Winning Customers by Selling Less Carbon
The transition to selling more by selling less carbon is going to be as complex a challenge as when your business first began thinking about e-commerce.
In this second part of this two part article we look at the marketing question: who will buy what for how much and when? Part one: How Booming Electric Vehicles Sales Will Disrupt Your Sales Strategy in 2022
Here’s what the 20th century taught businesses on how not to sell de-carbonized products. Most people recall ads featuring pictures of polar bears starving because of habitat loss. You know how much that impacted consumer purchases? Not at all!
Consumers are not heartless. They do care about polar bear survival. But at the point of sale they buy based on price, convenience and emotional gratification (which can include feeling good about saving polar bears if what they are buying is price competitive and convenient).
What Tesla’s sales success has proven is that there is a growing, pent-up demand emerging for de-carbonized products that deliver on price, convenience and consumer aspirations. Tesla disrupted the Big Auto sales and marketing business model by designing a zero-tailpipe-emissions computer-on-wheels. Teslas are ordered via the cloud. The vehicle is locked/unlocked via a mobile phone. Its software is updated and optimized with cloud downloads. As software, it allows owners to customize their in-cabin experiences including playing YouTube or TikTok while recharging at Tesla’s national recharging stations. And Tesla will sell you a home or businesses solar power system that can fuel your Tesla.
Your 2022 business challenge is to find your technology path for designing a sales strategy that wins customers on price and convenience while aligning with their growing thirst for cool products that use little or no carbon.
The marketing complexity in selling less carbon product solution.
I did a day trip from San Diego to Palm Springs just before the winter storms arrived. You know what I saw besides beautiful mountains and a blooming desert floor? Gray haired people driving Teslas! Why would Boomers be driving Teslas? The answer is that they cost less to run, are really convenient when using home recharging, their acceleration is better than Boomers’ beloved muscle cars and they are very comfortable. And, a lot of Boomers can afford a luxury car.
Now here’s the marketing challenge: On that same day trip I saw millennials (who are supposed to be green) driving big pickup trucks.
That means the transition to selling more by selling less carbon is going to be as complex a challenge as when your business first began thinking about e-commerce. The marketing question is who will buy what for how much and when? The sales challenge is in transitioning from a niche market of early adopter customers to harvesting a tidal wave of mass market adoption.
Lose a de-carbonizing customer can mean losing them forever!
Here is a huge insight you must not miss in terms of sustainably designed products like Teslas. They are designed to extend the product’s lifecycle in order to lower their carbon footprint. Planned obsolescence is Big Auto’s sales strategy. Tesla’s sales pitch is that you will have fun with their vehicle for a million miles through automatic updates via cloud downloads.
I hope this next sentence scares you into action.
If you lose a customer to a competitor’s sustainable product design, it may be ten years or more before you get another sales chance.
Your 2022 strategic sales growth question
Consider printing the following question and putting it on your bathroom mirror so it stays top of mind: What is your 2022 business plan for selling de-carbonized or zero carbon products/services that are cost competitive, convenient and inspire your customers to feel cool and purposeful so that your business doesn’t end up looking like a 1970s polyester suit?
Related content:
How Booming Electric Vehicles Sales Will Disrupt Your Sales Strategy in 2022
Value, Values and Disruptive Leadership Can Grow Sales and Profits
What Can the Best Salespeople and Sales Leaders Do in a Crisis or Pandemic?
