Category Archives: Business & Marketing

Business & Marketing, Employment, Writing

5 Minutes a Day

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I recently read Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination by Hugh MacLeod. I mean, why wouldn’t you read a book called Evil Plans?

It’s another book about creativity and striking out on your own, written by a guy who made a name for himself by drawing cartoons on the backs of business cards. That’s all well and good, but sometimes I think these kind of screeds are a little too niche. Some people like having a 9-to-5 job and working for an employer and that doesn’t make them brainless schlubs. Maybe more people can and do have their Evil Plan side projects today than ever before, but that doesn’t mean it’s for everybody.

But that’s my own rant on rants like this. What I really wanted to talk about was one of the brilliant thoughts that stuck with me from the book:

“Like a very talented pianist once told me when I was a boy, it’s better to practice a musical instrument for five minutes a day than to practice for two hours once a week. It’s something I never forgot.” (page 39)

Five minutes a day is better than two hours once a week. If you’re serious about anything, if you want to get good at anything, if you want to tackle a tough project, you need this advice (read: I need this advice).

It’s the consistency that wins over time, not the herculean effort.

And really, if you love it, you’ll find those five minutes are never enough and you’ll start to make more time. But at least take those five minutes.

(My problem is I can never stick to just five minutes and it turns into two hours and the next day I can’t afford to dive in so deeply, so I don’t. I need to learn some self-control. Or I need an egg timer. Or maybe a real egg timer.)

And yes, this is just a gimmick. It’s like all the other ideas, techniques and tricks out there to get you to do something: National Novel Writing Month, inbox zero, pick your favorite Lifehacker gem. But let’s call them what they are: gimmicks. Designed to get us to accomplish a task we can’t otherwise seem to do. Another comment MacLeod makes is that we’re just primates, and like primates we need to be tricked into accomplishing something.

Blogging, Business & Marketing

I’m Not Blogging Right

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I don’t think I’m blogging right. There’s lots of advice out there about how writers are supposed to blog and the importance of having a web presence and putting yourself out there and all that. And I think I’m doing it wrong.

And I don’t care.

They tell you you’re supposed to blog a lot. I don’t. I only posted once in January.

They tell you you’re supposed to at least blog consistently. I don’t. I posted once in January and now I’m going two days straight.

They tell you you’re supposed to have a personal brand, a niche, a specialty that you’re known for. I don’t. I write about whatever I feel like here, which means I’m all over the map. For goodness sake, I blog about when I turn on the heat every year.

They tell you you’re supposed to polish everything and put your best work forward. I don’t. I spend all day writing polished copy for clients and when it comes to my blog, some days I want to wing it.

They tell you to post at the same time and not post multiple posts at once. OK, I follow that bit of advice. But not because it builds a consistent audience with consistent content. I do it because I hate it when my RSS feed gets clogged with multiple posts from the same site. Too many posts in one day and I feel overwhelmed, like I can’t catch up. So I like to spread my posts out a bit if  I can.

They tell you you’re supposed to keep your site current, up to date and well designed. I don’t. Let’s face it, this site has no design. I haven’t even updated my company site in over a year. It doesn’t even list one of my newest and biggest clients.

(OK, not updating my company site is actually dumb. I’ve been meaning to do something about that, but it needs a complete redesign and I don’t have time [or energy] for that. Though every time I redesign that site I try to make it require less and less maintenance. At this rate I should just make a single page that requires zero updating. Ever. Hmm… tempting.)

They tell you you’re supposed to build a fan base. I don’t. I mean, I have Twitter followers and Facebook friends and RSS subscribers. I even have an email newsletter, but updates are rare. But I’m not trying to marshal this crowd of ‘Go Kevin’ people. I figure if people like my stuff they’ll follow somehow. I don’t need to constantly flood them with a steady barrage of ‘I’m So Awesome’ updates.

Maybe all that is naive. Maybe I’m squandering my potential. But I don’t care. I started my blog way back in 1998 for me. I still do it for me. I’ve learned that I can’t follow all that advice and still do it for me. If I start following all that advice then I’m doing it for someone else, and that doesn’t work. I mean, I love you folks who keep reading this crazy blog, but I think you understand that I’m not here to sing and dance for you.

This is my blog, my journal, my place to scratch out my thoughts, to try stuff, to rant, to yell, to piss and moan, to remember things and to fail. I’m not one of those people who’s all about me, but this place is all for me. And if that flies in the face of conventional social media guru wisdom, oh well.

Business & Marketing

Benefits vs. Features

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Abby and I have been cell phone shopping (for her, not me—I still can’t justify it), and surprise, surprise—it’s delivering great marketing lessons.

We’re comparing Android phones on Virgin Mobile’s no-contract plan, and the way they pitch the phones is pathetic. They’re talking about features instead of benefits. They tell you all the phones features, but they don’t talk about how those features actually benefit you. And most of the time in their rush to tell you features, they just keep telling you more and more features to the point that they’re completely useless.

