2010 July | marketingforhippies.com

The Secret to Being as Radical as We Want to Be is to Finance the Revolution Ourselves

By: Tad | Published: July 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Adbusters
March-April 2006
Michael Shuman, author, The Smallmart Revolution

If Mohandas Gandhi were a typical North American activist these days, he would probably be wearing a three-piece suit and working in a plush office with his law degree prominently displayed. He would have little time to lead protests, since every other week would be spent meeting with donors – and those power lunches would hardly go well with fasting. He would be careful to avoid salt marches or cotton boycotts, so as not to offend key donors. To sharpen his annual pitch to foundations, he would be constantly dreaming up new one-year projects on narrowly focused topics, perhaps a one-time conference on English human-rights abuses, or a documentary on anti-colonial activities in New Delhi. To ensure that various allies didn’t steal away core funders, he would keep his distance and be inclined to trash talk behind their backs. In short, there’s little doubt that the British would still be running India.

The problem with activism today is that it is largely funded by grants and gifts from rich foundations and individuals. The long-standing assumption that you can take the money with few strings attached, and then run, needs to be fundamentally reexamined.

Building a philanthropic base of support can cripple an organization’s mission and wreck it altogether when the well runs dry. Most nonprofits have engaged in a kind of fundraising arms race in which our best leaders focus more time, energy and resources, not on changing the world, but on improving their panhandling prowess to capture just a little more of a philanthropic pie that actually expands very little from year to year. Armies of “development” staff spend as much as a third of an organization’s resources, not to advance the poor, but to cultivate wealthy donors. Significant numbers of our colleagues create campaigns, direct-mail pitches, telemarketing scripts, newsletters and other products exclusively to “care and feed” prospects and to frame positions that will not offend the rich.

Nonprofit structures dictated by this mode of funding also burden organizers with the heavy regulatory hand of the state. To qualify for tax-deductible contributions, for example, US nonprofits must agree to limit lobbying and not to campaign for political causes of candidates.

We believe it’s time for North American progressives to break free from the philanthropic plantation. Those of us serious about social change increasingly must get down to business, figuratively and literally. Every social change group may not be able to generate all its funding through revenue-generation, but every nonprofit certainly can generate a greater percentage than it is doing now. In other words, we should become our own funders. Once we start generating our own resources, we can invest them politically – as corporations do now – largely without limitation, without wasting our time on fundraising appeals, without worrying about that next grant, without apologies.

To get a sense of the possibilities, check out Cabbages & Condoms, a popular restaurant in Bangkok. As your senses become intoxicated by the aromas of garlic, ginger, basil, galangal and lemongrass, you cannot avoid noticing the origins of the name. On top of each heavy wooden table is a slab of glass, under which are neatly arranged rows of colorful prophylactics. Posters and paintings adorn the half-dozen large rooms, all communicating the restaurant’s central message: the AIDS epidemic afflicting Thailand can be checked only through the unabashed promotion and use of male contraception. With balloon animals made from carefully inflated and twisted condoms and the after-dinner candies replaced with your own take-home “condom-mints,” even teens cannot escape the message prominently framed on the wall: “Sex is fun but don’t be stupid – use protection.”

What makes the five “C&C” restaurants unique, along with an affiliated beach-front resort and numerous gift shops, is that they are all owned by the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), a rural development organization that has been a leader in promoting family planning and fighting aids in Thailand. Seven out of every ten dollars spent by the PDA on such activities as free vasectomies and mobile health clinics are covered by the net revenues from its 16 subsidiary for-profits. Were the PDA dependent on funding from the Thai government, the World Bank or even the Rockefeller Foundation, it no doubt would be told to tone down the message. Jokes on its website – like “the Cabbages and Condoms Restaurants in Thailand don’t only present excellent Thai food, the food is guaranteed not to get you pregnant” – would certainly be discouraged.

The cash flow gives the PDA a measure of confidence and boldness. The founder, Mechai Viravaidya, has no qualms about his decision to employ for-profits:“Unlimited demand is chasing limited supply [of charitable donations]. No longer are gifts, grants or begging enough. From day one, thirty years ago, we have been acutely aware of sustainability and cost-recovery.”

Consider some US examples of social entrepreneurship:

Housing Works in New York uses its Used Book Café to generate more than $2 million annually for its work, which prioritizes advocacy for homeless people with HIV. The organization runs clinics, conducts public policy research, lobbies federal and state officials, even leads sit-ins. It is fearless, aggressive and stunningly effective – and its $30 million of annual work would be impossible were it not for its vast range of real estate, food service, retail and rental companies that help pay the bills.

Pioneer Human Services is a community development corporation based in Seattle that assists a wide range of at-risk populations, including the unemployed, the homeless, ex-convicts, alcoholics and addicts. The organization serves 6,500 people a year and generates nearly all its $55 million budget through a web of ambitious subsidiary nonprofit businesses: cafes and a central kitchen facility for institutional customers, aerospace and sheet-metal industries, a construction company, food warehouses, a real-estate management group and consulting services for other nonprofits. Most of the jobs in these businesses are awarded to its at-risk clients, allowing it to further its mission to integrate clients back into society.

