In Building a StoryBrand, marketing expert Donald Miller explains how to create the most effective marketing messaging and materials: by plugging your brand’s details into a story structure that casts your customer as the protagonist and shows how your brand will help them reach their story’s happy ending.
Miller devised his own formula of story structure into which you can enter the details of your company to create a storyline: a document telling the story of how your brand helps customers achieve their goals. You can then draw from the storyline to craft every piece of marketing collateral for your brand. The result will be cohesive, concise, and clear marketing that resonates with customers.
In this guide, we’ll discuss the two major errors most brands make in their marketing and how marketing stories correct those errors. We’ll then cover the seven parts of Miller’s story structure and show how you can implement your finished storyline across your marketing channels.
Miller says that when creating marketing material, most brands make two fatal errors because they fail to understand or take into account how the human brain processes information.
(Shortform note: Miller’s idea that marketers must understand how the human brain works hasn’t always been a foregone conclusion. It wasn’t until the 1960s and 70s that psychologists—notably Ernest Dichter and David McClelland—explored consumer drives and the idea that businesses could market products to cater more effectively to the way we process information.)
The two errors marketers most often make are:
If a brand’s marketing can’t articulate how it helps humans either stay alive or prosper, it will fail, Miller asserts. The human brain is wired to stay alive—by securing shelter, food, and community—and, once survival is secured, to prosper—by building self-esteem and a sense of purpose, and by self-actualizing. Customers therefore pay attention only to marketing that proves a brand can help them stay alive or prosper and overlook anything that doesn’t, concludes Miller.
(Shortform note: Byron Sharp, author of How Brands Grow, may agree that good marketing speaks to humans’ need to stay alive or prosper because appealing to these needs makes the marketing appeal to everyone. Sharp argues that demographic divisions, which marketers usually tailor content toward, aren’t accurate and that there’s more overlap between divisions than is commonly thought. In other words, almost all brands have the potential to sell to everyone, not just a specific segment of the population. Thus, to earn the most, their marketing should appeal to universal needs like those Miller identifies.)
Miller writes that the second error brands make is forcing customers to expend calories sifting through irrelevant information. Many brands include excessive confusing or unhelpful information in their marketing, which doesn’t show how the brand helps customers stay alive or prosper. Trawling through this information burns calories customers would rather save for survival-related activities, so they tune out.
(Shortform note: Miller argues that we stop paying attention when faced with seemingly irrelevant, excessive information. In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell takes the idea that too much information is harmful even further by saying that when we take less information into account when making choices, we often make better choices. He calls such choices “snap decisions” and claims they’re fast, unconscious, and usually accurate. When crafting your marketing, you might consider that your customers are trying to make snap decisions about whether or not to buy your product and therefore only give them the minimum information they need to make the snap choice to buy.)
Now that we understand the two common errors brands make, what can we do to correct those errors? According to Miller, the best way to succinctly present brand information that’s conducive to staying alive and prospering is in a story format. Miller explains that a story format corrects the two errors by 1) forcing you to focus your message on how your brand helps customers stay alive and prosper, and 2) eliminating unnecessary information from your message.
(Shortform note: As Miller suggests, all good stories should focus on how a protagonist learns to stay alive or prosper and shouldn’t contain unrelated scenes or chapters. Still, despite following a story format (which we’ll discuss in the next section), many seasoned storywriters fall into the trap of including scenes or chapters they like but that don’t contribute to the overall narrative. Both writers and marketers in such cases must “kill their darlings”: Writers must eliminate redundancy and witticisms, and marketers must cut copy that sounds nice but doesn’t tell the customer how the brand helps them stay alive or prosper.)
To create a story, Miller advocates using his StoryBrand 7-Part Framework, which we’ll refer to simply as the marketing outline. This is a simplified version of the most common storytelling structure used in commercial films. Using this, you’ll create what Miller calls a “BrandScript,” which we’ll refer to simply as the storyline: a document describing your customer’s story. Once you’ve created your storyline, you’ll draw on it to create content to use in your marketing materials.
(Shortform note: Miller proposes that a seven-part marketing outline is the ideal foundation for your marketing material. Other specialists propose a different, more complex marketing foundation: In The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Al Ries and Jack Trout claim 22 laws determine the success of a marketing campaign. While there initially doesn’t seem to be much overlap between Miller and Ries and Trout’s approaches, many of the 22 laws speak to the need to create a consistent story about your brand in the minds of your customers, like selecting just one word to define your brand identity.)
The marketing outline has three benefits, claims Miller:
(Shortform note: While Miller positions the marketing outline’s ease of use, repeatability, and cohesiveness as advantages, they arguably combine to present a drawback of his method: It’s not very flexible. When you have only a single, easily repeatable marketing message, it becomes difficult to reposition or reframe your brand for different markets and audiences. This means a company with a flexible marketing strategy may have a competitive advantage because it can shift its messaging to appeal to different markets. Still, Miller might argue that a marketing-flexible company sacrifices cohesiveness across markets and audiences. It may be that a company must choose between cohesiveness and flexibility.)
Now that you understand the importance and benefits of the marketing outline, let’s look at each part in more detail:
Start the story by telling your customer-protagonist what they want and the gap that exists between them and fulfilling that want, writes Miller. Pointing out that gap to the customer elicits an urge in them to fill it.
For instance, you might point out that your customer wants to have a fully landscaped backyard. The customer will feel urged to fill the gap between their currently undesigned backyard and a landscaped backyard—by purchasing or learning about your design services.
(Shortform note: The implicit logic behind the first part is that when you tell the customer what they want, they will want it, no matter what the product is. But this isn’t necessarily the case. For a product to create a desire in consumers that didn’t previously exist, some argue that it must have five characteristics: newness, surprise, intricacy, mystery, and it must raise questions in the customer. The iPhone is a notable example of a product that created a consumer desire that hadn’t existed before.)
Beyond merely pointing out your customer’s want, ensure the want helps the customer stay alive or prosper, adds Miller. As previously discussed, showing how your brand enables staying alive or prospering is critical to the success of any marketing campaign.
Here are six wants you can raise that Miller claims promote staying alive and prospering:
Marketing Wants Based on the Need for Love and Acceptance
The wants Miller lists above are based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. According to this psychological model, humans first are driven to address basic survival needs for food, shelter, and rest. Once we’ve addressed those, we move on to higher-order needs for security, acceptance and love, esteem, and personal fulfillment.
Interestingly, Miller omits a crucial element of Maslow’s hierarchy in his list of marketing wants: the need for love and acceptance. Brands that might benefit from raising such a want in their marketing include beauty and personal care brands. These can promise to fill the gap between the customer and their wish to be loved by making them more desirable or appealing to others.
