******BEFORE PUTTING IN THE PODCAST LINK–actually make this a NEW blog ***PERMALINKS need to change actually did….but redo permalinks

NO Business of comparable size prints more than churches and they MUST print large volumes of material EVERY WEEK. If you aren’t making the most of this fantastic market, I can help! One the best way of how do marketing in nowadays is by social media like tik tok, so if you are interesting in start doing this for your business you may be interesting in check the info about TikTok and Microsoft.

Hi, I’m Yvon Prehn and welcome to the Sell to Churches Podcast!

I’ve created this Podcast to help you because I know you are all incredibly busy and seldom have time to sit down at the computer, but with a podcast format available on iTunes and many other podcast services, each week I can give you updates and tips on how to be more successful in selling to and serving the church market. You can listen while you are driving from appointment to appointment, when working out, or wherever else works for you.

Before I get into some of the specifics of how I will help you, if you don’t know me (and I know many of you listening do) a little bit about my background so you’ll understand why I have the expertise that will be helpful to you.

As far as the church is concerned, my husband was a bi-vocational pastor for many years—we are now active church volunteers. We have been involved in many areas of ministry and I did all the communication work for us. As a result of doing that and working as a writer and senior editor at two international Christian organizations,  I wrote the first book on desktop publishing in the church (The Desktop Publishing Remedy) when personal computers were first being used by churches. Shortly thereafter I became a recognized national authority on church communications.

I was then hired to teach seminars on Desktop Publishing by Pagett-Thompson, the nation’s largest one-day seminar company and later started my own church communication ministry where I continued to write books and speak at conferences and seminars.

At that time the RISO Corporation wanted to grow their faith-based market and they contacted me to do seminars for them. That kicked off the most wonderful working experience of my adult life!

I did seminars for RISO for 15 years where I traveled all over North America, doing seminars for churches. Not only did my work greatly increase their church market (let’s be honest, they wouldn’t have kept me doing it, if it hadn’t), but I learned a LOT about the challenges of selling printing equipment to churches. I KNOW what you go through, I know your challenges, and I know how to make you successful.

After the 2008 Recession, RISO quit doing seminars, but I was hired to continue to train church salespeople by the RICOH corporation, again rehired by RISO, and have done a number of independent training and consulting with individual dealerships. I keep in touch with many of you I’ve worked with who have scattered to working with many different manufacturers and companies. Many of you have started your own successful dealerships.

I can’t get away from this business…..and don’t want to.

But this version of working with those of you who sell to the church market is different.

First of all, it is completely independent of any specific manufacturer or line of equipment.

Three things matter more to me than a specific brand on a box:

1. The CHURCH, specifically the historically defined Christian Church
2. ALL of YOU—I’m doing this not only because a number of you keep asking me for resources, but because I truly believe that what you are doing is incredibly important. I believe the church has the most important message humanity needs to hear and I believe YOU can help churches communicate it effectively. I believe that print is still extraordinarily important (I’ll have lots of resources for you to pass on why) and YOU are the ones who can help churches print cost-effectively, efficiently, and making the most of current technology.
3. I know many of you need HELP (some a little, some a lot) on HOW to SELL to the Church Market and I know I can help. I can not only provide resources that will help you sell to the church (things like samples, Lunch & Learn programs, etc.) but I can also coach you in what makes the church market unique and different from other business markets you may have sold to and how you can be most effective with them.

I’m doing this, not beholding to any one manufacturer. I do admit, I have my favorites in various areas and may have some materials specific to the, but that is not my focus.

Because I’m independent, I also may not be politically correct in all areas to the satisfaction of some. Though any person, any belief system, or any church is more than welcome to use my materials and you are free to share them with anyone, I am a Christian, a follower of Jesus. Though I won’t pound anyone on the head with my views, it will also be very clear in my samples and training that this is the church I am communicating about. Having said that, I honestly think I’m not obnoxious about it. When I taught my live seminars I was very clear about my personal religious preference also and was very happy with how numerous times people from very different belief systems let me know that they found my materials very useful without being offended by my presentation.

Speaking of my samples, if you don’t do anything else after this podcast, do go to www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/ for HUNDREDS of free samples you can share with churches and that can demonstrate what you printing equipment will do.

While you are there sign up for the free newsletter so you’ll get notices of new templates and updates the new ones I create for each holiday or special event in the church.

It’s a whole new system and I hope it works!

An important question to answer upfront is: How will I make money?

Good question, because no matter how much I love all of you and enjoy working in this area, bills must be paid. To do that there are several ways this new approach will make money:

1. Materials for sale on this website, which will include:
2. Lunch & Learn Programs which you will be able to buy and download from this site. Other podcasts will describe them in detail.
3. Ebooks that you can download and also buy the rights to reprint.
4. Materials on the Effective Church Communications site that you can buy, such as training classes in church communications–again, more information will be coming on them.
5. Sponsorship of this Podcast. If this podcast is helpful to you, please consider becoming a monthly supporter of it. I do not take advertising nor do I participate in any affiliate marketing for the podcast, this website, or the Effective Church Communications ministry.  I want to be able to talk about resources without any hidden agendas and I want you to be able to access my resources without being bombarded by obnoxious ads. I need your support to that. The site that hosts my podcast gives you the option to support it at .99, 4.99, and 9.99 a month. If the podcast proves useful to you, please consider monthly support. I greatly appreciate it!

