Your church is in sales. Here’s how to stand out.
Every Sunday, pastors make a pitch of one sort or another:
Invest more time in reading the Bible.
Show forgiveness and compassion to others.
Volunteer in your community.
Find a new church member you can mentor.
And the prime pitch: believe in the power of the Gospel – and share it with your neighbor.
Let me be clear at the start. I'm not suggesting that pastors can usurp the divine power of the Holy Spirit in the work of salvation. It's not man who saves, but God. (John 14:6, Acts 4:12)
But pastors are placed in positions to persuade.
In his book To Sell is Human, author Daniel Pink, makes the case that we're all in sales: "To sell well is to convince someone else to part with resources—not to deprive that person, but to leave him better off in the end.”
We tend to think of sales as strictly a financial transaction, and we often view it negatively (think car salesperson or telemarketer). One party "trades" some amount of money for a product or service, and often feels like they got the short end of the deal.
But, as Pink artfully argues, it's not always (or even mostly) about money – and it should rarely be a one-sided benefit. “The purpose is to offer something so compelling that it begins a conversation, brings the other person in as a participant, and eventually arrives at an outcome that appeals to both of you.”
A dad who tries to persuade his daughter to finish her homework? He's trying to convince her that an A in Biology will have more impact on getting into her top college choice than watching an episode of New Girl for the sixth time. (And it hopefully leads to more scholarship aid, which helps Dad's bank account.)
A sales manager who encourages one of her team members to make more cold calls? She's trying to show her colleague how more persistent outreach can generate more qualified leads, which leads to more closed deals, which leads to higher commission. (And it also helps the manager get closer to the quota for her team.)
A friend who urges his buddy to take a personal day and hit the golf course? He's making the "sales" argument that fellowship and fun over 18 holes is a better investment of time than conference calls and Zoom meetings. (And it allows him to push off mowing the front lawn for one more day.)
And, yes, pastors "sell" too.
In a recent e-mail, one pastor shared this with me: "Being a pastor for almost 20 years, I like to think that I've been in sales that whole time (ie. selling the Gospel)."
Pastors have a unique opportunity – perhaps even obligation? – to "sell" or uniquely position their church as well.
This shouldn't be a controversial concept. As Christian author George Barna says in The Power of Vision, “Each church has been called into existence to reach a different group of people and to have a unique influence on the culture in which it ministers.”
It's not about competing with other churches. It's about believing God has placed your church in a specific community to reach a specific audience in a specific way. If you don't understand that uniqueness – or how to leverage it – you're likely not reaching those who can most benefit from the unique DNA of your church.
Enter the Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
In business, organizations spend lots of time and effort to zero in on their UVP. In a word, the UVP is about differentiation. A company's ability to articulate its uniqueness often correlates to its market share (in addition to brand recognition and reputation).
Your church isn't chasing "market share," but it should be chasing unchurched people in your community – and it should know how to reach them.
The UVP is primarily designed to achieve three things:
Explain how a product or service can either solve problems or satisfy an unmet need
Outline the specific benefits of a product or service
Tell a prospective "customer" why they should choose a product or service over those offered by competitors
In many cases, an organization's UVP is a single, short statement (similar in some cases to a slogan). But we think everything is better in threes (think stooges, musketeers and amigos).
Right before COVID shut down most gym facilities in America, our family invested in a Tonal home fitness system. It's now, without a doubt, my favorite piece of technology. I’ve never been a gym rat, but I actually look forward to working out now.
Visit Tonal’s web site, and you'll see their UVP is "The Smartest Home Gym," but scroll further down and you'll see they support their UVP with three key points:
Full-body workouts
Revolutionary technology
Coaches for every body
One of Tonal's chief competitors, Mirror, offers a UVP of "The Nearly Invisible Home Gym." They further distinguish with these three descriptors:
Perfect workout for everyone
Advanced tracking technology
Connect with friends
In a recent blog, we highlighted Klipfolio, a software solution that creates pretty dashboards from ugly spreadsheets. A quick look at their website shows they believe in the power of three as well. Their UVP is "Make decisions with confidence," and they differentiate through:
Essential metrics
Meaningful dashboards
Actionable reports
Let's stay in the software space and look at one more example. Mint.com, a personal finance software tool, uses the following UVP: "It's all coming together." Their three follow-ups?
All-in-one finances
Budgets made simple
Unlimited credit scores
At Seven Marches, we also feature three key differentiators as part of our UVP:
Simple, practical tools
Business concepts translated for ministry
Technology solutions to help productivity and communication
If you visit our web site, you'll see that everything we communicate on our home page and elsewhere (including this very blog post) connects to one of those three elements.
Developing three key uniques for your UVP can help fine-tune your "elevator speech" – when someone asks you to describe your organization, you immediately have three talking points to guide your response.
The other benefit of a three-pronged UVP? It provides a compass for your organization. If you've laid stakes in the ground in three areas where you firmly believe you offer the most value, you can press into those three items in just about every strategic decision.
For example, Tonal's UVP of "the smartest home gym" begins to help the customer (and company) understand its chief benefit – but only by expanding on that concept does the company know where to execute strategically: full-body workouts, revolutionary technology and coaches for every body.
In the nine months since we've purchased our Tonal system, we've seen the library of full-body video workouts dramatically expand. We've seen enhancements in their technology – for instance, they recently added "form feedback," which uses sensors to help analyze and correct form as you're working out. And, finally, Tonal has added several coaches and levels of workouts to cater to any level of fitness.
So, a good UVP not only marks what makes you different; it serves as a guide for where you should focus your efforts.
Double down on your distinctives.
Focus on the few.
Be comfortable with the fact that you might not be the best fit for everyone.
For example, some pastors might not be comfortable with the thought of exploring the use of business concepts and technology in their ministry work. That's fine. Seven Marches isn't the fit for them. But for pastors who are open to new and creative ways of addressing problems and seizing opportunities, we can provide some unique solutions.
The UVP for churches
Whether you realize it or not your church or ministry already has a UVP (every organization does) – you just might not yet have discussed it, documented it or leaned into it.
So, where do you start? How do you filter down all of the characteristics of an organization into a compelling statement that's backed by three unique, strategic dimensions?
At Seven Marches, we help ministry organizations start the process by answering four questions:
How do we meet the needs of our “customers” (for churches, the “customers” are worshipers)?
What specific benefits, services or products do we offer?
Why do our current members or stakeholders say they chose us?
What do we want to be known for in 10 years from now?
Grab your team, and jot down 4-5 thoughts for each question. After you've completed the exercise, rank each of your 16-20 total answers or a on scale of 1 to 10 in terms of differentiation.
For example, you might list "Biblically-centered worship" as one of the "services" you offer. That's probably a 2 on the scale – most other Christian churches are going to (hopefully) purport to offer the same.
But let's say your church has a youth-led worship service that pulls in 100+ teenagers every Saturday night? Now, we're starting to see that scale tick upwards. How many other churches in your community footprint can say they have a vibrant youth program that trains up leaders through worship participation?
Once you've identified your top three differentiators, the fun begins. Take a look at your web site, your social media accounts or any other marketing tools you use. Are you featuring those three differentiators prominently? Are you spelling out the benefits to your community? Is it easy for a potential “customer” to quickly determine why they should choose you?
And, in your next strategic planning session, why not use those three items as a compass? How can you allocate resources, time and focus to accentuate your differentiators and provide clear direction for your team?
You might not consider yourself a “sales” professional, but you’re in the business of persuasion. Understanding your uniqueness, learning how to communicate your differentiators, and anchoring your strategic direction in those specialties can make a radical difference.
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