Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen
The more simple and predictable the communication, the easier it is for the brain to digest.
Essentially, story formulas put everything in order so the brain doesn't have to work to understand what's going on.
The key is to make your company's message about something that helps the customer survive and to do so in such a way that they can understand it without burning too many calories.
Story formulas reveal a well - worn path in the human brain, and if we want to stay in business, we need to position our products along this path.
In a story, audiences must always know who the hero is, what the hero wants, who the hero has to defeat to get what they want, what tragic thing will happen if the hero doesn't win, and what wonderful thing will happen if they do.
What problem we are helping them solve, and what life will look like after they engage our products and services,
All experienced writers know the key to great writing isn't in what they say; it's in what they don't say.
A good story takes a series of random events and distills them into the essence of what really matters.
If a character or scene doesn't serve the plot, it has to go.
When Apple began filtering their communication to make it simple and relevant, they actually stopped featuring computers in most of their advertising. Instead, they understood their customers were all living, breathing heroes, and they tapped into their stories.
identifying what their customers wanted defining their customers' challenge (that people didn't recognize their hidden genius), and offering their customers a tool they could use to express themselves
The story of Apple isn't about Apple ; it's about you.
People don't buy the best products ; they buy the products they can understand the fastest.
7 basic plot points.
Here is nearly every story you see or hear in a nutshell : 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.
Critics are hungry for something different, yet the masses, who do not study movies professionally, simply want accessible stories.
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 does ( or does not ) get what she wants ?
What do you offer?
How will it make my life better ?
What do I need to do to buy
highlight the aspects that would help parents survive and thrive ( build stronger tribes, strengthen family connections, and connect more deeply with life's greater meaning ),
What was in it for them.
Alfred Hitchcock defined a good story as "life with the dull parts taken out."
When customers finally understand how you can help them live a wonderful story, your company will grow.
THE CUSTOMER IS THE HERO, NOT YOUR BRAND.
We position our customer as the hero and ourselves as the guide,
Once we identify who our customer is, we have to ask ourselves what they want as it relates to our brand. The catalyst for any story is that the hero wants something. The rest of the story is a journey about discovering whether the hero will get what they want.
COMPANIES TEND TO SELL SOLUTIONS TO EXTERNAL PROBLEMS, BUT CUSTOMERS BUY SOLUTIONS TO INTERNAL PROBLEMS.
Customers are attracted to us for the same reason heroes are pulled into stories : they want to solve a problem that has, in big or small ways, disrupted their peaceful life.
By talking about the problems our customers face, we deepen their interest in everything we offer.
AREN'T LOOKING FOR ANOTHER HERO; THEY'RE LOOKING FOR A GUIDE.
It's no accident that guides show up in almost every movie. Nearly every human being is looking for a guide ( or guides ) to help them win the day.
CUSTOMERS TRUST A GUIDE WHO HAS A PLAN.
In almost every story, the guide gives the hero a plan, or a bit of information, or a few steps they can use to get the job done.
Two kinds of plans : the agreement plan and the process plan.
CUSTOMERS DO NOT TAKE ACTION UNLESS THEY ARE CHALLENGED TO TAKE ACTION.
Characters only take action after they are challenged by an outside force.
A call to action involves communicating a clear and direct step our customer can take to overcome their challenge and return to a peaceful life.
One call to action is direct, asking the customer for a purchase or to schedule an appointment. The other is a transitional call to action, furthering our relationship with the customer. Once we begin using both kinds of calls to action in our messaging, customers will understand exactly what we want them to do and decide whether to let us play a role in their story.
Stories live and die on a single question : What's at stake ? If nothing can be gained or lost, nobody cares.
If there is nothing at stake there is no story.
NEVER ASSUME PEOPLE UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR BRAND CAN CHANGE THEIR LIVES. TELL THEM.
We must tell our customers how great their life can look if they buy our products and services.
Everybody wants to be taken somewhere. If we don't tell people where we're taking them, they'll engage another brand.
