Author: Jay Mitchell

discovery stage of the sales process

The real objectives of the discovery stage in the sales process: Identify, intensify and internalize

November 30, 2017
Jay Mitchell

Most sales professionals approach the discovery stage of the sales process as a time to gather information about their prospect. This is absolutely a critical component of discovery, but there is a much more important objective to accomplish: Sales must put themselves in the shoes of their buyer and the buyer’s current journey.

Employ empathy for the buyer.

Remember that a buyer’s objective at this point in the sales process is to recognize their own needs.  

They’re asking themselves:

  • Do I even have a need?
  • How is that need impacting my organization/my team/me personally?
  • Who is impacted by not addressing that need?

If that is what buyers are seeking from interactions with the seller, the seller’s objective becomes to help the buyer gain a better understanding of (1) their need(s) and (2) the consequences their need(s) has on their organization, their team and them personally.

Therefore, the objective of the discovery stage of the buying process can simplify to:

  • Identifying critical business issues of the buyer — in context of their current/pending situation.
  • Surfacing and intensifying awareness of the pains — the impact of that situation.
  • Helping the buyer internalize the pain — or else “status quo” is an easy out.

If a seller accomplishes those three steps, then the result will undeniably establish and deepen the trust and credibility factor with the buyer.

But how can a seller accomplish the identify, intensify and internalize formula of the discovery phase?

The right balance of information gathering and insight sharing.

A seller should never pepper buyers with a deluge of questions (open-ended or not). Nor should sellers interrogate or provide their own monologue.

It is a balance, and it takes time.

Crafting and asking good questions is important. In fact, we work with most of our clients to build a library of discovery questions. But it takes skill and patience too. It is not good enough for sellers to ask questions.

More importantly, sellers must also allow the buyer enough time to craft and share a thoughtful response to sellers’ questions.

Often, sellers will ask a great open-ended question to start, but instead of waiting for an answer, too many sellers continue to ask questions, or try and explain the question with more questions without letting the buyer answer the first (and usually most important) question.

The takeaway here is for sales to remember to resist the temptation to continue talking and let the golden silence work for the seller (and the buyer).

A framework for good discovery questions.

  • The purpose of the questions is to understand, not to sell — so create and ask questions accordingly.
  • Start questions with How, What, Where or Why — use why and what, especially, for follow-up exploratory questions.
  • Do not forget, the desired outcome of the question is to trigger a conversation, not launch a presentation.
  • Questions should encourage buyers to pause and reflect — allow the buyer to think through their response, not just react to your question.
  • Phrase questions in a way that makes it clear to the buyer your objective is to help (seek to serve), not as a manipulative way that guides them to your solution.
  • Remember buyer “answers” you receive will likely not be facts. Rather they will be insights that uncover improved outcomes the buyer is seeking.

Every customer interaction will be most effective if we approach it (as the seller) first from the buyer’s perspective. When the buyer appreciates our genuine mission, they will often respond to our questions more thoughtfully. If the buyer sees we truly want to understand, they will embrace the time to share a more valuable, more honest response. And correspondingly, the buyer will welcome insights we, the seller, can offer about leading practices and solutions that may help them redirect course.

Discover More

next generation

Seeking to serve the next generation of sales and marketing leaders

November 23, 2017
Jay Mitchell

There is no one way to become a sales or marketing leader. Talk to other chief sales officers or chief marketing officers about how they got to where they are today, and you will hear a variety of fascinating stories about the experiences they had. You surely have your own unique story.

While every leader’s story differs, there often is a shared element within: mentors — the people who believed in them, advocated for them and entrusted them with an opportunity.

Think back to the people who helped shape your identity, your potential and your unique career path. I’m sure one, if not many, come to mind and bring a smile to your face.

Without these people, these relationships, you would not be where you are today.

It is easy as a leader to find reasons to avoid mentoring.

Mentorship is akin to being a younger person’s trusted advisor, there when they need you, with wisdom and direction, and that requires one of your most valuable resources: time.

It is a commitment. And it is a selfless commitment at that.

You will not get paid to be a mentor. You will not get a promotion. You will not get recognition per se.