The Rocky Mountain Institute, a leading promoter of alternative energy technology in Snowmass, Colorado, created E-Source in 1986 to provide in-depth analysis of services, markets, and technologies relating to energy efficiency and renewable energy production. In 1992 RMI secured a program-related investment from the MacArthur Foundation to move the work into a for-profit subsidiary. By 1998 it was generating about $400,000 for the parent nonprofit, but rmi decided it could do even better under new management, so it sold the company to Pearson plc in Britain for $8 million. Today, RMI assists and benefits from other for-profit spinoffs, such as Hypercar, Inc., which aims to create a lightweight body architecture to improve the efficiency of the entire US automobile fleet.

Judy Wicks’ White Dog Café in Philadelphia is as much a community organizing center as a restaurant. Radical speakers from around the country provide a steady stream of public lectures. An adjacent store sells fair trade products and will soon be introducing a line of locally made clothing. The White Dog itself embodies principles of social justice and environmental stewardship by paying all employees a living wage, insisting on humanely raised meats and eggs, using locally grown ingredients and running on wind electricity. Twenty percent of profits from the restaurant go to the White Dog Café Foundation, carrying on the café’s mission through nonprofit activities.

These examples embody many possible models. A for-profit subsidiary can generate money for a parent nonprofit. Or, better still, a for-profit can become the change it seeks, by producing and selling socially important goods and services. While we reject the libertarian argument that every human problem has an economic solution, many social-change issues clearly have economic dimensions that are susceptible to creative business plans. Hate nuclear power? Launch energy-service companies to spread conservation measures, or build local wind farms to take control of your own electricity future. Concerned about the poor, minorities and women having equal access to credit? Create more community banks, credit unions and micro-enterprise funds. Troubled by pharmaceutical prices that make life-saving drugs unattainable for impoverished people across the globe? Start, as several companies based in the developing world did, companies that mass-produce affordable generic versions of high-priced American drugs.

Socially responsible business should be not just a boutique sector of the private economy, but its mainstream. We have been impressed in recent years by the growing number of local businesspeople who not only “walk the walk” of social justice in the small details of their operations and products but also tout the virtues of local ownership. This third generation of entrepreneur-organizers is being led by groups like the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and by the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA). Each promotes local ownership of business, champions social justice and neighborhood revitalization, and pushes for new public policies that remove the tilts in a playing field that favors badly behaved big business.

Sooner or later, the concepts of social-change organization and of social-responsibility business should become indistinguishable. Truly responsible businesses would be owned by all members of a community (rich and poor), hire locally, expand local skills, comport with local labor and environmental standards, produce goods and services that meet urgent local needs and become allies of social justice movements. What better way to help the poor than to transform them into the captains, worker-bees, shareholders and customers of community-friendly business?

If foundations and donors had never existed and professional panhandling had been outlawed, social-change groups would have been forced to turn to creating and running new enterprises or new networks of local businesses, and our movement would be considerably healthier than it is today. Progressives have become the classic 20-something kid still living at home, expecting an allowance from deep-pocket parents for a few basic chores, while agreeing, as a condition for the chump change, to obey someone else’s rules on social change. It’s time to grow up and strike out on our own.

Here’s a challenge to activists (one we take seriously ourselves): let’s try to wean ourselves from the charity habit, say by three percent per year. Think about just one piece of your agenda that could be framed as a revenue generator, dream about it a little, develop a business plan and give it a try. If you lack the skills, skip your next fundraising class and instead attend one of thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurship programs around the world. Or hire someone who might start the entrepreneurial subsidiary of your nonprofit.

Gandhi understood that the key to freeing India was to transform his fellow citizens into economically productive agents by spinning their own cloth and taking their own salt from the sea. Martin Luther King Jr. implored African Americans to form their own credit unions and community development corporations. The secret to being as radical as we want to be – and as radical as we need to be – is to finance the revolution ourselves.

*

Michael Shuman is the vice president for enterprise development for the Training and Development Corporation. Merrian Fuller is a managing director of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. This article was adapted from “Profits for Justice,” which first appeared in The Nation.

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| Categories: local economies - Tags: buy local, shop local

The Planet Wants You to Market Really Well

By: Tad | Published: July 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment

by Jerry Stifelman, The Change on 07.12.07

Organic jeans look just like regular jeans. Fair Trade, Shade Grown coffee can taste just like conventional coffee. FSC-certified wood looks exactly like wood that’s been poached from the rain forest. Unless you’re an eye witness or a direct victim, crimes against the environment take place out of sight, out of mind. Shirts hang from racks in America, while the sweatshops that created them are half a world and tons of emissions away.

The sales racked up by businesses-as-usual are dependent on withholding information, not revealing it. Paul McCartney once said that “if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.”

It’s the same principle for most conventional products. Pesticides, particulate pollution, toxic runoff, industrial waste and shoddy labor practices are necessary to create most things — but to actually sell the stuff, it’s best to keep the public unaware of such things. The environmental sins of conventional businesses are invisible — unfortunately, so are many of the positive actions of good-for-the-world businesses.

As an environmentalist, and as a guy who leads a good-for-the-world branding agency, I suggest that treehugging businesses should become the most kickass marketers on the planet. Brand communication is a critical way to change the equation, and balance it in favor of responsibility over expediency, and in favor of products created with moral consideration as opposed to just cheap goods. Here’s some thoughts on how to do it.

The key points of difference that set “green” or otherwise mission-driven companies apart from their conventional competitors require communication. Indeed — unless principled actions are turned into a brand asset, they put your company at a competitive disadvantage simply because being sustainable in a non-sustainable world is expensive. By openly and transparently telling the story behind our products and services, we can flip the equation, and turn responsible business practice into a competitive advantage. Our conventional business competitors can’t tell their full story. We can. The truth is our best tool. And we need to use it consummately, consistently and artfully.

Jerry Stifelman is founder and creative director of The Change, a brand-strategy and design agency that works exclusively with companies and organizations that make the world more sustainable, equitable or authentic.

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| Categories: green economy, marketing philosophy - Tags: building trust, communicating value, marketing

What is a Local Living Economy?

By: Tad | Published: July 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Perhaps the best resource on this is the Business Association for Local Living Economies (www.livingeconomies.org). Here’s how they put – see if this doesn’t resonate deeply with you:

A Local Living Economy ensures economic power resides locally, sustaining healthy community life and natural life, as well as long-term economic viability.

A Living Economy is guided by the following principles:

1. Living economy communities produce and exchange locally as many products needed by their citizens as they reasonably can, while reaching out to other communities to trade in those products they cannot reasonably produce at home. These communities value their unique character and encourage cultural exchange and cooperation.

2. Living economy public policies support decentralized ownership of businesses and farms, fair wages, taxes, and budget allocations, trade policies benefiting local economies, and stewardship of the natural environment.

3. Living economy consumers appreciate the benefits of buying from living economy businesses and, if necessary, are willing to pay a price premium to secure those personal and community benefits.

4. Living economy investors value businesses that are community stewards and as such accept a ‘living return‘ on their financial investments rather than a maximum return, recognizing the value derived from enjoying a healthy and vibrant community and sustainable global economy.

5. Living economy businesses are primarily independent and locally owned, and value the needs and interests of all stakeholders, while building long-term profitability.

6. They strive to:

Source products from businesses with similar values, with a preference for local procurement

Provide employees a healthy workplace with meaningful living wage jobs

Offer customers personal service and useful safe, quality products

Work with suppliers to establish a fair exchange

Cooperate with other businesses in ways that balance their self-interest with their obligation to the community and future generations

Use their business practices to support an inclusive and healthy community, and to protect our natural environment

Yield a ‘living return’ to owners and investors

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| Categories: green economy, local economies - Tags: buy local, green economy, real, shop local

The Conscious Economy

By: Tad | Published: July 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment

“The solution to globalization is not to throw rocks at big businesses like Wal-Mart but to build the alternative,” says Shuman, author of Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age.

The “alternative” that Shuman is talking about includes not just businesses that are planted on Main Street but entire economies that are locally based. “The more times a dollar circulates in my community, the more jobs, income, and wealth there is in my community,” says Shuman.

And if that well-worn dollar must go elsewhere, let it go to another locally owned business, not to a global corporation. Local business people are as threatened by giant national and transnational industrial, financial, service, and retail corporations as working people are.

Part of the reason Shuman is so high on locally owned for-profits is that “Americans are unlikely to hitch their future to these unconventional corporate forms [cooperatives, non-profits, and public enterprises]… The nation’s ideological commitment to private property and the profit motive, reinforced by the mythology of the rugged individual, are too deeply etched into our collective psyche.” (p.99).

Or ask David Korten puts it,

“The human future depends on moving beyond the self-limiting and ultimately self-destructive ways of Empire to become a new Era of Community in which life is the defining cultural value, cooperation and partnership are society’s organizing principles, and networking is the predominant organizational form.

The culture and institutions of the global suicide economy must be replaced by the culture and institutions of a planetary system of living economies that mimics the behavior of healthy living organisms and ecosystems.

Living Economies. A living economy is comprised of fair-profit [in contrast to profit maximizing] and not-for-profit living enterprises that are place-based, human-scale, stakeholder-owned, democratically accountable, and life serving.

In contrast to the publicly-traded, limited-liability corporation, which is best described as a pool of money dedicated to its self-replication, living enterprises function as communities of people engaged in the business of creating just, sustainable, and fulfilling livelihoods for themselves while contributing to the economic health and prosperity of the community.

Millions of such living enterprises already exist throughout the world. Many have been around for generations. Many people already have a preference for patronizing such enterprises.

Although the foundation of a planetary system of living economies already exists, it remains for these enterprises to recognize and value the potentials they embody and to consciously advance the formation of living economies by growing new webs of relationships among themselves as they walk away from the pathological culture and institutions of the suicide economy.

As living economies become established and recognized as viable and attractive alternatives to collective suicide, they will become a favored choice — of the culturally conscious for employment, shopping and investment — attracting ever more life energy away from the suicide economy and to themselves.

The process will accelerate as living economies offer an increasing and ever more visible variety of viable, beneficial options. Ultimately, the culture and institutions of economic pathology will give way to those of economic health.

The Era of Community is the opposite of the them/us mentality of the Empire Era, with qualities of oneness, sharing, caring, and non-violence – what Martin Luther King called “the Beloved Community.” Creating an economic system, which models these qualities, a “Living Economy,” that will provide an alternative to the Suicide Economy of the Empire Era is a challenge for today’s entrepreneurs.

The new movement is not about maximizing profits, but about maximizing relationships. Rather than striving for continuous growth, national branding and centralized control, new models are scaled to build authentic and meaningful relationships, which add to the quality of life in our local communities and natural environment.”

In short, to quote Judy Wicks . . .

