Branding foundations for Climate Tech and sustainability companies
Welcome to the second phase of your Climate Tech Branding journey!
You'll get the most out of this guide if your desire to scale your brand is exceeded only by your willingness to execute on the concepts within this guide.
This guide is designed to describe all major aspects of branding, from your brand’s foundations to strategic messaging for sustainability startups to positioning yourself as a thought leader in the emerging impact economy to building your relationship with the press.
Overview
This guide will showcase 7 major sections including:
Brand Foundations: How to define your mission, vision and storytelling narrative
Market Segmentation: How to define your audience, position yourself and choose the right target audience
Strategic Messaging: How to communicate sustainability and value simultaneously
Brand Platform: How to build an identity and digital footprint which represents your potential
Thought Leadership: How to position yourself as a leader in the emerging impact ecosystem
Public Relations: How to leverage public relations to build your authority
Climate Tech Brand Foundations
What's the No. 1 tactic for young, innovative Climate Tech companies looking to scale?
Hint: It has nothing to do with technology.
According to a new report by the World Economic Forum and ScaleUpNation, it's storytelling.
"Storytelling is the most effective way to merge meaning and emotions."
Trailblazers — those who are changing the way business is conducted and paving the way for others to follow — leverage high-level storytelling opportunities.
By doing so, they can:
Attract public attention
Raise awareness about an issue
Connect on a human level
However, lots of Climate Tech startups still struggle to tell stories.
"Opting for direct messaging (stating that business needs to work in such a way, or outlining what values drive a company’s mission), can lose an audience’s trust or interest because these types of messages fail to connect with audiences."
That’s because "audiences don’t appreciate being told what to believe, won’t follow the logic and could even disagree with the conclusions." Rather, we have to reframe our story as an opportunity.
Your story is your strategy.
In my last full-time position, I had the responsibility of creating a new website and brand film for the company.
It was a job that required a lot of content and I knew that before I got started, I needed more information.
Why did we exist as a company? What did we want to showcase? What impact did we intend to have in the future? What was our north star?
Before we got started with these projects, I began to press the director about these subjects. The company had a clear mission statement but it was vague: “To accelerate the growth of a sustainable society.”
We were a small company, how could I possibly showcase such a grand mission? And what did it mean for us anyway?
When I began to work on these projects, it became obvious that there was a disconnect between what we did and what we wanted to be known for.
For instance, you can build a sustainable society with knowledge. But you can also build it with materials or energy. Which direction should I take? Before I could continue with either project, I knew that we had to get more specific. We had to get to the core of our brand before we started building.
What’s more, every sustainable company out there uses this tagline these days, for fear of greenwashing or committing to a hard-to-reach milestone.
This experience, I have come to learn, is a common one for impact entrepreneurs.
A common experience in the impact industry
We create a website before we know what to put on it. We write a blog post before we know who our audience is. We start communicating before we know what our goal is. It’s the equivalent of building a house without laying the proper foundations.
Your brand’s foundations are essentially your purpose, your vision and your values as well as your brand’s story. Once defined, each has its place in both internal and external communications. In this post, we will look at both components separately.
Firstly, we will start with your brand’s mission, vision and values and how you can — and should — compile them into a brand manifesto.
A brand manifesto is a short, yet powerful piece of copy that conveys what your brand stands for and what you believe in. Your “why”, “what” and “how” in one. A brand manifesto is usually a document for internal communications.
To rally the troops and align the company around a greater purpose. The second section will look at taking this information and turning it into an external brand story. A brand story — or strategic narrative as I like to call it — is essentially a way to relay your brand’s place in the world so that people actually remember it.
Far too often, do we as impact entrepreneurs start by telling people — from potential clients to investors — about how great our technology is. That it’s going to change the world. But we don’t wrap it in a story.
