Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First

How to use ethics, a cooperative attitude, and the Abundance Principle (kind of like the Law of Attraction) to achieve dramatic success in your business. Find out why this powerful book has been endorsed by Jack Canfield (co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul), Mark Joyner (Internet marketing legend and author of several best-selling books), Jay Conrad Levinson (author of the Guerrilla Marketing books, Anne Holland (CEO of MarketingSherpa.com) and over 70 other entrepreneurs and marketers.

Apex Award winner. DIY Book Award Finalist. Ethan Award nominee. Resold to and republished by publishers in  India and Mexico. A life-changing book.

Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World

Step-by-step hands-on guide to effective and affordable marketing of any product, service, or idea.

Detailed coverage of publicity in the media, face-to-face and phone selling, website and Internet marketing
Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Finalist.

Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers

Updated to 2007, frugal and effective marketing strategies just for books and information products. Almost no overlap with the orignal Grassroots book.

Honorable Mention, Indie Excellence Awards

The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook

280-page e-book on how to have fun cheaply, written up in women’s Day, Reader’s Digest, Bottom Line, etc..

To order, or to read brief descriptions of these books and all other information products Shel offers, please visit this page

Down to Business
http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/dtb.shtml

How to Keep Control of Your Media Interview
http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/control-media-interview.shtml

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/deep-economy.shtml

Benjamin Franklin, Copywriter
http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/benjamin-franklin.shtml

Frugal & Fashionable Living
http://www.frugalfun.com/frugal.html

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/deep-economy.shtml

Ethics Articles
http://www.principledprofits.com/ethics-articles.html

Difficult People
http://principledprofit.com/difficult-people.shtml

With this issue, I’m switching from plain-text e-mail to a blog that lets me format the newsletter more attractively. Each month, you’ll get a summary e-mail like this, and a link to a post that lets you click to any of the stories.

Seminar TODAY: Write, Publish, Promote a Marketable Book

Deadline to register 2 p.m. Eastern if you want to join us live (5 p.m. by phone). Or you can buy the recording at any time.

The New Format for My Newsletters

Advantages to you, the reader–and to me, the editor/publisher

Zappos.com: Positive Power of Principled Profit Spotlight, June 2007

This month’s featured business: “A customer service company that happens to sell shoes.”

Another Recommended Book: The Rise of the Rogue Executive: How Good Companies Go Bad and How to Stop the Destruction

Explaining Enron, WorldCom, and other business ethics scandals

Other Places to Meet/Hear Shel

Speaking in person in Massachusetts and Nevada, and worldwide via phone and/or Internet

Latest Content on Our Websites

Visit http://frugalmarketing.com/newsletters

Shel’s Award-Winning Books–Which Should You Own?

See why experts agree that Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, and Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World are some of the most value-packed resources on marketing that you’ll find. If you think the tips are good, you should try the books!

Last Chance to Register for Today’s Book Publishing and Marketing Class, worldwide over the phone or in-person in Hadley, MA, today, 7-9 p.m. Eastern. Registration deadline to be sure of getting the codes/location: Monday, 2 p.m. Eastern (after that, you’ll be signing up for the replay–but you can call 413-586-2388 until 5 p.m. Eastern and wecan still get you in).

Seminar June 18: “How to Write, Publish, and Promote a
Marketable Book” (co-presented with writing coach Claudia Gere). Worldwide
via teleseminar and in-person in Hadley, Massachusetts.
Co-sponsored by Hidden-Tech and the University of Massachusetts
Division of Continuing Education (and a benefit for Hidden-Tech).

Turn Your Expertise into a Successful Book — informational seminar to benefit Hidden-Tech

When: Monday, June 18, 2007, or whenever it’s convenient to hear the replay

Level: Beginning to intermediate

Cost: $50 by phone or $75 in person - a significant portion of the proceeds
benefits Hidden-Tech, an organization of professionals working virtually (primarily in Western Massachusetts, but elsewhere as well): http://hidden-tech.net/

Refreshments: Beverages and light snacks will be
provided
Register here:
http://www.principledprofit.com/marketablebook.shtml

If you can’t attend at that time, register anyway. If the
Recording Gods are pleased with us, we’ll make a recording
available to anyone who has preregistered to attend this event
either in person or over the phone. If you can’t attend and the
recording doesn’t come out, we’ll immediately refund your fee.

