10 Rules of Effective Green Marketing
by Hugh Hough
Seems like everyone’s going green these days. That’s great, at Green Team, we’ve been banging the environmental drum for 14 years, and we welcome the company. For marketers interested in taking advantage of the environmental revolution, here are a few things we’ve learned over the years.
1. Forget “green.” Okay, you don’t really want to forget it, but you do want to think beyond it. Being environmentally responsible is important, but today’s Awakening Consumers are looking for more. They’re looking at how your brand addresses all three pillars of sustainability: environmental impact, social impact, economic feasibility.
2. Walk before you talk. Don’t make any sustainability claims until you can back them up. Completely. This may seem obvious, but you’d be amazed at how often marketers want to cut corners and make claims they’re not ready to. And that’s a recipe for disaster.
3. Just the facts, ma’am.  Don’t tell me what a great corporate citizen you are, tell me what you’re doing, and I’ll make that determination on my own. Simply stating the facts surrounding your sustainability efforts allows you to talk about them without coming across as smug or self-congratulatory. No one likes a show-off.
4. Let someone else tell your story. Nothing is better than a credible third-party endorsement. This is where a partnership with a respected non-profit that shares your values is especially beneficial. Allow your partner to tell the world what you’re doing together.
5. Keep it simple, make it relevant. Your sustainability initiatives should feel like a natural extension of your brand. Several years ago, Green Team did a campaign highlighting Jaguar Car’s partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society to save jaguars in the wild. Jaguar helping jaguars. Its simplicity and relevance made it successful.
6. Look inside. It’s critically important to engage your employees in your sustainability initiatives. With that in mind, look to the people within your own organization for ideas. This is how the partnership between Yoplait yogurt and Susan G. Komen For The Cure came to be. The cause was initially embraced by Yoplait employees on a grass roots level, then ultimately adopted by the brand itself.
7. Money isn’t everything. Sure, financially supporting a sustainability campaign is important, but don’t just write a check and walk away. Look for synergies between your brand and the cause. Involve people on both sides. Involve consumers. Be creative.
8. Tell the truth, the whole truth. Corporate transparency is now the way of the world. Consumers, especially Awakening Consumers, don’t expect you to be perfect, but they do expect you to be honest. Admit your flaws, and let people know what you’re doing to fix them.
9. Be genuine. Sustainability initiatives and sustainable marketing has to be real and authentic. It needs to be embraced by everyone involved with the brand, from the person who answers the phone to the CEO. It should be part of your brand’s DNA, not some superficial, jumping-on-the-bandwagon gesture. To help avoid this, think long term, and think big.
10. Have fun. We’ve created ads for a global warming campaign that are laugh out loud funny. Humor may not be right for every topic or communication, but how many doom-and-gloom people do you like to hang out with?
Hugh Hough is president and founder of Green Team, a New York-based communications/advertising agency. He was recently selected by The Climate Project to be one of 1000 individuals chosen to present a modified version of Al Gore’s global warming presentation chronicled in the film An Inconvenient Truth.
 

This is a great podcast about fear from T. Harv Eker.  He will break down what fear is, what is does, how it cripples us.  The secret to freedom is we don’t have to believe it.  http://stream.peakpotentials.com/warrior/warrior.mp3 

Harv has a free Millionaire Mind Evening http://www.millionairemind.com/a/peakincome?page=/preview/mme 

