Use Your Words: Finding the Work/Life Balance

Well, somehow I got through another Use Your Words show with a throat that is absolutely killing me! So if I sounded funny, forgive me.

But today’s show was inspired by an email I received from Lisa, who said,

“how do you find the time for everything? How do you balance your work and your family? How do you figure out how to find time to market? I just feel like I never get anything done.”

I so feel your pain, Lisa. And so you can listen to the show right here. But here’s a synopsis for the rest of you:

1. Stop Apologizing for Your Ministry

When I started speaking and writing, I felt like it was something I was doing for me–stoking my own ego, so to speak. Therefore, I couldn’t take any time away from my daughters, or my home, or my marriage, or I was somehow cheating. I was being selfish. So the ministry came last. I had to make sure I was SuperMommy before I could go on the computer.

Stop it. If God is calling you to ministry, He wants you to take some time. You don’t have to apologize. You don’t have to compensate. You don’t have to work four times as hard in every other area of your life to get “permission” to do ministry. Ask for help, explain to your mate what you feel is your calling, talk to your friends about it, and stop feeling guilty.

2. Stop Apologizing to Yourself

But if we’re not feeling guilty for letting everyone else down, we often feel guilty for letting ourselves down. I should be accomplishing so much more, we think. I should be trying harder. I should be further ahead.

No. You do what you can, when you can. When my kids were young, I only had time to work while they napped. My ministry grew slowly. When they were older, I did what I could. I didn’t begin blogging or using social media until 2008, when they were able to do most of their homeschooling independently (they were 11 and 13 at the time). God may be calling you to something, but it may be something that grows slowly, in different stages of your life. That’s okay. Even in the beginning years, when you are busy with little ones, or in years when you’re busy taking care of older relatives, He’s still grooming you. He’s giving you great stories to tell one day! He’s giving you life experience. You can still read and learn and pray, even if you don’t do as much speaking now. That’s all right.

3. Stop Feeling Guilty About Not Keeping a Schedule

I used to feel guilty about not getting up at 6:30 to start my day off right. I have finally come to peace with the fact that I’m not a morning person. I often don’t go to sleep until 11:30 or midnight, so I”ll spend some “time” with my husband early in the evening, say from 10-11, and then he’ll go to sleep while I’m on my iPad until midnight, lying in bed beside him. That’s okay. I’m getting work done at night.

I also used to feel guilty because I read all these productivity magazine articles that said that I was supposed to have “work hours”. I tried that. It never worked. And I felt horrible about it. I tried working from 10-12, thinking that then I would get stuff done. But then we’d have doctor’s appointments, or Katie would need help with math, and I’d end up resenting he for it.

You need to do what works for you. I start a timer at the beginning of the day, and try to work for 2 1/2 hours on my big projects. I hit start, and get to work. When an interruption comes, I hit stop. And then when I sit back down, I hit start again. So over the day I’m trying to get to 2 1/2 hours. When I do get there, I stop. I go make dinner, or I relax, or I do something else.

I find working for 2 1/2 hours less stressful than saying, “I need to get this done today”, because then if you don’t get it doen you feel guilty. Instead, I do what I can in the hours that I have decided are reasonable.

One caveat: this doesn’t work well when you have small children. If you’re constantly trying to “snatch” time when there are preschoolers underfoot, you’ll end up resenting them because they’re always interrupting you. It’s better in that case to have time at night, when your husband has them, or to trade baby-sitting time with friends, or to work when they nap or when they watch a video (we used to save movies for when Mommy needed to work).

4. Figure out your main goal for the month

We all have endless to do lists on what we need to do to get our speaking ministry going. I need a better website. I need a Facebook page. I need to write my talk for the retreat. I need to send out my newsletter. I need to do this. Stop it. Just stop it. If you think in terms of your to-do list, you’ll never feel to done. You’ll always feel like you haven’t accomplished anything because there is always more to do.

Instead, think in terms of one or two big projects you want to work on this month. Maybe it’s getting an ebook together, or cold calling churches to book a speaking tour. Figure out your main goals (and if you have trouble focusing, my webinar, Treating Speaking Like a Business, gives you an amazing tool to figure out what is most useful for you to concentrate on, and what will most help your ministry). Then you’re focused, and the other stuff can get done later. You’ve taken care of the importan tthings.

Do these four things, and you’ll stop feeling so guilty! So listen in if you missed the show. And be sure to check out my webinar, Treating Speaking Like a Business!

Use Your Words: Should You Write a Book?

photo © 2008 Ed Yourdon | more info (via: Wylio)

Every Tuesday on BlogTalkRadio I host Use Your Words, a 30 minute show where I give you speaking tips!

After asking on my Facebook page about the types of things you all wanted to hear about, I discovered that “writing a book” was right there on the top of the list. So I decided to tackle that in yesterday’s show. Listen in here.

A few thoughts from the show, in no particular order:

1. It’s very hard to get a book published today by a traditional publisher.

They’re looking for a great, compelling idea with a readily available and identifiable market. In other words, they don’t want lots of new books on “how to get closer to God”, which is basically what most of us who speak want to write. They want something very specific, that addresses a problem.

Unfortunately, if we write books for a specific niche, they’re hard to sell if we speak to general audiences. So traditional publishers aren’t likely going to help us much.

