IGN!S
As Christian entrepreneurs, we oftentimes find ourselves in situations just like the average human being next to us.
The reason for this is that even though we are not of the world, we are in the world, and as such, we deal with everything else, including business.
What marks the difference is the power of God working in us. Today, we will be discussing 8 tips for Christian entrepreneurs .
1. START TRACKING EVERYTHING
One of the easiest ways to find what is and isn’t working in your business is to track eveything.
When you don’t keep track of what goes on in your business, it’s hard to know where your focus should be and what you should be working on.
Far too many entrepreneurs spread themselves too thin, and waste too much time and resources on things with little or no return on investment (ROI).
If you want to grow your business, one of your main priorities should be maximizing your return on investment.
You want to focus on tasks, activities and strategies that give you the highest return. Low-paying activities shouldn’t be where you spend the bulk of your time unless you enjoy wasting time on things that have no value.
So to improve your business, start tracking everything. Track how and where you spend your time and how and where you invest your money.
Also, track your marketing channels to see which one is bringing the most customers and sales to your business. Your marketing channels include where you advertise and your social media platforms.
What you’re looking for is identifying which platform sends you the most customers or brings in the highest conversions.
If you have affiliates selling your products, check where most of your sales come from. The same applies to your referral programs (if you have them).
The benefit of tracking everythingis, it helps you to gain clarity, so you can focus and prioritize activities and tasks with the highest return on investment.
2. INVEST MORE TIME WORKING ON YOUR BUSINESS
Growing a business takes time and you have to be in it for the long haul. It’s rare to see instant success despite some claims to the contrary.
Lots of businesses don’t make it to their fifth anniversary, so you have to bear that in mind.
Sometimes the reason your business hasn’t taken off is because it’s still very new. If that’s the case, all you can do is, keep working on it and be patient.
With that said, if you are not investing enough time on your business, you’re going to experience slow growth because there’s just no way around that.
Remember you reap what you sow, which means if you have a lackadaisical approach to your business, that could explain why your business isn’t growing.
Therefore, to improve your business, all you need to do is to invest more time.
This is quite an easy fix compared to so many other things you can do.
So start by making a fresh commitment to work more on your business and see if that doesn’t make a difference.
As a Christian entrepreneur, we are instructed to be diligent (Eccles. 9:10), and diligence sets us apart. So don’t expect much reward for minimal effort.
3. BE DYNAMIC IN YOUR BUSINESS
Change is often very hard but necessary. When you have been doing something for a long time, it’s hard to pivot or do things differently.
Lots of business owners are struggling because they are stuck in their ways. Some are either too stubborn or too scared to step out of their comfort zone so they keep doing the same things over and over, even when they know it isn’t working.
For example, maybe you had a vision for how your business was going to be. You knew exactly what you wanted to sell and how you wanted to sell it. You had everything mapped out ready to execute.
However, things aren’t going the way you envisioned, so instead of pivoting, you doubled down on the same strategies and methods that aren’t working.
As a Christian business owner, you should approach business with humility and a willingness to learn. This is one of the best tips for Christian entrepreneurs, but also one that’s difficult to practice.
Sometimes, we are our own worst enemy and I say that as someone who doesn’t like to change or back down. But, you can’t grow unless you are willing to change.
For instance, refusing to use YouTube when it’s clearly beneficial or refusing to create a website or have an online presence as a way to reach more customers.
If you’re being honest, you’ll admit that there are some areas in your business you need to change or areas that can be improved.
So it is important to consider pivoting or making changes that you know would benefit your business.
Whether that means cutting ties with some business partners, stopping the production of goods that are no longer selling, offering new services, using a different payment option (or accepting more payment options) or making your products more available or cheaper (or more expensive).
To be successful, you must be willing to change and do whatever it takes to improve your business.
4. REEVALUATE YOUR OBJECTIVES
“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Proverbs 29:18)
Why did you start a business? What were your goals, dreams or aspirations?
What is working? What isn’t working?
Have you strayed from your objectives or are you still faithful to them?
For example, if you started a business to solve a particular problem or to help a particular group of people, do you still serve these people and are you still solving that particular problem?
Reevaluating objectives will help you to become laser focused and ensure you continue to stay faithful to them.
Many times, the reason you can’t grow is because you lose sight of your vision and purpose.
Going back to your vision and purpose might be all that’s required to experience growth.
When you’re true to your vision, and have a clear purpose, you can tune out distractions and focus on what matters.
If you’ve never taken the time to articulate your objectives, now is a good time to do it.
5. PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS MORE!
If only you could wave a magic wand and make lots of customers appear, but we know that isn’t going to happen.
While praying for more customers and praying for business growth is good,we should also recognize the importance of marketing to grow one’s business.
So, spend more time marketing your business or promoting your blog because you don’t have a business without customers or an audience.
You are your best hype-man!
6. IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE
A list of tips for christian entrepreneurs isn’t complete without this very important tip.
Want to improve your business and increase your profits? Improve the quality of your products or services!
No matter how good your products or services are, you can always make them better.
Don’t ever become complacent or think you can’t make something better because that isn’t true.
If you know one of your products or services needs improvement, you should definitely work on it.
7. TRY OUT NEW THINGS
Always be open to trying new things or new ways of doing things, because you won’t know how well something is going to work unless you try.
As an example, if you have a brick and mortar store, you could try opening earlier or closing later to attract new customers.
Also, you could change the way your products are displayed.
Perhaps, you can offer your customers a different way to contact you, change how you package your products or services, change when and how you offer discounts or sales etc.
Try new and different things to see if some things take off or drum up more sales.
That’s one of the key tips successful entrepreneurs use. They don’t shy away from taking risks or experimenting.
8. IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
How well do you treat your customers? Are you really serving them or are they just numbers to you?
It is shocking to see the way some Christian businesses treat their customers. If you don’t care about your customers satisfaction when your business is booming, you may find yourself in a difficult situation when things take a turn for the worse.
It doesn’t matter whether you have lots of customers or only a few, you should nurture them and treat them with respect at all times.
Some customers or clients can really test your patience, but we should always strive to be kind and loving.
As a small business owner, you may not have customer support staff, but you can still do the best you can to improve your customer satisfaction level.
Some ways you can do this includes:
- Listening to their concerns
- Fixing mistakes to their orders
- Communicating and resolving problems in a timely manner
- Delivering their orders on the due dates
And there are many more ways to make your customers happy.
Most customers just want to be treated fairly and respectfully, and as a Christian entrepreneur, that’s the very least you can do.
Having read through all these tips for Christian entrepreneurs, we hope you can now apply them to your individual business ventures, and make some profit!
Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
