Tag Archive for Green Business Burea

The Clean and Green Club, September 2022

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

Effective Persuasion Demonstrated in a Four-Minute Video; Failed Persuasion in Two Sentences

As marketers, we have to be persuaders. Here’s a four-minute lesson in the art of persuasion: Notice how he builds an effective rational argument, point-by-point, and backing it up with documentation (the text of the Constitution, his background, and a government training document) to activate the rational left-side-of-the-brain—then moving stealthily into emotion-based arguments that hook the right-brain side.

He’s a candidate for public office, but he’s on the other side of the country and this is not an endorsement of his campaign. He offers his credentials in the video and on his campaign’s About page (which reinforces both the left- and right-brain approaches here). This video takes a position on a super-controversial issue: How to interpret the language of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution (the gun clause).

This month’s tip is all about modeling persuasion—something we as marketers have to do every day. Too many marketers go on and on about how great they and their company are. They forget that what’s relevant to their prospects is how you can help them, and they fail to use both emotional and logical hooks.

Here’s a real-life example of the ego-centric approach (copied from an actual website):

We engage mission groups, NGOs, private sector organizations, and governments to fund and implement sustainable projects and developments in developing communities.

Find out more about our vision, approach, and projects.

Words like “we” or “our” can be an inclusive or exclusionary term—it can mean “you and I, together on this journey” OR “my colleagues and me, an exclusionary tribe.” The two sentences I typed in from that website are an exclusionary example—while the first and third paragraphs of this tipsheet article are inclusionary: “we” work together as marketers. How would you do that web copy differently?

<this space is to give you time to think about that question>

If the site owner had hired me to rewrite this web page, it might read:

Are your project dollars effectively supporting the right sustainable projects and developments in developing communities? NGOs, private sector organizations, and governments should get their money’s worth.

Find out more about how you can fund and create projects that align with your vision and mission.

See the you-focus in both paragraphs? The emotional triggers around not wasting precious resources and aligning with vision? The same identification of target markets in the original? Copy this inclusive takes some work. The first draft of this tip included four instances of “I” in the first three paragraphs—but they and some later ones were edited out in the revision.

Oh, and if you want some help with your own copy, please visit https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/marketing-consulting-copywriting/ —where you might notice 108 instances of the words “you” (including contraction forms) or “your” but only one “I” and one “I’m,” excluding those in client testimonials—and two very powerfully inclusive “we” sentences.

Test Drive This Powerful Green Business Certification—No Cost

I’ve been telling you about the Green Business Bureau and the many benefits they offer, 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.

A GBB staffer will be happy to demo the assessment tool for you. You don’t have to be a member to see how it works. All you have to do is fill out this 1-minute form with your name, company or organization, email and phone. Your request will be forwarded to a member of the Green Business Bureau staff.

You do have to be a member to actually go through the assessment and obtain certification. Membership is quite affordable, starting at just $212.50 (10 employees or less) once you factor in the 15 percent off I’ve arranged for you no matter how big your business is. To claim the lower price, just visit https://greenbusinessbureau.com/membership-purchase-options/ , choose the number of employees that describes your business, and enter the code Shel15 (no space between the lower-case L and the number 1).

Yes, I will get a commission if you join—and YOU get 15 percent off.

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.

Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation

Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation by Paul Hawken (Penguin, 2021)

This book came out last year, while The Carbon Almanac, which I reviewed in June, was only published in July 2020. There are a lot of similarities. Both are large-format paperbacks divided into many short articles, both were assembled by a team, both feature color photographs throughout and many additional resources—including all the numerous reference citations—online.

Most importantly, both spend a lot of time outlining the problems with the way we humans have chosen to live on the earth these last several millennia—but instead of getting mired in despair, both show that we have already developed the solutions we need, and give some advice on how we can undo the damage humans have wreaked on the earth. I recommend reading both, taking good notes on each, and perhaps having a month or two off between readings. They reinforce each other, but they also complement each other, with each including some pieces the other leaves out or glosses over.

Regeneration is more holistic than the Almanac, and somewhat more focused on actions we can take to restore the planet, its ecosystems, its peoples, and the other living creatures we share it with. It encourages action both by individuals and through sweeping changes in policy, legislation, and culture. And it hammers at the hypocrisy of corporate and government approaches that—as one among many examples—allow companies to take carbon credits for planting monoculture forests of non-native species that will take 20 years to offset the carbon, will displace indigenous cultures, and will be destroyed for lumber within a generation or so of planting (p. 245, with a related article on pp. 44-45).

These companies talk the talk, these days, but they aren’t walking the walk; CO2 emissions in 2019 were a third more than in 2000 (p. 246); more than half the total virgin-materials plastic produced since its invention in 1907 has been in the past 15 years, and 60 percent of that ends up as waste (p. 237). The Paris Climate Accord is not resulting in the huge progress we need. Morocco and Gambia are the only two countries on track to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Hawken, who has been a major figure in the responsible business movement for decades, is also much more willing to face the big, scary social issues like poverty, prisons, and racism, as well as under-the-radar but high-negative-impact industries such as fast fashion, big pharma, and big ag—and to look both at their climate impact and their human impact. To look at the reality that much of the world lives in megacities and is distanced from the land (see especially p. 149). And to look at the unintended consequences of human efforts to improve things by reducing biodiversity (addressed throughout the book, with the especially relevant story about how humans disrupted a balanced system in Yellowstone, pp. 64-67).

Hawken and his team are surprisingly optimistic. They cite research to bolster their conclusion that once climate is under control, which can be done in a single generation, the earth will stabilize rapidly (p. 9)—although the work of making sure will continue for a century (p. 12), still a nanosecond in our history as a species.

This review barely scratches the surface of this remarkable book. Go get a copy. Read an article or two every day, and take good notes. Then think about how you can turn these insights into action, starting with the action section at the end, pp. 248-255. I’m including the last page, 255, a brief essay on how to develop and share the hopeful yet realistic stories we need to get un-sunk and move forward: as individuals, communities, nations, and species.

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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