The Clean and Green Club

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BSR’s Statement on the U.S. Administration Executive Order on Climate Change

About Shel & This Newsletter

As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriter…award-winning author of ten books…international 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), his newest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, has already won two awards and is endorsed by Jack Canfield and Seth Godin. Shel also helps authors/ publishers, small businesses, and organizations to market effectively, and turns unpublished writers into well-published authors.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, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and 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).”

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

We collect your information solely to let our mailing service send you the information you request. We do not share it with any outside party not involved in mailing our information to you. Of course, you may unsubscribe at any time—but we hope you’ll stick around to keep up with cool developments at the intersections of sustainability, social transformation, and keeping the planet in balance. Each issue of Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter has a how-to or thought-leadership article and a review of a recommended book. We’ve been doing an e-newsletter all the way back to 1997, and some of our readers have been with us the whole time.

The Clean and Green Club, April 2017

11 Apr, 2017 No Comment

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, April 2017

Listen to the Best Interview I’ve Ever Done
Kymm Nelsen of the Conscious Leadership Podcast managed to pull more from me than anyone else has ever done. In 51 minutes, we covered so much that I list 17 separate points on my interviews page —and that was not a complete list. It’s one of three shows I’ve added to that page. Visit the page to scan the list and note what to listen for—and of course to click over and read it.And watch this space for links to interviews by Internet marketer Willie Crawford, PR queen Annie Jennings’ Elite Wire, Lisa Faulkner of Game Changers, Ali Salman of Escape the 9 to 5 Grind, and Karina Cooke of the Business Code Podcast.

This Month’s Tip: Right and Wrong Ways to Respond to Breaking Climate Change News

Here are two press releases from two different NGOs responding to the same major news event (and the graphic that one of them included). I’m giving you the headline and first paragraph, and a link in each headline to read the whole thing—and then I’ll dissect them for you. Neither of these is a client and I had nothing to do with writing them—so this is purely about the lessons we can draw.

Example #1:

BSR regrets today’s executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, a set of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policies that are intended to reduce the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels and cut carbon pollution from the power sector by 30 percent by 2030. In combination with the administration’s dramatic cuts to climate programs at the EPA and U.S. State Department, this announcement undermines policies that have stimulated economic growth, consumer savings, job creation, infrastructure investment, private-sector competitiveness, and public health.

Example #2:

Trump Administration Climate Action Rollback Decision Is Misguided and Economically Damaging

The Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Climate Action Plan, including withdrawing support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, “is completely misguided and ignores the irreversible clean energy economy that is already underway, creating good-paying jobs and economic vitality in communities across the country,” Ceres President Mindy Lubber said in a statement today. Lubber served as the EPA Administrator for the New England Region in 2000.

What about each release did you find effective or ineffective?

Ask yourself just two questions: which worked better for you, and why? Then scroll down to see what I felt worked well and poorly about each.

If you’d like me to include your results in a summary (you won’t be identified), please drop me a note with your answers.

Shel’s Analysis:

While the BSR release did a better job understanding the need for rich content, with numerous links and a picture, the copy was pathetically weak. This press release:

Used a wimpy headline that doesn’t take a position
Chose a stock photo that doesn’t add anything to the reader’s understanding—why not a photo of demonstrators thanking a company for providing clean energy and good jobs?
Made a terrible verb choice in “regrets”—which makes it sound like an accident that was BSR’s faults—rather than a much more appropriate verb, like “condemns”
Buried the real story in the second paragraph, which has hard-hitting facts to make a clear case against the Executive Order:

Just 18 months ago, the U.S. federal government estimated the net economic benefits of the CPP at US$26-45 billion, with consumers set to save US$155 billion from 2020 to 2030. In addition, the CPP provides regulatory support to the clean energy economy, which, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy and Employment Report, supported more than 3 million U.S. jobs in 2016. The public health benefits are also significant. Research suggests the Clean Power Plan could prevent 3,600 premature deaths and more than 300,000 missed work and school days by cutting pollutants that contribute to soot and smog. – See more at: https://3blmedia.com/News/BSRs-Statement-US-Administration-Executive-Order-Climate-Change#sthash.qUNCeiiF.dpuf ”

I would have used a headline like “BSR: Trump’s Short-sighted Reversal of US Climate Change Leadership Could Cost Consumers $45 Billion and Kill 3600?—and then moved right into a bulleted list of the facts. I also would break up BSR’s long paragraphs.

This very long press release has enormous amounts of juicy content, but you’d never know it from the headline and lead. Even further down, it notes that companies investing in carbon mitigation are seeing 27% return on investment, 29% revenue increases, and 26% reduction in carbon emissions. Isn’t that a lot more newsworthy than “BSR regrets…”?

The Ceres release, while also flawed, is much better. It starts with a headline expressing a strong point of view (although we don’t know who is stating this point of view), moves into a sound bite, and finishes the first paragraph with a significant and highly relevant credential.

So what are the flaws in the Ceres document?

The release itself is pretty much all rhetoric, without the facts to back it up. BSR had the facts, but didn’t call attention to them.
There’s no link to Lubber’s complete statement (and only two links in the whole release).
The important point about losing competitive advantage to China is all the way down at the bottom of the release.
No graphics at all.

CORRECTION: MADELEINE L’ENGLE
The correct link for my interview with Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, is https://frugalfun.com/l’engle.html . Sorry about last month’s typo.

New on the Blog

Environment/Travel:
How Thailand Looks at Environmental Issues

Politics:
If You Kick the Press Out, It’s Not a Press Conference!
Can We Get This Movie Into Every History and Social Studies Class?
This is What DICTATORSHIP Looks Like

Business and Marketing:
How I Reinvented a 36-Year-Old Business
Why Did Pepsi Get Attacked As “Tone-Deaf” On This Ad?

Social Justice:
With an Abundance Mentality, We Can Solve Hunger, Poverty, War & Climate Change
The Secret of the Fulcrum Principle

Hear and Meet Shel

How Social Entrepreneurs Can Thrive in a Trumpian World: webinar put on by Green America (my fourth for them), Thursday, April 20, 1 pm ET/10 am PT. This conference line has only 26 seats but it should be available for unlimited replay if the recording comes out (last time, the recording failed 🙁 ). https://info.greenbusinessnetwork.org/acton/form/3919/004f

I missed Book Expo America last year after attending every one since 1997. But it’s back in NYC and my daughter is NOT getting married the following week (as she did in 2016), so I expect to be attending (May 30-June 2). If there’s interest, perhaps we can organize a gathering.

Proud to be a speaker at Marc Guberti’s Content Marketing Success Summit, June 6-17. Other speakers include Ray Edwards, Ana Hoffman, and Jay Papasan. Details next month.

The Web Bender, Jack Humphrey, and JV Queen Gina Gaudio-Graves
interview me on Leverage Masters Radio Tuesday, June 27, noon ET/ 9 a.m. PT. Listen by calling 646-478-0823, or listen live online at https://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/jvqueen (or later on replay at https://TheLeveragists.com )

Friends Who Want to Help

Writers and writer wannabees: Stephanie Chandler once again offers you the Nonfiction Writers Conference May 3-5, 2017 (this is the 7th annual).

Order 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. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

Download a free sampler with several excerpts, the complete Table of Contents and Index, and all the endorsements.

Another Recommended Book—The Best of Us

The Best of Us: People, Profit, and the Remaking of Modern Leadership by Cleve Stevens, Ph.D. (Beaufort Books, 2012)

If you’ve ever explored the world of “prosperity consciousness,” or seen the movie, “The Secret,” you’ve probably encountered the Law of Attraction (LOA). This is the idea that we can use our thoughts, feelings, and especially our mindsets to shape the reality we want to experience—and its corollary: if our lives are a mess, our attitude probably bears some responsibility; shift our attitude and we get better results.

While I’m not an LOA groupie, I do find merit in the concept. In my 20s (long before I encountered any LOA teachings), I made a conscious choice to have a happy life, and I noticed the effects very quickly. As an example, within a year of that decision, I had to waste a whole day of precious vacation to mail packages of crafts we’d purchased back to my house from Mexico. The old me would have fretted and fumed and wasted the whole rest of our vacation being angry at the lost day. But the new, happier me focused on “what a great story I’ll have to tell my grandchildren!” I wouldn’t even have my first child for another three years, so this strikes me now as quite remarkable.

And in my 50s, just a few years ago—with guidance from prosperity teacher Marilyn Jenett, who I’ve mentioned a few times in the “Friends Who Want to Help” section of this newsletter—I used LOA principles to visualize a recalcitrant tenant finding a great place to live and moving out voluntarily, which was a necessary step before we could sell that house. I have no proof of cause-and-effect, but I do know that after about six weeks of complaining that she would never find a comparable place for anywhere near the low rent we had charged, she found a place and happily vacated, and the sale went through.

What does all this have to do with a book on corporate leadership? This: Without ever using the phrase “Law of Attraction” or the acronym “LOA,” Stevens has written a dynamic exploration of using LOA not to gain personal wealth but to be a world-class leader (and he sees material wealth as flowing easily to those who exercise this kind of leadership).

Key to his view is taking complete personal responsibility for everything that happens to or through you, even for things over which you have no control. He recognizes that the lack of control starts with what kinds of families we’re born into and continues throughout life, but still makes a compelling case for acting as if you were in charge of your own life, even when outside factors chart the overall course. And doing this opens doors to great achievements, and ultimately to personal greatness. Stevens offers multiple roadmaps and exercises, including five acts (pp. 227-228) and nine traits (pp. 305-314) of transformation.

Mindset is a vital part of Stevens’ approach. Reminiscent of Yoda telling us “Do. Or do not. There is no try,” Stevens asks us to expand our horizons and get out of our own way. One of the most fascinating pieces is his distinction between options (narrow choices imposed by others) and possibilities (limitless, self-chosen, driven by intention that creates its own fulfillment mechanism).

