As leaders prone to pride and works of righteousness, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we’re somehow becoming more Christ-like by our own efforts. Sure, we know we’re saved by grace, but we’d like to think that our works make us more holy. In the heat of the daily battle we can forget that, apart from our identity in Christ, what we bring to the party – even on our best day – is “as filthy rags”(Isa 64:6). By leaning on our own righteousness, we damage our testimony with each offense, and push away many to whom we’re called to minister by our self-righteous behavior. In truth, our holiness depends on faithfully abiding in Jesus, which is made possible by His grace. John Piper recently said, “Grace isn’t simply leniency when we’ve sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.” For believers, God’s grace is active in saving us in Christ, sanctifying us in His image, and bringing us safely home!

Confident in God’s grace, we have the privilege of presenting ourselves, in gratitude, as living sacrifices and His ambassadors! When selfless works flow out of a heart that is grateful for such unmerited favor, others can often begin to see the reality of Christ’s love and gospel. With this truth in mind, let’s consider a few questions:

■Jesus told Paul that His “grace is sufficient” and His “power is made perfect in weakness.” How does this relate to us today as servant leaders and shepherds in the workplace?

■Do we behave or communicate as if “God is fortunate to have us on His team”?How can our ‘righteous’ behavior, often rooted in a misplaced sense of guilt or pride, create a stumbling block to others who truly need to hear Christ’s gospel of grace?

■Practically speaking, what does ‘humble reliance’ look like for us and how can this open the door with others to sharing the hope we have in Christ?

 “If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus coming to the Fairground Saturday,” that’s advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that’s promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flower bed, that’s publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations. If the town’s citizens go the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they’ll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that’s sales.”

  While humorous, the above quote captures the reality for many of us with respect to marketing… so many words, but so little understanding, focus and disciplined application. Although few business owners and CEOs imagine themselves to be topnotch ‘marketers,’ marketing is merely a broad banner flying over several fairly straight-forward business responsibilities. Getting a handle on a few key aspects of marketing – out of the continuing barrage of supposedly indispensable ‘new’ ideas pushed by consultants and business writers – will serve us well in building a growing enterprise.

So, What is Marketing?

 Marketing is the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. It (1) identifies unfulfilled needs and desires, (2) defines, measures, and quantifies the size of the identified market and its profit potential, and (3) pinpoints the market segments that the company is capable of serving best, and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.

  Based on this definition, marketing clearly isn’t solely the responsibility of a specific department or key supplier, but rather an integrated subject requiring top management leadership and company-wide team effort. Marketing involves thoughtful strategic planning based on an accurate understanding of current capabilities and marketplace opportunities, on-going customer feedback and analysis of market trends, and a variety of ways to communicate to and stimulate target markets to spur profitable sales growth.

   Is improved marketing on the mind of the typical Christian business owner? In a recent nationwide survey of C12 members, improved strategic planning ranked as the single most pressing identified need (with 98% expressing current interest) from among a list of 19 specific business skills!

  In classic marketing lingo, once we’ve identified and analyzed the various market segments, strategically selected our target market segments, and considered how to best position ourselves to that target, we establish the optimum ‘marketing mix’ for each of our offerings by selecting the ideal set of choices from among ‘the four Ps’:

Product: the good or service that is designed, produced, and offered for sale

Price: the cost or exchange required for the customer to obtain our product

Place: marketing/distribution channels where our product is available

Promotion: encompasses all sales communication aimed at creating awareness and attraction, including advertising, selling, sales promotion, merchandising, and public relations

 Marketing Consistent with Our Purpose and Values

 Before we leave the subject of marketing, let’s talk briefly about shaping our marketing messages consistent with our stated purpose and core principles as Christians. It’s so easy to fall into the typical advertising appeals and positioning statements of our times which appeal to human vanity and idolatry. As ambassadors of Christ, our focus should be on excellence in our service to others, while avoiding manipulation, exaggerated claims, fleshly appeals and deceptive offers that would do damage to our testimony and harm those we are privileged to serve. Marketing messages that are excessively self-congratulatory or feed ungodly desires, behavior, or thinking should be avoided. We should aim to point others to God’s best and highest purposes with trustworthy, best-in-class service of their legitimate needs in a manner that honors God, is family friendly, and encourages the eternal perspective. As Jesus said, “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?” (Jn 5:44).

 At the end of the day, excellent marketing is an expression of stewardship of the company He has given us to run for Him!

