Hey everyone, we're just getting set up.
Sorry, we're running a few minutes behind,
but we will make up for it.
Getting organized, making sure the live stream is going,
everything's recording.
Awesome.
Let some people in. I always want to kick off,
but then I want to make sure that people are in.
You might hear me say this a few times today,
but we are in the middle.
We're unofficially, I don't know if it's the exact halfway point,
but we're in that halfway point for this advancement group.
What I know about the middle is usually it feels very messy.
It's feels like you might feel that tension of,
I feel like I should have more clarity by now,
but things feel messier than they did when I started,
or I feel unclear, or things might have changed.
That is normal.
If you're feeling that tension,
take a deep breath, that's totally okay.
Welcome to the messy middle.
It's part of the process.
It is part of the process.
Today we're going to take some time.
What we're going to do is,
because I know that last week we were coming back
from the holiday break,
so we had that week off,
and Bruce worked with you guys on some tech stuff,
so we know there could be some questions on this call.
We want to leave time for there to be questions.
It doesn't have to be about tech stuff,
but just we want to hear where you're at,
if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling like,
I need this question answered in order to move forward.
We wanted to take the first half of this call and just give you guys
an overview of what this looks like holistically.
Because we have taken bits and pieces as far as,
everyone's on a different journey as far as what they're
wanting to advance in during this program.
But we wanted to give you a layout.
Many of you might have seen this before,
but it's a good refresher,
it's a good reminder because again,
the messy middle, sometimes we need refreshers,
we need repetition, we need reminders.
We want to show you, this is what the map looks like holistically
of what it is that we're building,
and you can find your way of like this.
That's helpful. Now, this is where I'm planting
myself in this season to advance and it's part of this larger picture.
We have found this helpful,
we do this all the time because as new ideas form,
as we are trying to decide what is the right next step,
as we're trying to decide where to spend our time and energy,
it's always going to take a step back,
reorient ourselves with the bigger picture,
and then we can go back into more precision mode on where it is that we're going to be
planting ourself, our energy, our time, and all of that stuff.
Bruce is going to pull up a few slides because there are
visuals because I find that personally helpful to see some visuals.
This was the blueprint that we shared.
I don't know if everyone was a part of this,
but when we had our tribe workshop, when was that, April?
April, yeah. I don't know if some of you guys were on that.
We shared this blueprint and it was just helpful to see, okay,
holistically, as I'm building towards discipling my who,
there's ways that we can do that and we've talked about that.
There's layers to all of this as far as everything from introductory,
reaching people, impacting people with
encouragement to actually bringing people into a deeper level with us,
where there's mentorship happening,
even some more one-on-one stuff,
and so that looks like something.
That doesn't have to be messy.
It can feel messy, but it's helpful to have that picture.
It's broken down, so I'll have you bring that up and speak to that.
Again, this might be a refresher for some of you.
Maybe you've never seen this before.
No need to panic.
I think that you will intuitively,
as we're discussing this and pointing it out,
know where you are and where it is that you're currently spending your time,
and I think that's going to help bring clarity
for the journey ahead in the second half.
That's good. Yeah, this is a system that every time we've helped people,
we've consulted or done stuff with other Kingdom messengers,
or this is our system that we've had in the back of our mind,
but then in April when we shared it,
we actually had what we call is like your tech blueprint.
It's helping you figure out just what does this all look like?
I'm building TikToks over here,
and now we're talking about a landing page,
and I've got my website,
and I want to do a course or whatever the thing is.
Or do I need a website?
Do you need a website?
Yeah, those are the questions, right?
This is a nice little simple blueprint we use,
and then this will just show you where this landing page we've been talking about is going,
and then how does it plug into everything else you're doing with your social channels.
Let me share some of these slides just because it'll help us take there.
And we like to think of it in like three sections, like your traffic, your
conversion, and then your tribe or your actual community that you own.
Um, and so, uh, basically this is how we think about it is we like to take
people from traffic, kind of moving them from the left side of the
page all the way to the right.
And so, um, we've got traffic conversions, tribe.
And so for each of these, you're going to have a free source, uh, for this.
So you may have like social media things that you're doing right now that you may
actually have paid sources where you're like actually running ads
and things like that, um, into it.
So.
Um, and then conversion is in the middle.
It's like taking people who are now are watching YouTube and now we're wanting
them to give you their email address or, uh, buy something or whatever that thing
is anytime conversion is just essentially they were in one state before they saw
this thing and about the end of the page, they have become a member.
They have bought a product.
They have given you their email address.
It's like, they make that step.
It's a conversion.
Um,
they have, they have, they have moved from being a consumer to actually being a
customer and currency isn't always income.
It can sometimes be information.
So an email address or a phone number or a mailing address that is also valuable to
people.
They're not easily, they don't easily part with those things.
So there's an exchange as far as they are giving something to you beyond just their
time, watching your reels or watching your episodes, but they have given you
something so that there can be a dialogue now, kind of a back and forth.
Yeah.
So we'll, well, what we're going to do is just go through like each of these
pillars in a little more detail.
Um, and so on the traffic side, um, you know, it's, it's what you were doing
before, before we talk about landing pages, it's TikTok, it's Instagram, it's
YouTube, and you can think of it like two types.
You've got your short form under 60 seconds, reels, shorts, TikTok, and then
you have long form, like you can maybe do YouTube or you're uploading a video.
So your Facebook page or Instagram.
Um, and so these are just free traffic sources that it's been, it takes a long
time to grow these followings, but once you have it, it's free traffic.
So if you've got 10,000 people in your kingdom channel, you can now direct
them to that landing page, to that thing.