I took eight pages of notes on this book. Obviously, there’s a lot I could share but I don’t want to saddle you with a 5000-word review. So here are ten more among my takeaways, among the several dozen:

Transformative leadership loves profit—not as the end goal but as a byproduct of something higher: “capitalism cubed” (p. xxii)
“Reasonable” and “reform” don’t get us to “transformative”; we have to be bold—and when we do, we run circles around the old-style transactional-leadership organizations (pp. 20, 330)
Hatred can never create lasting good; it has to emerge from a positive vision of the possible (pp. 50-51)
We play the victim because we lack faith in our ability to achieve our objectives—but we can learn to change these belief patterns by dong the right things with sufficient intensity and consistency (pp. 99, 102, 132, 134, 135)
Intention is about internal power, not willfulness, which is an external force (pp. 165-166)
Courage is not fearless; it’s about facing the fear until we can emerge from our self-made masks, not about powering through the fear as if it didn’t exist—fearlessness is a form of stupidity (pp. 202-205, 218)
Loving, authentic criticism rooted in genuine desire to help the other person improve is usually well-received; phony disguised personal attacks are not—harness “radical honesty” but never use truth as a weapon (pp. 216-217, 292)
Don’t be paralyzed by fear of failure or a need to conform in order to be liked (pp. 263-264)
Few things are more empowering than “standing strong and tall for someone else” (p. 325)
When moving an organization forward, first get agreement on the WHAT; there’s time later on to figure out the HOW, especially since the transformational process typically takes 12 to 36 months (pp. 334, 345).

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 20 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

How Thailand Looks at Environmental Issues

About Shel & This Newsletter

As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriter…award-winning author of ten books…international 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), his newest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, has already won two awards and is endorsed by Jack Canfield and Seth Godin. 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, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and 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).”

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

We collect your information solely to let our mailing service send you the information you request. We do not share it with any outside party not involved in mailing our information to you. Of course, you may unsubscribe at any time—but we hope you’ll stick around to keep up with cool developments at the intersections of sustainability, social transformation, and keeping the planet in balance. Each issue of Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter has a how-to or thought-leadership article and a review of a recommended book. We’ve been doing an e-newsletter all the way back to 1997, and some of our readers have been with us the whole time.

The Clean and Green Club, March 2017

11 Mar, 2017 No Comment

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, March 2017

Listen to the Best Interview I’ve Ever Done

Kymm Nelsen of the Conscious Leadership Podcast managed to pull more from me than anyone else has ever done. In 51 minutes, we covered so much that I list 17 separate points on my interviews page —and that was not a complete list. It’s one of three shows I’ve added to that page. Visit the page to scan the list and note what to listen for—and of course to click over and read it.

And watch this space for links to interviews by Internet marketer Willie Crawford, PR queen Annie Jennings’ Elite Wire, Lisa Faulkner of Game Changers, Ali Salman of Escape the 9 to 5 Grind, and Karina Cooke of the Business Code Podcast.

This Month’s Tip: How to Tell Good Advice from Bad Advice

My grandfather used to read all seven of NYC’s daily newspapers (most of which have since gone out of business) in order to triangulate a picture of what was *really* going on.

Listen to multiple sources. If you hear the same thing over and over from sources with divergent viewpoints, there’s probably merit in it—but do some due diligence and verify (at least take a quick trip to Snopes.com).
Do your own research. Read some books and articles but recognize that the situation may not be comparable.
Post specific questions *with as much detail as you can* on discussion lists–but recognize that the advice you get will be a mix of useful and useless. Study the groups before posting questions so you get a sense of whose answers are worthwhile. The more carefully and completely you phrase your question, the better your answers. And learn how to parse it.
Listen to your gut. You can even develop the skill of asking your subconscious directly and listening to the answer (which may emerge as a movement of the body).
Don’t be afraid to go out of the box, if it seems to be the right move–even if others are telling you it’s too risky. But make sure it really is the right move.

Finally, be prepared when good advice takes you in a different direction, and understand when that makes sense. I’ll tell you a success and a failure.

Back in 2003 as I was preparing my sixth book for publication (my 10th, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, came out in April), I asked a discussion list about subtitles that would go well with my main title, Win-Win Marketing. This was a list where I’d been active for quite a few years, and I had a pretty good sense of the “players.” I heard very strongly from some of the most respected people on the list that my main title was a problem (for reasons I still don’t really relate to)—that the phrase “win-win” had enormous negative baggage for some people.

It took two months of brainstorming to come up with a title: Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First. Oddly enough, knowing none of this history, the Mexican publisher (which had originally called it Marketing Based in the People) changed the title on their second print run to Marketing Based in Win-Win (Mercadotechnia basada en ganar-ganar).

Fast-forward to last fall. Someone I’ve known for many years and respect enormously got very excited about the way I am combining a Board of Advisors, Mastermind group and online discussion into a single entity for my new “Transformpreneurial Brain Trust.” She gave me a long and well-thought-out brainstorm about how to commission brand new software that would do everything I wanted. The only problem was that she lost sight of my wider goal, which is to work with the business community on profitable ways to turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. I realized instantly that this would distract me from my real work and cost me much time and many thousands of dollars. Even though the advice came from a trusted source, it was bad advice for me at that moment. I chose to run with an off-the-shelf platform and to stay focused on my real mission.

New on the Blog

Environment/Travel:

Politics:
If You Kick the Press Out, It’s Not a Press Conference!
Can We Get This Movie Into Every History and Social Studies Class?
This is What DICTATORSHIP Looks Like

Hear and Meet Shel

Ethical Corporation’s Responsible Business Summit, NYC, March 27-28. I will be moderating a keynote/fireside chat by Franz Paasche of Paypal and a panel with execs from Pirelli, Actiam, and Coca-Cola, both on Monday. I’ll also be attending Tuesday, without any moderation duties. I believe you can still save $200 with the code MP200, when you register at https://events.ethicalcorp.com/rbs-usa/register.php

How Social Entrepreneurs Can Thrive in the New Political Climate: webinar put on by Green America (my fourth for them), Thursday, April 29, 1 pm ET/10 am PT.

I missed Book Expo America last year after attending every one since 1997. But it’s back in NYC and my daughter is NOT getting married the following week (as she did in 2016), so I expect to be attending (May 30-June 2). If there’s interest, perhaps we can organize a gathering.

Note: I still have openings on my calendar for live or virtual events around Earth Day (a week on either side of April 22). Drop me a line or call 413-586-2388 if you have a need (or want to earn a commission by finding me a paying gig).

Order 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. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

Download a free sampler with several excerpts, the complete Table of Contents and Index, and all the endorsements.

Another Recommended Book—A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L’Engle

When I usually review books about sustainable business, customer skills, marketing and the like, why am I recommending a classic children’s fantasy novel from the 1950s?

Here are some of the reasons:

This book has amazingly useful things to say about resistance to totalitarianism, nonconformity, the role of science, and defying expectations—all of which seem particularly relevant on the world stage right now.
It’s a fun read that might take you only an hour or two, involving a 12-year-old girl and her companions on a classic Joseph Campbell-style Hero’s Journey to rescue her father and save the universe, visiting several planets along the way.
The discussion of tesseracts—folding space in on itself to shorten interstellar travel from millennia to minutes—should spark some excellent creative thinking on themes like: 1) nothing is impossible, 2) we can solve the biggest problems we can imagine; 3) collaboration makes all the difference.
I discovered Wrinkle at age 9 and credit it with helping me survive a very difficult time in the first half of my second decade. I gained enormous strength from it and have read it at least a dozen times.
You might know a kid—or a grownup—who really needs this message right now.
Last but not least, I read a whole business book this month that I decided wasn’t appropriate for the review column and the next one I started is large and I’m nowhere near done with it.
I think it might be fun to mix in an appropriate novel every once in a while. The column has only covered nonfiction since I started it in 2003, but so many novels have changed the world. Arts, including literature, have an important role to play in creating our ideal world, and I should honor that once in a while.

I welcome your feedback on this. Oh, and if my review intrigues you, I interviewed Madeline L’Engle for two hours, back in the early 1990s, on the difference between truth and fact (she has since passed on).

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 19 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

New Uses for CO2? Elkington’s Latest Out-Front Thinking

About Shel & This Newsletter

As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriter…award-winning author of ten books…international 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), his newest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, has already won two awards and is endorsed by Jack Canfield and Seth Godin. 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, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and 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).”

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

We collect your information solely to let our mailing service send you the information you request. We do not share it with any outside party not involved in mailing our information to you. Of course, you may unsubscribe at any time—but we hope you’ll stick around to keep up with cool developments at the intersections of sustainability, social transformation, and keeping the planet in balance. Each issue of Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter has a how-to or thought-leadership article and a review of a recommended book. We’ve been doing an e-newsletter all the way back to 1997, and some of our readers have been with us the whole time.

The Clean and Green Club, February 2017

10 Feb, 2017 No Comment

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, February 2017

This Month’s Tip: Cautions in Setting Up a Social Entrepreneurship Venture

An entrepreneur asked on a discussion list for “best ideas to apply entrepreneurial skills to social enterprise” for a social entrepreneurship bootcamp in Taiwan. Since I’ve spent the last two months showing you how to move forward with social entrepreneurship, I thought you’d benefit to see some of the caution flags, too. Here’s the relevant part of my response:

The earlier a company can build in holistic thinking, the better. I see way too many would-be social entrepreneurs go off half-baked on a poorly conceived project that can actually make the situation worse on the ground. For example, many people jump into the famous Buy One Give One model without thinking through the effect on the pre-existing local economy in the target developing area. It has to be done in ways that don’t undermine the struggling local entrepreneurs. Others create something very dependent on continued input from the developed-nation partner but don’t create the structures to make sure that input IS in fact continued.

I see it as a strength that you want to include marketing, and that your vision of marketing includes storytelling. Social entrepreneurship companies are uniquely positioned to benefit by telling the right story to the right people. I do think some of the pieces you’ve identified may want to wait until the organizations are more established, and that the format should be interactive and not pure lecture.

