The World Business

Biblical entrepreneurship is one of the next moves of God. This is the third dimension to the marketplace ministry movement. Marketplace ministry was first exposed when those within the charismatic movement began declaring our covenant rights about prosperity and wealth. The next component was uncovered with the faith at work declaration. This teaching shared the “know-how” of displaying our faith in practical ways within the marketplace. These two components were two-thirds of the circle. The last component is biblical entrepreneurship. Marketplace ministry has followed the biblical pattern within scripture. The pattern is as follows: promise – requirement – manifestation.

When researching the moves of God within scripture we find out that God usually begins a new thing with a promise. Then the promise is coupled with a requirement. The requirement generally deals with a lifestyle issue. After the lifestyle issue has been met the manifestation of the promise will occur. God initiated the marketplace ministry movement when He uncovered our rights to the Abrahamic covenant, which promised prosperity to Abraham’s seed (natural and spiritual). Inspirational teaching from Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland and others has exposed us to this promised.

Next the requirement component was exposed which taught us the fundamentals of living holy in the marketplace. There are books such as God @ Work by Rich Marshall and The Day of the Saints by Dr. Bill Hamon that has helped us conceptualize our roles. Now the promise must be manifested. This is the season for biblical entrepreneurship. The Christian entrepreneur will grab the promises of God along with the requirements of God and build an asset that produces wealth for the glory of God.

There are three fundamental concepts to being a Christian entrepreneur. They are purpose, service and influence. Biblical entrepreneurship is a holistic approach to starting an organization. Christian entrepreneurs must understand that God must be placed at the center of every business activity.

These three fundamental concepts are the keys needed to open the doors to true entrepreneurship. The concept of purpose focuses on the “why” of the entrepreneur. The second concept of service will help the entrepreneur understand that service will take the organization to world-class statues. The last concept of influence encourages the entrepreneur to use his or her resources to communicate the gospel of the kingdom to a dying world.

Christian entrepreneurs strive to have biblical principles as their companies’ standards. The desire of this type of entrepreneur is not centered on wealth and power but on completing God’s will for his or her life. These individuals will build their lives and companies on biblical truths.

Christians that have the calling to purse entrepreneurship need practical teaching on how to live out their faith in the marketplace. They must also be encouraged to seek God so His presence and power can be manifested in their organizations. Our leadership within the Body of Christ has to be aware of the things God is doing in the marketplace.

Biblical entrepreneurship is God’s next move in advancing His kingdom within the marketplace. God has set the stage so we can move into this third dimension. Now is the time to equip believers to minister within the marketplace

It's 6 in the morning. The alarm clock is buzzing, and you're thinking to yourself, "What's the point in getting up this early for work?" For some of us, the motivation is simply the desire to shut off the clock that is vibrating off the nightstand. But for others, it is truly self-motivation. It is an internal alarm clock that motivates a person to make the best of his or her day.

Certainly, everyone wants to succeed in the world. Everyone wants to have a purpose, to be at the top of the corporate ladder, or to be the best he or she can be in any given area. But why do some people succeed in doing these things, and others do not? The answer is: self-motivation.

There are several factors that contribute to self-motivation. They include:

-Self-esteem
-Desire to succeed
-Will power
-Mental stability
-Family
-Life goals
-Daily activities
-Daily pleasures

All of these factors will directly affect success in a career, in academics, in playing sports, and in marriage and parenting. Whether you desire the highest position possible at your job, or graduating with a 4.0 grade point average, you need self-motivation to do it. Self-motivation drives an athlete to score the winning soccer goal, just as it drives a parent to be a good role model for a child.

Along with the desire to succeed comes mental stability. Everyone has a bad day here and there; but what self-motivates a person to continue on with the bad day? The answer is mental stability. The mind is a great force. When you put your mind to accomplishing something, you will try your best to do it. As a result, your will power is tested. Being able to stay self-motivated and focused on what is important rather than "throwing in the towel" allows you to succeed in the end. Will power, mental stability, and the desire to succeed are all the result of self-motivation.

Another factor that drives self-motivation is the family unit. Family can self-motivate an individual to be successful. An individual – especially a working spouse – will crave the family's pride and approval. The working spouse self-motivates himself or herself simply by worrying whether or not the family is taken care of financially. The working spouse will most likely want to earn a high paycheck, and in the end provide for the family. Children often idolize their parents and will mimic what they see their parents doing. In the end self-motivation is passed on from one generation to the next, as it is an important role in family affairs.

