We’ve all been told that “nice guys finish last”…that we have to be ruthless with our competitors and our customers to gain market share and squeeze every last dollar of revenue…that there’s no room in business for “soft-hearted” stuff like environmental sustainability…and that business is crooked and corrupt by its very nature.

Here’s the good news: None of that is true!

Business reality is very different than what they teach you, and that’s a very good thing. Here are some truths you might not learn in business school:

• Nice guys (either gender) finish first, not last
• Honesty, integrity and quality pay off big-time, if you know how to properly market your commitment to them
• In many cases, market share doesn’t even matter; it’s the wrong metric entirely
• Environmental sustainability initiatives can actually reduce costs, both now and in the future
• The very act of marketing can generate revenue; you can actually get paid to do your own marketing

Of course, the book describes these strategies in detail. But we believe that the more you give, the more you receive—so let’s at least peek at a few of the basic concepts right here and now:

The Magic Triangle of Ethics
Honesty, Integrity, and Quality. Build your business on these and you’re well on the way to success. (Principled Profit explores this starting on page 20.)

The Abundance Principle
By now, you’ve surely heard about the Law of Attraction—the idea that you manifest in your life the things you focus on. The Abundance Principle is a corollary of that, and Shel’s been teaching it for 13 years—long before the movie, “The Secret,” was released, and long before all those business ethics scandals started hitting the papers. When Shel started looking at ethics in the wake of those scandals, he realized that the Abundance Principle was absolutely crucial to ethical companies’ success.

In fact, if you approach the world ethically, with an attitude of abundance, the world lets you tap into that abundance—and the things you seek somehow come to you. (The whole of Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 explore this idea in detail, using examples from Apple Computer and Nordstrom down to one-person home businesses.)

The Meaninglessness of Market Share
For most of us, market share is completely irrelevant. Let’s look at Shel’s business as an example. He writes,

“I’m a copywriter, marketing and publishing consultant. I’m guessing that I serve something like 0.0000000000001 percent of the market—but my calendar is usually full. What does it matter to me if I don’t have all the work there is to do? I couldn’t handle even a tiny percentage of it anyway. There’s plenty to go around because the world is abundant.”

Another, much bigger example is Southwest Airlines. The book quotes legendary Southwest founding CEO Herb Kelleher on why he doesn’t chase market share, and what he goes after instead.

Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First is your roadmap to success through ethics, sustainability, and a people-centered attitude. This award-winning book gives you the tools you need to succeed in business by harnessing these delightful business “heresies.”

Jack Canfield, co-creator of the phenomenally successful Chicken Soup for the Soul series, had this to say:

“The success of Chicken Soup is based on the reality that most people want to help others and want to do the right thing. Shel Horowitz shows in Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First that not only do people want to change the paradigm toward cooperation and people-centered behavior, but that they can profit handsomely by doing so. I’m delighted to recommend this book.”

Click here to read 79 testimonials by prominent entrepreneurs and marketers, including Jay Conrad Levinson (the original Guerrilla Marketing man) …Anne Holland, founder of MarketingSherpa.com…Internet marketing legend and best-selling author Mark Joyner…Melanie Rigney, former editor of Writer’s Digest magazine…Bob Bly, one of the most well-known copywriters in the world…Fern Reiss, founder of Expertizing.com and acclaimed author of the Publishing Game series…and many others.

Click here to read reviews from Publishers Weekly, Foreword Magazine, Excess Voice (copywriting newsletter), Readers Preference, Inside Strategic Relations, Midwest Book Review, Brainy Tidbits, Ethix Magazine, Business Essentials, Bright Ideas, Fearless Reviews, Heartland Reviews, Buzz Reviews, BookPleasures.com, Direct Marketing Review, Spirit in Business Network, and elsewhere.

If you harness the information in this powerful book, it’s quite likely that thousands of dollars extra will begin to flow to you each year—and it’s certain that you’ll be able to hold up your head high and feel pride in your ethical business, even as you watch others compromise their principles (and pay the price).

Shel knows that he could package this in a three-ring binder or as a set of audios and charge hundreds of dollars for it. But he believes strongly in giving great value in all his books. Because his goal is to get this information into the hands of as many people as possible, and to help change the shape of business, he decided right from the start to make the book extremely affordable.