You may find it helpful to view the ways I bring this material to an audience, by viewing my TEDx talk, https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809 (click “event videos”) or my 4-minute demo reel, which is footage from this year and somewhat more evolved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tooSVbHQ5Ik You would definitely benefit from my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World—and you can download a sampler at no cost at https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world

If your situation is similar to this entrepreneur’s, here are some other cautions to consider:

Will it be economically viable? Without profit or a funding source, all the good in the world will be undercut by the need to close before completion, leaving people frustrated and enraged as the progress they’d made disappeared.
Can your project be developed without enormous expenditures of resources, time, and money?
Do you have buy-in from locals on the ground that will partner with you?
Will the project sustain itself using local managers once you’ve moved on?

There are many more questions you should ask yourself. This list will get you started, and then keep asking questions like “and then what happens?” or even the marketer’s question, “so what?”

Again, I’m happy to help you think this through. It’s one of the things I do as a consultant to social change and environmental businesses.

New on the Blog

Just because I haven’t shared with you some of my recent blog posts in months doesn’t mean I’m not blogging regularly. I’ve put up 23 new posts since October 1, or about six new ones per month as of early February. Several I’m particularly proud of (not in chronological order)—note that one post is in more than one category:

Changing the World through Business
The Most Important Question to Create Eco-Friendly Technological Leaps

$10 Million to Charity—Another Cheer for Patagonia!

When Does Social Change Work Become a “Calling”?

Marketing/Customer Service
Will Budweiser’s Gamble Pay Off? (analysis of the company’s immigration-themed Superbowl ad)

Why I’ve Boycotted My Neighborhood Theater Since 1969

A committed author is always looking for book promotion opportunities

And THIS is Why Trump Won!

The Election and its Aftermath
George Lakey: DT’s Repression is a Huge Opportunity for the Movement (if you pick just one article on the blog, make it this one)

I DID Give Him a Chance…And That’s Why I March

And THIS is Why Trump Won!

10 Reasons to Resist Nonviolently, Chanukah, And Barbara Kingsolver’s Message

Friends Who Want to Help

JV Crum III, who has twice featured me on his Conscious Millionaire Podcast, turned a recent diagnosis of diabetes into a way to help others. Not only has he cut his blood sugar in half in just two weeks (and without insulin treatments), but he’s changed the focus of his series to “From Diabetes to Healthy and Thriving Entrepreneur.”

If you’ve been around the independent publishing community for any length of time, you probably know the name Deltina Hay. Here’s her latest project: Elearning Delta is a full-service elearning solutions company, specializing in innovative course development and custom learning management systems. The Elearning Delta team can produce your elearning project from the ground up, providing full production services all the way through your ecommerce solution. (https://elearningdelta.com)

Hear and Meet Shel

I’ll be one of the featured experts on the Monetise Your Passion Summit with Rita Joyan, February 13-March 5. That’s not a typo; she’s Australian. In fact, she was named Canberra’s Young Business Woman of The Year for 2015. Canberra, you might know, is Australia’s capital. And I’m especially excited because the other experts are not the same old same old. I’ll be learning for the first time from people like:

Stephanie Leigh Mulac – how to build 6-7 figure businesses
David Essel – known as The new leader of the positive thinking movement.
Jesse Brisendine – founder of the 1 year 1000 challenge
Ally Laporte – radio personality and parenting expert – her radio program has 6 million listeners.

I have several other interviews scheduled but don’t yet have their air dates:

With Internet marketer Willie Crawford
On the Positive Phil podcast “interviewing entrepreneurs and positive people” (I’m both)
With Kymm Nelsen on the Conscious Business Weekly podcast
With Alyssa Wright on the Leading Change podcast
Business Code Podcast with Karina Crooks
Game Changers with Lisa Faulkner

And shortlisted/in negotiation with meeting planners at several other events, but none are definite yet. Possibilities include Chicago and Rapid City, South Dakota, among others.

I’ll be moderating two panels at Ethical Corporation’s 5th Responsible Business Summit NY taking place on March 27-28 2017 at the Brooklyn Marriott Hotel.

The Summit offers three focused tracks all shaped to uncover the REAL potential for CSR to drive profit, accelerate growth and change culture. Over 200 major-corporation delegates will attend to hear 45+ senior level speakers. And I’ve arranged to save you $200 on the conference fee. Just use the code, MP200, when you register at https://events.ethicalcorp.com/rbs-usa/register.php

How Social Entrepreneurs Can Thrive in the New Political Climate: webinar put on by Green America (my fourth for them), Thursday, April 29, 1 pm ET/10 am PT.

I missed Book Expo America last year after attending every one since 1997. But it’s back in NYC and my daughter is NOT getting married the following week (as she did in 2016), so I expect to be attending (May 30-June 2). If there’s interest, perhaps we can organize a gathering.

Order 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. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

Download a free sampler with several excerpts, the complete Table of Contents and Index, and all the endorsements.

Another Recommended Book—People Shock

People Shock: The Path to Profits When Customers Rule by Tema Frank

It’s been a really long time since I’ve reviewed a customer service book in this space. While I love writing about deep sustainability, occasionally I will revisit the basics and review a book on customer service, marketing, or general leadership. As a marketer, I see customer service and leadership as part of marketing. Get customer service wrong, and it doesn’t matter how brilliant your ads and messaging on, how clever your company colors—you’re toast.

This is a nicely written book by someone who was a corporate insider and moved into independent consulting for companies in desperate need of better customer service. And as we all know, a whole lot of companies could benefit from some coaching and consulting on that end.

Frank builds her book around a simple formula:

Promise + People + Process = Profit

She breaks this down, with at least one chapter on each of the 3 Ps on the left side of the equals sign.The promise is what the brand is really about: what your company stands for, its higher purpose.

People, of course, refers to the human factor: treat your workers well, make them feel like valued players, give them enough responsibility to take initiative and make customers happy. And in turn, they will be loyal, productive, and creative, willing to help you achieve greatness by making your customers feel great.

But even the best team will not be able to help you if you fail on process. Staff can be super-friendly and helpful, but if the system just doesn’t work, you’ll still take a hit on the bottom line.

Meanwhile, the companies that do customer service well, like Nordstrom and (in her view) Amazon, are raising the bar. At the same time, and social media provides a forum to massively amplify consumer complaints; she cites the infamous “United Breaks Guitars” video (which I also cite in my own latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World)—and points out that United failed to learn from that debacle.

Some of her other many good points:

Customer-focused companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 5 times (p. 29)
Examine your “defector pipeline” to find ways to stop the loss (p. 62)
Only break your brand promise if you’re willing to break your brand (p. 67)
A bad apology can make things worse; a good, sincere apology—backed up with proper action—can turn a disgruntled customer into a fan (pp. 67-72); base apologies in “humility, transparency, and a desire to learn” (pp. 285-286)
Act on employee ideas immediately when feasible (p. 119)
Remember your existing customers, who are too-often neglected even though they’re more profitable than new business (I’ve written about this as well)(p. 148)
Make sure your frontline staff can access ALL the information about problems and solutions (p. 159)—and welcome their input on better ways to address various issues; even think about honoring your employees in “mistake of the week” meetings (p. 204)
Understand that fans of yours who recommend you are likely to also recommend your competitors—giving you the opportunity to earn even more referrals as you discover why they recommend others and can earn their trust in those areas (p. 274)

She also has great examples of companies that reinvented one or more of these Ps, with particularly wonderful examples around management. I especially loved learning about Ricardo Semler, head of the Brazilian company Semco, which eliminated practically every aspect of traditional hierarchical management and has grown 40 percent per year.

There’s lots more. If you have a customer service staff, you’ll pick up some great tips from this book.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 16 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

About Shel & This Newsletter

As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriter…award-winning author of ten books…international 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), his newest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, has already won two awards and is endorsed by Jack Canfield and Seth Godin. 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, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and 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).”

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

We collect your information solely to let our mailing service send you the information you request. We do not share it with any outside party not involved in mailing our information to you. Of course, you may unsubscribe at any time—but we hope you’ll stick around to keep up with cool developments at the intersections of sustainability, social transformation, and keeping the planet in balance. Each issue of Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter has a how-to or thought-leadership article and a review of a recommended book. We’ve been doing an e-newsletter all the way back to 1997, and some of our readers have been with us the whole time.

The Clean and Green Club, January 2017

11 Jan, 2017 No Comment

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip, January 2017

Happy 2017. May we all come together for a better world. I worry greatly about the future of my country: the US. I recognize that this newsletter goes to people who may have very different politics than mine. I offer these first five paragraphs in a spirit of dialog. Even if you don’t agree with me, as a businessperson who cares enough about social responsibility to be on my list, you need to have a sense of what’s going on in your logical market. But if you really don’t want to know this, skip down to this month’s tip.

But I take hope in knowing that the power of social movements is stronger than the power of governments. We will continue to work for the environment, for social justice, for better conditions for all, and for a climate where bullying, misogyny, and racism are no longer acceptable—and I hope you join me.

Thus, my wife and I will be marching in the streets of Washington, DC on January 21, holding the new president’s feet to the metaphorical fire on Inauguration Weekend.

Similar rallies are being held in several major US cities. The Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/events/2169332969958991/ and you can find one near you at https://www.womensmarch.com/sisters . Although they’re calling it a women’s march, they’ve made it very clear that men are welcome.

One easy specific action you can do if you agree is to Like the Facebook page 3NoTrump. Each week, my wife, daughter, and son-in-law provide three easy but meaningful actions you can do to not stand idly by: phone calls to make with the phone number and a sample script, copy-and-paste emails, that sort of thing. Already, we’ve been able to celebrate victory on a couple of the projects they’ve posted.

This Month’s Tip: How to Choose the Right Social Responsibility Path for Your Particular Business

The best types of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities do all this:

Dovetail closely with your company’s skills, capabilities, interests, and goals
Make a measurable difference in global problems, e.g., turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and/or catastrophic climate change into planetary balance—ideally, look for strategies that create multiple wins and address multiple goals
Launch profitable products and services
Open possibilities for new marketing initiatives

Helping companies figure this out is part of what I do. If you visit https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/d-i-y-do-it-yourself-resources/ , the first two links are self-assessments—one for social responsibility and one for green practices. Filling either or both out entitles you to 15 minutes of my time, via Skype or similar.

