Resource Based Economy – Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, by director Peter Joseph, is a feature length documentary work which will present a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical “life ground” attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a “Resource-Based Economy”.

Business and Marketing for a Better World Telesummit

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Shel Horowitz has just launched a new Business For a Better World website and his first offering is a fantastic collecction of teleseminars.

The first Business and Marketing For a Better World Telesummit begins on Tuesday March 11.  16 Green Biz /Marketing Experts draw from both the green world and the marketing world and will be offering stellar content on both sides – and all are exclaiming over the great presentations in the series.

Once you’re registered (no cost), you can listen to each call at no charge on the day it’s listed, with the added bonus of each presenter having at least one no-charge, no-obligation gift for you.

These are not “the usual suspects.” In fact, several haven’t ever shared in a forum like this before. This articulate and passionate group has a lot to share, and you’ll be glad you joined in.

Take a trip over to Shel’s new site and register for this amazing event

This new-fangled ‘Green Thing’ or just the King’s Clothes?

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Checking out at the supermarket, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologised and explained, “We didn’t have this ‘green thing’ back in my earlier days.”

The young cashier responded, “That’s our problem today – your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”

She was right — our generation didn’t have the ‘green thing’ in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, lemonade bottles and beer bottles to the shop. The shop sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilised and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn’t have the “green thing” back in our day.

Grocery shops bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we re- Used for numerous things, most memorable besides household bags for rubbish, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school), was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalise our books on the brown paper bags.

But too bad we didn’t do the “green thing” back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have a lift in every supermarket, shop and office building. We walked to the local shop and didn’t climb into a 300 horsepower machine every time we had to go half a mile.

But she was right. We didn’t have the “green thing” in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s Terry Towel nappies because we didn’t have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 3 kilowatts – wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids had hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the “green thing” back In our day.

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Back then, we had one radio or TV in the house – not a TV in every room and the TV had a small screen the size of a big handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of Scotland In the kitchen. We blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We pushed the mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she’s right; we didn’t have the “green thing” back then.

We drank from a tap or fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn’t have the “green thing” back then.

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Back then, people took the bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their Mums into a 24-hour taxi service in the family’s £50,000 ‘People Carrier’ which cost the same as a whole house did before the “green thing.” We had one electrical outlet in a room, Not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances and we didn’t need a computerised gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pub!

But isn’t it sad that the current generation laments how wasteful we Old Folks were just because we didn’t have the “green thing” back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart arse young person…

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off…especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smart-arse who can’t work out the change without the cash register telling them how much it is!

Here endeth the bloody lesson!

Shel Horowitz’s Clean & Green Newsletter, March 2012

Why Tweet? (March 2012 Tip) If you’ve been reading my newsletter for several years, you know I’ve been marketing through social media all the way back to 1995. These days, a lot of my social media goes into Twitter. People either love Twitter or hate it. My wife can’t stand it; I think it’s great. Why? You can have a big impact while investing almost no time It’s easy to gain very targeted followers — and influential “followees” (people you follow) Very short learning curve Interface stays reasonably constant, and the changes are improvements that make sense (unlike Facebook, where you have to keep relearning how to do it, or frequently discover that the expensive tools and processes you invested in before the latest redesign are now them obsolete) Third-party tools like TweetDeck (now owned by Twitter), MarketMeSuite, and HootSuite add enormous functionality: scanning the most important contacts quickly, searching topics, scheduling ahead, adding users to groups quickly Trends, posts, and connections can easily go viral through the power of retweets and other devices — and as they do, you can easily expand your circles of influence You can build real relationships with people by responding personally to their tweets While there are lots of ways around the 140-character limit, it does force you to sharpen your brain and be concise Oh yeah, and it’s fun! I find Twitter a terrific research tool: I get a lot of my information on new trends in the green, business, and  political worlds by following links. I also find it a great way to get into conversations with people I haven’t met before, some of whom are very well-connected. Often, I’ll start a conversation on Twitter and then move it to 1-to-1 e-mail. Twitter is also a great way to get noticed by speakers: if you tweet highlights of their talks or Twitter chat presentations — and either include a designated hashtag for the event (e.g., #sustainchat) and/or mention them by their Twitter handle (e.g., @ShelHorowitz), you’ll get on their radar. I can tell you that when someone puts @ShelHorowitz in a tweet, I go visit their profile unless it’s obvious spam, and usually follow back. And when someone at a networking event tells me he or she follows me on Twitter, I pay closer attention. And yes, I’ve sold books, started conversations about my consulting, copywriting or speaking, and attended networking events that I learned about on Twitter. This is the first of a three-part series. Next month, what you can tweet, and in May, what Twitter is NOT.

Be in My Next Book with Your Book Marketing Success Story! I’m revising my 2007 book Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, and looking for a few more good recent success stories — the more “out-of-the-box,” the better. I am thinking about chunking up the book into several smaller e-volumes, to take advantage of the Kindle/Nook market — and if this works well, I might repeat the strategy with my consumer book on frugal fun. Anyway, please submit stories of 500 words or less, using this link to generate a subject line I’ll spot: mailto:shel@principledprofit.com?subject=BookMarketingSuccessForGMAP Submission constitutes permission to reprint in the book and in any publicity and warrants that you have the right to submit the material. If I use your material, you’ll get a copy of the mini-e-book that includes it.

