Let’s Remember who We Represent!

8 Steps to Effectively Share a Message Step 5: Create a Digital/Print Book

As a leader, Jesus set an example for His disciples, modeling the behavior He want them to copy. As a mentor, He encouraged them to test the skills He taught them, then worked with them to strengthen those skills & make them even better.

You don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate the leadership & mentoring skills of Jesus. Business books have been written, sharing insights into His abilities & offering ways to incorporating those skills into the business world.

While leadership training & development have been hot topics in recent years, mentoring has been largely ignored. This is a major mistake. A leader can’t be fully developed simply through leadership training. Practical experience must be coupled with training. In order for that experience to be most effective, a mentor needs to walk beside the developing leader, offering advice & encouragement along the way.

Unfortunately, a new leader is usually given the training & then sent out to perform, learning over a long period of time by trial & error. For many new leaders, the only mentoring they receive is in the form of discipline when they make the inevitable mistakes.

This situation is even worse for the volunteer leader in the church or organization. In business, there is at least SOME training & guidance. Volunteers are simply given the materials that have been passed down from one leader to the next, patted on the back & told halfheartedly, “If you need anything, call me!” They never call. They never know what to ask or how to begin or how this could happen to them.

For this reason, many churches have a hard time recruiting leaders & an even harder time keeping them.In this series, I’m sharing 5 simple steps to use when mentoring new leaders. They don’t take much time, they just take follow-up & consistency. I developed these steps by studying the method Jesus used to prepare the disciples for leadership. Not all the men He chose as His disciples were born leaders. Jesus trained them & mentored them during their time together, creating leaders that went on to begin & build a thriving organization.

Have you been mentored or mentored someone else? How was the experience for you? Do you have questions about mentoring? Share them with us in the comments.Training & mentoring leaders is the way to empower your organization & ensure the continuation of your programs. It is worth all the time & effort you put into the process considering all the benefits you reap!

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You created a booklet & began offering it on your website & on your product table during presentations. The response has been great. People are reading the material & asking questions, making comments. You have been doing research, open to more information on the topic. You add to your notebook containing material on this message. After careful consideration, you decide it’s time to create a full book.

8 Steps to More Effectively Share a Message Step 4: Create a Booklet

You might believe this is an unnecessary step. You would be mistaken. A booklet serves many purposes in this process. Let’s see what some of them are:

Allows You to Expand Your Message

Your blog series should contain plenty of useful information. You never, however, want to put everything about a topic into any one piece of the process until you get to your book. And even then, you want to be able to refer readers to other formats, like a video or podcast, for even more information. Anyway, while your blog series is more detailed than the infographic, you should have more information to share. I find once I write my blog posts, I begin finding other information to support my message. Or people write comments that offer information or ask questions that help me see areas I need to further develop. A booklet allows you to do this.

Quick to Put Together

You might scoff at creating a booklet, preferring instead to wait until you complete a book. A full length book may take 6-12 months to complete. A booklet can be finished in a weekend. This doesn’t mean you simply throw it together. You always want to create a quality product. Some items, however, can be created in a shorter amount of time than others.

Easy to Giveaway

I always produce a digital version before I have a print version made. A digital version can contain hot links to your blog, your podcast, videos, social media & third party supporting information, like a book that adds on to your message. A digital booklet makes an excellent giveaway for people that subscribe to your mailing list. I just add the PDF to my website & make that the landing page.

A Quick New Item for Your Product Table

If you are really hot on your topic, you want to share it with people as quickly & easily as possible. A booklet allows you to have a physical product to sell when you do events. Your booklets may contain all the information some people want. They are also an inexpensive way for members of your audience to take a piece of you home with them at a low cost. When you do a bang-up job during a presentation, people like having a memento for lack of a better word, to take home with them. While books can be expensive, a booklet is usually only a few dollars. You may find your booklets are the best selling item on your product table.

It Is More Forgiving

There is nothing worse than spending months-years writing a book, having it printed only to discover all the changes you want to make. It’s always hard to let go of your book once you are done writing it. You always want to do MORE! I’m talking about major changes. Info you could have added. Mistakes. A booklet allows you to see where there are holes & gives you the opportunity to fix them. And at a much lower cost then a book. I only print a few booklets at a time so I can make revisions as necessary.

Now you can see how important a booklet is in this process. It is well worth the time & minor expense to produce a booklet, ensuring your future book is filled with even more valuable information than you thought possible.

The 6 No-no’s of Successful Delegation Part 1: Never Do It Yourself

Congratulations! You have been asked to lead your organization. Or you volunteered to chair your group’s fundraiser or special event. Whatever it might be, you find yourself in a leadership position, perhaps for the first time. You want everything to go great. After all, you ARE in charge!

True but in order to have a great year at the head of an organization or a successful event, you must rely on other people, particularly volunteers. And this is where many first time (or even long time) leaders run into trouble! Not a problem! Jean Ann is here to help you avoid a few of the pitfalls that have sabotaged many a leader! And the easiest way to do this is by showing you 6 things you should NEVER, EVER do! I’m breaking this down into 6 parts so you can comment or ask questions specific to each No No! Ready? Let’s Begin!

 

 

NEVER Do It Yourself

 

This does not mean you shouldn’t do any of the work yourself. However, it has been my experience that new leaders often have problems recruiting help so they end up doing much of the work themselves. This is a very, very bad idea!

I recently attended a planning meeting for a large fundraiser being held at my church. One of the chairwomen from the women’s ministry was chairing the meeting. As the discussion went on, I realized she wasn’t chairing the meeting as the head of the women’s group. She was chairing it as the person in charge of the event. I finally asked her outright who was chairing the event. “I am,” she told me. Seems no one else would volunteer to do it.

This is a problem. The chair of an organization must be able to focus on multiple elements of the organization. If she must also chair one of the major activities of the group, it diverts her focus from the whole. The best way I can put it is this: when the first chair in the brass section of the orchestra calls in sick, the conductor never takes their place. The conductor’s job is to oversee the whole. Taking an active role in a part of that whole weakens their ability to smoothly orchestrate the group. The same is true when you are chairing an event. You must be able to focus on the whole by not getting caught up in a part.

One word of warning: One of the greatest pitfalls of doing it yourself is finding volunteers to do other tasks. Once members see you are willing to take over anything left undone, you may find yourself doing it ALL! This is a quick & painful path to failure. In order for an organization  to succeed or an event to flourish, everyone must do their part. As the leader, your part is to encourage & equip those overseeing all the other aspects of your organization or event.

I know it can be tough. When no one wants to take over a task, it’s easy to step in. STOP! Rather than taking over the task, you must learn how to recruit volunteers. And for that, you must wait for Part 2!