But mentorship is one of the most rewarding things you can do in your career.

By taking all that you have learned and imparting it on others, you achieve a level of success money or titles cannot fulfill. You get to be courtside to watch a person’s life change and watch the trajectory of their career shift upwards. You make a connection with another human being, and that is really what everything boils down to.

Plus, beyond the satisfaction for doing good, as you impart these insights onto the next generation, you may often find yourself learning new things or understanding past things better.

Mentorship can take many shapes and capacities. There is no one “great” way to provide encouragement, direction and wisdom.

I want to leave you with this quote from the late Steve Jobs:

“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.”

Help make the people around you better. Help make the leaders of tomorrow and welcome mentorship when it comes calling.

See how Mereo seeks to serve in business

how marketing can create content

How marketing can create content that helps sales engage the buyer

November 16, 2017
Jay Mitchell

Marketing has the skills and expertise to create content to engage the buyer. Yet marketing content often leaves sales wanting for something more or different.

According to Demand Metric, 75% of sales professionals state they “occasionally” or “never” get what they need from marketing. Salespeople have reported that marketing’s content is too generic, it lacks relevance for the buyer or it is out of date.

Marketing can create content with sales insights.

The individuals on a marketing team have spent years studying and practicing their craft. They have the skills and expertise to create compelling communications materials, both online and offline. They use messages and imagery to resonate and avoid sounding “salesy.”

But marketing rarely is afforded the opportunity to interface with the buyer(s). As a result, it is difficult to directly connect with a voice or a face. Instead marketers often fail to see where and how their content “falls short” out in the field or where it truly helps a buyer engage and act.

What marketing needs in a B2B organization is for sales and leadership to enable them to take their skills and understanding to apply to specific buyers, with specific messaging, at specific stages in the buying cycle.

If sales spends time with marketing and makes an effort to communicate regularly, they can help marketing better understand:

  • Relevant data points about the targeted buyer
  • Agreed-upon buyer personas (both the organizational profile and key decision makers’ profile)
  • The buyer journey and the role both marketing and sales play in the corresponding marketing-sales funnel
  • The unique content needs exist based on the buyer’s stage in the funnel (to inform, inspire, educate, act, etc.)
  • The buyers’ reactions to marketing content, as well as frequently asked questions marketing can help enable sales to easily answer

When marketing creates content that sales can use, everyone wins.

When sales and marketing align, companies can generate 208% more revenue from marketing (MarketingProfs). And when a sales team and leadership provide insights and input to help marketing work smarter and produce more-effective communications, the buyer will better understand a B2B company’s message, value and differentiation.

Continue to review marketing’s content often and track its success or lack of success — and adjust accordingly. Marketing can be an integral part of the B2B sales process. It simply takes some TLC to make it as effective as possible.  

 

Arm Your Sales Team With Tools For Success

trusted advisor in sales

Transform from salesperson to trusted advisor in sales

November 2, 2017
Jay Mitchell

By very definition, salespeople sell. Yet, buyers do not like to be sold to. In fact, just 29% of buyers say they prefer to talk to salespeople, while 62% say they would rather consult a search engine (HubSpot).

Forrester even predicts that 1 million salespeople will be out of a job by 2020 because of self-service e-commerce.

Are these research nuggets a reflection of buyers moving more of their buying process to the internet or an outcome of receiving less and less value from engagements with salespeople?

While self-service e-commerce could truly threaten the B2B salesperson, it will never hold a flame up to the trusted advisor in sales.

While all trusted advisors in B2B sales are salespeople, not all salespeople are trusted advisors.

Salespeople sell products and services – that is they pitch products and services and take orders for those products and services. In contrast, trusted advisors engage with, genuinely care about and provide real value to their B2B buyers. Trusted advisors help rather than sell. Trusted advisors have buyers reach out to them in times of need. The mission of trusted advisors is to serve, but in fact they are the salespeople who tend to sell more than their peers.

