What's Best Next

  • Newsletter
  • Our Mission
  • Contact
  • Resources
    • Productivity
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Web Strategy
    • Book Extras
  • Consulting & Training
  • Store
    • Online Store
    • Cart
    • My Account
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Our Core Values
    • Our Approach to Productivity
    • Our Team
    • Contact
You are here: Home / 2013 / Archives for October 2013

Archives for October 2013

Marketing: Getting Your Focus Right

October 21, 2013 by Matt Perman

Marketing does not exist to make up for inadequacies in a mediocre product. The first job of marketing is to create an excellent product.

The best marketers have always understood this. Consider two quotes.

Guy Kawasaki: “The best brands never start out with the intent of building a great brand. They focus on building a great — and profitable — product or service and an organization that can sustain it.”

Emmanuel Rosen, in The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing: “The flow of information about a product cannot be separate from the quality of the product itself.”

I would suggest that this is a very Christian view of marketing. We often think of marketing as creating fluff and puffery about a product, trying to get people to think better of a product than it really deserves. Can there be a Christian view of marketing? Certainly not if we call that marketing.

But that’s not real marketing. Real marketing is about telling the truth. And that’s good, because that’s what a Christian view of marketing is, too: tell the truth about a product, and do it in a way that is remarkable, engaging, and that spreads. A Christian view of marketing has truth at it’s center, and makes truth the central and defining point of any marketing strategy.

Can you actually do marketing that way? Yes. In fact, it’s really the only kind of marketing that actually works. For no matter how great of a marketing campaign you create, if customers are disappointed with your product, they will not spread the word. But within the domain of actually telling the truth about a product, there are some amazing things you can do.

In fact, one of the most intriguing things about this perspective is that it means that good marketing has its beginning all the way back in product design.

In other words, marketing is not something “added on,” that you do after you’ve created your product or service. Rather, it begins in the product development phase itself. Good marketing is always organic to the product itself, because good marketing is about spreading the word about excellent products that are truly worth knowing about.

Filed Under: Marketing

All My Posts from Catalyst Atlanta in One Spot

October 18, 2013 by Matt Perman

This post is part of the series Catalyst 2013.

Here are the links to all my posts from blogging Catalyst Atlanta this year:

Day One

  • Live Blogging Catalyst This Week
  • The Often Overlooked Tie Between Good Usability and Leadership
  • Why Insecure Leaders Are so Bad
  • Andy Stanley: Surviving Your Appetite for Being Known
  • Malcolm Gladwell: David and Goliath
  • Q&A with Malcolm Gladwell
  • John Piper: Glorifying God by Maximizing Our Joy in Him

Day Two

  • Update on Catalyst Blogging
  • Lecrae and the Doctrine of Vocation
  • Jud Wilhite’s Catalyst Message
  • Angela Ahrendt’s Interview at Catalyst
  • Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze’s Catalyst Message: Raising Your Kids to be Sound Financial Stewards
  • Cory Booker: Putting Purpose Over Position
  • Andy Stanley’s Closing Message at Catalyst: Leadership 101

Filed Under: Catalyst 2013

Andy Stanley's Closing Message at Catalyst: Leadership 101

October 18, 2013 by Matt Perman

This is part of the series Catalyst 2013. 

Andy Stanley’s closing message at Catalyst was fantastic. He went to the core, the foundation, that you need to understand in order to lead. These are the absolute basics, but they are almost never talked about. If you were at Catalyst and had to catch an early flight, I would especially suggest reviewing these notes so you can catch what you missed.

Here are my notes:

“Level 5 leaders have the humility to aspire to be the dumbest person in the room” — Jim Collins.

Today, it’s leadership 101. Taking it down to the most fundamental level. I had to do this to survive.

Here’s where this came from. When we started North Point, there was so much to do, and I felt early on it was getting too big too fast for me to keep up with. I have to reduce things to an irreducible minimum to keep my eye on the ball. So I wrote down off the top of my head what I’m about to give you to keep me centered. This is at the core and epicenter of my personal leadership.

