It takes time for a business to develop and become profitable. It is a mistake to jump quickly from one business to a different business prematurely. By Gary Shotton #000445

Click Here to download in audio (.mp3 format); right click on link and select “save as”

Click Here to download in video (.mp4 format); right click on link and select “save as”

http://www.ibbtalks.org/share/audio/

http://www.ibbtalks.org/share/videos/

Don’t Unhook

By Gary Shotton

Hello! My name is Gary Shotton, I am here as a part of inspiring better business. On this lesson, I would like to talk about “do not become unhitched, do not unhitch”. I will refer to that in regards that my dad was a farmer and rancher. I was raised on weed farm and cattle ranch; we were so blessed. I mean I have no complaints about our upbringing. Yes, we worked. We worked when we were even young, enter 12,13 and 14, We were never abused. When sometimes I observed, though not knowing the details that we did not always have a good crop, we did not always have success.

At one point, the economy turned terribly bad. There was No irrigation in our farm, it was dry, and we needed water to raise the wheat. The wheat crop was a failure and the cattle price dropped to the bottom and this was tough. My father had some loans at the bank, and he had to maneuver through this to keep current with the bank and keep current with all the bills he had.

When you are working for somebody else, you get a paycheck every Friday or every other week. When you are working for yourself, you do not have a paycheck. So, you must be able to navigate, almost a full year of income that you do not come on a monthly or weekly basis. You just get the harvest, or you just get the money when you sold the cattle. This is challenging. This was one of those times when dad gave us just a little extra, he watched some other farmers he did not criticize them but he said, “They got unhitched from farming and ranching”, in other words like horse would hitch to a buggy or to a wagon. They unhooked.

When things were just about to turn around, if the persons would have not only said just how long, but stay diligent, they would have turned around and it would have been able to be quite successful in the next year or two. I am facing that right now. Right now, after this pandemic era, we had made about 15 months that were just not good. Our income was the lowest it has ever been for several years. We were able to keep enough income and might not work for our core workers, we did not have anybody laid off or reduce their hours, but we had to watch everything we are doing, because it was not good.

And in this period, I have seen more than seven other machine shops. They closed out and most of them had to. It was not that they did not want to sell out, but they were closing the door when other people were closing their doors. Because the value of their business was at its all-time low. I can see what is happening, I must just stay steady watch all my expenses and income. Get all the income I can, be careful about my expenses, do not do anything foolish because it is going to turn around and it has already been doing it.

So, in the last two months, this being the first day of May of 2021, we have already added five new machinists. We have 32 machinists, and we need 37 machinists, we have 46 employees, and we need 51. That would be our first goal, that would be adding machinist and we have just 13 or 14 overhead people. So, we are experiencing what I am talking about, I do not quit. I do not quit too early, I can see the long-range benefit of hanging in there, because when we hang in there and this turns around, we are going to make up all the money that we did not make in those 15 months. We are going to be on top of the world in the sense of plenty of work, we already have almost too much work now. We are having trouble keeping up because it is turned the corner, it is we are over that.

Here is what I hear happening many times in developing nations.  This is so sad that someone starts her business and in literally two or three months, they decide, “oh! This is not producing the money, I need folks. It takes longer than two or three months from when you start a business. It might take two or three years for it really to take cold. So, you are into this for a long range, this is not a short-range endeavor. I hear people and I know this happens that people become unhooked because they say “oh! Well, I am not making money, after three months or four months, then they say “Oh! I heard they are making some money over here”, so I am doing something else, I will stop what I am doing, and I will go over and do something else.in another completely different business.

They are in that business for three or four months, so they say “oh! Well, that is not working, I hear somebody else is making good money”, and they jump over and try that. After a while they get very discouraged, and they get very upset with God. They think that God left them, and they think that the business is not part of what they should do, they should change everything, and they abandon their calling all because they were not patient, patient enough to see through the long range.

This process of gaining wealth and prosperity in God’s word way is not a short season. We know this from planting certain things in gardens and certain things in and for fruits and vegetables. You know it is talked about in the New Testament about planting a mustard seed. I have never known that I have never seen a mustard seed, I have never heard they planted one, but you know it as I understand it. This is a very small seed, and over time it grows quite a large tree or bush, and it takes a long time until it is producing. Think of any kind of nuts, like a concrete or something like that, that might take three or four years before it is producing.

Now there are other plants that you could plant that are less time consuming. We are planting tomatoes right now. We started about eight months ago with a seed and now we are transplanting that into a plant and there will be another eight weeks and then we will have some fruit on there, that we can start selling. That is the season for that plant, but we cannot uproot that, because it did not produce fast enough.

God wants you to have success, there is no question in my mind. God wants, and if you learn the lessons of doing business, you will have success. If you learn those lessons, you will have to apply those lessons with wisdom and seeking God’s direction. Keep seeking, seeking the research, and developing the natural knowledge.

What new things are being developed?  Or what kind of in my case, what kind of fertilizer should I use? When should I? How should I handle the plants? Maybe you are doing wedding cakes and so, do not do the same old wedding cake for everyone. Be creative, do something different, so people are saying “wow! That was the most amazing wedding cake. It tasted the best and it was so cool! It was so beautiful!” Look at those pictures! If you are doing hairstyle, always hairstyles change. I mean some people want the same hairstyle so to give them what they want, but if you do your research, everything is changing with the time.

We did not have cell phones 15 years ago, now everything is on the phone. We did not have a marketing Facebook, now we can market in Facebook. So, things change in the technical world and things change in the way we handle things technically but the business, the laws of business never ever change. Quantities and systems will be a part of business forever, all the lessons we are teaching, we believe are something that could be applied to any country, any language, any culture, and any time in history.

In other words, the laws we are talking about are the laws that have worked. These were are in place when Jesus was on this earth.  We point to the fact that these will be here, as long as our earth is like it is. We do not have the end of time; these laws of business will be the same. So, if you learn these laws of business and you do not quit, you do not jump away, you give a chance for them to grow up and produce, you will have success.

Do not unhook, do not unhitch from what God has given you to do. I believe that this is a time that you can change. In my case, I believe it is a time when things are going well. You do not abandon because things went bad, you wait to a point that this is going quite well. I have finished my course and live with this business. Probably, my history was 17 years with the first business I own. I am now approaching 14 and a half years with this business I am not jumping around. I have other little things I am doing, but my main business is what I have been doing for a number of years. I hope this helps. Thanks for being a part of Inspiring Better Business.