The Clean and Green Club

How’s this for a mission statement (transcribed from the cheery video by the head of customer service, right at the top of the home page): “To help you find the most effective products to make your house most efficient.” The same video offers a great guarantee: “If you aren’t satisfied with anything you buy from us, we’ll replace it, refund your money, or work with you to make it right. We as a company, and I personally, are committed to you being 100% thrilled with us.”

Now, add a great selection of Green household products in these categories: electricity monitors, power strips, programmable thermostats, lighting, rechargeable batteries, water saving, window insulation, crank powered, space heaters, weatherstrips/air sealing, indoor air/ventilation, controls, timers & switches

Round it all out with a bunch of informative articles and how-to videos on topics like preparing for energy audits and keeping your house cool in summer, plus news articles and blogs about energy issues (one I particularly liked stated that LED lights, which are many times more efficient than even compact fluorescents, don’t attract bugs), and you have the wonderful site, https://energycircle.com/ – a great combination of green products and a helpful, approachable, customer-focused attitude. And that’s our Spotlight business for this month.

Guest post by Dave Esler and Myra Kruger

[Editor’s Note: I review Esler and Kruger’s book as this month’s Recommended Book, elsewhere in this newsletter. –Shel Horowitz]

Our new book, The Pursuit of Something Better, tells the unlikely story of how a little-known, mid-sized wireless carrier – U.S. Cellular – transformed itself into a competitive terror admired by customers, employees, and investors alike on a platform of values.  In an industry not known for its high ethical standards, U.S. Cellular made ethics its calling card; over the past nine years, at a time when much of American industry was in a profits-at-any-cost mode that would ultimately prove disastrous, this company has demonstrated that acting ethically can be a powerful competitive advantage.

It wasn’t easy – but U.S. Cellular’s experience shows that any company with the will and the heart can become an ethical icon.  The story began in 2000, when Jack Rooney became its CEO.  Rooney believed that both employees and customers would respond to a platform of simple (but rarely experienced in business) values like customer focus, pride, respect, diversity, empowerment – and ethics.  His company was initially skeptical – that wasn’t how successful businesses normally operated.  Rooney was immovable, and gradually, through three distinct stages, moved his 9,000-employee organization onto a whole new plane.

The first stage was to insist that the organization “just do it,” with zero tolerance for those who would not comply.  That made for some painful moments, but within a year or two, it also led to some eye-opening discoveries:

• Customers liked dealing with a company where they didn’t have to watch their backs, where they could be confident that the company really did have their best interests at heart; their compliments confirmed for skeptical sales people that an ethical approach just might work.
• Sales and service associates realized how much easier it was working in an environment where they could just tell the truth.  Lying to customers is complicated and can come back to bite; being straightforward is far less stressful and allows them to go home with a clear conscience.
• Employees throughout the company learned what a pleasure work could be when they didn’t have to worry about internal back-stabbing or political maneuvering; their leaders found out how much more effective teams could be when there were no ulterior motives to deal with.

A few years later, U.S. Cellular had moved into stage two of this transformation, when its high ethical standards had become a self-conscious point of pride.  Its employees were very aware that their company was different than most – and they took great joy and comfort from that knowledge.  They started to describe the behavior of their executives and colleagues as “impeccable,” and to refer to their company as “the most ethical in America” — and they understood the importance of maintaining that reputation.  As an engineer wrote on one of U.S. Cellular’s annual surveys of the state of its culture, “One of these days a cell phone company is going to get popped for cooking the books.  It won’t be us.”

The final phase of this process was the gradual expansion of the meaning of the ethics value from not doing something wrong – breaking a law or violating a company rule or standard – to a much broader expectation of “doing the right thing” under any circumstances.  By then, company accountants were marveling that executives always seemed to choose “the right thing ahead of the business thing” – although by then, it was becoming hard to tell the two apart.

