Review: Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve read more than a dozen books on telling stories for business, and I find that they take different tacts to tell their own stories. I find this StoryBrand book is a bit more basic than most I’ve seen recently, but to me the simplicity in its storytelling suggestions is a good thing. Instead of drilling down into story archetypes and theory, this book suggests looking at a handful of aspects of the story. Key takeaway is to put the customer in the role of the hero, and to put the company in the role of the guide – a Yoda to the customer’s Luke Skywalker. I liked that the author referred to dozens of classic movies to give examples of the story structures he’s explaining. This made things clear, although the author promotes the movie “Tommy Boy” as an example so many times you think there must be some other movie with that name that you somehow missed. But no. “Tommy Boy” is obviously the author’s guilty pleasure movie. For those familiar with the storyline comparing men’s movies and women’s movies in “Sleepless in Seattle”, most if not all the movies the author uses are “men’s” movies, with “Tommy Boy” as the poster child. No “An Affair to Remember” here. The author does pitch his classes an excessive number of times. I tend to dislike books-as-ads, especially if the book doesn’t stand by itself providing value. This one, I believe, does provide value. The suggestions offered are simpler than many other corporate storytelling books. The advice is better than some. I can see building stories for my demos at work using the structure described here, and I would expect better outcomes than using story techniques from the pure demo-creation books I’ve read. Nice work.

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