would you like a coffee with your muffin?
Why doesn’t:
Starbucks market their muffins?
Wendy’s market their fries?
KFC market their coleslaw?
Subway market their soup?
Outback market their potatoes?
Because you don’t care! You go for their:
Coffee
Burgers
Chicken
Subs
Steak
I don’t know of any organization that is the best at everything, but I know a lot of organizations that are the best at one or two things. Starbucks isn’t going to win customers with their muffins, and I don’t care how good the baked potato is at Outback, it won’t increase their revenue. It’s the coffee and steaks that get people in the door.
I wonder how many churches are spending all their energy on the muffins and potatoes? Are we pouring valuable resources into programs and methods that don’t align with mission of Jesus? All of us should be motivated by the Great Commission, but some of us are going to “sell coffee” and others will “sell steak.” And that’s okay – just don’t fall into the trap of selling muffins and potatoes.
January 21, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Barry,
This blog post reminds me of a good book I read, “The Myth of Excellence: Why Great Companies Never Try to Be the Best at Everything” by Fred Crawford & Ryan Mathews. (You can find it at any regular bookstore.)
The guys who wrote it started with the hypothesis that the most successful companies were the best in each of five areas: access, experience, price, product, and service. But they discovered that, on the contrary, the MOST successful companies excel in one of these areas, are good in another, and are at least average in the rest.
In a sense, church is the same.
My interpretation of how these might relate to church…
Access: How easy it is to get to the church. How easy is it to get the “product.”
Experience: Dull? Boring? Static? Dynamic? Relevant? Irrelevant?
Price: How much is it going to cost me? Financially? (Tithe? Offering? Will I be given an opportunity to contribute or will I be harrassed to give? Or will it be demanded?) Emotionally? Am I going to be emotionally assaulted or soothed?
Product: Salvation, reconcilliation, redemption, and forgiveness in Christ (or some religious figure or idea), or the “good news” that “you’re a sinner” and “you’re going to hell” unless you follow all of our religious rules and regulations, doing your due penance.
Service: How will needs be met?
If you can make the time, I would recommend reading the first two chapters, and think about how it might apply to C3.
BTW, I think C3 is lining up pretty well with this model: trying to excel in the Product area, be better than average in Service, and be at least average in the rest. It would be interesting, to me, to hear what each of the rest of the Management and Staff of C3 thinks are the #1 & #2 areas. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some discrepancy on #2, but I strongly suspect there would be very widespread agreement on #1… mostly because it’s been so clearly communicated.