Continuing our series on 7 Strategies for Fighting Pests, we’ve discussed at some length the concept of leaf toughness as being a picture or model of saying “no” to pests that would consume us. Another way of looking at leaf toughness is the idea of setting boundaries. Everyone needs boundaries, not only to keep you out of trouble, but to keep trouble from invading your space.

You must learn to set boundaries for yourself, what you will allow and what you won’t. You must set boundaries for your coworkers, your staff, even your boss. Yes, there are boundaries that must be set for your family and friends too. Boundaries have two sides to them. The first side is the inside consisting of everything you want inside that territory, be that your time territory, your financial territory, your influence territory, etc. The second side, is the outside consisting of everything that wants to get inside your territory and consume your time, your finances and/or your stuff!

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God counts the stars because it matters. What kind of things can you count in your line of work? I suggest you consider counting/tracking results in your sales process, your marketing process and any other process you have identified in your business because it matters. It can greatly impact your outcome.

If you’re in sales, you might want to start by counting your market size (potential) and then figure out how you can identify the prospects and get them flowing into your sales process. You will need to know not only market potential, but from there, how many you will be able to get enough information on to actually make contact with.

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What do a New York Times #1 Bestseller, a three time Olympian, a self-made billionaire, a foremost expert on time management, Zig Ziglar and I all have in common? We will be sharing the stage together in Tacoma, Washington for a one day only event on Tuesday, July 10th. The Event is none other than one of Peter Lowe’s nationally acclaimed Get Motivated Business Seminars.

I will be sharing the three most important things I have learned about succeeding in sales over the length of my career and am hopeful those in attendance will find value and meaning in the content I will be presenting. There are always thousands in attendance and many of the speakers care deeply as I do that we well represent our faith while making a top notch, professional presentation.

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Want to emulate the ways of God? Consider Psalm 147:2-6. I want to continue with the fifth of seven characteristics of God’s ways described here as: “He determines the number of the stars”. In my previous blog on this topic, we looked at the fact that God is careful about keeping up with things that are His. He counts the stars, of which there are no less than 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 give or take a few.

This speaks to me of the fact that God cares about the little things. The same God that created the stars and set them in the sky was also careful to fold his burial cloth neatly after being raised from the dead. This same God with unlimited supply who creates substance from words and fed the 5,000 plus women and children from a small boy’s lunch, was also careful to organize the groups to sit in orderly sections of fifty, then gather up the fragments that there be no waste!

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Pests consume what we produce so that at the end of the day we have little to show for our efforts. In previous emails we’ve discussed the various kinds of pests that eat away at your day, that upon honest reflection, we really could have made better choices to limit or even eliminate their effect. Last week we discussed how leaf toughness, a rainforest strategy for deterring pests was analogous to personally getting tough and saying “No” to those pests, no matter how nice, friendly and persuasive they are if they are going to pull you away from being productive.

Here’s the thing on that… It’s easy to say “no” to the obvious bad choices, like going to a movie in the middle of your workday. What is difficult and what requires wisdom is having to make a good choice between worthy but competing time commitments. Or having to make a choice about a new but unexpected opportunity. It’s not as easy as it may seem. To make a good choice, consider asking a few questions… Is this consistent with my primary purpose as I understand it? Does this contribute to the vision I am working towards? If so, is it more important or more strategic or more timely than what I am currently working on?

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Want to emulate the ways of God? Consider Psalm 147:2-6. The fifth of seven characteristics of God’s ways described here is: “He determines the number of the stars”. Do you know how many stars there are? The last estimate I read was 70 sextillion. That’s 70 million, million, million or 7 followed by 22 zeroes. That’s also estimated to be 10 times as many as there are grains of sand found on all the world’s beaches and all the world’s deserts combined! We’re just guessing, but God has them numbered - inventoried if you will. What does that tell you about God?

It tells me that details matter, that abundance is no excuse for ignorance and that we have a responsibility to “know the state of our flocks” as it were and “look well to our herds”. Though we might not know all the relevant numbers for our business at any given moment, we should be able to access that information quickly. Information is one of the 4 fundamental components for rapid growth in a business. Without accurate information, we are prone to make mistakes and some of those can be deadly to a business.

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Want to emulate the ways of God? Consider Psalm 147:2-6. The fourth of seven characteristics of God’s ways described here is: “He binds up their wounds.”  In business, we are often called upon to bind up the wounds of our customers. Those wounds are areas of pain caused by a myriad of different things, some of which we are called and especially wired to fix, to bind up as it were.

Want to develop customer loyalty? Find their pain and bind up their wound. Many of you know I am helping SeedAmerica raise a $100 million endowment. That’s a tall order for the next 18 months, but is very feasible because the sales team is trained to find very real financial pain that a lot of large corporations have and relieve that pain, (bind up that wound) in as little as 30 days. We help them and in the process move ever closer to our goal.

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This week, I have had several messages about “healing.” People in sales can often carry emotional hurts and wounds from past work experiences and relationships. These wounds can hinder them from maximizing the fruit and harvest of their current jobs and careers–until they allow God to bring healing. A long-time friend and co-laborer in the Faith at Work movement responded to my emails this week, and made me aware of the first-ever “Healed @ Work Conference” on October 18-20, 2007 in historic Sturbridge, Massachusetts. I invite you to visit http://www.healedatwork.org/ for details, and prayerfully consider registering.

I know my previous blog spoke of healing in a business context. By that I mean, I suggested that as business people in the marketplace, we will have much more success if we recognize what is broken and have the best solution to mend and make whole their situation.

I do not want it to appear that I think the only application is for healing broken businesses, etc. I also believe there is a time to actually heal a physical malady right there in broad daylight. I am reading a book right now, 90 Minutes in Heaven, about a preacher killed in a head on collision at a combined speed of 110 mph.

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Want to emulate the ways of God? Consider Psalm 147:2-6. The third of seven characteristics of God’s ways described here is: “He heals…” Who does He heal? He mends and makes whole the broken hearted. One business application readily appears. Our job is to mend and make whole that which is broken. Find a need and meet it.

The broken are, by nature, disappointed. They thought they had an appointment with one outcome and their appointment was “dissed”. It’s important that you understand there is not only a physical reality to address of something that is broken, be that a process, a product or a plan; but there is an emotional reality as well. There is heartache and emotional distress when the plan, the dream, the vision, seems to fail.

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