PART I: THE WAY OF THE GOLDEN RULE
Introduction

Chapter 1: Basic Concepts
The Road To Your Success: Providing Value To Others
Why is This Approach Better?
The Magic Triangle: Quality, Integrity, Honesty
Who Wins When You Market with Quality, Integrity, and Honesty?

Chapter 2: Marketing versus Adversarial Sales
Marketing Instead of Sales
But Wait--It Gets Worse!

Chapter 3: Sales the Right Way
Three Wise Sales Strategies from the UMass Family Business Center
When to Say No to a Sale

Chapter 4: Expand the Model Exponentially--By Making It Personal
John Kremer and Biological Marketing
Bob Burg and Winning Without Intimidation

PART II: THE NEW MARKETING MINDSET
Chapter 5: The New Marketing Matrix

Chapter 6: Abundance Versus Scarcity
The Old Scarcity Paradigm
The "Prosperity Consciousness" Paradigm--And Its Problems
The New Vision: Not Scarcity, Not Prosperity, But Abundance
The Abundance Model in Business

Chapter 7: Examples of Success
Saturn
Nordstrom
Stop & Shop Apple Promotion
Other Affinity Promotions

Chapter 8: Joint Ventures, Big and Small
Turn Your Competitors Into Allies
You've Done the Hardest Part--Now, Network With Complementary Businesses
One More Step--Turn Your Customers and Suppliers Into Evangelists

Chapter 9: How the Abundance Paradigm Eliminates the Need to Dominate a Market and Allows You to Better Serve Your Customers
The Death of "Market Share"

Chapter 10: Exceptions: Are There Cases When Market Share Really Does Matter?
Major Media
Extremely Limited or Saturated Markets
Predators
Crooks

Chapter 11: Give the People What They WANT
Shopping as Experience and Entertainment

PART III: HANDS-ON WITH COOPERATIVE, PEOPLE-CENTERED MARKETING

Chapter 12: Getting Noticed in the Noise And Clutter: A Brief Introduction to Effective Marketing Techniques

Chapter 13: Honesty in Copywriting
Understand Your Audience and Your Medium
Focus Your Copy on Why It's to Your Prospect's Advantage to Do Business
Great Copywriting
Ogilvy's Principles

Chapter 14: Practical Tools for Effective Mutual Success Marketing
Media Publicity
Speaking
Internet Discussion Groups
User-Friendly Websites with Newsletters
Apparel and Premiums
Highly Targeted Advertising, Direct Mail and Telephone Sales.
Guerrilla Gifting
The Triangle of Expertise: Get Paid to Do Your Own Marketing

Chapter 15: Marketing as Social Change, and Social Change as Marketing
Barbara Waugh, Corporate Revolutionary
Case Study: STM

Chapter 16: Community-Focused and Charity/Social Change Marketing

Chapter 17: The Beauty of Barter
Complex Barters
Non-Advertising Barters

Chapter 18: Taking The Concept Beyond Marketing: Abundance and Sustainability in Businesses and in Society
A Recap of Our Core Principles
What Could a Sustainable Future Look Like?
Making it Happen
Amory Lovins: Reinventing Human Enterprise for Sustainability
John Todd: "Waste Streams" Into "Fish Food"
How Will These Visionary Thinkers Improve YOUR Business?

Resources
Books
Websites/E-Zines
Clued-In Copywriters
Resources To Become A Better Copywriter/Publicist On Your Own

People DO matter! This book shows you how to be a successful marketer while keeping your actions ethical. It's about the idea that not only don't you have to be crooked or mean-spirited to succeed in business, but that the success strategies of a business formed in an attitude of abundance and grounded in ethics and cooperation are powerful and long-lasting--and they help you feel good about yourself even while bringing in profits.

Your parents and teachers probably taught you to treat others the way you want to be treated, play fair, cooperate. This book is about the idea that you can use that principle as a cornerstone of your business, and that you can design marketing that not only follows this precept, but harnesses its incredible power to bring success and abundance into your life.

Too many businesses see marketing as a weapon of war. They think that to succeed, they have to climb over their competitors, fool their customers, and herd their employees into constricted conformity.

I think that's just plain wrong.

Marketing is a series of partnerships--of courtships, really. Businesses that succeed with my model understand that they have to woo their customers, just as a suitor woos for the chance to marry. And just as a successful marriage is built on years of mutual communication and meeting each other's needs, successful marketing looks for a deep and long-lasting relationship based on meeting the needs and wants of everyone involved. That means your customers, your employees, your suppliers, and, yes, even your competitors! You can knock someone's socks off on the first date, but if you betray that trust afterwards, you become your own biggest obstacle on the road to success.

