I love being in my own business. It sure beats working from 9 to 5 for somebody else. But being in your own business is not always easy. There are many people who would love to go into their own business, but they haven’t thought through all that is involved.

They haven’t thought of what kind of business they will go into, what kind of business goals they have, or where they aim to be in the future. So I would like to deal with all of these things here in this book.

Symbols in Ministry and Business

Now in the ministry side the Lord often gave us symbols for different types of ministries. A lot of the time the symbols that were used for those ministries were different kinds of vehicles.

As I have begun to move now into the business mandate, I have found that there is one main kind of vehicle that God uses to picture a business. It is that of a boat or a ship.

The Ships of Tarshish were very famous in Bible times, and 2 Chronicles 9:20 and 21 speaks about Solomon’s business activities. It says:

King Solomon's drinking vessels were all of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; silver was not counted as anything in the days of Solomon. 
For the king's ships went to Tarshish with Hiram's servants; once every three years the ships of Tarshish came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.

They brought back all sorts of exotic things - and lots and lots of wealth. The Ships of Tarshish in Scripture are always a picture of wealth and business activity.

A ship is a symbol of business activity. And fleets of ships are like a picture of full business activity, because there are many types of ships.

I am blessed being in my own business. I can set my own time and decide when I want to work. Or I can take time off when I want to. It is wonderful, because it gives me the freedom to do whatever ministry activity I need to, and to also devote myself to the business activities at the same time.

Daily Time with the Lord

One of the most wonderful experiences I have on a daily basis is to go down to the sea. The Lord has blessed us with the opportunity to live by the sea. In fact our home looks right out over it.

We look out of our window and can see the vast sea in front with some islands in the water. It is such a beautiful and relaxing picture.

It is wonderful to go first thing in the morning, before I even start my days’ activities, and have a time of walking on the beach. I get exercise, I get fresh sea air and sunshine, and I have an opportunity to sit there on the beach all alone.

It is just me and the Lord, and I sit and speak with Him and get ideas. In fact many of the principles that I will share with you in this book I got right there on the beach.

I sit with a little notebook and I wait on the Lord. He gives me revelation and I write down the ideas and the principles that come to me by the Spirit. It is a wonderful experience.

As I was sitting there on the beach on day, I looked out over the sea and saw how there were all kinds of different ships and boats on it.

We live close to an oil refinery, and there is a continuous supply of big oil tankers that come and park there for about a week or so at a time. They pump their oil out of the tanker into the oil refinery tanks, where the petroleum is processed and made into different kinds of fuels.

Then we see fishing boats going out. In fact at one time or another we have seen just about every different kind of boat that there is passing along our shoreline here.

Some go off into the horizon. Others come close to shore. It is such an awesome sight. I never get tired of it.

You know some people love to watch airplanes, and airplanes are also great to watch. But I find it so exciting to just look at the ships as they pass by, and to wonder what kind of activities take place on them.

Seven Types of Business Boat

As I meditated on this, I realized that there are many different kinds of ships. I’ve isolated seven different kinds of boats or ships that I believe are pictures of seven different kinds of business activity.

Perhaps you have wondered what kind of business you should be going into or what you could be involved in. I think that as we look at these different kinds of ships pictured as different kinds of businesses, you will get some idea of where you would like to be involved. Or perhaps you will see where you want to move to in the future if you are already involved in business.

I want to try and give you some kind of understanding of the different business opportunities that are available to you. I want to look at these different boats or ships, starting from the smallest and leading upwards. This will give you an idea of the kind of business you can be involved in.

The Sailing Yacht

The first kind of boat that I would like to look at is the sailing yacht.

Once a year there is a special race that takes place from San Diego to Ensenada near where we live. During that time the whole sea becomes filled with beautiful sailing yachts with all different colored sails.

It is a beautiful sight to see all these yachts moving slowly, only being driven by the wind. There is one little guy sitting there with his sails in his hands. He is trimming them and adjusting them to catch the wind, and to see if he can get his little yacht to the end first and so win the race. It’s a fascinating sight.

As I looked at the sailing yacht, I realized that because it is a one man vessel, it is a picture of a freelance business.

What is a freelancer? A freelancer is a person who no longer works for a boss in a fixed company, but he works for himself.

As a freelancer you can have a skill of any kind, perhaps like an artistic or a scientific skill. For me it was computer programming. That is the skill I had developed and learned over time, and I found out that while I was working for a boss I was limited.

I was working fixed hours doing all the programming work and being paid a salary. But after a while I found out that there were a lot of people out there who wanted extra programming work to be done.

I had a chance to go after hours and do what they call ‘moonlighting’. In other words in addition to my normal job, I could go after hours and do some programming for people.

Or I could write some of the programs at home for them, charge them a specific cost for it, and go and install it on their computers. I would get paid for extra work because I had a specific skill that people were prepared to pay for.

In time I realized that I was making more money from moonlighting than I was making in my normal job. And if I could do that in the afterhours which were less time than I had available during a full day, imagine how much I could do if I could work the whole day for myself, freelancing and charging people for my work?

