#143: Bill McKendry: Building A Kingdom Workplace
Bill is a marketing executive and a devout Jesus follower. He has figured out a way to merge the two positions together in order to do more good.
In this fun conversation, we cover everything from stepping out in faith to marketing on behalf of the church.
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EP. 143
Tony: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Reclamation Podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. My name is Tony and I'm your host. Today is episode 143 of the podcast where I sit down with bill McKendree. Now, bill is a nonprofit leader. He's a marketing agent executive, and he's a Jesus.
I love Bill's approach to sneaky Jesus in the workplace and creating an advertising agency that serves Jesus. If you find yourself in the workplace, I think you're going to love, love, love this conversation with bill. And remember we believe that through intentional conversation, we can help you. Unpack a deeper relationship with God.
So Hey, do me a favor hit that subscribe button, wherever you listen to podcasts, share this episode with a friend and maybe leave a rating or review. I think you're going to love what bill has to [00:01:00] offer. He's got an incredible story from birth till now. He has built the kingdom of God everywhere. He went.
There's some really good stuff. Be sure to grab a pen and paper. You're going to need it. Now without any further ado. Here's my conversation with bill McKendree. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited today to have a nonprofit leader and a kind of advertising agency, extraordinary bill McKendree with us, bill.
Thank you so much for jumping on the podcast today.
Bill: So awesome to be with you today.
Tony: So bill we're going to talk about your latest resource and kind of your what's kind of become a mission statement for you, which is do more good. And I, as I was perusing all of your material and getting to learn your story a little bit more what's the Genesis for this movement and.
And is it any coincidence that you're pushing this at a time when it feels like you know, [00:02:00] the country's never been so divided?
Bill: Yeah. It's you know, I started on this journey actually, you know, I created the term do more good in 1999 and I actually read marked it then. And it really I was surprised that I could trademark it.
So literally when I plugged into words into the trademark office, a website and said, Hey, does anybody else own these own, those, these work on these words and this phrase, and it came back on, nobody did. And I was like, how's that possible? You know? So I really felt like. Created a platform for me. Right.
But it actually started five years previous to that in 1994. I actually started an advertising agency. I had worked at a big advertising agency that was based in New York and I worked in their Denver office. Right. And so I worked on things like American express and Dodge and taco bell and And [00:03:00] interestingly enough, there was a gentleman that worked across the street from me in Denver, a guy named Jim.
And that I wouldn't end up meeting until I moved back to Michigan. And again, he, he, he had, we knew of each other in Denver, but we didn't know, really didn't really know each other. Right. We worked at competing ad agencies, and then I moved back to Michigan. And his career takes him on to Chicago and he ends up working with Leo Burnett in Chicago.
And Leo Burnett is one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. And Jim's career took him to took him to the top of that agency. And he, you know, he did really phenomenal work for like McDonald's for example, and six years worth of super bowl ads for McDonald's, which one is still ranked as one of the top three Superbowl ads in the history of advertising.
That was the one with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. I don't know if you. If you're ever say [00:04:00] nothing by the end of that commercial, and that was Jim's commercial. Right. And and so I ended up reconnecting with Jim and taking him on as my partner in Michigan. I re I lured him away from Leo Burnett and where the conversation really started.
And I'll get to where, how this gets to do more good, where the conversation really started is we are both 33 years old at the time. And we both had, had already achieved success by that time we both had, you know, when we looked at our careers and if you look and examine our careers from an award standpoint, from a money standpoint, from a prestige standpoint, we buy 33.
We both had already experienced a great amount of success yet we were sitting together and and we were talking about our careers and where we were going to go. And and we were both not satisfied. There was a, there was something knocking away at us. And the conversation [00:05:00] started Gwen honestly, is I had landed a client that was based in Tucson, Arizona, and that client.
Had their own bull game, for example, they're called wiser lock and I had a wiser lock comparable in Tucson, Arizona, and you know, for a little agency in grand rapids, Michigan, which is where I locate relocated after Colorado. That was a big deal. And Jim was asking me, he says, well, aren't, how can you not be satisfied?
You know, you, you left the big agency world and you started your own little agency and you landed a pretty good size client and how can you not be happy? And I looked at him and I said, you know, why. Just so you have a frame of reference, they make door knobs and handles sets that you can buy at home Depot.
And Lowe's right. And I looked at Jim, I looked at Jim and I said, I said, you know, we both done a lot of really great things in our career. Right. But where I'm at right now is I'm afraid that someday I'm going to die. [00:06:00] And on my tombstone, it's going to say bill McKendree. Is one of the world's greatest marketers of doorknobs or handle sets, maybe the best in the entire history of that category.
And I go, I don't want to die with that on my gravestone.