For example:  a company service rep was caught making a change to the account of a friend, an ethical no-no.  The friend happened to be a local public official, and U.S. Cellular was at the time bidding for the city’s wireless business – a fact that the service rep tried to use to evade disciplinary action.  Wouldn’t it just be better for all concerned to sweep the problem under the rug?  Instead, the company called the mayor to explain why it felt compelled to withdraw its bid.  At the same time, the offending employee was terminated for violating the company’s Code of Ethics.  The city was so impressed with the company’s forthrightness that it insisted on doing business with it anyway.  Hundreds of such anecdotes have become part of U.S. Cellular lore.

By last year’s survey, employees were describing how the company’s example was making them better spouses, parents, citizens.  We have read thousands of comments like this:  “I believe I’m becoming a better husband, father, son, brother, and friend because I work here.”  And this:  “I feel a strong internal drive to work hard within this company.  I do not know where my career path will take me, but the values and beliefs of this company inspire me at work and in my personal life every day.”  And this, over and over:  “I am a better person for working here.”

And here’s the best part:  U.S. Cellular is thriving, as the last mid-sized regional carrier left standing in an industry dominated by four national giants.  It has won five J.D. Power Awards in a row for customer satisfaction.  It has been honored as the best place to work in dozens of the states and cities where it operates.  And it has remained profitable through the recession.  The good guys win.  Ethics pays.

Dave Esler and Myra Kruger combined their 30 years of corporate communications, human resources, and consulting experience as Esler Kruger Associates in 1987.  Their consulting firm focuses on culture change, organizational surveys, and executive counsel on effective leadership. They are based in Highland Park, Illinois and can be reached at www.eslerkruger.com

As an MBA student doing an internship with the United Nations, Alicia Polak was in South Africa in 1999, learning everything she could about the culture, the economy, and how she as an American could make a difference. Then she worked for the Freeplay Foundation, distributing wind-up radios to villages without electricity, and seeing the changes a simple thing like a radio can make in the lives of villagers.

A brief detour into investment banking came to an abrupt halt following 9/11, when she realized this was not the kind of work she wanted to do; she wanted to make an impact on the world. Loving South Africa as she did, she first went back to Freeplay, and then in 2004, she began a cookie company near Cape Town, developing recipes using indigenous all-natural ingredients and employing local women who, often,had no previous employment experience. Her markets were local hotels and restaurants.

Selling the original company to local entrepreneurs in 2005 , she started The Kyaha Cookie Company with a focus on export, and began developing markets in the U.S. Currently, some 500 Xhosa women are co-employed by Khaya and another company, in an area where unemployment among women heads of households can reach 70 percent. The name Khaya comes from one of the townships in the area.

Her recipes include many “nuraceutical” ingredients grown in that region of South Africa, including roiboos and grapeseed.

From a Green perspective, does it make sense to ship cookies halfway around the world even if it does have a positive impact on employment and farming? Here’s Polak’s response:

I fill a 20-foot shipping container to the rim with cookies. 17,000 boxes to be exact. My container goes on a ship that is filled 7 stories high with containers. Every ounce of space is utilized. I am using far less waste than the diesel truck filled with Dole Lettuce packets going from California to New Jersey.  Modern ships are a very efficient way of moving cargo. The best of the huge diesel engines they use convert over 50% of the energy in the fuel to propulsive energy fed to the propeller. The best of petrol car engines struggles get 12% to the wheels.

Others obviously agree. Polak has won considerable  press coverage and acclaim, including the 2007 Food Network Edible Entrepreneur Award.

Visit Khaya Cookie Company on the Web at https://www.khayacookies.com/

In a business as bureaucratic as the airline industry, Southwest Airlines has always impressed me with its willingness to go against “normal” policy in order to do right by its customers. Not surprisingly, this positive attitude extends to doing right by its employees as well. And was probably one of the factors that led Southwest to maintain profitability–alone among US airlines–in the aftermath of 9/11.