And here’s a real-world example, an excerpt from one of many case studies in my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World. To me, this is a “perfect storm of positivity” with wins all around: for the company, the purchaser, the dealer, the community, the environment, and the economy. The references to Polak, Warwick, and Prahalad are all explained earlier in that section.

Let There Be Light

d.light—one of the companies Polak and Warwick mention—simultaneously addresses poverty, education, air pollution/toxic fumes/health risks, energy savings, carbon footprint, and more—and makes a huge difference in lives of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. All with a simple three-item product line.

Headquartered in San Francisco with additional offices in China, India, and Kenya, d.light sells inexpensive freestanding bright-light LED lanterns with lifetime batteries powered by dual solar/plug-in electric chargers. The company’s mission statement: “to create new freedoms for customers without access to reliable power so they can enjoy a brighter future.”

And to accomplish this mission, the company employs a deeply holistic analysis of the problems faced by people at the bottom of the heap, and how a reliable and renewable source of good light can help solve them.

The lights go into two types of environments: places where light has been supplied by kerosene (or, conceivably, open fires)—and those with no pre-existing night-time light source.

If the lantern replaces an existing kerosene model, it accomplishes many desirable goals: It provides a better quality of light that needs no fuel, does not produce toxic fumes, has no risk of setting the house on fire, reduces pollution, and leaves considerably more money in the hands of the family using the lantern—because the savings over purchasing kerosene typically pay for the lantern in about two months.

Where the lantern provides light in a previously unlit area, the benefits are different, but just as significant: four more hours per day of productive time. Children can advance much further with their studies; cottage industries, farms, and microbusinesses can produce and sell more. In short, the lamp becomes a ladder out of poverty.

Using classic Prahalad-inspired design principles, the units are cheap, extremely durable, and designed for multiple environments. A company video shows the lamps dropped from a high balcony and run over by a car, and still working afterward. At least one of the three models can be mounted on a wall or ceiling. The top-line model can also charge mobile phones. In developing countries, payment plans can be arranged for less than the previous monthly cost of kerosene; in developed countries, 10 percent of the proceeds funds lamps for children who could not buy them. Worldwide, they’re sold with a two-year free-replacement warranty.

Operating 6000 retail outlets in 40 countries, d.light is very successful, both financially and in the social and environmental good it has created. As of February 28, 2013, the company claims:

13,638,438 “lives empowered”
3,409,610 school-aged children reached with solar lighting
$275,817,462 saved in energy-related expenses
3,589,490,280 productive hours created for working and studying
656,952 tons of CO2 offset
10,115,224 kWh generated from renewable energy

Build This Kind of Success Into Your Own Business

So how can you build this kind of profitable social change focus into your own business? Start by filling out one or both of those assessments at https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/d-i-y-do-it-yourself-resources/ , and get on the phone with me for 15 minutes at no charge. Wouldn’t you just love to start 2017 with a new focus on profitable social entrepreneurship?

Friends Who Want to Help

Over the past three years, I’ve worked closely with a remarkable business coach who has helped me wrap myself around the idea of thinking so big as to turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance.

As I do once in a while, I’m sharing a note from her. Just because working with her has been transformational for me and might be for you. I am not compensated for any referrals to her. Doing this just to help her—and you.

“I work as a business and life coach and a Certified Hypnotherapist. Working on your goals and letting go of the thoughts and feelings no longer helpful to you assists you to move forward in your life and work and create wellbeing for yourself and for others. You can do these separately or combine them together. To see how they can assist you to go forward, call Oshana Himot, MBA, CHT, at 602-463-6797 or email oshanaben at yahoo.com ”

Hear and Meet Shel

I’ll be one of the featured experts on the Monetise Your Passion Summit with Rita Joyan, February 13-March 5. That’s not a typo; she’s Australian. In fact, she was named Canberra’s Young Business Woman of The Year for 2015. Canberra, you might know, is Australia’s capital. And I’m especially excited because the other experts are not the same old same old. I’ll be learning for the first time from people like:

Stephanie Leigh Mulac – how to build 6-7 figure businesses
David Essel – known as The new leader of the positive thinking movement.
Jesse Brisendine – founder of the 1 year 1000 challenge
Ally Laporte – radio personality and parenting expert – her radio program has 6 million listeners.

Look for a solo mailing about this with the full details around February 5, once I have them to share with you.

Also look for these upcoming podcasts (details when I have them):

With Internet marketer Willie Crawford
On the Positive Phil podcast “interviewing entrepreneurs and positive people” (I’m both)
With Kymm Nelsen on the Conscious Business Weekly podcast
With Alyssa Wright on the Leading Change podcast

I also expect to be moderating at least one panel at Ethical Corporation’s Responsible Business Summit in New York, March 27-28: https://events.ethicalcorp.com/rbs-usa/conference-agenda.php

And shortlisted/in negotiation with meeting planners at several other events, but none are definite yet. Possibilities include Chicago and Rapid City, South Dakota, among others.

I missed Book Expo America last year after attending every one since 1997. But it’s back in NYC and my daughter is NOT getting married the following week (as she did in 2016), so I expect to be attending (May 30-June 2). If there’s interest, perhaps we can organize a gathering.

Order 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. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

Download a free sampler with several excerpts, the complete Table of Contents and Index, and all the endorsements.

Another Recommended Book—Born on Third Base

Born on Third Base by Chuck Collins (Chelsea Green, 2016)

One-percenter Chuck Collins, an heir to the Oscar Meyer fortune who went to prep school with Mitt Romney, has written a dramatic and well-penned book on why wealthy people will benefit from getting out of their isolation bubble and getting down and dirty in social change organizing. It’s a great read, and a very provocative one—and it includes reader-friendly features including a resources list, detailed notes, and a thorough index (yay!). His primary audience is the wealthy themselves, with a secondary audience among organizers who would like to enlist one-percenters to work in and/or fund their efforts.

And he walks his talk. He gave away his own fortune, and he’s been community organizing on class and climate issues for more than 30 years.

Collins says many of the one percent are actually disadvantaged by their wealth. It binds them to a set of conventions and isolates them from meaningful community in the wider world. When he had a fire, the neighbors from the trailer park he’d organized came over with casseroles and offers of help. When he needs access to a tool, he can often borrow it. He notes that this kind of gift economy is additive, not zero-sum. Generosity creates more generosity; there are no losers if it’s done with balance and good intention.

But the wealthy, isolated in mansions within “gated communities and gated hearts,” don’t often experience those resilient and vibrant relationships. When they can buy whatever they want, they don’t bother to tap into those community resources. When the civic infrastructure fails them, they have the luxury to opt out and take advantage of for-profit private-sector alternatives—while the poor have to either suffer or agitate for change. Collins suggests instead that the wealthy stay and fight, “be the squeaky wheel,” and get results for the entire community. As an example, he organized to improve conditions at the local municipal swimming pool, rather than fleeing with his family to a private country club. He suggests forming “resilience circles” that build deep community while addressing neighborhood (and global) issues—and urges wealthy allies to tell their stories.

Wealthy people also have the resources to address systemic change through the economic system. As his late colleague Felice Yeskel said, they can work at “the intersection of personal change and system rewiring.” Collins is heavily involved in the climate movement, and he quotes a study showing that superior attention to climate risk correlates well with superior financial metrics. Thus, wealthy investors can choose to invest in conscious businesses. And the socially responsible investment sector is growing exponentially.

The one percent, he notes, is not a monolith. He divides the sector into five “neighborhoods”: substrata of class, ranging from “Affluentville,” with incomes in the $680,000 to $3 million range, on up to “Billionaireville,” a rarified enclave of just 540 households at the very top.

Many of those in the lower strata of the upper class are reachable, he says. Once they see the disconnect between their lives and the lives of others, once they understand the benefits that accrue by replacing purchasing power with real community, once they realize that when others climb out of poverty, it is not an attack on them—they will join and stay involved as long as they’re treated as human beings with something valuable to offer, and not just as either a human ATM machine or a target for class anger. He quotes social change theorist Gar Alperovitz: “You learn by engagement, not by hanging back.

And it’s in those risk-taking leaps that we find the excitement, the meaning of life.”

After more than 40 years of organizing and marketing for social and environmental change, a lot of his points were familiar to me. But one that wasn’t was his shocking chapter on charitable giving. Apparently, many family foundations are basically a way to scam out of paying taxes and do very little genuine charitable work. And this is part of how 22 percent of wealth now devolves to the one percent (most of it to the top 1/10 of 1 percent), more than doubling the 9 percent figure of 1978.

Collins is not anti-capitalist. But he distinguishes generative (healthy) capitalism from degenerative (unhealthy) manifestations. He shows numerous examples of how the wealth can make a difference day to day, and how wealthy people can grapple with their own issues around wealth. The book ends very powerfully, with his story of going back to his childhood community of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and discovering that he still had friends there whom he could turn into allies—he didn’t have to be alienated from others in the one percent just because he was working full-tine on social change and had given away his fortune.

And on the very last page, he shares an amazing metaphor: “Our job is to serve as hospice workers for the old world, the old story…and midwives to the new world, the new story.”

Disclosure: Chuck Collins and I lived in the same social change community in 1980-81. I didn’t know him well, but we traveled in the same circles.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 16 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

About Shel & This Newsletter

As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriter…award-winning author of ten books…international 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).”

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

We collect your information solely to let our mailing service send you the information you request. We do not share it with any outside party not involved in mailing our information to you. Of course, you may unsubscribe at any time—but we hope you’ll stick around to keep up with cool developments at the intersections of sustainability, social transformation, and keeping the planet in balance. Each issue of Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter has a how-to or thought-leadership article and a review of a recommended book. We’ve been doing an e-newsletter all the way back to 1997, and some of our readers have been with us the whole time.

The Clean and Green Club, December 2016

10 Dec, 2016 No Comment

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, December 2016

Making the Business Case on Climate Change to Trump
Last month, I mentioned that I wrote to Trump and made a business case for continuing to honor Paris. You can read my open letter on GreenBiz.com, https:/www.greenbiz.com/article/making-business-case-climate-change-trump . Interestingly, I read recently that Leonardo DiCaprio had given Trump and his daughter copies of his video on climate change, which I believe makes a similar case.

