Monday, February 25, 2013

Can the Sales Pitch


I am on an email list that sends me very helpful teachings called McKaughan Musing.  I wish I could provide the link, but after days of trying, I am having technical difficulty.  So I will cut and paste.  These musings are from http://www.missionexus.org/, but I cannot get you to the direct link to the article I am quoting.

For the February 2013 edition the focus is Marketing vs. Sales.  McKaughan says this,

 I was re-reading a book on Peter Drucker, who was my generation’s leadership and management Guru. (A Class with Drucker by William Cohen) I came to a chapter on Marketing and Sales and it got me thinking.

   For Drucker, marketing was central to strategically leading any organization. Sales, on the other hand, was merely a second or third tier tactical issue

   To Drucker, the clear distinction between marketing and sales was that in marketing you found out what your customer wanted and then you built that into your product. Since what you produced was what was wanted or needed, a well- designed and carefully manufactured product hardly needed to be sold. What you produced met the customer’s needs and desires. Sales on the other hand had to do with pushing things on people where there was little intrinsic need or desire. Selling had to do with the creating or manipulating need or desire. According to Drucker, sales dealt with tactics, not strategy. Strategy always trumps tactics. If your strategy is wrong, your tactics will never lead to success.

Transformational Giving is about principles that guide our strategy, which in turn will guide our ‘tactics’.  Wrong strategy leads to wrong tactics. 
Could it be that the reason the listener often hears our fund raising presentation as ‘begging’ is because we are using tactics built on poor strategy?

McKaughan strikes on a truth Drucker taught that is core to TG.  "To Drucker, the clear distinction between marketing and sales was that in marketing you found out what your customer wanted and then you built that into your product."  The teaching we give in the migration of the champion (donor) is to find out what God is doing in their life.  This strategy is built on principle #4 in the 10 principles of TG.  Principle 4: A champion connects with an organization for the purpose of enhancing their mutual impact on the cause, not only to support the organization’s impact on the cause.

It is about the champion’s impact not ours.  So it is about the champion and what she needs, not my need for their funds.  Then as Drucker said, “Since what you produced was what was wanted or needed, a well- designed and carefully manufactured product hardly needed to be sold.”  So if your ministry is designed to fill the gap God has placed in someone’s life (i.e. their need) then God will go before you and the need you present meets the champion’s need not just yours.  In this case it will hardly need to be “sold”.

Let’s take helping orphans as an example.  You are trying to raise money for your orphanage. So the tactics could be to show starving, lonely children.  The tactic being, show the kids and the funds will come.  I talked with a group that even flew the kids from a Majority World Culture to the states and paraded them to churches to raise money.  It worked, short-term. The problem was, in two years they had lost momentum.  They could not sustain the sympathy.  So they were trying to find a new group of kids to fly to the states for another ‘tour’.

But if raising money for orphans is not just about you or the kids, but also the giver and his need, how would this change the tactic?  Does the Bible not tell us to take care of the orphan?  Is this need being meet by the local church or the members sitting in the church that day?  The ministry to orphans is not just about the kids, it is also about the listener’s need to answer the call of God to serve children.  So now the strategy changes to reflect the biblical need of the believer to get involved in the lives of orphans.  It moves to an all-encompassing need.  The children have needs, the agency designed to reach them has needs, and the listener has a need to obey the command of God to serve. 

Now giving is fulfilling the champion’s need to obey and be a part of ministry.  The strategy moves from closing the deal to get the sale, to meeting the need of all involved.  We have moved from a transactional exchange to lives being transformed. The giver is now as blessed as the receiver. 

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The Great Compassion


In a post on July 6, 2011, I wrote about a new equation.  The basis of this equation is that a transformed life (T) is a result of following the Great Commandment (to love God and your neighbor) and then to practice the Great Commandment one must fulfill the Great Commission (go make disciples).  So the equation is T=GC2

I would like to add to the equation of T=GC2.  It is another GC.  Paul Borthwick in his book Western Christians in Global Missions has another GC he calls the Great Compassion.  Matthew 25: 34-40 is the famous passage that Jesus tells us how to perform ministry.  It’s pretty simple really, we serve each other. (To refresh your memory, Matt. 25 is where Jesus tells the help we give the least of these, is serving Him.) 

So the math is simple.

First we must love God and our neighbor.  (If you wonder who your neighbor is, Jesus answered that with the telling of the Good Samaritan.)

Second if you love God and your neighbor then you are to obey the Great Commission.  So loving your neighbor is taking the Gospel to them and making disciples.

Third, we implement the Great Commission.  But how?  Isn’t the Great Commission just for teachers, missionaries and preachers?  And if the Great Commission is for the teachers, missionaries and preachers then the rest get to stop at step one?  No that is fuzzy math. 
 
Everyone who claims the Great Commandment is to do the Great Commission and the Great Compassion tells us how.  We disciple the world by giving.  Not just giving dollars but giving ourselves as Christ did.  We give to others through our service.  When we serve we transform.  So the new formula is a Transformed Life (T) equals all three Great C’s…T=GC3.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Growing


Transformational Giving can pop up anywhere.  In the last post I mentioned Paul Borthwick’s book, Western Christians in Global Missions. As I read this book I see Transformational Giving principles popping up all the time.  But this is only because Transformational Giving has far more to do with our spiritual walk than just giving our money.  As believers we are to live transformational lives (some call it The WholeLife Offering).  So TG is one key component of Transformational Living.

 

Borthwick reflects this truth in a chapter of his book called “Sacrifice-Not Just Generosity”.  He touches on the old truth that is “it is often easier to be financially generous than personally sacrifice.” (page 143. Western Christians in Global Missions). This truth is a big reason I am an advocate of our giving being transformational and not simply a transaction between parties. 

 

Borthwick goes on to say that issues facing the world today are not solved by generous checks.  They are solved by long-term work and sometimes sacrifice for the endeavor God has laid on our hearts. To illustrate this teaching Borthwick uses examples that are straight out of a ‘Participate-Engage-Owner’ type thinking.  Let me give you a few quotes he gives as examples in his book.

In our world long-term sacrifice grows as we get involved.  It can progress
·        From dedicating thirty minutes a day to pray for the nations of the world, to building cross-cultural friendships, to going to serve in a multicultural organization

·        From going on a short-term mission trip to reach children in a poor barrio, to supporting a child for forty dollars a month, to becoming a social worker dedicated to serving children.

 

You can see how these examples reflect the teachings that TG gives in regards to moving our champions from participants, to a level of engagement, to being owners of the cause.

 

A key word for our spiritual journey and in TG that Borthwick uses above is GROW.  Growth is a long-term venture.  One-time shots at it do not make it happen.  I do not plant new grass seed and expect to mow my lawn the next morning.  Our activity in God’s work must grow.  And what is planted today does not bloom by morning.  However, with work, progress and maybe even sacrifice we see fruit in the long-term.  So don’t bail out early.  Stick with your champions and be the example for them that long-term activity in their cause is where the growth is.  Help them Own it.