As a result, when we pitch, eyes start glazing over. Biologically, human beings are 22x more likely to remember stories over facts. This means that to avoid death-by-numbers and to help keep your audience engaged when you’re talking about your startup, a strategic narrative is key.
Together, your manifesto and your strategic narrative make up your brand’s foundations. Without taking the time to build solid brand foundations, all of your branding efforts won’t be as effective as possible.
For example, many brands struggle to differentiate themselves and when it comes to communicating, they fall back on industry jargon or explaining global issues because it’s what they know.
To prevent this, it’s essential that you identify and internalize your brand’s foundations before you begin with your marketing endeavours. While much of your brand foundation may never be visible to the outside world, the stronger these foundations are, the more unique, the more your messages, identity and strategic communications will support your desired position in someone’s mind. Essentially, by investing early-on in your brand, you’ll be setting yourself up for long-term success.
Investing in branding early in the journey
Every time anyone has an interaction with your company, it leaves an impression. The only thing in your hands is whether you take ownership of that impression or leave it up to chance. Whether that impression says “they seem like they’re in control of their future” or “they’re inconsistent and they’ll never get anywhere”, is up to you.
By taking ownership over the interactions which your brand has with people, you can communicate your worth — and potential impact — both consciously and subconsciously.
And it’s essential that you take a proactive approach because ... Every. Moment. Counts.
When you fumble about what you do, who you are or why you do it, that’s a potential fan lost. Just like Simon Sinek says, most people can explain what they do. Some know how they do it. But few know why.
We on the other hand know why we do what we do — climate change, plastic pollution, etc. — but we struggle to explain how our solution connects to these global challenges.
Very few impact entrepreneurs manage to articulate all of these sentiments in their elevator pitch. Your purpose as a company is going to be the building block from which you build your entire brand. A stable factor that will propel you into the future.
Yet many startups confuse their purpose with their technology or solution. This gets worse when combined with impact. If your solution is the most forward-thinking and innovative X that there is, but if two other companies are offering similar services, how does the purchaser choose? How do investors know where to invest?
Impact entrepreneurs are prone to believe their methodology or their solution can compete because it’s “more sustainable” or “more comprehensive” than anything on the market. We believe that we stand out from the crowd, perhaps because we’re sustainable.
Maybe it’s true, for a while. But if we can learn anything from modern economics, it’s that competitive advantage doesn’t last. Every solution can be replicated.
Every innovative business model can be copied. You might have the solution to solve a specific problem now, but what happens when someone solves it for cheaper? And in the current climate, sustainability won’t be your competitive advantage for long.
That’s why it’s important to spend time and craft your purpose carefully. Construct a mission and a vision that’s bigger than you and that will differentiate your business.
Manifesto branding for startups: Your internal story
If your purpose is your North Star and your perspective of the future guides your organization, a brand manifesto is the internal document that brings both of these things together and propels you forward.
By laying these things out in an internal document at the start of your journey, you can boost employee productivity, solidify trust and loyalty in your brand, and create a sense of community within your startup’s culture.
This document is called a brand manifesto. An emotive, inspiring and creative appeal to your community. It’s what helps you and your team get out of bed every morning and deliver on making your perspective a reality. It’s what challenges the status quo.
For SaaS or Fintech startups, this is an important document because it helps create a sense of purpose.
However, impact entrepreneurs differ from traditional companies because we’ve internalised our “why” from the beginning. We already know our purpose. We want to contribute to building a better world and we’re going to use our business to do so.
This, however, means that we often confuse our brand’s purpose with greater global trends. Unlike traditional brands, we rarely consider where our North Star is — the direction in which we are heading — and how we can contribute to our brand’s economic longevity.
We focus too much on the macro and then glide through without taking control of our destination.
For Climate Tech brands, this means that you have to go beyond saving the planet or making the economy more sustainable and get specific. Revolutionary impact brands challenge the way we do business as usual.