If you have a sales team of salespeople, here are some methods to impart on them to help them transform into trusted advisors in sales (and to avoid losing their value to computers):

  • Think less about you and your company and more about your buyer and your buyer’s company.
  • Become an expert on your B2B buyer’s industry, company and role.
  • Listen more than you talk.
  • Challenge their status quo with perspectives that your buyer is likely either not aware of or that helps them avoid pitfalls in their current approach.
  • Offer outcomes (derived from solutions) rather than products and services.
  • Be prepared to answer hard questions about your solutions — honestly.
  • Talk about price without fear or hesitation.
  • Express legitimate urgency — not just because you need to make your numbers.

Contact me if you would like to learn more about inspiring your sales team to trusted advisor in sales status.

Align Your Salesforce

 



How sales and marketing can embrace technology — to engage with their buyers.

October 26, 2017
Jay Mitchell

At the beginning of October, we had the opportunity to partner with Mediafly — leader in sales enablement and transformation solutions — to present insights at the Forrester’s B2B Marketing Forum in Austin, Texas.

The Forrester’s B2B Marketing Forum brought together key thought leaders from across the country to help guide, inform and inspire B2B marketing professionals. Current B2B selling suffers a great disconnect between sales and marketing teams. And that gap inevitably filters down to sellers and buyers.

If you attended the event, I hope you came away with strategies to overcome these disconnects and bridge the gap. If you did not get a chance, I wanted to provide you three key takeaways from Mediafly and Mereo’s partner presentation, “The Engagement Path Less Traveled,” which Carson Contant, CEO of Mediafly, and I delivered.

  1. The “aha” moment for a buyer is hit or miss.

The “moment of truth” or “aha” moment is the point in time when the value you are offering resonates with the buyer: They have a more realistic view of their current situation, they understand your solutions, they can foresee their own gains and they are eager to make a decision about your offering.

Delivering valuable insights at the “aha” moment is sales engagement.

Forrester’s research has found that 74% of the time, buyers purchase from sellers who offer valuable insights — and yet, only 8% of buyers believe that sellers are focused on driving valuable end results for the buyer.

There is a clear disconnect from the materials marketing teams create to the conversations salespeople engage in with buyers. Regardless of the research you have done and the content you have created, if salespeople do not deliver valuable insights to buyers at the right moment in time with the right intentions and in the right manner, you can miss the opportunity altogether. And your salespeople might only get one shot before either the buyer forms opinions about your company and solution or they move on to your competitor.

  1. Buyers long for interactive conversations with their sellers.

Many of today’s buyers dread meetings with salespeople. People do not enjoy being sold to. Buyers believe sellers are focused only on their own objectives — and there is a large engagement gap between what most sellers deliver and what most buyers expect.

Sellers can engage buyers with outcome-oriented conversations and presentations. Content cannot be stale. Content cannot be static. Content must be dynamic and at the fingertips of your sales teams, to tap into on a need-by-need basis at those moments of truth we highlighted above.

This is not traditionally simple to achieve. In the past, sales and marketing have been limited by content creation, sharing and modification limitation. But with today’s modern technology, limit your capabilities no more.

Which brings us to…

  1. You have to align your marketing message with sales’ messaging — and scale that message with technology.

I have discussed in the past the importance of aligning sales and have provided a few strategies on how to bridge the gap that often exists.

I will remind you again here: About 60-70% of marketing content is never used by sales (Content Marketing Institute). Salespeople even spend an average of two days a week creating their own tools and messaging (CMO Council).

So how can your marketing teams create content that is both relevant and valuable to your buyer and accessible and valuable to your salespeople?

It starts with getting the message correct.

Then to realize true cross-functional collaboration — and to create and deliver relevant and valuable content to your buyers — your sales and marketing teams must align their messaging with technology.

Technology can enhance your message and amplify its impact on the buyer. Sales enablement technology can both scale the execution efforts of marketing and sales teams alike, while also embracing the interactive conversation approaches we mentioned above.

Think about Batman, for example. No, Batman does not technically sell anything, but he offers a service to his city by fighting crime. Batman’s “sales” tools are the gadgets he uses to fight crime. His “marketing” team back at his headquarters helps enable him to “sell” with gadgets they think will come in most handy for his audience.

But what if Batman faces a new criminal the “marketing” team did not prepare him for? What if he is put in a situation in which he needs to react quick or else face failure?

