7.15.09. Terrylynn – Realtor who believes in Staging Blog: We get a sneak peak at EcoJoe at the Expo in Dublin, ca! 7/15/09.
Skeptics may wonder, but I started using St. Joseph statues on my listings about 15 years ago. It has become common practice for my husband, Bob, when he is putting up my signs to bury the statue. We can’t tell you for sure that if we’d forgotten the statue the house wouldn’t sell, but it certainly seems like the positive thoughts and intention don’t hurt.
When I first started buying them, they were hard to locate. Now there are three or four sources. Since I have become a green advocate, I can’t tell you how excited I am to put in my order for EcoJoe!
- Terrylynn [Fisher]
View the original blog post on Active Rain here: http://activerain.com/blogsview/1138320/we-get-a-sneak-peak-at-ecojoe-at-the-expo-in-dublin-ca-7-15-09
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How to Buy EcoJoe™.
About the Product: EcoJoe, Eco-Friendly St. Joseph Statue Home Selling Kit
The centuries-old practice of burying a statue of St. Joseph in the yard of a house for sale is supposed to enlist the Saint’s aid in finding a buyer. Today, thousands of home sellers and real estate agents continue the tradition of calling upon St. Joseph to help sell their property with successful results.
The EcoJoe™ Home Selling Kit is a green alternative to the current St. Joseph products on the market, which are mostly made with plastic. As plastic breaks down, it releases toxin into our eco-system, potentially poisoning our food and water. EcoJoe™ is made with 100% eco-friendly materials that are bio-degradable. If he is left buried in your yard, EcoJoe™ will not poison the earth. A real Saint would never do that!
In addition, our packaging is printed with soy-based ink on 100% post consumer paper, which means no new trees were harmed and no VOCs emitted during printing process.
To purchase your EcoJoe™ Home Selling Kit, click below.
Product Pricing: $14.99
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Other Buying Options:
If you prefer, you can buy EcoJoe™ through Amazon.
Or find EcoJoe™ at one of these fine businesses in the US and Canada.
We offer special pricing for bulk purchases (more than 12 at one time). EcoJoe™ makes a great gift for an office of real estate agents. Please contact us directly for details.
EcoJoe™ might be the perfect addition to your store. Read our wholesale information page to learn more.
We also offer an affiliate program. See EcoJoe Affiliate Program page for all the details.
Photo by DUCKMARX
Why Not Plastic?.
Plastic, while convenient, is actually costing our economy a lot.
Here are some quick facts courtesy of Greenfeet.net:
* A plastic milk jug takes 1 million years to decompose.
* A plastic cup can take 50 – 80 years to decompose.
* Americans use 2.5 million plastic bottles every HOUR.
* Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1 million sea creatures every year.
* Burning plastic in an incinerator uses twice as much energy as it takes to recycle it.
Photo by Vineus
* Americans generate 10.5 million tons of plastic waste a year but recycle only 1 or 2 % of it.
* An estimated 14 billion pounds of trash, much of it plastic is dumped in the world’s oceans every year.
* The worldwide fishing industry dumps an estimated 150,000 tons of plastic into the ocean each year, including packaging, plastic nets, lines, and buoys.
* About 1,200 plastic soft drink and salad dressing containers could carpet the average living room.
Photo by E>mar
* It takes 1,050 HDPE (#2) milk jugs to make a six-foot plastic lumber park bench.
* Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas.
* Nearly every piece of plastic EVER made still exists today.
So please, stop drinking bottled waters and bring your own grocery bags to shops. Our *ONLY* goal at EcoJoe™ is to change how real estate industry uses plastic. We strongly believe that even a small change can make a big difference.
So be part of solution today! Join the Plastic Revolution. Reuse, recycle and reduce usage of plastic.
Photo by greenhem
Additional reading:
Plastic Facts from the 3R Program at Northern Illinois University
Different types of plastic by Life Without Plastic
Consumption Facts by ReusableBags.com
Plastic 101 by Earth911.com
Saving the Planet One Lightbulb, Grocery Bag and Ice Cream Cone at a Time by O Magazine/ Oprah.com
Greenwash of the Week: Biodegradable Plastic Water Bottles by TheGoodHuman.com
Breaking Down Is Hard to Do: How biodegradable is biodegradable plastic? by Slate.com
A collection of plastic related news articles by Digital Journal
*Front page featured photo courtesy of pualv on flickr
Thumbnail photo courtesy of hockadilly on flickr
EcoJoe Gives Back!.
EcoJoe™ gives back to the community and furthers the cause of sustainability by participating in the 1% for the Planet Alliance. Every quarter, we poll our customers and friends and ask them which environmental charity we should support. You can find the poll and other fun EcoJoe™ stuff on our Facebook page. This quarter, our donation went to support Friends of the Urban Forest
Here are some other communities we are involved in and recommend to you:
The 3/50 Project: Think about which 3 independently owned businesses
you’d miss most if they were gone. Stop in and say hello. Pick up a little something that will make someone smile. Your contribution is what keeps those businesses around. If just half the employed U.S. population spent $50 each month in independently owned businesses, their purchases would generate more than $42.6 billion in revenue.* Imagine the positive impact if 3/4 of the employed population did that.
