5 Lessons about Church Giving that Amazon Can Teach Us

by: Rich Birch

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Way back in the mid-1990s there were a lot of companies gunning to be the leader in “online retailing.” (Who remembers Pets.com?) Amazon was an early leader. Since then, it has cemented its place as the “everything store” by offering a massive selection of items that are delivered at a shockingly quick rate.

Google is the search engine for knowledge. Amazon is the search engine for purchasing. 

In fact, 44% of all online shoppers go directly to Amazon to make purchases. [ref] When people give, our churches’ digital giving interfaces are being compared to Amazon’s. We need to learn about how this e-commerce retailer handles their customers and apply those lessons to our donors.

• Reduce Friction // Have you ever noticed how easy it is to purchase something on Amazon? Over the years, they have focused on reducing the friction in the online shopping experience to encourage more people to spend with them. It’s beautiful to watch all the various pieces working together. Amazon Prime removes the “added shipping cost” from the “shopping cart” so we don’t slow down at check-out. They store multiple credit cards so you can decide where you want to charge individual purchases. The Amazon Dash buttons allow you to push a button and have common items ordered and shipped to you. The latest tool, Amazon Echo, literally allows you to call out orders from your home and they’ll ship them to you! Is your online giving system complex and hard to follow? Are you asking people to go through extra hoops that add to your convenience but to their annoyance? Is it easy to find how to give to your church on your website?
• Send More Emails // If you are a regular Amazon shopper, you get a tremendous amount of email from them. Every time you order, you receive a confirmation email, a “your order is shipped email” and an “order arrived” email. You also receive regular marketing emails about categories of products they believe you might be interested in. If you browse certain items but don’t purchase them, Amazon will send you “recall” emails to bring you back to the site to purchase the item you were thinking about. You might not like all this email … but it works. It drives the behavior they are looking for. Most churches don’t send enough email. They are afraid to junk up inboxes. I’m not advocating sending the same amount as Amazon — just yesterday I received 8 emails and I didn’t purchase anything! — but I am saying churches need to send more. Obviously an acknowledgment email … but what about monthly statements rather than waiting for quarterly ones? Emails that show the impact of giving, or ones that show how people can set up a new aspect of online giving? These may move people from regular “one-time gifts” to “recurring donations.” Send more emails … it’s okay.
• Invest in Long-Term Solutions // One of the things I admire about Amazon is their commitment to investing in long-term customer satisfaction rather than just chasing short-term trends. They have steadily sped up the delivery of their products over the years, reducing the time they call “click to ship” from days when they started to minutes in some instances today. This is an impressive feat for a company with 244 million customers. [ref] Investing in your digital giving solution is wise over the long haul. People are moving closer toward this approach than traditional donor channels from the past. It might take you a while to get it right, but people will be using this system for years. Gather your team and start working on this for your church. It’s not a short-term fad but a long-term shift that you need a solution for.
• Don’t Miss Mobile // The Amazon app is a beautiful experience. It has a UPC scanner where you can walk into traditional “bricks and mortar” stores, scan items and compare the cost to purchase it on Amazon. I’ve purchased many items over the years after looking at them in the store and then buying them online. Mobile is the way people increasingly interact with the web. Your site needs to be “mobile optimized” so it works cleanly on a wide variety of phones, tablets and other interfaces that people carry around. In fact, your digital giving solution really should be seen from a “mobile first” perspective because all the trendlines are pointing toward that being where most people will interact with you.
• Be Customer “Obsessed” // Amazon is crazy-obsessed with making people happy. They work hard to ensure customers love their service more than any other online store. It’s the first of their fourteen values and it permeates how they talk about and live out their mission. We know that when people give to your church, they are giving to what the Lord is doing — but sometimes it can feel like we ignore our donors out of a false sense of not wanting to show favoritism. Everyone who chooses to give anything to your church is vital to your mission. They are as important in making your services happen as that core volunteer who is “first in, last out” every Sunday. We go out of our way to treat volunteers with love and care … we need to do the same with our donors. On top of that, some of them have the spiritual gift of giving and, like other gifts, we want to see it exercised well within our churches. If we ignore people who give, we’ll miss the opportunity to develop those gifts!

> Read more from Rich.

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Tags: Amazon, Church Giving, Generosity, Rich Birch, giving in your church

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You Can Get Everything at Amazon – Including These 14 Leadership Principles

by: Rich Birch

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Amazon continues to be a force in our culture. In the run up to to Christmas 2014 they sold 426 items per second! I just finished reading Brad Stone’s fascinating study of Amazon called The Everything Store. I was struck by the 14 leadership principles that Amazon (and CEO Jeff Bezos) operates by and wondered how they might apply to leading in a church. Here are my reflections on the principles … I’d love to hear yours in the comments!

Customer Obsession // Leaders start with the customer and work backward.

• Even a cursory amount of research on Amazon reveals they are obsessed with serving customers. They fixate on crafting easier and better customer experiences — 1-Click Ordering, Prime Membership, Kindles — the list goes on and on! How obsessed are church leaders about our guests? Do we listen to them and try to understand how we can create better experiences? It’s humbling to see a retailer so passionate about serving people. Do we at least match that intensity with our important mission?

