Credit: Joel Muniz
The Sales Enablement Gap Nobody's Talking About
Companies spent billions on impact and sustainability strategies. We hire Chief Sustainability Officers publish glossy reports to demonstrate our commitments and progress.
And then your account executive sits across from a prospect and never mentions any of it.
Here's what's wild: Most companies invest heavily in sustainability communication, for marketing. We craft the perfect brand campaigns, optimize the website copy, train spokespeople for media interviews. But we completely skip the people who actually talk to customers every single day.
Your sales team is having hundreds of conversations this week. And in most of those conversations, one of your prime competitive differentiators is left hanging back on the website.
Why This Matters Now
This isn't just a missed opportunity. It's leaving revenue on the table.
Purpose programs build trust. They deepen relationships. It's often the thing that tips a decision in your favor when everything else is equal. But most sellers won't bring it up because they're terrified of saying the wrong thing.
So they stick to speeds and feeds. Features and benefits. The safe stuff. And they miss the chance to connect on something that actually matters at a human level.
The irony? Your competitors who figure this out first? They're going to own those deeper relationships.
The Thing We Get Wrong
Most companies approach this by dumping a 40-slide deck on their sales team about carbon reduction targets, learning metrics, and supplier codes of conduct. Then they wonder why nobody uses it.
Here's what I've learned from actually doing this work: You can't lead with the metrics. You have to lead with the stories.
Social impact is the entry point. Community partnerships. Workforce development programs. Employee volunteer initiatives that changed someone's trajectory. These are stories sellers can feel, not just recite. They're relatable. They're safe. They build trust.
And once a seller builds confidence talking about human impact? They're ready to tackle the harder topics. The circular economy. The emissions reduction. The supply chain transparency.
It's a progression, not a data dump.
What Actually Works
Stop treating this like a marketing problem. It's a sales enablement problem.
That means: approved language that won't get anyone in trouble, real customer stories they can reference, and training that acknowledges their fear of greenwashing regulations. It means starting with the easy stuff—the human stories—and building from there.
It also means helping sellers see this as a competitive advantage, not a compliance burden. When they realize purpose-driven conversations build deeper trust and stronger relationships, they'll start bringing it up themselves.
Because here's the truth: Your sustainability commitments are only as valuable as the conversations happening at the frontlines of your business.
If your sellers aren't talking about it, it might as well not exist.
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Something you can start today: Identify one human impact story from your company. Perhaps it’s a community partnership, a workforce program, or a volunteer initiative. Ask: "Could our sales team confidently share this in a customer conversation?"
Something else for later: Build the enablement they actually need—not a 40-slide deck, but real stories, safe language, and proof that this helps them build trust and win deals.