9 Month Green Business Acceleration Program
Registration Closes September 19, 2009
Hi, Mark Winstein here, founder of EcoSector.
I want to let you know about a new program I'm personally leading to help green entrepreneurs like you reach your full business potential. I'm calling it the "9 Month Green Business Acceleration Program". Registration for this course will close on September 19, 2009.
If you're growing a green business, this 9-month program could make a big difference for you. Let me tell you why:
In 26 years as a green entrepreneur, I found that the two most important success factors are good mentors and good access to capital. Yet for green entrepreneurs, finding these two vital resources can often be much more difficult than with old-line businesses. The reason for this is that "old economy" leaders and helpers just don't understand the green economy or the motivations of green entrepreneurs. It's a well documented cultural divide. But we green entrepreneurs can't let that get in the way of success -- it's our job to cross that divide on our own, and in our own way.
In all of my trials and triumphs over these 26 years, I've learned so much that I want to share with you. Strategies that can save you years of fruitless effort, ways to finance your business without taking on investors, ways to increase your sales with minimum effort, ways to raise capital from absolute nothing if that's right for you -- without borrowing money. In short, everything you'd want to get from having your own green business mentor on call.
In my own effort to merge activism and capitalism to solve our eco-challenges in a whole new way, I sought out who I thought were the top mentors -- the most successful entrepreneurs and leaders in the green economy. People you've heard of -- famous authors, famous businessmen and businesswomen, directors of socially responsible investment companies, directors of leading national environmental groups, the works -- they were all on my advisory board.
Here's what I discovered -- those "first wave" entrepreneurs and leaders who clawed their way to the top are way too busy managing their own companies and enterprises to give the "next wave" of green entrepreneurs the deep, meaningful, and pragmatic assistance you need to navigate the startup and growth stages of your green company. As I began to understand this odd gap, I began to steer EcoSector more and more toward providing full-spectrum mentoring and capital raising assistance to green entrepreneurs.
Now, I'm ready to share the absolute best of the best with you during my 9 Month Green Business Acceleration Program. Here are some of the great things I've lined up for you:
- For starters, I'll sit down with you on the phone and take the time needed to gain a complete understanding of your vision, your business model, your strengths and opportunities, and your challenges.
- Next, you'll get a complete Strategic Planning session with my associate Paul Hoyt. I think this is a really good deal. Many business people will spend more for just a strategic planning session than you'll pay for this entire program.
- From there, you and I will have two personal mentoring sessions each month to keep you on track in meeting the objectives of your strategic plan.
- In addition, if you're raising capital, you'll get a free, complimentary membership to Growthink University, the premier capital strategy training program and resource center, including regular email tips and insights, plus live phone-in group coaching sessions with Growthink's founder, Dave Lavinsky.
- I'll be there to personally guide you all along the way, in our personal meetings, via email, and in short "on the spot" fix-it sessions.
And here are some more cool features:
- I'm limiting this program to 10 people max. Each month, we'll also have two extra group phone calls where you can "mastermind" with the others in the program and gain vital understandings by solving problems together the other participants.
- And best of all, included in the price of the course will be a mid-term get-together in a really fantastic location where we'll all meet each other face to face, and get some specialized leadership training from experts in team dynamics. (Travel to and from not included.)
If you want to grow a successful green company and have the next 9 months be your best ever, let me tell you why you really want to be in this program:
I think by now you understand that the entrepreneur life is not only glowing headlines and billion dollar IPO's. Look, no one likes to talk about their mistakes, but I've made plenty. I've wasted enormous amounts of time and money trying to "grok" the system and make it work for green entrepreneurs.
In the 1990's, I raised millions of dollars for a national green non-profit group I helped grow from scratch with 2 other co-founders. In 2000, when I wanted to shift back to the for-profit mode, I thought, "Hey, I'm such a great fundraiser. Let's just raise the first $1 million and get on with it." My motto back then was "Start big and get bigger" because I wanted to tackle more big environmental challenges like in the 1990's, but at a faster rate and larger scale than I believe is possible via the charity model. I still like that motto, but for various reasons that I now understand, I just couldn't find agreement with the people I needed the most to reach my lofty goals.
