Category: Business-general

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, General Commentary, Innovation, People Helping People, Politics, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Yesterday, I posted something on Facebook about reaching a real, and sympathetic, human being on the White House Comment Line. Since the US election last November, I’ve called my elected officials a lot more than in the past. Someone wrote back, saying I was “like the Energizer Bunny” with my consistent activism.

My reply revealed the secret:

Actually, [his name], it’s less Energizer Bunny and more a matter of what I call “the fulcrum principle”: doing not all that much but doing in ways that leverage and multiply the impact…I use my time strategically so the 10 to 15 hours or so I spend on activism per week has a big ripple. Of course I never know when a meeting or demonstration is going to be worthwhile and when it will be a waste of time. I have guessed wrong on a few meetings lately—but then I go to one that’s so energizing and activating and inspiring that it actually recharges me. I went to one like that Saturday and hope the ones I plan to attend Wednesday and Thursday (and the socially responsible business conference next week where I’m MCing two sessions) will be just as awesome.

A fulcrum is the bump underneath a lever that allows that lever to magnify its force—to quite literally create leverage. This concept inspired Archimedes to say, more than 2200 years ago, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

Three men on river structures with ladders and levers. Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/06e13eb0-8a8e-0131-0778-58d385a7bbd0
Three men on river structures with ladders and levers ” New York Public Library Digital Collection.

I’ve played with this metaphor for a long time. I was able to find rejection letters I received for my original The Fulcrum Principle: Practical Tools for Social Change, Community Building, and Restructuring Society book proposal as far back as 1992—and a printout of the proposal itself, though not the electronic file.

Looking at this proposal 25 years later, it would have been a big, ambitious, world-changing book. And other than

  1. Adding in recent developments such as the Arab Spring, Climate Change activism, Black Lives Matter, and of course the massive resistance to the new US president, and
  2. Technology shifts including the Internet and social media, smartphones, 3D printing, and the amazing breakthroughs in green design,

The proposal is still remarkably relevant. Let me share a few highlights:

  • The Fulcrum Principle lets us “achieve the greatest result with the least amount of effort,” including finding others to do some of the work
  • Change happens as fast as possible, but as slow as necessary
  • Why we need both “shock troops” and “put-it-back-togethers”
  • We build momentum for change by presenting the possibility (and manageability) of positive change, finding points of agreement with our opponents—and then expanding those points, changing enemies into allies
  • This momentum can change the world—and it has, many times
  • It’s accomplished more easily when you remember to have fun
  • Grassroots organizers can learn a lot from business (and with 25 years of hindsight, I’d add that business can learn a lot from grassroots organizers); similarly, Left and Right activists have lessons to share with each other
  • Economic and environmental goals can work in tandem (did I really understand that all the way back in 1992? I’ve gone on to write five books that explore this idea)
  • Organizers have quietly developed lots of tools we can harness to make this journey easier: new approaches to everything from how to facilitate productive meetings to how to get the most information in the least time by dividing up a book among different readers who report their insights

The proposal also touched on a raft of social issues, among them:

  • Nonviolent alternatives to the military
  • The role of multinational corporations
  • True democracy going far beyond elections
  • Does it even make sense for change organizations to chase after funding?
  • New ways of looking at drugs and crime, housing, healthcare, transportation, parenting, world distribution of resources, and even sexuality

Interestingly, without revisiting this proposal, I essentially put it into practice when I founded the movement that saved our local mountain in 1999-2000. And I think that’s a lot of why we won in 13 months flat. The “experts” thought we couldn’t win at all. I felt sure that we would succeed, but even I thought it would take five years. I didn’t realize at the time that I had already created the roadmap years earlier.

Perhaps I should dust off this proposal, update, and resubmit.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business-general, Entrepreneurship, Events, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Networking, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , ,

Does your work fulfill you? (And I mean, really fulfill you?)

Do you go to bed smiling each day because you know you’ve made the impact you were put on this planet to make…and wake up excited and ready to do it again?

If you just answered, “No,” you’re not alone. In fact, a staggering 90% of the global working population is unsatisfied with the work they do, according to a Gallup study.

What if I told you that you CAN identify – and monetise [yes, we’re using Aussie spellings today, because our summit host is Australian] – your passion…so you live a life you love, making the impact you were born to make?

