Green products have been around since the 1970s, but it’s only in recent years that they’ve become ubiquitous. That’s because savvy green marketers are no longer targeting “deep green” consumers with a “save the planet” pitch. Instead, they’re promoting the added value their products provide: better health, superior performance, good taste, or cost-effectiveness. In this innovative book Ottman argues that emphasizing primary benefits — the New Rules — is critical to winning over the mainstream consumer.

Drawing on the latest poll data and incorporating lessons learned from her clients and other leading sustainable brands — including GE, Nike, Method, Starbucks, Timberland, HP, NatureWorks, Procter & Gamble, Stonyfield Farm, and Wal-Mart — Ottman provides practical strategies, tools, and inspiration for building every aspect of a credible value-based green marketing strategy. She covers such topics as spurring innovation through a proactive approach to sustainability, developing products that are green throughout their life cycle, communicating credibly to avoid accusations of “greenwashing,” teaming up with stakeholders to maximize outreach to consumers, taking advantage of social media, and much more.

The New Rules of Green Marketing captures the best of Ottman’s two previous groundbreaking books on green marketing and places it within a 21st Century context. Focusing on a new generation of marketers who likely grew up with an appreciation for sustainability, it provides in one place essential strategies, tools, and inspiration for connecting effectively with mainstream consumers.

You can purchase this great new reference book direct from its publisher, Berrett-Koehler and receive a 30% discount.

Cars will dispense vitamins and helpful reminders

By Rebecca Boyle

Helpful Car The Nissan Leaf interior. Nissan announced Wednesday its next-generation cars will come with vitamin C-dispensing air conditioners, helpful speedometers and NASA-engineered bucket seats.

Never mind running on electricity — cars of the future will be so helpful, they’ll spray us with vitamins and make sure we never forget another anniversary.

That’s the future envisioned by the people at Nissan, who announced today that their next-generation cars will be designed to make drivers feel they are better off staying in their cars instead of stepping outside.

Within the next two to three years, new Nissans will come with anti-collision radar technology; comfy “easy chair” seats designed by NASA, which are intended to improve blood flow; and air conditioners that spritz passengers with vitamin C, which helps prevent skin damage and wrinkles.

They will also have air purifiers designed by Sharp and smart speedometers that will remind drivers of upcoming anniversaries and birthdays, lest the driver forget.

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Nissan hopes to capitalize on growing driver desire for value-added technology, the carmaker says. Cars are more than modes of transport, Nissan engineer Kenichi Tanaka explains: “The emotional aspect of a car has become increasingly important as customer needs diversify,” he told AFP.

The anti-collision system is similar to radar systems used in airplanes and ships, AFP reports. It monitors the distance from a vehicle in front and can prevent forward crashes at speeds up to 40 mph. It works by telling the driver to decelerate, then slowing the car by automatically raising the accelerator and pressing the brake.

Nissan has plenty on its plate with the impending launch of the electric Leaf later this year, but a focus on comfort suggests the carmaker is not counting on the Leaf alone to get drivers’ attention.

Yvon’s interest in climbing began with his membership in the Southern California Falconry Club at age 14. He began climbing cliff faces to see the falcon aeries. The only pitons available at the time were made of soft iron, placed once and left behind. Yvon decided to make his own chrome-molybdenum steel pitons and became a blacksmith making two an hour which he sold for $1.50 each. Word spread and his pitons and later camping equipment were in high demand. He partnered with an aeronautical engineer, Tom Frost in 1965 and in the 9 years they were together, they redesigned and improved almost every climbing tool, to make them stronger, lighter, simpler, and more functional. They would return from every trip to the mountains with new ideas for improving existing tools.

By 1970, Chouinard Equipment had become the largest supplier of climbing hardware in the U.S. It had also become an environmental villain because its gear was damaging the rock. After an ascent of the degraded Nose route on El Capitan, which had been pristine a few summers earlier, they decided to phase out of the piton business, their first environmental step on a long journey.