People want fair trade not “Free” trade, alternative education that nurtures the whole child, not just reading, writing and “rithmetic”, a maximization of relationships, not of profits; honesty and transparency, not more lies, hype and manipulation; naturalness, not pretense; the growth of consciousness and creativity, not brands and market share; democracy and decentralized ownership, not concentrated wealth; a living return, not the highest return; a living wage, not the minimum wage; a fair price, not the lowest price; sharing, not hoarding; simplicity, not luxury; life-serving, not self-serving; partnership, not domination; cooperation, not competition; win-win exchange, not win-lose exploitation; family farms, not factory farms; biodiversity, not monocrops; cultural diversity, not monoculture; creativity, not conformity; slow food, not fast food; our bucks, not Starbucks; our mart, not Wal-Mart; a love of life, not a love of money.

We’re tired of seeing this suicide economy steal by enslaving people to produce chocolate, by destroying the environment and thus stealing people’s ability to live there, by stealing the clean air, water and land we rely on to live. In short – stealing our very future.

If you’re on this call, you probably agree with me that each particular place has its own gift. What’s appropriate in one place will not be in another. This green business movement must be about the redistribution of wealth and power. That’s part of why I do almost all of my events on a pay what you can basis.

The only way we can survive is to bring our energy, money and attention back home – to localize again. I think this movement (in its many forms) is one of the most important movements of our times.

And I think we’re seeing what Paul Hawken, author of Natural Capitalism, describes as a sort of third generation of conscious business. Each generation has had a fundamentally different orientation towards its relationship to the rest of the world.

The first generation was all about Containment: You saw it in the Bophal chemical disaster, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and in the Exxon oil spill. There was this sense that harm is inevitable. It’s the cost of doing business. It’s just ‘collateral damage.’

The second generation focused on Enhancement: there became a sense that, “it could be better, business could do good”. People began to say, “Okay, if it meets the business case, if it makes good money we’ll do it.” Harm was no longer seen as inevitable. It could be prevented if it convenient and profitable to do so.

But he suggests that there’s the beginning of a third generation focused on Transformation: there’s a growing sense that it’s no longer good enough to ‘do no harm’. We’re seeing a fundamental shift from single to multiple bottom lines. Profit is no longer King to many businesses.

So, we’re in an interesting time really. On one hand we see this incredible growth in organic food but, in reality, only 0.4% of U.S. farmland is dedicated to organics. Fair trade coffee seems to be showing up everywhere – but it’s only 2% of the market. The conscious economy is growing fast but it’s nowhere close to where we need to be.

Psst . . . here’s a secret you already know . . . there’s more than ONE economy.

The way “out of the game” is to realize that there’s another one game in town. Margaret Thatcher justified her ridiculous policies by saying “There Is No Alternative”.

Bull.

I suggest that there are actually TWO economies: The Suicide Economy and the Conscious Economy. The first is on its way out (never was sustainable anyway) and the second is one its way in.

1) The Suicide Economy – this would be the big thing destroying the planet we’re all trying so hard to ignore. It is fast paced, globalized and highly competitive. Much like Frankenstein it is our own creation that will likely kills us.

2) The Conscious Economy – This economy is slower paced, localized and highly cooperative. It’s not about maximizing profits, but maximizing relationships.

The answer – for you and for all of us – is NOT to find ways to become more successful in the current Suicide Economy. It is to find ways to shift, personally and collectively to the Conscious Economy – to Local Living Economies.

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| Categories: green economy, local economies - Tags: authenticity, buy local, green economy, real, shop local

The Problem of the Suicide Economy:

By: Tad | Published: July 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment

(This blog post is a compilation of the writings of David C. Korten, Victor Bremsen and Judy Wicks).

David Korten: Having reached the limits of an Era of Empire, humanity is compelled to accept responsibility for the consequences of its presence on a finite planet, make a conscious collective choice to leave behind the excesses of its adolescence, and take the step to species maturity. It is the most exciting moment of opportunity in the history of the species.

The Era of Empire embraced competition and domination as its organizing principles, hierarchy as its favored organizational form, and ultimately chose money as its defining value.

The Empire Era created a them/us mentality that justified exploitation, slavery, and genocide, and glorified domination over other peoples and nature.

It has led to the emergence of a global suicide economy — otherwise known as the corporate global economy — that is rapidly destroying the social and environmental foundations of its own existence and threatening the survival of the human species. It is the Era’s final stage.

The global corporations that are the ruling institutions of the suicide economy are required by law, structure, and the imperatives of global finance to maximize financial returns to absentee owners without regard to the consequences for people or planet.

In short, they are programmed to behave like cancers that seek their own unlimited growth without regard to the consequences.

As these pathological institutions have consolidated their power, the imperatives of global finance have come to dominate the economic, political, and cultural lives of people, communities, and nations everywhere.

* * *

Victor Bremson (Retired Management Consultant and Business Turn Around Specialist):

For example: over the last 40 years, North America has rapidly moved from downtown “main street” economies populated by local independent businesses devoted to serving community needs to a global “Wall Street” economy dominated by huge predatory discount chains located in the middle of vast parking lots seeking to extract the maximum profit from local consumers in the shortest possible time.

With household names like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Costco and many others, these chains mimic the behavior of predator species characteristic of immature ecosystems.