You can!

My friend Rita Joyan has been exactly where you are, if you resonate with the above. She’s cracked the code on monetising your passion (by doing it for herself!). Now, she’s bringing together top experts from around the world (including me) to share our best secrets and tips for doing exactly that, in a brand new virtual event: Monetise Your Passion, beginning 13th February, 2017.

Skip the reading and sign up to join us, here:

Monetise – Your Passion <<< Sign Up Here – NO CHARGE >>>

Shel Horowitz and other speakers at Rita Joyan's Monetise Your Passion Summit
Speakers at Rita Joyan’s Monetise Your Passion Summit

When you go to the link above and sign up to join us for this powerful, complimentary interview series, you’ll hear personal, real-life stories of total transformation from experts who have all found and monetised their passion.

We’re living each and every day around our passion – which means we’re also living highly-fulfilled, complete and joyful lives!

Now, we want to help you do the same.

Join us, and:

  • Discover your passion, and how to get past the blocks that may keep you from monetising it.
  • Learn the #1 mistake most people make that keeps them stuck — struggling to make money with their passion — while others (in the same business) make consistent money doing what they love.
  • Find out how to crack the code when it comes to monetising your passion, so you can spend more time with your family, be your own boss, and make an impact.
  • Get proven methods to stop being ‘busy,’ and start being productive, so you can make big strides toward earning a living with your passion.
  • And more!

Plus, you’ll receive amazing gifts and resources designed to assist you on this incredible journey toward making money with your passion!

Click the link below and take the first step, by reserving your spot – GRATIS – for Monetise Your Passion here, now:

Live Your Most Fulfilled, Happiest Life <<< Reserve Your Spot >>>

I want you to know, I believe in this message (I’m a living example of it) and Rita’s library of training, and I highly recommend this interview series. Rita practises what she teaches (including escaping a miserable 9–5 in order to create a life and business that allows her to give back and make money at the same time), and it’s now her mission to support other existing and aspiring entrepreneurs in doing the same.

I can’t wait for you to join us 😉

Warmly,

P.S. Sign up now and start creating a new, happier, more fulfilled life for yourself! You can’t imagine how EVERYTHING changes, when you live and monetise your passion.  Plus, this virtual event (which has the potential to change your life!) is completely FREE! Why wait another moment? Reserve your spot by clicking the link in the next line:

Your Passion Is Waiting – Claim It! <<< Join Us Here 13th February 2017>>>

[reprinted from my newsletter with permission from guest author Rita Joyan]

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By Posted on Posted in Business-general, Entrepreneurship Tagged with , ,

This is an excerpt from Chris Brogan‘s email newsletter this morning—used with his permission. I’ve been reading Chris’s stuff for at least a decade; it’s one of the few newsletters I make a point of reading regularly. You can subscribe at the link in his name.

Chris Brogan, author and thought leader
Chris Brogan, author and thought leader

He managed to boil down the whole planning process into just three questions. I think that’s awesome, and am pleased to share it with you. The three bullets are Chris’s writing (and then I pick up again afterward):

  • What’s the story? – What are the elements I need to be thinking about in this moment, including the big and small picture, the players, the interactions at hand.
  • How do I play? – What are the rules and mechanics that guide me? This is important because this is where you subtract all the “extra” stuff. How you play often has simple rules in any situation.
  • How do I win? – This is strategy and approach. What will fit your time available? Where are you strongest? What’s the fastest thing you can do to accomplish the goal?

Is business success really that simple? Well, let’s just say you could spend quite a bit of time answering those three questions and then analyzing your answers. I’d see it’s at least a might good jumpstart.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Business-general, General Commentary, Innovation, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , ,

Someone asked a very odd question in a discussion group:

How a startup is viewed (by an investor) when its majority spending is on marketing/advertising?

Laney Rosenzweig StoryboardIn my answer, I chose to ignore the investor question (although I hint at it in my last sentence) and discuss it instead from an overall business point of view. Let me share that answer:

Having written several books on how to market effectively with little or no money, I definitely agree. While we don’t all have to be as extreme as Google, which built one of the most profitable companies in the world without spending anything on advertising, I think all of us should be focused heavily on more creative, more interactive marketing—including content, interactive involvement tools on your website, social media actual participation (not just advertising), live appearances, etc.—only using advertising and other paid strategies sparingly if at all. This is something I can help with, BTW. For a very affordable cost, I can create an entire marketing plan for you, rooted in these kinds of strategies as they make sense for your particular business/skill set/interests.