Related articles by Zemanta

• The (Same Old) 4Ps Of Marketing 2.0. (makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com)
• Promotion 03 (slideshare.net)

1. Defining your Dominant Selling Idea (DSI) Our DSI is a unifying, energizing, focusing, trust-building, clutter-removing, lean-value-creating notion – a motivating difference at the moment of the purchase decision – that communicates our #1 position in a ‘desirable specialty’ that’s important to our target customers. That’s a mouthful, but unless we’re able to define our DSI, we won’t be able to ‘attach it’ to our name… a requirement for branding. Our DSI fuses our name to a #1 specialty in the customer’s mind. Remember, our customers must ‘cut through the fog’ of competing suppliers in an instant, hopefully as follows: Industry  Category  Specialty  #1 in Specialty  Our Brand Name

  First, we must articulate our clear ownable specialty. To view us as #1 at something, customers must first relate us to a specialty category, even if we have to invent it! When internal combustion engines became commonplace, Evinrude coined the term ‘outboard motor’ and dominated its growing niche. After airplanes became pervasive, proliferating specialty categories enabled leadership positions to be carved out in jets (vs. propeller-driven), fighter jets (vs. passenger/freight/corporate), supersonic (vs. subsonic), and stealth (vs. radar detectable). Boeing became #1 in the ‘jumbo jet’ category, just as many automakers now hope to be #1 in ‘hybrid cars.’ Within the global auto industry, little Subaru has become #1 in the “SUV Wagon” category and Volvo is branded as “the world’s safest car.”

After defining our clear ownable specialty, we can now develop our DSI. Imagination helps. For example, Rolaids invented the term “Acid Indigestion,’ Hall’s coined “Vapor Action,” and Metamucil renamed flea seed fiber as “100% Natural Psyllium.” To be powerful and memorable, our DSI should be as concise as possible (e.g., M&Ms–Melts in Your Mouth not in Your Hands; Allstate–The Good Hands People).

Ideally, our DSI will possess five ‘selling attributes’:

◊ Superlative – we’re best-in-class at something

◊ Important – that ‘something’ really matters

◊ Believable – there are logical reasons why this is the case

◊ Memorable – an emotional, easy-to-remember, ‘hook’ related to needs and wants

◊ Tangible – real and trusted based on our actual performance

 Once we have a DSI, we can use four vital supporting elements to bring it to life.

2. Your Company or Product Line’s Name When our name accentuates our DSI, we’ve got a powerful one-two punch! A descriptive and memorable name is best. Initials, family surnames, and innocuous labels can, of course, become familiar and meaningful in time (e.g., Toyota, Sears, IBM, etc.), but it’s far better to have a name that’s:

◊ Directly supportive of our DSI

◊ Descriptive, memorable, or evocative

◊ Ownable and protectable

◊ Easy and pleasing to say

Consider these communicative names that seem to have a built-in DSI: DieHard Batteries, Invisible Fence, Home ATM Software, Egg Beaters, Ball Park Franks, Super Bowl. Compare their marketing power to generic names such as Acme, Universal, Smith, etc.

3. Your Tagline This valuable selling tool supports your DSI by clearly ‘promising a difference’ that customers want to buy. Like your name, it will ideally be concise, colorful, evocative and memorable. Here are a few famous ones:

◊ Timex – Takes a Licking and keeps on Ticking

◊ Bounty – The Quicker-Picker-Upper

◊ Prudential – Get a Piece of the Rock

◊ Black Flag Roach Motel – Roaches Check In, but They Don’t Check Out.

◊ Visa – It’s Everywhere You Want to Be

4. Key Visuals While graphic design gives a brand consistency, key visuals demonstrate the performance and proof of your DSI at a glance, demonstrating that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Many are, in effect, instantaneous selling demos. A few examples:

◊ Masterlock – rifle bullet blasting through

◊ Tropicana – an orange with a straw in it

◊ Milk Industry – white milk mustache

◊ Crazy Glue – helmeted guy stuck to football goal crossbar

◊ Michelin Tire – secure smiling baby sitting in tire

5. Making it Real We either perform in such a way to make our DSI real or we don’t. Nothing kills a great brand message faster than poor follow-through.

Strong marketing creates great anticipation that can quickly turn into anger, a sense of betrayal, and a dead brand! Team unity and alignment, consistent with our company’s purpose and values, is essential to success. Assess how customers experience your DSI and evaluate your performance at each ‘touch point’ to ensure each element of the customer experience resonates with your promise.

What have we learned? Brands really matter! They’re accessible to all types and sizes of companies who consistently communicate their Dominant Selling Idea using readily available tools. Finally, they involve leadership focus and teamwork more than money to implement.