I Kings5: 5-6

I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the LORD my God, as the LORD told my father David, when he said, 'Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.'

"So give orders that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My men will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You know that we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians."

Secrets to Success In Business

How To Avoid These 6 Mistakes

Rather than make excuses why he couldn't build a temple or use an inferior material he solicited the help of others, Hiram and the Sidioans for his project. I have learned some valuable lessons about business from reading this biblical account, that I want to share with you, so that you will never have to make excuses about why you are unable to start your own business or why your business is failing. Operating A Successful Business In "How to operate a Successful Christian Business" I mentioned a few key areas that need to be addressed by Christian entrepreneurs, the 6 deadly sins are in these same areas. 6 Deadly Mistakes To Avoid No Sales or Customers No Sales Plan No Marketing plan Failing to seek professional advice Lack of persistence Not knowing your customers By addressing all of the issues covered in this list you'll become a good steward of the Christian business that God has placed in your hands and boost you chance for success.

Get some help before it's too late...It's that simple. There's lots of free help available, too much to cover effectively in one blog post, so come back and I'll tell you where you can get help to overcome these mistakes. You'll be able to find help putting together a good marketing plan, by taking a look some of the free resources that I find useful for my business, . You do want your customers, friends and family to be able say the same things about your skill in business that Hiram said, (1 kings 5:7) when he received Solomon's letter?

Action Steps

Continue to learn as much as you can about running a business, by reading the latest magazines and books about your area of business. There is a list of books for Christian men located near the top of the right sidebar for your convenience. It includes, OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell, his book uncovers why some people succeed. Is it purely luck, opportunity or is it a talent?

Unique Ideas For Christians Starting A Business

To win the competition for the shrinking number of dollars in the marketplace, Christian businesses are following the directive in Proverbs 22, to be diligent in business.

My research lead me to an article "Top Ten Ways Christian Retailers are Thriving Through Innovation" that discusses several strategies that are unique and innovative and anyone starting a Christan business can use.

Christian Business Excels In Customer Friendly Retail Experience

In spite of the fact that every store in town has a card line, their card department is the store's top sales-per-square-foot performer.

John and Pat Pope, owners of The Cornerstone Christian Books, Gifts & Gallery in Boone, N.C. have created a warm and comfortable atmosphere that flows between departments. Their strategy includes:

Designated reading areas

An in-store café

Theme area

Shop just for kids

Setting-up displays that have dimension, color and texture has enabled them to increase the amount of money they make per square foot without the store looking cluttered.

New Markets For Christian Businesses		Hot Marketing Ideas
To reach more than the just the usual evangelicals who shop in Christian stores, Christian businesses are expanding into horizontal markets by offering a broader range of products and reaching vertical markets through websites. Christian Treasures a Houston, Texas-based retailer of Christian products, decided to carry Communion Missals, Rosaries, Arm Bands, and Veils to attract Catholic customers. The Christian business owner Richard Gillespie, feels his strategy is paying off. Especially after his store experienced a huge increase in sales, of St.Joseph statues.		It seems, some of the homeowners facing foreclosure in his area, were resorting to the tradition of burying the statues, to obtain divine favor to sell their homes and keep them out of foreclosure.

Adopting similar strategies that capitalize on new marketing ideas can be profitable for Christians starting a business, that want customers to spend more time and money in their stores.


Memory Verse:    Pr 22:29


Follow this link to read more about


"Top Ten Ways Christian Retailers are Thriving Through Innovation".

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.

How to Operate A Successful Christian Business

I was surfing through Ning the other day and encountered Candie A Price's Ministry minded "Christian prenuers" discussion on "what is the hardest part of operating a Christian business?" I'd like to offer my take on the subject, for anyone who is "sweating the load" while trying to operate a successful Christan Business.

5 Challenges Facing Christian Businesses

In business, having a well researched business plan comes in handy. You do have a business plan? Effective business plans identify potential problems in key areas and provide several possible solutions to these issues:


Planning
Marketing
Training
Communications
Financial Management


These areas are where you can expect to have your toughest challenges when you are operating a Christian Business. So, follow the old adage, " plan your work and work your plan" and don't trip about, what if it don't work out, what if it does!