What I have planned for the podcast

The podcast will have two types of episodes:

1. TIMELY TIPS: in this type of podcast I’ll give you quick updates of seasonal events that are important to churches now. In addition, I’ll let you know about resources that are available on the Effective Church Communication site and if I have any additional resources on this Sell to Churches site that will help you be effective in contacting and selling to churches. For example, as I’m putting this together we are about to enter the season of creating communications for Easter. This is a fantastic time for samples, tips, ways to help you help your churches and I’ll be giving you lots of them.
2. CHURCH SALES STRATEGY: in these podcasts, there are numerous things I’ll include. One of the most basic is that I’ll help you understand the uniqueness of the church market and how to be more effective selling to them. At times these will refer to additional resources on the Sell to Churches site, such as new Lunch and Learns, that will help you. This type of podcast will also go into more depth on the ministry of church communications and how you can coach your churches to be more effective. There will be a wide variety of topics in this type of podcast. Not all of them will appeal to everyone, but I will try hard to label them clearly. They will be timeless (as opposed to the Timely Tips) and you can pick and choose what will be helpful to you and when. You can also use these for training sessions at your dealership.

That’s enough of an introduction–if there are questions you have or areas you’d like me to cover, email me at: yvonprehn@gmail.com.

By the time I post this I’ll also have other podcasts up for you, so check them out and go out and do a fantastic job of selling to churches!

[podcast src=”https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/5673629/height/45/width/450/theme/standard/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/forward/” height=”45″ width=”450″]When churches tell you they don’t have the money for printing equipment, don’t let that statement discourage you. They probably don’t have piles of money sitting around just waiting to be spent on a new printer. And they may know that getting that added to the church budget may not work.

But that doesn’t mean money can’t be raised for new equipment in a tried and true way in the church and that is through what is called “designated giving.” The podcast and the resources here will help you understand it and make it a useful tool for helping churches get the funds they need for the equipment necessary to do their work.

Below is a copy of an article I wrote for the Effective Church Communications website on this topic, Raise money for your church communications program with designated giving

Following the article is a link to a PDF of the church finance expert Dan Busby’s article that would be a great resource for you to take to or email your church customers.

A continuous challenge for any church communication ministry is having enough money for equipment, software, and training needed to run a truly effective church communications ministry. Though one of the most important ministries in the church and the one on which the success of most other ministries depend, it often isn’t a priority when it comes time to set the overall church budget.

But new equipment and training is needed—so what to do?

Designated giving may be the answer

Designated giving is, in short, where church members can decide they want to give money (above their regular tithe of course) for a special project.  This is a greatly simplified explanation and later I’ll give you a link to a longer, more complete one, but this is enough for the foundational idea that designated gifts are definitely an area worth pursuing.

Who participates in designated giving?

In the past, when computers and communications were just getting started, often the youth ministry would approach people who were concerned that the youth program have great communication and ask them to designate money for printers, software, or training. For example, one or more sets of parents may wanted to designate a large gift so their kids would have the contemporary communication tools they needed.Continue Reading

[podcast src=”https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/5109149/height/45/width/450/theme/standard/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/forward/” height=”45″ width=”450″]Below is the text of the Podcast above along with the suggestions for Subject Lines for email you use to reach out to churches. You can print out this post using the little printer icon below the text to use the information at a sales meeting.

How to Write Effective Email Subject Lines to Help You Sell to Churches

Recently a Church Salesperson emailed and asked me about how to write effective email subject lines in response to this article encouraging sales people to contact churches via email:

How to contact churches through website email, http://wp.me/p5CIes-tr

I realized this is information that will be helpful to everyone, so that’s why I’m posting it on the SELL to Churches site and doing the PODCAST, though the format is an answer to one person.

Let’s start by stating the obvious: Writing effective email subject lines that get a response is incredibly difficult, but with that said I think the following information may be useful.

Before putting this together, I read several articles on writing email subject lines with the idea that if any of them were useful I could forward them to you and be done with it. But after going through many of them, I concluded most of them don’t apply to churches. Some of the short, snappy, catchy, create-urgency kinds of advice sound canned and are a real turn off. Instead of referring you to them, I pulled out some tips and thought about the kind of email I open and what people seem to respond to in the emails I sent.

Overall, I’m assuming you are planning on sending a SERIES of emails. One or two won’t accomplish much, but if you get into a schedule of sending out one or two a week with useful tips, information and offers after a time people will get used to seeing you and trust the information you have.

One more important background piece. You must genuinely want to HELP churches for this to be successful. AND you can. Churches need you and the printing equipment you sell to accomplish their goals. The more you understand the church, the more you understand their goals the more you can become a real partner in the communication ministry of the church.

With that as background, here are a few suggestions.Continue Reading