Eric Smith was the crusade director for R. W. Schambach and he ran the ministry of Evangelist Steve Hill. Now he helps hundreds of ministries with marketing, fundraising, and media exposure. Today, you will learn what happens behind the scenes to make a ministry successful.

Eric Smith leads Smith Media Group, a marketing company that makes ministry its business. He promotes ministries and helps preachers to massively increase the number of people they are able to reach with their message.

Smith Media Group is proud to support Christian-run organizations globally. They are a one-stop shop for graphic and web design, branding, marketing, media exposure and fundraising. Their clients have included Perry Stone, Christ for All Nations, Oral Roberts University, Daystar, Joyce Myer, Robb Thompson, and many others.

Here are some of the services Smith Media Group Offers: 

Targeted Ad Campaigns

Live Streaming

Direct Mail

Web Design

Speaker Management

Social Media Marketing

Media Buys

Donor Development

Video Production

Ghost Writing and Book Promotion

Website: http://smithmediagroup.com/

Read the Lead Magazine: https://readleadmag.com/

For Evangelism Coaching, listen to The Evangelism Podcast

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Eric Smith was a crusade director for RW Schambach and he ran the ministry of evangelist Steve Hill. Now he helps hundreds of ministries with marketing fundraising and media exposure. Today you’ll learn what happens behind the scenes to make a ministry successful. Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King we’re Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host missionary and evangelist Daniel King. Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a great guest. His name is Eric Smith and Eric leads the Smith media group, a marketing company that makes ministry its business. And so he helps to promote ministries and helps preachers to massively increase the number of people that they’re able to reach with their message. So brother, Eric, thank you so much for joining me today.

Eric Smith (01:28):
Thank you so much, Daniel. Appreciate the time looking forward to just to get a chance to share about all the main things God can help anybody to do to get the message of the gospel around the world.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:38):
Well, let’s start at the beginning. When you were first starting out, you were the crusade director for the great evangelist, R. W. Schambach. And I remember when I was just a little kid, my dad took me to one of RW, Sean box tent crusades in Detroit, Michigan, right in the inner city. There were so many miracles and signs and wonders. He was such a dynamic preacher. And you were helping RW Schambach to set up his events all over the United States.

Eric Smith (02:05):
Yeah, that was I cut my teeth my full time. First time ministry event with working with a full-time minister was brother R. W. Schambach and I got saved in a small assembly, got church in upstate New York. You know, and our associate pastor it was, it was in December. He got church for, for just a season. We became good close friends, long story short. He eventually starts working for brother R. W. Schambach. I was electrician by trade. Brother R. W. Schambach was starting his first tanker say in many years, because he had suffered from a heart congestive heart failure. And his tent crew had just had dissembled and his crews had dissembled. So he was ready. He was back to, you know, back in 90, 1995, he was ready to start preaching the gospel under that big gospel tent and pull the nets in.

Eric Smith (02:48):
And they had no electrician. They had no sound system. They were launching on the Friday. I got a call on a Monday night from my friend about 10:00 PM saying, Eric, Hey, how you doing? I’m doing great. How are you doing? And we began to talk a little bit, say, listen, I’m calling you because brother R. W. Schambach has need of you, sir. I was like, wow, well, what’s he Anita? He said, well, explain the situation. We’re here in Baltimore. We don’t, we have, our tent is going up. It’s not up yet. We’re behind schedule. We have no electrician. I don’t know what to who to call. I know your electrician, Eric, would you prayerfully consider coming down and helping us out? So I spoke to my wife about this. We listen to brother Schambach on radio. That 15 minute broadcast was powerful every single day.

Eric Smith (03:26):
And I talked to him, I said, look, I want to do it. So went to Baltimore, was on a plane the next day at 6:00 AM got to Baltimore and worked about 48 hours straight. Got the electric put up the generators, put in, got the sound system in. And we did TV live that first night and the very next day unbeknownst to myself. Oh, there’s some, I sat down said, son, thank you so much. I like to hire you. And that’s how I got into full-time ministry. And what an honor and a privilege I worked basically doing anything initially and and within six months, but somebody set me aside, says, son, I seen the way you handle it. Talk to people and pastors, I just love the representation who you are and what you’re about.