If Batman’s “marketing” team gives him “sales” tools or “content” that can be picked and chosen from as needed, that can be modified per the situation — and modified quickly and easily — he will realize success more times than not.

Similarly, if your marketing team can create content your salespeople can use per their buyer’s specific needs easily and efficiently, they will better connect with buyers.    

It you want to learn more about how to align sales, marketing and technology to connect with and serve your buyers, send me a note, and we can talk more.

 

SOLUTION MARKETING

decision makers

How B2B salespeople can engage decision makers

October 5, 2017
Jay Mitchell

According to Forrester Research, nearly two-thirds of B2B marketers identified engaging key decision makers as one of their top challenges.

I bet it is safe to assume salespeople struggle with the same issue as their marketing peers, yet in drastically different ways.

By the point in time marketing has vetted target organizations, after initial connections have been made, after buyer roles have been identified, you would think the hardest parts of setting a salesperson up for success for the rest of the sales cycle are past worries.

Yet knowing who the decision makers are within an organization does not translate to sales. Having a decision maker interested in your solution does not translate into sales. And, to be honest, sales do not translate into overall business outcomes. What makes your B2B organization successful is the value you provide your customers.

What then are some of the leading practices for engaging with decision makers to reveal your value and win their trust?  

1. Start with questions — not your solution.

Your solution offers specific features and benefits, but these features and benefits can be applied to your B2B buyer’s pains in many different ways, in varying degrees. You would not want to hear about how a company could help you organize email addresses for targeted automated messages if you have zero email addresses; you want to learn about how their software helps you gather email addresses. Likewise, a buyer will not care if your solution provides a way to streamline packaging services if your buyer does not sell a tangible product.  

Ask your decision maker questions. How does their organization operate? What are they really good at? What are they struggling with? What is holding them back from achieving their objectives? What are their goals? Once you understand their world, you are better positioned to help them envision your solution within their organization — and you will be better equipped to tell them exactly how it can fit into their processes, help improve others and help them reach specific outcomes. Which leads us to…

2. Focus the conversation on their outcomes.

Implementing your solution may seem like more work than just putting up with the pains, some buyers may think. Or maybe they are not convinced they will see the big return on the investment that they need. Help quell buyers’ worries and help them break their status quos by speaking in terms of outcomes.

Once you understand their goals, dialogue with them about how your solution can help them achieve – and even exceed – those goals. Work with marketing to create relevant and engaging case studies that show how your solution has helped others. Encourage your buyer to voice any of their objections, and talk through the objections in an honest conversation. If you are seeking to serve your buyer, you are setting out to help them do better and achieve more, and that will be transparent, appreciated and embraced by your buyer.

3. Don’t dismiss other stakeholders.

While your decision maker is vital to the sales process, as a person who has the authority to make a decision about your solution, other stakeholders matter, too. The average B2B buying decision committee, according to CSO Insights, has 5.7 buyers for a reason – they all have opinions. In order for your solution to be successful, stakeholders, AND people who are suffering the pain, will need to buy into the solution as well in order for its successful implementation. Do not forget to listen to their concerns and gather their insights on top of your decision maker’s.

When you engage buyers with these three methods, you lose your salesperson or marketing status and become a trusted advisor. You stop selling and you start serving. What follows is greater gains for both your organization and your buyer’s organization alike, because you started with what is in the best interest of you buyers first.

At Mereo, when my team puts in this extra time to engage following this formula, we get feedback from our clients like this:

“Mereo’s approach allowed them to first, get to know us better than we know ourselves in many cases and second, embed into our team and operations so they could help us in precisely the areas we needed. The real aha was the number of sales managers who shared with me that they thought the Mereo team members were Pitney Bowes employees and that we needed to hire more like them. That says it all!”

— Mike Graves, Pitney Bowes, Vice President, North America Channel Sales

Engage Decision Makers

Is your organization struggling to connect meaningfully with decision makers? Let’s talk.

business leaders

How business leaders consume content in the information age

September 14, 2017
Jay Mitchell

I will admit it: I do not love to read. How many other business owners, sales leaders and marketing executives agree?

