November 9, 2023 • 24 mins
We know that especially this year, it feels like every dollar needs to go further than it has before. In this episode, we are discussing 5 ways cash strapped churches can create instant savings for their organization. The best part - all 5 can be implemented immediately to experience the cost savings and benefits!
This podcast is presented by Overflow, the most powerful giving platform on the planet. Giving cash, stock, or crypto to your church or non-profit has never been easier. Visit overflow.co to experience and step into future of giving.
If you want to receive even more insights on church innovation, culture, and giving, now you can sign up for free to be an Overflow Insider, where you'll receive exclusive content, discounts, direct access to Vance Roush to get your questions answered, and also invite-only access to our monthly Fundraising Leadership Forums! Head to overflow.co/insider now!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
You haven't because you ask that literally you are a 501
(00:03):
C three charitable organizationthat solely exists for the
betterment of the community. Youneed to leverage this status
people would love to provide adiscount actually, it's embedded
in a lot of software companiesnow have specific nonprofit
discounts. Why are you notasking for
a pastor turn tech leader and amillennial churchgoer, explore
(00:27):
the intersection of technology,culture and faith, equipping you
with innovative strategies tosupport you as you live out your
calling leader churches withconfidence to step into the
future together. This is thegive it up podcast. So at the
time of recording this, it is2023. And we know that everyone,
churches, nonprofits, people,businesses are cash strapped.
(00:51):
That's right, we got to savemoney, the dollar needs to go a
recession. Is that what we'resaying?
I don't know. Yeah,if we got inflation under
control, it's people lovetalking about this stuff. Is
inflation under control.
It's like the new What's theweather? Yeah, it's
totally the new What's theweather? What's interest rates?
Like?
What about those egg prices?
I love when people do that don'teven know what they're saying
was like, yeah, what's interestrates? Like a 7%. Yeah, that's
(01:12):
crazy.
And then the conversations. Godbless, you know, but I want to
talk about five things churchescan do that are cash strapped
right now to kind of offloadsome costs go, let's
get creative to save costs,creative
to save. That's us to give it uppodcast. The first thing now me
(01:32):
and my marketing team, wecollaborated on some of these
ideas.
So like, I like that how wealways say like our team. Yes.
So key, that's a little pro tip.
That's a pro tip. Even if yourteam has a team of one, you say
hey, my team,expensive. Now they're not my
marketing team. I'm part of themarketing team to correct it.
I'm getting eyes from my managerright now. But the first thing
(01:53):
that we decided to come up withfor everybody is there's this
Have you seen the Stanley Cups?
Yes, I have. It's like all therage. Serena. Serena has one?
Yes.
Well Serena is like peak Gen Z.
I feel like so she obviously hasone correct? Yes,
she also complimented my focus.
Anyways.
(02:14):
Clouds are Hocus Pocus, right?
Why? Oh,now you're gonna make me sound
at because my orthopedist said Ineeded to wear them. You guys
actually my podiatrist butorthopedist sounds way better.
He's like you need to wear themor not. Anyways, this is not a
way to save money. Okay, soStanley mugs. Yes. Instead of
buying all of these waterbottles that are bad for the
(02:38):
planet, bad for you withplastics and everything like
that. Why don't you buy yourwhole team, a Stanley tumbler
and a water jug situation forthem to refill. Oh, you're
going to brand it? Shall webrand it? Oh, for sure. Okay, so
you're talking about instead ofit being an expense, now you
make an investment correct intothe team? Oh, my gosh, you and
(03:02):
now you encourage the team. Thisis actually interesting. This is
actually interesting, because sonow you go from having to buy
those Costco pallets everysingle week. And then people
have church product Correct.
That will follow them. Exactly.
And that can be cute. It's likewhen you you do a Mac screen and
(03:22):
you put all your little decalson it. Yeah, it'd be the new
church stainless steel mugsituation too. So that's one way
right there.
I wonder how much that wouldsave because like how much would
you say is a Costco pallet ofwater?
Well, considering I've neverpurchased a Costco pallet of
water, the wife's not the bestperson as
google it real time right now.
Let's google it real time. So wegot Costco. pallet of water,
(03:44):
right? Yes. So Costco pallet ofwater. Whoa, look at that.
That's so many palettes. Oh,this is my don't
tell them the price we're seeingright that $650 $650 For stalls.
Not that crystal? It's crystalgeyser. Alpine spring, but how
(04:07):
many is that? 123. Like, okay,look at look at that. How long
would that last you think?
Probably like, three, fourmonths, depending on how deep
your staff is. Okay. Well, let'ssay the worship team drinks that
halfof it say this last two months.
Okay. Yeah, you have to do sixof these. Yeah, we're talking
650 times six. Yeah, right. Sowe'll take out taxes for now.
(04:32):
Okay, type six, that's $4,000 inwater $4,000 in water. So you're
saying that? Let's say your teamis what? 200 people 250? Yeah.
So you're saying okay, well 4000divided by 250. So what is
Stanley cost? A custom Stanleycost under $16. You think?