This Month’s Tip: 10 Reasons to Build Social Responsibility into Your Business

When I’m interviewed, I find that most reporters and radio hosts have this idea that creating a socially response business is onerous. They think it adds costs, complexities and headaches—and many of them wonder why anyone would go through the “bother.”

Well, they got one part right. It does add a layer of complexity. But if you do it right, social entrepreneurship creates so many benefits! Consider a few of them:

You generate consumer loyalty; customers feel good about supporting socially/environmentally responsible businesses, and are even willing to pay higher prices.
Customers become allies in both product development and problem resolution.
You create deep loyalty among your employees; they’re happy to go to work each day, and they brag about working at your firm. This improves productivity and employee retention. And that employee loyalty reduces training and onboarding costs; it even creates a pipeline to find new employees among your current employees’ friends and family.
Customers, employees, suppliers, and distributors do some of your marketing for you.
You’ll have an easier time raising capital. Your options will expand beyond traditional investors and banks to crowdsourcing. Consider entrepreneurial platforms like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, IndieGoGo, and Barnraiser—as well as sites dedicated to social change and environmental crowdfunding, such as https://startsomegood.com/ or https://www.ioby.org/ . You can also attract corporate sponsors and even grants.
It’ll be much easier to find joint venture partnerships that leverage more than one organization’s skills for the benefit of all.
As you start to go public about your social response efforts, you’ll be asked to share best practices as a speaker and/or writer (which have lots of benefits of their own).
Media will be happy to tell your story—and you don’t have to pay to get that exposure.
If you do screw up, you’ll have more latitude while you make it right.
You lower both the risk and the weight of negative consequences from boycotts to lawsuits.

Isn’t all that worth some extra complexity?

Next month: How to Choose the Right Social Responsibility Path for Your Particular Business. And meanwhile, wishing you a very happy holiday season, whatever holiday you celebrate.

Hear and Meet Shel

Master marketer Willie Crawford interviews Shel Thursday, January 26 (rescheduled from December 1). And he will take questions live on the air. Watch next month’s newsletter for listening instructions.

Monday and Tuesday, March 28-29, I think I will be attending the Ethical Corporation conference in New York City, and moderating at least one session. Details not firmed up as of press time.

Order 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. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

Download a free sampler with several excerpts, the complete Table of Contents and Index, and all the endorsements.

Another Recommended Book—Power and Love

Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change by Adam Kahane (Berrett-Koehler, 2010)

I’ve been working for social and environmental change since 1969. That’s even longer than my time in marketing, which started in 1972. Back then, what I was marketing was my views on social issues, especially the Vietnam War.

During my early times of active organizing, I would have found this book incredible helpful. Much later, without knowing it, I used Kahane’s model in the most successful organizing I’ve ever been involved with: Save the Mountain, in my own town of Hadley, Massachusetts, US.

Kahane traces the evolution of his thinking through his direct involvement in all sorts of global struggles, from rebuilding South Africa after the end of apartheid to looking for peaceful solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to helping Guatemala and Colombia emerge from totalitarianism. Serious struggles, in other words. And he acknowledges that he did many things wrong before he discovered his key insight:

Power and love are the yin and yang of organizing. Neither one is effective without its “opposite.” Either one by itself will eventually evolve from a generative, positive focus at the start to a degenerative, socially hostile outcome—but together, they help us achieve great things.

You can look at this through an Eastern Taoist lens, as I did just now. But you can also frame it as a Germanic Hegelian or Marxian dialectic: power and love are the thesis and antithesis; their synthesis is positive social change. A third lens is one I learned studying comedy improv about ten years ago: replace either-or with both-and.

Whichever lens you look through, the combination of power and love is very effective. They balance each other, keep each other in check, and maintain a generative focus. And we need this kind of holistic approach to move forward.

Martin Luther King defined power as the ability to achieve a purpose (p. 12). Unchecked by love, power-to (positive, change-oriented) devolves into power-over (oppressive, protective of inequality). Paul Tillich notes (p. 46) that power-to destroys oppressive institutions, but power-over destroys people—sometimes in ways that are hard to see. Kahane says that his own wife, a South African and veteran of the struggle there, would rather deal with overt than covert racism (p. 48). But when love comes in to bring power into balance, you can achieve power-with, and real unity (p. 138). And that’s when things start to move forward.

Love can morph in similar ways. Validation of another can crumble into a stifling forced unity/false consensus (p. 49, p. 65, p. 92) or a state of mind that feels good but can’t change anything. But combining awareness of power relationships leads to a multipartisan (NOT bipartisan) approach (p. 118) that recognizes the need to collaborate with opponents—and you don’t have to like them in order to love them (p. 31).

Kahane suggests inquiring specifically about the power and love in any situation, and poses ten questions to determine who brings what into the mix (p. 73).

Although I took four pages of notes, I’m keeping this review short and deliberately omitting many of Kahane’s key points. Why? Because if you’re doing social change, or running a social change business, you will get far more out of Kahane’s ideas and experiences by spending a few hours with the book, and I want you to be able to apply the many powerful lessons I haven’t even touched upon.

But here’s a really good offer for you: I actually typed out my notes (something I almost never do) and if you read the book, I’ll share with you. Email me a receipt that shows you bought the book or a photo that shows you got it out of the library and I’ll send my notes so you get more value out of your reading.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 16 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

About Shel & This Newsletter

As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriter…award-winning author of ten books…international 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).”

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

We collect your information solely to let our mailing service send you the information you request. We do not share it with any outside party not involved in mailing our information to you. Of course, you may unsubscribe at any time—but we hope you’ll stick around to keep up with cool developments at the intersections of sustainability, social transformation, and keeping the planet in balance. Each issue of Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter has a how-to or thought-leadership article and a review of a recommended book. We’ve been doing an e-newsletter all the way back to 1997, and some of our readers have been with us the whole time.

The Clean and Green Club, November 2016

11 Nov, 2016 2 Comments

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 2016

Donald Trump, Social Entrepreneurship, and YOU

I am finishing this newsletter less than 24 hours after Donald Trump was named the victor in the US presidential race. As someone who has spent my whole life defending the oppressed, combatting racism, sexism, ableism and other ingrained prejudice, and working to preserve our planet. I was disheartened to see a repudiation of everything I stand for.

But the work goes on. It will be harder under a Trump administration than it has been under Obama. We can expect rollbacks of the hard-fought climate protection agreement forged in Paris last year, as one example. I have actually written to Trump and made a business case for continuing to honor Paris. I’ll be making that public shortly and will link to it here next month—or you can watch for it on my Facebook feed.

One of my very few regrets in my life is not fighting harder against the 2000 election results (which, to me and many others, were deeply tainted). I will not make that mistake again. If you visit my Facebook profile and scroll back to November 9, you’ll see resources of organizations you can support. And you’ll see a press release called “How Can Social Entrepreneurs Still Thrive in a Trump America?”, also posted at https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/how-can-social-entrepreneurs-still-thrive-in-a-trump-america/

This Month’s Tip: How Long Do You Keep Marketing to “Dead” Prospects?

Conventional marketing wisdom tells you to keep purging your list, purging your list, purging your list. If they haven’t bought from you after so many months, out they go! Some businesses will even purge the ones who do buy, but haven’t bought “enough.” They chop out the clients who provide the bottom 10 or 20 percent of revenue each year, and concentrate on the bigger fish.

Here’s some UNconventional marketing wisdom: that’s a load of crap.

Consider this:

Some people take years to decide on a purchase
Purchases, especially of expensive products or services in the B2B (business-to-business) world, might require a very long sales cycle while you build trust
It’s not uncommon to move a sale through the “funnel” model, starting with a no-cost or very inexpensive information product, and moving through a series of products of increasing depth—building trust and a reputation as the expert—before finally landing the big sale.

Tonight, I was inspired to write this column because I listened to a webinar, and at the end of that webinar, I pulled out my credit card and bought an info product for $995. Maybe the most interesting thing about the purchase is where it came in my cycle of trust with the presenter and the organizer. I met the organizer in 1997 or 1998 and have consumed a lot of his no-cost offerings; I met the presenter online a couple of years later. I’d purchased very low-cost products from the organizer a few times (such as a one-day conference in the $59 range); I’d never bought anything from the presenter before this call, although I had listened to several of her previous webinars and actually had a no-cost consultation from her.

It’s very rare that I buy something priced higher than $100 or so through a webinar. But in this case,

Buying this product will probably save me at least 20 hours of time—and (because it includes sample contracts and other documents) several hundred dollars in lawyer-review fees.
The two principals had proven their value to me over time, by consistently providing great information.
The presenter’s offer happened to coincide exactly with a new direction in my business.
A risk-free 100% satisfaction promise made it a no-brainer. If it wasn’t what I expected, I could send it back.

The confluence of those four factors made it worth my while to drop a whole grand on this. Those conditions moved me from lookie-loo to buyer of a relatively expensive product. Those conditions hadn’t existed before.

As a service provider, I’ve also experienced this from the other side.

This summer, I had a $39,500 client and a $6,000 client. Both of those originally came to me several years ago, with a tiny little project that earned me a few hundred dollars. And both of them have dribbled a steady stream of small projects my way. The $6K client had done some larger projects with me, including one at $20K. If I remember correctly, the $40K client had not spent more than about $1,500 with me at once.
Two other clients I worked with this summer have consistently spent a few hundred dollars at a time, a few times a year, for several years.
My final big client this summer was a referral—from a client I worked with nine years ago!
I literally had a client contact me who had saved and filed an article in the Wall Street Journal about six years earlier that mentioned me.
Most of my largest projects in the 35 years I’ve run my business have grown out of previously completing a series of very small orders—pretty much everything except book contracts from publishers, and a few of my book-project-management gigs.

How much work would I have given up if I had purged these folks from my list because they hadn’t bought yet, or hadn’t bought enough yet?

How many people are you sending away just before they were finally ready to buy, or buy bigger?