If someone is spending more on marketing than on operations, I’d worry about their long-term viability.
But I found the question quite odd. It’s hard to even wrap my brain around the idea of spending more on marketing than on innovation, product development, manufacturing, distribution, etc., combined. Yes, of course, we’re all in business to sell something, and marketing helps us do that. But we also have to have something worth selling.
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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Branding, Business Ethics, Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Diversity, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environmenl, Green Business, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, poverty, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , ,

On a discussion list, a startup entrepreneur asked,

I have noticed that many successful startups are advertising that they donate x% of their profit to someone in need or they help someone have a better life,etc. What do you think is the importance of such messages to gain initial traction and how does it help grow the company?

By the time I saw the post, several other people had jumped in to tell him that social entrepreneurship isn’t just a marketing trick. It must be genuine.

Globe showing various crises around the world
How some people view the world—Opportunity for businesses that genuinely care

I agree, but there’s more. Here’s what I wrote:

Yes, social giving has to be genuine–motivated not by marketing but by sincerely helping the world–but if you’re doing that, you gain huge marketing advantage if you handle it right.

Keep in mind: charitable give-backs are NOT the only model. I’m rather a fan of creating products, services, and business cultures that directly *and profitably* turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. In fact, in my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World–which is focused on this aspect–charity givebacks account for part of one chapter out of 22 chapters. In my speaking and consulting, I help companies actually develop these kinds of approaches. You can get a very quick early-stage introduction by spending 15 minutes with my TEDx talk, “Impossible is a Dare” https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809 (click on “event videos”)–but recognize that this was 2 years ago and the work has evolved a lot since then.
All other things (such as price, quality, convenience) being comparable, consumers “vote with their feet” to support ethical, green, socially conscious companies. So you, as a startup, have the chance to look at the skills, interests, and wider goals within your company…create products and services that match these skills, interests, and goals with wider goals like the Big Four I mentioned at the beginning…and market them effectively to both green and nongreen markets (which has to be done differently, as I discuss in the book). But please, do it with good intentions! (I can help, BTW.)
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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Green Business, Green Marketing, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , ,

Someone asked me today what advice I’d give to someone just starting out. If someone had given me these four bits of advice in 1981 when I was just starting out, I’d have been on the success track a lot faster.

  • Be green and ethical—and willing to proclaim this to the world
  • Delegate early, especially those things you’re not good at–but keep checks and balances in place
  • Don’t reinvent the wheel. An off-the-shelf solution may be better and cheaper than reverse-engineering something
  • Recognize the REAL opportunities that provide first-mover advantage–and walk away from those that aren’t there yet
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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Business-general, Energy & Sustainability, Ethics: General, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

False Promises

Vermont’s first-in-the-nation GMO labeling law went into effect this week. I consider that a very good thing, far superior to the kludged-together industry-giveaway federal version currently under discussion in Congress.

But it got me thinking about the promise the food industry made when GMOs were first surfacing about twenty years ago: genetic engineering would enable agriculture to reduce or eliminate pesticides and herbicides.

The unfortunate reality: most common GMO crops are specifically engineered to tolerate larger and more pervasive doses of agricultural chemicals. In particular, these crops are created to tolerate massive levels of Monsanto’s Roundup (glyphosphate) weedkiller, which would have killed the pre-GMO versions.

There probably are good uses for very careful deployment of thoroughly tested GMO experiments. Janine Benyus, in her wonderful book Biomimicry, discusses some of the possibilities. But so far, we’ve been sold a false bill of goods.

This is the latest lie in the chemicalization and commoditization of the world by some of the most powerful corporations in the world. And it’s been going on a long time.

 

Commercial farm. Photo by Jose Conejo Saenz.
Commercial farm. Photo by Jose Conejo Saenz.

I’m too young to remember Edward Bernays’ 1929 mock-feminist “Torches of Freedom” campaign to get tens of thousands of women smoking, or the claim in the 1950s that nuclear power—one of the nastiest technologies ever foisted on us—would generate electricity that was “too cheap to meter.”

