In this episode, I sit down with Cynthia Villalba to talk about her company, Zona Verde, how she lands big clients, and why you should give away your best content for free.
- How Zona Verde Mexico was born and why
- Why building an email list early was crucial to Cynthia’s success and how she utilized it
- Her first project with Zona Verde for a government agency
- The benefits of green roofs on the environment
- The tools that Cynthia uses to book big clients, like Coca Cola
Guest:
Cynthia Villalba is a banker turned green roof guru in Latin America with a mission to improve the world through the green revolution.
Quote:
“That email list created the whole impact, the whole difference in my company’s life.”—Cynthia Villalba
Connect:
Guest: Cynthia Villalba
Host: Laura Petersen
podcast@copythatpops.com
All Podcast Episodes:
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Transcripts with time stamp:
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welcome to copy that pops
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the only podcast that goes deep into the psychology and strategies behind getting
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more traffic more conversions and more sales from your digital copy and
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marketing efforts join Laura and her guests as they share actionable advice
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step-by-step strategies and psychological research to help you earn
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more with your online business than ever before
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here’s your host Laura Petersen
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everybody welcome to copy the pops i’m laura your conversion professor and I
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wanted to start out by thanking you so much for the birthday wishes this week
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my husband and I got to celebrate with a mini trip to croatia it’s just an
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hour-and-a-half flight from here in germany and we stayed in split which is
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right on the Mediterranean visiting national parks absolutely jam-packed
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with waterfalls more waterfalls and have ever seen in one place in my entire life
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it was just gorgeous and stunning I really highly recommend checking out
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croatia if you ever have the chance
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and this week’s guest is a dear friend of mine named Cynthia oughta from Mexico City Mexico
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she and I originally met i think it was about seven or eight years ago as
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housemates in Chandler Arizona for a couple of months we live together and we
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always stayed in touch
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I even met up with her sister Sandra and her dad
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many years ago oh gosh i guess maybe it’s like five or six years ago now when
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i studied Spanish in Guadalajara for a two-week break when i taught at the high
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school level and one fun thing that we did then is we went to the city of
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tequila and visited tequila factories that was a really fun day and then a few
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years after that I was able to go back to Mexico and actually stay with Cynthia
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in mexico city and see some of our projects firsthand and get to visit the
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beautiful city of Mexico City as well
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so Cynthia is a banker turned green roof
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guru famous all over Latin America for her gorgeous and sustainable green roofs
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and green walls and i personally find it absolutely fascinating that Cynthia went
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from managing a team of over 14 people and nearly two million dollars in a
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weekly cash flow as a treasury manager to a leader of a green movement in
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Mexico and beyond in this conversation she shares lessons that she’s learned in
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terms of email list building giving away your best content for free and hooking
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the big fish clients who in turn do all the marketing that you’ll ever need for
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you when you really deliver on a great job
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today’s topic is relevant to anyone who’s growing their business online but
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what’s more it’s important for all of us to learn more about green roofs and
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sustainability
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I was just inhabitants of the planet so it goes beyond just business
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I really hope that you enjoyed today’s conversation and please join me in a big
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heart felt bienvenidos amiga Cynthia via alba either Cynthia thanks so much for
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joining us today
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hi Lauda i am really happy that you invited me to this your space
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por supuesto though hey uh huh
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we have to do it in English my Spanish is rusty
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it’s great that super intense but you’re no good at yeah well I love to ask the
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first question of how do you introduce yourself when you’re just meeting
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someone for the first time maybe at a networking event
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oh ok well my name is Cynthia B yoga
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i am the founder of so Nevada the ma keys which is it means green zone Mexico
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and we build green roofs green walls and a lot of environmental we implement a
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lot of environmental technologies
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mm-hmm so fascinating so I know
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uh-huh cool it’s really fun I know in some of the pictures and videos I’ve
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seen of your work is just mind-blowing an amazing and I’m gonna have to make
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sure to put some examples of that stuff on the show notes on the website so
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people can see it as you know what the podcast you’re not only here but some of
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what you do is so visually impactful it’s really going to see it
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I am really happy that do like it we really enjoy doing it
