The Genius Of Van Jones
Posted by Sonja Ebron
I like simple yet powerful concepts. “Green the Ghetto First” is the clarion call of Van Jones, a brilliant brother some have called the Martin Luther King of the green jobs movement. At this weekend’s State of the Black Union in Los Angeles, he said, “You can’t green the earth without greening the cities, you can’t green the cities without greening the ghetto, and you can’t green the ghetto without giving Pookie a job!” You cannot beat that logic.
For those of us who think Blacks and environmentalism don’t mix, Van reminded the audience in LA that European colonists encountered Africans who found the environment sacred and refused to put a price on it, and that the descendants of those colonists are just now getting around to appreciating earth’s sacredness. Caring for the environment isn’t new to us, but our concerns encompass a lot more than polar bears. We’ve always had a broader, more holistic view of God’s creation.
Van’s focus on green jobs is the smart way to help reconnect Black people with our love for the environment. We have to reach people where they are, right? The sole mention of “jobs” gets everyone’s attention nowadays, and Van has gotten everyone’s attention with his advocacy for green jobs and his common-sense approach. It takes real genius to build a solid intellectual bridge between the economy and the environment, and to communicate it knowledgeably with down-to-earth clarity. Read his book, the Green Collar Economy, for a delightful introduction to the movement.
At the other end of the spectrum, there’s Green Irene, a new multilevel marketing scheme in home energy efficiency that’s sure to draw a high proportion of Blacks looking for an easy path to entrepreneurship. Drop $450 upfront for training and demo materials, and you’re in business with your own green job. Yeah… I’m so sure that’s not what Van had in mind.
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5 Responses to “The Genius Of Van Jones”
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I saw your posting and I wanted to reply to clarify. I am the original “Green Irene”. I co-founded the company with my husband and I am a Hispanic woman. In addition to energy efficiency we focus on these other topics (Energy Efficient Lighting
Water Conservation, Water Purity, Toxic Free Living, Indoor Air Quality, Recycling, Waste Reduction, Carbon Footprint reduction, Safety, Emergency Preparedness) and also offer services to help small businesses go green. We are a direct sales company in that the Eco-Consultants are independent distributors and receive a commission on the product sales (like a Green Avon) but we are primarily a consulting firm where the consultant receives an 80% commission on the consulting services provided. We share your disgust with multi-level marketers who focus on recruiting and not on delivering a quality product and service. By going thru 25 hours of video training our Eco-Consultants become a force for green in their communities and give free presentations on how to green your home, volunteer at their children’s schools to help green the school practices, such as starting food composting and garden programs, and help change laws and regulations to make their communities greener. Some of our Eco- Consultants hold GO GREEN Workshops for free in a Hostess home (like aTupperware party) but you leave with a sold set of recommendations on how to green your home for free. So you get together with your friends and neighbors and learn how to save money and go green.
We have Eco-Consultants who combine this with being an energy auditor, a green cleaning company, green landscaping, green remodeling and other ways to piece together a full time income in the Green Economy.
I have not met Van Jones yet, but I hope to. When I do I know he will think that being a Green Irene Eco-Consultant is a viable option for people who want to help their neighbors and local businesses go green with much less risk, expense and effort from starting up your own solo consulting practice.
Thank you for the opportunity to reply to what I viewed as an insult, by referring to us as a “scheme”.
Rosamaria Caballero
Green Irene is on a mission to “Green Our World, One Home (and Office) at a Time.” Green Irene trains local Eco-Consultants to assist in implementing proven green home and small office solutions. With the vast amount of information available in books, magazines, web sites and blogs, many families and small offices want to “go green” but don’t want to make a hobby out of “going green.” That’s where your local Eco-Consultant comes in. Your local Eco-Consultant will work with you in person to identify and implement changes to lead your family or small business to a healthier, safer and more sustainable lifestyle and save you money by reducing energy use.
Thanks for your comment, Rosamaria. I respect your decision to defend your company’s reputation in this forum, but I stand by my comments. Despite the best intentions, I know how seductively corrosive a multilevel marketing offer can be to company founders with big plans, limited startup capital and a desire to maintain control of their company. As I understand your model, you offer products that help households use less energy and water and have less impact on the environment. I think that’s valuable and timely, and I applaud your decision to work in this field. You also offer a “business opportunity” that, in exchange for 450 hard-earned dollars, allows distributors to sell your products to people they encounter. They can also sell the same business opportunity they bought from you and receive a small piece of the revenue earned by those they recruit.
