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I Was Wasting My Prime. God, What Are You Calling Me To? · Intentional Guy

• David Graham: At the time I was like Lord like I can't just keep working for these people just like wasting You know these like younger years of mine like I'm still in my 20s. I'll be turning 30 I was like, I feel like just wasting away my prime, like just not doing anything that's making a difference. Like I'm just helping rich lawyers get richer by, you know, getting more leads Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: from their website. I was like, this is just a waste of my time. It doesn't feel like what you're calling me to. It's like, what are you calling me to? Michael Chestnut: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Intentional Guy. You know, there was a season I felt something pulling at me that I couldn't explain to anybody without sounding crazy. Wasn't a crisis, not rock bottom, just this quiet sense that I was spending my best hours on things that didn't matter, and I just couldn't shake it. I didn't quit anything. I didn't blow up my life. I just started doing something small on the side. Scared the whole time that it meant I wasn't grateful for what I already had. My guest today knows that feeling better than most anybody I've talked to. Full-time job, a family, and second thing he built at night because he believed God was pulling him toward it. He didn't leave anything behind to do it. He's still doing both. David Graham, thank you so much for being here today. David Graham: Yeah, thanks for having me on Michael. Really excited. So right now, a little preamble is I'm running Five Lives Marketing. It's a small digital marketing agency serving churches and faith-based nonprofits. I do that just as freelance work on my additional time outside of my main nine to five. used it as a way to take my professional skill set that I've been developing in my career and really use it to serve God in his kingdom and really build up the church as well. But the way I got there is an interesting story. So when I was in college back in I would say 2018, I built a website, a new website for the church back home that I grew up in. It's called Good Shepherd United Methodist Church. I'm actually privileged to be redoing their website. website now, years later. And at the time, did it for free. just like, hey, I enjoy web design. I actually built my first website when I was in middle school on the way back on the old website builders. So nowadays we have Wix and Squarespace, but there were some even more rudimentary ones back then. So I would do that as a fun little thing where you could put up a free website. You're like, look, I have a website on the internet. It was kind of a novel thing for me as a kid. And then over the years, you know, I was always a very business savvy and kind of entrepreneurial. In high school, was actually flipping fish tanks as like a little income thing. So I had to like find fish tanks at yard sales that needed to be maybe fixed up or cleaned up a little bit and then sell them on Craigslist or later on Facebook Marketplace. So I always had that kind of entrepreneurial intention in my life, but wasn't quite sure what direction to put it for a while. But and so when I did this website for my my home church back in 2018, I was like, man, this is really cool. Like, you know, I was able to lean into this digital marketing career that I was starting to get into at the time as I was getting prepared to graduate with my bachelor's in 2019. So was doing some internships at the time and starting on that trajectory towards a career in digital marketing and did the website turned out pretty good at the time. I didn't really think too much of it. was like, that's cool that I got to do that little project and just kind of like build some skills. Wasn't really planning on turning it into anything super extensive. And then maybe a year later, another church that was new of this, of my home church, that was maybe 30 minutes down the road, reached out because they needed a new website and they saw on the bottom of our website, my home church, that I was the one who made it. And they're like, hey, we need some website help. Would you consider letting us pay you for building us a website? And I was like, yeah, sure. Being entrepreneurial. Having that skill set, was like, yeah, this sounds like a great opportunity. This sounds really cool. So I built them a website and they were pretty happy with it. It turned out good. I was like, okay, maybe there's something here. At the time, I wasn't necessarily setting out to build a whole business or anything like that. It was more of like, I can do this as a little extra spending income and have some money to go out with friends or buy a new toy or whatever the thing is at the time that I want to spend money on. supplemental thing on the side. So in late 2019 I started at a digital marketing agency, this is shortly after graduating college, and it was serving particularly law firms and medical practices. And it was a great learning opportunity and the first couple years I really did enjoy. I had a great team, I really loved the people I worked with. and was learning a lot at the time, but then probably about two years in, I was just getting kind of discontent. I was like, I'd figured out everything I needed to, to do the job. Well, was, you know, high performer doing good work. there wasn't really anything to challenge me any like next steps. and there wasn't really any clear trajectory for like kind of moving up the corporate ladder and think of that sort. so I was trying to figure out things at the time, ended up asking if I could switch to the web development team. Cause at the time I was on what we would call the off-page SEO team, which is for someone not in SEO or search engine optimization is what that stands for. It is very similar to digital PR for an off-page SEO. It's kind of like doing outreach, trying to get other people to talk about you, to link back to your website, that sort of thing. And so got bored with that. Was like, hey, web development team, you guys need some extra help? I want to switch it over. And I have a little bit of a background, know basic SEO stuff and basic web development stuff. of a project manager role, so I didn't need to have an extensive coding background or anything like that. And so they're like, yeah, sure. So I went over there, did that for the next like two years or so, but that wore on me even more because while I still, I love the team I was working with, I'm still in touch with some of them today. It was more client facing. And I found during that time that, you know, that clientele was very difficult to work for, at least for me. I found it, there'd be times where we'd have of clients who would be, for lack of a better way, it, kind of gaslighting us a little bit. Michael Chestnut: Yeah. David Graham: And just being very hostile, really second guessing your work when they're not trained in SEO or digital marketing. But they're paying you as an expert and they think they know more than you. It's ironic. Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: So that just wore on me over those next two years to the point where I actually needed to take medical leave and step away from that agency and get some mental health support because it was to that point where There's leading to some really dark thoughts Really really bad place. I was living alone at the time And it just was not a good situation So, you know through God's grace and having a good support network around me I was able to get back on my feet kind of get my mind right and At the time I was like Lord like I can't just keep working for these people just like wasting You know these like younger years of mine like I'm still in my 20s. I'll be turning 30 I was like, I feel like just wasting away my prime, like just not doing anything that's making a difference. Like I'm just helping rich lawyers get richer by, you know, getting more leads Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: from their website. I was like, this is just a waste of my time. It doesn't feel like what you're calling me to. It's like, what are you calling me to? And I had over, before hitting that point, I had done a couple other church websites through, and some nonprofit websites as well, just from like referrals, family friends, like, you know, saying like, hey, like, yeah, we have this food bank that our church works with it, like they need a website. It's like, great, like I can do that. Or, you know, different like kind of nonprofit initiatives, different churches, like my old youth pastor went to a new church that was about an hour away. They needed a new website, so she referred me for that work. So little things like that, we're just kind of building up over time to where I actually had a portfolio. So then from there, I realized like, okay, God, like it feels like, you know, this is what you're kind of pushing me towards. And I feel very much called to, you know, serving, you know, your kingdom, like really helping people find a good community. Cause that's something I definitely had growing up that I felt was invaluable in my upbringing and my home church. And so I wanted that for others. At the time when all this was going on, I was also part of an ecumenical group, which is a fancy word for multi-denominational. And I'm Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: still with them, still working with them as well. I lead their young professionals ministry. And so what ended up happening during this transition time is that at the time I was volunteering for them, it became a paid role due to some conversations I had with some of the leadership. And they're like, you're doing great work. We have a budget we can put behind this. If you want to do it, we can't hire you full time, but we could do 20 hours a week. I was like, yeah, that sounds great. So I went back to my employer because I I wasn't sure I was like I didn't I didn't want to leave and have nothing like obviously you need to put food on the table pay Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: rent and all that fun stuff but I was like I can't go back and just you know do 40 hours a week for them and deal with these angry clients like something has to change if I'm gonna stay you know employed by this agency so I went back I was like hey like I have this cool opportunity that I like I really I'm gonna take like pretty much no matter what I was like I'd be more than happy to you know come back and be serving on the team in a different capacity for you know 20 hours a week if you want me And you know if not then you know I get it and I'll step away and they're like hey like you know you're doing good work You know we like you like we don't want you to you know go like we're more than happy to have you for 20 hours So like okay great like that sounds good so I did that for about a year and that was that happened in October of 20 2023 I think I'm getting my years mixed Michael Chestnut: Okay. David Graham: up is somewhere around there. It was October I just I'm uncertain about the years either 2022 or 2023 But at the time I was like, okay, like I started doing that it was a good good change for a little bit and I'm just feeling you know, God calling me to more he's like hey like, you know, this isn't just a hobby like this is something that you know really want you to put some effort behind and not just you know, we have one foot in one foot out So at the start, yeah, so it was 2023 because at the January 1st, 2024, I filed the paperwork to form my business, Five Loops Marketing. So I did like my DBA, your due business as name, and got my employer identification number and all that fun stuff, got the business account set up from the bank. So I was like, okay, it's official. It was like a way to kind of signal to both myself, but also to God and to others, it's like, hey, this is like Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: a real thing now. This isn't just like me doing a couple of websites here and there. And around that same time, I also, I don't know why, but I had it on my heart to pursue higher education even further. So I applied for the Masters in Business Administration program from Messiah University with a focus in digital marketing and got accepted. And I started that program later that year. And I recently just graduated with a 4.0 with that MBA. So that was another thing that God was just like kind of rebuilding me. He was like, Hey, like you're on this trajectory and you got to the point where you realize it wasn't what I had for you. And you finally started listening to my calling list and like saying yes to me. And because of that, like your life started getting a lot more enjoyable for you. One example I have is through this young adult ministry work, I actually got to go on an all-expense pay trip to New Zealand to lead at a young Michael Chestnut: Mm. David Graham: adult ministry event. an associated organization over there. I was like, you know, that doesn't happen. You don't get to go Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: on, you know, all expensive paid trips to New Zealand. And, you know, it was just incredible. It was a great time. really enjoyed connecting with the young adults over there. And it was just it's been a really cool journey just seeing like as you say yes to the Lord is like, hey, like your opportunities that you never thought you would have had that now opening up for you because you're saying yes, like One more example before I open to you Michael for some questions to dig deeper here is I remember when I first started having the mental