Basic Selling and Business Principles

Okay,

Here goes my second posting on the blog.

I just want to share a couple of perspectives about how I see business and sales and hopefully tie them in to Christian witnessing.

My most basic organizational philosophy for any business or ministry endeavor is as follows:

It is the job description of all members of a team, organization, or ministry to set everyone else involved in that same endeavor up for success.

What I mean by this is that everyone from the CEO right down to the guy who sweeps the floor has a responsibility to the organization and all its members to operate in a way that enables others to be in a place to succeed.

The CEO, Pastor, whoever is at the head of the organization must equip all other people in the best ways possible. They must provide necessary tools, training, and organization to help the flow and effectiveness of the workload go smoothly.

Sales staff must work to keep a constant pipeline of work coming through the operation.

Janitorial staff must keep things neat and organized so that people can perform their duties without looking for tools, or tripping on clutter.

I feel that this same strategy must apply to the Christian Faith. We spend so much time working against each other that our effectiveness as a church body is constantly damaged.

What I mean by this is that as individual churches, we spend time arguing matters of church politics such as what color our chairs should be in the sanctuary?, would Jesus have played a guitar?, would God rather we dribble water on someones head when we baptize them, or do they have to be under water so long that they have a near death experience?

I don't believe that anyone has gone to heaven or hell over any of these issues. Why do we continue to press them? Seems to me that we should help people find a Christ preaching church that fits their personality and comfort level even if the church we attend never sees a single tithe check from them.

Time would be much more productively spent if we worried about where individuals would spend eternity more than we worried about where they spent next Sunday Morning.

Now for the sales part. The basic sale starts with the salesman finding places to prospect for leads. This is usually done by various searches for people who may need what you are selling. and then making a few determinations and then trying to accomodate the customer.

These determinations are:

Does this prospect have a need for what I have to offer?
How can I best solve a problem or need that they have?
How do I win the trust of this person so that they will feel that I can help provide solutions to their problems or needs?

Accomodating these is usually the easy part.

Do they know the Lord Jesus as a savior? If not, then they have a need.

The solution to how that need can be met can be extremely complex.
What I do know is this, in the sales world if all things are equal, a customer will buy from someone who is a friend over someone who hasn't won their trust every time.

Winning trust takes time. I feel that the best way to do that is to constantly try to increase your circle of friends and influence. Just like a salesman has to keep prospects in their pipeline, I feel like we should be on the lookout for someone who needs what we have.

The next step is to develop a friendship, not just a get them to say the sinner's prayer and abandon them to the church of their choosing friendship, but an I will be there when you need me, I enjoy spending time with you and am excited about you being a part of the kingdom friendship. The kind of friendship that always has their best interest at heart even in non-spiritual matters.

My personal feeling is also that there are just some people on the planet who I am not well suited to being extremely close to. Given that, I feel that the next best thing for me to do is to introduce them to someone who may be more of their personality type.

I am trying to do a better job of not offending the bleeding heart liberal who I disagree so strongly with. I figure that if I am just not the right person to develop a friendship that may lead to discussion of spiritual matters, the least I can do is not sour them to the very thought of actually liking a Christ Follower.

I know what my pre-christian opinion of Christians was, and it wasn't a good one. Fortunately for me, someone came into my family's tavern and showed me that not all Christians were self righteous jerks who took joy in the fact that I would one day burn in hell if I didn't change my ways.

Well, there it is, my second post.

I am tired of writing and you are probably tired of reading. Let me know what you think.

By the way Sam, good call on the identity. Same old Terry.