So, when it starts getting confusing, and there are too many people demanding too many things, and you aren’t even sure what to focus on, this is what I retreat to. And perhaps we should all consider retreating to this. This is at the essence of where leadership begins.

Always have an answer to these 3 questions. If you can answer these, you’ll be OK.

  1. What are we doing?
  2. Why are we doing it?
  3. Where do I fit in?

Everybody in your department, student ministry, staff, everyone in whatever your organization is, ought to be able to answer these questions.

The very next thing you should do in regard to your leadership is wrestle these questions to the ground.

1. What are we doing?

This is a participle. “We are creating” or “We are building” or “we are leading.”

About 24 years ago, Stephen Covey wrote The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I got it right when it came out and couldn’t put it down. And there was a whole section on mission statements. Covey talks in there about the Ritz-Carlton, where mission statements had been embraced from the top of the organization all the way down. Part of their success was that everyone, even the cooks, had a mission statement. And I thought “can a maid really have a mission statement?” It turns out that the owner of the company was a friend of my dad, so I called him. I said “seriously?” Not disrespectfully, but I was wondering. We couldn’t even get our church to have a mission statement.

He said: “the only way to understand this is to go through our training for maids, cooks, and bellmen.” So we went and sat in on that training.

I cannot over emphasize the power of a statement that answers the question “what are we doing?”

In the training, the trainer brought everyone to a single statement: “we are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” It was empowering and dignifying to the staff. They saw they were people worthy of respect–just as much as the wealthy people they were serving.

“That’s when I became a raving fan of the importance of mission statements.”

Most decisions are pre-decided when the mission is crystal clear.

It is critical to push decisions down in the organization. The better leader you are, the fewer decisions you are making. And people are empowered to make good decisions by a clear and compelling mission statement.

You’ll never be great at what you’re doing if you don’t know what it’s for. There are no great organizations that aren’t clear on what they are doing.

Without a mission statement, you’ll have a hard time convincing others to join you. For they won’t know what you are doing.

Leaders love to work for people who have given them crystal clear marching orders.

I am always hearing from sharp leaders who are frustrated because their organizations don’t make it clear what the mission is.

There is something that rises up in a leader when it’s clear what we have come togehter to do. And there are few things more discouaring to a leader than to be given a responsibility that isn’t clear and tied in to a mission.

The reason you don’t have a simple and sticky mission statement is becuase you haven’t taken the time to create one.

Some people say “the local church is too complex and doing too many things; you can’t boil it down to one thing.” Oh yes you can. You just haven’t thought about it yet.

I’ll tell you what will happen when you do this: you will be perceived as the leader, you may make some waves, you may get fired, and we’ll hire you.

In 1997 Jobs comes back to Apple, and he says “Here’s what we are going to do: we are going to create easy to use computers. That’s what we do at Apple.” Boom.

For us, we decided we are going to create a church that unchurched people love to attend. And some years went by, and we said “let’s go create some churches unchurched people love to attend.”

My question for you is: what are you doing? One of the most healthy exercises is; your church probably already has a mission statement, and it’s way too long. If I were to ask you your mission, if you have to look away to remember it in order to say it, it’s too long. It needs to be short and memorable.

What’s the point of change if you don’t know what you’re trying to do? Change means you were going this direction and now you are going that direction. If you don’t know what that direction is, you can’t change. You aren’t changing.

What have you come together to do? If you can’t answer that question, you will never bring about meaningful, healthy change.

Wherever you have influence in the organization, start the conversation. “What are we doing?”

2. Why are we doing it?

The answer to this question is where you find your inspiration. This answers the qeustion “what’s at stake? What goes away if we go away? What problem goes unsolved? What question goes unanswered? What service goes unprovided?” When you drill down on why, you will find the emotion rising and rising.