Thousands of companies shut their doors every year, not because they don't have a great product, but because potential customers can't figure out how that product will make their lives better.
The most important challenge for business leaders is to define something simple and relevant their customers want and to become known for delivering on that promise.
When I say survival, I'm talking about that primitive desire we all have to be safe, healthy, happy, and strong. Survival simply means we have the economic and social resources to eat, drink, reproduce, and fend off foes.
If your brand can help them save money, save time, find a community, gain status, accumulate resrouces, you've tapped into a survival mechanism.
Increased productivity, increased revenue, or decreased waste are powerful associations with the need for a business
The innate desire to be generous.
The chief desire of man is not pleasure but meaning.
Invite them to participate in something greater than themselves.
Define a desire for your customer, and the story you're inviting customers into will have a powerful hook.
Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but customers buy solutions to internal problems.
Every story is about somebody who is trying to solve a problem,
The problem is the " hook " of a story,
The more we talk about the problems our customers experience, the more interest they will have in our brand.
Three elements of conflict that will increase customer interest
The villain is the number one device storytellers use to give conflict a clear point of focus.
The stronger, more evil, more dastardly the villain, the more sympathy we will have for the hero and the more the audience will want them to win in the end.
The villain doesn't have to be a person, but without question it should have personified characteristics.
Vilifying our customers' challenges
Frustration, for example, is not a villain ; frustration is what a villain makes us feel. High taxes, rather, are a good example of a villain.
One villain is enough.
The villain should be real.
What is the chief source of conflict that your products and services defeat ?
There are three levels of problems that work together to capture a reader's or a moviegoer's imagination.
The external problem works like a prized chess piece set between the hero and the villain, and each is trying to control the piece so they can win the game.
In almost every story the hero struggles with the same question : Do I have what it takes ?
People's internal desire to resolve a frustration is a greater motivator than their desire to solve an external problem.
By assuming our customers only want to resolve external problems, we fail to engage the deeper story they're actually living.
What was the internal problem Apple identified ? It was the sense of intimidation most people felt about computers.
The only reason our customers buy from us is because the external problem we solve is frustrating them in some way. If we can identify that frustration, put it into words, and offer to resolve it along with the original external problem, something special happens. We bond with our customers because we've positioned ourselves more deeply into their narrative.
Starbucks was delivering more value than just coffee ; they were delivering a sense of sophistication and enthusiasm about life. A place for people to meet in which they could experience affiliation and belonging. In understanding how their customers wanted to feel, Starbucks took a product that Americans were used to paying fifty cents for ( or drinking for almost free at home or at work ) and were able to charge three or four dollars per cup.
Framing our products as a resolution to both external and internal problems increases the perceived value ( and I would argue, actual value ) of those products.
The philosophical problem is about the question why
A philosophical problem can best be talked about using terms like ought and shouldn't.
Brands that give customers a voice in a larger narrative [good vs evil; underdog vs giant] add value to their products by giving their customers a deeper sense of meaning.
Can your products be positioned as tools your customers can use to fight back against something that ought not be ?
... resolves the external problem ... the internal problem ... and the philosophical problem
TESLA MOTOR CARS :
Villain : Gas guzzling, inferior technology
External : I need a car.
Internal : I want to be an early adopter of new technology.
Philosophical : My choice of car ought to help save the environment.
What external problem is that villain causing ? How is that external problem making your customers feel ? And why is it unjust for people to have to suffer at the hands of this villain ?
The Seven Basic Plots, Christopher Booker
If a hero solves her own problem in a story, the audience will tune out. Why ? Because we intuitively know if she could solve her own problem, she wouldn't have gotten into trouble in the first place.
the guide character to encourage the hero and equip them to win the day.
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.
People are looking for a guide to help them, not another hero.
The guide must have this precise one - two punch of empathy and authority in order to move the hero and the story along.
When we empathize with our customers ' dilemma, we create a bond of trust. People trust those who understand them, and they trust brands that understand them too.
Expressing empathy isn't difficult. Once we've identified our customers ' internal problems, we simply need to let them know we understand and would like to help them find a resolution.
