|
Life is full of change. Regardless of our circumstances, we know that time progresses, we are always getting older, and aging happens to us all. Just this morning, I was speaking with a gentleman taking care of his elderly parents who remarked how odd it was to now be the “parent” responsible for his parent’s needs. Psalm 90:12 reminds us to pay attention to time: “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
It’s not just people that grow older; businesses do too! Every business, like a person, has a life cycle with a beginning and an end. Every business, like a person, should number its days in order to gain and use wisdom, fully embrace each season, and prepare for the future in the best possible way.
How can a Kingdom business pay attention to its life cycle? We know that God appoints different times and seasons in our individual lives, in nature, in nations, and in churches. Often cycles of seasons follow an observable pattern, like with weather. Similarly, Kingdom businesses follow a pattern of seven stages that we call a Kingdom Business Life Cycle:
● Discovery - The time when you are not sure if business is for you or you have an idea but have not launched it yet. This is the stage when you should work on knowing your identity. If you are called to be in business, prepare yourself financially as well as engage in some type of passive income so that you have a financial backup as you grow your business.
● Startup: The time between a business launch and its break-even point. No matter how long you’ve been in business, if you have not broken even yet, you are still in the startup stage. This is often the most exciting stage where you face the greatest risk.
● Break Even: The business revenue consistently meets expenses. Make sure you are breaking even on a cash flow basis, not just on an accrual basis.
● Profitability: The business is generating a comfortable amount of revenue with good margins. This is the stage where you face the profit trap; you have traded your freedom for profit and without your ongoing involvement, the business can not be profitable. Since the purpose of profit is to save, reinvest, and give, this is a good stage to start investing some of the profit towards passive income.
● Sustainability: Proper systems and people are in place to enable the business to run effectively without being completely dependent on the entrepreneur’s tactical involvement. You are profitable while enjoying the freedom to do other things like diversifying in other businesses and expanding your passive income strategy. The business is also partially passive.
● Scalability: The business is expanding into larger markets and areas. This is the stage where you are growing regionally, nationally, and internationally. Remember, not every business can scale and not every entrepreneur is called to scale.
● Succession: The entrepreneur phases out of the business after determining leadership and ownership replacements. A Kingdom business must be built to withstand at least three generations, therefore you must have this in mind at every stage of the business. Your passive income strategy should make succession easy because you have other revenue streams and do not depend solely on the business.
Over the next few weeks, we will be delving into each stage of the Kingdom Business Life Cycle, exploring what each stage means and what opportunities and threats come with each stage. It is important for any Biblical Entrepreneur to begin a business with the exit strategy in mind and to understand where the business is in the life cycle process.
Each stage requires different leadership traits, comes with unique challenges and opportunities, and needs to be operated in a certain manner to be successful. A Biblical Entrepreneur recognizes this and begins with the end in mind, looking ahead to the final stage of succession while using each season to prepare the business for his or her exit.
Today, assess where your business is in the Kingdom Business Life Cycle. What stages have you gone through? What stages lie ahead? How can you be a good steward of the season of business God has given you? A sustainable business with a well-thought-out succession strategy and wisely chosen replacement is much more likely to continue after the entrepreneur has transitioned out of the business.
My prayer for you today is that the Lord would remind you where your business has come from and equip you with a vision of where He would like to take it in the future.
|
