The Clean and Green Club

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About Shel & This Newsletter

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 Shel also helps authors/ publishers, small businesses, and organizations to market effectively, and turns unpublished writers into well-published authors.

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).

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

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

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

The Clean and Green Club, January 2018

5 Jan, 2018 No Comment

Having trouble reading this as e-mail? Please visit www.thecleanandgreenclub.com to read it comfortably online.

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip, January 2018

A very happy 2018 to you! In honor of the New Year, this month’s column looks at the kinds of personal goals that often find their way into New Year’s resolutions. Next month will look at an organizational strategy—another thing often evaluated at this time of year. And this month’s review is a movie, not a book—one that will help you start the year on a really positive note. And with that, “on with the show, good health to you”—and a copy of my Painless Green ebook to the first person who identifies the 1960s band and the song that quote is from (please keep the default subject line so I can sort the responses easily).

This Month’s Tip: Bad Case of “Rusty Object Syndrome”?

In the worlds of marketing and entrepreneurship, we often hear the phrase, “Shiny Object Syndrome”: the temptation to get distracted by the next shiny new marketing technique.

I’ve just invented a term for its “evil twin”: “Rusty Object Syndrome”: getting distracted by all the little tweaks you can do to clean up the work you’ve already done, instead of doing the new work that should be higher priority.

I’m as guilty as anyone else. One day recently I had work orders from both a first-time and a long-time client, and an inquiry from a likely prospect. As I was about to send my standard response to the prospect, I noticed that one of the landing pages had an obsolete bio and the letter itself had a link to a shopping cart I no longer use. It took only five minutes to fix the cart link in my template immediately, but then I had to tell myself, STOP. Fixing the bio can wait. Getting started on the two actual bird-in-hand client projects should come first. I jotted a few notes on what I needed to fix on which pages, and turned toward something more productive, knowing that when I did turn to the bio, it would likely lead to a cascade of other things that needed tweaking or updating.

But sometimes I get sucked into that trap. Hours go by, and I’ve fixed 10 things that were in need of repair on my websites and email templates, but didn’t get any of my real work done.

Sure, those things are important. Accurate, up-to-date, easy-to-use websites are part of the clean and efficient image we want to present to the world. But that sort of thing can wait a few hours, because it doesn’t require enormous brain power. In the morning, when my brain is fresh, I should be doing the creative profitability and marketing work that my clients happily pay for.

How does this play out in your life and your business?

New on the Blog

Hear & Meet Shel

Another great interview! The Spotlight with Tony DUrso

Two key events at ages 3 and 12 that spurred me to a life of activism—and how activism turned me into a lifelong marketer and writer at age 15
Learning to build a platform to reach people who don’t agree with you—as a teenager
How I approached Guerrilla Marketing founder Jay Levinson to do our first book together—showing him the win-win possibilities—how I landed the contract with Wiley to publish it, and the easy things I did to get on Jay’s good side for the rest of his life

Visit this link to read the full description.

Is Anyone REALLY Reading Your Sustainability or CSR Report?

Repurpose that expensive content, without using any staff time. I will extract the key items and turn them into marketing points that you can use immediately: https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

Friends Who Want to Help

A note from my business coach, who has helped me enormously as I’ve shifted the direction of my own business: You can begin the New Year with new ideas, clear goals and a plan. Offering a Complimentary Holiday Coaching Session to assist you to begin the New Year in a way which helps you achieve your goals successfully. Call Oshana Himot, MBA, at 602-463-6797 or email oshanaben@yahoo.com.

Getting your book into the hands of those who love it forever can be daunting.
Authors: Consider adding this to your New Year’s Resolutions. See what my longtime friend and colleague, Paulette Ensign, created. She simplifies the process, based on her successful approach of less bringing more of what we want.

You’ll want to take action now

Looking for a Job? Visit Our Job-Finding Widget
If you’re looking for a job in marketing, visit the home page of https://frugalmarketing.com. If you’re looking for a job in some other field, try the widget on the home page of https://accuratewriting.com

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

Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

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

A Recommended Film—Prosperity

“Prosperity” by Dr. Pedram Shojai

Instead of a book this month, a brand new movie.

From the title, you might expect this would be a film about the “Prosperity Consciousness” trend embodied most famously in the movie, “The Secret” and Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich. You would be wrong.

And to me, that’s a good thing; bear with me while I rant for one paragraph. Even if their teachers have a broader perspective (and many do, including people I consider colleagues, like Jack Canfield and Marilyn Jenett)—far too many people see the Prosperity Consciousness world in a shallow, one-dimensional way—all about personal wealth and with only the lightest lip service paid to being of service, to improving the world. Also, too many people measure prosperity only by their bank account. For more than 20 years, I’ve been talking about other, nonmonetary, ways to create abundance. My ebook, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook, came out all the way back in 1995.

This movie is about real prosperity: the kind where businesses and communities come together to enlist conscious capitalism to solve the world’s problems in ways that generate profit. It’s a visual representation of the principles I discuss in my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

The founder of Well.org and author of The Urban Monk: Eastern Wisdom and Modern Hacks to Stop Time and Find Success, Happiness, and Peace (which has been on my read-it-one-day list for a while now) spent months talking to experts in conscious capitalism, from Whole Foods founder and Conscious Capitalism co-author John Mackey and Seventh Generation founding CEO and author of The Responsibility Revolution (which I reviewed several years ago) to Naomi Whittel of Reserveage™, a fair-trade entrepreneur and reforester who sells high-quality Panamanian organic cacao and coconut into the nutritionals and beauty markets, and Tom Szaky, founder of TerraCycle, the company long known for finding creative ways to recycle all kinds of trash (even cigarette butts).

Many of the people the interviews and stories he tells are familiar to me, but on screen, they come alive in a way you just can’t do in print. And for those who are new to this work, it’s a fabulous introduction.

The film makes a strong case for conscious capitalism: using business as a tool to both heal the world and make a very nice financial return. It takes us behind the scenes into the offices, the manufacturing plants, and the source communities in the developing world, where these businesses have direct impact on the local populace.

But this is no mere documentary. To me, by far the most exciting part was near the end, when Shojai, Whittel, Szaky, and the Guna elders in an island community in Panama join together with Procter & Gamble to harvest the solid waste washing up on the beautiful beaches in Guna territory—to sell them to P&G as raw material for shampoo bottles. This social entrepreneurship project, benefitting the locals, the environment, and the North American investors, was hatched directly out of the making of this movie. In other words, the film doesn’t merely document the emerging new business reality; it directly helps to bring it about.

Even though I was trained as a traditional journalist who takes the facts and writes them up. I’ve been a longtime fan of the power of advocacy journalism—of using the power of story to shed light on those who make the world better and offer alternatives to doing business with those who make it worse—and of participatory journalism—documenting an event where you are there as a participant. My very first published articles, as a 15-year-old high school student covering peace demonstrations in 1972, were participatory. This film is a fine example of going beyond even participatory journalism to what we might call activist journalism—not just participating, but organizing something new, and documenting it. Because the recycling/resale project actually arose from the filmmaking, this opens up an entirely new way of thinking about the intersection of journalism and social change. Let’s model it!

The film is available here. As of this writing, you’ll find a player right at the top of the page, but that looks like it might be temporary. If it’s no longer at the top, just scroll down to “Our Movies.”

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 29 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Accurate Writing & More
14 Barstow Lane
Hadley, MA 01035 USA
https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/contact/

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

About Shel & This Newsletter

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

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).

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

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

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

The Clean and Green Club, November 2017

10 Nov, 2017 No Comment

Having trouble reading this as e-mail? Please visit www.thecleanandgreenclub.com to read it comfortably online.

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

Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, and You

Last month, I attended a concert by The Nields, who always put on a great show (they are local to me and I’ve heard them many times). Near the end of the show, they sang “Tyrants Always Fall,” a song that so blew me away that I went up to Nerissa Nields (the song’s author) after the show and told her it needed to get in front of someone who could bring it to audiences numbering into the seven or eight digits. Someone like the people I named in the headline. She answered that finding such a person “is your job.”

I take that seriously. So…if you know anyone with that kind of star power—or if you know someone who does—can you help me by getting the song in front of him or her? Listen to it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubWQHdHTLRI (and #westernma folks, you’ll recognize downtown Northampton).

Is Anyone REALLY Reading Your Sustainability or CSR Report?
Repurpose that expensive content, without using any staff time. I will extract the key items and turn them into marketing points that you can use immediately: https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

Shel Horowitz is inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame by Judith Eiseman near his home on Barstow’s Longview Farm in Hadley, MA, December 2013

This Month’s Tip: How to Get the Most Marketing Oomph out of Receiving an Award

Last month, I told you how to select the right awards to enter—the ones where your chances are higher than average.

Let’s say you were successful, and you got that certificate or trophy. This is major “social proof” for you—third-party validation. Milk it for everything you can:

Send a press release announcing the award—but don’t just say you won an award. Use this as a chance to get your core message in front of the media. (See the example just below this article that I wote for a client)
Put it prominently on your website
Add it to your email signature
Mention it several times on social media—not too often, and using an excited/humble rather than entitled tone, e.g., a Tweet like “Deeply thrilled to be named “Most Environmental Business in Pisqua. Thank you so much, @PisquaChamber” [this is a fake Twitter address] (I’d say no more than once every 20 posts or every three days, whichever is less)
Display conspicuously in retail locations and tradeshow displays
Mention it in radio, TV, and podcast interviews
Blog about it, including some of the backstory—make it interesting
Use that blog article again in your internal and external newsletters, reports to stakeholders (stockholders, employees, investors, vendors, government officials, etc.)
Feature the award in an e-blast
If the award is relevant, put it in your CSR or Sustainability Report, as well as in your public Annual Report
List it on business cards, brochures, sell sheets, and other printed materials
If your company has a Wikipedia page, make sure it’s included
Work the award into any review sites that cover you, such as Yelp, Trip Advisor, Amazon, etc.
To quote the king of Siam, “Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera”

For Release: On Receipt
Contact: Sheila Ruth: [phone number], info at imaginatorpress.com

Why Does This Unknown Author Keep Winning All These Awards?

BALTIMORE, MD: Coming out of nowhere last year as a debut author with an unknown press, Nick Ruth has now won an astounding eight honors for his first two books in the Remin Chronicles series, The Dark Dreamweaver and The Breezes of Inspire.

The latest honor: both titles have just won the Parent to Parent Adding Wisdom Award. In the fiercely competitive world of children’s products, Ruth, a government employee and homeschooling dad, is particularly proud that three different parenting organizations have recognized the books’ quality and appeal.

The Dark Dreamweaver:

One of only two chapter books to win the coveted Mom’s Choice Award in fall 2005
Chosen by iParenting Media as one of the “Greatest Products of 2005”
A Finalist for the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award.
Named an American Booksellers Association Book Sense Children’s Pick
Parent to Parent Adding Wisdom Award

The Breezes of Inspire:

Named an American Booksellers Association Book Sense Children’s Pick
Parent to Parent Adding Wisdom Award
ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Finalist (winner to be announced in May)

The Remin Chronicles is a fantasy-adventure series in the tradition of the Wizard of Oz and The Chronicles of Narnia. The books are imaginative stories of magic, friendship, and adventure—with a bit of environmental science blended in. In The Dark Dreamweaver, ISBN 0974560316, David, a boy from our own world, visits Remin, the world of dreams…does battle with the evil sorcerer Thane…and is aided by an imprisoned wizard battling the dream thief and living repeatedly through the lifecycle of a monarch butterfly. David and several cousins return to Remin in The Breezes of Inspire, ISBN 0974560332, but quickly get transported to the equally threatened world of Inspire. Both were published in hardback by Imaginator Press and are available at or through Greenleaf Book Group, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor.

Journalists: Ruth and his illustrator Sue Concannon are available for interviews and the books are available for review.

New on the Blog

Hear & Meet Shel

I recorded a brand new keynote, “Terrific Trends for Enlightened Capitalists,” for the Enlightened Capitalist Virtual Summit November 28-30, and it came out great. I’ll be on the line for live Q&A following the broadcast on November 30. Listen to all the sessions; they promise to be excellent. I’m especially looking forward to hearing Jeff Golfman, Donna Lendzyk, and Ravinol Chambers. https://shelhorowitz.com/go/EnlightenedCapitalist/

Friends Who Want to Help

Want to build a successful content brand? My friend Marc Guberti released his latest book Content Marketing Secrets which is available at a steep discount for a limited time. The book will teach you how to create, promote, and optimize your content for growth and revenue.

