Green Ain't Going to Sell Itself

I just co-hosted a Scaling Climate Tech salon this week with the fantastic Meera Clark and was thrilled with the incredible interest from founders (leading to a massive waitlist). We had some fabulous enterprise experts presenting in-the-trenches enterprise sales and marketing best practices. By all accounts it was a success so look for more of these.

After jumping from general tech to climate tech myself 2.5 years ago, I have met with 100s of startups and paid close attention to the differences between the industries. I have noticed patterns when it comes to selling to the enterprise that must be broken if we want to mainstream and scale our planetary industry.

Here are my top 5 and this is by no means exclusive so add your own:

1. Green Premium Trap. Even if your main point of contact at a business is "green-presenting", don't assume that this means they will actually pay you for your software. They may be green-sympthasizing but they will need ammo from you to pitch the others: procurement, product manager, program manager, the CTO, someone in finance or basically anyone that cares about P&L which is everyone. You must, now more than ever, show how your product also positively impacts their bottom line. Make it easy for the sustainability exec to build consensus from his/her stakeholders across the company. It's a bonus if you can also blaze the trail for how adoption of your product tangibly translates into helping a company achieve its new zero goals.
2. PLG Engine. Product led growth (PLG) is real and you don't need to reinvent this wheel. This about how your product can sell itself so that one day the CFO notices 1000 employees all paying for the same product and she/he calls you to do the easiest enterprise deal you may ever see because you now have the air cover. By definition PLG will usually be your cheapest CAC yet for some reason it's missing in action in almost every climate tech pitch I receive.
3. Land with Candy. Don't bury the dessert and lead with the vegetables. Land your customer with a free/cheap easily on-boarded version of your product that makes him/her look super smaht. Climate tech founders, way more than general tech founders, feel the need to try and force feed expansion up front vs just following tried and true land and expand strategies. Make it easy and simple for businesses to sample your product.
4. For Shame. Never ever try and shame the customer into a deal unless you want to hear the door slam. Climate tech founders tend to preach with fire and brimstone which crosses the line from positive evangelism. When does selling with negativity ever actually work anyway. No one wants to be told they are bad or wrong; not your child, spouse or partner and for sure not your potential customer.
5. Blindspotting. It's obviously hard to know what you don't know so just assume you have blindspots. Don't get so damn defensive when a seasoned enterprise veteran, who may be new to climate, gives you advice about selling. Seek these people out on Climate Draft and Climatebase. They may not know climate but they know the enterprise. That's probably your blindspot.

I am so energized by 1) the growing awareness amongst climate tech founders that general tech has a lot to teach and 2) the number of techies jumping to climate tech. This gives me real hope that we can scale the decarbonization of everything even faster than we did the digitization of everything.

I'll end with some chatGPT4 humor. Don't shoot the messenger. I am just a vessel.

4 reasons why businesses won't buy sustainability software:

1. The software is so eco-friendly that it refuses to work during peak energy consumption hours.
2. It's so energy efficient that it takes three weeks to load a single page.
3. The software requires you to handwrite all your input using a wooden pencil to reduce your carbon footprint.
4. It's so sustainable that it's powered by positive affirmations and inspirational quotes.

#climatetech #enterprise #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #enterprisesoftware #chatgpt #scaleup