Matt Benter

The Square Table

Founder

My career began in the high-stakes world of political campaigns, where every decision could swing an election. I learned to craft messaging that resonates, moves people to action, and produces measurable results under intense pressure. There, I realized the power of psychology-driven communication—and its potential far beyond politics.

Today, I bring that same focus and precision to the businesses I partner with as the Founder and CEO of The Square Table. At TST, we don’t rely on the same tired marketing playbook many others use. 

Instead, we’ve built a system designed to drive consistent, scalable revenue by aligning the right message with the right audience—delivered in a way that cuts through the noise.

Our approach is rooted in data, psychology, and execution. From crafting brand strategies that stand out in saturated markets to building high-converting sales funnels and running rapid testing to eliminate guesswork, everything we do is designed to move businesses forward. This isn’t about more marketing—it’s about better systems. Systems that consistently attract, nurture, and close premium clients without wasted time or resources.

The skills I honed in the political arena have allowed me to help businesses across industries—from consulting firms to high-ticket service providers—break through growth plateaus and reclaim their competitive edge.

Founder & CEO

Bespoke Strategy Development: Pioneered the custom-fit approach that emphasizes a deep dive into a brand's unique DNA, ensuring strategies resonate authentically.

Brand Immersion: Revolutionized the standard consultancy approach by ensuring we don’t just skim; we immerse. This has been instrumental in crafting campaigns that capture the heartbeat, rhythm, and essence of our partnered brands.

LEADS System Inception: Conceptualized and executed our 5-step LEADS system, ensuring it’s more than a generic formula – it’s a tailor-made journey aligned precisely with a brand's vision and potential.

Guaranteed Growth: Enshrined the ethos of guaranteed outcomes into our core offerings. This isn’t merely a phrase for us; it's a commitment.

Redefining Partnership: Positioned Square Table Marketing as more than a service provider. With a focus on collaboration, we ensure every partnership is an ongoing journey, celebrating shared triumphs and setting higher benchmarks.

Client Portfolio: Serving clients ranging from startups to established entities, achieving a 90% retention rate due to our focus on mutual, reliable growth.

Plucky Bamboo

We partner with 7 figure, Planet-first Companies, to help them multiply revenue & impact in 12 months with a proven 4 step Growth Plan. Messaging, marketing, sales and systems. Find out more: https://pluckybamboo.com/

HOW DO WE DO IT?
➤ First - we craft your market-winning offer: We work with you to define a resonating, profitable offer and create marketing messages and assets based on transformative case studies, making you stand out.
➤ Second - we build an education-based marketing funnel for pipeline growth: Using the insights & assets we've gathered, we deploy an education-focused marketing strategy to attract qualified prospects through content & outreach, attracting the 67% of the market that don't know you!
➤ Third - we streamline your sales process: We enhance your sales process, optimizing tools & pitches to efficiently turn prospects into revenue. We work with you to build a VSL to chip away at the 7 hours of engagement B2B buyers need to build trust and shorten your sales cycle.
➤ Last - we help in scaling your impact: We focus on systems & automation to scale your success sustainably, ensuring your operations support growth without compromising quality or impact, while also reducing waste & inefficiency.

We partner with Founders & CEOs that want to make a positive change to the planet, strategising with you and then implementing that strategy. We take a holistic approach, addressing each phase of growth with collaboration, precision and care.

IF WE WORK TOGETHER, YOU'LL GAIN:
➤ Quick sales growth with deep impact in 2-3 months.
➤ Trust-building, value-packed marketing & sales assets.
➤ A clear, strategic 12-month plan for success & cash flow.
➤ Sustainable scaling through systematization & automation.
➤ The ability to cut waste in sales & marketing, focusing on impact.
➤ A battle-tested growth partnership for extraordinary success together.

London & Partners

In this role, I'm responsible for improving revenue & CVR at Visit London. Accomplishments in my first year here: 
👉 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝟲𝟱%
👉 Built out better data-sets and systems using existing data sources
👉 Led procurement for a Google Optimize (A/B testing tool) replacement
👉 Led strategy to understand our users through qualitative testing, user interviews & research
👉 Worked across channels to improve our omnichannel strategy (social media, email and mobile app)
👉 Ideated and leading a project to evolve the site to fit the company’s new vision of “eCommerce first”

I also work with the team on User Acquisition, training & knowledge transfer on the marketing funnel, reporting systems and more.

