Being a Loving Servant

A favorite scripture verse of mine is from Galatians 5:13 “Through love be servants of one another.”  It seems like such a simple verse, and yet, it packs so much into the short line.  It is that call to constantly serve everyone.  More than just serving everyone, to do it through love.  My interpretation is that through every action, every breath, let it be of love for others. As I reflect on the verse, I can see the infinity symbol, with love and service intertwined, as we serve more, we love more and as we love more, we serve more.

It is easy to say we do this, and so much harder to actually do it.  I share this verse as it is a verse from the book Marketing God that we reflect on this week.  In the podcast this week, our topic is Marketing and Teamwork.  The thread through the week is that marketing requires everyone in an organization to be part of the efforts.  A marketing or communications person may direct the efforts, but an entire organization is involved.  To do that effectively, everyone in the organization needs to understand marketing, the role they play and how they can be a loving servant as they work with parishioners and ministry members. 

How can that be, I am constantly asked, I am in finance or technology or accounting or development, I don’t “do” marketing.   But marketing is about sharing, engaging, connecting with your various audiences, in service to them.  Everyone in an organization engages with others, be it a simple email, a phone call or something more.  Therefore, everyone plays a role in marketing.

We start the week’s podcast by exploring the truth that gathers so much attention, especially from the priests and pastors.  That truth is Truth 4 in the book Marketing God and is entitled Everyone Owns the Brand.  It speaks to the role that everyone involved with a parish or ministry has in conveying the promise of the brand.  Building on that critical truth, we continue to explore the relationship between marketing and teams by considering customer service and the customer experience.  We round out the week by evaluating the brand extensions and consider where a brand typically lives. 

For those following along in the book, the truth’s addressed this week, beyond truth 4 already mentioned, include Truth 9: The Customer Experience is the Brand Experience, Truth 27: Customer Service is the Touchpoint of Your Brand, Truth 30: Brand Extensions Often Diminish Brand Growth and Truth 18:  Positioning Lives in the Mind of Your Audience.

As before, there are worksheets with each podcast linked in the description and all the podcasts for this week are now available.  So, you can listen to one a day or all at one time, whatever works best for you. You can find the podcasts on any of your favorite podcast apps or at media.donnaaheckler.com.  

If you want to join a community of people trying to determine how to reach more people feel free to join the Marketing God Facebook group where we hope to work together, offer ideas and solutions that everyone can use. We continue to pray that these tools help you, your parish and ministry inspire those you support to become loyal to God!