Building a Storybrand By Donald Miller
Since thousands of years human share stories. This medium has been proven to be the number one tool for passing on knowledge, information, and experiences. But not only that: We adopt and integrate moral, attitude and behaviour into our lives. Just think of fairy tales or the bible. This makes stories one of the best approaches of learning as well as entertainment. Thus, books and movies create while new worlds in our minds. Good Stories pull us into them. Who hasn’t been passed nights reading and completely forgotten the time. We follow the characters, think what we would do. We might even end up crying over because of printed text lines.
Stories also guide our own actions. Accordingly, this becomes the best approach in marketing, too – at the latest with Donald Miller. His bestselling book Building a Storybrand distills a framework of seven steps to “clarify your message so customers will listen”. This, how Miller calls it, 7SB Framework follows the basic plot of practically all stories, be it a book, a movie or a Netflix series.
Since thousands of years human share stories. This medium has been proven to be the number one tool for passing on knowledge, information, and experiences. But not only that: We adopt and integrate moral, attitude and behaviour into our lives. Just think of fairy tales or the bible. This makes stories one of the best approaches of learning as well as entertainment. Thus, books and movies create while new worlds in our minds. Good Stories pull us into them. Who hasn’t been passed nights reading and completely forgotten the time. We follow the characters, think what we would do. We might even end up crying over because of printed text lines.
The customer is the hero
And while he explains the approach, he makes many aspects very clear. Despite more than 100 years of professional advertising you will still find many companies and organisations who haven’t understood them or at least implement them. The first and most important of it: The customer is the hero – and not the brand. This goes hand in hand with St. Gallen strategic approach to make the customer the starting point of all strategic reflections as well as the purpose of a company. But how many of them still use websites and brochures to portray themselves and showcase how great they are? Just an example I came across many times: Somehow decision makers like to present photos of their company building. Which customer is interested in that? A potential customer wants to have his problem solved. He doesn’t look at images of dead architecture (unless you are a student of architecture).
Consequently, Miller suggests to put the customer in center of all efforts and into the position of a hero. The company then is the guide like Yoda was for Luke Skywalker. Three conditions for being a successful guide apply: You have to be (1) empathic and you have to have (2) authority. That means you must be recognised as expert, as quality deliverer, as experienced specialist in your field. And you need a (3) proven plan to persuade the potential customer.
The Grunt Test
The 49-year old businessman takes you through all steps and gives you useful hints and tips on the side. One of his principles is:: “Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but customers buy solutions for internal problems.” This understanding is extremely important. Even more so if non-profits try to “sell” philosophical solutions to philosophical problems and wonder why they don’t get ahead.
My personal favourite tip out of the book is the “grunt test”. A Neanderthal should be able to look at your website and understand within a few seconds what your company is doing or offering. Furthermore, the Neanderthal should also intuitively know what he is supposed to do. Personally, I hope that website passes this test 😉
Rich of Resources
Miller elaborates and explains his approach in an easy to follow way. Additionally, with his company StoryBrand he offers workshops to improve your marketing. He also has his own podcast on Apple, Stitcher and Spotify around the theme. First, I heard it as audiobook on Audible. Then, I wanted to read and follow the steps one by one. That’s why I purchased later the ebook version.
Recommendation
Personally and professionally, I can’t underline the usefulness of this approach enough. On one hand it helps you to focus on the customer strategically. Thus, I wouldn’t see it only as a marketing book. For me it is more a companion who helps me to implement the strategic approach in many aspects of organisational structure, business relationships, as well as communication and marketing. On the other hand, it has an easy to follow step-by-step manual to follow and transfer this thinking in tangible products or your website. Surely, it will take some brain work from your side for each of the steps, but I am absolutely persuaded that this pays off.