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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: January 2026
Great news! All of my eBooks with a publication date through 2023 are now free to subscribers to The Clean and Green Club (the monthly newsletter I’ve been publishing in some form all the way back to 1997). https://shelhorowitz.com/shels-green-products-and-services/
How to Wake up an Audience
Image: Pavel Danilyuk via Pexels
What do you do when you’re talking to a comatose audience? Here are a few things I’ve tried, and I’d love to hear what worked for you.
If I’m speaking after a previous speaker droned on and on, or after several speakers with no break, I offer a guided group stretch break before I launch into my presentation. The specific words will vary depending on the audience and my topic, but it will be something like “Reach for higher objectives [or, for a business audience, higher profits] (hands in the air). Expand your client base (hands out to the sides). Down to the grass roots (hands to floor). And contract those budgets! (arms hugging chest).”
In mid-speech, I will work in a humorous (and, often, spontaneous) attention-getter if I need one. I’ve been known to surprise myself. I remember doing an early morning keynote where I asked, “How many think ____ (choice A)? How many ____ (choice B)? How many aren’t thinking yet because you haven’t had your coffee?” That brought enough laughter to get people paying attention. More than a decade earlier, I was speaking about low-cost marketing to a group of building contractors. I threw away my opening at the last minute, after taking a pee break and seeing the deplorable condition of the bathroom in the divey bar this group met in. So my first words were “How many of the men here have been to the bathroom tonight? And how many of you saw the opportunity for contractors in that bathroom?” After that, I could say anything I wanted, and they were eating it up.
I will actively try to meet people before the talk. When practical, I will attend the entire conference, make friends, and invite them personally to my talk. At the very least, if the previous session isn’t still going on, I will greet early arrivers to my presentation room and get them talking. Then, during the presentation, I’ll say, “Mary over there was telling me…” She will be an ally—and others will notice that I’m not just parachuting in as the expert, but making the effort to listen to attendees’ real-life situations and address them in my talk.
And what’s your best tip for waking up a crowd? Please respond without changing the subject line (or make a comment on the page) and let me know if I have permission to share your comment in a future issue—and whether you’d like it with or without attribution.
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
World Love Week From Ken Krell: World Love Week (Feb 8–15, 2026) is a global initiative inviting people to make love and kindness visible through simple, real-world actions — called JoyDrops. It’s not a summit or a campaign — just a week where individuals, communities, and leaders leave small, unexpected acts of kindness for strangers to find. More info: https://worldloveweek.comEast Trade Winds Networking Group
I’ll be giving a short 15-minute presentation in environmental and social good as a profit strategy for the East Trade Winds networking group on Tuesday, February 10, some time between 8-9 a.m. Eastern (5-6 a.m. PT). It’s free to register for the weekly calls; here’s the link.View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.
From Ellen Finkelstein:A couple of friends have been frustrated by not seeing progressive politicians or well-known thought leaders offer positive ideas for improving life in the United States. So we decided to create a place for anyone to post ideas on a variety of topics, such as gun violence, healthcare, homelessness, poverty, immigration, and more. And we hope people who can implement them will notice. It’s a simple site but it works.
The Hard Work of HopeBy: Michael Ansara (ILR Press, imprint of Cornell University Press, 2025)
A fascinating memoir of Ansara’s organizing days in the 1960s-70s—beginning in the civil rights movement, progressing to leadership roles in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and later as the Executive Director of Massachusetts Fair Share, an early attempt at a multi-issue, multiclass community coalition working both in neighborhoods and throughout the state for economic justice issues like utility rate reform, affordable housing, services for veterans, and more.
Although I’m a decade younger, it’s full of stories I can relate to: movements building and crashing, coalitions forming, working for unity against factionalist pressure, continually shifting definitions of the movement, issue and demographic intersectionality, right-wing pushback, our impatience when we’re young and our resistance to change as we age, the consequences of bad or absent strategy, the occasional miracles of luck plus hard work creating success, the need to celebrate even limited victories—I’ve lived all of that, though not as intensely as he did. For instance, I’ve never been attacked by cops; he was beaten many times and had guns put to his head by some of them.
It’s also a who’s who of the movement, full of people whose names I recognize, though I only knew one (Dave Dellinger) personally.
And it’s wonderfully full of chutzpah in the service of others: the willingness to break convention and do outrageous things that people don’t expect in order to achieve results that people think you can’t get. Some of the tactics:
An impromptu one-to-one debate with then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, both of them standing on top of a car in the midst of a big crowd of peace demonstrators (and some pro-war demonstrators), relaying audience questions to McNamara over a bullhorn (pp. 64-66)
Exposing a CIA money laundering campaign that funded right-wing front groups by closely examining tax returns—including parts he wasn’t supposed to be shown (p. 70)
Organizing a huge demonstration that physically blocked a recruiter from Dow Chemical (makers of Napalm) at Harvard from meeting with students—and collecting student IDs from so many participants AND nonparticipants to turn over to the administration that the school could not enforce it disciplinary code against those who put their bodies on the line (pp. 90-91)
Going to his military induction physical with a big pile of antiwar leaflets and distributing them to other potential draftees waiting for their physicals—and quoting the Constitution and the history of colonialization in Vietnam to the sergeant and then the colonel who tried to interfere (p. 142-143)
Getting inside information from a mobster who incriminated a vicious and corrupt judge (pp. 186-187); that judge was eventually disbarred and forced off the bench
Obtaining 300 shares of Boston Edison stock from a sympathetic wealthy person, distributing them to organizers and supporters, and essentially taking over a stockholders meeting —resulting in a freeze on electric rate increases (pp. 222-223)
Organizing a “one-peanut-per-plate” public protest outside a major fundraising dinner, pointing out that ordinary people couldn’t afford the price of admission to gain the access that lobbyists had (p. 229)
Learning, over time and across many campaigns, how to deeply listen even to those you disagree with, how to uncover common ground, how to create enough pressure that governments and institutions are willing to address your goals
As Executive Director for several years of the broad-based community organization Massachusetts Fair Share, building coalitions that included both Black inner-city activists and the white suburban women who had opposed school busing (a super-divisive issue in 1970s Boston that made national news for months), both veterans and peace activists, and several other pairings of opposites
Yes, I’m aware that the current administration loves to break rules. But they do it for personal gain of wealth and power. Ansara and his cohort did it to create a better world.
Ansara is more than willing to criticize his cohort’s actions and strategies. He takes responsibility again and again for things he would do differently now—from not alienating veterans by marching with National Liberation Front (Vietnam communist) flags to offering an alternative organizing model to the 1968 Democratic Convention protests that turned so ugly: pressuring the Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey, to come out against the war and then organizing enough support to defeat Nixon. Had that happened, he believes, we might have avoided not just Nixon but the worse administrations of Reagan and Trump (I would add George W. Bush).
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
Having trouble reading this as an email? Please visitthecleanandgreenclub.comto read it comfortably online.
Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: July 2025
Due Dilligence, Deepfakes, Gullibility—and What it All Means for Marketers
Photo Credit: This Is Engineering via Pexels
Sunday morning, June 22, I sat down at the computer and glanced at the list of suggested next plays after the YouTube video I’d watched the previous evening. One caught my eye: a major figure in the White House had told the Black leader of an African country, “sit down, boy” during a debate on national US TV. That level of blatant racism is shocking even from this openly racist administration, so I clicked through.
The story was a riveting description of the African leader’s supreme grace under pressure, responding passionately and from the heart in a way that broke down barriers, declaring the humanity not just of himself but of everyone in his country and continent, and then several members of the audience (including one identified by name and position) jumping in to thank him.
It was a beautiful piece of writing. I often multitask while listening to videos but I gave it my full attention, even though the obviously AI-generated narration (a smooth and comforting male voice) mispronounced words, paused in the wrong places, and such—and even though the White House personality was not identified by current title but as a “former political spokesperson.” That made me wonder if this incident was from before January 20, 2025 when T took office—and if that were true, why hadn’t I heard about it before? I also noticed that the video used still pictures of the two figures that were obviously taken in different locations. There were a number of other caution flags.
What I found really odd, though, was that not only was the TV show not named, there was no link to the actual clip. More than the narration errors and script glitches, that made me wonder if this incident actually happened. Still, the video brought tears to my eyes.
Hoping it WAS real, I went looking for it. First, I searched for the White House staffer’s name plus “sit down boy”. (I am deliberately putting the period outside the closing quote mark, UK-style, to make it clear that the period was not part of the search.) That brought dozens of results, all using variations of the same script—but with several different narrators and different pictures of the two principals. I also found a recent and powerful speech by the African leader, attacking Western imperialism (including when it’s disguised as charity) and Western hypocrisy, which I watched. This seemed like a very different personality than the one in the first video. But I didn’t find the actual TV show. Hmmm.
My next step was to add the word “broadcast” to my search string. Most of the page 1 results were the same ones again—but there was also one from the fact-checking site Snopes. By this point, I wasn’t surprised to discover that there is no evidence these two people ever appeared in the same studio at the same time.
Implications for Marketers: What Do YOU Think? You’ll read my thoughts about what this sort of thing means for marketers in Part 2, next month. But I want to hear your thoughts as well. Please hit reply (don’t change the subject line), tell me how this scenario affects your thinking about marketing (as a marketer and/or as a consumer), and let me know if I can attribute your quote by name and/or title. Please do it while you’re thinking about it. I will accept comments through August 1.
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
Cliff McCarthy and I, both of us members of Clamshell Alliance since the 1970s and the newly formed statewide Commonwealth Commonwealth Coalition for Democracy and Safe Energy were interviewed by Glen Ayers and D.O. Ogden of Cliff and Shel on the MA governor’s attack on a 1982 citizen referendum passed into law by more than 2/3 of voters on Valley Free Radio’s Enviro Show. Cliff was one of the key organizers for that referendum: https://rss.com/podcasts/enviroshow/2103435/
Hands Across the Hills: A Grassroots Project to Bridge America’s Political Divide, Letcher County, Kentucky & Leverett, Massachusetts 2017-2023
Hands Across the Hills: A Grassroots Project to Bridge America’s Political Divide, Letcher County, Kentucky & Leverett, Massachusetts 2017-2023
This remarkable book came out of an even more remarkable four-year dialogue project between residents of a county that voted overwhelmingly for Trump and a small town that voted overwhelmingly for Clinton in 2017. Unfortunately, they only printed enough copies to fill the advance orders—but fortunately, it’s available as a no-charge e-book.