health issues and stepped away from that the full-time work at the time I had a brand new Ford Bronco that I just loved is super cool big truck guy and at the time like the The payment on it like the monthly payment was just outrageous. I was not making a good financial decision with that car And when I was discerning what to do next as I was stepping away from the agency, the realities are, I was like, hey, I might end up just being unemployed for a little while. I can't pay this crazy high card note. And I listened to a sermon from a mentor of mine. maybe a couple weeks after that all kind of blew up. Where I was talking about just being diligent with your finances and just like, you know, being intentional about where you put your money. And I just felt very convicted. I was like, God, like this car is an idol. It's getting away, getting in the way of me being comfortable saying yes to your calling. And so it's got to go. So two weeks later, I was no longer the owner of that Ford Bronco. I Michael Chestnut: Hmm. David Graham: went back to a little... I'm Ford Ranger now. It's my third Ford Ranger that I've had. So great little trucks. They get the job done. No frills or anything, but it's a good truck. So yeah, was an example like that where it's like sometimes there's idols in our life where I've had to learn if there's something that's getting in the way of me saying yes to what the Lord's putting on my heart, that thing's gotta go and I need to be really like not one foot in, one foot out about that. It needs to be taken very seriously. So that's where I'll leave it for now. Michael Chestnut: Well man, you your heart just my heart just sunk a little bit because I my my car, my first vehicle I bought was a a Ford Bronco two. And man, I wish I would have hung on to that till now because man, it'd be worth worth some stuff. But it was a favorite vehicle. Now now I drive a Tacoma and David Graham: Thanks. Michael Chestnut: I I love it. But I get it too. Because a lot of times we we become a slave to our finances. And for me and my wife for the longest time, we became a slave to our finances where it it was just ridiculous what we owed and everything like that. And once we started being more obedient and trusting God, but being wise with that finances, You know, I I found out a and it's really weird. We we didn't go without, you know, we actually but the way we went about doing things changed. And that's where I started seeing like my ways are not God's ways and he provided in ways that I never thought, you know, and now, you know, I'm driving a a twenty three Toyota Tacoma that I've been able to pay off, you know, and and not have that debt. And I and the way God did it is just like it blows my mind, you know, because but I also was obedient and following what he was asking me to do. You know, and I and I don't get into the prosperity faith a lot that the that that goes around that God God's going to make us all rich if we just do this, this and this with it. I I But I do believe God will take care of our needs, He'll provides for us. and then most of the time the reason things don't seem that way is because we get ourselves in the way of it. And then makes it a little bit harder for God to to use us. Getting to your story though, one it that strikes me with it is, you know. Being able to follow your passion too and seeing what God did. And and it takes a lot of courage to say, okay, so I'm gonna go from 20 hours, I'm gonna let this company over here that is my breadwinner, let them know, hey, I'm gonna take this. I'm willing to do this. And a lot of Christians I know, a lot of Christian men, they want that is foreign to them. Wouldn't do that because that takes a step of obedience and trust, right? And as men, a lot of times we want to have control, especially of our finances and how that is going to roll out. And so what a scary thing to do because in the end, you could you could have walked away with, now I'm down to twenty hours here, but God, what am I gonna do? And but the you did what you need to do. You just walk by faith to follow your passion and what God's given you. So I commend you for that. Although you're only half my age right now. So I wish I would have had that kind of wisdom back in the day. But I also know that doesn't come without doubts, right? And comes without knowing that I I I assume you're married, I but I may be wrong. And David Graham: I am, Michael Chestnut: you know, so then there's there's, you know The wife security sometimes is in our provision, right? So how did David Graham: Yep. Michael Chestnut: that work out for you? David Graham: Yeah, so I was fortunate that I was able to go through that particular phase of my story while being unmarried or just single at the time, wasn't dating. So when that actually goes kind of to this this next chapter or phase that we're in now. So I got married last November. So November 23rd. Michael Chestnut: Congratulations. David Graham: Thank you. So it hasn't been quite a year yet. But the interesting thing that gets us more to like where I'm at today is I was dating at the time my girlfriend and then fiance. Her name is Jenny. And when Jenny and I were working towards our wedding, I realized like, hey, like... I feel certain obligation and just kind of conviction that I need to be a good provider as much as I can be. Because at that time, I had actually left the agency I was working at during the 20 hours for them and 20 hours for the ministry. So I was only doing the 20 hours for the ministry stuff and then doing my MBA part time as well. So during that time, I had enough finances to pay rent, food, et cetera. But didn't have like a surplus by any means as you might imagine just working 20 hours a week So when it came closer to the time of the wedding I was like, okay, like I should start, you know doing some job applications and seeing like what's out there and that was actually really scary for me because of How much of a toll like the traditional nine-to-five took on my mental health? To where I felt like I finally escaped from that and that's like now I'm Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: going back into the fire so to speak I was like God like, you know, I'm scared but Like I've got to trust you. Like I know like, you know, just cause one job's bad doesn't mean all jobs are bad. yeah, I just got to find the right one. And it was just, just something from God. Like it was so perfect is, I had applied when I was unhappy at that old agency for a number of years, I was applying and applying for probably about two years. only got one interview over those two years. That interview didn't go anywhere. It's like, God, like I'm trying to get out and like, you're just not opening the door. So like, what am I supposed to do? Michael Chestnut: Mm. David Graham: And over time, got to what I shared with