So stay out of "marketing divorce court"; be there for the long term. It takes work to achieve a successful, long-lasting marriage, but the rewards are worth it. Similarly, you have to work at a successful long-term relationship with all the other interest groups that interact with your business. It's got to be something that works for everybody involved.

Just as a romance that's based on false premises and miscommunication is doomed to failure, so business relationships based on greed and backed by false promises aren't going to work over time. But the good news is that if you treat others well, they will become your best marketers. The better you treat others, the more they will want to do business with you.

A word on terms: There are many ways to express the concept of Marketing That Puts People First, and to keep the book interesting, I use many of them. In fact, I spent over a month searching for the perfect title for this book, and many of the terms came from the over 100 titles I considered and discarded. Whether I say "Everyone Wins," "mutual benefit marketing," "marketing from abundance," "cooperative marketing," "ethical, profitable marketing," or various other phrases, it all boils down to this: you make your own success by helping others succeed--you succeed without selling your soul. Think about this style of business as a practical, day-to-day expression of the old Golden Rule: do unto others as you would like others to do unto you--a precept found in every major relegion.

While I do believe very strongly in the Golden Rule, this is not a religious book. Rather, it's based on a code of ethics. Your ethics could be religiously based or not; the important thing is that you have an ethical basis for your behavior, including the behavior of your business.

The modern business world doesn't always assume that business should be based on ethics. But I do. I will assume that you're reading this book because you really want to do what's right; but perhaps you've been steeped in so many years of "Nice Guys Finish Last" that you aren't sure it's really possible to succeed, thrive, and be profitable while doing the right thing.

I'm here to tell you that you can succeed and still keep your conscience. In this book, you'll encounter many success stories that put a practical handle on this philosophy. You'll see that others are doing very well by doing good, and that you can too.

The Abundance Model in Business

Lots of things change once you start looking at business through the “abundance filter.” The biggest difference is that you don’t need to feel threatened by your competitors. Because there is enough for all of you, you may even find that you want to cooperate. You can form alliances with them, and these alliances will be far more powerful than the two of you scrambling like mice to beat each other to the cheese—never realizing that the cheese is inside a mousetrap.

Businesses that you partner with will be more eager to put their relationship with you ahead of less ethical companies. They know a joint venture involving you will have fewer risks and more benefits; you are someone who can be trusted, and you won’t be sucked into the abyss that swallowed Enron, WorldCom, or Arthur Andersen.

Most importantly, you benefit yourself. Your business thrives, you feel good about what you do, you build warm relationships based on the best human qualities. You walk the streets with a light heart and your head held high.

Listen for a moment to marketing copywriter and consultant B.L. Ochman:

I used to be afraid to put news about my competitors’ e-books, newsletters and teleconferences in my newsletter. But I’ve completely changed my mind. I have begun to promote my competitors’ works and to include them in the affiliate program for my e-books. I do teleseminars with them.
Why? There is plenty of work to go around. People looking for PR and marketing are going to shop around anyway so why deny that fact? We can refer work to each other and we can enjoy the halo effect of being associated with smart, accomplished people. Try it, you’ll benefit.
B.L. Ochman, BLOchman@whatsnextonline.com
http://www.whatsnextonline.com

Huh—what just happened here? I just gave you the name and contact info of one of my competitors—I do all the same things that she does. And I’ve never met her and have never seen the work she does for her clients. Why on earth would I do that?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s because I really believe in what I’m writing here. In fact, in the resources section, you’ll find a listing of “Clued-In Copywriters,” all of whom are competitors of mine.

And B.L. believes it too; when I wrote for permission, she wrote back offering to review this book in her newsletter. Perhaps some of you saw it there.

And this philosophy really does pay back. A few months ago, B.L., who had been living just blocks from the World Trade Center in New York City, was having a fight with her ex-landlord; she’d had to move when her apartment became uninhabitable after 9/11, and the landlord was trying to retain many thousands of dollars that she would have paid in rent. She turned to her allies online, and within weeks, the pressure campaign she created accomplished the desired effect.

Now—I submit that the reason B.L. was able to get so much help from some of the world’s heavy hitters in sales and marketing is because she had long ago established herself as a person who doesn’t just take, but gives—again, operating out of that abundance mentality. If B.L. had been a cutthroat, if she had tried to steal business from her competitors or turn in useless work to her clients, would there have been a mass movement to come to her rescue? I strongly doubt it. First of all, she wouldn’t have been known to the Internet communities where she turned for help. And second, people who had been burned would have sabotaged the campaign before it ever got out of the gate.