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yeah and so tell us some about where you’re from
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obviously Mexico but what city did you grow up in as a kid
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well I grew up in Mexico City and then i moved to while higher is the second
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largest city and i came back to Mexico City
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10 12 years ago and there’s we’re gonna battle it was born in mexico city and it
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was born because we
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well I wanted to create something that could tackle in some way the air
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pollution problem that we have over there
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hmm how bad is it is really serious
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it’s so bad it’s it’s really it’s a above the recommended standards for the
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for the Health Organization the health world or the organization it’s really
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really bad quality of the air over there
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yeah and so we needed more trees right right but it seems we do not we do not
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have more space for trees and the only way to have more greenies and roofs huh
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yeah that’s so smart but you were always involved in environmental things
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necessarily what were you doing before you got involved in the green roofs and
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green walls
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well i was working for a bank
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um that time I i was a banker was a financial girl and i had the opportunity
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to present this project to hsbc which was working in this bag was being
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introducing mexican economy they were building at a large tower writing from
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of the angel of independence and they were trying to make it a green grand
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building over there so I I built this is business case for them and and they said
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yes
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let’s go on and do the green roofs project so that’s how everything started
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and from then I i realized i was good
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first sales uh-huh and so you were you working for chase bank at the time how
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did you even get connected
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and to even know that this could be something worth proposing
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well i was working for HTC and I thought it was a good idea to create a company
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that sells green roofs because that was a tendency the trend in in europe and
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the u.s. have like large industries about green roofs
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they are all based in green roofs they create a lot of of jobs over there and
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Mexico was has been always a little back back a back step on that environmental
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field but right now they are like I’m leading the whole Latin America market
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for environmental project so that was a trend
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I if I could felt it you could you could somebody time it was coming and it was
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needed and so you jumped right in
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right exactly
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but after that project it was not necessarily that everyone wanted a green
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roof so I started with a simple web page over there after that project and i
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started building a
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ah least an email least over there so it was like maybe from 2004 2008 for
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yourself of gathering information and that’s pretty early still to know that
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you should grow an email list that’s pretty
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I mean everyone talks about it now but back in two thousand four
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how did you think of that as an idea of hey we should really keep in contact
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with people via their emails right ride was not like right now that everybody
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has a and email listing
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uh-uh automatic device right
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those times you just have to gather the information in an Excel or database
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file
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yeah it was not like right now well I just I just I just wondered if if so
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many people was interested in green roofs then I don’t know
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then maybe we could get there up together
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uh-huh someday it was it was actually it was like something that I felt it was
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fried doing but I didn’t know that it was gonna have a lot of impact in my
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business and he did it did that email list created a whole impact the whole
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difference in my listing in my in my company’s life
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yeah so tell us about that progression
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what did that email lists lead to well I i started looking for some resources in
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that time there was not a lot of information but i found a the art of
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nonconformity in 2009 around that year I from chris guilbeau it’s a really
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awesome guy who wants to give you a lot of tools to to conquer the world is like
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really fun to have read it and I started doing what
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what he told me you have to give first something so I i used to have this email
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listing and start sending information about green rose for free
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and that let me to a product design on electronic product which was my first
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ebook in Spanish about how to make green roofs and from them