Pick 3, spend 50, Save your local economy.
Make Mine A $Million / Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence is the leading national not-for-profit provider of resources, business education and community support for women entrepreneurs seeking to grow micro businesses to million dollar enterprises.
Company-Customer Pact: EcoJoe™places a high value on excellent customer service, and subscribes to the Company-Customer Pact. This pact is a call for shared responsibility between companies and customers, one that promises that both sides will hold up their end of the bargain to change the game. The document provides a way to opt into a set of shared values. We invite you to take a look, and sign on.
What is EcoJoe™ made of?.
EcoJoe™ is made from clay, which is a natural material from the earth. Clay has a long history in various historical cultures. Different types of clays and processing produced different products range from earthenware to porcelain. Clay can be biodegradable and does not release any toxins when it breaks down if left buried in the earth.
To produce EcoJoe™, the only “processing” was through the kiln, which is a firing process that hardens the clay. No additional processing such as bleaching or chemical coating was used.
The EcoJoe packaging is made from 100% post-consumer, recycled paper and printed with soy based ink. By printing with soy-based inks, VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) emissions that are harmful to the production crew and users are minimized, unlike oil-based paints, which are most commonly used in printing.
We also offset carbon emissions caused during production, transportation and shipping by purchasing certified carbon credits. We are a green shipper. We reuse as much existing packagings and shipping materials as much as possible.
We also print green when it comes to our merchandise, like the inserts of our button packs, business cards, postcards and our limited edition T shirts (coming soon Feb 2010)!
At EcoJoe, we strive to be a socially responsible company and minimize our ecological footprint as much and as often as possible.
(Photo by Photo by Soil-Science.; please note this is a photo of clay soil, but not necessary the same soil that produces
EcoJoe™)
Launch Party 08.06.2009!.
We are throwing a Launch Party for EcoJoe™!
To RSVP: visit Pingg.com or on Facebook
Fabulous sponsors:
Eat My Words: San Francisco’s Elite Naming Firm
Square One Organic Vodka
Square One Organic Vodka
Square One Vodka CEO Allison Evanow with her fabulous line of organic vodkas
Special Thanks.
EcoJoe™ would never happen if I didn’t have the support of family and a few special friends:
Ann O’Connell, an inspiring friend, gracious legal counsel and a terrific blogger/writer (and former stager) who can spell and practice grammar much better than I do
Dava Guthmiller, Founder of Noise 13 and Pow.Wow Network
The fabulous ladies at Make Mine A $Million/ Count Me In
Lee Gilbert, President of CycleAware
Kris Whittenberg, CEO of SayNoMorePromotions and Be Good to People
Sunny Bonnell and Ashleigh Hansberger, Motto Agency. EcoJoe™ could not look so stylish without their creative genius!
As the life of EcoJoe™ progresses, I feel incredibly lucky, blessed and grateful to have great company and incredible support from freinds and fmaily. I cannot thank everyone enough!
*Photo by Thomas Hawk
How EcoJoe™ was Born — Part II, How P became the Struggle of B.
(photo courtesy of hojusaram)
In every entrepreneur’s life, the evil B word — Budget, comes into play constantly. Budget definitely limits the scope of the project and your freedom to take on risks. For me, during the production planning really was about walking the tightrope made up by the fine line between budget and design impacts.
The packaging design process was a very difficult battle. I feel like I was running a marathon that I was not trained for, and the moment before I started running, I just scarfed down a giant box of cupcakes. There were times after conference calls I just wanted to collapse and hide under my desk, or throw things at the wall just to let the steam out. I felt like I was grasping for air constantly. The search for the perfect materials was also excruciating. Pulped paper was the first choice because the texture of it and the quality can really heighten the feel of the product, but the limited budget simply would not allow it. To use the paper pulp for packaging, we will have to spend at least $10,000 in producing the mold, in additions to place initial opening order of 250,000 units. And that’s just the packaging, that doesn’t even include actual production costs of statues!
Photo by Leo ReynoldsAfter wasting 1.5 months on paper pulp, we settled on the recycled kraft paper. After the material is chosen, the box style was quickly settled on match box. Now, the graphics.
Graphics were not easy either. To make sure your product sells, you really need to have a nice packaging that sell your product for you. Something like color schemes or the styling can easily sway consumers one way or another. Well, luckily I was not overtly fussy about it (or I will drive everyone crazy crazier). One thing was certain, I want to make a product that I will be 1000% behind it. I simply cannot sell something that I don’t love myself. Lots of emails were shooting back and forth. We went through drafts and drafts and actually changed illustrator to make sure the vision was going to happen.
