Amazon Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review to be helpful:
Excellent guide to doing socially responsible business, April 22, 2007
By Peter Economy
Today, more and more business leaders are beginning to realize that it's not enough to just make a buck, but that their business legacy should be something more -- something that does lasting good for customers and communities. In their book, Values Sell, authors Nadine Thompson and Angela Soper provide numerous real-world examples of companies -- including Tom's of Maine, Seventh Generation, Honest Tea, and many others -- that are living their values, making a good profit, and transforming people all at the same time. If you're a business owner, executive, or manager wondering how to turn your purpose into profit, this is the book for you. And if you're an employee who hopes to influence your own company and move it in a more socially responsible direction, this too is the book for you. Highly recommended.
0 of 0 people found the following review to be helpful:
CSR Belongs in Your Marketing, January 4, 2009
By Shel Horowitz
Almost at the very end of this book is a statement that I feel sums up much of the value in running a values-based business:
"Operating a business in a socially responsible manner can lead to increased sales, strong and effective alliances, and even lucrative company buyouts. And no one is espousing doing poorly financially just so you an be a good corporate citizen. What the companies...demonstrate is that you can create a business with strong core values that support social responsibility, be innovative in your strategies to build sales and form powerful distribution channels, and come out a winner on many levels: by succeeding financially, by furthering your mission within your industry, and by improving society as a whole."
While my own book, Principled Profit, offers a more hands-on approach to learning the marketing skills necessary to turn those values into profit, Values Sell offers a nice roundup of several companies across multiple industries and with widely varying business models. All of them are profitable, many of them are growing rapidly, and all maintain a strong commitment to their values. Additionally, many of them deliver more than their stakeholders--customers, employees, suppliers, neighbors--expect, and that I believe is key as well.
As examples:
* Warm Spirit, a personal care products company oriented primarily to African-Americans, pays its consultants 10 to 15 percent higher commissions than similar companies
* A t-shirt manufacturer was able to save the company when the bottom fell out of the branded domestic apparel market following NAFTA, by educating customers about the benefits of its organic cotton production, and seeking accounts among companies that shares its environmental commitment
* Tweezerman structured a buyout that protected both its values and its workers--something companies like Ben & Jerry's might have learned from--and the company's founder claimed that the purchase price was 50 percent higher because of the company's from-the-start commitment to "responsible capitalism"
* Chaco Sandal Co. has a Minister of Human Resources and Sustainability
The values this book highlights are not just the traditional "triple bottom line" of financial, social, and environmental responsibility, but also focus on such issues as creating empowered employees with strong company-wide support systems, finding appropriate strategic partners (including nonprofit beneficiaries, which Tom's of Maine credits with a remarkable 370 percent increase in business)--and always, the metrics of these policies, such as the 16 percent rise in stock prices of companies rated highly for employee morale, compared to an average of just six percent.
Shel Horowitz's award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, demonstrates how to build a business around ethics, environmental sustainability, and cooperative practices--and how to develop marketing that highlights those advantages.
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