But I do remember the promise that paying up front every month for cable TV would allow ad-free broadcasting. Ha!

In perhaps a different category is the claims of the “Green Revolution” advocates of the 1940, 50s and 60s that chemiculture was the only way to solve world hunger. This is different because…they probably believed their own message. It wasn’t a lie; it was the truth as they knew it then. Now we know that long-term chemiculture kills the soil, and thus reduces fertility overall. We also know a lot more about how to grow better quality, higher quantity organic foods.

Unnecessary Obsolescence

There’s a related but different type of false promise: the idea that a certain technology will make your life better, and will be there when you need it. Too often, however, the products are wrapped up in pressure to upgrade, and then upgrade again.

Now, I don’t object to upgrading a product so it only runs on new hardware, as long as the old computer will continue to run the new version. As an example, the 2011 version of Microsoft Office has a much better version of PowerPoint than the 2004 version I run on my nine-year-old desktop Mac. That’s OK; I’m willing to do all my slide creation on my newer laptop.

But I do object—I consider it immoral—that Skype, Dropbox, and GoToMeeting (to name three) have yanked away the ability of perfectly good older machines to even run their product. GoToMeeting, which long ago stopped running on OS 10.5 and older Macs, now requires either the Yosemite or El Capitan operating systems. There are very good reasons not to upgrade an older, slower Mac to these versions; I only did it a few weeks ago after upgrading my hardware with an 1000 gigabyte drive and extra RAM. Luckily, the upgrade was completed before I was leading a webinar over that platform. But I was pretty shocked when I needed to test a microphone with that platform and determine if the problem was in my computer or in the new mic. I tried to run a GoToMeeting test with my wife’s OS 10.8 laptop. No go.

If we don’t have all the features, so what! We didn’t have them when we bought our machines, but we had a working program. If they won’t provide technical support, oh, well. By this time, we should have figured out how to do what we need to do. Why should something that runs perfectly well on older hardware be sabotaged by its manufacturer to force a hardware upgrade?

As an environmentalist and a frugalist, I want any product I buy to last as long as possible. It’s better for the earth and for my budget. When companies stop allowing perfectly functional software to work on older platforms, they kick themselves out of a warm and sunny spot in my heart.

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By Posted on Posted in Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Diversity, General Commentary, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , , ,
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.

Legendary marketer Seth Godin recently wrote about offering the benefit of confidence, rather than the benefit of the doubt.

He said:

Someone faced with doubt rarely brings her best self to the table. Doubt undermines confidence, it casts aspersions, it assumes untruths…

[W]hat happens if you begin with, “the benefit of confidence” instead? What if you begin by believing, by seeking to understand, by rooting for the other person to share their best stories, their vision and their hopes?

I’ve never articulated this, but it’s a key part of my business philosophy. I assume the best intentions, and the ability to rise to greatness. Sometimes there’s a lot of doubt to overcome.

A client of mine who has now worked with me for several years first approached me by mailing a poorly written typewritten manuscript (probably typed in the 1970s) to my postal address, without including either a phone number or an email, with an almost incomprehensible cover note. I overcame my skepticism and modified and printed out a copy of my response to book shepherding queries, and told him in the letter that he had to give me an email address and phone number, and to get the book into a computer so I could send it to an editor. While I didn’t really expect to hear from him again, I think I may have gotten the job because I was polite and responded as I would to any other prospect. I said nothing dismissive or condescending and simply outlined the (many) steps it would take to turn this into a publishable and published book, and some idea of how much that would cost. He has done everything I suggested and the final book was so good that it won an Ippy Award and the screenwriter we hired to do a movie treatment fell in love with it.

While this was an extreme case, quite a few of my book shepherding clients were starting from an extremely rough place (including several whose first language was not English). They spend several tens of thousands with me by the time the project is done—and they are thrilled and amazed by the finished product. Quite a few have won awards.

On the green and social entrepreneurship profitability/product development and marketing consulting side of my business, I see similar patterns. Some companies would like to go green but have no idea. Others are already going down that route but would like to find a way to tie their work to something bigger. They want to do something that turns hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. Again, the process can be long and slow, but the results are worth it.