And graphics were just the easy part (yeah only took us like 4 months to do). The real struggle was making sure everything is as green as possible while being cash strapped.
(for the struggles to go Green, read Part III)
You can also find part i here
How EcoJoe™ was Born — Part I, the Beginning.
(photo by alvarezperea)
The idea of EcoJoe™ came from a blog I wrote that asks the age old question “Can St. Joseph sell your house?” A girl friend of mine read it on Active Rain and emailed me: “What do you think about an eco-friendly version of Saint Joseph statues?”
Well the light bulb went off and that was it.
Well. Producing a green product, or any product in general, when you have never done it before, was really much (much much) easier said than done. When we first had the idea, we thought we could just make a mold of some sort and hand make this in the kitchen every time an order comes in (naive, right?). I researched about what types of materials could work by mostly googling the process and looking at bio-degradble materials at my local craft stores and on the internet. My girl friend was also busy with her legal career and I was busy with my staging business. Nothing really progressed until October 2008 when I won Make Mine A $Million business competition in Micro category.
During all this time, I lost my business partner to her legal career. It looked like EcoJoe™ was going to be dead. Luckily, winning the business competition put me in touch with a lot of women entrepreneurs who already went through what I was going through. And the women were incredibly giving with their knowledge and experiences. I posted a message saying that I had this great idea but don’t know how to make it happen. Lee from Cycle Aware was amazing and shot me an email back saying that she could speak with me on this. When I told her what I was trying to do, she said “Oh no, you need to mass produce this, you need to manufacture it.” Additionally, Lee pointed out the packaging process, which I totally did not think about. She gave me a few resources for manufacturing, and there, unknowningly, I was going to make it happen.
Photo by psovartIn November 2008, I was fortunate enough to be one of the 25 women entrepreneurs selected for Sam Walton Emerging Entrepreneur award. While I was waiting in line to be interviewed by American Express (a camera and interviewer and everything, fancy!), I met the Directors of Motto Agency, Sunny and Ashleigh. I liked them immediately. I resonated with the enterpreneur stories that they had, similar ages and the styles of their design. When I envisioned the packaging, I knew I wanted something that makes a statement on the shelf, something that’s much more updated and modern than the existing products, and I wanted something that’s kitschy and fun. I placed a call to Motto shortly after I returned from North Carolina. The estimated investment of packaging design was a big investment and cash was already short, but I bit my lips and signed on the dotted line. I knew in my heart that this is the right choice. I felt that in order to differentiate ourselves as a product, we have to make sure the packaging sells and people will like them immediately.
Once I had a rough idea on how the packaging design will pan out and how the production will line up between statues and packaging, I placed the order for the production of EcoJoe™ statues.
For more, read Part II. Skipping ahead? Part iii is here.
Cindy Lin, General Manager & Founder.
Cindy Lin has been working in real estate since 2005 when she became a real estate agent to help manage a family friend’s rental property. In 2006, Cindy founded Staged4more Home Staging and Redesigns. A natural at staging, Cindy is passionate about making her clients look good and helping people sell their homes quickly so her clients can get to the next chapter of their lives quicker, less stressed and with more equity in hand.
In addition to her staging work, Cindy coaches small business owners and real estate professionals on how to leverage social media for business. (You can read Cindy’s tech blog, smallbizgurl* talks tech here.) She also teaches the Live Green Live Smart real estate designation to agents who want to learn how to help their clients adopt sustainable practices during the resale process.
In 2008, Cindy won the Make Mine A $Million Business Award in the micro category and Sam Walton Emerging Entrepreneur Award. This recognition helped Cindy take her business to a new level and enabled her to pursue her idea for EcoJoe™.
The same year, Cindy was also named a finalist for the Real Estate Staging Association’s Stager of the Year Award and the Innovative Stager of the Year Award. Cindy’s work has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, CBS 5, the San Mateo County Times, Inman blog, HGTV, the book How to Build a Successful Staging Business by Barb Schwarz, and in many other media outlets.
2009 Green Bud Business of Year Award.
In April 2009, EcoJoe™ won Green Bud Business of the Year award at Certified Staging Professional International Convention held at Toronto, Canada.
Reader’s Digest blog mention.
Nell Marino
Nell Marino (founder of CountMeIn.org, author of Stepping Out of Line: Lessons for Women Who Want It Their Way… In Life, In Love, and At Work and regular blogger at Reader’s Digest online blog) has graciously wrote about my ECOJOE™ business endeavors on her Reader’s Digest blog.
It definitely has been an amazing year, largely due to joining the fabulous women of Make Mine A Million after winning the business competition (it’s now in a year-long business race format). And all that wouldn’t happened if Nell didn’t have the vision or the balls to start something to change the world. 
You can read the blog here:
EcoJoe from Reader’s Digest blog
