I spent years trying to study the world’s monopolists and super-rich men to discover the secrets to market domination. Then one day I heard Dr. Myles Munroe preach on Genesis 1:28 and was struck by the obvious ‘secrets’ to market dominance in that singular verse. I was stunned when I finally realized that God had really given Adam and Eve the recipes for market dominance in the Garden of Eden.
In Genesis 1:28 we saw the secrets clearly revealed when God said to the newly created Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over every living thing that moves on the earth.” A careful reading of Genesis 1:28 actually contained the recipes for achieving dominance and monopoly in any business venture.
After identifying the surprisingly simple steps, I checked the practices of all monopolists and market dominators against them and found that they hold true in all industries or vocations. All successful businessmen who have ever achieved total dominance in their market have followed these four steps. These four Keys are very simple to understand from the passage. Get these four keys and you’ll open the door to market dominance in any industry!
#1: THE KEY TO FRUITNESS- God’s first commandment to Adam and Eve was that they should be FRUITFUL. This is the genesis of market dominance. You must have an original idea. You must create something new (fertility is products that come out of the hard earth to the surface!). You can’t just be a copycat. You must have a defined niche and a fresh approach or new application of a product, idea or thought. Microsoft. Apple. CNN. walmart. Pastor Adeboye of RCCG. Kodak. AMAZON. GOOGLE. Ford, UPS, etc. they were all innovators of new ideas or new approaches to what already exists. Look at the leader of any industry. They were fruitful in a way that the market cannot deny. They were FRUITY in an original way. They were productive in an innovative way. Everything begins and ends with an original idea. ‘Fructification’ is the first key to market dominance. The question that we should all take time to answer in prayer and fasting is: What is my ‘fruitfulness’? What original idea has God given me? What new approach can I introduce to a crowded market? This is the first key. Without this key, the Kingdompreneur is destined for a life of mediocrity or mere sufficiency. Abundance cannot occur without ‘fertility’
#2 THE KEY OF MULTIPLICATION- God then told them to MULTIPLY. Multiplication implies the replication and mass production of an idea. It is about creating a system that allows the idea to go from a prototype to many copies for consumption. It involves thinking beyond local or immediate use. It is about duplicating the idea in different offices, places and supports. Until you learn to multiply your ‘fruit’ or idea, you will never be able to dominate the market. This is the second step to achieve market dominance. A look at the champions in each industry will confirm this amazing fact. Pastor Adeboye found a way to MULTIPLY the ‘fruit’ of evangelism and church planting by creating the Model Parish system which transformed the RCCG church from less than 100 parishes when it became GO to over 30,000 parishes with more than 12 million followers in less than 20 years. Bill Gates took the market away from IBM by finding better ways to multiply the operating system. Ford took the auto industry to another level and rose to dominance by mass producing cars that everyone can buy. Google revolutionized the advertising industry with its pay-per-click search engine that makes Internet advertising accessible from any computer in the world. Amazon took over the bookstore by globalizing the bookstore and making the books available for purchase by everyone around the world at the same time. You cannot be a dominator or a monopoly until you find a way to produce the ‘fruit’ en masse.
#3 THE KEY TO REPLACEMENT: God then ordained that after Adam and Eve have achieved fertility and discovered how to multiply, the next step is to REPLENISH. The replacement implies the distribution of the multiplied fruits to the final consumer. To become a dominant force, you must strive to control the distribution system. A multiplied product is useless. Many great ideas never reach their potential because the creators were unable to dominate and control the source of distribution of the ‘fruits’, products or ideas. This is the third inescapable key to market dominance for any business person. This clue explains why an industry like Nollywood (Nigeria’s much-vaunted film industry) has yet to achieve the global breakthrough that its potential claims. We have mastered the ‘fertility’ part (we pioneered and mastered low budget movie theater with cheap video cameras. This was so innovative that even Hollywood and Bollywood sent people to study the phenomenon. I know this because I met some of these stunned researchers from the United States). We have also mastered the ‘multiplication’ part. You can usually do any quantity mass production in Nigeria now with less than 30 days lead time. However, we are not beginners in the area of REPOSITIONING. The distribution system in Nigeria is still largely limited to 3-4 major markets in 3 cities, controlled by a few people who are either clueless or have chosen to ignore the new global realities and imperative paradigm for global distribution. of content that includes premieres in movie theaters. , merchandising, per-per-view, webcast, shops, rentals. Walmart, without producing anything, became the world leader in solving the distribution problem in the retail industry. They invested heavily in mass stores located in small towns and villages and then forced producers to bail out with their pricing strategy. General Motors and Ford are losing the battle to Honda and Toyota in the market because while the Japanese companies were busy finding more and more distribution markets in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and even the US, the companies are stuck in their own parochial thinking, rising labor costs compared to other countries, corporate gluttony, and the debt that continues to hamper their multiplication and replenishment efforts.
#4. THE KEY OF SUBJUGATION- The last commandment that God gave them to achieve dominance was to subdue the earth. This means a corporate strategy and alliances that subdue competitors in the marketplace and make your organization indispensable or a force to be reckoned with in your industry. Even with antitrust laws in the US, Microsoft continues to be the superpower in microcomputer software by systematically gobbling up upstarts and interrupting their source of multiplication or replenishment. Bill Gates understood the power of subduing the competition. After grappling with the key to fertility, multiplication, and replenishment, Gates spent years cultivating the final key. For years, Bill Gates insisted that only his own operating system could be brought to computers that wanted it. Because of Microsoft’s multiplication and replenishment capabilities, other companies had no choice. Using the same strategy, Walmart spent years honing its replenishment skills before using the final key to market monopoly by undercutting every other store in the retail business.
In fact, ‘the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer’ is actually a Biblical statement. The first three keys are absolutely essential before you can apply the fourth key to dominate the market. Once the market is dominated, Dominance becomes automatic. Of course, getting to the fourth key is a long way for most of us at this point, but we can certainly start working on the first key. We all need that fresh idea and cutting-edge fruition that will launch us on the path to market dominance.
