Merchandising the Flock 2

Let's say there is this hat company. For some reason they cannot seem to sell their crappy little baseball caps. Even though Hat International will put any design on their hats that suits their customers' fancy their sales are still down. It seems that people are no longer into buying baseball caps. To make a 50 percent profit they must sell their hats at 2 dollars apiece wholesale.

A minister hears of their dilemma. He wants to help their business. After all the business is one that his family owns. Pastor Joe is willing to place an order for 2,000 hats. He complies with the company to buy the hats for 2 dollars apiece but with one stipulation. The ministry will buy them at 4 dollars apiece ($8,000) as long as the hat company agrees to give Joe a special gift of $2,000 to his personal account. The hat company will be selling them for $3.00 each and making a huge profit. The ministry will also look like they paid more for the hats than they did.

Pastor Joe is elated with the deal. He now goes on TV and preaches healing hats. He says, "Prayer cloths are mentioned in the Bible and now God is using caps. Today with your gift of twenty dollars he will give you a prayer hat as his way of saying thanks. It has been specially blessed and will do wonders." He then shows some spiritual ads on TV telling how brain tumors were healed by wearing Pastor Joe's blessed prayer hats. He also had one of the faithful appear on TV and speak about a wonderful story about how her brother was healed of leukemia by wearing the wonder cap.

The ads had their effect; the phone lines were amassed with callers giving their gifts of $20. Pastor Joe declares that many of his followers could have a prayer hat ministry themselves. "Buy a case of my hats and distribute them to all your friends and family." Joe offers a bundle deal.

When the audit was done it showed that Pastor Joe bought the hats at a high price but yet still net the ministry $16.00 a hat. Four dollars from each gift had to be first taken out of the proceeds and then given to his family's business (the hat makers). The sixteen dollars that was profit was divided among the special ones in the ministry to pay for all the expenses.

It is a win, win situation that makes ministers rich. No one suspected that Joe's family owns the hat company or that he paid more money than what the hats were worth. Pastor Joe even gets a kickback from his family's hat business.

The justification that Joe uses is that he is a man of God. He deserves payment for the work that He does for the ministry. Sure Joe hires most of his family members into the ministry and then pays them a hefty salary but whom else could he trust? Joe is working for God and deserves the fine things in life that God offers through His sharing people. The hats that Joe gives out are still crap but has been specially blessed. "Isn't a prayer on 2,000 hats worth something?" Joe says in his defense.