Focus, focus, focus! That's what I keep hearing from every corner of the marketplace, whether it be financial, retail, wholesale, oil or books. The advice of the sages is to find out what you do best, what your market is, and stay focused on that. Buy for that market, market to that market, and don't go chasing rabbits (tiny markets that just drain you of time and resources).

As church bookstores, we have one primary market-the members of and visitors to our church. It is our ministry to respond to the needs of the individuals in that market.

It is a difficult statistic to measure because of factors like repeat visits and business from church staff, but it seems to be the consensus that most church bookstores are only reaching about 20% of their membership. My constant question, is how do we attract the other 80%?

When I visit stores or talk with them on the phone I am always looking for ideas managers have for getting the attention of their attendees. The overall response is, "Keep the bookstore in front of them in any way possible."

That means use any print media you have in the church, not just once in a while but every time. Have signage in prominent places in your store screaming that this particular book is a staff choice. Support from the one in the pulpit is your greatest help. The more books the pastor recommends, the more times he mentions the store, then the more chance you have of that 80% coming to the store.

Do you have places for advertising around the church? Posters have gone the way of buggy whips in most churches, with screens and electronic message boards having taken their place, so be there. All of this may sound simple and obvious. But I know, from my own experience, that you get busy, one week passes and then another. Routine is very comfortable and hard to disrupt.

If you ask, vendors will likely give you product that you can give away in a drawing. Sponsoring something like this once a month will many times draw in folks that might not ever have visited your store-people like free stuff!

This is not all just about sales. We cannot meet the needs of our people if we have no opportunity to get to know about those needs.

If you have any clever ideas about attracting your congregation, I would love to hear them so that I might share them with others. As always, I am available at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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