The Clean and Green Club, December 2020

11 Dec, 2020  No Comment

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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: December 2020

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When Is It OK to Distort the Truth?

I was deeply shocked to watch the actor playing committed pacifist Dave Dellinger, who was an actual friend of mine, punch someone out in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” Dave served some serious jail time for refusing to fight in WWII, and all of his writings emphasize nonviolence. Quite relieved to read Harvey Wasserman (who was involved in the Chicago events) say in his review of the movie that it never happened, was disgracing Dave’s legacy, and should be removed from the film:

Here Sorkin’s film hits a bad bottom. Played by John Carroll Lynch, we sense a suburbanite whose spiritual roots in a lifetime of pacifism are not quite clear.

In one truly inexcusable moment, Dave is shown punching a court officer (and then apologizing for it).

THIS ABSOLUTELY DID NOT HAPPEN!!!

Dave Dellinger spent years in prison for refusing to take up arms during World War II. He was an elder beacon for countless nonviolent protests.

He titled his autobiography From Yale to Jail. Even when sorely provoked — at least in his adulthood — it was a point of honor that Dave Dellinger would refrain from physical violence.

Years later, as we sat in at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, Dave made a pretty convincing case that Abbie had been murdered. When election protection attorney Bob Fitrakis held hearings on how Ohio’s 2004 election had been stolen, Dellinger came to Columbus while conducting a long water-only fast.

It was also Dave — not Tom — who read the names of those killed in Vietnam. He did it at the beginning of the trial, not the end. The litany included Vietnamese names, not just American ones.

Like Tom (and unlike the actor who portrays him) Dave’s powerful physical presence reflected his heartfelt commitments. There are artistic liberties that work in this film, but that alleged moment of personal violence does not. Mr. Sorkin, please edit it out!

Dave once wrote me a letter describing not wanting to do violence by smoking a cigar when people found it offensive. So I believe Harvey. And I don’t understand why Sorkin would undermine everything Dave believed in for a cheap visual. People will watch this movie and think, well, he wasn’t so committed to nonviolence after all. It is a total invalidation of what he stood for and the way he lived his life.

Harvey’s critique is all the more valid because Harvey himself has a tendency to write in a somewhat apocalyptic style, with a lot of capitalizations and exclamation points and predictions of dire consequences or major victories (see an example in the single-line third paragraph I quoted). Yet this false characterization of Dellinger was unacceptable because it completely changed the meaning of Dave’s philosophy and behavior.

Bending or distorting or outright ignoring the facts is something that happens way too often in Hollywood movies. I still remember a movie portrayal of nuclear safety whistleblower Karen Silkwood, whose death on a highway has been widely linked to a deliberate attack. While official investigators said she’d fallen asleep, a union investigator found that her car was indeed rammed from the back. That the documents she was bringing to meet with a New York Times reporter were never found makes the story of deliberate murder far more likely.

But in the movie (it may have been “Silkwood” or it may have been “The China Syndrome”), her little Honda is repeatedly hit from behind by a large pickup truck—but she survives.

I honestly don’t see how changing the outcome was at all useful in telling the story. It essentially lets the company she worked for get away, literally, with murder.

Yet, when I interviewed one of my favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle (author of A Wrinkle in Time and dozens of other books), she made a distinction between truth and fact. The emotional impact of powerful fiction doesn’t have to be based in fact, she says—and we have many powerful novels to prove her right.

Facts are limited. It is a fact that we’re sitting here, but whether any truth comes out of this meeting is something else again. We don’t always know [truth]. I write stories because that’s how I look for truth. I was looking for truth when I was writing Wrinkle. We live in a world where it’s very difficult for people to understand that a story can be truthful and not factual.

For me, the line in the sand is whether shifting the facts to make a better narrative interferes with perceiving the truth. In both the movie examples I’ve cited, I think changing those particular facts is unacceptable because it changed everything about what we believe about Dave Dellinger and about the people who probably killed Karen Silkwood.

Where is the line YOU draw, and why?

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: “sew 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

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Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

You are “The Expert” – Let the world know.

3 Ways you get found by news media and Google search:

** Press Room Search Engine select from 39 topics
** Send News Releases (including Google News) sent out 10 ways
** Print Listing in the 2021 Yearbook of Experts, Authorities & Spokespersons

Save 15% when you register at this link: http://www.expertclick.com/discount/Shel_Horowitz

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Dare to Matter

Dare to Matter by Jordan Kassalow and Jennifer Krause

Social entrepreneur and optometrist Jordan Kassalow gives us a book that’s part memoir, part guidance for social entrepreneurs, and part inspirational self-help pep-talk about living a meaningful life. Co-authored with his rabbi (who gets a full co-byline, not just a “with” or “as told to” credit), the book is exclusively in his voice.

Kassalow stumbled around for a while before he found his joy, but eventually chose to help people in deeply disadvantaged economies live and work better through providing eyeglasses. In many cases, a simple non-prescription pair of drugstore readers could take someone from hopelessness to active citizenship and add years to their productive work life; for others, a common prescription could do the same. After working with various medical charities that took him to distant lands, he founded VisionSpring to make glasses more widely available.

While short on the specifics of how to start and operate a social entrepreneurship venture, the book is strong on the personal challenges one particular social entrepreneur faced, and how he overcame them. And even stronger on how to figure out where your skills, interests, and resources intersect, what your purpose is—and how to align your life and career with that purpose, and make your life matter by harnessing that purpose. Among the tools to guide that discovery are the instruction to find the need that specifically needs you, as opposed to some random other person—your skills, knowledge, joy, and feeling of aliveness when you do the work (pp. 113-114). Related to that, ask yourself these two questions (p. 228): “What needs me? What feeds me?” He also gives some good guidance on whether, in your unique situation, you should set up as a for-profit, nonprofit, social entrepreneur, or other model (p. 76), and how to balance your need to do good with your own financial health (p. 83).

And I love his injunction to “see compassion as a renewable resource,” nurtured by your own self-care (p. 108). He further admonishes,

Be hyper aware of any injustice you encounter that ignites a fire in your belly so intense that the only way you can extinguish it is to act. Challenge yourself to examine the issue from all angles—don’t stop at one giant problem. Tease the issue apart until you find the need within the need that you are uniquely suited to serve…the point of need where you can exert your energy that helps take down much bigger and more overwhelming problems. (p. 131)

Providing glasses to those in need enabled him to check off boxes for addressing poverty, inequality, and educational opportunity.

He notes that social entrepreneurship pioneer Bill Drayton calls finding that personal sweet spot “your jujitsu move.” This is particularly relevant to my own mission of using profitable business to address the world’s biggest social and environmental problems.

I also love the schooling he got in making sure every aspect of a social good enterprise respects the dignity of those you serve. One lesson was understanding why it was no help to provide someone with the perfect prescription if the frames were so hideous as to make the patient a laughingstock. Similar lessons are sprinkled throughout the book.

Peppered with quotes from people like Helen Keller, Rumi, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (one of my favorite spiritual teachers), and even my old friend Rev. Victoria Safford, who I’d lost touch with decades ago (and got inspired to track down and reconnect with), the book is an easy read. It’s fun to watch Kassalow try to integrate the very different parts of his life: practicing his craft as a partner in his father’s optometry practice where he serves mover-and-shaker clients in the 1%, his work on the ground in primitive conditions in remote parts of Latin America, Asia, or Africa, his love of backcountry camping, his journey as a Jew, his hobnobbing with other social entrepreneurs at conferences such as the World Economic Forum in Davos. There were a few times when I found him annoyingly out of touch with the realities that many of us face, a certain sense of privilege and arrogance. But on the whole, I enjoyed it.

One of the things I really like is that Kassalow sees joy and gratitude as integral in his work. I especially like the suggestion (borrowed from Heschel) to live your life in “radical amazement” (p. 256). I didn’t have that wonderful wording until reading this book, but I’ve been attempting to do that for many years, and fairly successful at it. My daily public Gratitude Journal on Facebook often celebrates the mundane with that sense of radical amazement—the joy I take in living a life so full of blessings. Later this month, I will post about whatever little miracles happen to me for the thousandth consecutive day.

Strongly recommended for people of any age who are figuring out how to align their career with their values. Order from your favorite independent bookstore at https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780806539034

Connect with Shel

About Shel

 

Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

 

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Accurate Writing & More, 16 Barstow Lane , Hadley, MA 01035, United States

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The Clean and Green Club, November 2020

12 Nov, 2020  No Comment

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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: November 2020

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17 Steps to a Powerful Marketing Plan

Sooner or later, you might need a marketing plan. Actually, you might need a few marketing plans—because, like any good marketing document, your plan should be targeted to a specific audience. So you might need a plan for investors and lenders, a different one for media where you plan to buy advertising, and a third for people you want as stakeholders to the concept of your higher mission: the ways your product makes the world better. All of these would tell the truth and nothing but the truth, but slant the material differently for the different sets of readers.While every marketing plan is different, there are some things you should probably include:

  1. What the product (or service, idea, etc.—we’ll just call it all product in this article) is called
  2. What the product does: what problem/pain point it solves or goal it helps achieve
  3. Who it does it for
  4. Who else it could serve
  5. Competition analysis:
    • Who else is in this market—why, how long they’ve been there, and how they’ve fared
    • What you have that they don’t (your advantages)—and what they have that you don’t (theirs)
    • How robust their customer base is
    • How you have advantages in manufacturing, distribution, quality, speed, etc.
    • How you might partner with them to grow both businesses
  6. How this product has a competitive advantage (hint: what’s unique either as stand-alone benefits or by harnessing a particular combination of features to create a new benefit)—and how can you express this as a Unique Selling Proposition
  7. How you will reach the primary and secondary markets. If advertising is a part of your plan, how much you’ll spend in which media
  8. How you’ll measure the results
  9. If it’s a manufactured product, how you’ve taken steps to lower the environmental footprint and boost the social responsibility
  10. For any kind of product, how you will identify and market the social and environmental benefits
  11. How you might repurpose the product to accomplish different things and/or reach different markets
  12. How you will reach the same people with line extensions that meet additional needs
  13. What angles and talking points you’ll use to get no-cost media exposure in print, online, radio and TV (including podcasts, blogs, webinars, and other newer media)
  14. What no-cost and paid outreach techniques you’ll use to find and build your following
  15. What energy and resources you will put into each of these avenues
  16. How you will identify, reach out to, and partner with those people who can benefit by your success
  17. What impact your success will have on the wider world: how it will be a better place because you birthed and nurtured it

Would you like to be quoted or featured in media like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, ABC TV News, Redbook, and Reader’s Digest? I do at least 30 interviews in a typical year, 50 or more if I’ve got a new book out.