Yet, reading has been vital to my success and my ability to serve clients so they can realize more success. Moreover, reading for business development is key. Plus:

  • Reading allows me to know the latest in my industry and clients’ industries.
  • Reading keeps me up-to-date (and sometimes ahead) of what my clients know.
  • Reading connects me with thought leaders — and their thoughts.
  • Reading ALWAYS gives me something new in terms of knowledge, inspiration, understanding, empathy.

And consuming content has become easier than ever in today’s information age.

Here are three steps I follow to stay up-to-date and ahead of the ball when it comes to the industry, my clients’ industries and the marketplace.

Get Information Delivered to You

I start my day by powering on my systems and opening up my email. I save business emails for later. Instead, I open the industry e-newsletters, updates, reports. I look forward to my Top Sales World “Today’s Top Sales Contributions” content and newsletters like Private Equity Professional, VentureBeat, Sales & Marketing Management (SMM) Monitor, The Daily MarTech Digest, MarketingProfs, local business journal daily wrap-ups and others relevant at the time. I review Google alerts I have triggered on topics, companies and people that I’m monitoring. Every Friday, the local business journals for cities I’m tracking release their weekly newspaper – so I invest come cycles weekly on that.

This works for me. I think it – with publications relevant for you – could work for you, too. Why?

Because it is easier to consume content and consume information regularly when it is coming direct to you — rather than you having to search the endless expanse of blogs, websites, news outlets and more.

Consume Information in Bursts

I spend about an hour every morning reading the latest news and insights. You could spend an entire hour reading just one whitepaper. If the whitepaper is relevant to you or your clients, then go for it.

Chances are, most days you will find more value in reading news bites and listening to sound bites and clippings.

  • Read headlines and the first paragraph.
  • Keep reading if the information is extremely relevant.
  • Do not hesitate to move on to the next piece of information.
  • Journal personal notes on what you are reading and applications for it (I leverage Evernote, so I can not only save the relevant article, but also highlight in it and capture some notes about it).

Pass Information Along

When we seek to serve our clients, we can seek to serve them more than products and services. Did you learn a potential challenge coming down the pipeline for your client through an e-newsletter? Hit “forward.” Did you post something to your blog that answers something your client just said was a major pain for them? Send them a link.

It is one thing to stay in the know yourself — it is another to share your knowledge with the people you seek to serve. I challenge you to take at least half an hour every day, in the morning, over your lunch break, after your family disperses in the evenings, to consume information that helps you lead.

Have a minute to consume some insights?

EXPLORE MEREO E-BOOKS

Baylor student

Baylor Student Hired for Fall Internship

September 7, 2017
Jay Mitchell

AUSTIN, TX (August 2017) Mereo’s philosophy has always been “Seek to serve, not to sell.” This simple phrase rings true in the internship program too. Mereo leadership believes internships invest in the future generation of professionals and is honored to work with students as they prepare to enter the workforce.

Mereo recently hired Davis Wolf, a marketing senior from Baylor University, to join the marketing team for the fall semester. Wolf has interned in a similar role doing business development work for One Network Enterprises, a software firm in Dallas over the summer, and he is excited to get more exposure to the marketing world with Mereo.

We asked him to share about his expectations for the internship.

“I am excited and anxious to start interning with Mereo. Their philosophy of “Seek to serve, not to sell” is not something you hear a lot in the business world. This is what makes Mereo unique and exponentially more marketable. I think my exposure to business development over the summer will help me be an asset to the team, and I cannot wait to learn more from their expertise as the semester goes on.”

Are you looking to boost your resume and gain some hands-on experience in marketing and/or sales? Send your resume to careers@mereo.co. We are always looking for hard-working, eager-to-learn individuals.

burnout

Avoid burnout: Make time for yourself before summer ends

August 31, 2017
Jay Mitchell

Burnout can hit any of us at any time in our careers. It is easy in our society and in our lines of work to let summer sail past without sitting in one beach chair, taking one vacation with our families, or spending quality time with our kids before they start back at school. Was it that warm outside? Chances are we did not notice.  

