The Clean and Green Club

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

The Pursuit of Something Better: How an Underdog Company Defied the Odds, Won Customers’ Hearts, and Grew its Employees Into Better People, by Dave Esler and Myra Kruger (Esler Kruger Associates, 2008)

Can a mediocre company (whose main USP is dominance of markets too small for others to bother with) transform into something truly great? If U.S. Cellular’s experience is any indication, the answer is a very strong yes. It isn’t easy, quick, or cheap–in fact, as of the book’s publication late last year, it had been an ongoing 8-year process–but under the right leadership, in this case, the remarkable CEO Jack Rooney, a squirmy little company with little concern for either its associates, its customers, or its business practices can actually reinvent itself as a highly ethical, customer-focused company that not only makes its employees really proud to work there, but actually begins to make a positive impact in the family and community lives of those employees. It’s not surprising that it now has twice as many associates and three times as many customers (meaning not only is the company growing rapidly, but productivity has also grown; each associate handles more customers)

This is an insider’s story; Esler and Kruger are the culture consultants that Rooney brought in at the start of his tenure, and they’ve played an ongoing role in shaping the transformation. Yet they don’t gloss over the rough stuff, and there’s plenty of it along the way.

But they and Rooney–and thus, U.S. Cellular–drew lines in the sand, fired people who didn’t share the dream, and made it work. In the early years of this decade, U.S. Cellular was widely expected to be swallowed up. Instead, they’ve shored up existing markets, built new ones, won numerous awards both for their customer focus/workplace culture and the reliability of their technology, and are well-prepared to hold their own even in the current recession.

A couple of core principles dominate:

• How comes before what, and nothing is morally neutral: if you get the numbers you want through the wrong methods, it doesn’t count; go back to the drawing board
• Truth is less stressful than deception

A key insight: marketing is important too. In many companies, the grim reality doesn’t match the sunny marketing/advertising/public relations picture, and that’s a problem. At U.S. Cellular, the problem was in the other direction: the company refused to take credit early for what it was accomplishing (Rooney felt they weren’t ready yet), and so the sunny and glorious reality was vastly better than the public picture; the company could have grown faster, perhaps, if their marketing had lived up to their culture. (This is exactly why I show, in my award-winning sixth book Principled Profit, that the ethical and social commitments must be accompanied by effective marketing that harnesses and highlights these achievements.)

A bonus: this is one of the better-written business books I’ve read recently, as you can see from this passage below, at the very conclusion of the book.

Jack Rooney and his slowly-expanding team of believers challenged the long-prevailing assumptions that business is a blood sport, that the advantage inevitably goes to the ruthless and the greedy, that the only way to win is to hold your nose and leave your values at the door He has proven beyond question, once and for all…that a values-based model works, that it can raise both a company and the individuals who are part of it to undreamed-of heights, to peak experiences that will last a lifetime and change the way those lives are lived. He has shown that there is indeed a better way.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Here are some quick and easy no-cost ways to begin market research, beginning with your own customers–which I would certainly do before bringing in a firm for more professional results. That way, if you need outside help, the firm will have more guidance about where to start and what to look at, and you’ll benefit both from having the original results immediately and second by getting a deeper level of consulting later:

When you craft your pitch to the organization you want to partner with, keep these things in mind:

• Focus your inquiry/pitch not on why you want to do this for yourself, but on how it will benefit the organization (please see Part 3 of this series if you need to remind yourself of those reasons)–and on what you can bring to the table to help them, over and above the donation (for example, how you can get them media exposure, how you can open up a new volunteer pool and/or fundraising channel among your workers, how you can get other businesses to donate time, money, or goods and services)
• Come across as thoroughly professional, as some one whose association with the organization adds value to that organization–this should be reflected not only in the quality of your book, but also the quality of your presentation
• Even if you will be donating money to the organization, remember that dealing with your needs could add stress and hassles to the lives of the busy staff and volunteers–so do everything you can to smooth out any rough places for them, and to be as pleasant as possible to deal with. After all, you want them to sing your praises, to want to work with you again, and to recommend you to their colleagues
• Be flexible if you get requests for custom covers or other things you might not expect. Accommodate when possible, but if there are costs to you, it’s not unreasonable to ask the organization to pick up the extra cost

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.”

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/

Match Message, Medium, and Audience–if you want your marketing to succeed.

That sounds simple, but what does it actually mean? It means that you talk to people differently depending on what you want to say (message), how you’re choosing to reach them (medium), and who they are (audience).

So, for instance, you wouldn’t put a screaming “Crazy Eddie”-style radio commercial on a quiet classical station. And nor would you advertise your upcoming lectures on Mozart’s influences from Bach to Haydn on a brassy, teen-oriented Facebook page.

This sounds obvious, right? Then why do so many marketers goof around with stuff like (these are REAL examples):

• A radio spot for folksinger Michelle Shocked that made her sound like a Kiss/Black Sabbath-style heavy-metal rocker–and aired on an acoustic-album-oriented station that would have been perfect for her real sound
• A district-wide direct-mail piece from a candidate for State Representative in a three-town district, with literature that only talked about his own town and ignored the two others (not surprisingly, he lost)
• Twitter feeds that are 100% mindless sales pitches and show zero understanding of how to use the medium effectively
• An ad in my local family-oriented newspaper that actually used the headline, “Sex: Now that I Have Your Attention”–to promote a car dealership!

The truly wonderful thing about marketing in the 21st century is how easy it is to find the exact audience you want, and to target those exact consumers with a message about them, through a medium that they use. If you try to create one marketing message to be all things to all people, you end up being nothing to anyone.

If you want to know more about this concept, I discuss it in much more detail in my marketing books, and especially Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World (buy them together and you’ll receive a substantial discount).

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.

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.