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Health & Fitness

Compelling Stories About Business Partners His Legacy, Cavan to Bid Green Alliance Farewell

PORTSMOUTH — Jim Cavan, wordsmith extraordinaire, the Green Alliance’s outgoing director of communications, started a story titled “Pest Control, Naturally” this way: 

“Chances are we’ve all had the experience: It’s the first truly warm day of the year — early April, let’s say — and you’ve just gotten back from an unseasonably balmy walk in the woods. You come through the front door, take off your shoes, head to the kitchen to start preparing the night’s dinner, and happen from the corner of your eye upon a trail of slowly moving black specks on the counter.

“Carpenter ants. Dozens of them — and that’s just in plain view. Here in New England, ant infestation constitutes one of the most common pest problems, affecting some tens of thousands of households in New Hampshire alone and causing millions of dollars of damage nationwide. 

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“Enter Tom Pray, founder of the Eliot-based Ecotech Pest Control and a degreed entomologist with over 25 years of experience in the field. Settling on the trade as much for the science as sheer insect fascination, Pray launched Ecotech in 2000 with the aim of helping homeowner’s beat back pest problems not through hard-hitting chemicals, but rather by managing the environment responsible for fostering that very infestation.” 

The story, written to promote Green Alliance Business Partner Ecotech Pest Control, appeared during spring and early summer 2013 in several media outlets, including the Exeter and Portsmouth Patch local-news Web sites; The Green Energy Times; Foster’s Daily Democrat; and Coastal Home Magazine. 

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Pray was pleased, to say the least, not only because Cavan wrote a story good enough to be published in several media outlets, but also because of the time of year when Cavan reached out to him, representing a conspicuously diligent, professional, and nuanced manner by which to serve a Business Partner. 

“The thing with my business is that I needed certain stories put out at certain times for the right impact,” said Pray in a telephone interview in late January. “Jim wrote stories last year that helped my business. He placed the great story about carpenter ants in Coastal Living magazine, among other media outlets, which came out just as the May-June carpenter ant season was in full swing. He wrote a story about tick boxes released through a local newspaper that was very big. Jim also wrote a mosquito story in June that coincides with the period when I start mosquito spraying. 

“The effects of those releases at the right time — I probably picked up 30 to 40 new customers last year from these stories,” he said. 

These stories also appeared in the Green Alliance Newsletter and the Green Families Club Newsletter, among other GA media.  

“The relationship in general with the Green Alliance, and in particular with Jim, has worked out great for me,” Pray said. “I’ll miss Jim. I’m sure he’ll move on to greener pastures. But it’s been a great relationship between me and my business and the Green Alliance. In fact, I’ve been very happy with the whole staff.” 

Green Alliance Business Partners can bid their good-byes to Jim and celebrate how good storytelling — the Green Alliance’s forte — can grow a business. The party, called “Celebrate the Success of GA Storytelling: A Tribute to Jim Cavan,” takes place from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 12, at the Green Alliance offices. 

According to Green Alliance Director Sarah Brown, as the afternoon sun shone brightly through her offices’ high windows, “The key to promoting any business, or selling any product or service, is capturing the imagination. And the way it’s most effectively done is through a story that has meaning. Everything that Jim writes has meaning and great creativity.” 

Effective storytelling about a business requires work, knowledge and skill, she explained. Tell a story that has value — real value — that people want to share. 

“The best story is the one that people want to re-tell,” she said. “It’s that re-telling that reverberates with the community. People don’t want to hear corporate schlock. They want to hear real stories about real people. It always has to go beyond pitching a product. It has to have human interest and color, and this is what Jim does so well. And that’s what defines the Green Alliance approach, too.” 

Contrasted with the typical public relation’s practice of pumping out cookie-cutter press releases, the Green Alliance approach is derived from the strict tenets of quality journalism — fact-based, insightful, and compelling.   

“The GA always approaches every promotion and brand development of a Business Partner through the fundamental paradigm of journalism,” Brown said. “Jim is not a marketer; he’s a real journalist. A real journalist can find a story where someone else may not. He’s able to tease out the meaning, the human element, the essence of what a business exudes and represents.” 

A veteran journalist who worked in Russia just after the fall of the Soviet Union, Brown admitted that she is often amazed by how Cavan can create a story out of something that she couldn’t even see. “He asks the right questions and gets people to open up,” she said. “And that’s important because sometimes even the business owners he interviews do not see the story that Jim is able to discover, that he is able to mold and beautifully produce. Jim Cavan has done that for four years.” 

Cavan admitted that he did not land at the Green Alliance through any preconceived plan, a result that nevertheless benefitted him, the Green Alliance, and its 100-plus Business Partners. 

"Never in a million years did I think my first journalism job would be business writing,” he recently admitted. “It just wasn't what I went to school for. But it didn't take long for me to realize that all of these businesses had stories to tell — fun stories, heartwarming stories, compelling stories. After that, it was just a matter of making sure you had that conversation, to show them that what they're doing is a lot more interesting than they might first think. And it's been a lot of fun." 

In a piece titled “Star Island Embraces the Sun” that appeared in local media outlets, Cavan wrote: 

“For a piece of sea-bound land temporarily called home just a few months out of the year, Star Island would seem an unlikely place for “green” to take permanent hold — why with a lone, albeit beautiful hotel, and a smattering of centuries old houses and cottages to its name.

Lately, however, the second largest — and most frequented — of New Hampshire’s Isles of Shoals has sought to prove that improved amenities and sustainability-minded practices need not be mutually exclusive. 

“Earlier this month the Star Island Family Conference and Retreat Center officially put online the island’s alternative energy cornerstone, in the form of a solar hot water system for the village’s 19th century cottage. 

“For over a century, cottage guests had to make do by carrying hot water in pitchers to the basins in their rooms. Now, residents will be able to enjoy a warm respite from elements that — even in July and August — don’t always feel summer-like. 

“Spearheading the installation was Jack Farrell, the Island Facilities Superintendent. Farrell in turn reached out to Jack Bingham, owner of the Seacoast Energy Alternatives in [Barrington], to secure the actual system.” 

Bingham has worked with Cavan for three years. 

“I think Jim, and for that matter any good writer, has to take care to not form any preconceived notions before writing a story, and go through several rounds of discussion before he or she is able to craft a good and accurate story,” Bingham said. “Jim has proved to be very flexible and open. To me the goal is not just to pump articles out, but to get out stories that are good, accurate, and convey the essence of what a company is all about. My personal feeling is that the best advertising for me is a newspaper article, and he’s been very successful at that. I wish him well.” 

For more information about Ecotech Pest Control Services LLC, visit www.ecotechpc.net/

For more information about Seacoast Energy Alternatives, visit www.seasolarstore.com/

And for more information about the Green Alliance, visit www.greenalliance.biz.
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