The Clean and Green Club

You might have heard that the rights to my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, got picked up by John Wiley & Sons, and it forms the basis for my eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson). The new book will include all but, I think, two chapters of Principled Profit, plus some 20-25,000 words of new material. Wiley will publish it in 2010. I’m especially proud of this  because, following an e-mail introduction by one of Wiley’s business authors,  I landed the deal and negotiated the contract myself.

This is the latest honor for a self-published book that also was republished in India and Mexico, won an Apex Award for best book in the PR/Marketing world, has been endorsed by 80 entrepreneurs and marketers, and sold 1000 copies to Southwest Airlines. It’s certainly not unheard of for a self-published book to be resold to a major publisher, but it doesn’t happen every day, either.

I know I’m the author so I shouldn’t brag. But the amount of wisdom and great advice packed into 160 clear and readable pages is astounding.

What sort of ideas are we talking about?

You’ll learn a great deal of very specific material that you can put into practice in your own business. A few of the highlights…

• Why your competitors’ success not only isn’t an obstacle, it can actually help you succeed (Chapter 8 )
• How “biological marketing” enables you to reap hundreds of times more than you sow (Chapter 4)
• Why smart, customer-centered marketing succeeds when ordinary sales techniques fail (Chapter 2)
• How to turn your marketing from an expense to an income stream—not just from its results, but for the very act of marketing (Chapter 14)
• How to convert your customers, complementary businesses, and even competitors into your Sales Ambassadors (Chapter 8 again)
• Why the customer experience is a more powerful testament to your brand (whether positive or negative) than all the slogans and logos and advertising and marketing materials in the world—and how you can harness this to benefit your business (Chapter 11)
• How to stay honest and true in your copywriting while boosting your response: 4 trigger points, 10 keys to include in your copy, and 12 “helper” elements to construct successful marketing materials (Chapter 13)
• Six specific ways to highlight your ethical commitment in your media publicity and other traditional marketing (Chapter 12)—and 12 specific marketing tools that work well for ethical marketers (Chapter 14)
• How to leverage your marketing skills to make a huge difference in the wider world—to help create the type of world you want to live in (Chapters 15, 16, and 18)
• 56 specific resources for further exploration, plus 20 copywriters who can make it happen for you (Chapter 19)

But my problem is…my contract with Wiley forces me to stop selling Principled Profit by the end of this year. And I still have quite a few left. This was a groundbreaking book when it came out—one of the only voices showing that ethical business not only made good moral sense, but good business sense as well. While there are more resources in this area than there used to be, it’s still really hard to find this sort of solid, practical advice on both the theory and the implementation, in a nice, easy-to-read format that anyone can put into practice.

To put it another way, Principled Profit shows you how to find the *value* in your *values.*

So I’ve got a deal for you!

Want a copy for yourself? Take $5 off the original $17.50 price. Visit https://snipurl.com/kdq1j to order this remarkable book. Just visit and enter the code, GET5OFF.

Copies for your list and network are an even better deal. Full cases of 68-72 books at just $6 a copy (rounded to 70 per box), plus shipping at cost. Note that only eleven cases are available, though–you’ll want to act fast. This is absolutely the lowest price I’ve ever offered on this book.

To make it even sweeter, I have bonuses for you.  Use that discount code (GET5OFF) to also get my two newest e-books:

Again: https://snipurl.com/kdq1j

Another Recommended Book: ONO: Options Not Obligations: Enrich Your Personal Life by Rethinking Your Financial Life by Marc Warnke (Morgan James, 2009)

In his first book, Warnke lays out a compelling case for succeeding, staying within your means, and being a “family first entrepreneur” who understands that quality time with kids and high ethical standards are more important than the million-dollar deal. However, he’s had a few of those deals as well.

Warnke encourages business people to think strategically, using what he calls the “Scrabble model.” Just as an experienced Scrabble player knows how to place tiles for maximum points, so the savvy business person looks at any possibility in terms of how well it fits in with the entrepreneur’s strategy: how much time it needs, how big the potential reward might be, how much energy it will take, and at what level of risk.