Interestingly, at that point, Jim and I had known each other for a long time, but we didn't know, like in the big advertising world, it's a lot like Hollywood. You don't talk about politics. You don't talk about. At Jim sent to me is a bill. We'd known each other a long time, but I've never asked you this question.
Are you a Christian? I said, I am. I said, Jim, I am a Christian. Are you a Christian? And I said, yeah, he said, I'm a Christian too. He said, I think what's knocking at you right now is, you know, did God make us to sell credit cards, [00:07:00] hamburgers tacos. Cars toilets, you name it. Doorknobs handles sets. Did God, is that the reason why he gave us these skills or did he give us these skills to do something different?
We had, we started in a lunch conversation and the lunch conversation was simply to talk about doing some work together. But Jim asked me this question during that lunch conversation, he said, what kind of agency. If we, if we could just theoretically talk about something, what kind of agency would Jesus want us to work at?
Wow. It started as a lunch conversation that went till four o'clock in the morning, the next day. And we actually literally met in the morning four o'clock and we mapped out what we felt like. You know, an advertising agency that would serve Jesus. [00:08:00] And we said, you know, the voice of faith, the voice of human kindness, the voice of charity in our culture is not competing well,
how would we, how would we, how would we help that? What would we do to. Nonprofit organizations and specifically faith-based ministries to compete better in the marketplace. So we started an ad agency in 1994, based in grand rapids. We eventually had opened an office in Colorado Springs later called Haney McKendree.
And we set about using our skills that we had learned working with some of the world's best marketers and said, how can we apply? To places that really matter to places that really make a difference to more meaningful work. So in 19 99, 5 years later, the American advertising Federation recognized [00:09:00] me as the person doing the best cause marketing work in the country.
They brought me to New York city and they gave me their top award for doing cause marketing. I had to give a speech and the president of the American advertising Federation. Approach right after that speech. And he said, you you've got to go on tour. You got to share your knowledge with nonprofit organizations and faith based organizations, what you know, and how they can really compete in this world and what they really need to do in order to really capture our country's imagination.
And their hearts. Right. And, and so when he asked me to do that, I said, sure, I would do it. But at that point I really wasn't a public speaker. And and so I sought some counsel and stuff like that. And everybody says, you got to have a handle. And so I come up with the handle, do more good. I go to the trademark office and I'm able to register it.
And and so do more good. Is. Really rooted in, [00:10:00] in our beliefs and my, my beliefs and that God gave me a gift of being able to speak persuasively, to communicate effectively and to be able to be a translator of dreams. Right. I, I always say I'm like Joseph from the Bible, right? I'm a translator of dreams and a trusted advisor.
And and so my job is to work with nonprofit organizations and faith based organizations and help them communicate. To a market that is fiercely competitive with a consumeristic materialistic world.
Tony: But I love that. And what I like about do more good as it pertains to, to kind of your brand is that it's not just do more good, like you're trying to do more good, but you're trying to help these nonprofits do more good with the tools that you're giving them. So your You know, in the army, we used to call it a force multiplier.
Right? You're a catalyst and a lot of them.
Bill: Yeah. It isn't until you, till you like [00:11:00] really meet with nonprofit executives and leaders of faith-based ministries, do you really wake them up to the competitive forces that they're against? And, you know, when you realize, when you really sit with them and you realize, what do you need in order for your organization to grow and be successful, right?
Typically they need people's awareness. They need people's time and they need people's money. Some combination of those things, I'd probably all of them. Right. And so when you really break it down, they're in the business of competing for discretionary time and money. And then I remind them. You know your competition, even though non-profit organizations and faith-based organizations never liked to talk about competition, your competition is fierce for those things and they go, yeah, we know there's a whole bunch of nonprofits and organizations out there I go.
Know-how apple, Budweiser, Pepsi, Harley [00:12:00] Davidson, Nike. That's your competition. And if you want to stand out on this marketplace, if you're sitting here and you're wondering why, why has this country gone to be such a nation of consumers rather than a nation of citizens? Why have we gone so far down the materialistic path?
It's because those guys are really good and you guys are not at communicating.
Tony: So prior to the work I do here with spirit and truth which is a nonprofit that walks alongside churches, I was a local pastor for 10 years. And one of the things that I really believe is that the local church has a huge marketing problem because we have the best story in the world. And no succinct way to say it.
So I'm going to put you in a make-believe position you have now just been promoted to marketing for the [00:13:00] global, or let's just say the north American church, what's the one thing that you're going to get all of these organizations. I mean, what's how, how do we sell it better bill, like, fix us, make us, make us get this out.
This word. That's life giving it's important out to the masses.
