Build Your Ideal Practice Audio by David Steele

Please take a moment to listen to this audio. It's about building your practice in a powerful way. I think you'll love it. David Steele, MA, LMFT is founder of Relationship Coaching Institute and BuildingYourIdealPractice.com, author of the ground-breaking book for singles "Conscious Dating: Finding the Love of Your Life in Today's World."

Free Small Office Home Office Service

Here's a service for Small Office Home Office folks. It's another free service to help you learn more about how to promote your business. Just click on the SohoMatic icon above

Stay blessed,


Pastor Ced

December 10th SBOPN Meetup

Well here we are just a few days from Christmas and a few more until the start of 2008. I do hope you're up and going during this time of year telling people about your business. Believe it or not people have open hearts. Oh, don't worry about the ones who don't have the funds to afford what you offer. There are plenty of people who still have the money they need to get what they want. If it's a home or if it's flowers, people will buy what they want.

I wanted to report a great time of networking and prayer today. Alex is one of our early risers who attends our SBOPN meetup on Monday's when he can can. Somehow we started talking about the vision of SBOPN and we were discussing how many home based business owners there are who have children. The home based business arena is exploding like wild fire. The thing that's makes working from home so appealing is being able to raise your children and even home school them while making a great living from home.

Here's the great networking tip that Alex was able to give us. Based on his own personal experience as a person who works from home and home schools his kids he was able to pass along a lead for people in similar situations. If you know anybody who is paying hundreds of dollars for home school curriculum you might want take a look at the California Virtual Academy. Can you say free? Here's a website you'll want to investigate yourself or pass along to someone else. www.caliva.org has a lot to offer. I would encourage you to strongly take a look.

One of the other things we talked about was connecting with home base business owners. One of our goals is to offer a place for their children while they network with the SBOPN. Do you think they might be receptive if we provided a place for their children to connect with other home schooled children? What about they themselves having an opportunity to connect with people who like to network and in particular other home based business owners?

Listen, I could go on and on. I do wish you the absolute best this Christmas season. Hope to see you soon. Remember it's 7:00 am Monday or 11:30 am Wednesday.

Stay blessed,

Pastor Ced

5 Tips for Christian Business Owners by Chris Bloor

Are you ready to get serious?

What will it take for homebased business owners to take our businesses more seriously? Often in the past I have just thought of and treated my homebased business as a hobby. It's only been something that I played around with becauase it made me "feel good." The fact of the matter was that I just clearly didn't understand what I had.

Are you in business for yourself working from home? If you are or you have a brick and mortar business, it's imperative that you and I take our businesses serious every everyday. We have to remember the reason we started doing what we do. For some reason we initially sought out or we were recruited to an opportunity that just got us excited to get going. The question is what are we going to do now?

I know for me I am so passionate about what I offer that I just can't contain myself. Right now I'm on a "comunication blitz" contacting suspects, prospects and my existing clients. Without giving you the sense that I'm going over the top or being overly emotional, I'm just hoping I can encourage you to get on fire about what you do and the product or service you offer. This is the season to get up and get going. It's time to talk to people and talk to more people. It's time to push the envelope and make your dreams become reality.

If you can sense my passion, it's probably because you have a similar passion. Will you join me letting the business owners you come in contact with know that there's a place for them. The Small Biz Prayer Network is a place for business owners to receive prayer, encouragement and network with others of like faith. Will you get on board with me spreading the word that our network exists to see prosperity come to small business owners. This is more than just another networking group. This is more than just a prayer group. This is a group that "will" see God use Christian business owners in a capacity like no other time. Christian business owners in my opinion are God's endtime evangelists. Everyday business owners are influencing their employees, their vendors, their customers and prospects. What a great opportunity to not only provide your wonderful products and services. This is a day where beyond earning more money than we ever have before, it's more important for us as business owners to come to the realization that our purpose is much more than that.

I'm not here to tell you your purpose but I can guarantee you that it's certainly more than earning more money to acquire more stuff. I hope you've discovered it because the more business owners who are pursuing their God ordained purpose, the greater effect we'll have in the world.