If you swapped the desk chair for a beach chair, I am glad to hear it. If you did not get the chance, continue reading to convince yourself to take a break before the cold sets in.

Burnout Is Real — And Poses a Threat to You and Your Employees

You might have a salesperson or marketing professional on your team who works harder, stays later, comes in on weekends, gives it their all. It’s easy to uphold these values in today’s workplace. That man or woman is great, you are probably thinking. They usually do better work, see more results for buyers and business alike, and seem dedicated to your team’s success. You might even be that person.

But how much longer can that “gives-it-their-all” team member keep it up? How long will it take until they have given it their all with nothing left? And wouldn’t it be great if they could maintain their high-level work over the long run?

According to the American Psychological Association, employee burnout is characterized by both emotional and physical exhaustion, which can result in lack of interest in and negative feelings toward one’s work and/or workplace. Numerous factors contribute to burnout, including heavy workloads, lack of perceived control and workplace culture.

Given the demands placed on employees today, burnout has become increasingly common. As a result, many companies and their employees have felt its effects. In fact:

  • In 2017, a national survey found that 95% of human resource leaders admit employee burnout is sabotaging workforce retention and productivity (Kronos, Inc.).
  • This same survey revealed that, for 46% of respondents, employee burnout is responsible for up to half (20-50%) of their company’s annual turnover (Kronos, Inc.).
  • According to a national survey conducted in 2012, 63% of workers feel they have high levels of stress at work, often resulting in extreme fatigue and/or perceived loss of control (ComPsych Corporation).
  • Health problems stemming from long-term occupational stress (such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and decreased mental health) often lead to more serious conditions, according to a 2015 study (Harvard Business School).

Despite what the statistics say, you are not out of luck. In fact, you can take effective action against your own and your employees’ workplace burnout, even now in the final weeks of summer.

You Must Serve Yourself Before You Can Serve Your Buyer

Charge up to hit the fall season with full force by investing in yourself.

  1. Get Enough Sleep
    Self-care takes on many forms, but when it comes to preventing burnout, it turns out Mom was right: A full night of sleep really does make all the difference.

    According to research, getting less than six hours of sleep per night increases your risk for burnout. After hours at the office, sleep allows your body to replenish and recharge. Not only does lack of sleep impair job productivity and performance, but it also leads to fatigue, increased sensitivity to stressful events, impaired mental function and decreased motivation.

    In the next few weeks, take some time to catch up on sleep, as well as to establish consistent sleeping patterns.

  2. Take Some Time to Relax
    Beyond sleep, relaxation is a powerful tool to combat burnout. While the weather is still nice, spend time outdoors. Go golfing. Get out the fishing pole. Relax in a lawn chair to decompress from the office. With a clearer mind, you will be able to dive back into your clients’ needs with greater focus, attention and energy.
  3. Step Away From the Electronics
    Technology has revolutionized communication as we know it, making employees more accessible than ever before. We can check our email at the dinner table. We can Facetime with team members any time. Though this certainly has its benefits, there is a time and place to utilize such tools.

    The next time you are out of the office, challenge yourself to genuinely unplug. Establish clear boundaries for yourself regarding technology use at home, and designate specific times to answer phone calls and check email. While accessibility is important, balance should be a priority. Summer lasts only so long, make an effort to enjoy the nice weather and your family’s cleared schedules before they change.

  4. Get Organized
    When you organize your work life and your family life, you are more capable of prioritizing your time. Whether that involves updating your calendar, making a prioritized to-do list or even organizing your desktop, do whatever it takes to get your affairs in order before fall chaos ensues.

Make Time For Those Who Matter Most

Beyond self-care, it is extremely important that you prioritize the people around you that matter most. It is easy to immerse ourselves in sales goals, marketing strategies and profit margins. But when it comes down to it, we can find the most meaning and satisfaction by spending time with those who matter. Take time to connect with the people you care about, and actively tend to those relationships in a way that may not always be possible during the fall and winter when everyone else’s schedules fill up too.

While burnout prevention is important to your personal health, it is also vital in maintaining healthy client relationships. As the saying goes, “before you can help others, you must first help yourself,” and, in all reality, seeking to serve your clients is only possible if you are physically and mentally capable of doing your best.  