Eric Smith (04:06):
I wish to be a crusade director and then chills went down my spine. Oh my goodness. So tell me about brother Schambach like I’ve never done such a thing, you know, what does that entail? You don’t worry. So, and you can handle it. That’s about what I got. And and they said here here’s the schedule. So from that point on Daniel, I was responsible for a multi-million dollar budget, you know, a staff of 40, 50 people. And I was the one responsible filling up arenas, Madison square garden. So think those big tenant Rita’s getting churches on board. So it was baptism by fire, but you know what? It was the greatest experience in my life. Brother R. W. Schambach and his wife, sister soundbite became like a mom and a father to my wife and I, we traveled with them everywhere, everywhere they went. And we just, we constantly planned meetings. And then we drove brother R. W. Schambach many times from, from Texas to California or Florida. Meanwhile, I’m on the phone and, and making phone calls and putting logistics together. But you know, what a privilege it was to serve him tens of thousands would come to Christ in those States. One of the greatest advantages of the tools I have ever seen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:05):
Yeah. I loved hearing RW. Schambach preaching. He’d always say you don’t have any problems. All you need is faith in God. And that that saying has sustained me because sometimes in ministry, you, you face problems or you think you’re facing problems, but if you keep your faith in God, he will work things out. So, so then after you were working with, with Schambach, you also helped Steve Hill, the evangelist from the Brownsville revival who had such a tremendous impact in, in Brownsville, and then in other parts of the world.

Eric Smith (05:40):
Yeah, it was again, what an honor and privilege to get to that. Sometimes I pitched myself the privilege we’ve had to help serve. It’d be the armor bearers, the air and the earth for these, these, these wonderful men of God. Yes, Steve Steve reached out to me when I was working for brother Schambach and of course I was very familiar. The, with revival over 5 million people went through that church in Pensacola, Florida. I think it represented like 162 nations Kings princesses. Senators went through there. There was just, the impact was amazing. And Steve wanted to take that message across America and really around the world. And that’s when he reached out to me. And you know, what a privilege I’ll tell you, Steve was such a pure evangelist for the semi course, great preacher, pull the nets and see miracles, you know, just, you would see miracles, they just make your head spin under brother R. W. Schambach’s tent.

Eric Smith (06:25):
And he services. Steve was just like, it’s all about souls, Eric, let’s go after to associate would just start crying. We start talking about souls and what a pure evangelists. I, I can, I can think of several crusades where, you know, we’d be in Riga. I was whispered Steve film, Riga. And when he gave an altar call, it wasn’t like people would have, you know, scratch your head, make a decision, I’d go down. And sort of Steve was so passionate. I mean, bands be popping. I was Dick. You need to be saved, run down that aisle. And people literally would sprint down the aisle, almost a point where they almost crashed into the platform. They couldn’t stop in time. It was just amazing. And I mean, thousands upon thousands of people would come to Christ in those services and what a privilege it was to serve brother Steve, and for 12 years, and be his crusade director and help him out with just, just all the structure when it comes to a multi-million dollar budget. And of course, facilitating crusades. And his schedule was, you know, brother R. W. Schambach. I travel about 200 days out of the year with him, with Steve. I was traveling about 250 to 275 days out of the year. So it was just a crazy pace, but, you know, he said, Eric, it’s a short season. We’ve got to go after souls. We’ve got to do it. So what a privilege to serve those two powerful men of God.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:36):
Yeah. I’m so amazed at both R. W. Schambachand Steve Hill, how their fruit continues to this day, I’ve met so many people whose lives were impacted by them and, and they are passionate about soul-winning because of Steve Hill’s passion. And so it’s just so, so amazing. Who are some of the other ministries that you’ve been able to help over the years?

Eric Smith (07:57):
No, we’ve been privileged to help hundreds of ministries, Daniel. I mean as you’re, you’re very familiar with CFAN brother Bonnke, we’ve had a chance to do several things. Your brother Bonnke you know loved his heart loved Daniel Kolenda, what Daniel is doing right now. I know you’ve done crusades with brother Kolinda as well. You know, we’ve done things with Joyce Meyers, Perry, stone you know, feed the children, just multiple other ministries. We’ve we just, you know, I, I just I thank the Lord because you know, there’s seven and a half billion people on the face of the earth. And I just, sometimes I’m amazed that people contact us, Eric lists, I’ve heard what you guys are doing. We want your help, you know, and you know, to me, it’s all about. So as the Bible says, he who wins souls is wise and what we want to do and God’s helped us is to create some strategies and ways that we can get the message out the door.