In simple terms, they destroy all other competing businesses in their path. Our financial economy specialists proclaim how wonderful their increase in market share is, without taking into effect the damage done to our communities.

Owned primarily by investors without a stake in the local community, these “predators” force community based competitors out of business by pricing very low, sometimes even below cost.

They accomplish this partially by making their suppliers dependent on them and then constantly squeeze them for greater margin.

In the short-run, predator chains keep consumers happy with lower prices and small investors with attractive returns on investment. The substantial costs to the community are less visible, but become ever more substantial over time.

These costs include loss of entrepreneurial class local business, losses of higher paid jobs, loss of environmental standards, increased need for automobile usage and loss of support for building community infrastructure.

* * *

Judy Wicks, White Dog Café:
The movement for socially responsible business is changing.

Many, if not most, of our model companies who began the movement and taught us so much, have been or are being sold to large businesses which continue to grow larger and larger (e.g. when Unilever — with hundreds of brands — bought Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream Inc., in April 2000. But the movement certainly had the breath knocked out of it. The Vermont company that had served as a model of fairness to workers and an advocate for the environment had been absorbed into the sort of entity that Wicks and her ilk had been fighting: multinational behemoths that in their view transfer wealth out of local communities).

Since the early 1970s, decisions by corporations to move operations to another state or abroad have cost US workers and communities some 75 million jobs. Most of these jobs were in the better paid manufacturing sector, with the bulk of the remaining jobs lost being backroom operations that support service and retail firms.

Capital mobility is thus a major reason why 80% of US households have seen their incomes stagnate or decline over this same period.

Non-profits have serious impediments to being efficient producers of goods or services: more hands-on boards that occupy inordinate staff time; legal barriers to accumulating assets and hence collateral for financing expansion; social missions that often compel them to pay more for unproductive workers than private firms would, and high turnover of the most productive staff.

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| Categories: green economy, local economies - Tags: green economy, real, shop local

The Backwards Dentist from Australia

By: Tad | Published: July 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment

“For many years I felt inadequate because I found business very difficult. I thought that everyone else found it easy. Business is hard, and people often find that their work is stressful, unfulfilling emotionally and doesn’t return the financial rewards they feel they deserve for their efforts. Once I realized that, I didn’t feel so isolated and stupid.” - Paddi Lund, The Happiness Centered Business

Most people don’t realize it, but the dental profession has one of the highest depression and suicide rates of the entire medical industry. Let’s face it: nobody likes going to the dentist. Most people associate a tremendous amount of pain to the thought of seeing the dentist. After all, you only see the dentist when you’re in pain. And then . . . they cause you more pain.

It isn’t easy having a job that makes people wince at the mention of it. But, I digress – let me tell you a true story:

There is a dentist in Australia named Paddi Lund, who was beginning to feel extremely depressed and seriously considering taking his own life.

Here’s what one of his associates had to say:

Have you ever had a hard day in your business? How about a hard month? Or a hard year?

Well, Paddi did. Quite a few of them, in fact.

A whole string of stressful days and worrisome nights while, like most of us, doing everything he could to build his new business. Early in his career as a business owner Paddi,

o   Borrowed as much money as the bank would allow to fit out his practice,
o   Put up as big a sign as he could get away with at the time,
o   Worked all the hours he could squeeze from a day – 6 sometimes 7 days a week,
o   Took any warm body that graced his doorstep as a client,
o   And hoped like hell they’d appreciate his skills and expertise enough to buy his dentistry.

After about 5 years, Paddi was doing all right – he had several thousand clients and was, packing, filling and slinging amalgam like it was going out of fashion. He was just ahead of the bank draft, but he was a bit tired from the constant effort.

After 10 years Paddi had a nice house and ate in nice restaurants, but he was getting a bit ‘thin’ and jaded. After 15 years, despite a healthy bank balance, he was on the edge … and he eventually toppled over it. He had a break down. Literally, his business broke him!

As you probably realise, Paddi recovered and in a spectacular way (for the full story listen to Paddi tell his story in his own words at http://www.solutionspress.com.au/page.asp?nid=yzltpp&name=AudioAndVideo_OriginalPaddiAudioStory) but not before he went right to the very depths of his misery and pain, and of particular relevance to us, wondered how on earth his business had managed to bring him to this point.

But it was this point that proved the catharsis. It was at this point that Paddi asked himself one simple question that changed the destiny of his business and life forever…

Paddi’s life-changing Question:

“If a business can be designed to make money, why can’t a business be designed to make ‘happiness’ instead?”

In other words, what’s the point of making money if misery is part of the equation? For Paddi, that was a sharp left turn onto the road less traveled right off right off the highway of convention. Everything that’s different about Paddi’s business stems from this simple realisation.

“But what has happiness got to do with running a business,” you might ask. Well, plenty. And in ways you can’t possibly imagine until you hear the story.

We’ll talk about that in detail in the next edition of the Paddi Pages. Before I sign off though, consider this last thought:

What would your business look like if it were designed to bring you pleasure and enjoyment?

Or to put that another way, what are the biggest frustrations you’d have to sort out before you could possibly say you’re having a good time at work?

How did this happen?

A friend of his convinced him to attend a marketing training. At this seminar he realized the all-important life lesson that: there are no rules.

He realized that he had been unknowingly, and unwittingly, limiting the level of his income, the level of his happiness and the level of his connectedness to all of his clients.

He went back to Australia inspired and he made some significant and powerful changes. He did everything backwards.

“Lock your doors, take your name out of the phone book, stop all advertising, and get rid of half your customers!”

He started to do, essentially, the opposite of what every other dentist was doing. Like what? He fired over half of his clients (the ones who were draining him), he took his name out of the phone book, got rid of any signage or advertising, took a chainsaw to his reception desk and locked his doors.

What happened? Paddi and his team moved from average dental income to 3 times average income, from a 60-hour week to a 22-hour week, from two months production in debts to negative accounts receivable, and from stress to joy at work.
Currently, he has a waiting list over two years long, and people will pay over $600 for the plane ticket to fly and see him for an appointment. He has zero receivables in his business — he is not waiting for any of his clients to “pay up on their tab”. His clients revere him and treat him like a dear and cherished friend and a trusted adviser.

I’m not making this up. I was recently speaking to Michael Basch, who was one of the founding Vice Presidents at Federal Express. He told me that he had actually visited Paddi Lund’s dental office. I was excited because, while I had certainly heard stories about Paddi Lund, I’d never met anyone who had met Paddi or visited his clinic. So, I asked Michael, “what was it like?”

Michael told me that he thought Paddi Lund’s dental office was the best run business on the planet. He told me that his experience in Paddi Lund’s office was the closest experience he had ever had to experiencing unconditional love in a business context.

I began to realize that what Paddi Lund did was certainly not limited to dentistry. That every single business owner could have the equivalent of that success for their own industry. Every single business owner could have raving fan clients like Paddi, every single business owner could only work with the most perfect, ideal clients – people who they like and respect. Every single business owner could create a business where they no longer have to beg or feel like they are losing their integrity in order to sell their product or service. It’s just that nobody thinks this is possible, and even the ones who think it might be possible have no idea how to do it.

But, before I continue, let me also say that I don’t have all of the answers. I may not have the answers you need. I just have what I have. It may not be the answers you need to hear or presented in just the right way that you need to hear it.

But I hope that in sharing my experience with you and what I’ve learned that it might help you at least uncover one or two pieces with which to move forwards.

If you’d like get cool posts like this in your inbox every few days CLICK HERE to subscribe to my blog and you’ll also get a free copy of my fancy new ebook “Marketing for Hippies” when it’s done.

| Categories: marketing philosophy, quality of life - Tags: authenticity, generosity based business, real, safety, trusted advisor

Top 5 Ways Newsletters Make You $$$

By: Tad | Published: July 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment

My belief on newsletters is this – they can make your business, but they can also kill it. Here are five thoughts on how newsletters can actually help you grow your business. My friend Linda Claire Puig (who’s running a ‘Best Newsletter Contest‘) shares her thoughts on the subject . . .

There are two kinds of marketing strategies: active and passive. Active strategies are things like speaking (and selling) or picking up the phone to call a prospective client.

Newsletters and other keep-in-touch strategies fall into the “passive” category.

However, they are far from passive in the powerful ways that they can help you increase your income.

Here are five ways that newsletters help make you money:

Front & Center
A newsletter keeps you in front of people. Not everyone is ready to hire you on the spot. Not everyone needs your services this minute. But when they are ready, when they have a pressing need for what you offer and your newsletter shows up in their inbox or mailbox, you’ll be the one to get the call, not someone who’s dropped off their radar.

The Trusted Expert
A newsletter promotes your expertise constantly and creates trust in myriad ways. Top-level content that speaks to your audience makes them trust that you know what they’re going through AND have the capacity and skills to help them with it. Without trust, people won’t buy from you. The more people trust you, they more they will buy from you.

Promotional Support
Your newsletter is your forum. It not only educates your readers with education-based content but also informs them of opportunities to work with you to further their own goals. While I recommend that all promotions be mentioned in both “stand-alone” emails AND in your newsletter, without a newsletter, you’re missing a primary promotional vehicle.

Power in the List
Your newsletter is the focal point of education-based marketing. The list of people you send it to are people who’ve “raised a hand” at one time or another to say that they are interested in what you have to offer. This list is one of the biggest assets you’ll have in your business. Need some extra cash this month? Have a sale on your products or services. One woman I know, responding to a challenge from the leader of a seminar she was attending, created and sold a group coaching program in one evening. Her take: $15,000. She had a list she’d nurtured through the years with her newsletter.

Opportunity Magnet
The opportunities that come to you as a result of your newsletter are usually unexpected and often surprising. But if your newsletter is doing its job, promoting your expertise in a given area, people will begin to associate you with that topic or topics. You may be asked to speak for a gathering or to partner with someone on a project or something else. For example, in the last three months, at least 15 different people have asked me to speak to their audience about newsletters. The same can happen for you, and with these opportunities come dollars.