My favorite way to get coverage is to respond to reporters who have posted that they’re actively looking for sources for a story they’re working on. It’s so much easier to get press by giving a journalist the exact information they need to write a story than to “spray and pray” by sending press releases or cold-calling.

Several services match journalists with story sources—and most of them don’t charge anything. There’s one called HARO, also known as Help A Reporter, that I’m particularly fond of. I put time aside three times every weekday to look over the queries and respond to the ones that could benefit me.

But here’s the thing: I’ve forwarded reporters’ source queries to friends many times. And when I see their responses, I often cringe. I got tired of cringing, so I wrote a 40-page quick-read ebook on how to answer those queries the right way. It includes seven actual queries (by me and four other people) that resulted in coverage in Reader’s Digest, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and elsewhere—with analysis of why they worked and how some of them could have been even better–as well as four failed queries and a look at why they didn’t work.

It also includes three bonus reports: How to Write Press Releases that Actually Get Media Coverage—and Your Prospects’ Attention (includes 10 full or partial actual “story-behind-the-story” press release examples); Ten Other Services That Get You in Front of Journalists and Show Producers; and How to Get Superstars to Endorse Your Book—discussing some of the ways I’ve gotten endorsements or guest essays from Chicken Soup for the Soul co-creator Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, Cynthia Kersey (author of Unstoppable and Unstoppable Women), Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet, and the founder of the Guerrilla Marketing concept, Jay Conrad Levinson (who later co-authored two books with me).

This very useful addition to YOUR marketing toolkit is just $7.95, delivered instantly as a PDF. Get your copy at https://shelhorowitz.com/product/generate-thousands-of-dollars-in-publicity-without-spending-a-cent/

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Recent Media Coverage:

  • My article on how to stop a coup got picked up and reprinted by a local paper, the Amherst Indy. The original is on my blog: https://greenandprofitable.com/how-we-stop-the-coming-trump-coup/  Part 1 of the article is about the Barrett nomination and is obsolete, but Part II is about what happens if the sitting president attempts to maintain power now that he’s lost, and it may be alarmingly relevant. At press time, he had just dismissed his Secretary of Defense, who supports the Constitutional requirement for a fair election process.

  • Quoted along with AOC (I think that’s very cool) and others about the Biden climate plan: https://themilsource.com/2020/10/14/joe-bidens-green-policy-explained/

  • I got quoted with several other writers on how COVID is affecting our careers. Mine is the fifth one, and I used it to talk about doing a book on the opportunities COVID has created for deep change: https://www.eatlikeawriter.com/post/how-writers-have-been-affected-by-the-coronavirus-pandemic

  • Got to tell two pieces of the Save the Mountain success story on a new B2B social media platform and small business resource called Enterprise League https://enterpriseleague.com/blog/creative-guerrilla-marketing-ideas/ . I cited my daughter getting her entire sixth-grade class to write letters to the local paper, and why we referred to the real estate developer we were battling as our honorary fundraising chair. Mine is the second submission, with the subhead, “6th graders can do a better job than adults”. I liked the site enough to set up a free account.

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

You are “The Expert” – Let the world know.

3 Ways you get found by news media and Google search:

** Press Room Search Engine select from 39 topics
** Send News Releases (including Google News) sent out 10 ways
** Print Listing in the 2021 Yearbook of Experts, Authorities & Spokespersons

Save 15% when you register at this link: http://www.expertclick.com/discount/Shel_Horowitz

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No-Harm Marketing Ethics

No-Harm Marketing Ethics by Marcia Yudkin

I’ve been following Marcia Yudkin for a long time. We met in the 1980s when I hired her to do some freelance editing. I watched her marketing career evolve, and we were two-thirds of a three-person mastermind group that met regularly for a couple of years. I was one of the presenters for her first No-Hype Copywriting summit.

I’ve always admired her for:

  • Authenticity
  • Willingness to buck the trends and stand up for integrity
  • Highlighting the introvert’s perspective that too many marketers ignore
  • Positive focus in her marketing copy
  • Intense study of the marketing world—so her many diversions from “the way marketers do things” are deliberate opposition to the wrongs she sees.

This brief ebook took me well under an hour to read—time well-spent.

She starts by noting that she had wrestled with the question of whether marketing is innately evil—but concluded that it’s not marketing itself that’s evil, but marketing that’s out of integrity with the marketer or the client—that represents the product, the marketer, or the prospect in inauthentic, condescending, or untruthful ways.

Then she moves into 12 no-harm marketing principles, which make up the bulk of the book. Her advice includes discouraging buyers whose needs won’t be met by the product (including those who want to buy something similar to what they’ve already bought but haven’t implemented yet), rejecting manipulative practices and sneaky return-discouraging tricks, marketing through positive benefit rather than fear or other negative emotions—and building personal customer/client relationships based on mutual trust. And of course, being scrupulously honest in your copy and all your client interactions.

I also appreciate the attention Yudkin puts into environmentally- and user-friendly packaging, promoting social justice values and common humanity, and encouraging diversity—areas that far too many marketers ignore.

From her introvert perspective, she has a fascinating insight into the much-ballyhooed concept of social proof—the idea that so many others have taken the step, so of course, you should too. She describes the unintended consequences when marketers’ social proof attempts caused her to back away from the purchase because she didn’t want her purchase displayed for others to see. Social proof has its place, but it’s certainly not a panacea. And it can be used in ways that don’t compromise privacy—such as my own use of testimonials or guest essays—with full permission—by credible experts like Seth Godin, Frances Moore Lappe, and Jack Canfield in my own 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

After admonishing marketers to know and follow the laws and best practices in their industry, she ends with a simple but brilliant 8-point checklist: if you can answer yes to the first four questions and no to the last four, chances are you’re good to go.

You can get your choice of PDF or Kindle format at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1044614

Connect with Shel

Turn Your Sustainability/CSR Report Into Powerful Marketing!  http://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

About Shel

 

Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

 

Links in this newsletter may earn commissions. Please click here for our privacy and endorsement policy.

Accurate Writing & More, 16 Barstow Lane , Hadley, MA 01035, United States

You may unsubscribe or change your contact details at any time.

 

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The Clean and Green Club, October 2020

6 Oct, 2020  No Comment

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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: October 2020

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Are You Making THIS Mistake in Your Social Media Outreach?

As I went through a couple of weeks’ worth of LinkedIn connection requests, I saw several with messages:

We haven’t met…This will come out of nowhere, but we just finished a PPC project for a well known consultant. Thought you might want to connect//start a conversation, etc…who knows…

And

Hi Shel, I hope you are well! I’d be honored to connect and network on LinkedIn Looking forward to sharing value and seeing your content,

And

Hi Shel, It’s good to “e-meet” you. Thought it would be good to connect here on LinkedIn given our mutual connections. Hope all is well! Thanks, [First Name]

And

I’m [First Name], I own and run an amazing AR/VR Animation Studio, a Digital Marketing Agency, and two Software Development Companies! I also happen to think I’m a pretty cool connection to have 😉 haha. Lets connect!

And (from a self-proclaimed LinkedIn lead generation expert)

I hope you are well! I’d be honored to connect and network on LinkedIn Looking forward to sharing value and seeing your content, [First Name]

And

I am involved in utilizing AI in managing building management systems to maximize economic value for building infrastructure. I saw your LinkedIn profile and thought it would be great to connect.

When you see messages like this, what does it bring up for you?

For me, it seems like someone told them it would be a good idea to personalize their LI connection requests, and they think a standard generic message, in most cases all about them, will do the trick. I did like the phrase, “I’d be honored to connect,” but the rest of her message gives me no idea where the shared value would show up.

I wrote back to the one starting “We haven’t met”, who seemed more clued in than most of them:

No need for PPC campaign but happy to connect. At the risk of giving advice you haven’t asked for, may I suggest that you might improve your results if you give some idea of the industry or your general capabilities? As a copywriter, I see your message as better than some, but still very lacking in the specificity that provides credibility.

If he responds, I now have an opening to sell him on my copywriting services. But not on the first date. Relationship building requires an actual individual point to build on. None of these people have a pre-existing relationship with me.

None took two minutes to visit my page, see what I’m about, and customize their message accordingly. The AI person would have seen that I’m a one-person consulting company and I don’t work in the building trades. The AR/VR person might have pitched me on extending those services to my marketing clients and told me what kinds of software he’s developed, instead of bragging about how amazing he is.