Um, you can actually send them through that conversion piece, but you couldn't
do that necessarily when you have maybe like 20 people following you.
Right.
So you're, it, you're, it's kind of like, you're, you're, you're sewing
into this like channel that you're going to get, but basically reap a reward
on later when you want to help move those people to that.
So that's why we always start people on the traffic because it takes the
longest, um, but it's the most valuable.
Um, but it's, it's over time.
Also, we start people on traffic because from a creator standpoint, it is the,
um, easiest thing to start X, not, I shouldn't say easy.
That's the wrong word.
It's the quickest thing to start executing on.
Yeah.
Right.
So like start, start posting your reel, start putting it, posting your episodes.
You guys have been with us on that journey.
It's quicker to begin, um, reaching your who today, doing those things, then
taking time to build a landing page and then figure out how to advertise that
landing page and pay for the right people and target there is value in that process,
but it's not quick and it's, and it, it's more helpful when you have the volume
from those free traffic sources to then convert people and hopefully you guys
are seeing that process as it unfolds.
Like, oh gosh, thank God that we didn't start day one a year ago, building
landing pages because I would have had this beautiful landing page, but
no one really to direct it.
Right.
And, um, so, and then we're just giving it again, like kind of high level
overview, so the free traffic sources, kind of what you guys have been doing.
You don't have to be doing everything that we're talking about today.
Right.
Um, there may just be pieces to it.
And this is something you build over time and there's, there's kind of layers to it.
Um, so if you don't have a source, like when we launched kingdom messengers, we
didn't have a kingdom messenger, YouTube channel, we had Lindsay's posture
channel, but we didn't have a kingdom messenger, YouTube channel.
And we didn't have a really a Facebook page or any of those tools.
So what we did is we paid for advertising to essentially get the
message out into people, into people's feed.
Um, and that's what, that's what paid traffic does.
It basically lets you like, you could pay Facebook five, 10, $20 a day, and it
will force your content into people's feed who don't follow you.
Right.
Um, so just, it kind of, it, it kind of gives you, you can kind of rent the
traffic essentially for a little, like a better word and so, and it
can at times accelerate, right.
So, um, it took me, you know, long, long time.
Think about, you know, reaching the people posture for free, shorter amount
of time to launch the kingdom messenger channel, because we put advertising
dollars behind it, and if you're asking yourself, should I be doing ads?
A better question is, am I able to do ads right now?
Like financially, like.
time-wise, energy-wise. It's a little more technical. It's a little more technical.
So like, it doesn't mean you should, it can help accelerate the journey, but you don't have to do
that. Many of you guys on this call, most of you guys on this call have been investing in the free
traffic. And so that is, you guys have the volume and that's why we're moving into this conversion
piece. So TikTok ads, Instagram ads, and we made touch on this a little bit before the end of
January with you guys. And we'll, if you guys are interested in learning more about this,
but we do want you to leverage kind of your current traffic that you have first. So
what this looks like kind of in that column, just to give you a visuals, like that free sources,
think of like TikTok, YouTube shorts, reels, you know, anything that you're posting on social
media. And then underneath it, you've got paid sources like Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and
TikTok ads. Okay. So that's the traffic component. And we'll talk a little bit about conversion.
And so conversion is that middle piece. We can have things as simple as like an email or text opt-in.
So, you know, people like we talked about last week, you guys, some of you guys are doing a PDF
resource. Sometimes you're doing like, Hey, get like this longer form training. I'm going to do
a 45 minute, you know, teach training on this particular topic. So formally known as webinar.
Yeah. Yeah. We don't like the word webinar, but you know what? Cause I think that's
a dated, but it's that kind of ideas. Like you put your email in and you watch
some sort of training. And then I said as well, like anything that stops value for the price of
an email, right? So that could be just getting on the newsletter. It could be getting access to
something. And it can also be something as simple as a, as a Facebook group, right? It's free. You
just, Hey, I'm getting you into this Facebook group. Now we can kind of start a two-way conversation
versus like me broadcasting videos out and you may be commenting as someone in my community.
Now we're like in somewhere where we can have like a dialogue or something like that,
like a deeper interaction. So that's free conversion. And then there's like low ticket.
We talked about, so Stripe, you could, I mean, with you could maybe doing like a mini course for
$7 masterclass trainings, templates, guides. And then what we do for kingdom messengers is we do
a challenge, right? So we, people come in, they pay $37. I think all of you guys did that, did
this, got the ad because you don't know who we are. Like it's something where, you know, we can
be, we can give away free resources all day and no one would ever really maybe like take any movement
into actually launching their channel. But when we said, Hey, let's launch in a weekend or let's,
you know, do this five-day challenge. And we ask people to pay. The payment is really, you know,
for your benefit. It's, we never, like it helps cover the ad cost to get the ad to you. But no
one's making money off like a $37 product. It's really just there for the people to take it
seriously. And that's why, like as Christians, we do want to give everything away for free. And this
is probably a whole topic on like, you're going off on a whole, but we can talk about it. I think
it's helpful. I think that when it comes to, okay, there's a difference between motivation and
movement. Yeah. So a lot of people after hearing a teaching or consuming a free resource may be
motivated, but it doesn't necessarily equate movement in their lives. Yeah. And so, I mean,
think about this in your own journey. Have there been times when you left like a Sunday service or
even a conference that you've been at and you're like, wow, that was so, it feels so life-changing
to me. But a week later, you've done nothing with that information that you consumed, that you
thought like this is life-changing. It's because you're experiencing motivation. You're experiencing
inspiration in the moment, but it didn't transfer to, it didn't translate to transformation. And so
we have just found in our own journey of leading people, coaching people, being coached and led by
other people that when there is exchange, meaning not free, but when there's some kind of
financialism, I think is what can move a lot of people because it's a meaningful
money, like for most people, it's not necessarily like people are idolizing money. It just represents
their time and energy, right? Because they have done something to earn that money. So it's
valuable to them to part with $47 and not spend it on X, Y, and Z. And when they invest in themselves
at varying levels, I think the transformation can be varying levels, but when they invest in
themselves with dollars, for whatever reason, we have found that has brought the most
seriousness to what we're bringing.