On ethics, he encourages readers to make sure that “all of your actions fall within the parameters of the highest moral and ethical standards. When profitability gets in the way of ethics, it is only a matter of time before a business blows up and goes under. If you keep your moral and ethical standards high, you’ll attract a long list of people waiting to do business with you because they know they can count on your integrity. That simple fact is worth a fortune.”

Warnke had to come to this realization the hard way, though. He’s not ashamed to admit that in his early years, he tried to put himself first at the expense of others, and also struggled with alcoholism. But when he changed his ways, he changed them permanently, and bettered himself in the process. These days, he understands that a give/give relationship works best, and that we should all “be the customer you want to have.”

CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World by Tom Watson (John Wiley & Sons, 2009)

Are there lessons from the nonprofit and social change worlds for business? Watson’s new book proves that the lessons not only are there for the taking, but that they’re numerous–particularly in the way they use new technologies to build communities poised for action.

Business is ultimately about influencing others: persuading them to take actions such as buying or endorsing a product. And business can take many lessons from the explosive growth of social change and nonprofit groups in the online world, some of which started with just a single person expressing outrage, and moved on from there to build forces that could actually change things.

Organizations that started as small local networks have broadened to create national or been international constituencies involving tens of thousands of people–and more importantly, using those constituencies to accomplish the change they want.

From this book, you can take away such important marketing lessons as:

• Creating and leveraging “social proof”
• Building much stronger and more powerful alliances than the organization could do on its own
• Harnessing the “long tail” to attract profitable niche audiences that less nimble entities ignore
• Extending not only the reach but the feeling of ownership and participation among small donors who are able to see the results of their donations, sometimes in real time–cost-effectively providing resources that used to be available only to major givers
• Tapping into the consciousness of younger buyers–Generation Y, or Millennials–who are notoriously resistant to “traditional” marketing
• Extracting the core understanding of the blend of organizing and marketing that characterized both the Obama campaign on the left, and the Ron Paul campaign on the right
• Working profitably to market through new technologies, from Facebook and Twitter to cell-phone messaging, and taking advantage of the interactive, participatory aspects of these tools to build two-way participation–and thus, lasting community

In short, if you read this book through a marketing lens, you will find a whole lot of value, and you’ll be well-placed to get a jump on oghers in your industry by adapting these strategies–just as the fast-food industry borrowed the drive-up window from banks.

If Not Me, Then Who? By E. Cabell Brand (iUniverse, 2008)

This is not the book you’d expect from a very successful white businessman of the 1950s, a World War II veteran and a resident of ultraconservative southwestern Virginia. But that’s because Cabell Brand hasn’t led the typical life of his demographic.

Instead, he has spent his life working for social, economic, racial, and environmental justice–leaving in his wake an impressive trail of government, university, and private programs that have made a real difference in people’s lives. Brand combined his business skills and military-developed can-do attitude to work in local nonprofits, founding the first federally funded anti-poverty/Head Start agency in his area, piloting the SCHIP program recently readopted by the federal government after languishing under the previous administration, working to provide job opportunities for ex-prisoners…breaking down racial barriers at Virginia Military Institute…working tirelessly for peace and prosperity around the world…and even advising presidents and governors (Jimmy Carter and two Virginia governors are among the numerous endorsers).

It’s been a long and remarkable life, and this brief and well-written memoir is a testament to the difference a single person can make in the world through an unending series of small, mostly local actions that add up to real impact on the lives of real people.

Has he accomplished everything he wanted to? Of course not! His future goals include single-payer health care in the US, peace in the Middle East, a Green-energy economy (though he and I differ on how to achieve that) and a clean environment. But the legacy of people he brought out of poverty or helped to overcome injustice, programs he helped start that have been models around the country, and the simple knowledge that the world is a better place because he lives in it.