you. And so I started applying and probably three weeks in, I'd applied for, I'll share, I work for Marriott now at their headquarters in Bethesda in Michael Chestnut: Okay. David Graham: Maryland. And at the time I saw this posting for, it was called a Senior Digital Analyst in SEO for Marriott. We have our... We have an internal agency that's called Marriott Digital Services. So it's like a marketing department that functions kind of like an agency. So it's kind of best of both worlds in a way. And as I was reading through this job description, I was like, I matched this 100%, like not 80 % or 90%. Like I can do all of these, the back of my head. It's basically everything I did for the first two years of my career. And so I interviewed and interview went well. I was confident, but not cocky. I was just like, hey, like, I read through the description. I know how to do all these. Like you guys, they asked me questions. I gave them very adequate answers. And I got hired. I was like, God, I had been trying for two years to get a good job, and now you have me landing at a Fortune 500 after three weeks. That's insane. Michael Chestnut: Or yeah. David Graham: And it has just been the biggest blessing. I've been able to do just so many cool things with them. I'm actually a finalist for a national SEO award that's coming up this October. through the work that I've done for them just within the first year of being employed by them. And it's just been just the perfect job fit for me. It's like great team, great like mentorship, like our leaders, like my manager, his manager, my VP, like all of them are outstanding, like really, really encouraging, know, push me to challenge myself, you know, be better at my craft. And it's just been, you know, really really cool to see like God can do such great things for like I was trying so long to like control my destiny so to speak and just like I've just Michael Chestnut: Yep. David Graham: got to like try to apply for more jobs or like do better at the interviews or you know whatever it is and you know well all those things are definitely important like God's not just gonna like just hand you a job while you're just sitting in your apartment eating Doritos or something. You know you have to put in some work but being able to align our will with God's will can just like make such a big difference in the outcomes. Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: So. Michael Chestnut: Yeah. And you're right, because some people they crack me up because they're, I'm just waiting for a sign from God. I'm just waiting for a sign from God. And you know, it's like, well, sometimes it requires actions. Like you're not going to get a sign if you don't put out any applications, right? You're not David Graham: Yeah. Michael Chestnut: going to get a sign if you're not you're not diligently seeking, you know, can God miraculously like the the tablets throw it in your lap? Well, sure, but let's just be realistic too. God God wants you to work a little bit towards that. I kind of want to jump to this then. So now what you do with churches and other things, that is more your side job, I I guess David Graham: Yep. Michael Chestnut: we would say, or your ministry. I I'm not sure how you would put that. and let me see if I'm I've got it right here. But right here is the five loaves marketing that that you're involved in. And if you don't mind telling me, telling us a little bit about that, so we got church people looking at us. and and I gotta say this, I know that one of the hardest parts in Doing what I'm doing. you know, I I I'm doing podcasts and I'm having to learn things. And I I did have a website for a little bit and I realized I was just wasting my money because I was getting no I I was getting no hits. I wasn't it was outside of my wheelhouse, right? That I totally understand. And I see that with a lot of churches today. They have they may have a web page up there, but They're getting no hits. They're getting no a lot of the websites really don't show any in anything. I mean, you go to it, it really has no information. I mean, I've been to them to sites where they didn't even tell when they met and what time, you know? David Graham: Yep. Michael Chestnut: And some of them looked really great. I will say there's been some and like mine, I I worked really hard and And it looked great, but it wasn't doing what I needed to do. Right? And so I imagine when you walk into when you're dealing with that, we're dealing with people who this is outside of their wheelhouse, which this is definitely outside David Graham: Yes. Michael Chestnut: of my wheelhouse. So how how do you how do they get a hold of you? And what do you do for them? David Graham: Yeah, so. I mean, first step is always checking out our website. So that's our kind of our front door, so to speak. And what I always encourage churches to kind of think of is their own front door as well. So on our website, we have our services listed out. Our real bread and butter is web design and management. So making sure you have a website that looks good, it's functional, has the important information on there. Like when do you meet? Where do you meet? Like if you don't have your address and service times on there, like you're missing the mark by a long shot. Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: things like that. But then also to your point is like just having a website isn't really enough. It'll, it gets you the foundation, but you really need to put some effort behind getting people to that website. So for example, for let's talk in the terms of like a church planter, but church planter, like let's say they get some funding, they even have a building there, like that would be a huge step for you know some church planters. Sometimes they just start as like house churches. They have that foundation. They're like, man, we got a great building. It's beautiful. It's well maintained. We did some good landscaping. We're all ready for people, but then we're the people. It's like, well, if you're like, let's say you're off the back road or something, you're not on the main strip, how are people gonna know you're there? You have to go out you have to tell them about yourself. You have to market a little bit and not be self-promotional in a way of like, look how great our church is. Ideally, you wanna be leading with, look how great Jesus is and look like what he's doing through our church. So that's something that I hear an objection sometimes when churches are like, we don't want to be, you know, making ourselves up to be this awesome thing. Like we really want the focus to be on Jesus. It's like, well, yeah, absolutely. But there's a way that to be strategic and intentional about that too, to where you can help people know what the next steps are for them to take. Like if you go out on the street