Looking for a Job? I’ve Just Added a Job-Finding Widget
If you’re looking for a job in marketing, visit the home page of https://frugalmarketing.com. If you’re looking for a job in some other field, try the widget on the home page of https://accuratewriting.com

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

Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

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

Another Recommended Book—We Rise

We Rise: The Earth Guardians’ Guide to Building a Movement that Restores the Planet by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez

Martinez has been an activist for 11 years—and he’s not even old enough to vote. Only 17, he became aware of the earth’s current distress at age six and has been organizing ever since. Not just organizing. Performing original rap music and traditional dance, speaking at major conferences and even becoming only the second non-diplomat, non-politician to address the UN General Assembly, being featured in a film on youth activism, receiving an award from President Obama, standing up as one of 21 youth activists who are suing the US government to enforce climate change, and now, releasing his first book (with a major publisher, too—health and organic gardening leader Rodale). He was at the 20th Anniversary Rio Conference, organized a youth presence at COP21 (where the Paris Climate Accord was hammered out), and performed for the Water Protectors at Standing Rock.

I was a child activist too, starting—not counting an action against smoking I took in my own home at age 3—at age 12 when I went to my first demonstration, opposing the Vietnam war. And I, too, have been an activist ever since. Now, as I turn 61 next month, I’m seen as an elder—but I’ve got a few decades before I catch up with some of my activist friends in their 90s and 100s, such as Arky Markham.

But I was 16 before I turned vegetarian, 17 when I started speaking on the issues of our time, 20 before I participated in an action that definitely made a difference in the world (the Seabrook occupation of 1977), and 23 when my first book (on why nuclear power is a terrible idea) was published. So I’m in awe of this kid. We can think of him as a Malala Yousafzai for the United States. By the time he’s my age, he could have credits like toppling the whole fossil-fuel power structure or maybe managing a successful campaign to create a world unity government. I don’t know the specifics, but I do know he’s destined for greatness.

Martinez comes naturally to a holistic, intersectional approach that sees the relationships among multiple issues. Whether it’s getting big money out of politics, raising climate awareness among youth, or supporting the intersectionality of opposing different “isms,” he’s on the job. Raised in Boulder, Colorado by indigenous activists (his parents founded Earth Guardians, where he works as Youth Director), Martinez is strongly rooted in his own Mexica/Aztec tradition and very knowledgeable about the traditions of many other indigenous cultures, around North America and the rest of the world. This culture, where every living thing is sacred, informs his activism and his lifelong vegetarianism. It also provides a solid frame of earth guardianship and water protection from which he reaches out on a host of other issues.

That ability to see others’ oppression no matter what shape it has taken leads to deep wisdom: “Rather than pointing fingers, let’s work with people to help make better food choices” like eating less meat rather than instantly going cold turkey to vegetarianism (p. 135, pun intentional). That philosophy extends beyond food, to other areas where we can build connection, change our habits, and come together stronger.

And shifting our internal compasses to accept victory is part of that. He quotes activist Mika Maiava of Samoa: “You need to win from within, so that even if people look at you like you’re losing, you’re not losing because you’ve already won in your heart.” (p. 71)

At the same time, in a world where 200 species go extinct every day (p. 85), he demands immediate progress on climate change. And he’s doing what he can to create an empowered intergenerational movement to get us off fossil fuels into renewables, to create a humane and nutritious and just food system, and to secure the rights of every ethnic and cultural group on the planet. He’s doing his part to build a coherent, focused movement that can actually generate this needed shift, using every nonviolent tactic from lobbying through nonviolent direct action. Direct activism, he reminds us, “doesn’t wait for permission from leaders to act.” (p. 102)

He’s also very media-savvy. He understands the power of Standing Rock pipeline opponents self-identifying not as protestors but as water protectors—“defined by what we love and seek to defend” (p. 180). And writing in the earliest days of the Trump administration, he recognizes how the 2016 US election changed things for climate activists.

The book is well-researched, with plenty of facts and figures to back up his assertions. Even I didn’t know that not only does the fossil fuel industry receive $548 billion a year in direct subsidies, but also leaves us holding the bag for $5.3 trillion in externalized costs, for example (p. 144). On the positive side, he cites a study of college and university campuses investing in “green revolving funds” to finance the campuses’ own energy improvements; they show an astonishing 32 percent return (p. 219). The advance copy I have was in need of another round of proofreading, but hopefully that was fixed in the final printing.

Martinez is also using the book to spread messages from many leaders in the fight for global and local climate justice; the book includes his interviews with such luminaries as India’s environmental economist Vandana Shiva, Paul Watson of the environmentalist direct action group Sea Shepherds, climate activism pioneer Bill McKibben (founder of 350.org), actor/activist Mark Ruffalo, Bernie Sanders’ campaign liaison to Millennials, Moumita Ahmed, and several others including his own grandfather.

It gives me lots of hope to find a book this comprehensive and also (in places) really fun to read, written by a teenager. People like Martinez are our future, our bright hope. His book is well worth your time.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 25 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Accurate Writing & More
14 Barstow Lane
Hadley, MA 01035 USA
https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/contact/

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

About Shel & This Newsletter

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

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).

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

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

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

The Clean and Green Club, October 2017

10 Oct, 2017 No Comment

Having trouble reading this as e-mail? Please visit www.thecleanandgreenclub.com to read it comfortably online.

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

Is Anyone REALLY Reading Your Sustainability or CSR Report?
Repurpose that expensive content, without using any staff time. I will extract the key items and turn them into marketing points that you can use immediately: https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

This Month’s Tip: How I Started Winning Awards—And How You Might, Too

Seven of my ten books, including two of my five self-published titles, have won at least one award and/or been translated and republished in foreign markets. My second award-winner was the self-published Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First, which I brought out back in 2003; it won the Apex Award for best book in the PR industry. Since so many of my readers are not part of large organizations, and since awards provide lots of credibility to independents who win them, it might be helpful to go over some tips on how to win awards. Next month, we’ll look at how to make the most of your award victories.

I am a big believer in third-party credibility. Awards are part of that package along with endorsements (Principled Profit was endorsed by Jack Canfield and more than 80 others), foreign rights sales (India and Mexico for this title, Italy and Turkey for the subsequent Wiley revision/expansion), press coverage (in addition to a Publishers Weekly review, this book was mentioned in dozens of articles), special sales (1000 copies sold to Southwest Airlines, making the book profitable the day it printed), etc. It shows that other people think you do a good job. In the ever-more-crowded publishing universe where there might be thousands of titles in your niche, this is critical.

Sales of this title were not stellar. But I think the overall package of credibility was a key factor in selling the rights to Wiley—which published an expanded and updated edition in 2010 as Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green—and again a few years later to Morgan James (Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, 2016). Because of these rights sales, I had to take the original self-published edition out of print, but that was fine.

Determining which awards to enter involves several factors: Whether it’s a fit, how many other entrants will be competing, overall quality of the product, the cost of entry… I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my first award-winner, published by Chelsea Green, had a very elegant design. That inspired me to hire a design team for Principled Profit after doing my own interiors on two previous self-published books. And that, I believe, is part of why my books started winning awards. I’ve always done very well-written, useful books, but my first two self-published books had poor design standards with covers done by people with no book experience and interiors I designed myself.

Does it matter that most people haven’t heard of the awards I’ve won? I don’t think so. There is a huge difference in top-tier vs. second-tier awards, e.g., Newberry, Caldicott, National Book Award, Booker Prize that absolutely everyone has heard of vs. Ben Franklin, Foreword BOTY (Book Of The Year), or Ippy, which are extremely respected in the indie publishing word but not beyond it. In terms of market effect, I don’t see much difference between the second tier and the third tier, where they are not widely known even in the industry. A skilled marketer can take good advantage of all of them. My Apex was a third-tier award, and I have fourth-tier awards on at least three other titles. Even those are just as good in getting prospective buyers to take another look, and that’s really why I do them.

My advice to you: Enter awards where your chances of winning are higher. If you’re producing a quality product, there may be opportunities in the industry vertical as well as the horizontal category (books in my case, perhaps green manufacturing or music or customer service or tasty food in yours). Apex Awards are given in many categories within the PR industry. I suspect that very few books were entered in the Best PR Book category that I won, so my chances were much better. If I found a book award in the green or social entrepreneurship space (as opposed to a green or social entrepreneurship category in a book contest), I’d enter my current Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World in a heartbeat.

New on the Blog

Friends Who Want to Help

No cost to listen to this year’s Global Oneness Day, October 24. The awesome speaker lineup includes Marianne Williamson, Jean Houston, Michael Lerner, Panache Desai, Matthew Fox, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Bruce Lipton, Michael Beckwith, Marci Shimoff, and many others. Another superb event from Humanity’s Team.

Green and Profitable and Humanity’s Team invites to join evolutionary storyteller and visionary Barbara Marx Hubbard as she shares a compelling new video series: “What’s New in You?” Barbara will give voice to our collective and unprecedented “crisis of birth” into a new humanity.

Barbara will help you to understand why the crisis we are facing today is part of the birthing pains of Homo Universalis the opportunity and ability we have to transform as a species! https://vgi65.isrefer.com/go/bmhvs/shorowitz/

Looking for a Job? I’ve Just Added a Job-Finding Widget
If you’re looking for a job in marketing, visit the home page of https://frugalmarketing.com. If you’re looking for a job in some other field, try the widget on the home page of https://accuratewriting.com

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

Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

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

Another Recommended Book—Our Earth, Our Species, Our Selves

Our Earth, Our Species, Our Selves: How to Thrive While Creating a Sustainable World by Ellen Moyer

Rarely have I come across a book that so closely mirrors my own thinking. But our lenses are different. In my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World—and in three earlier related books—I look at the power of business to heal the world. Moyer looks at how consumer-citizens can do the same thing.

Also, I made a deliberate choice not to dwell on the gruesomeness of our situation and the urgency to change; I figure that information is widely available. Moyer spends several chapters on what’s wrong before moving to how we fix things.

If you’re in business, I recommend that you read both. They complement each other nicely.

On to the specifics: Before delving into the problems, she gives us a vaccine of optimism in the introduction—starting right on page 1 with a magnificent, empowering quote from Buckminster Fuller: “The best way to predict the future is to design it” and pointing out, correctly, that “changing course is not only doable but it is not so difficult as we may think—and it can be fulfilling.” (p. 3)

Fuller is only one of dozens of my favorite luminaries she quotes or cites. Her list includes environmentalists like Wangari Maathai, Wendell Berry, and Jane Goodall…human potential geniuses including Barbara Marx Hubbard, Deepak Chopra, and Jean Houston…activists from Gandhi and Martin Luther King to Mandela and Robert Reich…prosperity folks such as Marci Shimoff, Jack Canfield, and Napoleon Hill…deep thinkers like Einstein, Pope Francis, and Bruce Lipton—to name a few.

This list shows the breadth of her holistic approach. It’s not either/or but all, and. Instead of focusing on one necessary evolution at the expense of all the others, simultaneously pursuing world change and a healthy environment, exploring the 90 percent of our brains most of us don’t use, achieving financial comfort, expanding our compassion, and all the rest of it. Yes, we can have all this and more, and it’s actually easier to get there holistically.

Refreshingly, she doesn’t see a grumpy, hoarding billionaire as financially healthy (p. 105). Having money without happiness does not make you a success in her eyes (or mine).

That insight is part of a nice section on happiness. Quoting Gandhi: happiness is when our thoughts, speech, and actions align (p.99). Fun is transient; happiness is ongoing; both are important (p. 106). Quoting Shimoff: happiness is more likely to bring success than financial success is to bring happiness (p. 109).

She makes some connections that I didn’t know. I had no idea that we squander half our water to cool electric power plants (p. 30)—we wouldn’t need to do that if we’d switched to renewable energy—or the horrifying statistic that 1.8 million children per year die a thoroughly avoidable death from lack of water or lack of unpolluted water (p. 31). We waste water in many other ways, too, including far too great a share of irrigation water (p. 73). I’ve been saying for years that there’s no shortage of water or energy—but we deploy them poorly. So poorly that she sees climate change as a massive civil rights violation against the poor (p. 118).

I also didn’t know that the $5.3 trillion in global fossil fuel subsidies accounts for a full 6.5 percent of global GDP—more than we spend on health care! Eliminating those subsidies would reduce CO2 by 17 percent and eliminate 50 percent of pollution deaths—while hastening the transition to clean, renewable energy, which is already cost-competitive if you take away the fossil and nuclear subsidies.

And she points out that the lone wolf doesn’t usually create the sweeping change we need. Cooperation with each other and with other species, not ruthless social Darwinism, makes us fittest (pp. 43-46).

