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Bryan Citrin | From UCLA to Haiti to Vietnam

From UCLA to Haiti to Vietnam with a few detours along the way to become a highly successful entrepreneur and a digital marketing genius, Bryan Citrin talks today about why it is important to combine marketing and ministry.

Merging Marketing and Ministry

Bryan Citrin is a minister who has had articles published by Forbes.com. He understands both business and ministry and he is an expert in digital marketing. He recently started his own company called Leadflows.com and today he explains why every ministry and church need to take advantage of the enormous possibilities offered by his amazing software.

Bryan Citrin is a Business Entrepreneur who has a heart for ministry. First he was a campus missionary with Chi Alpha (https://chialpha.com) on the campus of UCLA. Then he started going on mission trips to Haiti and Vietnam. To pay for it all he started a marketing business. He is in the Two Comma Club with an online marketing company called ClickFunnels which means his company has earned more than a million dollars in revenue from online marketing. Now he owns his own company called LeadFlows.com. He is an expert in both marketing and ministry.

Forbes Articles from Bryan Citrin:

Four Pillars Every Entrepreneur Should Balance to Help Find Purpose: https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2020/10/13/four-pillars-every-entrepreneur-should-balance-to-help-find-purpose/?sh=34c47aeabfc7

Six Ways to Create a Philanthropic Culture in Your Business: https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2019/03/29/six-ways-to-create-a-philanthropic-culture-in-your-business/?sh=48a5894c6e69

Article About Ministry in Vietnam: https://news.ag.org/en/News/Refugee-Becomes-Ministry-Pioneer?D=%7B1363B7E2-EDBD-4DD4-B69C-A160FF74CF6C%7D

In order to receive receive resources that will help you raise money for your ministry text the word “Growth” to 918-265-3050

Are you interested in Evangelism Coaching? Call Daniel King, the Host of the Evangelism Podcast

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
From UCLA to Haiti, to Vietnam, with a few detours along the way to become a highly successful entrepreneur and a digital marketing genius today, Brian Citron talks about why it is important to combine marketing and

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:17):
The ministry Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where 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.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:55):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus all over the world. And today I have a wonderful guest. His name is Brian Citron, and he is a business entrepreneur who also has a heart for ministry. So first he started out as a campus missionary with Chi alpha on the campus of UCLA ministering to students there in California. A lot of them need Jesus. Then he started going on mission trips to Haiti and to Vietnam. And when you go on missions trips, you got to raise a lot of money to do it. And, and so his idea was to start his very own marketing business. And so with this marketing business, he has made a lot of money that he’s been able to put into missions. He actually joined the two comma club on an online marketing company called ClickFunnels, which means that his company has earned more than a million dollars in revenue from online marketing. And so now he started his own company called lead flows.com and he’s an expert in both marketing and ministry. He’s also a good friend of mine. Bryan, thank you for being on the podcast today.

Bryan Citrin (02:10):
Thanks so much, Daniel. I’m so happy to be here.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:12):
So tell me a little bit about how you got started in ministry and how you, you started out ministering on the campus there in UCLA.

Bryan Citrin (02:22):
Sure. Thanks. So my background is business, so I have a bachelor of science in entrepreneurship. And so back in 2009, I graduated from Missouri state university and approaching my graduation date. I was praying about what I should do. I just got done writing a business plan. I was the president of the entrepreneurship association, and I wanted to launch this business and make a much money. You see, I want to actually fund the gospel. I didn’t want to actually have to go and be a missionary, but six months, six months before I graduated the lower start, dealing with me to move out to LA and work with this campus ministry at UCLA. And I didn’t really know much about UCLA and I knew that my brother’s bent toward moved out there to pioneer campus ministry about five years prior. And I had spoken to him briefly in the past and he said, I should pray about moving out to LA and doing an internship with him.

Bryan Citrin (03:11):
And I was praying about what I should do. And when he originally offered me the internship, it went in one ear and out the other ear because I had no interest in going on the mission field. But as I was praying and praying in the spirit and bringing English about what I should do, that thought came back to me. And I remember I was at church praying about the direction where I should go. And I really sensed that. God wanted me to do that. And even throughout my whole college career, I’d somehow met different people that foreshadowed in action with this pastor out in Los Angeles. And so I called my brother and I said, I had a problem. And he said, what was that? And I told him that I felt the Lord wanted me to move out to one of the most expensive cities in the world and essentially work for free.

