The Clean and Green Club, December 2022

8 Dec, 2022 No Comment biomimicry Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World marketing lessons social activism

<!doctype html>

View online

Going Beyond Sustainabiilty with Shel Horowitz

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

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

Share

Be sure to read the blog post, This Could Change Everything–it’s crucial to understanding a big shift that’s upon us. The link is below the main article and seasonal message.

Marketing Lessons from a Fruit Tree and a Spider Web? Yup.

Last month, we talked about operational reasons why one size DOESN’T fit all. This month, we continue that conversation, but look directly at why it doesn’t work in marketing either—looking to nature for examples.

I’ve been really interested in biomimicry for many years, and have written and spoken about how it can improve our engineering and design. My latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, even has sections about biomimicry visionaries like Janine Benyus, Amory Lovins, and John Todd. It also has a section on John Kremer’s concept of biological marketing, where he talks about a single ear of corn generating thousands of ears.

But it was only just last month, on a beautiful day where I spent half an hour telling a prospect why I was uniquely qualified to write him a marketing plan for a venture that actually is unique (synthesizing ideas from at least three different industries) and then another hour planting garlic, that I really GOT how biomimicry applies to marketing.

Let’s ask some questions of our friends in nature.

Reporter: “Fruit tree, what’s your marketing plan?”

Fruit tree: “You’re going to think this is really funny, because it’s not a human thing—my marketing plan is to be eaten.”

Reporter: “Wow, that sounds crazy. How does that even work?”

Fruit tree: “Birds and animals nibble my fruit, then they move someplace else, poop out my powerful seeds—and my little babies, little clones of me, grow in all sorts of places I can’t reach (in case you haven’t noticed, I’m rooted deep into the ground. Not only is this how I reproduce, it’s the only way I can travel—and I love to travel).”

Reporter: “How about you, Spider—what’s your marketing plan?”

Spider: “Remember that famous book, The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches by Joe Karbo? He was so lazy he took his idea from me. I’ve been doing lazy spider marketing for 250 million years [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_spiders], and Joe-com-lately didn’t show up until 40 years ago. All that talk about passive income, that’s my jam since before there were any humans. OK, I do work hard spinning a fancy web—but hey, the artistry feeds my soul and the craftsmanship feeds my body. Because once it’s done and my web looks gorgeous, all I have to do is lay back, quiet down, and wait for some company to drop by—and get stuck until I can have a nice snack. It’s eco-friendly, too, by the way. Zero carbon footprint—and without me and my sisters and daughters, this world would be overrun with pesky bugs.”

So what are the lessons here? I’ll offer two of them. If you come up with others, I just might mention you and your idea.

1. Just as the fruit tree’s marketing plan wouldn’t work for the spider and vice versa, a marketing plan for a B2B (business-to-business) green engineering firm would be useless to a B2C (business-to-consumer) weatherization company, even though are both are sub-slices of the green building scene. Your marketing plan has to make sense for your products and services, your market niches and their demographics/psychographics, and yes, your mission, values, and impact on the wider world.

2. Both the tree and the spider offered benefits. The tree’s ultimate client is its own progeny, but to achieve that ultimate goal, it offers food to hungry animals in search of sweetness—just as so many industries (social media networks, Internet search tools, and traditional media, to name three) entice users with services—but their real clients are buying eyeballs, or data. And the spider, perhaps aware of her own arrogant reply, points out the bug protection benefit to us, which helps to neutralize a predator (humans kill a lot of spiders).

If you need help thinking through the best ways to apply this in your particular organization, I’ll happily give you a 15-minute phone or Zoom consultation. Request a time at https://calendly.com/meet-shel/15min (Note: Calendly sometimes offers times it shouldn’t, and I sometimes miss the notifications—so after you get instantly “confirmed” from the Calendly robot, you’ll also get a manual confirmation or request to shift from me.)

Blessings of the Season
If you celebrate a special holiday at this season, such as Christmas, Chanukah (I do that one), Kwanzaa, or Solstice, may you enjoy many blessings and joys in your celebration. If you celebrate a holiday at a different time, such as Ramadan or Diwali, may the blessings I’m sending now ripen and blossom at the time they apply. Here in the U.S., we also celebrate the beginning of a new calendar year; many parts of Asia mark that time a month or two later. Jewish culture celebrates several New Years, the earliest of which is Tu B’Shvat, the New Year for the Trees (this year, it’s the evening of February 5th and all day February 6th. And the one you’ve probably heard of, Rosh HaShanah, is always in the fall, usually in September.

Share

This Could Change EVERYTHING

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.

Share

The Capitalist and the Activist

The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change by Tom C.W. Lin (Berrett-Koehler, 2022).

Lin urges coalitions between activists and capitalists. Since I’ve written four books on activist business success (most recently, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World), I’m very familiar (and agree) with that case.

Lin covers some ground that I don’t. I appreciate his analysis of both sides’ strengths. He cites corporate skills in communications, operations, and accountability (p. 104)—and I’d elaborate to specify analytical/data capture/measurement skills (accountability), exponentially larger resources (operations), and global presence. But I see activists as the better communicators; their passion, tenacity, and creative tactics capture public attention, at no cost, that corporations often have to purchase.

And I appreciate his call for both groups to enlist governments—with far larger resources than activists and corporations combined—as partners (pp. 151-152), and how much power those combinations can bring to bear. He starts off with the four—four!—teenage Parkland shooting survivors who not only organized a massive Washington million-person demonstration (plus satellite demonstrations around the world) in just six weeks but also actually got gun safety legislation passed into law in notoriously gun-friendly Florida (pp. 1-4). Later (pp. 109-113), he discusses JP Morgan Chase’s $200 million economic and skills investment—in close collaboration with local government, business, and activist organizations—to rebuild Detroit’s shattered economy. Chase CEO Jamie Dimon freely acknowledges its self-interest. This effort turned it into “the home bank,” with 65 percent market share (p. 112). The company plans to replicate the effort elsewhere.

He documents many other corporations benefitting through social and environmental advocacy and argues that companies should choose their activism targets according to their strengths: logistics for a delivery service like UPS, housing for AirBNB, financial activism for banks… (p. 153). And he notes that social and environmental action can attract more impact investors and more capital (p. 115).

Also, recency creates relevancy. Lin documents many events and trends that hadn’t happened yet when I wrote my books. He covers the revulsion of CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg against the previous administration’s policies of deliberate cruelty, open racism, othering of numerous groups from Muslims (pp. 72-74) to women to people with disabilities to protestors exercising their rights to dissent to immigrants—even to the point of caging children (pp. 76-79). He also chronicles business response to the nationwide elevation of the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis (pp. 86-89), the gender gap and #MeToo movement (pp. 92-96), and the attack on democracy itself that culminated in the violent riot of January 6, 2021 (pp. 79-81).