For example, the popular Old Spice commercial speaks directly to peoples’ desire to be loved by showing a more desirable version of the average man and claiming that to be like the attractive, gentlemanly man in the commercial, they just need to use Old Spice body wash.
Once you’ve stated the customer-protagonist’s want, identify a problem standing in the way of achieving their want that your product or service overcomes, writes Miller. Without a problem or conflict, customers lose interest in your narrative. What’s more, the more specific and realistic the problem, the more the customer will invest emotionally in the story because they see themselves reflected in your brand.
(Shortform note: Miller writes that you should identify a real problem your customer faces to maintain their attention to your story. You could alternatively see this step as showing compassion toward your customer. Everyone has problems, so if you can prove your brand perfectly understands your customer’s problems and can help resolve them, you’re extending compassion toward them. And compassion in turn feels good to the customer and engages them in your narrative.)
Make it easy for the customer to grasp the problem by presenting or personifying it as a villain, continues Miller. For instance, you could present waiting in line at grocery stores as a villain. Your online grocery delivery tool then defeats the villain.
(Shortform note: Miller’s advice to personify problems as a villain speaks to humans' general tendency to personify objects from an early stage in life. Personification in children is a form of playfulness, and in adults, it can reduce the emotional impact of loneliness.)
Now that you know to include a problem in your storyline, let’s look at the three levels of problems that Miller claims exist:
Understand Your Customer’s Problems by Asking Questions
In To Sell Is Human, Daniel Pink supplements Miller’s idea that there are three levels of problems with information on how to identify which level the customer’s problem exists on.
Pink writes in the context of personal selling, meaning a setting in which salespeople can have a dialogue with the customer to uncover what their problems are. According to Pink, salespeople should ask thoughtful, targeted questions to understand the customer’s problems. Thorough questioning makes it more likely the salesperson will grasp which level(s) the problem exists on and be able to explain how the product resolves the problem on those levels.
For instance, a customer may tell you upfront that their current software has bugs (external problem). However, they won’t always tell you how frustrating they find it when their work is constantly interrupted by system failures (internal problem) or that they believe that a service should deliver what it promises to do (philosophical problem). By asking good questions, a savvy salesperson can uncover those other problem levels and then build a pitch that targets them all.
To build an exceptional story, show how your product or service resolves the customer’s problem on all three levels, advises Miller. Let’s use the example of the grocery delivery service to illustrate this. The service solves a physical, real-world problem (external): keeping the customer from wasting time standing in lines at grocery stores. It also resolves a frustration (internal): relieving the customer’s annoyance of not having enough time to get through all their chores. Finally, it addresses a broader human problem (philosophical): restoring the balance the customer’s life should have.
(Shortform note: Miller recommends revealing how your product can resolve your problem on all three levels. But do all products resolve a problem on all three levels? Marketer Seth Godin might argue that all products can do anything if the marketer convinces the customer that they can: He believes that if brands tell the right story about the product, and customers believe the story, then the story becomes truth. If your brand therefore can weave a convincing narrative that your product can resolve the customer’s internal, external, and philosophical problems, then the product does resolve those problems, according to Godin.)
We’ve begun the storyline by revealing the customer-protagonist’s want and their obstacle to achieving it. Now is when your brand steps in, writes Miller. Position your brand as your customer’s mentor in the story: a figure who helps them overcome their obstacles and attain their desires. As a mentor, your brand is an all-knowing, experienced being who encourages and supports the struggling, self-doubting protagonist, explains Miller.
(Shortform note: Even outside of stories, humans love having mentors who do the same things Miller’s story mentors do in Part 3. Mentors greatly increase the chances of the mentee’s success by contributing valuable knowledge and experience that could take the mentee years to acquire on their own. What’s more, they can use their connections to grow the mentee’s network or simply boost their confidence.)
Before a brand-mentor can help a customer, it must earn the customer’s trust: Trust encourages a customer to further engage with the brand, writes Miller. Your brand can earn this trust by displaying two qualities:
Be compassionate by showing that you understand your customer’s problem—and even that you have the same problem, writes Miller. Then, communicate to them that you want to help. This compassion encourages trust in your brand.
(Shortform note: To effectively position themselves as a compassionate mentor, brands need to put in the work necessary to understand their customers. For example, delivery service Postmates’ 2018 campaign in Los Angeles began with thorough market research. Postmates learned as much as possible about its customers and where they lived by tracking ordering trends across LA’s neighborhoods over time. Then, the company created a campaign featuring specific problems Los Angelenos faced—like wanting an açai bowl but not knowing how to pronounce it—followed by the words “we get it,” showing compassion by implying Postmates understood the customer and would fetch the product for them.)
Demonstrate your brand’s competence as a mentor by showing that you’ve mentored others before, asserts Miller. When customers sense you have a strong track record, they trust you. One way Miller recommends establishing competence is by displaying customer testimonials in your marketing materials.
(Shortform note: Miller recommends establishing competence using testimonials. But do testimonials convince customers of a brand’s competence and generate trust? It seems so: They can generate a 62% increase in revenue from every customer, every time they buy from you.)
Once you’ve positioned yourself as your customer’s mentor, present them with a step-by-step plan to overcome their problem—in this case, the plan to purchase and implement your product or service, counsels Miller. Customers are always looking for reasons not to take the risk of making a purchase, and confusion and fear are two common reasons. A plan eliminates confusion and fear, clearing the way for your customer to make the purchase.
(Shortform note: A step-by-step plan may reduce confusion and ambiguity for salespeople as well as customers. Mike Weinberg, author of New Sales. Simplified, argues that in face-to-face sales calls, salespeople must come prepared with a plan, rather than improvising. This avoids losing the customer’s attention on confusing or irrelevant side-points and keeps the salesperson in control. Weinberg outlines eight specific stages of a good sales call, starting with building a relationship with the customer and ending with setting up next steps.)
You can create two types of plans for customers:
According to Miller, instructional plans walk customers through the concrete steps to either purchase your product, implement it after the purchase, or a blend of both. The aim of an instructional plan is to eradicate customer confusion about how to purchase or use your product. Miller advises including three to six steps in your instructional plan and communicating it to customers in your marketing material.
If you sell meal kits, for instance, your instructional plan might be: “Step 1: Log into our website and customize your meal kit. Step 2: Receive and unpackage your meal kit. Step 3: Cook delicious meals for your family.”
(Shortform note: The key values of simplicity and clarity, which Miller emphasizes in the instructional plan, appear again and again in other advice on marketing. The more you can eliminate ambiguity and complexity around your product in the mind of the customer, the greater your chances of making a sale. You might consider adding clarity and simplicity to your business by paring down your product selection, pricing, or features or by simplifying store or website layouts to facilitate buying.)
