Transcript

Welcome to the 100-Fold Business Podcast, where Christian men learn how to grow their top line, their bottom line, and their finish line. And I'm your host Josh Fonger, founder of 4thsoilventures.com, and I'm so excited today to be bringing you the first episode, which is all about how you can grow your 100-Fold Business. Once I finally understood what I'll be talking about today, it changed my life, and I know it can change yours.

Now, since this is the first episode of the 100-Fold Business Podcast, I also want to go through who is this podcast for, what is the podcast going to be about, and also a little bit of my backstory, so you have context for future episodes and future stories and future examples. At the end of this episode, I'll go through the key insight about how you can, again, grow your 100-Fold Business. Point number one, who is this podcast for? Well, the podcast is for Christian men who are entrepreneurs or small business owners, and these men are desiring to grow their top line, which is their sales.

They're desiring to grow their bottom line, which is their profit, and they're desiring to do it in a way that integrates their faith so that all the work they do is going to impact their finish line, which is their kingdom impact. So these Christian men are ambitious, and they're desiring to do work in a way that's different than the world, and to be a light, to be an example in the business world, and therefore be able to impact their customers, their employees, and also, of course, their families and the church, and basically not waste any of the talents God has given them, but to take those talents, those gifts that God has given them, and use the vehicle of business to make the greatest impact. Now we're on to point number two, which is what is this podcast actually going to be about, and the 100 Fold Business Podcast is all about how you can grow your business, but more specifically, how you can grow your business the right way or a good way, or in a way that actually glorifies God because it's following God's word.

Now, the rest of the world is not looking at that. They're just looking at how do I grow a business? What's fastest? What's easiest? What's cheapest? They're not thinking long-term. They're not thinking eternally.

They're just thinking what is the easiest way to get this done, not what's the right way to get this done, and ultimately, doing things the right way or God's way is going to be the easiest. It's going to be the fastest. It's going to be the most impactful, and so what we're going to find out is that God's word has a lot to say about sales, about marketing, about IT, HR, innovation, you name it, leadership.

We're going to find out that God's word has a lot because God cares about what we do for our work. He cares about how we do it. He cares about why we do it.

He ultimately cares about your work. It matters. It's important, and so through this podcast, I want to both show you that through God's word and then help you grow as an entrepreneur, help you grow as a small business owner, and ultimately have this impact you and your business and have this impact the world.

Now, we're on to point number three. A little bit about me and who I am and what I do. For those who don't know me, my name is Josh Fonger.

I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ when I was 19, a sophomore in college. I've been married for 21 years, have four children, and got an undergraduate degree in architecture and a graduate degree in business. Out of school, I wanted to get into real estate, and so I did and pursued real estate development until 2007-8 during the great real estate crash.

At that time, that dream died and God actually opened up a door for me to start a career in business consulting, which is truly the last thing I wanted to do. But once I got started, I realized how much I enjoyed helping business owners fix their problems and how to lead them towards greater success and had great success early on in that career and fell in love with it. And I've been doing that ever since.

I've been either flying or zooming around the world, helping companies grow. At this point, I've had over a thousand clients from 50 different nations. I've helped them from startup stage to companies that are over $500 million a year in revenue.

From solopreneurs to multinationals, online to traditional, family businesses to franchises, and what I've seen firsthand is what works to grow a company and what doesn't work. And what I want to do for you is take all that knowledge, take all that wisdom, take all the experience and run it through a biblical lens to help you with your business. I also want to add that for those listening to this podcast, if they want more help, more guidance, more one-on-one attention, they can go to 4thsoilventures.com that's where my coaching and consulting website is.

And though I love to do podcasts, I love to be interviewed. I love to interview. I love to discuss these ideas and write about them and shoot videos.

But your passion is working one-on-one with business owners and actually helping them grow. Okay. Now that you know a little bit about me, about the podcast and whether you're in the right place, I want to take a few minutes to go over the key insight that's going to help you grow a hundredfold business.

Now I'll be going into God's word to find out where this insight is and we'll just be scratching the surface of this topic, but it's the Bible. So a little goes a long ways. We'll be looking at a letter Paul wrote to the church in Rome.

We'll be looking at Romans 11:36. And in it, Paul writes, for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever.

Amen. Okay. So let's unpack this verse a little bit and try to internalize what the word is saying, because if we do, we're going to find that true joy, freedom, and peace can come as we're growing our business.

