“Build it, and they will come.” This statement often is cited as mere wishful thinking. All business people, especially those intent on growing their businesses, know that a market must exist and want what is about to be offered. So they would say that James was getting his cart before his horse. But James wasn’t your typical businessman. While other businessmen were coveting and clamoring for help from the government to start or expand their businesses, James was relying on

Over the past several weeks, I have shared with you the stories of a number of exemplars who earned their living, gained great wealth, and served both their fellowmen and their God through their work. In the two most recent posts, I shared a little about a young man named John who revolutionized the way retail business was conducted, treated customers fairly and courteously, and retained good employees by helping to meet their current and future needs. That young man was John

Imagine a store that not only provides a variety of quality products and efficient service but also offers employees a bank, a school, a library, a gymnasium, medical care–and a weekly prayer meeting. Is this a modern business experimenting with new ideas to retain employees? No, it was a late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century business that was far ahead of its time. (In fact, at least the prayer meeting part would be considered politically incorrect today and possibly e

John, the first of six children in his family, was a sickly child. Although he enjoyed reading and learning and going to school, he dropped out of school at fourteen to work for $1.25 a week as an errand boy for a Philadelphia publisher. He soon quit that job to become a stock boy in a clothing store–for $2.50 a week. During that time, he not only learned a lot about selling clothing but also wrote, edited, published, and distributed a little newspaper called Everybody’s Jour

Although JCP is currently going through some tough times and people associate it with declining, often gang- and crime-plagued malls, such was not always the case. And it was not always known by the bland, nondescript monicker JCP. What originally made the company different from the modern company was the life, philosophy, and influence of one man: James Cash Penney. Humble Beginnings Penney was the seventh of twelve children born to a poor farmer/Baptist preacher and his wif

George didn’t have much at all going for him. He was born a slave to a slave mother in Missouri. The two of them were kidnapped when he was only a young, sickly child. During their flight, the kidnappers separated him from his mother, and he never saw her again. Then they traded him to his rescuers for a broken-down old race horse. Not a good start on life. Education But thanks to his Christian owners, to whom his rescuers returned him, he received a Christian upbringing, and

Our recent celebration of Independence Day set me to thinking about how many of our holidays focus our attention on what has made America great and how it came about. Independence Day, of course, emphasizes the colonists’ declaration of independence from the British king’s tyranny and the freedoms we gained by that independence. Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day emphasize the men and women of subsequent generations who served and often died or were wounded to preserve and mainta