Marketing

De-cluttering your life leads to hidden treasures. Recently I decided to clean out one of the cabinets in my office. I surprisingly found my notes from Robert Schuller’s church leadership conference that I attended in January 1997. They had long been lost; buried in a file box of things.

The notes caught my attention. The top page was titled 7 Principles of Marketing. Our recent emphasis on creating a marketing strategy compelled me to read them. His basic theme was that if you are reaching out to people you have to communicate something that they need. He chose Positive Thinking as a marketing technique. He felt it was what people needed.

It worked. People have come to his Southern California church by the thousands to hear his ideas. Of course, those ideas of positive thinking were always tied to Jesus Christ and his teaching.

I attended this annual conference twice. Both times I left deeply impressed by Schuller’s passion to win people to Jesus. People who only know him or his ministry through television or writing do not really see his heart.

Positive thinking became his marketing tool to interest and to attract people. It served as a hook. The message has always been the Gospel of Jesus.

Here are the 7 principles of marketing he taught that day:

1. Accessibility – People have to be able to get to you.

2. Surplus Parking – We are a “car-cultured” society. Build more parking spaces than you will ever need. By doing so you insure that you do not surrender your leadership to a piece of property.

3. Inventory – In retailing you have to have what people want to buy, not what you are interested in. “Learn to trade some of our narrow views to meet the spiritual hunger of those who need Christ.” What are we offering on Sunday morning that the unchurched of our community need? Address the problems of the unchurched.

4. Service – Serve the people who come. The most important person is the layperson standing at the door.

5. Visibility – Let people know who you are and what you are. They need to know you are “in business.”

6. Strong Financial Base – Financial stability allows you to “do business.”

7. Possibility Thinking Leadership – Church leadership needs to see the possibilities that exist and go after them without being deterred by negative voices that list all the reason why something is impossible.