There are three ways that you can use your professional and financial services business to drive progress towards a greener future.
- Improve the impact of your own operations
- Improve the impact of your clients’ actions
- Earn the business of new, ‘greener’ clients
Every business should be doing 1. It’s important.
But the real opportunity for professional and financial service providers to enact change comes in 2 and 3.
By utilising their client relationships and significant influence, professional and financial service providers have the opportunity to radically transform the critical systems in our world, change the flow of capital resources, avert the worst climate outcomes and start to build toward a more sustainable future.
The opportunity really is that big.
A Marketing And Communications Challenge
Achieving 2 and 3 quickly becomes a marketing and communications challenge.
And quite a difficult one at that.
Why? Well…
2 involves changing existing clients’ minds and actions (including, critically, investment decisions.) This has to be done with extreme sensitivity to avoid alienation. Clients who feel preached to, or that their original purchasing priorities are being overlooked, are likely to take their business elsewhere. This represents a failure for change.
3 involves generating demand that may not already be prevalent in the market. The ‘greenest’ clients (such as companies with B Corp status) currently only represent a tiny fraction of the market. Far larger opportunity comes in acquiring clients who are not actively seeking out a greener path. This requires a guide to show them the way.
Both involve taking clients on a journey that may prove difficult.
It requires bravery to communicate a new vision.
And the journey may well cost you opportunities to win business.
Which Path Will You Take?
It would be far easier to continue with the status quo. Maintain your existing client base. Keep your messaging the same. Win business from those who are willing to pay. Generate revenue and prioritise business prosperity. Isn’t that enough?
Greener marketing strategies will undoubtedly be harder than this in the short term.
But the status quo isn’t good enough in the Anthropocene (our current period of human-impacted climate.)
We need to work harder.
But it’s not just a moral imperative – there are compelling self-interest cases for pursuing greener paths.
Why Greener Marketing Makes Sense
Our world IS going to change. It will happen either ‘to’ us or ‘by’ us. Professional and financial service providers who have prioritise greener strategies now would undoubtedly be significantly more resilient in the longer term compared to those who maintained the status quo.
Demand from the new green economy – both individuals and companies – will increase. Capital will flow towards those who are judged to be doing ‘the right thing’. Professional and financial service providers who moved early to capture this demand will likely win big.
“Win big” and, of course, also have played their part in mitigating the most egregious climate outcomes.
It’s just going to take some bravery, and some graft in the short term.
What Can Professional And Financial Service Providers Do?
Some steps all professional and financial service providers can take:
- Build internal climate culture and knowledge ➔ Your team need to understand the mission, know how they can help, and possess the motivation to work harder than they might otherwise have.
- Utilise your voice to educate and influence ➔ Whatever the size of your network, use it to communicate what you know, what you’re learning and what you’re trying to achieve.
- Develop impact-conscious business development plans ➔ How will you grow? Who will your clients be? What will you do differently to attract better business? Be clear on your success metrics, beyond pure revenue growth.
- Make the climate emergency part of client conversations ➔ Every professional service provider can, with a degree of creativity and bravery, make the climate emergency part of conversations.
- Seek external expertise to create greener strategies ➔ We’re all learning, and there is a whole industry of consultants and advisors ready to support businesses in their green transition.
There’s ample to be scared about our global future – we are in a pivotal decade and remain on a trajectory for some truly horrific outcomes.
But we can all play a part in changing that story.
And professional and financial service providers can do significantly more than most.
If you’re on that journey, I would be delighted to discuss how marketing can support you. Contact Me