2. Self-Publishing is very expensive.

I say more about self-publishing in this post, but keep in mind that you’re looking at roughly $5000. That’s a lot of money. You can expect to sell books to about 10% of your audience, roughly, so if you speak to 300 women a month, and you publish 1000 books, you will likely sell them in three years. If you can guarantee that you can do that, self-publishing may be worth doing. If you can’t, then you should think about waiting.

3. Writing a Book Takes Time You Could Spend Elsewhere

Writing a book will take you at least six months to do well. In that six months, you could have been, instead, building up your web presence and your online community, which in turn would make it easier to sell that book (or to attract a traditional publisher). You could have been researching other speaking opportunities, or even writing magazine articles.

I’m not saying it’s not a good idea; only look at what should come first. Personally, I would concentrate on building a big online presence first, and then writing the book when you have a natural audience to sell it to. I talk more about my perspective in the radio show, so listen in!

In the meantime, if you need things to sell as you speak, a better route is to find something cheaper to produce. I have a great teleseminar that teaches you how to Create Information Products to sell, and helps you brainstorm what will work for you. 

And this summer, I’ll be doing a webinar on how to get a book published, if you’re serious and you do want to pursue this. I’ll give you all the ins and outs, and teach you how to have the best reception from publishers. You don’t want to miss it, so sign up for my speaking information here!

Use Your Words: What Should I Charge for Speaking?

photo © 2008 Tyler | more info (via: Wylio)
What are the going Christian speaker fees? What do Christian speakers charge? And how in the world do I ask for it?

That’s the most common question I get from people–how do I figure out what to charge for speaking? What do other people charge? And is it selfish to ask for money?

On this week’s Use Your Words program, I tackled this thorny issue. I’ve already written a longer blog post about deciding what to charge. That really is useful for getting into the nitty gritty! But let me sum up here.

Once people start asking you to speak, as opposed to you generating the engagements, then you should definitely charge.

Some organizations pay about $50 or $75, but let’s face it: that doesn’t even cover your mileage. So you need to figure out what to ask for.

When I started out, here was my thinking:

If I had to support myself, what would I need to make? Then what is that on an hourly basis? (basically divide it in half and then divide by $1000. So $50,000 a year is $25 an hour).

If I want to make $25 an hour, then what do I charge for an event where I speak for one hour? Well, you have to look at what goes into that hour:

• Time spent speaking
• Time spent at the engagement
• Average time of travel for the engagements you do
• Time spent in preparation

But then there are also other hours that you have to account for, like:

• Time spent building a website
• Time spent networking
• Time spent in training/study

Once I worked all that out, it looked like I was spending about 8 hours directly for each engagement, and then I averaged about another 3 hours that I had to add in to each engagement to cover my other time. And that gave me a figure.

• Then, take that fee and double it for an all day Saturday engagement.
• Take that fee and AT LEAST triple it for a weekend engagement

And remember, expenses are billed separately! So check out the blog post for more information, and listen in to the radio show for my explanation of fees.

And, if, after that, you still have questions, ask in the comments. This is such an important question, and I want to really help. So ask away, and I’ll write a follow up post trying to answer them all!

If you want to learn more about how to earn larger fees and start using business principles to grow your ministry, check out my audio downlaod, Treating Speaking as a Business. It’s only $12, and comes with a spreadsheet that helps you prioritize your marketing ideas and figure out where to grow. I know it will help!

Planning a Speaking Tour

Recently I wrote a post on how to handle gaps in your schedule. We all have them, because speaking is an insecure existence. You will find you are busy at times and very light at times, and that’s just the way the flow goes. I told you that I’m to the point that I accept when I’m going to be not busy. If there are no bookings, I just get grateful for the time to rest, because I know a busy season will always come down the road.

That being said, I now want to share with you a different strategy for planning a speaking tour, one that makes us more the active participant rather than the recipient, waiting by the phone or, more commonly, checking our inboxes for potential engagements.

Up to this point I have spoken mostly in Canada. I’m Canadian, after all, and I just don’t like to travel more than I have to because I have my kids at home. They’re teenagers now, and I know I only have a few more years with them in the house, so I want to take advantage of that. I live about 3 hours from about 90% of the major population centres in Ontario (I’m sort of in the middle), the most populous province, so I can get by without really having to venture too far from home most of the time. I tend to do retreats around the country that would require a plane trip maybe 3 or 4 times a year, but I’ve said no to many events because as soon as you get on a plane, you add a day to your schedule on either side. And I didn’t want to do that.

However, I have some new books coming out soon (more on that later), and it’s time for me to become better known south of the border (which to me means the United States, though when most of you hear that phrase, you think Mexico!). I partner with a ministry that’s taking me on a Pacific Northwest tour in October, probably to Washington and Oregon, but I’d like to plan another trip for the spring. I figure that if I can spend a week and a half speaking, with two weekends on either side, then I can do a bunch of speaking engagements and be gone from home in one large chunk, but then I’ll avoid some of the smaller engagements that take up a ton of time, and stay home the rest of the month. So I’m going to shake things up a little!

This is new for me, because I’ve never deliberately planned a speaking tour. I’ve only ever accepted engagements that came my way ad hoc, because it’s worked up until now. But what I want to do right now is plan a tour, where I know which weekends I want to book, which weekdays I want to book, and then I have to decide where I want to go.

That sounds a little pie-in-the-sky when you think about it, doesn’t it? I want to be busy for 10 days, speaking two weekends with three evening engagements, and I’m going to find people to hire me for that. And I’m going to do it somewhere that I’m not widely known. Sounds like a nightmare to plan!

