Would you like to make your business more successful and help save the planet … at the same time!

(Is there a way that participating in environmental and social solutions could be the very thing that increases your business’s financial stability?)

In business — even within the “green” business world — it can feel like you’ve got to make a choice between doing right (living greener, saving the world) —or-– making money. It feels like an either-or, like if you went really green you wouldn’t be able to afford to live. It seems like in order to turn a profit, it’s going to mean killing the planet.

How do you make your business become a force for healing the the world, an extension of your ethics and values —and— an enterprise where you earn your livelihood and truly thrive?

Introducing …

Go Green: How your business can help save the planet

“Go Green” is a 3-hour online video course with concrete Action Steps. It helps you orient your business to become more profitable, while being an integral part of solving environmental and social problems.

And when you thread certain Action Steps together, you’ll have a “Deep Green Business Plan” for long-term financial resilience, so you can thrive in the emerging new economy.

The “Go Green” course will help you orient your business to succeed in the emerging new economy. And you’ll thrive as a green business owner.

What exactly is this “new economy”?

It’s no secret that conventional business practices are driving environmental devastation. The endless drive for more-more-more is wrecking our lives. It’s driving everything from global warming, deforestation and species extinction, to toxic pollution, social injustice, and stress-based illnesses.

And it’s statistically documented that more-more-more isn’t making us happier.

Meanwhile, for many people the conventional economy isn’t working anymore. The more we strive to get ahead, the further we get in the hole.

People around the world are saying “Enough!” to that crazy, soul-killing game. They’re saying “We can create a better way.”

We can have an economy that isn’t pillaging the planet. We can participate in an economy that serves all of us. We can restore communities and local economies that function as our support network through crisis.

It’s not fantasyland.

You’ll learn about broad networks of people — like the Permaculture movement, the international Transition Movement, groups like REconomy and BALLE, and entire new industries like urban agriculture — who are paving the way.

Gradually, steadily, a new world is emerging. And this course will help you be a part of it.

“Go Green” acknowledges two things …

1) That restoring the environment and living from our values come first.

We need a functioning environment for basic survival. We need fresh air, clean water, a stable climate, and functioning ecosystems in order to live.

And we can hardly call it “living,” if to turn a profit we have to do things that are in conflict with what we believe in. No. Just plain no.

With everything we do — including our business lives — we can be helping to create a better world.

2) Even “green” business owners need to make a living.

Ethics are great, but food on the table and a roof over our heads are important too! There’s no reason that green business owners have to be “just scraping by.”

Without profits, an activity is just a hobby. You need profit margin in order for the business owner to make a living. (Let’s be clear: there’s a big difference between making a decent living versus raping and pillaging the planet.)

Many green business owners came from different fields, without having much in the way of basic business skills. In this course you’ll gain some basic skills that can make a huge difference in your profitability.

Meanwhile not all conventional business skills are appropriate for today’s economy. Some classic business tools were conceived back when the economy was growing furiously. But they’re completely wrong for today’s economic doldrums — in fact, using those tools in a contracting economy can wreck your business! In this course, you’ll also learn what not to do.

And, it’s scary to look at it, but we all feel it deep in our guts: the mainstream economy is in serious trouble. It’s really scary because most people don’t have a backup plan. Through this course, you’ll learn how to make your business more resilient, so that you’re well prepared and confident as you face what lies ahead.

Through the Action Steps in this course, you’ll get in on the ground floor of a community-centric approach that helps build an economic “safety net” for you and for the community around you.

Here’s what this course offers so that you get results in the new economy:

Shows you concrete Action Steps you can take, right now, that reduce costs and save you money while making your business greener.
Supports you to tap into the green marketplace and connect with your local community, so that you are open to more customers and clients.
Helps you identify new products and services which you are completely qualified and well=positioned to provide — products and services which encourage your customers and clients to embrace more-sustainable lifestyles.
Steers you to avoid a widely-accepted business practice which is highly destructive in today’s contracting economy, so that your business can be one of the ones that survives and thrives.
Clarifies “what is greener” in a whole new light, so that you are much better equipped to make long-term decisions that truly make a difference in the world.
Teaches you how to craft marketing materials that are tapped into the emerging greening world, with hope-inspiring messages that your customers and clients look forward to.
Shows you things that are radically different about the emerging new economy, so that you can participate.
Leads you, easy step by easy step, to craft a mission and long-term direction for your business. so that you can make a positive impact and so that you are in great shape for the new future.