The promise plan lists the promises you make to your customer about how you’ll do business with them, writes Miller. This plan makes purchasing from you less risky and scary in the customer’s eyes. An example of a promise plan for your meal kit company might be: “You’ll only receive food that’s locally sourced. You’ll be able to responsibly recycle our packaging. If you’re not satisfied with our product, we guarantee your money back.”
(Shortform note: Miller writes that a promise plan explains how you’ll do good business with the customer. Such plans are usually easier to create for products than for services because you often can’t redo a service in the same way you can repair a product. Nonetheless, service-centered companies can get creative when thinking of ways to guarantee customer satisfaction. For example, you could provide a voucher for free future services, refund money, or pay for services from another company. An advantage of a strong promise plan is that you can charge more for your services upfront because removing customers’ risks reduces their fear, making them willing to pay more.)
Now that you’ve outlined how your customer can solve their problem with your product, call them to action to buy, instructs Miller. It won’t be clear to the customer what you want them to do—buy your product or service—if you don’t explicitly and repeatedly tell them.
(Shortform note: Not only do customers need calls to action to buy, as Miller claims, but they also expect them. This is because customer expectations are shaped by past experiences and beliefs, known as perceptual sets. Because most consumers have visited websites with calls to action before, they have a perceptual set that tells them the next website they visit should have a call to action describing what to do.)
Don’t fear appearing insistent or too bold in your marketing materials, presses Miller. Repetition and boldness are signs of confidence in your product. Customers usually opt for the brand that’s clear about what they want the customer to do.
(Shortform note: While Miller insists that repetition and boldness signal confidence in your product, others advocate for a more self-deprecating approach to marketing: making fun of themselves or their product. This is because being self-deprecating shows customers you’re authentic and honest, two appealing brand traits.)
According to Miller, marketers should implement two types of calls to action: calls to buy and calls to engage. Let’s look at each:
A call to buy leads to a purchase or is the first step toward a purchase, writes Miller. These are unambiguous, direct calls, like “Buy Now!,” “Schedule a Consultation,” or “Apply Now.” Miller stresses that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for the business you want from your customer.
When creating a call to buy on your website or marketing materials, draw attention to it by:
(Shortform note: While Miller’s strategies might be a good starting point to draw attention to your call to buy, they won’t be effective at generating purchases if the call to buy itself is weak. Other marketers argue there are additional, more specific rules dictating how to create the ideal call to buy. One piece of advice is to start the call with a strong, specific imperative verb, like “subscribe,” “learn,” or “buy.” Also, create a sense of urgency by using time-specific words and phrases like “now” or “before it’s too late.” Wherever possible, induce an emotional reaction. Do this by simply adding an exclamation mark to the end of the call or by referencing a positive outcome of taking action: saving money, for example. Finally, if possible, tailor your calls to action by device. On your mobile site, which customers access on their phones, ask them to “call to get started,” for example.)
A call to engage offers your customer helpful information that presents you as a competent mentor, writes Miller. A call to engage doesn’t directly funnel your customer toward a sale. Rather, it positions you as a worthy brand in their mind so they’ll think of you when they do need your product. An example of a call to engage might be an educational PDF or video series, a sample of your product, or a test run.
(Shortform note: Gary Vaynerchuk discusses the concept of the call to engage in detail in Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. In the book’s titular boxing metaphor, calls to engage are “jabs” and calls to buy are “right hooks.” Vaynerchuk believes that before you present the call to buy, you must first establish a relationship of trust with the customer using calls to engage. He adds that calls to engage work best when they’re funny, raise questions, or entertain. Unlike Miller, Vaynerchuk writes exclusively in the social media world, meaning that for him, calls to engage are always social media posts. For Miller, calls to engage can be a number of differing offerings.)
Once you’ve called your customer to action, tell them what’s at stake if they don’t act, advises Miller. Without a sense of negative consequence from not buying your product or service, the customer won’t feel compelled to buy. For instance, you can tell customers that your chiropractic services will improve their posture, but unless you also tell them that bad posture can lead to back problems, they likely won’t feel enough of an urge to engage your services.
(Shortform note: You can use comparative advertising to point out a negative consequence of not buying from you—in other words, compare your brand to lesser competitor brands the customer should avoid. In this context, the other, inferior brand is the negative consequence for the customer to avoid. For this marketing tactic to be ethical, ensure your claim is objective (“market-leading” is considered an objective claim, while “best” is not). Also, be sure you’re comparing to brands that offer products with the same purpose so the comparison is fair. Finally, ensure any claims you make are verifiable by indicating what information you’ve based the claim on and where the customer can find that information.)
Miller adds that it’s important to elicit only a moderate amount of anxiety about the negative stakes for your customer. If you overplay the negative stakes (”You’ll damage your back irreparably without my services!”) you’ll repulse your customers, but if you underplay the negative stakes (“There’s a small chance your back might hurt occasionally without my services”) you won’t create enough of an urge to buy.
(Shortform note: Miller claims that a moderate amount of fear motivates consumers to act while an excessive amount of fear turns them off from buying. This principle arguably applies outside of a marketing context, too: Humans seem to function best under moderate, not extreme, conditions. This also applies to the level of stress in our lives. Moderate stress can bolster focus and motivation, while too much stress kills motivation and creates a feeling of overwhelm. Likewise, without any stress at all, we may not feel motivated enough to do anything.)
In this most important part, show the specific, simple, positive outcome—or happy ending—of buying your product, writes Miller. Your customer won’t understand how your product will improve their life unless you show them. Miller advises being specific and simple because it’s hard for customers to desire a vague, complex positive outcome.
For example, to advertise your bone-strengthening supplement, don’t write “these supplements will improve your life,” (vague) but rather: “supplements to make you feel 10 years younger” (specific). Further, don’t explain how having stronger bones will reduce customers’ health insurance premiums (complex). Instead, show people moving easily and enjoying life (simple).
(Shortform note: In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau not only advocates showing your customer the positive outcome of buying your product but also advises focusing on the experience of the positive outcome, rather than the specific attributes of it that are less emotionally resonant. For instance, this means you should present the happy ending of purchasing bone supplements as the experience of being active and free and not as the specific attributes of having better hip mobility.)
We’ve just walked through all seven parts of the marketing outline, but there’s one remaining, overarching part of the story for you to think about, writes Miller: your customer’s transformation.
The strongest motivator of human action and behavior is the desire to transform into someone better, explains Miller. If you position yourself as an enabler of your customer’s transformation, you become more than simply a brand: You become a way of life.
(Shortform note: Miller claims that all humans are inherently interested in improving themselves. Yet studies show that different generations have differing levels of commitment to bettering themselves. Millennials are more interested than previous generations in self-improvement, possibly because all their basic needs have generally always been met, leaving plenty of time to think about more complex concerns. Another reason may be that millennials’ expectations of themselves are higher than those of previous generations, as research seems to indicate.)
