Highly technical shouldn’t mean highly dry and boring—tell a story!

Technology doesn’t just show up. Well, all too often, new tech-based products actually do seem to materialize from thin air. When that happens, sales and marketing teams are suddenly shoveled the football and expected to break though the oncoming, full-team blitz and score a quick touchdown. Who’s blitzing? Skeptical customers. No- and low-trust communities. Savvy buyers have long learned to beware the oil of snakes.

How do you avoid getting tackled by a painful blitz? Call a timeout. Invite the other team—your potential customers—to your side of the field to share some hydration and orange slices. Heck, show them your playbook. A confused or skeptical mind never buys, so let them in on your process, demonstrate how you’re tackling real-world problems, developing products that address their everyday workflow challenges, and building solutions that help them achieve their dream state. In other words, have them frothing and foaming at the mouth, chompin’ at the bit to demo, buy, deploy, land, and expand as soon as your products are operational.

There are myriad, endless opportunities for storytelling. Talk about the technological journey, not just the actual tech specs, but the processes, thinking, innovative ideas, and most importantly, the people involved. This approach gets people involved, excited, and talking about your technical ventures and business. You’ll also find new partners, synergies, and co-marketing opportunities by sharing the journey.

Let your audience see behind the curtain. Make your playbook transparent. Gross them out by showing them the gory details of how you make your sausage.

With that, yes, sometimes, you just need some straightforward technical writing. I help with that, too, whether it’s documenting clean-room and sterile-environment procedures, standardizing quality assurance processes, or providing sales-support sheets to enable account managers and customer success managers to communicate concrete value points.