In 1972, they introduced an alternative, aluminum chocks that could be wedged by hand rather then hammered in and out of cracks. They were introduced in their first catalog that same year.

The catalog opened with an editorial from the owners on the environmental hazards of pitons. A 14-page essay by Sierra climber Doug Robinson on how to use chocks began with a powerful paragraph:

There is a word for it, and the word is clean. Climbing with only nuts and runners for protection is clean climbing. Clean because the rock is left unaltered by the passing climber. Clean because nothing is hammered into the rock and then hammered back out, leaving the rock scarred and the next climber’s experience less natural. Clean because the climber’s protection leaves little trace of his ascension. Clean is climbing the rock without changing it; a step closer to organic climbing for the natural man.

Within a few months chocks sold faster than they could be made.

At the time climbing clothing was usually drab grey with little color and active sportswear had not been born. On a winter climbing trip to Scotland in 1970, Chouinard bought a regulation team rugby shirt to wear rock climbing. Overbuilt to withstand the rigors of rugby, it had a collar that would keep the hardware slings from cutting into the neck. It was blue, with two red and one yellow center stripe across the chest. Back in the States, Chouinard wore it around his climbing friends, who asked where they could get one.

They ordered a few shirts from Umbro, in England which quickly sold out. They couldn’t keep them in stock, and soon began ordering shirts from New Zealand and Argentina as well. Other companies followed suit and they soon realized that they had introduced a minor fashion craze to the United States. They began to see clothing as a way to help support the marginally profitable hardware business, and by 1972 we were selling polyurethane rain cagoules and bivouac sacks from Scotland, boiled-wool gloves and mittens from Austria, and hand-knit reversible “schizo” hats from Boulder.

The new clothing business was named Patagonia to reflect “romantic visions of glaciers tumbling into fjords, jagged windswept peaks, gauchos and condors.”

They introduced insulated and waterproof clothing with Capilene® and Synchilla®, sales soared and have had an active R+D program ever since introducing a palette of colors. They made the INC 500′s fastest growing companies list.

In 1991, with the recession, their business took a dramatic nosedive and their loan was called forcing them to lay off 20% of their staff. They have kept growth – and borrowing – to a modest scale ever since.

Part of the Patagonia culture was allowing team members to dress however they wished, even barefooted. Peple ran or surfed at lunch or played vollyball in the sandpit at the back of the building. The company sponsored ski and climbing trips.

There are no private offices that sometimes creates distractions but helps keep communication open. Their cafeteria is a gathering place for employees and serves mostly vegetarian food. They opened a child care center, one of only 150 in the country at the time. (Today there are more than 3000). This atmosphere helps keep the business more family than corporate. Flexible hours and job sharing were introduced.

In 1986, Patagonia committed to donate 10% of profits each year to these groups. We later upped the ante to 1% of sales, or 10% of profits, whichever was greater. They have kept to that commitment every year since.

In 1988, they initiated their first national environmental campaign on behalf of an alternative master plan to deurbanize the Yosemite Valley. Each year since, they have undertaken a major education campaign on an environmental issue. They took an early position against globalization of trade where it means compromise of environmental and labor standards. They have argued for dam removal where silting, marginally useful dams compromise fish life. They have supported wild lands projects that seek to preserve ecosystems whole and create corridors for wildlife to roam. They hold, every eighteen months, a “Tools for Activists” conference to teach marketing and publicity skills to some of the groups we work with.

They also, early on, began initial steps to reduce their own role as a corporate polluter and have been using recycled-content paper for their catalogs since the mid-eighties. They worked with Malden Mills to develop recycled polyester for use in their Synchilla fleece.

Their distribution center in Reno, opened in 1996 and achieved a 60% reduction in energy use through solar-tracking skylights and radiant heating; they used recycled content for everything from rebar to carpet to the partitions between urinals. They retrofitted lighting systems in existing stores, and build-outs for new stores became increasingly environmentally friendly. They assessed the dyes they used and eliminated colors from the line that required the use of toxic metals and sulfides. Most importantly, since the early nineties, they have made environmental responsibility a key element of everyone’s job.