Talking to the other side has never been easy, and it’s even less so in the highly polarized climate driven by social media and conventional media that value clicks and sensationalism more than they value truth, communication, or working together to 1) find common ground, then 2) organize toward common goals. Yet if we only talk within our own bubbles, all we do is reinforce othering and dehumanize the other side. Real peace is always through dialogue and often through some sort of reconciliation process. That’s how it happened in Ireland/Northern Ireland, South Africa, Sierra Leone, many countries in Latin America…and if there’s any hope for Middle East peace, they will have to talk and listen to each other a whole lot.
Hands Across the Hills (HATH) was an organization that attempted to humanize opponents and replace othering with understanding. HATH (the book) is about that common ground. Working not only across political differences but from very different cultures, education levels and economic classes (and with vastlty different generational traumas), these folks built trust in a multi-year process that involved alternating delegations. Kentuckians came to Leverett. Then Leverett residents visited Kentucky. And then the Kentucky folks made a return trip. COVID forced cancellation of a planned second visit to Kentucky, but the groups stayed in touch over Zoom. A business in Letcher County took its name from a café in Amherst, the bigger college town that borders Leverett. Leverett people were crucial in pitching in when their Kentucky comrades were hit with epic flooding.
A lot of attention went into designing and facilitating the encounters. Leverett resident Paula Green, who had done peace building and de-escalation in war zones from Bosnia to Rwanda, and Ben Fink, director of a network of community institutions in Letcher County, took primary responsibility to make sure the gatherings were safe, nonjudgmental, able to discuss hard issues—not to convince anyone but to understand the other perspectives—and included a wide range of fellowship enhancers from homestays to shared community meals to sightseeing, above and beyond the fellowship that was already building from the formal sharing circles and discussions.
Beginning with how the organization and the program were conceived and some of the early successes, the book also faces the hard truths that some things could have been better. While each group had read materials and watched videos to get a sense of the other culture—and to inoculate against the fear of being seen as hostile outsiders—there was too little preparation for the differences between working-class coal-mining families living in very basic housing and the largely upper-middle-class academic families of prosperous Leverett (pp. 8, 120-122). Both communities took some heat for failing to reach out to those who think differently in their own community (pp. 125-128). The Leverett group had tried earlier to set up dialogue with local Trumpers but were repeatedly rebuffed.
The Letcher County delegation skewed heavily toward Appalachians of Scottish-Irish ancestry, many generations removed from the immigrant experience. Though both communities were almost entirely White, Leverett’s group was more multicultural, and included several Jews who had family that either fled or were caught in the Holocaust. For some in the Kentucky group, these were the first Jews and the first children of immigrants they’d met. Many of the Leverett people were back-to-the-landers from more urban backgrounds, while the Kentuckians had been on their land for generations.
And yet they were able to discover many commonalities. Both lived in mountainous rural areas, both valued the land and their community intensely, both had similar forms of traditional music and dance. New Englanders’ beloved contra dances include many of the same moves as Appalachians’ equally beloved square dances, just done in two lines rather than squares. From either culture, those dances are likely to be powered by a live band with fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and other acoustic instruments.
And both groups ultimately wanted the same things: strong families, decent work, being valued for who each person is. The differences surfaced in the paths to implement those values. For instance, the Kentucky folks felt universal gun ownership was a way to keep safe, which appalled the Massachusetts group (p. 89). But then they dug a bit deeper to find out why. In Leverett, if someone calls the police, an officer will show up right away. In Letcher County, it could take 30 to 60 minutes to navigate the rough roads across sparsely populated areas. So even “sweet little old ladies” (p. 90), have to take primary responsibility for their own protection (p. 91).
HATH gained both local and national media attention and was successful enough so that organizers in both communities began to train other people to facilitate these types of dialogue groups and story circles, create these kinds of theater experiences, and create strong community networks within and across geography. And one of the most interesting and powerful sections of the book is a 30-page section of Appendix I that contains a thorough organizing manual (pp. 169-198), with major sections on fostering dialogue, cultural organizing, and communication. This would be useful to organizers in many issue-focused campaigns as well.
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
Having trouble reading this as an email? Please visitthecleanandgreenclub.comto read it comfortably online.
Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: May 2025
Do you need to pay or get paid from people in other countries? I’ve been using Wise for about a year and a half. It’s easy, quick, and so far has been completely reliable. They are offering a no-fee introductory special if you use this link and don’t spend more than $600 in the transaction. DISCLOSURE: I will receive a credit if you sign up through me—but I would not recommend them if I were dissatisfied.
How to Keep Your Business Relevant when the Government Hates You
Protesters respond to warrantless ICE arrests
As a USArian (a citizen of the US—I often use the term to reflect the reality that “American” is a word that applies to anyone from the tip of Argentina to the northern edges of Canada and Alaska), I find myself in a country whose central government is not just actively involved in the destruction of everything I think of as good in government, but also attempting to extend its censorship into the private sector as well.
If you are a citizen of Hungary, North Korea, Russia, or other authoritarian regimes—or you lived in Brazil under Bolsonaro, Chile under Pinochet, South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) under apartheid, or Germany and the countries it invaded under Hitler (among many other examples) this looks alarmingly familiar to you.
But for us in the US, at least those of us who are White (especially those who are also heterosexual and Christian and have some economic stability), it’s new and terrifying. We are seeing abuses of power unlike anything we experienced under Reagan, Bush I and II, and even this would-be-king’s first term. We are seeing the government telling private businesses, hospitals, universities that they will be penalized heavily if they were known to support a different candidate, defend facts regarding climate science and the environment or who got elected in 2020, represent an opponent in court, or have documents that contain the initials DEI or the phrase diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Still worse, we are seeing kidnappings by federal government agents of people who are in the US legally. They are not showing warrants, not providing basic information such as where the arrestees are being taken, and often sent thousands of miles from home (sometimes to be imprisoned in another country) without even a court hearing. We have a commander-in-chief who has shredded our foreign alliances, cratered the best economy in the world, calls for the US to take over two different sovereign nations and one sovereign territory (Greenland), betrays a country invaded by his friend Mr. Putin, and openly admires dictators around the world. And we are seeing the safety net torn to ribbons, our most private data turned over to an oligarch whose intentions are highly suspect, and both the dictator and that oligarch enriching themselves at our expense while throwing up roadblocks against holding them legally responsible for their actions.
So what can a business or institution do to not just protect itself but thrive in this perilous time?
Remember that just because the government doesn’t like what you’re doing, it doesn’t mean you can’t find support. The majority of people in the US do not agree with what he is doing. They find value in a government that protects people and planet, keeps its word, and upholds the rule of law, and they will patronize companies and institutions that act on principle. Look at what happened to sales at Target, which capitulated to government demands to drop DEI, and Costco, which refused. Target’s shopping visits dropped by five million in the four weeks ending February 9; sales were down 7.9% by early April with a one-day drop of 11% when they experienced a one-day boycott—and this doesn’t count the cost of lawsuits to reverse the shift. Revenue fell by $12.4 billion in revenue and shares of its stock fell to a four-year low of $27.27 per share. But Costco, which stood strong, apparently picked up a lot of those people who abandoned the red-and-white bullseye—gaining 7.7 million store visits in the same period. Its stock price at closing was $1008.30 on May 2, 2025 (the day I wrote this) compared with just $743.90 a year ago, and 68% of US shoppers supported the company’s decision.
Position your organization as courageous and willing to risk the dictator’s wrath in order to continue doing the right thing. I wrote a foreword for a client recently that took this approach. Here’s a quick excerpt:
“What does it mean to publish a book on sufficiency when the new president is the opposite of everything this book stands for? Carol speaks eloquently about sharing resources and evening out income inequity, greening the planet, and accepting differences. Trump ran on a platform of greed, exploitation of the earth and its resources, polluting and destructive non-renewable petroleum- and coal-based energy, bullying, lying, cheating, and hatred of the stranger. Wouldn’t this be the time for Carol to let her book quietly die? Isn’t she out of step with the culture?I would argue that not only is she not out of step, but the United States—and the world—needs her right now.” [I then list five reasons why.]
Organize with others to present a united front. Bullies are afraid of resistance. When they get capitulation, they push for more—but when they get pushback, especially organized pushback involving large numbers of people, they often back off. This administration has shown plenty of vulnerability. Don’t be like the disgraced law firms and universities that knuckled under to ridiculous demands without fighting back and then discover—gee, what a surprise—that their oppressor wants even more. Emulate Harvard, not Columbia, in your response to the bullying.
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
Tim B. Green interviewed me on the Crush It Club (all the way from Japan!). My interviews don’t usually focus on corporate culture, so this was a fun one for me, as a non-corporate solopreneur, to talk about:
Why you need to be sustainable both in the environmental/social good space AND in your business finances
How to succeed in the publishing process
How to write a press release that captures attention instead of putting the reader to sleep
How copywriting can transform organizational culture
Why environmentalism went from fringe to mainstream, and how the planet itself is reacting
Why I avoid doom-and-gloom environmental messaging
A career-path book recommendation for those who are wired to be interested in many things
Whether you should be an inventor or a product developer, and how they’re different
Why individual action matters even if it feels too small to make a difference—even down to how we brush our teeth
Tim B. Green’s leadership lesson for Elon Musk
Why the Lone Ranger inventor doing it all on their own is a myth
How the best bosses can create a good employee culture AND steer deep sustainability and social justice transformations that even survive their tenure
Three key questions to ask as you begin the transformation process
Why the world’s largest and perhaps most profit-driven retailer chose to go deep into sustainability—and benefit handsomely from that decision
Fast Company’s 10 Most Innovative Companies in Corporate Responsibility
Instead of a book review this month, here’s a wonderful roundup of a few “bigly” innovative corporate ventures combining sustainability and profitability. Some are quite well known, like Cisco, Land O’Lakes, and Delta. Others, like Six Senses and Cadence, are companies that hadn’t been on my radar at all. Although I constantly write and speak about sustainability, most of these initiatives were new to me.
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
Personal Message from Shel: Evolving This Newsletter in a World Caught in the Cross-Hairs
Welcome to 2025, a year that’s only two weeks old and already fraught. This is a challenging time. Business leaders who believe business can make the world better for the planet and its residents will face intense scrutiny and pressure to fold our tents. But if we stand firm, if we continue to act on our sense of ethics, our decency, and our knowledge that environmental and social responsibility is a business success strategy, we will eventually prevail!