Refreshingly, he warns against over-reliance on corporate saviors (pp. 117-131). Corporate elites (especially those not yet changed by diversity efforts) may slant their causes toward the most mediagenic or the ones with the largest financial stake (p. 127) rather than the most important, may attempt to deflect attention from bad actions in other areas, may water down legislation, etc. And causes without profit potential still need attention—thus, he sees a major role for government.

He encourages companies to see their purpose-driven mission not as PR but as a key element in the company’s core identity (something I’ve advocated for years). And he applauds the many ways activist corporate execs are making changes from the inside.

But he lacks deeper analysis of business’s ability to benefit by addressing really big problems in a systemic way. Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World has a lot more depth there. In short, the books complement each other, and you’ll benefit by reading both.

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 form, too.

————–

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

Powered by:

The Clean and Green Club, September 2022

14 Sep, 2022 No Comment climate crisis Green Business Burea Green Business Certification Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World persuasion Regeneration

<!doctype html>

View online

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

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

Share

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?

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.

Share

Three Not-So-Obvious Ways to Involve Customers in Sustainability and Social Justice

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.

Share

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.

————–

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

Powered by:

The Clean and Green Club, July 2022

6 Jul, 2022 No Comment Green Business Bureau Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World pill pockets

<!doctype html>

View online

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 2022

Share

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.

A Peace Prize for Pill Pockets? A Lesson in Ultimate Benefits

If you have a cat or dog, you may have experienced medicating your companion with the help of a nifty thing called a Pill Pocket. It’s a little animal treat shaped kind of like a Hershey’s Kiss. The canine model is about the same size, while the feline version is much smaller. You press the pill into the pocket in the middle and then wrap the corners around it so the medicine is completely enveloped in the treat. And the animal is usually happy to gobble it down.

If you’ve ever tried to medicate some dogs or (especially) cats the old-fashioned way, you know it can be an act of war. I speak from experience that holding a cat’s mouth open and then jamming it closed before the pill can be spat out, while massaging the throat to force a swallow and trying not to get ripped to pieces by the furious cat is not fun for you or the cat.

Pill Pockets uses the slogan, “turn pill time into treat time.” It’s a good statement, focusing on shifting an unpleasant experience into a more enjoyable one for all concerned. But what would happen if their marketing went deeper? What would happen if the explored the ultimate benefits?

I learned the concept of ultimate benefits (and many other basic marketing strategies that I’ve used ever since) reading the books of Jeffrey Lant and interviewing him for one of my own early marketing books. I have my issues with Jeffrey (particularly in his approach to marketing online, which I totally disagree with), but I learned more from reading Cash Copy than any other marketing book. The idea is you keep drilling down until you find the reason for the reason. So if you go to the hardware store to purchase a hammer, your ultimate goal wouldn’t be to own a hammer or even to put nails into the wall—because the goal of hammering the nail would be to put up shelves or hang pictures or build something, and the goal of hanging pictures is to live surrounded by beauty—and the goal of living surrounded by beauty might be to have a more serene and creative life, and the goal of that might be to invent something world-changing that in turn would have a purpose like enabling people to climb out of poverty. You just keep drilling down to the core benefits (yes, I know, hammers aren’t good at drilling ?).

So—the obvious benefit of a Pill Pocket is to get your animal properly medicated. But going deeper, we find much more “ultimate” benefits:

Your pet gets the proper dose of medication without hiding or spitting out big pieces of it
YOU don’t get clawed or bitten, leading to both a better mood and more productive time afterward
Your PET avoids a traumatic incident—or, more likely, a series of traumatic incidents until the medicine is used up or no longer needed—and thus is able to trust you more and be more loving with you
If you have kids or housemates, you get to model creativity and nonviolent solutions to problems—which could make a huge impact on an observer who goes on to devote their life to peace, clean energy, or other forms of betterment (in keeping with a core principle of mine that we don’t always know the full impact of our actions at the time)

Here’s the “ultimate” question: What ultimate benefits can you discover in your own products and services, and how can you leverage that to get into new markets?

Share

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.

Ian Peterman interviewed Shel on his Conscious Design podcast. Shel is not a designer, but had a lot to say on how design can be a tool of environmental and social justice.

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.

Share

The Path to a Meaningful Life

The Path to a Meaningful Life by Frank Sonnenberg

If you want a book that builds character—and especially if there’s a person in your life who could use some firm guidance—Sonnenberg may offer just what you need. Directed both at business and personal life, his book probes to the heart of what it means to be a person with strong ethics and solid character: someone who others can count on, and who can look in the mirror and feel good. It’s full of lessons, many in easy-to-digest list format, such as:

30 ways to live the Golden Rule (pp. 7-9)
4 reasons why earning your accolades is better than receiving them without doing the work (p. 28)
25 ways to demonstrate a strong work ethic (pp. 35-37)
13 ways to turn mistakes into learning opportunities (pp. 60-61)
9 reasons why selfish people are losers (pp. 87-88)
15 positive business choices (pp. 116-117)
15 negative choices that could ruin your business (pp. 119-121)
10 times you want to walk away from a sale (pp. 123-125)
11 ways to make yourself proud (pp. 154-155)
13 workplace policies that work better than rigid rules (pp. 162-163)
14 examples of leading by example (pp. 181-183)
25 things not to stress about and 15 negative attitudes to dump (pp. 219-225)
20 things to either fix now or regret not fixing them when it’s too late (237-239)
16 ways to give more effectively (pp. 241-242)

As well as affirmations and principles within the text including:

“Self-discipline is not a punishment; it’s a gift.” (p. 21)
“Winning doesn’t have to be at someone’s expense…focus on how much you can accomplish together.” (p. 63)
“Someone’s good fortune is not your misfortune.” (p. 82)
“What’s the cost to your well-being of harboring anger and resentment?” (p. 92)
“If you think that doing the right thing most of the time makes you reliable, you’re kidding yourself.” (p. 109)
[On people who always need to be right] “You never know if your ideas are sound until they are challenged.” (p. 147)
“Watch your children grow, and they will teach you what you’ve taught them.” (p. 175)
[Quoting actor/author Sean Patrick Flanery] “Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” (p. 187)
“Doing your best isn’t an activity; it’s a mindset.” (p. 197)
“Impossible means that you just didn’t do it yet.” (p. 203)
“A wedding reveals promises made while a funeral recounts promises kept.” (p. 205, emphasis in original)
“Forget your to-do list and create a to-be list.” (p. 215)
“If work isn’t fun, you’re playing on the wrong team.” (p. 225)

The final list, on pages 245-247, is “30 questions only YOU can answer.” While he presents them as binary choices, I found many of them were really “both-and.” For example, #21, “Identify as a member of a group or view yourself as a unique individual?” I’d even say that my uniqueness could be the sum of my descriptors (writer, social justice/environmental activist, business owner, consultant, husband/father, visionary, music lover, voracious reader, photographer, vegetarian foodie, etc.), memberships (Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice, National Writers Union, a grassroots political action network in my town, several Internet forums, and dozens of groups I support financially), and various intangibles and personal experiences.