At 85, he hasn’t slowed down. He ends the book with a clarion call for “the imperative of local involvement” to solve global problems. “Each of us has an opportunity to be involved in a variety of local organizations and activities that promote…environmental activism…human rights…poverty…bring fresh water to those in need…opportunities to engage national and global challenges, with the ultimate goal of trying to give everyone in the world a better life as we protect the planet itself. In the end, we are in this together.”

You’re not likely to find this book in stores. Click here to order your choice of hardback, paperback, or e-book (this is not an affiliate link.

Another Recommended Book: Finding the Sweet Spot: The Natural Entrepreneur’s guide to Responsible, Sustainable, Joyful Work (Chelsea Green, 2008)

This is a book aimed largely at those who are unhappy in a job that doesn’t advance their life’s purpose, looking for something in greater alignment with their core values–and their skills and talents and interests.

Part 1 focuses on finding the right pursuit, and also on finding the right partners to work with. Late in the first chapter, you’ll find a number of excellent processes to go through in finding work that is not only meaningful to you and to the world, but that fills a crucial need. That chapter contains some excellent advice.

Chapter 2 expresses Pollard’s strong belief that heart-centered enterprises and solpreneurship don’t mix. As a successful solopeneur, I take this with a grain of salt. Of course, I don’t try to do everything in my business, and I outsource those tasks that others can do better than me, or seek their guidance in setting up systems for myself. But that doesn’t mean I have to take them on as business partners. Still, if you <i>are</i> seeking partners, you’ll find great advice.

Parts 2 and 3 cover setting up your “Natural Enterprise” as a viable and sustainable operation that offers innovative solutions to real problems, and draws on the power of commuity collaboration to create something resilient and powerful. His section on identifying needs is excellent, and he discusses using biomimicry and other enormously powerful methods to turn those needs into products and markets. He offers 22 attributes of Natural Enterprises, six steps to building a viral marketing buzz, and four keys to successful collaboration.

Two insights I found particularly cogent, both on the same page (178): Relationships are more important than credentials. And because partnerships are based on an equal relationship grounded in mutual trust, when you form partnerships, you predispose others outside the partnership to trust you more, because they understand that’s how you work. These insights reinforce the relationship-based marketing approaches I discuss in my own award-winning book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

Greening Your Business: The Hands-on Guide to Crdating a Successful and Sustainable Business, by Daniel Sitarz (Carbondale, IL: Earthpress, 2008)

For all those who think being more Green means spending a ton of money, go out and get this book. The larger your enterprise, the more money you’ll save. Managers at a large manufacturing facility might save millions of dollars per year–particularly if you haven’t gone after the low-hanging fruit already. The owner of a small retail store might save several thousand, and a home-based solopreneurs will likely save a few hundred. And it should be required reading before building a new facility or retrofitting an old one. No matter what kind of business or nonprofit you run, follow the advice in this book and you’ll be Greener, and you’ll save money.

Want examples? Sitarz documents that General Electric slashed its energy consumption by nine percent, saving $100 million (p. 56). Wal-Mart retrofitted its truck cabs with heating and cooling units, so the big diesels didn’t need to run just to keep the cab comfortable at a truck stop, saving $22 million in the first 16 months (p. 156).

It’s full of specific tools and resources to lower the cost and the environmental impact of energy, transportation, construction, water use (though it leaves out some obvious stuff–see this article I wrote a few years ago for those tips), office equipment and appliances, supply chain issues, and more. And to my pleasant surprise, even though the book covers some pretty technical material, it’s written in a very accessible style. There are also many weblinks, spreadsheets, and checklists, conveniently included in both an enclosed CD and in the actual text.

And while this book doesn’t discuss the marketing benefits of a Greener approach, you’ll be well-placed to take advantage of that (for how to harness the full benefits of your Green investments in your marketing, I recommend my own book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First).