Compare those approaches with this one in the same batch:

Hey Shel, I’m building GoodHuman, a place to discover all things ethical and sustainable in one immersive mobile app. We’ve vetted 650 brands in apparel and beauty and users can connect with others on the same mission. Would you be interested in early access as a beta tester for the app? 😀

This is much better. In the first line, he talks about two of my touchpoints, ethics and sustainability—plus his branding resonates with me. He finishes by asking if I’d like to beta-test his cool-sounding software, but he doesn’t tell me it’s cool, letting me judge for myself. In short, he is laying that foundation for an actual business relationship and maybe even a friendship. I wrote back,

Sounds like you’re doing great work. Please tell me more about how you see the role (and time commitment) of your beta testers. There might be a fit, but I do very little purchasing in the two areas you mentioned. Also, please have a look at what I’m doing: https://goingbeyondsustainability.com 

And he responded quickly that he’d be happy to send me an access code if I wanted one. I said yes. Taking the time first to write to me based on my own interests and second to build a relationship set him apart from all those others. That relationship got off to a much better start.

Would you like to be quoted or featured in media like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, ABC TV News, Redbook, and Reader’s Digest? I do at least 30 interviews in a typical year, 50 or more if I’ve got a new book out.

My favorite way to get coverage is to respond to reporters who have posted that they’re actively looking for sources for a story they’re working on. It’s so much easier to get press by giving a journalist the exact information they need to write a story than to “spray and pray” by sending press releases or cold-calling.

Several services match journalists with story sources—and most of them don’t charge anything. There’s one called HARO, also known as Help A Reporter, that I’m particularly fond of. I put time aside three times every weekday to look over the queries and respond to the ones that could benefit me.

But here’s the thing: I’ve forwarded reporters’ source queries to friends many times. And when I see their responses, I often cringe. I got tired of cringing, so I wrote a 40-page quick-read ebook on how to answer those queries the right way. It includes seven actual queries (by me and four other people) that resulted in coverage in Reader’s Digest, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and elsewhere—with analysis of why they worked and how some of them could have been even better–as well as four failed queries and a look at why they didn’t work.

It also includes three bonus reports: How to Write Press Releases that Actually Get Media Coverage—and Your Prospects’ Attention (includes 10 full or partial actual “story-behind-the-story” press release examples); Ten Other Services That Get You in Front of Journalists and Show Producers; and How to Get Superstars to Endorse Your Book—discussing some of the ways I’ve gotten endorsements or guest essays from Chicken Soup for the Soul co-creator Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, Cynthia Kersey (author of Unstoppable and Unstoppable Women), Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet, and the founder of the Guerrilla Marketing concept, Jay Conrad Levinson (who later co-authored two books with me).

This very useful addition to YOUR marketing toolkit is just $7.95, delivered instantly as a PDF. Get your copy at https://shelhorowitz.com/product/generate-thousands-of-dollars-in-publicity-without-spending-a-cent/

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Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

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A Very Stable Genius

A Very Stable Genius, by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig

Important Note: Most of this review was written in mid-September. As I write this update, it’s October 4. A lot has happened in those seven weeks: Ruth Bader Ginsberg died and Trump nominated the ultrarightist Amy Coney Barrett, who has less than three years experience as a judge (seven months of that when the courts were closed) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is attempting to push her nomination through in violation of his own 2016 precedent. The first debate was held, where Trump proved once again that he has no manners, no grasp of policy, and no desire to tell the truth. And Mr. and Mrs. Trump, along with at least three Republican senators, came down with Coronavirus after saying for months that it was not a big problem, even as more than 210,000 Americans have died of it —and while revelations surfaced that he knew back in February that the virus was a severe problem. Trump also openly stated that he wouldn’t abide by an election result that he lost, raising fears of a coup following the election. All of these make it clearer than ever that we need a complete repudiation of Trumpism to make this election outcome too big to steal.

There are any number of books you can read about the unsuitability of the present occupant of the White House for his job. It really doesn’t matter if you read Mary Trump, Bob Woodward, this one written by a pair of investigative journalists at the Washington Post, or some of the others. And I know I may lose some readers over this—but I feel that for people who care about the issues I write about regularly—the environment, the business case for sustainability, ethics as a success driver, the value of competence and of science, and more—it would be immoral for me not to discuss the greatest threat to the climate and to American democracy. It would be a crime against my values not to urge a vote for Biden.

What matters is that we all recognize every American eligible to vote has a clear picture of the incompetent and corrupt liar who inhabits 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This man is a would-be dictator who cozies up to dictators and thugs around the world, who in turn see him correctly as easily manipulated: stroke his ego, tell him what he wants to hear, and he’ll sell the country down the tube for you. Tell him a painful truth, and you get thrown under the bus. He has no sense of how to govern, no sense of constitutional limits on his power, no regard for what might actually be good for the country or this world, and only cares about how it benefits him and his cronies, and how it looks on TV. The most recent example: he put the lives of two Secret Service men and a driver at risk to take a joyride near the grounds of Walter Reed Hospital so he could wave at his adoring fans while he was still contagious.

Rucker and Leonnig paint a dismal picture of the campaign and the first few years in office, pretty much ending with the Mueller report but with an epilogue about the incident that finally got him impeached: attempting to blackmail the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden if he wanted the foreign aid that had already been authorized.

I’m not going to get very specific in this review, because all the significant outcomes have been widely reported in the news.

But I will make an exception on page 170. So much is crammed onto that page: his ignorance, his penchant for corruption, and his lack of understanding of how he was being manipulated. Here’s the corruption piece:

Trump perked up at the mention of bribes and got rather agitated. He told Tillerson he wanted to help him get rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump told the group. “We’re going to change that.”

Looking at Tillerson, Trump said, “I need you to get rid of that law…”

What I found most interesting was the clear lens on what happened behind the scenes. Rucker and Leonnig show us the back story in vivid detail: who was trying to do what, why, and how the palace politics was playing out. You find out who was fighting with whom, who was covering up for whom (hint: the beneficiary was usually the guy at the Resolute Desk). All the intrigues and negotiations. The differences between those in the administration who thought he is saving the world, and those who thought their job was to save the world FROM him (the now-departed adults in the room like Tillerson, Kelly, and Mattis).

I know that many of you have probably voted already. If you haven’t, get out there and vote. Whether you voted early or not, get your friends to vote. Volunteer with and/or financially help an election protection organization. This is a moment to step up.

Connect with Shel

Turn Your Sustainability/CSR Report Into Powerful Marketing!  http://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

About Shel

 

Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

 

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The Clean and Green Club, September 2020

10 Sep, 2020  No Comment

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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: September 2020

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Are You a Franklin or a Mozart?

One of Chris Brogan’s newsletters offered this nugget:

We have to throw out multitasking. It’s basically an excuse we use to be bad at multiple things. Be better at one. Or a few.

If we “stay busy,” we think that’s progress. But progress is progress. Seeing one needle (one number) move is the real target.

Sell one thing really well. (Man, I really need to embrace this.)

I think of Chris as someone who does many things well, and who doesn’t fit easily into a box. So I wrote him this reply:

What you are suggesting works great for some people. But I am one of the ones who has enough ADD that it wouldn’t work well for me. I always say I became a writer because I’m interested in almost everything. And writing is at the core of what I do as a marketer.

But that ADD has driven me to keep expanding the scope of what I do, while narrowing the focus toward businesses that want to make the world better in some way.

In the earliest days of my business, most of my work was typing term papers. You may be too young to remember when that was a thing. By the time I got my first computer, in 1984, I had been in business almost 3 years.

Over time, my focus shifted first into editing and resume writing, then PR materials for small businesses and authors, then book publishing consulting, and now a mix of all of the above (except typing, which I let go of in 1990) – plus strategic marketing consulting, all with a much narrower focus on who I would like to serve. And the other strand has always been activism. The evolution of my business over the past 20 years has a LOT to do with a conscious decision to braid those two together, following a successful campaign I started to stop a hideous housing development on the side of a local mountain. That campaign brought a lot of my marketing and negotiating skills into my activist work, and I started thinking about how I could bring the values of my activism into the business world.

[I didn’t go into detail about the work I’m doing helping business find the sweet spot where profitable products and services make an actual difference on things like hunger, poverty, war, catastrophic climate change, and pandemics, because Chris and I have corresponded many times, and I think he already knows this about me. He even endorsed my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World. If we’d had less contact, I would have inserted that right here.]

From the 30-thousand-foot level, this shifting path actually makes sense and feels somewhat linear. But looking at piece by piece, it would come across as chaos.

There is a wonderful book called The Renaissance Soul by my late friend Margaret Lobenstine that posits two paradigms for a successful career path. The first is Mozart, who knew what he wanted to do at age 4 and kept doing it, getting better and better at it, until he died.

But the second is Benjamin Franklin, a person with half a dozen career paths and a gazillion interests. Was he a postmaster? An inventor? A diplomat? A revolutionary? He was all this and more.

Many of our greatest successes as a society have come out of the work of people like Franklin, Hedy Lamar (famous as an actress, she was also an inventor whose work made cell phones possible), DaVinci, Eleanor Roosevelt, Buckminster Fuller, Helen Keller, Franklin’s contemporary Thomas Jefferson… People who see the world and their own contributions through a holistic lens.

So that’s multitasking on the macro level. On the micro level, I find I’m not as good at doing several things at once in the same moment as I used to be, and have tried to focus more deeply. But I can only keep that intensity for so long, so I take a lot of breaks. If I’m doing client work, I am not multitasking, but I might only work for 20 or 30 minutes before clearing my brain for at least a few minutes. If I’m on a learning call, I typically am [multitasking]. I listen to a lot of learning calls, and in many cases prefer the replay recordings, because if I hear something that sounds important, I can rewind a minute or two and give it my undivided attention for a moment. And if I’m hiking, I often find that part of my brain is chewing on a problem, and sometimes I have the solution at the end of my walk.

PS: I think of you as someone whose natural strengths lead much more toward the Franklin than the Mozart.

PPS: Along with multitasking is multipurposing. This letter will become the main article in one of my newsletters.

Warmly,
Shel

He wrote back a one-sentence reply wondering how successful the approach would be—and acknowledging that he’s much more in the Franklin camp.

