Podcast

Kari Nelson

#379: How to Humanize Your Hi-Tech Storytelling for Growth

You may or may not be in the tech world but you have a complex story to tell.

If you can connect on deep level with your prospects resonating with how you can make their life easier, better and more profitable, then the world is truly your oyster.

But you’re probably not connecting because you’re leading with logic and reason when what your audience really wants is the emotional pull of a story.

Today’s show is for you to show you how to turn your technical jargon, features, functions, and data into an emotional drama that will ignite your sales.

Kari Nelson is the Marketing Director, Construction Division, MEP (Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing Engineering) for Trimble, Inc.,

Founded in 1978, Trimble is a Sunnyvale, California-based software, hardware, and services technology company that supports global industries in building & construction, agriculture, geospatial, natural resources and utilities, governments, transportation and others.

Kari’s background and expertise have focused on numerous digital transformation technologies, including servers, storage, networking, professional services, software, virtualization, ITaaS, and now construction management software.

Before joining Trimble, Kari was at Cherwell Software and spent over 15 years with Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

As an innovative and collaborative marketing executive with 15+ years’ experience in IT infrastructure (ITaaS), services, and software (SaaS) sectors, Kari generates winning, cohesive marketing strategies, prove their value, and then makes them happen—building and leading dedicated teams along the way.

Storytelling is the magic she uses to ensure “it’s all about the customer, all the time,” and thereby connect with buyers and improve customer engagement.

The B2B marketing programs Kari has created include content marketing, value proposition design, customer journey mapping, product marketing, competitive positioning, sales enablement, social media, website design, messaging, marketing technology, and analytics.

Career highlights include:

Led cross-organizational initiatives. Designed demand generation campaigns that contributed to a boost in the $7+ billion sales pipeline attributed to marketing by inventing storytelling methodology that simplified creation and placement of content across multiple social and digital channels, leading to deeper target audience engagement and capture of new accounts.
Empowered sales to sell integrated portfolio. Attained $200 million rise in server gross revenue by training 3,000+ resellers worldwide on solution selling for a suite of server, storage, networking, and services through 30 training events and six eLearning sessions translated into 14 languages.
Aligned marketing and sales. Led effort to identify customer value drivers and distill company differentiators, and then evangelize these through seller training and tools, as well as create and promote new digital content across the Buyer’s Journey.

Today you’ll learn how to use Kari’s NICQL story structure inspired by the Challenger Sale methodology as well as the power of the ABT to simplify your complex message for speed to impact.

Discussed in this episode:

The Big Animal deck used by Antonio Neri, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Implementing the NICQL story structure to take your prospect on a compelling journey with your offering.
Why the best story sells more.
How to use storytelling is the marrow for your sales enablement in the hi-tech world.