I've got more to say but I'll save it for later.

Stay blessed,

Ced Reynolds

Another success tip

You've probably heard the statement, "it will work if you work it." We know that prayer is vital if we are to succeed in business. Another reality is that it takes hard work. Hard work is a key that many people who go in business for themselves fail to realize is a reality. Certainly we go into business to earn a profit, have more time freedom, provide for our future and various other reasons. But it's hard work is at the forefront rather we acknowledge it or not. Are you ready to work hard these last days of 2007? Why not press to the end to create massive momentum as you approach 2008.

Here's a plan I work with couple times a quarter. I call it a "communication blitz." I make it my goal to contact a certain number of people in a short window of 3 days. After a time of prayer, I target a group of people to connect with regarding my business. During the blitz I focus on suspects, prospects and clients. Suspects get a chance to see my name again. Prospects get a chance to see or hear more about what I do. Clients get a chance to see or hear about a new or relatively new product I'm offering. The communication blitz is my way of working it. It also keeps me razor focused and lets suspects, prospects and clients know I have purposed to be in their life one way or another.

Stay blessed,

Pastor Ced
p.s. Here's a secret. I'm presently doing a blitz. If you follow my online activity you'll see me in a lot of places with the same message over and over.
p.p.s Although the message may look different, you'll notice similar phrases that pull suspects, prospects and clients into my offering.

Today was no accident

Hello Small Biz Prayer Networkers,

Great meeting today! Rich, Dave, Gregory and Shameca all made some awesome contributions to our meeting. As we prayed for the collective success of our businesses we also talked briefly about our businesses. You would do yourself proud to get to know:

Dave - a Realtor and appraiser who could help you a couple of different ways.


Rich - a Financial Advisor who can provide for your insurance and investment concerns.


Gregory - a Media consultant who can help you expose your business via television at no cost.

Shameca - a Credit Specialist who can help you get business credit the right way.

One of the key points of conversation during our meeting today was about "grace." The reality of how much each of us have a certain grace to do what we do in business. It was amazing to realize how God has so arranged it that we connect with each other today. No matter what we might think about it our lives don't pass by each other by accident. It's like every shot counting in a golf tournament. One shot could mean the difference between victory and defeat. In our case one relationship could mean the difference between the big break we've been looking for and settling for mediocrity.

Listen, I want to encourage you that you are special in the field of endeavor the Lord has allowed you to be involved with. Please know that your existence in your field is certainly not by accident. No matter how you may feel about what you do and the success you are having, remember, "every relationship counts."

Let's continue to connect as the Lord leads so we can see the outcomes He already knows about.

Stay blessed,

Pastor Ced

1st 11;30 am meeting good success...

Our first late morning meeting was a good thing. I have a saying that, "it's the great people who make a great network meeting." We had some great people attend our first meeting. Special thanks go to Albert, Susie, Shameca, Paul, Harry and Lee. They made our meeting fresh and energetic.

We had a time to pray for our businesses as well as the businesses of those in our network who weren't present. The concept of prayer and networking is working just fine.

As we shared about our businesses and our own personal lives we had an opportunity to discover how we can assist each other with the primary projects we're working on at present. The thing that made me realize the meeting was good was the connecting that was taking place after the meeting. What a thrill to see people connect for the purpose of seeing the Lord glorified in their business activities.

I'll be sharing more about our 11:30 meeting in future blogs. In the mean time I hope you can make the Wednesday November 28, 2007. We'll be having lunch together at Mimi's in Chino, CA in the Spectrum on Grand Avenue. More details will be on the Small Biz Meetup site.

Stay blessed until we connect again,

Pastor Ced

Using Technology in your business

Press Release: Small Biz Prayer Network offers new twist in B2B networking


Hello Small Biz Prayer Networker,

We just finished our Monday morning prayer and networking meeting. Just want you to know we prayed for you and your business to have the best week ever. Also for those of you who are available, we meet for the first time on this Wednesday @ 11:30. Visit the Small Biz Prayer Network for more details.

Short note on what we discussed today

Web Seminars and how to maximize presenting our business to individuals and groups.