The possibilities were endless. The dollar signs began to flash in front of me. Eventually I took that bold step and I stepped out to work in my own business.

Advantages of Freelancing

There are some advantages to being in your own business and being a freelancer.

Firstly you are your own boss and your time is your own. You don’t have to wake up in the morning with the alarm forcing you to get up, to get in your car and travel all the way to where you work.

You have to make sure you get there on time if you have a boss who is fussy about you working on time. You have to stay there all day until going home time, and maybe just have a little lunch break. Then you have to rush the traffic home.

We’ve all been that route haven’t we? But you know I’ve forgotten what it was like. It was so long ago that I left that. And it is so wonderful to be in my own business, to be free to choose when I will work and when I won’t work, who I will work for, and who I don’t want to work for.

Disadvantages

It is awesome to have that liberty, but there are also disadvantages to being a freelancer.

The first disadvantage is that if you don’t work you don’t eat. If you’re working for a company they give you so many days leave for vacation, and a certain amount of sick leave once a year.

If you wake up on a Monday morning with a bad dose of the flu, it is perfectly legal and acceptable for you to phone and say,

“Sorry I won’t be in to work today. I’m down with the flu. I’ll probably be in bed for 2 or 3 days. Can you make do without me?”

In most companies that will be fine. They will have somebody else to replace you. And the great thing is at the end of the month you still get paid the same amount of money, even though you weren’t there.

It is not so for a freelancer. You take a day’s work off to spend in bed and that is a day’s pay gone from your income.

And what do you do about vacation? You have so many days or weeks away or whatever it is that the company offers you for vacation leave. You say,

“We’re going on our annual vacation. We’re taking paid leave.”

You still get paid the same salary. In fact a lot of companies will even give you a vacation bonus or a Christmas bonus; extra money so that you can go on vacation.

It is not so if you are a freelancer. If you didn’t save up the money there is no vacation time this year. And let me tell you a little secret. You may complain about having to work 9 to 5, but when you’re a freelancer you are probably working from 6 in the morning until 12 at night.

You probably have very little free time because you cannot afford to take time off. You have to start off early in the day, and you end up working late at night. Sometimes you go into the early hours of the morning, to try and keep up with the deadlines and make sure you get the job done.

Other times you just don’t have any work. Now you have to go and find some work.

If you work for a boss you don’t have to go and find work. The work is already laid out for you. It is probably waiting on your desk when you get there in the morning, and the phone starts ringing the moment you step into the office.

This is not the case if you are in your own business. You have to go and find the business and the customers.

Here is the final limitation. I don’t care how much you charge per hour for your time, there are only 24 hours in a day.

Some of those you have to spend sleeping. Some of them you have to spend eating. Other times you have to spend going to the bathroom and doing other essentials in life, like taking time off to go shopping or whatever else you spend time on.

All of that time is wasted time when you are not earning money. So think about it before you go rushing off and say,

“That’s it, I’m going to leave my job and go and freelance. I’m going to make a fortune.”

I used to charge an exceptionally good hourly rate as a programmer. It was probably as good as some highly professional people like doctors. But did I have 8 or 10 hours a day available at that rate? Not always. In fact I often didn’t.

Yes I could get a programming project for 10 hours and charge my wonderful hourly rate, but that may be the only project I got for the whole month. And that was my salary and my income.

So if you choose to go into this kind of business and become a freelancer, I suggest you start by working for a company as a normal employee and add some moonlighting and sideline work. Begin to supplement your income and save up, and think very carefully before you decide to move into this kind of business.

I will be covering a lot of these things in much more detail as we continue, but I just want you to think through your possibilities. That is only the first boat.

The Fishing Boat

The second kind of boat is what I have called the fishing boat. We see them going out here. They range from a small rowing boat that has maybe a couple of people on it. Or it could be a motor boat, going right up to fairly large boats that sometimes have big nets and a whole crew onboard.

In the Scriptures we read how Jesus called some of His disciples like Peter, James and John, while they were catching fish and working for their father in their fishing business.

The fishing business is big. We see the fishing boats here going out and coming back in with the haul. They sometimes offer their wares to the public or they sell it to fixed businesses. But the idea of the fishing boat is that every day you go out and catch fresh fish.

What kind of business is this? This is a typical kind of business that supplies you a regular daily income; a kind of a bread and butter income.

It is a business in which you are offering services or products. It can be something as small as a little mom and pop shop; something that just gives you a regular income.

It could be something you are selling in the form of freelancing, but usually it is not just one person doing this business. There is a lot more involved. It is slightly bigger than the freelancer and brings in regular income.

Advantages and Disadvantages

You have the advantage of a steady income, and you have a fairly normal life. It is almost like being in a normal job. The only difference is that you own this business. It is yours and the income comes in steadily all the time on a daily basis.