(04:56):
Not a Stanley brand, but I wasjust giving an example. You can
for sure. Idon't know we gotta get granular
here. No, we're giving realcondensed stainless steel for
real tips to save money. Okay,so, how to save? Branded? Some
sort of branded? Yeah, okay,good. No, I mean, basically what
you need to do is you need tofind some sort of branded water
bottle that's high quality sothat people just don't throw it
(05:17):
away votes and want to actuallybring it to church. Yeah. Under
if you're gonna save half thecost, it has to be under $8.
Yeah,so I like that. Because I don't
know if that's what we weretrying to say. Yeah, great job
marketing team. But you know,that's a clever way and also
just don't have water bottles atchurch anymore. You can have
refill stations,it is cluttery. I will say that
(05:39):
the whole thing about everybodyputting their water bottles
under the seats and auditoriumtuning and flip it.
That's cluttery I agree. Yeah.
So that's one. Okay. Number twolove
marketing team coming up withfinance tips. This is great.
This is awesome. Everyone istrying to stir creativity
people.
It's all about stewardship forus. Which brings me to number
(06:00):
two. Okay, the Great Purge. Getrid of software. It's a
horror movie. I know. The Purgehate it. Yeah. Not utilizing
software.
But what is horror are horrible.
Is all the software that you'repaying for that you don't use?
Literally? Are you using text inchurch? And actually, here's a
pro tip. The pro tip is this.
(06:22):
Maybe you're using text inchurch, but you don't have to
have 22 seats. Because not 22people are actually using it.
You just have your comms personusing it. And do you know how
SAS works Software as a Servicethese companies work by how many
seats admin seats that you havethey still in we work at a tech
company. Yep. We purchased SASproducts all the time. And our
(06:43):
finance person shout out to Erictells us all the time where do
seats that's whyI don't get any seats. Yeah, I'm
just gonna tell everyone. That'swhy I don't get us. It's
kind of like you. It's kind oflike Netflix at overflow. We
just share we share. We don't wedon't do that. Everybody. We
don't do that we pay properlyfor every single seat but reduce
seats. Yes. Because not everysingle associate campus pastor
(07:04):
needs Texan church. That's sotrue. Yeah. Not every single
person needs admin rights onPCO. Right. I don't know what
other church software's outthere. But
those are just her thoughts.
Yeah. purge it curate. Andhere's, here's my new I would
say you would probably save inthe magnitude of 1000s of
(07:25):
dollars a month. If you actuallytook a look at it. Depending on
the size of your church, forsure. Yeah, but what's your
take? Myheartache is it's actually
better to pay monthly forthings. Oh, you don't want to do
the annual with the CD? No,because you stop using it after
three months anyways, sometimesYeah. Most, most of the times
when you're trying a newsoftware, and you don't have
enough understanding of it. Oh,here's another thing. Yeah.
(07:46):
Always ask for try before youbuy. Don't do that with overflow
piece of software.
Do try before you buy.
Especially with like some of theI feel like there's dozens of
engagement software's noweverybody's trying to solve this
like church engagement. Yes.
(08:07):
Problem. Yes. I don't know who'sgonna win it. I don't know who's
gonna be the best at it. Yeah.
So try before you buy thesesoftware companies, okay. They
want your business or so. Youhave not because you ask no
biblical people. Oh,my. He's really coming for you
with how many with these verses?
Okay, well, another one similarto try before you buy is ask for
(08:32):
discounts. Yes.
So this, my wife is the best atthis cuz she's Asian. She's
giving these Chinesespecifically. But I will say,
again, you have not because youask that literally, you are a
501 C three charitableorganization that solely exists
for the benefit of thebetterment of the community.
(08:54):
Yeah, you need to leverage thisstatus. Yeah, this is a coveted
status, right? People would loveto provide a discount, actually.
It's embedded in a lot ofsoftware companies now
Salesforce stripe, they havespecific nonprofit discounts.
Why are you not asking for themasked for them. If it's not
explicit that they have one.
Maybe you should talk to themabout starting one. Yeah, at
(09:17):
least for you. And here's a protip. If you have a contractor
that needs to put a beam in yourbuilding to reinforce a wall, if
you have a contractor that needsto do painting or repairs and
they're doing a prettysignificant project for your
building that's maybe in thefive figures, maybe even the six
(09:37):
figures, you can actually workwith them to see if they want to
give their service in kind Wow.
Because depending on thesituation of their company, it
might be better for them to dothe service in kind for the
church and you provide acharitable acknowledgement
letter to them, and then beingable to take a charitable tax
(09:58):
deduction. It might actually bemore beneficial for them to do
that. And you then don't have topay out of pocket for that
service. I just saved the churchsix figures. I just said,
I didn't know that was a thing.
Give it a podcast. Maybe thisshould be good buy insider, like
this is good stuff.
That is you just you just gaveaway the goods this out
(10:19):
one things that they don't wantyou to know. You know, they they
don't they know those A'sand stuff. Don't want you to
know. Yeah. Okay. That's great.
And another concept, does themarketing team, give it up?
thought through was creating afilter of will this help funnel
someone closer to God? If itdoes not right now, cut that
(10:42):
thing out. The fog machine ain'tbringing someone to Jesus,
I think fog machines are out. Inin the peak, I will say it did
bring in the Shekinah glory. Iwas I was four and it made like
the lasers look cool. Well, wedo fund machines at our church
anymore. I would say that we'reclarifying this all the time,
(11:03):
you know, to keep people engagedin church post church to hang
and to cross connect and thingslike that. We were offering for
a season three tacos. And nobodyate the tacos. Yeah, so
annoying. So you know, it's justabout evaluating iterating
trying to identify okay, whatare the things that are working
or not working? And optimize,optimize, maximize? How you're
(11:27):
allocating the budget? And Ilike that. Yeah. All oriented. I
mean, obvious. This is obviousto all of us, but oriented
towards what's people what'sbringing people to Christ? Yeah.