“Joanne Poyourow and her teaching exemplifies the concept of ‘small is big.’ Consistently making small changes creates a significant positive environmental and economic impact. Her methodology is clear, simple and very user-friendly.” –Teri Roseman, Executive Director, Founder, LiveYoga Wellness

“This is all easy for you to say. You don’t run a green business.”

I run a community nonprofit in Los Angeles — the Environmental Change-Makers. For over ten years, I have championed environmental solutions — what we can do about some of the biggest, most pressing issues in the world. I know quite a bit about what it takes to really go green and save the planet.

I wasn’t always an environmentalist. My training is in business, and for more than a decade I was a CPA in public practice. I was an advisor to many businesses, large and small. I know how it works in the mainstream business world.

As I learned more about environmental solutions, I was driven to figure out: what can we do about the economy? I sought out the ideas of worldwide thinkers, people who were exploring how we could solve the problems.

I learned that I had to put my worlds together to find the middle ground. To create this course, I put together my business background plus my environmental understanding and my knowledge of the new economy. I added my teaching experience, and (green biz)

The Go Green course will guide you to examine your talents, experience and skills, to identify your (and your business’s) greatest potential.

I learned that to meet my own personal goals, I had to build up my local community. I couldn’t create positive changes alone. I discovered that I had to get people around me involved in greener solutions, greener activities, greener lifestyles. in order to influence much greater change.

Together, we become a functioning network that supported each other. It wasn’t that way back when I began. But it not much would have happened if we didn’t start working together.

(Spoiler alert: The Go Green course will guide you to find your place within your community and embrace your special role in community-centric change.)

I discovered that to change the world, I had to change the way I think about the economy. Right now to many people, The Economy is some big scary thing run by mega-corporations and the politicians they buy. But it’s not really.

At its core, the economy is about people. The economy is the sum total of transactions between people. You and me. Your next-door neighbor. The guy who runs that other business in your community, the one you work with. “The economy” is really a bunch of relationships.

And if we change those relationships — we start thinking about transactions between people — marvelous things happen.

So just who is this course for?

Here’s who it’s not for:

If you are just “thinking about” having a business, this course might feel rather theoretical. It will lack its Action Step impact because you won’t have the infrastructure to be able to implement what you’re learning.
If you are working in a big company you may get frustrated, because the materials in this course would require some “translation” to big company circumstances. (However if you have a small business “on the side,” or are creating a retirement business, this course would be a good fit for that portion of your life.)
If you are working in the nonprofit sector or in faith communities, my book Environmental Change-Making is a much better fit. It directly addresses the issues you are dealing with.

The person who Go Green is right for has:

a small business enterprise — established and running, or in startup; perhaps “green,” or perhaps not. You have a small business that is showing some signs of success.
a need for more consistent profitability and greater financial stability. You hope to establish long-term security amid these challenging economic times.
a yearning to make a difference, to contribute to environmental or social solutions. You want to spend your time making the world a better place.
a desire to find that “edge” where profitability overlaps with environmental transformation. That’s where you want to work.

“How do I know these ideas work?”

They’re already being used by other businesses somewhere around the world. I didn’t invent them. I brought them together in one place — this course — so that you could learn about them.

The bottom line is, business is changing. It’s got to. The old “show me the money” is no longer the only way to evaluate decisions.

The phrase “making a living” includes the word “living.” In what kind of world do you want to live?

“I’m busy. I don’t have a lot of time for this.”

The Go Green course is perfect for busy lifestyles. The material comes to you in discrete digestible chunks, one topic per video lecture.

Here’s what it entails:

Viewing or Listening

Most of the 35 video lectures run a mere 5 to 6 minutes. You can listen to them over the internet from a nice interface on your desktop computer. Or you can access them on-the-go, via a smooth Udemy smartphone app. Or you can download them.

There’s no pressure to complete the course by any fixed calendar date. You will have “lifetime access” to the materials.