We fly Southwest as often as possible, for a number of reasons:

• The company is very flexible if we need to change our plans; while most airlines simply void an unused ticket, Southwest lets you reschedule the same flight on another day
• It’s often the cheapest or close to cheapest option, and has brought down the cost of flying out of Hartford, our closest airport–before they came in, it was often as much as $600 to get a domestic flight, and we would have to go to New York or Boston to get anything affordable–now we can often find flights out of Hartford on Southwest and other carriers for $200-$300 round trip
• Their best flight attendants actually make it fun to fly again
• Last but certainly not least, when my sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First came out, the president of Southwest Airlines actually bought 1000 copies, making the book profitable the day it was printed <vbg>

In January, we were booked on an early morning Southwest flight from Hartford to Tampa, where we were supposed to catch a cruise ship. However, due to snow conditions in Hartford, our outbound flight was canceled the previous night, and the next one wouldn’t arrive in Tampa in time to board our ship. Fortunately, we had once again chosen Southwest.

From our hotel room near the Hartford airport, Dina got on the phone with Southwest while I used my laptop to rent a car.

The airline wanted to simply put us on a later flight to Tampa, but we politely and calmly explained that this really wouldn’t help us, since we’d have no way to catch up with our cruise ship. Without a huge amount of fuss, we got switched over to a flight into Fort Lauderdale, and from there, we rented a car and drove four hours the next day to meet our boat at its first port of call, Key West.

This itinerary shift would have been impossible or nearly impossible on most airlines. At Southwest, it was part of the customer satisfaction culture; there wasn’t even an extra charge.

Dina wrote a letter of commendation for the employee who had handled it, and this week we received a wonderful form letter from Southwest, along with a copy of the note from her supervisor thanking the employee directly and enclosing our letter.

Their letter said, in part (capitalization as in original),

Southwest Airlines is foremost a Customer Service Company, and our Employees are trained to always think of our Customers first…There is nothing that could please us more than to know that you and your husband enjoyed a dose of SOUTHWEST SPIRIT from one of our outstanding Employees. It is apparent from our records that you were assisted by Tamika, and am happy to share your kind words with her.

Thank you for sharing your heartfelt compliments with us, and thanks especially for your patronage and friendship. You and your husband are very special to all of us here at Southwest, and we anxiously await our next opportunity to make you smile.

Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever received a letter like that from a major corporation. A generic, bland thank-you, maybe, but nothing like that.

And the letter to the employee said,

I want to take a moment to add my voice to Ms. D. Dina Friedman’s in the interest of giving your outstanding Customer Service skills and SOUTHWEST SPIRIT their due recognition.

Just remember–every one commendation; every one act of kindness; and every one extra effort combine to make Southwest Airlines stand out above the rest. Thank you for being the ONE!

And all three letters (including the one we wrote) were copied to the two senior executives in charge of customer services and support, her team leader, and of course, the commended employee.

What do you think it does for employee loyalty, as well as customer loyalty, to do something very right but extremely out of the ordinary and get a commendation like that, with copies to two of the company’s vice presidents? This is a company that takes seriously its rhetoric of employee empowerment. Behavior that might have gotten her fired elsewhere is rewarded here.

Yes,  I recognize that Southwest is far from a perfect organization. But it stands light-years ahead of so many others in its industry. I’m proud to feature them as the Positive Power Spotlight of the month.

What a perfect example of “do what you love, and the money will follow.” Peter Shankman used to run a PR agency called The Geek Factory. In late 2007, he started sending queries form reporters needing story sources, as a favor to the reporters. Originally, he figured that if he was able to stock the reporters with sources, they’d turn to him and he’d get exposure for his clients.

His first attempt to systematize distribution of the queries was through a Facebook group called “If I can help a reporter out, I will.” This worked when it was half a dozen reporters sending queries to a few hundred recipients, but both sides of multiplied rapidly. It wasn’t long before Shankman banged up against Facebook’s limit of 1200 people who can receive a group e-mail.

