I’ve always been a wimp when it comes to trusting God with marketing.
You probably are, too. Most of us suffer from this illness. We sit back and say:
I trust God to grow my ministry.
How is that wimpy, you say? Well, let me illustrate by telling you a story.
I started my main marriage and parenting blog in March of 2008. I decided it was time to get on the blogging bandwagon if I wanted to build a platform for my writing in the area of marriage. And so I began to blog. Pretty soon I was getting around 200 readers a day. But then, about two years into blogging, I hit 400 readers a day. And I couldn’t budge it. Occasionally I’d get a big surge where I hit 700 readers, but that was it.
At the beginning of November, I attended a marketing conference with my agent. I asked, “how many readers do publishers want for a blog? What should our traffic be if we want our blog to be considered a good platform?” And the answer came back, “1000 a day. Or 30,000 a month.”
30,000 a month? That was huge! I was excited when I hit 12,000. And I had a book coming out in March (The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex). I wanted to get up to that point by March. But how could I do that? That’s more than doubling my traffic in just three months, when I had spent years trying to get my traffic going. I had guest posted. I had left comments at other people’s blogs. I had participated in link ups. And nothing.
But I decided to try something radical. I decided to pray for actual numbers. So I said,
God, I need 30,000 people by the end of February. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but I pray that you will bring me that traffic.
In December I was discovered by reddit, a bookmarking site. I had 60,000 visitors in December.
But that was a fluke, I thought. I’ll never hit anything like that again!
Here’s my traffic since then:
Now, if you’re trying to simply get speaking engagements, you absolutely do not need 1000 people on your website a day. I needed it because I was trying to build a platform to sell a book, and that’s something different.
But here’s what I learned, and this is what I really want to impress on people: Sometimes we mistake the wimpy for the godly.
For instance, which is more godly to say?
I put my marketing entirely in your hands, God. I know you have my ministry in Your hands, and so I trust you.
Or,
God, I believe you have brought me to this place. I believe that You want me to grow my ministry. So I pray that you will bring people to me, and that you will give me opportunities to reach more and more. I pray that I will have (3 retreats this year, 2 paying engagements, a book contract, whatever it may be for you), and if that’s not Your will, reveal it to me soon, because I want to spend the time that you have given me in the best way for Your kingdom.
You see, I prayed the first prayer for years. But what I was really doing was giving God an out. I was saying, “If you want me to grow, I will, but if You don’t, I won’t.” It wasn’t a prayer of faith; it was a cop out.
And when we pray like that, I think we’re less likely to actively market ourselves, because we figure that God should do it for us. And if God doesn’t, then it wasn’t meant to be. But what if it was meant to be, but God needed you to wrestle through, and trust Him, and step forward?
I think it demonstrates far more trust in God if we step forward in faith in our ministry, believing that God has brought us to this point, than if we hide in the back, and say, “God will make it happen if He wants it to.”
This is not a “name it and claim it” thing I mean, because I don’t believe in “name it and claim it”. But I do believe that if God has called you to something, He wants you to do it. He wants you to be a full participant. He wants you to believe in that calling. And if He hasn’t called you, then it’s good to wrestle that through and figure that out anyway.
Lately I’ve been so busy with the release of my book that I haven’t posted very much, and I’m sorry about that. I’m hoping to get back to things soon. But I thought that I would leave you with these things that have been spilling around my head, and ask you: what do you think? What does trusting God with marketing mean to you?
cnicolewhite says
Great post. A real reminder that I need to trust the call that God has given me to speak and write instead of being tentative about it.
Carey Scott says
Sheila… I adore you and your work for the Kingdom. Before we connected on Moms Together, I was a subscriber to this blog. Love it. Love! And you have no idea how timely this is with the release of my new devo book. I struggle with knowing how much to promote and how much to trust. Thank you for writing this for me! 😉
Lisa Zeitler says
Wow! God just answered my prayers through this post. Thank you for being faithful.
dyuhas62 says
LIke you, I’ve prayed cop out prayers for years, especially in terms of ministry effectiveness. I’m stunned. Suddenly the possibilities seem endless when, before, all I felt was powerless. Now I feel like a partner.
coachsheya says
WOW Shelia this was just what I need to hear after praying today! I got myself up starting preparing and moving forward! God Bless Sheya
Robin Giles says
Sheila,
Marketing has always been a challenge for me. You are right, God will always respond to the prayer of faith. Thanks for the reminder. The Lord bless you.
Laurie Cosbey says
Congratulations on your book coming out!!!!
Thank you for this post. It gave me a place to recognize, “Oh, here I am and this is how I want to serve.”
Blessings to you and your work!
Sharron Williams (@SharronWilliam2) says
Thank you for the article! I hads prayed yesterday that God would help me with my marketing to healthcare professionals. I prayed Isaiah 58:11. I asked for guidence on how to get the healthcare professionals I need to conduct seminars on Dementia Care. Today, just as clear as a window. God lead me to the information I needed. This changes my whole “And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your desires with good things.” Praise God!
Sharron Williams (@SharronWilliam2) says
oops! ment to say,This changes my whole marketing plan”.
E. Tyler Rowan says
Confessions of a wimpy marketer… I’m a little bit afraid to ask God for specifics, because what if He delivers?! Then I’m committed, hooked in, locked down, without an “out.” If He answers, then I really have to start being a speaker/writer instead of just “aspiring” or “dabbling.” And that means work. Yup, I’m a wimp. 😉
Candy Troutman says
Let’s go, Tyler. You are called to speak and write not to dabble or aspire.
A. Garrison says
I think your article was a beautiful bit of inspiration that was so timely for a lot of women and where they are in their ministry aspirations.
I was immediately reminded of Sarah and Abraham and where might the nation of Israel have been if Sarah had not believed that God would create a new family through her and Abraham. It took such courage just to believe that promise. And when the time truly came they were both well beyond not only child-bearing years but also beyond the years that I would imagine most married couples were enjoying physical intimacy with one another. 🙂
Sarah did not take the ‘cop out’ route and just trust God to make it happen, she committed to be a willing participant in His plan and putting her feet to action when and where God called her.
Thank you for inspiring us to be a willing participant in God’s plan and to trust Him as He has called us!
Blessings to you!
Dear Ms. Gregoire,
Thanks for your article on “What Does Trusting God With Marketing Look Like”. In order to trust God with marketing or anything else, we must be willing to wait on God. We must remember that His timing is different from ours. Everything has to happen in His timing.
Barbara Caldwell
kelliwommack says
Sheila, what great words to encourage us wimpy gals! Thank you so much. You have always been an inspiration to me! Your posting my Food Network post on your site was the shot in the arm I needed to really get going last July. My marketing goal right now: do one thing per day to grow my message or ministry. That may be a connection, a post, a phone call, whatever. Maybe tomorrow I will start doing TWO a day. 🙂
Candy Troutman says
I listened to the naysayers for my whole adult life. “It will drop out of heaven,” they would say. “If God wants you to speak, He will just pop your name into someone’s head and they’ll call you.”
Hogwash. Is this what ministerial students do when they graduate from seminary? Or what missionaries do when they finish language study? Or presidents of theological colleges when they get their phd? Sit and wait for God to magically beam them to their next assignment? Of course not. They market. They work referrals and lists and contacts and tell people they know and go on interviews. And they pray. And the place that hires them prays. And God’s purposes are put into action.
Why do we think being speakers is any different than any other ministry or vocation? If we are called, we prepare, we network, we market and we speak. We say with our mouths that we are a SPEAKER when someone asks what we do. We take up our sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith and move forward THROUGH the battle, not standing there with our swords at our feet and our shields over our wimpy heads, wondering if it’s God’s will that we’re in this battle as the arrows fly around us. Boy, that paints a picture, doesn’t it? LOL! I got a little passionate there.
But come on, speakers and writers! Let’s stop playing around with our calling and take God up on it. He’s been waiting, you know.
kelliwommack says
Amen, Candy! He who has started a work in me will be faithful to complete it! Preach it girl. I AM IN. Let’s do this thing!
I came across this post today and I’m so glad I did. It’s funny, but God has been speaking to me about this particular thing from various voices — my Bible study I’m currently doing, a sermon, my devotional time, etc. Thank you for chiming in! I’m getting the message that I need to pray bigger and more specifically for my ministry. Would you join me by just saying a brief prayer for me right now? I just need courage and determination to do the work of promotion and also to pray for God to bless those efforts with concrete results. I hear you!
DK Stangeland says
Great article. I knew you had this blog out there somewhere but it was REALLY hard to find. A link on your regular site would be great. If it is there I sure couldn’t find it.
I do however, love what you have to say in this post. Thank you!
bonnieweiss1 says
Thank you and Bless You!!! This post is exactly what I need to hear today. I am seeking to serve the Lord by conducting workshops with women on identifying our God given gifts and talents and using them to fulfill His purpose for us. I have been “waiting for Him” to open the doors and lead me and now I realize that this is a message women need to hear and I need to get out there and let people know what God has placed upon my heart to share.
This changes everything!
Dorothy Sessa says
Enough is enough! I’m doing it! Thanks for the encouragement for what I need to focus on. PTL
Travis says
I had an epiphany reading your blog! LOL, actually I was having coffee at Starbucks with a girl named Tiffany. 🙂
Seriously, you should think about writing one and calling it Vision Correction 101 for Dummys. 🙂
Just to let you know I don’t do covers.
Kim Galgano says
I know this was posted a few months ago, but God sent it to me today. We had thought our blog hits were much higher than they actually are and discovered yesterday the 80% decrease in daily hits! It has been a very discouraging few days as this has been coming to light.
But you are so right that God is the one in control and we just need to remember that he hasn’t taken us down this path if he didn’t have plans for us. I have just finished writing a 3 day blog series on a book called “Embracing Obscurity” http://chickswithchoices.com/blog/book-review-embracing-obscurity-part-2/ that truly made me question why day in and day out I go down the path of outreach to women if no one is on the other side listening. But God is in control. Hard to remember sometimes. Thank you for delivering his message for me to read today.
Abiola says
I cried and laughed when I read this post. A thought was seeded in my mind this morning and I quickly proceeded to pray my regular ‘cop out’ prayer, but I also couldn’t help typing ‘Christian Women’s Speaker’ in my internet search box, feeling a smidgen of guilt that I was trying to make things happen. This could turn into an epistle, but all I really want to say is thank you for posting this Sheila.
Blessings!
Lois Ridley says
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I will do this=)
Shamie says
You just helped me in a lot of ways Sheila you have no idea
dewdropsndaisies says
Good advise…God is certainly big enough to do the work!