Weathering the Storm

Last year, I had the chance to speak at the 2012 Entrepreneurs Conference. This conference was a great honor and opportunity to share my message with other business owners. We all know the past five to six years have been a trying time for businesses in every industry, so I thought a message with the theme of weathering the storm was quite appropriate.

Here are my top three take home messages from my speech about weathering the storm:

• Survival - Whether you think of survival in terms meeting of basic needs (300 million children will go hungry today and 92 percent of the world is without clean drinking water) or a home building company (half of the home builders in the country have gone out of business during the recession), we have to take challenging situations and turn them into positive ones.                                                                                                                                                       Here's a look at what we have done at Keystone Custom Homes to survive:
  
  
  
  
  1.       Built an incredibly strong and effective leadership team
  2.       Provided more value without raising costs and reduce costs without reducing value
  3.       Developed our own risk/reward continuum
  4.       Reinvented areas of our business
  5.       Made decisions using Jim Collins' triangle of fanatic discipline, empirical creativity and productive paranoia
  6.       Created a strong work culture
  7.       Communicated transparently
  8.       Trusted God and understood he is in control
  9.       Remained humble
  
  
  Many of these same tactics can be applied to businesses in other industries. Consider how you can implement these actions to make your business more effective and successful.
  
  
• Success - Instead of focusing on ourselves, focus on others and the small successes you can create.

• Significance - Focus on the true purpose behind what you are doing. Each one of us has a purpose in our life, and at the end of the day, our businesses are not really ours, they are God's. Always remember that you are serving for and working for a greater purpose.

I hope you will watch my speech in its entirety, so that you too can hear the message of weathering God's storm.

Until next time,

Jeff Rutt

A hope for tomorrow

For far too long, the world has been moving in a downward spiral, and everyday demons outrun the good. For far too long, people in poverty and despair surpass the number of people who are better off. This world has deserved someone who will champion goodness for a very long time. Fortunately, many people today have stepped up to grab this opportunity and make a difference in their own way.

Image source: robbaker.wordpress.com

Philanthropists today make sure that there’s a prayer out there for the world. People like them who help the less fortunate are the ones keeping the world from falling apart. Various philanthropists, such as Shelby White of the Leon Levy Foundation and Jeff Rutt of HOPE International, champion their own causes because they understand exactly what their recipients are going through. These genuine philanthropists can serve as role models for those who give just because it is socially apt to do so and for those who still don’t feel the need to make a difference even in their own little way.

Image source: developmentprogress.org

There is hope for tomorrow. As long as there are people who cannot rest knowing that there are others living under bridges, without homes, and without food, there is hope. It requires faith to realize that the world is not going to the pits. Salvation from demise is a slow process, but it is on its way.

Image source: laprogressive.com

This webpage provides more information about Jeff Rutt, HOPE International, and how building one home at a time can make a huge difference in the lives of others.