Business ownership can be difficult to the point a person may feel pressure and feel the need to quit. One of the best ways to resist frustration and failure is to retain a level of hope that can take a person through these difficult times. By Gary Shotton #000391

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”

Hope

By Gary Shotton

        Hello, My name is Gary Shotton and today I’m going to talk about the subject of “Hope”. There’s two kind of related words hope and faith, hope is something you believe into the future and faith is something you take action on believing in that hope and there’s a lot of ways to define those two things. I will tell you in my first business ownership was a moving and storage company where we moved furniture we moved people in one household to another house, When we would come in and we  pack all the dishes out of the cupboards and put them in boxes and we would come to every  chair and cover it so it would become clean we didn’t get it dirty and then we’d carry all these things the dressers the refrigerator, the washer the dryer ,the beds ,the cabinets and all the boxes and put them in to the truck that. We’re loading it into and sometimes the truck would go just maybe a mile or two to their new home in our metro area and sometime we would load it in a different truck and it would go all the way across the united states to a new home . I noticed that it was a life changing event for almost everyone that was moving even across town because it was going to be a way of uprooting your friends and your families and your neighbors and you’re going to have a chance  to start over well. I would like to say that this was a piece of cake that I started in and we had plenty of money, we had a plenty of income and we had plenty of cash on hand but I will tell you and this is the idea of hope.

There was times that I wanted to quit I literally removed myself from anyone in the area and bald my eyes out thinking I can’t go on. This is ridiculous my margins the amount of money that I tuck in as money and compared with all the bills that I had to pay there just was never hardly any surplus. I had to advertise at that time we used what’s called yellow pages it was a way that most people found us if we didn’t had already moved them and later on we trimmed that back and did some other things and that was thirty thousand dollars for the year in yellow pages. I found out that having a trucking company being on the highways that insurance was a big experience expense and I found out that I had to have multiple levels of insurance. I had to have what’s called work  insurance for my workers and I had to have product liability or liability insurance to cover the things that were in my warehouse and I had to have property insurance and I had actually one-tenth of everything that came in revenue went out in insurance premiums. Then  when  I did that I still held a really high deductible even to keep that premium down then and so my expenses were always high, my margins that would be the difference between my income that came in the door and my expenses going out the door. I’m telling you they were horrendously difficult and it was almost impossible at times I would look at my bank account and I knew that I had a $50 000 payroll on friday and every other week we’d have a fifty thousand dollar payroll and on monday my actual cash on hand was one thousand dollar I knew by friday I had to collect money and get revenues in and keep running the business and get $50 000. I wanted to quit I didn’t want to go on and only with having hope for the future having a confidence in the future only with that was I able to lower my head and plunge on and I’m going to tell you without God’s help I had no chance of succeeding. Other people they quit they stopped and they could have the success was just around the corner and as time went on when I just knuckled down and resisted the idea that I’m going to quit then I would push through and somehow with God’s help I could pull it together. There was a time I was late on some of my bills paying I had to explain to the vendors who had paid to me that had given me credit I would call them and tell them I can’t make my payment right now but here’s what I can do I communicated with him. I had to maintain hope, I had to have some way to get through this there’s some things you can do to maintain hope number one your trust can’t be in just you if you think you’re going to make ownership on your own I wouldn’t even try It, some people make it on their own I understand that but their confidence in themselves is not enough in at least in my case I had to have a confidence in God that I was to do what I’m doing. I’m going to stick with make it through and I’m learning something.

Number two I had to realize this was my training ground when things are going easy and not difficult I’m not learning much and I really  would not like to go through what I did in those 17 years but I would do it again if I had to because that’s where I learned how to do business it wasn’t when things are easy it was when things were tough it was one thing I had someone embezzled from me my right hand person that I trusted the most in the middle of the night took money out of my account hired my people and moved out of state to some other place with my equipment that was low. That was cheap that hurt and it was not only that it was him and his wife both work for me so my two best closest people were gone and they stole money from me that didn’t feel good I wanted to quit now there’s where it really boils down to are you called that be numbered through do you do you feel called to be in business this wasn’t something you just decided to do one morning “I think I’ll own a business”,  “I don’t like to work for my boss”, or “I don’t like this environment”.   No, that’s not good enough you better believe that God wants you in the business world you’re going to have to experiment through and figure that out a little bit on your own but I used the word of God and I saw over and over again how God used finances in the new testament and the old testament I saw how Jesus was a carpenter and Paul was a tent maker and many of the miracles were related to fishing or multiplication of bread that would be baking and a fish fry that would be like a food truck and they fed 5 000 people with that a lot of these miracles the first miracle was a miracle of changing water to wine well that was a financial miracle there’s all kinds of financial miracles in the  bible.

I realized that I’m onto something I’m able to learn some things about business that are going to be helpful for me but ultimately helpful for other people like yourselves hopefully I’m able to help some people to stay with it to not give up you know there was times I can remember a time when it was a hard job and I had underbid and the job was supposed to be done by eight o’clock at night it was a big office move and it didn’t go well and I’m there at nine o’clock ten o’clock at night 11 o’clock midnight I’m there at two o’clock in the morning when we’re finishing up and I didn’t notice something was over my head and I raised up and hit my head and when I hit my head it almost caused me to go to my feet almost fainted it hurt so bad and I was ready to pass throw in the towel and quit and I got up the next morning early got back on track the next morning took a deep breath and said you know with God’s help I’m not going to quit, I’m going to make this work out now if I was going to when I did change my business I’m not saying you’ll never change a business but I suggest that God would want you to change your occupation or sell your business when you’re on the high point not because you had to because you chose to that’s my suggestion and I’m in that spot right now I don’t know when it’s going to happen but I’m anticipating God stepping up in this area I’m kind of at the end of my plateau in one area and I’m ready to go on to something else but it’s in God’s hands not mine well I hope this is helpful to you have hope in God have hope that you can maintain that level of hope and turn it into faith and that faith into action and that action into prosperous prosperity. Thank you for being a part of  Inspiring Better Business and Thank you for Listening.