Eric Smith (08:41):
We can help facilitate ministry opportunities for literally hundreds of ministries on a weekly basis, typically on a non COVID year on a week of basis, we administer taking place. I’m usually four continents of the earth every single week. And so when I, my head down the pillow each night after working 16 hour days you know, I, I can rest at ease knowing, you know what, today we saw 37,000 people come to Christ and the next day, 24,000. And, you know, I want to take millions upon millions to happen with us. Cause that’s what it’s all about.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:10):
Amen. Let’s talk a little bit about the nuts and bolts of what you do and what you do I think is so valuable for ministries and, and for evangelists. Often people may be gifted in being on the platform, but then the organization, the behind the scenes, they need other people to come alongside them to help. And it sounds like, like you’re the type of person who really helps put people on platforms so that the anointing can, can really begin to flow out of their lives. And so your, your website says that the Smith media group is a one-stop shop for graphic and web design branding, marketing media exposure in fundraising. Can you talk a little bit about why all those things are important for a ministry to have? What, why should someone who’s in ministry care about graphics and web design and marketing? What, why is that important?

Eric Smith (10:10):
Well, it’s important for lots of reasons. You know, obviously you know, as, as an evangelist of yourself or, or other ministries, I have a compelling to go all the world preach the gospel. And I would say, of course, every evangelists has a heart, right? That’s, that’s the idea. We want to get you in churches, in front of lots of people. So you can pull the nets on a nightly basis, but we also have lots of pastors that have that same commission. They say, you know what, Eric, I love my church. That’s why that’s my first loves that. But I also want to go into all the word, preach the gospel, but you know, people don’t want to bring you in, unless they have a little understanding who you’re about. And that’s where graphics come into play. That’s where a website that represents you well comes into play because usually when a church looks to bring a speaker in, they look through several different layers, they go to a website, they want to see does this website talk about this ministry?

Eric Smith (10:54):
Do I have some videos I can watch? You know I, then they’ll go from, from a website oftentimes to social media, let me see what this guy’s posting. You know, let me see, you know, the content there. If you have a live stream or a webinar process or or a promo video, that’s huge because a pastor that brings an evangelist or a minister in, they want to get an idea of what to expect, what the posit will you leave? Well, I bring her to my church, so where that’s, where marketing and branding and these, these, these, these resources and assets that you can create to any ministry can create themselves and should have on their platforms is so important because it answers all the who, what, when and why, and a pastor, you know, they’re busy people again, the bigger the church gets, the more busy they get. They want, they want to know if there’s a minister, I should consider bringing my church. You know, I, I want to be able to look at something quickly to get an understanding what to expect and those, those, those assets, the website, the social media, the promo videos the live stream, the webinars you know, all those kinds of things play a big part in helping those people make decisions. Okay.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:56):
So let’s go through some of the things that your, your website says that you guys do, and, and, and I’ll just fire them off in and you tell briefly what it is and why it would help a ministry. So the first thing is like targeted ad campaigns. What’s that?

Eric Smith (12:12):
Yeah. That’s where, you know, nowadays people are very familiar with social media, right? With analytics on Facebook and those kinds of things. Well, you know, w with targeted ad campaigns right now, we’ve created algorithms now where our ministry, it can be so specific. For example everyone’s familiar with terrestrial TV or linear television. That’s if you’re on spectrum Comcast cable, you put commercials, you put a broadcast on. Well, we now have through set top box is the ability to track people’s tendencies. So I can be so specific when a ministry says, listen, I’m coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I want to do an event at this, at this convention center. I like to share with Christians I’m coming to town. So we can through 4,000 different keywords. We can now go through algorithms and we can pinpoint where people can be targeted. So they can be a part of event.

Eric Smith (12:59):
They can be part of a crusade. They can be part of a, of a church meeting. And then it’s not just through TV, but it’s also through website. So now, if you go to, for example, Fox news, to get your, your news content, or you go to ESPN, guess what your ads on there. If people now get their content through Netflix and Hulu and sling, you know, OTT devices, well, guess what, that we can create a campaign that your, your ads are there as well. So the beauty of the target ad campaign means that we can be very specific. We can be laser focused on getting your message out to specific people that we believe would resonate to hear your voice.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:33):
Another thing that you do, which I think is so important during these times of COVID, when it’s hard for audiences to get together in one place, you help people with live streaming. How, how do you help churches and ministries do live streaming?