They commissioned an independent research company to assess the environmental impact of four major fibers. They discovered the worst of all fibers was cotton that used 25% of all toxic pesticides used in agriculture harming the environment with strong ties to the damage of workers health. In 1994, they made the decision to go 100% organic and had 18 months to make the switch for 66 products and only 4 months to line up the fabric. They succeeded and today every Patagonia product made of cotton is organic with increasing use of hemp and recycled polyester.

“We still pursue climbing and surfing, activities that entail risk, require soul, and invite reflection. We favor informal travels with friends – doing what we love to do – to the camera-covered event. We can’t bring ourselves to knowingly make a mediocre product. And we cannot avert our eyes from the harm done, by all of us, to our one and only home. ”

At the end of his talk, Yvon shared two new ideas he is implementing. When a customer comes into a Patagonia store and asks a sales rep for a product, they will from this point on ask “Do you really need this?” And, they are developing a label that will tell buyers what a product is made of, where a product is made, how it is made, by whom it is made and under what conditions and insure it is non-toxic from material to manufacturing.

Blake Mycoskie created a business model that lets him give back.

Blake Mycoskie, 34, who calls himself the Chief Shoe Giver, created a business model that lets him give back. For one pair of Toms shoes purchased, the company gives one pair away — from the Gulf Coast to Argentina to Ethiopia.

Blake Mycoskie, 34, who calls himself the Chief Shoe Giver, created a business model that lets him give back. For one pair of Toms shoes purchased, the company gives one pair away — from the Gulf Coast to Argentina to Ethiopia.

Blake Mycoskie travels a lot. He’s an evangelist in service to his mission: To provide children, mostly in Third World countries, with a new pair of shoes that will allow them to move safely and securely through their daily lives.

Mycoskie’s shoe company, Toms, is the darling of college students and hipsters, people who love efficient design and philanthropic businessmen. He speaks several times a week about how and why he started the company, and he chuckles that it never fails: “People always come up and look around and say, ‘Um, where’s Tom?’ ”

But Tom is a concept, not a person. It stands for shoes for tomorrow, because as the 34-year-old Texas native recalls, “We said for every pair of our shoes that’s purchased today, we’ll give away a pair tomorrow. It’s the tomorrow’s shoes project.”

It was a great idea with one hitch: “Tomorrow’s shoes” was never going to fit on the tag on the canvas slip-on that is recognized as the Toms shoe. So the name was shortened to Toms. Mycoskie shares the story frequently, and he always ends with this: “I like to say we’re all Tom, the people here and everywhere else that makes this happen. We’re all Tom.”

The Chief Shoe Giver

Mycoskie works out of a big, windowless warehouse on the outskirts of Santa Monica, Calif., that houses most of the company staff. The foyer is decorated with snapshots of trips to donate shoes — the company calls them “shoe drops” — in places like Argentina, Ethiopia, South Africa and Latin America. Smiling children’s faces brighten the dim space. Inside, bare plywood and boxes of irregular shoes block off spaces for individual cubicles. A big sculpture made of discarded shoes forms the word “give” on a cement wall. Mycoskie, who likes to refer to himself as Chief Shoe Giver, sits square in the middle of everything: No corner office, no door. He’s surrounded by just a few pictures of family and friends, who happen to include businessman philanthropist Ted Turner and Bill Clinton.

You know, you hear people talk about soul mates? That one person that you see, and that’s it for you? Well, Toms is the business equivalent of a soul mate for me.

Clinton calls Mycoskie “the most interesting young entrepreneur I’ve ever met. He is not your conventional business guy.”

True enough. He certainly doesn’t look like your typical businessman: He looks like a guy who spends a lot of time surfing the globe. And he has a deep tan and lots of amulets and charms around his wrists and neck to prove it.

