Gods marketing planning process.......

Had a very interesting Marketplace Christianity breakfast meeting last Saturday.

I asked Jonathan Warner to give a preview of the "Inheritance" movie he is making and then split the people into groups and asked them to come up with ideas for a marketing plan for raising funds for the movie.

First moral of the story is you cannot write a marketing plan over coffee in 30 minutes!

One key that came through was how easy it is for people to become "hung up" on details of the product they are marketing - rather than the marketing itself.  We have to learn to separate ourselves from the "emotion" of the product (we think its the best in the world) and look at the requirements of the message and the audience.  It doesn't matter how much we know about our product if we cannot translate that into knowing who our target market is and what information they need in order to "purchase" our product.

So after a bit of encouraging to stay focused the groups came up with some good ideas - from "exclusive corporate dinners" to "in film" product placements.

What was interesting was the final question - How does God fit into this?

I have found that the more ideas and talent God gives us the better we think we are!

I am a great believer in "God given talents" in the marketplace.  It is scriptural and obvious!  God is better and more wise and has more expertise than we have!  So acknowledging that is one of the key requirements before His full potential in us can be realised.

Chatted to a guy this week who told me how he always used to get ideas and concepts drop into his head.  It was only after he gave his life to Jesus that he realised WHERE those thoughts came from.

So God is deeply and thoroughly involved and interested in our marketing and business plans - whether you acknowledge Him and draw upon Him is up to you.

So you can guess from my previous comments that the answers to my question were varied!  They stretched from fatalistic "God will do it" to the opposite of "If I succeed then God is revealed through me."  Interestingly, I believe God is more interested in our "journey" with Him than our success.

The other thoughts that came up were:
God is involved in our timing,
in the people we work with,
in the peace we feel about our decisions,
in helping us differentiate between a good idea and a God idea,
and God is great at giving guidance on priorities,
and bringing sovereign networking and resources to us.

If we will just make room and opportunity for Him to speak during the process.

There is much more on this but if we start with the FACT that God is involved in HOW he made us and WHERE he wants us to go then our marketing plans for the GREAT AND AWESOME business ideas we have on our hearts are more likely to succeed.  God is not just an unpaid advisor on our boards - He is involved in every task and role and person in our workplace - so it make sense to allow Him to move if we want to be successful.