I answered,

I really think it depends on how we are wired. Some of us work very well in the do one-thing-at-a-time mode. Margaret’s whole point is that it is a mistake to assume that because it works for some people, it should work for everyone. Not that people can’t change their style but I think on the whole it is much easier to adapt your work can the style that works for you, rather than trying to adapt your style to someone else’s idea of how you should work.

This one didn’t get a reply. Perhaps you have a thought on this? If so, write back (and please tell me if I have permission to quote you).

—————————————————————————————————————————-

Would you like to be quoted or featured in media like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, ABC TV News, Redbook, and Reader’s Digest? I do at least 30 interviews in a typical year, 50 or more if I’ve got a new book out.

My favorite way to get coverage is to respond to reporters who have posted that they’re actively looking for sources for a story they’re working on. It’s so much easier to get press by giving a journalist the exact information they need to write a story than to “spray and pray” by sending press releases or cold-calling. I see many people doing this all wrong–so

Several services match journalists with story sources—and most of them don’t charge anything. There’s one called HARO, also known as Help A Reporter, that I’m particularly fond of. I put time aside three times every weekday to look over the queries and respond to the ones that could benefit me. But here’s the thing: I’ve forwarded reporters’ source queries to friends many times. And when I see their responses, I often cringe. I got tired of cringing, so I wrote a 40-page quick-read ebook on how to answer those queries the right way. It includes six actual queries (by me and four other people) that resulted in coverage in Reader’s Digest, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and elsewhere—with analysis of why they worked and how some of them could have been even better.

It also includes three bonus reports: How to Write Press Releases that Actually Get Media Coverage—and Your Prospects’ Attention (includes 10 full or partial actual “story-behind-the-story” press release examples); Ten Other Services That Get You in Front of Journalists and Show Producers; and How to Get Superstars to Endorse Your Book—discussing some of the ways I’ve gotten endorsements or guest essays from Chicken Soup for the Soul co-creator Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, Cynthia Kersey (author of Unstoppable and Unstoppable Women), Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet, and the founder of the Guerrilla Marketing concept, Jay Conrad Levinson (who later co-authored two books with me).

This very useful addition to YOUR marketing toolkit is just $7.95, delivered instantly as a PDF. Get your copy at https://shelhorowitz.com/product/generate-thousands-of-dollars-in-publicity-without-spending-a-cent/

 

 

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Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

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.

View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.
Send News Releases at No Charge — 10-Day Pass
Pleased to pass this offer for ten days of unlimited press release distribution from Mitch Davis, a PR innovator I’ve known and worked with for many years. Mitch puts together the Yearbook of Experts to make it easier for media to find sources, and also certifies speakers through the International Platform Association, which traces its roots back to its founding in 1831 by Daniel Webster.You get full use of their press room system for 10 days, for yourself, clients or friends – each entity needs their own account – accounts can’t send releases about others.Your news releases go out six ways (and you get permanent links to share in social media):

  • Syndicated to Google News.
  • Pushed to Lexis.com–the leading professional search resource.
  • Shown in your Press Room page.
  • Shown in search on all your topics.
  • As unique search engine optimized pages.
  • With RSS feeds you can pull into your social media accounts

The ExpertClick press room system gets rave reviews:

  • USA Today called the site: “A hot site”
  • PRWeek wrote: “a dating service of PR”

….or you can upgrade and keep all the press room benefits and keep sending news releases, and save 15% if you upgrade before the 10 days are over: http://www.NewsTip.com/Refer/Guest_Shel_Horowitz .

— See the member benefits at the Join page at: www.ExpertClick.com/join
Rates start at $59 a month.

Join at no charge today at:
http://www.NewsTip.com/Refer/Guest_Shel_Horowitz
———————–
Not a friend, but I came across this interview with a naming expert and had to share it with you. As a Canadian living in Australia, she has a very different perspective. https://www.sourcebottle.com/blog/WHATS-IN-A-NAME

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What Does Injustice Have to Do With Me?

What Does Injustice Have to Do With Me? Engaging Privileged White Students with Social Justice, by David Nurenberg (Roman & Littlefield, 2020)

Like so many other fields, from customer service to architecture, education has a marketing component. Educators are in the business of marketing the importance of knowing certain information, or embracing certain values or thinking processes. As Nurenberg points out throughout the book and most clearly in his final chapter, educators also have to market their own worth as change agents in a system that values conservative conformity (pp. 163-173)—and do this to multiple audiences with different agendas: students, parents, administrators, and colleagues. And he recognizes that every classroom has a different dynamic, that each teacher knows that dynamic intimately and will need to adapt any exercise to the specific conditions.

While many of the books I review here are much more overt in their marketing focus, books about social change (another subset of marketing, often) are also within my purview. This is a book by an educator, for educators. It uses the language of educators, which is not always familiar to me.It looks at how a teacher can incorporate anti-racist lessons and materials even into science and math classes (pp. 66-75). And it dips heavily into both marketing and social change.

Again and again, Nurenberg demonstrates the advantages privileged kids gain by having their privilege challenged (especially pp. 108-118): they become more critical thinkers, they face adversity and build skills of resilience, they’re more college-ready (and more desirable to good colleges), and of course, they become much more aware of different perspectives in the wider world, and perhaps more willing to take action to redress inequity. Nurenberg offers a number of specific in-class and research activities that can break down resistance to confronting racial justice—and particularly to confronting one’s own (conscious or unconscious) complicity in a system that’s ultimately based in institutionalized racism. He also offers strategies to promote genuine allyship and avoid coming in as the know-it-all, patronizing, smug benefactor. He has fewer ways to actually have students of different races work together productively, though he does offer some.

All of this is somewhat fraught. Nurenberg is highly sensitive to the effects of this kind of curriculum not only on suburban white kids of privilege but also on urban kids, kids of color, or kids of lower economic status, who are often already marginalized in majority-white schools serving the affluent. It’s very easy for white teachers and students to commit microaggressions such as tokenizing or insisting that the voice of the student of color or a particular religion or ethnicity or disability or gender category represents all people of that cohort, or demanding that those students share experiences they might rather keep to themselves. But Nurenberg offers lots of strategies to do this in a meaningful and inclusive way that feels safe for students of any background.

There’s no index, but there is extensive footnoting and a terrific bibliography.

Full disclosure: the author and I are acquainted. We both participated in a Jewish social justice delegation to a prison holding 3000 teens in Homestead, Florida last year. That prison was closed a couple of months later due to public pressure.

Connect with Shel

Turn Your Sustainability/CSR Report Into Powerful Marketing!  http://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

About Shel

 

Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

 

Links in this newsletter may earn commissions. Please click here for our privacy and endorsement policy.

Accurate Writing & More, 16 Barstow Lane , Hadley, MA 01035, United States

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The Clean and Green Club, August 2020

12 Aug, 2020  No Comment

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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: August 2020

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4 Tips and One Resource to Interest Reporters—and Get Press

Recently, a front-page story in the best position (upper right corner) ran in my local paper. It was about a certain candidate in my town who had spent 16 times as much on the election as any of the other three candidates in the race, and seven times as much as the other three together. The campaign finance filings are public records, and I’d reviewed all four candidates’ statements.

Not coincidentally, I had contacted this reporter (whose beat includes my town) a few days earlier and suggested there might be a story here. I was involved in the campaign committee for one of the other candidates. Independently of me, the candidate I supported also contacted him.

This is what I said on a Saturday: “I think Brenda F. has set a record for most expensive town office campaign in Hadley’s history, at $18,445.79 (It might be $18,495.79–her handwriting is ambiguous). She spent $11K on Darby O’Brien to write copy… She spent what looks like $4120 on four Gazette ads, plus a later expenditure, separately itemized, of $889.90 for “personal ad reflective of the campaign” (it’s on the last page, all by itself), whatever that means. Also around $900 on three batches of signs, and $1537.37 to print one of her mailers (I think she did three). The other mailers don’t seem to be accounted for, and neither is her postage to mail them. So the $18.4K might actually be an undercount. Considering she’s trying to position herself as the frugal candidate, it’s pretty ironic that she spent 16x as much as Jane Nevinsmith. https://www.hadleyma.org/town-clerk/pages/campaign-finance-reports ”

And this is what he published the following Wednesday: https://www.gazettenet.com/Hadley-candidate-pours-money-into-Select-Board-candidacy-34297424 

Let’s look at the story angles I crammed in to that brief outreach message:

  • Probably the most expensive campaign in the history of a town that is more than 350 years old
  • Used an outside consultant (something not generally done in town elections here)
  • Her true politics are not reflected in the public messaging

This article may have made a difference in the election outcome.

How can you seize an opportunity like this?

Think like a reporter and know the story angles a reporter will find interesting.

Make the reporter’s busy life easier—in this case, I gave the reporter the link to the relevant public records: the campaign finance reports of the four candidates. I also did some easy math to figure out the spending ratios of the candidate who was trying to essentially buy her seatto the others.

Develop contacts ahead. This particular reporter and I have known each other for more than 20 years. He provided much of the coverage of a big movement I led in 1999-2000. He often seeks me out for my take on town issues, and I feed him material that could become stories.

Have multiple people contact reporters

Use HARO, a no-cost service that matches journalists looking for story sources with sources who want publicity. I’ve just put together an ebook on how to get press, and especially how to capitalize on HARO (see “Instead of a Book Review,” below).

