Category: Sustainability

Brand

Little Things Really Do Matter

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This is admittedly a bit of a rant, but is also an important point when it comes to how you demonstrate your sustainability to your customers and other audiences. (recommended reading on this topic: Little Big Things by Tom Peters).

The background: I buy many of the sustainability-related products for my home from one particular on-line merchant (who is the subject of this rant, and to be clear, not a client). I’m also one of those people who hates to receive anything printed – catalogs, statements, whatever…for sustainability as well as clutter and efficiency reasons (I never miss a chance to point out that they are almost always related)

The event: I picked up my (US) mail today, and in that mail, found a printed catalog from this company. I’ve never received one before, in the several years I’ve done business with this company.

The rant: Why did I receive a catalog from this company? They are a sustainability-products company. They purport to be a very green company. There are lots of images of trees on their website (I wonder if any of those were cut down to print my catalog). Yes, direct mail marketing works well. But I’m an established customer.

The solution: There are people who prefer to receive catalogs in the mail. Others don’t mind. And still others, like me, do mind. I wonder if this particular company might have considered sending an e-mail (in the fashion of a hotel pillow card) after my first order just asking if I’d prefer to receive communications electronically or in print (or even both).  I know I would have both opted for electronic and would have appreciated them asking.

This is a double win for the company – they make me happy with my choice and they improve their reputation in my eyes. Just sending the catalog both annoyed me and damaged their reputation (particularly their green claims). And I wonder if it would have cost them less to produce the e-mail than to produce and mail the catalog?

The conclusion: Yes, this is a very small thing – and not all-that-uncommon. But over the scope of a large number of customers/prospects and in the eyes of the larger community, if you’re really serious about sustainability (or for that matter, managing your reputation at all), little things like this go a long way to both improving your reputation and demonstrating just how strong your commitment is.

So pay attention, even when it seems the question is not very relevant.

And chime in if you have a story like this to share.

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Events

Join me at @westcoastgreen ( #wcg10 ); Discounted/Free passes available (updated with links)

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I have the privilege of having been invited to speak at West Coast Green this year, the premier conference on green innovation. West Coast Green focused on the built environment, but also discussed the latest innovations in sustainability and the businesses growing up around the clean economy.

I’ll be leading a panel discussion on the afternoon of September 30 which will focus on some of the more challenging issues facing clean-tech and other sustainability-related start-ups and growing companies face. Building on what we’ve learned from clients who adopt solutions from these young companies, I’ll be leading an audience of entrepreneurs in challenging a panel of experts on critical business topics to come up with solutions that will help their companies cross the dreaded “valley of death” and move from start-up to market success.

I’m privileged to have on this panel these leading experts in their fields:

  • Cindy Jennings, VP, Cohn Marketing. With perspective from a wide range of industries, Cindy is a sustainability marketing and communications expert
  • Will Sarni, CEO, Domani. For 30 years, Will has consulted on sustainability issues and is now an advisor to clean-tech start-ups
  • Anneke Seley, CEO, PhoneWorks. In addition to building sales and marketing process for growing companies, Anneke is pushing the envelope as the leader of the Sales 2.0 movement.

DS3 has secured discounts on attendance for our community. If you’re interested in joining us for this exciting session and seeing what else this three-day event has to offer, please register for a full-conference pass (30% discount) or a trade-show-floor-only pass (free).

Please add your voice to the comments if you have thoughts about the top challenges facing start-ups as they work to achieve market success and a growing revenue stream.

I hope I’ll see you there!

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Innovation

Ford Takes a Not-so-Small step Toward Responsibility

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Yesterday, The Detriot Free Press reported that Ford dealers are taking part in a pilot program offered by the company to help those dealers reduce their environmental impact. The report highlighted the reductions in energy use and the resulting cost decrease that the dealers are likely to see from adopting this program, but at the same time only glanced at a more interesting point.

There is a growing sentiment (and the subject of another discussion) that the ideas and implementations of environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility are not only different faces of the same issue, but that they are – or at least should be – central to the way a corporation does business. This is a significant shift from the more traditional model of these two being just functions – and marginalized functions at that – somewhere in a staff department.

Part of what it means to be a responsible corporation is how you act outside your own walls – with your customers, partners and other stakeholders. And from the standpoint of environmental and business responsibility, “acting well” includes (maybe means entirely?) helping your partner and customers (and in this case dealers) do a better job of serving their customers and becoming more responsible themselves.

This may be a relatively small (for now) and obvious program that Ford is launching. But it’s hard for me not to notice that a company that by its very products contributes to environmental damage, is not just taking steps to reduce its own impact, but to help its dealers reduce theirs.

And helping them save money and be better neighbors in the process (which can only help them gain more customers – or at least fans).

This is one example of what looks to be a small but growing trend toward taking slightly larger steps toward sustainability, responsibility and a building a better business by being both.

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