Speaking of wolves: I love her description of the many positive ripples resulting from wolves’ reintroduction into Yellowstone (pp. 62-63). So in pursuing any big goal, we need to factor in all the costs and all the benefits.

That means rethinking absolutely everything—and setting big goals that let us get out of either-or thinking and into all-and. We can switch to fully organic and leverage that to eliminate food scarcity; the UN says this would double our produce supply (p. 150). We can fund the space program and fund human and environmental needs, but not if we box ourselves in with small thinking and limiting stories (p. 141).

Combining “high-tech and high nature” (p. 148), Here’s her four-part formula for creating this kind of systemic change:

Exercise the Precautionary Principle to avoid unintended consequences
Work upstream to eliminate problems in the first place
Change from centralized to distributed systems (solar is a great example)
Use a holistic approach

A lot of this is about mindset. One great example: shift our thinking from “environmental protection” to “rights of ecosystems” (p. 177). But even as we build a new castle in our corner of the sandbox, we can’t ignore the soldiers at the moat. Reich notes that if we give up on politics because it’s too corrupt, we collapse the buffers protecting the planet and most of its people from corporate and government rapists who would plunder without limit (p. 185). But citizens, leading through creative nonviolence, can create leadership where governments eventually have to follow—and according to Paul Hawken, the environmental movement is the largest people’s movement in history (p. 191). When just 15 percent of us (p. 199) combine our vision of possibility (pp. 195-196) and our outrage at the status quo, (p. 198), change happens.

And then maybe the whole world will start to look like the remarkable success story of Bhutan (pp. 200-201). Years ago, Bhutan looked beyond Gross National Product to Gross National Happiness—and manifested massive improvements in sectors including democracy, health, environment, carbon, and energy.

This is only a tiny taste of the wisdom in Moyer’s book. Read it, buy it for friends, apply it to the business world by also reading Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, and put the lessons of both books into action.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 24 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Accurate Writing & More
14 Barstow Lane
Hadley, MA 01035 USA
https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/contact/

Connect with Shel

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About Shel & This Newsletter

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

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).

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

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

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

The Clean and Green Club, September 2017

5 Sep, 2017 No Comment

Having trouble reading this as e-mail? Please visit www.thecleanandgreenclub.com to read it comfortably online.

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

Before We Get to This Month’s Tip: A Few Quick Things

Did Your Organization Spend a Bunch of Time and Money Creating a Sustainability or CSR Report to Let it Gather Dust on a Shelf?

Here’s an easy, quick, and affordable way to repurpose that content and get more mileage out of the resources you put into preparing that expensive report, without any staff time on your end. I will extract the key items and turn them into marketing points that you can use right away: https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

Looking for a Job? I’ve Just Added a Job-Finding Widget
If you’re looking for a job in marketing, visit the home page of https://frugalmarketing.com. If you’re looking for a job in some other field, try the widget on the home page of https://accuratewriting.comJust Because it Would Be Cool
I need 101 more followers on Twitter to reach 10,000. Will you be one of them? Once you’ve done so, Tweet “Subscriber” to @shelhorowitz and I will follow you back.

Hear and Meet Shel
I’ll be attending Linda Hollander’s Sponsor Secrets seminar October 3-5 in Los Angeles. I did a course with Linda and she definitely knows her stuff. If you’d like to learn all about how to get companies to give you money for their own promotional purposes, visit https://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=5591242

Want to learn how to accomplish all of your goals and become a high achiever? My friend Marc Guberti is hosting the Productivity Virtual Summit from September 18th to the 25th. I am one of over 50 speakers at the upcoming summit and would love for you to join us.

Hurricanes, Flooding, and Climate Change, Oh My

My heart goes out to all those impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the flooding in Bangladesh and other parts of Asia (not much in the US news but also very severe), or the out-of-control fires in the American West (a friend in Oregon told me, “the whole state is on fire. I can’t go out of my house because of the smoke.”

Every bit of research (read more)

This Month’s Tip: 4 Questions to Create Eco-Friendly Transformation, Part 3

And now, the final two questions:

3. How can I maximize impact and minimize waste?

You may have heard the term, “circular economy.” Or you might remember it from my reviews of books like Cradle To Cradle. It’s the idea that you find a use for the things you used to consider waste. So each former waste stream becomes an ingredient in another process, making something else. This could be very simple (like food waste becoming garden compost), or it could be quite complex.My favorite example is one of the complex ones: The Intervale, in the Burlington, Vermont, area of the Northeastern United States. The site includes a brewery, whose spent grain is used to grow mushrooms. The mushrooms in turn donate material to raise tilapia for restaurants. And the fish waste provides nutrients for a crop of hydroponic greens, which in turn feed the grains and hops the brewery uses to make its beer.This kind of thinking can go far beyond minimizing waste, though. We can take it a few steps further and design to make a difference in the biggest problems we face as a society. Imagine creating profitable products and services that actually turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance.Want an example? At least three companies have developed solar-powered LED lanterns that typically replace flammable, toxic, carbon-hostile kerosene. The LED lamps provide a better light that needs no fuel, does not produce toxic fumes, has no risk of setting the house on fire, reduces pollution, and leaves considerably more money in the hands of the family using the lantern—addressing health, safety, carbon footprint, and poverty all at once.

4. Am I counting all the costs?

When a new technology is introduced, people often object because they see increased costs. But a closer look often reveals that they’re comparing apples and eggplants.

An example would be the nuclear power industry. Nuclear is hailed by people who don’t know better as a miracle technology that doesn’t have a significant carbon footprint and is so economical. But they’re wildly wrong. Actually, nuclear is a multiheaded hydra of a disaster.

As it happens, my first book was on why nuclear is not a viable technology, and I updated that book following the 2011 accident at Fukushima. So this is something I know quite a bit about.

Both the economics and the supposed carbon benefits of nuclear are very dubious. Because its apologists only count the costs of actually operating the nuclear power plant, the numbers appear on first glance to work. But to be fair, we have to add in all the other parts of the fuel cycle: mining the uranium, milling it, processing it into fissionable form, encasing the fuel mixture into metal-clad fuel rods, transporting it hither and yon for each of these steps, encasing those fuel rods in a massive, carbon-hostile structure of concrete and steel, storing and/or reprocessing the spent fuel rods, keeping them isolated from the environment and secure from terrorists for an unfathomable 220,000 years, friction losses in power transmission, etc. Once we do that, the economics, the carbon costs, and a bunch of other factors are a lot shakier.

Then add in the costs of a catastrophic failure every ten years or so—a very conservative estimate considering that we have experienced over 100 potentially devastating nuclear accidents in the seventy-odd years of this experiment, including two (Chernobyl and Fukushima) that made wide swaths of land unlivable for decades. More than 30 years after Chernobyl, the 1000-square-mile (2600-square-km) dead zone is still not even open to the public.

Of course, renewable energy has hidden costs too, and we need to look at those as well. Once we do, we may find that centralized wind or solar farms don’t make as much sense as distributing small solar and wind (and other renewable energy), constructing them at or near the point of use and moving away from the central power grid model.

Let’s look at counting all the costs in a different context: industrial pollution. Through the first couple of centuries of the Industrial Revolution, companies poisoned tens of thousands of toxic sites by using public air, land, or water as their private dumping ground, externalizing all those costs to the taxpayers and abutters—or so they thought. However, it’s become common practice to hold companies financially responsible for decades-old toxic dumping, even if that dumping had been legal at the time. And the cost is far higher now than it would have been to just clean it up properly in the first place.

Your business can avoid this huge and expensive headache by doing it right the first time. And as we see in question 3 above, the best way is to find a use for the stuff being dumped. Reuse or resell it instead of throwing it away-but-not-really-away.

New on the Blog

Friends Who Want to Help

No cost to listen to this year’s Global Oneness Day, October 24. The awesome speaker lineup includes Marianne Williamson, Jean Houston, Michael Lerner, Panache Desai, Matthew Fox, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Bruce Lipton, Michael Beckwith, Marci Shimoff, and many others. Another superb event from Humanity’s Team.

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

Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

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

Another Recommended Book—The Code of the Extraordinary Mind

The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: 10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life & Succeed On Your Own Terms by Vishen Lakhiani (Rodale, 2016)

Brules. Godicle. Blissipline. These are just three of the words you’ll add to your vocabulary reading this powerful book—because Vishen Lakhiani, founder of the wildly successful personal growth site Mindvalley.com, loves to make up new words to describe his concepts.

Although I read several self-help books a year, I rarely review them here. And not since The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer, which I reviewed some time around 2006, have I been so enthusiastic about one. But Code, true to its promise, is an extraordinary book.

Starting with his note in the introduction that he’s a sponge for and codifier of learning (p. xvi), I knew I would like this book, and probably would like Lakhiani if we ever get to meet in person. I’m wired that way too; I often say I became a writer because I’m interested in almost everything.

In encouraging all his readers to become extraordinary, Lakhiani starts from the premise that all of us can make that journey. The “code of the human world…is just as hackable” as a computer program.

This is directly in line with what I teach: that the world is changed by ordinary people stepping into greatness when the door swings open. Rosa Parks was a seamstress; Lech Walesa was an electrician in a shipyard.

Lakhiani is a proponent of changing yourself first, and from there, changing the world. But I think sometimes those growths can be in parallel. For me, I found the purpose of changing the world long before I gained the life skills to make it happen—but making the commitment to the world gradually helped me find the road toward my own highest self (and I’m still on the path to get there—I see much more potential in my future and—at age 60—I’m far from done).

Lakhiani offers ten new laws to improve our physical and mental health, our relationships, financial security, and our ability to impact the world. Each law gets a chapter. He also includes many nuggets of wisdom from some of the most successful people in our time, from Richard Branson and Elon Musk to the Dalai Lama and meditation teacher Emily Fletcher.

Perhaps more importantly, starting in Chapter 1, “Change the Culturescape,” he gives you reasons to question and discard the old rules, imposed by others who don’t understand your loves or your purpose—even if these rules have been handed down through your culture for centuries What other people think you should do for a living, who they think you should marry, what they think you should eat is not your concern—all of those are matters for you to decide. You’ll need strength if the whole culture lines up against you, but you can still be true to your inner self.

But the power to choose what to believe or not to believe is a powerful gift to yourself (p. 88). And that’s one tool in understanding that your “software,” your “systems for living.” They are not static. Just like a computer, they can be upgraded. Lakhiani says he tries to upgrade at least one of his systems for living every week (p. 95). Just as we’ve learned to clean out our bodies, we can also consciously deactivate our anxieties, stress, fear, and other negative emotions that hold us back (p. 106), and emerge into disciplined bliss: “Blissipline.”

By Chapter 3, he’s talking about our ability to engineer our own consciousness, finishing the chapter on pages 63-64 with a checklist of 12 areas of life you can self-rate.

This just one of many self-help exercises scattered throughout the book. Others I particularly like are the question from parenting expert Shelly Lefkoe, “What beliefs is my child going to take away from this encounter?” (p. 77) and the “I love you” mirror exercise (pp. 181-182).

But all this is prologue. It’s necessary to go through it, so you’re ready for the really life-changing parts of the book. Parts Three and Four (chapters 6-10) need all the pre-work of the first five chapters, just as most of us first learn to crawl, then walk, before we try to do a four-minute mile.

By this time, you’re ready to really learn the tools to create the reality you want in your own life, and in the world. You’ll become an extraordinary person when you see happiness less as a goal than as an empowerment tool (p. 124); you begin to think in the future, and not in a past that holds you back, and when you stop overestimating your short-term possibilities while underestimating the long-term ones (p. 125).

To realize those possibilities, say goodbye to traditional “goal-setting.” Instead, learn to sift END goals—which you’ll actively pursue—from MEANS goals—which would lock you in to the existing limited reality (pp. 151-157).

And we haven’t even touched on some of the really life-changing pieces near the end, like the concept of “beautiful destruction (p. 192) and the Godicle Theory (pp. 196-198).

Read this book. Set some time aside to do the exercises and to drink in some of the many extra resources for readers online. And then go out there and do the amazing thing you are here to do.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 24 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Accurate Writing & More
14 Barstow Lane
Hadley, MA 01035 USA
https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/contact/

Connect with Shel

Find on Facebook

About Shel & This Newsletter

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

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).

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

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

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

The Clean and Green Club, August 2017

9 Aug, 2017 No Comment

Having trouble reading this as e-mail? Please visit www.thecleanandgreenclub.com to read it comfortably online.

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

Before We Get to This Month’s Tip: A Few Quick Things

Did Your Organization Spend a Bunch of Time and Money Creating a Sustainability or CSR Report to Let it Gather Dust on a Shelf?

