Rating Qualities

9
Overview
Well Structured
Concrete Examples

Building a StoryBrand
Clarify Your Message so Customers Will Listen
Donald Miller | HarperCollins Leadership © 2017

Run your marketing message through Donald Miller’s framework to create a superstar narrative.
His approach casts your brand in the fundamentally human language of a story. He offers a sharp,
clear process for finding a story to tell about your product or service that centers on your customer
as the hero – not on your offering. Miller’s advice can be somewhat self-promotional, but he
provides marketers and entrepreneurs with solid advice and valuable ideas for implementing
an engaging tale. His applicable, practical guidance teaches you how to view your message from
your customer’s perspective.

Take-Aways
• Revitalize your marketing plan by creating a story with the “StoryBrand 7-Part Framework.”
• Make your customer the hero of your story.
• Customers will find you if you solve an “external problem”; they will buy from you if you solve
an “internal problem.”
• Help your customers recognize that you are the “guide” they seek.
• Advise your customers to follow a simple plan.
• Challenge your “hero customer” to take action.
• Help your customers avoid tragedy.
• Show your customers how your brand will transform their lives.
• Your script is your blueprint for transforming your marketing materials and corporate culture.

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 Summary

Revitalize your marketing plan by creating a story with the “StoryBrand 7-Part

Framework.”

The human brain is hardwired for stories, which is why storytelling conveys marketing messages
so well. A good story gives your customers a “map” that makes intuitive sense and helps them
engage with your brand. A story guides them through the noise, including the noise you may
inadvertently mix in with your current marketing. However, if your story doesn’t engage
people within their hierarchy of needs, they won’t care about your message.

“Story is atomic. It is perpetual energy and can power a city. Story is the one thing that
can hold a human being’s attention for hours.”

For your story to reach your customers, it has to pass the “Grunt Test.” That is, if a caveman read
your story, would he grunt yes that he knows what you’re selling, sees how it could improve his life
and knows where to buy it? If so, it passes the grunt test.

The most important thing in telling your story is what your customers hear – not what you’re
trying to say. The ideal communication framework breaks down into seven messages in seven
categories that constitute the StoryBrand 7-Part Framework (SB7). Its structure follows the seven
crucial moments central to every story:

1. The hero (your customer) wants to reach a goal.

2. The hero hits a dilemma that precludes achieving the goal.
3. When the hero begins to lose hope, a “guide” arrives.
4. The guide offers a plan.
5. The guide issues a “call to action.”
6. The hero takes action and avoids failure.
7. The story ends with the hero achieving “success.”

“People will always choose a story that helps them survive and thrive.”

The SB7 method enables you to distill your brand message to one page and filter out the parts of
your corporate information that essentially only bore your customers. To begin, identify a core
message for your overall brand. Then you can write a BrandScript for each corporate division,
or each market segment, or each product. Your story can fulfill many possibilities, but keep the
following basics in mind.

Make your customer the hero of your story.

In the SB7 framework, the hero of your story is the customer, not your business or product. A story
isn’t compelling to your audience until you define what the hero – that is, your customer – wants

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 to achieve. This opens a “story gap” which the human mind seeks to close by finding the answer.
Will the hero triumph? The suspense draws people into your story.

“Every human being is already speaking the language of story, so when you begin using
the SB7 framework, you’ll finally be speaking their language.”

Focus on defining and fulfilling a pivotal customer need. “Everything else is a subplot.” Make
sure the desire that your brand fulfills connects to your customer’s sense of survival and desire
for safety, health or happiness – for example, saving time or money, being part of a community,
improving social status or increasing profits.

Customers will find you if you solve an “external problem”; they will buy from you if
you solve an “internal problem.”

Draw your customers further into your story by identifying their problems. As long as the conflict
stays unresolved, you’ll have your customers’ attention. Ultimately, the source of conflict in every
riveting tale is the villain. The best sort of villain gives your audience members a place to focus
negative feelings, to root for the hero and to engage. Depict a dastardly villain, and position
your product or service as the right weapon to vanquish the foe. Your villain doesn’t have to be a
person; it can be the problem your product solves, but the audience should be able to recognize it
instantly as a threat.