Lastly, self-motivation is driven by daily goals and basic daily routines such as losing weight or learning how to play a sport. The simple daily pleasure of waking up to see the sun shine, to hear the birds singing, or even listening to the rain are all pleasures which can self-motivate a person to get up in the morning.

Recent survey numbers highlight how Internet traffic is growing exponentially and is poised for a 600% increase by 2012. The huge increase in Internet traffic comes at a time when the convergence of mobile search technologies and local search capabilities will drive the growth of online marketing, local search and mobile search to similar heights - while driving foot traffic to businesses large and small that have a "digital footprint" in today's surging digital economy.

Staggering numbers from worldwide networking leader Cisco Systems predict a six-fold increase in global traffic on the Internet, highlighting the increasingly important role online marketing and internet advertising will play for businesses large and small as consumers increasingly move online to do both shopping and "Windows shopping". Cisco released its Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast for 2007-2012 on June 16th, which predicts that we will see a 600% increase in Internet traffic by 2012. Cisco's VNI projections predicts that Internet traffic will double roughly every two years as a result of "a combined annual growth rate of 46 p[er cent form 2007 to 2012.

The key component in this surge of Internet traffic will be video streaming. Cisco predicts that by 2012, "video traffic alone will be 400 times the traffic carried over the U.S. portion of the Internet in 2000. Increasingly, marketing agencies and advertisers are moving off traditional media and moving online to exploit the consumer movement to the Internet. Significantly, much of this consumer movement online will result from the increasing tendency of consumers to access the Internet from handheld mobile devices - a trend that will only increase as RIM, Nokia and other cellular phone and mobile device manufacturers move to keep pace with Apple that just recently released its next-generation 3G iPhone.

Cisco is predicting that mobile data will roughly double each year from 2008 to 2012, highlighting the importance that mobile search will play in an emerging digital economy. Jupiter Research, a leader in online research analysis, has projected that annual revenue from mobile search revenues are expected to hit $US4.8 billion dollars annually by 2013.

As technologies converge, the driver behind these anticipated huge jumps in online advertising and mobile search numbers is - not surprisingly for those who have been tracking the emerging technologies of Web 2.0 - local search. Jupiter predicts that in the emerging digital economy, local search will be the most popular service amongst all advertisers and will attract 40% of all mobile search ad spending between 2008 and 2013.

The convergence of technologies that is fostering the growth in mobile search, and particularly local search, was illustrated by Google CEO, Eric Schmidt. Sitting down for a much-publicized interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo earlier this spring, the head of the search engine giant touted how improvements in mobile search capabilities on advanced mobile handhelds (such as the BlackBerry or Apple's iPhone) combined with advances in Google Maps and Google's local search capabilities are making real time, and precise geopraphic local search a reality.

"(W)henever I fly somewhere," Schmidt told CNBC, "I open up ... my iPhone or my BlackBerry, and, boom, there's everything in my world as I've landed in a country I've never been in. It's a remarkable achievement." Schmidt notes that Google has been tracking the huge increase in use of Google Maps local search technology. "(T)here's been a huge increase in maps, Google Maps, hugely successful," Dr. Schmidt reports. "(W)hen I want to go to the equivalent of a Starbucks, I just type "Starbucks," it says it's over there. For me, that's just a huge--a huge improvement. And that service is available almost everywhere in the world."

What is common practice for Google's high-flying and technologically enriched CEO is increasingly becoming commonplace for the digital consumer on the street. The predicted growth in internet traffic, together with the radical shift of advertising dollars to online marketing and the growing tendency of Internet-savvy consumers to take up mobile search, clearly forecast where commerce and e-commerce is headed. While there may still be local niche markets that depend on foot traffic to drive their business, increasingly it is a company's digital footprint that drives customer traffic to its online site or storefront. And the vehicle driving that electronic traffic is mobile search. As online traffic balloons between now and 2012, the importance on local search, mobile search and online marketing will also balloon.

Copyright 2005 Elaine Currie

Free Internet advertising is sought after by most Internet marketers and one readily available source of free Internet advertising is the Internet forum. For Internet marketing novices, I'll briefly explain how free Internet advertising is obtained from Internet forums.

Basically, Internet forums are message boards where members can exchange information, obtain advice or just chat. There are Internet forums to cater for every topic you would care to imagine (and a few you would probably prefer not to dwell on). The Internet marketer advertises his product simply by posting messages on the forums. There are some Internet forums that forbid the posting of advertisements but, on many of these forums, it is still possible to obtain free Internet advertising by use of a signature file. The signature file is a short piece of text which can contain a link to a website and which can be annexed to every posting a member makes on a forum message board.