My heart goes out to readers and their loved ones who have been directly impacted by the dozens of recent massive climate eventssuch as the floods in the US Southeast, Libya, and Uganda, earthquakes in China and Vanuatu, fires in California, cyclones in Mozambique and Sri Lanka, volcanic eruption in the Philippines…and by human-caused disasters, including the brutal wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the massive migrations from areas that are no longer safe, and more.
Speaking of human-caused disasters—here in the US, starting on January 20, we face an openly authoritarian, openly bigoted, and openly corrupt administration that brags about how it will undo our progress on environmental and social issues and attacks personal freedom. This new government plans to act not as a force for the greater good, but to enrich kleptocrats and make life miserable for “enemies” within.
And many senior executives are pushing hard to enable that undercutting within their own organizations. Companies are shredding DEI programs, universities are struggling to come up with something equitable to replace welcoming admissions policies deemed illegal by a partisan Supreme Court, and both social and mainstream media are adopting policies that kowtow to authoritarians, from eliminating fact-checks and enabling hate speech to suppressing criticism of the new regime. And alas, similar governments already exist in Hungary, North Korea, Russia, and elsewhere.
But there’s some good news, too: Several countries, including Brazil, Chile, and Columbia, have tossed out right-wing dictators. Others including Germany and France turned back far-right candidates and slates. In the US, manyleft-of-center candidates and ballot initiatives won even in states that went for Trump. And that’s just the beginning. Visit this page from Nonviolence News for a torrent of more good news, most of which I hadn’t even known about until their newsletter crossed my desk. I don’t see everything on their list as good news, but the vast majority certainly is.
Also, under-the-radar organizing by progressive grassroots organizations is massive. And these groups are finally working together. I went to one national Zoom meeting that had 140,000 registrants, 100,000 attendees, and the active participation of at least five national grassroots groups. Individually and collectively, they’re crafting and launching to best create nonviolent strategies to resist Trump policies and nominees—quickly marking the first victory in November with the almost immediate collapse of Matt Gaetz’s nomination for Attorney General, which culminated in the release of the US House ethics report on his long list of transgressions.
Because we’re entering such challenging times andthe topics I cover are directly influenced by government policies and public perceptions related to business I will adjust my focus a bit. This newsletter will pay more attention to success stories in fostering progressive attitudes and blocking the slide toward authoritarianism. This will probably show up most often in the monthly review of a book or other resource—whether or not there’s a direct and obvious business connection. I hope these success stories inspire you to continue and expand the good work you’re doing, both within and outside of the business sphere.
And now, on to this month’s tip and resource review.
Networking, Part 1: 5 Easy Secrets to Networking Charisma and Success—WITHOUT Being a Jerk or Feeling Cheapened
Photo Credit: Pavel Danilyuk via Pexels
The 54 “rocket thruster” strategic questions from Seth Godin I shared last month were part 1 of a three-part series on priming yourself for success in 2025. This month and next month, we’ll look at networking as a life and business skill.
Relax! You don’t have to be“That Guy/That Gal” that everyone wants to run away from. They may think they’re networking, but they’re actually engaged in alienating. Even if you hate traditional networking, you may find that my approach is a lot more friendly and brings better results—because it’s not about how great you are but about how useful your help can be to others.
Engage deeply. Too many people either cower at the back of the room at a networking meeting, speaking only with those they already know—or “work the room” shoving business cards in people’s faces and excusing themselves (or just walking away) a few seconds later to prey on the next victim. But networking is not about the number of superficial and worthless contacts. It’s about making real connections. I once spent an entire 90-minute Chamber of Commerce meeting talking with ONE individual—and I consider that meeting a rip-roaring success.
Some steps to reach those deeper levels of engagement: a) Begin with a compelling and non-routine question. Examples: Why did you choose to get involved with this organization? What’s the thing you’re most proud of in your career? Can you describe a typical day? If you were in charge, what would you do differently?
b) Listen well. Make the other person feel seen and heard. Resist the temptation to fill up the spaces with stories about how what you did was similar or better. Instead, ask some probing questions about what you’re hearing. Stop every once in a while to rephrase what you’ve been hearing in your own words, so the other person knows you not only pay attention but you get it.
c) Ask what the person hopes to come away with from this event.
d) If they don’t flip it back to you, ask if you could tell them a bit about what you do and what you’re looking for. If they grant permission, begin with your…
You-know-how self-intro. Start with a question that feels obvious—and follow up immediately with what sets you apart in a way that excites the listener enough to ask “tell me more!” This formula is a much more interesting conversation starter than a simple job title—especially one that people think they already know all they need to about. So, for example, instead of saying “I sell solar panels,” you might try “You know how energy costs have quadrupled since the new century started? I help small businesses return to those lower costs while cleaning up the environment, lowering their carbon footprint, and creating better health outcomes at the same time.”
Here are two I’ve used: one to attract clients for a specific service, and the other to bring them into my broad niche. For a specific service: “You know how so many press releases are so boring you could read them instead of using sleeping pills? I write ‘story-behind-the-story’ press releases that go far beyond the usual who-what-where-when-why to make your company sound fascinating—it’s like reading a novel except it’s the truth.”
For the overall niche: “You know how the so-called ‘experts’ always say you can either have a business that makes a good profit OR one that does good in the world? I’m here to tell you that not only can you have both, but if you do it the right way, your profits actually go UP when you build in environmental and social good.
Connect around common interests. Keep your ears open as you walk through an in-person networking event, and visit the chat frequently if you’re at an online event. Keep your radar up for common interests. In person, you can interrupt gently if you make it relevant: “I couldn’t help overhearing that your daughter is on the soccer team. I played as a kid and the game still excites me.” Online, it’s easier, because you can often chat directly to an individual participant, attenders will often pop their LinkedIn profile into the chat, and in many cases, you can save the chat. (f you can’t, click the interesting links as they appear; this is much easier from a computer than from a phone).
Make intros/send resources. When someone tells you something that resonates, consider how you can be a resource. This might mean bringing them over to meet someone who you either met earlier in the event or already knew, or making an email intro. Take the ten seconds to tell each of them WHY you’re making the introduction. You may also find you have resources to share: the name of an important book on the subject, a handout you found inspiring, a movie you think they’d enjoy, a technique you’ve done well with, the contact info for a practitioner who can help them…
Follow up quickly and personally! You can be great at networking during the meeting, but if you never follow up—or follow up with something insincere and obviously generic—it’s all wasted. In person, I jot a note on the person’s business card about why I took the card and what I’m supposed to send them. Online, I start a transcript as soon as I enter the call and save it periodically (if the host has enabled these features). Afterward, I can go through the transcript and boldface my to-dos. And I try to set aside some focused time within 24 hours to respond. In my e-mail, I won’t just say that I enjoyed meeting—but thank them for deepening my understanding of the specific (named) subject, enclose a resource I promised, etc.
Finally, a shout-out to some of the people I’ve learned networking skills from: Bob Burg (author of Endless Referrals and The Go-Giver series), Nancy Juetten (author of Bye-Bye Boring Bio), Michael Whitehouse (a/k/a The Guy Who Knows a Guy), Susan Harrow (author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul), Linda Kaplan Thaler (author of The Power of Nice), Tim Sanders (author of Love is the Killer App, Jack Mitchell (author of Hug Your Customers), Ivan Misner (founder of Business Networking International). Apologies to the far too many others to list here. You can go a lot deeper if you read their materials.
(This post is a slightly modified version of the introduction to this issue. I posted it as a blog in order to facilitate sharing, if you are so moved.)
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
Michael Whitehouse is bringing me on to speak at TWO of his summits: Authentic Marketing, February 11-13, and Business Growth for Good, March 20.
Michael bills the Authentic Marketing Summit as a chance to move past outdated tactics, embrace innovative alternatives to hype and high pressure, and engage, captivate, and grow your audience by establishing genuine connections. When I’ve gone to Michael’s events, I’ve always found them worthwhile. There’s no cost to attend. There is an upgrade package, of course (and if you buy it I get a small commission). Here’s what I’m presenting:
No-Hype Marketing Have you been taught that the more in-your-face you are with your marketing, the more successful you’ll be? When you’re the buyer, are those the companies you choose to spend your money with? If not, why would you think that stuffing hypey marketing messages down your prospects’ throats is effective? You want marketing that woos your prospects —NOT sales that happen in spite of your marketing. This brief 15-minute introduction will focus on where to find your ideal buyers—and how to woo them once you do.Click here to register
On March 20, I’ll be presenting Profit by Being a Prophet: Turn Your Environmental and Social Values Into Marketing Advantages. You’ll receive the descriptions of the event and my talk in next month’s newsletter, along with the registration link.
Life of Libby: Chasing Peace & Justice with Humor, Guts, & Passion
Life of Libby: Chasing Peace & Justice with Humor, Guts, & Passion
By Libby Frank with Heather Shafter
As we enter a dark time in our nation’s politics, it’s worth remembering that thousands of other activists have survived very dark times, both in the US and around the world. I remember reading a book called Laughter Wasn’t Rationed, written by a German Christian who got through Nazism by focusing on keeping a sense of humor and enjoying the subtle jokes that were told at Hitler’s expense.
So I was glad to pick up Libby Frank’s new activist autobiography that talked about life as an activist during the repressive McCarthy era—and before, and since. Libby was never one to keep silent, despite the risks. She says, “I have struggled against the ‘shh’ my whole life” (p. 21) and “the fact that folk groups were attacked and surveilled and attacked by the federal government shows that we were having an impact” (p. 48). After getting a better-than-expected response following a presentation about a fact-finding trip to the Middle East in the 1970s, she reflected, “I learned again that in speaking out, one can find allies—and by not speaking up, you’ve lost already” (p. 118).
Raised in an Orthodox Jewish household and teaching at many Hebrew schools and Jewish Folkschools across her career, she also had a lifetime of advocating for unpopular causes, embracing feminism, racial justice, and even Palestinian rights as a teenager in the 1940s. She was the one who got Pete Seeger and Lee Hays to change “all of my brothers” in “If I Had a Hammer” to “my brothers and my sisters”—just by coming up to Pete at a concert in 1951 and asking, “why just ‘my brothers’?” (p. 46).
She went much more deeply into Palestinian rights in the 1960s as founder and chair of the Middle East Committee of Women’s International league for Peace and Freedom (p. 104), which made her an outlier in the Jewish community. She made several fact-finding and activism trips to the region and stayed involved in that cause for decades.