So instead of asking “How do I make money with a newsletter?” try putting out a regular, consistent, high-value newsletter and see what happens for yourself! If writing and producing a newsletter isn’t something you want to spend your time on, we can provide you with a turnkey, high-quality newsletter that keeps your name in front of your community and positions you as an expert…with ease. Or, if you’re already doing your own newsletter, use our Ready2Go articles to augment your own content.

www.Ready2GoArticles.com

Linda Claire Puig is a newsletter marketing expert whose company, Claire Communications, provides busy coaches and personal development professionals with high-quality, education-based content and newsletters to grow their businesses. She also teaches unique, action-oriented programs on how to create newsletters and use them to make more money. An award-winning writer since 1983, Linda’s articles have appeared in newspapers, magazines and newsletters throughout the world. She has produced newsletters for small businesses and professionals since 1990 and has trained thousands of individuals in “the way of the newsletter.” For a free copy of two special newsletter resources from Linda, “75 Best Newsletter Success Strategies” and the “Easy Ezine Content Creator,” click here http://www.nexttopnewsletter.com/freebies

If you’d like get cool posts like this in your inbox every few days CLICK HERE to subscribe to my blog and you’ll also get a free copy of my fancy new ebook “Marketing for Hippies” when it’s done.

| Categories: marketing strategy - Tags: becoming a hub, building trust, generosity based business, newsletters, online marketing, stay in touch marketing

Playing “Marketing Ball” – by Robert Middleton

By: Tad | Published: July 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment

This piece is so simple but speaks to the heart of the matter. People often feel confused as to why they aren’t attracting enough clients. Well, Robert Middleton gives us the best and clearest answer I’ve ever heard.

You’re not attracting enough clients to your business for a very simple reason. You’re not doing the right things.

Not only are you not doing the rights things, you actually think you know the right things you ought to be doing. You most likely think you should be doing more networking, have a better web site, and do more speaking engagements. You think you need to “get out there more.”

But those are not the right things. After all, you’ve tried all of those things to some degree, haven’t you? If they really worked, how come you’re not doing them consistently? If they worked they would bring you all the new business you needed.

Right?

No, doing the right things first means understanding how the marketing and sales process actually works and then following a proven system for attracting new clients. Perhaps one of the best ways to look at this is through the game of baseball.

To win at baseball you need to do a lot of things. You need to throw the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball and run. Pretty simple, right? But consider this: I can take a bunch of people and put them on a baseball field and have them throw and hit and catch and run and you don’t necessarily have a baseball game going on. You just have a lot of activity that leads nowhere. You get some exercise but that’s about it.

And that’s how most Independent Professionals approach marketing! They get on the field of business and do some networking and calling and mailing but not a whole lot happens. They certainly aren’t playing the marketing game. Because if they were, they would be attracting more clients than they could handle. In baseball you’d never settle for those kind of results. Why would you settle for it in something that’s responsible for your livelihood?

Now interestingly, baseball is not only a good analogy to marketing your professional services, it’s an excellent model to use. If you want to win at “marketing ball” you need few things:

1. Knowledge of how the game is structured and what the rules are.
2. The skills to play the game.
3. An organized plan to play and win.

If you’d like get cool posts like this in your inbox every few days CLICK HERE to subscribe to my blog and you’ll also get a free copy of my fancy new ebook “Marketing for Hippies” when it’s done.

| Categories: marketing philosophy - Tags: marketing

Are Newsletters Worth the Time & Effort?

By: Tad | Published: July 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment

A question I get a lot at workshops is: “should I have a newsletter? I just delete most of the ones I get. Are they worth the effort?” My colleague Linda Claire Puig (who’s running a ‘Best Newsletter Contest‘) shares her perspective as to why they are . . .

Measuring Newsletter ROI (Return on Investment)

The other day I ran across an online ROI calculator that purports to tell you whether your newsletter is worth the effort and cost of doing it.

Cool! I thought. Someone finally found a way to quantify everything I’ve been teaching.

But what I found missed the mark. It treated a newsletter as a purely promotional tool, something you use to generate leads that you or a sales team would follow up with and “close.”

While I always encourage you to promote a little (like about 25%), a newsletter is about FAR, FAR more than cold lead generation and closing sales.

A newsletter is the kingpin of your keep-in-touch strategy. It’s what you use to position yourself as a trusted, credible expert. It enhances your influence in your marketplace. It’s how you BUILD RELATIONSHIP with your community. And yes, it helps bring in clients.

So how do you measure the ROI of relationship, of influence, of status, of trust, of repeated exposure to you?

It’s a difficult proposition, but I have a few ideas:

Compare Overall Income

Five years ago, I didn’t walk my talk. I provided a regular newsletter service to hundreds of professionals, but I only did occasional newsletters myself. (Bad girl!) Since then, I’ve begun practicing what I preach, and my income has TRIPLED.

Examine How Your Business Has Changed with a Newsletter

It’s interesting…having a regular newsletter forces you to step up your game, and it translates to all areas of your business. You’ll find yourself looking for ways to build your list, which helps you build your business in a big way. You’ll find yourself doing new things, perhaps giving teleclasses for the first time, or creating info products.

Look to the High Earners

At an event last September, I asked a room of 20 entrepreneurs — all with six- and seven-figure businesses — how many of them send regular newsletters. How many do you think said yes? Nineteen out of 20 send a regular newsletter. Look around you…how many of the people whose work you pay attention to and whose services you buy do a newsletter?

Consider the Anecdotal Evidence

One of my favorite examples of the power of a newsletter — and its ROI — comes from my friend Michelle. She was at a conference whose host challenged participants to see who could make the most money that very weekend. She went to her hotel room that night, put together a group coaching program, created a quick sales page and sent out an email to her list.

She made $15,000 and won the conference prize.

To be clear…she sent a promotional email, not a newsletter, but she sent it to a list of people she’d been in touch with for years with great newsletters. They had come to know her through her newsletters and were ready to work with her when she made the offer.