And it can be the building block for growing a hundredfold business. So very simply from him. So everything comes from God and it ultimately is going to be done through his power and it's going to be done to magnify, to glorify the greatness of God.

And what I want to do is take a few minutes to show how does this actually apply to your business? Instead of approaching your business and all of the decisions you have to make the way the rest of the world approaches business, which is, this is my business and I can operate it my way. In the end it's for me, it's for my glory, which is basically running your business as if there is no God. And if there is a God, he doesn't really care.

The right way to do it is to instead say, actually, this is God's business, right? He's the maker of everything of me, my business, and he cares, right? And therefore we know if we put somebody underneath us, a manager, we're going to provide the direction for that manager. We're going to provide the training. We're going to provide the resources, right? To help that manager be successful because we care about our business.

We care about our assets. We care about the things that we're in charge of. Well, God cares about you and he cares about your business.

So hopefully that cuts some stress down knowing that you're just a steward, right? And it's his business and you're also his, and therefore you can rely on him and you can ask him for help, right? Because he wants to give it. The next part is it should be operated his way. He made everything and he also knows how everything is supposed to work.

So we can find answers. He's not going to leave us in the dark. If we pray, seek his will, read his word, get good counsel from other believers, we're going to find that God actually shows us the way to operate his business.

And now for the last part, the best part, which is we get to run our business for God's glory. Now, most people think aiming for their own glory is good, but aiming for God's glory is so much better. And that might sound like a religious phrase, God's glory, but give me a minute to just try to unpack it and make it practical for you and your business.

So let's look at some examples that I think will help bring some context to how to glorify God, because there's a lot of ways to do it. Now, in marriage, you glorify God by loving your wife, like Christ, love the church. And as a dad, you can glorify God by raising your kids to know Jesus and to follow him.

In a business, you can glorify God by ministering or meeting the needs by serving your customers, by giving them a high quality product or service that's going to actually help them. That's going to provide a good to them. And then through that income, you're then going to serve and meet the needs of your employees, helping them to meet the needs of their families and giving them a great place to work, providing for them.

And then through that, there's going to be profit and those profits can then be used to expand your business, do more good in the world that way, and also to do good to your family, to your church, to your community, to those in need. There's a lot of ways to glorify God in your business and through your business. The key is to do it in Jesus name, to do it in faith and to do it as Christ's ambassador.

God wants you to be faithful with your talents and to multiply them and to let your light shine in this world so that those around can see your good works and they can glorify your father who is in heaven. And you can do this whether you're a dentist or a lawyer or a home builder, web developer, just like Jesus did it as a carpenter and Paul did it as a tentmaker. When you are growing your business this way, no longer focused on your small worldly appetites, but instead focused on glorifying God and multiplying the talents that God has given you, you're going to find that the motivation for selfish ambition is much smaller and the motivation and the drive and the desire to multiply what God has given you and to do it for his glory.

So again, from him, which means everything you've ever received comes, including your business, from God and it's a gift from God, right? So you can thank him for that and through him, all of the power, all of the resources, all the strength to do the work that God has for you, he gives, right? He provides, right? Another way, another reason to praise him, right? It's another gift is that strength. Ultimately for him, for his glory, right? This is your opportunity to serve, worship, and praise him and everything you do. And it's going to be the way to have the ultimate multiplication of joy, peace, pleasure is it to come by doing things this way.

As a reminder, we're serving the God who multiplies. We bring a few fish and some loaves and he feeds 5,000. When we bring God our first and our best, he delights in multiplying it.

Now, if you're looking for some help with your business, you can reach out to me directly at 4thsoilventures.com. You can schedule a call there and I can help you grow your top line, your bottom line, and your finish line. And also make sure to subscribe to this channel, wherever you're listening or watching this. So you can catch the next episode.

I would greatly appreciate any support you can provide in terms of likes and shares and comments and ratings and reviews. All those things are going to help this podcast reach our people. But even more important would be your prayers.

Prayers for me, prayers for this business, prayers for this podcast. That's going to reach the people who need to hear it, who need to see it. I need to be transformed by God's word so that they can grow their business.

They can multiply it in a way that maximizes his glory. So I appreciate you. I appreciate you listening to this podcast.

I appreciate your support and help. So thanks again, brothers. And until next time, grace be with you.