Well, we’re going to see! Over the next few months I’ll report on my progress. But let me tell you the steps I plan to take, because I’m sure you can use these steps to plan your own “speaking tour”!

1. Advertise to everyone you know in the target area that you’re looking for speaking engagements. I’m going to put up several announcements on Facebook, for instance, that I’m looking to do some women’s retreats in April of 2011. I’ll advertise this on Twitter and Facebook, and ask people if their church plans women’s events, to let me know a contact so I can send a package there! I’ve already done this just once and I already have a few leads! (by the way, if you live  in the U.S. and you’d like to book me, email me!)

2. Make a YouTube video introducing yourself and explaining what it is you’re trying to do and what you can speak on. People are always more willing to hire people that they have seen, and so video is a great way to do this! I recently created a video to help me sell a book proposal, showing potential publishers what I do. Here it is:

But this video doesn’t work as well for speaking engagements. So over the next few weeks I’m going to put one up where I’m speaking directly to the camera, and telling people what it is that I can speak on and what I would like.

3. Follow up any leads you get from Facebook, email, etc. using the methods in this post on cold calling churches. Send them a link to your YouTube video so they can “meet” you!

4. Try to book one retreat first. Try to nail down the biggest thing before you accept the smaller engagements. Once you book the one retreat, you now have a date and a place. Now you can narrow your search and start booking around that.

Let’s say, for instance, that I book myself for the weekend of April 8 and 9 in Texas. Now I know that I also want to book myself for the weekend of April 1 and 2, or the weekend of April 15 and 16. That’s the next big thing to book. And then I can start filling in smaller engagements around it.

5. Once you know WHERE you’re going for one event, advertise again on Facebook or Twitter or through an email/newsletter blast that you’re looking for engagements in April in Texas. The more specific you can get, the better, because when people are browsing their Facebook/Twitter updates, they tend to pay attention to those that mention the area where they live.

Repeat the above steps until you have both weekends booked.

6. How do you fill up the week? You can try the same thing, contacting churches and asking about women’s events. But there is another option.

Several big groups have affiliates that meet across the nation, and you can search for their meeting times and places on the internet. Stonecroft, for instance, which operates Christian Women’s Clubs throughout the world, has chapters in almost every city. MOPS, or Mothers of Preschoolers, does too. If you can get known as a speaker for both of these organizations in your own area, then you are now a speaker for MOPS or Stonecroft. Whenever you go to a different area, you can approach the group leaders in that area and say, “I’m a speaker with MOPS, or with Stonecroft, and I’d love to be considered for your group for this meeting date.”

Neither MOPS nor Stonecroft pay very well, but the advantage with Stonecroft is that the meetings often have women from a variety of different churches, so you get great visibility, in case you want to do a return tour next year! Those women who heard you at a Christian Women’s Club luncheon may then turn around and hire  you to do their women’s retreat at church next year.

Also, their events tend to be during the day, so they don’t take you away from the prime speaking time in the evenings where you can perhaps get bigger engagements. Plus, it’s wonderful to be able to share your testimony the way you can at Stonecroft!

To find their meetings, just go to www.mops.org or www.stonecroft.org, and follow the links to search for a group “near you”. Type in the area where you’re planning on speaking, and see if any of their meeting dates correspond.

7. Do an internet search for the largest churches in the area. Another way to find engagements is to look for the large churches in the area which are more likely to organize women’s events. Spend some time looking for churches near where you’re speaking, and peruse their websites. What do they offer for ministry? Do they have women’s Bible studies during the day? Do they have frequent women’s events?

Once you’ve identified a list of churches that look like good potentials, use the methods here to contact them.

There you have it. That’s my plan to book up for April! You can use the same plan to book yourself for a local tour or for a tour far from where you live, to enlarge your target market. If your’e planning on trying it, or if you’ve done something like this in the past, let me know in the comments how it worked out for you!

If you’re just getting started on speaking, my audio download: Launch Your Speaking Ministry, is a great blessing! It will save you tons of money by telling you what NOT to do, and how to get free publicity. Find out more here.

Use Your Words: Making a Living from Speaking

Today’s Use Your Words BlogTalkRadio program addressed the question, “Can I really make a living speaking”? If you didn’t get a chance to listen live, listen in now right here!

If that question is nagging at you, though, here are my thoughts.

First, of course it’s a tension between income and ministry. We think that if we’re doing something for God, it should be free. And He may be calling some of you to speak for free, or to speak on faith! But I do think it’s okay to charge. If you are dedicating your time to speaking, you need to also make a living out of it. Few families can afford to have someone driving all over the place, gone for long amounts of time, without generating an income.

So if you need that income, here are some ideas:

Multiple Income Streams work best

I once heard a career coach say that it is easier to make $100,000 by making $10,000 from 10 sources than by making $100,000 from one, and I think she’s right. If you’re aiming to make a living speaking, you’re probably looking at wanting to make around $40,000. It’s easier to make $10,000 from 4 sources than to make $40,000 from one source. So what are those sources?

• Speaking Fees
• Product Sales
• Writing Fees
• Internet Revenue

You may be able to come up with some other ones, but in general, those are the four biggies. So let’s look at each in turn.