corner Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: and you tell someone like, hey, like, you know, Jesus loves you. Like, you know, can I pray with you? It's a great step. If that's what you want to do, great, go for it. But then, if they accept Jesus and they have no idea what to do next, you're missing something there. You should try to help them. It's like, OK, what does discipleship look like for you? If you want to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, it's not just a one and done. It's not like, all right, you're good to go. I'll see you when you get to heaven one day. So Michael Chestnut: Yes. Well David Graham: we need to give them that next step. Michael Chestnut: And I've seen a lot of churches where they'll put their doctrinal statement and things like that. And to me, I'm like, unless you're really gone to Bible school, some of it is so deep that it just it throws it off, right? And and the purpose is knowing what the purpose i is for the website, right? David Graham: Yes. Michael Chestnut: And if you're starting off a church, or even if you got a established church, like I'm in Pensacola, our church, you know. If you Google Pensacola and you're looking for a good church, ours is one of those that pops up. and if you can't get that, I mean that's the thing that we want to do is we want to get people to be able to get to our website if they're doing a search. And then what are we offering? You know, because a family, I mean, if you got kids. Then you want to know, hey, do they have a good kids program there? I mean, it's marketing what you're doing. And and I get the part where, we want Jesus to, and that all sounds good, but sometimes we got to get out of that mode and understand, though, that that is marketing Christ when we show what he is doing in our church. And like a young couple like you, know, you come to Florida. Let me tell you, we have a lot of snowbirds. And so We one of the big things that a lot of people are looking for when they come here, young people, military we are military town, is they're looking for a church that has their demographic in it. Right. And so our website has to provide that to get to draw them there. But if we can't get them there, they'll never know we exist. Now of now, of course, I don't know how to do that, you know. David Graham: Exactly. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. Michael Chestnut: And there's nothing David Graham: Sure. Michael Chestnut: wrong with not knowing how to do it, but you're the guy who would probably know, okay, this is what you need to do and could sit down and come up with a cohesive plan of where to start and where to and where to work towards if I'm guessing this right. David Graham: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that's a great point. And I think the way I like to think about that, specifically with the like people looking for their own demographic and things of that sort, you know, you're right on the money with that. think people are always going to be attracted to things that are more comfortable, things that feel like they'll fit in. And I think sometimes the objection I can hear is like, like we don't want to just focus on like the programming or we don't want to like only attract people that look like us. We want to be a diverse church. It's like, yeah, that's right to. But I think. The way kind think about it is an order of operations. We want people to know Jesus. We want people to have a relationship with him. And to do that, we want to, one, tell them about him in some capacity, whether it's online, in person, through a conversation at the grocery store, whatever. But then we want to give them those next steps. It's like, hey, what does it look like to actually live your life as a disciple of Jesus Christ? And Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: ideally, that's going to look like being a member of our church. And so whether that's getting plugged in with a certain ministry, just simply attending on Sunday mornings or whatever other day of week, maybe have a weekly Bible study, whatever the case may be. But because of just human nature, especially for someone who might be new to Christianity, maybe they've never accepted Jesus before, it can be kind of daunting. Just saying, Michael Chestnut: Yes. David Graham: okay, I want to accept Jesus. I love learning about Him and just accepting that grace that He gives us. But I'm also apprehensive maybe because of my past. Maybe someone's gone through a divorce and they feel shame going back into the church. Maybe someone has struggled with an addiction and they're like, like, you know, people look at me differently. I don't feel like people look at me like I'm a whole person, know, things like that. And so making it to where you're seeing people from where they're at currently in their life, what their hurts are, what their hurdles are for coming back to church. and just removing those barriers. It's like, how do we Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: tear down those barriers and make people feel comfortable? And so the way to do that often is through good marketing. marketing, another thing I'll hear sometimes is, isn't marketing kind of like deceptive or manipulative? And not at all. Marketing is a persuasion thing. And persuasion, it's a little bit more of a healthy, like good connotation to it. Is manipulative or deceptive is you're trying to get someone to do something or act some way. or something where it's not in their best interest. If we Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: truly believe that Jesus Christ died for us and that we can have eternal life, that's in our best interest, that's definitely in their best interest, we want to share that. And so we're persuading someone like, hey, we want you to have this good thing that we have. We want to share this with you. That's not bad. That's not manipulative. But we need to Michael Chestnut: Mm-mm. David Graham: do so in a strategic way when especially there's so many things in the world competing for our attention. We have these in our pockets 24-7. We have all kinds of stuff just trying to distract us from the goodness that God has for us. And so if the church is not out in those environments trying to be one of those voices, it's like, like all those other things, like some of them are perfectly fine, some maybe not as much, but here's the thing that you really ought to pay attention to. And we have to compete in that space whether we like it or not. there's a competition for attention nowadays with all these different, Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: the technology that's out there. And another soapbox that I have that I'll just touch on briefly is technology also is not inherently good or evil. Social media, not inherently good or evil. AI, not inherently good or evil. It's