To understand what your customers want to transform into, identify their aspirational identity, suggests Miller. This is how your customers would like to see themselves. For instance, if you offer exercise boot camps, your customers’ aspirational identity is someone fit and rugged.
(Shortform note: To discover what your customers’ aspirational identity is, you might consider interviewing them. If you do speak face to face to customers or potential customers, be sure to pay attention to silences and omissions as much as to what they do say, recommend Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles in Raving Fans. These are often more telling of what customers really want or mean.)
Once you know what your customer wants to become and they’ve joined your story by purchasing your product, tell them when they’ve achieved their desired transformation, writes Miller. For example, mark your customer’s transformation into a fit, rugged person after a certain number of months by offering them a reward, like a free class or a social media shout-out.
(Shortform note: In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau describes the importance of customer transformation in the context of product creation, not marketing. He recommends designing your product so that customers feel superior after using it. In the same way that marketers should reflect on how to explain how products transform people, product designers should reflect on how to make products that transform people.)
Now that you have a storyline, transfer the ideas and content in that storyline to your marketing materials, writes Miller. The more you implement your storyline in your marketing, the more customers will sign up to star in your story.
Miller recommends implementing your storyline in six ways:
Your website, a key piece of your marketing, should include only the minimum amount of information to convince customers you have the solution they’re looking for and are trustworthy, asserts Miller. What’s more, ensure every image, idea, and word on your website is inspired by your storyline, and eliminate anything that’s not.
Improving Your Website’s User Experience
Even if you implement Miller’s advice for overhauling your website, your site may fall flat and your customers may not trust you unless you implement the basic tenets of user experience: in other words, making your website frictionless and easy to navigate. Here are some tips for improving user experience and creating an easy-to-browse website that inspires trust in your customers:
Make your navigation easy to use. When customers easily understand how to move around on your site, you eliminate confusion and build trust. Do this by using a maximum of seven main menu buttons.
Double-check your site for errors. Errors, like dead links, images that won’t load, and typos, reduce customer trust.
Reduce the number of choices the customer must make. When customers face too many options on a page, they become confused and are likely to leave.
Encourage customers to scroll down. When customers scroll, they become more invested in your site and product, and this makes them more likely to buy. To encourage scrolling, make sure the information above the fold—what you see before you scroll—is engaging enough to encourage deeper interest.
Miller also recommends writing a brand logline: a short, repeatable phrase or sentence that answers the question: “What does your company do?” When writing your logline, use the following elements from your storyline: the customer-protagonist, the problem, the plan, and the happy ending.
For example, if you sell a line of herbal teas your brand logline might be: “Find serenity in your hectic workday with our customizable, pre-packaged tea blends.” The customer here is a busy office worker, the problem is the hectic workday, the plan is to use easy, hassle-free pre-packaged blends, and the happy ending is finding serenity.
(Shortform note: Other marketing specialists have devised alternative ways to succinctly describe your business to others. In To Sell Is Human, Daniel H. Pink outlines four different pitches that vary in length. These are more situation-specific than Miller’s logline, which he advises using across all marketing platforms. Pink’s recommended pitches are: the single-word pitch (which simplifies your message to its absolute core), the question pitch (phrased as a question to the customer, which inspires connection), the email subject-line pitch (which makes the recipient curious enough to open an email), and the longest: the Twitter pitch (which inspires a base of followers to act).)
Implement a four-email, prewritten, automated campaign that begins when an email address is added to your email list, advises Miller. The first three emails should simply be calls to engage. The fourth email should contain a call to buy. Repeat this sequence every month. The goal of the email campaign is simply to get your brand into customers’ consciousness, assures Miller. That way, when they do need a product or service, they’ll think of you first.
(Shortform note: Miller alludes to the fact that most marketing emails go unopened (which is why your only goal with an email campaign should be to get your customer to see your brand name). Indeed, in most industries, email open rates hover around 20%. That said, unsubscribe rates are also low, usually around 0.20%. This supports Miller’s claim that email is a good way to at least get your brand name out there because while few customers will read the email, most of them will stay subscribed and continue to see your brand name in their inboxes.)
Structure emails around the customer’s problem, counsels Miller: Describe the problem, how you’ll solve it, and how much better life will be once it’s solved.
(Shortform note: We’re beginning to see that even in the small pieces of your marketing, Miller believes you should continue telling truncated versions of the storyline. His recommendation for structuring your email is, in essence, a condensed version of the storyline. It’s worth bearing this in mind as you explore different forms of marketing, like social media marketing: Implement your storyline everywhere.)
Solicit and share customer testimonials that describe how your product transformed their life for the better, recommends Miller. As we’ve already explored, people are most motivated by the desire to transform and will want the same transformational experience you’ve provided others. Just asking customers for testimonials won’t give you the stories of transformation you want, though, warns Miller. Instead, ask pointed questions that prompt the reader to describe or allude to a transformation: for instance, “how has our product changed your day-to-day life?”
How Much Can Brands Shape Testimonials?
Miller suggests you ask customers targeted questions to solicit the information needed to create a compelling story of customer transformation. While this is a far cry from outright lying or inventing a customer testimonial, it nonetheless begs the question: How do potential customers know that a testimonial is objective, rather than unduly influenced or even created by the company requesting it?
Fortunately, in the US there are legal safeguards that ensure customer testimonials are based on a real person’s experience. Fake testimonials are illegal because they confer an unfair advantage over competitors and mislead customers. Additionally, in most cases, paid testimonials are also illegal, unless the testimonial clearly states that the customer is being paid but that their contribution is nonetheless truthful.
Finally, implement a referral system that enables happy customers to recommend your product to others and rewards them for it, advises Miller. The easiest way to do this is to send an automated email to customers who’ve made one to two purchases containing a video or resource they can pass to friends. If they refer a new customer, offer existing customers a reward, such as a commission, a gift, or membership in an affiliate program.
(Shortform note: Marketing specialists extol the virtues of referrals because they have the highest return on investment compared to other marketing tactics and generate leads who already have a strong level of interest in your product. However, specialists advise companies to ask for referrals early in the customer relationship, when the customer is still impressed with your product. Wait too long, and they lose the excitement that would cause them to refer you to a friend. Miller’s recommendation to present an opportunity to refer another customer after only one or two purchases is likely early enough.)
In Building a StoryBrand, marketing expert Donald Miller explains how to create effective marketing messages and materials:
If you find that your brand is stagnant, it probably isn’t because your product is flawed. It probably is because there’s a problem with the message you’re sending out in your marketing. The only thing customers care about is how your brand can solve their problems. As a result, marketing that’s unclear or confusing, that doesn’t explain how your product solves problems, or that is self-centered and obsesses about the company's image, is doomed to fail.
