WHY YOU NEED TO START BUSINESS NOW!
- Christian Business Talk With Gideon Akande

As I talk on why you need to start business now, I also need to call our attentions to wrong times so many Christian start business, that is the reason so many Christians fail in business, and many got discouraged as if business is not meant for them. When we start business at the wrong time even with a right business, it will give a wrong result which is usually folding up of the business.

Wrong Time Many Christians Start Business:
1. When We retire from work.
Business is a world of itself that needs practical years of experience. Many people who start business after retirement usually get their invested wasted and the business not successful. What really matters in business is not only money, but also practical experience. So many people spend 30 years working only to build houses, and after they retire, they settle down to collect house rents which will never be enough to sustain them. That is the reason many retiree landlords and landlady are strict in collecting house rent because they have no other means of surviving.

When you are still working, yes in some workplaces you may not be allowed to register company and begin to run business, but you can build it on or with your spouse and family.

Some of the major businesses working class people can build are like long time farming – Palm kernel, Cocoa, etc., private school with a spouse, online marketing, etc.

2, When We Lose Our Jobs.
Many Christians start business after losing their jobs which will lead to unpreparedness, personal and family financial burden on the young business which could overweigh the new business. The best time to start business is when you still have a job doing. You don’t save money and start something when you lose job, it doesn’t always work like that.

3, When We Have Need
We don’t start business to meet immediate needs, we start business to grow the business. If the purpose of starting a business is to raise money to meet a need next month, then the business will soon die.

Sometime this year I met the former MD of Fedex in Nigeria who won the best MD in Fedex sub-Saharan African nations, and now a MD of another major courier company in Nigeria; he told me that courier business is not for traders, meaning people who do buying and selling; he said a person needs about 3 years to run courier company before profit will start coming. He said traders can’t be such patient.

It’s better to start business, grow business into profits before needs come. It is better to start business while you are still a student, it is better to start business while you are still single, it is better to start business while you are still young couple, when you are not yet paying huge school fees for children, when you still have strength to run around.

4, When We Start Business With Loan.
There is nothing as dangerous in business as starting a new business with bank loan, it is absolutely a wrong start. The truth is that, there is a wide difference between a business on paper and a business on practical. No matter how lucrative a business plan or proposal seems, it is still a paper work not practical work. There are so many unforeseen problems in practical business than the profit on papers.

5, When We Start Business With huge Amount of Money.
Many people claim, “Bro, I have a lots of lucrative business ideas but I only need good amount of money to kick start.” The truth here is that if you can’t successfully start a business with little you have, your android phone, your little space and others, starting with a large sum of money will only bring large sum of problem. As children of God, we don’t start business with big money but with a big God. If God will not bless the business with small amount of money, He will not bless it with big amount, or rather, if you can’t manage to succeed with small amount of money, you can’t also succeed with big amount of money.

The best time to start business is when you have little and work it grow. We don’t watch business growing, we work it growing by God’s help.

6, When We Start In A Big Way
I travelled to Ibadan, I saw new shopping plazas with expensive rents, and so many people rushing to rent the shops at such high cost of rents; some of those people renting the expensive shops are just starting the business, some have no idea about the challenges of the business. And at the end of the year they cannot make enough profit to renew the rent. Beloved, why starting big? Big office, big shop, full AC, and employing workers the business does not need now. Who are you trying to impress? Why getting accountant for a small scale business when you have not even started counting the money? So what is the Accountant going to be doing?

As children of God, we do business to improve our finances, and not to impress people on social media or in the society. Reality checks.

7, When We Wait To Finish School Before Starting Business.
One of the major mistakes many young Christians usually make is waiting to graduate from school before starting something and parents also help in the problem. If Mark Zuckerberg had waited to finish school before starting Facebook, it wouldn't have happened.

Some parents will wait until their children graduate before asking what they want to do with their lives, before thinking of establishing something for them. You are a student of a school, you have free access to the students and lecturers and others, make use of it before you sign out, win the campus for Christ and also build your business. This is the best time to start business, to gain experience, to try, to fail and succeed before you get to the real world of business.

To The Full Time Ministers of God
I know a beloved Evangelist who also pastors a church, he used to have problem feeding his family. But when we had minister’s seminars, I challenged everyone to start something small along with our ministries to raise income for our families. This Evangelist was challenged, he later started something with his car, though no capital, he was collecting bottled waters from company and supplying shops. He gradually became popular, receiving calls to supply water, gaining experiences, business connections, customer database – all these are more important than capital. Now, the business is growing up gradually and his ministry is moving forward along.

Ministers of gospel can start something with their spouses that will support their family and help the work of God also. Asking for general public financial donations after ministration on radio, Youtube, etc., is not honorable to the work of God.

Let's think about this brethren!

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” Philippians 4:8

Amen!

Another topic next Sunday by God's grace.

Be blessed

Gideon Akande