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Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.
Send News Releases at No Charge — 10-Day Pass
Pleased to pass this offer for ten days of unlimited press release distribution from Mitch Davis, a PR innovator I’ve known and worked with for many years. Mitch puts together the Yearbook of Experts to make it easier for media to find sources, and also certifies speakers through the International Platform Association, which traces its roots back to its founding in 1831 by Daniel Webster.You get full use of their press room system for 10 days, for yourself, clients or friends – each entity needs their own account – accounts can’t send releases about others.Your news releases go out six ways (and you get permanent links to share in social media):

  • Syndicated to Google News.
  • Pushed to Lexis.com–the leading professional search resource.
  • Shown in your Press Room page.
  • Shown in search on all your topics.
  • As unique search engine optimized pages.
  • With RSS feeds you can pull into your social media accounts

The ExpertClick press room system gets rave reviews:

  • USA Today called the site: “A hot site”
  • PRWeek wrote: “a dating service of PR”

….or you can upgrade and keep all the press room benefits and keep sending news releases, and save 15% if you upgrade before the 10 days are over: http://www.NewsTip.com/Refer/Guest_Shel_Horowitz .

— See the member benefits at the Join page at: www.ExpertClick.com/join
Rates start at $59 a month.

Join at no charge today at:
http://www.NewsTip.com/Refer/Guest_Shel_Horowitz
———————–

Not a friend, but I came across this interview with a naming expert and had to share it with you. As a Canadian living in Australia, she has a very different perspective. https://www.sourcebottle.com/blog/WHATS-IN-A-NAME

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Instead of a Book Review This Month: More about my New Ebook, “Generate Thousands of Dollars in Publicity Without Spending a Cent—By Connecting With Reporters Actively Seeking People to Interview, The Right Way”

All the way back to the 1970s as a 15-year-old high school student, publicity has been one of my favorite parts of the marketing tool kit. Why is publicity so great?

  • It provides all-important 3rd-party credibility: a trusted source says you’re worth some attention
  • Unlike advertising, you don’t have to pay for the insertion
  • The more frequently you’re quoted, the more credibility it brings you
  • The more prestigious the media outlet, the more credibility it brings you

I’ve been quoted or featured multiple times each in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, ABC TV News, Redbook, Reader’s Digest, and many other top-tier media. I’ve also been featured on hundreds of obscure podcasts and radio shows, small publications, and blogs. I do at least 30 interviews in a typical year, 50 or more if I’ve got a new book out.

Would you like to tap into this kind of publicity goldmine?

You can get publicity dozens of ways. My top choice is to respond to reporters who have posted that they’re actively looking for sources for a story they’re working on. It’s so much easier to get press by giving a journalist the exact information they need to write a story than to “spray and pray” by sending press releases or cold-calling.

Several services match journalists with story sources—and most of them don’t charge anything. There’s one called HARO, also known as Help A Reporter, that I’m particularly fond of. I put time aside three times every weekday to look over the queries and respond to the ones that could benefit me.

But here’s the thing: I’ve forwarded reporters’ source queries to friends many times. And when I see their responses, I often cringe. I got tired of cringing, so I wrote an ebook on how to answer those queries the right way. In 39 pages, it serves up…

  • Information on why query responses work so much better than press releases
  • How to sign up for the notifications
  • A 10-step process for writing effective HARO query responses
  • Five actual queries (by me and three other people) that resulted in coverage in Reader’s Digest, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and elsewhere—with analysis of why they worked and how some of them could have been even better
  • Detailed analysis of a first draft of one of those responses from a client of mine, and how I talked him out of sending it in favor of the successful rewrite
  • Three queries that failed, and again, detailed examination of why
  • Three bonus reports: How to Write Press Releases that Actually Get Media Coverage—and Your Prospects’ Attention (incudes 10 full or partial actual “story-behind-the-story” press release examples); Ten Other Services That Get You in Front of Journalists and Show Producers; and How to Get Superstars to Endorse Your Book—discussing some of the ways I’ve gotten endorsements or guest essays from Chicken Soup for the Soul co-creator Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, Cynthia Kersey (author of Unstoppable and Unstoppable Women), Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet, and the founder of the Guerrilla Marketing concept, Jay Conrad Levinson (who later co-authored two books with me).

This very useful addition to YOUR marketing toolkit is just $7.95, delivered instantly as a PDF. Get your copy at
https://shelhorowitz.com/product/generate-thousands-of-dollars-in-publicity-without-spending-a-cent/

Connect with Shel

Turn Your Sustainability/CSR Report Into Powerful Marketing!  http://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

About Shel

Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

Links in this newsletter may earn commissions. Please click here for our privacy and endorsement policy.

Accurate Writing & More, 16 Barstow Lane , Hadley, MA 01035, United States

You may unsubscribe or change your contact details at any time.

 

Powered by:

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The Clean and Green Club, July 2020

9 Jul, 2020  No Comment

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Having trouble reading this as an email? Please visit thecleanandgreenclub.com to read it comfortably online.

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: July 2020

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Reading an article on the Singapore-based Eco-Business site (often a wealth of fresh thinking to my American eyes) called “Build Back Better,” about ways we can mitigate the climate crisis as we reopen, I got the idea to start a community on the theme of building back better—but not just for climate change. I envision a portal with resources and ideas to create better futures in criminal justice/policing, nonviolent defense, equitable housing, transportation, community food self-sufficiency, education, the work world, democracy… There’s a ton of great stuff out there, but I’m not aware of a one-stop resource that crosses silos and disciplines, reaches people with a wide range of passions, interests, skills, and demographics, and has the power to create change. I put up a blog post about what this might look like, including a call for several different types of volunteers. Interested? take a look at https://greenandprofitable.com/build-back-better-lets-start-a-movement/

Don’t Poke Your Eyes Out Before You Take Your Road Test

On a discussion group, I saw a note from a small publisher grousing that nobody told her how hard the marketing would be, that she’d spent $20,000 on her websites and getting the book designed and the first 100 copies printed, but had sold exactly two books. She’d just put another $3,000 into advertising. She didn’t discuss what it cost to translate the book into three other languages and publish again.

I went to her website. I am betting that the $3K will also be wasted.

But I can’t feel too sorry for her. I don’t understand why anyone would sink that kind of money into a project without doing the most basic research into why and how people buy books. It’s like taking your driving test after you’ve deliberately poked your eyes out. It’s hard to imagine any outcome other than failure.

Look at the two screen shots—and know that these are the whole thing. There’s no other content on the pages.

Can you spot the mistakes?

Here are a few I came up with in a very short visit to the site:

  • The cover looks like it was designed for a textbook around 1952.
  • For a consumer audience, the title needs to state a point of view and/or a problem/solution. Something like How Your Lymph System Could be Sabotaging Your Health—and How to Turn it From Enemy to Ally (note: I have not read the book and have no idea what the book advocates, other than this statement in the original note I saw:
    “For me the decision to write a book was prompted by two factors – first, that I had upended a conventional medical belief, and second, that part of the data I used to do that was not available to anyone, anywhere. Part of the source material which was unavailable came from an ancient text from the late 1700’s. If you could find the book to purchase, it would have cost 5,000 pounds. My obsession with the lymphatic system was coming from a completely different place than medical professionals – and I developed methods to manipulate the deeper lymphatic system externally, unlike others who do lymphatic drainage massage.” Lymphatic Anatomy: Ancient Art, New Directions tells the reader nothing.
  • There is no selling copy whatsoever. Nothing about who it’s for, why it’s important, how it will help the reader, what kind of research went into it, the authors’ credentials (other than the secondary author is an M.D.)…nada!
  • If the book is designed for ordinary consumers, the $125 pricetag is a nonstarter. If it’s aimed at medical professionals, the price is not a big issue but the nonstarter is the main author’s lack of credentialed expertise. And we don’t have any idea of what kind of role the secondary author, who is a doctor, brought to the project, or what that doctor’s relevant credentials are. We don’t even know anything about why Chinese medicine is germane.
  • No third-party credibility. No reviews, no testimonials, no case studies accompany the visual presentation of the book. It’s supposed to stand on its own and convince people to buy, on the “strengths” of the terrible cover, the high price point, and the lack of any reason to buy.

Whatever product or service you’re offering, don’t make these kinds of mistakes! Your marketing has to make sense, and so do your product and your pricing. You have to know who your audience is, how to reach them, and what messaging will resonate.

If you’re unsure, call in a professional. I have a few slots left for new clients. If your product is a book, I’m an experienced book shepherd and book marketer who can help you produce a quality product, keep you from making expensive mistakes, and help you find skilled, affordable vendors. If you run a green or social entrepreneurship business, you’ve found your expert in that realm as well. If you’re in a different industry, I may or may not have industry expertise but can certainly help you with the marketing. Eight of my ten books are on marketing, and only Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers is industry-specific. Four of those books are specifically for green and social change companies/organizations.

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Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

Tomorrow (July 16) is the final day of Mari-Lyn Harris’s Kindness Matters virtual summit. I’m debuting a brand new talk, “Making Kindness Profitable,” at 5:35 p.m. EDT/2:35 p.m. PDT, with Q&A to follow. The whole conference looks terrific; if you open this today, you may want to check out the earlier sessions: https://heartatworkonline.org/speaker-schedule-kindness-matters/

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

Back in March, I responded to a reporter query on corporate social responsibility (one of my fortes). I just 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

View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

Join 4x #1 International Bestselling author Teresa de Grosbois & Co-host Pam Bayne for a 2-hour live fully interactive clinic you’ll do exercises aligned with where you’re at in creating and writing your book. We’ll be live-polling the attendees to see where you’re at right now and what you need to get your #book #completed. https://www.retreathostingcostarica.com/writers-clinic

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The 100% Solution: A Plan for Solving Climate Change

The 100% Solution: A Plan for Solving Climate Change, by Solomon Goldstein-Rose (Melville House, 2020)

At age 22, Solomon Goldstein-Rose served a term as the State Representative for a district that borders mine. He left the legislature to work full time on climate change, and he and I have had many climate discussions over the years. When I found out he’d released a book, I asked for a review copy.

The title would be more accurate if it said “Solutions”, not “Solution”; Goldstein-Rose’s whole point is that if we break up the causes of climate chaos into separate industries and sectors, multiple solutions can be woven together to create a carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative world: a meta-solution with many components woven together into a coherent approach, where no single approach could come anywhere near eliminating 100% of atmospheric carbon. He even gives percentage ranges that each can theoretically accomplish.