Fees

It’s hard to make $40,000 from fees alone without burning yourself out. Even if you charge $2000 for a weekend retreat (which only a few speakers can manage, and only in a few geographical areas), you’d be looking at speaking 20 weekends a year. That’s almost half of all available weekends, if you subtract Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc. Few of us would be willing to give up all of our weekends. And if you only charge $1000 for a full weekend, which is more the median fee, you’d have to speak for 40 weekends. Pretty well impossible.

You could do a combination of weekends/weeknights, of course. If you charged $400 for a weeknight, and $1000 for a weekend, you’d have to do 20 weekends and 50 weeknights. That’s ten full weeks of speaking each and every night.

Those who manage to do this tend to speak in bunches: they’ll speak every weekend and a bunch of nights in October, or they’ll be on the road all through April. They tend to get their engagements through a booking agent.

It can work, but it’s very tiring and it takes you away from your family a great deal. Fees alone will not take you to a reasonable income. You need to supplement with something else.

2. Book Table Sales

In general, I make more from sales at my product table than I do from speaking fees. And products can be very useful for the kingdom! If people like what you have said, and if they have felt God’s presence, they want to continue that. If they can buy a book, a CD, a Bible study, or a workbook that takes them deeper into your message, they’ll get great benefit from it.

So don’t think of it as “selling junk” (and please don’t sell junk!). Offer products that are useful and that expand on your message. The cheapest to produce would be:

1. CDs of your talks
2. Bible studies on the subject of your talk (publish them in a binder with an insert for the cover)
3. Workbook with charts, lists, or Bible verses that help them work through your talk

More expensive ones would be:

1. DVDs of your talks
2. Self-published (or royalty published) books

But the sky is the limit! Listen in to a teleseminar on how to create and sell these products here. It’ll give you so many ideas your brain will be working overtime!

3. Writing

Once you have gained some recognition, you can write columns or articles in your denominational magazine or newspaper, or in local newspapers (my column is published in secular newspapers, but it goes out to a few hundred thousand homes every week). You already know how to communicate by speaking. Learn how to communicate by writing, too! Attend some Christian writing conferences to network and get some ideas. Sally Stuart’s book Christian Writers’ Market Guide 2010is very helpful when it comes to breaking into magazines and newspapers. And don’t forget that many websites are popping up that pay for content!

In general, magazine and column writing will pay more than book writing, if you do it regularly. Unless you become a best-selling author, selling short pieces tends to make more money. So don’t dismiss these short pieces! Do your research, and see if you can turn some of your talks into articles!

4. Internet Sales

If you’ve been following along with my Use Your Words radio program, and reading this blog, you know that I’m a big believer in having a web presence to get speaking engagements. People want to check you out online before they take the plunge and hire you. So you need to set up a good blog or website. And you need to be engaged in Facebook or Twitter or other social media sites.

So you’ve done that. You’ve been writing high quality blog posts. You have readers. What do you do with them?

It is not enough simply to write. If you have the readers, you have to give them something to buy so they can take your message to the next level. Offer audio downloads of some of your talks. Create e-books of devotionals, or collections of your best blog posts or articles. Create reports on how to parent better, discipline better, pray better, or anything! If you speak on organization, sell a collection of reproducible charts or lists. Sell a collection of Bible verses people can cut out that speak directly to your topic! The list is endless. And as these downloadable products are purchased, the buyers get them immediately without you having to mail a thing. It couldn’t be easier!

If you’re confused about how to set this up, or you want to explore this idea further, this talk takes you through the steps.

You can also turn your internet customers into members by creating a membership site. Regular viewers can see your blog posts, but if they want access to articles or special videos, they have to pay a premium. It doesn’t have to be very much, but each little bit adds up, especially since it doesn’t mean any more work for you!

If you work steadily at each of these areas, you’ll soon find that you have little bits of money flowing in from different directions. And little bits can add up to a healthy income. Best of all, you’re enlarging the kingdom by reaching people in all different ways. So don’t create junk; create quality talks, products, and posts, and you’ll find that if you combine all of these aspects, you can indeed make a living by spreading the message God has given you!

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Gaining Confidence to Speak

I have just loved getting to know so many of you through my BlogTalkRadio show and networking with you in the Facebook group, as well as talking to you all in teleseminars! There’s a wealth of information out there about speaking, and I’ve asked you to send me guest posts, which I’ll run when I think the time is right.

Today, then, Beth Jones joins us. She’s a speaker and a writer who devotes her ministry to making sure that it’s focused first and foremost on God. Today she’s written us a post on how to gain confidence–and how to project confidence–when you speak! Thanks, Beth!

Beth writes:

As Christian speakers we desire to please God first, to connect with and to bless women in the audience, to minister to their real needs, to impart the message burning in our hearts – and to have lots of FUN!  As we come up on stage and fight those pre-speaking jitters, one thing we really want to do is to have and to exude confidence.  Confidence in the Lord.  But how do we do that, especially if it’s a big crowd, we’re in a new region out of our comfort zone, and/or we’re not sure how the message we’ve prepared is going to go over?  What are some practical ways we can have and portray confidence in our speaking?

1.  Get your “rhema” word straight from the Source – by sitting at Jesus’ feet first before you speak!  A rhema is from the

   

   Image by [[Neo]] via Flickr

   Greek word for utterance, and is a verse of Scripture that the Holy Spirit brings to our attention applying to a current situation or need for direction. It is a NOW, right-on word, a word in “due season” that you really need!  (Proverbs 15: 23, AKJV)

 As Christians we’ve all heard stories from the Bible many times, and not to be irreverent or totally self-absorbed, but sometimes we may think, “So what? How does that apply to me today? What’s that got to do with me?” Your audience will think this, too.  “Moses led the people out of Egypt…” Yawn.  Peter walked on the water in faith. Yeah, yeah.  Make sure your prepared speech is a relevant message for your audience, that it will minister to their hearts.