Eric Smith (13:47):
Yeah, we have our own proprietary platform. You know, we, we, we try to keep it reasonable cost $45 a month. But in essence way, it helps ministries get their message outside the four walls of your church. Obviously, if you’ve got 200 people in front of you in the four walls of your church, because a live stream, you can literally have thousands of additional people you’re having effect on. And that’s what we want to do. Right? As, as administrators, we want to be wise stewards of our resources and our time. And if, and if we can put our more audience in front of you because of a livestream platform, obviously it makes logical sense. We have hundreds of ministries tapping into our livestream platform right now. The livestream itself helps ministries to find out. We can show analytics on a monthly basis showing that the city, the state, the County, the countries that are tuning in this gives these ministries opportunity to begin to minister to them.

Eric Smith (14:32):
You know, it encourages people to submit prayer requests in, and that bridge gets built as that bridge gets built. Now you have the ability to, to follow up with people and minister to them and encourage them. And what, what, what a lot of people do Daniel with livestream when it comes to a church it’s also a perfect medium in which if a person’s interested in coming to a they’ll watch your live stream first, they want to get and get an idea of what to, what to expect. And what happens is we find the, watch it a second time, a third time by use of the fifth or sixth time they’re coming to your church. Of course, pastors love that because now they get rooted in become, you know, become a member of the church. And when it comes to an evangelistic ministry, it’s also a great platform for the simple fact that as an evangelist you don’t have a church that supports you.

Eric Smith (15:13):
It’s people that love your heart and your passion and your ministry and the way they thank you when ministry takes place, when you’re, when a miracle takes place in someone’s life, or someone’s soul good, saved where they want to say, Hey, pastor, brother, Daniel, I want to support you because I want more people to be touched. It’s like, you’ve touched my mom, my dad, my brother, and my sister. So there’s a huge opportunity with live stream. And, you know, in a day and age with everyone being on social media, which everybody, the brother is right now, nothing wrong with it. I think there should be on there, you know, but what happens as you’re populating Facebook, you’re populating you Twitter, you’re populating Periscope. You’re propagating YouTube. You know, you want to do is you want to drive traffic back to your website and a live stream platform on your platform, drives people back to your platform, to your website, helps them become aware of your church about your children’s ministry, your youth ministry, all the events going on helps become better from it with you. And it gives an opportunity through archive process to watch the message a second or third time. So if you’re a congregation member, unfortunately, you know, I tell these statistics to pastors all the time and they get disappointed. They get depressed, but you know, they people hear about 50% of what you shared and about a 30 minutes or an hour message. So the beauty vice changes, they can go back and hear 0.2 0.3 0.4, apply underlies, and good things will happen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:23):
Let’s talk about direct mail in years past direct mail was one of the main fundraising tools that a lot of big ministries used to use. And now a lot more fundraising is done on, on digital platforms. Do you think direct mail is still an effective way to connect with people?

Eric Smith (16:42):
It is. It is. And, and, and you know, obviously you, you can see based upon age, what people’s tendencies are, right? So if you’re, if you’re basically 50 and above, people still love getting that piece in the mailbox. And you know, I we’re, we’re helping ministries right now. Honestly, sometimes we’re bringing in hundreds of thousands, some cases, millions of dollars, and it’s coming still through the mail. People love the you know, the ability to open the letter up. They want to touch it. They want to read it. They want to put it down. They want to pray about it. You know, some people are scared of electronic opportunities, right? They’re worried about their, their, their, their stuff being stolen. I mean, you hear those stories as well, but I think it comes to the point where the, the newsletter, the direct mail going to mailboxes is still effective. It’s more, if it’s more cost efficient for administration to do the electronic, cause you’re not paying for postage and those kinds of things, but again, for a lot of ministry, especially ministries who have been branded for quite some time and have a loyal followers for them, in some cases, decades, the traditional mail piece in the mailbox still makes lots of sense.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:44):
Yeah. And in our ministry, we send out a monthly newsletter and still about 80% of our income comes from the newsletter that we send out. And, but I find that younger people are moving more and more to digital platforms and, and being comfortable with, with digital giving. So I think it’s good to have a mix between those two, at least in, in my experience let’s talk about a web design. I’ve gone to some ministry websites, and I know the hearts of the ministers. They have a huge heart for the world. They’ve done really significant things, but sometimes their, their website design is just horrendous. And actually I’ve spent a lot of money this last year, helping our website and, and getting it up to where it needs to be. Talk to me, what are some of the, the elements that should be included in a good ministry web design?