all about how it's being used. And is Michael Chestnut: Use it. David Graham: it benefiting humanity? Is it benefiting you in the way you're using it? Or are you letting it use you? One of my good friends from the church I grew up and told me one time and this has stuck with me for years is if you are using a free service or product the product or service you're using is not the product you are the product so Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: for example if you're on social media you're scrolling you're like this is so great I have all this free entertainment I don't have to pay for my Facebook account my Instagram account my TikTok account the product is they're making money off of you and keeping your attention fixed on there so they can be pumping ads and products and things that you or any commissions off sales. It's a way for them to make money off of just sucking all of your attention as much as they can possibly get. The more addicted their product is, the more they show you stuff that you're engaging with, the more that they're making money and you're losing time and attention of things that you could be putting your attention to elsewhere, whether that be God, family, career, whatever it might be that you maybe feel like you wish you were putting more intentionality into in your life. So Michael Chestnut: Yeah. David Graham: just read important thing for people to understand is, you know, technology can be made out to be the boogie man, especially now with, you know, AI is this huge, you know, it's almost like a four Michael Chestnut: Yep. yeah. David Graham: letter word. Now people are up in arms about data centers and all this stuff. And there's definitely some problems to be addressed there. But we also need to be thinking about, like, how can we in our day to day life, like, I'm not going to, you know, I live pretty close to DC, but like, I'm not a congressman. I'm not going to go and like make policy, you know, taking care of all these things. AI issues. I can write to my congressman. That's probably about all I can really do, maybe other than maybe protest. outside of that, Michael Chestnut: Yeah. David Graham: it's like, I need to worry about like, what can I do on this day on Monday, September 14th? What can I do to make sure that I'm being intentional with my time, not letting technology use me. I want to be the one using technology to make my life better, to make other people's lives better. And that goes into the SEO web design stuff. If I'm building a good website using technology for a church to help them be visible in their community when people are searching for a church, that's a great use of my time, great use of technology. And then from there, we need to do some marketing to help people know that that website exists. that church exists. that Michael Chestnut: Right. Right. David Graham: typically what my main area of expertise is would be search engine optimization, which is a handful of different technical things to make your website appear highly when people are searching for certain keywords. And there's ways to see the data on, okay, like let's say in Pensacola, you could do research right now with some of the software I use and say like, okay, how many people are searching for food bank in Pensacola? And let's say 450 people a month are searching food bank in Pensacola. That's a great signal to me for if I was serving your church with SEO and say, Hey, we should make a page on your website specifically targeting the keyword food bank in Pensacola. We want to Michael Chestnut: Mm. David Graham: have that in the heading. We want to have pretty solid content on the web page. Addressing the type of stuff that someone searching for that would be looking for, so they're actually likely to stay on your page once they get to it in the first place. Is it going to answer the user intent? What the person is originally searching for, is that page going to be the answer to their search? That's how we want to think about search engine optimization in the frame of a church or a nonprofit and how you're going about that. Michael Chestnut: Well, and you know, most of the time too, I always look at it as if we can get them to the website for a lot especially for let's nonbelievers, right, that say, Hey man, I'm I'm starting to question God. I'm trying to figure this out, right? That website getting to it might be the first impression that they have. So so that's your first impression, which you only get once, right? And so you want to make sure that it's optimized. for whatever purpose that you're doing. If you're doing it for that where you want to get more people in there, like, you know, we we've gone with the slogan, no perfect people allowed. That and you know that's that's been around for a little bit. So you type that in, you're gonna see our church with that. but like again, like I said, a big concern would be ch you know, children's programs, you're you're demographics, you know, we started to celebrate recovery. And I know we're working on that right now because we know that that focusing that somewhere in there is also going to get people to land on our page. People who are looking for churches that will, you know, help people through hurts, habits, and hangups and addictions and and other things like that. So, you know, and then some church people are looking like me. I come from a very Baptist background. I'm not looking for a traditional style church. I I kinda like more of a modern style church, you know, so I can find that stuff with it. And what I see the the problem, especially like me, I I'm a little tech savvy, but There's so much and to stay up on technology, that's the hardest part. And that's I think that's where people finally just quit. That's where I quit. Because I was wasting money on a website that I didn't know how to optimize the right way. You know, I I I wanted to sell my books and to do my podcast, get more recognition from it, right? But I w that was money I was wasting. because I wasn't doing it right. You David Graham: Yep. Michael Chestnut: know, so I know a lot of churches and also websites are a lot different for to my generation versus your generation. And what we want on a website is way different than what the the kids today want on a website. And it has to have a certain yeah, I mean you you want it to be appealing too. You know, so it's yeah, marketing We are marketing our church, right? We are marketing our ministry. Because if you don't market it, how do you expect to get like from me? I so my podcast is for people with hurts, habits, and hang ups, men, men who are looking to grow in their faith, grow as a father, grow as a husband, grow as a businessman, those type things. You know, and it's my job to figure out how do I get that in front of the guys who are looking for podcasts for that. And so, you