Before wealth manifests itself in tangible form, it exists first and foremost in an intangible form. What we see with our natural eyes is a manifestation of something that first existed in an unseen state. The rainforest we see was once a seed we didn’t see. In our lives, everything is “twice created” — first in your mind, then in physical form.  If you go through life only seeing the effect or the outcome but never discern the cause of things, you will live at the mercy or lack thereof of those who see into both worlds and move freely between them.

Wealth is first of all an internal possession. If you don’t have it on the inside, you will never have it on the outside. You can only manifest in life what you possess on the inside. Nothing more. The life you lead on the outside is a reflection of the things you believe and the truths you understand on the inside.

Some years ago in the dead of winter, I took on a new client in small Midwest town. He picked me up in the morning to take me to his office which turned out to be a rundown, clapboard house in the poor side of town. When we walked through the front door, the carpet was thick with dog hair and shredded newspaper. I thought it must be where he kept his dog when it got cold and where he stored his construction equipment. As we worked our way through piles of old newspapers and stacks of magazines we found ourselves in the room he called his office.

He sat down at his desk as I stood awkwardly looking for a chair I could clear off and be seated in. Not finding one and looking intently at him and the disaster that was his office, I asked him a question… “Can I be frank with you?”

He winced as he seemed to know what was coming and replied, “I am paying you thousands of dollars. I expect you to be frank with me.”

With kindness and directness I replied, “This place is a pig sty. There is no point in me helping you bring order to this mess. It’s a reflection of the mess on the inside of you. Unless we deal with the mess on the inside of you first, this mess will just come right back!” He agreed and we left immediately for a restaurant to have breakfast.

We spent the rest of the day at his discretion, identifying the utter poverty and chaos that was on the inside of him. His story was painful and horrific, but completely redeemable. Over the course of our time together, we rooted out the lies that he believed and planted truth in the core of his soul. It was clear by the time I left that he was ready to bring order to his outside world because it had finally come to his inside world. Despite a significant financial inheritance, this man lived in poverty on the outside because that is what he had on the inside. We can only sustainably project to the outside what we consistently have on the inside.

IMPORTANT NOTE: David Johnson has been conducting some top notch training over the phone to a select group of folks who signed up for this in March. The response has been the best from anything we’ve ever done. I’ve asked David to conduct another free teleseminar next week to talk about how this can help grow your business substantially. He will have the input of current students and a lot more new stuff to share.

We will give you all the details you need on Monday’s blog but for now, here are the choices you will have to attend this free teleseminar exclusive to folks on our coaching lists. (If you are receiving this email, you are on that list) All times are listed in US Eastern time, so please click to calculate your local time.

• Tuesday at 9pm
• Wednesday at 1pm
• Thursday at 7am
• Thursday at 4pm

Well, it’s Rainforest Friday and I wanted to share with you the seven stages of growth every seed goes through to become a productive tree. If God can refer to us as trees of righteousness (Isa 61:3) then I certainly feel comfortable doing so. The rainforest makes an excellent business model for anyone so here are the seven stages you should know about that every tree (business) goes through.

1. Germination: The idea is acted on. Investment is made. Resources are committed.
2. Roots down: The new plant looks for security, sending roots down to get more water (information) and nutrients (capital) gaining stabilization before going to market.
3. Stems up: The stems support the leaves. Think of the stems as the leadership team going ahead and opening up the new location or venture which will ultimately support a team of productive workers (leaves). Leaders must lead. They need to go first.
4. Seek the light: Keep your eye on the vision. Be vigilant about continuously aligning your strategy with the vision. Position yourself to best pass on the vision to the rest of the team.
5. Grow leaves: Build your support staff and get productive. Leaves turn light energy (vision) into chemical energy (action) to produce food (product or service).
6. Flowers bloom: Flowers use shape, color, design and scent to attract pollinators such as birds and bees. Think of the flowers as marketing and the pollinators as early adopters. The pollinators are first to respond to the marketing message and they carry that message wherever they go. They spread the word on behalf of the marketer. That ultimately brings the next phase.
7. Grow fruit: Think of it as critical mass. According to Wikipedia, “Critical mass is a sociodynamic term to describe the existence of sufficient momentum in a social system such that the momentum becomes self-sustaining and fuels further growth.”

In the rainforest, once fruit is produced, every manner of customer flocks, climbs and crawls to enjoy its bounty. In the process the seeds within the fruit are freely distributed on the forest floor ensuring a self sustaining condition with continuous future growth. Hope you found this helpful. Details at 11:00 (o-:

Until next time, be fruitful, then multiply.

I want to thank all of you who have been praying for me and my family. I do not take that lightly. We need prayer cover as the battle is intense. My wife and I deeply appreciate your care and love for us. We returned safely from Costa Rica and I am pleased to inform you that the manuscript for The Best Business Model on the Planet, based on the rainforest as a business model, is now in the publisher’s hands. It is scheduled for release October 7^th.