Following a stint as director of the Bergen County (New Jersey) Peace Center, she returned to WILPF as Executive Director for five years and continued WILPF’s Middle East work long after she was forced out of her paid position (pp. 166-167). After leaving WILPF, she held several other activist leadership positions, as fundraiser and then Executive Director at Women Strike for Peace, and then Director of the U.S. Peace Council.
Libby was always looking out for innovative, highly visible ways to increase impact. I love the story she tells about being one of ten women holding a banner on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and telling the cop who asked her to leave that spot that it wasn’t her decision to make, because they worked by consensus—and then the ten of them had a looooong discussion (keeping the banner visible the whole time) before finally agreeing to shift location (pp. 171-172).
Libby didn’t live to see her book published. It was in final production when her husband died in October, 2023, and she added an afterword in tribute to him. Seven weeks later, she died unexpectedly. And the biggest lesson she leaves me with is reinforcing my long-held conviction that yes, each of us can make a difference, and that impact is amplified when we work with others.
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
In a recent newsletter, Brian Kurtz of Titans Marketing quoted his late mentor Marty Edelston, founder of Boardroom Reports (best known for the Bottom Line newsletters):
“Fiction is not worth your time. We don’t need to escape but we always need to learn through business books.”
Despite my enormous respect for both Brian and Marty, I vehemently disagree. This is adapted and expanded from my response to Brian:
Really shocked that a marketer as astute as Marty would say this. Fiction and poetry and drama (and visual art, music, dance, etc.) are windows into souls—keys to understanding psychology—extremely useful for every marketer who is not trying to sell a universally needed product. And as far as I know, there’s no such thing as a universally needed product. Toilet paper comes pretty close—but there are plenty of people who use bidets, or who live in cultures that have other ways to clean up. Historically, we all managed to do without TP for most of human history—a point reinforced by the packaging of the Trader Joe’s recycled TP I sometimes buy.<end of my note to Brian>
I feel that my effectiveness as a marketer is deeply rooted in the insights to the human condition that I get through literature, music, visual art, movies, and other forms of creative expression. It’s hard for me to imagine invention or innovation without them. It doesn’t surprise me that the earliest human artifacts include works of visual art that tell stories (cave paintings and pictographs)—and that they are present in many ancient cultures all around the world. I’ve personally seen them in places as far apart as Western China and New Mexico.
Let them into your own life. Not just because you’ll get marketing insights, but because you’ll feed your soul. My initial attraction to the arts had nothing to do with marketing—but once I was immersing myself, I became a much better marketer.
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands
Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands
By Sarah Towle
I don’t usually review resources dedicated to uncovering and solving big social problems without an obvious business context—but I’m making an exception for this historical and current analysis of the incredibly cruel US immigration “system”—which is not at all systematic in its functionality, only in its cruelty and racism.
And while it may not be obvious, business is definitely a factor in this cruelty. The private prison/detention system is a huge beneficiary, building massive profits out of the exploitation and even torture of those who fled for their lives. The human traffickers and smugglers who help bring people and products across the border are running businesses, albeit illegal ones. Also, the roots of the border crisis have a lot to do with US policies going back a century and more that prioritized profits for giant agribusiness companies growing such crops as coffee and bananas. The term “banana republic” actually came out of that long-running exploitation—and so did the dual crisis of drugs ravaging the US while US-made guns ravage Latin America.
Towle explores both, as well as the devil’s partnerships between those private entities and some of the most repressive agencies within our federal and state governments—some of which have their own roots in the slave abduction rings that operated before the Civil War—and the way both have abused those in their custody to the point where torture is the only word to call it. Both the agencies and the profiteers are aided and abetted by a shadowy network of right-wing organizations organized by a man named John Tanton (p. 140)—a name I hadn’t encountered before reading this book, although his impact has been felt in repressive laws, repressive judicial appointments, and much more.
These tangled webs may help explain why oppression and arbitrary (often illegal) treatment of low-income immigrants of color are a curse in our society whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House.
Towle is a good writer and researcher. She tracks down long spirals of causes, long histories of completely unnecessary cruelty and barbarism directed at those who came to the US seeking protection. All-too-often, they find the opposite. And she makes the point over and over (p. 105, for instance) that attempting to deter migrants from entering doesn’t work, and won’t work as long as they are fleeing direct threats to their own and their loved ones’ lives.
As I do, she would love to see policy based on what we say we believe in as a country. It was the US that in the aftermath of WWII pushed hard to get other countries to accept asylees and refugees.
Personal note: I have been involved in immigration justice activism since the spring of 2019 and I met many of the activists Towle profiles when I participated in an eight-day witness delegation to the US-Mexico border in early 2020.
Note: Towle is based in London and currently touring the US. If you are in or near Massachusetts or Connecticut, this flier outlines a series of events from November 12 to 20. I’ll be attending her program this Wednesday evening, November 13, at Amherst Books along with my wife, D. Dina Friedman, author of recent poetry and short story collections on immigration themes (if you’re in the room, please say hi to me). She will also be in Northampton, Hartford, Worcester, and Boston.
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
Don’t worry, you didn’t miss the July newsletter. My father died when there was one more thing to finalize, and my assistant didn’t want to bother me to get that clarification. And I was so busy dealing with his death that I didn’t even notice the newsletter hadn’t dropped. So the July issue didn’t actually get published. “We now resume our regularly scheduled programming” 😉
Amplifying Abundance with Social Impact: Shel Horowitz and Elaine Starling
Elaine Starling is the host of an incredible podcast called “The Abundance Journey.” I was her guest for the July 11 episode and it was such a rich and potentially life-changing conversation that the highlight notes I took when I listened to it ran over 800 words. I consider it the best interview I’ve ever done, and I’ve done hundreds.
So I’ve decided to turn those highlight notes into the lead article this month.
I do recommend listening to the whole thing. We covered twice as much as I jotted down. You can watch the entire amazing 54-minute show at https://youtu.be/b9t2yyJai_M or listen without video at https://player.captivate.fm/episode/31aa13ab-7fdd-418d-87f4-fee96a18a02a. The numbers on the left are the minutes and seconds into the recording where that insight shows up. Enjoy!
1:45 Elaine: Environmental/social good and profitability is a both-and, not an either-or
7:10 Elaine’s intention-setting exercise and 78-second silent meditation
9:14 Shel: How I got started on this path: It goes back to embracing the non-monetary abundance that “fell into my life as a high school student.” And then, in November, 1999, founding Save the Mountain and expecting 20 people at the first meeting and a five-year campaign. “The abundance, the abundant universe, was out there waiting for me to do better than that…we won. In 13 months flat, we protected that land!”
11:07 activist since age 12, marketer at 15.
11:32 “This campaign took everything I knew about marketing and put it in an organizing context.”
11:48 Victory mindset was key to achieving the victory.
12:00 “How could I bring some of the stuff from the social change/environmental good world into the business community?”
12:45 Elaine: “A form of abundance is your personal involvement and engagement…when you contribute your own gifts and skills and abilities, it gets amplified and comes back to you” and to the whole community.
13:30 Shel: There’s also the incredible abundance of solar energy, a year’s worth every hour. “So the planet, the solar system, is very abundant.” And I get my heat and hot water from the green energy system on my neighbors’ farm. “The whole world is a both-and. Either-or choices are so retro!”
14:58 My personal definition of abundance.
15:47 “Every trip I take is a lesson in abundance,” including visiting an entire country powered by renewable energy.
16:37 Elaine: Centuries-old ideas from developing countries have given us technologies that we can adapt and use.
17:28 Shel: Indigenous wisdom of 10,000 years ago combines with modern technology to create a spiral of abundance. We’ve learned to grow organic with just as high yields as chemiculture, and a new infrastructure (community gardens, farmers markets, etc.)
18:52 Biomimicry—how the land designs itself for localized conditions—and what creature to ask about how to engineer a bridge.
19:40 My role as a popularizer and demystifier for concepts worth spreading.
20:10 How conservation can create abundance (example: the power of how we use a toothbrush)
22:00 Bottom-line, quantifiable benefits of incorporating environmental and social change into the DNA of a business.
23:14: How to unpollute a dead or dying lake.
23:46 How to do really low-budget ($50-$100) solar hot water, insulated pipes, and no-detergent laundry and slash your use of fossil fuels.
25:26 The surprising climate championship by an ultra-profit-driven retail chain not known for its social conscience.
28:15 Elaine: What has to shift in your perspective to embrace this approach?
28:38 Shel: Business is too-often a taker economy, extractive—and those businesses are not good corporate citizens. But we all have to live here, and we have other generations to pass on our legacy. That includes the natural beauty as well as the natural resources. So one big shift is to go from being just a taker to a contributor. Doing things in systemic, regenerative ways. Ray Anderson from Interface was a great example of a CEO who changed his mindset. His company continues his legacy with innovations such as modular flooring tiles and tiles sourced from rescued abandoned fishing nets.
30:09 The chocolate industry was started by social pioneers like Milton Hershey and the Cadbury brothers—but later, they lost their way.
31:42 Why Ben & Jerry’s chose to sell to Unilever, what unusual management model they were able to negotiate, and how Unilever successfully propagated some B&J’s innovations across many of hits huge array of brands.
33:02 A small, profitable company that was founded specifically to be ethical, socially just, and environmentally friendly.
34:10 Baby steps: A social-good audit uniquely tailored to each business (I can help with this—pizza example). Ask yourself “What can my business, my organization, my family do?”
37:50 How my Guerrilla books exemplify the abundance mindset through partnering with competitors—and how partnering can open doors.
40:20 Elaine: Partner with organizations, corporations, nonprofits who share your vision.
40:36 Shel: My immigration justice activist group is count-on-your-fingers tiny, but we partner with many organizations locally, nationally, and internationally—and have leveraged that to influence far beyond our numbers.
41:35 Three free gifts from Shel. And (43:14) a much more valuable 30 free consultation to “get you on the path to what is the best thing for your particular organization to combine social good, environmental good and a successful business.”
43:49 How I benefit from offering that free consultation. “I want a better world because I want to live in a better world.”
45:18 How activism turned something important into international news.
ACTIVATE YOUR ABUNDANCE Elaine’s testimonial about Shel’s episode.
48:12 Shel is…a Niagara Falls of brilliance. I’m so grateful for Shel for opening my eyes to all the possibilities… I love his definition of abundance: opening up yourself to the probability that the universe will support you…Schedule time to read Shel’s book or get on his calendar for a consultation.