Team Building Activities
At a recent client conference, I sat in on a talk given by Jim Craig. Jim was the
goalie on the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team that won the Gold medal. They
were a group of rookie college hockey players who beat the Russian team who,
at the time, was the best professional team in the world and went on to win the
Gold medal. He and his team are the subject of the recent Disney movie
“Miracle,” which I highly recommend. Miracle, because no one ever thought they
had a chance to win against the best in the world. His story may parallel your
team building activities in many ways.
I wanted to relate a few great points he made. It was very cool.
His subject was, “How to Build a Championship Team.” He made great points
about mission, dream and personal sacrifice which I suspect many of you know
intimately. He said that preparation was everything. He mentioned that they
would sometimes practice in the morning, play a game later in the day and then
practice again after the game. You have to ask yourself, “How often is my team
really preparing and practicing?”
Team Building Activities
There were other points he made that really touched me. They were:
1. Always practice against the best. That way you will never be intimidated
by the best. They lost most of their games before getting to the Olympics
because they practiced against the best teams in the world.
2. He said that as a goalie, he was in a position to never really win a
game, but he could certainly lose the game. As a result, he said he
learned to appreciate the rest of the players on his team a lot! (I can
personally relate to that one!) As the leader of any team, you operate in
that position. You can defend, save and lead but they have to score for
your team to win. How much do you really appreciate your team???? How
much do you really celebrate their wins? They can make you look really
good or really bad.
3. You need to be “young.” He said you have to be young enough to know
you aren’t that smart and you need to know what you ‘don’t know’ so that
you can learn and be open to coaching.
4. You have to hold each other accountable. He said, if you see someone
not preparing, you are as much at fault as they are for not holding them
accountable and actually getting them to prepare.
5. You have to protect your team from naysayers and doubters.
6. You have to have a common enemy to give each of you laser focus. In
their case it was the USSR. What is it for you? Ignorance? Poor service?
Waste? A competitor?
Talk about team building activities, but the thing that touched me the most was when he said they really became a team when he realized, “What was on the front of his jersey was more important than what was on the back of it.” On the front of the jersey it read “USA” on the back it read “Craig” across the shoulders. He said that was the turning point for their team. Their personal agendas were dropped and the team became more important than self.
What is the priority for your team and team building activities?
As I reflected on what he said, I thought about the great teams I have had and
been a part of. I thought about our SalesPartners team and I realized another
distinction about Jim Craig’s last comment.
The reason the front is more important than the back is because on the
front is your heart, your passion, your spirit and your connection. But the
ultimate depth of your reach and strength lies in the fact that your back is
covered by your team.
Finally he said, the movie title was wrong. It was not a miracle. Their success
was the result of unreasonable preparation, huge sacrifice and countless hours
of practice until the moment to deliver was at hand. No one knew them. They
were amateurs. They all had egos and had dreams of being NHL stars one day.
He said they became the best in the world when after countless hours of
practice, getting beaten and more practice, and when they FINALLY realized the
team name on the front was more important than the individual name on the
back.
As I said to our SalesPartners:
“You have all been there. You know the taste of winning and losing and winning
again. Yet I know this process works if you truly surrender to team, coaching and
relentless practice and repetition. We are not a household word yet. But if the
front of our jerseys are more important than the back… nobody will touch us.”
I told them that I loved them.  I wish the same for you and all of your teams.
Blair Singer
SalesDogs
P.S. – To turn your team into a Championship Team

How cool would it be to be a small business and have large business like health coverage?  Looks like there might be some progress in this area.  Write your congressman and ask for them to support this.

The Senate promised to pass legislation this year that would help small businesses get better deals on health insurance by pooling their purchasing power across state lines.

The promise came in the form of a “Sense of the Senate” resolution attached to legislation expanding a government health insurance program for children. The Senate passed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program legislation by a 68-31 vote Aug. 2.   http://www.bizjournals.com/extraedge/washingtonbureau/archive/2007/08/13/bureau3.html 

If you are not familar with Eckhart Tolle you will find him to be a deep thinker and present with the Now…..yes right now especially in this Eckhart Tolle Video.  He has some interesting mannerisms and the video captures a lot more than the book and the tapes.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg9lY7_hCGA 

M.B.A.s for entrepreneurs
Should aspiring entrepreneurs pursue M.B.A.s?
There’s been a long-brewing debate among academics and entrepreneurial minds over whether business school is worth the hefty price tag for those looking to go into business for themselves. Financial Times columnist and British entrepreneur Anita Roddick wrote recently that entrepreneurs “are people who imagine things as they might be, not as they are, and have the drive to change the world. Those are qualities that business schools do not teach.”

I saw this article in The Wall Street Startup Journal http://www.startupjournal.com/howto/management/20070802-memos.html?refresh=on and Anita Roddick brings up a very valid point.  In my experience, (and it has been a a few years since i went to a traditional edcuational setting, i.e. college) our educational system rewards success and punishes failure.  As any entrepreneur will share with you they had to fail in order to succeed.  So can MBA’s be taught to become entrepreneurs?  Yes, but it has to be done in the right environment an preferrably with a trainer who has built their own successful business, one place that has this environment is Harv Eker.  You can find him at Millionaire Mind Evening. 

The US Educational system in my humble opinion is 50 years behind in their approach to a lot of learning, sure you can pick up a lot of facts, knowledge & skills but do they teach leadership, how to manage personal finances, organizational skills and other life skills we all require on a daily basis?  Some schools like Babson College are teaching entrepreneurship and doing well at it.
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2-day Sales Training Workshop& Leadership Certification Program with Blair Singer November 10th-11th 2007 Scottsdale, Arizona

Additional Sales Training Workshop

September 25th & 26th 2007 Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa