We all we want to be good stewards of our church’s money. Want to make sure that we spend it in such away that we invest in things that will last, but we don’t want to be left behind by not investing in the latest gear and software.
Here’s a peak inside this episode:
- Where an increasing amount of your budget is going
- The three rules of spending your budget
- What you can do protect yourself and the church
Edited Transcript
Hey everyone this is Let’s Get Practical with Darrel Girardier. And today we’re talking about three rules you need to know before you spend your church’s money. This podcast about church communications from a practical standpoint it’s about what works and what doesn’t.
It’s about helping you cut through all the clutter noise and getting straight to the point. And today we’re getting straight to the point about three rules that you need to know before you spend your church’s money.
Now hopefully you have a church budget. Hopefully you have a some sort of budget by which you can work off of to kind of create social media graphics build a website maybe even life junior services. Hopefully you’ve got some sort of budget to work out of.
And if you have a budget you know you want to be really good with those with those dollars. You can make sure you’re very you’re very good steward of what the resources that have been given to you. You won’t do that because you won’t make sure you make the right investments in terms of things are going to last for a while.
You just don’t want to turn around and invest in something and just not have it be there and you know three to four months. You want to invest in things are going to last long.
You also want to make sure that when you’re making these decisions about what you’re going to invest your church in to mother be a social media management tool a live streaming tool or Web site provider that they’re something that you’re going to invest in for the long term because you don’t want to create you know a tech with whiplash where you’re changing platforms over three to four months. You want to kind of have really good strategy for how you’re going to spend your church’s money.
So today I talked to you through like three rules give you a framework of what to think through before you start spending your church’s money in that church communications field.
The reason why I’m bringing this up is because for a lot of us we have this this new thing that’s kind of encroaching church communications and that’s software as a service or services software if you will it’s called fast. So what that is is basically companies that have created all of these really cool subscription products for you to subscribe to and in turn they give you your services their services.
So for example you would say like Hootsuite or Buffer that allow you to schedule your social media. You only pay 10 to 15 bucks a month. And guess what you get to schedule out all over social media. Maybe you you have live streaming like with livestream dot.com for ninety nine dollars a month you can now live stream a worship service or maybe it’s something like you’re online giving platform you know you can now for a Starbucks a month you can have somebody manage all of your online giving online.
So these are all companies have created these services that are now something you can subscribe to online in and that’s really kind of a big growth area for how a lot of us are spending our money. So we want to think through how do we spend that money. Well, how do we make sure that we don’t constantly swap platforms?
We’re constantly disappointed and we’re making good use of the money and that we’ve been given. You know in charge of an resource how we steward and shepherd that money well.
Well I want to give you have three questions that I think through when I’m for four I’m about to spend money. And these are three questions that kind of help shape how I decide if this is something I want to spend money on. This is we’re spending money on especially if I’ve got just a small amount of money in that particular area I don’t know lots of spend. I want make sure I do this well.
So here are the three questions or three rules if you will that I want to think through. When you’re thinking about spending your church’s money. The first question that is this is am I their guinea pig.
So whatever company I’m working with that wants me to buy their product I need to know if I’m their guinea pig. In other words do they have a longstanding history of someone who’s actually really deliver on a consistent basis or are they is this new product it’s just come out and they’re trying to get many people as they can to sign up for it.
I want to find out what’s their track record. It’s really really really important to me that I make sure that I’m not their guinea pig because I’m their guinea pig.
I have no guarantee they’re going to be around six months from now. Well yeah they may have a great low introductory price get it now is cheap. You know the first hundred customers only had to pay this and you think Great. I mean just a third down the cash it’s going to be I’m going to get in like a 50 percent discount but the reality of it is they may not be there six months or now.
I’m willing to spend a little bit more money and way back and sit for a second and see if they actually really can deliver on the promises and whether or not they’re as a company. They’re going to last. So my first thing is I want to ask the question Are they a guinea pig.
Okay that’s my rule is am I am I am I a guinea pig in this equation. Are they really are they really some that’s been around for a while and a long standing history. If I’m their guinea pig I’m out. Number two what happens if everything goes under and the company goes under. What happens are all of my stuff? What’s the backup plan?
