The Clean and Green Club, November 2015

Having trouble reading this as e-mail? Please visit www.thecleanandgreenclub.com to read it comfortably online.
Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip, November 2015
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Do you have five minutes to help me better understand and serve your green/social change business needs? Please fill out this quick survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9NHHMQ8

Now Through the End of the Year: Print Editions of Two of Shel’s Best Books (and an award-winning novel by his wife) for Just $4.95 per Copy


Perfect holiday gifts for the entrepreneurs, managers, marketers, and business students in your life—and for your own personal library. Also great to buy in bulk and donate to your favorite educational institutions and charities.
Nobody has to know that you only paid $4.95 each (plus shipping) for these award-winning and classy books from respected publishers. Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World (Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Finalist)(Chelsea Green) retails for $22.95, and Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green (Independent Publisher Magazine Groundbreaking Indie Book)(John Wiley & Sons) retails for $21.95.

My wife, award-winning novelist D. Dina Friedman, decided to join the fun and make one of her novels available at the same price (and hers is a hardback!). Playing Dad’s Song, published by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, tells the story of a boy who faces crises ranging from a school bully to the death of his father in 9/11, and finds his way back to his center through music. It’s perfect for kids aged 9-15.

Because we’ve recently taken the rights to these books back, you can have print editions of these critically acclaimed books for less than a quarter of their original prices. Sometimes, there is more power in spreading a message widely, and low prices can make that happen. Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, especially—with its message of business success through green and ethical business practices—has a role to play in changing the culture, and I want to see that change ignite.

The holidays are coming and everyone loves easy, frugal, useful gift ideas. (Note: if you’d like to be more generous, the gift of a strategic green/social change profitability consultation or copywriting project from me could be life-changing.)

Read more about these amazing books at
https://www.guerrillamarketinggoesgreen.com/ (Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green) CODE: 4.95guerrillabook
https://frugalmarketing.com/gmtoc.shtml (Grassroots Marketing). CODE: 4.95gmbook (it comes with a two-chapter update covering social media, no extra charge)
https://ddinafriedman.com/dinas-books/playing-dads-song/ (Playing Dad’s Song) CODE: 4.95pdsbook

Then visit https://shelhorowitz.com/shels-green-products-and-services/ to place your order. Make sure to use the proper coupon codes.

Note: Paperback only; ebook editions are available at the usual undiscounted price (still a great value). Quantities are limited to what we have in stock. If you’re interested in a bulk purchase, let’s talk. If you’d like your books signed and inscribed, please tell us what to say.

This Month’s Tip: Two Books That Changed My Life—And How I Seized an Opportunity
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Yes, I do have a main article for you—but not here. The article is in two parts because I want you to think about the first part, draw your conclusions, and then examine the second part. I don’t know a good format to do that in an email newsletter, so I’ve put it on my blog. You will find it very worth the trip: https://greenandprofitable.com/two-books-that-changed-my-life-and-how-i-seized-an-opportunity/ (be sure to click to the second part after you’ve read this part).

Oh, and by the way, let me know if you like going to the blog. If the feedback is good, I might do it more often.


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About Shel & This Newsletter

As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriteraward-winning author of ten booksinternational speaker and trainer, blogger, syndicated columnist – Shel Horowitz shows how green, ethical, and socially conscious businesses can actually be *more* profitable than your less-green, less-socially-aware competitors. His award-winning 8th book Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet was a category bestseller for at least 34 months (and is now available exclusively through Shel). Shel also helps authors/ publishers, small businesses, and organizations to market effectively, and turns unpublished writers into well-published authors.

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Green And Profitable, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.

He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).

“As always, some of the links in this newsletter earn commissions—because I believe in the products and services enough to promote them (I get asked to endorse lots of other programs I don’t share with you, because I don’t find them worthy).”

Friends Who Want to Help


The Coming Business SHIFT That Could Change Everything

My friend Yanik Silver’s new book Evolved Enterprise impresses me a great deal. In fact, I blurbed an advance copy and got him to let me reprint one whole chapter in my own new book Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.


I’m half-way through reading the final version, which I’ll review next month. Meanwhile, he sent this blurb:

It’s time for evolved entrepreneurs, visionary creators, and change makers to rewrite the rules of business for the 21st century.”

Imagine a whole new way for your venture to align purpose and profits, merging head and heart (and maybe even a bit of your inner child).

This is a counterintuitive blueprint to create a “baked-in” impact across your entire company by delivering an exceptional customer experience, creating a culture of fully engaged team alignment, and actually driving your bottom line!

Get Yanik Silver’s new book Evolved Enterprise here – www.EvolvedEnterprise.com

Hear and Meet Shel
I’ve been so busy getting the book done that I haven’t been booking talks lately. But that’s about to change! As the book launch draws closer, I expect to have several engagements. And remember—if you connect me with a paid speaking gig (OR a sponsor who will fund no-pay engagements), you can earn a very nice commission. Please write to me if you would like to help.