Worldwide over the Internet: Tuesday, June 19, 1 p.m. Eastern, Shel will be Tony Trupiano’s guest on The Tony Show, discussing the Pledge and progressive politics. Listen live at http://www.thetonyshow.com/ or http://www.radiopower.org/ (You might know Tony’s name form his campaign for Congress last year).

Hands-On Low-Cost Marketing Workshop and Keynote on Ethics: Noteworthy USA Conference (for brokers of real estate notes), Las Vegas, NV, October 4 (marketing) and 5 (ethics). Contact: Linda Marchi, 800-487-1864, linda@noteworthyusa.com
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Book Marketing for Shy and Frugal Authors. Muse Online Writer’s Conference, worldwide, Thursday, October 11. Time TBA.
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Self-Publishing Panel, National Writers Union Write Angles Conference, Mount Holyoke College, S. Hadley, MA, Saturday, December 1.

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Listen to Shel’s own Principled Profit radio show on WXOJ-FM, 103.3 FM in the Northampton, MA area, or streaming at http://www.valleyfreeradio.org

Monday, July 2, 7 p.m. Eastern: Tom Murray, Perspegrity.com: Using computers to build skills in nonviolent communication

Monday, July 23, 7 p.m. Eastern: Don Lesser, Pioneer Training, ptraining.com — specifically on ethics issues such as when you can and can’t honestly recommend a colleague.

Monday, August 27 and Monday, September 3: to be announced

I asked for some feedback from subscribers to my Frugal Marketing Tips and Frugal Fun Tips newsletters, which have been running for over ten years.

Clearly the existing format–a long plain-text e-mail newsletter–not only wasn’t working for me anymore, it wasn’t working for my readers either. So I’m moving it to a blog. You’ll still get an e-mail telling you what you’ll get when you click.

Advantages to you: it’ll be prettier, you can easily locate the chunks that interest you, and you can easily comment on any article.

Advantages to me: deliverability is much more likely, the whole thing is easier to archive and it will be easier to get you to see the content of my other newsletters.

I’m sure it will evolve over the next few months. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy it.

This month and next, we’ll look at the dark side: two books that look not at what can be made right in corporate America, but what went wrong.

The Rise of the Rogue Executive places much blame on internal procedures that jettisoned 100 years of responsible practices, and the technologies that made fraud and profiteering possible on a scale that simply wasn’t possible in generations past.

And sometimes, flat-out lies, as in WorldCom using a totally theoretical “what-if” spreadsheet looking at the opportunity if Internet use doubled every 100 days as the basis of its income projections! The result of this total lie was devastation in the telecom industry, which was frantically laying cable in order to keep up with this demand prediction.

Another key cause was the incentive structure (eliminated by Sarbanes-Oxley in the aftermath of Enron’s collapse) that turned consultants and auditors at Big Six accounting firms such as Arthur Andersen into sales staff and pressured auditors not to jeopardize the far more lucrative consulting business (the book reproduces the full text of the Anderson indictment, in fact). Can you say “conflict of interest?”

And taking it further, CEOs face pressure to cook the books or look the other way when those to whom they delegate are unethical, both because of their own ludicrous compensation structures and pressure from investors for short-term growth. (The book cites bad behavior on the part of Dick Cheney during his Halliburton days, among others.)

But ethical, involved leaders can surmount the challenge. The book discusses this, but this part is much weaker, mostly focusing once again on the wrongdoers. I’d have liked to see that part built up.

Of course, my own award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First covers that part in detail, explaining how to set up and run successful ethical companies.

And one easy step companies can do is to sign the Business Ethics Pledge, so consumers know of their commitment.

Find this book at Amazon: The Rise of the Rogue Executive: How Good Companies Go Bad and How to Stop the Destruction by Leonard R. Sayles and Cynthia J. Smith (Wharton, 2005)