 The way you can be certain of that is by spending time with God first and by hearing His specific word for that audience. Get quiet and still before God, and listen.  Even if you’ve given this same speech over and over, the Holy Spirit will tweak it to meet those women’s particular needs. Then you can speak with confidence to these women because you are sharing the very word of the Lord with them.

 2. Realize it’s not about you.  Don’t be ridiculous, right? As Christian speakers, we know that, it’s all about God and spreading His kingdom! He will share His glory with no one. (Isaiah 42:8)  If we know that, then why do we get nervous? Because we’re afraid of failing. We’re afraid of totally bombing this one, and people not liking us. We’re afraid of rejection.

 As we spend time in prayer with God, studying His word and hearing His small, still voice, and we recognize in humility that God is the one who gave us this assignment and mission to accomplish, then we can move out of the way and allow His Holy Spirit to flow through us. We didn’t do anything to deserve or earn this honor and opportunity; it came from God’s hands of grace. 

 With that humble knowledge, we can focus on what is important:  pointing everyone to Jesus. It’s not about you or me; it’s about Him and the good news of Jesus. Give your anxieties to God. Surrender this engagement to Him.

 As we keep our eyes on Jesus and not on ourselves and our own “perfect” performance, we will speak with confidence in the Lord. Our words will have weight and authority, because they are God-inspired and God-directed.

3.     Pray for God’s love for these women. What changes lives is God’s truth and love. We don’t want to just give some little generic message that makes the audience croon, “Oh, that was nice.”  I don’t want to be nice! Well, okay, I do want to be a nice person, but what I desire as a speaker is to IMPACT and TRANSFORM lives with the revelation of God’s two-edged sword word and the power of His Spirit!  And it is God’s love that changes lives. 

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 Ask God to give you His agape love for these women. They will sense it coming from your innermost being as you share –living waters like Jesus gave the woman at the well. (John 4: 5-40, NKJV)  We won’t have that love for the audience unless we first receive it from God.

 Pray and seek that love from God to give to them, and then you will confidently speak. When you really love others, you don’t have to perform or worry about messing up. That love inside of you is more concerned with esteeming others than self.  (Philippians 2: 3-5, NKJV)

4.     Let’s be real, authentic, ourselves. One of the deadliest things we can do to ourselves as speakers is to compare ourselves to others or try to be someone we’re not.  When you try to pretend you’re someone that God didn’t create you to be – i.e., trying to be being clown funny as you speak when you were born a melancholy, serious personality or acting demure and discreet when you’re really a loud, outgoing Sanguine – it doesn’t “gel” with the audience.  

 People can spot “fake” a mile off. Just be you.  You don’t have to try to be like the other great Christian speakers. God didn’t make you like them.  Stop comparing yourself to them, and stop envying them and their successes. When you’re authentic, truthful, sincere, this will minister far beyond what you can even imagine.  “Real” and “transparent” help people to relate to you, to connect their heart to yours.

 When you’re just being yourself, you will be confident as you speak. Pretending or trying to perform will just make you tense, and the audience will pick up on that.  Nobody can be you better than you!  We all have areas of our lives where we need shaping, refining, and improving, even as speakers, but God loves and accepts you just the way you are – and wants to use you just the way you are.  You are God’s masterpiece, created wonderfully and fearfully in His image!   (Psalm 139: 14)  It’s you He asked to give His message to them.  Just tell Him thank you, be yourself, open your mouth, and watch God work mightily!

There are other ways we can use to have more confidence as we speak, such as incorporating humor into our message, knowing our topic thoroughly, having our message well rehearsed or even memorized, using few notes, making good eye contact with the audience, and dressing attractively.  I know that whenever I buy a new outfit to speak, it sure helps me to feel more confident!  However, the most important confidence-boosters are internal.

 As you sit at Jesus’ feet for His rhema word for that audience, realize it’s not about you, pray for God’s love for these women, and just be yourself, you will speak with bold confidence in the Lord, and your message will deeply minister and make a life-changing difference in these women’s lives. They will take away the precious and priceless gem that God and you have given them in your important message, and you and they will be greatly blessed!

Find Beth Jones at www.bethjones.net, and at her Facebook page!

Generating Word of Mouth for Your Ministry

A few weeks ago we had a wonderful guest post from my friend Heidi McLaughlin, writing about how her ministry got started and began to fluorish. Here’s something she said:

A few years ago I was in Atlanta, Georgia; surrounded with famous speakers and authors who had agents and were walking around with their leather briefcases and linking arms with their private publicists. I realized I was in over my head, and for me that is a good realization. When I went to bed that night I clearly remember the words of my desperate prayer, “God, I can’t do this-it’s too big. I can’t afford a publicist and I don’t even know how to get my speaking engagements. God, you are going to have to be my agent and publicist.”

To this day, my bookings come strictly through “word of mouth.” I believe if we have a powerful message, passion, and fully believe we are part of God’s Kingdom work, and are joining Him where He is already at work, God will open the necessary doors. Pray and wait expectantly for Him to orchestrate your calendar.

I can relate to Heidi! I don’t use a booking agent, either, though I have considered it. The truth is I’m too busy without one! And the reason I’m busy is not because I’ve mailed out slick packages to churches, or because I’ve taken out ads in big magazines about my ministry. It’s simply because of word of mouth.

In a survey I did of women’s ministry leaders recently, I asked how many had hired a speaker because they had received promotional materials from that speaker. Nobody said yes. On the other hand, one third had hired speakers based on word of mouth; one half because they had heard them speak somewhere else before; and the rest because they had been suggested by the denomination or a parachurch organization. Word of mouth is what clinches engagements; slick marketing materials do not. So please, don’t spend the money on them!

What you should do, I think, are two things:

1. Get good

2. Make it easy for people to find you.

That’s not so hard, is it?

Let’s take them one by one.

1. Get Good.

Get some training! Take my teleseminars, or invest in my e-course. They aren’t expensive, and you can get all  you need to start speaking for under $100! I’m trying to keep it really low because I want to help build the kingdom; I don’t want to get rich off of this.

Once you have the trianing, there’s no substitute for speaking. We need practice. We need to be able to tell our stories again and again so that we get used to telling them, without needing notes for everything. We need to realize where people laugh, and where they don’t laugh. The biggest laugh line I get in one of my comedy routines is something I don’t even think is very funny. It came out of my mouth once, and people were in stitches, so I use it every time now. I still don’t think it’s funny, but it works, and I never would have realized that unless I had had the opportunity to tell that story in a live audience.

Call churches in your area that have women’s Bible studies and volunteer to come give a half hour talk at the beginning of a new session. Do it for free if you have to, but get the experience! Find out what conferences are going to be in your area and volunteer to do a workshop or breakout session for free. People are often far more likely to hire new speakers for workshops, so consider those! Women’s camps in the summer are often looking for workshop leaders, or denominational retreats often need breakout sessions. Don’t forget about homeschooling conferences, either! You may not be a homeschooler, but there are tons of them all over North America, and you can still speak on household organization, family harmony, creating scrapbooks, or something else you’re interested in that gets you in front of an audience!

2. Make it easy for people to find you.

Have a website! It’s indispensable in today’s world, because when organizers are going to hire a speaker, the first thing they tend to do is to Google you. Take out the website in your own name, and own your name as a domain name, if possible, because that’s the first place people will check. Don’t use a book title for your main website, because when you write another book, it’s not natural to go looking for you under the title of your first book!

Create a blog, and use your name. Blogspot and WordPress allow you to hide your name, but don’t do that. Plaster it prominently everywhere, so that you come up higher in search engines. Even if you decide to name your blog something different, put your own name so frequently in all the information that you’ll appear.

Create a page on Facebook for  your speaking ministry, because a lot of people start their search on Facebook now, too.

And what should be on the web page?

• Your speaking topics
• Clips of you speaking (if you only have audio clips, you can still make a movie using Windows Movie Maker. Use still photographs for the visuals, and then have a 2-3 minute audio clip playing in the background). Upload the clips to YouTube or Tangle (create an account under your own name, again), and then you can use their links to embed your video into your website.
• Testimonials from others who have heard you speak
• Your speaking schedule so others can see where you have spoken.

Do not include your fee schedule. Most people don’t, and one reason is because it may turn off people who are looking for  you to speak for free, but it will also turn off people who are hiring for bigger engagements if your fees are too low. Discuss fee once you are already in contact with them about the engagement.

Finally, when you do speak, remember to help people stay in contact with you. Let them sign up for a newsletter. Hand out business cards. Keep your website and blog prominently listed on every page of your handout. If they like you, they’re going to want to recommend you! Make that easy, and you’re far more likely to generate word of mouth!

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How to Create an Amazing Handout that Works for You–and for the Audience!

If you’re doing any kind of teaching, whether it’s in a workshop or in a retreat setting, chances are you may get asked to provide a handout. That doesn’t mean you have to photocopy them–often you just email it to the organizer a few weeks ahead of time.

But often we get quite nervous about handouts. What should we include? How long should they be?

I believe a handout should serve two purposes:

1. It should provide action points, tips, or some benefit to people so that they will want to keep it.

2. It should have your contact information and an invitation to find you on the web, so that people can recommend you to others easily.

People will only keep handouts if they’re useful; the trick, then, is to make them useful!

Let’s talk about what NOT to do first:

1. Do not simply repeat all your speaking points.

Summarizing is good; spend perhaps one page with your key points and key Scriptures so that people can find them again. Do not simply regurgitate everything you said, though.

2. Do not leave it to the organizers to put headers or footers on, or to provide extras.

Produce the whole thing yourself! Don’t email the organizers with discussion questions that you want included; write up the page. That way you’re sure that each and every page contains your website and a link to your blog.

Here’s what you SHOULD do:

1. Provide amazing extras.

If you talked about how to find more time in the day and focus on God’s priorites, for example, provide a chart where people can plan their day. Provide a chart for Bible reading. Provide a menu planning chart. Provide something that people will actually want to use again and again. If they’ll want to photocopy it, then you’ve done your job! If it is something they may want to use again, provide a link to your website where they can download a new one, in case they didn’t photocopy it before they started filling it out!

2. Provide discussion questions or guided journalling questions.

Make your handout something that people can take home and continue to learn from. Think of the talk as the jumping off point–now where are they going to go? Provide questions to take them deeper. Leave lines on the piece of paper so that people can write in their answers in the blanks. Suggest that they journal through some of the questions.