Don’t be afraid to reach back to God’s personal call on your life to answer the question why.

Here’s why: your personal call is where you found the courage to take the first step. You have to stay close to that, because ministry requires courage. And your personal is where you are going to find your passion.

What was it that first got you into the ministry? Behind your call was a why. Go back to that. You need to tap into this even in your division and department and organization. This is not selfish, because you are a leader, and when leaders tap into their passion, they attract people with a similar passion. And before you know it, you have a movement.

That’s how great things are accomplished.

Some of you right now have a calling that is so deep, and so rich, but you’ve allowed it to become vanilla because you are in a place that has squashed it. Get out of there!!! You will wake up one day and say “what happened to me?”

My dad would say: “Don’t you ever, ever let money, don’t you ever let money stand in the way of what God has called you to do.”

Maybe just one person in this room, God wants to do something extraordinary through you; if you stay where you are too long, and let organizational structures constrain you and the fear of how you’ll pay your bills keep you back, not only will you miss out, thousands of people will miss out.

Step into the gap. It’s not about you are your ego, it’s that you can’t imagine devoting your life to anything else.

Why has the power to get you through the tough times. When you retreat back to why, you will find your energy.

3. Where do I fit in?

Ask yourself, “what is my unique contribution. What is my core responsibility?” If you could only do what you could do, you need to identify it and schedule accordingly.

Your organization will be at its best when you are doing what you do best. Your entire organization.

To drive this deeper, create a one sentence job description for each of your direct reports. This is time consuming, but it’s almost magic. No matter how big the job is, you can boil it down to one sentence. And when you do, it’s gold.

My one sentence: “Inspire our staff and congregations to remain fully engaged in our mission and strategy.”

Our CFO: “Create, implement, and monitor systems that ensure our organization remains fiscally secure.”

My administrative assistant: “To keep Andy’s path clear of nonessential tasks and decisions so that he can do what only he can do.”

Leadership team: “Create a lcoal church culture that inspires, empowers, and equips our staff and congregation to engage in our mission, strategy, and vision.”

Can you imagine what would happen in your department or division or church if even just 75% of the leaders could answer these 3 questions?

 

Filed Under: Catalyst 2013

Cory Booker: Putting Purpose Over Position

October 18, 2013 by Matt Perman

This is part of the series Catalyst 2013.

It was great to see Cory Booker interviewed at Catalyst this year. Cory couldn’t be there in person, but was interviewed at his office in advance, and the video was shown. Cory is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey and a candidate for the US senate.

(In the time since Catalyst [two weeks], it looks like he has won the election and become New Jersey’s first ever African American senator.)

Like Angela Ahrednt, it was refreshing to hear how biblical principles informed the way he thinks about his vocation. The Golden Rule (“how would I want others to treat me? treat them the same way”) is at the foundation of how he thinks about everything, which is exactly as it should be. As with Angela, we see again that this is not only the right way to be, but that it is also the way to truly be most effective in your work and life. It is, as I argue in my upcoming book, the essence of how to be truly productive.

Here are my notes from the interview:

Don’t get so obsessed with position. Purpose is more important than position. Ask “what gets me up in the morning? What excites me? Is it creating things, serving people, going on adventures? Stay loyal to your passion.”

“For me, it was having the courage to confront fear. There is an old definition of faith that has always helped me: faith is coming to the end of a dark tunnel and stepping out, and knowing that one of two things will happen. Either there will be solid ground beneath you, or God will bring people to help you fly.”

“This world is going to do a lot to try to make you conform, to try to fit you into boxes. That’s wrong. We were made to stand out. As Lincoln said: everyone was born an original, but most of us die copies.”

“When I was in my twenties, I had a lot of people coming to me and saying ‘you should do this.’ And I said ‘why? I don’t want to do that.'”

“You should take risks, especially in your twenties.”

Talent is important, but values are even more important.