Hear and Meet Shel

If you’re attending Suzanne Evans’ Build Your Speaking Biz conference in Atlanta, this Thursday, November 17 through Saturday, November 19, please introduce yourself. Better yet, send an email beforehand and we’ll try to meet up.

Thursday, December 1, 5 pm ET/2 pm PT, guest on Willie Crawford and Haddy Folivi’s entrepreneurial radio show.

Monday, December 5 is the likely release date for a really interesting and unusual interview with Jena Rodriguez on the Branding with Jena/Brave Entrepreneur podcast. This is the first time I think I’ve been asked about how I’ve been brave in my social change work (and I riffed about some of the people who are much braver than I am). We had a lot of fun, too.

Monday and Tuesday, March 28-29, I think I will be attending the Ethical Corporation conference in New York City, and moderating at least one session. Details not firmed up as of press time.

Order 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. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

Download a free sampler with several excerpts, the complete Table of Contents and Index, and all the endorsements.

Another Recommended Book—Tools for Grassroots Activists

Tools for Grassroots Activists: Best Practices for Success in the Environmental Movement, Edited by Nora Gallagher and Lisa Myers

After two months in a row of reviewing corporate apologists, it’s refreshing to stumble on a grassroots handbook for action—published by a very different kind of corporation: Patagonia.

This is a book I wish I’d had access to in some of the organizing campaigns I’ve been involved with for the past 40 years. It’s full of diverse advice from activists in the trenches. Some of these are people we’ve heard of: Bill McKibben, author of several climate change classics and founder of 350.org…Jane Goodall, researcher and activist for chimpanzees…toxics activist Lois Gibbs (who took on Hooker Chemical over the contamination of Niagara Falls’ Love Canal neighborhood)…and of course, Patagonia’s amazing founder Yvon Chouinard, among others.

But most of them are known not so much by their names, but their deeds. They leave a trail of success. They have organized or actively participated in movements that saved threatened land. They have expertise in areas such as grassroots organizing, media relations, fundraising, lobbying…

Many of them have great advice about how to work with people who don’t share your values or lifestyles—engaging ranchers, ethnic or cultural communities, retailers, or commercial fishing operators in the areas where your purposes overlap, or winning over influential conservative politicians.

Reflecting on my own experience as the founding organizer of a group that successfully defeated a large development project on our local mountain in 1999-2000 and my participation in a few other successful movements, I found most of the advice was spot on. Specifically:

Look for common ground
Include business supporters and other stakeholders outside the environmental groups in victory celebrations
Stay focused on the big goals—don’t drown in minutiae
Be willing to negotiate a small reduction in your goals in order to vastly broaden your support base
Focus on stories instead of statistics.

Some provide cautionary tales about how NOT to do this work. For example, when John Sterling—now Executive Director of the Conservation Alliance—was Patagonia’s Director of Environmental Programs, he was pressured by an activist with a very short deadline to declare publicly in an ad that the company was not using products from old-growth forests. The activist gained the signatures of several other companies—but when logging interests declared a boycott on the listed firms, the activist hung them all out to dry. Needless to say, those executives who had gone out on a limb were a lot less receptive to future appeals from environmentalists; the activist had done more harm than good.

The book also introduced me to some new resources, or new ways of using familiar tools. I hadn’t been aware of Headwaters Economics, a think tank that researches the economic contributions of undeveloped natural resources and generally finds that they have contribute more to the economy than they do when they’re extracted. And it hadn’t occurred to me that Google Earth could be such a powerful tool to create visual aids such as time-lapse maps that track the melting of a glacier or the land-use impact of a rapidly developing city.

Surprisingly, the book doesn’t deeply address the issue of coalition partners getting caught up in fighting each other instead of focusing on the wider goal—but this is something I’ve experienced over and over again in progressive movements.

My favorite essay was Jane Goodall’s message of hope. She called for activists to celebrate the good news, and noted that there’s plenty of it. And her success story showed how a well-executed campaign could impact on multiple levels; her Roots and Shoots project manages to address habitat and species protection, youth empowerment, and bringing people out of poverty all at once. That’s just the kind of victory I love to celebrate in my books and talks.

Highly recommended.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 13 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

About Shel & This Newsletter

As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriter…award-winning author of ten books…international 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).”

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

We collect your information solely to let our mailing service send you the information you request. We do not share it with any outside party not involved in mailing our information to you. Of course, you may unsubscribe at any time—but we hope you’ll stick around to keep up with cool developments at the intersections of sustainability, social transformation, and keeping the planet in balance. Each issue of Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter has a how-to or thought-leadership article and a review of a recommended book. We’ve been doing an e-newsletter all the way back to 1997, and some of our readers have been with us the whole time.

The Clean and Green Club, October 2016

11 Oct, 2016 No Comment

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, October 2016

This Month’s Tip: Life-Work Balance? You Bet: How to Create More Hours in the Day

I’m writing to you on the evening of October 4—just after the end of Rosh HaShana, the Jewish new year. Starting the previous month and going for several weeks until Simchat Torah a few weeks later (October 25, this year), Jews take time for reflection and renewal—peaking at Yom Kippur, which will have been a few days before you receive this. We spend a lot of time in synagogue or find other ways to get right with God and our fellow humans, apologize if necessary, reflect on the things we want to do better, and emanate positive energy about our directions in the year to come. We’ve been doing this a very long time; this year is 5777. We had more than a 1,000-year head start on the Chinese, who are in year 4013.

I personally don’t go to synagogue much. I did the Tashlich ritual twice of casting bread into moving water (traditionally, to represent the sins you want to get rid of—as I do it, the aspirations of what I’d like to do better): once with my kids, who came in for the holidays, and again with friends from our local Jewish community. I do plan to attend Kol Neidre services the evening before Yom Kippur (all Jewish days start the night before) and possibly some part of Yom Kippur itself.

And with all this reflection, I’m going to veer off my usual subjects of green and ethical business success, marketing, and book publishing—and talk a bit about WHY we work.

We work to live; we don’t live to work. Work provides the income that enable us to feed, house, and clothe our selves and our loved ones—and to experience some joys of a fulfilled life that are easier with money. We also work to create a better world, and for the satisfaction of doing something well. And of course, we each have other reasons.

I’ve talked a lot over the years about working—about my joy in using my writing, speaking, and consulting skills to make the world better. Today, I’m going to talk about the choices I’ve made to build in time NOT working—to keep my life in balance and build in time for things that matter.

Let’s start with exercise. My goal is to get 2 hours of it every day, with at least 1/3 outdoors. On non-travel days, I don’t go to bed until I’ve had at least one hour. And I track it—very simply. I write the number of minutes for the day on a paper calendar that I also use to track what books I’ve read, how many learning audios I’ve listened to, and of course, my appointments and to-do list. I find that tracking, even this informally, inspires me to do more. September, for instance, was a particularly good month. I got 3722 total minutes of exercise, or average of 124 minutes per day—above my goal despite two travel days. Three days I only managed between 94-110 minutes, and the 94 was one of my two travel days that month. The other 27 days, I got between 120 and 151 minutes each day.

Reading and learning are other things I make time for. In September, I read seven books (six of them at my exercise bike) and listened to 24 learning audios—more than usual, thanks to a really good telesummit.

Travel, arts, and time with friends and colleagues are also important to me. I got to New York once in September to attend a conference at the UN—and to visit my daughter and her husband. I had scheduled two trips to Boston, one to see my son perform a solo concert and once to meet a client. Both trips were to include visiting my son. But my wife got sick, so we watched his concert on a livestream, from home. Then my client canceled her trip east.

Even skipping my son’s performance, I made it to seven live cultural events last month: four concerts, one play, and two agricultural festivals. And yes, I watched the first presidential debate. I also attended two professional networking functions and scheduled two one-on-one meetings with new colleagues. Add to this an hour or two a day of online networking.

I travel quite a bit. While September had only the one overnight, in the past twelve months I’ve had three major trips of five to 20 days: to Texas, China, and eastern Canada—and at least a dozen shorter ones, to Boston, NYC, Vermont, and Rhode Island. In the next few weeks, I’m visiting family in Denver (and meeting a new business contact) and attending a conference in Atlanta. We’re going to Thailand in January.

Typically, I get about 6 hours of sleep most nights—getting up between 5:40 and 6:30 a.m. and heading to sleep between 11:30 and midnight. Most days, I squeeze in one or two very short naps (30 seconds to ten minutes). Cooking is fun for me, and I usually cook at least three dinners per week for my wife and myself (and, frequently, guests), as does she.

And of course, I spend several hours most weekdays either on direct client projects, admin, and/or on steering my business toward where I’d like it to be (following a shift in emphasis three years ago). But I don’t let the work subsume my reasons for living my life.

How about you? What do you do to regenerate yourself? What are your priorities outside of your work? How much time do you allocate per week to making yourself a better or more complete person? Use the comment field at the bottom to tell us. Maybe it will even lead to connecting with other readers.

Next month, I promise, we’ll be back to a direct focus on business. Next month’s lead article is called Marketing to “Dead” Prospects.

Hear and Meet Shel

Wed. 11/2, 1 pm ET/10 a.m. PT: “Impossible is a Dare: Leveraging Business to Heal the World,” webinar co-sponsored by Green America and Transformpreneur. https://events.transformpreneur.com/index.php/event-registration-5/ Green America is a great organization, and my charity partner for my last two book launches.

I’m taping postcast interviews with both Ajay Prasad on Founder’s Corner and Jena Rodriguez on the Brave Entrepreneur podcasts. See next issue for playback links.

Tues. 11/8, 6 pm ET: First meeting of Western Massachusetts Global Marketers. This is a new group of entrepreneurs who market nationally or internationally and are based in Western Massachusetts. By invitation only. If you think you should be invited, give me a call at 413-586-2388 (8 a.m. to 10 p.m. US Eastern) and tell me about yourself.

Tues. 11/8: If you’re a US citizen, please VOTE! If you want your vote to support the Paris accord and other action on catastrophic climate change—which for me is a very key issue—consider the Democratic Party position of strong support for reducing carbon output and gradually (too gradually) moving toward a clean, renewable economy vs. the Republican position of denial, hostility, and reversal of the small steps we’ve taken. And consider that even if the climate skeptics are right (and I see plenty of evidence in storms like Katrina, Rita, Irene, Sandy, and Matthew that they are very wrong)—we still get to lower our energy bills, increase our comfort, reduce dependence on foreign powers, and clean up our lungs. Reversing and retrogressing back to fossil and nuclear is stepping away from the future we all want.

