About
Kathy Klotz-Guest, principal
Relationships are built between people
Too much marketing focuses on services and technology, rather than on how products make peoples’ lives better. How do they solve human challenges? Why do customers care? What are the stories behind those products? That’s what matters to people. And that’s what marketing can be.
That’s the impetus behind Keeping it Human. Powerfully Funny, and now, Keeping it Human, were born to bring more fun and human-speak into marketing. We bring customers’ needs into focus throughout the entire marketing cycle – from research to products to “storytelling.” Better products, stories, and communications mean better bottom line results.
Kathy’s Different
Kathy Klotz-Guest has been a marketing storyteller in Silicon Valley for 20 years. She can see what your company brings to the world and help shape a powerful story that resonates with employees and customers. No BS or jargon – Keeping it Human means that each audience ‘touch’ is a human one. Kathy spent years researching and building products and services before she moved to the customer-facing world of communications. With deep technology expertise (she can be geeky!), and a penchant for crisp, clear compelling storytelling, Kathy knows how to translate even the most complex technologies into stories and communications that customers will connect with. She’s a human translator between internal marketing-speak and customer-focused human-speak.
About Kathy
Together with her deep marketing and technology expertise, Kathy’s 20 years’ experience in standup, improvisation, and sketch (and a San Jose cable show) gives her a practical perspective on what “human speak” means. All great marketing is about the power of ‘story.’ And, your story is only as good as your people and products. We work to make sure your best product ideas truly reflect your customers’ needs.
Kathy has created successful products, led teams, and pioneered marketing “storytelling” for companies including Silicon Graphics, Dataquest, Gartner Group, MediaMetrix, Excite, Excite@Home, Autodesk, Yahoo!, Joint Venture Silicon Valley, and Intermolecular. She spun out 3 companies that grew to multi-million dollar businesses.
She has a Masters in multimedia development, an MBA in marketing from UC Berkeley, and an MLA from Stanford University. Kathy is a founding fellow for The Society for New Communications Research. She does the occasional open-mic standup set and performs improv with San Jose ComedySportz’ Rec League. She lives in San Jose with her big dude and little dude, her most favorite audience of all.