Hear & Meet Shel Not one, but three major telesummits on environmental themes in April (Earth Day is that month, after all). Read on for details. 3/19 Triangle Variety Radio has me as a guest Monday, March 19, 8 pm ET/5 pm PT, discussing “Making Green Sexy: Marketing Strategies that Any Business Can Use to Profit in the Rapidly Growing Green Market. http://trianglevarietyradio.com/ and click “Log In To Our Radio Show” or Skype to 949-272-9578; (I’m told only Skype will work — which I find very odd) 3/24, Greenfield, MA Speaking on how artists and businesses can benefit from working together at Creative Economy Summit III: Fostering our Local Economy: Art and Business in Partnership March 23 and 24, 2011, Downtown Greenfield, MA, http://www.creativeeconomysummit.com/ — my session is from 2-3:15 pm Saturday, March 24 4/2 I’m still pinching myself that I am one of the speakers at the amazing Spring of Sustainability telesummit, along with environment rockstars like Jane Goodall (legendary for her work in Africa with chimapnzees), Bill McKibben (climate activist and founder of 350.org), Vandana Shiva (Indian activist who took on Coca-Cola), Van Jones (former White House Green Jobs czar and funder of Color of Change), John Robbins (visionary who puts the Baskin-Robbins fortune to good use), Hazel Henderson (author of Ethical markets and many other key works), Frances Moore Lappé (Diet for a Small Planet and other books, decades of food and democracy activism) John Perkins (Confessions of an Economic Hitman), Thom Hartmann (progressive radio host and author), Aqeela Sherrills (campaigner against gang violence and government violence), Julia Butterfly Hill (she lived in a tree for months to save it from being cut down), Vicki Robin (Your Money or Your Life), Hunter Lovins (energy pioneer and co-author of Natural Capitalism), Joel Makower (founder of GreenBiz.com), John Trudell (American Indian and earth activist)…WOW! Sessions start March 26 and go through June 22. My slot is April 2, 3-3:30 pm ET/noon-12:30 pm PT. http://shelhorowitz.com/go/SpringOfSustanability/ No cost, and all the calls get recorded. If you don’t sign up for this series, I have to question your judgment. Even if you only manage to listen to a few of these world-changing visionaries, why would you want to miss out? 4/16 I’m on the first day’s program for the Green Business Entrepreneurs Success Summit: How You Can Unite Purpose and Profit for a Sustainable Planet, organized by Lorna Li as an “alternative green MBA.” http://www.greenbusinessentrepreneurs.com/ My topic: Making Green Sexy: Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Small Green Businesses, and I’m on at 5 pm ET/2 pm PT. Other presenters include Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director of Green America; Steven Hoffman, co-founder of LOHAS Journal and LOHAS Forum; Jacqui Ottman, author of The New Rules of Green Marketing, Elena Christopoulos, Interim President of the Green Chamber of Commerce (among others). No charge for this series either! 4/21, Amherst, MA Exhibiting at the third annual Amherst Sustainability Fair, on the common, 10-4. http://www.amherstma.gov/index.aspx?NID=683 4/26, Interview with Wendy Meyeroff — to listen, 347-884-8365; to ask questions before the show wendy@piggybankpromotions.com 4/29 Goodall and I are also among the presenters for the Better World Forum, another remarkable telesummit on the last two weekends in April — along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Deepak Chopra and others. Again, I feel very honored to be included. You can bring down the already-low cost ($39 through April 12, or $49 afterward) another $10, to just $29/$39 — if you use my link: http://shelhorowitz.com/go/BetterWorldForum/. I’ll be airing Sunday, April 29, 1-2 pm ET/10-11 am PT 5/1, Houston, TX Speaking at the Gulf Coast Green conference in Houston, May 1: “Making Green Sexy.” http://gulfcoastgreen.org/pages/default.asp Also remember, if you set me up an engagement, you could earn a generous commission.

Friends/Colleagues Who Want to Help ShiftNetwork’s latest telesummit, Spring of Sustainability, is going to be amazing, and I’m so proud to be one of the presenters. See description in the Hear & Meet Shel section. http://shelhorowitz.com/go/SpringOfSustanability/ Vrinda Normand is another one who puts on great telesummits, and hers are focused on marketing for conscious companies. Her latest, Irresistible List Building Summit, runs from March 13 (yeah, you’ve missed a few) through April 6 and includes people like Lisa Sasevich, Denise Wakeman, Kendall Summerhawk, Nancy Juetten, Christian Mickelsen, and Adam Urbanski. The headline: “How to Attract 1,000s of Your Ideal Clients Online So You Can Make the Big Impact You Were Born For” — nice use of Ultimate Benefits copywriting strategy there.  :-). Another event with no cost. http://shelhorowitz.com/go/VrindaListBuilding/ GreenAmerica’s GreenFest comes to NYC for the first time, April 21-22. I spoke at this event in Washington, DC a year and a half ago, and loved it. I intend to be there Sunday, but I’m not on the program. Two Book Launches with Lots of Bonuses 360 Degrees of Influence: Get Everyone to Follow Your Lead on Your Way to the Top by NYT Bestselling author Harrison Monarth In 360 Degrees of Influence, Monarth provides everything you need to gain the trust and respect of those around you — no matter where they’re positioned in the organizational hierarchy — and expand your influence well beyond your immediate environment. Become the most psychologically astute person in the room — so you can be the most influential leader in the room. Learn how to: Assess your current influencing power Overcome resistance to your ideas and proposals Know what people are thinking and feeling — even better than they do Avoid the most common decision-making pitfalls Create an influence strategy tailored to your organization’s hierarchy March 22 is the launch for If I’m So Smart, Why Can’t I Get Rid of This Clutter? Tools to Get it Done! by Sallie Felton Are you conquering your clutter — or is your clutter conquering you? Author and life coach Sallie Felton, walks you through the practical and organizational strategies that make it easy to stay organized; but this book goes deeper and uncovers the hidden reasons why it can be so hard to get clutter free and stay that way.

