Random thoughts on our Alliance "pitch"

It was great to be with you all during the Board meeting.

Here are some random thoughts of mine to get the ball rolling for our Alliance "pitch" presentation. Being in sales for a year-and-a-half, I have some decent resources to draw from for making effective presentations (not that I'm great at making presentations, but I do have resources :)). Conventional wisdom says you have 90 seconds to engage your audience and get them over the "so what?" hump to care about what you have to say. Now, most of our presentations will likely be done under friendlier conditions than the typical sales setting, but there are still some things I think we can apply.

The main one I want to offer is for us to stay focused on "What Is In It For You" (WIIFY). Jerry Weismann coins this in his book "Presenting to Win." He says when we have to present ourselves to a group, we mostly want to talk about us, but if we hope to engage our audience and bring them over to our side (whether that means selling a product or getting a church to put us in our budget), we need to start with and never stray far from WIIFY. What needs does our audience have, and how does what we have to offer meet those needs?

This raises the question, "Who is our audience"? I have listed out a few of the audiences below that I can think of, and it makes me wonder whether we'll ultimately have one presentation or a handful of similar presentations that target the appropriate audience.

So with all of that said, here are the aforementioned random scraps:

The Alliance: a denomination, a network, a movement

"Roots AND Wings" (grounding and progress)

"Baptists for a Changing World"

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“What is in it for you?” Start with “Them.” What do we know about Them and what They need?

Should our focus be on who we are, or what we do? Being or doing? Identity or results?

Who are our audiences? What is our answer to each of them asking “so what”?
 Current Alliance congregations
 Prospective Alliance congregations
 Theology school students
 Potential mission partners
 Potential organizational partners (theology schools, colleges, etc.)
 Clergy


Individuals seeking rooting in a living tradition
Individuals seeking companions on the journey
Churches seeking connection
Resources for living faith with integrity in a rapidly changing world.

“I am the Alliance” (Alliance profiles)
 Traditional church
 Emerging church
 Churches in transition
 Older member who shaped the Alliance
 Newer member who is shaping the Alliance
 Single, couple, family, diversity of age, ethnicity, sexual orientation

Montage of faces, of churches
Quotes from trusted sources on either a) the impact of the Alliance, or b) the circumstances of the church today that make the Alliance relevant (Marcus Borg, Brian McClaren, others…)

List of benefits for individuals and churches
Visuals of each of our initiatives (mission partners, marketplace, etc.)

Map to show where our churches are, where our members are, where our mission partners are