So, as the summer comes to an end, do yourself, your family, your company and your clients a favor by investing in you.

mission trip

Service in action: A mission trip to the Dominican Republic

August 24, 2017
Jay Mitchell

When I talk seek to serve, I usually apply it to business scenarios. It feels great to serve our clients, for their business goals and professional goals. But seek to serve can go deeper and be more meaningful to our lives overall. And at Mereo, all of our principals also seek to serve their families, their friends, their communities and our world.

I have had a fair number of mission trip experiences within the United States, but at the end of July, my family and I had the opportunity to venture to the Dominican Republic for the Edify Family Experience mission.

Edify is a nonprofit that helps support those who are providing affordable Christ-centered private education to children in poor countries. “Edupreneurs” currently offer robust educational opportunities for children in cities within Accra, Ghana, India, Lanzhou and more, to provide them hope and opportunity to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Yet all these schools face common challenges: few capital resources for expanding classrooms and facilities, a lack of academic and extracurricular resources to provide a strong Christ-centered education. That’s where Edify steps in, financially, educationally and spiritually.

My family landed in Punta Cana and made our way to La Romana. What ensued was eight days of service, fun, love, education and joy. You’ll see from the photos and short recaps just that.

I’m not sure who learned more: the local children, my family or myself.

Sunday | July 30, 2017

Traveled to the Dominican Republic. The villa is beautiful — not what I expected for a mission trip.

Edify

Monday | July 31, 2017

Toured three private schools run by women who have taken out multiple loans to upkeep and expand. These schools charge about $15 a month per student — very affordable from an American point-of-view, but a stretch for many families in the Dominican. Edify forecasts 98% payback on their loans in the next three years, having over $7 million in loans serviced the last half-decade.

seek to serve

Met Luis Sena, Edify’s VP of Latin America programs. After sharing dinner with Luis, I was anxious to listen to this wise, inspiring man again on Friday.

Tuesday | August 1, 2017

The first day of summer camp kickoff. The kids sang and danced to celebrate the kickoff. Our camp had a little more than 60 students from preschool-age to 16, with three teachers. The students take great pride in their schooling and value building a community, something our kids back at home miss out on all too often.

Dominican Republic

We split into four stations: technology, Bible, craft and recreation. My nephew Andrew and I led the technology station, with half-hour lessons exploring the use of battery-powered technology that uses a Tablet because the electricity is very unreliable.

Wednesday | August 2, 2017

Another day of back-to-school camp! The kids did their rotations through the four stations. Today included time spent picking up trash with the students in their neighborhood, which was a lesson for all of us on stewardship.

community service

Met a 12-year-old girl named Penelope, who had a brother who was diagnosed with cancer at age 3 and underwent 25 chemo sessions and a kidney removal. He is now healed and back to normal, turning 5 in October. God is good.

seek to serve

Thursday | August 3, 2017

Students enjoy engaging with one another and making new friends. My wife and I were amazed as we watched our kids step up and make true connections and impacts.

mission trip

Community service

Edify

Friday | August 4, 2017

Today we hosted Fiesta Day at the school with a jump house, popcorn and stations for bean bag toss, balloon pop, Plinko, ring toss, Nerf darts, and face and fingernail painting . The kids won tickets at each of the stations and could use the tickets for water balloon toss and whip cream pie in the face. My daughter Jenna received the most pies in the face, and all the kids were great sports.

Edify

Seek to serve

Best part was hearing the students call our kids out (through a translator) for how much they appreciated and loved them.

community service

Saturday and Sunday | August 5-6, 2017

Celebrated the great week by hanging out at the beach. Then we headed back to Texas on Sunday.

The Edify Family Experience in the Dominican Republic took me away from clients, from work, from business partners. I understand, in our society, that leaving these things behind for even a week can be difficult. But seeking to serve on a deeper level teaches us so much more than we can learn otherwise. It can give us insights, provide us perspective — even help us recharge — as we head back to our professional callings.

I encourage you and your families to find your Edify Family Experience mission. Go make a difference. Connect with others. Seek to serve, not to sell™.

 

Seek to Serve