Worship Musicians - A Sales Lesson

This never fails to irk me.

I’d be talking with some business people, and they’ll tell me what kind of customers they want, usually those who would mindlessly buy all their products at prices way above the market rate. Fair enough. I mean, if I was in business that’s the kind of customers I would want too.

And when I ask, “What are these people like? What do they care about? Where can you find them?” I usually get blank stares. Or they say “Can you help improve the English in our advertisement so that we can appeal to those people?” They’ve probably realized that their advertising isn’t working, so they hope that a quick fix (like improving the grammar) is enough to have hordes of crazed customers banging down their doors, begging for the chance to give them tons of money…

If business was THAT simple, shouldn't I do it myself and take all the money? Come on!

(“JJ, I thought this is about worship ministry?” - I’ll get to that in a moment!)

Those business people don’t realize that you cannot create something, present it to your ideal customer and try to trick them into buying it. Unless you are the only source of a product everyone needs, you have to know what your customers are looking for, what matters to them and how to give them what THEY want to buy, not what you want to sell to them.

Makes sense?

Just as clueless as the business people I mentioned earlier are many church leaders when looking for worship musicians. They approach recruiting church musicians with the same amount of care, planning and thought those businesses approach acquiring customers – almost zero.

Let me put this to you in business terms: when you are recruiting church musicians, you are doing sales. You are selling people the opportunity to be used by God in a powerful ministry that can deeply touch the lives of people, and can oftentimes unlock many other hidden giftings within the servers as well.

And what is the price? The price they have to pay to buy this opportunity is time; time spent on lessons and practice to acquire the relevant skills and knowledge, as well as time spent on rehearsals and service. This is time that can be spent with the family, on the career or the social life, or studying other areas of interest.

(Taking me for example - the biggest reason I am currently a socially-inept worship ministry geek is because of all the time I spent practicing during my younger days. That was the price I paid. This is why I can’t do youth ministry. I totally don’t understand youth, because I spent my youth on scales and drum rudiments!)

Besides time, many musicians have also invested considerable sums of money, both in their lessons and to purchase their instruments for practice. Let’s not include the opportunity cost, all the money they could have made if they spent their free time working instead of practising!

From this we can see that it takes a certain personality type to become a musician. Working with this type of people is like marketing to the affluent. If you try to sell products and services to the affluent without understanding what makes them different from the rest of the market, you will fail.

Dismally.

There is one thing many worship musicians have in common. And if you understand this ONE feature, you will know how to recruit them, how to handle them and how to lead them.

What is it?

Worship musicians very often lack confidence.

This makes sense if you stop and really think about it. Music is very wide ranging and diverse, and after some time the musician become aware of all the areas they are still not good at. Sight-reading? Arranging? Playing in a particular style, such as baroque, classical, jazz or R & B? Playing by ear? Improvisation? Transposing?

This lack of confidence applies across the board, whether the musician started lessons from young or took up an instrument later on in life. Someone who reads notes feels inadequate when facing a musician who plays entirely by ear. Musicians who play entirely by ear often feel insecure because they know that there are many things they cannot practice and train in unless they can read notes. Some of them feel like they are musical fakers, without genuine substance and music skill. And this nagging sense of insecurity remains no matter how much praise they receive for their music and how much encouragement others give them.

This lack of confidence colours a lot of what musicians do and how they think, yet it is something they HATE to admit to. So if you put them in a place where they have to admit their lack of confidence or show that their skills are lacking, they won't turn up.

That is why, when churches are recruiting worship musicians, I tell them to put up their list of worship musician criteria up on their website. And if those churches are following my material, they should embed my Youtube videos on auditioning church pianists and drummers too. Don't tell me that it's difficult for your web-techs. It isn't. I can do it, and I am not a techie kind of person And once that page is set up it is something permanent your people can refer to.

Don't be lazy and say "We'll tell them our criteria when they tell us they are interested". It's very likely that the vast majority WON'T. They will scan through your church website and see if the info is there. If it isn't there, many of them are NOT going to ask. They don't want to bring up the topic, find out that they don't measure up, and then have to admit that to you. They hate that feeling.

This applies if you are announcing your recruitment exercise from the pulpit. Unless you stress that there are criteria and the musicians who wish to join your worship team can find out what they are in a non-threatening way, you are making it hard for them to approach you. If you put the criteria some place where they can check it up themselves, it is a lot less threatening to them.

Imagine that you are a shopowner, you've got many customers walking into a shop but your shop staff ignore them and don't even TRY to give them some information on what you have for sale or find out what they are looking for. As a business owner, should you tolerate this kind of sloppy service? It's costing you business!

But if you have a website or blog for your church and you don't put up your criteria for worship musicians up there, that's costing you worship musicians who may otherwise be a blessing to your congregation. That's fine if you have too many musicians already serving in your church, (let's say your church is smack in the middle of Nashville), but if you don't…

In the end, do you have a heart for your musicians?

If you know what matters to musicians, you will know how to communicate with them, are better able to give them what they want and help them give you what YOU want. But you have to be willing to understand and care for them, not try to make them fit YOUR idea of what worship ministry is like or see them only as resources to be exploited.

Don't give me excuses, saying "This is not how we do things in this church, this is not our culture." If you have musicians who come on board and soon quit, something is wrong. If your church is unable to recruit enough musicians in the long term, something is wrong. And you either fix it or go without good worship musicians. Or you are bouncing from one worship ministry crisis to another, wondering when will a large part of your musicians and worship leaders quit and leave you scrambling to recruit people again.

But if you engage with your worship musicians and work sincerely with them, you will find that you too will grow in understanding and maturity. And remember that the musicians in your church are God's people as well, redeemed by the blood, dear to his heart. Don't look at them only as useful to your successful running of a contemporary worship service. See them as people that God wants to love through you.

Remember, you are selling them the opportunity to be used by God in a powerful ministry that can deeply touch the lives of people, and can oftentimes unlock many other hidden giftings within the musicians too. This is a great product, and we know it will be a blessing to them. Are you willing to do what it takes to get this product to the right people, that they (and you) may be greatly blessed?

The ball is in YOUR court now!

P.S. if you find this useful, please tell your church friends and leaders about this blog. Thanks!