3. Provide sample prayers.

If you’ve been honing in on a specific message–Is God Enough? Can I truly surrender?–then on your handout you can provide prayers that people can pray to truly surrender everything to Him. Spend a page just helping people pray through various issues.

4. List Relevant Resources.

If you have interesting resources that you may have mentioned in your talk, but you didn’t have time to delve into, provide these, too. Maybe it’s a list of books you mentioned that you like. In our marriage seminars that my husband and I do, we often refer to personality tests, so we provide links in the handouts to various personality tests people can take online. Handouts are a great place to provide extra resources so taht people are more likely to continue to think about the issues you raised and take these to a deeper level! If you know of online quizzes that relate to your topic, include those, too (or better still, create a quiz yourself!).

Handouts are far more likely to be read and kept if they seem like “additional” or “supplemental” material, rather than just summarizing what you said. If it summarizes what you said, then people who paid attention are likely to think that there’s no use in reading through it, because they already know it. If, on the other hand, there are more resources so that they can continue to follow on the road that you’ve paved, then they will keep it and use it.

You don’t have to include all four points, but try to excel in at least one. Handouts typically run from 3-7 pages, so you don’t have to create a novel or anything like that. And remember that a 7-page handout often provides lots of space to write in, so it’s not like you’ve typed seven single spaced pages!

Then, and here’s the important part–Make it easy for people find you!

1. Provide the name of where you’re speaking and the date on the front page, so people remember where they got it.

2. Use a header/footer on every single page with your name and website.

3. If you are providing something they may want to reuse, provide an internet link on that page where they can download a new one.

4. Invite people to one specific thing online where they can get to know you better–sign up for a newsletter, read your blog, follow you on Facebook, whatever! Near the end of the handout, invite people to find you in at least one specific place! You can also provide a coupon for people to use at your online store (if you have one), or an advertisement for one product you sell that’s especially relevant to that talk.

If people are able to find you easily, it becomes easier for them to recommend you to others who are looking for speakers! So use your handouts well. If you provide a well thought out handout, it’s more likely people will internalize your message and go deeper with God, and it’s more likely they’ll find you again!

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Kitchen Timers are a Speaker’s Best Friend

One of the scariest things when speaking is figuring out when you’re going too long. You don’t want to speak so long you bore people, but you do want to fill the time you’ve been given.

Many times I’ve assumed that churches will have clocks on the back of the wall when I speak. Big mistake. Some do, but not all. Or else they “conveniently” place the clock on the side wall, so that to look at it you have to wrench your neck, which is obvious to everyone there!

Image via Wikipedia

Other times we think a watch on the podium will suffice. Think again. You’re trying to maintain eye contact and keep a rhythm going in your talk. Most watches are tiny, and how do you get them to stay in place when you’re turning pages? Even worse, how do you glance at it quickly and unobtrusively? You can’t.

Besides that, watches only work in two conditions:

1. You can do math
2. You remember to actually look at the clock or the watch as soon as you start speaking.

Quite frequently I forget #2, and then, even if a clock is visible, if I have no idea what time I started, how do I tell how long I’ve been speaking for? Even if I remember to check #2, when you’re busy speaking, and you don’t want to break the flow, then when you look at a clock, it’s hard to tell how long you’ve actually been speaking for quickly, because you have to do the math in your head while you’re actually thinking about something else.

That’s why the common kitchen timer is my new best friend.

It comes with a magnet on the back (to stick to your fridge) so that you can stick it to something metal–like a music stand! Put it at the top right hand corner, above your notes.

If you remember to click “start” when you begin talking, you’ll always know exactly how long you’ve been speaking for. You can also put marks in your notes to let you know where you should be at 10 minutes, or at 16 minutes, etc. etc., so you have a sense of whether you need to get through some material more quickly, or whether you’re right on target.

I would recommend counting “up” instead of counting “down”, though. Let’s say you want to make sure you only talk for 50 minutes. If you set it for 50 minutes and let count down, that sounds reasonable, because it tells you how long you have left. Unfortunately, though, most timers “beep” when time is up. So unless you want the timer beeping in the middle of your powerful closing statement, I’d recommend counting up!

It’s not hard, but it’s one of the handiest speaking tools I have! So get yourself a kitchen timer, and then you don’t have to worry about time ever again!

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How to Give a Gospel Invitation

Frequently, when we are speaking, we get the opportunity to invite people to accept Christ. That’s a heavy responsibility, even if it is one of the highlights of your life! But while we’ve all seen many gospel invitations, do we know how to give one? Here are a few tips:

Check with the organizer to make sure they want one.

What kind of talk is this going to be? Do they want a gospel message, or is this more a talk to soften people up so that they will return to other events at the church? Sometimes churches want to put on seeker events where people are free to bring their friends and there won’t be any “heavy” evangelism. So ask what is expected. Do they want an invitation, or not? And if they do want one, do they want you to give it, or does the pastor or music leader want to give it?

It’s always best to have these things spelled out clearly. Once it’s ascertained that you are to give a gospel invitation, here’s what you should do:

1. Sprinkle the heart of the gospel throughout your message.

Don’t leave it until the very end to explain what the gospel is; tell why Jesus died and the significance of the resurrection naturally throughout your talk. You don’t have to use “god” language to do this, either. Just tell it in everyday, plain English. If your story deals with grief, for instance, tell what it means that Jesus defeated death and rose again. In another place in your talk, if you’re talking about needing to trust God more, explain that He’s trustworthy because He loves us so much.

