DONALD MILLER! Founder StoryBrand! Easy Way to Clarify Your Brand Message! New York Times Best Selling Author! | Ep. 349

0:01What up? Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast for marketers. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's dig into some tips and some randomness. We are back for an incredible episode of Do This, Not That. We have a guest, but not any guest. We have Donald Miller. Now, I would imagine 99 % of you know who Donald Miller is, but if you don't, he is the founder and CEO of StoryBrand. He's not only the bestselling author of a zillion books, but do you realize collectively his books have spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list that is wild let that sink in for a minute his company story brand and coach builder help businesses and leaders clarify their messaging by using this amazing structure of a story and over 1 million business leaders have discovered donald miller's powerful story brand fame framework the guy is a is a is a monster in the marketing world it's incredible to have him here donald Welcome to the show.

1:01Jay, I'm so glad to be here. This is awesome. I'm excited. I've been a fan of StoryBrand for so long. So for those people that maybe aren't familiar with StoryBrand or you're new to them, can you quickly tell us, you know, who is Donald Miller? Oh, gosh. Well, you know, if I knew that, my life would be a lot more balanced. You know, well, first of all, I'm a husband and a dad. That's primary. I didn't get married until, like, I was 42, became a dad at 49. So I'm just grateful to have a family. So that's number one for me. Then the next is I'm a messaging guy. I mean, I spent 30 years writing books, which basically involves sitting around your underwear, trying to figure out what to say next.

1:46And somehow that trained a part of my mind that can pretty well figure out a good thing to say. And so when that translated into corporate America and they were trying to sell a plumber or a plunger or a new soft drink or whatever, I just found myself with this ability to say, well, what if you say it this way? I think people will buy more of it. And that turned into everything that I do today. So I've got about 35 employees. We have hundreds, about 700 certified story brand coaches out there. I train them in my framework and they go out and they help people figure out what to say. So if you have a product that you think should be selling a lot better, you're probably not talking about it very well.

2:31You're probably talking about it in such a way that it's confusing. And so customers, rather than explaining to you that you're confusing, they just ignore you. And so we go and we say, hey, if you say it this way, we think they'll pay a lot more attention. And that's what I do for a living. so i love everything about that because you make it you simplify it down to this idea of a story so i'm curious for all the listeners out there whether they're a business marketer or consumer marketer they're probably sitting there saying well i'm screwing this up so what is what is the number one mistake what is the mistake that brands make most often when they're trying to tell their story what should they be doing instead they should be using short repeatable sound bites That's probably the biggest issue is that most companies are trying to explain what they do or what they offer, but they're not coming up with a series of sound bites that they can repeat.

3:25And we've seen that time and time again cause business growth. When you actually say, hey, we're going to control how we talk about our brand. Our entire team is going to talk about it the same way. We're going to talk about it in such a way that after we talk about it, nobody is confused. None of our customers are confused. In fact, we've said it so succinctly and so well that they can actually repeat it back to us. When you hit that level of condensed and concise messaging, that's when things begin to happen. Now, that's about soundbites. But what do those soundbites need to be about? And that's part two.

4:03And part two is those soundbites need to be about your customer's survival. That's really it. people are hardwired to survive. Their brain is hardwired to keep them on the planet, keep them alive. In a first world economy, that means more than food and shelter. It might mean status. It might mean better night's sleep. It might mean less inflammation or whatever that is. Your product, the only reason people are buying it is they see it as a survival asset. So when you can actually use a soundbite to point out how it's a survival asset without them having to even think about it, your sales go way, way up.

4:38And so two things, you need soundbites and those soundbites need to be about your customer survival. They don't need to be about you. They don't need to be about how old your company is or how successful you guys are or any of that. They need to be about, you know, my soundbite is we help you clarify your message so customers engage. That's it. So people say, what do you do? I say, we help you clarify your message so customers actually engage you. How does that associate with their survival? If customers don't engage, they don't place orders, you don't have any money, you lay everybody off, you go bankrupt.

5:11So you've got to be able to apply it to their survival very, very quickly. I helped a company recently. They dominate the fish aquarium market in pet stores in America. We came up with a three-word soundbite. Kids love aquariums. They saw a 99 % increase in sales when they put that soundbite everywhere. Why? Because parents are walking into a pet store looking for something their kids will love. And when you don't make them think, right? Now, your kids being happy and having a pet and learning some responsibility, that's all survival associated. So when you actually tell me, let me tell you how you're going to make your life better.