Conversion Rate Optimization Specialist

I was a maternity cover for the SEO Manager in the Growth Team of Visit London. This is the eCommerce branch of London & Partners, which helps enable the social enterprise to add value to London's activities.

My focus was on leading the SEO strategy of the site to generate more visitors, while in a broader sense, working with the team to improve customer journey, CRO and ultimately, eCommerce revenue to the site.

My specific tasks were:

👉 Following-through on the SEO roadmap and adjusting to campaigns & activations
👉 Guiding various content teams regularly with SEO recommendations (at times, 20+ pages a week)
👉 Advising on website re-design to improve customer journey & revenue
👉 Advising the growth team on User Experience, CRO and behavioural information
👉 Providing a new, £9MM international campaign with search trends and SEO data to inform strategy

SEO Manager

Tree Folk Theatre

Generate funding, interest and ticket sales for productions. Oversee advertising and marketing, administrative and clerical issues. Manage PR and press communication and general business back-end of the theatre company.

Executive Producer

LeadFocus

Using my SEO and Social media knowledge, and my brother's sales knowledge, we setup a lead generation & SEO agency. The agency mainly served professional SMEs and provided full-service online marketing for them, with a focus on driving traffic, conversions & revenue from their online presences.

As a bootstrapped start-up, this role was varied, starting off with prospecting, identifying good leads, sales, on-boarding & marketing strategy creation for clients. Once the agency matured, I switched into more of an account and stakeholder management role that included being responsible for delivering SEO, lead generation & revenue improvement for the companies we worked with.

✔ Clients: Led in signing up 17 clients to the business in total
✔ Account Management: Looked after up to 9 clients at any one time
✔ Revenue growth for clients: Average of 63% increased revenue per reporting client

Co-Founder

Online Marketing Consultant

The University of Westminster Students'​ Union

During my time at UWSU as VP Communications, I managed a few teams of volunteers, totalling around 35. I also had ownership of a few marketing & communications channels:

• Smoke Radio - An award-winning radio station that was run by the radio course in the university
• Smoke Magazine - With a distribution of around 800 students & alumni
• UWSU Website
• UWSU Social Channels

I also built the foundations for Smoke TV, which was to become UWSU's Youtube channel.

Vice President Communications

You’ve built something that could shift your industry - and help the planet.

So why is growth still such a grind?

👉 Is your pipeline too quiet?
👉 Not sure if your message is landing?
👉 Tired of tactics that burn budget but don’t move revenue?

You’ve tried an agency. A freelancer. Posting more.
But the leads still trickle in. The conversion still feels random.
And the team’s stuck debating what to try next.

You don’t have a marketing problem. You have a system problem.

Most sustainability companies stall between early traction and real scale, where everything feels like a grind and you can't rely on referrals anymore.

The product’s solid. The mission’s clear. But growth is scattered.

No repeatable demand. No clear offer strategy. No leveraged execution.

That’s where I come in.

I’m not an agency that puts all their faith into a tactic.
I’m not a consultant who gives you a Notion checklist and disappears.
And I’m definitely not selling you another channel.

I act as your embedded Growth Partner - helping you design, drive & build the core systems that create real, scalable growth:

• Fix the hidden bottlenecks slowing momentum
• Sharpen positioning so the right people get it fast
• Build systems to generate + convert qualified leads
• Align sales, marketing, and delivery behind a real GTM
• Create a growth roadmap your team can actually run with and your board believes in

My work blends proven frameworks, systems thinking, and buyer psychology (from 10+ years in growth + acting).
I understand how people decide, what makes them move, and how to turn that into smart growth.

📍 Example:
I helped a solar SaaS company rebuild their GTM.
We clarified their audience, sharpened the messaging, re-prioritized their channels and aligned sales & marketing under one strategy.
No bloat. No new hires. Just traction, clarity, a plan they could actually follow and results that made them feel like their marketing is working for the first time in years.