An Entrepreneur At Heart

Mycoskie became an entrepreneur at age 19, when he and two friends started a student laundry service while they were all at Southern Methodist University. The business soon became popular on surrounding campuses and got so big, he dropped out of school and later went on to found four other companies. He took a break in 2002 to take part in the second season of the CBS reality series The Amazing Race. He and his partner — his sister Paige — ended up a respectable third, and they both vowed to return to Argentina one day, because they didn’t really see anything, Mycoskie says — they just ran through on the way to the next challenge.

His chance came a few years later when, exhausted from the long hours he’d spent running an online driver’s education company, he took off to Argentina for a month.
Mycoskie came up with the idea for Toms in the Misiones Province of Argentina.

Mycoskie came up with the idea for Toms in the Misiones Province of Argentina.

“I learned to play polo, took tango lessons, and I got to travel through the country and really see it,” Mycoskie recalls.

He ended up in a remote indigenous village near the Brazilian border and noticed that most of the children there had no shoes. Not only were they cutting and bruising their feet when they walked long distances to fetch water for their households, many were home from school because they’re not allowed to attend barefoot.

“In one family, there was one pair of shoes,” he recalled, “so the children shared them back and forth, and whoever had shoes went to school that day.”

That’s where the idea for Toms was born. Mycoskie got a local supplier to make an adaptation of the alpargata — the rope-soled cloth slip-on that many Argentines, rich and poor, wear. He sold them with the promise that for every pair bought, another pair would be donated, thereby making the customer a philanthropist.

“I wanted to create a business model that would sustain the giving,” Mycoskie says. “Initially, I just wanted to give 250 pairs of shoes.” But it worked so well, Toms celebrated the donation of 1 million pairs in October.

‘They Want To Give, They Want To Help’

The company that started with Mycoskie and a couple of interns now has a staff of just over 100. They began out of Mycoskie’s Venice, Calif., living room — the space was stuffed with shoe samples, buzzing phones and myriad interns sitting cross-legged on the floor while working on their laptops. Liza de la Torre was one of them, and she says in the beginning, she intended to work for the summer to get cash for graduate school.

“But it was so interesting,” she remembers. “I mean, I’d worked before, in nice, downtown offices with beautiful desks and views of the city — but this was different. It was exciting. It was young people running a company. So I decided to stay a little longer.” Five years later, she’s one of the key members of Toms.
The classic canvas shoe is modeled after the alpargata, a traditional Argentinian farmer shoe.

The classic canvas shoe is modeled after the alpargata, a traditional Argentine farmers’ shoe.

“I don’t think I realized how huge this is,” de la Torre admits. “This is really changing the way people spend money, because they want to give, they want to help.”

The company has helped children on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. It’s aiming to eradicate a disfiguring disease in Ethiopia that occurs when bare feet absorb silica from the soil, resulting in grossly enlarged feet and legs. It’s trying to get well-fed, well-shod Americans to go barefoot one day of the year (this year it was in April) to emphasize how hard it can be to do even mundane tasks in unprotected feet. And it’s hoping to change the world, one pair of shoes at a time.

At 34, Mycoskie is still very much the eligible bachelor.

“I love what I do, but it is hard to have a personal relationship when you’re never home,” he says. He’s planning to cut down on his travel next year, and maybe rectify that.

But it’s going to be a rare person who can compete with his other passion. “You know, you hear people talk about soul mates? That one person that you see, and that’s it for you? Well, Toms is the business equivalent of a soul mate for me. It combines all the things I love to do most — travel, hands-on helping and creative entrepreneurism. So I think I’m going to be doing this for a long, long time.”

Maryland First State in the Union to create Benefit Corporation Legislation

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed into law the nation’s first legislation creating Benefit Corporations, a new class of corporations required to create benefit for society as well as shareholders.

Unlike traditional corporations, Benefit Corporations must by law create a material positive impact on society; consider how decisions affect employees, community and the environment; and publicly report their social and environmental performance using established third-party standards.

The legislation, sponsored by Senators Jamie Raskin and Brian Frosh and Delegate Brian Feldman, passed the Maryland Senate with a vote of 44 – 0 and the Assembly 135 – 5.