Here’s an easy, quick, and affordable way to repurpose that content and get more mileage out of the resources you put into preparing that expensive report, without any staff time on your end. I will extract the key items and turn them into marketing points that you can use right away: https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

Do You Have a Room in or Near NYC that Can Hold at Least 20 People?

I’m looking to barter for one-day use of a room suitable for a workshop, ideally Tuesday November 21. If you have an organizational affiliation, so much the better.

Are You a Videographer Near NYC?

I’m also seeking to barter with someone who can record the above event, if it comes together.

Looking for a Job? I’ve Just Added a Job-Finding Widget
If you’re looking for a job in marketing, visit the home page of https://frugalmarketing.com. If you’re looking for a job in some other field, try the widget on the home page of https://accuratewriting.com

Just Because it Would Be Cool
I need 205 more followers on Twitter to reach 10,000. Will you be one of them? Once you’ve done so, Tweet “Subscriber” to @shelhorowitz and I will follow you back.

Hear and Meet Shel
I’ll be attending Linda Hollander’s Sponsor Secrets seminar October 3-5 in Los Angeles. I did a course with Linda and she definitely knows her stuff. If you’d like to learn all about how to get companies to give you money for their own promotional purposes, visit https://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=5591242

This Month’s Tip: 4 Questions to Create Eco-Friendly Transformation, Part 2

Last month, we looked in-depth at one key question: what’s the best way to achieve the result?

Now, we’ll tackle the second question: What can I learn from other industries—or from nature?

What can I learn from other industries—or from nature?

Consider how much innovation has been the result of cross-pollination (these examples are all taken from my award-winning 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World):

Drive-through service didn’t start at restaurants; banks had them first (in 1930), and car washes were next
Shopping carts (the folding kind you take with you when you go shopping) were invented when an inventor studied folding chairs
Sticky notes were a repackaging of a failed adhesive; it wasn’t strong enough for a permanent hold, but a bright person created a need for temporary adhesives
Velcro was used in the space program years before it was redeployed to households and businesses—where it became, among many other uses, an empowerment device for people with fine-motor disabilities and kids who haven’t learned to tie shoes
A medical practice couldn’t eliminate the long wait to see a doctor, but got rid of patient frustration by providing not just a pager but a coffee shop gift card.

Now, turn your attention to our best engineer: nature. Other human beings have used “biomimicry” to create engineering breakthroughs such as these:

Concrete that sequesters CO2 rather than emits more of it (Bank of America did a building this way, and the exhaust air was three times as clean as the intake air)
Altered wind patterns through urban rooftops, modeled after the reverse- hydraulics of an Indian forest
Artificial leaves that—just as real leaves do—convert sunlight to energy far more efficiently, and using far less expensive inputs, than today’s solar panels
A robot hand with more agility and dexterity, because it was inspired by cockroaches’ spring-like feet
Desalination systems that not only create drinking water from the sea at a fraction of the energy requirement, but can green the desert at the same time.
GeckSkin^TM, an ultra-powerful adhesive developed at the University of Massachusetts after studying the way gecko lizards climb walls
The Biomimetic Office Building, whose designers encourage starting not with reality, but with the ideal, and then seeing how close they can come to it. They “found inspiration from spookfish, stone plants and brittlestars for daylighting; bird skulls, cuttlebone, sea urchins and giant amazon water lilies for structure; termites, penguin feathers and polar bear fur for environmental control; and mimosa leaves, beetle wings and hornbeam leaves for solar shading.”

Stay tuned next month for Part 3, addressing the final two questions:
How can I maximize impact and minimize friction/waste?
Am I counting ALL the Costs?

New on the Blog

Friends Who Want to Help

Are you anywhere near Santa Cruz? New Age/current events humorist Swami Bhaerman https://www.facebook.com/events/147971745782567/ I organized a gig for him here in Western Massachusetts a few years ago and he was hilarious.

No cost to listen to this year’s Global Oneness Day, October 24. The awesome speaker lineup includes Marianne Williamson, Jean Houston, Michael Lerner, Panache Desai, Matthew Fox, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Bruce Lipton, Michael Beckwith, Marci Shimoff, and many others. Another superb event from Humanity’s Team.

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

Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

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

Another Recommended Book—The Storyteller’s Secret

The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don’t by Carmine Gallo (St. Martin’s, 2016)

I picked this book up expecting it to be a book about using storytelling to achieve a business purpose. It is that, but it’s so much more. It’s really a book on how to change the world through the power of telling the right story to the right people.

Sure, many of the sources are business leaders: Howard Schultz of Starbucks, Steve Jobs of Apple, Richard Branson of Virgin, John Mackey of Whole Foods, Paul Polman of Unilever, Elon Musk of Tesla, Kate Cole of Cinnabon, Sheryl Sandberg who taught us to “Lean In” (and yes, among those profiled who were known first as business leaders, white males dominate, as they do in the subset I listed here—I see this as a weakness in an otherwise strong book).

But many others we know first outside the business world and this list is far more diverse: activists like Malala Yousafzai, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks; entertainers including Oprah Winfrey, Sting, Bruce Springsteen; and public figures who used their platform to create sweeping change: Pope Francis, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy. And numerous ordinary people who made a difference.

One of my favorite stories is about Adam Braun, founder of Pencils of Promise. After an encounter with a boy in India who desperately wanted a pencil. He started a charity with just $25, and that charity has gone on to build and fund schools that have served 30,000 impoverished children.

Gallo’s format is to open each chapter with a story, often rooted in the protagonist’s difficult early years—and he suggests we open all our talks with a story. He has consciously chosen to present much of the material either through the seven-part Pixar formula for successful storytelling:

Once there was a ______
Every day he ______ (I think he could have said “he or she”)
Until one day ______
Because of that______
Because of that ______(emphasis added)
Until finally ______
Ever since then ______

Or the three-part formula used by J.K. Rowling and others: Trigger/Transformation/Lesson

These are two of many storytelling tools Gallo shares with us to help us amplify our own message by telling it more effectively. Some are common knowledge if you read many books on speaking, such as the vastly stronger appeal of emotional connection over a recital of facts. But some were new to me, such as the biological research that shows why this is so, and the conclusion that if your story is going to succeed, 65 percent or more of the content needs to hit the emotions. He looks at why such devices as analogy and repetition have so much resonance for us (because they turn the content into something more emotive), why so many stories follow “the rule of threes,” and how to develop a “success-destiny mindset.” (Note that the previous sentence is an example of the rule of threes.)

Successful stories involve the protagonist overcoming obstacles, and often require a villain. Every hero needs a “worthy adversary.”

And all these techniques have a goal of moving the listener or reader—he uses the word “transporting.” When you transport your audience, you have the chance to change their point of view.

I’m going to play with that insight myself. Not all of my talks have villains right now, and I am going to experiment with whether adding them makes the speech demonstrably stronger. This might be a challenge in my “Making Green Sexy” speech, where the closest thing to a villain is the abstract notion that green products and services have to be boring. While it’s not a human villain, “Impossible is a Dare” does have two opponents: apathy and disempowerment—but even that may not be clear-cut and personal enough. Reading this book caused me to put up a new speech topic that starts with a very clear villain: the stranger who grabbed me on the street and raped me when I was 11. And that is right there in the talk title: “From Child-Rape Survivor to Champion of Social Change: A Personal Journey.” We’ll see what kind of interest it attracts (and meanwhile, I welcome your feedback on this idea).

Sometimes, great storytellers harness behavior that diverges sharply from the proper and expected. Great storytellers harness our discomfort and break us out of our patterns—like the time Bill Gates, discussing malaria deaths, unleashed actual mosquitoes.

Meanwhile, let me share a few insights (there are far more than I can include here):

In cultures with a rich storytelling tradition, the approach is multimodal: including gesture, tone, etc.
Learn passion from Steve Jobs’ question, “what makes your heart sing?”
Adversity and failure become empowering when we learn from them
Storytelling creates a bond that Gallo calls “neural coupling” between teller and listener
Stories take complex subjects and convey them in manageable chunks—especially when told in accessible language
Stories of hardship and failure say “I’m just like you”; they see themselves as able to do what you’ve done—but never let yourself be defined by those failures
Often, the business storytelling successes—and the business successes they lead to—are also driven by a need to change the world: “We’re not retailers with a mission, we’re missionaries who retail,” as John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods, put it—or, in the words of Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly, “we exist to connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel”
Visuals do enormous work in helping us retain a message, boosting recall from 10 percent all the way up to 65—but never get so dependent on your slides that you can’t deliver without them

Gallo ends the book with an awesome quote from Walt Disney: Storytellers “instill hope again, and again, and again.”

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 24 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

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What I Told Seth [Godin] About Seeing the Journey’s End

About Shel & This Newsletter

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

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).

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

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

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

The Clean and Green Club, July 2017

12 Jul, 2017 No Comment

Having trouble reading this as e-mail? Please visit www.thecleanandgreenclub.com to read it comfortably online.

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

This Month’s Tip: 4 Questions to Create Eco-Friendly Transformation, Part 1

Stumbling across this article on bicycle-powered-everythings (bicimaquinas) in Guatemala—grain mills, water pumps, nut-shellers, blenders, and more—I’m reminded once again of key questions to ask if you want to spark innovation while keeping an eco-friendly focus on using fewer resources.

1. How Can I Best Accomplish the End Result?

Too often, we focus on the tool: asking questions like “how do I get a new tractor?” But what is a tool? It’s a means of accomplishing a task! So the real focus should be on the task: “How can I get this done?” Asking “how can I get harvestable plants” might lead to plowing with draft animals—or to no-till farming techniques.

Green entrepreneurs (or frugal ones) refine that question. It morphs into “How can I accomplish this with the fewest resources?” Money and time are resources. So are raw materials, energy, water, plant seeds, animals, and so forth.

The people at Maya Pedal, the organization profiled in the bicimaquina article, understood this. They looked around and realized there were a lot of junk bikes out there that could still do plenty of useful work, just not as transportation. They’ve come up with 19 different models so far.

Bicycle technology is cheap, accessible, understandable, and versatile. In fact, my latest book Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World mentions a number of creative bike technology uses, even including a bike-powered trash hauling company. I also know of a fitness center that harnesses the energy of their bike-pumping clients to light the room.

This blender is one of 19 different types of bicimaquinas—bike-powered equipment—developed by Maya Pedal in San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala

We can ask this question in many situations—and it creates abundance. Asking “how can I power my electronic devices easily and cheaply without negative environmental consequences” might lead to developing something like the amazing Blue Freedom frisbee-sized hydroelectric plant (no dam required).

Back in 1985, when laser printers were retailing for $7000 and I had only a dot matrix, I asked myself how I could offer laser quality to my clients without spending that kind of money. That led me first to rent time on a nearby laser printer for a dollar a page, and later—when I spotted a remaindered model for $2500—to organize a co-op of four local business owners who chipped in $700 each to buy the printer and a sturdy stand for that very heavy machine. Since I organized the co-op, the printer lived in my office.

Amory Lovins, founder of Rocky Mountain Institute, asked himself how to build a really energy-efficient house that could fund the energy improvements out of capital savings. All the way back in 1983, he built a near-net-zero-energy luxury home that didn’t need a furnace or an air conditioner (in the snowbelt outside Aspen, Colorado, where the biggest industry is skiing). I have a detailed study of Lovins’ work in Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, by the way—including the energy retrofit of the Empire State Building that saves $4.4 million per year in that building’s energy bills.

We have to learn to be clear about what our end goal really is. Booking a hotel is not an end goal. Phrasing the question as “where will I stay when I travel?” opens up options like homestay organizations. Even money is not an end goal. Money has near-zero intrinsic value: the paper and ink used to create it. Money’s value is in the ability to exchange for goods and services. Whole economies have been built on other types of exchange, such as barter and even gifting.

(continued next month)

New on the Blog

Both Left and Right Must Join to Counter DT’s Attacks on the Press

Good to See Southwest Spirit Featuring a Bunch of Social Entrepreneurs

The Wrong Personalization Assumptions Can Sabotage a Sale

Hear and Meet Shel

Another fantastic interview, this time on Leverage Masters with Jack Humphrey and Gina Gaudio-Graves. On my interviews page, I’ve identified nine different attention points in this interview, including a surprising parallel between Bill Gates and the most successful industrialists of more than 100 years earlier.

Also, I’ve put a link to the in-depth written interview with me on Forbes.com.