If you’re a sustainability founder who’s:

• Ready for clarity, traction, and scalable demand
• Scaling a product that works
• Done with guesswork

DM me “GTM” and I’ll send you:
"The 3 Hidden Growth Traps Killing Sustainability Startups & How to Fix Them"

Or if you’re ready to get specific - ask about my 45-minute Growth Strategy Session.
It’s free, focused, and built around your business.
No fluff. Just clarity.

Because the planet doesn’t have time for your product to stay a secret.

Chris Jones

We talk a lot about scaling climate solutions... but few people admit what Simón Torras shared in our conversation:

“Capital exists - and projects don’t really."

There is money waiting to fund nature restoration. 
Billions, in fact.

What’s missing? 

High-quality projects that investors can trust.

Simón explained why that gap exists: real restoration work is messy, slow, and deeply human. 

You’re convincing farmers to change generations-old practices. 

You’re building nurseries, running long-term operations, and taking on risk most teams try to outsource away.

This stuck with me because it reframes the problem:

The barrier isn’t money.

It’s the operational grind of building something real, long-term, and trustworthy. 

This Saturday’s episode goes deeper into:

• Why the bottleneck isn’t capital but credible project supply
• How Ponterra built trust with buyers like Microsoft by going fully vertical
• What it actually takes to scale a nature restoration project from 50 to 10,000 hectares
• Why founders must accept chaos if they want to build something meaningful

Follow along and subscribe - the full conversation drops Saturday.

Growth unblocked for 17+ Climate B2Bs | Founder @ Plucky Bamboo | Host 🎙️ The Plucky Bamboo Podcast

What's 1 system you know that can’t keep going the way it is?
I sat down with Simón Torras, co-founder of Ponterra, for this episode of the Plucky Bamboo podcast.

My favourite moment?

When Simón says the biggest enemy of action is chasing perfection and that so many projects never get started simply because the metrics aren’t “perfect” yet. 

We talked about what it really means to redesign the unsustainable - not from the outside, but from inside the machine.

From degraded farmland to native forest.
From outsourced project dev to 120+ people on the ground.
From idea to 10,000 hectares of large-scale restoration - funded upfront by Microsoft and others.

This episode goes deep into:
- What’s actually holding back credible nature-based solutions
- How to build trust with institutional buyers
- Why startup tools won’t fix broken systems
- The quiet power of just starting - even when things feel chaotic and imperfect

If you’re building in climate and staring down complexity...

This one will speak to you.

🎧 Full conversation in the comments!

Most sustainability founders aren’t struggling because their solution doesn’t work.
 
They’re struggling because the market agrees with them... but isn’t ready to act yet.
 
I sat down with William Loopesko, co-founder and CTO of Aclymate, to talk about what it’s really like building and selling climate software when education, timing and commercial pressure matter just as much as the product itself.
 
We went deep on:
 
• Why “being early” in sustainability creates hidden commercial and emotional costs
• What actually triggers action inside larger organisations
• How customer behaviour reshapes products as companies scale
• And why educating the market is often the hardest part of growth
 
If you’re building in sustainability and wrestling with long sales cycles, hesitant buyers, or “we agree, but not yet” conversations, this conversation might well be worth watching.
 
Full episode links in the comments.

Round of applause for STRONG ROOTS here!

Spotted their carbon footprint right on the front of the packaging at lunch - clear, simple, no footnotes.

If every food brand did this? If carbon scores sat next to calories on every single label?

You'd see Nudge Theory in action. Small design friction, big shifts in buying behaviour.

It's not the norm yet. But wouldn't it be great if it was?

I’m excited to announce the winner of the Growth Unlock System Giveaway (worth $6,500)!

The prize includes:

1️⃣ A full deep dive into a climate business' marketing & sales

2️⃣ A focused 90-day action plan to scale their business

3️⃣ Two 1:1 calls to walk through exactly what they should do in what order (& pick my brain on growth!)

Over the past week I heard from some brilliant climate founders and operators doing important work in the sector - and it was genuinely inspiring to see the range of challenges and missions people are tackling.

But there can only be one winner, and that is...

🎉 Kartik Moorthy, MBA 🎉
 
Founder of SLC Professionals!