No matter what your story or talk is, sprinkling bits of the gospel throughout ensures that it ultimately focuses on Jesus, and not on you. And that keeps you grounded!

2. Remember the Two Aspects of the Gospel

I’m sure many people have more than two, but I like to boil it down to two that are easy to understand, but absolutely fundamental: repentance and accepting the lordship of Christ; and walking in newness of life. To put it another way, you focus on both the cross and the resurrection; one deals with sin, and the other deals with how we are now to live our lives.

You can’t have a gospel message without telling people they need to repent and leave the negative relationship patterns and bad things in life behind. It’s not just a warm fuzzy; it’s a commitment. Don’t go light on it in the hopes that it will be more attractive. The gospel is attractive because it is what it is. So don’t sugarcoat the need for repentance!

But then also make sure that you don’t portray it as a club that once you’re in, you’re in. This is a commitment to live a certain way for the rest of your life. I often put it something like this:

Jesus didn’t just die on the cross. He also rose again. And that means He’s alive today, so He wants to live with you, live in you, and start changing you from the inside out. He’s not a distant God; He’s a God who’s here today and who wants to be active in the rest of your life. He wants to direct it, and to help you, and equip you, to live life abundantly and properly.

3. Invite them to Pray.

Once you’re spelled out the gospel, invite them to pray. There are two ways to do this; one is at their seats, and one is to come to the front and pray individually with someone. Let’s deal with the pray-in-your-seats scenario first. Have everyone bow their heads, and then say,

“if you’ve never asked Jesus into your life, I want to give you the opportunity to do that today. He wants to have a relationship with you, and if you’re tired of spinning your wheels, today is the day to give God control of your life…”

Then tell people that if they want to ask Jesus into their life, they can pray this prayer along with you. Then say a prayer that sums up the gospel: you’re sorry for the bad things you’ve done; thank you for dying for me and taking my punishment; I want you to be in control of my life from this day forward; thank you for rising from the dead so that you can live with me now and I can live with you in heaven forever. You don’t have to say it exactly like that, but try to include the main elements.

Remember to say it SLOWLY. Much slower than you normally pray. If people are praying this, they need time to process it. So pause for a long time after each phrase, and pray slowly so that people can say it after you in their heads.

After the prayer is over, encourage people to keep their eyes closed, but ask people to raise their hands if they’ve prayed it for the first time.  That gives you an idea of who did respond (and if you can remember who some of them are, the organizers always like to know). It also makes people commit. If they raise their hands, it’s concrete. If they don’t, they can always question whether or not they really prayed the prayer.

I believe in not ending it there, though. I think that if people did pray the prayer, they need to receive something that spells out what they did. So I always ask the organizers to provide booklets or Bibles to those who did commit their lives, and then I say something like,

“if you prayed that prayer for the first time, I have a special gift for you. Come talk to me afterwards and ask for the gift, and I’ll give it to you.”

Again, it’s another confirmation for them that something significant happens, and it helps identify them to the organizers and gives them something to disciple them.

After that prayer, I often then offer another prayer of rededication for those who already know Christ. And this prayer is just as fervent as the other! Often the people that you impact most when you speak are those who are already following Jesus, but need to go to a deeper level. So I continue to pray wtih everyone’s eyes still closed for those people.

4. Invite People to the Altar

If, on the other hand, you’re going to do an altar call,  you’ll have to talk to the organizer beforehand about having prayer partners available who know how to lead in prayer.

In that case, the gospel invitation is less of a prayer and more of an exhortation. It tends to work best with music playing, and you just explaining the gospel and asking people to respond. You often need to ask several times, since people aren’t always immediately sure of what they should do. Spell it out: “If you need to give something to God, don’t wait. Come on up to the front. You can kneel at the pews or on the steps, or you can sit in the front pews.” You need to be very specific. Also be careful of ONLY inviting people up to the front to kneel. If there are people with bad knees, or who have a hard time getting up and down, they could be discouraged from coming forward simply because you used the word “kneel”. Mention that there are other options.

Be sure to give LOTS of reasons for coming up to the front.

Maybe God has been speaking to you and you need to leave something behind tonight. Maybe there’s something you need healing for. Maybe there’s something you need forgiveness for. Or maybe you need to start your relationship with Jesus today.

The more options you give, the more likely people are to respond. First, they don’t feel centred out, and second, they hear something that relates to them.

Altar calls often take a while, because rarely do people come forward right away. They need a few minutes to listen to God and to get up the courage. So you may have to repeat things several times. Say things slightly different ways. Pause. Sing a song. Give people the time they need, and don’t rush it!

5. Think about timing and music.

I believe most gospel invitations should come at the end of the event. That gives people time for extended prayer if they need it, and everything has been leading to this. But you do need to think about what music you’re going to have, and how you will dismiss people after the invitation. If people are still silently praying, the best thing is to have some music play quietly and invite the other women to continue their conversations out of the sanctuary, so that others can have peace.

Whatever you do, don’t leave announcements at the end, because it will completely disrupt the response time! Encourage the organizers to put any announcements in earlier in the program, so that you can end the evening with the invitation.

I hope that helps! Have you ever been in a gospel invitation that worked really well? What did they do differently? Let me know in the comments!

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