I’m so happy that you’re here with us as a part of Inspiring Better Business today We’re going to talk about influence and how being a business owner could put you in a position of influence and how your business can Influence the society around you the economy around you. You want to be a person of influence Number one I want to be clear that Gaining and having money by itself is not what I’m talking about, you know money can influence, of course But I’m not talking about that I’m talking about The influence you have in owning and operating a business money by itself can be gained and somebody could have horrible influence just Even if they have money But the key here is to have influence through the marketplace through your your business and that comes by doing things Right that comes by Taking care of business that comes by being reputable in your community that comes by taking care of your employees paying their bills Having customers that are happy to come back to you If you don’t have a customer that’s repeat with you then, you know I kind of wonder if you had influence over that customer there flighting a way to find somebody else to do their business with and to service them so Influence is something you want to have but you want to gain it in in a good way I’m standing here on a short trip with my wife We’re here at the capital of the United States of America and behind me. You can see our capital Well, there’s a good example right there The United States of America has influence now they have money but more importantly, they have the ability to use their marketplace the ability to have success in business to gain by selling products and services and Being a leader of this whole world. That’s influence. That’s what we’re talking about And you know we go through different leadership roles if parties roll lead in a leadership role but at the end of the day this Country has influence because it has the ability in many ways to do business to be successful You think about it? Do you have influence? Are you gaining influence? Are you on a path to be influential? Just think about this I Have in this country in this city in this trip We saw several people sleeping on a park bench in the United States of America Sleeping under a tent in a park Not a very good picture, you know, I don’t walk up to those people and say man You’re sure you’re a man of influence. You’re a person of influence I walk up and think I want to stay away from that person They have very little influence because they haven’t had success Well, if you have success you’re going to have influence over a period of time. It’s a kind of unique now You’re not actually seeking influence You’re seeking to be a good business person you’re seeking to be Honorable in what you do do and as a by-product as a fact you will have influence Let’s talk about a few key people. We’ve already talked about our good old United States of America has influence What about some Christian business owners that I can name number? one my one of my leading persons that is Now deceased is Sam Walton. He had a marketing business a retail outlet that grew into Walmart, and yes had made a lot of money and at first a lot of the Other stockholders and the stock market didn’t view them very highly but over time he all he did was stay to business stay working steady in his business continue to do things better and Over time he had huge influence. The same thing is true with Truett Cathy That’s s true it Cathy with chick-fil-a chick-fil-a is a Chicken fast-food restaurant. That is extremely successful once again Truett Cathy wasn’t how trying to be on the speaking circuit wasn’t trying to be Well-known wasn’t trying to be popular He did good business Same thing happened with the green family. We were just at a memorial for the Bible Museum And wow, what a great facility Yeah, it took money to build that museum but he influenced other people to get behind that cause and build a museum to the Bible this unbelievable four hundred thousand square feet of space Six floors and again, what did what did he do? Well through Hobby Lobby and through Mardell’s Christian bookstore and through other businesses. He owned he did good business. He stayed steady He was consistent. Most of these people are naming became influential later in life, by the way I have a little problem sometimes with somebody that’s trying to be extremely Influential and they’re quite young. I know there’s nothing against young people getting a headline But we haven’t seen this play out We haven’t seen how this person deals when things are not going so well We haven’t seen how this person deals with when the pressures on when extremes pressures on so I kind of like to see that happen It’s not a total issue of age, but it’s an issue of being seasoned mature Developed and so that’s what’s going to happen. I can quickly talk about my dad again. I talk about him a lot He was not a man that wanted to be a speaker he didn’t try to join every club in town being popular in the community in the sense of Volunteering a lot but man, he had influence in his own world my own self I’m not the most influential person but I will tell you that when I walk into a room and and And there’s people there that know me I can walk up to them and they want to talk to me They want to be friendly with me They’re not running away from me why I have worked diligently over the last 35 years To do good business to be complete in my transactions to be fair to provide a quality product services. I’ve had two different businesses And so people have seen me operate in a way That they’ve seen me through the test of times those people close to me the supplier of our equipment I have great influence with that person that I bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment Because they’ve seen me buy equipment and pay it off and be good in business my banker my banker He knows me. He knows my financial statements, but he knows how I’ve done business. So that’s what we’re talking about Well ask yourself. Do you want to become a person of influence? This is for men and women both do you striving to do that? Are you doing the things that are necessary to become influential? That’s what we need this country influences the world Your business you yourself can influence the people around you and I believe a part of that is for the cause of Jesus Christ well, thanks for being a part of these IBBTalks I thank you for being to this discussion and hopefully you’ll share these with other people and it’d be a benefit. Thank you very much