Noise is the massive amount of distracting, confusing information that permeates the world. An example of noise is the 3,000 marketing messages the average person is exposed to every day. While outside noise is something your brand will have to compete with, your biggest enemy is actually the noise your brand creates itself.
Brands often don’t realize they’re creating noise. They think that customers like hearing about their backstory, the non-profits they support, the eco-friendly features of their office building, and so on. But customers don’t care about any of these things. They just want to know how your brand will help them solve their problems.
For example, one StoryBrand client ran an industrial painting company that painted cars, concrete, and hospitals. The website was crowded with text that tried to explain all three arms of the businesses but ultimately just created noise. The author suggested starting over. The new website would have only a few words of text along the lines of “We Paint Stuff” and a button that said, “Request a Quote.”
Many messages are noisy because they don’t accommodate the way the human brain works. Subconsciously and by nature, the human brain is interested in things that will help us survive. This results in two behaviors:
Behavior #1: The brain focuses on things that will help it meet survival needs. According to Abraham Maslow, the brain prioritizes needs in this order:
Behavior #2: The brain ignores anything that’s complicated because parsing complexity uses up energy and calories. Those calories could be better spent on something that will help with survival, such as finding food or a mate.
To catch the brain’s attention, you need to cater to how it works. Therefore, your marketing needs to both:
There are several ways to frame your offerings around survival. Show your customers that your product or service will help them:
Story is one of the most simple and digestible ways to transmit information because it organizes information into a predictable, formulaic format that both 1) doesn’t take very much energy to understand and that 2) holds an audience’s attention. Neuroscientists discovered that people daydream more than 30% of the time, except when they’re engrossed in a story.
The author has encountered people who think storytelling is fanciful or impractical. This isn’t the case—storytelling is a concrete formula that’s as valid as any management or manufacturing formula.
To understand why stories communicate so well, consider the difference between music and noise. Both are sound, but music is organized and follows certain rules. This allows the brain to more easily retain it. For example, if you listened to shoes bouncing around in a dryer, you wouldn’t remember the sounds, but if you listened to the latest pop song, it would probably get stuck in your head. Music is like story—it puts random information into a structure that aids comprehension.
We’ll cover how to create your story in Part 2.
Brands that communicate the clearest are the ones that succeed, whether or not they have the best products or leadership.
For example, Apple became successful only after it started using a storytelling approach. In 1983, when Steve Jobs helped release a computer called Lisa, he took out a nine-page newspaper ad that talked about Lisa’s technical specifications. No one understood it, no one cared, and Lisa failed.
Jobs went to work for Pixar, a company whose entire business revolves around story. Jobs picked up a few things, and when he returned to Apple, his first campaign was only two words: “Think Different.” Apple made their advertising about the customer and what she could do with a computer, rather than about the computer itself.
Apple’s computers and phones probably aren’t the best technology the world has to offer. However, Apple is the best at making people understand what they’re selling, so they’re a very successful company.
In Part 1, we learned that the best way to transmit a message is via story. There are many different ways to write stories—just think about how many books and movies there are out there—but there’s one tried-and-true formula that’s been tested throughout thousands of years of human history.
The author, who founded a company called StoryBrand, has streamlined this formula into a process called the StoryBrand 7-Part Framework (SB7). Using this framework, you’ll follow a step-by-step process to create a BrandScript, which is a document similar to the grids or storyboards that storytellers use to create movies or books. Once you’ve created your BrandScript, you’ll be able to draw on its ideas to write copy and create content you can use in your marketing materials.
The BrandScript is universal and will work for any size of company anywhere in the world. For example, after implementing the framework, in just four years, the author’s company doubled its revenue.
You can create multiple BrandScripts for your company at the overall, divisional, and product levels, and/or for different customer segments.
There are seven elements to the SB7 formula:
Here’s an example of how the formula looks in a story: In Star Wars: A New Hope, hero Luke Skywalker wants the Rebellion to defeat the Empire and restore peace in the universe (1). His problem is that the Empire is very powerful (2). Guide Obi-Wan Kenobi (3) trains Luke to use a lightsaber and trust in the Force (4) and then pushes him to go help the Rebellion take on the Empire (5). If Luke fails, the Rebellion will be destroyed and the Empire will maintain power (6). If Luke succeeds, the Rebellion will avoid defeat (7) and eventually save the universe in the next movies in the series.
Here’s an example of how the formula looks for a brand: (Shortform example: A college student wants study snacks (1) but doesn’t have any free time in which to cook (2). SnackCrate (3) is a company that mails crates of snacks to subscribers once a month (4). The “Subscribe” button on the SnackCrate website calls the student to sign up (5). If the student doesn’t order the snacks, she’ll be hungry (6). If she does, she’ll feel full and she’ll have more free brainpower to put towards studying (7).)
This seven-part story arc is common and popular because it captures the human condition so well. Everyone doubts themselves and wants to save the day and be a hero.
When creating your script, avoid including anything that doesn’t advance the plot. Companies are complicated, but customers aren’t interested in detail. You need to distill everything you do into a quickly digestible message to keep people hooked.
In a movie, there are three things that the audience should learn within the first 20 minutes. If they were to pause the movie at any point thereafter, they should also know the same three things:
The rules are similar for marketing—the customer should learn the following three things within five seconds of looking at your material:
When you come across a book, movie, or brand that appears to break from the formula, look closer. Often, the story is using the formula but is avoiding cliche, so the formula is less obvious. For example, in the play Romeo and Juliet, Romeo doesn’t have an obvious guide. In fact, his guide is Juliet, who guides him in how to love. When SB7 is done well, you don’t even notice it’s being employed.
If a book, movie, or brand truly does break the formula, it’s usually to their detriment. (Shortform example: Literary novels sometimes step away from this formula, and while critics might praise them, the general public doesn’t want something different or edgy—they want a story they can understand.)
The first of the seven story elements is a hero who wants something. In a narrative, the hero is the main character and the center of attention.
In branding, the hero is the customer (not your brand) and you need to come up with something she wants that’s survival-related and associated with your product. (Shortform example: If you sell hand soap, you can suggest the customer wants clean hands, which is related to survival because clean hands help prevent illness.)
First, we’ll discuss why wants are so compelling and how to choose them. Then, we'll discuss how to write these wants into your BrandScript.
The distance between the hero and what she wants is called a story gap. Story gaps are inherently interesting because the human brain craves resolution. For example, try singing “Happy Birthday” but leaving off the last note—it’ll drive you crazy.
