Experts validate our business model. Driving With Slippers.

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Customers want to know “what’s in it for me?” How well does your business meet the 7 benefits of doing business with a natural product retailer? How well are you positioned in your customer’s mind? Early research shows that when we consider buying something, one consideration seems to trump the rest: how the product will affect our social standing and the way others perceive us

Your success requires compelling consumer education. Tell your health story. Customers are time starved. Nutrition News is a quick read. One of the 7 benefits – saves time, or gives the experience of time well spent.

Customers who know more buy more and, they buy more often.  Another benefit, Nutrition News educates.  It confers third party expertise on your store and makes you a trusted resource in your community.

The State of New York enjoyed a $10 return for every $1 they invested in general consumer health education.

Retailers who use Nutrition News for customer education find that a Nutrition News newsletter,  pays for itself after only 1% to 2% of the copies generate a store’s average sale. Another benefit, profit and leverage

O, The Oprah Magazine, has an article written by Tim Jarvis in the mindwise section titled, The Brain Age. The article explores how “cutting-edge neuroscience has escaped from the lab and is suddenly showing up everywhere.

One bit of research peaked my interest. Early research shows that when we consider buying something, one consideration seems to trump the rest: how the product will affect our social standing and the way others perceive us. I found it interesting that “Keeping Up With The Jones'” still impacts our buying decisions. That can be problematic when the intrinsic value out of being healthy gets short changed in service of being “cool”.

Conversely, the continued growth of the natural products industry, organic farming and the self help industry demonstrates the social capital associated with playing the “Is It Healthy?” Game.

That begs the question, “How will your business meet the challenges of Marketing Healthy Living?”  How we live, learn, play and grow are the fundamentals of Healthy Living.

Five predictions on how brain science may change the way we live include: Neurolongevity, Neuroentertainment, Neuroeducation, Neurofitness and Neurospirituality.

What’s so surprising about the growth of the self help industry?

Apparently there are some sour grapes about Americans spending $11 billion in 2008 on self-improvement books, CDs, seminars, coaching and stress-management programs–13.6% more than they did back in 2005, according to Marketdata Enterprises, an independent Tampa-based research firm that tracks everything from adoption agencies to funeral homes. Latest forecast: 6.2% annual growth through 2012.

David Korten’s new book Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth outlines an agenda to bring into being a new economy—locally based, community oriented, and devoted to creating a better life for all, not simply increasing profits.