Bill: How do we do it first? I I'm, I'm dealing with some secret ammunition that you don't know about. You didn't even know about before we got into this interview. Right. So when you ask that question, I'm gonna go off completely off script from do more good and tell you I'm already doing that right now.
And that's really. Yeah. And and, and our problems are actually worse than what you just said. So I, I was approached by a a group of very successful. Individuals who are Christians who are concerned about exactly what you're talking about, the church and Christianity and the state of Christianity.
And they, they came to realize that not only [00:14:00] have we been seeing trends going on the wrong way for the church, right. And, and Christianity, but the reality is, is according to the Southern poverty law center, we're a hate group.
And do you say, how can that be? Right. And who is the Southern poverty law center? First of all, I don't want to trash the Southern poverty law center. They've actually done a really, a lot of fantastic things, especially on the, on the topic of racism in this country over the years. Right. For whatever reason, for whatever reason they have become the arbiter in this country of who is.
And if you go to the Southern poverty law center right now and go to their hate group website and they'll have all mapped out who are the hate groups in the United States, and you're going to see a list that starts with neo-Nazis, you know, white supremacists, the KKK, and [00:15:00] then Christian identity, the Catholic church, right.
And the problem is, is the Southern poverty law center is now become the standard for Facebook, Instagram, New York times, Washington post all major media, all major academia on who is a hate group and who isn't. And they're labeling Christian groups like focus on a family like Alliance, defending freedom.
They're labeling them as hate groups because of their stances on same-sex marriage. Wow. And, and so, so we were presented, I was presented with a problem statement by a group of very wealthy Christian donors saying we got to do something. We've got to shape our culture for Christ. There needs to be a new awakening and we've got to do something.
We have to do something now [00:16:00] when, cause they were, they were disturbed when I saw. And the problem statement that they presented to me at that time was how did the world's greatest love story become known as a hate group? How did that happen? Right. So this is how I approach things. I mean, it's like, okay, you got to tell me the problem statement and you got to tell me what it is that we, we need to overcome.
And then I'm going to figure out if you want to communicate, which I believe is one of the most powerful vehicles. And today's culture and we need to figure out a way to communicate and differentiate and get through to people. What our message is really all about. We did six months of research and you know, I'm, I'm here to tell you, you know, if I'm the brand marketer of, of of the Christian brand, right?
Number one, the thing that we found in this national service. And [00:17:00] this was a 5,000 person survey voter ID matched. Right. We know that basically, even though we didn't talk to everybody in America, we basically talked to everybody in America, right. Every group, every everything was represented. Right. And what was amazing about this research was we said we found out that Jesus is not the problem.
Christians Christianity and the church have a brand problem.
Tony: Jesus has no brand that nobody understands
Bill: Jesus. Right. So based on that, and we started doing all kinds of research too, about messaging. Well surrounding Jesus. Right. But one of the things that we did is when we did the survey, you, if you took the survey, you would not know that you were being asked by a Christian organization because we asked all kinds [00:18:00] of questions about all kinds of people, including religious figures.
We ask questions about Muhammad. We ask questions about Buddha. We ask questions about Gandhi. We're asked questions about Jesus, right? And what's interesting is, you know, for people who will reject religion, Or just don't admit that they're religious. You know, we identify basically we divided people into basically four groups at the end of this, and we said there are engaged Christians.
Those are about 30% of America. There's cultural Christian. Or just as big, another 30% of America are cultural Christians. And those are people who maybe, you know, would self identify as a Christian. You know, we're born into a Christian family, maybe go to church once or twice a year, but they don't tell their friends that they're Christians and they got some issues with, with the divinity of Christ.
You know, they're not fully bought in on. Right. But they, [00:19:00] they, they think they're Christians, but they don't really tell other people that are Christians because they're kind of embarrassed of Christians. But then we have these, this group of students, we have skeptics, which are 24% of America. And then we have this nonbeliever off the, off the rails, you know, 18%, 18% of America and 16% of America that, you know, you just can't convince their science only, or proof all the way type of people.
But what was really interesting. One thing that we really found from research was when we ask people, you know, what is it that, you know, like, for example, what is religion really all about? You know? And and, and people say it's about being a good person, right? So I'm learning to be a good person. And there's so many people I say, I, as a result, I don't need religion.
I know what is a good person. And so I'm just going to be focused on being a good person. And so we said, [00:20:00] all right, across all beliefs, spectrum, can you guys describe for us what is a good person? The top four answers across the board? This is including atheists. Top four answers were peacekeeper, approachable, compassionate.
And loving all,
then we saw, then we said, all right, so let's go back through these religious figures. Can you tell me what what's good about these people? Tell us what's good about Muhammad. Tell us what's good about a Buddha. Tell us what's good about Jesus. Tell us what's good about Gandhi, right? Guess what? Of all the religious figures that we questioned people about the only one, one, and one only matched the [00:21:00] top four answers.