“Milton Friedman would have loved this,” said Andrew Kassoy, co-founder of B Lab, the non-profit that drafted the model legislation with William H. Clark, Jr., partner in the Corporate & Securities Practice Group of Drinker Biddle and Reath.   “For the first time, we have a market-based solution supporting investors and entrepreneurs who want to make money and make a difference,” Kassoy added.

The new law addresses a long time concern among entrepreneurs who need to raise growth capital but fear losing control of the social or environmental mission of their business. These entrepreneurs and other shareholders of Benefit Corporations now have additional rights to hold directors accountable for failure to create a material positive impact on society or to consider the impact of decisions on employees, community, and the environment.

From a company’s point of view, the new law empowers directors of Benefit Corporations to consider employees, community and the environment in addition to shareholder value when they make operating and liquidity decisions. And, it offers them legal protection for those considerations.

“Today marks an inflection point in the evolution of capitalism,” said B Lab co-founder Jay Coen Gilbert.  ”With public trust in business at an all-time low, this represents the first systemic response to the underlying problems that created the financial crisis — protecting companies from the pressures of short-termism while creating benefit for shareholders and society over the long-haul.”

“This is a great moment in the evolution of commercial life in Maryland and America,” said Senator Raskin.  ”We are giving companies a way to do good and do well at the same time.  The benefit corporations will tie public and private purposes together.”

Maryland is the first state to pass Benefit Corporation legislation, but others are quickly following Maryland’s lead.  Vermont Bill S.263, co-sponsored by Senators Hinda Miller and Peter Shumlin, has already passed the Senate and will be considered by the Vermont Assembly over the next 30 days.  Other states considering the legislation include Colorado, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington.

After months of research, she began brushing her teeth with food-grade hydrogen peroxide, aloe, and a potent blend of organic essential oils. The first reaction from friends was to ask if she had had her teeth whitened. Then she noticed her gums no longer bled when she flossed and her teeth weren’t sensitive anymore. When she returned to her hygienist she told her the pockets and receding gums had stopped in their tracks and that tarter buildup was significantly reduced. It’s been five years since she developed her original formula and she still enjoys pristine oral health. During the past year, Mystica  created and is now manufacturing a product she happily shares with others who face similar challenges. That product is Essential Oxygen+ Toothpaste and Mouthwash.

I met Mystica at Lassen’s in Ventura where she was sampling her new product. She gave me a small sample. I had a sore gum at the time and literally, the following day, it was gone. So it worked for me.

What’s new paradigm about this product is that it’s both a great organic mouthwash and a soothing liquid toothpaste.

You can check out Mystica’s excellent new product and purchase a bottle at www.rawessentials.org. And, if you like what you read and are unable to find a local outlet that carries the product, call your local natural food retailer and ask them to stock Essential Oxygen+.

In just 4 days since its posting on You Tube 225,000 people have watched this video. Let’s hope many of them will open community bank accounts in the next few days and this movement will snowball. Please consider forwarding a link to this page to your friends, family and business associates and become part of a transfer of wealth that will impact large banks in the only place they fear, in their pockets.

QuantumThink is a new system of thinking based on the findings of quantum science and is delivered to individuals, corporations and government agencies and produces out of the box, non-linear results.

Here is an article by Dianne you may find useful:

Allowing – the Genius Gift

Allowing is the “the genius gift” because our faculty of Allowing is what has us tap into universal intelligence as co-creators in partnership with Great Spirit.

We’ve all heard the expression “Let go and let God.” What does it really mean? That you simply create your Intent and then let the chips fall where they may? Well, no, not really dear friends. Some people imagine Allowing means to accept whatever happens, to let things be exactly as they are and be okay with it. That’s fine. However, Allowing as a creative act of consciousness as we refer to it in QuantumThink^® means something else entirely.

Allowing means to be with an undetermined unfolding from the quantum field of probability set up by a specific conscious Intent. Allowing operates in the realm of the unimaginable, in the invisible, where the limits of our mind cannot see. Genius is activated. Probabilities are set in motion directed by our Intent. Rather than attempting to manipulate and control within the limits of what is immediately in our view, we Allow for whatever unfolds itself, realizing it will be consistent with our Intent.