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

Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

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

Another Recommended Book—Building the New American Economy

Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, & Sustainable, by Jeffrey D. Sachs

At this year’s Book Expo (the largest US trade event in the book publishing world), Building the New American Economy was one of only two books I saw that reflected the results of the 2016 US election. I sought out Sachs’s signing and picked up a copy. Published in February (by Columbia, where Sachs teaches), this book specifically sets out to influence policy in the new administration.

Based heavily in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals adopted by all 193 member countries including the US, it lays out a sustainable blueprint for the promised infrastructure rebuild and warns of the dangers of focusing on the dead end of fossil-fuel infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the new president has chosen a path in opposition to all the environmental and much of the human rights progress of the last several decades. He has embraced a mean-spirited and miserly ethic and shows no sign of caring about the rights of poor people at all, let alone protecting them in environmentally sustainable ways. And his stated infrastructure plans revolve around environmentally destructive and economically unsound support of heavily polluting industries such as non-renewable energy.

Is Sachs is spitting into the wind, at least as far as getting the government to listen to him? Am I with my own Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World? No—because these and similar books have many purposes besides directly influencing government. In the activist community, there’s an old and very relevant saying: “If the people lead, eventually the leaders will follow.” If this book helps the people to lead and the government to eventually follow, it’s doing good work.

Sachs lays out a very solid framework for understanding some of the issues, and as an Ivy League economist, backs up everything with solid numbers and sharp analysis. It’s a shortish book—just 121 pages in the main text—and much easier to read than much of what comes out of academia. Spend a few hours with it.

The last several chapters focus on ambitious solutions. A few of the goals he promotes:

Harnessing the high-level brain power of America’s universities, think tanks, businesses—and yes, governments—to create solutions for seemingly intractable problems. He notes that government has contributed to many technical breakthroughs, from the polio vaccine to the Internet, and that these created multiple new industries that create enormous economic growth and far outstrip occasional failures such as Solyndra)(p. 91).
Long-term thinking that goes well beyond the classic first 100 days of a new administration (pp. 102-104).
A six-step process to restore trust in the US political process (pp. 109-111)—including a wonderfully ambitious program to reduce income inequality while funding services that people actually want.
“Making America great again” through great goals. Just as JFK set goals to reach the moon, end racial inequality, and sign a nuclear test ban agreement with the USSR, we need to end our slide to the bottom in such areas as cutting the poverty rate from 17 to 8.5 percent (Denmark’s is 6 percent)…slashing obesity from 36 percent of the population down to 10 percent (Japan’s is 3 percent), and reducing the rate of incarceration from 716 per 100,000 to 100 (Scandinavia ranges from 65 to 75 per 100,000). “None of the goals outlined is utopian or out of reach.” (pp. 113-119). Alongside these mega-goals, he suggests we upgrade our broadband, rail transit, genome research, and several other areas where the lack of government spending has caused us to fall out of leadership—and behind many other countries (pp. 13-16).

He has some excellent ideas on where to find the funding and how to fix our debt crisis, too.

But Sachs does endorse one set of recommendations that I strongly disagree with: he’s a fan of advanced-design nuclear power. I am an ardent opponent of nuclear. I’ve written an entire book on why nuclear power is a dreadful technology that should be abandoned (as several countries have done or are in the process of doing).

My reasons:

It’s not nearly as carbon-friendly as some environmentalists claim
It’s an economic disaster
The consequences of an accident, or even of improper waste storage (over the 220,000 years it has to be totally isolated from the environment) are horrific; the area around Chernobyl is still not habitable after 31 years, and may not be for centuries
We don’t need it—we have plenty of safer, cleaner options

If you’d like to know more, I’m happy to send you the update to my nuke book that I wrote for a Japanese publisher, post-Fukushima. It’s only 14 pages and it goes through a number of arguments. No opt-in required and you have my permission to share the document as long as you don’t change anything. To get your copy, please visit https://greenandprofitable.com/download-the-post-fukushima-expose-of-nuclear-power/ and click on the link.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 24 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

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What I Told the Democrats, and Why

About Shel & This Newsletter

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

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.

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

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

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

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

The Clean and Green Club, June 2017

8 Jun, 2017 No Comment

Having trouble reading this as e-mail? Please visit www.thecleanandgreenclub.com to read it comfortably online.

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

This Month’s Tip: Marketing Your Ideas Is 24/7

A famous copywriter known for his grumpy persona posted on Facebook his unhappiness with people who post pictures of their meals. He got an earful from foodies, of course.

But I responded as a marketer. I want people to experience more delicious meals made with local organic ingredients, and by the way, without meat. I’ve been vegetarian for 43 years and see vegetarianism—particularly when based in local, organic foods—as one of the easiest ways to slash your carbon footprint. I don’t preach about it, but I remind myself constantly of Buckminster Fuller’s quote, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

This was my comment on his Facebook post:

Here’s why I do it. A lot of my work as a marketer is to foster ideas that make the world better—like the idea that eating locally grown organic foods can be appetizing. I carry these ideas beyond my paid work and see a well-photographed plate with a tasty-sounding description as a part of my activism that uses my marketing skills. I’m selling the sizzle, so to speak. And interestingly enough, many of my food posts get high engagement. It’s not uncommon to get 20 or 30 likes and several comments from people far away wishing they could come share my food. It’s also a vicarious pleasure for many people, just like sharing travel pictures. And finally, since the caricature of social media is the boring “what I had for breakfast” tweet, I want to prove that it’s possible to talk about what you’re eating in an attractive, even seductive manner. But I find Facebook a much better platform that Twitter. Need more room than 140.

Why did I post this, really? Because I am always looking for ways to put my ideas in front of new audiences. On some level, I’m a marketer every waking moment. And I hope you are too.

Marketing can be fun. And we can all learn from each other.

Here are a few examples of my foodie Facebook posts. Let me “focus group” you: do you find these capture your interest? Do they make you want to explore new foods? Am I succeeding as a spokesperson for this idea? Please share on the Comments page and we can all learn from this.

I’ll start with one that contained eight pictures (including the three just below). Obviously, some of the text refers to pics of the garden harvest that I’m not including here.

Who could believe that all these frost-sensitive veggies (1st pic) were still in my garden on October 24? Even a tiny (but absolutely delicious) zucchini. It’s supposed to go down to 34°F tonight, so I harvested everything fragile. In the harvest pic, you can see some of the beans have speckled pods. Those pods were too tough to eat, but the beans inside were great (2nd pic). 3rd pic is probably the last near-100% from-our-garden dish of the year (except I cheated with a bit of organic local shallot grown three miles up the road). Beans in pods, beans removed from the tough pods, tomatoes harvested green last week and now finally ripe, and that itsy-bitsy green non-polka-dot zucchini (I’m dating myself, I know—who gets the reference?) Served it with (local organic) sweet potato and organic (nonlocal) lentil tacos and a green salad, shown here when it was all still from Next Barn or our garden. Later, I added olives and hazelnuts. And while I was waiting for Dina to come home, I sliced up and began drying our remaining supply of home-grown jalapeños, most of which actually got to ripen and turn red on the vine. The ones I picked today were green. #locavore

Another great #locavore dinner: frozen corn and zucchini with dried tomatoes, local cheddar cheese, and salsa; sweet potato, tot soi, shallots, garlic, and ginger in peanut sauce; spinach-arugula-carrot salad with goat gouda, local brie, sunflower seeds, local home-roasted squash seeds flavored with cayenne and salt, and local apple. All the veggies and fruits other than what was in the salsa were local and organic. The zucchini, tomatoes, butternut squash were from our own garden. Two of the three cheeses were local. The peanut butter was locally ground but not locally grown. I don’t think anyone does peanuts around here. But there is a farm that does local organic ginger, and we buy it exclusively.

New on the Blog

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Why I Don’t Hate “The Donald” (and What I Feel Instead)

Environmental Consciousness in Portugal

Hear and Meet Shel

Proud to be a speaker at Marc Guberti’s Content Marketing Success Summit, June 6-17. Other speakers include Ray Edwards, Ana Hoffman, and Jay Papasan. Take a look at the whole program at https://shelhorowitz.com/go/ContentMarketingSuccessSummit/ — or jump directly to the All-Access Pass s you can listen anytime from now to forever: https://shelhorowitz.com/go/ContentMarketingAllAccessPass/

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

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

Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

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

Another Recommended Book—Practical Bliss

Practical Bliss: The Busy Person’s Guide to Happiness by Lisa Broesch-Weeks (InBliss, 2016)

Several times a year, an interviewer asks me, “what was the best decision you ever made?” I always answer, “the decision in my 20s to have a happy life.” That decision influenced everything else from that day forward. I believe it has been the key to my productivity, and the change I’ve made in the world.

Yes, it was a conscious decision. And yes, you can choose that path as well.

My client Lisa Broesch-Weeks can help you get there. She sent me a copy of her book, and as soon as I saw the title, I knew I’d like it. As a busy person, I love the idea of happiness for busy people, and I love the idea that bliss can be practical. She uses “bliss” and “happiness” pretty much interchangeably, seeing bliss as simply a more complete version of happiness (p. 96). I see more of a difference: bliss is more of a temporary high, while happiness, to me, is an ongoing state—but for this review, I’ll accept her near-merging of the terms.

Happy people. Lisa says, have figured out how to advance their purpose—which will be a verb, not a noun (pp. 44-48) and will be widely different for different people—with every part of their lives. And their purpose is not tied to serving one particular individual (p. 58).

They don’t beat themselves up striving for perfection; they’ve replaced stress-inducing words like “search” with power words like “explore” and “uncover” (p. 57). At work, they’re more productive and more engaged. Gallup put the cost of “employee disengagement” at $300 billion per year (p. 18), so there are dollar figures on that engagement. And at home, they enjoy better relationships, better health, and better brain function (pp. 21-24).

A lot of keeping happy is basic self-care: not letting yourself get overstressed…learning to say no to tasks that don’t advance your purpose or to people who deplete your energy…taking time for vacations, exercise, and other self-care (pp. 27-28) …and making space for your passions and pleasures. She reminds us that machines don’t run without time for recharging and maintenance, and neither do people (p. 26).

More stuff doesn’t create more bliss. And neither does running on the “hedonic hamster wheel” (p. 78—what an amazing metaphor!). And certainly you don’t get there by neglecting your passions in favor of something that feels “more important” but usually isn’t (p. 96). She points out that no one else is going to relieve you of your “optional obligations and stressors” and offers strategies to get rid of them in ways that don’t alienate others (p. 104).

Not all stress is avoidable, of course, and she provides help with managing the mandatory stress. As an example, she suggests worrying less about the need to appear constantly busy and more about how to add value (p. 111)—and shows some ways to shift focus from what’s wrong to what’s right, phrasing our goals and accomplishments in ways that the brain can hear and absorb, and act upon (pp. 119-126). Once concept I especially loved was the idea of gratitude for the wonderful future you expect, and not just for a present that may or may not seem fulfilling. She notes that this transformation helped her “put myself in situations where I would make it easier for success to find me” (p. 134). Time in gratitude, she says, is not an expense but an investment.

As the book wraps up, she advises on how to thrive despite happiness “haters” and how to forgive them (pp. 154-156). Though some of her advice may seem obvious, it can be hard to see from the outside, and always worth reminding ourselves: “I have what might be startling news. Living in bliss is a journey, much more than a destination…you may not know when you’ve arrived (p. 141, emphasis in original).

Note: Although I have done some consulting for Lisa, this review is not part of that arrangement and I am not being compensated for it.

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

Shel’s done 22 podcasts recently, ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Connect with Shel

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7 Jun, 2017 2 Comments Be Legendary Blue Collar Proud Brand with Jenna Business Code Conscious Leadership Weekly Conscious Millionaire Forbes Founder's Corner Game Changers Go Green Radio Heartstock Radio Intrepid Now Jennings Wire Kindness Matters Summit Leverage Masters Mature Preneurs Talk Michihiro Yoshida Playboy podcast Positive Phil Profitability Revolution Profits and Prana rural business owner save the mountain Share2Seed Smart Hustle SocialpreneurTV Sustainability Now TEDx The Spotlight with Tony Dorso Upjourney Western Mass Business Show WHMP Writing to Create Social Change

About Shel & This Newsletter

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

Shel Horowitz’s consulting firm, Going Beyond Sustainability, is the first business ever to earn Green America’s rigorous Gold Certification as a leading green company. He’s an International Platform Association Certified Speaker and was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.He began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way).