“Simply turning our focus to the customer and offering them a heroic role in a
meaningful story is enough to radically change the way we talk about, and even do,
business.”

Villains thwart heroes on three successive levels: through an “external problem” that becomes an
“internal problem,” which in turn is ultimately a “philosophical problem.” Villains set up obstacles
between the hero and the quest to solve the problem in order to achieve stability. In movies,
external problems are often physical, like a countdown to an explosion. In real life, they are more
mundane. Restaurants solve the problem of hunger. Plumbers solve leaky pipes. Identify the
external problem you can solve.

“Leaders desire to be seen as heroes when, in actuality, everything they think they want
from playing the hero only comes by playing the guide. Guides are respected, loved,
listened to, understood and followed loyally.”

But, remember, people buy because you solve their internal problem. In movies, the “backstory”
fills in all the reasons why the hero may not be able to overcome the obstacle. Maybe it’s past
failure or fear of not measuring up. The drive to resolve that inner frustration is greater than the
drive to overcome an external problem.

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 “People don’t buy the best products; they buy the products they can understand the
fastest.”

When your brand identifies an internal frustration and solves it – while also solving the
external problem – you’ve put yourself deep inside your customer’s narrative. CarMax, for
example, positioned itself to sell used cars without hiring what many customers stereotyped
as annoying salespeople. By addressing the external and internal obstacles to buying a used car,
CarMax succeeded in a difficult market.

“Story is a sense-making device. It identifies a necessary ambition, defines challenges

that are battling to keep us from achieving that ambition and provides a plan to help us
conquer those challenges.”

Solving philosophical problems will gain customers. It gives your hero a sense of belonging to an
epic theme such as good versus evil or love conquers all. The perfect brand position is a promise
to resolve all three problems – external, internal and philosophical. Automaker Tesla solves the
external problem of buying a car, the internal desire to adopt cutting-edge technology and the
philosophical desire to be environmentally conscious.

“As a brand, it’s our job to pursue our customers. We want to get to know them and for
them to get to know us, but we…need to take the initiative.”

The best stories are simple. Resist the urge to have several villains and multiple problems. Choose
the external problem that calls for the largest application of your brand’s solutions, solves your
customer’s internal problem and fits a larger philosophical framework.

Help your customers recognize that you are the “guide” they seek.

Engage customers by offering a solution to their problem in which you are the guide.
Stories usually thrust heroes into high-stakes situations for which they feel unprepared. The
wise, experienced guide – think of Yoda advising Luke Skywalker in Star Wars – offers them a
plan or path forward. Successful guides exhibit empathy and authority. Show your customers that
you understand their pain points and that you care. Having the authority to be a good guide means
you are competent and have applicable experience. Convey authority in your marketing materials
by including statistics, awards and logos of prominent customers.

Advise your customers to follow a simple plan.

You still need to convince your customer to make a commitment and buy from you. At this point
in your story, customers aren’t yet ready to take the plunge. They worry that buying won’t solve
their problem. Remove all sense of risk by having a plan. When you send out a marketing message,
customers want to know what to do next. If they’re confused, their next step won’t be buying from

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 you. They need to feel sure about you, so give them the exact steps they need to take. Clarify the
way forward to get them to buy – and now.

“We create lead generators for each revenue stream our company offers. This allows us
to segment our customers by their interests and offer different products to solve their
various problems.”

You can offer “process plans” or “agreement plans.” For process plans, give customers three to
six steps that include buying your offer and continue to include something that will happen after
their purchase. This clarifies the solution to their problem and makes it easy for them to give you
their business. Alternatively, design an agreement plan to reduce customer fear.

“When we empathize with our customers’ dilemma, we create a bond of trust. People
trust those who understand them, and they trust brands that understand them, too.”

For example, CarMax’s four-point agreement promises customers they won’t have to haggle over
the price of a car, and it offers its certification program to alleviate fears. CarMax solves
its customers’ external problem of buying a car, while solving their internal problem – fear of a
used-car salesman pushing them or deceiving them. Devise your plan by brainstorming about
your customer’s potential concerns. Give your plan a title to improve its “perceived value.”

