Who is an Ad Lib Music coach? [connected ~ sustainable ~ fruitful]

I love God. My life is marked by simple love and pure devotion to Jesus.

I’m just toward people. I believe the best about them and am committed to seeing them grow.

I’m a lifelong student. I’ll never arrive and am constantly growing personally. I’m a voracious reader.

I’m easy to work with. I don’t cause any bad stress to clients.

I embody excellence. I hold high the value of doing the very best with what we have.

I’m a master at asking questions. Clients experience me as a good listener who asks excellent questions.

I love the Church. I’m regionally minded, share people and resources, and make Kingdom connections.

I’m a worshiper. I have a deep river that has been cultivated in private and can worship at the drop of a hat.

I’m incarnational. I live it…my prayers, theories, love, principles, the Gospel.

My Ethos is to Follow Christ Together. We have to lead centered around Christ in ways that bring us together.


Job Description

Desired Outcome: To earn a living by helping people as you bring to life in your community, in your circle of influence, the mission of Ad Lib Music – In simple love and pure devotion to Jesus, we are eradicating isolation and burnout so that leaders bear much fruit.

Position Summary: You are a vital member of a community of Ad Lib Music coaches. You will:

  1. Believe, think, and act like an entrepreneurial leader that knows the nobility of business (helping people and receiving payment as thanks), takes daily, courageous action to be able to afford to do this as a primary source of income, and uses the tools we make available to steward their potential well.
  2. Strengthen the Church through coaching, training, leadership development, and developing relationships
  3. Be a mirror – help leaders and teams to see their true selves, their ministry context, and their growth edges
  4. Use questions as the primary discovery tool – we do teach, but we help leaders be responsible for their growth and development via self-discovery and self-designed goals
  5. Establish healthy and influential leaders, teams, and churches (“brilliant, prolific, and healthy” – Todd Henry)
  6. Model outstanding leadership (spiritual, organizational, musical)
  7. Take what a church has and make it better – leaders, teams, equipment – seek first to develop what’s already in-house
  8. Listen for the revelation of God as a primary source in giving counsel

The benefits of being an Ad Lib Coach:

  1. Our Five Faders coaching Framework - beyond the basic, groundbreaking concept of the Faders, there are teaching resources, how-to’s, and prescriptions based on each archetype.
  2. Services with clear pricing - you don’t have to invent, justify, or create. There’s still complete freedom on what you do in any of them, but the container is there. And how much it costs.
  3. The only money you have to handle is your check - we handle invoicing, billing, and payments.
  4. Website and email - the Ad Lib website is continually being updated, and you can send potential churches there to read testimonials, coach bios, and program descriptions; we set you up with a professional yourname @ adlibmusic.com address via G Suite.
  5. Worship Fertilizer - our weekly email goes out to your list of existing churches plus any potential ones. It is encouraging and training the church while being drip marketing, keeping Ad Lib on the front of the mind of leaders. Simply add your contact list to our list.
  6. Coaching Community - Coaches work together, giving each other feedback (and pushback), making our work more effective. We meet each week via Zoom.
  7. Basecamp - We use Basecamp to manage all existing churches and potential ones. Set up to-do’s, post reports, chat, forward emails, schedule meetings, etc.
  8. The Ad Lib brand - Since 2002, we’ve worked with many churches that love what we’ve done. We’re growing wider, but in Central Pennsylvania, we’re deeply respected. It gives you instant credibility.
  9. Training - we’re continually growing, but you don’t need us to develop you in the skills of being a worship leader. If you’re able to be a coach, you have those already. Instead, we teach you how to earn a living as a worship coach.

Responsibilities:

  1. Remain in Jesus. Be the most radical Christian you know. Depend on God in every moment. Please worship off-stage. Grow strong in spirit in the secret place. Stay connected to His body.
  2. Develop relationships with clients and potential clients. This may be the single most significant investment you make because everything happens via relationships. And not “relationships with the hopes of making a sale,” but genuine relationships.
    1. Extend the connectedness of your network to many people* (“Make lots of new friends, try to help them. Make sure that they all know how you could help them and that you are eager to do so.”)
    2. Become the “go-to” person in your circle so that you’re the first person who comes to mind when people have a need.
  3. Think and act like an entrepreneur, a business leader
    1. Believe in the dignity and morality of business* (“Making money is much harder if, deep down, you suspect it to be a morally reprehensible activity. You are not a swindling rogue. In reality, you are a noble person providing for others in a marvelous environment that benevolently rewards you for your consideration…because you attend diligently to the needs of others and conduct yourself in an honorable and trustworthy fashion. It is an enormous competitive advantage if you really, really believe that doing business is one of the most moral and best things to do.”
    2. Don’t give away coaching, don’t coach for free. Learn the sales process of listening, locating pain, vision-casting, and taking the first steps. Don’t “scratch their itch” before you’re in a coaching program, but rather help them feel that you’ll be able to scratch their itch once they’ve signed up.
    3. You don’t need to work full-time as an Ad Lib Music coach, but you must be all-in, wholly given to our core mission, the time you do spend.
    4. Develop your business skills – “how you build your practices, how to market yourself, how to develop your reputation, and how you establish yourself in the community.”
    5. Don’t think in terms of “hours for pay,” think in terms of goals. To reach goals, assess how many units will be needed. For example, rather than thinking “I’ll work 40 hours this week” think “If I have 2 units per day, I’ll have enough income, since a unit = $150, then 2x150=300 x 5 days/week = 1500/week x 50 weeks/year = 75000; if you’re at the 75% tier, that’s $56,250 per year. How many hours does it take to do 2 units per day? It depends. Probably about 4-6 to do the work. What else do you need to do to keep having 2 units per day? Again, it depends!
    6. Keep the ball! It’s your job to coach the client from the first interaction, through the sales process, through the program, and to the next program. It’s your ball. Keep it moving. Don’t expect the church to lead the process. You lead the process.
  4. Understand all the services that Ad Lib Music offers
    1. Coaching Unit. [$175]
    2. Service Evaluation [$500]
    3. Guest Worship Leading [$500]
    4. Worship Team Retreat [$1250 per 24-hr period]
    5. Audio Team Training program [$1650]
    6. AVL Upgrade Consultation [$1500]
    7. Year of Worship Leader Coaching [$2100 per year]
    8. Interim Worship Leader Program [$2150 per month]
    9. Hiring Guidance and year of Coaching [$3300]
    10. Hiring Program and a year of Coaching [$6600]
    11. Interim Worship Leader and Hiring Program [$800 per month]
  5. Exceed client’s expectations
    1. Over-communicate. Be sure that clients receive the message you’re sending and don’t have questions about the process, responsibility, goal, dates, etc.
    2. Go for the most significant problem or root issue, not just what they brought us in for
    3. Sniff out and confront every fear (your own and your clients’)
    4. Question what they tell you. Dig deeper, investigate the other side.
    5. Be really easy to work with.
  6. Be a model of outstanding leadership
    1. Lead yourself well (Saddle your own donkey: “riding on a donkey or even firmly affixing a saddle to its back implies dominating the material – putting the head in charge of the body.” *)
    2. Get to know yourself* (“To change the way others see you, first you have to learn to see yourself as others see you”)
    3. Lead consistently and constantly*
    4. Find your identity solely in who Jesus says you are, not in your achievements or your income. Don’t try to control your income, but rather just do your best work every time.
    5. Be prepared for resistance, obstacles, depression, and bewilderment. Make a plan to be determined until you see your dream realized.
    6. You are a leadership professional, but in worship, you are simply a devoted follower of Christ who worships at the drop of a hat on the hillside with a bunch of sheep. We’ll never be professional ministers or worshipers.
  7. Be a lifelong learner
    1. Collaborate with our other coaches, don’t try to solve everything on your own.
    2. Read like the dickens! (“Even if you don’t feel it, you have it. Satisfy this need for intellectual growth, and you will better situate yourself at the crossroads of economic creativity in your community.” *)
    3. Work your way through this recommended reading list: (in no particular order)
      1. 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done (Peter Bregman)
      2. The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal (Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz)
      3. Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry (Paul David Tripp)
      4. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (Chip Heath and Dan Heath)
      5. Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work (Chip Heath and Dan Heath)
      6. Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day (Todd Henry)
      7. Today We Are Rich: Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence (Tim Sanders)
      8. Who Stole My Church: What to Do When the Church You Love Tries to Enter the 21st Century (Gordon MacDonald)
      9. Thou Shall Prosper (Rabbi Daniel Lapin)
      10. Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership Team and Staff on the Same Page (Larry Osborne)
  8. Schedule your week well
    1. Work ahead on upcoming work
    2. Follow up with previous conversations with potential clients to move the ball
    3. Reply within 24 hours to all emails

Term:

Ongoing until “the season changes.”

Supervisor:

Dave Helmuth