Wed. 11/9 (telesummit starts 11/1—don’t wait for my call, this is great stuff): Nicole Holland interviews me on her Building Business Rockstars telesummit. Proud to say I’m in awesome company of rockstars including Marisa Murgatroyd, Dorie Clark, Lou Bortone, and several other very cool people. You’ll want to listen to the whole series. No charge to sign up: https://shelhorowitz.com/go/rockstars/ Plus, you get to see the incredible job Nicole did putting together the visually stunning, highly informative workbook (really a combination brochure and learning tool. Even if you hate listening to teleseminars, you should visit that URL and pick up your copy. A lot of learning there both in the content and in the presentation. The calls run November 1-10.

Wed. 11/16: If you are in Atlanta and want to get together in the late afternoon or evening, I will have some free time. Call me (phone number above) no later than November 10.

Thu.-Sat. 11/17-19: I’ll be attending Suzanne Evans’ and Larry Winget’s Build Your Speaking Biz event in Atlanta—and I have ONE ticket to give away. Visit https://buildyourspeakingbizbootcamp.com/ — and let me know right away if you want to go. First person to respond gets the link for a comp.

Friends/Colleagues who Want to Help

These days, we’re all bombarded with marketing messages–most of which are digital and lack a personal touch.

By accurately replicating handwriting, Thankster gives marketers a unique advantage through personalized handwritten cards. The result? Happier customers and higher conversion rates. https://shelhorowitz.com/go/thankster/

Order 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. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

Download a free sampler with several excerpts, the complete Table of Contents and Index, and all the endorsements.

Another Recommended Book—The Surprising Solution

The Surprising Solution: Creating Possibility in a Swift and Severe World by Bruce Piasecki (Sourcebooks, 2009)

Here’s another insider’s approach: a book on deep sustainability by a consultant immersed in the world of multinational corporations. It’s well written, thoroughly researched, and in some ways, reader-friendly—with a good index and a long list of recommended books, websites, and other resources. And there’s a lot of substance. I took five full pages of notes.

Among his key points:

Sustainability, when done the right way, is good for business (which is now common wisdom.
The progress a business makes toward environmental AND economic sustainability is shaped like the letter S; it has upslopes and downslopes. Innovation puts a company on the upslope; things like ethics violations and environmental issues (as well as more 101 stuff like missing the right market) are among the forces pushing down.
Businesses need to think and act for the long term; short-term thinking is short-sighted and forces us to keep on a path that destroys resources and hurts humans, instead of the “social response capitalism” (SRC) he favors. However, the culture, legal structures and governance of most corporations make this more difficult than it should be.
While government can play a crucial role, the deepest changes originate within a company (p. 230).
Consumers also have a role. When we recognize our power, companies had better pay attention.
We have many lessons to learn from the largest corporations; as these lessons trickle down, we’re better able to preserve the planet while making a good profit.

For Piasecki, SRC companies (pp. 43-44):

Create superior, socially responsible “products that bridge the gap between traditional expectation of performance and price and social impact…that respond to legitimate, emerging social pressures and needs” such as eliminating toxics, replacing waste with reusability, etc.
Stop ignoring externalities and understand that social good builds “the long-term viability of entire product lines”

Piasecki consistently reinforces the idea that doing the right thing is good for business (as I’ve “preached” for two decades). He cites several benefits for SRC corporations, including lower costs/higher margins, reducing the production cycle time, access to global markets, product differentiation, making products more valuable through their social impact, and reducing risk (pp. 55-56).

Much of his analysis is based on in-depth case studies of two of his client companies: Toyota and HP. Smaller case studies include the Gap clothing chain and the Canadian oil company Suncor (an example that I believe needs to be updated substantially).

I was particularly interested in the HP case study because of its emphasis on how one of the world’s largest companies is addressing Bottom-of-the-Pyramid economies with low-priced, dependable machines and business models adapted to markets with near-zero purchasing power pp. 152-177). (See my review about ten years ago of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (scroll down, and if you got here through my email newsletter, you’re already a subscriber)).

Near the end (p. 241), Piasecki poses three questions that every manufacturing company should examine:

What is enough?
How do we make superior, energy-efficient products?
What’s the best way to revitalize manufacturing in this “smaller and more severe world?”

While I found the book quite useful and was glad to see it reinforces many of the principles in my own books including Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, I found I could only digest a little at a time. After five or ten pages, I would stop. It took me about two months to make it all the way through.

In reading, I also needed to keep my date filtering antennae up. Most of the book (originally published in 2007) was written before the market collapse, although he revised for a 2009 edition. And all of it was before the new (and scary) technologies such as fracking sharply dropped the price of fossil fuels—with major consequences for some of his theories and models.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Five-minute interview on Jennings Wire: “How Ordinary People Can Do The Extraordinary” How ordinary people start and lead movements—and how Shel saved a mountain in his own town. https://www.jenningswire.com/authors/podcast-how-ordinary-people-can-do-the-extraordinary/

Mike Schwager: https://wsradio.com/051916-guerrilla-marketing-heal-world-shel-horowitz/
How I got started in social/environmental change at age 3 and returned to it (for life) at age 12. Dialog with Jack Nadel, 92-year-old entrepreneur with a green product line. The easiest ways a business can go green—and the real 7-figure savings that are possible when counting all the costs. Why market share doesn’t matter, and how to partner with competitors

Western Massachusetts Business Show with Ira Bryck, https://whmp.com/podcasts/western-mass-business-show-4-9-16/ Profiles of several companies that were founded to good in the world. Green companies as price leaders. How to get a copy of my $9.95 ebook, Painless Green: 111 Tips to Help the Environment, Lower Your Carbon Footprint, Cut Your Budget, and Improve Your Quality of Life—With No Negative Impact on Your Lifestyle at no cost.

Bill Newman: https://whmp.com/podcasts/the-101-best-dingers-in-baseball/ (segment starts at 28:28): A quick, intense 11-minute trip through the highlights of my work

Ask those Branding Guys: https://santafe.com/thevoice/podcasts/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world (segment starts at 9:23)

Barry Moltz: https://barrymoltz.com/2016/05/375-jay-baer-says-hug-haters-green-movement-continues-federal-contracting-opportunities-small-business/ (segment starts at 15:12)

Todd Schinck, Intrepid Now, with a nice emphasis on the power of ordinary people to change the world: https://intrepidnow.com/authors/shel-horowitz-combining-principles-profits-grow-business-heal-world/ (segment starts at 2:28)

JV Crum, Conscious Millionaire, second interview: We cover my first activist moment at age 3, how I helped save a mountain, the next big environmental issue, and how a simple vow in my 20s changed my life https://consciousmillionaire.com/shelhorowitz2/ (segment starts at 3:25)

Jill Buck, Go Green Radio: https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/92012/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world (segment starts at 0:52). The difference between socially responsible and socially transformative businesses, impact of a social agenda on employees, urban farming, new energy technologies…and a cool case study of how a dog groomer could green up.

Kristie Notto, Be Legendary: The perfect example of a business that addresses social issues, the hidden revenue model I showed a social entrepreneur, how a famous gourmet food company went head-to-head with a much larger competitor, what we can learn about engineering from nature, and why wars are solvable https://traffic.libsyn.com/belegendarypodcast/Be_Legendary_Podcast_-_Shel_Horowitz_for_itunes.mp3

Guest on Leon Jay, Socialpreneurtv https://socialpreneur.tv/building-better-products/guerilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world (you’ll get to see what I look like when I’m overdue for a haircut/beard trim—a rare glimpse at Shaggy Shel)

Two-part interview on Steve Sapowksy’s excellent EcoWarrior Radio podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pt.-1-guerrilla-marketing/id1080237490?i=363550688&mt=2/ (Listen to Part 1 before Part 2, of course)

The first of two excellent shows on Conscious Millionaire https://consciousmillionaire.com/shelhorowitz/

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

About Shel & This Newsletter

As a green and social change business profitability/marketing consultant and copywriter…award-winning author of ten books…international 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).”

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

We collect your information solely to let our mailing service send you the information you request. We do not share it with any outside party not involved in mailing our information to you. Of course, you may unsubscribe at any time—but we hope you’ll stick around to keep up with cool developments at the intersections of sustainability, social transformation, and keeping the planet in balance. Each issue of Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter has a how-to or thought-leadership article and a review of a recommended book. We’ve been doing an e-newsletter all the way back to 1997, and some of our readers have been with us the whole time.

The Clean and Green Club, September 2016

9 Sep, 2016 No Comment

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, September 2016

Exercise your brain for a good, green cause: Visit https://greenandprofitable.com/lets-have-some-fun-with-a-stillborn-nuke-a-contest and enter your fun/outrageous AND your most practical ideas for what to do with a nuclear power plant that is never going to be finished. The best one in each category get a bunch of goodies from me as well as media publicity.

This Month’s Tip: Event Planning and Marketing Lessons from a Wedding, Part 3

Marketing/addressing audience needs

The first two parts of this three-part series focused on the logistics of a complex event. But typically, you have an event in order to further your organization. So even if it’s only for your own employees, it serves a marketing purpose. This final installment will look at the marketing aspects.

As a Vendor, Be Agile and Adaptable

The caterer we chose was remarkably flexible, and that’s why this organization—a high-end restaurant in the area—got hired. My daughter is vegetarian, gluten-free, and rice-free. Her first criterion was that she could eat all the food. As a trained chef and food blogger (see her yummy recipes at https://TheSmilingOnion.com), her second was that all the food conformed to her own tastes.The restaurant chef was willing to

Do a tasting of the exact proposed menu in the restaurant, and even surprised us with an elegant custom-printed menu just for the four of us who attended
Modify her recipes based on Alana’s suggestions following the tasting
Negotiate the scope of services

And that’s why they got a $12,000 gig. Another caterer disqualified herself by being rigid; she was not willing to adjust her recipes or her policies to meet our needs.

