Tag Archive for brand

The Clean and Green Club, March 2022

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Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: March 2022

Exciting News: A Chance to Get a Powerful Green Business Certification and More

If you’ve followed me for a while, you probably remember me talking about the power of third-party credibility in your marketing. When someone else says you’re the real deal, people listen much more carefully than if you sing your own praises.

Over the past month, I’ve been building a relationship with the Green Business Bureau. They offer a number of benefits, including the GBB EcoAssessment™, a very spiffy self-guided software-driven certification process that is very easy to use and much more friendly to small businesses than other certifications I’ve looked at. (They will be glad to set up a demo for you.) Other benefits include:

  • The GBB EcoPlanner™ library of hundreds of green initiatives that you can implement with their step-by-step guidelines
  • Member directory as well as an online networking community
  • All sorts of marketing aids besides the certification, including membership seals, educational resources, social media, and more
  • Access to industry-specific and general green business analyses, webinars, and more

I joined up right away and expect to go through the certification process when I come up for air after a rather busy time. Small-business memberships range quite reasonably from $250 to $550 per year depending on how many employees you have—and I’ve arranged you a 15 percent reduction. To claim it, just visit https://greenbusinessbureau.com/membership-purchase-options/ , choose the option that describes your business, and enter the code Shel15 (no space between the lower-case L and the number 1).

Just in the first two weeks of March, they’ve also put up five new blog posts, covering topics from carbon accounting to remote work to wealth management, and featuring several members. Please use this link to explore their many offerings (and join, if you’re so inclined): (yes, I will get a commission if you join—and YOU will get a reduced price—15 percent off).

Brands that Create Fans

Licensed under Creative Commons

As promised last month, we’re going to look at some brands that create such a positive user experience, they turn their customers into not just fans, but ambassadors: an unpaid sales force that sings their praises. Most of these stories have been widely told, so I’ll just list and link a few:

  • Harley-Davidson, the only brand I’m aware of that gets thousands of customers to tattoo themselves with its logo (this link also concisely summarizes five benefits of that kind of loyalty)
  • Ritz-Carlton (I love their idea of the “empowered apology,” where employees can do pretty much anything to make it right for the customer)
  • Apple, whose customers will stand in line for hours to be first on their block with another visionary, game-changing product (this article in Forbes is several years old—but the key takeaway about thinking not so much about marketing products but building movements is directly relevant to you, the socially and environmentally conscious entrepreneur)
  • Southwest Airlines, not surprisingly the only airline to stay profitable after 9/11 because it was the only one that customers cared about. I have a personal experience here: We were scheduled to fly from Hartford (our local airport) to catch a cruise ship in Tampa. Our airport closed because of a snowstorm, but because we had booked on Southwest, we shifted to arrive a day later in Fort Lauderdale, rented a car to drive to the first port of call (Key West), board the ship, and save our vacation. Zero cost for the re-route. Since then, if the price and itinerary are anywhere near the competition, they get our business. Unfortunately, the last few years, their itineraries have been far from convenient, and we often end up on a different carrier—but we always check.

OK, so this stuff works in the general market. Does it also work in the green and social justice world? Yes! It’s harder to come up with national brand examples, but they do exist. Consider:

  • Ben & Jerry’s: Upstarts with no ice cream OR business experience, they succeeded with a quirky message and a deep focus on environmental and social justice. As this article eloquently demonstrates, many people think that this focus on equity and environment is WHY they were successful. In my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, I spend 4 pages on this company, and mention them in several other parts of the book.
  • Patagonia: The only company I’m aware of that ever voluntarily told its customers not to buy its products if they could get more life out of what they already own, this outdoor apparel company continues to raise the bar on environmental and social justice approaches.

I’m aware of dozens of smaller companies that have succeeded BECAUSE of their people- and planet-centered values. In fact, I help companies figure out how to create and market profitable products, services, and MINDSETS that do this. Please get in touch if you’d like that sort of help.

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.

Catalysing mass commitment to transformational change

Catalysing mass commitment to transformational change by Andrew Gaines

Not many authors begin by citing Donella Meadows (of Limits to Growth fame) and segue directly to body-mind scientist Moshe Feldenkrais (pp. 1-2, as numbered in the footer—which doesn’t count the front matter). So Gaines, with his comprehensive and holistic perspective and commitment to nonviolence, hooked me right away.He urges us to “shift from individualistic ‘I do my own thing’ to working together to inspire mainstream commitment to transition to a life-affirming culture.” His prescription involves training citizen-educators, framing our work that way, and bringing ordinary people into a new kind of social change movement based on helping people improve their mental and emotional functioning as together we create this new paradigm (p. 6).

For Gaines, the change requires personal lifestyle/activity changes AND organizing for wider social and environmental change.

A public stance helps, too. He urges businesses to announce “This business contributes to the evolution of a life-affirming culture…Our goal is to transition to a life-affirming culture, rather than continuing on our present course of ecological self-destruction.” (pp.10-11). I added this at the bottom of my GoingBeyondSustainability.com home page.

He asks us to enlist the army of members of national environmental groups to get much more deeply involved than signing petitions and sending money: to become advocates, educators, and conversation catalyzers for this life-affirming culture. He suggests direct invitations like “Jim, would you be willing to spend an hour with me having a deep conversation?” (p, 12). I am mixed about this approach. If someone asked me that question, I’d ask, “about what?” If the answer is climate change, a climate denier would probably choose not to have the meeting. But if the response is “on how to build a life-affirming culture,” perhaps a higher percentage would say yes—because we all want that, in some way.

The ebook provides teaching and conversation facilitation guidance, aimed at helping participants connect the dots of what they already know—making the connections among the various environmental crises and the way the system is rigged to benefit the upper elites without much regard to the environmental crises—to reach the conclusion that economic growth should certainly not be the central thing we strive for, and to look at additional factors such as the very deliberate manipulation of psychology to foster even more consumerism (e.g., “retail therapy,” p. 17). An example of Gaines’ holistic approach is the mention of “gentle birth” (p. 18).

To foster those conversations, Gaines even includes links to the slide deck that contains all the illustrations in the book (one of which in particular keeps showing up every few pages, which I found tiresome), a demo video of a sample conversation, and even a webinar (pp. 23-24) and a sample LinkedIn outreach letter (pp. 25-26). More tools for facilitating these types of conversations are at Gaines’ website, http://inspiringtransition.net .

Recognizing that we often get in our own way if we try to do deep world-changing work before working on our own areas of hurt and blockage, Gaines spends pages 28-33 giving a quick intro to several inner-healing modalities. I’ve often seen similar tools used in the personal wealth category, but much more rarely in the activist world.

Then he finishes with a section on the big sweeping social changes we need, and some clues on how to bring that about.

Obtain your no-cost copy at https://app.box.com/file/768328744375?s=lircbkap14ycjx5f28dskf4mp9tuc3ea

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.

If you’re not already a subscriber, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com and scroll to the very bottom left corner. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription for, too.

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