Another Recommended Book: Writing to Make a Difference: 25 Powerful Techniques to Boost Your Community Impact, by Dalya F. Massachi If you want to communicate clearly, you have to write clearly. If you want to write clearly, you want this book. While her focus is tilted toward grassroots and nonprofit/not-for-profit community organizations, about 98 percent of her advice is equally applicable to business — especially green, socially conscious, ethical businesses that need to communicate a bigger message than “buy my stuff.” Massachi has a light touch that turns a could-have-been-deadly subject into an enjoyable read, and the textbook-like format is full of exercises, nice little interjections, personal experience, and such. Which makes it a lot more palatable than the grammar and style textbooks of my youth. I’d even go so far as to say that this is a book that I’d have liked to have written, and certainly one I wish I’d had when I was starting my career as a social-change and environmental action writer. Still, I wanted to take it a little at a time, so I could absorb it properly. Now that I’ve gotten all the way through, I’m sure I’ll be referring to it when I hit a grammar snag. Not to say the book is perfect. Some of the later chapters get a bit bogged down in grammatical minutiae, and there are a few places where I would argue with her style choices. Example: call me old-fashioned, but to me, the only time you’d use an apostrophe after a set of initials is as a possessive: “NGO’s” can *only* mean “belonging to an NGO” [Non-Governmental Organization]. But to Dalya, a generation younger than me, using that construction as a plural noun is a valid if unfortunate choice. Be sure to read the appendices; otherwise, you’ll miss the excellent brief sections on writing for audio and video, as well as a wonderful list of “visionary” trigger words (right after a list of marketing trigger words) — these are the words that tug at our readers’ heartstrings and help us frame the narrative. And that’s something that far too often, progressives have been clumsy with. A must for the shelf of any serious business or nonprofit writer, and even more so for employees or managers who are not writers but get thrown a writing project (if they don’t want to contact someone like Dalya or me to do it for them). Nicely indexed and crammed with resources, too. http://dfmassachi.net/.

GlobalNet21: Community Building Webinars & Future Programme

We have two webinars coming up that are about regeneration and community building and you are invited to join them.

The first one is on Monday Jan 30th and is called Civil Society Beyond The Radar and you can register at http://www.meetup.com/21stCenturyNetwork/events/41608212/

Civil Society is much more than what we call the voluntary sector or non-government organistions. It is the many thousands of community associations across the country that engage in a variety of different activities. This webinar is about the hundreds of thousands of community associations that make up civil society and often go unnoticed. How important are they, how can their autonomy be maintained and indeed how essential is that. We will also look at the impact of current policy/recession/deficit reduction on small community groups and also how the Big Society agenda could make that “social glue” come unstuck if it is handled in a too prescriptive way.

The Second Webinar is on Wednesday February 8th and is about Rebuilding Lives in the 21st Century.  You can register for that at http://www.meetup.com/21stCenturyNetwork/events/41105042/

The 21st Century is likely to be marked with increasing instability and security challenges across the globe, as the combined impacts of resource shortages, climate change, ethnic and religious polarisation and societal inequalities bite ever deeper. In this Webinar Robert Pye will describe how the organization Ethos is keen to work with interested and concerned members of GlobalNet21 to “rebuild lives.” By developing infrastructure capability building, Ethos is are eager to recruit individuals and organisations with first-hand experience and to uncover some approaches to funding pilot projects and experiments.

Community Building is only one of the themes that we will be covering in the first six months of this year. Other themes that we will be discussing either planned or in discussion are,

• Social Enterprise & Its Effectiveness
• Sustainable Leadership in the 21st Century
• Inequality & Society
• Social Cohesion and Diversity
• Beliefs, Religion & Politics
• Transforming Education
• Creating More From Less – The 21st Century Imperative
• The Green Planet verses Blue Planet Debate
• Going Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility
• Strengthening Civil Society
• Citizen Journalism & The Public Square
• Working with Marginalised Groups

The last two topics will culminate in a Photographic Exhibition that we are staging in May of this year on Photography and Marginalised groups.

So it looks like being an active six months ahead. Looking forward to you joining in.

Best wishes,

Francis

Shel Horowitz’s Clean & Green Newsletter, January 2012

In This Issue…

• This Month’s Tip: Market With Video, Part 2
• Hear & Meet Shel
• Friends Who Want to Help
• Another Recommended Book: Predictable Revenue

Market With Video, Part 2

Last month, we looked at the culture of video making, its enormous popularity, and how easy it is to be part of it. This month, we’ll get specific with some quick pointers to keep in mind when making videos, as well as a list of content ideas (only scraping the edge of what’s possible).

