In this week’s episode of The Ministry Growth Show, we’re sharing our thoughts and insights on purpose-driven strategy. Every organization should have clear communication rooted in beliefs and a Why. Today, we’re going to share our thoughts on strategy and walk you through the process we take all of our clients.
Relevant Resources:
Purpose-Driven Strategy Course
Transcript:
Welcome back to The Ministry Growth Show. Last week we started a new series where I will be sharing our thoughts, insights, and strategies in storytelling and marketing. Last week I gave a quick overview, and in today’s episode I’m going to be exploring what we call Purpose-Driven Strategy.
For those of you who might be new to marketing terms, strategy is a term used for a wide variety of circumstances. There are campaign strategies, audience segmentation strategies, general marketing strategies, social media strategies, you can literally develop a strategy for anything within your ministry brand. The type of strategy I’m referring to today is centered around your core beliefs and guiding principles. How can we strategically develop a brand with purposeful direction, mission, and goals? Traditionally known as vision, mission, and core values or your corporate manifesto. With the goal of creating simplicity and clarity, we are going to take a slightly different approach in the strategy we discuss today. What we’ll share today is what we use when we walk a client through a purpose-driven strategy exploration process. What we’ll share today is absolutely similar to a traditional manifesto, but the difference is that we use story structure to ensure it’s engaging, and above all else we seek simplicity and clarity. We generally find that traditional corporate manifestos are long winded, confusing, and filled with business lingo and ministry strategy language that’s difficult to understand. Our goal with the process we walk our clients through is to help them develop a core ministry strategy that is clear and easy to understand, one that gives clear direction for where you organization is headed. We want to help our clients develop brands that are clearly headed in a direction, brands that invite an audience along a journey to shared values, goals, and outcomes. We want to help our clients build brands that believe in something, and we use story to carry those brand beliefs to their audiences. You’ll hear me use clarity a lot in this episode. A 7th or 8th grader should be able to understand who you are, what you do, how you do it, and why you do what you do, and in today’s world, they need to be able to grasp those things quickly.
Recently a writer named Shane Snow did some research and found some interesting results. He wanted to see what reading level he was writing his content at, so he put one of his articles through a reading level calculator or simulator. The result showed that he wrote at an 8th grade level, and that discouraged him, so he set out to find out what reading level some of the most successful authors wrote at, and his findings surprised him. He found that authors like Hemingway, and J.K. Rowling wrote at 4th and 5th grade levels. That’s shocking, but doesn’t that make so much sense? For some reason we all have this desire to sound smarter and more important than we really are. We have this desire to show off our vocabulary, but I know that when I read something that I constantly have to reference a dictionary in order to understand, I’m less likely to enjoy the reading experience. Simplicity and clarity has helped some of the greatest authors throughout history find incredible success. Shouldn’t we be clear and simple in our marketing communication? I think so.
Additionally, traditional ministry communication doesn’t use story in messaging and communication? This is a powerful stat from Freedom to Lead International. 80% of the world’s people belong to cultures that learn best through story, images, and music. They’re most likely influenced through oral tradition rather than literary means. Yet, more than 90% of Christian workers use literacy-based communication.We know that story connects with people. We remember story far better than we remember strategy and statistics.
Generally, we think stories can only show up in the form of videos and photos, but as we shortly discussed last week, they can also be powerful when used in your strategy and messaging, and today we’re going to see how you can craft a strategy that’s rooted in a story structure that relates to all people, across all cultures and all language groups.
Before we get any further into this episode though, I want to share where the ideas we’re presenting originate. I think it’s important to give credit where it’s due, and I want to give you access to the people we’ve learned from so you can go and do your own research into these ideas further.
Joseph Cambell, Simon Sinek, Carl Jung, Donald Miller and Jonah Sachs. All of these men are brilliant guys who have created the ideas we’re going to explore today and have informed how we think through purpose driven strategy. Joseph Campbell created the Hero’s Journey, Simon Sinek wrote a book called Start With Why, Carl Jung was a psychologist who created jungian archetypes, Jonah Sachs wrote a book called Story Wars, and Donald Miller runs an agency called Story Brand that teaches some of the strategy techniques we’ll explore today. I will say that what Donald Miller and Jonah Sach’s teach is all rooted in Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero’s Journey. All of these individuals are brilliant thinkers and the ideas they share are used in marketing for the biggest brands in the world.