A lady in the inner city said to him once “Only if you are one of those stubborn people who whenever they open their eyes see hope and opportunity no matter what, only then are you a person who can help me.”

“You cannot have extraordinary results without extraordinary effort.”

AMEN!!! Way to go, Cory.

Filed Under: Catalyst 2013

Jud Wilhite's Catalyst Message

October 17, 2013 by Matt Perman

From the series Catalyst 2013.

I had actually not heard of Jud Wilhite prior to attending Catalyst this year. Jud is an author, speaker, and senior pastor of Central Christian Church in Las Vegas, one of the fastest growing churches in American.

What stood out to me the most about Jud was his authenticity. That always goes a long way with me. As I mentioned in a previous post, I mixed it up between taking extensive notes on messages and taking just a few notes. I took just a few notes from Jud’s message so that the core points would stand out. Here they are:

“Everybody loves you until you lead.”

Embrace your unique calling in your life.

Love the calling you have, not the calling you wish you had.

Those are worth reflecting on.

 

Filed Under: Catalyst 2013

Final Message Notes from Catalyst Atlanta

October 17, 2013 by Matt Perman

OK, it’s time to (finally) finish posting my notes from Catalyst Atlanta. Sorry for the delay! I will schedule the rest of my notes to post between now and the end of the day tomorrow.

The last post will be Andy Stanley’s final message, which was especially fantastic because it gives the foundational concepts that every leader needs to know, but rarely hears.

Filed Under: Catalyst 2013

The Crazy Way Productivity Works

October 17, 2013 by Matt Perman

Productivity is not always a linear thing, and in today’s knowledge economy, lists and deliberate plans aren’t always what get things done.

A classic example is what I am doing right now. Usually as I work on projects and process my email throughout the week, I put key documents on my desktop when I don’t have the time to file them in the right spot immediately. Then, once a day or ever few days, I process those files just like I process my inbox, identifying any actions they might imply and putting them where they need to go. (Basically, it’s like processing your inbox because it is an inbox.)

Right now I’m processing my desktop from the files that collected there this week. One of the files on there had my notes from Catalyst Atlanta (here are the notes I’ve posted so far). I’ve had it on my list for a while to finish posting them, but have had some other projects I’ve needed to get done.

When I came to that file while processing my desktop tonight, though, it felt easiest to just finish posting the rest of the notes, rather than put them in their project file and rely on my list to remember to get the rest of them posted.

And that’s the semi-arbitrary nature of work today in our knowledge economy. There are so many things I get done simply by setting out to process my inbox, or email, or in this case my desktop, and I think that’s probably true for most of us. Seemingly mundane actions, that aren’t even very well defined (“process desktop”? — what a broad term that can take you down a thousand different paths), often result in getting some important things done.

You’d think that the best productivity results from highly detailed, deliberate plans. And, there is definitely a place for that. But a lot of our productivity also results from more cursory, spontaneous things. That’s in part because of the way email and computers are set up — you have these inboxes and desktops that aren’t good at natively organizing their content into natural groupings. As a result, a lot of things get done more randomly.

And, as long as you don’t do everything randomly, allowing that to happen is actually one of the subtle tactics for maximizing your productivity. When something is before you that you have the energy to do, just do it.

Filed Under: 1 - Productivity

The 5 Characteristics of Ideas that Spread

October 16, 2013 by Matt Perman

A great article at the 99U. The five characteristics are:

  1. Relative advantage
  2. Compatibility
  3. Complexity
  4. Trialability
  5. Observability

Read the whole thing.

And for those who want to go deeper on how ideas spread, I would recommend:

  1. Unleashing the Ideavirus, by Seth Godin (a classic and still the best).
  2. PyroMarketing: The Four-Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them for Life, which you need to read carefully in order to truly get, but adds important details not in Godin’s book. It’s by Greg Stielstra, who oversaw marketing for numerous best sellers at Zondervan, including The Purpose Driven Life, and clearly knows what he is talking about.