While I agree with about 95 percent of the content, there are places where Sonnenberg and I disagree. One is his oft-repeated urging to always finish what you start. I once wrote a piece called “Failure is ALWAYS an Option.” For me, knowing when to walk away is a key life skill. It should not be done casually and it should acknowledge the consequences. A lot of people would look at where I’ve put much of my energy for the past 20 years, see big change-the-world ambitions but less-than-stellar results, and tell me I’m a fool to keep going. But showing the business world that social change and planetary healing can be profitable is still the passion that gets me up in the morning, and I’ve had enough results that I see the worth of continuing. But when something just isn’t working—or simply no longer inspires me—I walk away, without guilt. To me, failure is an essential part of evolution—and my business, my life, and my thinking continue to evolve.

My other two quibbles:

The blanket statement that breaking the law is always wrong (p. 159). I almost agree: breaking the law for personal financial gain or to do violence to others is always wrong. But as a nonviolent activist, I’m well aware of the 3000-year-old tradition of resisting unjust laws. The Bible is full of examples of courageous people who broke unjust laws; my favorite is of Shifra and Pu’ah, midwives to the Hebrews enslaved in Egypt. Ordered by Pharaoh to kill the newborn Hebrew males, they responded with the lame (but effective) excuse that the Hebrew women gave birth too fast. In our own recent past, we saw vast nonviolent resistance to unjust laws in such diverse situations as Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied territories around Europe; the US Civil Rights, draft resistance, and peace movements; Tiananmen Square; South Africa’s rebellion against apartheid; Arab Spring, Greta Thunberg’s school strike (among thousands of examples)
His long rant opposing affirmative action could have argued (but didn’t) that while you should hire someone who is qualified, if you have a choice to hire another person from the majority culture or someone from a historically disenfranchised and abused culture, this can be a chance to partially right a grievous wrong.

But these are minor points in a book filled with wisdom. So much so that if I had a time machine, I would bring a copy to the teenage version of a certain disgraced recent US president who was so out of alignment with the principles of this book that he was willing to subvert democracy rather than admit defeat.

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.

————–

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

Powered by:

The Clean and Green Club, May 2022

11 May, 2022 No Comment Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World passive house socially conscious business leaders

<!doctype html>

View online

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

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

Share

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.

GBB will be happy to let you play with that assessment tool. 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.

If HE Can Make the Transition, Anyone Can!

Schematic of a Passive House. Licensed under Creative Commons

I had a half-hour phone call recently with a very interesting man, a former oil and nuclear control systems engineer who had gone green not only in his engineering work but in his personal life, even designing and helping to build his own Passive House on a challenging, steeply sloped parcel here in Massachusetts. Like all Passive House buildings, his home puts more electricity into the grid than it uses. And because much of the land is forested, it stores more carbon than his family releases in all their activities. He has a much lower carbon footprint than I do, and mine—heating our house and hot water with recaptured heat from a methane digester, lighting mostly with super-efficient LEDs and a few CFLs (no energy-hogging, carbon-emitting incandescents), returning nutrients to the soil with our organic garden, reusing, recycling or composting everything practical, etc.—is better than most.

Listening to him, I had an insight: I realized that many people see the use of fossil and nuclear as ends, rather than means. With that mindset, many people in the business world are asking “how do we possibly keep our high standard of living (and our profits) if we don’t burn fossil fuels or process uranium?” But when we recognize that those power sources are means to a larger end, those turn out to be the wrong questions.

I’ve talked for years about money not as an end in itself, but as a means to other ends: the things it can be traded for: goods, services, social impact, environmental mitigation…why not view our fuel sources through that lens?

In other words, let’s look at those polluting technologies as merely one route among many to powering our buildings, vehicles, and machines and building/maintaining our infrastructure projects. Once we do, we open ourselves up to a much better question: “What’s the best way to meet the power needs of our society, with both the most bang for the buck and the most positive impacts on job creation, poverty elimination, achievement of equity, and protecting the environment and our health?”

The strengths of coal, oil, and gas derive from energy density: these compact, energy-dense fuels are easy to store, transport, and use. And through a lens of short-term corporate profit, they have the added advantage of being consumable: people, companies, and organizations have to keep buying them over and over again—just as Gillette made its real profits not on the razors themselves, but on the disposable blades. But these come with enormous social and environmental cost, leading to pollution- and workplace-safety related health crises, growing economic disparity, and of course, global catastrophic climate change.

Nuclear does not share the fossil-fuel advantages of compactness and ease of deployment in small quantities; while atoms are tiny, the facilities needed to harness them are not. Its apparent main advantages are elimination of dependence on foreign petroleum reserves and ability to produce large quantities of stable electricity without adding to the carbon footprint—but these turn out to be chimeras when we look closely at the entire fuel cycle, with its eco-destructive mining, milling, refining, fuel rod assembly, and plant construction; its inability to safely store waste; thermal pollution and radioactive discharges from operating plants; and many other issues—including the all-to-real experience of more than 100 catastrophic (Chernobyl, Fukushima) and near-catastrophic (Three Mile Island, Enrico Fermi, Browns Ferry, at least one earlier Fukushima incident, and many more) accidents (Note that this article lists 99 through 2009—before the 2011 disasters in Japan).

By phrasing the question like that, we see clearly that fossil and nuclear are not good answers—but that there’s quite a bit of work to do before green energy technologies can address those needs of storage, transportation, and compact, energy-dense deployment.

But when we take this holistic deep-dive, we also discover the BEST thing we can do to address our dependence on fossil and nuclear: doing more with what we have! Efficiency and conservation, reimagined holistically, can probably save at least 60 and maybe 90 percent of our energy, just by wasting a whole lot less. As one example, consider the Deep Energy Retrofit that saved the Empire State Building $3.4 MM per year with a three-year payback–and that was when fossil energy prices were much lower. It’s probably at least $5 MM per year right now.

Side Note: He called me because I’d left a voicemail inquiring about his upcoming conference, where I thought I might be a fit as a speaker. That turns out not to be a fit, but we’re talking about at least doing a webinar, and possibly even collaborating on some new directions in consulting that could combine our skills. Which proves another of my truisms: new challenges and opportunities can arise from unexpected places.

Share

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.

Share

Paradise Lot

Paradise Lot: Two Plant Geeks, One-Tenth of an Acre and the Making of an Edible Garden Oasis in the City by Eric Toensmeier (with a few sections written by Jonathan Bates)

This month’s featured reading is not a business book, though it has a small amount of business content. It’s a back-to-the-land book that takes place on a lot most people would think is too small, in a densely populated and economically depressed area of Holyoke, Massachusetts that always reminds me of a smaller version of my native Bronx, NY.

I’m reviewing it here because you and I, as active or would-be green and socially conscious business leaders, have to spend some of our time on highlighting ways to develop and market attractive alternatives to the carbon-intensive, chemical-laden, soul-killing business and living practices that have become the norm. And leading by example, as Toensmeier has done, is a great way to present those alternatives.