Another Recommended Book: Just Good Business: The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand, by Kellie A. McElhaney (Berrett-Koehler, 2008)

McElhaney’s key point: It’s not enough to have CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives in place; they have to be strategic, thorough, and properly marketed:

Strategic: aligned with–and actually fostering–the company’s overall goals. CSR initiatives need to be consistent with other branding, add to the bottom line (or at least not subtract from it), and demonstrate benefit not only to the community but to the company itself (not hard to do, as I point out in my own book, Principled Profit)

Thorough: able to withstand accusations/investigations of “greenwashing”

Properly marketed: Once you’ve got the initiatives in place, tell the story to all your stakeholders: top brass, line employees, customers, suppliers, neighbors, etc. Even better: get your nonprofit partners to tell your story for you, and give them the support they need to develop and disseminate those marketing messages.

The effects can be astonishing. She shares two stories from a cell phone company called Digicell whose success and not only doing but communicating CSR had a clear positive impact on profitability:
During the 2008 food riots in Haiti, local residents protected their stores through community policing efforts, even as stores on either side were burned and looted
When the CEO, Denis O’Brien, was one of several cell phone providers chosen to make a 10-minute pitch to the Nicaraguan government, President Daniel Ortega interrupted his presentation and told him, “Listen, I know wheat you have done for the people and the communities of Jamaica and Haiti. We would be honored to have your company serve not only our mobile telecommunications needs but also the needs of our communities.” WOW!

She frequently cites Pedigree dog food as a company that understands the power of thoroughly incorporating CSR into its core mission AND its branding. Visit that company’s website and you can’t miss the attention to adopting homeless dogs: a perfect message for a dog food maker, and a strong creator of consumer loyalty.

Interestingly, she spends a lot of energy discussing companies that have not always been perceived as good corporate citizens, including Wal-Mart and Dow Chemical. Perhaps, she seems to imply, those companies cans how their sincerity and turn public opinion to their favor, much as Nike did.

The book winds up with action steps, a comprehensive (if somewhat repetitive) section on measuring the results of CSR on profitability, and a look at the CSR big picture and future trends.

Highly recommended.

Another Recommended Book: Zentrepreneurism: A Twenty-First Century Guide to the New World of Business by Allan Holender

Not lot of business books quote Greg Palast, the sharp-witted investigative reporter who exposed the illegal removal of over 90,000 likely Democratic voters from Florida’s voter rolls ahead of the hotly-contested 2000 election. And not a lot devote significant space to the classic social/ethical business book Natural Capitalism by PaulHawken and Amory and Hunter Lovins. Even fewer are written by a self-proclaimed “recovering Tony Robbins franchisee.”

I happen to be a huge fan of both Greg Palast and Amory Lovins, and am thrilled that Holender cites them in his examination of how Buddhist principles can apply to improving the business world.

I’m not a Buddhist, and I disagree with the core Buddhist belief that life is suffering. Yet I found much to agree with in Zentrpreneurism, and a great deal of alignment with the principles of my own award-winning book, Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First.

Especially relevant to my conception of principles for ethical business: The Eightfold Path:
• Right View
• Right Intention
• Right Speech
• Right Action
• Right Livelihood
• Right Effort
• Right Mindfulness
• Right Concentration

Pointing out that “engaged Buddhism” works not only on finding inner peace but also on addressing social problems, Holender describes each, briefly, toward the beginning of the book. A strong sense of ethics runs through the book and especially the entire chapter on business ethics. Holender includes many quotes from the Buddha; one I especially like is “The wrong action seems sweet to the fool until the reaction comes and brings pain and the bitter frits of wrong deeds have then to be eaten by the fool.”

But not all his insights come directly from the Buddha. Here’s one of his own: “the fear of discovery [when you tell a lie] is greater than the unknown consequence of the truth.” And he raises the question of how to be compassionate and have a higher purpose when money is involved–and then answers that question with the two chapters that immediately follow, one on social entrepreneurship (he notes that aging Boomers especially are looking to find meaning as they find ways to help the world) and the other on socially responsible investing. Even a small group of investor activists, he says, can have an impact far beyond their numbers.