Eric Smith (18:37):
Yeah. Well, again, your website represents you, it’s really your biggest marketing piece. So for the, for an audience that’s becoming familiar with you it should answer all again, the who, what, when and why what’s your purpose is what your mission is, what you’re called to do. And you know, having a, you know, a basically WordPress is pretty much the most popular platform to use for websites right now. Video is a great thing to include on that, but again, a website represents you in a spirit of excellence, and if you have old content on there and you have things on there from three months ago, six months ago, or your blog doesn’t look like it’s been posted for two years, you kinda S you kind of share a message to an audience that you probably don’t want to share. And so it’s important to have a website that again, gives a perspective person, whether it be a pastor, you know, looking for someone to bring in, you want to give them a little taste.

Eric Smith (19:26):
Maybe a promotional video is always a great thing to have, because it gives that pastor an idea of what to expect. When you come to hear your preaching, they see the demonstration to see you’re laying your hands on people, those kinds of things. But it’s also it’s one of those things where it should be, it should be a place that content is constantly is being attitude. So you’re taking old content, all content down new content, because the idea is you want to drive people back to your website on a regular basis. If your content is not changing, why would they come back a second and third time? So there is the importance of really, it’s a, it’s a piece that represents each ministry. And I get a lot of messages just get busy, and I know the situation and what happens is sometimes it seems like the websites are one less thing to think about.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:05):
Let’s talk about speaker management. I have some friends that are in the speaking business, speaking for corporations, and they would often have a speakers Bureau who would represent them. They would call different corporations and, and arrange all the details. And that’s not really common in, in churches most churches and most people who minister in churches, they’ll personally call pastors and, and, and, and set up dates for them to come speak. But what do you do representing Christian speakers?

Eric Smith (20:40):
Sure. Good question. Daniel. What, what, what I did when I was actually still working for brother Schambach, I would get call from ministries and they say, Eric, listen, I feel a component of on the worst preach. We also, but I don’t know the first step. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to knock on doors. I don’t want to call a pastor friend say, Hey, what’d you have me come and preach. So, you know, what we’ve learned early on was that there was a real valid need out there that probably two thirds of the, of the ministers that I knew what had to do more, they wanted you to, to on a regular basis, get the message out the door. Of course, pull the nets and win souls, pray for people watch God move in services and had lives being impacted.

Eric Smith (21:12):
And goodness decades ago I launched our own speakers Bureau with a handful of people. Now we represent well over a hundred people that are preach the gospel every single week going, you know here, domestically and around the world. And the speaker’s Bureau is, is, is a place in which now traffic comes to us churches and, and, and some corporate entities will come to us and say, look, we’re looking for a minister that preaches on this specific topic. They can get a chance to take a look at our, our, our, our list of, of ministries that we’re assisting. And then they content, Hey, Eric, I love to have this speaker come in. W could you help us facilitate? We’d be happy to, and that’s what we do. It’s just, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a it’s another tool that ministries can tap into that would allow us to tap into our experience.

Eric Smith (22:01):
I’ve been to 52 countries. I’ve been to over a thousand churches personally, here in America out of the 1,665 mega churches in America. Well, that’s 2000 members, or more or more, I think I’ve been to over 40% of those churches personally. So just because relationship and people have confidence, and if we recommend somebody and the Lord course feel putting his blessing on things we see doors open up. And of course the, the beauty of is that every single day we have speakers pulling the nets in and souls are being saved.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:29):
I was looking through some of the pictures on your website, and I saw many of my friends there. Joe Odin is there Donna Schambach Erin Bagwell and other friends that, that I’ve had for for many years. And so that’s wonderful that you’re, you’re able to help them out. I know every preacher wants more places to preach because they’ve got a message burning inside to communicate to a loss world. You also do media buys, donor development, video production. You even help people with their books, with ghost writing in with with book promotion. Would you like to touch on any of those?