In 2004, Toensmeier and his semi-co-author Bates bought a two-family house on a nearly lifeless 1/10-acre lot about a mile from the downtown of the first planned industrial city in the US (and two towns away from our house in a much more rural area), a city where poverty is rampant and the infrastructure has seen hard times. While most permaculture farms have considerably more space and many are located in more temperate areas, Toensmeier and Bates spent 18 years creating a mini-permaculture farm that could survive the harsh winters of the northeast, on a lot where every square inch had to count—starting with rebuilding the badly abused soil, moving on to annual vegetables, and then beginning to build long-term viability with perennials, including many kinds of berry bushes and fruit trees.

Because their goals were not only to achieve a measure of food self-sufficiency but also to create replicable models for small-scale urban permaculture projects in the US northeast (p. 203) and to eventually minimize the work of caring for it, they kept careful notes: what they planted, what they pulled out when they planted something different, how and when it bore, whether they liked eating it, which parts were edible, and more.

One aspect directly relevant to my own work is the way they paid attention to social justice and neighborliness—something that more people are talking about now than when they started, and something that’s particularly important for two white males from the suburbs moving into an urban community of color where many people are under economic stress. They found many ways to involve the community, and particularly the neighborhood children. For example, they would have kids over to talk about what they were doing and experience it hands-on, and gave out berry starters and other plants for their neighbors to have some fresh food of their own (p. 61). Eric eventually took a day job managing a local community farm where the predominantly Puerto Rican or Puerto Rican-heritage farmers in the area had a place to raise their crops.

They called the project (and the book) Paradise Lot. I first found out about it this past October 9 (which happens to be Dina’s and my official wedding anniversary), when we were invited to an event there. Eric gave us a tour that included lots of tastes. I was blown away. I took some pictures that day and posted them at https://www.facebook.com/shel.horowitz/posts/10159709970249919 . Then Dina gave me his book for Chanukah.

Eric is also the author or co-author of several other food self-sufficiency and permaculture books including Edible Forest Gardens, and is a scholar of permaculture’s history in the US and elsewhere. And he has come to respect the positive impact that well-thought-out human intervention can have on the landscape. He was awed to realize that the pre-Columbus Native civilizations in the Americas constituted “the largest example of permaculture the world has ever seen” (p.178). And bringing this movement back into the mainstream has major implications as a hedge against fossil-fuel price chaos (pp. 201-202).

The book is a decade old, and Eric has just purchased a much larger farm. I hope his little urban dreamstead continues to flourish, I’m sure that the new farm will once again be a meticulously documented laboratory of agronomic innovation, and I wish him and his wife Marikler much happiness.

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.

————–

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

Powered by:

The Clean and Green Club, March 2022

11 Mar, 2022 No Comment brand change the world Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World optimists

<!doctype html>

View online

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

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

Share

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.

Share

Optimists Create Movements that Change the World; Cynics Prop Up the Power Structure

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.

Share

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.

————–

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

Powered by:

The Clean and Green Club, February 2022

14 Feb, 2022 No Comment bad tv evolve Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World Influence People movements networking Robert Cialdini success

<!doctype html>

View online

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

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

Share

A Marketing Lesson from Bad TV

Licensed under Creative Commons

So many times, I hear some buzz about a TV show that some of my friends are raving about. But when I watch the first episode, I’m either not moved, or moved to disgust. My friends tell me, “Give it a chance, it gets better.” They tell me that it takes time for the writers, actors, and directors to work the kinks out and figure where the story is going.

Here’s the thing: my time is valuable to me and I don’t find watching TV physically comfortable in the first place (I get headaches, tired neck and upper back, and tired eyes). So, if you want me to keep watching, you’ve got to make it worth my while in the first episode, and keep it worth my while. TV is never going to be a have-to for me. I lived completely without it from age 10 to 12. When my mom finally got a replacement set, I watched constantly for about a month and then went back to watching almost no TV. The exceptions were “All in the Family” and occasionally, “Laugh-in.” I would have liked SNL, but those were the days when you had to watch in real time, and as a morning person, it was too late in the evening for me.

Three things happened that brought me back to TV: first, in December, 2019, my son-in-law gave me a Google Chromecast device, letting me display anything I can see in the Chrome browser on my laptop on the single TV we own, with a bigger, clearer screen and better speakers than any of our computers. Next, the pandemic hit, and all of a sudden, we weren’t going to concerts, plays, or parties—and I finally started using the Chromecast: watching London theatre, archival superstar rock concerts, and European orchestras on the big screen. And third, after living with us for a few weeks in May, 2020 (and turning us on to the first series we watched all the way through), our other child’s partner added us to his Netflix subscription. So now, typically, we turn on the tube once every week or two.

TV has improved enormously since I last watched regularly (when my kids, now 34 and 29, were toddlers). We were enchanted with “The Good Place” and watched all four seasons, despite my skepticism of the big plot flip after the first season. We watched a fascinating four-episode show called “Unorthodox,” about a Chassidic woman who leaves her community in Brooklyn to create a secular life in Berlin. And we made our way through “The Queen’s Gambit,” with its feminist/youth empowerment themes and window into the very odd world of professional chess. Now we’ve just finished the second season of “Orange is the New Black,” with its deeply psychological and sociological approach to the diverse characters within a women’s prison. It took us about a year to get through the first two seasons.

But even though I knew they’d get better, after just one episode, I rejected “West Wing” because even as a politics junkie, I found the situations dated and less-than-intoxicating, and “Schitt’s Creek” because I didn’t want to waste one more minute hanging around with an unpleasant, dysfunctional, narcissistic family of formerly wealthy people in a retelling of “Green Acres.” I rejected several others after one or two episodes.

I recognize that many people are more patient than I am about this, and will invest time into four or five bad episodes to start getting the good ones. Outside of the TV world, I’m actually a very patient person. I’m the one who will scrape the last bit out of a jar or out of the food processor. And that same patience underpins my huge faith in the transformational power of business and in the ability of ordinary people to create a society that works well for everyone—beliefs that require extreme patience!

But despite my impatience with bad TV, I’m actually the kind of viewer that producers and broadcast outlets should woo. I am considered an influencer. I write books, publish newsletters, and give talks. I’ve just told 4,000 of you about four TV shows you might want to watch and two more that I didn’t feel were worth my time.

So maybe TV producers should spend a bit more effort providing an experience that people like me not only will sit through, but enthuse over. Next month, we’ll look at some brands that figured that out and created such a positive user experience that it built their entire brand.

Share

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.

Share

Influence People

Influence People: Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical by Brian Ahearn

Because Ahearn is only one of 20 people in the world who’ve been personally trained and certified by Robert Cialdini, I was attracted to this book. Cialdini is considered one of—and possibly THE—world’s leading experts on influence. I’ve known of his work for many years. But his book has a reputation for being a challenging, slow read, and I’ve never gotten around to it. The promise of a much more easily digested version was persuasive.

Ahearn starts right in on page 3 by turning PEOPLE into an acronym: Powerful, Everyday, Opportunities, Persuade, Lasting, Ethical. In Chapter 2, he introduces seven influence principles: Reciprocity, Liking, Authority, Consensus, Consistency, Scarcity, Unity (pp. 12-25). These two groups of words provide focus points throughout the book. Much later, he introduces a third: PAVE—Public, Active, Voluntary, Effort (pp. 128-130).

Some of my favorite tips and insights:

Likeability is reciprocal; the things you like about someone help them like you as well (first introduced on p. 16 and brought back several times including the very end, on page 144).
Asking rather than ordering someone will often achieve better results (pp. 21-22) and creates a sense of commitment, of buy-in (p. 122).
Shared identities, interests, actions, or experiences lead to feelings of unity, consensus, and likeability (first introduced on pp 24-25).
In pricing negotiations, the person who makes the first offer is in a position of strength, provided that person has a better offer already prepared (p. 28). Interestingly, this is the opposite of the advice in much sales training.
Consistency is about THEM; authority is about YOU (p. 29).
If we lead our persuasion attempts with research, we have much more authority, and better odds (p. 49).
Right and wrong ways to respond to a thank-you, and why (p. 52).
Different synonyms are treated differently: people are more likely to say they’d like to buy an inexpensive rather than a cheap car—and I remember a real-world video survey that asked people if they’d rather have the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. ACA won out by a large margin—but they were two names for the same law (p. 70).
An advance gift, even a nearly worthless one (like address labels in a charity mailing) stimulates reciprocity more than a promise of later, much greater benefit (pp. 75-76).
The cost and value of advice depends a lot on who is giving the advice; expertise builds authority (p. 85)—but so does social proof (p. 90).
Our careers are central to our identity; we don’t believe a back-stabber who tells us it’s just business, nothing personal (p. 99).
There are techniques to “armor plate” your customer’s loyalty to you, based on the seven principles (pp. 100-101).
Living up to our personal branding raises the bar and forces us to be better people (p. 105).
Acknowledging weakness/mistakes and apologizing can be very powerful (he tells a great story of a personal experience of this) (p. 106).
If you want results from social proof, frame things positively. My extrapolation, which Ahearn stops short of, would be to focus on the bravery and foresight of the small minority—make them feel special (p. 110). He also brought in a great interpretation of a study that showed older people more honest than younger cohorts. Instead of dissing the later generations for their lack of honesty, he wryly notes that as people age into more wisdom, they trend toward more honesty (pp. 138-139).
Do the groundwork: what Cialdini calls “pre-suasion” (p. 124).
When creating products, bring in the demographic of your target market; if you’re writing a book for teenagers, have a teen co-author, for example (p. 127).
Reinforce good outcomes by focusing on what the person is doing RIGHT (p. 139)

I have issues with some of Ahearn’s advice and conclusions. He, an insurance salesman, derisively described a pair of canvassers who knocked on his door, got him to sign a petition, and then to his apparent shock, used Cialdini-esque social proof strategies to try for a donation. Perhaps he didn’t realize that canvassers are usually commissioned salespeople who get paid based on what they collect for the organization—and that they were using the very techniques he extolls. Similarly, I was shocked by his suggestion not to make eye contact on the streets. I make eye contact and I SMILE at people, and most of them smile back. It brings light into the darkness and fosters a human connection, however brief. Inferring from context, he’s talking about situations in which eye contact is likely to lead to an unpleasant interaction—but he neglects to clarify that and could be misinterpreted.

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.

————–

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

Powered by:

The Clean and Green Club, December 2021

6 Dec, 2021 No Comment biomimicry Collective Visioning Going Beyond Sustainability Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World holistic

<!doctype html>

View online

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

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: December 2021

Share

Find the Beautiful Symmetry: Are You Properly Closing Your Loops?

Holistic thinking works in circles, not straight lines. In nature, waste products of one species are inputs for another. Animals breathe oxygen in and breathe out carbon dioxide, which plants breathe in and convert back to oxygen. Each needs the other, and the process is circular. We can learn from watching and emulating nature, as Biomimicry guru Janine Benyus consistently points out.

Most of the loops have more than two steps: A bird eats an insect, and is in turn eaten by a coyote, which, when it dies, decomposes and attracts insects. Or water evaporates into a cloud, which releases water in the form of rain, which allows plants to grow, and the water evaporates again. Some loops might have many more steps than that.

In my most recent book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, I cite a number of examples of humans mimicking nature and creating similar looped systems. For example, The Intervale, an industrial park where brewery waste grows mushrooms, the mushroom waste supports tilapia, and the fish waste fertilizes grain for the brewery—and in the process, this integrated agricultural loop anchor an enjoyable downtown biopark.

In other words, a green or socially conscious business can benefit by thinking holistically.

Unfortunately. far too many businesses take a step in the direction of the better world we all want and then leave it hanging. Think about a coffee shop that uses compostable single-use cups, lids, and cutlery—but fails to separate them in the trash and sends them into the landfill. There’s no benefit to the earth in that, just an unnecessary extra cost (last time I priced them, compostable cups ran about 25 cents apiece versus five cents for landfill-designated cups).

What other loops should be closed? Here are a few to get you started (some about going green, some about social justice or employee empowerment):

What happens to your waste? Is it something to dispose of, or something you can reuse or even sell?
Are there energy, materials, or water supplies being squandered in leaks or inefficient processes? If so, how can you fix them?
Do you have convenient collection stations for reusable or recyclable packaging and products? Are the collected materials successfully reused or recycled?
Is your DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) commitment successful? Are you reaching out to the target populations in hiring (including execs and senior management, not just line employees) AND in your user base? Are you letting the target communities know what you’re doing? And are you actively partnering with organizations that serve these communities to spread the word, identify candidates, coordinate services (e.g., sign language interpretation at an event)
Have you set up feedback systems to early-alert any HR problems, evaluate and (when appropriate) implement employee suggestions and potentially reward those suggesting, and monitor their effects? How else is innovation rewarded and soul-killing bureaucracy discouraged?
How are customer and vendor complaints handled?
Do you cross-train employees and otherwise prepare them for advancement?
Do they have a way to notify friends and family of appropriate vacancies?

Share

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.

Share

Collective Visioning

Collective Visioning: How Groups Can Work Together for a Just and Sustainable Future, by Linda StoutWhether you’re in business or activism, you probably have a lot of meetings to go to. And while there are plenty of books on running effective meetings, I’m not aware of many that focus on the meeting as a form of empowerment. Stout brings years of organizing successful cross-racial, cross-cultural, cross-class community organizations and coalitions that built on her experience as a working-class rural white woman working mostly in the Deep South, who never thought, growing up, that she could be a leader.

Yet, she’s led several organizations, including at least one national group. And her engagement of working class people and those of color long predates the current embrace of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in both the business and social change worlds; her book has a 2011 copyright and draws on work she’s done for decades.

For Stout, organizations work best when they create a process to collectively create a vision, not just for a particular organization or campaign but for society as a whole—and then figuring out how to implement that vision. One of her most powerful case studies describes school children in post-Katrina New Orleans who designed a whole new model of education (pp. 22, 27) and got big pieces of it adopted by the school system (though some parts were casualties of other factors like the crashing economy of 2007-09).

In today’s walking-on-eggshells time when many on the left are super-worried about offending people from various historically oppressed groups, Stout offers an example of a white group that hosted an event in a church known to have KKK connections and then wondered why their outreach to communities of color didn’t bring turnout (p. 48). But she says even an event in very white places like Iowa can attract participants of color, if organizers thoroughly understand not just their messaging but how it’s received in targeted communities. [This is true in the business world, too. Chevrolet brought the Nova to Latin America without noticing that the name translates as “doesn’t go”—and then wondered why sales were terrible.] You may have to work at inclusion. If you want young moms to attend, you’ll need childcare and perhaps transportation; if you want people with physical disabilities, meet in a barrier-free space. And if you hire an ASL interpreter, reach out ahead of time to deaf communities and let them know (p. 47). And even a space with a problematic history can be used if the history is acknowledged in the right way (p. 49).

Meetings accomplish more, Stout says, if they reach agreement on process and behavior right from the beginning and to accept that others in the room have good intentions, even if that takes some time (pp. 54-55).

While she loves the group visioning process, Stout recognizes that not all gatherings are ready to plunge in. Particularly if your attendees are feeling hopeless and powerless, some personal visioning (pp. 69-86) might need to happen before the group brainstorms a collective vision.

Once the collective vision is in place, the work is far from done. Pages 107-115 address the challenge of agreeing on strategies for action and implementation. One way is phrase goals positively (pp. 127-129). Another is to have participants look back to the present as “ambassadors from the future” from a time down the road when the goals have been met or exceeded (p. 131). And another is to make a point of celebrating even small victories (p. 135). She mentions several others. One I particularly like is a set of strategies for involving the whole community (not just the organization’s members and activists) to accomplish goals like closing a prison or challenging segregationism in local media and government at the same time (pp. 155-165). It isn’t easy, but she reminds us that repression and censorship are signs the other side thinks you’re winning, that languaging and messaging are really important, and that the culture can be changed.

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.

————–

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

Powered by:

The Clean and Green Club, October 2021

11 Oct, 2021 No Comment attitude copywriting folk singers Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World

<!doctype html>

View online

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

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: October 2021

Share

What Chris Did—And What I Thought of It

Last month, I shared a conversation with Chris Brogan about his salesletter rewrite project, including the changes I suggested to him and his response. I also shared the revised salesletter done by the copywriter he hired to “shiny it up.” And I told you I’d come to you this month with my reaction to the rewrite.

Unfortunately, I hated it. And here’s why:

The previous version of the letter clearly identified an audience: People who want to earn more customers, create fast, effective media, find better productivity tools, receive guidance, be more known, be the authority, get more attention. They may or may not already consider themselves a part of Chris’s tribe, but they respect him enough to visit his website. And some portion of them could consider going deeper with him and might enjoy the option of a continuity program.

But what happens in the rewrite? The headline is just “Owner Media.” Some people may know that’s the name of one of Chris’s businesses. Others might just be confused. What does that even mean? Not only is there no call to action or audience clarification in the headline, it loses any promise of something to help the prospect—even the fairly week “Small Business Owner Tools and Support” of the original.

And the subhead that follows those two words is “WAIT, WHAT? THERE’S A MEMBER COMMUNITY AT OWNER MEDIA?” (emphasis in original)

Let’s keep in mind that for most people, a continuity program in the form of a membership site is not a goal. It’s a tool: a way of getting fresh thinking, new insights, and access to other tools that someone they trust has already vetted. Yet this copy assumes that:

The reader will already want Chris’s membership community and just has to be informed that it exists
The community is a desire, not a means; the reader knows the benefits without being told
“We” language about Chris and his partner Rob will work better than “you” language about the prospect’s wants and needs

I disagree with all three assumptions. Let’s look at the third one: I think language like “we’re not telly-tell lecture-y people who create a curriculum and never want to hear sass from the audience. No, that’s not how we do our best, and we know it’s not how our Insiders do their best” is all about them, not about the benefits, and counterproductive.

Then the letter starts addressing the objection of not enough time. But it hasn’t really addressed why the person reading even needs this. Then there’s a long digression about pricing before getting to the actual pricing. Instead of building confidence in Chris and Rob’s considerable skills—they’re two of the smartest people I know—it makes Chris and Rob sound flaky, disorganized, and narcissistic.

I could go on, but I’ll stop here. I already laid out the strategy I would have used in my first response to Chris’s newsletter.

Share

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.

Northampton, MA, Friday, November 12, 6-8 p.m., Anchor House of Artists, lower Pleasant Street across from the bowling alley. A rare chance to meet me in a non-marketing, non-activist setting. My late stepfather, Michihiro “Yoshi” Yoshida, was an incredible painter. Known as The Mythic Modernist, he combined natural landscapes, real and fictional/famous and ordinary people, and mythic images from around the world in vividly colorful canvases, some quite large. He was killed three years ago at age 88 by a distracted driver as he was on his way to his daily 3-mile jog. His work is stunning and original.

You can get a taste at http://ArtByYoshi.com –but really, you want to see the actual paintings, which are a much deeper experience. Yoshi and another deceased artist friend have a joint exhibit November 10-27 in the main gallery, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 3:00 p.m to 6:00 p.m.,with a reception as part of Northampton Arts Night Out, Friday, November 12, 6-8 p.m. The Real and the Imagined: The Legacy of Two Passionate Painters, Michihiro “Yoshi” Yoshida and Harriet Graicerstein. There will be a live violin/piano klezmer duet at the reception featuring Rafael Natan (my younger child, who has two degrees from New England Conservatory) and Nick Beary. Light refreshments will be served, several other interesting exhibits will be open in other parts of the gallery (which consistently features some of the most exciting art in the area), and there’s even on-site parking. Yoshi’s paintings for the show were selected by my wife and me. The gallery website is https://www.anchorhouseartists.org/

We also expect to do a virtual event, but I don’t have the details at press time. We’ll do it in the second half of November, so I can announce it in the next newsletter.

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.

Share

The Folk Singers and the Bureau

The Folk Singers and the Bureau by Aaron J. Leonard

Most of us are familiar with the general outlines of US anticommunist hysteria from the 1930s into the 1960s, and particularly Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). We know that entertainers were blacklisted, workers lost their jobs, quite a few people were imprisoned, and at least two (Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) were executed.

But Congress was only one slice of a much deeper attack on freedom of belief. The FBI was another big prong. I, for one, didn’t know that the FBI actually drew up lists of people who would be rounded up and detained on command—and those lists included some of our best-loved entertainers, among them Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Bess Lomax Hawes (co-author of the MTA song, a/k/a “Charlie and the MTA”). Interestingly, Leonard argues that longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, though a virulent anticommunist, disliked McCarthy and opposed his methods.

In a year that started with an armed coup attempt inside the US Capitol against the elected US government, it is worth remembering three key points:

All but one of the mass domestic terrorist incidents I can think of were conducted by right-wingers: the January 6th insurrection, of course–but also Oklahoma City, 9/11, Pulse Nightclub, El Paso, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, Charleston, South Carolina’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church… (The exception is the 1954 Puerto Rican Nationalist attack on the Capitol.) Yet the government has historically focused its energies on the little sliver of far-left agitators.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans have clean hands in suppressing dissent or in harnessing state terror just to show power. Though they continued into the Eisenhower administration, the FBI abuses against suspected Communist Party members and sympathizers mostly took place under Democrats FDR and Truman. FDR’s other shames include authorizing the Japanese internment and turning away Jewish refugees, while Truman’s including deploying two atomic bombs against a Japan that was already about to surrender—with the apparent purpose of telling the USSR not to mess with us. And of course, LBJ and Nixon were both in charge during the suppression of leftists in the 1960s. This makes it even more urgent to organize and make sure Biden keeps his progressive campaign promises (as I write this in September, he’s failing badly on several, including immigration justice, climate change, and voting rights).
It is absolutely important to curtain domestic terror. However, there are plenty of ways to do it that don’t involve “othering” and repressing a portion of the population. We are all entitled to our beliefs, no matter how far outside the mainstream. But none of us are entitled to wage violence in the service of our beliefs, and the government needs to keep those elements in check.

Personally, I’d love to see the government embrace alternative strategies to war and violence both in containing terrorism and in furthering democracy around the world. A good first step would be establishing a Cabinet-level Department of Peace, as proposed by former Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

The book is impeccably researched, with a seven-page bibliography and discography, 50 pages of end notes(!), and a 15-page index. However, the writing is less than stellar, and the editor or proofreader should have been fired. Still, I will put up with bad writing to get important information (or a good story). I didn’t plan to review this as I read it, and only realized as I finished the main text and began going through the notes that there was relevant wisdom to my newsletter readers. Thus, no page citations this month.

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.

————–

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

Powered by:

The Clean and Green Club, August 2021

13 Aug, 2021 No Comment Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World hybrid conference Risk Forward virtual events

<!doctype html>

View online

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

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: August 2021

Share

Live Events Are Back…But Zoom Isn’t Going Away

I am quite sure there will be online options at many formerly offline events. As I write this, I’m currently attending my first hybrid conference. It took place in Paris a month earlier with some in-person speakers, and I am watching from Massachusetts, slowly, over a few weeks. And no travel costs, no travel fatigue.

As an attender, advantages include being able to spread out the sessions, watch multiple programs that took place at the same time, and catch them at my convenience. Remote events also provide many advantages to event planners. Direct mail guru Brian Kurtz listed a few:

“Many of the events I’m referring to (pre-pandemic) ranged from 500 to 2,000 attendees live…and when they had to go 100% virtual, attendance increased as much as 50% to 200%. Along with increased stick rates (i.e. how long the audience stayed online).”

Of course, attending a replay has disadvantages too. Since I’m attending after-the-fact and have no access to any chat rooms that may have been going on, the networking value is close to zero. I could, if I wanted to, network with speakers by tracking them down (so far, no one has blown me far enough out of the water at this event, but I’ve reached out to other speakers at other virtual conferences)—but reaching non-presenting attenders isn’t an option. When I’ve attended live over Zoom, I actually have done some good networking and made new friends, got speaking opportunities and even some paying clients. For instance, last year, I dropped in on an inventor pitch meeting in virtual San Diego. There was a 16-year-old inventor/entrepreneur presenting (I guess he’s probably 17 by now) who I reached out to, have nurtured a friendship, done a bit of mentoring, and brought him in as one of the other guests when a radio producer told me to bring two guests to my segment. In a different meeting, someone expressed frustration in the chat about a business situation. I gave her some immediate advice, asked if I could follow up with her, and she gave me her contact information. She’s turned into a repeat client with several small jobs.

There’s also a whole new category of events: ongoing Zoom salons where some of the same people show up every week, and we get to know each other over time—kind of like a Chamber mixer but MUCH more substantive. These have become a favorite activity for me and vastly expand my circle.

Share

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.

Share

Risk Forward: Embrace the Unknown and Unlock Your Hidden Genius

Risk Forward: Embrace the Unknown and Unlock Your Hidden Genius, by Victoria Labalme (Hay House, 2021)

This isn’t the sort of book I typically review. It’s motivational, very brief, with sometimes only a word or two on a page, followed by a page or two with a single phrase up to a couple of hundred words expanding on the opening word or phrase. But I liked this one enough to share.In part, this is because like me, she combines many worlds: in her case, she has a background in multiple performing arts—including studying with Marcel Marceau—as well as business and teaching/coaching.

She’s also obviously very persuasive; she got her publisher, Hay House, to spring for color printing throughout the book (an expensive undertaking, and one that isn’t obvious to the casual reader, because many of the pages have just a dab of color in one of the little critters that say wise things at the edges of the text). And she got me to review it (and subscribe to her newsletter) after hearing her present on a Zoom call some months ago.

Starting by reinventing the contents listing as a “circle of contents,” she makes an adamant case to be yourself, to risk embarrassment or failure, to let your light shine even if it shines on a path no one else is taking—and to allow ideas to sprout even in the places you aren’t comfortable and can’t guess the outcome. That’s where the extraordinary might be hiding: “It is in this very gap between what is and what could be that we find our way; it is here that some of our best ideas are born” (p. 5).

She gives a lot of guidance on nurturing your intuition, including a page each of feelings that demonstrate you are or are not on the right path (pp. 25-26)—and nurturing others, even asking what single piece of advice you would give a mentee if you were dying on a desert island (p. 31).

That kind of twist on the familiar is something she does a lot; she’s a delightful contrarian. So many business and self-help books go on about goals, while Labalme proclaims, “you don’t need a goal to justify a pursuit”—and you don’t need to know where it’s going, how you’ll use it, or even why you’re following this passion (p. 48). Similarly, you don’t need to select a single focus; be like the spreading canopy of an oak or maple, not the narrow needle of a cypress (p. 115). And I love “Don’t just do something! Stand there!” (p. 102). If others are pressuring you to act prematurely, demand more time (pp. 104-106). Risking forward is about courage, not speed (p. 117); it’s an adventure (p. 129).

It also doesn’t have to be a choice. Often, you may discover an “and” instead of an “or” (pp. 72-74)—but you may have to take it apart before you can put it together (p. 75). And you may draw from a completely different vertical.

And even while recognizing the huge benefits of collaboration, ultimately, you may have to build your own road. As her husband Frank Oz put it in a series of visual diagrams (pp. 88-93), if you let creativity be shaped by consensus, your idea may get so skewed that it no longer works.

