Last week, I made the claim that, as an industry, if PHCs had been focused the last 50 years on working tirelessly to improve the attractiveness of the “choose life” product vis-a-vis the abortion services product, we would have Planned Parenthood running scared, and would be winning the market share battle.
No doubt, that claim will anger many leaders of Pregnancy Help Centers….
My beat in the articles on this site is pro-life business, and more specifically exploring how pro-life Pregnancy Help Centers (PHCs) can compete and win against Planned Parenthood in the battle for clients.
With Planned Parenthood’s annual report showing an increase in abortions performed last year to 345,672 their market share has increased even further.
Nonetheless, we pro-life business folks should channel our inner Churchills and “NEVER GIVE UP….”
Planned Parenthood just released its annual report.
Number of abortions performed last year: 345,672
Number of abortions performed the year before: 332,757
Enough said….
Recently, I went with my wife to watch one of those sappy holiday season movies.
The movie is called “Last Christmas.”
As all movies like this do, it pulls at your heartstrings and makes you feel good.
A perfect date night type movie.
I won’t give away the movie, but one of the primary themes is that you can only be truly happy when you serve others….
Yesterday, we left off with my assertion that Planned Parenthood’s strategy of focusing its marketing messages on the person who will make the purchase decision – the pregnant woman – gives it a significant competitive advantage over most Pregnancy Help Centers that have a tendency to focus their marketing messages on the plight of the preborn baby, who is not the person who will make the purchase decision….
I hope my claims yesterday about Pregnancy Help Centers, in general, losing badly to Planned Parenthood in terms of market share measurements didn’t cause you too much heartburn last night.
Actually, part of me hopes it caused you at least a small bit of angst.
A little pain can lead to a willingness to change.
For long-time pro-lifers, it can be difficult to break out of the “PHC as social ministry” mindset, and embrace a “PHC as business competitor” mindset….
Picking up where we left off in the previous post, I imagine you may have experienced a strong reaction to my statement that Planned Parenthood typically destroys its local pregnancy help center competition.
Perhaps when you attended your local PHC’s annual banquet, they reported to you that they had saved 100 lives from abortion last year. How on earth could that mean that Planned Parenthood “destroyed” them?
Good question….
I remember back in the 80s and 90s when WalMart was taking over the retail universe in the U.S., there were so called “mom and pop” retail stores in many towns that were praying that WalMart would not set up shop in their communities.
A new WalMart in town was the death knell for small retail stores….
I used to be “pro-abortion.”
So much so that I agreed to the abortion of my own child when I was a young man.
It’s been quite a journey from what I believed then, to what I believe now….