We love the surprise and serendipity and mystery of life yet our old world view conditioning has habituated us to try to micro-manage the unfolding. Can you imagine standing over flower and instructing the petals, “Okay time for you to open now.” As absurd as that may sound we do try to control the events and situations in our life, rather than invoking our genius gift, Allowing.

A participant in our Mastery Study Group, Rose, shared that before QuantumThinking her M.O. was to try to push and force things to happen in her attempt to make life better for the people around her. She was exhausted. One day she was invited to attend a family reunion with her fiancé. People who hadn’t seen each other or spoken in 20 years were now going to spend a weekend together in a five bedroom house. “Letting the chips fall where they may,” you could imagine how that scenario might go. Instead of pushing and trying to control the “good times” Rose consciously created the Intent that everyone would enjoy each day and appreciate one another fully. Many wonderful things unfolded that she couldn’t have foreseen yet she knew happened as a result of her Intent and Allowing.

Allowing works for at least three reasons:

(1) We have a nonlocal quantum mind.

There is a scientific basis for the power of Allowing. We are interconnected in a field of mind – a field of energy, intelligence, and awareness. What does it mean that our mind is nonlocal? Since our mind does not exist in the ordinary boundaries of space and time it can “go” anywhere to tune in and connect by exercising the power of our Intent.

The quantum principle of nonlocality says that we can and do influence things instantaneously “at a distance” from us with no apparent exchange of force or energy. The genius gift of Allowing pulls ideas and connections out of the infinite. Allowing is the passive dynamic of creation – the complement of Intent which is the active dynamic.

(2) Creation happens in the 90% of reality we can’t see with our physical eyes.

Contemplate for a moment: scientists tell us what we can see is less than 10% of the total universe. The other 90-something percent is invisible. They call it dark matter or dark energy. Allowing connects us to the 90% that we cannot see and attracts that which is resonant with our Intent.

(3)  We are in partnership with Great Spirit.

Albert Einstein is considered one of the greatest scientists that ever lived. His theories literally altered our view of reality. Yet he didn’t arrive at his theory initially through science; that came later. He arrived at his theory through wonder. He connected to what we can call the mind of God or Great Spirit and Allowed the genius to come through him. Every one of us has been imbued with this genius gift of Allowing.

Like anything we desire to master Allowing takes conscious practice and Allowing requires awakened awareness in the moment. How will you notice the connections to your Intent if you are not awake and alert to the signs? Are you ready? Let’s make the season even brighter by using our genius gift of Allowing.

Conscious Practices for Allowing

Practice Allowing – Bling’s the Thing
Enjoy It!

Can you enjoy the spirituality of materiality? Even as the holiday season seems the most spiritual, paradoxically it is also the most material. Sometimes people give materiality a bad rap thinking it’s superficial or too commercial. If we want to live the wisdom of a Holistic & Holographic universe isn’t it time we cast away the old world view of the spiritual and material being separate? The outer world reflects the inner spirit.

Bling is the contemporary word for all that glitters being used to decorate everything from clothing to cell phones. The holiday season sparkles and glistens and shines with glittery jewels and silver and gold. Bling is naturally a holiday thing and Bling happens to be in fashion – Bling is the thing. Let’s enjoy it!

Practice: Create the Intent to experience appreciation for all the amazing ways your planetary brothers and sisters are using their unique creativity to manifest things for the rest of us to enjoy. Be a well wisher for businesses and entrepreneurs and artists to thrive by selling their goods and services during the holidays. Allow for what marvels show up in your experience.

Practice Allowing during Holiday Gatherings
Celebrate Your Relationships

This holiday season when we come together to celebrate life and gifts in gatherings with family and friends and with co- workers and business associates you can practice the genius gift of Allowing amazing experiences.