So while I’ve never articulated Godin’s “Benefit of Confidence,” I’ve lived it. Thanks, Seth.

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By Posted on Posted in Branding, Business-general, Customer Service as Marketing, General Commentary, Marketing Trends/News, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , ,

In one day, I had two interactions with people reaching out on behalf of their employer that made me scratch my head.

I got telemarketed by a woman who claimed to have sent me some stuff I never received. She didn’t understand the simplest questions like “was it by postal or email?” (answer, repeated 3x: “Mail”) “What domain was it coming from?”

To top it off, the follow-up email, or what I believe was the follow-up email, came from a different domain and was signed by a different person, but it mentioned a conversation with their office.

And then there was the person who private-messaged me on Facebook about her social media marketing services. When I clicked the link, I was appalled at the sloppy grammar–NOT a way to get me to do business. When I told her that careful writing matters to me and that I wouldn’t be doing business, she started asking whether I would scout for her as an affiliate.

Who vets these people? If you have people representing your company, they should leave a GOOD impression with prospects. Yet over and over, I see businesses being harmed by the clueless, aggressive, unhelpful people they hire.

Gotta wonder.

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By Posted on Posted in Business-general, Customer Service as Marketing, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , ,
The brain of a call center clerk ("Call Center Dave," by Ray Smithers)
The brain of a call center clerk ("Call Center Dave," by Ray Smithers)-graphic
The brain of a call center clerk (“Call Center Dave,” by Ray Smithers)

Dear business owners and bureaucrats: If you fill your customer positions with stupid people, or if you don’t empower them to address issues that come up, you damage your own brand.

All customer service people are by definition part of your marketing team. If they perform badly, they drive customers away.

I’ve just had one-too-many encounters with a stupid person in a customer service position, and I realize I won’t get any real work done until I can blow off some steam. So I may as well blow that steam as a blog post. I’m overdue for a good rant in this space.

I’m helping an 85-year-old, not-very-computer-savvy Japanese citizen renew his passport. The Japanese Consulate Boston website says their online renewal form only works with PCs; my friend has a 12-year-old Mac. So I called them to get an application form mailed to him.

The idiot I spoke to was amazingly UNhelpful. First she said we had to send a self-addressed 9×12 envelope to Boston with $1.20 in postage just to get the forms. And then she refused to give me the consulate’s address and told me to get it off the website (which is in Japanese, which I don’t read). I actually had to yell at her before I could pry the street address out of her.

You would think they could simply mail out the packet, and tack an extra $5 onto the renewal fee if using postal mail.

This has the effect of pushing Japan farther down on the list of countries I’d like to visit.

It also got me thinking about the hundreds of times I’ve encountered an employee charged with “customer service” who either didn’t have a clue about what customer service actually means, or haven’t been empowered to actually deal with situations that come up.

I’m remembering in particular the time (about ten years before they went out of business) that I was in a Blockbuster Video and I saw a sign with great language about how they empowered every one of their employees to do right by their customers. I was writing a book on marketing (as usual 😉 ) at that time, and I asked the counter clerk for permission to photograph the sign so I could quote it in my book. And this disempowered employee in this supposedly enlightened store said he didn’t have authority and I’d need to ask headquarters!

It wasn’t so much his inability to let me do what I asked. It was the disconnect between what the sign said and the 180-degree-opposite reality that completely wrecked my perception of Blockbuster’s brand. I never set foot in a Blockbuster again. They lost a decade of my business for being stupid.

Then there was the chief mechanic at my local Toyota dealer, who called me after several days of non-response to my status queries and told me I had 24 hours to get my car off his lot, and by the way, the engine is in pieces in the trunk. I was so appalled I wrote a long letter to the VP of customer service for the United States, and I never went back to that dealer for anything else, ever, not even a tube of touch-up paint. I drove 40 extra miles round trip when I needed something from a Toyota dealer. And the next time I bought a new car, it wasn’t a Toyota. That mechanic threw away 20 years of brand loyalty and a lifetime customer value in the hundreds of thousands.

Let me say it differently: front-line customer service reps are either your marketing ambassadors (think Southwest Airlines, Nordstrom, Ritz-Carlton) or your marketing saboteurs. Which do you choose to represent you?

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