Challenge your “hero customer” to take action.

Heroes won’t act until they’re challenged. Challenge your customer to place an order. If you don’t
ask for the sale, you won’t get it. Put a “buy now” button at your website’s top right corner and in
the middle of the page. Repeat your call to action. Show that you stand behind your offer. When
a blunt call to action doesn’t work, try a transitional call to action, which starts with deepening
your relationship with your customer. Free, educational information is a type of transitional call. A
free sample or a free trial can remove any risk your customer might feel. Be gently, entertainingly,
informatively persistent. Make the process of doing business with you easy.

Help your customers avoid tragedy.

Riveting stories can end in success or tragedy. The uncertainty is what engages people. The
hero’s potential downside raises the stakes. Fear sells. Website copy or articles that spell out what
failure could look like for your customers bring a sense of urgency to the decision to buy. Let your
customers know what they might lose without your guidance or solution. Then explain your plan,
and deliver your call to action. Be careful, since a little bit of fear goes a long way. Too much will
turn customers away.

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 Show your customers how your brand will transform their lives.

Describe success to your potential customer by defining the customer’s goal. Make a simple
three-column chart to map out the “before” showing what your customers have, how they feel,
their average day and their current status before they use your brand. Then repeat the exercise
to map the “after” – how your brand will solve their dilemma and improve their lives. The after
column captures your “end vision.” List the ways you solve your customer’s external, internal
and philosophical problems. Determine what transformation your customers seek, and find
their happy ending. To create an “aspirational identity” for your customers, consider how they’d
like their friends and peers to view them.

“The whole point of your website is to create a place where the direct call-to-action
button makes sense and is enticing.”

Position your brand to offer status by providing “access.” Starbucks does this by giving customers
a card to track points for purchases and earn a free cup of coffee. Offer your best customers
a premium, or build their perception of your product as a luxury brand, like Mercedes and
Rolex. Fulfill your customer’s need for self-knowledge or self-acceptance by associating your brand
with behaviors, people or events that inspire them, emphasize the inherent beauty in things or
invite them to be part of a transcendent mission. In the “success module” of the SB7 framework,
close all the “story loops” that you opened. Your resolutions are the happy people now using your
goods or services.

Your script is your blueprint for transforming your marketing materials and corporate
culture.

Implement your storytelling message throughout your marketing materials. Begin with your
website. Keep your message succinct and simple. Include five elements :

1. On your website, state your offer up front and at the top, before your visitor scrolls down the
page.
2. Place your call-to-action buttons where customers can see them right away, at the top right and
in the middle of the page, also before customers scroll down.
3. Present images of happy, satisfied customers.
4. Consolidate multiple or complex business products or services to one unified, overall message.
5. Be brief. Reduce information to bullet points.

“How many sales are we missing out on because customers can’t figure out what our
offer is within five seconds of visiting our website?”

The StoryBrand approach will help transform your corporate culture. Having a “narrative void” in
your organization will keep employees from pulling together. The explosion in information fuels

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 this disengagement. Many people are subjected to 3,000-plus advertising messages daily. Replace
this distracting overload with unifying, clear, concise story messages.

Crafting your narrative begins with bringing new employees onboard as heroes and inviting them
into your story so that they see their jobs as transformational opportunities. During orientation,
teach them about their part in representing the organization as guides for your customers. Use
the StoryBrand approach to make sure that everyone paddles in the same direction.

Use the first four modules of the SB7 Framework – “character, problem, plan and success”
– to distill your main marketing message into one powerful statement. Collect website visitors’
email addresses by creating a lead generating offer, such as a free PDF document. Automate an
email “drip campaign” to nurture customers toward a future purchase. Present the stories of
people you’ve helped to minimize potential customers’ sense of risk. Develop a system with
incentives to encourage customers to promote your business and your story.

About the Author

StoryBrand CEO Donald Miller hosts the Building a StoryBrand podcast. His other books
include the bestseller Blue Like Jazz, Scary Close and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He
offers a story brand template at MyStoryBrand.com.

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