What is helping disciple peoplein Christ? What is helping
people engage in cross connect,here's the thing, you want to
actually have a disproportionateamount of your investment into
(11:49):
how you facilitate somebodymeeting seven friends, within
the first two to three weeks. Ifthey meet seven friends, within
the first two to three weeks,they're in, they're in back door
closed, retention solved. Wow,they're in this is actually the
formula that Facebook used. Whenthey first started the company,
they called it the magic number,it wasn't, within a few weeks,
(12:12):
it was actually within sevendays, that you needed to make
seven connections within sevendays. And that was like the
magic number to get fullretention on the platform. And
they did everything theyinvested a disproportionate
amount of their staff to solvethat problem. How do we optimize
somebody making as many friendsas fast as possible on our
social media platform? Andthat's actually what led to
(12:34):
exponential growth, you got toclose the back power. Right.
That's cool. And so yeah, thosethings that are investments into
that, and then maybe taking itfrom budget where it's being
spent on things that might notbe maximizing that. Yeah,
and first off, I don't find itironic that seven was the magic
number. Because we know it's thenumber of completion. Yeah,
(12:57):
we're going to talk about thisin another episode coming up
soon. But what Gen Z is lookingfor is not flash in a pan
anymore. They're they're morefocused on the experience that
they're having the personalencounter that they're having.
Right, right, right. And sothere's so much, I'm just gonna
say it frivolousness. That's soirrelevant. The labels are
relatively likea little bit of frivolity. Why
(13:18):
do we likepeople? Because humans are made
for novelty. So okay, welllet it let it be novel one time
and by? Yeah,well, what I think you're saying
though, the deeper principle is,you have to be open to evolving
your methodology based on thecontext. So I do think maybe
(13:41):
middle millennial loved thelasers in the haze machine
combo, and maybe Gen Z doesn't,right? Maybe Gen Z like
something else. And so we can'tbe married to the method, sure.
But we can be focused on ourmessage and the goal. And so if
it's not reaching the goalanymore, that's why you know,
what we do at our church, andespecially when I sat in the
(14:04):
seat of CFO at our church, westarted this thing called ROI
mindset or return on investmentmindset. And we would actually
go department by department,look at the ways each department
lead was managing their budget,and we were assessing it from a
Hey, is it actually influencingour key performance indicators
or KPIs? Is it actuallyinfluencing more new guests,
(14:27):
more people getting connectedinto small groups, more people
getting baptized is influencingthat if there's not a direct
correlation to that? It's eitherwe got to dig deeper to find
that connection, or it's up fordebate on if it should stick
around.
Yeah, no, I agree with thatcompletely. And I have first
(14:48):
hand experience with thisbecause my husband and I took
over as the host team leaders atour church cool, which
basically, instead of firstimpressions team or whatever you
call it with like the Hey,welcome team, where they The
ones that bridge that gapbetween Okay, now you're now
you're part of something. Andthe method that I know that a
lot of churches have taught fora long time is the way to get
(15:09):
people plugged in, is to get toknow them, then get them plugged
in. But the turnaround time inthat was very limited. It's like
within the first one to twointeractions, you should be
telling him like, hey, this dayis coming up for church or oh,
this small group start then?
Sure, sure. And from ourpersonal experience, we found
that that's very overwhelming.
(15:30):
Sure. And not disarming at allright? It's almost forcing
something like, whoa, hold on. Ijust got here. I don't even I
don't even know if I'm bought innow I need to know about. So at
the bulletin board, right. Sowhat we started doing was we
actually changed the name fromhost team to the field scene
team. Cool. And so we now makeit a point that it's going to
take six interactions with us ofknowing your name, saying hello
(15:53):
to you every time you walk in,getting to know a little bit
about your story before we'reever approaching anything else
about what's going on at church,if it comes up organically, for
sure. But we're not trying topush information about that
connection, until we see thatwe're both building a rapport.
Yeah. And that doesn't costanything. Yeah,
(16:14):
you know, the most hospitableperson on the planet was Jesus.
Yes. Jesus was a master athospitality. Yeah. And the
scripture says that he didn'teven have a place to rest his
head. Sometimes you think youneed a super fancy home? Yep.
And you need the fanciestcharcuterie board. Yeah. And,
and by the way, I love a goodcharcuterie board. I do think
(16:35):
there's something to be saidabout pursuing excellence and
giving God our best and showingoff and showing out and making
sure that people can feel athome and feel hosted. But you
don't need to be limited. If youdon't have resources for that
yet, right? To know how to hostExactly. I think what you're
telling me off camera earlierwas one of the key things that
(16:57):
you and your husband did wasremember, remember names? Yeah.