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

Privacy Policy: We Respect Your Privacy

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

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles

Rather Read Than Listen? Here’s an Excellent Interview in Forbes

Kare Anderson interviewed me at length on Forbes.com. Learn…

How I got published repeatedly in a newspaper whose viewpoints were the opposite of mine—as a teenager
The deeper backstory of the amazing Save the Mountain campaign that rescued an endangered mountain the “experts” had given up on—and did it fast!
How big companies from GE to Unilever have turned sustainability consciousness and social entrepreneurship into profit centers
How to save 99% of the wasted water in this everyday household process
What designers can learn by studying the natural world—and how that creates hope for the planet

Listen to the Six Best Interviews I’ve Ever Done

1. Elaine Starling of The Abundance Journey Interviews Shel About Amplifying Abundance with Social Impact

1. The Power of Abundance Thinking: Shel Horowitz unveils how businesses can simultaneously achieve greater abundance and higher profitability by aligning their goals with environmental and social good. Learn how to create an “abundance amplifier” that benefits not just your bottom line, but also the world.

2. Success Stories of Transformative Change: From the inspiring victory of the Save the Mountain campaign to innovative business practices at Interface and Unilever, discover real-life examples of how businesses and individuals have made significant positive impacts. Shel’s stories will show you that sustainable, regenerative business practices are not only possible but also highly rewarding.

3. Practical Steps to Get Started: Shel provides actionable insights on how to conduct a social good audit, identify synergistic opportunities within your business, and implement sustainable practices that lead to win-win-win outcomes. Whether you run a large corporation or a small pizza shop, you’ll find valuable tips to start making a difference today.

2. This Interview Breaks New Ground on Reimagining the World

I’ve begun to focus some good thinking and research on how the pandemic creates opportunities to skip “going back to normal” and instead remake the world we really want to see. I’m even looking for a publisher for an article I’d like to write, called Leveraging the Great Pivot: How COVID-19 Creates Opportunities for Racial Justice, Economic Advancement, and Environmental Healing.

As I began this research, podcast host Tony D’Urso invited me to return to his show–so I got my first chance to see how some of this sounds out loud. Keeping in mind that this is in the very early stages, and that we spent the first ten minutes sharing some background, I’d love to know your thoughts. You might even get a credit in my next book!

You can listen (and read the transcript) at https://tonydurso.com/crisis-opportunities-now-with-shel-horowitz/ –and Tony would be grateful if you gave a quick kudo at ratethispodcast.com/tony . And here’s my list of takeaways from the call:

Shel’s personal backstory as a writer, marketer, and activist (Timings: 00 through 8:20):

How activism got me into marketing AND journalism in my teens
My start in journalism: a right-wing high school alternative newspaper gave 15-year-old left-wing me a platform–and ran my articles with disclaimers!
My first paid writing assignments, at $3 per hour–and my unusual motivation to write those articles quickly
The humble beginnings of the business I’ve run for more than 39 years
Why forming a successful group to block a large mountainside housing development proposal opened the door to the work I’ve done for the last 20 years, integrating profitability with environmental and social good

Shel’s motivation for activism on multiple issues, especially clean energy (8:20 through 10:33, 15:06-17:35):

Why clean energy has a much brighter future than even 20 years ago
How the energy-hogging Empire State Building was converted into one of the greenest buildings around–and how those improvements generated 33% return on investment
The cow-poop-powered green heating system in my antique farmhouse (built in 1743)

How we pivoted in 2020, and how we can make those pivots bigger and more long lasting to create a better world (17:40-24:38):

The opportunity COVID created to remake the world differently–including the newly global reach of formerly local events
How I got connected to a 16-year-old green entrepreneur on the other side of the country, which would never have happened pre-pandemic
Chances to explore entirely new careers, because your old career may not exist anymore
How we’ve often faced huge social shifts (the 1918 pandemic, when no one had Zoom and few people had a phone in their house; transition from horse to engine power; the vast disruption of the Internet) and risen to the challenge

What it means to be environmentally and socially responsible AND profitable (29:23-39:54):

Successful examples from clothing company Patagonia to a company that builds a ladder out of poverty using inexpensive solar LED lanterns
Cost savings in going green, including a different approach to manufacturing (and the technology we already have that will eventually make that possible at scale)–and how that could revolutionize medicine and other areas
How even a pizza shop could make a meaningful difference–with a youth training program that offers four distinct types of benefits around job and entrepreneurial skills, healthy eating, life skills, and more profit to the shop owner
How a house in the Colorado snowbelt went net-zero-energy–in 1984–and paid for all the improvements out of energy savings
How mindset changes possibility, including a magnificent quote from Muhammad Ali (I built my TEDx talk around this quote)–and how to frame the narrative to find out what actually is possible
What I’ve learned by posting a daily public gratitude journal

“Opportunities, ideas, are under every rock and tree” (44:34-48:00):

If you generate ten ideas a day), find two each month to explore
Our power is in our resilience and our inventiveness
The benefits of the conscious choice I made to have a happy life

Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World–and what my legacy might be (48:00-54:00):

How marketers benefit by finding an elastic market (like books)
Why Guerrillas should be quick and nimble
Marketing that leads to action–and action that makes the world better
The secret of turning customers into ambassadors
Why customer evangelism is one of the most profitable things a marketer can invest in–and how surprisingly easy it is to develop and harness that loyalty (easier for businesses with a higher purpose, by the way)

Tony’s summary of the call takeaways (54:00-57:12):

The necessity of getting good and getting fast
The power of a higher purpose: “sow good seeds and do good deeds”
When you see problems–brainstorming how things can work better–grab hold of your vision
Find ways you can pivot
Find 10 new ideas each day

3. Kymm Nelsen, host of Conscious Leadership Weekly: In just 51 minutes, we managed to cover:

My activist childhood beginning at age 3, including a 48-year boycott
The key mindset shift that I harnessed to build the movement that saved a mountain
Why problems like hunger, poverty war, and catastrophic climate change are actually solvable—and how to effectively motivate people to solve them
Three ways business can profit by solving those problems
How to avoid getting a stake pounded through the heart of your business after a customer service screw-up
How empowering your employees lowers your HR costs
Why lying about one thing can destroy all the hard-won goodwill you’ve built up in your business
The exciting new exponential-growth paradigm of “biological marketing”—and the engineering miracle of “biomimicry”
How to convince business people who think going green or running a conscious, social-change-focused business is “too hard”
A key mistake the green movement committed in the 1970s and 80s
The two simple changes I made that cut my paper use ~80 percent
The way one social enterprise addresses urban poverty, creates personal empowerment, and eliminates staffing shortages all at once
Why Ben & Jerry’s was able to carve out 40 percent market share in a market with hundreds of competitors
The surprising answer: what company sells more organic food than Whole Foods—and how you can use their marketing strategy to sell green and social change products to people who don’t even care about the issues
The almost net-zero-energy house built in the cold Colorado Rockies back in 1983—that doesn’t need a furnace, stays warm enough to grow bananas, and has a $5 monthly electric bill
How thinking about light bulbs differently could save some businesses up to $4 million
Finding and harnessing new product opportunities that never existed before: from a Frisbee-sized hydroelectric generator to small-space indoor apartment gardens

4. 6 Star Business with Aveline Clarke in Australia: Why Social Change DOESN’T Have to be a Sacrifice

Normally, I prepare my own summaries of podcast interviews, but this was mostly prepared by the show host. I’ve shortened it somewhat, and added a few of my own highlights in italic.

…We explore how to market differently to the different types of “green” consumers, ranging from deep greens who prioritize sustainability to non-greens who may not be as conscious of their environmental impact. Shel highlights companies… [that have] made substantial strides…

[B]rands such as Patagonia and Ben and Jerry’s have found success in promoting their environmentally-friendly products by catering to the deep green market. Shel also sheds light on companies like Cadbury and Hershey that were originally founded as social impact companies but have lost their way…

We delve into the intersection of doing the right thing and being a successful business, and how Shel’s own business has evolved over the years.

Shel’s expertise extends beyond marketing, and he provides actionable advice for businesses looking to integrate sustainability into their operations. He highlights the importance of addressing sustainability and regenerativity issues, as consumers increasingly choose products that make a positive impact…

Shel offers a free resource called “10 success and profitability secrets for businesses looking to do social and environmental good” on his website, https://GoingBeyondSustainability.com . He also offers affordable consultation services tailored to each business’s unique needs.

In addition to his wealth of knowledge, Shel shares his personal practices for finding joy and gratitude in life, such as his 1530-day gratitude journal and his passion for writing.

Here’s some highlights of our conversation…

- The power of individual consumers, social change movements, and ordinary people to effect change
- Changing the world is not a sacrifice if done with joy and gratitude
- Going beyond traditional limits of excellence to a spiritual 110 percent

Cross-pollinating: finding solutions for one industry by looking at other industries—or at nature

- Thinking of communities as organisms within a bioregion
- Seeing businesses as allies in positive change who can benefit by addressing the world’s big problems
- Giving advice to clients on marketing green and social change products and services

Kaizen (small improvements) versus Great Leaps

and much more…

Here are the links to listen to the episode:

Audio only with transcript: https://podcast.6star.business/1743080/13106695-profitable-sustainability-balancing-business-success-and-positive-impact-with-shell-horowitz/

Or video without transcript: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mibStVs0MiY

5. The Spotlight with Tony Durso (2017)

Two key events at ages 3 and 12 that spurred me to a life of activism—and how activism turned me into a lifelong marketer and writer at age 15
Learning to build a platform to reach people who don’t agree with you—as a teenager
How I approached Guerrilla Marketing founder Jay Levinson to do our first book together—showing him the win-win possibilities—how I landed the contract with Wiley to publish it, and the easy things I did to get on Jay’s good side for the rest of his life
Brief history of the Guerrilla Marketing movement and how it works for social change
How an attitude of invincibility led to actual victory in a major grassroots campaign
My process for staying ahead of trends—and what I see as the next big trend after green
How going green got GE a 1250% ROI, saved NYC $6.5 billion, and created a $15 billion/year revenue stream for Walmart
How to sell green or socially conscious products and services to three different types of consumer markets—and a specific example of how this plays out
What my mother-in-law told me that revealed one of those markets
Why market share doesn’t matter for many businesses—and how that understanding led to profitable cooperation with other businesses from solopreneurs to Fortune 50 companies including Apple, IBM, and FedEx
Why you should see green as a built-in, not an add-on, and how that will increase profit
How changing out lightbulbs could save some businesses $4 million per year—and how you can get my $9.95 ebook on saving energy AND money as well as some other gifts including a 15-minute consult from me, at no charge
How to frame massive problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change as solvable—and how those solutions can create abundance for all by addressing multiple problems at once
The secret that let ordinary people like a seamstress, an electrician, and a housewife launch movements that changed the world—and how all of us can step from our ordinariness to create great impact

6. Covering some different ground was this interview with Jack Humphrey (and occasional help from Gina Gaudio-Graves) on Leverage Masters:

Why I am not daunted but INSPIRED by the “tough” challenges of getting business to meaningfully turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance
The surprising turnaround that graced the lives of people like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates (I could have named Warren Buffett as well)—and what that meant to the world
How to create a “possibility mindset”—in Jack’s words, changing “the insurmountable skyscraper” into something doable; thousands of companies have begun doing this
The power of being shocked into action
The surprise you can find on a rooftop eight floors above a South Bronx street—and how that affects not only the future of food but skill building and job creation for inner-city youth
The flip side of ASAP—you need both sides
How Ben & Jerry’s went viral long before social media, and won the ice cream wars
How to sell green products to a Hummer-driving climate denier
Why green is a lever to create deeper social change

More Interviews

Deepak Saini

I was a guest July 26 on the Deepak Saini Show, an episode titled “The Impact your Business can have on Global Issues.” In about half an hour, we started by talking about my earliest social change influences, including how the house of cards about checks and balances in government came crashing down around me when I was 12.

Then we moved to the idea of win-win-win-win-win and the abundance mindset. ”There are always more than two stakeholders.” And we already know the technology that can fix society’s biggest problems—but it will take public relations skills to create the will to move forward. But “instant” movements don’t come up out of nowhere; there’s always a story leading up to the big public splash.

Briefly discussing some right and wrong ways to do alternative energy, we then focused on 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. Near the end of the show, Deepak asked me about my own health regimen (something that almost never comes up in interviews).

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6msnneCvFXic1ig5EqDue9

YouTube: https://youtu.be/MVUkKOYCT1c

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-impact-your-business-can-have-on-global-issues/id1745518106?i=1000663398111

——

Jean Border interviews Shel on the Focused Practical Dreamer podcast, https://www.FocusedPracticalDreamer.com/shel-horowitz/

Some of what you’ll hear in this 57-minute show:

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!