The well-researched book offers four questions to evaluate carbon remediation strategies (pp. 21-22):

  • Is it cost-competitive?
  • Can it scale up fast enough?
  • Does it rely on mandates to industry or on individual choices? Mandated behavior change will be a lot faster—but in MY opinion, encounter more hostility.
  • How much lifestyle change will it require? The more change, the lower the rate of adoption.

Also five pillars for addressing carbon globally (p. 4, explored in detail with a chapter for each, pp. 83-195):

  1. (Clean) electricity generation
  2. Electrification of processes now powered by carbon-intensive fossil fuels
  3. Synthesized fuels
  4. Non-energy shifts
  5. Carbon sequestration

Pillars 1 and 2 are all about getting our electricity generation as clean as possible, and then switching many energy-hogging activities to that clean electricity. Pillar 3 is about switching to carbon-free artificial substitutes for systems that really need concentrated, consistent energy (jet airplanes, for instance, p. 125). Pillar 4 covers the impact of industries like agriculture, logging, and cement. And Pillar 5 extracts carbon from the air and puts it, quite literally, “where the sun don’t shine”—usually deep underground.

In general, while I have concerns about the environmental and social impacts of several of his recommendations, I basically approve of his approach and am grateful for his meticulous number-crunching and numerous references (which would have been even better if the book had an index).

But there’s one “solution” he gives a lot of weight to that I am convinced is a serious mistake: He’s strongly in favor of nuclear power (pp. 96-105).

I’ve already made the arguments against nuclear power, many times. You can find a condensed version in the brief update I wrote for a new Japanese edition of my first book, Nuclear Lessons, following the Fukushima meltdown in 2011: https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Nuclear-Lessons-Intro-2011-2017-tweak.pdf 

There’s also one potential 6th pillar he dismisses that could make up for not using horrific, unsafe, toxic nuclear technology: He almost completely ignores conservation/efficiency, other than calling them a distraction (pp. 41-46) and only hinting at the significant positive contribution they make on pp. 200-201. There’s also a passing reference (p. 147) to eating less meat as a way of reducing carbon impact (which, as a vegetarian since 1973, I certainly endorse—but as just one conservation step among many).

The research on conservation and efficiency is clear. We’ve already cut our energy use drastically by switching from incandescent to LED lighting, insulating our buildings, etc. But that’s only the beginning. The US still uses well more than twice as much energy per capita as, say, Denmark or Britain—places that offer comparable or better quality of life by most metrics.

And by designing systemically and holistically, there are far more opportunities to conserve. For example, when the Empire State Building underwent a “deep-energy retrofit” several years ago, it achieved energy savings of over $4 million per year, with just a three-year payback. Multiply by billions of buildings, and we begin to see what’s possible. As Amory Lovins, founder of Rocky Mountain Institute (a major player in the Empire State Building project), notes (in this admittedly dense article), when we have different energy efficiency systems working together, we can gain exponential energy savings. And that translates to vastly lower carbon footprint. I discuss Lovins’ amazing work in much more accessible language in my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, along with several other equally amazing “practical visionaries.”

Connect with Shel

Turn Your Sustainability/CSR Report Into Powerful Marketing!  http://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

About Shel

 

Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

 

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The Clean and Green Club, June 2020

15 Jun, 2020  1 Comment

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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: June 2020

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Can You Spot the Lie?

Take a close look at the envelope we received. What do you notice about it?
Here’s what I noticed: Whoever sent this is starting the relationship off on a very bad foot: with a lie! Can you spot that lie? Scroll down to see if you’re correct.

Here it is: the word “personal.” There’s nothing personal about this envelope. It has a nonprofit stamp. A sprayed bulk-mail barcode, and a handwriting font. Oh, and there’s no clue who sent it without opening it up. No return address or even a celebrity name on either the front or the back.

I didn’t even bother opening it. Whatever charity it is, I don’t want to spoil my relationship with them just because their envelope copywriter is a liar. This is a better outcome for them, because if I did open it, I might not ever give them money in the future. But still, it means the cost of sending that mailer to us was wasted money.

As a “bonus,” it’s addressed to Dina and D Dina Friedman, who are the same person (my wife). They do get points by combining names from their database at the same address, saving resources. But as far as “personal,” this is an epic fail.

I’ve been saying publicly since at least 2002 that Honesty is one of the three pillars of “the Magic Triangle” of business success (the other two are Integrity and Quality. If you start a relationship with a lie, you will never gain that credibility back when (NOT if) your lie is discovered.

A better approach: follow the late advertising genius David Ogilvy’s admonition to “tell the truth—but make it fascinating.” And if that sounds hard, let’s talk. I specialize in writing honest copy (and giving honest advice) that fascinates. And I deliberately set up this month’s book review to hopefully provide that fascination—notice how the bullet sequence teases and (hopefully) increases reader interest.

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Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

Sweet profile that gives a lot of space to my work, including a bit that touches on the political edge: https://www.verywellmind.com/does-socially-conscious-advertising-work-4847116

 

View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.

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A Recommended ebook: How We Can Be Better Together

A Recommended ebook: How We Can Be Better Together by Kare Anderson

I discovered communication and collaboration whiz Kare Anderson some time around 1995 and have been a fan ever since. In this quick-reading ebook, you’ll find 140 strategies (each with a hashtag to help you remember them) to turn enemies into friends, unblock road blocks, and achieve your highest goals. Here are a few of my favorite things you’ll learn:

 

#7 A surprising and powerful benefit of interconnectedness.
#30 How to get the best from people by assigning them the right intention.
#38 How to turn colleagues and customers into ambassadors for your organization.
#72 When someone insults you, this wins you friends.
#84 When someone attacks you, this response will move you both into solution mode.
#90 The right way to apologize.
#93 Why you must define yourself instead of letting others define you.
#129 An easy way to stay focused on what really matters.
#138 One of several great ways to help your own and another business at the same time

Connect with Shel

Turn Your Sustainability/CSR Report Into Powerful Marketing!  http://goingbeyondsustainability.com/turn-that-nobody-reads-it-csr-report-into-a-marketing-win/

About Shel

 

Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

 

Links in this newsletter may earn commissions. Please click here for our privacy and endorsement policy.

Accurate Writing & More, 16 Barstow Lane , Hadley, MA 01035, United States

You may unsubscribe or change your contact details at any time.

 

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The Clean and Green Club, May 2020

15 May, 2020  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, May 2020
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Coronavirus, the Job Market, and YOU (and maybe I can help)

The New York Times estimated in early April that US unemployment had hit 13 percent by the end of March, and is climbing rapidly. That’s already a level we haven’t seen since the 1930s.

While I work mostly in business-to-business consulting and copywriting, I’ve always had a sideline of writing resumes. As far as I know, I pioneered the one-visit, in-person-while-you-wait resume in 1984, and I’ve continued to keep my hand in it. In this time, I want to be of help.

I have the skill and there’s an urgent need. So…

  1. I’d been charging $50 to critique a resume. Now, I’ll do them at no charge.
  2. It took some figuring out (and infrastructure strengthening)–but I can now offer while-you-wait resumes (for the US and Canadian job markets) for clients located anywhere in the world, at the same low price I’d been doing them in person–but over Zoom.
  3. For anyone who has lost their job due to COVID-related closures or cutbacks, the first cover letter (normally typically $50 to $75) is included with your resume order.

If you or someone you know is struggling in today’s job market, this help is available at https://accuratewriting.com/resumephilosophy.shtml
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Which Organizing Tactics Actually Create Change?
Recently, a non-activist asked me, “Why do you believe that posting petitions on FB is going to bring about social, legal, and political change?”

Here’s my response: Petitions, by themselves, rarely create change—but sometimes, they do. Petitions kept Net Neutrality in place for the remainder of the Obama administration. In my town of 5000, submitting 1200 petition signatures to the town government had a definite impact during the Save the Mountain campaign—but it certainly wasn’t our only tactic and wouldn’t have been effective by itself. Petitions are one spice in the spice cabinet, one arrow in the quiver.

And petitions serve other purposes even if they don’t immediately create the change they call for. For example:

For a non-activist, signing a petition online is an easy first step; think of it as a “gateway experience” for activism, just as opponents of pot often call it a gateway to the harder stuff.

After signing, a request to share the petition with others might have that newly-minted activist taking that petition around and sharing it, either in person or online. This is another way to get involved that is easy, not time-consuming, and doesn’t require writing or public speaking.

It’s also a way to provide social proof: safety in numbers. It’s less risky to take a position if you know hundreds or thousands of others have taken that petition.

For the organization, it’s a way to collect names and contacts for future organizing efforts (and a way to raise funds, too).

In paper format, a huge stack of petitions creates a great visual for the media (including your organization’s newsletter and social media feeds)

You’ve probably figured out that I believe in using a mix of nonviolent tactics, separately or together as appropriate. And that different issues lend themselves to different actions. In these days of mass quarantine, many of our most popular actions, like mass demonstrations and civil disobedience actions, have to be put on hold. Nonviolent action scholar Gene Sharp (1928-2018) put together a wonderful list of 198 different nonviolent social change tactics, and more are being invented all the time. Obviously, we’re not going to look at each one—but let’s do two more that are still relevant in our no-contact world. And I’d love it if you’d put your own favorite tactics or ideas in the comments, so we can discuss their effectiveness as a community.

Vehicle-based Public Marches and Protests:

This may seem like a new tactic in response to quarantine. But although rarely used, it’s actually been around for decades. When we can’t gather closely, it’s a way of taking up a large amount of space with a small number of people, using signs and horns to get a message across. And it can incorporate more aggressive tactics, such as blocking key intersections. Of course, it has a high carbon footprint compared to many other kinds of actions.