Absolutely thrilled to support you - can’t wait to drive your business forward with you and support the great work you're doing helping business build net zero strategies!

WAIT, KEEP READING

If you weren’t selected, don’t skip this part.

I’m a big believer that everyone should get something useful out of this.

So if you applied, check your inbox tomorrow - I've got something coming your way!

How can climate founders compete when rivals have 10x their budget?

That came up in my conversation with William Loopesko (One of the co-founders at Aclymate).
They realised something most founders learn the hard way:

Marketing online isn’t a level playing field.
It never has been.
Bigger budgets win more impressions, more clicks & more deals.
You can be smarter - but you can’t outspend reality.

So instead of trying to win a fight they were disadvantaged in, they asked a different question:

“What’s a channel where budget isn’t the deciding factor?”

For them, the answer was partnerships.

1 sale → 1,000 downstream customers.
A single relationship creating leverage no amount of ad spend could match.

There’s a lesson in that for any climate founder operating in a crowded, well-funded market:

Sometimes the smartest move isn’t to optimise the channel everyone else is fighting over.
It’s to find the one where you’re not being outbid before you even show up.

The full conversation with William comes out on Saturday - Apple, Spotify & YouTube.

I stopped taking long-term partnerships 5 months back. 
Not because I didn't want the work - because something was missing...

Every time I jumped into a new climate founder’s business, we ended up spending the first few weeks doing the same thing:

👉 Uncovering the real bottlenecks that are choking growth.
👉 Cutting the busywork.
👉 Focusing our next 90 days on what actually moves revenue.

So instead of doing this ad-hoc, I built a system for it.

It’s called the Bottleneck Breakthrough Sprint, and it’s the clearest, leanest way to figure out why growth feels slow - and what to do about it.

And because this is brand new, I want to run it with someone who doesn’t have endless budget, team, or time.

I'm opening 1 FREE spot (normally $3,000/£2,300) for a founder who wants to make 2026 the year they stop guessing.

No cost. No catch.

Here’s what you get:
• A kickoff call where we map out your entire commercial system
• A deep dive into messaging, pipeline, sales, offer, content, and positioning
• A custom 90-day plan that tells you exactly what to fix first, in what order, with the resources you ALREADY have
• Unlimited access to me for 14 days

Most founders use this sprint to:
• Stop spinning in circles
• Get unstuck on growth
• Prioritise what actually drives revenue
• Remove the noise and focus their limited time

You’ll also get your Bottleneck Map - a simple, brutally honest breakdown of the constraints holding you back.

The only “payment”?
Do the work, and if it helps you - share what changed.

I’m choosing 1 climate founder in 3 days.

Link in the comments 👇

Final call for the Growth Unlock Sysyem giveaway.

I’m giving away 1 spot in my Growth Unlock System - a 14 day project where I help a climate founder get clarity on what’s blocking their growth and what to prioritise next.

It closes at midnight Pacific today.

If you want to throw your name in, the link’s in the comments.

Winner gets announced tomorrow!

I ran a Black Friday giveaway last week.
7 days of daily content. 196 DMs sent.
Just 3 people signed up. Here's why.

Let me back up.

I wanted to do Black Friday differently this year.

No BS discounts on things people don't need. Instead, a giveaway to help sustainability founders actually grow.

Felt good. Felt like the right move.

Except... it wasn't.

7 days of posting. 196 personalized DMs.

Only 8 hand raises out of 196. 3 conversions.

The math wasn't mathing.

I had no idea why it didn't work, until I had a chat with a partner, talking to them about "trust in the marketplace being the new currency instead of attention".

🤦‍♂️

I launched a new product into a noisy week without building trust first.

Black Friday? Everyone's inbox is screaming. Everyone's feed is flooded. Even with a values-aligned angle, I was still just... noise.

And here's the kicker - trust is the new moat.

Especially now. With AI flooding the market, everyone sounds smart. Everyone's got a framework, a playbook. Every guru has an info product or course they're trying to sell.

The only thing that cuts through? 

Proof you've done it. Proof you care. 

Proof you're not just another founder with Canva and a Calendly link.