Ownership // They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own teams.

• Once your church grows beyond 200+/- people the silos and fiefdomsbegin to multiply. Departments try to outdo one another with their volunteer thank-you events and swag. We cheer just a little louder when our team does something right. One group of creative communication types may sneer at something that another group does. We need to help our teams ask the bigger question: How are we working to see all departments, campuses, teams, and people win at our church?

Invent and Simplify // As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

• When was the last time we tried something new? I mean really new … something that people might think you’re crazy for doing. Amazon plays the long game on a lot of its projects and is misunderstood all the time. Some of it has worked (Amazon Web Services) and some of it has bombed (Fire Phone), but they’re in the game to grow their business and delight customers. Why don’t churches have research and development departments? How can we be misunderstood this year?

Are Right, A Lot // Leaders are right a lot. They have strong business judgment and good instincts.

• This is an interesting value for church leaders to consider. Where is the tension between strong leadership and a lack of humility? I’ve met a lot of amazing church leaders with great instincts but they hold back because they don’t want to be perceived as pushy.

Hire and Develop the Best // Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion.

• When you transition from being a solo pastor to a multi-staff church, the most important thing you can do is hire and develop your staff. While I totally believe this to be true, I haven’t always lived it out. Like all non-profits, we’re stretched for time and energy. Hiring can fall to the bottom of a very long and pressing list. I’ve been caught (more than once) with the dilemma of hiring too early, thinking “someone is better than no one.” It’s bit us every time.

Insist on the Highest Standards // Leaders have relentlessly high standards, which many people may think are unreasonably high.

• Our mission as church leaders is the most important thing on the planet. There is nothing more important than what churches do. So why do we lack that level of intensity? I’ve met a lot of church leaders who tolerate incredibly low standards and I think that is the one thing that is holding their ministries back. Building a growing church takes a lot of intense work — emphasis on a lot and intense.

Think Big // Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results.

• You can’t out-dream God. 10x your thinking. Don’t launch one campus … ask what would happen if you launched five in one weekend! Don’t settle for having your book published … give it away to 30,000 people … for free! What happens if you fail? You only launch three campuses … or only give away 20,000 books? Think of the impact.

Bias for Action // Speed matters in business. We value calculated risk-taking.

• “Jesus is coming back, look busy.” There are seasons in your ministry when you need increased momentum. When people are ready to invite their friends … do everything you can to encourage it. Don’t wait to launch that new student ministry next year … those kids just keep getting older. For whatever reason God seems to work with those people who are willing to take action. I don’t totally understand it, but I do know that faith is a verb and it requires us to participate. Do something … see what happens … adjust course.

Embrace Frugality // Frugality breeds resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention.

• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s first desk was made of doors bought from Home Depot and bolted together. He still uses a “door desk” today … and many of the conference rooms at Amazon have “door conference tables.” Spend money where it makes an impact on your guests and cut back on everything else, so you can spend it on your guests. Your offices can be too nice. Your staff party can be too extravagant. Watch your spending and invest in what matters most.

Be Vocally Self-Critical // Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume.

• Love this one! Leaders who believe their own good press drive me up the wall. You’d think this value would be easy for church leaders to live out … we are all keenly aware of being fallen and our need for a Savior. However, we do like the smell of our own perfume just a little too much.

Earn Trust of Others // Leaders are sincerely open-minded, genuinely listen, and are willing to examine their strongest convictions with humility.

• Trust is earned and not given. It’s earned through listening with humility. What process do you have in your church for listening to people who might disagree with you? Recent scandals in our community prove that there can be an unhealthy culture in churches where leaders don’t listen to people around them. In fact, they use spiritual language to silence people who disagree with them. This needs to stop.

Dive Deep // Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, and audit frequently. No task is beneath them.

• When was the last time you actually experienced what it’s like to come to your church? (Or any church for that matter?) Being the “first in, last out” gives you a false sense of what it’s like. How can you dive deep into the experience that you provide? What do “normal people” experience at your church? How can you use your leadership to make it better?

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit // Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting.

• Some of the healthiest church leadership teams I’ve seen have serious disagreements. I mean red-faced, passionate disagreements … not passive-aggressive, stab-you-in-the-back battles. The stakes are super high, so it’s understandable that we’ll find ourselves on different sides of issues and opinions. If no one is fighting (well) in your leadership team meetings, you probably have the wrong people in the room.

Deliver Results // Leaders focus on the key inputs for their businesses and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion.

• What are the results you are attempting to deliver? We all think about noses and nickels — weekend attendance and revenue — but what are your other key performance indicators? How many first-time guests came last month? How does that compare to last year? What is your volunteer attrition rate? Is it going up or down? Numbers matter … even if you aren’t a “numbers person,” you need to understand the numbers that show the health of your church.

> Read more from Rich here.

Tags: Amazon, Jeff Bezos, Leadership Engine, leadership principles

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