How EcoLocked Navigates the Enthusiasm-Skepticism Split in Enterprise Sales

The executive meeting goes perfectly. The CEO gets the vision. Sustainability matters, carbon removal matters, competitive differentiation matters. They’re ready to move forward. Then they introduce you to their head of laboratory.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Steff Gerhart, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of EcoLocked, described the pattern that kills most enterprise deals: the enthusiasm-skepticism split. Understanding how to navigate this divide isn’t just useful—it’s the difference between closing deals and collecting warm introductions that go nowhere.

The Predictable Pattern

EcoLocked sells CO2-negative concrete admixes, and their sales process follows a remarkably consistent arc. “We talk to someone in the leadership. The CEO, he or she is very excited about sustainability, leads us to the head of laboratory,” Steff explains.

That handoff marks the transition from easy to hard. The executive conversation focuses on outcomes: market positioning, sustainability credentials, competitive advantage. These are strategic conversations where vision matters more than specifics.

Then comes the technical gatekeeper. “Those guys are obviously technically extremely skilled, extremely experienced and very much focused on all the risks and what can go wrong.”

This isn’t pessimism or resistance to change. It’s job function. Technical leaders in conservative industries get paid to prevent disasters. Their incentive structure rewards finding problems, not embracing opportunities. A successful career means nothing went catastrophically wrong on their watch.

Why Standard Sales Approaches Fail

Most sales training treats stakeholder management as a communication problem. Learn everyone’s priorities, tailor your message, handle objections. But EcoLocked’s challenge isn’t miscommunication—it’s fundamentally incompatible evaluation criteria.

The executive evaluates strategic fit: Does this advance our sustainability positioning? Does this create competitive advantage? Can we tell a compelling story to our customers and investors?

The technical leader evaluates risk: What could go wrong? How do we know this works consistently? What happens in edge cases we haven’t tested? What liability are we accepting?

These aren’t different perspectives on the same question. They’re different questions entirely. You can’t bridge that gap with better messaging. You need different approaches for different stakeholders.

The Transparency Tightrope

EcoLocked’s solution starts with a principle that sounds obvious but proves difficult in practice: radical transparency about limitations. “We kind of need to balance these conversations by obviously being open in what our product can and cannot do. Any risks or any unknowns because of course there are unknowns with such a new product,” Steff shares.

The instinct when facing skeptical technical buyers is to emphasize strengths and downplay limitations. You’ve got one shot to make the sale—why volunteer problems? But this instinct destroys credibility with experienced technical leaders who will discover those limitations anyway.

The challenge is calibration. Too much transparency overwhelms and “scaring them away.” Too little transparency undermines trust. “This finding this balance is really hard and we surely did not always quite hit it,” Steff admits.

That admission—”we surely did not always quite hit it”—reveals something important. There’s no perfect script for this balance. It’s contextual, learned through experience, and requires reading the room in real time.

What Technical Leaders Actually Need

Technical skeptics don’t need excitement—they need security. Not security that nothing can go wrong, but security that risks are understood, quantified, and manageable.

This requires a different conversation structure. With executives, EcoLocked leads with impact: carbon-negative buildings, climate solution, market differentiation. With technical leaders, they lead with process: testing protocols, material specifications, performance data, and yes, limitations.

“Making sure they can build up that trust, they can get the security that there’s something legit was really important,” Steff notes. That security comes from demonstrating technical competence, not marketing polish. Technical leaders trust other technical people who speak their language and understand their constraints.

This is why EcoLocked’s lab strategy matters so much. Going into the customer’s lab and testing with their materials alongside their head of laboratory isn’t just validation—it’s establishing peer credibility. You’re not a vendor making claims; you’re a technical partner solving problems together.

The Education Gap

Beyond the enthusiasm-skepticism split, EcoLocked faces another stakeholder challenge: fundamental knowledge gaps. “A lot of people are not very knowledgeable about sustainability, about carbon removal,” Steff explains. “So this part in what exactly does our product do? How do we compensate the emission? What does that mean? This is a whole new topic that they have never been in touch with before.”

This creates a meta-problem: before you can sell your solution, you need to educate prospects on the problem space itself. The executive might understand sustainability at a high level, but the technical leader needs to understand carbon removal mechanisms, insetting versus offsetting, and how biochar works chemically.

You can’t rush this education. Technical leaders won’t buy what they don’t understand, and attempting to sell before educating triggers skepticism. “We really spent time and also money in creating good infographics, for example, or you know, the short videos that explain stuff,” Steff shares.

This educational investment serves dual purposes: it makes technical conversations possible, and it demonstrates that you’re not trying to hide complexity behind marketing speak. Technical leaders respect vendors who help them understand rather than vendors who try to bypass their technical judgment.

Training Yourself to Navigate the Split

Most founders learn stakeholder management the hard way: failed deals, missed signals, relationships that went cold. EcoLocked took a more deliberate approach. “This was always important to us to really hit that and also internally train ourselves into getting better,” Steff notes.

This internal training focus reveals sophistication most early-stage startups lack. It’s not enough to know that executives and technical leaders need different approaches. Your entire team needs to develop the instinct for which conversation mode to use, how to calibrate transparency, and when to slow down for education.

This skill development takes time and intention. “We surely did not always quite hit it. But obviously you develop experience,” Steff acknowledges. The key word is “develop”—this isn’t innate talent, it’s learned through iteration and deliberate practice.

The Risk-Excitement Matrix

EcoLocked’s approach suggests a framework for navigating multi-stakeholder sales: map each stakeholder on a risk-excitement matrix, then tailor your approach accordingly.

High excitement, low risk focus (executives): Lead with strategic value, competitive positioning, and market impact. Focus on outcomes rather than mechanisms. Paint the vision of what success looks like.

Low excitement, high risk focus (technical leaders): Lead with process, data, and transparent discussion of limitations. Focus on mechanisms rather than outcomes. Demonstrate competence and build security.

The failure mode is treating all stakeholders the same. Using the executive pitch on technical leaders makes you look naive. Using the technical pitch on executives makes you look like you don’t understand strategy.

When Deals Die in the Handoff

The most common failure point in EcoLocked’s sales process—and likely yours if you’re selling complex B2B products—happens in the handoff from executive to technical stakeholder. The executive is sold, makes the introduction, and then momentum dies.

This happens when founders treat the executive as the real decision-maker and the technical leader as a rubber stamp. In conservative industries with high-stakes products, that’s backwards. The executive can’t buy without technical approval, but the technical leader can kill the deal unilaterally.

Understanding this power dynamic changes how you allocate time. Less time polishing the executive pitch, more time preparing for technical validation. Less focus on strategic alignment meetings, more focus on lab testing and technical documentation.

The Long-Term Credibility Game

EcoLocked’s careful balance between transparency and enthusiasm isn’t just about closing individual deals. It’s about building reputation in an industry where “everyone knows everyone and people talk a lot amongst each other.”

One technical leader who feels misled can poison your reputation across an entire industry. One technical leader who becomes an advocate can open doors across dozens of companies. The time invested in finding the right balance pays compound returns through referrals and reputation.

This is why EcoLocked invested in thought leadership, conference appearances, and educational content. “We are out a lot in the industry on conferences and panels and, you know, these types of things to really raise a lot of awareness and demonstrate that thought leadership.” This visibility establishes credibility before sales conversations begin.

For founders selling complex products into conservative industries, the lesson is clear: master two completely different sales conversations, develop the instinct to switch between them, and never sacrifice technical credibility for short-term sales momentum. Executives open doors. Technical leaders close deals. You need both.