Practice: Create your Intent for the experience of you and the people you will be with regardless of any past “rifts” or disconnects of any kind. (Old world view = circumstance rules; new world view = Intent rules.) Perhaps you can create this Intent: We experience our connection deeper and loving and more fulfilling than ever. Allow and enjoy what unfolds.

Practice Allowing Your Experience Within
Be the Bliss That You Are

Every spiritual teaching expresses that our true nature is bliss. If your “routine” for the holidays in past years hasn’t been uplifting and enlivening and fun and blissful, now is the time to go within and change it.

Practice: As you read this you can create the Intent: This holiday season I am enlivened and uplifted by everything I do. Allow your experience moment-by-moment to be activated and shaped by that Intent. Bliss out.

Allowing is a most powerful yet underused faculty for creating. You know how fabulous it is when you have one of those days where everything flows so well that it is just magical. Your entire holiday season could be that way. Why shouldn’t it be? It’s the season of magic. Look for it, expect it, appreciate it, and express gratitude for it. What you focus on expands. <>

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Dianne Collins is the creator-author of the QuantumThink^® system of thinking and the forthcoming book, Do You QuantumThink? New Thinking That Will Rock Your World (August 2010, SelectBooks) Dianne and her partner, Master QuantumThink Coach, Alan Collins, offer QuantumThink 21 teleseminars for accomplishing specific business and personal results, QuantumThink consulting to leaders who are involved in globe-transforming projects, and QuantumThink AudioCoach CDs for individuals to expand their thinking at their convenience. Contact Dianne at dianne@quantumthink.com For information on teleseminars for individuals and companies worldwide visit www.quantumthink.com or call 305-354-8141.

My friend and web designer and programmer, Wayne Marshall of Kaizen Marketing in Santa Barbara has launched a new service that creates a Fan page for your business. Here’s the scoop…

Fantastic Facebook Fan Pages

There are now over 350 Million active Facebook users, with 1/2 Million added daily, with the fastest growing demographic being over 35 and in higher income brackets. Even business to business is now being conducted via Facebook. Time spent on Facebook increased by 566% from December 2007 to December 2008, compared to around 18% for the web overall-clearly a phenomenon. The time for businesses to jump into social media is NOW!

In response to growing demand from clients, Kaizen Marketing has introduced a new service:

The creation and customization of business and brand oriented Facebook Fan Pages.

Here’s what Kaizen does for clients:

* Build the basic fan page connected to your personal FB account

* Create a personalized avatar graphic from your logo that shows up on your page and all your posts

* Tie in any blogs you may have via Facebook Notes – this will auto post all your blog posts from WordPress, Blogger or whatever directly to the Facebook page and to the feed of your page fans.

* Use the Facebook version of html (FBML) to custom create a sidebar under the fans area. This can include any graphics and links you wish out as well as an opt-in form for your email list, if you have one.

* Use FBML to create a custom landing page that only NON-FANS will see. This can be a large graphic or short video, following by an invite your friends box so that folks landing can become a fan and also invite their friends to do so right away. Once they are fans, they will go direct to the Wall. See ALL ONE Vitamins fan page for an example – and become a fan while there.

* Once you have 25 fans, we help you apply for a custom, vanity URL of your choice (only one per Facebook) Here is another fan page I produced with URL for Nutiva, with over 1500 fans and growing daily.

* Assuming your chosen URL is available, you can immediately add it to your marketing mix .

* Option 1: Do you have videos on Youtube,? We will help you add a custom tab up top that will display your YouTube channel.

* Option 2: We will help you install the “Fan Box” widget on your own website. It displays recent updates, a sampling of your fans, and allows folks to become a fan directly from your site.

* Finally, we provide you with our Special Report “Ten Ways to Build your Facebook Fan Page” that will support your strategic planning process and best practices for using and building a stream of traffic to your Facebook Fan Page.

Kaizen’s all-inclusive price for this service is $500. (about half what our competitors are currently charging)

To learn more, ask Wayne any questions or order his new FB service, click here.

Watch for the launch of our New Paradigm Digest Fan Page soon thanks to Wayne.

For more visit http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091221/palast