The goal of element 1 is to open a story gap to hook your customer’s attention. The gap will stay open, maintaining your customers’ attention, until the story ends.
Even if your product satisfies several wants, focus on only one. Otherwise, you risk being confusing, overloading the customer’s brain, and having her turn to a different company.
Different levels of the company can focus on different wants. Start by choosing a desire for your whole brand, which must be relevant and simple. Then, each division or product can have its own desire. These lower desires are like subplots—surprises and bonuses within something they already liked.
To write your BrandScript:
1. Create an online StoryBrand BrandScript (requires you to create an account) or create your own on a blank sheet of paper. To create your own, first, divide the sheet into eight sections. You’ll use seven of these for the SB7 Framework elements and the last for an exercise in Chapter 9. Then, label the sections as follows:
|
1. Hero The hero wants: ____ ↓ |
3. Guide Evidence of empathy: ____ Evidence of competence: ____ ↓ |
5. Call to Action Direct: ____ Transitional: ____ ↓ |
7. Positive stakes Top positive stakes: ____ ↓ |
2. Problems Villains:____ External problems: ____ Internal problems: ____ Philosophical problems: ____ ↗ |
4. Plan Process plan: ____ Agreement plan: ____ ↗ |
6. Negative stakes Top three negative stakes: ____ ↗ |
8. Aspirational identity From: ____ To: ____ |
In addition to the grid exercise, you can pull inspiration from the three most popular (most aligned with inherent human desires) ways to end stories:
Everyone wants to be popular, respected, or esteemed. For example, think about how many coming-of-age movies feature nerdy characters who end up dating the most popular person at the high school.
There are a few ways a brand can help a hero get status:
In this ending, a hero finds an external factor that completes her. For example, a superhero who’s bad at directions could partner with another superhero whose strength is mapmaking.
There are a few ways a brand can offer external completion:
In this ending, a hero becomes whole by reaching her potential or accepting herself as she is, outcomes that don’t require any external intervention. For example, in Bridget Jones's Diary, for most of the movie, Bridget thinks she wants a relationship with her boss, but in the end, she realizes she’s too good for him.
There are a few ways a brand can offer self-realization:
Once you’ve come up with your specific happy ending, a simple way to describe it is via images. No matter what your product is, an image of happy-looking people engaging with it can be a great marketing tool. (Shortform example: If you sell couches, put a photo of a happy family relaxing on the couch together on your website.)
To write your BrandScript:
The previous chapters in Part 2 have each addressed one of the seven elements of the SB7 story arc. Chapter 9 will address one more facet of story: a hero’s longing to transform. While people are motivated by the possibility of success and failure, the number one thing that motivates humans is the desire to change—to become more self-accepting, different, or better.
In narrative, transformation refers to the new skills the hero learns from the guide and facing the conflict. By the end of the book, after she defeats the villain, she’s a different person than she was at the beginning. (Shortform example: In the Disney movie Mulan, at the beginning of the movie, Mulan doesn’t know how to hold a sword. By the end, she’s saved China from an invading army.)
In branding, transformation refers to the potential to take on a new, aspirational identity. The best brands think hard about what kind of people their customers want to be and then show that ownership of their products is a distinguishing characteristic of that identity. (Shortform example: if you sell hand soap, you can show potential customers that your existing customers are clean, healthy people.) Brands that prioritize changing lives tend to sell a lot of products because customers love brands that help them transform. Likewise, transformation is the key to creating brand evangelists: people who swear by your brand and enthusiastically promote it to others.
When you make use of aspirational identities, you’re not just selling a product—you’re also selling personal improvements. This adds value to your brand.
For example, Gerber Knives advertises their knives being used by adventurous, tough, fearless people—the kind of people who perform rescues and face down wild animals. This advertising suggests that if you buy a knife, you will become an adventurous, tough, fearless person. Even though the author was well aware of this technique, when he came across a display of Gerber Knives in a Home Depot, he still wanted one.
The author later received a Gerber knife as a gift and he’s never used it to rescue anyone. Did the gift-giver waste their money? The author doesn’t think so. Owning it still makes him feel fearless and tough.
It’s not always obvious that a hero has changed because, throughout most of the story, she’s been doubting herself and struggling. As a result, to emphasize the transformation, many stories feature affirmation scenes in which the guide tells the hero how far she’s come. For example, at the end of The King’s Speech, the king’s speech coach tells the king he’ll do a good job ruling.
In branding, as you’re the guide, you need to alert the customer when they’ve transformed. For example, Dave Ramsey, a financial advisor, hosts a radio show about personal debt and runs finance courses. Once customers have completed his courses, he invites them to appear on his radio show and shout “I’m debt-free!” Ramsey and his staff then applaud the transformation.
(To learn more about Dave Ramsey, read our summary of his book The Total Money Makeover.)
To write your BrandScript:
An aspirational identity is the type of person you would become if you owned a certain product.
How would you want your friends to describe you? Why?
What’s one product that’s owned by the type of person you described above?
What specific brands do you know of that make this product?
Probably, the brands that come to mind are employing aspirational identities. How do they display the identities? (For example, do their taglines and slogan describe the identity, or do their ads show photos of certain types of people?)
In Part 2, you created a BrandScript. Now, it’s time to transfer the ideas and content in that script to your marketing materials. The more you can implement your BrandScript into your marketing materials, the more customers will sign up to star in your story. Chapter 10 covers how to use your BrandScript on your website, and subsequent chapters cover how to use it elsewhere.
You don’t need a million-dollar advertising budget to implement your BrandScript. Shoring up your digital presence, particularly your website, can substantially increase your customer engagement. No matter how someone hears about your brand, they’re going to end up on your website at some point to discover more.
The number-one mistake brands make with their websites is including too much noise. In earlier times, it was okay to give a lot of detail about a company on a website. These days, a website should be brief. The only two pieces of information a customer needs to get from your website are:
There are many ways to cut down on noise and improve your website, but there are five ways that will get you more results than any of the others combined. As you read through the recommendations, keep in mind that every single image, idea, and word on your website should be inspired by your BrandScript.
1. Immediately make it clear what you can offer the customer. Place a short phrase and image that explain what your brand does on the top part of your website before a visitor has to scroll. (The part that’s viewable without scrolling is referred to as “above the fold.”) Don’t bury your explanation inside a paragraph.
The text and images above the fold must do at least one of the following:
2. Make the call to action unmistakable. The entire goal of your website is to get someone to buy your product, so the way in which a customer can do that should be obvious.
Here are the steps:
3. Use images to show customer transformations. The images on your website are an opportunity to show the happy ending your product secures for your customers. Use images of happy-looking people using your products. Avoid images of your office building, which no customer is interested in and is a waste of their mental calories.
