Will Grace Win?

A few weeks ago, Bob handed me a book while I was visiting in Chicago. He’s always handing me books to read as do I to him.I’ll tell you that title in a little bit. But some background first.

For the past 9 months or so, we’ve both been on similar but separate journeys in our walk with God. Bob’s has been more about the turn from legalism and a performance based God to a God who doesn’t care about how much we serve on committees at church.

For me, it’s been a bit harder to explain to the average Joe. I was raised Irish Catholic in Chicago. That in and of it’s self is has it’s own set of issues.

In grade school I had nuns who were 4 foot 1 weighed 88 pounds, carried a 35 pound cross around their neck and could beat up Mike Tyson, when Tyson was good.  I didn’t fear God, I feared the nuns. God was a pushover compared to Sister Mary Catherine Elephant and her 35 pound cross.

Where God has revealed himself to me is in the land of performance for the world. For as long as I can remember, making money has never been an issue for me. In fact, for much of the past 8 years, if I needed money, I was able to create it on demand.

It was really cool.

When we moved to Charlotte, not only was I able to move into a substantially bigger house in a nicer neighborhood, I did it so my mortgage payments were the same as they were in Louisiana.

When I tired of my Ford Taurus, I sold stuff on line to buy my Acura Tl (which has since been sold to provide groceries, leaving me carless and home bound most of the day.) It took me about three days to sell $40,000 worth of stuff. Not bad!

Then one day it stopped. No longer could I create money on demand. My ability to be my own God ended and the real God showed up. This is where God has dealt with me the most. The unending question of who knows best. God or me.

For the record, he’s winning on most days. Some days I still think I know best, but in the end he shows me I don’t know crap.

Which leads me to the issue of books between Bob and I.

A few weeks ago he handed me Bo’s Cafe. It is published by the same dudes who did The Shack and have a weekly podcast called The God Journey.

It took me about 3 days to read a simple story of a successful business man who has an anger issue and is driven to be the best in work. Thank God it’s not another story about some missionary or pastor. But a real guy that I can relate to on so many levels.

Plus, it’s about a group of people who really do walk through life together, outside of a normal or traditional church setting. No Bible study’s, no speaking in tongues, just weekly meals on a seaside cafe.

This book touched me in ways that I am still grappling with and working to unravel. And over the next few weeks or months or as God allows, I’ll share more of that journey.

Part of that process will happen today. As Bob and I will interview one of the authors on our radio show/podcast. If you can join us at 10:30 AM Eastern today, you’ll be able to listen in live or chat with us. Just go to our page on BlogTalkRadio.com to listen live or catch the replay.

Thanks for reading and listening.

Matt

Why Your Best Sex And Time With God Are The Exact Same Thing

Have you ever had really great sex with your spouse? I mean really great sex. It’s like the world stops. That the two of you are all alone and that nothing, not even the second coming could interrupt the two of you, getting busy.

Then it’s done, it’s gone, but what is left is the memory of the moment.

Usually great sex is not planned. It happens in a moment of spontaneity. Before kids it was from being stuck in a rain storm, or in the middle of the afternoon.

After kids it doesn’t happen that often, but when it does it’s even more special. It usually happens when all of the sudden the house is empty because the kids are all away on a sleep over, you and the spouse get an overnight in a hotel or one afternoon the house is empty.

If you are in the hotel, ou don’t want to leave, just hanging out with each other talking about nothing or watching some old movie from your high school days.

Planned sex is never as good. Why? Because it’s planned. It’s wedged in between making dinner, putting the kids to bed and going to sleep. You put it into your schedule like an appointment with your dentist. It’s cold, not as wonderful and usually mechanical. Just like going to the dentist.

Now don’t get me wrong, there have been times when my wife and I have planned an evening out. Away from the kids and one thing leads to another. Yippee.

Those are few and far between. Our most wonderful moments of intimacy (sexual and non sexual) are when we just enjoy each others company. When we walk hand in hand. Enjoying a moment or the blue sky or just a cup of coffee on a busy street.

If our most wonderful moments of intimacy with the one we love are unplanned, then why do we plan our time with God?

You might want to let that question sink in before you continue.

Church on Sunday, Bible study groups, life groups, men’s groups, women’s groups, worship time, getting up early to “Get into the word”. All these are planned activities that get in the way of true deep intimacy. All of this is like planned sex. It’s akin to the Dunkin Donuts guy saying “Time to go make the donuts.”