Bryan Citrin (03:49):
Like this is crazy. You know, I spent years getting in debt and you know, studying to become an awesome entrepreneur. And now God wants to be in a forsake everything and go be a missionary. And so I told that to my brother and he says, if God’s calling me to do that, I need to go ahead and call that pastor and let him know. And so when I hadn’t called him and told him, I felt that the Lord was calling me to go out to LA and internship with them. And later when everything was official, I told him that it was, it was on the bottom of my list for things to do in terms of moving out to LA, moving out to LA missionary. And he looks at me and he says, Brian, you weren’t even on my list. He says, I don’t remember offering an internship. I just did it that be nice probably, but I was driving on the four or five highway, praying for the direction and ministry about to go on a week long, fast. And the spirit of God spoke to me and told me I was about to get an unexpected phone call and a better be able to do it. Me answer pretty much better be yes. And I called him within minutes. And that was my journey into a full-time ministry out at, at UCLA, in Los Angeles.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:51):
So you ministered there on the campus and UCLA had a tremendous impact there. And then you started going on mission strips. First you started going to Haiti and now you’ve been on something like 24 missions trips down to Haiti. Tell me a little bit about what your ministry has been doing in the nation of Haiti. So

Bryan Citrin (05:11):
It was this village that our ministry supports and we’ve been going down there. The pastor I work with has been going down there for over 20 years and this ministry it doesn’t get a bunch of outside support from other individuals. So we’re pretty much the only ongoing support this village gets. And so we go down there, we actually started a library in this village. We put on ministry crusade events down there. We put on shirt services. We had put an evening feeding programs that we invest in economic development to help create jobs because the solution is long-term job development. You have to invest in education, you have to invest in economic development and that’s going to be sustainable. And so we invest in things that are sustainable down there. We hosted the first ever graduation ceremony for this village. Kids are growing up, they’re getting great. They’re having to go to school because of us. They’re going to us because of us. But most importantly, they’re getting to know Jesus because of us and they’re duplicating and they’re making an impact in other people’s lives in the village and throughout Haiti as well. And it’s incredible the impact we’ve been able to make down there for the gospel and just for the practical needs that we’ve been able to meet down there.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:15):
Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. And so job development is so crucial to helping the people there in Haiti. And I love how you’re combining this training in entrepreneurship and in business with ministry, helping the people down there in Haiti become self-sustainable so that they don’t live in poverty so that they can have their needs met. And then God’s also opened the door for you to go to one of the five communist countries in the world, the country of Vietnam. Tell me, what is God doing in Vietnam? So,

Bryan Citrin (06:58):
So we, I took my first trip to Vietnam in 2019 and last year 2020, we would have taken multiple trips down there, but because of COVID-19 we just haven’t been able to go there, but they want us to go and they’ve been praying for us to go there, but that the pastor I work with, he was a born in Vietnam and came over to the United States as a refugee. And there’s actually a pretty powerful article that was just released about this. And so I know that you guys can probably find this article underneath this blog underneath this yeah,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:26):
I’ll provide a link for it on our, on our website, under the evangelism podcast. So you can find it,

Bryan Citrin (07:32):
But that’s the password why I’ve been working with these Vietnamese and he was elected as the head of the Vietnamese fellowship here in the United States for the assemblies of God. So all the Vietnamese churches in in the United States that are affiliated with these numbers of God, they looked to him for leadership. And so the head of the sound has gotten to Vietnam and asked him to come over there. And just so you know, Sam has a, God is a largest spirit filled movement in that nation. And Vietnam is in the 10 40 window. One of the most unreached people, groups in the world is in the 10 40 window. So this is a huge deal. And so they asked us to come over there and we really didn’t even know what to expect. And I remember when he went over there on this first trip, they were having this pastors gathering in a whole Shimon city and the whole place was packed.

Bryan Citrin (08:21):
These pastors actually paid to be there. They had to turn people away. And these are pastors and their staff there in the ocean city area. And they had these salmons, God looks to us and says, you guys are the speakers for this pastor’s conference. And so literally we had to train these pastors for three days in a row for four sessions a day. So I was with three other people, and each of us took a session and we train day after day after day, these pastors and the they told us later that 70% of those pastors that were at that event and their staff had been in prison for their faith. I’m like 70% of them have been in prison for their faith. I’d never been in prison for my faith. I live in America. So compared to way we speak to everything in America is super easy, but

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:04):
Humbling to be in a situation where the people that you’re ministering to have paid such a high price to be Christian, what, what do you say to people that are in that situation