The book’s website is https://www.zentrepreneurism.com

Copywriter and marketing consultant Shel Horowitz specializes in affordable, ethical, and effective approaches. He is the award-winning author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and six other books

So many books about the need for change are nothing but doom-and-gloom. Focusing on the successes, Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy by Hazel Henderson (with Simran Sethi) (Chelsea Green, 2006) is fundamentally about hope.

Mind, there’s plenty of information in these pages about the world’s problems and the consequences of doing nothing. And lots more about the way government and business collude to skew the system in favor of the traditional model (such as unsubsidized solar and wind energy having to compete against heavily subsidized oil, coal, and nuclear, and lifecycle costs such as disposal transferred from the manufacturer to the consumer). But the book profiles dozens of entrepreneurs in both the business and service sectors who have found a way to help humanity address that raft of problems. If the entire world adopted the solutions modeled and piloted by these visionaries, it would go a very long way toward reversing negative climate change (a/k/a global warming)…reducing poverty…creating economic support systems that lift up not only the middle class but also the very poorest–and do so without government handouts.

Henderson, whose many websites include EthicalMarkets.com, has been taking a leadership role in the environmental/activist/ethical investor sector for decades (I have a book of hers that was published in 1978; this book is based on a PBS TV series she produced.

The ultimate message is that we, not only as consumers but as citizens (yes, there is a difference!) can impact the world of business and shape it away from the rigid single-bottom-line, profit-at-all-costs model popularized by economists like Milton Friedman, in favor of a more humanistic triple-bottom-line approach that is shaped to benefit all stakeholders, not just those who happen to own stock.

Ironically, but perhaps not surprisingly, socially responsible companies tend to perform better. As I discuss in my own award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, and as Henderson points out over and over again, these companies are better managed, they’re not embroiled in costly lawsuits, and they’ve made strides to reduce their own environmental footprint in ways that actually lower costs.

And Henderson tracks probably hundreds of ways that this attitude has filtered from the hippie pioneers of the 60s and 70s into the mainstream business world–not only through the successes of companies that were built from their founding on social and environmental responsibility (e.g., Greyston Bakery, Grameen Bank), but also in how this ethic is slowly spreading into even the largest of traditional businesses, even to the likes of auto companies, oil companies, General Electric, Wal-Mart, and so forth.

The book is wide-ranging, with chapters covering not only the obvious (energy, environmental impact, fair trade) but also the pervasive areas of society that need to–and are starting to–shift (health and wellness, joy at work, investing). Henderson identifies four pillars of socially responsible investing (a field where she has had major influence through her work with Calvert and other organizations): social and environmental screens, community investing, shareholder activism, and socially responsible venture capital. She also wants us to place economic value on “the love economy” (work done for free, in the home or as volunteers).

In short, despite the mess we’re in, many, many trends are positive. She even finds support in the writings of those two writers whose works have often been used to justify the worst aspects of the corporate oligarchy: Adam Smith, 18th-century author of The Wealth of Nations, and Charles Darwin, 19th-century author of The Origin of Species.
A few specific examples of positive change among the many she cites:

• Socially responsible investments in the U.S. and worldwide now total $2.3 and $5 trillion, respectively
• Socially screened companies outperform the S&P 500 and similar indices around the world–and that may have something to do with why socially responsible mutual funds grew 156% in five years (to $32 billion) while that market as a whole grew only 22%