Why Christian Entrepreneurs Are Growing In Today's Marketplace

Over seventy-five percent of the U S population are Christians and the need for Christian-owned businesses for them to spend their money with is growing. According to the an article in Shopping Center Today, more than

75 percent shop at a Christian store at least once a quarter, and 59 percent spend between $51 and $250 per year on products.

What Makes Christian Business Unique?

Christian businessmen have to be prepared, challenges will come, to paraphrase another scripture, you'll get the victory if you faint not.

The Apostle Paul endured some of his roughest times while he was starting fellowships in different communities. He suffered beatings, jailing, attempted stoning and was often conspired against.

In his letter to Timothy (Tim 3:11-13) he reminded him, Christians who wants to live a Godly life will find themselves going through trials and test, but God will deliver you from them all.

Ten Things Every Christian Should Know About Christmas

As you gather your family to celebrate Christmas make it a joyous occasion and not one that is tainted with ritual and regret. Celebrating the birth of Christ can be a special event if you remember to keep it holy.

1. Christmas, the celebrated birthday of Jesus Christ was incorporated into the Roman Catholic Church in the 5th century. Prior to that time December 25th was a day set aside for pagan worship.

2. The Roman Feast celebrating the birth of Sol, the sun god was celebrated on December 25th.

3.The pagan feast and the Christian Holiday became one when the custom of giving gifts was adopted from the legend of St. Nicholas.

4. Jesus was not born in the wintertime.

5. The decorating of fir trees is mentioned in the Bible and Christmas trees have become an idol for modern man.

6. There are more suicides in December than any other month.

7. More deaths occur in December than in other months.

8. The Lord tells us to commemorate his death, through the Lord's Supper.

9. The name Christmas comes from the Roman Catholic "Christ Mass" instituted in 5th century and celebrated on December 25th.

10. Americans pile up more consumer debt in December than any other month of the year.

How Christians Can Start And Build A Successful Business

On the road to building a business you don't have to turn down the path that ends with your great idea becoming a job that provides lots of work and very little pay. There are several important principles you can follow if you own, or plan to start a Christian business.


Please allow me the liberty as a writer to summarize how Christians can increase their chance for business success, by pointing-out that there are really only two ways to become successful.

The Two Keys to A Successful Christian Business

The first method is to take a small business guru to lunch and ask him how he became successful and do everything that he did.

The other way is to take a businessman who went bankrupt to lunch ask him what he did and make sure you don't make those same mistakes.

Honestly that's, in essence why thousands value the advice offered by Brian Tracy, Micheal Gerber and other gurus who have helped many businessmen avoid the crash and burn syndrome and other risk associated with operating a small business.

Christian Business Advice

Christian businessmen should actively pursue learning everything they can, from the soup to the nuts, about operating a business.

Gerber says. "Creating a successful business is a learnable, replicable experience that anyone can go through."
Sure, franchises offer a sense of security as a successful business model for tried and tested products, what about the bootstrapping Christian entrepreneur with an idea for a unique product?

How to Build A Better Business

"Seek and ye shall find" is a biblical principle that should be familiar to most Christian businessowners and can applied to guide you to prosper in the marketplace.

When it's interwoven into a business strategy it represent the need to consistently seek answers to business problem and not rely on trial and error as a business strategy.

It's unrealistic to think you can wear every hat as a Christian businessman (marketer, manager, salesmen, parent) and not be lacking in one of the key areas. Getting advice from other professionals will allow you to move faster toward your business goals.

So, to start a successful business or get one back on the right track,

Christians can minimize their mistakes by getting mentored, taught and trained in critical skill areas.

Continuously seek guidance from other professionals before you start and every step of the way.

Then, Christian entrepreneurs won't find themselves working long hard hours toward their American dream only to be faced with having to close-up shop, because they've run out of money, energy or both.