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people started by in these electronic product is emmanuel from them they
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wanted more so we started doing a personal classes
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green roofs or four groups interested in that subject
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it was not enough for them the electronic book they wanted war and was
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an all motors or business owners or a mix well it was some mix homeowners and
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also they were architects from architectural of companies you know like
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large companies and they where students from universities
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we have a lot a lot of a lot of people very different on day on their
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background where girls boys
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maybe housewives and students and architects engineers biologists very
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broad and diverse group of the anvil
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I know we had the opportunity to met a lot of people in those essential our
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classes those personal classes that we gave to these groups and from then
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uh well we actually started having real projects so as you can see it’s it’s
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just like giving people something and they will come back and rain
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they will need more if it’s like an authentic interest
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he wanted to teach them how to do the green roofs and the result was that they
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wanted to hire us so we can do the green roofs for them
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it was really funny that but yeah it was unexpected
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No
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he was it worked that way and that’s house on every started growing
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I teaching everybody showing what we do with no with no jealousy you know
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jealousy shillings like professional state had really jealous of what they
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know we just wanted to share whatever we knew and and then we got back job
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yeah so it’s a lot of funny
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yeah that’s just amazing how that works get something for free with our
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expectation of something in return
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and you end up getting more than you ever thought you would right right
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exactly that’s what
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that’s how it happened huh so tell us a little bit about some of these big jobs
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that you got as you start to crawl and become really well known in the market
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well when we started the first project it was with a federal agency from the
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government and it was not a really large project by now but by today’s standard
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answer by today’s standards it was like he was a small green wall but the the
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funny thing about that is that we were we were teaching about doing green roofs
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I mean I it’s different the technology is different and the agency look to us
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for building at green wall so we didn’t know how to do it
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we just said yes to these uh huh
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we’ll find out later how to do what do we need to cut this part of the
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interview so they don’t find too huh
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no that’s fine that’s fine they were part of our and godfather is that how we
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can tell them
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uh-huh yeah we can call them our godfathers
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so we said I’m not going to tell the name of the agency
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ok that’s pretty sure but um
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Oh before we were doing this experiment we did another green wall a really small
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one with a private client and we almost sell it with no profit in it right
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we we talked with here and we were like we want to the green walls we don’t know
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we do not know how to build them you want to try to build one with us and we
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have we are not charging any profit
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I don’t I and remember that even I i paid for the difference that ring though
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right and at the end we found out how it worked and we were ready to to be all
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that green wall on the federal agency wall and how big was less
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how big was the screen wall and maybe describe a little bit to what a green
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wall is because some people might not know so like right
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yeah describing a little bit more it’s a it’s a structure we ha we set up a
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structure that can allow the wall to to support the growth of plants in special
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fabric
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the plants are growing in a kind of farm kind of finessed I know
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yeah you can call it a nest-maid off of these special fabric so the roots are
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are growing and they grabbed the fabric when they when they go
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older and older and they adapt to these fabric so they they they grow on their
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wall vertically
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it’s not a very natural way to do it I mean yeah they are used to grow in a
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horizontal
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way this way they grow in a vertical surface
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it’s are involved it involves irrigation system
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I you feed them through a chemicals or where it’s not can because it’s just
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like a special substance
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I do put into the water so they can have all the rotational man all the the the
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the material 40 mm yeah yeah