Like people show up differently
because it's like, I have invested in myself,
I need to make it count versus,
I mean, we've even experienced this with like,
we've given things away to people
and like we've scholarshiped people
and there hasn't been the same amount of showing up
as people who have personally invested in themselves.
And so free resources aren't bad
because it's a motivator that can lead to movement.
It doesn't mean just because you're motivated,
you don't move, but how we like steward
that journey for people is,
I think one of the ways you can do that.
So if you're wanting to move people
from free stuff to paid stuff,
I think consistency is key.
This is where the world kind of goes wonky
because it turns into really manipulative sales tactics.
Right, like we've all kind of been,
look, it's election, we have a runoff in Georgia.
I have gotten no less than 20 texts today
about going to go vote, right?
And it's like from both sides,
the messages are manipulative and fear-mongering
and all that stuff, right?
Like, because they wanna continue to show up
in my day today to remind me to go vote
and all they know is to motivate me with fear tactics,
right, because it's worldly, right?
As kingdom people, we don't have to utilize that at all.
We don't have to manipulate,
but we can consistently show up with people.
I think the best way to do this,
because people always ask,
well, how should I do this?
Is be yourself, be authentically yourself.
Marian is going to show up
and speak to people differently than I am.
Why is that?
Well, number one, Marian is not me
and Marian has a different who than me.
And the Holy Spirit is informing Marian specifically
and uniquely to reach her specific who
with her specific message differently
than he is informing me.
Because Holy Spirit knows better than Marian or I
what is going to connect best with my who
and help lead them to a place from motivation
to movement and transformation.
Because Holy Spirit is way more invested
in those people's journey than I or Marian can ever be.
We're partnering with the agenda of heaven.
And so what is our responsibility?
Well, it's not to be inactive.
It's not to throw up our hands and say,
well, I don't want to manipulate people.
So I'm just not going to even participate in any of this.
No, it's to be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is saying.
And that is an ongoing conversation.
That is not a one and done.
So free resources are great.
Think of them as a way to capture people's attention
and motivate people to deeper movement.
So I like, again, I think there are many ways to do this.
I don't think there's a formula.
I think it's something like, I love Cindy's,
like what she was doing,
because she has new believers.
It's like a letter from God.
Like that's beautiful, right?
Like that's a motivator that could lead
to deeper movement with people.
Because first of all, it's extremely unique
that someone would take time to share a letter from God.
Even if you're not a new believer,
I think that's extremely unique.
And it's leading people to a connection point
that is specific to where they are in their journey.
So think of in those terms,
and guys, you might have to try a few different things
and that's okay.
It's okay to be exploratory.
You might not hit it out of the park every single time.
And that's okay.
But know that for the most part, there are exceptions.
When you're wanting, like this is for people
who are wanting to do things that are more paid
or more like mentorship-based, you know,
accessibility to you, accessibility to your teachings,
you're gonna probably need to think about touch points
that lead people to that deeper dive.
Like it's hard for people to go from just hearing you on,
it doesn't mean it doesn't happen,
from hearing you on Instagram to paying,
you know, a thousand dollar coaching program
or a $200 course, right?
There's gonna have to be something in between
that gives them a bit of a taste and see
of what it's like to work in that,
work with you or have more of your content
from a mentorship perspective.
So think in those terms as well.
So I think you're getting to is like,
that's why the money is important.
Number one, I mean, not number one,
I don't know what order this falls.
It's important if we're wanting to build
substantial ministries that for,
this might not be important to you.
For Bruce and I, we did not want to build a ministry
on the backs of donors.
We don't think there's anything wrong with that.
We are donors of ministries.
we believe in, it's perfectly fine that that, because I think
donorship gives people a way to participate in large ministries
and large impact that they wouldn't be able to do.
Like, I'm so grateful that there's people that are half
across the world for me that in countries I'll never visit that
I can participate in by building their ministry with dollars.
That's awesome.
So I'm not downing that.
We do, it's just for us, it's not how we wanted to build what
it was that God gave it to us to do.
It just, and you're saying, well, why not?
Is it something God told you not to do?
No, it just, it wasn't a desire of our hearts to build
something off donations.
And so we are building it this way.
It looks like a business.
People are paying us for services.
People are being ministered to, people are being impacted,
people are growing.
So there's different ways to do this, but we have found,
we've done it both ways.
We have found there's been a lot more movement in the
ministry that we're doing when people have paid us because
they have showed up differently.
It's good.
So I told you you're going off on a big, there's, we could
talk about this all day.
Yeah.
But I think for us, what I'm trying to share with you guys,
and we've tried to learn this as well, like there's tactical
things we can talk about, but a lot of this stuff comes down
to mindset shifts.
And five years ago, I would say if, if we heard what Lindsay
just said, we were been like, this is, we would have been
offended.
We would have been offended at what she just said.
So we've come a long way in how we're thinking about what
ministry could look like as far as like, it can be business
and ministry and your calling of what Lord's actually called
you.
Cause like, just let's just pretend for a second that the
thing the Lord's called you to, like, he's also going to give
the resources to, and he's going to create like the mechanism
to make it substantial.
Right.