Instead, I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on efforts and strategies that didn't produce revenues or results. I had over $90,000 in billings with securities attorneys and business development advisors alone. One time I set out to raise $2 million, and ended up raising only $20,000, just 1% of my goal. To add insult to injury, after I declared the whole fundraising round a failure and returned the $20,000 to the investors, I got called in by the state department of finance because my "world class" law firm didn't keep me compliant with the state finance laws! That was so not fun! And, the whole double-barreled blow-up could have easily been avoided with just a smattering of essential but rarely divulged information that I learned later on.
If you catch my drift, an entrepreneur can easily spend tens of thousands of dollars on a security attorney, tens of thousands on marketing gurus and business consultants, tens of thousands on web developers, tens of thousands on useless "networking" programs and "investor matching" systems, and end up with nothing to show to your friends, your family, or yourself. I know this because I've been there and done that.
As it happens, I'm not alone in making mistakes. In following my green business dream, I've come to see that my errors are common among most all entrepreneurs, not just "ecopreneurs". The difference between success and failure is top-quality guidance. But like I said, the green entrepreneur needs something more, something that's not commonly available from regular business advisors -- a deep understanding and passion about nature, the green economy and green entrepreneurs. Even with the growth of the green economy, high-quality, experienced guidance like this is extremely rare today.
I don't want to scare you too much--I've had a lot of successes along the way too, and I can talk about those successes all day if you want. But you know, if my path had been easy, I'd probably have ended up with my own big green business, and like the other well-known green business leaders today, I'd be too busy to help you! Instead, hitting so many bumps really changed my thinking -- I decided that the point of EcoSector's business model would be to help other green entrepreneurs so that no green entrepreneur would have to waste precious time or money when so much is at stake for the planet and for our children.
Fortunately, I learned from all of my flops (and my successes) and developed many new and often counter-intuitive strategies that can reduce and even completely eliminate financial risk for the entrepreneur. If my Green Business Acceleration Program can save you just one expensive and time-consuming flop, it will have paid for itself many times over.
Avoiding problems does not in itself make a success -- there's something more, and that something more comes with the kind of dedication I know is motivating you to follow your green business dreams. In the 9-Month Green Business Acceleration Program, you'll get my very best disaster avoidance strategies, and you'll get something more -- proven success strategies that really work, that get you from point A to point B faster than you might think is possible, and that make the whole effort worthwhile day in and day out as you take one step after another toward your goal.
So, what's it gonna cost?
The cost of the course is just $1000 a month for nine months. I think this is a very good deal. Most business and capital raising advisers worth their salt won't take on new clients for less than $20,000 upfront.
But wait -- I know for some people reading this email that even $1000 a month is just not in your budget today. If you want to be in the program and you don't have the money to pay for the first month, I will give you a special free bonus fundraising training program and a backup financial system that will allow you to raise the cost of the course. If you need this option, I will also personally coach you to success in raising the cost of the program without borrowing money from friends or credit cards -- also for free. Here's the cool thing -- the effort you make to raise the cost of this program will lay the groundwork for your future success in many other fascinating and practical ways.
If you're ready to sign up now, don't pull out your checkbook just yet. As I mentioned, the course is limited to just 10 participants. I am totally committed that the group of green entrepreneurs who join my program are really ready to win their games. I don't care if you're just starting with an idea in your head or if you've already got millions in sales, this program is not going to be a casual thing for me and you. And it won't be fun unless we take a little bit of time in advance to be sure it's really a good fit for both of us.
So, here's what I'd like you to do. If you think you want to be part of my 9 Month Green Business Acceleration Program, please send me an email saying you're interested in finding out more. I'll schedule a free one-hour consultation with you where we can go over any questions, and if you like, I'll dive in and start advising you on the spot. From this session, you and I will know if the full 9-month program will be the right thing for both of us. If I don't think the program is right for you, I'll give you my best suggestions on what I think will work best for you.
Thank you so much for taking your time to consider what I've shared with you in this email. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
Mark Winstein
Founder
EcoSector
P.S. If you want to consider being part of my 9-Month Green Business Acceleration Program, even if you can't afford to pay the monthly cost right now, please be sure to send me an email to get your free 1-hour consultation. Remember, registration for the course will end on September 19, 2009.
208-596-6500