(Shortform example: Outdoor store Helly Hansen’s website shows pictures of people enjoying the use of Helly Hansen products outdoors.)
4. Simplify your explanation of your revenue streams. It’s not uncommon for businesses to have more than one revenue stream, and if you’re in this situation, you have two options:
Option #1: Find an overall message that represents what you do as a whole.
Option #2: Market your revenue streams separately. Few companies will need to do this—most brands can be united under an overall message.
5. Pare down text. These days, people only skim websites; they don’t read them. The shorter you make the text, the more likely someone is to read it. Some of the best websites the author has seen used less than ten sentences of text. If you do need to explain something at length, only display the first or second sentence and hide the rest behind a “read more” link. That way, no one will be overwhelmed by big blocks of text.
To pare down your text:
There are five effective ways to improve your website.
Picture (or navigate to) your current website. What’s currently above the fold? How could you bolster the content in that area?
What calls to action, both direct and transitional, are currently part of your site? How could you make them more effective? (If you don’t have any, how would you add some?)
What images are currently on your site? What more effective images (that show transformation) could you replace them with?
If your company has multiple revenue streams, what do they have in common? What explanation could you use to unite them? If they’re too diverse to unite, what are their individual messages?
What text is currently on your website? How could you pare it down by at least 50%? Consider replacing text with images, transforming paragraphs into bullet points, and shortening sentences to soundbites.
Fixing up your website was the first step to implementing your BrandScript. Now, it’s time to look at five further steps. These five steps are appropriate for any size or type of business and are almost free.
It may take up to a year to implement all five steps, but you’ll start seeing growth right after implementing the first one. You can hire a StoryBrand guide to help you with these steps if you like. (StoryBrand doesn’t take a percentage from guides or any other certified agents.)
A logline is a short, often one-sentence description of a movie that summarizes the story and hooks in a potential viewer. (Shortform example: The logline for The Hunger Games could be: “To save her sister, a girl enters a life-or-death competition in her place.”) A brand logline does the same thing—it summarizes your brand’s story and invites customers to star as the hero.
Loglines are important because most people who work at a company, even the senior leaders, can’t succinctly explain what the brand does, and they lose people’s interest the moment they try. If everyone memorizes the logline, there’s a go-to, standardized, intriguing answer. Everyone who works at the company becomes a salesperson, and customers who are given an easy-to-remember line repeat it to others.
To create your logline (which can be longer than a single line), you’ll use four of the elements from your BrandScript:
Say your logline to everyone you meet and gauge their interest and comprehension level. If people respond by asking you for more information, you know you’ve created an effective logline.
There are several ways to employ your logline:
A lead generator is something that interests customers in your brand and encourages them to interact with you. In this step (which is one of the most important in the book), you’re specifically using your lead generator to collect email addresses. Email is the most effective way to share information about your brand. For example, the author has hundreds of thousands of connections on social media, but even combined, they can’t compete with email.
Email marketing is also economical—you don’t need a huge budget to make use of it.
Lead generators need to do at least one of the following:
Here are five suggestions for possible lead generators, all of which can also be used as transitional calls to action. For all of them, the potential customer exchanges their email address for access to:
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the possibilities, start with a PDF guide because it’s the easiest. If you need help creating it, you can hire a writer or designer.
Lead generators are more enticing when they have good titles. Consider some of the following:
You should display your lead generator on your website. The author recommends that you offer it in a pop-up that displays after ten seconds of landing on the site. Though everyone says they hate pop-ups, according to stats, they’re a very effective form of marketing.
You might worry about giving out so much valuable content for free, which goes against the marketing adage, give away the why (inform the customer why they need to know about a problem) and sell the how (your product which solves the problem). However, the author encourages you to be generous and writes that he’s never lost money from doing so. Customers look at your free content while they’re in the midst of other things, and when they’re ready to sit down and learn it properly, they’ll be willing to pay.
Depending on the size of your company, you’ll need differing amounts of email addresses before you move on to the next step. A big business might need hundreds of thousands that they then divide into categories based on demographics. If your business makes less than $5 million, then you probably only need to collect 250 email addresses to get results. (Note that email addresses need to belong to qualified customers—customers who have the potential to buy from you.)
An automated email campaign is a series of prewritten emails that are sent on a schedule to anyone who signs up for your lead generator. The goal of this kind of campaign is to remind your customers that your business exists. They may not need whatever product or service you’re offering when they first hear of you, or the next few times they next think of you, but when they do need something, you want them to remember you and how they can contact you.
Even if no one actually reads your emails (20% open rate is the industry average), in the time it takes someone to delete them, she’ll have reread your brand’s name and possibly seen your logo.
Don’t worry if people unsubscribe from your list. This is actually a good thing—they’re self-identifying as unqualified customers who will probably never buy anything from you. If they’re never going to buy, you don’t need to be paying your email service provider to send messages to them.
A nurturing campaign is a series of emails that offer valuable information related to your brand. The goal of a nurturing campaign isn’t to get people to buy; it’s to create reciprocity and trust, and to establish authority. Once in a while during the campaign, you can remind people what you offer and ask for a sale.
Typically in a nurturing campaign, emails go out once a week. The first three emails are nurturing—they share information—and the fourth is a call to action. Then, the pattern repeats.
To create the nurturing email, follow the formula below and use the ideas and content you came up with in your BrandScript:
Shortform Example
Email Subject: The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Dear [customer name],
There are so many good chocolate chip recipes out there—which to try first? (1) Here at Yummy Cooking Store, our staff has tested over fifty chocolate chip recipes and we’d like to share our favorite with you (2):
[recipe]
We’re sure you, your friends, and your family will love these cookies! (3)
Happy baking!
Sincerely,
Yummy Cooking Store
We equip amateur bakers with the tools they need to pull off even the toughest recipes and impress their family and friends. (5)
P.S. Next time you’re in our neck of the woods, pop into the store and tell us about your favorite dessert—we have recipe recommendations for everything! (4)
To create the call to action email, follow the formula below and use the ideas and content you came up with in your BrandScript. (Steps 1 and 3 are the same as for the nurturing email.)
Shortform Example
Email Subject: A solution for stuck cakes
Dear [customer name],
At some point or another, every baker encounters a cake that sticks to the bottom of the pan (1). No matter how well you greased or floured the pan, your cake is stuck, and it’s nearly inevitable that it’ll break as you try to get it out. We hate this so much we developed a special non-stick cake pan that makes cakes slide right out the pan (2). No more banging on pans or cutting cakes out of them! (3)
Right now, we’re offering this cake pan at half price. Call us today at 123-4567 to reserve yours. (4)
Happy baking!
Sincerely,
Yummy Cooking Store
info@deliciousbaking.com
We equip amateur bakers with the tools they need to pull off even the toughest recipes and impress their family and friends.
