Being an Established Woman - Business Wise by Regina Moore

Scripture: Proverbs 16:3

Commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established.

In continuing the series of being an established woman, today we are looking at how to become an established business woman. Business establishment does not come automatically. It takes many years of building, commitment, strategies, planning, hard work and prayers. It requires putting your business in a position to succeed, by equipping yourself with the relevant education, understanding and experience to make an established business.

To begin, first search your heart to know if you are called to business. Don't just admire a successful business woman then leave your job and rush into business. It is important for you to pray, hear from God and understand His heart beat for you in this season of your life. Commit your works to Him like the above scripture says. When you have clarity from the Lord then you can start the preparation. 

Here are some tips for how you will know if you are called to business –

• Do you have a passion to exchange goods, services, or talents for payment, instead of being paid to give your time and talent to serve someone or a company?

• Do you always notice a need in your environment and desire to meet that need?

• Do you desire development in some areas in your community or nation that you have passion to see happen and you desire to render that service and receive payment?

• Do you always notice an opportunity to make money even when nobody sees it? Things that don't look right in the eyes of others but you can see the advantage in a disadvantaged situation.

These are some practical observations you can note in your life apart from having clarity from God. 

For a woman to go into business you need to ask yourself what talents or hobby do you have that you might need to sharpen, or build up so you can deploy it to trade for an income? Do you like to cook, bake, clean, sing, talk, or act? We sometimes joke with our talents not knowing that most of the time they are the way to our wealthy place.

What do you have passion for; beauty, cosmetics, music, science, caring for kids, teaching? Whatever your passion is, you can train it and trade it in business. This is a great foundation to build upon as you already have the necessary drive within. You are not trying to copy someone else; it’s from you-an original idea.

I went for training in a hobby and passion that I already have - for hair designing and beauty and render it as a much needed service in the African community. I am living in the UK. Even though I trained as a Lithographer I had a passion for beauty. Today that passion has led me into business and I am now on the verge of training others in this field.

If you don't have a passion or talent within, as to what business idea you have inside you. (This is very rare as God has put something inside everyone, no one is empty), you can research around where you are and look for needs that people have around you or services that are of necessity but farfetched. For example if people travel a far distance to get bread, you can decide to go and get the bread in bulk and sell it to them, saving them the transport and hassle. Your vision here would be to save travel time and perhaps eventually build a bakery.

Also, if local amenities are far from the residents, you can get the products the people need and cut off their journey expenses and time. You can also research into services that are not readily available where you are. Other examples are, if there are no good day care centre’s for kids you can look into starting one and if there are no hair salons you can open one.

After the question of what you could do has been sorted, the next stage is how to start.  At this stage, some of us will stop and go no further, for fear of the challenges ahead of us; such as raising capital, getting a bank loan or go borrowing. If you have great trust in God, start where you are and grow in grace. I started my salon with one chair, one mirror and a comb in a passage way in my house. I grew in grace with no bank loan or borrowed funds. Today God is preparing me for a Hair designing School.

My Pastor once said "you just need your head to start your business". It was a bit funny. What he was saying is the main thing you need for your business is inside you. You can bring it out and start small and grow in grace. You don’t have to keep your idea in your book forever or shelf it waiting for millions for a big kick off. Start where you are. Right now I have got a big proposal for my school, looking for sponsors and charities to help. God is able to provide but if I don’t have the sponsors to start as a big kick off I am going to start small and trust God to grow the school. I am not going to keep looking and waiting for years and years. I am moving ahead to live my dreams. Start where you are, with what you have; then you will have a great history to tell, your testimony will be stronger and your experiences solid to pass on to the next generation of business women.

Learning how to grow your business and become that substance woman you desire goes back to our scripture “commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established” Don’t compete with anyone but yourself and keep going up. If you look around you, you will lose focus. Your second mentor after the Holy Spirit is an old business adviser that has been there and done that. Hook up and keep learning daily, the world is changing. Build up and make necessary changes as the year’s progress.

It’s those new things that you add to your business daily; those extra that you put on the ordinary, those little values that you add to your normal services, the little more you do that will give you an edge over the others. Pay attention to your own business and grow it with the help of God. Many people concentrate on beating their competitors until they forget their vision, and lose focus on where they should take their business to for new heights.

Next time on the established woman we will learn Ingredients to grow your established business. Keep reading power hour mails God bless you.