Here are the production tips:

• Keep videos short if you want to be accessible to people without broadband, and if you want pass-alongs. One minute up to three minutes or so is a good goal.
• Good lighting is essential.
• Music helps.
• Cool graphics help.
• Humor helps, if it’s done well.
• Many people run videos in the background. So if your use of words is restricted to silent text images, many of your “viewers” will miss the whole point. Have a person actually say the words out loud, preferably with excitement and emotion in the delivery.
• Be sure to end with a call to action, such as an easy-to-type, easy-to-remember website URL that stays on the screen for at least 15 seconds.
• Add all the linking and sharing social media tools to make it easy for people to pass videos on: Facebook Like button, Google +1 button, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc.
• Share the video on your own blog, in your newsletter, on all your social media profiles, and in those of your Internet discussion groups where it makes sense.
• Get written permission from anyone who is visible in the video or whose material you are using (make this permission very inclusive, so you don’t have to go back again to reuse the footage some other way).
• Style can be as bold or sedate as you want, as long as YOU can feel comfortable with it. Some marketers make wild, zany videos filmed driving in a sports car, others are simply one person talking.

Now, a few of the many thematic possibilities; let your imagination run wild to generate more:

• Do a movie-style trailer for your book, or even for some other kind of product.
• Use videos to demonstrate a product’s features and capabilities (I actually had a local inventor client who did this 92-second video to show off his machine that peels industrial quantities of butternut squash).
• Collect video testimonials or endorsements from clients and from famous people (you may have to do some coaching on what makes a good endorsement, but don’t worry if your ordinary users don’t look or sound like models or movie stars–you actually want them to come across as real and authentic, though at least somewhat articulate).
• Film news events or action videos involving your product.
• Use screenshot capture software like Camtasia, Jing, Camstudio, or EasyScreenCapture to provide instructions and technical support.
• Show clips of your appearances on TV (again, make sure you have the producer’s permission).
• Create an action video for your memoir.
• Interview experts on the topic of your nonfiction book.
• Get interviewed on the subject of your expertise, and post it.
• Get interviewed about your writing process, your inspiration, the backstory of your book, etc.
• Make a call to action regarding the wider world, and tie it to your book.
• Participate as a solo speaker or in a panel at a conference, and post the video.
• Have a professional put together clips from your best speeches or author talks, and turn it into a classy speaking demo video to get more speaking gigs.

Hear and Meet Shel

• Susan Rich interviews me once again Monday, Jan. 30, 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT, this time on book marketing. Listen at w4wn.com
• It’s looking like I might actually be speaking in Bangladesh at a conference in Dakka March 8-10. I should have the details ready in time for next month’s newsletter. Meanwhile, if you can get me a paying gig that I can piggyback on in India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, you could earn a generous commission.
• Also confirmed for the Gulf Coast Green conference in Houston, May 1, and trying to also set up at least one more event while I’m out there. http://gulfcoastgreen.org/pages/default.asp

Friends Who Want to Help You

Gift for You: Publicity Planner

If you work in publicity or marketing, Paul Krupin’s annual Publicity Planner is a must-have–and it’s a gift to you with no strings attached, no registration required. It’s a monthly calendar with events you can peg news stories around, very nicely laid out, too. Get yours at http://www.directcontactpr.com/files/files/PublicityCalendar2012.pdf

Gift for You: Ethical Business Manifesto

The Internet marketing world (and the business world in general) contains far too many people who seem to have forgotten basic ethics somewhere a long the way. I get so tired of people hearing abut my books on business ethics as a success strategy and telling me, “Business ethics? That’s an oxymoron.”

No, it’s not. It’s actually a key to long-term surviving and thriving. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve always been willing to partner with Marcia Yudkin, one of the most ethical people I know, and a very successful marketer. Marcia has a new gift for you: Get yours, again, with no strings attached and no registration required, at “The No-Harm Marketing Manifesto.” http://shelhorowitz.com/go/noharmmarketing/

Book Award to Enter

One of the best ways to market a book is to be able to list yourself as an award-winning author. Dan Poynter, author of The Self-Publishing Manual and numerous other books for authors and publishers, has put together a new Global E-Book Award program. Knowing Dan, it’s likely to be known as a prestigious honor in the fairly near future. Enter by March 12 at http://globalebookawards.com

Books with Bonus Packages

Shocking betrayals at home and work. Confrontations with cancer, and corrupt businessmen. Building a business worth millions. Paul Streitz has experienced it all, triumphed, and documented everything in his new book, Blue Collar Buddha, with powerful life lessons for the reader. Check out this new book along with the big bonus package (a lot of stuff about healthy relationships and healthy families, as well as my own Painless Green e-book) at http://bit.ly/bcb1412

Are you ready to make 2012 your best year ever? Take charge of your business and your life with this easily digested book–a distillation of business wisdom from Napoleon Hill through Dan Kennedy as expressed in one entrepreneur’s life. Maybe you’ve thought about leaving the rat race and being an entrepreneur. Maybe you’ve already made the jump. Discover the power of 1 focused hour a day with Henry Evans, The Hour A Day Entrepreneur. I am very proud and excited to be a part of the launch of this new book because it is only with YOU – the entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur – that we will overcome these current economic times. Join in and make 2012 YOUR best year ever!  http://bit.ly/1hrbook  Bonuses include a bunch of video training, among other things, and the book itself contains links to numerous resources.