While I was away, I heard from Pastor Sunday Adelaja, a Nigerian born, Russian trained, Ukrainian pastor who now pastors the largest church in Europe. He shared this with me, “There are a lot of opportunities that God is giving to the Body of Christ these days; it is not the time anymore when we only give and then wait for elevation. He is opening people’s eyes, and we are training them to become champions in the market place.”

Pastor Sunday knows a little about training folks to be champions in the marketplace. He told me they have something they call Club 1000 which is, “…a practical club that encourages and opens doors of business for it members. We have a goal to make people millionaires between 2 - 5 years, and in one year over 200 members of the club have already accomplished this goal.”

I believe we could all benefit from what this man has to share and he has agreed to make himself available for a teleseminar when he comes to the States later this month. Keep watching for details. In the meantime, find a bookstore that has his book, Church Shift, and order it today. Then read it.

“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward… Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. Therefore seeing we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily ensnare us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” (Hebrews 10:35,38 & 12:1)

I write to you today from Costa Rica where I am wrapping up a three year study of the rainforest as a business model. What I have learned about how God gets abundance from scarcity is absolutely amazing and I can’t wait to share it with everyone when the book comes out in October. The publisher is calling it The Planet’s Most Successful Business Model. I am putting the final touches on the book on this trip.

I am writing from here today because I am burdened for you. I am concerned that you, like me, are experiencing what for us is an unprecedented battle against our souls. It’s a battle to weary us, to take us out of the game and to make us irrelevant. I feel it and I am pretty sure you feel it. Some of the battle is blatant and out in the open and much of it is disguised like the Fed takeover going on this week.

There is a shift coming of monumental proportion and what I am striving for and what I am pleading with you for is that we as a body of believers, press into God like never before. The greater the battle, the harder we press in, not growing weary in well doing, but praying without ceasing and walking in love. I have more to share in this regard, but will save that for future blogs.

Dear Friends:”Who cares?”

That was my first thought when I heard that Michael Pink was doing research in the rainforests of Panama.

Candidly, I thought it was a bit of a stretch to learn biblical business principles from a rainforest. Sounded even a little “New Age” to me.

At best, I expected to see a few clever metaphors about how a rainforest is similar to a business.

But after seeing the results, it seems I seriously underestimated the significance of the research.

I started to get fired up after I heard Michael share the information a couple of times… but I’m not interested in just getting excited about something…

Frankly, I wasn’t completely sold until I saw the impact the findings made on Michael’s company. You see, I work closely with Michael as a marketing consultant. When he finished his research, he started applying these principles to his business. I watched first hand, as these principles — from the research that I initial questioned — literally TRANSFORMED Michael’s organization… tripling his staff, and increasing his revenue a lot more than that, all in less than 90 days.

As a Selling Among Wolves reader, you’ve undoubtedly heard about Michael’s rainforest research. But if you’re wired like me, you might be inclined to investigate further too.

But my friend, I’m here to tell you that you need to take a look at this! It’s transformed Michael’s company, and many other Christian organizations who have put it to work for them.

There are seven principles in all - each with a number of ideas within it. For example, principle #6 “The Brazil Nut Effect” talks about interdependence - and harnesses 3 relationships models that will help your business soar to new heights, while describing a fourth type of relationship that you should avoid at all costs.

And today is a great time to take a look, because Michael is letting people access the downloads for $20 off and there are also some free bonus gifts!!

Click here to learn more

I wasn’t convinced right way that it would help me, but I can tell you that this is something you need to check out! Click here to read more about the rainforest principles. This is now something that I recommend (require, if I can get away with it) for all my clients.

Blessings,

David Johnson
Epiphany Marketing, LLC

My fellow marketplace warriors…
I want to invite a few of you to a special conference call at the end of this week. Let me tell you why and then please let me know if you can make it. As you may know, our mission is to help believers worldwide build successful businesses so they can in turn (with their profits and influence) make a significant and lasting impact on the culture within which we live. How you make that difference is up to you. Helping you succeed in that calling is our privilege and our mission.

A mere 18 months ago…
Our business was dependent on me going out somewhere in the world and doing consulting or training. Product sales were minimal and not much of a focus. The revenues generated through our website were limited to five or six hundred dollars per month. Insignificant. I began applying some of the rainforest lessons to business and it grew substantially. Then we retained on a consulting basis, David Johnson of Epiphany Consulting to really help us establish a long term, reliably growing stream of income using the internet.

Last quarter what used to be less than a couple thousand dollars per quarter, was over $100,000 using the internet. That’s 50-fold increase! Our ranking on search engines has also improved significantly, our number of e-mail subscribers has more than doubled, and many good things are occurring. I know there are many of you who could benefit from his knowledge so I asked him last week if he would be willing to get on a conference call with me and share some of his wisdom and experience with you. He agreed with one stipulation…

He wants to focus his input…
…on folks who have an established business or who are responsible for generating leads or demand for an established enterprise. For example, one of his clients is a specialist in the medical profession who got virtually no business off his website and was skeptical that people would come to him via the internet. But… he was wasting money on ineffective advertising and he knew it. About a year later, over 50% of his patients find him from the internet, due to the help David was able to provide.