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so yeah that’s that’s occurring wool
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so how big about was this first screen wall that you guys did you remember that
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the size or scale of it
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yeah it was around mm well I have measure in square meters high for sure
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it’s around it was around 30 30 square meters 328
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yeah something like that we need was really small
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I think that’s me alone 330 square feet
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I believe ok yeah I must be like that
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ok yeah that’s not happening sighs so on
18:30
yeah yeah it was really cute
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yeah oh so we we did it great
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but the only condition with my team was that I we were going to say yes to that
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project you were going to find out how to make it
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we were gonna do it great
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and we promise to to exceed the expectations of clients right so that’s
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something that helped us a lot because once you have like a big fish
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once you get a big fish he’s just worried about exceeding expectations and
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they will talk with their friends about you right
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and that was our our first marketing effort in our best bet
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I they were talking to us because because of the great job that we did it
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with these agency and we were out there in the word of mouth
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you know you were telling me we were good that we were reliable that we you
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know that’s have really good at levering effort
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yeah that’s how we got to coca cola and two other federal agencies of government
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and yes it’s because of the worth of house
20:05
uh-huh talk about the coca-cola project and that was different than the one
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imports of I artha with the beautiful roof on the top right that’s not those
20:12
are two different ones
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yeah those are two different ones the coca-cola project was the transformation
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of a heliport
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they didn’t use these to hell . anymore is that the word in English
20:28
yeah or a helicopter lands on top of a building right yeah right exactly
20:34
so they were a it was a space that was not used for anything it was just like
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free
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they forgot about that space right so I’ll that area so we wanted to create
20:49
something special and we build a three-level green roof
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the first level that went on the top
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it was it was especially designed for not requiring irrigation
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I it was around around four hundred square meters
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yeah and foremost a lot of hundred square feet
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mm that’s okay
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yeah that was large
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and we used a khaki from Latin America and cat Mexican kak tee and these
21:39
heliport capture or the system that was living on the heliport capture the storm
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water and needed to storm water tank so the rest of the levels could be water
21:58
with these same water that we already but that we were recycling
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yeah it was a really cool project we also had another another area with
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vegetables and foodies and yeah it was really fun that one
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uh-huh he I remember that they use the letters on the restaurant with employees
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yeah uh-huh yeah so that was a really cool project
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did you get to your very presence they did you get to hear the reaction from
22:34
the employees when they found out that some of the food came from the building
22:40
well yeah they couldn’t believe it but they like it yeah thing is that you when
22:47
you grow your own vegetables
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it’s totally different the flavor is like it’s like an explosion of flavor
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your mouth
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seriously it’s it’s so defined the flavor is so the fine is so different
23:04
than the regular vegetables that you find at the supermarket
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mmm
23:10
some it’s really delicious when you grow up your own foot
23:15
yeah and maybe for a minute tell us about the amazing benefits of green
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roofs in the environment because I I learned so much from reading some of
23:27
your materials that i had no idea how needed it is and how impactful it can be
23:32
in a positive way
23:35
yeah yeah it it takes carry it takes good care of resources
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I’m and takes back some of the environmental services that we steal
23:47
from the land when we build the great when we build any building for instance
23:54
it’s a carbon diox– it sink and right now we have a problem because of the
24:04
climate change and there’s a lot of co2 on the atmosphere so any grain surface
24:11
can catch the co2 and transform it into oxygen and that’s what green roofs doing
24:19
the big cities because we have a lot of emissions from the cars in the industry
24:23
and and everything that it’s mixed up with the heat and its really dangerous
24:31
for instance in a in a city like Mexico City to breathe that air because it’s
24:36
like pollutants heated pollutants
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it’s really dangerous so I agree roof
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it’s like a term week isolation device also it holds down the building
24:52
it cleans the year it cleans the storm water because it’s a natural filter it
24:59
gives like peace of mind to the people so people cannot be so violent or
25:05
aggressive or he has a lot of psychological benefits and and also
25:12
increases the value of the property was another
25:16
yeah it’s it’s like a lot of it makes a lot of sense because it takes care about
25:21
the environment about the people and about money
25:24
wow so is that I know it’s like every roof needs to have a green roof on it
25:31
gets to where it gets you nowhere
25:39
yes
25:42
so is this movement is really starting to grow more in Mexico more in Latin
25:48
