What is the most valuable asset that your firm possesses? Is it your technology, trade secrets, credit line, or customer base? Although we realize the importance of these, most of us believe that our people or our leadership teams are most valuable to us. However, there is another asset that may be even more important as your business matures. A good name or reputation allows your firm to attract quality leaders, excellent employees, key customers, and financing.

Proverbs 3:4 tells us that we should desire the favor of both God and Man. We are reminded that a good name is more valuable than great riches (Proverbs 22:1). In a business environment in which we demand performance quarterly and we exchange CEOs more often than our cars, a good name is a rare commodity.

In recent months I was reminded that a good name can produce investment returns for many years. Last year, our three-year-old marketing firm was looking for key brokers to represent our new product to the nation’s larger retail chains. Our Vice President was interviewing a broker to call on the world’s largest retailer. The broker asked him about the owners of our firm and the Vice President shared my name. The broker immediately volunteered to take our line. He shared that 15 years ago he had worked as the buyer for that same retailer. Because of the instigation of a policy to buy direct, he took the business away from my distribution firm. Within three months he knew that the decision was wrong. When he went to his boss to change the decision, he was prohibited from doing so, but he continued respect our distribution firm and me as leader. He now welcomed the opportunity to represent our young firm. When our Vice President shared the story with me, I was shocked. In 1988 we had lost 34 percent of our business, and it took us 2 years to make it up and survive as a firm. That heartache could now give us a new business opportunity in a different firm because I had maintained a good name. A good name may be working in ways that you are never allowed to see. How is your reputation even with the clients that you have lost?

Last month I was speaking to a conference of Korean Christian business leaders from around the world. As I was introduced the first evening, Henry came to my table to introduce himself. He asked if I remembered him; I did not. He then gave his firm’s name and I remembered it as one of our suppliers back in the seventies. Henry explained that he was not a believer at that time, but several times a year our firm would use holidays to share Christ in various ways. My open testimony had a large impact on him as one of the many circumstances that eventually brought him to Christ. A good name has a tremendous impact for years. Do your suppliers know about your faith?

When my brothers and I purchased our parents' firm, we had a name that was outdated. “Jack’s Service Company” sounded like a corner gas station, but we retained it because with that name came the excellent reputation of both my parents and the company. Within two years we lost the existing business. We retained only three employees and a few small customers. That name and our limited experience were all that we possessed. With God’s blessing, that was enough. Eventually, the firm grew nearly 30 times in size. The “Jack's” name became known, within our country’s largest grocery, drug, and discount chains, as one that meant excellence, service, and integrity. Today the name is no longer used, but its reputation remains. So does the reputation of its owners, leadership team, and employees.

In business and in life your name is a treasured possession. Paul writes in I Timothy 3:7 that we should look for leaders with a good reputation with those outside of Christ’s body. Are you a leader who understands what influence that your firm's name or your name can have in your community or industry? Your name is something of rare value and you must endeavor to present it to God as one that seeks to glorify Him. What are you doing today to protect and elevate the name on your business card?