Differentiate. Attract. Direct - Justin Wise with The Different Company
In episode 25 of the Ministry at Scale Podcast, we speak with Justin Wise, Co-Founder of The Different Company. Justin speaks with us on a wide variety of topics from social media, how to cut through the digital clutter and get your organization noticed and so much more. Be sure to listen to the full episode and subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss a thing. Keep reading for some of the highlights.
How to Think About Growing Your Ministry
We are in the middle of a massive paradigm shift, that started with the Internet and really took off when the major social media websites started to take off and become more mainstream. For the first time ever anyone with an internet connection can start creating content and have a worldwide audience. This is a double-edged sword in many ways, it’s fantastic in that ministries of any size can now reach audiences they never had access to previously. The downside is that everyone is producing content which really leaves the average person struggling to find a way to cut through all the noise and find the content that is really relevant to them. Justin shares his framework for helping ministries get heard, rather than just becoming part of the noise. His framework is a three-step process, Differentiate, Attract, and Direct. Listen to the full episode for Justin’s insights on implement this framework.
What is the one area a Ministry should focus on if they want to scale?
Justin shares that most ministries and businesses alike really need to put most of their efforts into defining their differentiation points. He cautions that this does not mean you need to change who you are or what you do, it does mean you need to change how you talk about it and in many cases which channels you use to talk about it. The reality is that regardless of your mission or services there are hundreds of other ministries that have a very similar mission, the average donor is not going to know the difference, or why they should be involved with your ministry unless you are able to tell them and show them why you are different.
You can’t grow unless you experiment
Justin shares, that the brands that are able to find their unique voice and the brands that get heard. Finding your point of differentiation, and finding your voice takes a lot of experimentation. Running experiments does take courage, especially if you have a long tradition of doing things a certain way, it can be easy to want to protect your base to the point that it keeps you from reaching new people. While it can seem very risky to try new things, the reality is that in most cases the risk of missed opportunities is bigger than the known risk of the status quo.
As you can see, Justin’s insights are invaluable if you want to scale your ministry. Be sure to listen to the full episode, to get all of his words of wisdom as he discusses creating polarity, why unsubscribes can be a good thing, and how to pick and choose which platforms you invest in. Also if you want to start testing be sure to take the FREE Journity 7 day personalization challenge to see just how easy it is to get started running experiments.