Eric Smith (23:09):
Yeah, sure. I mean, I think I talked to probably when it comes to books, I would say one out of two pastors, I speak, we have a book in the heart and spirit, but can they just do it on the first steps? What do I do, Eric? You know, I just don’t know the next step. So we do a couple things. So some pastors are really good writers, and then we assist them with writing the content. We’ve been a company, we become a ghost writer in many ways. So we, we, we take, we take what they’ve written, put chapters together, obviously put content, content and flow, that kind of stuff, type setting. We do the whole thing from start to finish all the design, all the artwork, even do all the marketing, get the message out the door and selling the books as well for these pastors when it comes to TV terrestrial TV is still a popular medium to it to get the gospel out the door.

Eric Smith (23:50):
Everyone’s familiar with TBN and Daystar and word networks and impact networks and CTS and, and all the other ones that are out there. But we’re also helping ministries get on ABC, NBC, CBS, and CW, and my TVs every week again, lives are being impacted by this message that goes out the door. So, you know, it’s, it’s those are, those are very important mediums. And again, if someone’s got a 28 30 produced it also allows me cause we’ve thankfully have built such great relationships with so many different platforms. I can get most ministries on a platform that reaches about 10 million people a month at no cost. All I need are 28 30. So we’re all about just winning souls to help administrators get their message out the door. And I believe as the Holy spirit puts his blessing on things increased comes, so let’s get saved, miracles happen, and most importantly, the lives are changed. So yeah, those, those are all great aspects to order development. You know, every ministry, especially evangelists, right? You don’t have a church that supports you with a tie that offerings you have to go out and, and basically through partnership what comes in helps you to plan what I can do for ministry. It’s a bill.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:56):
Part of being an evangelist is raised.

Eric Smith (24:59):
It’s a lifeline, right? It’s if money’s are coming in, you can’t go around the world and preach the gospel. You just can’t, the gospel is free, but it takes tens of thousands of dollars in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars to do these events. And so what the direct mail plan or direct mail is, here’s what I tell people all the time. I’m, I’m a firm believer that money follows ministry. And what I mean by that, you show people, proven ministry, people are going to want to support it, start sharing testimonies, a why being changed and what we do for ministries. Again, because a lot of ministers say, listen, Eric, I could put a message together, but I can’t write. I just can’t. So what we do is we’ll, we’ll assist them. We’ll, we’ll put together a newsletter. That’s ethically based ministry based, not crisis mail.

Eric Smith (25:37):
You know, we’re not going out of business at three days. If this money doesn’t come in, that’s not the God who we serve. We serve a God. That’s more than enough, right? That leads us in victory and triumph, everything that we face. So what we do is we put ministry ahead of them. We share what’s going on with this ministry is the impact that they’re having. And we let them know as Philippians four 17 says, Paul said this to the Philippian church when they were, when they were supporting him, he was, he said, I’m thankful that you’re here supporting them. I’m more thankful that the people are being added to your account because you’re supporting me because every person comes to Christ through what I do is being added to your account in heaven. And that’s what we do with our, with our direct mail and our partnership mail on our donor base. And our thank you letters. And our fundraising leadership ministries is we show people proof of ministry. We, we, we champion what God’s doing in the services. And when people see it, they get behind his ministries.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:26):
You also have a really cool magazine that I love called lead magazine. And you’ve been kind enough to feature some of the articles I’ve written in, in the past whose lead magazine for

Eric Smith (26:40):
Yeah. Lead magazine is really for any pastor leader that wants to just get some nuggets of truth, get, get some ideas or suggestions. And what’s working for one will work for you. You know, Bible says this, that, you know, when you’re faithful little, he gives you more and he’s not a respecter of persons. Right. So what he does for Daniel Kolenda, he’ll do for Daniel King or he’ll do for Donna Schambach. And and so w w what leads all about is giving people, proven ideas, proven strategies ministry opportunities where, you know, you get a chance to pour your heart into someone, encouraged someone, pastors by the thousands and ministers in general, by the thousands leave ministry every single month because of depression and giving up, and then listening to the, to the devil, lie to them that they just can’t do it.

Eric Smith (27:23):
They’re a failure. You know, what we want to do lead magazine is plant seeds or righteousness and encourage people and say, you know what? You can do. You can go forward and just keep your hands in a pole and keep Hom, because God’s going to do great things on your behalf. And, you know, we’re privileged almost a hundred thousand pastors receive lead magazine right now, almost 1.2 million people started 10 years ago with about 4,000 pastors getting it and has grown organically to those numbers. So we’re just, we give God praise for what he’s done.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:47):
Wow. That’s amazing what a tremendous platform. Well, if someone’s interested in, in what you do, or they want to talk to you more and, and, and find out if you can help them, what’s a way that they can get in touch with you.

