Three cheers to Canadian Tire who just saved 30,000 trees with their decision to move their catalogue online. Their last print run was 6 million copies. Maybe we can encourage them to re-evaluate their flyer distribution too! Go green!!

And in keeping with our values at Red Dot — a quotation from their article…

A retail observer said the move is a natural progression for Canadian Tire as the company evolves to remain relevant and competitive. “It’s the wave of the future,” Rob Warren, director of the Asper Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Manitoba, said of the disappearance of the Canadian Tire catalogue. Warren said the move presents Canadian Tire as an environmentally responsible company, adding the company will see a huge savings in its production costs. Print catalogues require four to six months of production time before they reach customers, he said, adding an online version can be updated within six hours.

So we are getting on the bandwagon. I wrote a message to CanPages and to Yellow Pages asking them how consumers can officially opt out. Again a Win:Win. They can save money by reducing their print quanities, we can save forests, they can gain valuable PR by letting us know how we can opt out. SO, if anyone has any thoughts or opinions on how this campaign can come to life….. Let us know!!

Stay tuned!! We should soon get a response — since I took the liberty of reminding them that we have a community of 100,000 Canadians concerned about the environmental impacts of wasteful print practices. I would suggest that 25% of us never use a phone book — and another 50% of us are so befuddled when we try to find a phone number we end up back online.

Through the past weeks I have been pondering why we don’t treat paper with the same reverence we treat food. We would never cook a meal for 100 people knowing only 3 would turn up. Would we throw food on people’s doorsteps? Why aren’t our forest products treated with the same respect and reverence as food? It takes 80 years of growth to replace a tree in the Boreal forest and 150 years to replace a tree in BC’s rainforest (www.forestethics.org) yet paper is considered a renewable resource. Its time to reframe the value of paper.

While jogging at Jericho Beach this morning, my friend Erin and I were sharing our love for newspapers and all things printed. She asked me to relay our philsophy at Red Dot. My two points of the day:

• Start valuing paper through mindfulness and gratitide
• We aren’t against print advertising per se, we are only against printing anything that doesn’t get read!

Having just returned from Ottawa & Montreal, our hearts go out to our friends in Eastern Canada who are dealing with record snowfall and an upcoming spring thaw. Take care! Beth

Here are some suggestions:

1. Make a list of the past 12 months listings and sales. How did these customers find you? What HAS been working?
   • Word of mouth, repeat customer, attended an open house (how did they find it), post card, sign, mls.ca, newspaper advertising, your website etc
   • Add up what you spent on these channels versus their returns. What worked? What didn’t? Plan your next 12 months budget accordingly.
2. Think about branding yourself. “I want to be known as the real estate agent who….”
   • Gives 5% of my sales to social causes and green issues
   • Supports kids sports
   • Throws a street party every time I sell a house
   • Leaves a bottle of wine at all houses on the street after I sell a house (ie leave your card or work with a local winery to create your own label)
   • Gives away a living room decorating package draw to my clients each year
   • Throws a quarterly fundraising event for my favourite chartiy. I invite 500 networks, silent auction, wine tasting for local wineries and get media attention, cool musician, etc. Have fun by strengthening your network
   • Rent a coffee truck once per month, have a banner, deliver coffee (with your cards attached) to all the poor soccer parents standing out in the rain. They will remember you!
   • Tons of other “guerilla marketing ideas to get you known in the neighbourhood of choice
3. Have a website so people can find you
4. Collect leads on your website
5. Maintain and develop your contact database — should be minimum of 500 contacts that grows through networking etc
6. Send a monthly enewsletter about real estate news and latest listings
7. Make sure to send e-lerts to your hot prospects when new houses come up for sale. I would appreciate that service!
8. Building your brand in the community is a lot more work than sending out a post card but numerous real estate agents tell me they have already made the switch and are reaping the rewards.

Good luck and keep us posted. If anyone has other ideas to share please let us know!!

Beth