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
Deepak Saini interviewed me on “The Impact your Business can have on Global Issues.” We covered: my earliest social change influences; win-win-win-win-win and the abundance mindset; how “instant” movements don’t come up out of nowhere; right and wrong ways to do alternative energy; how business benefits from building in environmental and social good—and steps any business can take to figure out where they should create their specific impact; my own health regimen (something that almost never comes up in interviews).
I will be presenting a virtual program to the Thomas Yoseloff Business Center of the New York Public Library. This event will be open to the public without charge, over Zoom. It is scheduled for September 16, noon US Eastern. Click here to register.
The Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking: Tools for the Transitions Ahead
The Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking: Tools for the Transitions Ahead
By David Bollier (Schumacher Center for a New Economics, 2021)
David Bollier and I met for coffee several months ago. Without discussing it ahead of time, we each brought a copy of our most recent book to give to the other person—and that so embodies the theme of this book that I had to start with it. Although we live one town apart and do similar work, our paths so rarely intersect that the book I was giving him is eight years old, and his was three. I think we met 1:1 only once before, probably about twenty years ago.
Modeled loosely on the 1960s-era Whole Earth Catalogs, The Commoner’s Catalog is a heavily annotated collection of resources on dozens of subtopics under the umbrella of collaborative economy. Some are familiar, like food co-ops, land trusts, open-source software, Transition Towns, and worker-owned businesses. Some were completely new to me, like a collaborative, “value-sovereign,” and feminist initiative around blockchain (p. 96). Some partner with government entities, such as a reparations project in Mississippi that sued the federal Department of Agriculture and used its 1999 $1 bn settlement to fund the initiative (p. 88), or like Peru’s project to protect species diversity of indigenous potato varieties (p 55).
The book is divided into short sections, each with a few articles. it’s crammed with resources: URLs or publishing information for books, articles, videos, organizations, and even processes. I wrote down 42 page numbers listing books I might review in future newsletters! And many of those pages contain multiple books.
A few among many key insights:
Collaborative ventures are often created out of stress—as a response to a system that tries to crush people, or as a response to disaster, for instance
Commoners can influence the creation of new laws and businesses that not only allow but encourage collaborative success
Successful models of resources held in common and managed by collaborative groups are all around us. I knew that the World Wide Web was placed into the commons by its creator, Tim Berners-Lee (and what a magnificent gift that has turned out to be)—but even though I’ve used them since I got my first smartphone many years ago, I had no idea that Android phone operating systems are based in open-source Linux.
The “tragedy of the commons” concept that open-source is inevitably corrupted by private greed just isn’t true—especially if the communing systems are designed to be resilient, self-policing, and serving the needs of users and ecosystems. A corollary is that the model of the lone-wolf genius entrepreneur achieving magic all by himself (and it’s usually a him in these stories) is also flawed. Most geniuses had a lot of help creating their successes.
I really only have one criticism. Presumably to save paper, the layout is deeply challenging. Most people who would want a paper copy are going to skew older, but this book’s design is a nightmare for older readers. All this information is crammed into 114 8-1/2 x 12 pages. The introductory text to each section is nice and readable but the specific narratives are in a tiny font and many of the resources are in even tinier print, plus the eye flow isn’t always easy. It took me about a month to read it because I could only do two or three pages at a shift. I’m someone who reads small print on paper better than a lot of my cohort (I’m 67). There’s no way I could recommend this paper edition to my wife, who was 39 when she started refusing to look at a printed phone book (oddly, she can read much smaller print on screen than I can, so an e-edition may be better for people with eyes like hers).
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
Should You Offer Replays of Your Learning and Networking Calls?
Photo Credit: August de Richelieu via Pexels
You’ve probably noticed that some marketers make their recordings available indefinitely, some for a limited time with the option to buy permanent access, and some, if you’re not there live, you missed it.
I vote yes, not just for replays but also for saveable transcripts. Think of it this way: The more available you make your material, the more people know about you, get exposed to your viewpoints, and perhaps become followers.
Even if your call is to promote a time-sensitive offer, the recording can be doing marketing on your behalf long after the offer expires. If people love what you say and click through to the offer page, greet them with a message like: “Thank you for your interest in [name of program]. That offer has closed, but you can put your name on a waiting list for the next round, [give the date if you have it]. And if you’re not already on our mailing list, add your name here [hot link to your signup form] so you will be the first to know about opportunities like this and you won’t miss out next time.” You can still get these people into your tribe, where they might buy a different offer down the road.
It’s much easier to attract someone as a customer if they are already part of your knowledge tribe. That’s the real meaning of the slogan “content is king.”
Another benefit of course, is that you can still share your information and your pitch before your offer expires. Many people have competing priorities and sign up for meetings knowing that they can’t make the slot but hoping for a recording. They’ll probably listen promptly, especially if you note in your follow-up email with the recording link that it’s time sensitive.
And I recommend replay links that provide on-demand playback, rather than fixed times. If you are in my time zone, the Eastern United States, and you do a late morning or early afternoon meeting, you’re not going to get attendees from Australia, 14 hours ahead of you in their big Eastern cities, or China, 12 hours ahead. And you may not get many from Europe in the evening or late afternoon. But we live in a global economy and it makes sense to accommodate people in any time zone.
Of course, you want to make exceptions if you are planning to sell a replay package from a summit, if you’re an activist organizing an action, etc. But give people a three-to-five-day window to listen to the recordings first, and save them so for instance you can give away one session (with the presenter’s permission, of course) to entice a purchase of the whole set. After all, you put in a lot of time and energy to think about the content you presented, make the presentation, and create the offer. Why not let as many people as possible reap the benefits and get interested in what you are selling?
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
I will be presenting a virtual program to the Thomas Yoseloff Business Center of the New York Public Library. This event will be open to the public without charge, over Zoom. It is scheduled for September 16, noon US Eastern. Click here to register.
View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
By: Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions, 2015)
I started reading this book with no thought of reviewing it, but I found it quite relevant. I thoroughly recommend this wonderful combination of science, spirituality, indigenous wisdom, and poetic language.
Kimmerer, a member of the Potawatomi Nation of the Anishinaabe, is a botanist, storyteller, poet, mom, and gardener. Deeply proud of her heritage, she looks at issues like catastrophic climate change and cultural survival under an oppressive and powerful society through the lens of her nation’s oral history. And this is key: she is not just sharing folklore but taking a deep dive into indigenous ways of thinking.
In Potawatomi culture, plants and animals, even rocks, are people (p. 23), and calling them “it” would be extremely rude (p. 53). They all have gifts to share and needs to be met. Pecans and sweetgrass are two among many plants whose gifts she explores. We human people can take their gifts and give them some of ours, recognizing as we do that gifts are relational, not transactional; that their value multiplies when the gifts are shared; and that gifts come with responsibilities (pp. 26-28), including giving thanks (see especially the long and wonderful section on the traditional Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, pp. 107-117). I will personally be thinking about how I can thank the land as I’m harvesting in my garden this year.
If we never take more than we need, never hoard or close off the bounty from others who also need it, the culture will be in balance and sustain itself for tens of thousands of years—as it did before the arrival of the Windigo: takers who take far more than they need, try to keep all the wealth for themselves, and give little or nothing back (often, but not always, of European origin). For 500 years, Windigo colonialists have attempted to stamp out the indigenous culture, sometimes through wars; sometimes through forcing Native children into boarding schools that punished the use of original language, clothing, and customs; sometimes through the scourge of alcoholism—and sometimes by dumping so much pollution into natural places of beauty and abundance that the land is rendered useless.
She describes in horrific detail one such toxic site. Onondaga Lake near Syracuse, New York State (pp. 312-322). The Solvay Process Company (formed in 1881 and eventually merged into Allied Chemical) dumped directly into the lake for decades. As far back as 1907, New York State threatened legal action. Ice harvesting was banned in 1901. And that was long before mercury and chlorine processing moved in alongside the salt industry that polluted the lake since the 1830s. But even this desolate landscape can return from the dead—when multiple species learn to cooperate (p. 332). Cooperation is a key tenet of successful societies living in balance (next month’s review of David Bollier’s latest book on the commons will say more about that).
Language is another key aspect. What we name is what takes importance. Thinking shapes language and language, in turn, shapes thinking. In English-language botany classes, Kimmerer never learned a word for the force that pushes mushrooms up through the soil in one night. Potawatomi, an almost-extinct language with only nine surviving native speakers as of when she began studying it, taught her the word: puhpowee (pp. 48-49). In Potawatomi, 70 percent of words are verbs, while in English, 70 percent are nouns. In other words, English is based in things while Potawatomi is based in activity or states of being/becoming. The key distinction is not gender or human versus nonhuman, but whether a thing is alive—so they use different verbs for hearing a person or hearing an airplane engine. (p. 53).
Kimmerer loves English, but she also loves Potawatomi. “With the beautiful clusters of consonants of zh and mb and shwe and kwe and mshk, our language sounds like wind in the pines and water over rocks, sounds our ears may have been more delicately attuned to in the past, but no longer. To learn again, you really have to listen” (p. 53). After her initial frustration with a language that has a word meaning “to be a bay,” she found her epiphany:
An electric current sizzled down my arm and through my finger, and practically scorched the page… In that moment I could smell the water of the bay, watch it rock against the shore and hear it sift onto the sand. A bay is a noun only if water is dead…defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikwegamaa—to be a bay—releases the water from bondage and lets it live…the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers… (p. 55, italics in the original)
And that paragraph demonstrates the poetry I was talking about earlier. She has written an achingly beautiful book with many important messages woven in. I intend to go back to it every few years, at least to read my handwritten notes. Treat yourself!
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
Photo Credit: Diva Plavalaguna via Pexels
Democratization Changes Everything, Part II In Part 1 of this article, we looked at how democratization has changed in punditry and fundraising. In this second and final installment, we examine the changes in a third area, and look at how these shifts in many industries change the way we do business, and the way we live.
Networking and Learning Especially since Zoom was so widely adapted during the pandemic, alternatives to expensive and draining in-person conferences are everywhere. From the comfort of my farmhouse in Massachusetts, I’ve attended major conferences put on by the UN, by various green business associations, and by businesses or organizations in Europe, South Africa, Asia, and the other side of my own country—as well as dozens of networking and learning calls including a monthly salon of environmental visionaries that’s always a highlight of my month. One of the two activist groups I’m involved with meets exclusively online (allowing the involvement of people in all four mainland US time zones) and the other, although all the members live within a 30-mile radius, mostly meets online.