  • A clock? Seriously? That’s the feature you’re going to brag about?
  • I can send email on the phone? Wow. Every smartphone you sell does that. And it’s not like we’re looking at smartphones and non-smartphones side by side where the ability to send email would be worth pointing out.
  • RAM: 512 MB. What does that mean? Later on we get “Internal Memory Size Limit: *ROM 512MB,” followed by the asterisk explanation: “* Usable ROM is less than usable RAM by 152MB” I’m a pretty tech savvy guy, but I’m still lost.
  • Access to the Android app store? No.

Those are all features the company keeps lining up like they’re aiming for bragging rights. What they don’t realize is that they’re making it harder and harder for a customer to choose a phone.

Instead, they should talk about benefits. A feature is that you can access the Android app store. A benefit is that I can find an app to do anything I want, whether it’s track my budget or calculate tip.

Wait, that sounds familiar. How does Apple advertise its app store? Oh yeah: “There’s an app for that.”

Give people benefits instead of features. Apple figured that out and it’s why the iPhone is everywhere.

Books, Business & Marketing, God, Church & Stuff

Outspoken Releases

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So I wrote another book.

Well, not just me. Tim Schraeder came up with this brilliant idea and asked a bunch of people to contribute. In this case, “a bunch” is defined as more than 60. I edited the book and contributed two chapters. And since I work for the organization putting the book out, I’m doing some of the promo work.

It’s been an incredible experience. The book is called Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication. It’s all about how churches can communicate better, which as you can probably guess is the heart and soul of the blog I run, Church Marketing Sucks. You can read an excerpt of one of my chapters over there.

The book officially launched today. I keep reminding myself to keep book sales in perspective. I’ve done two other major book releases and I’ve watched the Amazon sales rank rise and fall. Watching the numbers is folly. That’s what you tell yourself to feel better. But secretly I keep hitting refresh and watching that darn sales rank.

As I’m typing this, we’re at a high of #225. I don’t think Addition by Adoption ever went higher than 55,000. That means that of all the millions of books on Amazon, today there are only 225 selling more copies than Outspoken. If that’s not crazy enough, right now the book is #92 on the hot new releases list, #3 on the movers and shakers list, #24 on the best sellers in Christianity and #4 on the hot new releases in Christianity (right above Joyce Meyer and below Joel Osteen).

Crazy. I don’t know what that actually means for sales numbers yet (though it’s probably fewer than you’d expect). But what’s even better about all those sales numbers is that the book benefits the nonprofit Center for Church Communication and a portion of the proceeds will go to Creative Missions, a missions trip for creatives that actually helps churches communicate better. So by purchasing a book to help your church communicate better, you also help other churches communicate better. So cool.

Such a cool project to be a part of. Thanks to all the contributors who wrote for the book, the team that helped pull it together (and there are a lot of you!), the folks who have been promoting it and of course Tim Schraeder for having this whole brainstorm in the first place. I’m so excited and thankful that I get to work with people like this on projects like this.

You can buy the book on Amazon (where it’s even on sale!).

Business & Marketing

Spoke at Speak

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Justin Wise Instagrammed my talk at Speak.

So last night I swallowed my public speaking fears and gave a talk on church communication at the Speak Conference. The response was overwhelmingly positive, which is incredible for this non-speaker.

Thankfully I didn’t trip over the podium or say anything embarrassing. Though I did almost lose my voice by the end (should have brought my water on stage).

Maybe I should venture out from behind my desk more often. Although today I’m completely exhausted. The introvert in me needs some serious alone time, maybe curled up in a corner somewhere.

Continue reading Spoke at Speak →

Business & Marketing

Speaking at Speak

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Despite the fact that I hate public speaking, I’m doing more public speaking this week. I’ll be sharing at the Speak Conference in Minneapolis this Thursday, Sept. 8. The event is free for locals (though register now, there are only 54 tickets remaining) and being streamed online for everyone else.

A few folks I work with are also speaking, like CFCC co-director Justin Wise and Table VP Jason Wenell. There are also a bunch of other folks speaking I haven’t met yet, but am looking forward to hearing from.

The conference will cover how churches communicate online. I’m planning to talk about how to tell your story online and I’ll be using my book, Addition by Adoption, as a major example. This afternoon I’m hoping to put together my PowerPoint presentation (eek). Thankfully I only have ten minutes, so we’re going for a very minimal presentation (mostly just an excuse to show pictures of the kids).

The event is from 6-8:30 p.m. and I think I go on near the end, so feel free to tune in online. You can count how many times I say “um.”

Business & Marketing

I Hate Public Speaking

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Giving a presentation on the Table Project at my church.

This week I gave two presentations, which is funny considering how much I hate public speaking. The first was a demonstration of the social networking site the Table Project to a small crowd at my church (I blogged about that for the Table). The other was a Q&A on writing copy for churches at the Social Phonics Summer Camp in Minneapolis. To my amazement, the Social Phonics talk went on for an hour and a half.

I made it through both events (though nearly lost my voice after both) and people seemed to like what I said. I actually got some laughs and some tweetable comments at Social Phonics. That always helps.

