Big Ideas

Donald Miller's "Building a Story Brand" defines what he calls the SB7 framework to help companies clarify their marketing and while making their offer more compelling for potential customers. The structure of the SB7 framework mirrors the structure of a story. By talking about your brand in terms of this narrative framework you can ensure that customers not only understand exactly what it is that you do but also feel compelled to engage with you.

The core ideas are:

• Customers don't buy the best products and services, they buy the products and services that are easiest to understand.
• By framing your products and services in context of the customer's life and their perceptions of themself you make it easier for them to both understand what you do and how it can help them.
• Customers don't care about your business, they care about what it can do for them.
• A story is the most interesting and natural way to communicate information.
  

The Simple SB7 Framework

1. A character: "The customer is the hero, not your brand."
2. Has a problem: "Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but customers buy solutions to internal problems."
3. And meets a guide: "Customers aren't looking for another hero; they're looking for a guide."
4. Who gives them a plan: "Customers trust a guide who has a plan."
5. And calls them to action: "Customers do not take action unless they are challenged to take action."
6. That helps them avoid failure: "Every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending."
7. And ends in success: "Never assume people understand how your brand can change their lives. Tell them."
   

Notes

• "Customers don't generally care about your [company] story; they care about their own."
• "Your customer should be the hero of the story, not your brand. This is the secret every phenomenally successful business understands."
  

I. Why Most Marketing is a Money Pit

The Key to Being Seen, Heard and Understood

• "Even if we have the best product in the marketplace, we'll lose to an inferior product if our competitor's offer is communicated more clearly."
• "The first mistake brands make is they fail to focus on the aspects of their offer that will help people survive and thrive."
• "The second mistake brands make is they cause their customers to burn too many calories in an effort to understand their offer."
• "If you confuse, you lose."
• "Customer's make buying decisions not based on what we say but on what they hear."
  

The Secret Weapon That Will Grow Your Business

• "Story is the greatest weapon we have to combat noise, because it organizes information in such a way that people are compelled to listen."
• "People don't buy the best products; they buy the products they can understand the fastest."
• Definition of a story
  

"A CHARACTER who wants something encounters a PROBLEM before they can get it. At the peak of their despair, a GUIDE steps into their lives, gives them a PLAN, and CALLS THEM TO ACTION. That action helps them avoid FAILURE and ends in a SUCCESS."

• Three Crucial questions
• ~What does the hero want?
• ~Who or what is opposing the hero getting what she wants?
• ~What will the hero's life look like if she doe (or does not) get what she wants?
• Grunt Test
• ~What do you offer?
• ~How will it make my life better?
• ~What do I need to do to buy it?
  

The Simple SB7 Framework

1. A character: "The customer is the hero, not your brand."
2. Has a problem: "Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but customers buy solutions to internal problems."
3. And meets a guide: "Customers aren't looking for another hero; they're looking for a guide."
4. Who gives them a plan: "Customers trust a guide who has a plan."
5. And calls them to action: "Customers do not take action unless they are challenged to take action."
6. That helps them avoid failure: "Every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending."
7. And ends in success: "Never assume people understand how your brand can change their lives. Tell them."

II. Building Your StoryBrand

A Character

• "When you define something your customer wants, the customer is invited to alter their story in your direction."
• "Choose a desire relevant to their survival"
• "The goal for our branding should be that every potential customer knows exactly where we want to take them."
  

Has a Problem

• "Identifying our customer's problems deepens their interest in the story we are telling."
• "The villain is the number one device storytellers use to give conflict a clear point of focus."
• Three levels of problems:
• ~External
• ~Internal
• ~Philosophical
• "If we really want to satisfy our customers, we can offer much more than products or services; we can offer to resolve an external, internal, and philosophical problem whenever they engage our business."
  

And Meets a Guide

• "Always position your customer as the hero and your brand as the guide. Always. If you don't, you will die."
• "The day we stop losing sleep over the success of our business and start losing sleep over the success of our customers is the day our business will start growing again."
• "The two things a brand must communicate to position themselves as the guide are:
• ~Empathy
• ~Authority
  

Who Gives Them a Plan

• "All effective plans do one of two things: they either clarify how somebody can do business with us, or they remove the sense of risk somebody might have if they're considering investing in our products or services."
• Process Plans
• ~Schedule and appointment
• ~Allow us to create a customized plan
• ~Let's execute the plan together
• Agreement Plans - "a list of agreement you make with your customers to help them overcome their fear of doing business with you."
  

And Calls Them to Action

• "The fast way to grow a company is to make the calls to action clear and then repeat them over and over."
• "Most people think they're overselling when, in truth, their calls to action fall softer than a whisper."
• Direct Calls to Action
• ~The one obvious button to press or thing to do
• Transitional Calls to Action
• ~Free information
• ~View testimonials
• ~Free samples
• ~Free trials
  

That Helps Them Avoid Failure

• "Brands that don't warn their customers about what could happen if they don't buy their products fail to answer the "so what" question every customer is secretly asking."
• "Blog subjects, email content, and bullet points on our website can all include elements of potential failure to give our customers a sense of urgency when it comes to our products and services."
• "What negative consequences are you helping customers avoid?"
• "Once we've defined the stakes, your customers will be motivated to resist failure."
  

And Ends in a Success

• "Where is your brand taking people?"
• "We must tell our customers what their lives will look like after they buy our products, or they will have no motivation to do so."
• "Whatever you sell, show us people happily engaging with the product."
• Endings
• ~"Win some sort of power or position." (need for status)
• ~"Be unified with somebody or something that makes them whole." (need for something external for wholeness)
• ~"Experience some kind of self-realization that also makes them whole." (need to reach our potential)
  

People Want Your Brand to Participate in Their Transformation

• "Brands that participate in the identity transformation of their customers create passionate brand evangelists."
• "Who does our customer want to become?"
• "What kind of person do they want to be?"
• "What is their aspirational story?"
• "Smart brands define an aspirational identity."
• "The best way to identify an aspirational identity that our customers may be attracted to is to consider how they want their friends to talk about them."
  

III. Implementing Your StoryBrand BrandScript

Building a Better Website

• An offer above the fold
• ~Promise an aspirational identity
• ~Promise to solve a problem
• State exactly what they do
• Obvious calls to action
• Images of success
• A bite-sized breakdown of your revenue streams
• Very few words
  

Using StoryBrand to Transform Company Culture

• "Customers aren't the only ones who get confused when the message is unclear. Employees get confused too."
• "The Narrative Void is a vacant space that occurs inside the organization when there's no story to keep everyone aligned."
• "The number one job of an executive is to remind the stakeholders what the mission is, over and over."
• "A true mission isn't a statement; it's a way of living and being."
  

The StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap

1. Create a one-liner
2. Create a lead generator and collect e-mail addresses
3. Create an automated e-mail drip campaign
4. Collect and tell stories of transformation
5. Create a system that generates referrals