Because I’m a good networker who participates actively in breakout rooms and posts resources to chats, I count many new friends from online events, including a green entrepreneur who was 16 when I met him at a Zoom pitch event in San Diego four years ago, a man a decade my senior who shares a lot of my vision for achieving peace in the world, a woman who is extremely skilled at facilitating challenging/triggering discussions on fraught topics, and an Australian with a compelling vision of integrating environmental work into the business world at a much higher level. And the democratization piece is that now, anyone with a $16/month Zoom subscription can host conferences for 100 people at a time, with no travel costs—and then make the recording available as long as they want. I began online professional networking in 1995 and have watched the technologies improve. Zoom in 2024 is a lot better than Zoom in 2017, which I think was when I started using it. And even 2017 Zoom was better than Skype, which was better than email discussion boards, etc.
Implications In a world where anyone can be a pundit, an educator, a conference organizer, a political candidate, a product launcher, or a fundraising Ninja, the rules are very different than where everything is stratified, job titles have limitations, and resources are scarce. This is true whether you are a marketer, business owner, activist, academic, creative, government worker—or some combination.
Here’s a wild hypothesis: because so many limits and barriers have gone away, we see the world as abundant and that in turn helps us become more creative. We can be looking beyond either-or to both-and, or even many-and. We can imagine vastly different ways of solving problems—and if we can imagine something, we can figure out a way to do it. Here are some creative solutions we’ve already discovered:
Using biomimicry to develop gecko-like adhesives, spider-web-style building materials, bamboo houses that can grow their own replacement parts, and termite-inspired zero-energy HVAC systems
Harnessing the power of moving water not through eco-catastrophic massive dams but through no-dam frisbee-sized hydroelectric plants with near-zero environmental impact
Building net-energy-positive houses—as Amory Lovins did all the way back in 1984—that despite a location in the cold Colorado Rockies, don’t need a furnace because they stay warm enough without one to grow bananas
Purifying water using only the properties of light and natural temperature change
The four mass-scale climate restoration technologies explored in the book I review this month, Climate Restoration (I mention them in the review, but to really explore them you’ll need to read that book).
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
Still working out the details, but it looks like I will be presenting a virtual program to the Thomas Yoseloff Business Center of the New York Public Library. This event will be open to the public without charge, over Zoom. The probable date and time: September 16, noon US Eastern.
Climate Restoration: The Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race
Climate Restoration: The Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race By Peter Fiekowsky with Carole Douglas (Rivertowns Books, 2022)
Fiekowsky starts by arguing two points that I didn’t think of as in contention:
The Paris climate targets are woefully inadequate, and net zero atmospheric carbon growth is nowhere near enough. In a world with carbon levels already passing 320 ppm (parts per million), we need to actually reverse global heating to get our atmosphere back to conditions that we know can sustain life (pp. 8-9, 22-25, and elsewhere, with a particularly grim look at what life would be like meeting the Paris targets on p. 8).
We have the capacity to solve the problem by implementing technologies that are relatively permanent (workable for at least 100 years), able to scale up rapidly (removing at least 25 gigatons of carbon per year), and able to attract investors to finance them (p. 33).
He obviously travels in a different world than I do, a world of high-level scholars and big investors who need to be convinced of these two axioms. I have never heard a single climate scientist claim that the Paris goals would be enough, that an average temperature rise of even just 2 degrees Celsius would not spawn massive changes around the world. And for at least a couple of decades, I’ve been convinced of humans’ ability to solve the problem. He apparently has found it difficult to convince colleagues and influencers of this, and strikes a tone I find unnecessarily defensive.
But the things I’ve always thought of as our most positive steps toward mitigating catastrophic climate change—such as afforestation (massive tree planting), complete and rapid conversion to true clean energy, and shifting our industrial/agricultural/construction processes—are, in Fiekowsky’s world view, less important than some big technological developments I wasn’t familiar with.
He identifies four industrial revolutions that meet the three criteria listed in the second point, above, plus a social trend that has long been part of the mix—and he says these, combined, could easily reduce atmospheric carbon to less than 300 ppm, with only minimal lifestyle changes. These five big innovations are:
Synthetic limestone that will allow carbon-negative construction (Chapter 3, pp. 83-97)
Seaweed and marine permaculture underwater forests (Chapter 4, pp. 98-114)
Iron fertilization of the oceans (Chapter 5, pp. 115-141)
Oxidizing methane to convert it into longer-lived but less harmful CO2 (Chapter 6, pp. 115-141)
Reducing the human impact on climate by reducing the size of the human population (Chapter 7, pp. 162-181; something environmentalists have been advocating since at least 1968, when Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s landmark The Population Bomb was published)
These solutions, each described in great detail in its own chapter, including the benefits, challenges, revenue streams, and investor appeal, do involve geoengineering—something I’ve been skeptical about in the more commonly discussed variations of, e.g., destroying existing weather patterns and replacing them with wild untried schemes. But the particular interventions—unlike any other geoengineering project I’ve ever heard of—are also biomimicry. Fiekowsky studied how nature has stoped previous global heat waves and then recalibrated again when it got too cold. Then he found scientists and entrepreneurs who have figured out how to replicate those eons-old models that were not engineered by humans but by oceans and continents.
While I’m not a scientist, I have done extensive reading on climate, and as far as I can tell, both the science and the business analyses are sound. His big challenge is convincing the world of his two initial points. Read the book yourself and see if you think he’s on the right track. I do.
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
Five Weeks to Set Up a Profitable Green/Social Justice Business—Only Eight Spaces Available
If you’ve always wanted to run a business that makes the world better, this is your chance to get personal guidance from Shel Horowitz (me, your newsletter writer), an internationally recognized expert in environmentally and socially conscious business (bio below). In just five weeks.
Format:
Five 75-minute interactive and participatory online group sessions, plus a private 45-60-minute consultation with Shel: you get to choose either a single session or splitting it into two half-hour sessions at the time they’ll be most beneficial for you (I’d recommend scheduling at least one session after the final class, but that’s up to you). And a mutual-support private group on LinkedIn just for those who are currently enrolled in or have gone through this program.
Each group session will consist of
Attender check-ins on how they moved forward/what they’re pleased about/new challenges (for the first session, we’ll have introductions instead that follow a specific format to keep the discussion moving and focus on the important parts)
A learning unit presented by Shel
Facilitated discussion and brainstorming on the day’s topic
Wrap-up and next steps
Members will have access to recordings and informal transcripts, to the best of our ability. You’ll probably find it helpful to replay the sessions or review the transcripts.
Topics:
Session 1: Identify your green and social equity opportunities.
Session 2: Rough out products or services that yourorganization (a business, sole proprietorship, nonprofit, educational or medical institution, government agency, etc.) can develop to address those opportunities.
Session 3: Use Shel and the group to evaluate your ideas and choose your first green and/or social equity offering.
Session 4: Understand the basics of marketing your first green/social equity product or service to three different populations—vastly increasing your potential market and giving you a significant competitive edge.
Session 5: Outline your personal path to move your idea from conception to completion: what steps you’ll take to make it real. Opportunities to continue receiving support.
One-to-one Consultation: 45-60 minutes total, in one or two sessions at the point in the five-session program that will provide YOU with the most value. Shel can help you see the unique strengths of your operation and guide you toward possible offerings, help you list and implement your next steps, steer you toward very helpful resources, and more.
Mondays, 3 pm ET/noon PT, May 20, 27, June 3, 10, 17.Click if you’re ready to sign up. Is This Program Right for You and Do You Qualify?
You will benefit from the program if you can say yes to at least three of these questions:
Do you currently own or run a business, nonprofit, or department OR have one you’d like to start or manage?
Are you interested in achieving a higher good and a better world?
Do you have a mission that focuses on at least one particular environmental or social justice issue—something you feel called to do?
Have you ever wondered if your business could be a vehicle to make progress on that goal?
Have you ever considered what kind of a difference your organization could make on the issues that matter to you most—if you focused some energy on those issues within a business framework?
Do you see potential for business to be a factor in co-creating a better world?
Are you eager to discover how your specific business can thrive by combining profitability with environmental and social good?
How to Apply:
With only eight spaces available and to make sure everyone has a fair chance at a slot, here’s the easy application process: You start by making sure you can answer yes to at least three of the questions above. Then fill out the simple questionnaire online. If your answers fit the program, Shel will schedule a quick 10- to 15-minute one-to-one call to explore a bit more. After the interview, you’ll be notified quickly whether you’ve been accepted, waitlisted, or asked to wait until you’re more ready.
Note from Shel, Your Presenter/Facilitator, on Enrollment, Pricingand Scheduling:
This first round is a pilot program, limited to eight people. A minimum of four is required to run the program. Future programs are likely to be more expensive and accommodate up to 12 people, so this is a time you can get more in-depth attention from me at a more affordable cost. I was advised by multiple experts that I should be charging $1500-$2000 for this program, but I want to keep it affordable—and I recognize that you’ll be road-testing it with me and helping me refine future versions. So, pricing for this first round will be just $675 in one payment or two payments of $375. The next iteration of this mastermind will likely be in the $995-$1195 range. This initial bargain price will not be repeated.
Mondays, 3 pm ET/noon PT, May 20, 27, June 3, 10, 17.Fill out and submit the brief application if you’re ready to sign up.
Your Instructor/Facilitator, Shel Horowitz
With more than 20 years at the intersection of profitability and environmental/social good and more than 20 additional years in small business marketing and in activism, Shel’s “superpowers” include:
Finding your social change sweet spot: how you and yourorganization are uniquely positioned to create and market profitable products and services that address crises like hunger, poverty, racism/othering—even “unsolvable” ones like war and catastrophic climate change (the answers will be different for every business or nonprofit). Your offering will be based on your skills, interests, and capabilities.
Creating compelling ways to tell “the story behind the story” that generate interest, empathy, and engagement—in a press release, on a web page, in interviews and speeches, etc.
Writing informational and marketing materials that make a compelling case for you, your products and services, and your focus on higher good: reasons for your prospects to choose you!
Helping you write, publish, and market a book that establishes your expertise and credibility while helping to influence others toward a better world (Shel has published ten books under his own name and ghostwritten others, through big NYC publishers, small presses, his own publishing company, and a subsidy house, so he has expertise in whichever model will work best for you).
Suggesting win-win-win partnerships that broaden your market, add more capabilities to your offerings, and increase revenue opportunities. Shel can also write powerful introductory letters to your potential partners like the one that enabled one of his clients to do script consulting for Hollywood director Ed Zwick. Doing two books in the Guerrilla Marketing series with the legendary Jay Conrad Levinson was Shel’s best partnership in his own career.