P.S. Make sure to call today—the pans are going fast! (4)
There are many different kinds of email campaign software, and the author recommends:
Testimonials are statements from previous customers that endorse your brand or product. As we learned in Chapter 4 (Guide), testimonials establish authority. Additionally, they can act as transitional calls to action because they encourage customers to connect with your brand—when a customer sees that you’ve helped someone else get a happy ending, she wants the same ending for herself.
For example, one episode of a StoryBrand podcast included a testimonial interview with someone who achieved good results using the StoryBrand framework. After the episode was released, the number of new registrations for marketing workshops immediately and substantially increased.
The best testimonials show that:
Left to their own devices, customers might write general or unhelpful testimonials (“My daughter is a wonderful artist! I recommend her paintings!”) either because they’re too busy to wordsmith or they’re not good at communicating. To point them in the right direction, ask them questions that will lead them towards addressing the material you want:
You can ask these questions in a form or a video interview. Once you have your answers, cut the questions and splice together the answers to create a testimonial.
Once you have your testimonials, splash them on all your marketing material, from email campaigns to events. (Shortform example: Zendesk has an entire page dedicated to testimonials.)
A referral system encourages satisfied customers to recommend your brand to others. According to studies by the American Marketing Association, recommendations and referrals are up to 250% more effective than other marketing efforts, and anecdotally, many business owners say that they get most of their new customers via word of mouth.
(To learn more about harnessing word of mouth, read our summary of Jonah Berger’s Contagious.)
There’s a step-by-step process to creating a referral system:
Step #1: Assemble a database of existing customers. In order to help your current customers tell their friends about you, you need to know who your current customers are and how to contact them.
Step #2: Create a transitional call to action, specifically a video or PDF, that customers can pass on to their friends. The video should show the solution to a problem.
Step #3: Reward customers for referrals (optional). You can reward customers either: 1) by giving them a gift or discount if they recommend your brand and someone purchases as a result or 2) creating an affiliate program. An affiliate program gives a customer a percentage of the sale that resulted from them directing someone to you.
You can use your email campaign software to set up an automatic referral system. Whenever a customer places an order, set up a campaign that sends them a transitional call to action to share or notifies them about a potential reward if they make a referral. Make sure you set up the system so it stops sending these emails after a customer places multiple orders so they don’t get annoyed.
There are five ways to implement your story into your marketing materials.
Brainstorm some possible loglines for your company. Remember that loglines should include the hero (customer), problem, plan, and positive stakes.
What would be an effective lead generator for your company? For example, you might offer a free trial or a downloadable guide.
What valuable information might you share with potential customers in a nurturing campaign? What format (email, video, and so on) would you use?
Which of your satisfied customers might you approach about writing you a testimonial?
To encourage referrals, what could you offer customers who send their friends your way? For example, you might offer existing customers a discount on their next purchase or a sample they can share with their friends.
As you’ve seen in previous chapters, you can use stories to clearly communicate with and engage your customers. You can also use stories to communicate and engage with your employees.
First, we’ll look at storyless workplaces with weak culture. Then, we’ll look at storied workplaces with strong culture.
The “narrative void” describes a plotless, empty expanse within an organization. When there’s no story, people don’t know what roles they play, what they’re supposed to do, or why they should care.
If your company has a narrative void, all the different divisions and departments are disconnected. Only people within a department understand what that department does, and everyone’s making decisions from their own point of view. No matter how much people think their decisions affect only their departments, they do affect the rest of the organization. As a result, corporate communication becomes internal noise, social media shares confusing messaging, and local marketing descends into frantic discounting.
If a company is plagued by a narrative void, disengagement often starts straight from onboarding. At a plotless workplace:
Gallup polls, which measure employee engagement, give some insight into both the presence of a narrative void and employee effort. Disengagement is a symptom of narrative void, and when employees are disengaged, they don’t work as hard and they’re less productive.
When Gallup started collecting data in the 1990s, they discovered that four out of five employees in the US weren’t interested in their work. Disengaged employees take more sick days and leave companies for other opportunities. Employers pay employees the same amount whether they’re invested or not, and in 2012, Gallup estimated that each year, disengagement costs the US between $450 to $550 billion.
Unless you fill the narrative void at your company and prevent disengagement, your company may suffer from some of these issues.
Many companies try to fill the narrative void with a mission statement. Missions bring people together, but statements aren’t as effective as stories. Mission statements aren’t very engaging and are often too complicated for people to process or remember. As we’ve learned, a story is a more effective way to communicate.
Additionally, even once you employ a story, just because the executive knows the story doesn’t mean everyone does. The most important thing an executive can do is keep repeating the story until everyone gets it.
Instead of promoting your mission statement, try to create narrative cohesion (Shortform term). If your company has narrative cohesion, the customer, company, and team’s stories all align, employees are engaged, and the organization is successful.
To fill a narrative void and create culture and engagement, you’ll follow a two-step process:
To implement the customer-centered story throughout the organization, you'll use the StoryBrand culture program. This program has five steps:
(Shortform note: The author doesn’t explain these steps in further detail. For more information about culture, read our summaries of Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code or Patrick M. Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.)
After completing the steps, everyone at the company will use the same BrandScript and can succinctly explain the brand’s story. All the different divisions and departments will be connected and everyone will understand how their role fits into the story. For example, corporate communication becomes an empowered mission and engaging messages, social media shares brand sentiment, and local marketing becomes targeted.
Extended Example: Fast-Food Chain
Ben Ortlip, a StoryBrand director, worked with a fast-food chain to improve their story. The chain was doing well but Ortlip thought they could be doing better. As he toured the company, he noticed that their operations, product, and marketing were solid. The problem was that the company was complacent and had lost its plot.
To get it back, Ortlip helped the company create a narrative and share it with all stakeholders. They created a video curriculum and organized a convention, retreats, and events such as beach concerts at which attendees discussed the narrative. Once people understood the company’s story, they re-engaged and the company’s growth increased 25% in under three years.
In this story, the employee or team will act as the hero and the company’s leadership as the guide. Compensation, events, and professional development are the plan the guide gives the heroes to help them overcome the problem (disengagement) and achieve the positive stakes (narrative cohesion). (Employee engagement is based on the employee value proposition—what the employee gets from their workplace, such as compensation, flexibility, and the chance to star in a story.)
Leaders, like companies, often think they want to be the heroes, but the outcome they want actually comes from their acting as the guide. The guide is the competent, respected character.
Recall the plotless workplace that stems from a narrative void. At a company with a story, the onboarding goes very differently:
Employing both customer- and employee-targeted stories not only increases an organization’s success, it improves the lives of everyone involved. Every time a customer’s life gets better, the world gets a little bit better.