Exactly.
So all in same order people ranked Jesus was a peace seeker. He was approachable. He was compassionate and he loved all, guess what evidence? Number one, Jesus has written on everybody's hearts, whether they want to admit it or not. Right. So then we went and we've created a campaign and you can look up this campaign.
We just got done testing it in 10 markets
campaign is called. He gets up. And you can look at, you can look at the website, he gets us.com, but I would encourage you to go to the YouTube channel four. He gets us and watch the videos and the TV commercials that we put together on this campaign. This campaign just got done running [00:22:00] five weeks in 10 markets, almost 30 million views of our work on YouTube targeting skeptic.
And and the responses have been phenomenal. The number one complaint that we get from people is actually from Christians because they don't understand the language we're using, right. The language we're using is outside of the language that they're used to using. And then they're having a hard time aligning up the biblical stories with the story that we have.
There's a, there's a, there's an ad called teen mom. And it's basically the story of Jesus Jesus's birth, right. And Mary and Joseph, and what they went through. But it's told in very, very, very contemporary language with, with imagery, black and white, still photography, journalistic type quality, just gorgeous photography, but raw [00:23:00] and real and authentic.
Right. And when you watched, when you get done watching the commercials, you know, the skeptics are gone. Wow. Jesus was born to a teen mom. Jesus did face a lot of the same things that we face. He was challenged by many of the things that we're challenged by that he was fully human.
He gets us. And it's really just an entree. What we found is if you can create an entree for people to raise their hand and say, I want to learn more about Jesus and you provide them with content. We found that over 60% of skeptics want to learn more about Jesus when you allow them to explore that on their own.
But then also give them outlets for, okay. Now I'm ready to talk to somebody and we've so to answer your question. We've already started this process.
Tony: And well, let, let me, let [00:24:00] me drill down on that a little bit, because I think you brought up a really interesting point, which is it, it feels like the existing Christian culture is what's preventing us.
From changing the brand. Now you've done so much marketing in your career. I mean, this has to be a pretty common thing, right? Like you go into an organization that feels like it's been super successful. That's maybe stand, you know, since the beginning of time and all of a sudden they don't want to change or hold on to what they've or get rid of, of what they've always known.
So as you're walking with. Churches, clients, whoever through the idea of changing their brand in order to, to reach those that aren't yet here or to gain the next part of the market share, or however you want to say it, how do you, how do you teach people to be okay with change?
Bill: Yeah, actually I love that question because it reminds me.
It was [00:25:00] a Harvard business review story about second generation businesses and and their high degree of failure rate. And it was like, why, why do second generation businesses? Like if they can make it usually, if they can make it to the third generation, it, things get cleaned up and, and and they're able to sustain and, and move on.
But for whatever reason, there's a high failure rate as a, as a first-generation passes to a second generation on a business, right. It's like most vulnerable time in a business besides the starting period. So they they did, they actually commissioned a study on second generation businesses. And you know, they had some assumptions going in that, you know, maybe the second generation is just a little lazier than the first generation.
They aren't, they aren't go getters. Right. They aren't driven like the first generation was, you know, and and as a result, you know, second generation kids just couldn't handle it. Right. And as a result of business assumption, going in all the things that you would think of, right. [00:26:00] What they found out instead though, where they get it got in was the second generation was more driven, worked more hours was more committed.
And yet the failure rate was hard or was high. What they found was the reason why it was why they become more successful in the third generation rather than the second generation is because the second generation is still trying to repeat. A lot of the same things that the first generation did. And so rather than innovate and become new and renew, they just try to do the same thing as the first generation, but harder, they worked harder.
And so Harvard business review at the end said, what we, what we learned is old ways harder. Don't work. And I feel like that's the case here is our [00:27:00] culture is changing, right? It's constantly changing. I mean, you look at the introduction of social media alone. I look at it with my own kids, for example, it's like, I did not grow up with that kind of pressure.
You know, I graduated from before social media came back into existence. I graduated in high school in 1980. And there were people I never saw until Facebook started again. Right. You know, and it's like, had not started. I probably wouldn't see those people the rest of my life. Right. But instead you got, you got all this constant comparison that's going on.
And the pressures of social media, you know, this world is evolving and changing all the time and the pressures are changing. The truth is the truth and the truth is not going to change. Right. I mean, Jesus has messages. True. No matter what. But how we apply that and how we talk about it and how we use it.
It can't be the old ways harder. It has to be. We have to think of new language. I sat with a group of extremely influential is considered to be the top 25 young voices [00:28:00] in Christianity. Today. I went to this private gap. And and before we even started this campaign, I wanted to hear from them and you can't believe how many of them looked at me as successful.