So to us, like, that's, that's kind of what it could look
like.
We've seen a lot of different models of it.
And, and this is, there is a kingdom model that we really
like about this.
It's not just a Christian content strategy, right?
It's it's like, there's a kingdom aspect to this as well.
And it comes down to, it's built, I think, on the foundation
of sowing and reaping.
When people sow into themselves, something is reaped, right?
And we only know this because this was our story.
Like I'm not picking on anyone else there.
We received a lot of free stuff over the years.
Admittedly, we didn't do a lot with it.
Yeah.
Part of it was, I think that we just took it for granted.
I don't think it was, I don't think it was, um, it was
valuable stuff.
Let's put it that way.
It was valuable stuff, but we just, it kind of just went over
our heads because it was like, well, this is just free and
it's all, it'll always be there.
And, you know, this is, this is how church is.
You just, you know, if you need something, you know, you need
to talk to someone, you need to get free counseling and you get
mentorship, like it's just going to be there if you need it.
So we didn't really, we didn't really take advantage of it.
We just kind of took it for granted.
We didn't really do anything with it.
God moved us into a season where we began to pay mentors,
spiritual mentors to pour into us and something shifted.
And I don't think it was because necessarily money changed hands
or who it changed hands with.
I think it was because there was a mindset and a heart
change within ourselves that we are good soil and
we're worth investing in.
And that opened us up to receiving from the people that
were pouring into us different than before.
So it was our own story.
I'm not picking on anyone.
I'm not saying that free stuff doesn't translate to value, but
we have just found in our own story and the people that we lead
in, there has been a difference.
And so that's why we run things the way that we do and happy to
talk to anyone and answer questions as you guys are thinking about
what you're wanting to build and how you want to build it, what
that could look like for you.
Yeah.
So I don't know exactly how we got off on that, but we'll get back
onto the versions we talked about low ticket resources and sometimes
like, um, it's just a, there is a shift there that we would encourage
you guys to explore at some point.
Not doesn't have to be in the space of this advancement.
We want to just get you some of these mechanisms set up so you
can start grabbing email addresses, start pulling people a little
closer in towards you and kind of take them from being out there
on social media somewhere and bring them onto an email list or
into a Facebook group or something where you can now have a little
bit more interaction with them.
Um, so that's, that's all we're, we're kind of shooting for.
So, um, let's jump into this last one cause it's pretty quick.
And then we'll, we'll jump into some, some questions.
So community or your tribe.
Um, if you guys have a tribe site, this is what tribe social does.
It's like basically having that, um, you could use Facebook groups.
Um, there's other tools out there, even just zoom calls.
It's just a way to like gather people.
Right.
And so this could look like, um, you know, various tools connected and then
actually having some sort of community hub.
So you guys, I think everybody on the call has.
access to a version of tribe.
And if not, we'll get you set up on something.
But that is where, you know,
what's what we're doing for Kingdom Messenger TV.
Like that's where we have all our people are in there.
When we do a challenge, when we do free training,
whatever, it all goes into that resource vault.
Can I say one thing?
Cause we do use community and tribe interchangeably,
but I think that it's important to note the difference
because this is how we define the difference
in our heads and hearts is
community is a broader term for us.
So when we think about community,
we do think about the people that are connected to us
in free things like our YouTube channel
or social media accounts.
And in our larger community,
you guys are part of that as well.
Like those are people who have paid us $37 and no more,
but they're a part of our like free trainings.
And we pop into their lives every couple,
a couple of times each year
and provide some training and resources
and some access through Zoom calls, things like that.
That's our community.
You guys are our tribe.
Our members are our tribe.
Why is it important to note that difference?
Because it's important for us to know
how much we pour into different groups of people.
Part of it is permission.
You guys have given us a certain amount of permission
to speak into your lives, to pour into your lives,
to speak truth into your lives
that people in our community for $37
or people who are just like watching our stuff for free,
they've not given us that permission.
So it would be awkward if we like showed up
and had like calls about finances and donors
and how to sit, right?
Because people would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Like, who do you think you are, right?
Like the $37 people have just paid us
to help them launch their channels, right?
Get on social media.
Like they've agreed to a certain level of input from us,
but not this like, not the deeper dives, you know,
us sharing parts of our lives that are,
it would just be weird, right?
And also it would be draining for us
to be serving thousands of people
at that intimate of a level.
This is where a lot of burnout can take place.
I'm seeing it a lot with like influencers,
both Christian and secular influencers,
like accounts just shutting down.
We've talked about this before
because they open themselves up to thousands,
hundreds of thousands, millions of people
that are only like there for some free touch points, right?
Or from some low ticket stuff and they burn out
because they're giving like level 10 stuff
to people who are only at level one.
And so think about this too,
how you receive feedback from certain people.
If any of you had feedback that you wanted to give us,
we would take that into a way deeper consideration
than some, you know, ordinary Joe comment
on my Instagram account, right?
Doesn't mean that it's not valuable or not helpful,
but we weigh it differently
because you guys have access to us.
You have longevity with us.
There's relationship.
There's been relational bridge form.
So when Marian says something or Xavier said something,
we take that into way deeper consideration
and there's access for dialogue and back and forth
and clarifying questions, right?
Because there is a relational bridge
than the people on Instagram.
So that's why it's important.
When you're thinking about your traffic sources
or the community level,
there's a certain level that you can open up with people
or that you should open up with people
than people who are going to be in your tribe.
People that you're gonna be pouring into maybe one-on-one
or a small group context,
like it's a different type of input and output, right?
So we make it, you know,
because there's also seasons
where you're only gonna have time to do,
like I've put a hold on posture over the fall and winter
because I knew that my time was limited.
