7. Start advertising early.
People don’t come to church every week. In fact, I think every other week is the new “every week.” So if you really want everyone to hear about your next big event, you better start talking about it eight weeks out. Give your event away, and then let it build each week until it’s a really big deal! If you are serious about getting the word out to as many as possible, use more than one method. (Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.) Use announcements, newsletters, mail out postcards and reminders, use e-mails, use e-vites, use a phone call, or a phone tree, Web sites, and even the church bulletin!
8. Make an agenda, and plan for all meetings.
A secret to getting volunteers to come to meetings (and to keep staff from dreading them) is to keep the meeting relevant. If someone doesn’t need to hear the information that you are sharing, don’t invite them to the meeting. If your information can be communicated in another form other than a meeting, use it. I think, sometimes, we have a meeting to see what meetings we need to have.
Here are a few of my favorite meeting rules:
a. Select an ending time and end on time!
b. Use a timer (another reason to buy an iPhone!).
c. Put each item you have to share in order of importance. So if you run out of time, you don’t miss the most important stuff.
d. Stay on task (it’s your meeting—act like it!).
e. Stand up to talk. It will make a huge difference, plus you burn more calories when you stand up!
f. Video your meeting any time you can and watch yourself. It will make you a better communicator, plus you can watch others’ reaction to your meeting.
g. Get feedback from someone you can really trust on how they think the meeting went. Learn from them and always look for ways to improve yourself!