Want to shift to a new career? A new relationship? A new path in your life? Want to simply find peace of mind? Make Your SHIFT: The Five Most Powerful Moves You Can Make to Get Where YOU Want to Go is the newest book by Beverly Flaxington, who has spent over two decades working with individuals and groups as a hypnotherapist, career coach, corporate consultant, behavioral expert, and change management leader. Now for the first time, she has focused her phenomenal depth of experience and knowledge to create a groundbreaking book to help you make the SHIFT. Bev’s trademarked SHIFT Model is taught in colleges and used by corporations. Now this book gives you the tools you need to make your shift. Visit http://shiftmodel.com/ for more information and over $1,500.00 in FREE bonus offers! Includes a free offer from the author.

International journalist Judah Freed has launched his new book, GLOBAL SENSE: The 2012 Edition: A spiritual handbook on the nature of society and how to change the world by changing ourselves. Global Sense encourages an evolutionary shift of consciousness into seeing our global interdependence. This awareness of our connectivity empowers us to change the world by changing ourselves. Filled with concrete strategies and tools, this amazingly practical book brings our highest ideals down to earth where we can use them.

Disclosures: 1. I haven’t read this version, but I read and favorably reviewed the original edition several years ago. 2. Also, he cites my book Grassroots Marketing on page 228.

Judah’s not doing a bonus promotion, but if you visit his site, http://globalsense.com, he’ll give you the introduction and first two chapters. He’s a brilliant thinker and I think you’ll like this one.

Buy at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0972890580

Learn more: http://globalsense.com

Another Recommended Book: Predictable Revenue

Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into A Sales Machine With The $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com, by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler (Pebblestorm Press, 2011)

In today’s world, old-fashioned pushy selling doesn’t work any more (there’s some doubt in my mind about whether it ever did). Smart businesspeople realize there has to be a new model for selling, expressed in “heresies” like these:

• Sales works best when you and your customer are not adversaries but are working toward common, shared goals
• Pushy traditional sales approaches like “always be closing” don’t work–instead, once you make sure there’s a fit, the customer moves inexorably toward the sale, with your skilled guidance and knowledge of their situation
• Automation and systemization prevents leads from falling through the cracks; the best leads get immediate service while they’re HOT and ready to move
• Revenue not only becomes predictable–it can multiply by as much as 300%

How?

For starters, salespeople should spend their time selling; let other team members do the prospecting/lead generation and qualification, and post-sale service. For another, the whole process is one of active engagement, solving problems and advancing goals for the customer, and in the process, doing well for the sales team.

Then bring in systemization. If you only pay for leads and contacts that have been properly entered into your sales automation system, if senior execs from the CEO down adopt and publicly use the system, and if you build training and work-role customization into the migration, everyone will be using the sales automation system. This in turn helps you understand when you have a real prospect, and when you just have a tire-kicker…what leads need what kind of follow-up, and at what points in the process…and what to do with the data you’ve extracted as you manage your team.

In addition to giving you the “cold calling 2.0” process (which is actually a way of making sure that your leads are nice and warmed up before a sales person ever gets involved), Predictable Revenue is also full of great checklists and info graphics. Examples include the top 6 prospecting mistakes, questions to ask a prospect before scheduling a demo, 5 types of prospects (and three techniques), and 9 principles to “build a sales machine.”

Predictable Revenue has a ton of wisdom–such as some really great questions to ask a prospect (example: “if you were me, how would you approach this organization?”), and a whole lot on when to step back and let the prospect lead him/herself to the sale, instead of trying to force it. Individual sales and marketing people could learn a lot here, and there’s also a big section on how to manage a sales and prospecting force.

Interestingly, in that section, Ross and Tyler recommend a mix of salary and commission rather than a 100% commission model, and they also recommend that employees (as a group) be involved in designing their own compensation package, with full transparency so everyone knows what all the other members of the lead gen and sales team is making, and why. Add in some powerful cross-fertilization techniques to build skills of your internal teams and even your channel partners, and things are going to start bubbling.

Note: you can get an excerpt at no charge by visiting http://predictablerevenue.com/

Accurate Writing & More, 16 Barstow Lane , Hadley, MA 01035, United States

Shel Horowitz’s Clean & Green Newsletter, December 2011

In This Issue…

• Will YOU be the One to Get a Brand New $1299 Multifunction Printer from Dell?
• This Month’s Tip: Market With Video, Part 1
• Friends Who Want to Help
• Hear & Meet Shel
• Another Recommended Book: The New Relationship Marketing

If you celebrate any holidays in December, I wish you a joyous season.

Will YOU be the One to Get a Brand New $1299 Multifunction Printer from Dell?

A few weeks ago, I received a gift of a very spiffy Dell 3335dn multifunction printer, which not only prints two-sided at high resolution from any computer on our network, but also scans, copies, e-mails, and stores documents in its memory. I have to tell you, even though I’ve gotten along just fine without in-house copying and faxing capabilities, I’m finding that I really enjoy having them.

Because the company is courting the green market for this printer (which not only can print both sides of the paper but also has some cool energy management features), Dell’s promotion team came to me and asked if I’d like to give one of these printers away. Of course, I agreed. But I put a condition on it. Rather than just give one away randomly, I’ll give it to the person who submits the best sustainability tip via my Twitter account during the giveaway days.

So you’ll be rewarded for your thinking processes, and probably not facing an enormous number of entries. In other words, if you give this your best shot, you’ll have a much better chance of winning than in most contests.