Strikes and Boycotts:

For any workplace that is still functional, a strike (which could include a slowdown, work-to-rule, work stoppage in place, refusal to go to work, and probably a dozen other models) still has power. Jobs don’t get done without employees, and many employees can’t be instantly replaced.

But strikes have many drawbacks, especially in a climate with more than 30 million unemployed, many of them highly skilled. If there’s a strike, there’s always a risk of replacement workers being found. Strikes need support from strong unions, and strong unions are rare these days.

Boycotts are harder to organize, but probably have an easier time achieving their goal, as long as they have a way to dissuade enough customers from spending their money, hitting the power structure where it hurts. If they don’t get enough participation, they can be counterproductive—but that participation can build over time, as it did for the United Farm Workers grape and lettuce boycotts. Boycotts (along with mass demonstrations, sit-ins, and many other actions) helped end segregation in the American South, encouraged the British to get out of India, made major gains for organized labor, shut down hate-spewing talk hosts, and much more.

Again, let’s hear your favorites in the comments (and why).
Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.
View highlights from (and listen to) more than 30 podcasts ranging from 5 minutes to a full hour. Click here to see descriptions and replay links.  

Turn Your Sustainability/CSR Report Into Powerful Marketing!

 
Arnold Hiatt: Turning Business into a Force for Good
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Arnold Hiatt: Turning Business into a Force for Good, by Barry Wanger

Social responsibility in business has been around for centuries–check out the early days of chocolate giants Hershey in the US and Cadbury in the US, or the 18th- and early-19th-century businesses in Shaker communities, or those who grew sugar beets and linen as slavery-free alternatives to slave-grown Southern sugar cane and cotton.

But this history is largely unknown, and it wasn’t until the 1990s that socially and environmentally conscious businesses started working their way into the public consciousness and the movement started growing wings in the boardrooms of our largest corporations.

So it’s always good to go back and look at some of the pioneers in this latest wave. Some are household names, such as Ben Cohen and Jerry Silverman of Ben & Jerry’s. Others quietly go about their work of making the world better through business.

Arnold Hiatt, now 92, is one of the latter. When he became president (and later, CEO) of the Massachusetts-based shoe manufacturer Stride Rite in 1968, he created a bully pulpit that leveraged the business to spread good to the workers, the communities, and the industry. And he pioneered many initiatives that were adopted later by other social entrepreneurs.

Right from the start, ten years before Ben & Jerry’s was even founded, he limited his salary to 15 times that of his lowest-paid full-timers (p. 49). He instituted professionally-run on-site daycare with subsidies for his employees and spots for community members in 1971 (pp. 70-75)—and actively evangelized for this within the business community and in front of government hearings. Later, he started an intergenerational daycare where elders in need of companionship and desiring to feel useful became caregivers and skill-sharers for kids (p. 85). He created a program to fund Harvard and Northeastern educations for deserving inner-city kids who committed to public service (pp. 75-81); one of the kids he funded was Dr. Priscilla Chan, who became a major philanthropist after marrying Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (pp. 77-78). He upped corporate giving from 1% of pretax earnings to 5% (pp. 68-69). Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

And was this ever good for business! In the 24 years Hiatt headed the company, Stride Rite had only one year without earnings growth—the year it acquired Keds at a significant cost. It had 40 consecutive quarters with record growth. Investor’s Business Daily named it one of the three most successful public companies in the US. Of companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Stride Rite was in the top 1% from 1972 to 1992. The stock grew 14 times as valuable in his final eight years (all on pp. 62-63).

Once Hiatt stepped down, his successor unfortunately moved away from social commitments. But Hiatt himself was only just getting started. A few among many examples:At some personal risk, he actively and successfully campaigned for the release of South Korean dissident and former president Kim Dae-jung, sentenced to death on sedition charges. Eventually, Kim settled in the US, and then returned from exile years later to once again serve as president (pp. 109-112).

He helped found Business for Social Responsibility, which for decades now has touted the virtues of business activism (pp. 97-98). He has provided fundraising, strategic consulting and other assistance to causes ranging from to Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential run (pp. 37-46) to the Jewish progressive organizations JStreet (which he co-founded) and New Israel Fund (pp. 154-56; disclosure: I have donated to both these organizations as well as several other progressive groups in Israel). He even got involved with a Patriotic Millionaires, group of very wealthy people who championed the much-maligned estate tax (p. 133).

He worked with former Irish president Mary Robinson on a global business-human rights initiative they tried to get through the United Nations (pp. 149-151). He funded schools and other services in places like Haiti and Guatemala (and leveraged his status as an investor and employer in those countries to pressure the governments for human rights and labor rights. And his deepest involvement was in the decades-long struggle for campaign finance reform, which he saw as key to all the other issues of his heart.

In short, if you’re running a social venture, you will find lots of validation. If your business is not yet involved in social betterment, you’ll find inspiration (and if you want help with that process, please contact me—it’s what I do).
Accurate Writing & More
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Hadley, MA 01035 USA
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About Shel 

Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good–creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
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The Clean and Green Club, April 2020

7 Apr, 2020  No Comment

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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: April 2020

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Will the Coronavirus Make Our World Better…or Worse?

We are at a crossroads. Society will be changed forever, just as it was after 9/11, World Wars I and II, the Great Depression, and the medieval Plague—and just as it was by the environmental movement, feminism, liberation consciousness, democracy emerging in many countries where it had been a stranger…

Can we shape these changes to be more like that second set of experiences? I think so, but it won’t be easy. Powerful forces are already pushing to bail out the very same economic sectors that have been bringing us to crisis: fossil fuels, tobacco, nuclear power, chemiculture-based agribusiness—and consolidating and material wealth among those who already have it, while defunding people’s needs and putting draconian programs into place to further oppress the already marginalized.

But like every other crisis, there are lots of opportunities to better the world, and ourselves. Despite the deaths and other losses, it is possible that we could come through the other side a lot closer to utopia than we are now. (This doesn’t mean we won’t have to grieve, that we won’t experience some pretty horrible things.)

I just finished reading The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis, by the chief negotiators of the Paris Climate Accord (reviewed below). The authors offer a worst-case scenario, but also a best-case. And the best case is pretty terrific. So, like catastrophic climate change, if we focus on creating the best possible outcomes, the world we inherit could actually be a pretty good place to live.

And a lot of companies and nonprofits are using this time to do good. I attended an online presentation by Whitney Dailey for Conscious Capitalism Boston, and she shared some terrific examples:

  • Voluntarily shifting manufacturing capacity to supply essentials: Anheuser-Busch is producing and distributing sanitizer, General Motors is ramping up to make ventilators, and a hotel is opening its rooms to medical personnel who need to self-isolate.

  • Helping employees who can’t work: Starbucks, Walmart, and Shopify have all committed to paying bonuses to their workers. Many smaller socially conscious businesses are also paying even furloughed workers. Our local independent movie theater, Amherst Cinema in Amherst, Massachusetts, is one such business. This is a huge sacrifice for small firms with small reserves, ongoing bills, and no customers at the moment.

  • Keeping employees working, but shifting their duties: Workers at L.L. Bean are boxing up food for a food bank in Maine, where the company is headquartered. Several big tech firms have diverted their workers to running a disease tracking site.

  • Nonprofits such as the new Restaurant Strong Fund and Boston Artist Relief Fund have provided basic living expenses for restaurant workers and artists, respectively.

  • Many companies have gotten rid of their paywalls, or limited their scope. News outlets from the mighty New York Times to small local papers like my area’s Daily Hampshire Gazette have put all their virus coverage in a non-paywall area. Cultural institutions and individual artists have released a ton of work for public view (I’m listening to a Berlin Philharmonic concert as I write this, and last night, I watched an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical—both made available at no charge).

  • Back in the last recession, Hyundai offered an innovative program: if a buyer lost employment, Hyundai would buy the car back from its customer. They are bringing it back.

These are all great initiatives. But could we find ways to leverage the virus for systemic change? Several of my favorite “practical visionaries” including Gil Friend, Christiana Figueres, Mitch Anthony, Frances Moore Lappe, and George Lakey, among others, have been talking informally about this:

  • Dominating the discussions: Is this the moment to finally achieve universal health care in the US, as most of the rest of the world has had for generations?

  • Closely following: Does the drastic reduction in pollution because fewer factories are running, fewer cars are on the road, and much less construction is happening give us a chance to press hard on climate change, at the very least meeting the Paris goals ahead of schedule (Meanwhile, the unenlightened US government is using the crisis to roll back what limited environmental protections we’ve managed to achieve). HINT: The Green New Deal already provides a pretty good roadmap. Can we get it passed?

  • Occasionally heard: Could we leverage the drastic changes to dismantle rapacious out-of-control mega-corporations that think only about profit, and instead build a system where everyone has enough to eat, a place to live, healthcare, education, meaningful work, etc., perhaps using a model of interrelated local and regional communities and ecosystems?

  • Proposed by Chris Brogan: seeing the changing world as an invitation to a pick-up ball game or an open music jam: we reinvent it as we create it and it’s never the same twice.

I’d love to get your comments on these ideas.

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

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The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis

The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac (Knopf, 2020)

It’s nice to read a bold, visionary well-written book by people who know what they’re talking about. These two are the chief architects of the Paris Climate Agreement, which 189 countries—almost the entire world—signed on to in 2016. When they say that changing the mindset after the epic fail of the Copenhagen summit in 2009 was the biggest shift that made Paris possible, I believe them.

The book opens with two sharply different scenarios: If we don’t bring climate change under control, we face a gloomy future of extreme pollution, extreme temperatures, mass starvation and death. But if we commit to solving this crisis correctly, we create utopia.