And if something was gonna go,
it wasn't going to be the members
or the advancement group, right?
Yeah.
Because you guys are our tribe,
the people on posture,
though important to me and dear to me
and I wanna be back there soon,
they are my community.
Yeah.
And I mean, in some ways it is just a traffic source.
Like it is a community,
but they've not made that conversion step
in towards following you and all that.
So cool.
And that's pretty much all we wanted.
Those were all the slides we wanted to cover.
And that's just something to think about,
like as you guys are building out these things
where you add, let's say you're thinking like,
oh, should I be on another platform,
Pinterest or Twitter or some of these platforms
that we don't really talk about.
You can just see where that plugs in now.
Okay, that's a traffic source.
I can get traffic from that and it can come in.
Or just, you know, people who are a pastor of a church or they're speaking
somewhere, maybe there's a link.
On that website that is sending them to your website or something.
That's another traffic source.
Like there's all these other places you can kind of get.
That's true.
We didn't really talk about like the cross promotional stuff.
So you guys might be doing speaking gigs or you guys might be a part of
organizations that, that could be reaching, you know, your potential
who, and could be leading you.
That's another thing is it could be leading people to your sources.
But so, you know, you're a lot like you get to a place where we're at,
we're kind of building those things simultaneously, but there is a, an
ebb and flow to how much percentage of our time and energy we're putting
into each of those things.
So like when we go back into challenge mode at the end of January, early
February, like we will amp up our attention and our time and our energy
towards that conversion piece.
Right.
And some of it might even be that traffic piece.
Like we might be doing some paid traffic because we want people to
convert quickly in order to then, you know, invite them into making a
decision if they want to be a part of our tribe, whether it's an intensive.
So, but we don't have to be giving a hundred percent to all three
of those blocks all the time.
Yeah.
There's, I was going to say, it's very seasonal and we've, we kind of go
into like challenge mode, we call it where we're, we're doing an event.
There's a couple of weeks leading up to it.
We do the event and then we go just back into meeting with our tribe.
We have a reply after that.
So we don't like, we don't post on anything, kingdom messengers, any of
that, all the ads get turned off.
Like we pretty much pretend like that whole traffic piece doesn't exist.
And we just go into like fulfillment to the community.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So, okay.
Let's like unmute ourselves.
If anyone has any questions or things they're wanting to process,
um, you can raise your hand.
And I saw, yeah, we'll do a couple, let's do some questions.
Xavier, did you raise your hands?
Oh, Marianne.
Yeah, I had to, um, I'm like, wow.
Okay.
Cause the, the, the whole issue, just to confirm what you were saying
about business versus nonprofit, this is a discussion I can't have with just
anybody, um, a few years ago, yeah.
You know, a few, a few years ago I had, um, as I was setting up the ministry,
the Lord had impressed something on me.
I was lined up to go, you know, with the five Oh one C three and do everything.
And the Lord very clearly and distinctly said, stop.
Okay.
And, um, as we, as he and I talked about it, it really became.
Why should it be a nonprofit?
Because I want you to be able to sow into other ministries and
so into other things as well.
Okay.
And I'm a Lord of a God of abundance.
Now I've always held this, that this is for me.
This is not for everybody else.
This is just what he was telling me, but as I've just mentioned it to other
people that didn't always go over as well as, as one might hope.
So I just want to thank you for actually bringing that out.
Cause it's very important to me.
And it actually has to deal with some of the things that I'm, I am
dealing with right this really this week.
Yeah.
So really just in terms of, of, you know, understanding that people have
to sow back into themselves also, uh, you know, cause there are questions
about, well, if this is a ministry, why isn't this free, which is
the most common question, right?
But that, but that is, it's, it's very, very true.
But to find someone else who has felt this, that their ministry
is not to be a nonprofit.
You know, I've come to believe that, that, well, I don't want to say that
there's anything wrong with that.
If that's the way that they operate, that that's fine.
But I also think that that's a trap.
You know, right.
It can be a trap and it can be a, you know, a way, you know, for to, to not
go as far as God would want to take you.
So just in my particular case, this is just what I'm doing.
I'm just thrilled to hear that there is someone else who actually feels this
way, or it had a similar experience because I haven't come across anybody
else who's, who's like that yet.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, and this is a, it's a heart issue, right?
So it's something that we are like, we've, we've even tweaked things.
So when we started with kingdom messengers, we didn't have our social
channels up, like we just like went into, I mean, then posture, but we, we didn't
have a kingdom messenger social channel.
And the feedback that we got in the beginning was people saying like, I can't
afford $37, which is a very, that's realistic.
I know that not everyone can afford 47 or 37.
So what we started doing kind of after our first or second challenge is we opened up
our social channels and began sharing free resources, like began sharing clips
of our, so that we could lead people.
If they were not in a place that they could afford the $37, what we didn't do
was we didn't compromise community piece that we were building because we
specifically wanted that community to be full of people who had paid something.
Number one, it protects from spam.
People want to get in there.
They want to spam people.
They want to promote their own thing.
It really protects people.
So we wanted to protect the people coming in and it gives.