People love the sound of theirown name. Yeah. And if you're
bad with names, you don't haveto be bad with names. This is
not this actually. Somethingthat is inaccessible. This is
what you do. They tell you theirname, and you use it three times
(17:19):
in the first 30 seconds. Oh, sotell me more about that. Also,
you're from Pittsburgh. So Oh,that's so cool. So that you just
got married? Oh, so that'samazing that you guys are about
to have a kid. Oh. Okay. But nowI remember your name is Oh, and
(17:41):
Zoey.
And I remember never to bringthis up again. And AKs overflow.
No, but it's just like, youdon't have to be bad
at names. Yeah, that's fair. Andsomething I will say that I have
done. I love when people saythis, because I immediately
challenged them on the namefront specifically said like,
Who told you that? You're badnames, like nobody went up to
set you and said you're about atnames. And also that is, quote
(18:03):
in Genesis three. But what I'vestarted doing is actually
holding a notebook in my hand.
And so I'll start having aconversation with someone and
literally after the interactionends, I'd be like, Alicia wave,
you hold a notebook? I do. Youdon't just put on your phone?
No,because then it looks like I'm
on my phone. Wow, I keep andthere's something that happens
when you're actually writingsomething down in the brain. I
(18:24):
like that. Yeah. So if you areone of those people that thinks
you're bad at names, even ifit's right, as the message
starts, just write down all thepeople that you had
conversations with that day, Ihave not forgotten a single
person's name since I did that.
Imean, if you're writing a die, I
wouldn't be surprised. That'samazing. I love that. So I
(18:44):
think that was four. I thinkthat was four tips we give Yes,
we gotta givethe fifth one here is the
clincher people are gonna saveyou so much money right now. Do
you know what you are paying foryour merchant processing fees?
This is the answer for 90% ofCFOs. Executive pastors
definitely lead pastors youdon't know. Because we've talked
to you. And we asked to see whatyour statements were. And you
(19:08):
don't know where to be found,because your current payment
processors are hiding it fromyou. But the problem is that you
are paying too much for AIMEX,you're likely paying 3.5% and 30
or 40 cents per transaction. Fordebit credit, I'm talking Visa
MasterCard, you're likely paying2.9% and 30 cents per
(19:30):
transaction for Ach, you mightbe paying half a percent to a
percent sometimes. And thenthere's hidden fees. It's called
Platform fees that these paymentprocessors and these giving
platforms are doing fullyloaded, you're probably paying
anywhere from three to 6% pertransaction. So if you're
(19:50):
bringing in a significant amountof money, that's six figures or
depending on the size church youare that could be seven The
figures and merchant processingfees that are going into the
pockets of these paymentprocessors, we have come,
overflow has come to save theday, maybe not saved the day.
(20:13):
But I mean, Jesus already savedthe day. Yes, but we came to
save you on merchant processingfees, we have created a system
and exclusive partnership, we'vecreated a full stack solution
that allows us to save up to inmost cases, 1% 1% is a lot of
money for some churches, thatseven figures for some churches
(20:37):
that six figures, even if it'sonly five figures for your
church, that might be a staffmember, that might be an intern,
that might be resources to beable to accelerate the mission
and vision of your church. So doyou know your merchant
processing fees, if you don't,you got to check you got to ask
you got to pull it. And you cansee that you're actually
(21:00):
spending way too much money, I'mjust talking about merchant
processing fees. But on top ofthat, you're probably paying
subscription fees. And so fullyloaded, you're spending, you
know, 50,000 100,000, and thehundreds of 1000s for some
churches, in fees that you donot need to be spending. And so
this is one of the best ways tocut costs. And you know, it's
(21:21):
not all about cutting costs. I'ma big believer in you get what
you pay for, you want to makesure that you pay for the right
platforms that you invest intothe right platforms that can
accelerate the vision andmission. But if fees are going
or money is going to fees, thatis doing nothing for your
organization, might as wellconsider figuring out how to
(21:43):
reduce those, we can help you atoverflow or at least have a
conversation of how you canfigure out what you are paying,
and what the potentials areto save. Yeah, and we're doing
free cost analysis right now.
Free 99.
Now that is a deal, kind of likeinsider, kind of like Insider.
Which by the way, if you don'tknow what insider is, it's an
(22:05):
exclusive membership that's freefor people to dive into getting
more leadership content, morefundraising content, we actually
put an extra podcast episode outevery single month only to
Insider members. So two things Iguess we got to point out if you
want to free cost analysisoverflow.co. Co if you want to
(22:26):
sign up for Insider, overflow,Dotco slash insider and yours,
I'm gonna do the hat trick justbecause I felt like okay, if
you're listening to thisepisode, if you listen to the
end, this is why you shouldlisten to the end people. If
you're listening to thisepisode, you can reference this
episode, email, email, Serena.
At overflow taco, we'll put inthe show notes. And I will
(22:48):
personally mail you a copy ofhigh growth fundraising for
free. Your book for free. I'mjust wondering, because I like
things in threes. You're you'refilling John. So
we have the Trinity threefamilies. Yes. That are free.
Amen. Don't say we don't saveyour money. Okay. That's it for
(23:09):
this week, folks. Thanks so muchfor listening to the give it up
podcast if you want to receiveeven more insights on church
innovation, culture and giving.
