Selling With Story: How to Make Your Customer the Hero

Do you know what your customers really want?

Want to discover how to share the solution they want and need in terms they understand?

To explore how to connect with your customers through story, I interview Donald Miller.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Donald Miller, a story for business expert. He's CEO of StoryBrand, which helps businesses clarify messaging via workshops and consulting. Donald also hosts the Building a Story Brand podcast. Donald has helped more than 1,000 businesses improve their messaging.

Donald explores how story is used to sell, and today you'll discover Donald's seven-part story framework.

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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Selling With Story
Donald's Story

Donald had a successful career writing memoirs. Before that, he ran a publishing company. Essentially, his business background got hijacked by his writing career. When he went back into business, he started a conference company.

Although he sold millions of memoirs, not many people attended his conferences. Donald figured out the conference invitation was too vague. His message was not pointed, understandable, or accessible. It didn't hit a perceived need, so nobody could figure out why they should come.

Donald needed to simplify his message so people would say, "I need that. I'm going to show up. I'm going to buy it." To do that, Donald created a framework based on the elements of story. Since he studied story to write books and screenplays for more than a decade, he knew story was the most powerful tool to compel the human brain.

He took the seven most popular elements in every story, the seven things that happen in Tommy Boy, Star Wars, Bridget Jones's Diary, The Hunger Games, Moneyball, and The King's Speech, and put it all on a whiteboard. Donald discovered how to filter his marketing messages through this seven-part framework.

Applying this framework, the conference grew from 350 people to 970 people to 1,200 people to 2,000, through word of mouth. People finally understood what he had to offer, Donald says. This evolved into StoryBrand. They let the conference company go because StoryBrand took off from there.

Donald has worked with more than 2,000 companies, helping them clarify their message. They all struggle with the same thing. They don't know how to talk about what they do, since they're too close to it.

Story is based on 2,000-year-old formulas that have been refined over time, Donald explains. And story is tested every week at the box office. Story, like music, is formulaic. The difference between music and noise is formula. Since story is such a powerful tool, Donald realized it's useful to clarify marketing messages.

There's no benefit to a business getting its story out. Customers only care about their own stories. StoryBrand helps people understand the story that their customer is living and what role their business needs to play within that story.

Listen to the show to discover which companies and people use story and get responses.

Why Story Is Powerful

Why is story so powerful? Donald says that's a question that people like Christopher Booker, Robert McKee, and Joseph Campbell have all tried to answer. Donald thinks story comes from within. People self-identify as the hero in a story that's trying to accomplish something and overcome challenges.

People believe intuitively that some things come together that would create a climactic or obligatory scene that will resolve the conflict in their life. These are well-worn paths in the human subconscious.