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.

————–

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

Powered by:

The Clean and Green Club, July 2021

2 Jul, 2021 No Comment Good Business Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World scalability

<!doctype html>

View online

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 2021

Share

“Does It Scale?” Is the WRONG Question

Instead of worrying about whether something scales, ask about whether something is worth it. This advice comes from Seth Godin, https://seths.blog/2021/06/non-machinable-surcharge/ , whose daily column is almost always one of the first things I do each morning, before I start a work shift or have breakfast or jump on my exercise bike. The same column introduced me to the wonderful Italian word sprezzatura (the column has a link to explain it).

I found this particular post extremely validating. I’ve always prided my business on its lack of scalability. I don’t do cookie-cutter “solutions.” I have general principles that guide what the British call “bespoke”—custom work that acknowledges one size almost never REALLY fits all. The consulting clients I work with get answers that are about them, their business, their goals—and how they can develop and implement profitable social change that harnesses their firm’s capabilities and interests—their firm’s unique “secret sauce.” The same with my resume clients. I’ve literally done resumes for people who referred a colleague doing the exact same job, and the resumes were very different—because each client had a unique history and a different set of career goals. I see my out-of-the-box thinking and ability to borrow solutions from a different industry entirely as strengths. In fact, when I’ve tried to scale, I’ve mostly floundered.

Years ago, I decided to ignore the common marketing world advice to “stop trading hours for dollars,” even though I have some physical limitations on how much I can be at the computer. I have a pricing structure that balances affordability with feeling sufficiently compensated, I manage to get significant leisure/outdoor time every day, travel a lot (in normal times), and perhaps I have fewer material desires than many of my marketing colleagues who brag about their fancy houses and cars. I don’t need a Ferrari; I’m perfectly content to share a 2005 Toyota Corolla purchased in 2011 and an inherited 2012 Honda Fit with my wife. I don’t need a 6000-square-foot mansion and realize that now that the kids are grown, the relatively modest antique home we share is bigger than we really need—but I also feel I live in Paradise, nestled between a mountain and a river on a working farm, a 15-minute drive from town. As long as both of us can manage stairs and driving, and there’s no dire political emergency that would make our home unsafe because our country had become unsafe, I see no reason to move. If aging-in-place requires a live-in caregiver at some point, we have the space—and meanwhile, we have plenty of room for overnight guests.

So I consider myself mostly a success. I’ve had impact in the larger world and opened some minds wider (less impact and fewer minds than I’d hope, but enough to feel I’ve made a difference), have a blessing-filled life, and find joy and gratitude every day. And it’s thrilling that Seth Godin, who anyone would consider a success, gives his blessing to this mindset.

Share

Thank your critics! Yes, really (and sincerely)

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.

Share

Good Business: The Talk, Fight, Win Way to Change the World

Good Business: The Talk, Fight, Win Way to Change the World, by Bill Novelli (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021)

Who knew that centrist activism is a thing? Meet Bill Novelli, a Renaissance Soul who did marketing for one of the largest CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) companies in the world, ran a PR agency, led several nonprofits including Tobacco-Free Kids and AARP, served in the Peace Corps, teaches social responsibility at Georgetown University’s business school, and…(too much more to list here). Republicans call him a Democrat while Democrats call him a Republican.

I often joke that my left-wing friends call me a capitalist tool while my right-wing friends call me a communist dupe, so I can relate. But I identify as an unabashed progressive who happens to support ethical capitalism; Novelli identifies as a proud centrist—but one who’s willing to “talk, fight, win” and willing to “stress the system” by engaging in multiple points and strategies at once (p. 39).

Novelli is a great cross-pollinator and coalition builder. He amplifies voices from corporate, nonprofit, religion, government, grassroots, and academia. He finds value in each of these career paths, and in those who synthesize these different silos or jump among them.

He’s also a long-term, big-picture thinker. Early on, he became a convert to ethical business that does social/environmental good—after succumbing to pressure to do the wrong thing and realizing he’d made a huge mistake (pp. 34-35). Since then, he’s worked to transform business culture so no one is forced into those kinds of choices—continuing to use the story skills he learned as a marketer in his later work as lobbyist, nonprofit executive, and educator. He promotes the broad messages that:

Social change is profitable (including measures aimed at the bottom of the economic pyramid)
Competitors need to work together to solve big problems
Nontraditional employees (such as elders or people with disabilities) can thrive and help their organizations thrive
Early interventions can ripple out to make enormous changes (e.g., brain exercises for preschoolers can reduce prison populations decades later—p. 304).

Where I found the most value was the detailed case studies: the specifics of how, what worked, what didn’t, the immediate and long-term outcomes, and their impact: taking on big tobacco, pp. 61-128; fighting to get a Medicare prescription drug benefit, pp. 129-166; protecting Social Security, pp. 167-198. For instance, we discover Tobacco-Free Kids’ single-sentence mission statement, “We work to save lives by advocating for public policies that prevent kids from smoking, help smokers quit, and protect everyone from secondhand smoke”, its four public policy pillars, and even punchier vision statement: “A future free of the death and disease cause by tobacco” (pp. 108-109).

The book is peppered with great quotes like these:

“Society is increasingly looking for companies…to address pressing social and economic issues…Profits are in no way inconsistent with purpose…[they’re] inextricably linked.”—Larry Fink, CEO, Blackrock (p. 9)

“Why can’t we sell brotherhood like soap?” (quoted without attribution by Novelli, p. 39. I tracked it down to G.B. Wiebe, quoted in a footnote to Philanthropy in America by Dwight Burlingame)

“It is never easy for…warriors to transform themselves into peacemakers, to shift from the comfort of combatting a…demonized enemy to…acknowledging an enemy as simultaneously a bargaining partner.” (Mike Pertschuk, former head of the Federal Trade Commission, p. 119)

“Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by attacking back.” (Piet Hein, mathematician, paraphrased by Novelli, p. 269).

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.

————–

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

The Clean and Green Club

Tag Archive for Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World

The Clean and Green Club, December 2022

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

The Clean and Green Club, September 2022

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

The Clean and Green Club, July 2022

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

The Clean and Green Club, May 2022

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

If HE Can Make the Transition, Anyone Can!

The Clean and Green Club, March 2022

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

Brands that Create Fans

The Clean and Green Club, February 2022

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

A Marketing Lesson from Bad TV

The Clean and Green Club, December 2021

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: December 2021

Find the Beautiful Symmetry: Are You Properly Closing Your Loops?

The Clean and Green Club, October 2021

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: October 2021

What Chris Did—And What I Thought of It

The Clean and Green Club, August 2021

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: August 2021

Live Events Are Back…But Zoom Isn’t Going Away

The Clean and Green Club, July 2021

Shel Horowitz’s Clean and Green Marketing Tip: July 2021

“Does It Scale?” Is the WRONG Question

Recent Entries

Powered by

Shel's Sites