Today, we’re going to start our conversation with Simon Sinek’s Start with Why and a principle he calls The Golden Circle. The idea is that all brands whether for profit or non-profit must find their “Why” or their “Purpose” and allow that Why to be the starting point for all of their communication. In order to be successful we’ve got to figure out WHY we do what we do. Your organizational “Why” is your purpose, your cause, or your core belief. Simon Sinek argues that most companies that exist start with what they do, sometimes they start with How they do it, but rarely do companies and organizations start with their purpose or core belief first in their communication. Rarely do organizations start with WHY.
Simon Sinek’s argument is that when we start with WHAT or HOW we do what we do, we’re speaking to our audiences neocortex, which is the part of our brain that controls our spacial reasoning, our language and our logic. But, when we start with Why, when we communicate our core beliefs first in our brand communication, and allow our beliefs as an organization to drive and inform our communication we are speaking to the limbic brain, which is the part of the brain that controls our feelings. It’s the part of the brain that controls motivation, inspiration, learning and emotion. Sinek argues that as humans, we are wired to make decisions more easily based on gut reaction and emotion. We’ve all experienced this with a compulsive purchase and the buyer’s remorse that follows soon after, right?
The problem with most marketing, especially in the ministry space, is that it communicates how and what we do first. It communicates statistical data, features and benefits. Our non-profit communication might start with how we do what we do or it might focus on the intricate strategies we use to change people’s lives, but if I’m a donor and my emotions have not been engaged, then I’m not going to care as much about how you do what you do. There are so many non-profit offerings on the market to invest in and if every single one is communicating how they do what they do or if they’re starting with what they do, as a donor, I’m going to be forced into making a decision about what organization to invest in based on statistics and strategies. Your Why, or your purpose, has to be bigger than your strategy’s.
By allowing our Why or our Purpose to permeate and drive our communication, we’re able to engage with audiences at a much more meaningful level. Later on, through your stories, you’ll be able to communicate your beliefs as a brand in the stories that you tell. Those stories will carry those brand beliefs and connect your audience to your brand at that limbic brain level. This is why storytelling in marketing is so important and so powerful. When we share our beliefs as a brand, it gives a donor something to connect with at a deeper level than what we do, or how we do it. At our core, humans want to belong to something. In his book Primal Branding, Patrick Hanlon says that, “communities are belief systems. Once you build a belief system you attract others who share your beliefs.” That’s a profound statement when we think about building brand for our ministries.
As followers of Christ, we know this to be true. We know we’re designed for community, right? Shared beliefs between a ministry brand and a donor allow the donor to feel that they belong to a cause bigger than themselves, and so building a brand is so much more significant than simply having a pretty logo and website. When we establish these belief systems, we can create communities around our brands that a strong, supportive, loyal, and those communities will ultimately start advocating for us. This is the level at which we can connect our brand to a donor when we start with purpose and communicate to our donors emotions.
Charity Water founder Scott Harrison has a great quote. He says, “Our hearts don’t respond to data and statistics. Stories have the power to make us feel.” So, if we can engage our potential donors at an emotional level, if we can engage their limbic brain, the part of the brain that controls those feelings and emotions, once we’ve done that we can then communicate our how and our what more effectively in support of the emotions they’re feeling about our causes.
So, we’ve discussed the Why, the smallest circle in the middle of Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. Let’s discuss the second circle in the golden circle, the Who. Now, this is something that’s not found in Simon Sinek’s book or his version of the Golden Circle. We added this to the golden circle after research into Joseph Campbells Hero’s Journey, Carl Jung’s archetypal models and the book The Hero and the Outlaw. We’ll take a deeper look into the Hero’s Journey later, and in episodes to come, but to summarize the idea, all Hero’s have a mentor. The Who is your brand character, it’s the tone and voice of your brand, it’s the characteristic tone of your voice when you communicate and write messaging content. It’s the archetypal character that your brand takes on. People connect with characters better than they connect with corporate manifestos. Your brand needs to have a voice, it needs a character, so that when that brand shows up in your stories as a mentor to your hero, it’s relatable as a character and has weight as a mentor.
In Star Wars, Luke SkyWalker has Obi-Wan Kenobi. In Lord of the Rings, Frodo has Gandalf. In the Matrix, Neo has Morpheus. All of these stories have a hero and a mentor. This hero and mentor thread or relationship is rooted in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. Again, we’ll do an entire episode dedicated to The Hero’s Journey, so stay tuned for that, but the important thing to remember about the Hero’s Journey is that it’s a story structure all humans relate to, across all cultures, which means if we can create messaging, strategy, and marketing content rooted in this engaging story structure, our marketing efforts will engage and inspire people more effectively.
As we are all working in the non-profit sector where we are rescuing orphans and sex slaves, our organizations are healing and feeding the poor, our churches are serving as a beacon of light in our communities, it’s easy to look at ourselves as the hero and then communicate through all of our marketing efforts that we are the hero who needs donors funds to continue our great work. This is the common failure of most nonprofits and ministries. “Look at us, look how great we are, look at all of the good that we have done. Please give to us so we can do more of this great work.” Now, that may not be the heart and motivation of these ministries, but our communication strategies certainly are communicating in that way. We have to think differently if our storytelling and marketing efforts are going to be successful. Now, honestly, I’ve seen a lot of progress in the non-profit space moving away from communicating that our organizations are the hero, primarily through the work of Donald Miller, but if you take away nothing else from this webinar, remember this… you are not the hero. Your donor can be the hero at times, but even that can get dicey. If you are a Christian organization, which is who we’re primarily talking to, then your hero is ultimately Christ, and your beneficiary. Your ministry is not the hero. The stories you tell should be about your beneficiary, and we’ll talk about how they get to be the hero because Christ is the ultimate hero, in a later episode. I’ll give you a little spoiler, it’s because we get to share in His death and resurrection. The key take away though is that I want you to start thinking about your organization as the mentor that guides those that you are communicating with, primarily a donor, along a journey. You are obi-wan Kenobi, and your donors are Luke Skywalker. You are morpheus and your donors are Neo. You are Gandalf and your donors are Frodo.
Now, with that change of mindset we can start deciding what archetypes our organizations will be. As we discussed while we were exploring the Why, donors want to find ministries with shared beliefs, right? That can be shared beliefs in our purpose and our Why, and that can also be shared beliefs in the archetypal voice and tone we use in our communication. If you think about your brand as a character in a story, what kind of character is your brand? For example, REI’s archetype in their messaging and advertising is the Explorer. All of their communication and their messaging is passed through the explorer filter. The words they use talk about exploring, about the freedom of the outdoors and about adventure. And, that attracts customers who identify as explorers themselves. If your donors can find shared beliefs in the archetypal character that your brand takes on and how you talk about your ministries, they’ll be able to attach themselves even closer to your brand, and the loyalty this has the potential to create is really powerful.
The Who you are, and the archetype you decide on will inform your brand voice, it’ll inform the personality in your narratives, your communication and your stories. Remember, if your ministry brand is a character in your stories and communication strategies, there is power in that because humans connect to characters and personalities much better than they connect to companies and organizations. Let me say that again, people are always going to connect with characters and stories better than organizational value propositions, core values, and corporate manifestos. That’s not to say we get rid of corporate manifestos, I’m just saying that those are not the things that people connect with emotionally.
Now that you’ve established your WHO, you can finally communicate your How. This is where we finally get to start talking about your strategies and programs. Notice, we’ve come a long way and we’re only now arriving at How in the golden circle. Many of your organizations communication strategies start with How you do what you do? Or how many of you start with What you do as an organization? If that’s the case you’ve missed an incredible opportunity to communicate to donors at a much more meaningful level. Again, please don’t hear me say that communicating your How and your What aren’t important. They are very important, especially when we’re talking to major donors. But, your How and your What should not come before your Why.
We’re not going to spend too much time discussing How and What. Most of your organizations are already communicating those things well. The only thing I’ll say about your How, is that it’s your unique differentiator. This is what sets you apart from other organizations, particularly ones that are working in the same space and doing similar work. What makes your organization different and unique?
Now, after all this talk about differentiation and building a brand that donors can get behind because of shared beliefs, it might be easy to hear that I’m encouraging brand competitiveness. I prefer the Rooting for Rivals mentality to ministry. My goal in teaching what we’ve shared so far is to get you thinking about building a brand not for the sake of competitive advantage, but because it’s incredibly important when we start thinking about developing a recognized brand, one with loyal followers and brand advocates. Remember, the primary goal in everything we’re talking about today is clear communication. We want our communication to be clear enough that a 7th or 8th grader can understand so that when your staff, your volunteers and your donors go out into the world, they can easily share your ministry brand with their networks. If the communication is difficult to understand, they aren’t going to share your brand with the world.
Let’s think back to the golden circle again. Does your communication start with Why in the center of all of your communication, or do you start your communication with What you do and How you do it? If we start with Why, our purpose and core beliefs, using a character or archetypal voice and tone in our communication, and then communicate How and What we do… if we start in the center of this circle and work our way outwards in our communication, we believe the implications are exciting.
The last piece of the circle is the What. This is where most ministries start their communication. What you do is important, your audience needs to know what you do, but I want to encourage you to start your communication at a deeper level. We’re not going to spend any time discussing the what, because most of you are already doing a great job with that piece, let’s just not start there when communicating.