Edible focus. Yeah, because people were there to do a specific thing and that was launched their kingdom channels
So it really it helped kind of filter out
People that needed that were there because they needed you know attention or they needed you know
Whatever it just like everyone's here to learn right like and so that's why we did what we did
So we didn't say okay. We're just gonna open it up for free
We just opened up a channel when we felt like we could like we had the energy and the focus to do it
And we started to just share some free resources, and then we did some things like the first night of our challenge
We usually share the first session for free for free on our YouTube channel stream that live so we do what we can
so we took the feedback seriously and when we were able to
Not at the expense of our community that we were building not at the expense of our own time energy
And it doesn't help anyone if we're burnt out
When we were able to we were able to open up kind of a free channel
Which you already do Xavier because you've got your tick tocks and everything built
So like you can easily if someone's like I can't afford this great
I have some free resources on my social media channel, and I up that I update that
Daily or consistent weekly consistently and there you can go for some free encouragement and training
Yeah, that's exactly for the webinar that I'm preparing for the free webinar because I'm trying to move them into coaching from there
I answer the question. Why isn't that free and I said look if you need the resources find the social media
It's all there
this is for those who need more attention who need this or or that and and so I don't you know that that's as
Far as or at least as close as I get to an apology anymore, but it used to weigh really heavily
Yeah, for some reason if anyone's like doing like
Nobody minds paying for cooking classes, right, right. Nobody minds paying for a gym membership
Yeah, but for whatever reason when it's a Christian doing some teaching that will have you know
Internal impact
It needs to be for free so, you know, yeah, it's fine
I mean again, we could we could make fun of it all day long. I think the reality is is that
In order we have found in order to help people
Change their hearts and minds about something we just do it and offer it
I don't we don't feel like it's something we have to debate that we have to like make a
You know formal statement on that. We always have to necessarily answer
We feel in our own head, you know and we have people pouring into us that you know
Know us well that can be speaking in to us at any point saying hey
I think you guys are going a little off-track
But we feel pure at heart as far as what we're doing and how we're offering it
Yeah, and the end of the levels that we're doing it at and so that's what's important is, you know
Do you at the end of the day?
Do you feel free and pure at heart and what your it is that you're offering what you're offering is valuable
that is something that they'll sometimes be tension because sometimes we can be tempted to think what we're what we're offering is not valuable and
So we struggle to charge for it
That's something that you know some internal territory that we have to take to the Lord
and something that we definitely walked in personally as well, but
We have no regrets. Yeah. Yeah, and
That's good. I know I think Walter and Marion had something. Hey Marion
I saw Marion first and then Walt can get on
Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for what you were sharing about putting things on hold
Because the weighty thing that's been weighing me down is what happens if I runs cut some kind of course
And I just want a few people and and can I do that and still do all that other stuff?
Because making a video every day takes time
So you just spoke to something that set me free really
Yes, you can put it on hold and back people will still be there. Yeah. Yeah
Assuming you could even fill in with a few old sessions. Yes. It's a great idea
Yeah, so that that was really good. Thank you. I'm glad that was helpful. Yeah, and I'll I'll just say as well
Someone said like they'll always be
Ministry to do right? I think we talked about this this week because there's like oh there's this feeling of like
We've been given this gift of communication or this revelation of something like it's we should be sharing it like oh my gosh
We're like getting behind like if we're being good stewards of our gifts
Like we should be like out there making content every single day
And that'll always be there like there will be an infinite amount of like need and people out there that will need ministry
But you got to kind of know like what season you're in. Yeah, and where the focus is
So like ministry looks very different to us
Like the last few months because we have you know, an 18 month old and so she's getting all of our ministry
Right first getting like our first fruits of our ministry
and so that's been our focus and then you know, we've got you guys and people who are like
you know part of advancements and and then we've got a very few like so we can't do all the things like right because
You can't just keep accumulating.
Sometimes you can only, you gotta take things out
as well as put things in.
And so that's just something to set yourself free
that there's gonna be seasons.
And as much as we push like, oh, consistency,
oh, like you gotta get that,
the channels will not go anywhere
if you leave them for six months and come back, right?
So anyway.
I think when we talk about consistency,
it's like, what are we being consistent in?
So again, it's seasonal.
For me, before becoming a mom,
I had more time, space and energy to be really consistent,
as you guys know the story, in posture.
But the conversation that has remained,
what has remained consistent even after me
taking a break of posting content
in this fall, winter season
is I'm still connecting with the Lord consistently, right?
About, okay, Lord, what is it that we're partnering in now?
And a lot of it is the daily,
I don't wanna use the word grind,
that's not what I'm trying to say,
but just the daily routine,
as monotonous as it can be sometimes,
of pouring into my little girl.
So there's a consistent flow of ministry
happening through me, as it is with all of us.
And so what is, I think the posture that's important to take
is are we consistently connecting with the Lord?
What can happen sometimes
is we can go into this hibernation mode
because we're feeling shameful
about things that have stopped working.
Like, hey, I used to be able to do this daily
and I can barely make do by doing this weekly.
And instead of me having a consistent conversation
with the Lord about it,
I can have a tendency to just retract and resist.
And I don't even wanna talk about it
and I'm just overwhelmed and I just can't get to it.
And this shame kind of starts to unfold in my heart.
And that is what we wanna break.
So we're big believers in consistency.
It's just consistency might look different
in different seasons.
I was just gonna add, like it could,
like it couldn't, it's not just I'm posting daily
or I'm totally disconnected from my account.
Like, you know, figure out what works for you.
I know a lot of creators out there,
there's this trend as well to never be consistent
and to only ever post or send an email
when they feel like they have something to share, right?
And so it could be a random Tuesday afternoon,
it could be two weeks later on a Thursday,
like it's a little bit random.
So you can kind of do that.
Or I've seen creators,
they don't have time to sit and record,
you know, a perfect video.
So they'll just go live.
They'll just go live, share for five, 10 minutes
and that's done.
So they'll only have 10 minutes to share.
So they just do it live.
And then that's what their post was for the week
or for the day, so.
Yeah, so we're finding, I mean,
we went hard on the consistency thing
because we knew that that's what would help leverage
the algorithms and everything and it worked.