They enable a transformation for a client and they put forward a better way for society as a whole. It’s important to take into account that sustainability or impact is a factor of your product, along with the cost to the user and benefit. It’s a business driver, not a purpose, mission or vision in itself.
If your mission statement starts off with “We are X and we want to make the world a more sustainable place for our children,” all that says to me is, “here is another company who can’t express in concrete terms what they do or whom they’re going to help”.
It’s far too vague and whilst it aims to inspire everyone, it inspires no one.
Too many product-driven entrepreneurs outsource this process completely. They hire either a marketing company or god-forbid, an intern, to come up with their core vision, with the founder or CEO taking a sideline approach.
This inevitably sets you up for failure for three major reasons:
a) Something gets written and it’s then set aside to collect dust,
b) It’s obvious when a leader doesn’t fully own in on their mission and,
c) It shows that you don’t value the business aspect of your company as much as your product or service.
These three pitfalls combined can be red flags for investors who may otherwise be interested in the company. A leader must live the brand’s purpose, must be able to pinpoint the future that they are in business to create and define the route between A and B.
Building solid foundations is the best brand strategy for startups
When potentiall investors or clients see a leader who has put time and energy into creating a brand with solid foundations, it’s a signal that they take themselves and their business seriously.
To overcome this, it’s imperative that you can articulate why your company exists. Sure, you know why your startup exists.
But can people understand it? The basis of every successful brand is its foundations. What you stand for, your values, your mission and vision are all building blocks upon which you can construct a successful brand for your startup.
The things that make you different from your competitors. No matter your starting point, having these things carefully scripted will save you time and energy in the long run.
When it comes to creating content for LinkedIn. When you’re writing a speech for your Ted Talk. Or when you’re pitching to investors.
Having them internalized by you and your team will create continuity and continuity creates strong brands.
To do so, I recommend every startup I work with to write a brand manifesto. It’s the most important piece of copy that you can write in your branding endeavours.
It’s also (arguably) the most fun. A piece of copy that represents you as a founder, aligns your beliefs with your company’s and inspires everyone who comes into contact with it.
Sounds big? It is. What’s more is that whereas a brand’s vision and values, a manifesto is for the long haul. A brand manifesto describes why your organization exists, its purpose and why people should care about your brand.
It’s typically a powerful story that captivates your audience, emotionally connects with them and persuades them to support your brand.
Not only can it build a loyal customer base, but it can also attract top talent to your organization. Consider it your North Star or shining light. A piece to guide you through the murky waters of business.
And it’s a document that you as a founder should know by heart. You should be able to say with a certain degree of confidence that each and every decision you make is in line with your brand’s manifesto.
It’s why you’re in business in the first place, why you choose that direction and why people should care about it. It should underscore your company’s motivations, goals and priorities.
What’s more, the reason I recommend you to write a brand manifesto is that it forces you to get all of the ingredients together before you start. Identifying the ingredients that go into a brand manifesto force you to examine the reasons why you exist, narrow them down and present them in a coherent way which your audience will not only understand but with which they will be able to connect.
It will give guidance to your employees and partners, an inspiration for all your business decisions and a moral compass when the ship starts rocking.
How to write your startup brand manifesto
A great example is from the McKinsey & Company of design firms: Frog. Frog is the most exclusive design thinking firm in the world. They’re also quite elusive. Frog’s manifesto is a great example of how a story can showcase their culture, their view on the world and their identity: “We are fanatical about improving the world.
We strive to change minds, touch hearts and move markets. Our passion is to transform ideas into realities. Quality is our non-compromising obligation. We are curious, vigilant, expert, cost-driven and aware of the need to save our scarce environment.
Our talent is both an art & science. Our clients are the key to our success. However, we don’t take any b.s. — inside or outside. We live honestly, open and without fear. Humour and Spirited fun are the essence of Frog.”
This brings together their vision for the future and their values into one piece and gives body to their brand’s promise: Frog advances the human experience through design.