As I know these are people that have millions of followers already themselves, and they looked at me and they said, I don't know what's going on, but we need new language. We just don't. We just don't have it anymore. You know, the ways that we've been talking about Christians and Christianity in this country just aren't working like they used to, we need new methods and new products.
That's what this quite honestly, that's what we're doing right now is we're creating new ways to communicate, because guess what? There's new frontiers that people are facing.
Tony: Hey friends, just interrupting this conversation with bill to remind you about the spirit and truth conference. You guys know as well as I do that.
This is such an important time in the life of the church. And we want to help you. [00:29:00] The church leader, the church attender, the church member grow in your relationship with Christ. And we are offering a one in a lifetime chance to do it here, March 17th, through the 19th Dayton, Ohio Stillwater church, the spirit and truth conference.
And for you, our family here at the podcast, we have a discount code. So when you go to spirit and truth.life, spirit, and truth.life and register. Putting the code reclamation reclamation for a discount on your registration free. We love to offer that to you. And we think it's going to be so, so, so much fun.
I can't wait to see you guys there. I'll be hosting. I'll be there with all my friends and I can't wait to connect. Now let's finish up this conversation with bill. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this. About the prospect of change, right? I I've long believed that change is like a muscle and you have to keep working it in order to, to [00:30:00] use it.
If you don't use it the muscle atrophies and it eventually grows weak. And so you know, I think it's safe to say without being offensive here, bill that you're in a later season of life than I am. You you called me before we recorded. You've been married for 38 years. And when I was in the local church what I always heard is that more seasoned individuals, some might say old, I wouldn't say old.
I don't like that word, but a more seasoned individuals struggle with change. Is that real? Or do we just get lazy in the muscle? What, what do you think?
Bill: I think it's a combination of both. You know, when you're not constantly changing, when you're not trying to keep up, you do, you, you suffer from atrophy, right.
And as a result, you know, you just don't have the strength to change, but I I've always believed in myself as, you know, I'm a lifelong learner. You know, that I believe that's how I stay young in my [00:31:00] mind is saying if I don't learn something today, man, that was a wasted day. And so I want to keep my mind fresh.
I want to keep open to change. And and, and this world is constantly evolving and changing. I happen to be in a business that demands that you stay in current, right. And stay on top of change and really understand what's going on and be comfortable with it.
We were just talking this morning, you know, we we've had issues with actually advertising on Instagram and Facebook with this campaign. And Facebook has been, Facebook has been giving us a hard time and we're still not approved on this campaign. And we tried for five weeks to get approval, to run on Facebook and, you know, they don't give us a straight answer, but yeah.
But then, you know, I was asked this morning, it's like, well, what if eventually we can't advertise on Facebook and Instagram, I go, no worries. It's like, Snapchat and Tik TOK and other vehicles are taking their place. Quite honestly, we may not even want to advertise on Facebook and [00:32:00] Instagram and not too long time because that's for old people, right.
Where we want to be this new mediums. Right. So I think you have to force yourself to be able to change right. I look at Jesus and his history of how he was a communicator. And, you know, I have to be honest with everything I understood from a marketing standpoint when it comes to, you know, who, how Jesus spoke is exactly what I was taught as a marketer how to speak.
Right. You know, so he started with people's conditions, right. He never started with what he wanted to tell them. He started with where they were at. Then he spoke to their condition, right. He spoke to their condition. He modified his language so that he would, they would understand him. His stories were adapted to their lives.
He told farmers farmer stories. He told fishermen fishermen stories, right. He told [00:33:00] soldiers, soldier stories, right. He, he adapted his storytelling and his parables to those pieces. He didn't demand that they come to his level and his experience or his understanding. He came down to them and that's a lesson, I think for all of them.
Of why we have to constantly be learning and changing and understanding the truth is the truth of the it's. It's a universal, it's gonna, you know, the power of the truth is never going to change how we communicate it. We need to be like, Jesus, we need to be willing to bring it to the people in a way that they'll understand it and feel it and grasp it on their own so that it has an impact on them.
Like Jesus had an impact on. Right. He modeled for us everything about what we're supposed to do.
Tony: Yeah. One of the things that's interesting about your story and you're very open about, is the reality that you [00:34:00] were born to two deaf parents. And so you spent the majority of your adolescents with childhood and adolescents translating for them.
And, and I'm wondering You know, what, what did you learn about yourself in about God, of course, in hindsight translating for your parents for, you know, 20 years.
Bill: Yeah. You know, I, I always, I was an oops baby. Right. You know, so I was like Auckland, closest sibling to, to meet with seven years older. And I, I, I.