——

Mari-Lyn Harris of Heart at Work interviewed Shel on her Creating an Impact podcast, which also aired on her Summit for Changemakers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJWzZ1sdDEw

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

——

Ian Peterman interviewed Shel on his Conscious Design podcast. Shel is not a designer, but had a lot to say on how design can be a tool of environmental and social justice.

I’ve gotten quite a bit of media coverage recently, though only the first two links are about green and social justice business practices. But hey, I’m eclectic ;-).

Share2Seed quotes me in a long piece about how Elon Musk has made it more OK to be a successful eco-entrepreneur https://medium.com/@Share2Seed/how-to-be-an-ecopreneur-and-get-paid-well-like-elon-musk-463a0e3eaed7

They seem like an interesting support venture for eco-businesses; after you read the article you might want to visit their home page.

Included in this roundup story about making seasonal businesses more sustainable. https://www.incfile.com/blog/how-to-make-seasonal-business-sustainable

Profiled in this article about how I as a rural business owner and activist use broadband. https://www.explorebeyond.org/stories/broadband-powers-entrepreneurship-in-rural-new-england/

I presented a brief gallery talk on the stunning posthumous show of my stepfather, Michihiro Yoshida, a painter whose bright colors and surrealistic images earned him the title, “The Mythic Modernist.” His site is http://artbyyoshi.com, and the slide talk is at https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/3qKcWmG8nEb8FMYIHTpf8AVYILof-xfJtxP5MfxKEQegkkhcTlZwHCDbyGKxBuhH.-9D0QrXxeZDB4lZi Passcode: BtAUz?Y3 (the presentation starts at 2 minutes, eight seconds into the video).

My tips on traveling like a local lead off this article on traveling internationally for newbies: https://arreh.com/planning-a-trip-heres-what-you-need-to-know-10-pieces-of-advice-for-new-travelers/

My interview, How to Write a Book for Social Change, is live on Dan Janal’s Write Your Book in a Flash podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPUoVPp2yP4 . I had a short-term physical issue that day, which explains some of the weird pauses—but the information is really good, and because it’s focused on authors building movements, it’s significantly different material from many of my other interviews.

How books have ALREADY changed the world (with examples)
How to research to support the point of view you want people to adopt
How to leverage your book to widen the audience for your point of view
How self-publishing can give you leverage to get a traditional publisher
How to use YOUR book to create a movement

It’s worth noting that a lot of my social change consulting practice is book shepherding and book marketing for authors with socially conscious books. In other words, if you’re looking to get a change-the-world book done, published, and/or marketed, please get in touch: https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/contact/

——

Profiled in this article about (of all things) how I as a rural business owner and activist use broadband. https://www.explorebeyond.org/stories/broadband-powers-entrepreneurship-in-rural-new-england/

——

Nice new print interview with Shel on Billion Success: https://billionsuccess.com/shel-horowitz/

——

For his Western Mass Business Show, radio host Ira Bryck asked Shel to put together a panel. Shel reached into the activism world to pull in State Senator Jo Comerford (who was elected after a decades-long career at MoveOn and elsewhere) and to the green business world for Raj Pabari, a 16-year-old entrepreneur who has started multiple companies and has 16 employees.

Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdego4U3jSM&feature=youtu.be

Guests: Shel Horowitz, Going Beyond Sustainability, expert on/consultant to social entrepreneurship businesses and author of Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World
Jo Comerford, Massachusetts State Senator and 30-year professional activist
Raj Pabari, 16-year-old CEO of Off Grid Technologies (a social enterprise and green business making device charges that can take many power sources)

Takeaways:

There is significant synergy among progressive business, activists, nonprofits, and government–different ways to get to similar results–and each of these sectors can learn lessons from the others
People will flock to a business associated with a social cause and conducting itself ethically and sustainability
But even bottom-line-driven companies can save and make a lot of money by doing the right thing–including the surprising identity of the company that doubled the organic foods market by selling to mainstream consumers
How Shel began to merge profitable business and social change
How Jo anticipated some of the worst aspects of the 2017-2021 federal government, and where she found hope–and what it’s like to speak on behalf of 160,000 constituents
How Raj is finding success as a social enterprise that goes well beyond the basics, and how he appeals to impact investors who cout environmental and social goals
How to talk to–and be heard by–“the other side”–in politics and in business
How Shel makes the self-interest argument to skeptical business owners and managers
How government can open doors to social and economic transformation

——

Here’s my talk last month at the Kindness Matters Summit. The audio came out a bit rough, with some words getting chopped (and more ums/uhs/pauses than usual–I wasn’t feeling all that great)–but it’s worth the effort, because this is a really good introduction to social entrepreneurship through the lens of kindness and an emphasis on ordinary people succeeding despite the challenges. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHXiTtJ5wiA&feature=youtu.be

——

Quoted at some length in Playboy, of all places, on individual actions we can all take to avert climate catastrophe.

——

Wide-ranging written interview on Fem Founder (I was very pleased that they would interview a man) about being a tiny startup, morphing my business multiple times, marketing challenges, the current work on strategic integration of profitability and social change–and even some insight into my lifestyle and my volunteer social justice/immigration justice/environmental activism outside of work. https://www.femfounder.co/femfounderstories/shel-horowitz-interview . If you prefer to read it on Medium, it’s also at https://medium.com/fem-founder/do-the-homework-to-make-sure-you-can-find-a-market-if-you-follow-your-heart-with-shel-horowitz-f27efb35ac82 . Note that at this time, I am not pursuing the activist clearing house idea that the interview refers to. I have something more exciting that I’ll reveal to you down the road.

——

The 22-minute Climate Change with Scott Amyx interview I taped several weeks ago is now live: https://scottamyx.com/2020/08/31/interview-with-shel-horowitz-green-transformative-expert/ We discussed some very different ideas about marketing, the importance of environmental and social commitment to profitability, and more.

——

Insight-packed five-minute interview by Mitchell Levy https://www.thoughtleaderlife.com/thoughtleaderlife/thought-leader-life-455-guest-shel-horowitz/

——

Back in March 2020, I responded to a reporter query on corporate social responsibility (one of my fortes). I received a note from the reporter that the story was published late last month, and I was very pleased with the way it came out. I talk about one of my favorite examples, a company that addresses poverty, the environment, and quality of life all at once, through solar LED lights. And I enjoyed reading the examples other experts provided, too: https://blog.submittable.com/csr-examples/

——

Also quoted in some depth on whether socially conscious advertising is a good thing. Not surprisingly I argue that it is, and back up my claim with facts: https://www.verywellmind.com/does-socially-conscious-advertising-work-4847116

——

Mirko Galassi interviews Shel on the Italian channel Webenjoy.net:

My new, unusual and very green heating system (in a house built in 1743, BTW)
How to market green products to nongreen audiences, and how service businesses can focus on the green market
Why it makes sense to get your current clients onto your marketing team
My observations on Italy’s steps toward a greener society (I happened to be there just a few weeks before this interview)
What to compete on instead of price
Two surprising suggestions on dealing with aggressive competitors
How Walmart doubled the US market for organic foods
My green design challenge to Apple

——

Willie Crawford interviewed me last summer and I missed the message where he told me the interview was posted. This is what I’m posting on my interview page about it (yeah, I recognize that posting in the third person is odd on Facebook, but that’s why):

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/williecrawford/2018/08/17/profiting-from-taking-care-of-yourself-and-making-a-real-difference-in-the-world-1

My segment starts at 31:11, and we covered a LOT of ground:

How an “impossible” movement not only won, but changed the culture of Shel’s town
How that success inspired Shel to go much bigger–eventually developing strategies to tackle problems as big as hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change
Why Shel says sustainability is not enough–and what we need instead
What Shel thinks the best AND worst outcomes of doing this work will be, and how those possibilities affect his legacy
The bigger impact of Ben & Jerry’s long-time push for socially responsible business–and a hat-tip to a social responsibility business pioneer of nearly 200 years ago (still in business today)
The reasons why a “pure capitalism, non-tree-hugger” retail giant has become a leader in green business
How even a pizza shop owner could pilot a “social responsibility octopus” [I don’t use that term in the interview, just came up with it now] with gains in skill-building among unemployed youth, job creation, organic food marketing, and more–at close to zero cost and with plenty of opportunity to monetize
How ordinary people like a seamstress or an shipyard electrician can change the world (with famous examples)
Where to find an inexpensive road map for achieving social change through profitable business
A successful model for marketing socially responsible products to people at the very bottom of the ladder, where they can afford to buy, and the company can be economically successful
The surprising positive society-wide outcomes of a simple plumbing fix
Where we can turn to to solve climate problems when the government is hostile
The low-hanging fruit that can cut energy use in the US 50 to 75 percent within just a couple of years

——

I’m the final of 22 positive-thinking experts featured here: https://upjourney.com/how-to-get-rid-of-negative-thoughts

——

Mira Rubin interview with Shel Horowitz on the Sustainability Now podcast

The power of one person making a difference—and the corollary power of thinking big: three examples everyone has heard of but maybe haven’t thought about what that really means

How being annoyed by environmentalists got me to start the movement that saved a mountain—and how saving that mountain led me to think so much bigger
Five benefits in being a socially and environmentally active company (#3 is particularly exciting)—and three reasons why those companies have better employees
How one of the most profit-driven retailers in the world created a $15 billion/year mainstream market for organic food
Why the “bottom of the pyramid” represents a vast economic opportunity—and how to approach it the right way
How a super-successful company succeeds by hiring ex-addicts, ex-mental patients, and other “unemployables”
My superpower, according to Mira—and tips to make it work in your own business
Why you NEVER want to “we, we, we all the way home”
What money really is—and how to gain its advantages even if you don’t have a lot of it
The secret to turning your customers into active ambassadors for your company
Why values matter when you want to establish value
The difference between prosperity and abundance—and how gratitude fits in
How I switched from heating with oil to heating with cow poop and food waste
Why I continue to be optimistic about reversing climate change, despite the gloomy predictions

Alex Wise– Sea Change Radio

How we can motivate people with something better than guilt and shame
The secret weapon the general public has to create BIG change in the business world
The long history of social change movements just in the past 60 years, and some of the miracles they’ve accomplished
How Ben & Jerry’s and Patagonia used social and environmental concern to beat the odds
The shocking demographic that potentially could become the biggest consumer of green products and services
How to tell real green commitments from greenwashing

Carole Murphy—HeartStock Radio

How my childhood (and my mother) shaped the work I do now, and how I got past my urban roots
The intertwined shifts in society that give me hope even in troubled times
How activism led directly to my marketing career, starting at age 15—and the marketing lessons I learned at that early age, including targeting a message to the market
Who’s the leader in selling green products? The answer might shock you
How each of us, as consumers, can make a difference one interaction at a time

Mature Preneurs Talk with Diana Todd-Hardy

Why I got into marketing (through activism)
How activism led me into writing books
When I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up (not so long ago)
How you can design to solve multiple problems at once (for instance, poverty, environment, and safety)—and to build in circular (no-waste) resource use
The difference between old-style social responsibility and thinking really big
The biggest challenge I have found in this new work
The most exciting parts for me personally of the new social change work
The difference between marketing and advertising
How to write sexy, attention-getting press releases (and other marketing materials) that DON’T fit the 5W formula
Where to look to surmount almost any engineering challenge—the surprising key
2 key questions to green your business and profitably address social issues
How the Empire State Building changed its thinking about energy to save $4.4 million per year

Profitability Revolution with Ruth King

How even a very small business can get involved in healing the biggest problems of our time
The key questions to ask in developing a profitable approach to social change within business
An unrehearsed brainstorm about how a consultant can make an impact in developing countries and find people to pay for it
The key to solving war
Positive versus negative motivation
How the most famous skyscraper in the world got a 33 percent return when it went deep green

Interview with Brian Basilico on the Building Authentic Connections Online Networking podcast. Interestingly enough, Brian did not have the link to my media center ahead of time, so this was a freewheeling, off-the-cuff interview with neither of us knowing ahead where the conversation would flow. We managed to cover quite a bit of ground:
https://www.baconpodcast.com/episode-315-guerrilla-marketing-heal-world-shel-horowitz/

My journey from file clerk and park ranger to running a business that changes the world
The life-changing shock at age 12 that committed me to activism
A definition of cause marketing—and why it isn’t enough
Three ordinary people—a seamstress, a shipyard electrician, and a writer: two of them changed the world and the third is working on it
The big problems with the terms “global warming” and “sustainability”
How to find out if YOU’RE ready to start a profitable social entrepreneurship product

Interview on Blue Collar Proud with Taylor Hill and Carter Harkins (segment starts at 24:23)

How small-scale businesses in the trades can lower costs and boost revenues doing things to help the world
What if the climate change deniers are right—and what if they’re not?
The impact of going green on healthcare
Why making big, sweeping improvements in sustainability can be much more cost-effective than tiny changes
How switching to greener lighting can save certain types of businesses millions of dollars
Does green make a real difference in customer loyalty?
The shocking fact that could end hunger in the US

Hear Shel on Game Changers with Lisa Faulkner, https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/5334235

The Biblical command that inspires Shel to be an agent of change
How to make huge goals manageable and solvable
How changing a community’s mindset led to a solution path for solving humanity’s biggest problems
How hiring “unemployables” created multiple benefits for the company and the community
How America’s most famous skyscraper got a 33% return on its clean energy investment

Stephanie Chandler interviewed me on Writing to Create Social Change:

Three books (among hundreds) from three centuries that changed the world
How I started writing for social change—as a 15-year-old high school student
How my passion for the environment—and a bizarre coincidence—led me to become a published author at age 23
Why I STOPPED freelancing for magazines and newspapers
How I get top-tier endorsers and co-authors for my books
What happened when a subsidy publisher DEMANDED to publish my book
How social change got me a gig as a TEDx speaker

The debut of my brand new talk, How Social Entrepreneurs Can Thrive in a Trumpian World, was a webinar put on by Green America (my fourth for them). Catch the replay at https://youtu.be/GderLF6vn0s

Karina Crooks interviews me on the Business Code Podcast: :

What mangrove trees can teach engineers
Why “coopetition” works
What will social entrepreneurship look like 20 years from now
How a seamstress and an electrician separately changed the world, three decades apart
How to create a successful mass movement

Brief but powerful interview on JenningsWire—a great lesson in how to make the most of less than nine minutes.