Preorder your copy of Shel’s newest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World


Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Release date is April 19, just in time for Earth Day, and you can now preorder from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies from me). Learn all about this powerful book at https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/
Another Recommended Book: Be Audacious
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Be Audacious: Inspiring Your Legacy and Living a Life That Matters, by Michael W. Leach (Graphic Arts Books, 2015)

This may turn out to be a more personal review than my usual—because I’ve been pretty much living a lot of the principles Leach espouses, for decades, and because it’s been many years since I’ve reviewed an inspirational self-help book in this space. I think the last one, many years ago, was Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer’s amazing The Success Principles.

Yes, we arrived in the same place. However, our paths to this epiphany—our experiences and our perspectives—are very different. Leach is a former athlete who faced unimaginable physical problems, including a near-death illness. He had undiagnosed learning disabilities and was slow to discover the power of reading. He’s a Montana native raised in a rural area, and at publication time, he was 35. And he writes to a generation younger than his own; much of the book uses language that resonates with teens and 20-somethings. And he’s someone who—despite his decision to break away from them—seems to expect “haters” who will dump on him for taking the road less taken, and who call him irresponsible for bypassing the traditional 9-to-5. He seems to encounter them constantly.

By contrast, I’m a whole generation older, at 58. Though I’ve lived in the country for 17 years, and in a small college town for the previous 17, I was raised in apartment buildings in the Bronx (a crowded part of crowded New York City). I was an avid reader who got through a tough childhood with the help of books. And I never found a team sport I wanted to play. When forced to play baseball, I was picked last or almost last, and exiled to the outfield where my low abilities wouldn’t do much damage.

I gave up trying to conform to other people’s expectations in my thought patterns by the time I was 13. I do conform on some of the things that don’t really matter, like what I wear and how I keep my hair—but I think the biggest strength I bring is my ability to think differently, to see both the forest and the trees, to see opportunities for my clients that arise out of completely different situations or industries.

And I’ve found that the more I’m in integrity with my life and my message, the more people respect what I’ve done already, what I’m doing, and what I hope to do: use the profit power of business to turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. (Is that audacious enough for you, Michael Leach?)

Where we have common ground is in our dedication to preserving and improving the environment, growing out of our mutual love of nature. In our desire to think bigger and act bigger so we can have real impact on the world (a lesson it took me much longer to figure out than it did Michael). And in our adoption of the principles he lays out. To name a few:

Embrace Multiple Passions/Use the “Slash” Model
Michael’s book (his second) could be categorized as self-help/inspiration/memoir. He uses his own experience as a teaching tool throughout the book, as well as case studies from the kids he’s coached, the people he’s encountered on his speaking tours, or those he guided through the wilderness.

Michael doesn’t fit neatly into little boxes. He uses lots of slashes to join together his different parts into a “renaissance soul” (a term coined by my late friend Margaret Lobenstine to describe a Ben Franklin/Da Vinci/Oprah/Buckminster Fuller/Thomas Jefferson type who explores numerous interests and passions. He describes his own set of slashes (ranger/naturalist, fishing and wildlife guide, freelance writer, basketball coach, and founder of a nonprofit) several different ways in the book, and even breaks down the nonprofit role into “executive director/programming coordinator/chief fund-raising coordinator” (p. 178).

My set might look like this: speaker/writer/consultant/practical visionary/social change activist/community organizer/marketer. Or I could apply a completely different set of labels (parent/vegetarian foodie/traveler/student of cultures—to name a small slice of the possibilities) that would be just as accurate. But for me, it all boils down to the core mission: I help people understand that doing the right thing is an opportunity, not a sacrifice—and I model the possibility of environmentally and socially conscious life and work.

For both of us, all of these slices of ourselves are based in passion—in “permapassion,” to use a term called by Leach’s friend Scottie B. Black. I love this word’s linguistic combination of permaculture and passion. And those passions have to go beyond pure hedonism. Yes, take joy in what you do. And at the same time, keep sight of your higher purpose; channel your energies toward the passions that can change the world.

“If Your Self-Talk Isn’t Helpful, Change It” (p. 103)
While it certainly isn’t the whole story, the idea popularized in the book/movie, The Secret, that our thoughts control our destinies has some truth. If you hit yourself over the head with all the reasons you can’t do a thing, you’re not likely to get it done. But if you focus on the reasons you can accomplish what you want to, those paths have a way of opening. And if you dream those big, audacious dreams, you have a responsibility not to sabotage yourself.

Work like an Onion (p. 177), and work yourself out from the your soul to the wider community.
I might flip this one inside-out. Yes, work from the inside out, but also from the outside in. Keep going deeper and deeper until you find the inner truth.

See Happiness not as Entitlement but as Opportunity (pp. 241-242)
You can start creating happiness in others—and in yourself—by doing little good deeds, as simple as smiling or holding a door open. As you learn to think and act bigger, more exciting changes will arise.

Leach focuses a lot on adversity creating resilience. And he’s experienced a lot of adversity. That’s one path; I’ve found plenty of other ways to build resilience. Again, there are many paths.

I could say much more about this book, but this already is longer than most of my reviews. Go get it and decide for yourself.

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