know, and it's okay to say I don't know how to do that. It's okay to say, Hey man, David Graham: Yeah, absolutely. Michael Chestnut: I don't know how to do that, and to reach out to someone that does. So they go to your website and they fill that out. I s I see on there. it tells what your David Graham: Yes. Michael Chestnut: services are, everything else. What can they expect when they come to your website? David Graham: Yeah, so when they come to the website, I first probably encourage them just to look through the services. You can look through our work a little bit. If you want to read more about me, you can. I don't know if that helps you much or not. But I think ultimately sometimes it's hard for especially like a pastor to even really know where to start when it comes to marketing. So one of the things I recently added to the website is our little help me decide quiz. So when you land on one of our service pages, generally you'll see like a little button that says help me decide and it'll walk you through like a little questionnaire, like a guided thing. So it'll be like, you know, what matters to you on your website? Do you want it to be like, what do you want to look like? Do you have an idea of a budget? have certain like functionality you need like do you need like a calendar or you know event sign-up forms or stuff like that because a website you know it ultimately it's a tool right it's trying to accomplish something for you both typically for at least for churches those internal and external audiences so sometimes I'll deal with churches who come to me they're like we want a new website like our old one is dated so it's like okay great let's talk about it and then everything they want is really catered towards people already attending the church. was like, hey, like, you know, we can definitely have content on there for your current parishioners, whoever. But we really want to be using the website as an evangelism tool, as something that someone who's first coming into contact with your church can come on there and learn who you are, what you're about, what you have going on, how they can get plugged in. And that sometimes is a bit of a thinking shift for some people. So if you are pretty tech savvy, such as yourself, Michael, and you're like, hey, I know I need a website, and I know I need ways to get people to the website, then you can just fill out the contact form, schedule consultation with us and you know, we'll be off to the races. But if you need a little bit of help before you feel comfortable reaching out, you're more than welcome to take that little quiz and that should kind of direct you a little bit. But ultimately, you're still going to land on as far as next steps with us would be filling out a contact form or scheduling a consultation. Typically nowadays, because my time is often very full between the full time work, being married now, all these other things of life. I'm obviously still running five minutes marketing, but time is a little bit more limited. can't just meet like whenever people want to. Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: So oftentimes nowadays I push people towards the contact form and then I'll just reach out via email, be like, hey, thanks so much for filling out. If they fill out the form and say like, hey, like here's exactly what I'm looking for, then that gives me a lot to go off of as far as like, okay, like I know a little bit about what you're looking for before we even have a conversation and meet. And that's helpful to kind of expedite our process a little But sometimes they're like, like I really don't know what I need, but I just need someone to talk me through my options. And that's Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. David Graham: great too. So it always comes down to free 30 minute consultation one way or another, unless someone emails and they're like, hey, like I'm looking for X, Y, and Z. I'm like, hey, like, that's great. I can't help you with that, unfortunately. And I, by all means, like I never want to sell a church or any client on services that I'm not confident in being able to provide. For example, if a church comes to me and they're like, hey, we know we heard of the Google Ad Grant. That's a big one for churches. You can actually get a free $10,000 a month credit from Google to just run ads on their Michael Chestnut: Mm. David Graham: platform. But there's a lot of stipulations there. It's pretty hard to manage. It's also pretty hard to really get the most out of it. Sometimes churches actually find better results just spending money and having less stipulations because it frees them up a little Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: bit in how they run their account. But that's not something that I'm trained on helping with, but I do have partner vendors that I work with that we have ongoing relationships to where I'll do white label work for another vendor. Or if I have something come to me where it's like, hey, I can't do that, but I know so and so can, then I'll either contract them on the client's behalf, or I'll just send the client, if they only need Google ad help, if they already have a solid website, SEO is good, it's like, hey, you don't really need me for anything. go to these guys. So I'm more than happy Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: to refer her out because ultimately we're here to build the kingdom of God. And I don't want to be taking away the limited resources churches have towards putting towards something like that. That's why if you like on our website, when people first go to it, they'll see, you know, say Five Lives Marketing. And then our tagline is maximizing impact through modern means. Because that's Michael Chestnut: Mm. David Graham: where really our name even came from is the story of Jesus beating the 5,000. and the five lives, two fish, very limited resources made a huge impact. And that's what we're looking Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: to help our clients with. So I don't want clients coming to us and saying like, hey, like, you know, we only have, you know, say 350 bucks a month for marketing. That's all we can get approved. You can't stretch it even an extra 10 bucks a month. It's like, cool. you know, that's typically our on the lower side of like what we'll work with. But like that's a very workable budget for a website and some basic SEO. You're you're often a good start. Or if you have a website already and you're like, hey, we had a church admin. We have them reduce their hours. They're only doing 10 hours a week for just some basically answering phones and stuff. They are not tech savvy. We're a pretty small church. But we know we need our website up and running. We need someone to maintain it. It's like, cool. We can do a maintain plan. Normally, I quote about 150 a month for