Eric Smith (28:01):
The best way to reach out to us is going through our website, which is Smith media group.com. Or you can go to, you know, if you want, if you’re more of the traditional guy, you can go to their phone number (419) 224-6010 is our office number. You know, I talked to pastors probably over a hundred pastors a week and give counsel, we’ll give guidance. People wanted to ask questions. I’m here available. My team are here and available to ask questions. You know, to our, our, our heartbeat is to be the errand or for ministry. So again, people like yourself, Daniel could be focused on the prayer and study the word, let us handle logistics on the backside. What are be, you know, we handle lots of social media for, for hundreds of ministries. You know, we handle the newsletters.

Eric Smith (28:41):
We handle the live stream. We handle this scheduling events. We handle interviews on worldwide television, all around the world, which you’ve been on several of those as well. And you know, that way you can just make sure God you’re doing what God’s calling you to do. And our strength is, is, is the behind the scenes stuff. And what I tell pastors all the time is that, listen, if no one ever knows Eric’s misnamed, I am perfectly comfortable with that. I, if I never have to grab a microphone, I am perfectly comfortable that there’s times in which I have to talk to hundreds of thousands of people can put some structure with ushers and all their teams that kind of step in. If I didn’t have to do that, I would, I’d be raising my hands, praising God, that’s just not who I am. I’m forced to do it because it’s one of the positions rolls out to play. But you know, what I wanna do is again you know, for those that have questions one guidance want to have a conversation. I, I do my best and make myself available my team available. So we can just give about counsel and help people any way we possibly can.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:35):
That’s awesome. I love what you do because so many ministries need help in various areas. And I’ve found that ministries have strengths in, in, in one area, but they might be weak in another area. And so that’s where someone like you can come alongside and help make the entire ministry strong. And so the, the marketing, the, the work that goes into making a ministry successful, it is so important. And, and many times people don’t think about it. They don’t really see it, but if it’s missing, it’s really noticeable in a ministry. So thank you for what you do. It’s extremely valuable and a great blessing to the body of Christ.

Eric Smith (30:14):
It’s my pleasure, my honor. It’s what we’re called to do, you know, let her, let her, Ravenhill told Steve Hill one time when Steve was an, a missionary evangelist in Argentina and he was saying, you know he’s watching, you know, Benny hand fill arenas of 18,000 people and said, Leonard, I want to have one on one. I want to preach the gospel for an 80,000 people. And he said, and then he would call it Steve, Stevie. I said, Stevie, listen, draw yourself a circle and stay inside your circle. And what letter meant by that. So, you know what? You have specific gifts and callings, don’t be Benny Hinn, be Stateville. And as you’re faithful and being Steve Hill, God will bring more to you. And then about a decade later, the were viable to golf and Steve, you know, was preaching and some of the biggest arenas around the world.

Eric Smith (30:52):
So I encourage any, any, any minister, right? That’s a follow up, follow up with Leonard. Ravenhill told Steve Hill, draw yourself a circle, understand your gifts and talents. And don’t divert from that. Keep your hands in a blocky Palm, because God is faithful to bring increase. And who’ll be the one that opens doors for you. And, and what we find at Smith media group is that we love being the, the people that Bible says Matthew seven, seven, ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking. What we’d like to do is we’d like to be the knockers for ministry to say, listen, we have a great ministry. We believe would be a great opportunity for have you come. And that we through our resources and through our contacts, allow them to say, we’d love to have them good things happen when these ministries go out and more importantly, Jesus glorified, everything that they do.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:33):
That’s awesome. Well, brother, Eric, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast and thank you for coaching ministries and coaching evangelists and helping them to do what God’s called them to do.

Eric Smith (31:45):
Thanks so much for having me, Daniel. God bless you, sir. God bless you. Bye bye. All right.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:50):
And that was one. Well, thank you so much for listening today. This was some tremendous wisdom from Eric Smith on what goes on behind the scenes to make a ministry successful. If you learn something today, could you do me a favor, go to Apple iTunes, find the evangelism podcast with Daniel King and leave us a review. And while you’re there, subscribe to the show. So you don’t miss out on any of the interviews with great men and women of God from around the world. God bless you

Evangelism Podcast Host (32:21):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit King ministries.com. Again, that’s King ministries.com.