So here's what I'm doing next:

1. Video case studies for this specific product: Showing the work, not just talking about results

2. Sharing metrics as they come in: The good, the bad, the "wait what happened there" (A little like this post!)

3. Building in public: Long-form breakdowns of how I actually run the business and how we help climate companies grow. Give the knowledge away, sell the implementation.

But the big honker?

4. Building an email list: DMs don't build relationships at scale. Showing up consistently does and I don't want to be at the mercy of writing in a way that fits the algorithm.

Trust isn't built in an exciting campaign.

It's built in the grind of showing up every day, helping people out. "Providing value".

If you're building something new right now, don't make my mistake.

Build the trust infrastructure first. Let the offer be the easy part.

ClimateTech founder. $60k system. 9mth sales cycle.
Been burning budget on Meta ads for MONTHS.
Last week they told me: "We thought WE were the problem."

They weren't.

They're just selling a high-value system. Full business transformation. Multiple stakeholders.

I was on a call with them last week:

"We joined one of those high-ticket sales programs 6 months ago. 10 calls a week, they said. Meta ads, high-volume outreach, a few other tactics. We followed everything exactly."
 
Long pause...
 
"Nothing. A couple tyre-kickers who disappeared after the first call. We've burned through most of our runway and... I keep thinking maybe our offer just isn't good enough. Maybe the market doesn't actually want this. Maybe we're just not cut out for this."

There's 3 fundamental mismatches here:

1. You're selling mid-five-figure enterprise solutions. Multi-year contracts. Business transformation.

The gurus? They're talking about $3K courses and form funnels.

When they say "high-ticket," they mean impulse purchases with a comma in them. You're selling systems that require board approval. It's not even the same game.

2. Sustainability is a low-urgency category

No one wakes up thinking "I need to fix our carbon reporting TODAY."
You're not capturing demand. You're creating it.
That requires trust-building, education and long nurture cycles - not "7-day launch sequences."

3. You're not selling to one person

Even if you close the sustainability manager, they still need to sell it internally.
To ops. To finance. To leadership.
You're not just doing sales. You're doing sales enablement for someone else's internal pitch.
That's enterprise selling - even if the company only has 50 people.
And you've got yourself and a BD assistant.

The real problem?

No one's teaching B2B climate GTM.

Every tactic, every framework, every "proven system" you see online was built for products that don't require organisational change. Low-ticket SaaS with high felt-need. B2C impulse purchases.
 
Not for founders selling sustainability software into companies that don't know they need you yet.
 
Not for deals that require stakeholder alignment, behavior change, and risk mitigation messaging.
 
If you've been wondering why nothing's working... It might not be your offer. Or even your skills.
 
It might be you're playing enterprise chess with a B2C checkers playbook.
 
Same board. Different game.

LinkedIn Login, Sign in | LinkedIn

JSESSIONID

li_at

Sales Navigator

I'm giving away 1 free Bottleneck Breakthrough Sprint to a lucky climate founder next week!
(I usually charge $3,000 for this). So, why?

(Apply here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gjNGQjYK)

Because I want to reclaim the Black Friday trend a little bit, from consumerism to regeneration, we’ve got 1 client spot left this quarter and honestly, it's a great inbound strategy for us. 😅

But enough about us.

This is for you if:  
1️⃣ You lead a B2B climate/cleantech business.
2️⃣ Still doing too much of the sales/marketing yourself.
3️⃣ Growth feels slow, inconsistent, or unclear.
4️⃣ You want clear priorities for growth in the next 90 days, not another guess.

You get:
           
→ A deep-dive into your sales, marketing and positioning to pinpoint the 3-5 bottlenecks holding back your growth.
 
→ A Growth Bottleneck Map showing the exact root causes and the cost of leaving them unfixed.
 
→ A competitor snapshot so you can see the gaps you can own.
 
→ A realistic revenue and pipeline forecast showing what changes can unlock.
 
→ A custom 90-day roadmap showing exactly what to do next and in what order.
 
→ A live strategy session to walk you through everything and answer questions.

What you need:
1️⃣ About 20 minutes to fill out an intake.
2️⃣ A willingness to share a few materials.
3️⃣ Space to join a couple of short calls.