Blogs and how to utilize them to better connect with our prospects and clients.

Search Engine Optimization and how to increase our online awareness for free.

Free Online Business Directories and how utilizing them can increase our exposure dramatically.

Something that I think we all deal with is how do we get new customers. Using all the offline approaches is great but we're living in a world that is moving at such a faster pace. Perhaps if we, (yes you and me) took advantage of the online services that are available to us we could join the race that seemingly many of the "big shots" in our industry are utilizing.

I don't know if you realize it but there is more than one way to get up to speed regarding techonology. When you here the word "technology" you might think of dollar signs. It doesn't have to be that way. I know when I first started using the internet back in 1991 I was scared to death. Everything was so complicated. Today things are so much different.

Every one of us can get in the game by simply exploring what's available. The best part about it is that it doesn't cost a cent to investigate. In a lot of cases some of the actual services are free to use. The service providers give their services away for free because the more people who utilize their "branded service" the more exposure they get.

Think about it. If internet exposure is good for service providers who are giving away their services for free, wouldn't internet exposure be good for you and me too?

Feel free to click on any of the links above to get additional information. These are services I use myself to promote the Small Biz Prayer Network as well as our church and my business.

Stay blessed,

Pastor Ced
Small Biz Prayer Network Meetup

Maybe it's time you give up

Honestly, what were your thoughts when you read the title? Have you come to the end of your rope? Are you ready to go get a JOB? Do you want to just quit on your dream?Let me tell you something. Whoever said success would be easy was lying. They were probably the same people who said that all it would take is 10-15 hours a week to make a million dollars in a home-based business. All of us know that's not true.

Here's the real deal. It takes hard work and determination to see your plans materialize. For our plans to materialize it takes learning all we can about our business. It should be our goal to be the best at what we do so that we can be the best resource for our clients.

Quitting has to be non-optional. No matter how rough it gets we have to know that the success we're believing God for is just around the corner. God never makes a promise He can't keep. His answer to us is Yes and amen!

Just to make it clear regarding quitting, it's not time to quit. It's time to dig in and plant your feet solidly on the ground and take authority over the circumstances that have tried to keep you down.It's time to rise up with an intestinal fortitude and arm yourself with the knowldege it will take to make a massive difference in the lives of your clients and consequently your business.Say "no" to quitting! Say, "I'm a winner and I will win no matter what!"

There have been so many people who have just given up when they were so close to getting their just reward. You might say, "I'm past the benchmark I set for myself. I said I would hang it up if I didn't reach my goals by this time." Well the fact of the matter is that you have a choice. You can choose to exercise your non-optional choice of quitting or you can find the passion that led you to start your business in the first place.

It's time to make the biggest sell of your life. That's selling yourself. Once you're sold on you and your business, there's no stopping you. You'll have such enthusiasm that people will be curious to find out who you are and what you do. Believe me, when you can say to yourself that, "I am sold myself," you won't ever think of quitting (at least seriously) ever again.

Do this for yourself. Take some time to meditate on why you started your business, then re-write your goals, set some more benchmarks, create an activity plan and work your plan. Lastly, measure your activity and your results along the way and make any necessary adjustments to insure your success.It's time to go up not give up. I know you can do it.

My prayer for you is that you continually seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and trust that He will do what He said, "add all things unto you."



Stay blessed,



Ced - Host of The Entrepreneurial Pastor's Talkcast
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=1576
http://www.cedreynolds.com/
(909) 597-3502

Praying about the future?

If you're praying for long life you might want to consider your health when you're old. I would venture to say that most of us have been involved or know somebody who has needed a caregiver in their golden years. What most of us don't probably think about is our possible need for care in our golden years.

I wanted to make this posting to get a sense of what people are thinking regarding their own old age. We can either think "oh, I'm in perfect health, I don't have anything to worry about." or we can prepare ourselves.

I never would have dreamed that I would be taking care of my young wife at 33 years old when she went on dialysis nearly 19 years ago. The point I'm making is long term care doesn't just happen to old people.

Now I've been thinking recently about my future as I get older. Presently my wife can't care for me and I just don't want to put my son in the position of taking care of me when I'm old.

Out of curiosity and a sincere desire to get ideas, I ask you the question, what will you do when you get to the point you need additional assistance in your old age?

Love to hear your comments.

Debt Elimination Project Audio Link

Get your business listed

GoSmallBiz.com is a place to get your business listed free for one year. This is definitely something you'll want to take advantage of. Just click on the link above to see what your listing will look like.

Stay blessed,


Ced - The Entrepreneurial Pastor

Pray for "The Debt Elimination Project"

Have you heard of the Debt Elimination Project (DEP)? It's really quite an interesting project.

There was a gentleman who had a heart's desire to help pay off the debt of a single woman in his church who had been struggling from year to year. So much prayer had happened for her by the congregation but nothing seemed to change in her finances.

This man who was one of those who prayed for the lady but he was just frustrated as he continued to observe her financial life. He soon discovered that she was in debt because she just couldn't get her debt down because she could only pay the minimum payments on high interest rate credit cards and loans. Nothing ever seemed to change even though she was doing what she could.

The story goes on to say that the man decided that he would take things into his own hands. He decided to do something. He made it his purpose to help this lady pay off her debt. He was able to give her $30 a month. What he asked her to do was to make sure she sent the $30 as extra payment toward the principal on her highest interest credit card.

After a few months of giving $30 the man just felt like he was only helping her scratch the surface toward getting out of debt. He thought to himself, only if there were a few other people who could give a little like I'm doing. He started sharing what he was doing with a few of his close friends and they caught the vision. Five of his friends decided to do exactly what he was doing and started giving the lady $30 a month each. Now she was receiving $180 to put towards the principal of her highest interest credit card.

Long story short, the concept began to spread like wild fire. The gentleman who started the project soon had 34 people who were giving between $15 and $50 a month to help this one lady. In less than a year the lady had all her debt paid off and she was overjoyed.

Here's the clincher. After the lady had her debt paid off she said, how can I help somebody pay their debt off? She said this in the middle of the group of the 34 people who had just helped her pay off her debt. There were several people in the group who were in debt so the group chose one from among themselves and started the process over.

Now imagine this. This new person didn't receive $30 a month. They received over $1,200 a month and had their debt paid off in five months.

The group continued to grow and they continued to choose different people in the group to help pay off their debt. Some people were getting their debt paid off in less than three months. One person even got a $16,000 debt paid off on the spot!

The Debt Elimination Project got it's name based merely on what now over 700 people were committed to doing. They base their purpose for helping others get out of debt on Matthew 7:12 "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them..."

When I heard of this project I committed to help a person I know get out of debt. I'm now in the process of talking to a few of my friends to help them get out of debt.

I'm actually seriously thinking about taking this to another level. I'm thinking about starting an official Debt Elimination Project in our church. We have plenty of single women, widows and certainly families who are in debt who desperately want to be financially free.

************************************************************

What you've just read is just a story I wrote to capture your attention. The gentleman in the story is me. The story is a vision of what I believe the Lord has shown me to help people in my congregation get out of debt and stay out. The other reason I wrote this story is to solicit your prayer as I pursue God's plan to help one person at a time get out of debt. I truly believe it's a whole lot easier for one person to get out of debt if 200 people are helping them.

A debt free church is a church that can be used to to it's full potential.

Stay blessed,

Ced Reynolds

Praise Report Time

I just heard a great praise report and thought I would share it with our group. Harry G. left a message on my cell phone letting me know that prayer was definitely working.

Several businesses were broken into in the complex where Harry has his business. But not one of Harry's three offices were touched... WOW! Is that the power of prayer or what? Thieves aren't generally that choosy. To break into other businesses around Harry and not touch his business was certainly the handiwork of God.

Let's continue to pray for each other.

Until next time,


Ced Reynolds - The Entrepreneurial Pastor

Pease note the various ways you can participate with the Small Biz Prayer Network
a. via our weekly prayer/networking meetups
b. via our audio archived talkcasts
c. via our blog
d. via our network discussion board on Ryze.com

Please give us your name and email address to receive periodic encouraging messages from Pastor Ced.
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Back at it again

Greetings Small Biz Prayer Networkers,

We were at it again this morning prayinig for the success of the business owners of our network as well as those business owners we have had the chance to meet. I know it's sometimes hard to get up and get ready for a 7:00 am meeting on Monday morning. But it's sure worth it once you arrive.

There's nothing like starting a week off with prayer and support from fellow network partners who only want to see each other succeed. I want to thank all the members of our network for your continued prayer and support of each other. Remember this is our network and our prayer for each other does make a difference.

For those of you who were with us, you know we talked about sustainable motivation. The kind of motivation that keeps us getting up day after day no matter what the circumstances. Know that you may be in business by yourself but now you are truly not by yourself. Your network partners are looking out for you and the success of your business.

In closing, please remember it's not what we see presently that determines where we'll end up it's what we see through the eyes of faith. Keep on looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

Stay blessed,

Ced - The Entrepreneurial Pastor
http://www.cedreynolds.com
(909) 597-3502

Exciting times are here

Hello Small Biz Prayer Networker,

It's been an exciting week. I've been out talking to business owners all around Chino just letting them know about the Small Biz Prayer Network. People are receiving the concept really well. We've been able to pray and share about the positive possibilities with prayer.

Imagine if we all began to talk it up about our prayer network. Something great happens when positive people come together in the name of Jesus. I'm believing God for your success everyday. Please join me doing the same for your fellow members of our prayer network.

We know not everybody we talk with will join us in prayer and networking. That's ok. But let's do something that will knock their socks off. Let's pray for them to succeed in business to the point that they will have to wonder how it's happening. God will certainly be glorified as they are seeking to find Him. They'll eventually come to the knowledge that He's been the one blessing them beyond measure.

Look forward to seeing you Monday,


Ced - The Entrepreneurial Pastor

It's catching on

Hello again Small Biz Prayer Network Friends,

I trust that you've been having a great week. It has been great to see different people at our prayer/network meetings on Monday's. I happened to be out talking with business owners in the community. Almost everyone who had time to talk just a little bit was so refreshed to know that somebody was praying for them. We were even able to pray right on the spot in some cases.

It amazes me that people are so open to prayer. In the midst of talking with the business owners, there are employees listening in just smiling. I imagine they are touched to some degree knowing that they are being prayed for also.

I invite you to tell your business associates about our network. Not only will they benefit from the prayer but they can also benefit by meeting some really nice people like you as well as possibly picking up a few referrals once in a while. What's not to like about that?

Starting Monday's off with prayer and networking is a great encourager. To have other business owners praying for you during the week makes for a great week.

Hope to see you this coming Monday.

Stay blessed,

Ced
(909) 597-3502
p.s. Visit some of the links on this blog. They support our fellow prayer networkers.

Let's keep on praying and networking

Who needs prayer today? That's pretty obvious. Everybody does. Our effort however is specifically designed to target small business owners. For years now I have sensed a burden to keep small business owners in prayer. The grind is so much different for business owners than it is for employees. Nothing against employees. Please understand I not only pastor a church but I also have owned businesses in the past and presently operate one. There's a pressure that doesn't compare to when I was an employee.

The exciting thing about being in business for my self has been being able to determine my own schedule and enjoy my family and other things on my own terms. You're probably no doubt in business for similar reasons.

As we get going with the Small Biz Prayer Network Meetup in Chino, I want to let each of you know that my prayer is for your personal and business success. I pray that the Lord brings those people that are necessary in your life to increase your opportunities to serve them.

So far we've only met twice but each time has been so delightful and liberating. The key that I continue to pick up from the group is we're not just here to network. "It's the prayer that gives so much encouragement. Just knowing that somebody else cares enough about us as individuals is awesome. During the course of the day we can't help but think of each other since we purposed to pray together to start our week." It's statements like this that make it worthwhile to be involved...

Stay blessed,


Pastor Ced
p.s. feel free to drop a prayer request or answer to prayer. This is our blog...