Filed Under: Marketing, Publishing

Busting the Ten Myths About What it Means to Get Things Done

October 15, 2013 by Matt Perman

My article at the Catalyst website, which is an excerpt from my upcoming book.

The article is in two parts. This is the first part, with the first five myths. The second part should be posted tomorrow or so.

(Update: Here’s part 2.)

Filed Under: 1 - Productivity

Supplementing Good to Great

October 14, 2013 by Matt Perman

Jim Collins’ book Good to Great is widely regarded and used by businesses and non-profits around the world, and with excellent reason. I regard it as one of the most important books ever written.

However, understanding the principles of Good to Great is not enough — and I think Jim Collins would agree. This is because Good to Great is about taking a good organization and making it great. It’s about principles of excellence. As such, it does not focus on or go into detail on the basics of how to run an organization at all. It assumes those things. Its focus is the next level — namely, once you know those things, how do you take a good organization and make it great?

Let me say this again: Good to Great assumes you know the basics of how to run an organization. Hence, it’s not enough simply to read it or even implement it. You also need to actually understand those basics.

To get those basics, here are the three chief books I would recommend. Interestingly, the first two are about entrepreneurship, or starting an organization. They’re on the list because knowing how to start an organization familiarizes you with the basics of how to run an organization at all (even though the start-up phase is very different from the ongoing phases). The third, on the other hand, is about the central concepts you need to know for understanding and running an organization.

Here they are:

  1. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
  2. Entrepreneur’s Toolkit: Tools and Techniques to Launch and Grow Your New Business (Harvard Business Essentials)
  3. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to MBA Basics, 3rd Edition

Filed Under: 4 - Management

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next Page »

About

What’s Best Next exists to help you achieve greater impact with your time and energy — and in a gospel-centered way.

We help you do work that changes the world. We believe this is possible when you reflect the gospel in your work. So here you’ll find resources and training to help you lead, create, and get things done. To do work that matters, and do it better — for the glory of God and flourishing of society.

We call it gospel-driven productivity, and it’s the path to finding the deepest possible meaning in your work and the path to greatest effectiveness.

Learn More

About Matt Perman

Matt Perman started What’s Best Next in 2008 as a blog on God-centered productivity. It has now become an organization dedicated to helping you do work that matters.

Matt is the author of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done and a frequent speaker on leadership and productivity from a gospel-driven perspective. He has led the website teams at Desiring God and Made to Flourish, and is now director of career development at The King’s College NYC. He lives in Manhattan.

Learn more about Matt

Newsletter

Subscribe for exclusive updates, productivity tips, and free resources right in your inbox.

The Book


Get What’s Best Next
Browse the Free Toolkit
See the Reviews and Interviews

The Video Study and Online Course


Get the video study as a DVD from Amazon or take the online course through Zondervan.

The Study Guide


Get the Study Guide.

Other Books

Webinars

Follow

Follow What's Best next on Twitter or Facebook
Follow Matt on Twitter or Facebook

Foundational Posts

3 Questions on Productivity
How to Get Your Email Inbox to Zero Every Day
Productivity is Really About Good Works
Management in Light of the Supremacy of God
The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards in Categories
Business: A Sequel to the Parable of the Good Samaritan
How Do You Love Your Neighbor at Work?

Recent Posts

  • How to Learn Anything…Fast
  • Job Searching During the Coronavirus Economy
  • Ministry Roundtable Discussion on the Pandemic with Challies, Heerema, Cosper, Thacker, and Schumacher
  • Is Calling Some Jobs Essential a Helpful Way of Speaking?
  • An Interview on Coronavirus and Productivity

Sponsors

Useful Group

Posts by Date

Posts by Topic

Search Whatsbestnext.com

Copyright © 2025 - What's Best Next. All Rights Reserved. Contact Us.