So this second question or rule if you will I’m thinking that there is is what’s the backup plan. Do have a clear backup plan for what happens if they go under and what happens all of my stuff if they go under when I see my stuff?
I’m referring to everything from like contact information data videos whatever service it is that you use. What happens if that company goes under. Are they gonna have a way for you to export out your items.? So if it’s videos as a way to get them off of their platform onto another platform if it’s audio can I download my entire podcast library.
What’s that look like? What is my escape plan if you will? I always want to have one of these in play for everywhere I go to make sure I can export out my data.
So the fact that when they announce that they’re closing up shop or maybe they’re being bought out by somebody else that I’m not a big fan of. I want to have the ability to go ahead and exit out and go somewhere else if I need to do that. So I want to make sure I have a clear backup plan exit strategy if you will. That’s number two.
Number three I want to know how they make their money now. It seems like you became a little nosy like is it any of your business how they make their money. I actually think it’s a lot of your business how they make their money because of how they make their money is going to tell you how they treat their product and how they’re going to treat you.
There’s a saying that if if the product is free the product itself isn’t really a product you’re probably the product. In other words you use Facebook. OK. And that’s a free product if you will. But you really are the product. Why. Because advertisers are spending money on the platform to market to you and Facebook is using you as a marketing tool to get advertisers money in. That’s just the way it works is why Google works. Facebook Instagram a lot of these free companies. So I want to know how are they making their money.
Is it based off of that that Facebook model which is basically what I would do is the eyeball model which is working get a lot of eyeballs here at this Web site and because we got a lot of eyeballs. Guess what. We’re going to turn around and run ads against those eyeballs. Which is what happens in that free model. OK. So is it is that their model is their model model by which you know you’re gonna pay a premium. But guess what you’re getting in a premium product. That’s great. Or is the model like you’re going to pay a little bit but you’re going to have ads on the product.
In other words we’re going to inject ads into your podcasts or we’re gonna have ads in certain places of things you use and you can pay a little more get those ads removed or maybe it’s a fact they have certain feature sets that are only reserved for the upper tiers. I want to figure out how are they making their money. Because it seems to me that they’ve got a good long range plan. People are paying for people are signing up. They’re probably going to be around for a while. They’re probably going to be something that I can really invest in and really think it’s a free product. I really need to know how wise is free. How does this work.
It’s one thing for say a church to offer it with a gold benefactors to chip in to kind of make that thing work but if it’s a company that is designed around hopefully turning a profit and their model is free I know more than likely I’m the product in that equation and the more likely my stuff is going to be sold to some sort of advertiser in some way shape or form. You know in some ways that they can work against to your advantage and work to your disadvantage.
You know I think in some ways Facebook that’s a bit of a disadvantage because you know you are costly marketed to on inside of Facebook somebody you work to your advantage take anchored at AFM which is a great tool to build a podcast on. It’s absolutely free. Now at some point they’re going to put ads in the podcast. That’s what they’re going to do. That’s how they’re going to make money but for now it’s a great tool. I just know down the road how they make money we based on the ads you know based on put them putting ads inside of podcasts or just be aware that if I sign up for that tool.
So I want to keep in mind how they make their money. So to recap real quick three things. One I’m either guinea pig and my the guinea pig or is or if they’ve been around for a while I don’t want to be some guinea pig. I don’t wanna be some means test dummy to see if this thing’s going to work too. What happens when they shut down. What’s my escape plan. If they get shut down they get bought out don’t like you they are bought by. And number three how do they make their money. It’s okay to be nosy so to ask questions. It’s okay to figure out how they make their money and ask the question Are you willing to give up a little bit of yourself.
If it’s something that’s free. Or are you willing to pay a little bit more to global privacy and security. Course that’s up to you. But you need to figure out how they’re going to make their money. So there’s the three rules are questions if you will that your framework that you kind of look through you’re trying to think through how you spend your church’s money spend it wisely spend it well if you just kind of keep that framework in mind I know you’re going to come out the better for it.