Helping you secure knock-it-out-of-the-park endorsements and positioning those blurbs for visibility and sales. He wrote the letter that got one client a testimonial from basketball superstar Bob Cousy. Shel’s latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, has 22 endorsements including Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, green living and green business experts Alicia Bay Laurel, Jacquelyn Ottman, and Joel Makower, social media gurus Chris Brogan and Brian Solis, Go-Giver Bob Burg, BNI founder Ivan Misner, and other prominent people.
I note in the opening paragraph of this month’s book review (Democracy Awakening by historian Heather Cox Richardson) that this is the third consecutive month I’ve reviewed a book that gives a window in changing the power dynamics in order to create lasting social change.
Shifting power dynamics is why we know this month’s author in the first place. Despite the rise of many authoritarian regimes around the globe, general social trends clearly show that power is being democratized in some very important ways. Electoral politics dynamics, shaping public opinion, fundraising, organizing movements, and of course, the buying process are really different than they were 30 years ago. Let’s look at just three of these.
Shaping Public Opinion
In this country’s early history, pamphleteers printed or went to a print shop to print their own works. Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin became not just influencers, but folk heroes—and they did it without the help of a mainstream press. But in the 19th and 20th centuries, the mainstream media took hold. In the 1960s when I was growing up, the news, for the most part, was what Walter Cronkite or Huntley & Brinkley said it was on TV, or what the New York Times saw as part of “all the news that’s fit to print.” Our consciousness not only in news but in culture and life was shaped by just three major television networks, and the typical family might only consume one or two news sources.
National media still exist, of course. But with hundreds of thousands of media channels diluting the audience for any single one, there was no longer a national consensus about what was important and where to learn about it. At the same time, media broke out of geographic and time isolation. If a reader wants a European or Middle Eastern perspective, it’s easy enough to jump on the website for Der Spiegel or Al-Jazeera. And the days of needing to watch the news at a particular moment are long gone. We live in a world of unlimited reruns and pause buttons.
For the past several decades, opinion makers can once again, finally, develop an audience without the help of a mainstream media platform. While self-publishing never went away (think Walt Whitman or Anais Nin), it had existed on the margins. But by 2000, we suddenly saw a big shift: a return to the dynamics that had lifted Paine and Franklin in the 18th Century. Commentators like Greg Palast and Beverly Harris suddenly found a following.
24 years later, hundreds of self-made pundits have built significant followings, often leading to book contracts. But tens of thousands of others, using those same platforms, toil in obscurity.
Richardson is one of those newly strengthened voices. Her daily Substack newsletter, Letters from an American, has tens of thousands of readers. So do newsletters from Rubert Hubbell, Jessica Craven, and so many others.
This model has upended power relations between commentators and their public, at least from my perspective. I start my day reading Richardson and Hubbell along with business commentators Seth Godin and Bob Burg. And I read Craven’s Sunday good news roundup. While I frequently follow links to mainstream-media commentary such as Rachel Maddow and Seth Myers, I don’t seek them out, just follow links when their stuff someone or some algorithm sends me something that looks interesting. I do subscribe to various news bulletins from the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Guardian, as well as several green business and climate publications. Sometimes I read the summaries and don’t click through; other times I might click three links in a single newsletter. But those self-published four are the first places I turn to when I log on each morning.
Multiply me by tens of thousands of others, and you can see that both Left and Right are building audiences through individual newsletters, a few subscribers at a time. Add in social media chatter, which tends to aggregate like-minded audiences, and we see that the established media has much less influence than it used to. As a society, we now crowdsource our wisdom and to some extent our conclusions.
And this is one of the reasons why things seem so much more polarized. We’re not getting the middle voices so much, and the ends of the spectrum get far more traction than they used to.
Fundraising
You’d never know it looking at the number of fundraising letters coming into my postal mailbox every week, but fundraising has also seen sweeping change. Any of us can now set up a campaign on one of many platforms. While Kickstarter is the most famous, hundreds of alternatives exist (many with much more fundraiser-friendly models). To name just a few (listed for informational purposes; these are not endorsements and you should do your own due diligence): GiveButter, Chuffed, and Zeffy serve nonprofits, Barnraiser and Harvest Returns help farm and food businesses, Mighty Cause and SeedInvest fund activists, Patreon assists musicians, and GoFundMe and IndieGoGo can fund pretty much any venture. These and many other crowdfunding platforms have allowed inventors, creatives, charities, and for-profit businesses to capitalize without relying on vulture capital, banks, or predatory lending.
[This article continues next month, examining one more category and discussing what this means for marketers, business owners, activists, and creatives.]
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
Overcoming the challenges in creating a successful business.
The art of merging world-saving with business growth.
How ethical, green businesses aren’t just good for the planet—they’re great for business success.
Four diverse markets for green products, from the eco-enthusiasts to the skeptics, and how tailoring your pitch can win them over.
Global conflicts, and how resource competition fuels them.
Easy-to-implement socially conscious business practices.
How activism can boost your business and fill your soul.
And much, much more
A much shorter 21-minute interview with Mari-Lyn Harris of Heart at Work on her Creating an Impact podcast, which also aired on her Summit for Changemakers.
Mari-Lyn has had me on her podcasts and telesummits many times and we always have a great conversation. Despite the short length, we managed to cover:
Motivating from excitement about new possibilities instead of despair and gloom
Creating initiatives that have multiple benefits (and often, few or no disadvantages)
How green initiatives offer ROIs that outperform almost any other option
Why we need to go beyond sustainability(keeping things from getting worse) to regenerativity (making things better)
Why the so-called Green Revolution that started in the 1940s was really a failure
How funding small, well-chosen initiatives with tiny donations can create deep and lasting change–and how I personally used this method to start libraries in two developing countries
How I can help businesses and organizations find enormous value in the social change and environmental work they do
Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America By: Heather Cox Richardson (Viking, 2023)
Why am I devoting a third consecutive book review to a book on power dynamics? Some of it is coincidence—but the play of power dynamics in the 2024 US presidential election probably helped bring Democracy Awakening, David and Goliath and Reclaiming Democracy to the top of my reading pile. Next month’s book review will be entirely different: a handbook on reversing the carbon problem.
As a historian, Richardson has a very different approach than Gladwell the visionary or Daley-Harris the activist. She puts this moment with a would-be dictator facing 91 criminal charges into a historical context that starts before the Revolutionary War, continues through the major threat to US democracy before, during, and after the Civil War (a struggle between slavers/segregationists and those who saw their mission as expanding the reach of liberty), and moves into the 20thth and 21stst centuries with the slow-building right-wing attempt to return to the “glory days” when white males controlled those they saw as inferior—culminating in the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
We know that Trump in some ways is different. Never before has a president been so willing to lie (the Washington Post documented 30,573 lies during his term.) Never in my lifetime has a US president been so openly corrupt or so blatant in using his office to grow his personal wealth and business revenues—or so openly racist, misogynistic, ableist, and cruel; so demanding of personal loyalty while giving none in return; so enamored of some of the worst dictators in the world; so inept at policy; and so emotionally insecure that he needs to brag that anything good was because of him (while being conspicuously absent when it’s time to admit he was wrong).
But Richardson shows that Trump, while extreme, is a logical consequence of decades of policy.
We will never know if Trump would have happened (or been so successful) without the earlier almost continuous attempts at subverting democracy, from Jefferson—yes, the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence—pushing winner-take-all presidential state-by-state voting in a blatant attempt to win the presidency under the new rules (p. 185) and the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act betrayal that could have turned the entire US into slaveholder territory (p. 197) to Richard Nixon squelching negotiations with Vietnam until he was firmly in the White House so Johnson could not claim a victory. That playbook was used again in 1980 by Ronald Reagan to block a hostage-release deal with Iran until Jimmy Carter had left the White House (p. 49), and Trump used a variant in first demanding action on immigration in order to get funding for foreign crises, then torpedoing that action as soon as it became apparent that it might actually pass.
This sorry history has many roots. The KKK chose white robes so they would appear to be ghosts and spook Blacks into intimidation (p. 27). A pro-slave senator physically attacked Senator Charles Sumner in 1856 (p. 197). Hitler slurred the groups he tried to destroy, such as Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews—as “Indians” (p. 167).
Richardson also examines the little tug-of-wars in values in both current US political parties. But one thing she doesn’t do satisfactorily is to explain how the Republican Party of liberation that managed to win the presidency in just its second attempt (and that under Lincoln made huge strides toward a more equal society) became the party of racism, misogyny, and authoritarianism while the Democrats, who embodied blatant racism through the 19thth century, somehow became the part of working people regardless of color, gender, sexual orientation, or physical abilities. To me, that’s a rather shocking omission.
Despite this flaw, it’s a well-written book that fills in a lot of details about the past 200+ years and girds us well to protect our democracy again going into November.
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
Sorry to be a few days late this month. The fault is all mine; in the midst of a health crisis with my dad and a trip to Florida to help sort it out, I neglected to move the main article from my stay-at-home computer to the one I travel with. I asked my housesitter to send it to me, but I think it sounded too complicated for her.
The good news is this issue is a really good one, starting with your chance to get some awesome skills in developing/expanding your own green/social change business, continuing through a guest main article on one of my favorite topics, and including for the first time in a while some chances to hear me on podcasts and read recent press coverage. It concludes with a review of a wonderfully thorough and deeply optimistic climate crisis book focused on ACTION: of individuals, organizations, and citizen groups.
Enjoy! And please feel welcome to comment on any or all, either by leaving a note online or by replying to this email.
Warmly, Shel
Before we get to this month’s tip, an important and limited chance to really up your green/social equity business game:
Five Weeks to Set Up a Profitable Green/Social Justice Business—Only Eight Spaces Available
If you’ve always wanted to run a business that makes the world better, this is your chance to get personal guidance from Shel Horowitz (me, your newsletter writer), an internationally recognized expert in environmentally and socially conscious business (bio below). In just five weeks.
Format:
Five 75-minute interactive and participatory online group sessions, plus a private 45-60-minute consultation with Shel: you get to choose either a single session or splitting it into two half-hour sessions at the time they’ll be most beneficial for you (I’d recommend scheduling at least one session after the final class, but that’s up to you). And a mutual-support private group on LinkedIn just for those who are currently enrolled in or have gone through this program.