Bryan Citrin (09:17):
That are, are being persecuted for their faith are saying if someone, you know, is being persecuted for the faith, I’d say that just, you know, stay strong, keep pursuing the Lord. And I know there’s a lot of resources online, available to you to help draw you closer to Christ, but, but never forget that there’s power in this gospel. There is power in this gospel. And even as the early shirts, they experienced persecution. This persecution allowed the gospel to the spread, not only in Jerusalem, but throughout Israel and throughout the world, eventually, you know, this gospel can’t be stopped and there’s power in this gospel. And, and the incredible thing about these people in Vietnam is they’re seeing signs and wonders and miracles. They’re seeing God intervene, introduced supernatural. They’re seeing incredible moves of God that I’ve seen lacking in many churches here in the United States. Let’s talk a little bit about

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:09):
Marketing because you have a gift for ministry, but you’re also have a genius that God has given you for entrepreneurship. You’re a true entrepreneur. You take risks, you invest money, you develop different ways of marketing. And a lot of the people who are listening, they have their own ministries. And of course, one of the things that every ministry needs is money in order to complete the vision that that God has given them. And so what advice, or how can you help people who are in ministry? How can you help them with their marketing?

Bryan Citrin (10:47):
Sure. That’s, that’s a great question, Daniel. And so I have actually spent more in online marketing and online like business strategy than I have in my college degree. And so I’m very, very talented, very gifted in this arena. And so what I would say is leveraged tools to help scale Euro your ministry there’s tools out there that you can leverage. And we’re going to even talk about these tools later that are, that can really help you fundraise because there’s technology out there that can help you take time away from ministrative works. So you can be out there advancing the gospel. I know that I recently wrote an article in Forbes that a couple of articles in Forbes, but one of them specifically was created. So you can take this Forbes article and send it to a business leader. Maybe somebody you want to become a anchor donor. You can send on this article. And by saying this article, you can ask the feedback on this article. And the whole purpose is to help bridge an opportunity for them to actually either ask them for money and for them to be an anchor donor. And, and I know that the the name of that article is six ways to create a philanthropic culture in your business.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:57):
And so this article would be something that if someone’s in ministry, they could actually forward this article to someone who is a supporter or a potential supporter to encourage them to be, to give more to people who are in ministry.

Bryan Citrin (12:12):
Yeah. And, and I know that the whole thing is you would send it to somebody and you say, Hey, I just read this article. I want to know your thoughts on how you’re doing that with your business. What are kinds, some kinds of things you’re doing in your business that kind of implement some of these principles. And then either number one, they’re not doing anything. And it gets them thinking and opens up a bridge free to ask them, do it for you, or they are doing it. And then still it was a bridge for you to ask for them to do it for you.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:38):
It’s absolutely amazing that you have been published in Forbes. I mean, Forbes is the premier business magazine business website in the United States that that talks about business. And so the fact that, that you have the credentials as an entrepreneur to be accepted, to write an article for Forbes is, is pretty impressive. And also the other thing I like about the articles you’ve written for Forbes is that you are using these articles to talk to people in the business world about Jesus, because the business world is just as much of a mission field as going to the nation of Haiti or go into the nation of Vietnam. I mean, people in the business world are broken, they’re hurting, they need Jesus. They might be successful in one area of their life, but, but desperately needing help and in other areas. And, and so tell me a L how can someone access these articles that you’ve written on Forbes?

Bryan Citrin (13:44):
Oh, yes. And so I actually made it so you can text in to get access to these articles. And so go ahead and text this number (918) 265-3050. And you’re going to text the word growth once again, that’s (918) 265-3050. And you’re going to text the word growth.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:12):
So text the word growth to (918) 265-3050. And Brian is going to send you these resources that will help you to raise money for your ministry.

Bryan Citrin (14:26):
And another thing that’s going to be really exciting about this is we’re about to release a free fundraising program like some free training on fundraising. And so if you text that number, you’re gonna get added to a list to get early access or access when that launches for this fundraising program that we’re about to release. I’m super excited about that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:45):
That’s something that every ministry needs is the ability to be efficient at their fundraising and to raise more money. I don’t think I’ve ever met a missionary or an evangelist who says we have too much stop giving. Everyone has bigger vision than they have the resources. And so those are such valuable resources. Thank you, Brian so much for sharing about what you’re doing and the impact you’re having around the world. Thank you for being on the evangelism podcast. Thanks for having me, Daniel. Thanks for listening today to this interview with Brian Citron, could you do me a favor, go to Apple iTunes, find the evangelism podcast with Daniel King and subscribe, and while you’re there, leave us a great review so that other people who have a passion for evangelism can find this podcast. Thank you so much. And God bless

Evangelism Podcast Host (15:39):
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.

 

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