Hit the link above for your chance to win the free sprint ($3,000 Value).

Deadline: 9:59pm on 28 November (GMT) 

Game on.

P.S. Feel free to share and repost for others you know who might find this useful!

Founders tell me they need: “A clear plan for growth".
What they actually need: Relief.
A way out of the fog.

A system that tells them what to fix next - not more to think about.

That’s why I’ve expanded my giveaway.

I’ve been giving away a spot in my Growth Bottleneck Breakthrough Sprint.

The 90-day commercial roadmap, ROI forecast, and messaging architecture I use with clients.

But after a week of conversations with climate founders 
(and seeing the patterns yet again)
it became obvious:

Climate founders don’t need another audit.
They need something they can use today.

So I’ve expanded the giveaway to include the core assets that remove guesswork and show the path:

→ Growth Bottleneck Map - the 3-5 forces slowing revenue
→ 90-Day Commercial Roadmap - what to fix first, next, later
→ ICP Clarity Snapshot - who buys, why, and what belief drives the sale
→ Messaging Mini-Pack - narrative + angles that actually land
→ Outbound Starter Kit - 2 angles + 4 plug-and-play templates
→ Fastest Route to Pipeline - your next 30 days mapped

Not homework.
Not theory.
Not another “useful audit.”

A practical system for jump-starting growth.

If you’re a climate founder (or you know one) who’s been spinning plates and tired of guessing what to do next - there are 2 days left to enter.

Link in the comments.

We helped a climate tech startup rewrite their messaging. Then they got so busy with delivery, we had to pause.

Because they needed to focus on fulfilling what they'd already sold.

Here's what actually moved the needle (and why so many founder-led companies get this wrong):

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗼𝗯𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀.

When Evan Gwynne Davies and his team at Scrapp | Certified B-Corp 🌎 came to us, they thought they needed better outreach. Maybe LinkedIn ads. Maybe more content. Maybe just more volume.

Turns out? None of that was the real root problem.

Like most early-stage companies, their product had evolved rapidly. They'd iterated, refined their offering, and figured out what actually works to get the best results possible for their clients.

But their messaging hadn't kept pace.

They knew exactly how they helped clients - but explaining it clearly to people who weren't in the room? That was the challenge.

Website visitors didn't convert. Sales calls stalled because decision-makers "didn't quite get it." 

In-person meetings worked great - but as always, you can't scale face-to-face.

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀:

You can hire the best agency to run your ads, SEO, or LinkedIn campaigns.

But if you haven't done the foundational work first - fixing your positioning, sharpening messaging, understanding what your ICP actually cares about - none of it will work.

Not because the channels are bad.

Because the foundation is broken.

𝗦𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗱 - 𝘄𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗰𝘀.

1️⃣ Clarified their ICP and what drives buying decisions
2️⃣ Rebuilt messaging using real voice-of-customer language from sales calls
3️⃣ Shifted from features to problems their prospects actually face

Then we tested that messaging through a specific ad strategy and content.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁?

Direct inbound calls started coming through AI search summaries.

People typing "how do I reduce my waste?" into ChatGPT or Google were finding Scrapp - and booking calls.

Messaging went from confusing to 10x clearer. And that clarity didn't just help sales - it helped their product roadmap, internal alignment, and knowing when to say no.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻:

The constraints holding your business back aren't always where you think they are.

It's hard to see when you're inside the business every day at the grindstone, fighting fires.

(I have the same blind spots in my own business.)

That's why having an outside perspective matters - someone who can spot the bottleneck you're too close to see.

If you're a founder-led B2B climate company trying to move beyond referral-based selling into something more predictable and scalable...

And you're wondering what's actually holding you back...

DM me "Bottleneck" and I'll walk you through how we can help.

Full case study breakdown in the comments 👇

Devin Reed sent a newsletter yesterday that every Climate founder struggling with marketing should read.
Eugene Schwartz solved it 60 years ago...

(P.S. Want a chance to win a free Bottleneck Breakthrough Sprint for Black Friday? Click here: https://lnkd.in/gjNGQjYK)
 
Here's the problem:
 
Sales and marketing are speaking different languages.
 