that, where I'm basically just an ad hoc web manager. It's like secretary type person Michael Chestnut: Right. David Graham: So it's like when they have like a new event to upload to the website or they need a new landing page You know basic stuff like that then you know we whip that up real quick and you know don't have to worry about You know your you older Secretary just you know trying her best to you know potentially breaking the website because you want her to add like a Easter egg hunt to the website So Michael Chestnut: Right. Right. So how is it just you and the organization right now? David Graham: So it's me and then I have one freelancer who I contract work to, who I actually worked with at the agency that I started at originally in my career. So he does great work. So whenever there's some more technical side of things, he's actually trained in coding so we can do some pretty cool custom stuff on websites. So yeah, it's me and his name's Kevin. So me and Kevin are tackling things. And then whenever we have some additional stuff that needs to be outsourced, main partner vendor, I'll give them a shout out, is Digital Missions Project. They're actually based in Florida. They do excellent work. They also do websites and stuff. I do a lot of SEO stuff for them sometimes, but if I ever have someone who needs social media ads, Google ads, that sort of stuff, that's who I'm sending them to. Michael Chestnut: Okay. Well, man, I appreciate you, David, being here today. This I I we have a lot of churches that listen, you know, small some smaller churches, things like that, and having the right people in it. Now, like I'm blessed to be at a church where we have someone who's on staff and that is their only job doing that. And it is a full time job to do that David Graham: Yeah. Michael Chestnut: and to understand how that works and You know, we have great results of people who watch us online, people who move to the area and it's like, How did you hear about us? Hey, we we were checking churches in the area and yours was right at the top, and we were you know, so we wanted to come see it. And that's what you're providing for these other churches, is that it's not just about a website, it's about optimizing it to the best ability that it can be. So well David Graham: Exactly. Yeah, we want to be a tool that actually accomplishes this mission. And that mission is just essentially online evangelism. We're just trying to get the gospel out there to people who are searching for stuff. And they might be searching church near me, but they also might be searching food bank near me. Michael Chestnut: Yeah. David Graham: couples counseling near me or whatever it may be. So if you have, that's Michael Chestnut: Yeah. David Graham: one of the big things that I really encourage churches to think through a little bit is not just marketing the church. so some, like if you're sold on the marketing idea and you're not looking at marketing as a four letter word, you're like, okay, I know I need to market the church. Great, that's step one. But we're not marketing just the church. We also want to focus on what is the church offering that's like really helping people get closer to Christ? So what are the ministries Michael Chestnut: Correct. David Graham: that you want to really put out there? Michael Chestnut: Yeah, because like, you know, there's divorce recoveries, there's celebrate recoveries, there's all these different things. And that may not mean nothing to you, but to a person who's gone through a bad divorce and is looking for a church, but also looking for healing, and that's comes up on that. That that says a lot of things, and that's reaching someone that you couldn't have reached otherwise. Instead of having a website that just only you're looking at or just maybe a few five people in your church are looking at, you know, we're wanting to get you're wanting the goal should be to get that out. That's getting the gospel out to the masses, basically. And it's just how you look at it to do that. So David Graham: Yeah, absolutely. Michael Chestnut: well, David, thank you so much for being on here. I'm gonna make sure I get all your links, all the things in there. For us, I appreciate you educating us on this situation and excited for what God's doing in your ministry and where He's going to take this, you know. technology, that's the one thing with technology. Technology, man, it's changing so fast. It's hard to keep up with, right? And so your David Graham: Yeah. Michael Chestnut: typical church people day, we we you can't keep up with that. I I didn't go to school for that, you know. So it's it's ever changing. I mean, I'm just looking at the brand new iPhone that came out and I'm like, I thought my phone was big. Why do I want that? You know, who knows? David Graham: Uh-huh. Michael Chestnut: Pretty soon our iPhones gotta are gonna be robots. But anyways, but thank you again for being on here. I really appreciate anything you want to add before we leave? David Graham: The only thing is, if you're listening to me and you're like, hey, I could use some help with the website or SEO. Our website is just 5livesmarketing.com. Five is spelled out, it's F-I-V-E, Lives Marketing. Encourage y'all to fill out a contact form, schedule a consultation. I'd be more than happy to talk with you. Even if you're like, hey, I don't even have funding approved yet or anything like that. I just want to learn a little bit more so I can maybe go have a conversation with my pastor if you're not the pastor of your church. If you're just you're trying to help you know get some information to help get some buy-in by all means Please reach out even if it's just via email. I'm always happy to you know educate to you know inform on you know what your your best options are and I also want to just encourage smaller churches because a lot of the churches we work with are on the smaller side if you're a church of You know 50. I'm not gonna be sitting here selling you on like a thousand dollar and be like, you need all these ads and all this other stuff. I'm going to say, hey, let's talk about what a realistic budget for you, what is a realistic goal for you, and how can we achieve that together. I'm not here to nickel and dime you and get every last penny out of you. So don't want people to be worried about reaching out thinking that that's what they're going to get. I'm not in the business of hard selling by any means. Michael Chestnut: That's awesome. That's awesome. That's great information with that. So, well, David, again, thank you so much for being on here. we'll make sure that we David Graham: Thank you. Michael Chestnut: have everything in the description to where you can reach out. I'll make sure I'll get all that information from David and have that on here. And to my listeners, until next time, just keep being intentional.