But you and I know these people aren’t forming a business when they buy into your opportunity. They have no rights to your brand, they don’t even set their own prices, and the contract allows you to shut them down without so much as a phone call. We investigated multilevel marketing for blackEnergy nine years ago, but I could never figure out why people should pay us for the privilege of selling our stuff. And because the margins on the business opportunity would be much much higher than the margins on our products and services, our focus would have been on recruiting independent contractors rather than on serving our customers. Like other multilevel marketers, we would end up selling most of our products to people who’d bought our business opportunity.
I’m glad to hear Green Irene encourages its distributors to actively contribute to their communities. And I’m sure some of them find the Green Irene opportunity a profitable add-on to an existing business. Your “Eco-Consultants” are your sales force, working on 100% commission basis. That’s cool — no harm, no foul. But when most companies hire salespeople, they invest time and materials in developing those people. To ensure long-term growth, most companies find it essential to cultivate a knowledgeable and dedicated sales force that treats each customer right and builds their brand. Most companies provide a paid training program and a transition period with declining base pay that lets salespeople grow to full-commission status.
Reputable companies don’t make salespeople pay for their own training — or training videos in your case. Nor do they make salespeople buy their own demonstration kits to sell the company’s products, as you do. They invest in people because they expect those people to succeed. They’re betting, with corporate time and materials, that those people will succeed. Conversely, companies that make their salespeople pay upfront for an “opportunity” are betting those people will fail.
Speaking of failure, my experience providing adult education and performing residential energy audits tells me your designation of an Eco-Consultant is a real stretch. You’re unleashing energy and environmental “consultants” that have been trained in these areas by watching videos?? Do you test for prerequisite knowledge? Do the videos prepare your distributors for the BPI and RESNET exams, or any relevant certifications? Do your distributors learn the principles of building science, air leakage measurements, heating/cooling system diagnostics, insulation, window efficiencies, residential lighting and refrigeration, and all the other subjects that would qualify them to sell an energy audit? Your distributors aren’t even required to watch the videos if they can develop a better pitch for your products.
That IS the purpose of the videos, right? To learn a sales pitch for your products? You may think there’s no need to teach your distributors about moisture and indoor air quality if they’re not selling mechanical ventilation, but their clients are paying for a real energy audit, not a sales presentation. You should not set people up to sell a fraudulent consulting service. [And please explain: If a distributor has bought the training and is finding her own customers, why is she returning 20% of each consulting engagement to you? I wish I could get my former engineering students to pay me a piece of their salaries.] Without certification, your distributors will have a hard time selling $99 energy audits to the general public. Their best clients will be people interested in the business opportunity, which is what I think you’re really pushing.
Which gets to the crux of the issue: Whose customer is whose? The function of a sales force is to acquire customers for a company in return for commissions. There’s Company < --> Salesperson < --> Customer, no confusion, everyone’s clear on roles and responsibilities. But each of your distributors is both your salesperson and your customer. Green Irene’s ultimate customer buys an energy audit from your salesperson-customer and then buys light bulbs, etc from Green Irene based on that audit. That is a hot mess that strikes me as simply incestuous.
So I’m sorry if my reference to your business model as a “scheme” offends you, but you understand how I might get that idea. And I’m sorry if my response is unduly harsh, but I know too many Black people falling for these schemes when what they really need is help paying the rent. To be fair, I also know people who’ve done well with multilevel marketing, but they would do well on any model. For most people, I think multilevel marketing is just a bigger, more time-consuming lottery ticket.
Rather than get into a spitting contest with you, let’s do this: I dare you to demonstrate a fair return on an Eco-Consultant’s $450 investment in Green Irene. Since you don’t restrict your business opportunities to people already offering green services, let’s consider a young person without the skills or funds to become a consultant on her own. How much time and money does she need to make a go of it? What does the cash flow look like till then? What does her day look like when business is good? Take this opportunity to sell her on your business concept. If, in this forum, you can answer the questions necessary to show how she makes money with you, then I owe you an apology. If you can’t, we’ll know you’re raising free capital from your consultants just like most other multilevel marketers.
And if you think Van Jones would value your model as a green jobs initiative, why don’t you seek his endorsement?
Here, here Sonja! Thank you for finally breaking it down. I have been both an entrepreneur and an MLM pawn. It is indeed seductive; the system, the materials, the “training”, the promise–hard to resist. In the end, however, if you do the math, you can NEVER win. In MLM, I created debt. As an entrepreneur, I created income, employment and value for myself and others.
It is indeed one of the smartest and most devious MLM’s I’ve seen, very well hidden behind a green agenda. A lot of people will fork over their $450 and get burned, shameful.
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