America are you see you’re seeing that trend increase
25:51
I think so yeah it’s not really slow down a little bit because of the
25:58
economical world situation but I i think that the trend is that governments to
26:06
start to legislate on that subject and we can see it in the latest news
26:13
Harry’s are just hair is just made a legislation for the new buildings date
26:21
they must have a building and I think you know their country
26:26
I think it I think is sitting in canada and several cities in the u.s. also they
26:32
have like legislation and the norm to be to teach the professionals how to do the
26:44
green roofs
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I think it slowly is changing the culture but we need more
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we need all the countries join together
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haha pressure
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well we’re gonna have to start beating the drum and spreading the news more so
27:02
I’m glad that you’re able to share this message here
27:06
yes turning and you work of course anytime and maybe turning it back a
27:13
little bit more toward the marketing side and copywriting lenny b just things
27:18
like that
27:19
what are some tools that you use in your business now to to grow to book these
27:26
big clients to to keep on expanding what are some things that you would recommend
27:31
to listeners are listening and want to increase their business
27:35
well I i guess that something really something that is getting more more more
27:47
important sees the facebook
27:49
yeah the facebook plan we recently tried something with facebook we we just
27:56
started some ads about some some products that we that we sell online and
28:05
we had a lot of views and a lot of comments and a lot of sales right so I
28:13
am I am going through that line right now but the other thing is that the
28:18
online courses we are developing online courses so we can do we can spread the
28:24
word of mouth
28:26
easy easy easier right before and maybe really reach far away
28:35
maybe latching the whole Latin American territory
28:39
so yeah yeah again really fond of that Flint
28:43
hello yeah look at plane here
28:47
yes and and those are really good tools and I i regularly use now actually I’m
28:57
just remembering Pat Flynn got his start teaching people how to get the lead
29:02
certification and your yeah yeah yeah yeah I i was i am really missing that
29:12
one that but it
29:14
I need to get chopped on that one yeah I missed that
29:18
well tell us about your did you work – I think you said or I think my husband
29:24
said cuz he’s in the landscaping industry so he loves loves this topic
29:28
something about you have one of the working one of the largest buildings in
29:31
Latin America that is LEED certified or tell us about that project
29:36
oh yeah it is bc Mexico is certifying 2005 was a nun was gud building so the
29:45
first project you worked on was this big massive one that is the biggest in Latin
29:49
America
29:50
yeah yeah that was the business case that I that I got into i was working for
29:57
hsbc mexico in that time and then I built that
30:01
why create I created that business case bill green roofs in the main tower so
30:09
that was around 450 square meters in that time that was the largest project
30:20
green roof project in latin america and the building the whole building got the
30:27
certification the LEED certification latium I think and that was the first
30:34
feeling that was certified in Mexico on in latin america in two thousand back in
30:40
2005
30:41
I i guess there are more green roofs right now in latin america i’m not sure
30:46
that these one is do I just want anymore
30:49
because it yeah that was 12 years ago range
30:54
hopefully it’s not the biggest anymore right gotta keep putting fracking
30:59
haha yeah right we need more projects more people interested more people
31:05
committed to
31:06
– well improving our environment right
31:11
it’s affects us all no matter what business you’re in no matter where we
31:15
live
31:15
right right because we will breathe and eat and yeah well how can people find
31:24
more information about you and what you’re working on social media websites
31:29
tell us about how we can find you online well I’m right now i am on Twitter ads
31:37
so Natalie and mix right I’m gonna leave it to you so you can go down to your
31:44
audience
31:45
i am at Facebook’s on about the AMX it’s the same and Instagram I am like you can
31:53
find me like a saint
31:55
– cool huh
31:58
yeah that’s a good one
32:01
heaven yeah so yeah feel free to contact me or ask me anything about about green
32:11
roofs mexico mexican spots to visit
32:16
whatever just start the dialogue right and for your website its zone of air
32:24
they . MX
32:26
that’s right sorry i forgot that point
32:30
don’t worry yeah and we have my reasons
32:35
online store it’s go green express.com duck and makes you feel free to visit us
32:44
at any of these websites and talk to us
32:49
so green express.com or green expect express . MX just depending on the
32:54
language
32:55
oh it’s at green express not come . and mix
33:00
oh you got to put both okay yeah
33:02
boat and one last thing you have a little giveaway
33:11
yeah d all you want to share about that
33:15
hey yeah well we we have a 50-percent of these count on our ebook last a book
33:25
called the ultimate grammar of guy you want that you are we were happy for you
33:32
to review for proofreading
33:35
thank you very much and we are giving away three samples of that book for the
33:43
first three people that applies
33:47
I mean you you want to explain the process
33:51
sure yes so we grabbed the word green roof and if you text that to 4422 you’ll
33:59
get an email where it will link up how to get the book and the discount code to
34:04
get it for fifty percent off but the first three people who do it
34:09
we’re going to give it a hundred percent off right right i say that right thanks
34:15
exactly it’s good so even if it gets snatched up and you don’t hear this
34:19
episode right away
34:20
you can still get it for fifty percent office still an awesome deal
34:24
yeah I hope you find it useful and you like it
34:30
yes well thank you so much for taking time with us today
34:35
I love this topic i love talking with you and I’m just really glad we were
34:39
able to connect
34:40
yeah I am so happy that you have you wanted to share our message and we are
34:49
really grateful for that and thank you very much for this absolutely talk to
34:57
you later okay thank you very much
35:01
good luck and uh huh hey I got all your erience audience sorry
35:06
yes a little Chico’s
35:09
hello example would hide it goes love love Cynthia and all that she’s doing to
35:17
improve our world one roof at a time and through teaching and sharing her
35:20
knowledge so that others can be empowered to do the same
35:23
your homework is to text green roof and that’s with no spaces make sure that
35:28
your auto sorry correct thing doesn’t put a space in there so Tex green roof
35:33
to 4 4 to 2 to grab up that fifty percent off coupon code for Cynthia’s
35:38
ultimate green roof guide and the first three people who respond to the email
35:42
that you get once you text saying that they want the whole thing for free will
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get it and then back at copy that pop com forward slash podcast
35:51
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35:55
as well as Cynthia social media contacts so you can reach out connect and
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I can’t wait to talk with you next week so until then find ways to pop that copy
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36:11
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