Sales gets it. They're on calls. They know prospects are at different stages. They walk people from "I didn't know this was a problem" to "convince me you're the right solution."
 
Marketing? They're pumping out feature updates and product announcements for a market that doesn't even know they have a problem yet.
 
One founder told me: "I can't attribute marketing to anything. They do 15 different things, and I have no idea what's actually bringing in money."
 
🤦‍♂️

Here's what's happening:
 
Climate companies are building funnels for people who aren't ready to be funnelled.
 
Most climate markets sit in the unaware stage. They don't feel the pain. They don't know what's causing it. And they definitely don't know what fixes it.
 
Take fleet electrification. A logistics company could cut fuel costs by 40%. 

But if they see EVs as 'too expensive upfront' and never calculate total cost of ownership? 

They're problem-unaware. Your ROI calculator sits unused.
 
The fix? The 5 Stages of Awareness (Schwartz, 1966):
 
1. Unaware - They don't know they have a problem
2. Problem Aware - They feel pain but don't know the cause
3. Solution Aware - They know solutions exist, not which one
4. Product Aware - They know about you, need convincing
5. Most Aware - Ready to buy, need final push
 
Sales talks to the 3% ready to buy now (Stages 4-5).
 
Marketing owns the other 97%.
 
If you're spending all your time talking about product features and what you shipped this month, you're marketing to the smallest slice of the market.
 
Here's what you and your marketing team can do to close this gap:
 
Stop asking "is this top or bottom of funnel?"
 
Start asking: "What awareness stage is this person in, and what message moves them forward?"
 
Map your content to where buyers actually are. Not where you wish they were.

Then build marketing that moves them down that funnel.
 
Here's The Reeder newsletter, it's worth a sub! https://lnkd.in/eiy8tiQw

I help B2B SaaS marketing leaders build mindshare and pipeline with the 95-5 Content System

For the past 2 years I’ve been working closely with B2B climate founders & after 200+ conversations, this is becoming impossible to ignore:

Most of them aren't stuck because they lack ideas.
 
They're stuck because they're drowning in work - fighting fires, managing people, patching ops - without ever stopping to figure out what's actually choking growth.
 
Different sectors. Different stages. Same pattern.
 
They're treating symptoms because they don't have the bandwidth to diagnose the disease.
 
And honestly? I get it. 

When you're founder-led, running 15-hour days, juggling delivery and fundraising and product... you don't have time for some massive strategic deep-dive.
 
So I built something to solve that gap.

It’s called the Bottleneck Breakthrough Sprint - a 14-day diagnostic that:

- Maps where your Go-To-Market is breaking down
- Shows where revenue is being slowed and lost
- Gives you a simple, actionable 90-day plan to fix it

(using the resources you ALREADY have)

This is the first thing I do with every growth partner.

The work that uncovers whether the problem is positioning, pipeline, process, or something else entirely.
 
I turned it into a standalone product because I wanted to prove how much clarity alone can unlock.

And to jump on the Black Friday bandwagon, while re-purposing it for regeneration, rather than mindless consumption

I’m giving away 1 free spot on Friday.

(Normally $3,000 / £2,300 for the 14-day Sprint.)

If you want to throw your name in (or you know someone who should), here’s the link:

👉 https://lnkd.in/gjNGQjYK

I’ll be announcing the winner on Saturday!

Most founders are obsessed with 1 question:
“How does this scale?”
Jeff Kirschner has a different take.

In this clip from Friday's episode of the Plucky Bamboo podcast, Jeff (founder & CEO of Litterati) explains why not everything is meant to scale. 

Especially when your work depends on trust, relationships and complex real-world systems.

For Litterati, the platform can scale.
The outcomes can scale.
But the relationships? Those don’t copy-paste.

What I see over and over in climate businesses are teams trying to make things efficient, automated, or scalable before they’re actually effective.

This clip is a good reminder that clarity, trust, and outcomes have to come first - scale only works once something truly works.

taplio

The Battle

Matt Benter

Chris Jones

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreChris Jones's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Matt Benter

Chris Jones

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Chris Jones's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreChris Jones's LinkedIn Performance