Be Accessible and Communicative—Build Client Confidence in You

Two other caterers lost out because one of them never returned multiple phone calls, and the other (the least expensive) would take weeks to answer email and his answers lacked understanding of our needs. Even though he would have saved us thousands of dollars, we weren’t convinced of his ability to serve us.

There were communication issues on our end, too. For example, Bobby and Alana ordered compostable plates, cutlery, and napkins—but no one thought to communicate with the catering staff about how waste would be handled. So compostable dishes, food waste, and general trash all got lumped together and hauled off to the dump. Ooops!

As a Client, Find Out What Can Be Negotiated

The restaurant’s catering staff originally returned an estimate of $22,000. We cut that almost in half by negotiating down from what they originally planned to include; we rented our own chairs, tables, tablecloths, and tents, brought in our own liquor (which we paid their certified bartender to serve) and ice, and supplied high-end compostable plates and cutlery. Even adding back in the $3,000 we spent to obtain these items elsewhere, we saved $9,000—and they still got $12,000 (by far the largest expense).

As a Marketer, Be Creative but Stay on Message

Alana and Bobby wanted a wedding that represented who they are, individually and as a couple. They themed the entire event as a Broadway musical, complete with a Playbill and brief clips from several musicals. They wrote their own vows, scripted and rehearsed a ballroom dance, chose an officiant who would honor their cultural and personal traditions.

The finished wedding canopy

Build in Interactivity and Social Media

The wedding couple provided numerous ways for attendees to get involved, starting some months ahead by asking people to decorate a square for the wedding canopy they would be standing under (a traditional Jewish custom). They also built in several events around the wedding itself, ranging from a pizza/taco party the night before to a hike or drive up our local mountain, with its 4-state view at the top, the day after. They created a fun website just for the wedding, providing not just logistical information but two fanciful stories of their coming together. They encouraged attendees to take pictures and post them on a specific page of a photo website. And of course, there were numerous posts and new friend connections on Facebook (the right social media network for this type of event). A table was set up with Polaroid cameras and a hand-made guest book.

Honor Diversity

This wedding brought together a conservative Anglo-Mexican Christian family from Texas and a liberal Jewish family originally from NYC but living in rural New England for 35 years. Friends and family came from a dozen states. Ages ranged from preteen to people in their 80s. This diversity was reflected in the wedding ceremony, the menu, and the music (the band learned two klezmer and one mariachi songs for the occasion). Diversity was also honored in Dina’s and my decision to personally cook for the six of my relatives attending who kept Kosher—after discovering that the caterer’s option was frozen dinners that she described as similar to airplane food. We cooked four courses and supplemented that with some properly certified houmous (you may know it by its usual English spelling of “hummus”—my spelling is closer to the way it’s pronounced in its original Arab culture), cheese, and crackers. The effort we made to make sure that everyone felt welcome regardless of religion, politics, or culture was clearly appreciated by all who attended.

Honor Your Commitments—and Go the Extra Mile

The liquor store we chose had already promised to take back unopened bottles. When our ice vendor fell through a week before the wedding, we called the liquor store. The owner cheerfully agreed to sell us ice, and deliver both the ice and the booze the day of the wedding, for a very reasonable price. There was no problem returning the extras and she even waited to be paid until after the event, rather than collecting our money and refunding an unknown chunk of it. That liquor store now has our party business (and our recommendations) pretty much forever.

By contrast, the shuttle van service we hired did not honor its commitment. Both the runs back from the venue to the hotel drop-off points were made substantially earlier than the agreed time, and with no warning from the driver. As a result, three people had to stay at the site overnight instead of in their hotel rooms, and we negotiated the service to half of the agreed price, because we felt only half the service (transportation TO the wedding) had been properly provided. That company will never get a call from us again.

One final lesson: Use your powers of observation and treat everything as a learning experience. If I can get three months worth of marketing advice for you out of just one event, you can find lessons all around you.

Hear and Meet Shel

I’ll be a guest on Nicole Holland’s Business Building Rockstar Summit sometime the first 10 days of November. We taped an AWESOME deep-dive interview–and I’m in awesome company of rockstars including Marisa Murgatroyd, Dorie Clark, Lou Bortone, and several other very cool people. Each call will be available at no charge for 48 hours. If I don’t have it nailed down by press time for the October newsletter, I’ll send out a special bulletin when I have the details.

Also in November, I’ll be a guest on Jena Rodriguez’s The Brave Entrepreneur podcast. Details next month.

Friends/Colleagues who Want to Help

These days, we’re all bombarded with marketing messages–most of which are digital and lack a personal touch.

By accurately replicating handwriting, Thankster gives marketers a unique advantage through personalized handwritten cards. The result? Happier customers and higher conversion rates. https://shelhorowitz.com/go/thankster/

Order 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. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

Download a free sampler with several excerpts, the complete Table of Contents and Index, and all the endorsements.

Another Recommended Book—Connect

Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically with Society by John Browne (with Robin Nuttall and Tommy Stadlen) (Public Affairs Books, 2015)

Yes, I’m recommending this book by the former CEO of BP—but there’s much in here I disagree with, and I want to get that out of the way first.

Browne has a big set of blinders. He shows an awful lot of reluctance to question technology, even going so far as to embrace highly dangerous technologies like fracking, pesticide-saturated GMO crops, and nuclear power. And while I agree with him that business can be a major part of the solution to our toughest problems—like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change—I’m less convinced than he is that business opposition to regulation is necessarily coming from a principled place.

Browne was no longer the CEO during BP’s massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, having left three years before. He watched from afar as his corporate child withered under the helm of Tony Hayward, who had told an audience at Stanford a year before the spill, “We had too many people that were working to save the world”—and notoriously pleaded, “I want my life back,” during the Deepwater crisis.

However, Browne was in charge during the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 people and an Alaska oil spill the following year (p. 121). To his credit, he understands that these incidents damaged BP’s stature and credibility, so when the rig exploded in the Gulf, the reservoir of goodwill had been sorely depleted.

So there’s a lot to set aside, and you’ll want to take this one with at least a spoonful of salt. Still, it provides a remarkable look into what it means to be a “forward-thinking” CEO of one of the largest fossil energy companies in the world—and the book contains good doses of both insight and wisdom, even if you have to filter out a good deal. He also interviewed many other big-company CEOs including Hank Paulson (later US Treasury Secretary) and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, and Indra Nooyi of Pepsico (among many others).

He points out that seeing business as the villain is nothing new; it dates back at least to the Han Dynasty in China, a century before Christ was born (p. 3). Browne includes a great deal of (very disturbing) detail on the racist, brutal, all-powerful imperialism of the British East India Company—the first modern corporation (pp. 49-57)—and of Cecil Rhodes’ equally barbaric activities in Africa (pp. 36-38).

And using business to achieve social good is nothing new either. Chocolate barons George and Richard Cadbury (UK) and Milton Hershey (US) set up humane conditions right from the get-go and saw their companies as benevolent intervenors, providing excellent working and living conditions (pp. 21-28). Henry Heinz was a strong advocate of food labeling laws, knowing that his preservative-free catsup using quality tomatoes would do better than his sodium benzoate-containing catsups of his competitors (pp. 42-43). Even many of the worst of the Robber Barons—like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick—men with blood on their hands and horrible working conditions for their employees—tried to rehabilitate their reputations through massive philanthropy (pp. 17-21).

What about our current century? Browne says the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) department is an outmoded concept; siloing social responsibility doesn’t create effective change. Enron, he points out (p. 139) had a great CSR-focused mission statement. Real change has to percolate throughout the organization: in the C-suite, in operations, in marketing…not just in its own department.

And when we have this integration, he sees incredible rates of progress. He says US industry can easily reduce carbon emissions 3 percent per year, meet the 2°C limit on climate warming just by going after “cost-negative” (in other words, profitable) low-hanging fruit, and save $190 billion a year in the process (p. 88). A great example is the way Paul Polman turned Unilever around when he became CEO, with his Sustainable Living Plan:

To double the size of the business while helping 1 billion people to improve their health and well-being, halving the environmental footprint, and enhancing suppliers’ lives. Each of these three goals is directly related to Unilever’s core business activities… By using its Lifebuoy brand to improve hygiene habits, the company sells more soap and helps to cut in half the number of people who die from diseases such as diarrhoea. By investing to reduce carbon emissions and water usage, it lowers costs and minimizes its exposure to water scarcity, an issue that poses a serious risk to consumer-goods firms… (p. 158)

We already know Browne is an unabashed booster of technology. Technology contributes heavily to Browne’s view of the three most important trends that are changing the business world: artificial intelligence, a shift of the economic center of gravity from the US and Europe to Asia, and the growth of the global consumer (pp. 213-246). While I don’t share Browne’s unmitigated embrace of technology, I agree that when used properly, technology empowers people, moves them out of poverty, and cleans the environment all at once. As one example, he cites the very positive impact of mobile phone access on the fishing communities of Kerala, India (pp. 108-109). I also agree with his strong emphasis on open communication, collaborative culture, and including all stakeholders—and, of course, that business will not only be instrumental in solving these enormous challenges, but does and will benefit enormously by doing so.

Business actively contributed to many of these problems in the first place—of the top six social problems, he sees four—smoking, obesity, alcoholism, and climate change—as created by business (pp. 243-244). I’d say that another of the six, war/terrorism/violence, is largely a corporate creation as well. This is a moral justification for business working to fix them; there’s also the practical reason that fixing them can help the bottom line.

Finally, he concludes the book with a call for justice, based in corporate self-interest:

Mistreating any constituent of society eventually leads to collapse, while successful connection is rewarded with lasting commercial success…Future global development will be constrained just as badly if business is hamstrung by the hate it generates so self-destructively…I am optimistic that companies will be an enormous force for good in the future…The connected firms of the future will push the boundaries of human possibilities in their quest to contribute. They will not fracture their bonds with society (pp. 247-248).

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Shel’s done 13 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links (scroll all the way down to Recent Interviews & Guest Articles).

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