Each group session will consist of
Attender check-ins on how they moved forward/what they’re pleased about/new challenges (for the first session, we’ll have introductions instead that follow a specific format to keep the discussion moving and focus on the important parts)
A learning unit presented by Shel
Facilitated discussion and brainstorming on the day’s topic
Wrap-up and next steps
Members will have access to recordings and informal transcripts, to the best of our ability. You’ll probably find it helpful to replay the sessions or review the transcripts.
Topics:
Session 1: Identify your green and social equity opportunities.
Session 2: Rough out products or services that yourorganization (a business, sole proprietorship, nonprofit, educational or medical institution, government agency, etc.) can develop to address those opportunities.
Session 3: Use Shel and the group to evaluate your ideas and choose your first green and/or social equity offering.
Session 4: Understand the basics of marketing your first green/social equity product or service to three different populations—vastly increasing your potential market and giving you a significant competitive edge.
Session 5: Outline your personal path to move your idea from conception to completion: what steps you’ll take to make it real. Opportunities to continue receiving support.
One-to-one Consultation: 45-60 minutes total, in one or two sessions at the point in the five-session program that will provide YOU with the most value. Shel can help you see the unique strengths of your operation and guide you toward possible offerings, help you list and implement your next steps, steer you toward very helpful resources, and more.
April 2, 9, 16, 30, and May 7, 2024 (skipping April 23 so as not to interfere with Passover Seders). Click if you’re ready to sign up
Is This Program Right for You and Do You Qualify?
You will benefit from the program if you can say yes to at least three of these questions:
Do you currently own or run a business, nonprofit, or department OR have one you’d like to start or manage?
Are you interested in achieving a higher good and a better world?
Do you have a mission that focuses on at least one particular environmental or social justice issue—something you feel called to do?
Have you ever wondered if your business could be a vehicle to make progress on that goal?
Have you ever considered what kind of a difference your organization could make on the issues that matter to you most—if you focused some energy on those issues within a business framework?
Do you see potential for business to be a factor in co-creating a better world?
Are you eager to discover how your specific business can thrive by combining profitability with environmental and social good?
How to Apply:
With only eight spaces available and to make sure everyone has a fair chance at a slot, here’s the easy application process: You start by making sure you can answer yes to at least three of the questions above. Then fill out the simple questionnaire online. If your answers fit the program, Shel will schedule a quick 10- to 15-minute one-to-one call to explore a bit more. After the interview, you’ll be notified quickly whether you’ve been accepted, waitlisted, or asked to wait until you’re more ready.
Note from Shel, Your Presenter/Facilitator, on Enrollment, Pricingand Scheduling:
This first round is a pilot program, limited to eight people. A minimum of four is required to run the program. Future programs are likely to be more expensive and accommodate up to 12 people, so this is a time you can get more in-depth attention from me at a more affordable cost. I was advised by multiple experts that I should be charging $1500-$2000 for this program, but I want to keep it affordable—and I recognize that you’ll be road-testing it with me and helping me refine future versions. So, pricing for this first round will be just $675 in one payment or two payments of $375. The next round of this mastermind will likely be in the $995-$1195 range. This initial bargain price will not be repeated.
Tentatively, I will schedule for Tuesday afternoons at 4 pm US Eastern. If you are seriously interested but Tuesday afternoons aren’t good for you, reach out to me. If I can get a minimum of four, I’m willing to run a second group concurrently. We will do our best to provide recordings and transcripts.
April 2, 9, 16, 30, and May 7, 2024 (skipping April 23 so as not to interfere with Passover Seders). Fill out and submit the brief application if you’re ready to sign up.
Your Instructor/Facilitator, Shel Horowitz
With more than 20 years at the intersection of profitability and environmental/social good and more than 20 additional years in small business marketing and in activism, Shel’s “superpowers” include:
Finding your social change sweet spot: how you and yourorganization are uniquely positioned to create and market profitable products and services that address crises like hunger, poverty, racism/othering—even “unsolvable” ones like war and catastrophic climate change (the answers will be different for every business or nonprofit). Your offering will be based on your skills, interests, and capabilities.
Creating compelling ways to tell “the story behind the story” that generate interest, empathy, and engagement—in a press release, on a web page, in interviews and speeches, etc.
Writing informational and marketing materials that make a compelling case for you, your products and services, and your focus on higher good: reasons for your prospects to choose you!
Helping you write, publish, and market a book that establishes your expertise and credibility while helping to influence others toward a better world (Shel has published ten books under his own name and ghostwritten others, through big NYC publishers, small presses, his own publishing company, and a subsidy house, so he has expertise in whichever model will work best for you).
Suggesting win-win-win partnerships that broaden your market, add more capabilities to your offerings, and increase revenue opportunities. Shel can also write powerful introductory letters to your potential partners like the one that enabled one of his clients to do script consulting for Hollywood director Ed Zwick. Doing two books in the Guerrilla Marketing series with the legendary Jay Conrad Levinson was Shel’s best partnership in his own career.
Helping you secure knock-it-out-of-the-park endorsements and positioning those blurbs for visibility and sales. He wrote the letter that got one client a testimonial from basketball superstar Bob Cousy. Shel’s latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, has 22 endorsements including Chicken Soup for the Soul’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, green living green business experts Alicia Bay Laurel, Jacquelyn Ottman, and Joel Makower, social media gurus Chris Brogan and Brian Solis, Go-Giver Bob Burg, BNI founder Ivan Misner, and other prominent people.
April 2, 9, 16, 30, and May 7, 2024 (skipping April 23 so as not to interfere with Passover Seders). Fill out and submit the brief application if you’re ready to sign up.
Build Your Spirits and Your Business with this One Shift
Photo Credit: fauxels via Pexels
Why Kindness Builds Success
Guest article by Rob Hatch
[Editor’s Note: I was introduced to Rob by the legendary Chris Brogan, his colleague at Owner Media, several years ago, and I read both his newsletter and Chris’s faithfully. Their styles are extremely different—Rob is the grounded, practical one while Chris is the big dreamer—and both give solid advice with a very personal touch. I’ve also corresponded with him repeatedly and find him to be every bit as much a mensch as this article suggests. This post originally appeared in his November 23 newsletter. You can read his bio and subscribe at the link in his byline, above –Shel]
“Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true. The kindest person in the room is often the smartest” – J.B. Pritzker.
This quote was from the Illinois Governor’s commencement speech at Northwestern University.
Too often, we excuse behaviors that are…well, unkind. When discussing the achievements of remarkable individuals, we sometimes overlook lousy behavior. We may even cite their insolence as a critical element of their success or, worse, attempt to emulate it.
However, being a jerk is not a requirement for success. In fact, it is kindness that conveys strength and instills confidence.
You can be kind and still have high expectations.
You can be kind and still hold people accountable.
You can be kind and still be honest and direct.
You can be kind and still make difficult decisions others disagree with.
You can be kind and still be firm in the face of challenging situations.
I can’t promise it will make you the smartest person in the room. However, when I consider how to frame my success, I want kindness as the foundation.
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
Mari-Lyn Harris, who has interviewed me several times for various summits, taped a great interview with me that was scheduled to air on February 12 as part of her Change-Maker Summit. Then she had to postpone her whole summit for health reasons.
And Kevin Lee has had to postpone two tapings for his Power Marketing podcast.
I will post the links to both of them on the archive page for this month’s newsletter (click on any of the Read More buttons in this email) as I receive them.
It’s been a while since I had this section in the newsletter–but this year, I will be actively pursuing podcast interviews once I get back from a trip to China at the end of March. So hopefully this will be a more-or-less regular feature again.
The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming
The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming By: Guy Dauncey
Actually, Dauncey presents far more than 101 solutions. Each two-page “solution” covers a broad topic, and within that framework, he might include a dozen or more. As an example, I opened randomly to solution #58, “Build a Smart Grid” (pp.192-193). Those two pages begin by pointing out issues with the old-fashioned grid and challenges that will render it obsolete. Then it presents a vision of the many improvements a smart-grid world would offer, from evening out the consumption highs and lows to eliminating the need for “peaker plants” to lowering homeowner electric bills—and notes potential overall savings in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Then it provides three action steps for electric utilities before concluding with six methods to address storage of renewable energy in the short term. It also includes a photo with caption, a sidebar with 15 websites to learn more, a quote from an expert, five reference citations to the extensive endnotes (22 pages’ worth)—and, amazingly, about two column-inches of white space.
Other solution spreads include charts and graphs, sidebars with citizen action steps (nine of these at solution #62 fill almost half a page), and many more resources (solution #32’s resource box includes 26 websites instead of a photo). The book designer did an amazing job of making everything except for the single-page final solution #101, which basically just tells the reader to get involved in whatever way is meaningful to them, fit exactly two pages.
And before we even get to the solutions—grouped into 11 economic sectors such as farming, governments, communities, activism, manufacturing, transportation, etc.—the first 75 pages are devoted to an overview that looks deeply at how humans have altered the earth’s current status—and what that means for our future.
I found quite a bit to agree with here, including several points I’ve been making for years in my speaking and writing. A few examples:
Mindset is key. We have the technology to solve many of the biggest human-created problems, but the biggest battle is convincing others that yes, we can—and, in fact, we must.
When you scrape away the superficials, war is usually about competing claims for resources such as energy, which he focuses on. I would also consider water, minerals, harbor access, etc. And because resource issues are solvable, peace actually is possible.
The business case for addressing these issues (not just climate but the many related slices like hunger, poverty, and various kinds of discrimination) is so strong that executives should be asking managers why they are missing the enormously profitable opportunities in being part of the solution.
We’re all in this together. While business and the profit motive can be significant movers toward the better world we’d all like to envision, government needs to use its regulatory power as well. And activists need to pressure both business and government. And academics, engineers, and scientists need to research cutting-edge solutions. And NGOs need to create the awareness not just of the problems, but of the solutions.
Because it was published back in 2009, many statistics in the book are probably obsolete. Even back then, his numbers showed an overwhelming case for shifting to clean energy. But the good news is the performance of clean-energy technologies compared with fossil and nuclear is likely to be even better, because prices of renewables have plummetedwhilefossil fuels have fluctuated wildly but tend toward higher prices (and are more expensive now than they were in 2009).
Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.comhelps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too.
Don’t worry, you didn’t miss the July newsletter. My father died when there was one more thing to finalize, and my assistant didn’t want to bother me to get that clarification. And I was so busy dealing with his death that I didn’t even notice the newsletter hadn’t dropped. So the July issue didn’t actually get published. “We now resume our regularly scheduled programming” 😉