Michelle isn’t alone. I know hundreds of stories just like this one. It can happen to you, too.

But it all starts with the newsletter.

Linda Claire Puig is a newsletter marketing expert whose company, Claire Communications, provides busy coaches and personal development professionals with high-quality, education-based content and newsletters to grow their businesses. She also teaches unique, action-oriented programs on how to create newsletters and use them to make more money. An award-winning writer since 1983, Linda’s articles have appeared in newspapers, magazines and newsletters throughout the world. She has produced newsletters for small businesses and professionals since 1990 and has trained thousands of individuals in “the way of the newsletter.” For a free copy of two special newsletter resources from Linda, “75 Best Newsletter Success Strategies” and the “Easy Ezine Content Creator,” click here http://www.nexttopnewsletter.com/freebies

If you’d like get cool posts like this in your inbox every few days CLICK HERE to subscribe to my blog and you’ll also get a free copy of my fancy new ebook “Marketing for Hippies” when it’s done.

| Categories: becoming a hub, marketing strategy - Tags: becoming a hub, building trust, marketing, newsletters, online marketing, pink spoons, stay in touch marketing

Top Ten Ways to Become a Hub

By: Tad | Published: July 13, 2010 · 6 Comments

I’ve been talking a lot about ‘becoming a hub lately’. But, while that’s a nice idea and theory – what can you actually do about it. I can think of at least ten things – can you think of anything to add?

You don’t need to be almost naked on a unicycle to be the center of people’s attention (but it always helps):

host a directory: consider this brilliant strategy from Eric Brown. The short version: make a list of everyone you refer out to. Who are the complimentary businesses and services you refer your clients to? If you’re a massage therapist, I bet you often refer to (or get asked for referrals to) naturopaths, nutritionists, yoga teachers, chiropractors etc. Make a list of them all. And them put them into a little directory in a word file. Make it look nice. Put everyone’s contact info, bios and photos. And then send it to everyone in the list and say, “Though you should all meet each other. I refer to you all and want you to know that everyone in this list is solid and can be trusted entirely. Is there someone you should be added?” And you become the host of this directory. You’re like the mayor of this town. And people will be thrilled you stepped up and did this. They’re happy for the promotion and happy to help others they respect get more business.

host a big party: If you can organize a big old party for your niche and the key hubs and influencers in your niche, it can do a lot to set your reputation (if it’s a good party). Some organizations end up doing most of their business by hosting big parties at key times during the year – or in the evenings at trade shows.

host hubs in an event: But you might also consider the incredible benefits of hosting a smaller party (30-40 people) that focuses entirely on the key hubs and influencers in your scene. The invite might sound something like, “Hey, we’re all working with this same crowd. I thought it might make sense for us to meet and learn about what each other do.” This positions you as a leader in the minds of other leaders. They will absolutely know who you are and what you do by the end of this. No amount of advertising dollars can generate this kind of clarity and goodwill. I heard of a green architect in Victoria who hosted this kind of party. He invited those who’d been voted the 100 leading environmentalists in Victoria together to his studio for a mixer. People were thrilled to be invited and loved the event. My colleagues Robert Middleton and Bill Baren have done similar events where they are hosting key leaders in their field to come together for a weekend to explore possible joint ventures and learn from each other. Brilliant!

give an award: A lot of businesses secretly hope to get an award. Why not give one? Why not choose a person, non-profit or complimentary business that you think deserves some recognition and give them an award. Host an event for the community to honour them. Get a selection committee together of respected people in the community.

create a kick ass newsletter: I’m not talking about a typical newsletter. Check out the newsletter we’ve created for e-sage (go to this link and then look for the most recent newsletter). It’s a listing of all the cool workshops, parties, festivals, workshops, movie screenings etc. that celebrate local and green living in Edmonton. This newsletter has become the go-to resource for many in Edmonton to find out what’s going on in town. Create a newsletter that adds value. That let’s people know what happening in their scene. That connects them with good things.

post cool things on social media: So much to say here. But if people aren’t regularly telling you that you post cool stuff on facebook or twitter, chances are you aren’t. People tell me I post cool things. Make a commitment to only post remarkable and positive things that inspire you. Think of your social media as a channel. What you post is your programming. Just like TV. And, in the TV world, if the programming starts to suck, you lose advertising dollars. In your world, you won’t lose advertising dollars, you’ll lose people’s attention. That’s even worse.

play match maker when at networking events: An easy thing to do – whenever you go to a party or networking event – be curious about people. Ask them what’s coming up next for them, what they are needing etc. And then connect people with each other. Don’t force it. But pay attention. Having this attitude of giving and real listening also makes you incredibly charming and magnetic. And people are so grateful for this lovely person helping them.

host networking events: can you host networking shindigs for your scene? Or get involved in ones that already exist? In Edmonton, we’re hosting a monthly Green Drinks for our e-sage group – the response has been wonderful. It’s helping to strengthen e-sage’s position in Edmonton as a hub for local and green living.

have a hubs database: this is something I wrote about here in my blog. Do this.

take great care of your database: if the heart of being a good hub is being seen as a source of good things, then having a super up to date, segmented and well organized database matters – so people only get relevant stuff. Make it your (obviously unobtainable) goal to only ever send things that are totally useful to them.

| Categories: becoming a hub, marketing tactics - Tags: becoming a hub, building trust, marketing, safety