You know, tell my parents just like you just ran out of kids and you needed another translator. So you guys had another kid
and they laughed. And they, my parents had had had a great sense of humor, but yeah, so I was born into a family. You know, sign language was my first language. And you know, I had to translate from an early age and you tell people, you know, I was doing car deals when I was like six years old, I was helping them renew, [00:35:00] renegotiate their mortgage, you know, before I was 10 years old.
And I was calling in sick for that. Knowing that they weren't even sick some days and you know, being faced with, you know, those kinds of dilemmas. Right. And and, and I, for whatever reason, I think one of my most memorable times of translating is my mom got in a car accident and she had to go in to the emergency room and I had to have her lips sewed back on and.
And they had no translator for her. And so I got, I got a call at home, so I hear I'm 16 years old. I got to go into the emergency room and translate to my mom live during surgery. I don't like hospitals. I don't like blood. Right. But I have. But, you know, you just click into another mode. Right. And it's like, I have to translate for my mom so that she understands what's going on during this surgery.
Right. So, you know, I feel all of that. I used to, you know, I used to be kind of, you know, when you look at it, you go, well, you know, why did God burden me with that? You know, [00:36:00] having to be a translator for my parents, Where I got to see other kids that didn't have to go through all of that. And so there were times maybe where you felt sorry for yourself today.
I'm just so I feel so blessed that I ha that I have that opportunity. I had that opportunity to learn things the way I learned them. But you know, and, and as a result, It's made me the person I am today, you know, I'm a translator, right? And so I have to translate what people want to say to the market in a way that the market wants to understand it.
The same thing had to happen when I was young. I mean, people want people don't understand about sign language is when you get into sign language, you realize everybody's awesome. Automatically assumes it's the English language inside. Yes, and that is really a different language and and, and the syntax is completely different.
And and so you have to constantly be translating, you know, from the sentence based world that you live in [00:37:00] as a hearing person to a sign based world, which is extremely noun driven. And, you know, you got to get to the point, like, like if I, if I say in, you know, in, in normal. Hey, I need you to run over there and get me that right now.
That's how you would say it right in sign language is like, now you go, you know, and it's just, you know, you just cut out all, all the words and get right, right straight to it. And so being a translator for people from my mom and my dad has helped me. It's been a gift, it's been a gift. And I think many people really look at the experiences in your life and you're asking yourself, why would God put you through that?
And I realized that God was preparing me exactly for what he was preparing me for this campaign that I got done talking to you about. The most interesting aspect of this campaign is when I got the call back in March, [00:38:00] originally to think about this and how to go to market about. I asked the person who called me on this.
I go, can I use the working title campaign for Christ while we work on this? And the person said, sure, you know, call whatever you want. And I go, good. He goes, why do you ask her? I said, because I've had that written on my to-do list for 15 years. I don't know fully what. Wow. You had a place on my heart 15 years ago that I need to be a part of doing a campaign for Christ.
And I said, what you just called me today to do is something I feel like I've been prepared my entire life to do. And so from a translator. To working in the field, the way that I've worked to getting to this point, having all the experiences that I've had, I've worked with over 300 nonprofit organizations, most of them, faith based organizations.
And, and I've [00:39:00] spoken to over 200 groups on nonprofit marketing and branding, you know, then to finally arrive at this place where I'm ready exactly at the time that God wants me to be ready to be able to do this campaign. I don't know how, I don't know how you even explain that other than it's got.
Tony: Yes. So let me ask you this, you know, in your book do more good. You kind of. Y you talk about this work that you've done with non-profits over the years, I guess it almost feels like nonprofits really struggle with either the message or the language or, or maybe it is a language barrier. Why are for-profit companies so good at getting their message out?
And non-profit companies seem to struggle in the mud and the muck of.
Bill: Yeah. I think one of the, I think one of the things that's really core that's taught like in business school for example, is [00:40:00] risk and reward. Right. And so, you know, you're taught, you know, I went to business school. I, I, even though I have an advertising degree I got a scholarship to go to the university of Denver and because I was a poor kid and but then they forced me to get a marketing degree through the business school again.
It wasn't my design. But I was forced to do it. And to this day, I can tell you I'm so glad I was forced to do that. But in business school, you know, they're very good about risk and reward. I mean, it's, you just got to get comfortable with risk and you have to realize you're not always going to be successful.
And that's where you come. You know, a lot of business people have this mindset of, I don't, they don't live in a win lose. They live in a win learn environment. And when you don't win, when you don't win, you learn and you'll learn how to do it even better. Now, [00:41:00] this campaign that I just got done talking about, he gets his campaign was funded by business people, Christian business, pure.
I didn't want, I didn't want to run the test campaign as early as. I was told by a very successful business person, bill, go spend the money and learn so that when we go national, you figured this out. So we're going to be more successful, right? That's a business mentality, right? Unfortunately I think the nonprofit world lives in a scarcity mentality rather than an abundance.
Mentality. And so as a result, they're risk adverse. I mean, that's the only thing I can really chalk it up to is they don't see as win and learn. They see as win and lose, and if they lose the costs are too great. They have to explain that to their donor base. They don't understand that sometimes when you take a risk, you're going to lose.
They [00:42:00] can't explain that they always want to error. Then on the side of being conservative in their choices, conservative in their efforts, and as a result, they don't really achieve the big strides and success that you see that the business world is able to do. Now, there are exceptions. I mean, I, you know, you look at the history of people like Martin Luther king and Billy Graham and stuff like that.
And you go, those people were risk-takers right. Huge risk takers. And, and as a result, they, that's why they achieve the impact that they achieve. But then as I look at so many non-profit organizations and so many nonprofit leaders, they're so afraid of taking risks that it actually stifles growth.
Hmm.
Tony: So let's talk a bit about the, the risk of, of putting your story down on paper and sending it out to the world. Right. That do more good. What, what is your a year from now, right? What are we celebrating [00:43:00] that God did with this piece of writing? Like what, what's your, what's your end game with this book?
Bill: Well, interestingly enough, you know, this, this is where that, that campaign. That he gets us campaign and the book actually connect. The book is set up in a using a proprietary process that I've, I've learned from the world's greatest marketers, but have packaged it in such a way that's easy to follow for a nonprofit organization.
Right. And that is, there is a process for achieving success in the marketplace. And especially when you're communicating about and wanting to grow your success in the marketplace. And it's the ideas process is, is as the acronym that I use. And it's about getting the insights that you need. In order to put together messaging and direction that you need to do, right?
So you need to do your homework and you do your research. You really do need to do some fact-finding. You need to, you need to talk to people really need to look at the marketplace. You need to look at the [00:44:00] landscape of things. And so what I encourage non-profit organizations to do is do your homework gather as many insights as you possibly.
And I, and I get him in the book. I give nonprofit organizations, all kinds of tools and techniques on how to gather insights. But then from that point, you're going to have to develop a strategy and a direct. And that includes, you know, some tactics, including how are you going to accomplish this? You know, what is your strategy?
What are you going to take this to market? And so that's the D in ideas, you need to develop direction, but then you're gonna have to explore different ways to express yourself in the marketplace. And I always encourage, like when we did this camp, I ran this campaign and I own an advertising agency and it would be very tempting for me to say, me and my advertising agency are going to do this campaign.
But what I told this group of investors in this particular assignment, I go, you want to [00:45:00] impact culture for crime? Let's talk to the agencies that are impacting culture already. Let's talk to the agencies that are doing Nike work. Let's do this, let's talk to the agency. That's doing Gatorade work. Let's talk to the agencies that are doing, you know, Budweiser and stuff like that.
And see if they'll pitch this work client thought, you know, group of investors thought I was crazy. They go, well, do you feel if you can find Christians at these agencies, you know, we're, we're willing, I got five agencies to pitch. Wow. And so I asked each one of them to bring three ideas to the table. So we ended up looking at 15 phenomenal ideas from these agencies and we ended up selecting one and they all went after this work really hard because number one, we were spending a lot of money, but number two, it wasn't meaningful to them.
I've found within these organizations and in leadership in these organizations that there are [00:46:00] Christians and these organizations, every one of these agencies that I asked to pitch not only agreed to pitch, they told me this was an assignment. They were waiting their whole life to work on.
Right. And so, you know, so when I, so when it came to expression, we, we explored every possible way to express this. And we chose because we were given so many excellent examples. We chose what we considered to be the most powerful one. Right. And then it moves to action. How are we going to take this to market?
What are we going to learn? But then the last one is success. And you always need to say to yourself before he gets started on any initiative. How are we going to define success? And then you have to be ready to measure that at the end and then needed to ask yourself some pretty hard questions when you get to the end of that process and say, okay, we, we did all this stuff.
Did we achieve success? And if we did, how did we do it [00:47:00] best if we didn't, where did we fail? And no matter what, even if you did, or you don't achieve success, there's always things that you can do, right. Or there's things that you can do differently. And then you get back to that in the beginning of the process, those insights create new direction, which create new expression, and you've got to constantly be improving yourself and how you communicate to the marketplace.
And so that's the process in which, you know, things come together. I can tell you, I've been working with the ideas process for over 30 years, right? This campaign. For the nonprofit community or the faith-based community is the first time it was done at such a level of excellence that I would expect out of Nike McDonald's and apple.
