How the wrong message, or the wrong audience, timing, or venue, can ruin our attempts to influence others on sustainability topics.

The Big Backlash

As I am writing this article, there’s a widespread retro-pedaling going on amongst private corporations in the self-proclaimed “developed” world, from engaging or investing in a certain category of activities, generically (and terribly) labeled as “ESG” (Environment, Social and Governance). What these corporations have tried did not work for them, or did not work well enough. Many incurred losses.

As a result, many sustainability thought leaders, including a number of well-known climate experts, are becoming more frustrated than ever. Their efforts to, as they often say, “raise awareness” on the dangers of global climate warming, and what to do about it, seem to be working even less today than before the backlash. 

But even before the backlash, climate experts could not speak about climate warming to certain people, including leaders in politics and industry, without obtaining some kneejerk or aggressive reaction. This hostile audience has been labeled the “climate deniers.” Now, both the latter and the former have become angrier at each other. 

Well, I am not surprised. Not that I do not believe that we have a global climate problem. I believe we do. But I also believe that we cannot force a piece of information down the throat of someone who is not ready to receive it. And if we succeed in doing so, they will surely have indigestion. Because they can’t metabolize the forced food. 

First, it is good that corporations want to correct what is not working for them. And second, climate and other experts also need to correct what’s not working with their communication.

The Solution: Meet a Demand Exactly, and Build From There (if Possible) 

You don’t give solid food to a two-month-old baby, just because you, the adult, can eat solids. You don’t talk about nihilism to a 4-year-old. You don’t give a thick wool pullover as a present to someone who lives in Manaus, Brazil. You do not gift a piece of lingerie to a person whom you do not know. And you don’t give unsolicited advice to anyone, period.

You do not give something—anything—to someone who does not need it. Or not at that time or place. Or not if you are the wrong person to give that particular thing to them (as in the lingerie example) – although you’d be surprised to learn how often we provide information when we are not the right person to provide it. Amazing how we so often think we are the sun in someone else’s galaxy!  

So, what should we do instead? You can find detailed recommendations that answer this question in this free guide: Five Keys to Communicate Sustainability for Success. In this article, I will present how (good) marketing and sales techniques also apply to effective communication.   

When we try to persuade someone, we are in fact trying to sell them a piece of information. The payment we receive in return does not need to be in money. Attention alone is pretty valuable payment (social media is full of it). But here, obtaining that “they” do what we want them to do is what we are really after (because it also benefits us).

Sales 101

I had to learn it the hard way myself, and I am far from perfect. For someone to buy something from you, they must want it. It is not enough for the seller to know that the buyer needs it. People buy what they want, whether or not they need it. It is called “demand.” And unethical marketing and sales people will manipulate a potential buyer’s emotions to get them to want to buy things that these buyers do not need (and that is exactly how “excess” occurs.)

Now, of course, since you are a sustainability professional, you would NEVER sell anything to anyone who does not need it… Right? Hahaha! I know it is a very farfetched assumption, but let’s pretend for a moment that you are 100% ethical.

As a climate expert, you also know that EVERYBODY needs a livable climate. And you are correct! But, sorry, you can only sell information about that to those who have become conscious about needing such information, thus who now also clearly want it.

With everyone else, you either do not engage, or will have to meet them where they are exactly (with their current wants), and have conversations with them about what they think they need and want at that moment. In the conversation, you will need to cautiously and politely explore, by mostly asking questions, whether you can bring your interlocutor to see, by themselves, a perfectly logical link between what they say they need, and what you have to sell. You will have to prove to them that what you have to sell fulfills their current needs exactly. And do not attempt to sell anything before the need becomes so obvious to the interlocutor herself, that she’s the one who asks for its fulfillment. A good salesperson asks (good) questions. And that’s almost all they do. All the while, they show they care deeply for the person(s) in front of them. They walk away, and do not sell anything, when the absence of expressed need is clear. After enough trial, error, and finetuning, they come to targeting only a specific group of potential buyers. The ones whose needs match what they have to sell, or whose needs are just one or two logical steps away, so that the full connection with what they sell is easy to establish.      

If you don’t do as good salespeople do, you will fail in some respect. And more often than not you will also antagonize your audience for a long time. They will feel rightly intruded upon, and they will raise taller, thicker walls between you and them. Remember that pesky door to door salesman trying to sell you a revolutionary donut maker, or that illuminated preacher, also door to door, trying to convince you there is a faster way to redemption?  

It is natural to proceed in life as Maslow told us: one need fulfillment after another. It is also natural to reject what someone wants to force us to accept.

It Takes Systems Consciousness, That Is, an Integrated Mind

No matter how great your idea is, it must meet perfectly with demand to be adopted. So, you will have to rack your brain a little to establish the logical links between what you have to sell and the pressing needs of your interlocutors, whether it is food, income, a house, health, technical advice, or transcendence. And that’s no easy task. Most first-time entrepreneurs fail because there is no demand, no market for their fabulous product or service. Sustainability experts fail at selling their expertise because they are terrible salespeople.

Luckily, the global climate is linked to all human needs, material and spiritual. But bad luck: only a small number of humans have connected sufficient dots in their minds to understand this (have a sufficiently, consciously, integrated mind.) And I do not know anyone who is able to see and describe all things and all connections in and out of their minds! The expansion of one’s consciousness to the point of only starting to understand the interconnectedness of all things (and all needs) takes considerable time. And effort, error, pain, and perseverance. But getting started, and then putting one foot after the other, can lead to a pretty decent level of competency, sooner than we may think.

What about you, proponent of climate information? How consciously integrated is your own mind? 

If you yourself cannot clearly and articulately establish a link between the need for a livable climate, and another human need, how can you possibly expect that others can?

Good businesses, and good people, function as entities in an ecosystem: they fulfill the needs of other entities in the system exactly. In this way they also get what they need from the system in return, at the right time and in the right place. 

Dear sustainability thought leader, what do you sell? What need(s), duly acknowledged and clearly expressed as “wants”, and by whom, do you contribute to fulfilling, with the information you provide? What about you? What are YOUR own needs? Please tell us in the comments. 

Don’t forget to get actionable tips in Five Keys to Communicate Sustainability for Success. And if you would like to test your own systems thinking and the level of consciousness you have over your mind connections, try a Socratic conversation with me here. I am here ONLY to fulfill your expressed needs, and only when they match exactly what I have to sell. So, let’s find out if it’s the case!  

 

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