So in March of 2008, he took it off Facebook, bought the domain www.helpareporter.com, and skyrocketed within the following year to over 60,000 users. A few months later, he began accepting ads, and before long, he had closed his PR agency and was doing HARO as his primary business (he also does speaking and training on Web 2.0). The service is free to both reporters and sources, but brings in enough revenue to allow Shankman not only to support himself but to employ a small staff.

And where do ethics come in? Shankman is rigorous about protecting his reporters from inappropriate behavior from sources–and vice versa. Abuse the list or pitch inappropriately, and you’re gone. Waste sources’ time with long interviews, use their material, and then don’t bother to include their name in the story? You won’t last long. Plus, of course, he’s showing the power of a valued media service that supports itself through advertising–and in our Internet era where ad-supported newspapers are folding their tent every week, that’s also a critical message.

I’ll be interviewing Peter Shankman this Monday, March 23, 4 pm ET/1 pm PT, on the Principled Profit radio show. Listen live in Western Massachusetts at 103.3 FM, or worldwide at www.valleyfreeradio.org

Here’s a Frugal Marketing extra: HP is offering a new design service that ” brings professional brand marketing services – usually reserved for the big guys – into the reach of small businesses.” This is through a program called MarketSplash. And a s a launch special, 100 free business cards, not even a shipping and handling charge.

Well, I’m always one to take advangtage of a good free offer, and I actually need new cards for two new sites I’m creating, painlessgreenbook.com and recessionbusterbooks.com (nothing up yet at either site). We’ll see how it goes.

(Disclosure: by posting this, I get entered in a drawing to win some t-shirts).

Ok, you read last month’s Frugal Marketing Tip and you’ve identified reporters who’ll be receptive to your pitch. What next? It’ll take two months to answer, because there are two different situations.

If you’re responding to a reporter query on HARO or PR Leads/Profnet

First of all, speed is essential. HARO has gone from zero to over 55,000 subscribers in its first year, and will continue to grow rapidly. Profnet and PR Leads have thousands of subscribers, and many of them are PR agencies with lots of clients to pitch. That means the reporter will pay much more attention to the first 20 or so queries that hit the mailbox. If you’re number 200, unless you manage to get opened and then just blow the reporter out of the water, the chances are, that reporter already has plenty of sources. Most reporters are on short deadlines, although if they’re working on a book, they may still open a late mail. HARO typically mails around 5:45 a.m., 12:45 p.m., and 5:45 p.m. every weekday, and Profnet comes out roughly once an hour between about 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. You should check your mail as soon as possible after these are mailed. (With such large lists, it may take a while to reach you–just keep checking until it shows up.) Remember also that both services post their most urgent queries on Twitter: follow @Skydiver (HARO) and @ProfNet.Scan them immediately, and answer the ones where you could be a source. DON’T pitch off-topic; on HARO, that will get you instantly banned.

Next, use a subject line that immediately tells the reporter you’re answering the query. I use one that starts Profnet or HARO, then a colon ( : ), then–unless the reporter specifies something else in the query–the exact subject line the query used. I also set up filters so that anything that comes back with haro or profnet (lower case OR capitalized) in the subject line gets marked as priority, because reporters want quick responses if they get back to you.

Third, answer the question–right there. This is a huge advantage we have as individuals over PR agencies. The agency will say some variation on “I have a client who can help”–while we can just get in there and actually give the reporter a pity, on-target quote.

Keep it short. Usually a couple of paragraphs and/or a few bullet points is plenty.

Fourth, give your credentials. There are two things you accomplish by this: first, you convince the reporter you know what you’re talking about, and second, you provide the identifier that the journalist will use in the story (so make sure it includes your website–and your book title, if you have one).

Fifth: This is optional, but I always paste the reporter’s query at the bottom, so when I get a response, I can easily find the original query even if the reporter has stripped out the context. If you get a reporter writing back saying “tell me more about that,” and you’ve tossed the original query, it’s not going to be pretty.