So, how exactly do we write such an all-encompassing piece of copy? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, let’s get the practicalities out of the way. What defines a brand manifesto? A manifesto:
Traditionally starts as an internal document and then can be used for external communications at a later stage.
Is a piece of copy that stands alone from your brand’s mission, vision and values yet incorporate all three.
Should be anywhere between one sentence and a couple of paragraphs long.
Should be written in a collective voice to place your audience within the story; “we believe X” and not “I believe X”.
Should touch on the facts of what you want to change in the world. Why did you get into the business? What is a concrete reason behind what is driving you?
Should ultimately be a call to action which states the main problem that you are going to address and how you are going to solve it.
Should be active, not passive.
Should paint a picture of the world that you are going to create.
Overall, it should be a commitment. This is what binds the whole piece of writing together. Your brand’s unwavering commitment to action. The crux of your reason to exist as a business. What you are going to strive to do every day to create your vision of the future. How are you going to arrive there? What pledge are you making to your customers?
This commitment should be visible to the public. Front and centre in your office. It should be written on the back of your laptop. It should be a piece that you know off by heart and can draw from at any point in time.
It’s the piece of copy that should inspire you most to get up in the morning, as well as those whom you are bringing along on the journey.
Examples of great purpose statements
The best place to start is by looking to companies and startups you admire and reading their purpose/mission statements or their manifestos.
Consider Patagonia’s mission statement: “We’re in business to save our home planet.”
It’s big, it’s bold and it’s brave. It’s a step beyond their previous mission statement: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
Both give you a sense of what the outdoor clothing brand represents whilst they’re on their journey towards reaching their purpose. Other notable examples include:
Philips. “Improving people’s lives through meaningful innovation.”
Whole Foods. “Our deepest purpose as an organization is helping support the health, well-being and healing of both people — customers, Team Members and business organizations in general — and the planet.”
Greenpeace. “Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organization, which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems and to force the solutions which are essential to a green and peaceful future.”
MSF. “To help people worldwide where the need is greatest, delivering emergency medical aid to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters or exclusion from health care.”
Red Cross. “To prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.”
DuPont. “To create shareholder and societal value while reducing the environmental footprint along the value chains in which we operate.”
How to craft your manifesto
Before you write your manifesto, I recommend going back into your history and defining your own story and how you got to the point where you decided to start your company in the first place. As an entrepreneur, you have to know that your story — that is, your personal story — is a large part of your brand’s story in the beginning.
Although your brand should be bigger than you, it will emulate your values and your identity. And as a founder, it will justify why you’re well-positioned to lead your business and take on the challenge you are pursuing. So how do you define your own story?
Usually, when I’m writing a brand manifesto for my clients, I like to sit down and interview them about their personal story, making sure that I record the session. This is the best way to get onto the same page — and it all starts by asking them about their personal story as a founder.
Alex Chuang, a brand-building expert from Launch Academy suggests you start by writing down how you got to the position where you decided to start your company. “In the early-stage, a startup’s brand is a reflection of the founder’s ethos, values and beliefs. It is an extension of you. This is why it’s important to understand your identity and the events that have occurred to shape your identity,” he says.
Now if you’re going to write this document by yourself this may seem like irrelevant information. But I wholeheartedly recommend not doing this part of the journey alone. Ask a friend or a colleague to interview you.
If you have a cofounder, ask each other these questions. And be open to each other. The questions I usually like to ask range from childhood up until today. This gives a broad range of information which can then be refined.
The surprising thing is the process can bring up buried emotions which add an extra layer of complexity and depth into your brand’s why. The following is a non-comprehensive list of questions I like to ask my clients, based on Chuang’s list:
Where were you born? In suburbia? In a rural or urban area? How did your surrounding shape your life?
Tell me about your parents. What were they like? What influence did they have on you?
Do you have any siblings? Did you get on? What effect did they have on your adolescence?
