I have been inspired by my friend Colin Lewis and his unfailingly generous spirit. I “met” Colin on LinkedIn, we continued to chat on Twitter, and eventually video skyped. I was quite intrigued with what Colin was doing, which was creating a product that incorporated his own passion for learning into a really cool business product called Wisdom Notes (http://www.mindtram.com).
What initially intrigued me was that Colin took time to read and re-read some really interesting literary works and then distilled his readings into a 6-8 page document that basically gave me the “cliff notes.” Wow! I was able to read his Wisdom Notes in a short amount of time and get the gist of some truly great books that I would never have the time to read myself. I was hooked.
But then it got even better! Colin, who resides in Poland, had a special passion for helping children who live in orphanages in Poland. He decided recently that he wanted to set a goal to raise $1 Million US Dollars to support the Chiva Foundation, who is committed to “to helping underprivileged children grow up in a safe, loving environment where they are also educated in life skills, arts, music and sport.” Did I already say wow!? Well … wow. Colin is donating every bit of the $45 annual subscription fee to his cause – that is just simply inspirational.
So, how does this tie into guerrilla marketing? Well, all guerrilla marketers know that Cause Marketing is a great way to marry passion to business for the greater good of all. Not everyone will need to do this on the same scale that Colin has done it – but the basic principles apply:
1) Find a cause you are passionate about (helping disadvantaged children, fighting cancer, aiding refugees, you pick…)
2) Find a way to tie your business into the cause – a simple way for most of us is to donate a percentage of our profits to the cause
3) If appropriate, have the cause organization promote the offer
4) Promote the heck out of – tell your friends, ask them to tell their friends
The thing I love about cause marketing is that it brings your business and YOU into harmony and it does that in a way that lets everyone win.
So, what ideas does this inspire? How can you marry your passion to your business?
Debbi's Blog 