Here’s an actual example of a recent successful query: the reporter asked:

“I’m currently working on a book and whitepaper series on the topic
of Thought Leadership Marketing. I’m now in need of examples of
individuals and companies that currently employ
thought leadership in their marketing (speaking, whitepapers,
social media, giving info away to help the market, etc.).
Interviews will all be conducted via email or telephone. Please
reply with your name, title and brief description of how and why
you or your company are using thought leadership in your marketing

And I responded:

Subject:
HARO (Peter Shankman): Need Co.’s Practicing ‘Thought Leadership Marketing

Body:

Hi, Dana,

As a copywriter, marketing consultant, and publishing consultant, I use these techniques almost exclusively, and have used them for over 20 years. (There is one side of my business that draws largely from Yellow Pages, but it’s a very small piece.)

Some of the strategies I use:
* Writing award-winning books that establish my expertise (I think I got the first client from a book I’d written around 1987 or 1988)
* One you didn’t mention: getting interviewed as an expert by the media (I’ve been quoted several times in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Woman’s Day, Entrepreneur, etc., etc., as well as numerous radio stations and blogs and a bit of TV)
* Public speaking (I especially like this one because I get paid to do my own marketing)
* Seeding articles all over the Internet
* Creating content-rich websites in my key subject areas
* Participating actively in both e-mail and social-media-based discussion groups

Note: Please keep “Shankman” in the subject line so that my email program will mark it as Priority.

__________________________
Shel Horowitz, Author, 7 books. <MY EMAIL ADDRESS>
413-586-2388 (Hadley, MA)  https://www.frugalmarketing.com, https://www.frugalfun.com
Covered in Bottom Line * Cleveland Plain Dealer * Home Office Computing * Christian Science Monitor * NY Times * Boston Globe * Fortune Small Business * L.A. Times * Woman’s Day * over 200 radio stations…

Talking Points (Low-Cost/Ethical/Cooperative Marketing): Flame-proof Internet marketing, Zero-Cost Websites, free media exposure, slash your ad costs while building results, why market share doesn’t matter, how your competitors can become your sales force… Books: Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First; Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World; Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers

Sign the Business Ethics Pledge – Help Change the World
https://www.business-ethics-pledge.org

Blog on Corporate/Government/Marketing Ethics:
https://www.principledprofit.com/good-business-blog/
__________________________

Next month: How to pitch when the reporter hasn’t asked for sources.

This month’s recommended book is all about how to find and fill a niche that not only matches your skills and talents, but your interest in bettering the world. Here’s an innovative company that does just that.

Reteez.com is a purveyor of handmade craft items–belts, jewelry, purses and totes, accessories–made from old t-shirts. Using the original t-shirt art as well as crocheting and other methods, the company creates one-of-a-kind objects, using t-shirts that were either donated, bought at thrift shops, or seconds purchased from fashion industry sources. Using a North American workforce, the company keeps an estimated 10,000 shirts per year out of landfills (or textile dumps in developing countries).

Certainly not the cheapest place to buy a unique gift, but remember that these are labor-intensive, made by hand by skilled laborers, and not made in sweatshops.

I learned about Reteez because the company sponsored an issue of HARO, a service that matches reporters and sources (and one that I’ll be profiling here, eventually). If you want a continuous stream of queries from reporters seeking story sources, at no cost, visit HARO and sign up.

One of the better websites I’ve seen for Green products is https://www.greenhome.com

As its CEO describes it, this cheerful and well-laid out site features “the most hand-made products from small green businesses, making us a bit like a Farmers Market for green products.”

And we’re talking some very cool stuff: compostable cups and even tote bags” smart surge protectors (I learned about these in this month’s book; they shut off power to peripherals when the main unit is turned off–great, for example, if you have a printer with no on/off switch), solar and energy-efficient lights, natural-fiber
clothing and bedding, vegan shoes (HARD to find!), and lots more.