And five runners-up get a copy of my very useful e-book, Painless Green: 111 Tips to Help the Environment, Lower Your Carbon Footprint, Cut Your Budget, and Improve Your Quality of Life-With No Negative Impact on Your Lifestyle.

Disclosure: as is obvious from above, I got one of these printers as a gift and have been using it steadily ever since.

By entering, you agree to both my rules and Dell’s rules for the contest. You’ll find both sets of rules posted at http://painlessgreenbook.com/win-a-1299-printer-december-16-19-2011

Good luck!

This Month’s Tip: Market With Video, Part 1

In this two-part series, I’ll first introduce the context of video marketing in todays world–which is quite different from even a few years ago. Next month, I’ll follow up with specific things to keep in mind when shooting a video, and some ideas for what kind of content to create.

There are probably at least 1001 ways to promote a product or a service with video–a medium that penetrates the brain like no other (as we’ve known since the popularization of television began more than 60 years ago). Video used to require considerable technical skill and a whole pile of expensive equipment. But these days, anyone can shoot and produce a video. All you need is a pocket video camera or (for interviews) even just a Skype account with the call recorder add-on; distribution is as simple as uploading to a video sharing site like Youtube, Vimeo, Viddler, Ustream, or their many competitors.

(Note: For some purposes, I still advise professional production; the quality will be way better. Your speaker demo reel, for instance, should absolutely be done by a pro, and so should anything that you expect to go head-to-head with footage shot by big studios. But you can do a lot with homegrown videos.)

Video is enormously popular. This list of more than 300 video sharing sites <http://www.reelseo.com/list-video-sharing-websites/> includes Alexa rank (how much they get visited) and Google Page Rank (a vague indication of how much search engines like them). Astoundingly, 46 sites have an Alexa rank better than 1000. That means out of the roughly 300 million websites in the entire world, 46 of the 1000 most-visited websites exist to share video. And many of these sites allow user submissions of videos.

Alexa’s own Top Sites page gives Youtube the number 3 position in both the world and the United States, trailing only Google (which owns Youtube) and Facebook (data checked 12/12/11).

On Youtube, and presumably other sites, you can set up a branded URL for your own channel, building name recognition. You can also easily embed a video hosted on any of these sites into your own web pages and even e-mails.

And don’t forget that these sites are typically non-exclusive. You can post the same video on multiple sites, which may be especially useful if there’s a niche video site covering your area of expertise.

Friends Who Want to Help

Guerrilla Marketing Intensive–$1000 discount just for you

My co-author, Jay Conrad Levinson, “the Father of Guerilla Marketing,” has a few seats left in his next Guerrilla Marketing Intensive, at his Florida home, January 23rd-25th. 21 hours of training over three days. Normally $4997 (payable in up to four installments)–but Jay’s manager (his daughter Amy) has offered a $1000 discount to my subscribers. Limited to just ten people, so this is pretty in-depth. https://gmarketing.infusionsoft.com/go/Int/shelhoro/ If you want my opinion about whether Jay knows his stuff, read my rave review elsewhere in this issue of Guerrilla Marketing Remix.

To get this special rate, just click this link: mailto:olympiagal@aol.com?subject=Discount?cc=shel@frugalfun.com to tell Amy you want the $1000 off for Shel’s subscribers (Also tell her whether you prefer an online payment link or prefer to call in your payment info).

Increase Your Happiness Quotient

Remember the hit song, “Don’t Worry…Be happy?” But how do you GET happy without worrying? Ana Weber’s book/course, “The Happiness Thermometer,” can give you more than a few clues to increase your happiness quotient without having to worry about it. http://3bl.me/rb3y6n

Coop-themed Poetry Contest for Middle Schoolers

Know a middle-schooler who likes to write? Cheese and milk co-op Cabot is doing a poetry contest for students in grades 5-8, on the cooperative spirit. Winner not only gets a cash prize, but his or her poem on a Cabot butter box. For details: http://potatohill.com/files/2011-PoetryContest.pdf

D’vorah Lansky Wants to Help with Your Book Promotion

Virtual Book Tour Course: http://3bl.me/ewsged

Hear & Meet Shel

December

• Listen to the repay of my December 5 webinar for Ventureneer: Green Marketing: Leveraging Your Social Responsibility to Improve Profit, http://ventureneer.com/webclass/green-marketing-leveraging-your-social-responsibility-improve-profit

January

• 1/4/12: Visit http://bigamericangiveaway.com/–I’m that day’s Massachusetts sponsor, and I’ll have some cool stuff for you: a gratis copy of my e-book Painless Green, and a $25 gift certificate good toward any consultation or copywriting. Same Deal applies to the London page of http:// bigbritishgiveaway.com on January 17.

February

• In negotiation to speak at conferences in Bangladesh and Switzerland. Nothing definite yet.

April

• 4/2/12: I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be doing a program for The Shift Network. For a year now, I’ve been listening to many of their calls, interviewing the creme de la creme of experts in sustainability and global consciousness. I’ll be part of the Green Business track of the ambitious Spring of Sustainability program, which also features such luminaries as Paul Hawken, Bill McKibben, Hunter Lovins, David Korten, Frances Moore Lappe and Duane Elgin. You will want to sign up for this entire series. I plan to listen to as many of the calls as possible. Watch for the registration link (no cost, I believe) in a future issue.