Tell me about your childhood. What were your hobbies? What mischief did you get up to?
What didn’t you like? What annoyed you? Did you ever get over it? Why?
Tell me about a time when you’ve experienced failure for the first time.
Tell me about your first relationship. Who was the other person? Why did they attract you at the time?
Tell me about the friends you hung out with in high school. What were they like? Do you still keep in contact with them?
Did you play any sports or instruments? What were your hobbies? What shops did you like? What brands?
Who is the biggest influencer of your life at this time?
Tell me a time where you felt embarrassed or ashamed of your actions. What happened?
Did you take a gap year? If so, what did you get up to?
Did you go to university? What did you study?
Have you travelled a lot? Where have you been? What was your favourite country? What was your least favourite country?
What do you do during your spare time now?
What are your career aspirations? What do you want to accomplish?
How did you come up with this idea?
Why did you decide to take the risk to solve this problem?
Answering these questions will help you understand your own personal journey and your merit, in the public eye, to run your business.
If there are multiple founders (and there should be multiple founders), it would be my recommendation to do this process separately and then compare the synergies between them afterwards. This conversation will act as an important guide from which you can draw the required details.
Once you’ve answered the questions, transcribe the conversation and pick out the keywords and quotes which resonate with you. It can also help if you know the key pieces of information when the time comes for an interview or conversation with an investor.
You’ll know the bits you want to give away, the parts that support your story.
Make a word clowud
Once you’ve answered all of these questions, I suggest making a word cloud and picking out words which resonate with you.
By digging deeper into your journey to entrepreneurship, you allow yourself to unearth your motivations, wants and desires. The next step is to represent these values into one image. I personally love getting away from the computer and finding a whiteboard or a large sheet of paper and cutting loose.
Drawing the story, creating a word cloud and turning words into a visual map. When you’re analysing your answers with your colleagues or partners, write down all of the important words you come across.
A word cloud is a virtual map with all the words that you associate with your brand. Is something missing from your brand’s story that needs to be there?
Great, put it down. The key here is to get as much down on paper as possible and refine it later. This process shouldn’t take long and the information will be used again and again while you are creating your brand. Once you’ve finished, print it off and put it on the wall.
Mission, vision and values for Climate Tech brands
The next thing you need to consider when writing a brand manifesto is to determine what your mission, vision and values will be. These three concepts will act as the core foundations for your brand’s manifesto.
More often than not, my clients will either have them written down in some form or another or they will have come up in the interview phase. Below is a definition for all three concepts which should help you align each.
Vision is the “where”. It’s where you want to go. It’s a specific and tangible concept which focuses solely on your business. An example is that “We want to be the biggest provider of X by 2030” in Europe.” It’s a goal that you can use to take your brand into the future and a goal with which you can measure your success.
Mission is the “what”. What path you are walking down as a brand. Centred around specific position and proposition and framed by your purpose, your mission will give you a guide for your daily activities. It’s a combination of your strategies, communications and your product itself. It’s the one that you are most likely to communicate to the outside audience.
Values are the “how”. Every professional has their individual values and they don’t disappear when they get to work. Values are the glue that holds your business together. Brand values define how your company acts; with integrity, with humour, with ease, with freedom, with diversity etc. and they all come down to how your company and your employees will present themselves. Creating guidelines for them to follow allows you, as a leader, to adorn their qualities internally and clearly show when someone’s out of line.
During the exercise to discover a client’s values, I like to reverse the process. What is it that you specifically dislike when running a business? What have you, as an employee been through that you never want to impose on your employees?
What negative experiences have shaped you as a company? For example, when a brand never delivers on time they’re likely to annoy for being slow to deliver. The opposite is to be consistently timely in our work.
To help make sure that you’re on the right track, it’s essential that you get off the computer and go and test your values, mission and vision. If you have peers that are also starting their own business or are in the marketing and communications sector, ask them what they think.