The first disadvantage of this kind of business is that you are getting lots of small amounts coming in all the time. If you have been working on a salaried basis, either being paid every week, every two weeks or monthly, you know that you have to put aside money for your monthly commitments.

You may be paying a monthly rental for your house, or you’re paying a mortgage payment for it. You are making payments on your car and probably whatever else you bought on credit. These are likely large amounts that you usually pay out monthly.

It is great to have money coming in every day, to be able to go shopping daily and buy whatever you like because you have money all the time. But you need to be careful. When you get to the end of the month and it is time to pay those bills, if you didn’t set aside that money you are going to have a problem. So it requires a lot of discipline to be in your own business.

It is very easy when the money comes in to say,

“We’re getting a pretty good flow. I think we can go and buy that new car now and commit ourselves to an extra monthly payment.”

Can you? Next week suddenly the sales may drop. There can be a lot of fluctuation and variation and it can be a very insecure business. And once again you are the business. The business is dependent on you. If you do not work you do not eat. If you do not sell there is no income.

It is wonderful to have your little fishing boat, and it is great if you can have a little business that is providing just enough for you to live comfortably. For a lot of people that is all they want in life.

They say, “As long as we continue to get enough money to eat and buy clothes and pay our bills, then we just carry on life as normal. Don’t let anybody rock the boat. I don’t have any great big aspirations. I don’t have to be wealthy. I just need enough.”

That is the excuse most of us make for never accumulating wealth. We say,

“You know I don’t really need to be wealthy. I just need to have enough to get by on.”

Well how much is enough? Are you content to continue being a mediocre, ordinary person; someone who never rises up and who envies all the people driving their fancy cars; who envies people living in beautiful homes or who fly overseas to exotic locations on vacation every year?

If this is the case then the fishing boat is not enough. You will have to move up to some higher types of business.

The Merchant Ship

The next kind of ship is what I have called the merchant ship. This is more like the Ships of Tarshish.

The merchant ship is the ship that goes out and brings back cargo. I believe it is a picture of an international importing business; one that is trading larger volumes.

Instead of your little daily sales you are looking at big amounts; at big sales of large equipment and items that cost a lot of money. But because everything is on a larger scale, you’re not going to sell one of these every day.

You might only sell one or two in a month. Solomon’s ships only came back once every three years. They came back loaded, but with three years’ worth of provision.

Advantages and Disadvantages

If you want to have this kind of business you could make a lot of money. But what happens while you are waiting for the money to come in?

You have the advantage that when you make a sale it’s a large amount of money that comes in. But your income comes in isolated batches. It is not a regular guaranteed income. And what do you live on in the meantime? You need some kind of cash reserve or capital to carry you through?

So before you move into this kind of business, maybe you should be looking at setting up one of the smaller ones first.

Maybe you should have your fishing boat still going out every day to provide your bread and butter needs. Then start building this bigger business that provides the large sales and income. Then you can begin to accumulate wealth and some kind of reserve in your bank account, so that you can grow and move further.

The Oil Tanker

Now one of the best kinds of businesses is the ship known as the oil tanker. The oil tanker is a huge ship, and it comes and sits there and just keeps pouring its oil out.

When it is finished it moves off and another tanker comes to replace it. We see them where we live here all the time. Sometimes there are two or three of them at a time, parked out there in the sea and just pouring their oil in all continually.

What kind of business is this? This is what is known as a continuity program, a membership program or a subscription program. This is where you have a guaranteed regular income from people.

You offer a service or a membership to something. People then pay you on a regular monthly basis so that you are guaranteed an income.

It can be like a school program where you are offering training.

People commit themselves for an extended period and they say, “We’ll pay so much a month for 12 months,” or whatever the time period is.

There is a continual flow of income. It is actually a lot like the fishing boat. The only difference is you just set it up once and it continues to pump. And while that is busy you set up the next one.

If you can set up several of these continuity programs or membership programs, where people pay you a regular amount for a publication or a magazine or something like that, you will have a continual guaranteed flow.

And although each one of them will come to an end because people won’t stay with you forever, there will at least be an extended period.

During that extended period you can build more of these, until eventually you have all these streams of income coming in. You can almost get to the point where you can budget on a monthly basis and know exactly how much money will come in during the next time period.

Disadvantages

So having this kind of business has a great advantage. The disadvantage is you can’t set it up and forget about it. If you have offered somebody membership to a program that is offering them a continual service, then you will have to work all the time to provide that service.

If you are offering somebody a membership or a subscription to a training or educational program, you are going to have to continually supply the education, the materials, the training or whatever it is in order to get new people.

So it requires continual maintenance and administration, and always new materials because people get tired of the same old thing. You have to continually come up with something new and original, or else somebody else who is competing with you is going to offer something better and more up to date. You will start to lose all your subscribers and your income will begin to drop.

So this is a wonderful form of business to set up, but it is going to be a full time job maintaining that business.

You can see that we are getting bigger now. We have moved from an ordinary little one man show, to a mom and pops operation, to more of an international company. And now we have something huge that is reaching a lot of people.