5:49Your kid's going to have a pet they love. Your kid's going to have an aquarium they can look at that they love. Your kid's going to learn how to feed a fish every day. Your kid's going to learn how to clean this thing. They're going to learn some responsibility. Kids love aquariums, by the way. But every parent wants one thing. They want to find something their kids love. You know, so I guess, you know, a big thing. The reason that StoryBrand is so different than so many marketing agencies is so many marketing agencies try to make it fancy, sophisticated, beautiful. We don't focus on any of that.

6:20We focus on clarity. We try to make it clear because people don't give you a lot of time. They're not pouring a glass of scotch, sitting down, studying the puzzle that is your marketing message. So the clear that you actually are, the better you're going to do. And that's where we kind of own the corner on that market. We own the corner on clarity. I have to tell you that in my career, I'm in year 27 of my career. And I will tell, I will say the biggest failure of mine has been my ability to articulate what did I, what it is I do to, for a living. Me too. You can't struggle with that. I didn't figure it out till story brand.

6:57And even then, you know, i always say storybrand is the only company i can't help i'm just too close to it you know and so i i i you know we're all there and that's all that's every human being right that's my whole dating life is i was unable to articulate why i why you should date me it's everything so yeah i mean you and you and me both it's so frustrating but you know you you simplify it and i'm gonna go off script here for a second because i'm curious about something you're talking about always putting the person, you know, in the center of it, not you, the company. But then I think about everybody always talking about social proof and everyone's like, you need social proof.

7:34You need to show these are the logos of companies that we work with. These are the amount of five-star reviews that we have. Here are these amazing testimonials. Is that not saying, hi, look at me, I'm great. Should you not be using social proof in this kind of like environment? Oh, you absolutely should. That's a great question. You absolutely should. And here's why. every customer, this is the language we use out of StoryBrand, every customer identifies as a hero in a hole. Every story really starts out with a hero in a hole. The logos of the companies that you've worked with and the awards that you've won, that's not a narcissistic thing to talk about.

8:09What it's saying is I'm good at getting people out of a hole. So if I'm in a hole and you come along and you say, I've gotten 5 ,000 people out of a hole, I'm like, okay, can you do 5 ,001? right right so no i i there are categories in which you're you're able to talk like you can talk about yourself all day long the the two things that you can talk about all day long the only two things that i'll let you talk about if you're going to talk about yourself and you can do it all day long customers never get annoyed are here's why i care about you and here's why i'm competent to get you out of that hole that's it if you talk about those two things so you pick the category logos on website social proof that speak to your authority and your competency at getting people out of a hole and you can do that all day long so in a lot of ways what you can't do is say my grandfather started this company and i was really insecure when i took over and you know my wife and i started this thing and we named it after our dog that our grandma you know nobody gives a shit about any of that right they care about whether or not you care about them in that hole and whether or not you can get them out so to put it frame in my mind even when i'm talking about whatever it is it's about me or my company it's to the benefit of that person it's not just me making myself you know that's right feel good here's why here's why i'm the right person for you because and there's only two reasons because i care about you i don't like seeing you in this state looks very painful and i'm extremely good at getting people out of that state that so i i said i a lot but i everything i said about i about me was really about you so all right there's something i always want to know about the story brand framework for a business like mine or other business out there whether they're saying products or services when you have multiple products multiple audiences multiple service lines all this stuff how do you still keep your story you know simple i i feel like that that's a struggle that i have but how do you do when you got all sorts of stuff going on you're trying to articulate well let me ask you this let me ask you to summarize in one sentence oh no what the lord of the rings trilogy is about one sentence uh i finding the rings i don't know well it's about yeah i mean you said it's about It's about destroying the ring, right?

10:33And saving Middle Earth. You've been able to figure that really quickly. However, that movie, that series of movies, that series of books, is about a lot more than that, right? It's about where's Frodo going to get lunch and second lunch, and how are they going to get away from these spiders who live in these trees, and all that kind of stuff. It's about a thousand things. So a good story is actually it has a very succinct plot and a million subplots. and so what you've got to get right is your plot like the story brand plot is we're going to help you clarify your message so customers engage that's the plot we will do that through private workshops where somebody comes in and puts your entire team in a conference room and we get it done in one day we'll do that through storybrand.ai where artificial intelligence tools will do that for you we'll do that through my building a story brand book we'll do that through a certified coach if you want to hire a coach to help you do it well some of our coaches make websites and they'll write the copy for you.

