On the back cover it says: “There is greatness inside of you“.  Ya, I know, yada, yada, yada.  We know that right?  Deep inside, there is greatness inside of all of us.  The question is…do we believe it?  Did I believe it?  Really believe it?  No.

You see, when I first received my copy of Michael’s book, it was last fall.  I was on the verge of a burnout and I was so consumed by busyness, stress, exhaustion, and borderline depression that I didn’t really believe there was any greatness left in me.  I was done.  As a result of my circumstances, I didn’t want to read this book.  I was curious and I felt obligated to (because Michael had autographed my copy).  But, I couldn’t.  It subsequently sat on my bed-side table until March.

With Spring Comes Renewal

I started to come back to “life”, to my healthy self, in March.  As I did, one day I decided to pick the book back up.  It captivated me and Michael took me on a wonderful spiritual journey.  I Shall Raise Thee Up draws wonderfully on solid, time-tested Biblical principles to remind us that there are indeed seeds of greatness inside of us…even me.  God created me with a purpose and a plan.

He wants me to be great!

Great for His use.  Great to be a blessing to others.  Great to be God’s hands and feet in everyday action.  When we hear the proclamation of greatness, our human nature grasps for our own glory.  Our culture has taught us that greatness is prosperity.  That however is not the “spirit” behind what Michael has written here.  He leverages the stories of great people, great companies, and great teachings from the Bible to guide us to discover the greatness that each of us was created for.  His passion is to help you genuinely realize that you (and I) were created by a Great God with a Great plan.  It is God who invites all of us into relationship with Him and into a Great mission and a Great life-adventure.

Desire: The Jewel Of Greatness

Michael Holmes breaks the book up into eleven chapters that draw us to visit some key principles that God uses to help us discover and unlock the greatness that He created in each of us.  For me personally, the jewel principle came out in the shortest chapter (Chapter 5): Desire.

“God will often keep you away from the thing you desire to make you want it more!  He knows how to turn up the heat! When He feels the temperature is right then He steps in – He wants to make sure you want it as bad as He wants it for you!“  (page 51)

I cannot describe how this resonated with me.  Yes, some of it was my current life-circumstance – but this chapter, this principle, hit me.  I can attest that this is a truth.  I have experienced first hand over the past 6-months.  Further, Michael writes:

“When a person sees an obvious need and has the desire to do something – them doing something births leadership.” (page 52)

This is what Bill Hybels called Holy Discontent.  When you (or I) see a need that must be addressed, leadership is indeed birthed in us to find and implement the solution.  Something must be done.  This book invites you to seek the solution to the problem that God has given you the eyes to see…and do something about it!

It is not a sin to desire greatness

I believe that all of us need a wake-up call to nurture the seeds of greatness that are planted inside of us.  Michael’s goal is to help you identify that they are indeed there inside of you and to encourage you to give them some water and spiritual fertilizer to help them grow.  I would encourage you to take your own journey with Michael and Jesus and push forward to greatness.  I am on my journey.  Won’t you join me?

Buy the book here…

Special: (limited time) free audio book offer.  Who doesn’t like free – download your copy while you can!

________________________

Disclaimer:  This is an honest and heartfelt review, however, I must disclose that I was paid by Michael Holmes to develop the branding and website for this book.  Truthfully, the book itself has been an incredible blessing to me and I am honoured to have been invited to play a small part in marketing this wonderful project.

I have just finished reading a new book Collapse of Distinction by Scott McKain.  I think this is a valuable and practical read for those of you in Small Business or in Church Ministry.

Distinction for Small Business

Scott does an excellent job communicating his Four Cornerstones of Distinction.  After exploring why distinction is vital to competitive success, McKain dedicates a chapter to each cornerstone and fleshes out it’s distinctive role.

For the small business owner, one of the core concepts that struck me was the challenge he throws out to examine “what happens when customers are in contact with you“?  This takes you into a practical personal analysis of how you and your business interact with your customers.

“Every point of contact with your customer provides an opportunity for distinction” – page 119

This of course sounds so simplistic but most organizations rarely take time to do this assessment.  The benefit is to step back for a minute from the day to day busyness and look at all the ways you and your customers interact and try pick a point or two where you can develop differentiation.  He motivates the reader with some engaging case studies that show companies succeeding because they have applied this distinction principle with excellence.  This will motivate you to do the same for your organization!

Distinction for Churches

Recently I have been defining marketing for my readers here at Marketing Integrity and one of the simple definitions for marketing is “telling your story”.  Chapter seven builds out the Cornerstone of Communication where Scott challenges:

“You must customize your story to fit the audience segment you are attempting to attract“. – page 176

This is great marketing!  Though not written to churches, the concepts can quite easily be extrapolated by church leaders to help their churches more effectively connect with their communities.  Churches (in my opinion) have the best story (and message) on the planet to tell.  So, you can learn about good story telling techniques from this chapter!

Customer Experience Focus – not Value-Added Selling

I have to share this…I loved the entire book but I was personally most pleasantly surprised with Chapter 8 – The Fourth Cornerstone: Customer Experience Focus.  Why this chapter resonated with me is that in December I was given an assignment to read a book on Value-Added Selling – a book that was written in 1989 and that just agitated me from beginning to end.  There was so much I disagreed with in that book – but I was having a hard time articulating to people what the appropriate alternative was to that author’s approach to “sales”.  As I read Scott McKain’s “Ultimate Customer Experience“(TM) my heart leapt…Yes!  This is it!  This guy gets it!  The answer is embedded in strategic differentiation not value-added manipulation.

Stand Out and Move Up

So, I would encourage you to invest in this resource.  You will learn a lot that you can apply to your organization that will provide a solid competitive edge.  Every organization, whether business or church, can benefit from laying these cornerstones so that your foundation is stronger and the impact of your product(s) or service(s) is more far reaching.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book under the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers program.  The terms require an honest review of the content and I have writtern this review with integrity and transparency.

My question…should e-books be free or come with a fee?  Have you ever paid for an e-book?   If not, would you?  What is the advantage for those giving them away versus those charging?  I welcome everyone to share their thoughts and experiences.  I will follow this post with some thoughts of my own once I reflect and consider your responses.

David encourages the reader to begin reading blogs and commenting on them to help you develop your own blogging voice (page 202). I decided to heed this advice and give it a try. It was an excellent experience to hunt out some great marketing industry blogs, read the insights, and slowly begin making comments of my own. The next step was to launch my own blog. Here you have it…and now I am 2-months in (today) and slowly beginning to develop my blogging voice.

For small businesses and non-profits in Atlantic Canada I would highly encourage the same process if you can commit to it (you really have nothing to lose by at least giving it a try). I have personally found that not only am I learning a lot from others both through their posts and comment threads but also through some of the discussions that have occurred as a result of this Marketing Integrity blog both online and offline. In addition to the learning, I find that I have become much more alert to the marketing practices occurring around me every day. I look at things much more closely and am always looking for (and finding) things to write about as I encounter them in every day life. It has made me more passionate about my career, my trade, and this new company that I am launching.

I believe that if you start to blog on the subject that you are most passionate about, that passion will be ignited to another level and your enthusiasm will shine through to your readers and customers (and your social networks online and offline) like never before.

For any of you who have read some of my posts in the past few months I welcome your report-card, feedback, and critique so that I can become better at this with time and continue to develop my blogging voice. Thanks to David Meerman Scott for the challenge and encouragement to give this a try…I appreciate it and am lovin’ it!