Green Options

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As summer is nearing its end and I am enjoying a garden harvest of sweet corn, cucumbers, tomatoes and sugar peas, I’ve been thinking about the bees that help make it all possible. Bees are wonderful, fascinating little beings. Not only do they produce sweat honey, but also a wax.

The wax is what forms the honey combs that the bees make to hold the honey. It is harvested when the honey is harvested and once they are stripped of the honey they can be melted and rendered to use for many purposes. Some use it as a furniture polish or a lubricant for sticky windows or drawers.

The most obvious use is for candles. You can get beeswax in two different forms in which to make candles from. One is a block and the other is sheets.

Last week I had the chance to hear Pete Blackshaw talk about his book “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends. Angry Customers Tell 3,000″. His message is particularly important for eco-entrepreneurs, so I’m summarizing some of his talk for you green business entrepreneurs.

Green businesses are particularly well-suited for consumer advocacy. Customers who shop from your company due to a shared concern for the environment and/or a desire to avoid toxins are likely to tell their friends about the benefits of your product or service. The flip-side is that they are also likely to be particularly vocal and angry if they feel you have betrayed your green mission.

Social media, primarily blogs, have greatly lowered the barriers for consumers to voice their opinions. They can easily advocate on behalf of a brand or take a company to task for bad service, misleading advertising, products that do not work, and more. And the title of Blackshaw’s book rings true.

The question for green businesses is are you making it easier for 1000 people to advocate on behalf of your business, and are you reacting quickly and authentically when there is a mis-step and a customer is unhappy?

We marketers used to say that a brand is the sum total of all experiences with a company–not just the product or service but the employees, partners, website, collateral, ads, service centers, etc.

Your Google ranking is part of your brand

Well, now, customer service discussions on blogs are now part of your brand experience. Blackshaw says,

This past weekend, I went to Virgin Fest. A two day, two stage, music festival deal. It was a blast to see so many bands rock out to a very enthusiastic crowd.

The neat thing about Virgin Fest, is that they are committed to being as green as possible. They had a whole exhibit based on their efforts, called the Green Spot. At the exhibit you learned that all of the paper products, t-shirts and other “merch” were sourced from organic cotton, recycled content and corn based plastics. Generators used biofuels and composting bins were placed next to recycle bins.

It was wonderful to know that even though music festivals are large events, small changes can make a big difference. But what really got me going was an awesome bandanna skirt that I spotted in the crowd.

This is a guest post by Ruth Haag, President and CEO of Haag Environmental Company, a hazardous waste consulting firm.

One of the reasons that we, as a society, create so much waste is that it is easier to have something that is disposable, than to have something that must be maintained. Turning an office environment “green” will take some work, but worth it.

It is a bit harder to encourage an office staff to think about a healthy environment, because of the number of personalities involved. As with any new venture, it works best if there is support from the top management.

Following are some very simple ideas that you can use to start to turn your office into a “green” office.

In my last post I talked about the pitch-to-pitch, that is, how to even get a potential investor to listen to your pitch for funding your green business. In this post, I’m going to assume you have a good plan for networking and outreach to venture capital firms and/or angel investors. The next question is how to distill all of the supporting points for your tremendous chances for success into one paragraph or a brief conversation.

If you are like most entrepreneurs, you are living and breathing your new business or business idea, and everything seems important. And truly it all is. However, you need to step outside of all of that for a moment and extract a few uber-important points.

Look at your business from the point of view of a potential investor. The investor wants high returns with low risk. And if you are reading this blog, you probably have a green venture and will be reaching out to double-bottom line investors, so you need to have a forecast for an impressive environment impact as well.

Four Points to Fit into Your Green Business Elevator Pitch

Last week, I let you know my strong feelings about the need to ban vinyl from the craft world. This week, I want to explore what that means in real time and explore some potential alternatives.

First and foremost, I see clear vinyl used most extensively in hand made items. It is found in wallets, ID holders and things like ipod cases. Unfortunately, I have yet to find an alternative for clear vinyl. So it stays on the Eco-Crafter’s List of Demands.