11:27It's just done. It'll just be delivered. You don't even have to mess with AI. They'll do it for you. So those are subplots in a story that has a plot about you clarifying your message. And that's what's really important for everybody to understand. If I'm CEO of Lego, I would want to say we sell a toy that enhances your child's creativity. Now you can make a motorcycle, you can make a house, you can make a village, you can make a Christmas village. You can make a, you know, the Eiffel tower, you can make a, those are subplots, but the plot is a toy that enhances your child's creativity. So that's the really important thing to get your plot right.

12:07And then make sure all your subplots fit under that plot. So this is the most random question you probably ever had on a podcast, but in, in all your stuff, you always talk about, uh, making the customer the hero. And I love that. Are you, this is ridiculous. Are you like a big Marvel and DC person? Are you like a superhero person or do Do you not care at all about that? Just because hero, that word hero is like, to me, hero and story brand are like together. I think endlessly about narrative structures and archetypes. In fact, I'm working, I'm just starting a book called Your Living Archetype, which explores the seven different stories that people live within.

12:45You know, it's based on Christopher Booker's Seven Basic Plots, Rags to Riches, Comedy, Tragedy, Quest, Rebirth. You know, those are the names of the plots that he he says that are the only plots that actually exist. You know, my theory is that those plots exist because people live inside of those stories. You know, my story is a rags to riches story. I grew up very, very poor. We were treated a little bit like we were white trash or certainly I identified with that. And I have a chip on my shoulder to prove I'm not that guy. That explains my whole life, my whole life. that explains it. And so somebody else might be in a conquer the monster story.

13:25You know, Dave Ramsey loves finding a villain to bring him down and he chose credit card companies. Right. So his story and my story are completely different. So I really I really think a lot about archetypes and hero archetypes, that sort of thing. We actually what's funny that you talk about Marvel because there are 26 Marvel movies. My wife and I plop up a laptop every night in this season of our life and we're going through them all. And so, uh, you know, so yeah, I like to think about that stuff and study that stuff. And, uh, you know, it's interesting to me, like even the movie frozen, my daughter watches the movie frozen Olaf, who's the snowman is living inside of a comedy while, you know, uh, Elsa is living inside of a drama.

14:09You know, it's, it's fascinating that you can have a character inside of a story that's having a completely different experience uh yeah so i i never stopped geeking out on that stuff i i can't go to a movie with you though because i'll walk out of a movie hey did you like that movie and some of us i'll say no it wasn't that good you'll be like well the the arc of the story was really great at this point well if you don't think the movie's good i'll tell you why that's the problem right right i want to get it done different all right so everybody out there that's listening like okay i don't know if i could sign up with story brand i don't know if i have the budget this that or whatever, but I need to figure something out here.

14:42And so what, if you're that marketer out there is like, maybe my website just stinks. What is the easy litmus test for someone to go to their own website and be like, this is actually confusing visitors. Like there's a simple thing here. Take your domain, take your domain, whatever that is, acmeplumber.com, go to storybrand.ai and for free enter your domain into our website analyzer tool and i will give you a report on everything that's wrong with it wow for free that's amazing i'll just tell you you you know you're making yourself the hero you don't have a clear soundbite above the header i can't figure out what's what's what's at stake whether or not i buy your product like you're not telling me what will be lost so we need a soundbite there and i'll just give you a report on everything that's wrong with it all right we're putting that in the show notes because everyone should go do that you the word free he said the word free and that's amazing and so you also touched on ai i want to know what what is donald miller when he thinks about ai for your business for businesses that you are training what is ai means donald miller ai is is the best thought partner i've ever worked with And I'm a writer, so I'm not a coder.

