Donald Miller describes this book as “The Book That Makes Marketing Easy” – and it is rather more than that. It will help you to consider your business and how it interacts with your customers and the wider community in a different way. It creates truly authentic marketing because you will focus on your story and your role in it, rather than building a series of generic marketing ‘techniques’ or phrases that customers ignore.
I’ve been a fan of Donald Miller’s ability to simplify and cut through the noise for some time. “Building a story brand” is a book that creates an understanding of the structure of stories that work for marketing your business.
Is this the book you need to read if you want to help their customers understand your products, ideas, or services? Join the discussion in the Building Better Business Bookclub and share your thoughts with other readers.
This is the Building Better Business Book Club featured book for January 2020 – Book into the discussion on February 6th at 12:00 here…
William Buist –
This is an excellent guide for all businesses on how to communicate to their audiences in a succinct and powerful way.
The book highlights two major mistakes businesses often make, firstly they don’t focus enough on what it is in their product or service that is important for their clients to survive and thrive. If the product or service is just something that is ‘nice to have’ then clients can’t make the connection to why the need it. Secondly when we make clients work hard to understand the offer, many won’t make the effort, and go elsewhere. Clarity brings customers.
This is where stories can help you
Based on the structure of some of the worlds best stories the book highlights the key characters that appear in compelling narrative and decipher their importance for business. Every story has a hero, and here is the first big lesson from the book. You are not the hero! The hero is challenged, they have to overcome adversity, and when the story is resolved their success is clear. In this story you are the guide, your products and services provide the means of resolution.
When businesses start thinking about their clients and customers as the hero, and the villain that they face, then it becomes much easier to tell a story that the customer can recognise, in their context. Our role as guide becomes more obvious too. Clients know that they have problems and they know that they can’t solve them on their own. That’s why they need a guide. That is why we add value to them, and it becomes a compelling reason to work with us, or to buy our product.
Miller’s clear and structured approach to the development of the pieces of the business story provide a compelling and valuable outcome for all business readers. In addition the book is well written, easy to read, and follow and signposts all the key points well. The end of his process, and all that thinking from our customers viewpoint, helps us to understand the transformation the hero, our client, is keen to make as a result of working with us. The transformation from a business with a challenge, that the hero has now, with our guidance, overcome to become something different. That is the key transformation in building better business
The real power of this book was that its structure encourages us to see our work from our clients perspective. That gives us new insights into what needs emphasis, what is critical, and importantly, what is an irrelevant distraction in our messaging.
In addition, Miller links to online resources that provide the means for you to develop your story in his structure. I, and many other book club members, found it a compelling and powerful book.