Now you can sign up for free tobe an overflow insider, where
you'll receive exclusive contentdiscounts direct access to Vance
Roush to get your questionsanswered. And also invite only
access to our monthlyfundraising leadership forums,
(23:32):
head to overflow.co backslashinsider, or just click the link
in our bio to sign up for freetoday. In order to get this
podcast in the ears of even morechurch leaders. Could you please
subscribe and leave a review forthe show. This tells the podcast
players what people are enjoyingand want to hear more of and we
are adamant about providingmaximum value to even more
(23:54):
church leaders. Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
You haven't because you ask that literally you are a 501
(00:03):
C three charitable organizationthat solely exists for the
betterment of the community. Youneed to leverage this status
people would love to provide adiscount actually, it's embedded
in a lot of software companiesnow have specific nonprofit
discounts. Why are you notasking for
a pastor turn tech leader and amillennial churchgoer, explore
(00:27):
the intersection of technology,culture and faith, equipping you
with innovative strategies tosupport you as you live out your
calling leader churches withconfidence to step into the
future together. This is thegive it up podcast. So at the
time of recording this, it is2023. And we know that everyone,
churches, nonprofits, people,businesses are cash strapped.
(00:51):
That's right, we got to savemoney, the dollar needs to go a
recession. Is that what we'resaying?
I don't know. Yeah,if we got inflation under
control, it's people lovetalking about this stuff. Is
inflation under control.
It's like the new What's theweather? Yeah, it's
totally the new What's theweather? What's interest rates?
Like?
What about those egg prices?
I love when people do that don'teven know what they're saying
was like, yeah, what's interestrates? Like a 7%. Yeah, that's
(01:12):
crazy.
And then the conversations. Godbless, you know, but I want to
talk about five things churchescan do that are cash strapped
right now to kind of offloadsome costs go, let's
get creative to save costs,creative
to save. That's us to give it uppodcast. The first thing now me
(01:32):
and my marketing team, wecollaborated on some of these
ideas.
So like, I like that how wealways say like our team. Yes.
So key, that's a little pro tip.
That's a pro tip. Even if yourteam has a team of one, you say
hey, my team,expensive. Now they're not my
marketing team. I'm part of themarketing team to correct it.
I'm getting eyes from my managerright now. But the first thing
(01:53):
that we decided to come up withfor everybody is there's this
Have you seen the Stanley Cups?
Yes, I have. It's like all therage. Serena. Serena has one?
Yes.
Well Serena is like peak Gen Z.
I feel like so she obviously hasone correct? Yes,
she also complimented my focus.
Anyways.
(02:14):
Clouds are Hocus Pocus, right?
Why? Oh,now you're gonna make me sound
at because my orthopedist said Ineeded to wear them. You guys
actually my podiatrist butorthopedist sounds way better.
He's like you need to wear themor not. Anyways, this is not a
way to save money. Okay, soStanley mugs. Yes. Instead of
buying all of these waterbottles that are bad for the
(02:38):
planet, bad for you withplastics and everything like
that. Why don't you buy yourwhole team, a Stanley tumbler
and a water jug situation forthem to refill. Oh, you're
going to brand it? Shall webrand it? Oh, for sure. Okay, so
you're talking about instead ofit being an expense, now you
make an investment correct intothe team? Oh, my gosh, you and
(03:02):
now you encourage the team. Thisis actually interesting. This is
actually interesting, because sonow you go from having to buy
those Costco pallets everysingle week. And then people
have church product Correct.
That will follow them. Exactly.
And that can be cute. It's likewhen you you do a Mac screen and
(03:22):
you put all your little decalson it. Yeah, it'd be the new
church stainless steel mugsituation too. So that's one way
right there.
I wonder how much that wouldsave because like how much would
you say is a Costco pallet ofwater?
Well, considering I've neverpurchased a Costco pallet of
water, the wife's not the bestperson as
google it real time right now.
Let's google it real time. So wegot Costco. pallet of water,
(03:44):
right? Yes. So Costco pallet ofwater. Whoa, look at that.
That's so many palettes. Oh,this is my don't
tell them the price we're seeingright that $650 $650 For stalls.
Not that crystal? It's crystalgeyser. Alpine spring, but how
(04:07):
many is that? 123. Like, okay,look at look at that. How long
would that last you think?
Probably like, three, fourmonths, depending on how deep
your staff is. Okay. Well, let'ssay the worship team drinks that
halfof it say this last two months.
Okay. Yeah, you have to do sixof these. Yeah, we're talking
650 times six. Yeah, right. Sowe'll take out taxes for now.
(04:32):
Okay, type six, that's $4,000 inwater $4,000 in water. So you're
saying that? Let's say your teamis what? 200 people 250? Yeah.
So you're saying okay, well 4000divided by 250. So what is
Stanley cost? A custom Stanleycost under $16. You think?
(04:56):
Not a Stanley brand, but I wasjust giving an example. You can
for sure. Idon't know we gotta get granular
here. No, we're giving realcondensed stainless steel for
real tips to save money. Okay,so, how to save? Branded? Some
sort of branded? Yeah, okay,good. No, I mean, basically what
you need to do is you need tofind some sort of branded water
bottle that's high quality sothat people just don't throw it
(05:17):
away votes and want to actuallybring it to church. Yeah. Under
if you're gonna save half thecost, it has to be under $8.
