The Law of Multiplication
8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”
Mark 4:8
One of my favourite concepts from the Bible is multiplication. Think for a moment about your body. It started as just one cell. This cell became two, then four, then eight, then sixteen and so on and so forth, so that your body contains around 1 trillion cells. It is truly remarkable. That is multiplication!
Let’s apply this concept to business. Let’s say you start an online business and you tell ten friends about it. Each of those ten friends tell ten more. Now you have one hundred people, plus your original ten who know about it. Those 110 now tell ten more each. If you repeat this process, ten times, you reach an astonishing figure of over 1 billion people, all from you telling just ten people, and getting them to tell ten more each. You might say Alex ‘that’s impossible’. Is that not what Facebook has done? Google? Apple? Why not you? This is one of the amazing things about social media, it is an amazing multiplier model for business. It is the same as the old ‘word of mouth’ just on steroids.
There are of course other great business models such as franchising that are great multipliers. McDonalds is probably the world’s best known franchiser with more than 35,000 stores in 119 countries. Many businesses can be franchised, could yours be next?
When God created man, he said “Be fruitful and Multiply”. Notice the two parts to this. What will be the fruit of your business? Will it be a multiplication of souls? Will it be masses of people lifted out of poverty? Will it be a shift in thinking in the culture on a controversial issue?
There are many other multiplier models such as product licensing or revenue sharing. God wants us to build profitable kingdom-minded businesses. God can use us in many ways to glorify him, but multiplication is a way you can build influence and authority in your niche, as well as a profitable business that can be used to fund many needs, be it helping others out of poverty, to funding the great commission.
Reflection
- What crop will your life and your business produce? Will you produce a crop that multiplies for the kingdom of God?
- What is your business model? Is it something that can multiplied or do you need to adjust it somehow so that can happen? A large number of businesses can be multiplied. The local coffee shop can become a coffee chain. The suburban real estate office can become a national agency?
- Evaluate your thinking – have you been thinking too small? One of the reasons many small businesses don’t go very far, is because their owners have never though that far ahead.
- How fruitful has your business been? What kind of fruit do you believe God wants you to multiply?
Call to Action
- Seek God about your business. Ask him how you can multiply your business? Where should you start? What business model should you adopt? Remember God is the ultimate entrepreneur and visionary.
- What need in society do you believe God is calling you to address? It doesn’t have to be just one, although more than likely there is a key area of focus that God has for you.