You can mine their opinions to learn about what resonates with who.
Tips for writing your startup’s brand manifesto
A brand manifesto is the “we” version of your “me” story. But instead of looking backwards, it looks towards the future. It asks not “how did you get here”, but “where are you going?” It should be free of personal touchpoints and corporate or scientific jargon. Also, go beyond open-door solutions like resilient, innovative or sustainable. They mean nothing in this context.
Whilst this is technically your party and you can say whatever you want, your brand manifesto should follow a few rules. It should be collective (“we believe X” and not “I believe X”), be between one sentence and a few paragraphs, driven by what you want to change in the world (purpose), state what’s integral to your success (values) and show what a perfect world would look like (vision). A manifesto is ultimately a call to action and a written commitment to meet that action.
To get there, answer these five questions;
Why should your company exist?
What is the meaning of life in which your company believes?
What is the ideal role your company will play in this life?
What kind of world would we live in without your solution?
And why should anyone care?
With these questions answered, you can now start to arrange your manifesto. For this, I would always recommend following Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle theory.
By starting with why your company exists rather than what you do or how you do it, you connect with the audience’s primal brain first.
“Every single organization on the planet knows what they do: 100%. Some know how they do it, whether they call it a differentiating value proposition or your USP, but very very few organizations know why they do what they do. And by why, I don’t mean to make a profit; that’s a result. I mean what’s your purpose?” he states in his now-famous TedTalk.
When your manifesto starts with why everything else will seem more natural. Let it show a great deal of character. Make it say something. It should inspire people, but it should also piss off the people it doesn’t inspire.
It should polarize people into those who agree and those who don’t or else it’s not going to be worth the paper it’s printed on. Once you’ve written your brand manifesto, it can (and should) be used as a reference point from which to make important decisions.
Hire this person or that person? LinkedIn or Twitter? Blue or Green logo? Let it stem from this document; written on the wall, visible for everyone who interacts with your business to see. The moral compass for your company.
Just in case you need some inspiration, here’s the Impact Brand Building manifesto. It aims to encapsulate the concepts contained in this book (and the company that I’m building by the same name):
“Sustainable start-ups are the foundations of our future economy: The Impact Economy. Just like the tech entrepreneurs who built our reality today, impact entrepreneurs will build tomorrow’s. Because the solutions they will bring to the planet’s most pressing challenges can no longer be left to governments and nonprofits. Because it’s easier to make a sustainable brand big, then a big brand sustainable. Because sustainability is the new digital.
We believe it’s no longer about minimising negative impacts, but about creating positive ones. We believe those who build this new economy will flourish because of it. And we believe Europe must be a leader in bringing these sustainable innovations to the world. That’s why we’re proud to call Amsterdam home.
We believe that to build a new economy, today’s sustainable start-ups must scale. Our mission is to inspire them, to help them scale and to grow with them. Those legends who have devoted their lives to creating a better world for the rest of us. The visionaries. The optimists. The ones who have an unwavering vision of the future and who are determined to build it, no matter the cost. They’ll be the leaders of tomorrow.”
Put it on the wall
Once you have written your brand manifesto, the next step is to share it. Creative ways to get your manifesto in front of eyes that will find value in it. I recommend you either create a dedicated page for it on your website or add it to your About Us section of the website.
Another strategy that I find works quite well is to create a shareable image of your brand manifesto.
This image can be used to share on your social feeds as well as printed off and added to the design of your office. You can also add your manifesto to your business cards, your product’s packaging or, if you’re building a physical presence, have it displayed in your store.
Strategic Narrative: Your external strategy
A strategic narrative is the external version of your manifesto — which includes all of the elements of your purpose, mission and vision — wrapped into a high-level story.
Stories humanize your brand and give both colour and context to your product or service. And no matter whether you’re telling your brand’s strategic narrative to an investor, a room full of potential clients or your family over a Christmas dinner, it will help you explain what you to and why you do it.