• In Brazil, about 1/3 of the nation’s GDP is accounted for by companies that have joined an ethical-principles umbrella organization–and the country’s celulosic (i.e., not from diverted food sources such as corn) ethanol production has made it energy self-sufficient
• Fair-trade coffee consumption in the UK multiplied 400% from 1998 to 2005
• Green venture capital is growing at 36% per year; wind power is growing at 29% per year; solar grew by 63% from 2004 to 2005, and countries such as China are becoming major players (very hopeful for those of us who worry about the environmental disaster that would happen if China adopted traditional, polluting, resource-hogging technologies to achieve Western living standards)
• At least some clothing companies have rejected sweatshops in favor of production that is certified under the Social Accountability 8000 standard (mentioned in a profile of one of those companies, Eileen Fisher)
• Technology exists to supply all the power California currently generates with traditional powerplants, just by switching four percent of the state’s vehicles to fuel cell power
• Shareholder activists have achieved numerous victories, from switching McDonald’s off polystyrene containers to getting Home Depot to carry sustainably-forested wood

1. Read Mark Joyner’s New Book For Free–A Year Before Publication

Mark Joyner continues to amaze me! I’ve been following him for about ten years, long before we became friends. Not only is he one of the smartest people in marketing, but he also has a strong sense of social justice.

Anyway, on the smart side of things, he’s written a new e-book on Integration Marketing. If you’ve read my own my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, some of the concepts will be familiar to you (though I don’t use that term in the book).

In this book, Mark actually demonstrates a complex mathematical formula to determine if a Joint Venture is worth your time. I haven’t seen anyone else do anything remotely like this, except that I’ve seen Bob Bly’s evaluation of whether it’s worth it for him to do an e-mail blast for your product. But Mark goes much deeper. You can use Mark’s tool to evaluate absolutely any JV proposal, far more than e-blasts. And use his creative and visionary thinking to open many doors to growing your business massively, spending little or even no money to do it.

Oh yes, and Mark’s concluding chapter ties in ecology and peace themes in a way that will strike a chord with all of you who see business as more than making money, but also a social good. Yes, he’s ReMarkAble (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Mark Joyner has a contract to publish this book, but it won’t be out for a year. I imagine that will be a greatly expanded version. But meanwhile, go ahead and blow your mind with the e-book version. It’s only 49 pages and it’s easy to digest. And with a price of zero, what are you waiting for? Get it here.

2. Train in Person with Jay Conrad Levinson, Founder of Guerrilla Marketing, for three days at the Guerrilla Marketing Business University from August 27-29th in Orlando. Not cheap–but the level of value he expects to deliver is so high that he makes this guarantee: If you aren’t blown away at the end of the first day, simply turn in your materials, and receive a refund for whatever you have paid.

You’ll come away with your own custom 1-year Guerrilla marketing plan for your own business, as well as an introduction to “200 crucial and innovative weapons in marketing today. More than 100 of them are completely free!”

Visit https://snipurl.com/3b392 to register

3. Funny how so many people are terrified of speaking, and then they do their worst to sabotage their own presentation, so the next time an opportunity presents itself, they’re even more afraid and do even worse. Me? I love to speak in front of groups. It amazes me that people pay me, and pay me well, to essentially do my own marketing while imparting useful information. Master speaking coach and media trainer TJ Walker is doing another program to train you as a professional speaker. His office writes,

At the Presentation Training Workshop you will learn:

1. Look your best in front of groups
2. Speak in a way that doesn’t put people to sleep
3. Techniques for reducing nervousness
4. Speak so people remember what you say, act on it, and pass the information along to others.

Most importantly, you’ll learn the techniques that can keep you looking calm, collected, and in control.

Click to see an introductory video about TJ’s training process.

4. Your Chance to be in the Movies

The Choosing America Project is calling for dramatic
anecdotes from immigrants who chose to live in America.

“We are looking for those special moments, encounters, surprises, experiences, disappointments, which vividly convey what it’s like

to be an immigrant in America. The good, the bad, the sad, the miraculous, the joyful–every anecdote is welcome as long as it’s authentic and well told.”

They hope to turn some of these stories into short films that will be shown in the movies and broadcast on TV.

For more details go to: https://www.choosingamerica.com

Disclosure: some of the links are affiliate links and earn me a commission. I believe in the affiliate model as long as I have vetted the product or know that a speaker/trainer delivers value.