16:02So I'm coming at it from a writing perspective. I don't think AI writes better than most good writers because there's something kind of magical about that human touch inside of writing. However, to be able to go to AI and say, you know, hey, I'm not sure about this idea. Can you sort of flesh it out and tell me whether or not it's valid? You know, it gives me back really, really good information on that. What's interesting is AI, everybody would think AI would shorten the writing process. uh for me it extends it because i now have somebody else in the room that i'm talking back and forth with to try to make it better and better and it's taking me longer to actually ship something but what i what i finally ship at the end is much better than i would have been able to do by myself so i see ai as a writing partner if you're not a professional writer it can write for you and it can write really well.

17:08Storybrand.ai will write your nurture emails, your lead generator in a wireframe, your website. It'll create a keynote presentation, a pitch deck, all that kind of stuff. And then what you do is you take what it does and you start editing it and you start refining it. So I hope that what AI is doing is making copy better and better for a human to interact with. I think there's some people who use it, they just ship it as is. And, you know, it feels like we're heading toward a universe where AI is talking to AI, like have your AI, call my AI, and we'll try to get together and have coffee. You know, and, and I don't, I, you know, who knows the event horizon is like three months away.

17:51We don't know exactly what happens on the other side of 90 days from now. But, you know, I use AI, I didn't like it at first. I'm a purist. But when I realized I could deliver better value and more interesting copy for the customer, I was hooked immediately. And I use it all the time. Well, I think it's really important for people to hear, you know, here you are, bestselling author, written a lot of books. You're a writer. And you're not sitting here saying, no, AI is ruining content, ruining writing, ruining all this. You know, you're viewing it as a partner. And I think that that's the right move.

18:22Well, and it's a fact. It's a fact. It's just, it's a fact. You can't bury your head in the sand. It's here. And I'm a part of an AI think tank, and it was, I don't know if it still is, but it's one of the only think tanks that sort of advises Congress on AI legislation. And the position of the think tank is our education system is not letting kids use AI and is trying to find out if they're using AI. but in china they're doing the exact opposite and i would agree with that i would say that's like saying hey kids you can't use calculators that's cheating yeah no absolutely you can use a calculator what's going to get us to more advanced math and i think the same the same is true with ai yeah i i agree i just remember back in the early days of the internet where uh people were like starting to buy online like what you can't put your credit card on a website that's that's right your life would be over whatever i'm like uh we're all going to be doing it and so i I feel like if you don't get on the train, you're missing like the future.

19:23Easy. Yeah. And not only that, like I have a, I had a, you know, I have a relationship tension with a friend of mine and I literally went in today and explained to Chad GPT what was going on. I said, Hey, can you, can you come from the perspective of a counselor and walk me through what my next steps need to be in order to make sure I don't damage this relationship and they feel really affirmed. And I mean, the advice was fantastic. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to do that. So, you know, I mean, if you're not using it, you're, you know, you're missing out. Yeah. All right. So before we wrap up here, tell everybody where do they find all your stuff?

19:58What can they do? How do they consume StoryBrand? StoryBrand.ai is the best place that you can go. And when you go there, I'm going to ask you some questions and I'm going to give you seven sound bites you can use to talk about your company, your business. I'm also going to give you what's called a controlling idea. and the controlling idea is an old screenwriting term that just means what your business is actually about. And then I'm going to give you a tagline. And if you like that and you want more, you can sign up for a paid version and that's going to do, it's going to wireframe your website for you.

20:29It's going to write emails for you. It's going to, you know, write lead generators and basically all manner of marketing material. It'll create it for you. And the difference with Story Brand and other platforms is the Story Brand framework. So we're always, we're never going to let you be the hero in the story. We're always going to prevent AI from making you the hero because AI by itself doesn't know that that's a rule you can't break. And so we don't let it break that rule. We're always going to try to start with the customer's problem. What is their pain point? So our formula works really, really well.

21:01And I wrote about 110 pages, single spaced instructions for open AI to put guardrails around it so that it would use the story brand methodology rather than just, you know, what's out there. So, um, I would go to storybrand.ai. It's the best place to interact with our material. I love it. So, so powerful. So many companies have benefited from that. Uh, can't thank you enough for being here, Donald and everybody. We're going to put it all in the show notes. Uh, thanks again, Jay. Thank you so much. You did it. You made it to the end. Nice, but the party's not over subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketers.

21:43And hook us up with a five-star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time. Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100 % free, visit guruevents.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Damon John, Martha Stewart, and me. Guruevents.com. Check it out.