Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter, April 2011

14 Apr, 2011  Uncategorized

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Newsletter, April 2011

Contents:

  • This Month’s Tip: Create Your Energy Legacy
  • Recording Now Available: Social Media for Terrified Authors
  • Another Recommended Book
  • Hear & Meet Shel
  • Friends Who Want to Help

This Month’s Tip: Create Your Energy Legacy

How would you like to:

  • Slash your operating costs by anywhere from hundreds to millions of dollars every year?
  • Reduce greenhouse gases and thus help the world reach the carbon targets necessary to stave off catastrophic climate change
  • Push global social policy from a suicidal/homicidal course toward true sustainability?

Then it’s time to become an activist AND a role model on climate change, water and energy conservation, and sustainability. And to remember that successful activism involves marketing.

Some of you have been reading my marketing column all the way back to 1997. Some of you have read one or more of my books, which lay out marketing tactics and strategies simply and clearly and thoroughly. It time for you to take that knowledge and use it to help both yourself and the world.

A rapid shift away from fossil, nuclear, and biofuel and into safe, renewable efficient energy policy has to happen now, and it has to be pushed by the private sector. At least in the United States, where I live, it is painfully clear that the government isn’t going to be much help. Want to know why? Read this blog post I wrote: https://greenandprofitable.com/the-climate-crisis-why-global-warming-matters/ (And if you want a little taste of why nuclear is not the answer read this post: https://greenandprofitable.com/nuke-problems-in-japan-make-it-clear-no-more-nukes-elsewhere/)

You, as a business owner, will benefit hugely from your efforts. You, as a leader of environmentally friendly business, can capitalize enormously on your activism, because your business will be seen far more positively. This translates to opportunities under every rock and tree—to build partnerships and referrals, to gain media coverage, to get passed around on social media, and more (I wrote a whole book about how to do this: Guerilla Marketing Goes Green).

And as a resident of Planet Earth, you will also gain the operational advantages of reduced costs…the health advantages of a sustainable climate based on nonpolluting, nongreenhosue gas emitting, nonradioactive technologies…and the deep satisfaction of knowing you did your part to ensure the health of the planet for your children’s children’s children.

Whole books have been written on how to achieve this—but let me give you a few specific ideas:

  • Look for savings you can grab by increasing efficiency and conservation; many businesses can save 50 to 80 percent of their energy and water by taking relatively simple measures. TIP: I am giving away my $9.95 e-book, Painless Green: 111 Tips to Help the Environment, Lower Your Carbon Footprint, Cut Your Budget, and Improve Your Quality of Life—With No Negative Impact on Your Lifestyle, during the month of April (in honor of Earth Day). About 80 of those tips cost little or nothing to implement; this is the “low-hanging fruit.” Implement a tip or two every day, and in a couple of months, you’ll have a much Greener profile and be saving energy and water. Visit https://painlessgreenbook.com/earthday and use the code EARTHDAY.
  • Remember to factor in transmission losses, and thus look for power sources as close to the place of use as possible. For example, it’s generally more efficient to put a solar array in your own yard or on the roof than to send it across wires from some remote site in the desert, because a big chunk of that desert electricity will be lost as the electricity moves across vast distances.
  • Think about how to be more green in the ongoing maintenance and replacement you’re doing anyway. If you’re replacing a laser printer, get one that prints on both sides (and train your staff to use it whenever it makes sense). When you need a new roof, consider a planted (“green roof”), superinsulated, or photovoltaic roofing material. When your vehicle fleet needs an upgrade, think about electric, hybrid, or high-MPG vehicles (or, for some purposes, bicycles!)
  • Think about training yourself to do the really easy lifestyle changes. Keep a ceramic coffee cup in your office and say good-bye to disposable cups. Use reusable cloth towels, rags, and sponges instead of throw-away paper products. Bring cloth tote bags to the supermarket (keep them in your car).

This, of course, is just the beginning. The e-book will give you plenty of other ideas, and there are many more resources beyond that. Do your part!

Recording Now Available: Social Media for Terrified Authors

Social Media for Terrified Authors: How to Turn Scary Into Success, with Shel Horowitz and book coach/social media maven Judy Cullins.

  • Have an impact on the three major social media networks in just minutes a day: control social media and keep it from controlling you
  • Understand how to spread your content around the Internet with just a couple of clicks: more ROI for less work
  • Turn social media connections into website traffic, book sales, and client gigs without spending any money to do it.
  • Increase your credibility as a savvy expert.
  • Define and find your book’s target audience on the big 3 social media marketing sites–and market directly to the exact people who can benefit from your book.
  • Get your website or blog pages highly ranked on Google and other search engines.

Just $19.95, and includes several valuable bonuses.

https://www.frugalmarketing.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=67&products_id=234

Another Recommended Book

The Truth About Trust in Business: How to Enrich the Bottom Line, Improve Retention, and Build Valuable Relationships for Success, by Vanessa Hall (with help from Mandy Holloway, James Adonis, Fiona Pearman, David Penglase, and Iven Frangi) (Austin: Emerald Book Co, 2009)

Reviewed by Shel Horowitz, GreenAndProfitable.com

When reviewing a book about trust in business, the first question is how does it stack up against Stephen M.R. Covey’s wonderful The Speed of Trust. And the answer is that they’re quite different. I’d recommend reading Covey first; he gives a thorough grounding in the basics, and lots of examples.