Also remember–if you set me up an engagement, you could earn a generous commission.

Another Recommended Book: The New Relationship Marketing by Mari Smith

About 80 percent of Mari Smith’s new book is about social media–but I’d say the other 20 percent might be worth the closest look.

That’s because Smith is not only a believer in meeting face-to-face, but a brilliant tactician who uses her prodigious online skills to totally win over the people she meets offline (at conferences, for example)–and tells you exactly how to do the same.

Using a powerful yet very accessible set of online research tools to steer her face-to-face encounters, Smith creates quite a bit of “wow factor” by integrating online comments about her presentation directly into the speech, in real time–and to not just show up very prepared to network with other speakers and attenders, but to have impressed them so much ahead of (as well as during) the event that they actually seek you out.

Smith outlines how she does this, step by step, in Chapter 7 of her new book, The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Large, Loyal, Profitable Network Using the Social Web (John Wiley and Sons, 2011). She titles the chapter, Go Offline to Optimize Your Online Marketing–but I’d actually flip that around. Really, it’s about going *online* to maximize your *offline* marketing.

While that chapter alone would be worth buying the book, it’s typical of the other good stuff, all based on the idea of using “radical strategic visibility” to build real relationships in business. She encourages businesses to think beyond B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) to “P2P”–people-to-people. For instance, she talks about how to get your A-list–the people you want to impress–to see you as a valued colleague…what parts of your social media presence you should and should not delegate, and why…how to recovery gracefully and with minimal damage from a social-media faux pas…how businesses with purely local clientele (such as restaurants) can market effectively on social media…identifying and cultivating “superfans” who will advance your brand perhaps better than you can do on your own.

And it all comes from an attitude of service, perhaps best summed up by this quote from pages 193-194: “Always be thinking about how you can tap into the intelligent network of people that will allow you to bring greater value to each and every individual and your community at large. Provide a better product and better service, and consistently build your social equity to establish your brand as the natural “go-to” for your field. You can become a top industry leader by utilizing the inclusion of your marketplace. If you’re really treating people as equals–whether it’s 10 or 10 million–then you are relating to each one with the greatest of respect by including and involving them.”

The book is also crammed with resources, both in the main text and in the appendix, and features a wonderfully comprehensive index (something I desperately wish more business books paid attention to).

Some of the links in this newsletter earn me a commission. I only promote products that I think will be useful to you.

About Shel and this Newsletter

As a marketing consultant and copywriter … award-winning author of eight books… international speaker, blogger, syndicated columnist — Shel Horowitz shows how green and ethical businesses can actually be *more* profitable than your less-green competitors. His most recent book is category bestseller Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet. Shel also helps authors/publishers, small businesses, and organizations to market effectively, and turns unpublished writers into well-published authors. He was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame in 2011.

Shel began publishing his monthly newsletter all the way back in 1997, making it one of the oldest marketing e-zines (it’s changed names a few times along the way). Shel brings you a mix of actionable marketing tips, profiles of successful green and ethical businesses, and reviews of worthwhile books.

London UK – House Meeting – Causes of Poverty

If you’re in the London area, try getting along to this 21st Century Network house meeting on Wednesday 7th December.

Robin Smith is offering a House Meeting for those interested in discussing the causes of poverty, recession and destruction right next to enormous power to produce wealth. This sounds like a big and deep topic. We will try to look at the simple first before proceeding with anything more complex.

Read more and sign up here

It’s Christmas – The Best Time To Think about Ethical Fashion

Pamela Ravasio will present a webinar that looks at clothing manufacturing and pollution and the importance of thinking and buying ethically.

The webinar will take place on Monday, December 12, 2011, 7:30 PM (GMT)

Sign up for the Webinar at 21st Century Network’s Meetup page here

Pamela is a freelance business consultant for ethical fashion SMEs, a market researcher and a journalist. Pamela is further the founder and managing editor of Shirahime (http://shirahime.com), a blog 
that focused on the topic of sustainability in fashion, and which in 2011 won the prestigious ‘Observer Ethical Award’ in the 
category ‘ethical blog’. Pamela has previously given a webinar and organised a meetup on ethical fashion.

A new investigative report from Greenpeace, entitled ‘Dirty Laundry’, profiles the problem of toxic water pollution resulting from the release of hazardous chemicals by the textile industry in China. The investigations focuses on two facilities that were found to be discharging a range of hazardous and persistent chemicals with hormone-disrupting properties. These results are indicative of a much wider problem that is posing serious and immediate threats to both our precious ecosystems and to human health.

In the follow up research commissioned by Greenpeace International (‘Dirty Laundry 2’) it is revealed that clothing and certain fabric-based shoes sold internationally by major clothing brands are manufactured using nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs). NPEs — which are used as surfactants in textile production. They break down to form toxic substance called nonylphenol (NP) which is a persistent chemical with hormone-disrupting properties that builds up in the food chain, and is hazardous even at very low levels.

While Greenpeace did only analyse dye houses and brands that are – in the global context – ahead of their peers, the more worrying fact is: the vast majority of clothing brands have no means of telling if and what toxic substances are used in the manufacturing of their collections. And maybe worse: for a vast range of chemicals used in textile manufacturing, the long-term impacts on human and animal health and the environment are unclear, or even unknown, till this very day.

Greenpeace is challenging industry leading brands brands and suppliers to become champions for a toxic-free future – by eliminating all releases of hazardous chemicals from their supply chains and their products. And also governments have a crucial role to play by putting suitable frameworks into place and enforcing adherence and retrospective accountability.

The webinar will take place on Monday, December 12, 2011, 7:30 PM (GMT)

Sign up for the Webinar at 21st Century Network’s Meetup page here

$25K for the Greenest Family in NYC Tri-State Area–special from Shel Horowitz

For those of you reading this in the NYC Tri-State Area, PrincipleProfit author and ethical marketing guru, Shel Horowitz, pushed this my way so I’m pushing it your way!

I am always thinking of you, my readers–so when I saw this in this morning’s Help a Reporter, I stopped what I am doing to tell you about it. I know nothing about this other than what is below, but it certainly seemed worth passing on. If I lived in the Tri-State area and had kids the right age, I’d enter myself.

HARO is a no-charge service that sends reporter queries three times a weekday.
You can subscribe at www.helpareporter.com.

I suggest you respond with two or three bullets and a sentence or two about your qualifications – let them follow up later)–the faster the better.

Please respond to the reporter *using the address in the body of the request* (I wouldn’t mind being copied but if you only send to me, I won’t forward it) with HARO as the first word of the subject line.

Remember–I didn’t write this and can’t answer any questions about it. All I know is what’s below.

18) Summary: CASTING: How green is YOUR family?

Category: Entertainment and Media
Media Outlet: Anonymous
Deadline: 7:00 PM EST – 8 December
Query:

How green is YOUR family? A NYC based media company is casting three families in the tri-state area to enter an eco-friendly challenge! We are looking for outgoing families who are comfortable on camera. Shoot dates will be mid-to-late January for two days in your home.

Here’s the deal! Each family will name one of their children (age 6-10) as team lead, and under the guidance of a green expert, each family will be asked to create solutions to (1) save water, (2) save energy, and (3) reduce waste at home, in their neighborhoods and in their schools. Each family will be compensated; however points will be awarded for each activity and the winning family will appear on Better TV and receive a $25,000 savings bond for their child’s college education.

Does your family have what it takes to win this challenge? Write a brief description explaining why, grab your favorite family photo, and submit to greenfamilycasting@gmail.com

Accurate Writing & More, 16 Barstow Lane , Hadley, MA 01035, United States

Adam Curtis and “Who cleans the toilets on the Enterprise?”

No longer having a TV means that I sometimes come across quality programmes well after they have been screened and only after they can be accessed by some of the video sharing sites.

I have been a big fan of Adam Curtis ever since seeing Century of the Self, my first Adam Curtis documentary and the one I came across recently,  All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (aired earlier in 2011) did not disappoint. His views on modern society speak volumes to me and his latest BBC documentary did likewise.

The three part series can be found on vimeo at the following links:
1. http://vimeo.com/29865018
2. http://vimeo.com/29875053
3. http://vimeo.com/30107451

This article from the Guardian discusses the series with Curtis
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/may/06/adam-curtis-computers-documentary
and this quote from the end of the article crystalises everything for me
“… the modern world is all about me, me, me … have we really given up on the hope of changing the world in our lifetimes? Or is that in itself an idea worth fighting for?”

There is an interesting blog entry by Adam Curtis covering Occupy Wall Street, 60s BritArt, Marcuse, Michael X on his blog at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/10/dream_on.html

My favourite extract from a comment towards the bottom of the page…
“There’s a question that is asked by trekkies over the long years that the Star Trek franchise has been active: Who cleans the toilets on the Enterprise? Marcuse and other philosophers never really ask this question. But the philosophers, pundits and professors know one thing for sure. It’s not them.”

This prompted an interesting exchange with a good friend about philosophy which went along the following lines.

Me: I took the Trekkie quote simply as a question of whether those who philosophise on states of mind, society etc take into account such practicalities of cleaning the bogs. If Nietzsche’s definition of work/slavery is not having two-thirds of the day to yourself, that’s a bit of a cop-out as that is relatively easy to achieve.

Equally interesting is his reference to “the Greek philosophers who went through life feeling secretly that…everybody who was not a philosopher was a slave.” He cops out again by not really defining philosophy cos I’m sure that those who clean the bogs definitely have some views on society, mind and life! Of course, Nietzsche may also have enjoyed cleaning the bogs whilst philosophising.

He also refers to “active men” – so if a banker considers that he has his 16 hour working day to himself as BLISSful enJOYment, he is not a slave? He is still however a C.U.Next.Tuesday in my eyes but in Nietzsche’s….?

I was just googling some stuff as I go along so I probably missed a lot of Nietzsche’s meat but it is probably all in the mind about “getting busy living or getting busy dying”.

Friend: Speaking of cop-outs, I’m bound to misrepresent the ideas of Nietzsche (or any philosopher). What I can say with confidence is what it is that I take from them. The first thing is that I don’t need Nietzsche to define the condition of slavery. What he distinguishes so powerfully for me is the differing moralities of master and slave. I should have made it clear that my bliss and joy are about perfect happiness at home, not at all like the example of the banker. Nietzsche’s ideas seem to have a lot in common with Kierkegaard’s and Ayn Rand’s; I love the former’s Fear and Trembling and the latter’s The Fountainhead. All three are obnoxious crypto-fascist totalitarians (especially Ayn Rand), but their ideas speak to me and inspire me to take great strides where I would otherwise faff and dither.