A lot of seed was sown in that season
where I was consistent daily
and consistent multiple times a week and all that stuff.
And I don't even know how this fits into all the training
that I've done in the past
and I'm talking to the Lord about this,
but like when I stopped,
I was definitely expecting the flow of followers to stop.
Not necessarily like losing followers,
that happens kind of, there's ebbs and flows to that,
but just I wasn't expecting anything to grow.
I was like, okay, it was like hibernation mode
and I kind of like braced myself for it
and things are continuing to grow.
And I think there's a miraculous side to it
because I don't think that's like happening for everyone
that just stops posting things.
But I think what the Lord has been showing us
as we've been processing, okay, what's going on
is seed was sown and so there's harvest
still being reaped from that.
And I know that would be true for any of you guys,
seed is sown, harvest is being reaped.
And the important thing is not to get religious with it.
Everything that we share with you guys, the best practices,
like we're sharing from our journey
and what we know to be true and we know works.
If you're feeling that the Holy Spirit
is telling you something different, go with that
because otherwise you are,
there's a danger of going religious with it.
I don't want you to go religious with our stuff.
The cruelty of religion is that it's not telling you stuff
that you can't pull off.
It's not setting standards you can't reach.
It's setting standards that you can reach on your best day
so that when you don't reach those standards
and you know you could have,
if you just tried a little harder,
you feel shame and condemnation.
That's the brutality of religion.
And we want no part in that.
So there is always openness.
And I know many of you, I know Marian has shared,
hey, like I'm just, I'm feeling like the Holy Spirit
is telling me to do this.
Do that, right?
Do that.
You guys are mature.
We trust you.
We know that we trust the Spirit in you.
But what we're sharing when we're talking
about different things that have worked
different tactics enough, it's because it's worked for us
and it's worked for others that we have mentioned.
So, if you're not hearing anything, try the tactics, right, until you start hearing some
things.
Keep moving.
Yeah.
That's good.
So, do you want to take any more questions?
Walt, did you have something?
I didn't want to skip over you.
Yeah.
It's something short.
I came in right at the end of what you were saying.
And from what I've heard so far are things that, yeah, I'm going through just as well,
and I'm getting more and more downloads and clarity on things.
And some of it, Lindsay, I wrote you about.
And with all the other things that are going on, it is very, very easy to go, oh my gosh,
I have to do this, I have to do that.
And really, this last week has been, you know what, I just can do what I can do, and God,
you just have to bless it.
And not be so concerned about trying to reach each and every thing that I've set for myself.
I even realized I was in the middle of a book that I was going to do an e-book on, and it
was this past week that somebody said something, and it reminded me, my crap, that's been sitting
there for four months.
Because I just, I had totally forgot about it.
So now I'm, you know, I even have somebody that's helping me to go through that and to
look at it to make sure that it's good, and then I can publish it.
But I mean, my gosh, there is so much that's going on.
And I am, you know, I am very thankful for this group, because you guys have gone above
and beyond putting up with me.
Oh, come on, Walt.
You're an easy case.
You're not as hard of a case as you think you are.
Give yourself more credit.
That's all I wanted to say.
So you said something that was a great point.
So you said, oh, and there was this idea for an e-book that's kind of been sitting
on the shelf.
So this is what you can use the blueprint for, right?
All of these ideas, where do they, what blocks do they fit in?
That is a helpful thing, because sometimes there's like, we're in one block, say like,
hey, I'm in a season where I'm building my traffic, but I also have this idea for this
like e-book out here.
And we start to feel this like, angst, because we can't quite, we don't really know where
our attention should be.
So this is what's helpful to have that blueprint of like, okay, where on the shelf does this
sit?
And then we can kind of start to make a plan as our seasons shift, as things, as our circumstances
change, like how we can spend our time and energy and focus in building what and when
we build it, right?
So we'll drop a link to that too in the group.
So you guys have that.
The blueprint.
Yeah.
I get that all the time.
Cause like, Bruce will have this idea and I'm like, I'm not really sure, like, where
does this fit?
Which block does this fit in?
Is this like a traffic building?
Something is this conversion?
Okay, great.
It's a conversion thing.
Well, we're not really in a conversion season right now because we've got a tribe that we're
meeting with like every week.
And so that's how we can, and some, and unless we can delegate it, right?
So we're building a team as we're able.
And so there's things that our team might be working on that are in that traffic source,
but we might personally be working on our, in our tribe.
So we've, I have someone I follow as well, taught, calls it like your energy investment.
Yeah.
Like where is your actual energy being focused?
Some stuff you can put on, on kind of autopilot.
So you can either have someone helping post or edit or do stuff for you.
And it kind of puts it on autopilot.
And the example he used was like, if you're needing, if you're like, I want to get fit
and work out well, me having to like actively go and run or exercise every single day.
It's very active.
Like I'm actively investing my energy into this every single day.
But at one way that, you know, he outsourced it was he, you know, got a personal trainer
or something.
So it's kind of got on autopilot.
Like this guy would just text him, they would go off, like figure out a date.
Like it's just happens automatically, just not taking active energy to focus on it.
So those are just things to, to be thinking about as far as like, and it's going to shift,
you know, season to season.
We're constantly having that discussion of, yes.
Hey, we would love to know the, like, what's the target.
Oh, let's do that thing.
But not, there's like a totally different conversation of like, okay, so when, like,
when do we do that?
And it's okay to say, Hey, that's a great, like bucket list thing.
And we'll look at it later down the road.
But and generally it's me coming up with the idea and Lindsay helping with the timing of
it.