The lectures come to you in MP4 video format, however if you prefer you can simply listen to them as if they were “audio only.” There are several diagrams within the video series, however you’ll hear about them within the narrative, and you can always go back later to take a peek at the visual.

Taking Action

With each video lecture, you’ll be given a new Action Step — something you can do in your business to bring those ideas to life right away. Action Step by Action Step, you’ll make your business greener, more profitable, better known within your community, and more interconnected with greening action.

Many of these Action Steps are also provided as pdf worksheets. If you wish, you can print them out to write your reflections on them. Or, if you are comfortable in the paper-free world, you can use an app such as Google Docs, Evernote, or other note-taking app to capture your ideas.

Through the latter portion of the Go Green course, the Action Steps take the form of introspective questions. If you save up your answers as you go, then by the end of the course, you will have assembled all you need for a Deep Green Business Plan.

Full instructions are provided within the video lectures about how to access the pdf files, and how to assemble the Business Plan.

Staying connected to your vision for a better world

Deep in your heart of hearts, you know it’s out there: we can create a better world. And likely, you’ve already seen evidence of that new world emerging. The Go Green course will help you stay connected to that sense of possibilities, and will help you transform it from a vague hope, into a powerful motivating force for your business.

“Take on as much, or as little as is possible for you today. In the current challenging economic climate, you can’t afford not to. Go Green is a great place to start.” –Teri Roseman, Executive Director, Founder, LiveYoga Wellness

Three shades of green

No matter what your starting place, there are valuable ideas in the Go Green course for you.

If you’re new to the greening world — even if your business is fairly conventional right now — in the first section you’ll find easy-to-access tips you can put in place right away.

If you’ve already dipped your toes into the greening world, the second section offers you plenty of new topics to explore.

If you are already running a green business, working through the third section will assure that your business is well oriented for the direction of the future.

Section I: Light Green

In the 10 short video lectures in this section, you’ll discover very concrete, do-it-now tips which will reduce your costs and save your business money. You’ll gain a new view of green marketing, and begin developing a deeper connection between your business and your community. Light Green topics include:

3 ways to save money by going greener
3 more ways to save money by going greener
A cool way to distinguish your business from your competition
How to control your costs and spending
How to find time to do more great stuff
What’s a “good bank” and why you should care
How to get your customers to buy the greener things you’re selling
How to get more green gigs
How to market your business as green

Section II: Medium Green

In the first video lecture in this 12-part section, you’ll learn how to distinguish “greenwashing” from true sustainability. You’ll then tackle emotional barriers such as how to get over feeling like this stuff is “so weird.” You’ll discover how to take back power from the mega-corporations. You’ll learn how to immerse yourself in what I call an “ecosystems” approach to marketing your business.

You’ll begin examining potential new directions your business could take — greener directions — as you go through a business’s natural process of trialling new products and services. Medium Green topics include:

How do you tell what’s really greener?
How to be resilient for troubled times ahead
How to connect to green action even when you’re too busy
How to get over feeling like this stuff is “so weird”
How to grow a nest egg for the future
One more big way to reduce costs
How you can take back power from the megacorporations
How to get customers to pay you for the value of your time
Why borrowing money is a really bad idea right now
Another way to be open to more customers
How to create a little side business that isn’t harmful to the environment
One way to be much more effective at what you do
How to access green marketplaces

Section III: Deep Green

You’ll take a much deeper look at your business’s potential: Why are you so special? What issue do you most want to help solve (and what are you best equipped to help solve)?

You’ll examine profitability, and pricing. And how to define your business within a greener future.

As you work through these 8 video lectures and their accompanying Action Steps, you’ll find yourself effortlessly assembling a “Deep Green Business Plan” — one which is completely oriented toward the new economy and the realities of the future. Deep Green topics include:

How you can participate in the emerging new economy
What does “success” really mean to you?
How to make your green business idea profitable
How you can help solve social justice issues with your business
One thing that’s radically different about new-future businesses
What makes you so special?
How to define your deep green business concept
How to find your place within the new future

Guarantee

I’m sure you’ll find Go Green to have a refreshing new perspective, and be radically different from other “green your business” advice. If you don’t like this course, for any reason, write to me. I will refund 100% of what you paid for it. Guaranteed.

What you get

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