Business is the art of selling excellent service to people.
The following characteristics are key:
- It is an art;
- It involves service;
- It involves excellence;
- It involves profit;
- It involves an audience or a market – people.
Let us expand on each:
- A successful business does not try to exploit people or hustle for gain; but exhibits the graceful wielding of a skill, excellence and mastery in service offering, trade and relationship with people. Modern business expressions that bring out this excellent mindset are popularly termed ‘service’, ‘commerce’, ‘brand-recognition’, ‘human resource’ and ‘customer service’. Godly business people are not trying to make a living; they practice something they love doing and are good at for that matter.
“Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before unknown men.” (Proverbs 22:29)
They know what they have to offer (product and/or service), who to sell it to (niche market), how to sell it (sales, adverts and marketing), how to distinguish their offerings (branding) and how to maintain a good relationship with their customers (customer relationship and service).
- Your business involves service – always remember that you are doing a service to someone or people. You should be meeting a need. This is an ingredient of constant patronage – the goal of customer service. It should give you (and your staff) joy to satisfy a customer so that he/she LEAVES HAPPY!
- Excellence is a great distinguishing factor – the way you ‘do it’, whatever it is that you do! Many people may sell food, few ensure that it is ALWAYS fresh and hot, serve it in a nicer way and maybe even bring it to you. When you ‘do it’ in a more excellent way and ‘serve’ one person, making them happy, boom, you have a great asset in business – a loyal news-spreading, mobile-advertising customer.
- Trading for Profit, for me, can be an exhilarating exercise. It is not usually selling for a high figure that brings the profit. Profit can be buying much lower than you are selling. The skill is how to buy low (minimize your expenditures, maximize your assets/resources) and sell at a very affordable rate. Making your products/service very affordable without compromising quality is a great way of serving the customer in an excellent manner.
- Your business needs an audience – a market. Your market should have a niche – a set of people it targets, serves and that are well suited for it. The niche may be one or more age-groups, societal class, career type and so on. You should be able to define such markets and target it excellently. Your niche type helps and guides your advert/marketing schemes as wells as product and service pricing.
The beauty of a Godly business:
“Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands that which is good, that he may have to give to him who has need” – Ephesians 4:28
“That you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
A business is beautiful because of the following:
- You can mind your business.
- You have freedom in your finances and of your time.
- An opportunity to express the good works in your hands.
- People see your good works and glorify God.
- You can properly carry out your responsibilities to people outside; family, relatives, friends and other believers.
Building your dream Business – your wealth generating enterprise:
I do hope that you have a good understanding of what a business really is. Wealth responds to value; the value you create and make available to people. People do pay for what is of value to them, and more easily if they can afford it. To create a valuable product and/or service, you need skill or skilful hands. You may be gifted in wielding a God-given skill or in harnessing, amplifying and managing the skill in others.
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