Even better, the site has a gazillion helpful articles: how to go Green, news. sustainable gardening, and all sorts of other stuff. Warning: you could spend quite a bit of time exploring it all. I know I’ll be back to look again.

This month’s book for review includes considerable mention of companies that have often been criticized for environmental, labor, or social behavior that is the opposite of good citizenship, but have started to change their behavior. It also points out the importance of social responsiblity initiatives that are congruent with the company’s core identity. So it’s only fitting that this month’s Positive Power Spotlight highlights a company that does both those things.

Occasionally in this space, I’ve profiled companies like that. Wal-Mart made the list for its amazing humanitarian response after the U.S. government left the people of New Orleans to drown in the wake of Katrina, and could make it again some time for its enormous initiatives on the environment–despite its abysmal record on labor, supplier relations, community impact, and a bunch of other areas. BP got profiled for the huge shift in environmental consciousness under its former chair (I’m afraid there may have been some backsliding since he stepped down). In other words, I’m a believer in acknowledging and thanking companies when they start to do things right, even if they could still be criticized.

This month, I’m saying thank-you to Tyson Foods. Most of what I know about Tyson is not pretty; the company has often been named as an organizing target by labor groups who have been extremely unhappy with orking conditions at its chicken processing plants.

It’s been several years since I heard that criticism, though, and meanwhile, someone Twittered about a remarkable and extremely positive initiative from Tyson: For every comment made on the blog page about it, the company would donate 100 pounds of food to the Food Bank of Greater Boston, up to two full tractor trailer loads, or 70,000 pounds of food. The original offer was one trailer load, but when it took only a few hours to fill their quota, the company added a second one–which also filled instantly.

Tyson execs actually read every comment. I know this because after I made my comment, I received this little e-mail (the link to my blog was not in the original, of course):

Won’t spam you, but noticed your comment about blogging about it. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. This is the third of these efforts we’ve done; the others being in Austin and the Bay Area.
Regards,
Ed

Ed Nicholson
Director of Community and Public Relations
Tyson Foods, Inc.
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/eenicholson>https://www.linkedin.com/in/eenicholson
<https://twitter.com/TysonFoods>https://twitter.com/TysonFoods
<https://twitter.com/ederdn>https://twitter.com/ederdn
<https://hungerrelief.tyson.com>https://hungerrelief.tyson.com

He included his direct phone number, which I’ve removed. I have to say, the note was effective. I hadn’t known about the two similar initiatives (I had wondered why they picked Boston since their plants are mostly in the South). I was impressed with the initiative itself, but also that someone pretty high up the ladder was reading the blog comments and very quickly contacted me, and that he’s tapped in to LinkedIn and Twitter.  I do think that when you’re using social media effectively, it pretty much forces you to behave in a more outwardly-focused way. Twitter, in particular, is briliantly designed to be more-or-less spam-proof: if all someone does is blab about how great they are, nobody will follow them and they only spam themseles. People will take one look at their profile and leave without following.

Ed is using this Twitter page solely to promote hunger and social justice initiatives (not just Tyson’s either), and is being very transparent.

I noticed, for instance, this post:

@jowyang This account started as 2) and moved to 3) after perceiving the need for more transparency. We also have 4).

The original post he was responding to was from a very prolific Twitterer, and it’s been buried under hundreds of posts, so I won’t quote it here. But I can guess it was in response to some post about using Twitter appropriately for business.

At the time I’m writing this (12/15, 7 a.m. Eastern), his most recent Tweet is

Great 60 Min. story on Pete Carroll & efforts to reduce gang violence in LA. You gotta give props to someone trying to make a difference.

So, I’ll give my “props” to Ed: Thank you for being a voice of conscience at this company. And to Tyson. Thank you for hiring a community relations director who really gets it, and for giving him the resources to make a diffeence.