If you have never tried forums as a source of free Internet advertising, you should bear in mind that there is an unwritten code of etiquette which need to be observed. The following are some of the unwritten rules which need to be followed if you intend to use forums for free Internet advertising for your business.

Read the Forum Rules

You need to read the rules of any Internet forum before you try to post a message there. I know this sounds obvious but it is clear that many forum users don't bother to read the rules, despite the fact that the forum registration process inevitably includes a requirement for the applicant to check a box indicating that the forum rules have been read and will be adhered to. Don't just sign up with the idea of getting as much free Internet advertising as possible from the forum. Many forums prohibit the posting of affiliate urls anywhere apart from in the members' forum signature file. If you become a member of one of these forums without reading the rules and start posting your affiliate urls in messages, you will quickly find yourself labelled a "spammer". In case you didn't know, spammers are considered to be the lowest of the low on the Internet. If there was a virtual prison for Internet crime, Internet advertising spammers would have to be kept in solitary confinement for their own protection.

Lurk Before You Leap

Internet forum etiquette demands that you spend a little time "lurking" ie logging in at the forum and reading previous and current threads before you even think of starting to use the forum for free Internet advertising. Although lurking is not an official rule of Internet forums, it is largely accepted as an essential part of the unwritten code of behaviour. The practice is very useful. Lurking will enable you to get the feel of how a forum works, you will be able to ascertain the tone of the messages, the type of subject matter which is welcomed and the level of expertise of other forum members. You might even find that a particular forum is not for you and this could save you the embarrassment of posting an inappropriate message on the forum.

Be Subtle

You know that you are visiting the forum merely for the free Internet advertising for your website but it is better not to make this obvious if you want other members to react well to your advertising. Forums are rather like private clubs where members strike up friendships and make business deals. If you rush in waving your "FREE INTERNET ADVERTISING" placard you will not become popular, other members will consider you to be an abuser of their "club". You will do much better if you quietly introduce yourself and keep the free Internet advertising down to a whisper in your signature file.

Remember Your Manners

How hard is it to say "thank you"? If you visit a forum and receive valuable advice which helps you in some way, take a moment to post a brief message of thanks to your advisor. If someone helped you out of a spot in the bricks and mortar world you would thank them. Remember that people who post on Internet forums are real too and they are under no obligation to help you. It is as easy to make a friend with a warm word as it is to create an enemy with a harsh word and you never know when you might meet these people again.

Help Whenever You Can

Help other people whenever you can. Even if you don't have any specialist knowledge, you will find occasions when you can pass on good advice. If you received advice that took you to a solution, post a message to say how the advice helped and what steps you followed to sort things out, this will act as a signpost for other people who might find themselves in similar difficulties. Even though you joined the forum with the idea of using it merely as a form of free Internet advertising, make time to give something back. People will be more inclined to take an interest in your advertising if you become known as a helpful type. What goes around comes around and, in any event, the reputation of being a problem-solver is a bit of free Internet advertising in its own right.

Be Moderate

The majority of Internet forums have moderators to ensure that members stick to the rules. The job of a forum moderator is to keep the content of the forum appropriate. Remember, it is not just a place where you can indulge in free Internet advertising, so keep your messages within the forum rules. Any graffiti posted by members will be cleaned up by the moderators so that the forum environment is preserved for all members to enjoy. If you wish to retain the respect of your fellow forum members, make sure your posts never need to be cleaned up, be your own moderator. As well as sticking to the forum rules on content, you should also keep your messages moderate in tone. The Chambers dictionary includes the following definitions of "moderate": kept within measure or bounds; not excessive or extreme; temperate. If you avoid drama and pathos in your forum posting and keep your messages moderate, you will not attract "flamers" and you can quietly enjoy your free Internet advertising.

Ration Your Reading

Internet forums can be addictive. There is a serious danger that you might log in to a forum with the idea of posting a message or two in order to get your daily ration of free Internet advertising but, the next thing you know is that half an hour has passed by while you have been engrossed in reading. There is nothing inherently wrong with spending time reading posts made by other forum members, it's free entertainment and that's fine. The problem is that, if you are trying to run an Internet marketing business and you lose yourself on forums for half an hour every day, you will be wasting something like half a day during the course of each week for the sake of posting a couple of links back to your website. That is not an economical use of your time. In fact, if you account for the value of your time, you will find you are actually paying a high price for your free Internet advertising on forums.