Most climate tech startups don’t realize traditional sales is dead. 🧟♂️ At least, they’re not taking this into account when they structure their organization.
Let’s start here . . .
80% of prospects decide to buy BEFORE they reach out to someone on the sales team.
This is based on 6sense’s study of more than 2,500 recent purchases, which they published in the “2024 Buyer Experience Report” earlier this month.
According to the study, the B2B buying process in 2024 looks like this for most prospects:
1️⃣ Determine the purchase need.
2️⃣ Form a buying group of ~10 people.
3️⃣ Establish a set of criteria for making the purchase decision.
4️⃣ Conduct thorough research.
5️⃣ Compile a short list of top vendors to consider.
6️⃣ Reach out to and collaborate with vendors on the short list.
7️⃣ Eventually (~11 months later), finalize the purchase.
In essence, before they ever contact any specific vendor, the buying group is already 69%+ of the way through their purchase process.
And what’s more, they have also already identified a frontrunner vendor.
(Statistically, whoever that top choice is in the beginning stays the top choice; it’s rare for teams to change their mind along the way.)
You know what this means, right?
The sale is made BEFORE prospects talk to the sales team.
And it’s made based largely on all the publicly available assets that marketing — not sales — is responsible for creating.
This includes . . .
⚫ The company website
⚫ Social media channels
⚫ Case studies
⚫ Customer reviews
⚫ Emails / Newsletters
⚫ Videos
. . . and so on.
If this is true, then most climate tech startups are structuring themselves COMPLETELY backwards.
Over and over again, I see startups prioritize building a sales team of 3-4 people first. Then, they add just one junior-level marketer as an afterthought.
This is a mistake because, without the foundational work of marketing, there’s never going to be a steady stream of ready-to-purchase leads coming in for the sales team to manage anyways.
🤼♂️ Sales will always be fighting an uphill battle.
This doesn’t mean we don’t need sales teams in climate tech. Of course we do!
But it’s no longer the work that sales does that wins or loses the sale in 2024.
It’s the work that marketing does.