Business with a Purpose Pt 5

So how does someone go from catering and coffee shops to opening a self-storage business?  It’s the story of our lives.  We look for a need to fill and fill it.  From the outside, it may seem like nothing in our lives connect.  We go to ministry college, then both pursue degrees (Adam in aviation and mine in psychology), to opening licensed Starbucks in the hospitals, to opening a gift store in a hospital, to catering, to a food distribution company, and now to starting a self-storage facility.

The truth is we both absolutely love God, and we love people.  We also love to dream and grow.  All we know to do and all that we have learned over the past 20 years is stay close to God; to follow Him even if it doesn’t make sense to others.  There have been many business ideas throughout the years that we pursued and didn’t work too.  We have learned to fall and just get up and keep going.  Keep moving forward and keep seeking God in all of it.

Self-storage was something that we actually never thought we would do.  It never even crossed our minds.  Adam and I were in a month of prayer and fasting, and God had laid it on both of our hearts very heavily to sell our dream home that we had built.  Living in the country on land, we owned a tractor and livestock.  This was another adventure that we tried out called “country living”, and it definitely wasn’t for me!  J  In the process of selling the tractor, Adam met a man that owned some self-storage units.  He was mentioning that it’s a great business.  We were praying about our next business opportunity during this time, so Adam began to study locally to see if there was a need.

It turned out that not only was there a need for more climate controlled self-storage in Longview, but Longview was also missing out on the growing trend of “smart” storage facilities.  Again, both of us began to research this business as we knew nothing about self-storage.  We fell in love with the industry, and we were so excited to offer something new again to Longview.  Again, God provided two equal partners for this business with one being the business mentor mentioned earlier.  This time we know the amount of work that is going to be involved as we build this new company.

So, why do we continue to grow and build businesses?  I know many people probably think we are just money-hungry people looking to make more money.  That is actually the furthest thing from the truth.  Over the years, God has shown us that we are to build businesses to a point of profitability to:

The third one is the one many people don’t understand, but it’s actually what drives us more than anything.  We build businesses in order to fund ministries and missionaries all over the world to spread the gospel.  That is our ultimate vision.  And the business partners that we partner with feel the same way.

So technically, whether it be coffee shops, catering, food distribution, or self-storage, it’s all business.  And it’s all business with a purpose…