Ajay Prasad and I chat on Founder’s Corner. He mentors me about pricing, ROI, and other MBA-type business concerns, while I educate him on green business and the green/social entrepreneurship market—including three different types of customers for green products and services and the surprising answers to questions like 1) what’s the largest segment of customers for green products? And 2) what company sells more organic products than Whole Foods?

Positive Phil Podcast. We start with a detailed example of the types of products that can create social betterment (reducing poverty, creating jobs), environmental/health/safety improvement (eliminating toxic fumes and a major fire hazard), and make a nice profit all at once. Then several examples of how we can improve our engineering and design by studying nature. We discuss the word “Transformpreneur” (which I use to describe myself)…how solar can be workable for renters and for people who live in cloudy areas…how to replace boring press releases with fascinating ones…a company that has thrived by employing “unemployables”—and what I love about the work I do and the life I lead.

Brand with Jenna—Brave Entrepreneur Podcast: (Episode 90):

How you can create a *profitable* business that can change the world
The teamwork involved in building a successful movement
Learning to think long-term—even through a 10-year campaign

Profits and Prana with Ysmay Walsh:

Ordinary people joining with others to change the world
How we saved our local mountain
Why Ben & Jerry’s is so successful (hint: it has a lot to do with their corporate social conscience)
Exploring the idea of an international force of yoga teacher serving as conflict mediators

Smart Hustle Podcast with Ramon Ray:

Why every business can benefit by introducing and marketing products and services that address threats like hunger, poverty, war and climate change
Why social entrepreneurship goes deeper than philanthropy
How even solopreneurs can make a difference

Reaching the Finish Line—Kallen Diggs

Unlike most interviews I do, this one focused on book publishing and not on the core message that business can profit by solving our biggest problems.

What I did wrong on my first self-published marketing book (and how I can save you from doing the same)
Why I don’t worry about low-volume book sales—and what I focus on instead
How to keep a book going long beyond its expected shelf life
How an ugly, unknown newsletter I almost didn’t respond to sold 90 books for me

Five-minute interview on Jennings Wire: “How Ordinary People Can Do The Extraordinary” How ordinary people start and lead movements—and how Shel saved a mountain in his own town.

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

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

Bill Newman—WHMP: (segment starts at 28:28): A quick, intense 11-minute trip through the highlights of my work

Ask those Branding Guys: (segment starts at 9:23)

Barry Moltz: (segment starts at 15:12)

Todd Schinck, Intrepid Now, with a nice emphasis on the power of ordinary people to change the world (segment starts at 2:28)

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

Jill Buck, Go Green Radio: The difference between socially responsible and socially transformative businesses, impact of a social agenda on employees, urban farming, new energy technologies…and a cool case study of how a dog groomer could green up. (segment starts at 0:52)

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

Leon Jay, SocialpreneurTV (you’ll get to see what I look like when I’m overdue for a haircut/beard trim—a rare glimpse at Shaggy Shel)

Two-part interview on Steve Sapowksy’s excellent EcoWarrior Radio podcast: (Listen to Part 1 before Part 2, of course)

The first of two excellent shows on Conscious Millionaire

The Clean and Green Club, May 2017

10 May, 2017 2 Comments

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

This Month’s Tip: Why I Threw Away This Letter

The fund appeal above is from a group I’ve supported often in the past. It’s a group that does great work. But I got only as far as the salutation before I knew it was going straight into the recycle bin. I stopped to scan it so I could share it with you, and then off it went into the mighty blue bin.

Why? Because I’ve made a pledge not to respond to manipulative marketing, and I consider this manipulative. If you’ve been reading this newsletter, you know I’ve been calling for honesty in marketing for many years. And whenever someone markets to me in a way I don’t consider honest, my wallet stays securely in my pocket.

I would not have objected to a salutation of Dear Dina (my wife’s first name). But when a mass mailing uses a font that looks like handwriting to cross out Dear Friend and change it to Dina, I feel insulted. Clearly, this is an attempt to make this think a human being has been involved in the change.

I’ve received fund letters from local charities where the generic salutation was replaced with our names—but those are typically done by hand and signed by someone we actually know. And yes, I give those letters more careful consideration, and usually give something. In other words, this technique works when done correctly. There’s nothing manipulative about that. A real person has gone through the list, selected people in his or her circle, and personalized those letters.

But doing this on an entire mass mailing, using a handwriting font—that’s deception, pure and simple. We do not know the president of this organization. We’ve supported this group in the past, but I don’t like being tricked into making a contribution. So instead of giving some bucks, I’m sharing this with you.

In case you’re wondering, I checked the envelope. The stamp was presorted first class, an in-between option that’s cheaper than regular first class but more expensive than bulk mail, and requires the same sort of pre-processing that third-class bulk mail does. You can’t easily hand-edit a letter in a presort mailing. In other words, the odds are 99 to 1 that it was not hand-corrected.

NOTE: If you’re wondering why I’m sharing a letter dated last November, it’s because that’s when I wrote this article. I often work several months ahead with the main articles and sometimes the book reviews. This didn’t feel so time-sensitive but I needed to bump it up.

New on the Blog

What Role Can Nonstrategic Mass Movements Play in Social Change? https://greenandprofitable.com/what-role-can-nonstrategic-mass-movements-play-in-social-change/

Why “Popularity Contest” Surveys are Useless https://greenandprofitable.com/why-popularity-contest-surveys-are-useless/

40 Years Ago Today, We Changed the World (five part series beginning https://greenandprofitable.com/40-years-ago-today-we-changed-the-world-part-1/ and linking from each installment to the next

What I Told the DT Administration: Business Case for Paris Accord https://greenandprofitable.com/what-i-told-the-dt-administration-business-case-for-paris-accord/

Hear and Meet Shel

The debut of my brand new talk, How Social Entrepreneurs Can Thrive in a Trumpian World, was a webinar put on by Green America last month (my fourth for them). Catch the replay at https://youtu.be/GderLF6vn0s

Karina Crooks interviews me on the Business Code Podcast: https://businesscodetalk.com/podcast/shel-horowitz/ :

What mangrove trees can teach engineers
Why “coopetition” works
What will social entrepreneurship look like 20 years from now
How a seamstress and an electrician separately changed the world, three decades apart
How to create a successful mass movement

I missed Book Expo America last year after attending every one since 1997. But it’s back in NYC and my daughter is NOT getting married the following week (as she did in 2016), so I will be attending (May 30-June 2). Contact me if you’d like to meet for coffee.

Proud to be a speaker at Marc Guberti’s Content Marketing Success Summit, June 6-17. Other speakers include Ray Edwards, Ana Hoffman, and Jay Papasan. Take a look at the whole program at https://shelhorowitz.com/go/ContentMarketingSuccessSummit/ — or jump directly to the All-Access Pass s you can listen anytime from now to forever: https://shelhorowitz.com/go/ContentMarketingAllAccessPass/

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

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

Learn how the business world can profit while solving hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change (hint: they’re all based in resource conflicts). Endorsed by Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin, and many others. Find out more and order from several major booksellers (or get autographed and inscribed copies directly from me). https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/guerrilla-marketing-to-heal-the-world/

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

Another Recommended Book—From Dictatorship to Democracy

From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation by Gene Sharp (The New Press, 2012)

Social change—eliminating such evils as hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change—has been at the core of my work for more than four decades. Long before I started wrestling with the idea of harnessing the business community to achieve these big goals through profitable products and services back in the early 2000s, I devoted significant volunteer time to making a better world.

And now that the government of my own country, the United States, is taking significant steps backward, I will occasionally step out beyond the business world and find inspiration and information from completely different channels.

This month’s book review is one of those. Gene Sharp is the preeminent applied nonviolence theorist in the US today. I first discovered his work in the early 1980s and read all the way through his very dense, three-part Politics of Nonviolent Action back then, after hearing him speak.

So I was excited to find a much shorter and more readable distillation of his work that I feel comfortable recommending here. It’s only 138 pages, but it may shift your thinking about how to not just achieve social change but actually overthrow dictators. In fact, Sharp has been cited as an influence by nonviolent warriors around the world, including the Arab Spring movement and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, among others.

While some agents of change see them as points on a continuum, Sharp makes a clear distinction between nonviolent and violent struggles:

Strategic nonviolent methods—which use not just visible protests but many tactics involving withdrawal of cooperation from the regime—tend to work better and faster: “Withdrawal of support is…the major required action to disintegrate a dictatorship.”
They create sympathy among the populace, while violent struggles create alienation and anger toward the agents of change
They play to the strengths of the protestors, while violent tactics play to the government’s strength (since the government is always better armed and usually better trained in fighting)
They create decentralized movements and alternative governance structures that spread leadership skills much more widely—and this becomes key when planning for and setting up the replacement government
They generate a peace based on freedom and justice, and not on repression

Sharp has a strong preference for deeply strategic campaigns, and notes that while tactics might shift during repression, the overall strategy should be carefully nurtured; the repression is designed to get the movement to abandon its successful strategies, and thus is a sign of victory (pp. 90-91). And if the populace is willing to endure repression, repression or the threat of it will not longer be enough to prop up the dictatorship (pp. 106-107).

He suggests starting with small, low-risk campaigns that lead to relatively easy victories, celebrating them and then expanding the demands. And he provides some excellent strategy checklists, such as seven positive characteristics of successful nonviolent political defiance (p. 44) and eight factors to consider when preparing to take power (pp. 84-86). He even looks at how to win over the military in ways that don’t foster a coup d’état (pp. 100-101), and how to defeat a coup if one happens (pp. 117-118).

And he notes the importance of being prepared in the event of either rapid or slow-moving victory (p. 111)—something I learned the hard way when Save the Mountain, a movement I’d started—achieved its goals very quickly and had no second stream of activity to take up the energy; our organization, which could have played a role in many other campaigns, simply withered away. Expanding out to the level of ending a repressive government, if the activists are not prepared to create a government, someone else will step into the vacuum, with potentially disastrous consequences for freedom.

Successful nonviolent regime change will be more permanent and well accepted if it takes seriously the charge of protecting the rights of its citizens, including its minorities. Sharp points out (p. 122) that following the victory, the citizens are now well-schooled in how to bring down governments, will be resilient and resistant against future attempts to grab power at the expense of citizens, and willing to struggle together to achieve a free and just society.

The book concludes with a list of 198 nonviolent tactics grouped into six broad categories:

Economic noncooperation: boycotts (6 subcategories)
Nonviolent protest and persuasion (10 sub-categories)
Social noncooperation (3 subcategories)
Economic noncooperation: boycotts (6 subcategories)
Political noncooperation: strikes (7 subcategories)
Nonviolent intervention (5 subcategories)

Even if your current organizing has much more modest goals than regime change, this book will give you a solid grounding in theory and many practical tools. Highly recommended.

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

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

Recent Interviews & Guest Articles:

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

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