Thank you Lord

The Irresistible Offer notes

• Experience God in 3 simple and Biblical steps (learn, pray, and obey)
• The site will assist you with your study, help you gain insight from prayer (talking with God, and make it clearer how God is leading you)
• High ROI
• Touchstone – answer 2 or 3 of the big 4 questions
  • Here’s what we’re selling
  • Here’s how much it will cost
  • Here’s what’s in it for you
  • Here’s why you should trust us
  • Guidelines:
    • Clarity – don’t leave anything to imagination
    • Simplicity – simple statement, easy to understand
    • Brevity – Keep it really short – one crisp eyeful
    • Immediacy – cut right to the chase
• ThreeStepsToGod (ThreeStepsToChrist) – He’ll carry you the rest of the way.  He’ll carry you right into Heaven
• Believability
  • Social proof: testimonials with a picture, email or web address
  • Technical proof: scientific validation
  • Factual proof
  • Endorsements
  • High profile customers
  • Qualifications
  • Awards and recognition
  • Logic
• I wonder if a book about how to experience God in the format of The Irresistible Offer would be valuable
• Steps
  1. Create the Irresistible Offer
  2. Present it to a thirsty crowd
  3. Sell them a second glass
  • Don’t be afraid of losing money to acquire new customers, when you can reap gains over the long term “loss leader”
  • Up-sell
  • Cross-sell:  accessories, complements, add-ons
    • Legitimately help the customer get a better result
  • Up-sell / cross-sell AFTER first sale consummated
  • Continuity sales: subscriptions
  • Recipes
    • Education: how to use your product
    • Consulting and service
    • Package deals (bundling): don’t sucker them
    • Insurance and warranties
    • Logical additions
    • Referrals: partner and sell other business’ products
• Your most valuable asset is your time.  Spend it wisely
• Points of contacts
  • Thank you cards
    • Thank you email with link back to website for a special offer – or a voucher to send to a friend
  • Birthday cards
  • Service due reminders
    • Reminder emails to ‘slacking’ users, tell us how we can improve
    • Include a little valuable education with your reminder
  • Newsletters
  • Special events

• Urgency
  • Use the code on the back of this postcard by tomorrow midnight for a free 2 week trial period
  • Be careful with contriving this
  • Live up to it – keep it valuable
• Added value
  • Stack on unexpected value as part of your closing process

• Remove risk
• Always back up with money-back guarantee
• Payment plan
• Loss leaders: first one free
  • Not for the amateur or cash-flow crunch
• Warranties
• Pay for results
• Free support
• Try before you buy (most powerful)
  • Submit credit card info now, bill in 30 days only if you don’t cancel

The Irresistible Offer

I feel that the Lord has led me to a practical study of marketing and I am now reading The Irresistible Offer.  It has turned out to be incredibly valuable to me in my questions about how the site needs to be able to support itself financially – while I know that it is truly the Lord who provides, I feel that I should be using marketing strategy and tactics to maximize profit, in order to first be able to dedicate my time fully to this and other related projects, as well as funnel proceeds to other positive, Christian ministries.  

It’s not about the money, it’s about the ministry.

Swimming Naked

It’s not until the tide goes out that you realize who’s been swimming naked – Donald Trump

Avoided Temptation – Lesson Learned

I have struggled today against sin.  I have been tempted by WoW, and considering internet and TV smut.  I had 3 beers this evening and I think that resulted in a weaker spirit – a weaker will against temptation, and I did not pray for strength!  

I MUST PRAY FOR STRENGTH WHEN I REALIZE I’M FACING TEMPTATION OR THINK I MAY BE FACED WITH IT.

After I started downloading WoW, I ended up dealing with a very difficult time putting [my middle daughter] down to sleep.  I ended up completely losing my temper with her, and spanked her a number of times.  I later apologized to her before she went to sleep (being comforted by [my wife]), but looking back, it seems like the experience was teaching me something.  WoW correlates with making mistakes with my family, and that is simply not acceptable.

I didn’t realize this until later, but as I started to install WoW, at the very beginning, I got a distinct impression of ‘just obey me, just obey me’.  I immediately cancelled the installation, and felt good about it.  

I CANNOT GET SUCKED BACK INTO THE WOW TIMESINK – IT’S NOT WORTH IT!!!

I may think I conquered this temptation, but God sent me a powerful message and I saw and understood it.  Next time I must ask for His strength when I feel the temptation welling up inside of me.

Next Steps

Heard from agencies

In the last two days, I have heard back from both agencies about the website project.  One agency seems to be more strongly geared toward web development, while the other seems to be more strongly geared toward the marketing aspects.  These two companies may turn out to be a good fit with each other.

The company focused on marketing will likely propose supporting the project by putting together a marketing kit for investment proposals, in order to raise the capital that will be needed to build the site to the extent that would be best for launch.  The website-focused company estimated (off-the-cuff) $100k-$300k, including much of the latter phase requirements / vision.  I re-focused him more toward core functionality for Phase 1, which he then saw and seemed to agree that we’d be able to accomplish much more cost effectively.  The marketing kit idea struck me positively, and that company also seemed to have a better handle on my needs as a startup, in needing to approach investors and establish partnerships.

Duty and Results

“Duty is ours.  Results are God’s.”
– President John Quincy Adams

Bolder for Christ

I feel that I am becoming bolder in the name of Christ.  In a response on Facebook, I told someone that just recently got in touch with me that I have re-committed my life to Christ and how that has been so impactful to my life.  It feels a little unsure at this point – fear of persecution – but it also feels right.

Spiritual Gifts Revealed

After praying in thankfulness this afternoon and asking for health for [my wife] and the baby, revelation regarding my project (including conveying that I am completely accepting of whatever purpose the Lord has in the work that’s been done so far, whether that means it will come to pass or whether He intends for me to abandon it at some point and that it had some other purpose), and other requests, I purposefully opened myself up to hear from Him in whatever way He wanted to speak to me.

An image came to mind of being hugged from behind in the chair that I sat.  I got the impression that Jesus was hugging me.  Then I saw the image of standing face to face with Him, in what seemed to be completely empty space (nothing around us) and He began to respond.

The response was unexpected and was centered upon the revelation of my spiritual gifts.  First of all, the topic was totally unexpected, which in relation to my talking with my mom and [my sister] last night, I realized that that can be a sign that the message is from God rather than my own thoughts.  Second, the nature of the message was also unexpected.  I expected a spiritual gift, and I felt that God impressed upon me that my gift “is threefold”.  Also, I expected that the gift was going to sound mystical (healing, tongues, etc), but they aren’t.  However, they are extremely powerful.

They are:

1. I make those around me stronger;
2. I see things that others don’t see;
3. I am not afraid to do what’s right.

It was interesting too because throughout the prayer, I kept getting the feeling that my mind was starting to take over (becoming proactive), rather than staying receptive.  When that happened, I knew it was happening and the feeling of hearing from God become absent.  The feeling was really a matter of something being revealed that I did not expect to come to mind, rather than a logical progression of thought.

Also, as the gifts were being revealed, I knew there were going to be three, because the “threefold” revelation preceded the explanation of the gifts.  So then, I knew more was coming after the first two.  When I asked for the third, I felt that God said that it will be revealed in time.  I immediately thanked Him for the first two and expressed faith (“as you wish, Lord”).  Then the third gift came to mind – the timing was unexpected again because I thought it would be revealed another time rather than immediately.

Upon completion of understanding the third gift, it was as if someone lifted my head from being bowed and opened my eyes for me.  I was very ‘awake’ or ‘aware’, and got the impression that I was now to “do what is right”.