The fact is that it takes just eight seconds to form a first impression. Just about the same time as it takes to say the following sentence: “Our technology is the most sustainable on the market, driven by our systemic, circular approach to creating an inclusive economy”.
Blah. Did you feel anything?
When you lead with “you”, your technology, or your methodology, there’s a large chance that you fail to capture the attention of your audience. And if that person is an investor or a potential customer, then you’ve just wasted an opportunity to realize your potential impact. Instead, set the stage.
Create conflict. Tell a story. Brand storytelling can increase the effectiveness of a message by 22x — and in today’s attention-deficit environment, that can make a big difference.
Whenever you’re talking about what you do, highlight the future of the industry (setting), introduce the characters (hero/villain), pick a fight with the status quo (conflict), show, don't tell the journey (plot), get specific about benefits (solution) and show the transformation (potential/outcome).
The challenge the science doing the talking
A strategic narrative leverages storytelling to get the facts your business wants to present across in an engaging way. As impact entrepreneurs, we are prone to talk in facts and numbers instead of telling stories.
However, people react rationally to numbers but they react emotionally to stories and moving someone emotionally is far more valuable than doing so rationally. Emotions are the driving force behind decision-making.
Research shows that messages delivered as stories can be up to 22x more memorable than just facts — because they engage our emotions and our emotions drive us to take action.
Facts, on the other hand, envoke our rational and our rational brain exists to help you make calculated choices. However, rationality only represents about 20% of human decision-making.
If you’re a sustainability expert you’re likely to be a fact-teller, not a storyteller and that’s a problem. When we continue to speak in numbers, rather than tell stories, we’re hurting our own cause. Let’s take the existance of climate change as an example. At the moment, it’s like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
On one side — the side that relies on science — we talk about the hottest year on record, the weight of plastic in the ocean, and the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. On the other side, they tell stories.
Stories about the negative impact of actions on peoples lives. Stories about the dangers of wind turbines.
And stories about the danger to the global economic system if we pivot from fossil fuels.
For too long, this negative narrative has been weaponized by proponents of the status quo. And we keep trying to counter it by throwing facts against the wall.
We’ve known the science for over 30 years, we can’t keep relying on facts to achieve our climate goals. We need to start framing our solutions in a better narratives. We have to tell stories of the opportunities that come with change, not the challenges.
Brand storytelling for Climate Tech
Those building a sustainable future can’t rely on numbers anymore, we have to tell stories. A strategic narrative is your brand’s foundations told in the form of a story. It’s the basis of the commercial side of your brand and it intends to harness the same narratives that both Greek mythology and Hollywood has used for centuries.
How? By introducing the context first and setting the scene, then introducing characters, creating conflict and showing the journey — not telling. Only once these parameters have been set do you introduce your product’s features. When you begin your sales deck or investment pitch with a product’s features, you’re likely to bore your audience to no avail.
Andy Raskin, a leader in creating strategic narratives for Silicon Valley SaaS startups and corporates, believes that the strategic narrative is best way to align everything from website copy to investor pitches. “Conversations about messaging are really conversations about strategy... and ultimately, the only way to get strategic alignment is with a simple story.”
Raskin goes against the grain with the way that he brings the elements together, in a way that may feel uncomfortable in the impact industry. But I guarentee, it works. There’s a reason stories have been told the same way for thousands of years. Because we’re hardwired to process them in this fashion. He outlined the five elements of a this simple story strategic narrative.
The five elements of a strategic narrative according to Raskin:
Context and Setting: Name a Big, Relevant Change in the World. Not a feature. Not a product. But a transformation occurring. “Don’t kick off a sales presentation by talking about your product, your headquarters locations, your investors, your clients or anything about yourself,” he says. This is demonstration of the “why” that Simon Sinek talks about. It’s the point that says “do we agree” or not? If the audience agrees with your statement, then you’re already half way towards hooking them in.