And so we've learned to like, like kind of figure out what the tension is, because we
probably would have like, like crashed and burned Kingdom Messengers if we had done it
on my time schedule.
And we would have all been like burnt out in the process.
Because I, we had the idea and I wanted to like launch it a week later.
And I think you said we ended up doing it two or three months later from when we first
started and ended up being the best thing because guess what, nobody wants to be doing
a challenge like over Christmas.
So I mean, I thought it'd be fun.
But, you know, there's, there's, there's seasons, there's stuff.
So you got to use like people, Lords put in your life to give feedback, even
if it's not what we want to hear.
So that's always good.
And that's like, and guys, you know, if you're like, well, I don't really
have a, like a spouse that's partnering with me on this or a business
partner, a ministry partner, like utilize us in this time to get some feedback.
If you're feeling like there's tension, if you're feeling like I have a lot
of ideas, but I'm not quite certain how to start executing or when I start
executing, like, and you might have other mentors in your life as well.
That would maybe be a better fit to like whoever you're comfortable with, but
like utilize coaches and mentors in that space, like we've realized we can't say
it enough that a lot of us aren't used to having like regular touchpoints
with coaches and mentors.
We don't know how to use it properly.
Like, we're not wanting to take like advantage.
So we keep our questions for ourselves.
Like, don't hold back and you feel like, Hey, is this an appropriate
question?
Cause I'm really struggling with X, Y, and Z.
And I'm not quite sure how it fits.
Like we want to provide you with tools to kind of give you a framework that
will help make things a little bit clearer, but utilize us in those
conversations, like we'll let you know if you're using this too much, right.
Kindly, we won't embarrass you.
That's good.
Uh, is there any other questions?
Yeah.
Any other questions or Hey, Marian.
Um, very quickly, this is a techie question.
Um, I, I'm raking up a Christmas list and I thought I could ask my family to
buy me something for the, um, doing videos.
So I'm thinking of lights.
What would you say, Bruce?
I saw your Facebook post.
I was just talking to Lindsay about this before.
Um, let me, uh, I'll drop the link to that, but I'll also share it here.
Um, I actually just, uh, shared this with some friends.
Um, you said that you had a few follow-up questions as far as like,
Oh yeah.
Are you filming with your phone right now?
I am.
Yes.
Okay.
Um, cause that'll determine to what kind of lights and stuff.
It's easier with all the short videos to use the phone.
Then definitely.
Right.
Yeah.
Um, I'll send you one or two options.
Um, you're not really going to go wrong.
Let's put it that way.
Um, and I'm just, sorry, I'm just pulling up the link and
then I'll drop them in here.
Um,
and, and I'm not going to ask them for anything more than a hundred dollars.
Just,
yeah, let me find this one.
Okay.
Um, honestly, like the, if you look for, I think it's LED video
lights on, you know, Amazon or something.
Um, and then kind of just go by like the most reviews is generally
like you can kind of just pick your price point.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was looking at these earlier.
Yes.
Yeah.
And, and really you don't need two lights.
Like I know sometimes you're like, Oh, I got to have two to make it symmetrical
or something, but really one really good light is probably better than going with
two.
Um, I'm just skimming these to see if there's one that I have seen before, but
I can, I can send you some specific recommendations.
That would be great.
Yeah.
I,
I try to only send you things that I've actually tried myself.
I have recommended stuff to people and then it doesn't like a long time ago.
So I do want to make sure it's something, um, that, that we've used.
Um, so yeah, I'll send you, I'll send you one, but generally like going with,
it's an LED light, so it's not actually going to be hot.
Um, you don't have bulbs or anything to mess with it.
They last forever.
And then if you have something where a lot of these will have a little remote
control as well, even the ones under a hundred bucks, um, so you can sit down
on your chair or whatever, and then hit a button and the light goes on.
That's very convenient.
Okay, good.
And most of them will include a tripe, a stand of some kinds.
You can kind of set it up in one spot and just leave it.
And then that would just sit in that chair and that stand stays there.
And then you just know that it always looks good.
Um,
is the filters important because some of them have filters, um, with different
colors, all my walls are pale colors, which doesn't work well with white hair.
Um, so that would get a little more sophisticated where you would have like
lighting, like we've got here, the blue lights back here.
Um, everything's backwards.
Sorry.
They're those blue lights.
I was just giving like an even wash, um, to it and we can change colors and stuff.
We rarely do, but, um, we have one big light source that's lighting up us and
then a different light source that's lighting up the background, create a
little bit of separation.
So you have to, it's kind of layering a few things, but generally just lighting
up the room and, and again, you're not going to take the light and point it
right at you, you're going to take it and maybe point it at a wall or put it at
the ceiling and it will kind of bounce down and make it look nice.
So, okay.
That's great.
And Kathy asked, are these lights, uh, for a different.
purpose or better than a ring light yeah the ring lights can be great the only trick with that is to
don't it don't have a ring light where your your phone goes in the middle and the ring
goes around it because you'll get these really weird like ring things in your eyes yeah as long
as you can put the phone there and the light kind of separated to a different um place it's a
different angle it should work really well um you're just always when it comes to lighting
you're not looking for harsh shadows you want soft soft light as possible um typically works best so
awesome all right thank you bruce
awesome okay guys yeah well i don't see any more questions so we'll wrap this up just know we're
in the messy middle so it's gonna feel a little messy and that's okay that's okay um we will see
you guys next week and if you have any questions between then you can always reach out yeah and i
know that tamera dropped the instructions that we talked about last week she read put those in the
facebook group so those should be at the top as far as how to submit your landing page so that
we can get that built for you so that's in the facebook group and kingdom messenger page so yeah
all right bye bye guys have a great week bye