I initially turned down the offer to speak at Social Phonics, but eventually I gave in to the pleading from Tony Jones. He offered to do the presentation as a Q&A if that’d be easier for me, and I was amazed at how much easier that was. It probably helped that Tony has some pretty good emcee chops, but I felt a lot more comfortable and actually knowledgeable as I talked and didn’t have to feel like Mr. Presenter Man.

I actually found all this presenting rather stimulating. I had some really good conversations afterword and was able to make some good connections, both network-wise and idea-wise. My list of articles to write for Church Marketing Sucks just tripled. Not that this introvert will be starting a speaking tour anytime soon, but sometimes it’s good to get out of your comfort zone and discover that it’s not that scary.

Plus with techno-wonder Nick Ciske speaking before me and the aforementioned Tony Jones, it was like a Billy Graham reunion. Back in the day I used to edit the BGEA site passageway.org, Nick would code it and Tony was a contributor. We just needed Steve Knight and Matthew Taylor.

Business & Marketing, Politics

Political Communication that Works

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On election day, amid the frenzy of last minute plugs and flurry of civic-minded joy, I came across a simple little website that I just love. Before linking I want to qualify this for two reasons: 1) It’s full of the f-word, which might put some people off. So fair warning. 2) It’s all pro Obama, which might put some more people off. More fair warning.

But in spite of both of those things, I think the site is really cool. I share it regardless of politics and profanity because I think it’s an interesting idea. I actually waited until after the election to let the partisan nature wear off a bit. It’s still there, but it feels easier to look past today than it would have been on election day.

The site is called What The F*ck Has Obama Done So Far? and it’s just a slide show of one-sentence accomplishments. Each accomplishment has a source link and then a button to see the next accomplishment. It’s an ingenious little way to tell a story of simple achievements. Instead of drowning people in paragraphs of text on every issue, it’s just one little snippet of factual text.

Now I realize some folks will likely take issue with each bit of “factual” text, because that’s what we do, nit-picking every statement as spin and adding our own counter-spin. But I think the basic idea does what it needs to. Some sort of way to engage those nit-pickers and add a little more explanation or context might be helpful (but that might also ruin the simplicity of the whole thing). It’s not a perfect idea, but it’s a lot more effective than any political website I’ve ever seen.

Bottom line: I love the idea of taking something as complex and off-putting as politics and phrasing it in simple one-liners of actual accomplishment that anyone can understand. That’s powerful communication.

Business & Marketing, Writing

Promotion or Obscurity

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I’m struggling right now with how hard to promote my book, Addition by Adoption. Or at least I would be if I weren’t so busy. With another adoption (an 11-year-old, no less!), another book project and the end of summer, I’m not sure my life has reached this level of busy before. So the book kind of gets forgotten.

And that’s the struggle. Do I let it slide into obscurity or do I work even harder to promote it, keep it on the forefront of people’s thoughts and sell a few more copies? Or is it already in obscurity and I should just give up now? Or is all that promotion just annoying?

I worked relentlessly in April and May to promote this book and get it out there and the response was pretty incredible. The sales for a self-published book were spectacular. Of course spectacular sales of a self-published book don’t account for much.  When I look at my expenses the book hasn’t even broken even yet (let’s not even talk about the time involved). And we still need to raise $3,000 to build that well in Ethiopia.

Publishing is a harsh mistress.

Of course for all that promotion there are still people who have no idea I published a book, let alone a ground-breaking book of tweets. Nevermind a book exploring adoption. There are still people who said they’d do some kind of promotion and never did. There are still people who said they’d buy a copy and never did. Sometimes people need to be reminded again and again and again. And sometimes that just gets old.

So I guess we’ll see what happens. This post serves as a handy (and lame) bit of further promotion. So don’t forget that we still have ‘Awesome Editions’ of the book available ($12 goes to charity: water!) and you can always buy it on Amazon.

Business & Marketing, Writing

Seth Godin Gives Up On Traditional Publishing

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Marketing guru Seth Godin is giving up on traditional publishing, according to a teaser to an upcoming interview. We’ll let Godin explain it himself:

“I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way. 12 for 12 and I’m done. I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread … I really don’t think the process is worth the effort that it now takes to make it work. I can reach 10 or 50 times as many people electronically. No, it’s not ‘better’, but it’s different. So while I’m not sure what format my writing will take, I’m not planning on it being the 1907 version of hardcover publishing any longer.”

On one hand I think this is kind of funny. Poor Seth Godin, it’s so much work to sell those books. There aren’t that many authors who have an easier time selling books than Seth Godin. He could publish a book of blank pages and it’d top the business best seller list.

On the other hand, I see where he’s coming from. One year from author’s brain to bookstore shelf would be considered lightning fast in the publishing industry. The emphasis on making a big splash can be pretty overwhelming. And if you can spread your ideas in other formats (assuming spreading your ideas is all you’re after), why not go for it?

The reality here is that Godin can do whatever he wants. He can sell hardcover 1907 books if he wants, and he could just as easily sell digital 2010 books. If speed is his concern he could write up a manuscript and have it on Kindle in mere days. He could even have a hardcopy version available on Amazon in about a week. It’s not hard (I’ve done it).