Therefore, while the advice in this book is easily worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars, the list price of Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First is just $17.50 plus shipping for the paperback edition (in either English or—to U.S. addresses—Spanish), or $16.50 with no shipping charge for the e-book edition (English only).

Sign the Pledge and Save 43 Percent—Yours for Just $9.95
But you can do even better. Shel is the founder of an international campaign to make crooked business as unacceptable a decade from now as slavery is today; people have signed this Pledge from over 30 countries already. Sign the Business Ethics Pledge and as a thank-you, you can get your copy of Principled Profit (English edition, print or e-book) for just $9.95 plus applicable shipping. In other words, for about the cost to buy a fancy cup of coffee for yourself and a friend, you can have this life-changing information that could set you on a permanent course toward ethical profitability.

What’s the Secret Truth that Enables Business Success?
Businesses can succeed with ethics if they understand one simple truth Are you wondering what that truth might be? Here it is:

Your marketing must leverage both your ethics and your passion in order to persuade others to want to help you succeed.

And that takes many forms. A few examples:

• Why your competitors’ success not only isn’t an obstacle, it can actually help you succeed (Chapter
• How “biological marketing” enables you to reap hundreds of times more than you sow (Chapter 4)
• Why smart, customer-centered marketing succeeds when ordinary sales techniques fail (Chapter 2)
• How to turn your marketing from an expense to an income stream—not just from its results, but for the very act of marketing (Chapter 14)
• How to convert your customers, complementary businesses, and even competitors into your Sales Ambassadors (Chapter 8 again)
• Why the customer experience is a more powerful testament to your brand (whether positive or negative) than all the slogans and logos and advertising and marketing materials in the world—and how you can harness this to benefit your business (Chapter 11)
• How to stay honest and true in your copywriting while boosting your response: 4 trigger points, 10 keys to include in your copy, and 12 “helper” elements to construct successful marketing materials (Chapter 13)
• Six specific ways to highlight your ethical commitment in your media publicity and other traditional marketing (Chapter 12)—and 12 specific marketing tools that work well for ethical marketers (Chapter 14)
• How to leverage your marketing skills to make a huge difference in the wider world—to help create the type of world you want to live in (Chapters 15, 16, and 18)
• 56 specific resources for further exploration, plus 20 copywriters who can make it happen for you (Chapter 19)

Change your thinking and your action! Become more profitable and still hold your head up high when you look in the mirror. Stand out from the pack, especially when times are touch and businesses have to be smarter to survive.

“I started writing about these amazing concepts in 2002, and the book—groundbreaking for its time—was published the following year. In 2003, there were almost no books on how to succeed through ethics (there are more of them now). That’s OK—I’m used to being ahead of my time, and I’ve been deeply gratified to see society slowly turning from dismissing these principles as too “out there” toward accepting them as common sense.”

And interestingly enough since beginning this work, I’ve noticed that my own copywriting and consulting business is attracting a higher class of client: people who say flat-out that my ethics work brought them to me, and who are often easier to work with and more eager to hire me for longer, more complex, and more frequent projects. In other words, when I started to focus more on what I really want to be doing and how I wanted to do it, more of that work started coming to me, just as claimed by proponents of the Law of Attraction. Even though I understand the principles involved, I’m still amazed (and thrilled)!”
—Shel Horowitz

Honors for Principled Profit

• Winner of an Apex Award for best book in the marketing/PR field
• Republished by Panorama in Mexico (in Spanish) and Jaico in India (in English)
• 1000 copes purchased by Southwest Airlines (for the President to give to people he wanted to impress, I’m told)
• Honorable Mention in the DIY Awards
• One of the only self-published books ever to break the Amazon Top 100 in a bestseller-for-a-day campaign on its own merits, without any additional bonuses
• Inspired (and is featured in) the song, “Principles of Profit,” by Australian rocker Joel Falconer/NDK
• Favorably reviewed in Publishers Weekly and elsewhere. Click here to read the reviews
• Nominated for an Ethan Award (entrepreneurial excellence)
• American Booksellers Association Booksense 76 Pick by Bob Spear of Heartland Reviews

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