But also read Hall’s book. Hall and her friends explore some deeper parts of the landscape, with fresh perspectives, and some visual aids that may make the whole thing more understandable to visual learners.

Hall’s first lesson in the fragility of trust was delivered by her then-nine-year-old son, who accused her of breaking “we might” statements that he saw as “we would”—in other words, promises.

As she explored the territory her son’s accusation had opened up, she began a career in corporate compliance, and that in turn led to looking at how to go from fixing problems to making things right in the first place.

Hall and her co-authors explore some interesting territory, such as the difference between customer expectations around implicit versus explicit promises (and how the former can often trip up even a caring business), and four distinctly different types of trust.

Building trust has numerous advantages for businesses. Rebuilding trust that’s been shattered—a huge challenge—can have especially large rewards. The authors cite a furniture manufacturer almost doubled production, cut work hours without reducing pay, slashed delivery time and changed a company experiencing 60 percent turnover all he way down to 1 precedent with a four-year waiting list to work there. How’s that for a convincing bottom-line argument in favor of building trust?

A few more high points:

  • When listening, aim to understand, rather than to respond in kind
  • Maintain your values; if they go, so will your passion
  • Follow the ten-point checklist for customer expectations (pp. 206-07)—which includes being told the truth
  • Ask questions of your prospects that facilitate, rather than obstruct, the sales process
  • Every interaction with your business is a chance for the customer or prospect to discover your organization’s true character
  • Organizations that have not built trust are “brittle”: rigid and easily damaged—while those that have are not only flexible but “magnetic”—they attract new business easily
  • Perhaps the best insight of all: customers have a vested interest in your success, because it makes you easier for them to deal with—and thus, you can turn to them for guidance and they will be wiling participants in improving your business and building their trust

Note: The book lacks a desperately-needed index (WHY do publishers do this?), so take good notes while you read, and jot down page numbers.

Hear & Meet Shel

April

May

  • May 18, from 1 to probably around 2:30 pm ET (10-11:30 PT), master copywriter Ray Edwards and I will have a conversation about ethical, green marketing and the relationship of religion and ethics. This winter, I made a huge purge of many of the e-newsletters I’d been reading–and Ray’s was one I kept, because I found enormous value in it.  Ray is a devout Christian, and lately his newsletters have turned away from marketing advice and toward his relationship with Christ. I am a non-Christian and not-very-religious Jew who does believe in spiritual guidance. It should be a  very interesting conversation. Click here to get the call information. Register even if you can’t make the call, and you’ll get a link to the recording afterward, at no charge. Ray and I will be selling the interview later, so here’s your chance to get it without paying.
  • Once again, I’ll be attending Book Expo America, May 24-26 in New York City, and possibly IBPA University May 22- 23

Friends Who Want to Help

LEARN HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL JV BROKER

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I’m a huge believer in partnerships and alliances. They are the best way I know to build credibility AND sales by going into a market “on the arm” of someone already known and trusted there—someone whose endorsement opens doors and lets you benefit.

My long-time friend Willie Crawford has teamed up with my new friend Sohail Khan (who I met at JV Alert and liked enough that I gave him some very specific advice on how to partner with a certain very prominent marketer on a book project) to offer a really good looking training program on how to be a JV broker: the person who brings JV partners together and takes away a very healthy commission (I’m working with a JV broker right now on a project, and I can tell you, it’s a lucrative and fun way to make a living). Willie knows this space very well; he’s brokered JV deals for many years. He’s also a really nice guy with a strong commitment to doing things the right way.

Check it out for yourself: https://shelhorowitz.com/go/WillieJVTraining

SKILL HIGHWAY: A FABULOUS RESOURCE

Dan Page is starting a marvelous entrepreneur portal called Skill Highway, with a ton of information for entrepreneurs, including one article from me so far, and more to follow. Here is a link to a short video Dan gave produced where he describes a strategy he uses to create new customers and revenue.  He explains how he used it last year to generate $1.7 Million in new business for a start-up with no customers and zero marketing budget. (I’ve used this strategy often, for myself and for many of my clients.)

To watch the video, please visit https://shelhorowitz.com/go/SkillHwy.  And be sure to join Skill Highway!

Oh, and Dan being such a nice guy, he has a special offer just for you: Join as a Premium member and he’ll throw in a copy of his $189 e-book, “Positioning For Profits.”  It outlines 16 strategies and tactics he’s used over the last 34 years to generate millions for himself and his clients.

ACTIVISTS AND BUSINESSES CAN BOTH BENEFIT FROM THIS

In her forthcoming (May, 2010) book, Collective Visioning: How Groups Can Work Together for a Just and Sustainable World, long-time social justice activist Linda Stout details a practical process that enables everyone to work together, showing in practical terms how to build trust, ensure that each and every voice is heard, create a positive vision, and develop an action plan that leverages everyone’s abilities. This process creates hope for change, even among those who’ve stopped believing that change is possible. I met Linda years ago and was quite impressed with her, but then we lost touch. This weekend, I went to a workshop she was co-leading at the National Conference on Media Reform, and it was the best part of the whole weekend. I got an advance copy in PDF form and I was just as impressed with the book. Learn more and preorder now at https://lindastout.org/

Leave a Comment

Name: (Required)

E-mail: (Required)

Website:

Comment: