Positive Power of Principled Profit
Volume 1, Number 5 - Janaury 2004

Positive Power Spotlight: Stephen Brockelman

It's one of those little marketing gimmicks—bring food or product samples to journalists (especially broadcast journalists) and your chances of getting coverage go up.

Well, advertising copywriter and consultant Stephen Brockelman found an even better variation that resonates well with the Principled Profit core principle of helping the world through your work—and about pursuing a long-term strategy instead of the quick hit:

Knowing that local TV meteorologists are easy to research online, he located their favorite charities and the nonprofits where they served on the board. "Then, the next year, I made a donation in their name to their favorite charity or a non-profit where they were advisors or on the board. I sent them an email letting them know that was how I was honoring them on their special day.

"That year, the people who sent cookies got a couple of seconds of mention at the end of the 5 a.m. broadcasts. I and my company got a minimum of one minute of exposure in the first 15 minutes of the 5 a.m., 6 a.m. and noon newscasts. I was also mentioned on the afternoon and evening newscasts. And that coverage was just for the CBS, NBC, and ABC TV affiliates. On Fox and the other minor stations, the coverage went up to two minutes. Not bad for television, where time is much more tightly controlled than radio. The NBC and Fox affiliates even went to my website and pulled a graphic and showed it on the air."

This created long-term market visibility and a cozy inside spot in producer Rolodexes. "I began getting calls from many of the stations when they had marketing questions on a news story or other business questions regarding small business. Then I started getting calls from the newspapers. And I felt much better about giving money to organizations like the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the ASPCA, and others than I would have by sending a bucket of food!"

On Brockelman's website , there's a link to an interview with him (by my long-time cyber-friend Judy Vorfeld) that shows how his whole style of doing business is firmly based in the ethical principles I write about.

In that interview, Brockelman lists these goals, among others (these are quotations):

* Working with people and organizations that I believe in and respect.

* Finding new clients from good will, excellent work, and word of mouth.

* Not having to justify pro-bono work to anyone other than myself.

* Charging a fair rate for my work.

* Refusing to feel guilty about turning work away if I'm not comfortable with the client.

* Being an honest communicator with everyone at all times.

These are excellent principles to live by, and I salute Stephen Brockelman as this month's Positive Power hero. And my thanks to Joan Stewart of The Publicity Hound, where I first learned about him.

"ZenWise Selling" by Lee Godden

"ZenWise Selling: Mindful Methods to Improve Your Sales...And Your Self" by Lee Godden We talk a lot about marketing in this newsletter. And one-to-one contact is, of course, a major piece of the larger marketing pie. The act of meeting with a prospect, or speaking to one over the telephone, and convincing that person that your products and services can fill a need, solve a problem, or make an improvement is one of the most badly practiced arts around—so many people don't have a clue about how to sell ethically and in a way that fully respects the prospect.

Therefore, it's always nice to recommend a resource that can improve the selling experience for both seller and buyer. I recommend a few such books in the Principled Profit bibliography, which is now posted on the website. And I'm always glad to find more.

Lee Godden sent me a copy of his new book, ZenWise Selling, and he's clearly based in exactly that kind of wisdom. He espouses a gentle, mindful selling orientation that replaces the aggressive hard sell. Instead, he suggests really listing, ethical behavior, and accepting the ups and downs of the process as a keen observer of the world, as opposed to as someone who gets bent out of shape by every little setback.

Godden is a Zen practitioner, and there's certainly quite a bit about meditative techniques and general Zen practices, as well as a nice little history of Zen at the end of the book. But he isn't preachy, and even if you don't see yourself meditating, there's much here that will be useful and practical for anyone in sales.

And actually, while reading this book, I had an emergency root canal on one of my teeth. I let Lee's message flow over me, and achieved a meditative state in the dentist's chair that made the procedure a lot less painful, and the recovery a lot faster, than it might have been.

Click here to purchase from a BookSense independent bookseller

Or click here to purchase from Amazon