Yeah,so I like that. Because I don't
know if that's what we weretrying to say. Yeah, great job
marketing team. But you know,that's a clever way and also
just don't have water bottles atchurch anymore. You can have
refill stations,it is cluttery. I will say that
(05:39):
the whole thing about everybodyputting their water bottles
under the seats and auditoriumtuning and flip it.
That's cluttery I agree. Yeah.
So that's one. Okay. Number twolove
marketing team coming up withfinance tips. This is great.
This is awesome. Everyone istrying to stir creativity
people.
It's all about stewardship forus. Which brings me to number
(06:00):
two. Okay, the Great Purge. Getrid of software. It's a
horror movie. I know. The Purgehate it. Yeah. Not utilizing
software.
But what is horror are horrible.
Is all the software that you'repaying for that you don't use?
Literally? Are you using text inchurch? And actually, here's a
pro tip. The pro tip is this.
(06:22):
Maybe you're using text inchurch, but you don't have to
have 22 seats. Because not 22people are actually using it.
You just have your comms personusing it. And do you know how
SAS works Software as a Servicethese companies work by how many
seats admin seats that you havethey still in we work at a tech
company. Yep. We purchased SASproducts all the time. And our
(06:43):
finance person shout out to Erictells us all the time where do
seats that's whyI don't get any seats. Yeah, I'm
just gonna tell everyone. That'swhy I don't get us. It's
kind of like you. It's kind oflike Netflix at overflow. We
just share we share. We don't wedon't do that. Everybody. We
don't do that we pay properlyfor every single seat but reduce
seats. Yes. Because not everysingle associate campus pastor
(07:04):
needs Texan church. That's sotrue. Yeah. Not every single
person needs admin rights onPCO. Right. I don't know what
other church software's outthere. But
those are just her thoughts.
Yeah. purge it curate. Andhere's, here's my new I would
say you would probably save inthe magnitude of 1000s of
(07:25):
dollars a month. If you actuallytook a look at it. Depending on
the size of your church, forsure. Yeah, but what's your
take? Myheartache is it's actually
better to pay monthly forthings. Oh, you don't want to do
the annual with the CD? No,because you stop using it after
three months anyways, sometimesYeah. Most, most of the times
when you're trying a newsoftware, and you don't have
enough understanding of it. Oh,here's another thing. Yeah.
(07:46):
Always ask for try before youbuy. Don't do that with overflow
piece of software.
Do try before you buy.
Especially with like some of theI feel like there's dozens of
engagement software's noweverybody's trying to solve this
like church engagement. Yes.
(08:07):
Problem. Yes. I don't know who'sgonna win it. I don't know who's
gonna be the best at it. Yeah.
So try before you buy thesesoftware companies, okay. They
want your business or so. Youhave not because you ask no
biblical people. Oh,my. He's really coming for you
with how many with these verses?
Okay, well, another one similarto try before you buy is ask for
(08:32):
discounts. Yes.
So this, my wife is the best atthis cuz she's Asian. She's
giving these Chinesespecifically. But I will say,
again, you have not because youask that literally, you are a
501 C three charitableorganization that solely exists
for the benefit of thebetterment of the community.
(08:54):
Yeah, you need to leverage thisstatus. Yeah, this is a coveted
status, right? People would loveto provide a discount, actually.
It's embedded in a lot ofsoftware companies now
Salesforce stripe, they havespecific nonprofit discounts.
Why are you not asking for themasked for them. If it's not
explicit that they have one.
Maybe you should talk to themabout starting one. Yeah, at
(09:17):
least for you. And here's a protip. If you have a contractor
that needs to put a beam in yourbuilding to reinforce a wall, if
you have a contractor that needsto do painting or repairs and
they're doing a prettysignificant project for your
building that's maybe in thefive figures, maybe even the six
(09:37):
figures, you can actually workwith them to see if they want to
give their service in kind Wow.
Because depending on thesituation of their company, it
might be better for them to dothe service in kind for the
church and you provide acharitable acknowledgement
letter to them, and then beingable to take a charitable tax
(09:58):
deduction. It might actually bemore beneficial for them to do
that. And you then don't have topay out of pocket for that
service. I just saved the churchsix figures. I just said,
I didn't know that was a thing.
Give it a podcast. Maybe thisshould be good buy insider, like
this is good stuff.
That is you just you just gaveaway the goods this out
(10:19):
one things that they don't wantyou to know. You know, they they
don't they know those A'sand stuff. Don't want you to
know. Yeah. Okay. That's great.
And another concept, does themarketing team, give it up?
thought through was creating afilter of will this help funnel
someone closer to God? If itdoes not right now, cut that
(10:42):
thing out. The fog machine ain'tbringing someone to Jesus,
I think fog machines are out. Inin the peak, I will say it did
bring in the Shekinah glory. Iwas I was four and it made like
the lasers look cool. Well, wedo fund machines at our church
anymore. I would say that we'reclarifying this all the time,
(11:03):
you know, to keep people engagedin church post church to hang
and to cross connect and thingslike that. We were offering for
a season three tacos. And nobodyate the tacos. Yeah, so
annoying. So you know, it's justabout evaluating iterating
trying to identify okay, whatare the things that are working
or not working? And optimize,optimize, maximize? How you're
(11:27):
allocating the budget? And Ilike that. Yeah. All oriented. I
mean, obvious. This is obviousto all of us, but oriented
towards what's people what'sbringing people to Christ? Yeah.
