hello my name is Gary Shotton and today we’re going to talk about “Preachers Discounts”. well you know you sometimes think in developing nations that you only face these things there but almost everything that you face in a developing nation we face in America as well and these this question came up as a result of our discussions with the groups in East Africa and it seems that there’s become a culture or an a habit that preachers or ministers are expecting the business people to provide their services for free might be anything from a haircut to a free meal to seamstress that would create and make gifts for something special at the church or designing something for free if you’re skilled in a website design almost anything that if you’re a Christian then you should provide that free to for sure paid ministers and pastors and possibly for even other Christians well that faces us in America as well keep in mind that currently I own a business that it only deals with big companies and and jobs that are going out to big companies previously I owned a business that was very susceptible to this issue it was a moving and storage company and we had people that were moving from one house to another or an office to one office to another and we had multiple workers multiple trucks and early on especially I remember a phone call that someone called in and you could kind of sense a bit of desperation in their voice and they were asking what it would what would be involved with us moving their house and and at the end we said well it’d be several hundred dollars to do that and the response was well I thought you were a Christian company why are you charging me well let me tell you if you’re owning a business running a business you’re going to have to walk through this and figure out where you fit in it number one if you’re called to be in business that means you’re probably called to be a giver and a call to be a giver means you’re gonna have to sort through when and what and where you give to and just because someone calls you on the phone and ask you for a discount or ask you for free something or even if it’s a pastor does that fit in to what God has told you to do their need does not result in your having to do what you’re asked for each time you’re going to become more focused on why you’re in business more focused on on what your money is intended for and even in the giving part of it but first of all unless you are making a profit or at least paying your bills you won’t be in business very long so if you follow down this route of everything free to anyone that calls pretty soon you’re finding yourself out of business and that’s not good you’ll find yourself giving away its goods and services to people that didn’t pay you at prime time it seems that the desire and requests for free services or discount services seems always to come in your busiest time many times it comes because those that are asking didn’t prepare if they would have called like a month ahead and say hey if you’ve got a little time in my case I would sure appreciate a little break on the cost things are a little tight right now they could ask me that and I could say okay if you could move on Monday when we’re not very busy then we could probably do that with a bit of a discount but if you want to be moved on the busiest day of the month oh that’s that’s hard and if my best crew that’s hard so you’re gonna have to think ahead a little bit in this and guide people that are it’s a culture thing so you’re probably going to offend some people number two if you’re in in this situation you’re gonna have to guide some people to think hey differently on their part they many times don’t think of you with the pressures you have in business ownership Europe probably if you’re like me many times just verily paying my bills and so when people would ask me situations like that I would have to respond and say listen I understand your situation you need some help here but there’s other places you can get the help you can get someone else maybe to volunteer and help you but in my case I’m committed to pay my bills and if I give away all these free services I can’t pay my bills now but well some of the times what I did do if I had some control on it I’m say let me help you get ready get really ready and I’ll let me help coach you and train you what you can do so that you’re going to cut the time involved well no they wanted me just do everything and unbeliev it or not the people that wanted the free stuff many times their plays was absolute mess it would be the most expensive thing we could do to go in and or fix it up there’s a key red flag when I hear someone and I think in my judgment that they’re expecting me pressuring me to give it free or discounted that really doesn’t fit well with me and there’s a way to handle that you can roll through the process and say no hey this is going to cost you this amount and when they’re ready to pay when you know that they’re already past that point of a charity thought then you can say well you know I realize I could go ahead and help you with this and then either give it free or discounted it’s not a trick but it’s kind of letting you know that they they’re willing to pay and then you can step in and take the cost well let me give some examples one of the ministries we support it was very involved with my family and my daughter in particular and they had a really particular big move from our city to another city in and it was going to be really expensive I did give them almost free I charged them basically the very base cost of my fuel and my expenses it was so middle is like one-tenth the cost so they did pay that but I willingly and openly gave that because I had a relationship with them I was telling them how much I appreciated them they had already provided me and not at a paid services but they were already doing things for me see this is a family when one part of the family wants to help another the far the part of the family let’s do it but let’s do it with some thought let’s do it in a way that it doesn’t harm each other let’s do it in a way that doesn’t take advantage someone overly that that someone’s not put at a disadvantage but when somebody starts expecting it from me it’s probably going to be a no it’s probably going to be cost because I got a you know minor way train them a talk they say listen this is costing me money so I could say things like him on my on my end when I’m doing a job I have 90 percent of everything you pay me goes to cover my direct cost I’ve got to have that amount of money to cover my cost and I will give you my profit so I’ll discount it a small amount those are some ideas I can give you well I know that this is not going to go away in one video but I hope I’m giving you some ideas and I hope that the pastors and the ministers you know there’s a difference between discount and totally free well I hope that the the pastors and ministers are understanding that they cannot take care take advantage of their business people they they’re actually protecting their business people and even addressing some of these issues from the pulpit so that people are not surprised about you and while you wouldn’t maybe in the past you gave it away free but everyone’s got to grow up just a little bit more on this and we’ve got to take our places in a way that’s going to improve and be strong and be a great witness for the body of Christ the Rend result unfortunately is could be hard feelings and misunderstandings and disappointments and that tears away from the family the body the people the congregation so we hope this helps God’s blessings – Inspiring Better Business