David and I have set aside several time slots this Thursday and Friday to discuss specific strategies to help you experience similar results. This is not for everyone, but if you want to grow your business using 21st-century strategies, you are welcome to join us. Register here now so you can be sure to reserve your spot on one of these conference calls. (As always, we are limited on the number of callers we can have on each conference call, so it’s a first-come, first-served basis.)

Warmest regards…

Michael Q. Pink

P.S. Get your calendar out and choose your best meeting time now… these calls will fill up quickly!

“Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the armor of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before you, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of bronze, and cut asunder the bars of iron: And I will give you the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the LORD, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel.” (Isa 45:1-3)

Did you know that God has riches hidden in secret places? And these are riches He is eager for you to possess. Am I saying that God wants you rich? I don’t know what God wants for you with respect to tangible riches. I don’t know your character, your calling or your capabilities. What I do know is that there are great riches hidden in secret places and the kind of riches I am speaking of cannot be seen with the eye.

Take for example the rainforest. People with limited vision see only with their natural eye and cut it down to obtain temporal, tangible riches. They sell the timber and create pasture land for cows. But people with great vision who have spent time in the secret place of God know that God made the systems that make the rainforest the most productive and fruitful system on the planet producing tremendous abundance out of relative scarcity.

In spending time with the Father, they learn the systems. They discover the ways of God. They obtain great wealth of wisdom as they inherit His heart for the created order and in the process they can be trusted with the power that wisdom gives them. It is the unseen riches that produce the visible riches. Most folks chase the visible, corruptible, temporal riches. Wise ones chase the unseen eternal riches and in apprehending them, have everything else they need.

 This is “Rainforest Friday”. As you may have noticed, once a week I use God’s creation for a text book. Romans 1 says that “the hidden things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and divine nature.” The kings of the earth came to hear Solomon’s wisdom, much of which he gleaned from the created order. 1 Kings speaks of Solomon saying that “he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springs out of the wall: he spoke also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.”

On Friday’s, I take you to the rainforest and share with you the wealth building secrets built into the most fruitful, abundant ecosystem on the planet. Today, I want to begin a series that has to do with marketing principles gleaned from the orchid. Walking through the Panamanian rainforest with our guide from the Smithsonian, I was struck by something she said… “In the rainforest, color is very expensive.”

I thought it was very unusual language for a scientist, so I inquired further. She went on to explain that it costs more energy for a plant to produce color than it does to produce the green you see in leaves. I learned that some trees go so far as to shed all their leaves to preserve energy so they have enough energy to produce colorful flowers. The reason, I was told, was marketing. The trees had to attract customers. They used flowers to do this. Without the birds or the bees or the monkeys checking out their flowers, they would never pollinate and thus not be fruitful. So they spend a significant amount of resources to generate new business. You might call that - advertising.

So the question I leave you with today is: If God thinks it wise to spend resources on marketing, do you think we might be wise to do the same?

Until next time, be fruitful, then multiply!

 They say the most successful sales people not only do a good job selling out in the field, but they also do a lot of internal selling. Most companies with multiple departments have difficulty communicating and/or cooperating with each other. Top sales reps understand this and go out of their way to build relationships within the organization because they know that someday, they may well need the extra effort from Bob in shipping or Melissa in accounting.

They take care of the relationships that most sales reps ignore because they don’t see Melissa or Bob’s role as significant, when it is. Yet, if those folks didn’t serve the organization overall and aid the sales team directly, the sales team would not perform as well. In our organizations and in our sales efforts, we must cultivate a spirit of cooperation between team members, even if they seem unrelated.

In the rainforest, plants compete for light and nutrients. The soil is poor, so in order to get nutrients they depend on a symbiotic relationship with fungi.  Symbiotic relations between plants and fungi are very common. The fungus invades and lives in or among the cells of the secondary roots. The fungus helps the host plant absorb inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus from the soil and thus feed it the life giving nutrients. What if the fungus didn’t feel like cooperating? What would happen to the rest of the team? If you want to succeed in sales, make sure you take care of Melissa in accounting or Bob in shipping. The next time you need an invoice straightened out for a client or a product shipped out for rush delivery, you will have a willing ally instead of a resistant coworker.

Okay my friends; this is the last of seven blog entries about how you can be ten times more productive if you will learn how to minimize the effects of pests. They are as effective as you choose to make them. To recap, here are the first six secrets… (1) Eliminate the unnecessary (2) Automate the mundane, (3) Delegate the routine (4) Designate your work (5) Procrastinate the undefined and (6) Separate to cogitate.

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