Wow. So while I've done it, I've done it. Yeah. There was always compromises. [00:48:00] There were always compromises, you know, like, wow, we didn't want to spend that much, or we don't want to do that. Or we didn't, you know, there was always. Absolutely no compromises made here. And when we can, when I can tell you from the 10 market test already is to say no.
When I tell you 30 million YouTube views of our work, that's only, we only expose this work to 10% of America. Wow. So if we actually advertise this to America, our results will be 10 times that. That's incredible. Right. And so that's where the two come together is ideal. I've been working ideas for a long time, convincing the non-profit and faith-based community that you really need to do it at the level that business does it.
This is the first time in my career that has been done to perfection.
Tony: I love God's timing and all of it. Right. It's, it's a perfect it's the perfect intersection. And I think it's, [00:49:00] it's exciting to hear about and it's exciting to, to see. And you know, I can't wait for non-profits to get this book in their hands and I can't wait for America to see this campaign.
Cause it sounds like it's just going to be an absolute home run. Now I know my, my listeners are going to want to connect with you. I've I've got one more question for you, but before I ask it, where's the best place all over the interwebs to learn about, do more good to connect to your, your nonprofit kind of a resource.
Cause you've got tons of resources out there. So many free resources for nonprofits. If you are connected to a nonprofit, if you've got a church. And you, you have the ability to, to share information with your pastor. I'm telling you that this information is so good out here on the interwebs. Where's the best starting place bell.
Bill: Yeah. Just go to do more good.org and you can start there. And then you know, there's ways to send us messages out through that. That's the easiest one to remember. I have, you know, other email addresses and stuff like that, but that's the easiest place for people to read.[00:50:00]
Tony: That's great. And I, you know, you guys are out there on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all the different places where you would expect at a world-class, you know, advertising agency to be. And so it's really easy to find. So you're clearly doing your job well. All right. Last question. I always love to ask people and you've been so generous with your time today.
I'm incredibly thankful. It's an advice question. And I ask you to go back and give yourself one piece of advice. And I'm going to ask you to go back to young bill the day after you graduate from the university of Denver. So you've graduated from the university of Denver. If you could go back and say something to that young man, what would you say?
Bill: Well, I would say. That I wish I would've gotten, you know, guys spent many years just doing secular work. Right. I, I can honestly look back and say that's part of God's plan too. [00:51:00] Right. As much as I, as much as I hate hate the idea that I wasted all those years doing just secular work. Yeah. But I, I did, I learned from the best in the business and I learned virtually everything that I wrote in do more good.
The book are things that I've learned in the secular market. Right. And so and so I've just been applying those principles to the non-profit and faith-based market, but, you know, I just wish I would have been more quick to start applying what I knew. To the work of the kingdom, right? I, for too long until I was 33 years old, I didn't, I didn't merge the two.
Right. My business life was by business life. My faith life was my faith life and it wasn't until I was 33 years old in 1994. Did I combine the two? And I can tell you that.[00:52:00] When I finally combined the two. I've never felt more blessed in my entire life. I've never felt more peace in my entire life. And so I would just encourage anybody listening to this.
If you're getting tugged in two different directions and maybe God has you on a path that's important for you to learn certain things. Don't put off kingdom work, just don't put off. I wish I would've gotten to it sooner 33 years old sounds pretty young. Now that I'm a 62 sounds super young. But you know, I can tell you when I was 33 years old, I already felt like an old man, because I had spent so much time working my butt off very hard and and, and secular work.
Right. And but. Now that would be, the advice is get to that sooner. As soon as you can, kingdom work, as the most important work in, in this entire world is the only thing that really matters. And so the sooner you can really [00:53:00] combine those two things and I'm probably with your audience, I'm preaching to the choir, right.
But at the same time it is really critical that you don't your work regardless of what it is, should be God's work to.
Tony: Amen. Amen. That's so good. Bill, I can't thank you enough for the conversation today. It was such a joy to learn about you and your story. And I always know it's a good interview when I don't get to all the questions and I hardly got to any of the questions that I wanted to ask, but I think we got right where God wanted us to be.
So thank you so much. I deeply appreciate.
Bill: Yeah, I appreciate it too. Thank you very much and bless you and what you're trying to do and, and bring important content for people to learn and understand and grow and And then iron sharpening iron. And I love that. I love that whole concept. It's always been what I love doing.
And and I hear that in what you're doing. So thank you for your time.
Tony: You guys, what a great conversation. I [00:54:00] love the way he's looking at marketing for the church, and it's such a need. There are so many churches and movements that need a voice that will help shift it. Bill is that guy, so, Hey, if you liked this.
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