Conflict: Show There’ll Be Winners and Losers. What are the stakes? If you (the audience) continue along on the status quo, this is what you’ll have to lose if you miss the boat. “All prospects suffer from what economists call “loss aversion.” That is, they tend to avoid a possible loss by sticking to the status quo, rather than risk a possible gain by opting for change. To combat loss aversion, you must demonstrate how the change you cited above will create big winners and big losers.” This should evoke the need to change. Don’t give the way to do so yet…that comes later. This section should just build angst and tie it all together with a common trend.
Introduction of Resolution: Tease the Promised Land. Instead of telling about your company, your products or your value proposition, this is where your vision comes into play. Raskin advises to resist the temptation to begin talking about yourself here. “Your Promised Land should be both desirable (obviously) and difficult for the prospect to achieve without outside help. Otherwise, why does your company exist?” This should be the mission statement from the customer’s perspective. Getting to Graceland or destroying the death star. The promised land should be aspirational and hard to reach.
Tools: Introduce Features as “Magic Gifts” for Overcoming Obstacles to the Promised Land. Now it’s time to show your product’s features as “magic gifts” which will help overcome the obstacles on the way to the promised land. “If it’s not clear by now, successful sales decks follow the same narrative structure as epic films and fairy tales. Your prospect is Luke and you’re Obi Wan, furnishing a lightsaber to help him defeat the Empire. Your prospect is Frodo and you’re Gandalf, wielding wizardry to help him destroy the ring. Your prospect is Cinderella and you’re the fairy godmother, casting spells to get her to the ball.” Ask yourself, what are the obstacles to the client’s goal and frame your product’s features in this way. Anticipate the challenges. What’s stopping them getting there? Your features should be the answer to a problem.
Validation and Conclusion: Present Evidence that You Can Make the Story Come True. Proof that it’s possible to get to the promised land. That you’re not just making it up and that you’re the right person to take them there. “In telling the sales narrative this way, you’re making a commitment to prospects: If they go with you, you’ll get them to the Promised Land.” This is where you can tackle a sceptical audience. Evidence should include stories of customer success and/or demos telling about their own personal experiences and what it took them to win. Evidence shows that the transformation took place.
Success in this domain relies on keeping it simple, stupid. But unfortunately, many brands — especially in the sustainability industry — fall flat when they’re telling their brand’s story. Here are a few:
Talk About Ourselves First. Because we’re likely to be from a scientific or academic background, we’re quite used to the common “problem > solution” framework of speaking. However, without introducing context or conflict, these facts seem meaningless, just like the difference between 100 tons and 200 tons of CO2.
Too Complex. It’s almost inevitable that you’re going to be telling your story to people outside of your industry. One of the quickest ways to kill interest in your product or service is by using industry-specific jargon.
Telling, Not Showing. Stories are far more memorable than facts. Stories are made by bringing people along with the narrative. Showing someone the path will always work better than simply telling someone why they should walk along it.
Lack of Conflict. Every good movie has conflict. A strategic narrative should tap in to that source of conflict — ideally from the client’s perspective — and show vulnerability.
By following this narrative, you can present the why, what and how of your business in a way that actively captures your audience.
I would wholeheartedly recommend putting this book down here and opening up Powerpoint immediately.
Take 15 slides and make the bare bones of your strategic narrative. If you need any guidance, check out Raskin’s blog on Medium called The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen or his analysis of Elon Musk introducing the Powerwall in his blog titled Want a Better Pitch? Watch This.
Once you’ve written your strategic narrative, use it as the basis for your investor pitch, your website copy and your explanations about what you do. I guarantee it will increase the interest in and retention of facts about your product or service.
Next steps: Segment your market and find your target audience
In the next section, we’re going to look at market segmentation for Climate Tech and sustainability startups, how to define your brand position, your beachhead market and why you should leverage polarization as a brand.