Photo: Antoni Shkraba via Pexels
This month, I’m sharing a query from a famous journalist who posted on one of the sites that match journalists with sources. It happened to be on HARO, but I also subscribe to Source of Sources (SOS), Qwoted, and others. They all offer no-cost subscriptions. There are others that charge a fee, and in the past, I used to pay for some.
There are several reasons why I thought it made sense to use this query as my September main article:
1. You might also want to be a guest on NPR’s Fresh Air, and now you know—and can provide—exactly what she’s looking for. (Use the contact page at
https://help.npr.org/contact/s/contact?show=Fresh%20Air&request=Contact-an-NPR-show-or-podcast)
2. It’s rare that any producer gives this much detail about what they want—and provides a window into how to pitch journos who are less specific.
3. It’s been a dream of mine to be a guest on this show since the mid-90s and I’ve written to her former producer several times. So this is a lesson both in persistence and in seizing opportunity.
4. Normally, I spend 10 or 15 minutes responding to journalist queries; this one took me more than an hour. So my response models spending time on something that matters, even when the odds of success might be long. Sometimes, you beat those odds—as I did when I started a movement that saved a threatened mountain. Local environmentalists interviewed in the newspaper article about the big development project all moaned variations on “this is terrible, but there’s nothing we can do.” My attitude was “of course, there’s something we can do!” I think that attitude was part of why we not only won but won amazingly quickly. I was expecting a five-year struggle, but we did it in just 13 months.
Her requests are in bold. I’ll intersperse my comments in italic. And yes, I know this is longer than my usual lead article, but I’ll make it up to you next month; it’s only 250 words.
Subject:
4 books on business as a tool for social/environmental good/doing good as biz success strategy (HARO)
Body:
Hi, Terry, I’ve listened to many of your shows over the years and was in the audience when you spoke at UMass long ago.
Making the personal connection with her work: that I’m a fan.
As a green/social entrepreneurship profitability consultant, speaker, and author of 4 relevant books including Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (endorsed by Seth Godin, Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield…)—I take businesses beyond mere “sustainability” (status quo) to “regenerativity” (improving): I help develop and market profitable products/services that turn hunger/poverty into abundance, racism/otherism into social equity, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance.
This paragraph is a standard part of my response-to-reporters template. It may be near the beginning or at the end.
What your work focuses on and why it matters
I look at the intersection of profitability and social change—and how businesses actively engaged in making the world better can be MORE successful as they build their marketing around those good deeds.
Key findings, ideas, or lessons from your work
1. Doing the right thing the right way can make a business MORE successful: lowering costs and increasing revenues, thus creating a ladder to greater profitability.
2. The greatest innovations are holistic. As an example, constructing a net-zero building so well-designed that it doesn’t need an HVAC system, paying for the energy improvements from the savings of not needing to install a furnace or A/C. (Amory Lovins did this all the way back in 1984, just outside Aspen, where the entire economy is based on cold weather.)
3. Social justice is also closely intertwined with profitability. Example: Grayston Bakery in Yonkers, NY hires the next name on the list, even if that person is a recovering addict or has been incarcerated, etc. They provide the training to help that person succeed. It’s been so successful that now the’ve got an additional profit center training other companies in their HR practices.
4. Our biggest problems, like hunger, poverty, war, racism, and catastrophic climate change, usually turn out to be resource issues—and resource issues are solvable.
I included specific examples in the second and third bullets. And then I make a huge, sweeping claim at the end that, hopefully, makes her want to know how.
Current developments in your field
The US government’s active attacks on green and social good initiatives has forced some
strategic shifts. But it’s also provided a weathervane for consumers and investors to see which companies fold under pressure and which reaffirm their commitments. AND it’s created a much more easily identified market sector of people who want to defend democracy, personal liberty, and doing good in the world.
Relevance to current events.
Challenges or misconceptions surrounding the subject
So many people have been indoctrinated to believe that you can either use your business for good or have financial success—but this is a myth. Thousands of companies prove every day that this is a both-and, not an either-or. Also, companies who think they have to kowtow in the face of government attacks forget to factor in the backlash from consumers who demand the very principles they are abandoning. (Just ask Target or ABC.)
Practical insights or takeaways for the audience
1. Many environmental initiatives cost little to implement and pay for themselves quickly.
2. Many social good and environmental initiatives can have significant nonmonetary benefits, such as increased productivity and loyalty, increased market share, etc.
3. But you have to market it. The household paper products company Marcal went 100%
recycled in 1950—but they didn’t tell anyone. In the early 2000s, they went bankrupt.
They brought in a turnaround CEO who built an entire new marketing strategy around
highlighting that as an asset, and went from bankruptcy to the largest seller of
recycled household paper products in the US—even though they are a regional
(Northeast US) brand and were competing with national brands like Seventh
Generation.
4. Since it costs less to market to carefully targeted audiences, marketing costs can go down as well, even as companies use their marketing to differentiate form non-social/environmental good companies.
5. Go for the low-hanging fruit, with quick ROI, first. Then use the savings to go deeper.
I make sure to make different points than in the key findings. And I focus on the counterintuitive idea that doing good is good for business.
The broader significance of your work
Changing the mindset around the role of business in society. Helping business owners leverage their assets to change the world, not just their customer base. Letting both owners and customers feel more hopeful about solving those huge challenges—using business as a tool for both empowerment (as ecopioneer flooring company Interface, the aforementioned Grayston Bakery, and hundreds, maybe thousands of fair-trade coffee shops do—it’s a $10.6bn market just in the US, expected to surge to $25.55bn by 2034) and education (Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, and again, Marcal).
Six examples and two powerful statistics.
Why the topic is relevant today
Businesses need tools to survive the vicious attacks on using business to do anything ethical, eco-friendly, or socially just. This work empowers business owners to make these changes and justify what they’re doing. It also provides huge hope on tackling these enormous and seemingly unsolvable problems that have plagued the whole of human history.
The promise of a solution to businesses caught between the government and their public.
Where you believe the field or subject is heading
More and more businesses will increasingly find common cause with activists and benefit by
funding causes in line with their values. And more and more activists will start businesses to help accomplish their social change and environmental/climate goals. Businesses that have not embraced a higher purpose will be increasingly left behind.
A subtle push for businesses to move forward on incorporating social change values, combined with the negative consequence (FOMO) of not doing that.
Your name and professional title Shel Horowitz, Transformpreneur at Going Beyond
Sustainability
Your area of expertise Business as social transformation, activism
The subject you would like to discuss Business as social transformation
A brief biography
Founder of GoingBeyondSustainability.com, Shel Horowitz works with companies to find the
sweet spot where profitability meets environmental and social good: helping to create, identify, and market products and services that turn hunger and poverty into abundance, racism and other isms into equity, war into peace, catastrophic climate change into planetary balance, and pandemic disease into global health. His latest award-winning book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
Three potential discussion points
1. Environmental/social good companies can be MORE profitable
2. The backlash can largely be sidestepped
3. Everyone can take steps to better the world
Your availability and time zone US Eastern Time. Other than Monday mornings and
Tuesdays, I have a lot of flexibility with a few days notice.
PS: I’m working on my 11th book, on how to be an effective activist at 60+. Also happy to have a conversation about that side of my work, though I don’t yet have a website or completed book. I’d be happy to send the proposal and writing samples, though.
In case they don’t like the first pitch—or even if they do—I’ve opened the door to another
conversation and potentially, a second appearance.
_________________________________________________
Shel Horowitz – “The Transformpreneur”
Green/Transformative Biz Profitability Expert
Helping you find the value in your values since 1981 – because green/social transformation can be *great* for your bottom line AND for the planet
Award-winning author, 10 books including Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World.
mailto: shel@greenandprofitable.com
Mobile/WhatsApp (preferred): (+1) 413-512-0165 Landline: 413-586-2388, (Hadley, MA,
USA—8 a.m. to 10 p.m. US Eastern Time)
https://goingbeyondsustainability.com
Media Room: https://goingbeyondsustainability.com/media-center/
Covered in Bottom Line * Cleveland Plain Dealer * Home Office Computing * Christian Science Monitor * NY Times * Boston Globe * Fortune Small Business * L.A. Times * Woman’s Day * Wall Street Journal * Entrepreneur * over 300 radio stations and podcasts…
Talking Points: Going green and tackling our biggest problems as success strategies for thriving businesses, turning customers and even competitors into your ambassadors, why marketshare doesn’t matter…
* First business ever to be Green America Gold Certified
* Inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame
Watch (and please share) my TEDx Talk,
“Impossible is a Dare: Business for a Better World”
http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809
(select “videos” and then “event videos”)
_________________________________________________
My very long media-query signature. It includes a ton of info, and amazingly, in hundreds of
pitches, only one journalist ever mentioned that it was too long. So this models how to break the rules when you know what you’re doing.