Second, many crafters use vinyl to make bags; many, many bags. The vinyl fabric that is used in these bags is bright and colorful. It comes in many different colors and is a relatively inexpensive material. It is also used because people either can’t afford leather, or are morally opposed to using leather.

In past posts, we’ve covered how to write a business plan and even how to pitch a professional investor such as a venture capitalist. However, there is a missing step between those two activities, which an Ecopreneurist reader wrote in to ask about, and that is: How do you even get an investor to return your call (or email)?

Although this answer is an over-simplification, I’ll recommend to you: Personal Contact.

A few days ago, a venture capitalist told me that he, with the other three partners in his firm, look at 1100 companies a year. These people have a lot of other things to do as well, such as attending board meetings of portfolio companies, conducting detailed due diligence for the few firms they choose to seriously consider for investment, speaking on panels at conferences, etc.

If you send an email to someone who gets hundreds of emails a day, you really need to stand out. Ideally, your subject line would say, “Referral from X.”

Making it Personal

Keep in mind that investors in early-staged companies are investing in people. Before it is really up and running, a Company doesn’t have much value. Ideas are a dime a dozen.

The value is built by executing on a vision and creating a brand, a customer base, a strong team, revenue streams, etc. It is as important to be seen as a trustworthy, capable person as it is to have your business idea be judged as sound.

You’ll have a higher rate of responses from potential investors, if you make use of introductions.

Everyone is wondering what to do about social media. How does it fit into a marketing plan? How does it fit into a business plan? Should we engage? How much? What is this thing called social media?

An article Where Does Social Media Sit in a Firm? Probably Many Places in Marketing &Strategy Innovation Blog, one of my favorites, details several places. Quoting Jim Tobin, a few obvious and not so obvious applications are identified.

Brand managers can now use social media as an integral part of marketing campaigns.

Product developers can use social media for consumer intelligence. The idea that you have to spend tens of thousands to get limited information from focus groups is becoming outmoded.

Public relations can look at the messages that they send and figure out how they can make them a) more interesting and b) more easily digested by the blogosphere and the networks.

Customer service should be using social media to decrease call volume and increase customer satisfaction. Paying $35 per phone call to answer the same types of questions thousands of times isn’t helping anyone.

Human resources can be using social media to convey what working at the company is all about, and they should certainly be using it to go find candidates with particular backgrounds.

One of my favorite things about summer, hands down, is the beach. I grew up very close by so my summers were always very beach filled. I’ve also been very lucky that throughout my adult life, I’ve had the same privilege. I might not be as close as when I was in school, but through a little bit of coaxing I can usually get a friend with a car to take the drive to the shore.

The beach is such a wonderful place. The waves, the sand, the sun, the wind and the veritable treasures that the ocean provides is a wonderful sensory smorgasbord! I love tide pools and the small vignettes of life found within. I love picking up and looking over beautiful pebbles, shells and sea glass.

I usually don’t take any of the small treasures that I find, often admiring them then giving them back to the waves. But one time, I found this amazing piece of sea glass. It is small and rounded and it is tinted this great soft green. I’ve kept hold of it for a good long time in my jewelry box thinking that one day I’ll do something with it.

There are many financial benefits of becoming a business, depending on how you structure it. Not only are businesses taxed after their expenses have been deducted, but many legitimate deductions are available to a small business that reduce its reported earnings.

The IRS tax code specifies the following related to business expenses:

IRS Code Section 162(a),Trade or business expenses:
“There shall be allowed as a deduction all the ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business.”

IRS Code Section 212, Expenses for production of income:
“In the case of an individual, there shall be allowed as a deduction all the ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year.”

These days there is an increasing amount of people who care about the health of the planet, their community, their family, themselves. Where they come from is also increasing in breadth, now including people far beyond the usual suspects, even from 5 years ago. You don’t have to be a Greenpeace activist chaining yourself to ships to make an impact these days. In fact, it seems there’s an overwhelming amount of options, big and small, to make a positive impact. It’s enough to leave anybody dumbfounded as to what to do.

Along comes Be The Change, an environmental leadership program from Silicon Valley based Acterra. They sum it up best when they say:

The program emphasizes building skills that enable people to act within the organizations where they work, live, worship and play to bring about significant changes in how they relate to the natural world.

Awesome.