What is helping disciple peoplein Christ? What is helping
people engage in cross connect,here's the thing, you want to
actually have a disproportionateamount of your investment into
(11:49):
how you facilitate somebodymeeting seven friends, within
the first two to three weeks. Ifthey meet seven friends, within
the first two to three weeks,they're in, they're in back door
closed, retention solved. Wow,they're in this is actually the
formula that Facebook used. Whenthey first started the company,
they called it the magic number,it wasn't, within a few weeks,
(12:12):
it was actually within sevendays, that you needed to make
seven connections within sevendays. And that was like the
magic number to get fullretention on the platform. And
they did everything theyinvested a disproportionate
amount of their staff to solvethat problem. How do we optimize
somebody making as many friendsas fast as possible on our
social media platform? Andthat's actually what led to
(12:34):
exponential growth, you got toclose the back power. Right.
That's cool. And so yeah, thosethings that are investments into
that, and then maybe taking itfrom budget where it's being
spent on things that might notbe maximizing that. Yeah,
and first off, I don't find itironic that seven was the magic
number. Because we know it's thenumber of completion. Yeah,
(12:57):
we're going to talk about thisin another episode coming up
soon. But what Gen Z is lookingfor is not flash in a pan
anymore. They're they're morefocused on the experience that
they're having the personalencounter that they're having.
Right, right, right. And sothere's so much, I'm just gonna
say it frivolousness. That's soirrelevant. The labels are
relatively likea little bit of frivolity. Why
(13:18):
do we likepeople? Because humans are made
for novelty. So okay, welllet it let it be novel one time
and by? Yeah,well, what I think you're saying
though, the deeper principle is,you have to be open to evolving
your methodology based on thecontext. So I do think maybe
(13:41):
middle millennial loved thelasers in the haze machine
combo, and maybe Gen Z doesn't,right? Maybe Gen Z like
something else. And so we can'tbe married to the method, sure.
But we can be focused on ourmessage and the goal. And so if
it's not reaching the goalanymore, that's why you know,
what we do at our church, andespecially when I sat in the
(14:04):
seat of CFO at our church, westarted this thing called ROI
mindset or return on investmentmindset. And we would actually
go department by department,look at the ways each department
lead was managing their budget,and we were assessing it from a
Hey, is it actually influencingour key performance indicators
or KPIs? Is it actuallyinfluencing more new guests,
(14:27):
more people getting connectedinto small groups, more people
getting baptized is influencingthat if there's not a direct
correlation to that? It's eitherwe got to dig deeper to find
that connection, or it's up fordebate on if it should stick
around.
Yeah, no, I agree with thatcompletely. And I have first
(14:48):
hand experience with thisbecause my husband and I took
over as the host team leaders atour church cool, which
basically, instead of firstimpressions team or whatever you
call it with like the Hey,welcome team, where they The
ones that bridge that gapbetween Okay, now you're now
you're part of something. Andthe method that I know that a
lot of churches have taught fora long time is the way to get
(15:09):
people plugged in, is to get toknow them, then get them plugged
in. But the turnaround time inthat was very limited. It's like
within the first one to twointeractions, you should be
telling him like, hey, this dayis coming up for church or oh,
this small group start then?
Sure, sure. And from ourpersonal experience, we found
that that's very overwhelming.
(15:30):
Sure. And not disarming at allright? It's almost forcing
something like, whoa, hold on. Ijust got here. I don't even I
don't even know if I'm bought innow I need to know about. So at
the bulletin board, right. Sowhat we started doing was we
actually changed the name fromhost team to the field scene
team. Cool. And so we now makeit a point that it's going to
take six interactions with us ofknowing your name, saying hello
(15:53):
to you every time you walk in,getting to know a little bit
about your story before we'reever approaching anything else
about what's going on at church,if it comes up organically, for
sure. But we're not trying topush information about that
connection, until we see thatwe're both building a rapport.
Yeah. And that doesn't costanything. Yeah,
(16:14):
you know, the most hospitableperson on the planet was Jesus.
Yes. Jesus was a master athospitality. Yeah. And the
scripture says that he didn'teven have a place to rest his
head. Sometimes you think youneed a super fancy home? Yep.
And you need the fanciestcharcuterie board. Yeah. And,
and by the way, I love a goodcharcuterie board. I do think
(16:35):
there's something to be saidabout pursuing excellence and
giving God our best and showingoff and showing out and making
sure that people can feel athome and feel hosted. But you
don't need to be limited. If youdon't have resources for that
yet, right? To know how to hostExactly. I think what you're
telling me off camera earlierwas one of the key things that
(16:57):
you and your husband did wasremember, remember names? Yeah.
People love the sound of theirown name. Yeah. And if you're
bad with names, you don't haveto be bad with names. This is
not this actually. Somethingthat is inaccessible. This is
what you do. They tell you theirname, and you use it three times
(17:19):
in the first 30 seconds. Oh, sotell me more about that. Also,
you're from Pittsburgh. So Oh,that's so cool. So that you just
got married? Oh, so that'samazing that you guys are about
to have a kid. Oh. Okay. But nowI remember your name is Oh, and
(17:41):
Zoey.
And I remember never to bringthis up again. And AKs overflow.
No, but it's just like, youdon't have to be bad
at names. Yeah, that's fair. Andsomething I will say that I have
done. I love when people saythis, because I immediately
challenged them on the namefront specifically said like,
Who told you that? You're badnames, like nobody went up to
set you and said you're about atnames. And also that is, quote
(18:03):
in Genesis three. But what I'vestarted doing is actually
holding a notebook in my hand.
And so I'll start having aconversation with someone and
literally after the interactionends, I'd be like, Alicia wave,
you hold a notebook? I do. Youdon't just put on your phone?
No,because then it looks like I'm
on my phone. Wow, I keep andthere's something that happens
when you're actually writingsomething down in the brain. I
(18:24):
like that. Yeah. So if you areone of those people that thinks
you're bad at names, even ifit's right, as the message
starts, just write down all thepeople that you had
conversations with that day, Ihave not forgotten a single
person's name since I did that.
Imean, if you're writing a die, I
wouldn't be surprised. That'samazing. I love that. So I
(18:44):
think that was four. I thinkthat was four tips we give Yes,
we gotta givethe fifth one here is the
clincher people are gonna saveyou so much money right now. Do
you know what you are paying foryour merchant processing fees?
This is the answer for 90% ofCFOs. Executive pastors
definitely lead pastors youdon't know. Because we've talked
to you. And we asked to see whatyour statements were. And you
(19:08):
don't know where to be found,because your current payment
processors are hiding it fromyou. But the problem is that you
are paying too much for AIMEX,you're likely paying 3.5% and 30
or 40 cents per transaction. Fordebit credit, I'm talking Visa
MasterCard, you're likely paying2.9% and 30 cents per
(19:30):
transaction for Ach, you mightbe paying half a percent to a
percent sometimes. And thenthere's hidden fees. It's called
Platform fees that these paymentprocessors and these giving
platforms are doing fullyloaded, you're probably paying
anywhere from three to 6% pertransaction. So if you're
(19:50):
bringing in a significant amountof money, that's six figures or
depending on the size church youare that could be seven The
figures and merchant processingfees that are going into the
pockets of these paymentprocessors, we have come,
overflow has come to save theday, maybe not saved the day.
(20:13):
But I mean, Jesus already savedthe day. Yes, but we came to
save you on merchant processingfees, we have created a system
and exclusive partnership, we'vecreated a full stack solution
that allows us to save up to inmost cases, 1% 1% is a lot of
money for some churches, thatseven figures for some churches
(20:37):
that six figures, even if it'sonly five figures for your
church, that might be a staffmember, that might be an intern,
that might be resources to beable to accelerate the mission
and vision of your church. So doyou know your merchant
processing fees, if you don't,you got to check you got to ask
you got to pull it. And you cansee that you're actually
(21:00):
spending way too much money, I'mjust talking about merchant
processing fees. But on top ofthat, you're probably paying
subscription fees. And so fullyloaded, you're spending, you
know, 50,000 100,000, and thehundreds of 1000s for some
churches, in fees that you donot need to be spending. And so
this is one of the best ways tocut costs. And you know, it's
(21:21):
not all about cutting costs. I'ma big believer in you get what
you pay for, you want to makesure that you pay for the right
platforms that you invest intothe right platforms that can
accelerate the vision andmission. But if fees are going
or money is going to fees, thatis doing nothing for your
organization, might as wellconsider figuring out how to
(21:43):
reduce those, we can help you atoverflow or at least have a
conversation of how you canfigure out what you are paying,
and what the potentials areto save. Yeah, and we're doing
free cost analysis right now.
Free 99.
Now that is a deal, kind of likeinsider, kind of like Insider.
Which by the way, if you don'tknow what insider is, it's an
(22:05):
exclusive membership that's freefor people to dive into getting
more leadership content, morefundraising content, we actually
put an extra podcast episode outevery single month only to
Insider members. So two things Iguess we got to point out if you
want to free cost analysisoverflow.co. Co if you want to
(22:26):
sign up for Insider, overflow,Dotco slash insider and yours,
I'm gonna do the hat trick justbecause I felt like okay, if
you're listening to thisepisode, if you listen to the
end, this is why you shouldlisten to the end people. If
you're listening to thisepisode, you can reference this
episode, email, email, Serena.
At overflow taco, we'll put inthe show notes. And I will
(22:48):
personally mail you a copy ofhigh growth fundraising for
free. Your book for free. I'mjust wondering, because I like
things in threes. You're you'refilling John. So
we have the Trinity threefamilies. Yes. That are free.
Amen. Don't say we don't saveyour money. Okay. That's it for
(23:09):
this week, folks. Thanks so muchfor listening to the give it up
podcast if you want to receiveeven more insights on church
innovation, culture and giving.
Now you can sign up for free tobe an overflow insider, where
you'll receive exclusive contentdiscounts direct access to Vance
Roush to get your questionsanswered. And also invite only
access to our monthlyfundraising leadership forums,
(23:32):
head to overflow.co backslashinsider, or just click the link
in our bio to sign up for freetoday. In order to get this
podcast in the ears of even morechurch leaders. Could you please
subscribe and leave a review forthe show. This tells the podcast
players what people are enjoyingand want to hear more of and we
are adamant about providingmaximum value to even more
(23:54):
church leaders. Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
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