So how does one cultivate or develop deep intimate times with the Lord?

First off, stop scheduling it. Anyone who tells you that you gotta get up early to make time for God should be stoned, tarred and feathered. My wife, my kids, my dog and even God doesn’t want to talk with me first thing in the morning.

I haven’t brushed my teeth, had no coffee and lets face it, I’m grumpy.

Next, while Bible study groups are nice, it’s another form of forced fellowship. What if you just had lunch with some buddies and talked about life. Leave the Bible in the car. It scares people and makes you look like Flanders from the Simpsons.

Am I telling you to stop you Bible study group? No. But in my conversations with many believers who have been through the wilderness, they all share a similar story. Their bible study group became dry, boring and wasn’t relevant to their issues. They all found that cutting out planned activities led to a deeper, personal intimacy with the Lord.

Take a walk, leave the Ipod at home and just enjoy his presence. Grab a glass of wine and read Romans. Feel the presence of the Lord while watching golf, football, baseball or when you do the dishes.

God is everywhere. Why not just enjoy Him no matter where you are?

I’ll end with this thought. Christians need to learn to relax. When we accepted Christ, we entered into freedom. Not some form of Jesus plus, where we can only be close to Christ is we serve in a soup kitchen or go on a mission trip to Haiti.

Why not go on a mission trip to Wal-Mart? Why not walk the aisles and love the Wal-Mart mom spanking her kids. Ask Jesus to show you how to love her, even if you never speak to that person?

Folks, our relationship with God is not something to be planned, executed and structured. Discover again to practice spontenaity in your relationship with the Lord and with you spouse.

Beside, in the case of your spouse, you might just discover that sex can be great again.

Let the fireworks begin.

Matt Gillogly

PS. If you think I’m off my rocker and need to be prayed over, I suggest you go buy and read a great book. Practice The Presence Of God. Written by a French Monk in the 13th or 15th  century.

What System Do You Use To Convert Leads Into Customers?

First off, we have to say, we’ve been blown away at the number of requests to talk with us about your marketing. One of the reasons why there is such a gap between posts is the number of people who’ve taken us up on our offer of a free 30 minute consult.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get down to business. Today’s post…

No System To Convert Leads Into Customers = No Revenue

This should come as no surprise to you. Having a fool proof system to convert your leads into customers is critical to your long term success.

In talking with business owners for the past couple of weeks, it seems that everyone is seeing a slip in their business. Let’s face it, all of us had it pretty easy in business for some time. Only to see the rug ripped out from under us in the past 18 months.

Most businesses have no simple and fool proof way to follow up with a lead. What they have is a mumble jumble mess of half systems that might work if someone is paying attention.

Let me give you an example.

Recently we had a client in our office that does 7 figures a year in coaching. They sell a very high end coaching program to a very selective niche. What is amazing, is they have no system to follow up with a lead once it’s in the system. The sales have just sort of happened.

Granted they are  bit more sophisticated than most businesses.You have to be in order to get up to 7  figures a year. We made a few suggestions to improve their system.

I’ll share those in just a moment, but first let me tell why this system is built the way it’s built.

In today’s economy, your customers are looking for something very easy for you to create. They want a relationship with a provider they can trust. Which leads me to some very key insights we’ve discovered when it comes to converting more leads into more sales.

1. Don’t sell right off the bat. That’s like asking someone to marry you over the first cup of coffee. Sure it happens, but it happens less than you think.

2. Communicate in a mediums other than email. It is unstable and isn’t always delivered and read by the prospect.  Some of your prospects don’t like reading email and wish you’d do something else…

3. Picking up the phone is a lost art. We have personally and for a number of our clients made huge positive financial impacts by hiring virtual customer service reps to call and follow up with a prospect and see how we may serve them and their needs. (More on this later)

4. Don’t think your prospect is just like you. Too many times we have a customer in our office and they’ll say: “I love email, it’s my favorite way to communicate. I don’t like it when someone calls me.” Yes, that may be true, but for everyone of you, there is someone like me who prefers to get on the phone and get it handled.

When you bypass using the phone, you bypass over 33% of your prospects base prefer way of communication.

The bottom line is this, if you are not happy with the number of conversions of leads to customers, take a look at your systems. Maybe you need to add a phone calling program, monthly newsletter or you’re asking for the sale too soon. Fine tune your systems and you’ll see a dramatic increase in sales.

Okay, next we’ll hit our next topic which is all about your Pay Per Click online campaigns.

Best,

Bob and Matt

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