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Have you ever felt like you were in prison because of a new client contract you brought on board? I did a favor for a friend and engaged in contract to do the branding for a company I had no business being involved in.  I needed the money, so I took on the contract. The red flags came up from the beginning.  He was too demanding, acted like he knew it all, was broke and could barely afford the service, and I discounted it to help this client out. I basically broke every cardinal rule that I tell my clients not to do.  I was frustrated at the client, but I was more frustrated at myself. We do this a lot as Entrepreneurs – get into situations that are out of our sweet spot. This puts us in an unfamiliar territory that takes up more time and energy than a “perfect client”. What do we do when the place where we’re at right now is not where we want to be? We’d rather be servicing a different type of clients, doing a different service, but we’ve trapped ourselves in a temporary contract that we can’t leave?. How do we survive this place we’ve put ourselves into?. God has amazing plans for this place you’re in if you take on the right attitude and perspective. The bible says "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving." (Collosians 2:6-7) You might have gotten yourself into a bad situation, but I guarantee that God has a great lesson in play for you within that contract. The lesson in these cases is always related to HOW you will act THROUGH the process so that in hindsight you can always say “I did what Jesus would have done.” In my case, I had to get over the fact that I’ve made more money per hour than this client, and that I should have known better.  Neither of these attitudes will serve me. Instead, I focused on being Jesus for that little season.  It only lasted 2 weeks (which felt like an eternity), but got to practice grace, mercy and patience. I kept asking myself this one question: “When this is all said and done, what will this client say if they found out I was a devout follower of Christ?”  Would he say “Yeah that makes sense, he was a great guy!” Or would he say “Well he sure didn’t act like he was Christian.” Our places and the situations we get ourselves into are not an accident. Your services and products will always lead you to many different types of contracts and clients in business life. As a Godpreneur, you have the freedom to bring our gifts and talents anywhere and be a potential “light”, even in the most terrible of situations you get yourself into. It’s not about where we are right now, it’s all about how we execute, wherever you are placed. Contracts will never fulfill us. Clients shouldn’t be were we get out contentment, but can serve as the fertile ground for God to make himself known through us. And if we each played our part, from web developers to restaurant owners, we would get to heaven and know that in our little business, we were a part of something too big to ever conceive of while we were here. It’s not our contracts, it’s what we do in our contracts. What’s the current client you wish you could get rid of, and how are you seeing God work in the contract through you? #FindMyCalling #AttractingRightClients #DifferentiatingMyself

And he kicked off the meeting by praising people that did well in sales.

The client brought me in as a partner and our product sales were booming. We had the right combination of ads and sales, profit margins were healthy, and more and more money kept One day, our Facebook ads stopped working, sales dropped to ZERO, and the company was left in massive

I’ve read research that says it takes anywhere between six to eight touches in sales before a prospect This means that in my marketing, I can’t count on the first email to make the sale. I’ve been taught in sales that “no” really means “not right now.” I like that attitude because it sets my mind on hope in a future sale. Remember the 6-8 touch rule not only for making sales but now also for experiencing breakthroughs in

This could be particularly troublesome for sales because if we can't make consistent sales, we cut off In general, most failed sales proposals come from a lack of listening to the prospects' problems, since

When you launch that next product or press play on that new sales team you want to build, what do you

When you finally get money in your hands, the first thing to do is not spending, but saving the money Your ability to save money will determine your level of discipline, which in turn is a significant key Prior to the famine in Egypt, Joseph saved the grains grown in the land, despite a great desire to consume The more you save, the more your financial base increases! recurrent expenditure, 20% of your income should go for miscellaneous 20% of your income should go for Savings

The Business Bible Plans: 1) Growing Your Agency, God’s Way Learn how to scale your agency without losing These devotionals in the "Grow" stage are your secret weapon for scaling your business while keeping

That could be the reason why your sales are down, the marketing isn't working, the customers are complaining

And the same happened to me in business. And with God, commitment to His plan the same thing. If I only had some good teaching like this, I could have saved myself a lot of heartaches…and money!

My partner and I have an 8:30 am call every Tuesday to connect and game plan.  It’s the best spent 30 minutes of the week. There isn’t always an agenda, but there’s always something to talk about. Last talk we identified a major hiccup in our process and I was able to fix it.  A previous call we simply talked about life and we vented out some frustrations that didn’t even have to do with work. Something I know now that I didn’t know back in my previous partnership was the need for regular meetings between the partners.  I would have meetings, but they weren’t intentional but more reactions to a certain crisis going on. In hind sight, this is probably the biggest reason we failed as a partnership.  I think we all felt lonely and that we each were running the company on our own.  If you asked each of us individually, you’d hear that the biggest weight of the company was on that person being asked. This lack of meeting caused distrust in the accounting, no single vision for the future, no way of venting and no clear leadership. What happens when we don’t meet regularly is that we’re not giving ourselves time to connect with one another. Connections are formed with time spent together.  I’m not talking about a company dinner with all the employees or going to happy hour with friends.  I’m talking about just the partners. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says "It’s better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work, share the wealth. And if one falls down, the other helps, But if there’s no one to help, tough! Two in a bed warm each other. Alone, you shiver all night. By yourself you’re unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped." You might be at a point in your partnership where you just want to quit and do it alone. You figure that you’ve already been doing it alone, why not make it easier for everyone and just dismantle the partnership agreement. That’s not God’s design. I’d be surprised to find any hugely successful businesses out there that are 100% owned by one person only.  God’s design is for community to be formed and for one hand to wash the other. Pull out your calendar and set a weekly catch up meeting. This can be on the phone. Set up a monthly dinner where you talk in a relaxed environment. Then set up an annual planning meeting. You can do this quarterly, every 6 months or every year.  There is no such thing as connecting too much.  Things move so fast in business that the more we can communicate the faster we can grow. We can let our selfish pride, greed and ambitions rule our lives and make us a LONER in business, or we can choose to embrace the design of connecting with one another regularly. #BecomeDisciplined #SharpenLeadership #BusinessPartnerships

Growing up I had leadership, strengths in sales, marketing and entrepreneurship.   My cousin and I took action and spray painted a board “PUPPIES FOR SALE $5”.   We do the sales, marketing AND leadership.

stories have a similar plot arc: You suffered from some seemingly insurmountable problem (which is the same Pick your best product or the one you most want to see increase in sales. create a compelling identity that attracts a value-aligned audience and increases your influence and sales

The first sale is the first fruit. You take the first sales of the year and give it as first fruits to thank God for last year. The first sale is the first fruit. You start a new business partnership. The first sale is the first fruit. It should be a celebration! You can offer the first sales, the first week of sales, or some other measure that feels right for you