I LOVE the way this chapter does its visioning of the world in 2050: discussing the effects of massive tree planting, for instance, the authors see this future:

This of course helped to diminish climate change, but the benefits were even greater. On every sensory level, the ambient feeling of living on what has become a green planet has been transformative, especially in cities. Cities have never been better places to live. With many more trees and far fewer cars, it has been possible to reclaim whole streets for urban agriculture and for children’s play. Every vacant lot, every grimy unused alley, has been repurposed and turned into a shady grove. Every rooftop has been converted to either a vegetable or a floral garden. Windowless buildings that were once scrawled with graffiti are instead carpeted with verdant vines (p. 21).

The rhapsodies continue into health care, transportation, energy production, and many other areas.

Part Two gives us the beginning of a toolkit with three crucial mindsets: Stubborn Optimism, Endless Abundance, and Radical Regeneration (each with its own chapter).

Part Three is the heart of the book: about 70 pages focused on “doing what is necessary,” broke into ten specific actions:

  1. Let go of the old world

  2. Face your grief but hold a vision of the future

  3. Defend the truth

  4. See yourself as a citizen—not as a consumer

  5. Move beyond fossil fuels

  6. Reforest the earth

  7. Invest in a clean economy

  8. Use technology responsibly

  9. Build gender equality

  10. Engage in politics

And the conclusion adds 26 more actions on a timeline, but doesn’t go into so much detail.

Not surprisingly, many of the actions align closely with the UN’s own Sustainable Development Goals: an excellent blueprint. More surprising (and pleasing) to me, considering the authors are rooted in the UN’s rather bureaucratic, government-focused culture, is the number of ways individuals can create or facilitate these actions. Anyone can plant trees. Anyone can defend the truth. Anyone can refuse to tolerate gender discrimination. Anyone can participate in “rewilding,” and anyone can eat less meat (one of the best things you can do as in individual to lower your carbon footprint).

I’m already above 500 words and there’s so much more I could say! I took eight pages of notes. So I’ll just say get this book and don’t just put it in the pile. Read it, and take notes!

 

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Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

 

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The Clean and Green Club, March 2020

9 Mar, 2020  No Comment

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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: March 2020

Coronavirus and the Other Way My Life Changed

My heart goes out to you if you have the virus, if a loved one or friend or colleague has it, or if you are in quarantine. I feel for you if you have a child who’s suddenly and unexpectedly home while you’re supposed to be at work–or who has worked so hard for their theater production, senior concert, sports team, etc., only to have the floor kicked out from under them in what should have been their moment of glory.

And if you have a retail or hospitality business that finds itself at 10 percent of normal sales or has had to close, and suddenly have no reliable income, of course I want to send you a virtual hug.

This virus is another reminder that change can happen in an instant. Change happened in my life a year and a half ago when my stepfather was killed in a crosswalk by someone looking at her GPS instead of the road. As someone who believes in restorative justice, I actually wrote a letter to the court saying I saw no purpose in sending her to prison and that our family’s preference was to see her sent instead to talk about distracted driving to school audiences.

The day of the hearing was the first time we met or communicated directly. She is extremely repentant and I came away from the hearing (where our request was accepted) deeply moved.I’m writing this on Sunday morning, March 15, which is Yoshi’s birth anniversary. He would have been 90. This afternoon, my wife and I are going to the cemetery with the woman who struck him. We have not seen her since that first meeting at the end of the hearing. Her own mother passed away earlier this week, long after we made this plan.

Back to the Coronavirus. I recognize the need to take precautions. Even though the yoga studio I frequent wiped everything down regularly, I went out and bought my own yoga mat, finally–and then they went virtual, as I suspected they would. Instead of a full-on hug, I’ve done half-hugs around the edge of the shoulder, turning my face away–or fist bumps, air hugs, and other contrivances (I judge the level or risk individually). I’ve chosen not to participate in some activities and have had many others canceled by the organizers. I was still willing to dine out (in a nearly deserted restaurant) Saturday at lunch, doing what I can to help local small businesses survive this time–but avoiding lunch buffets. When the first case of the virus showed up in my area Sunday, I knew it was time to change my behavior. And then it became moot when the governor ordered a statewide closure.

But I also think the paranoia is getting out of hand. If you or a family member are not immunocompromised, most cases of the virus are not deadly, but a mild annoyance. Hoarders stocking up on things they don’t really need are denying them to people who do have a need–like hospitals. And if hugs go away, that will also have negative health consequences. Touch is just as much of a basic human need as food and water.

And for guerrilla marketers able to seize the moment, even the virus can create opportunity. I’m about to go live with an offer to do “virusless virtual” resume consultations. I’ve done them in person since 1977.

And now, on to this month’s articles.

–Shel

Even a World-Renowned Marketer Made This Crucial Mistake—But YOU Won’t!

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What’s the most important copywriting lesson you’ve ever learned? For me, it was to make the copy about their needs, problems, or goals and how you can help address them—not about how great you are.

Recently, I got a mailer from one of my favorite marketers, someone I would legitimately call a genius and have enormous respect for. But this piece of copy didn’t just violate that rule, it trashed it. Here are a few excerpts, starting with the very first line:

  • “I just did something quite unfathomably amazing – even for me.”
  • “When I went to review my [name of product]” – I realized that “IT” was outdated, superficial and far beneath my capability to truly innovate and orchestrate monumental breakthroughs.”
  • “What I delivered over those four-sessions – especially the day two and day three, non-stop six-hour, mega-original breakthrough thinking on how to blow your competition away – using utterly heretofore unknown [strategy] was… well, it was EPIC.”
  • “I did not include anything mundane, redundant or even marginally commonplace in even a minute of the 720 minutes of pure, unparalleled mastery that I shared.
    “Nothing I revealed has been discussed anywhere else, by anybody else, anytime else – Nothing!”
  • “We’re talking about me explaining the psychology of…”
  • “We’re talking about me explaining with exacting details, total precision, amazing scope of nuancing…”

Yup. We’re “talking about me,” all right. And not a lot of people want to hire egomaniacs so wrapped up in their own greatness that they forget it’s about serving the client.

Second-most important lesson: Get feedback on your copy before you send it out.

Discover why Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield, futurist Seth Godin, and many others recommend Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (and download a free sampler). Autographed and inscribed copies available.

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Would I Lie to You?

Would I Lie to You: The Amazing Power of Being Honest in a World that Lies, by Judi Ketteler

I kind of expected this would be an extended version of the biblical commandment not to lie. But it’s far more nuanced. Ketteler recognizes that “prosocial” lies can serve a purpose of softening a painful message, as she did when someone barged into her swimming lane in a local pool. There was nothing to be gained by making the man feel terrible, so she told him it was a common beginner mistake that she and others had done.

A much more consequential example is protecting hidden Jews from certain death during the Holocaust (p. 65). While that was extreme, it fits in with her identity as a liberal-to-progressive who works to improve the world; she devotes significant space to confronting her own and society’s racism, for instance (pp. 233-236).

She also recognizes that not every truth is necessarily ours to tell. It is not necessarily your role to disrupt a happy marriage by revealing a secret you came across accidentally (p. 188).

Yet, she also argues the other side. She calls herself (and us) out for things like half-truths, omissions, failing to speak up, conflict of interest, exaggeration, unexamined claims, lack of candor (all pp. 45-49 and elsewhere), and sidestepping (p. 128 and elsewhere).

It’s a deeply personal book. We watch her struggle throughout the book with what she calls an “emotional affair”: a nonsexual but deeply intimate friendship with a man who is not her husband, a friendship that could have turned sexual in a heartbeat. How does this affect her husband, his wife, and both of their kids? And we watch her wrestle with several other demons. She also brings up many larger social issues, such as why we hate being lied to but are so willing to distort the truth to others, and what types of identities we can define ourselves with to help us in the honesty struggle (“I am a person who tries to tell the truth,” p. 120), and how we can define others with uplifting messages such as “you could be a helper” instead of “please don’t cheat” (p. 112).

It’s also very well-researched. In addition to the 9-page bibliography, she also includes material from 18 primary-source interviews, mostly with the top researchers studying honesty issues. Unfortunately, it’s missing an index—but it does gather all 11 Honesty Principles introduced at various stages onto a single page (p. 249).

This book evolved out of several shorter pieces and an “honesty journal” kept over several years. In that journal, and in this book, Ketteler argues with herself. Is she sugar-coating how hard it is to be honest? Trying to make herself look too virtuous and failing to note her faults and honesty failures? Has she set the right tone with her clients, her kids, her husband, her dead “screw-up” brother, and even the guy at the pool?

I took five pages of notes. You should read it.

Disclosures: I’ve subscribed to Ketteler’s communications-focused newsletter for several years, and have corresponded with her often about articles she’s posted. I’ve also had my own journey with ethical issues, identified honesty and integrity as two of three key business success principles in a book I wrote in 2003, and keep a public (Facebook) Gratitude Journal where I talk about the good things in my day. I am fully aware that I could chose not to sugarcoat. I could write a daily “grumpitude journal” instead—but I don’t see Andy Rooney as someone to emulate. The truth of my day, the fully honest picture, would include both gratitude and grumpiness—but my journal’s openly stated goal is to bring more happiness into the world. I am under no obligation to increase others’ sorrow and stress by dwelling on my own, plus I believe that the things we pay more attention to begin to dominate our lives, and thus I choose to focus on what I’m grateful for.

Connect with Shel

About Shel

 

Speaker, author, and consultant Shel Horowitz of GoingBeyondSustainabiity.com helps businesses find the sweet spot at the intersections of profitability with environmental and social good — creating and marketing profitable products and services that make a direct difference on problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. His 10th book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.

 

Links in this newsletter may earn commissions. Please click here for our privacy and endorsement policy.

Accurate Writing & More, 16 Barstow Lane , Hadley, MA 01035, United States

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