Nobody likes a know - it - all and nobody wants to be preached at.
The guide doesn't have to be perfect, but the guide needs to have serious experience helping other heroes win the day.
Add just the right amount of authority to our marketing.
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Customers want to know you've helped other businesses overcome their same challenges.
When we express empathy, we help our customers answer Cuddy's first question, " Can I trust this person ? " Demonstrating competence helps our customers answer the second question, " Can I respect this person ? "
The plan is the bridge the hero must cross in order to arrive at the climactic scene.
A process plan can describe the steps a customer needs to take to buy our product, or the steps the customer needs to take to use our product after they buy it, or a mixture of both.
A post - purchase process plan is best used when our customers might have problems imagining how they would use our product after they buy
A process plan can also combine the pre - and post - purchase steps.
If process plans are about alleviating confusion, agreement plans are about alleviating fears.
An agreement plan can also work to increase the perceived value of a service you promise to provide.
Unlike a process plan, an agreement plan often works in the background. Agreement plans do not have to be featured on the home page of your website ( though they could be ), but as customers get to know you, they'll sense a deeper level to your service and may realize why when they finally encounter your agreement plan.
List all the things your customer might be concerned about as it relates to your product or service and then counter that list with agreements that will alleviate their fears.
Your agreement plan might be titled the " customer satisfaction agreement " or even " our quality guarantee. "
In stories, characters never take action on their own. They have to be challenged to take action.
human beings do not make major life decisions unless something challenges them to do so.
direct calls to action and transitional calls to action.
Direct calls to action include requests like " buy now, " " schedule an appointment, " or " call today. " A direct call to action is something that leads to a sale, or at least is the first step down a path that leads to a sale. Transitional calls to action, however, contain less risk and usually offer a customer something for free.
Inviting people to watch a webinar or download a PDF are good examples of transitional calls to action.
Examples of direct calls to action are • Order now • Call today • Schedule an appointment • Register today • Buy now
A good transitional call to action can do three powerful things for your brand :
Stake a claim to your territory.
Create reciprocity.
Position yourself as the guide.
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The only two motivations a hero has in a story are to escape something bad or experience something good.
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.
Emphasizing potential loss is more than just good storytelling ; it's good behavioral economics.
... First, we must make a reader ( or listener ) know they are vulnerable to a threat.
... Second, we should let the reader know that since they're vulnerable, they should take action to reduce their vulnerability.
... Third, we should let them know about a specific call to action that protects them from the risk.
... Fourth, we should challenge people to take this specific action.
Agitating a fear and then highlight a path that would return readers or listeners to peace and stability.
What negative consequences are you helping customers avoid?
Could customers lose money ?
Are there health risks if they avoid your services ?
What about opportunity costs ?
Could they make or save more money with you than they can with a competitor ?
Could their quality of life decline if they pass you by ?
What's the cost of not doing business with you ?
Where is your brand taking people ? Are you taking them to financial security ? To the day when they'll move into their dream home ? To a fun weekend with friends ? Without knowing it, every potential customer we meet is asking us where we can take them.
Casting a clear, aspirational vision has always served a presidential candidate.
Successful brands, like successful leaders, make it clear what life will look like if somebody engages their products or services.
Stories aren't vague, they're defined ; they're about specific things happening to specific people.
The three dominant ways storytellers end a story is by allowing the hero to win
Be unified with somebody or something that makes them whole.
Experience some kind of self - realization that also makes them whole.
Everybody wants status,
...The primary function of our brain is to help us survive and thrive, and part of survival means gaining status.
Offer access
Create scarcity
Offer a premium
Offer identity association
The character is rescued by somebody or something else that they needed in order for them to be made complete.
Reduced anxiety
Reduced workload
More time
How can a brand offer a sense of ultimate self - realization or self - acceptance ?
Inspiration
Acceptance
Transcendence
the human desire to transform. Everybody wants to change. Everybody wants to be somebody different, somebody better, or, perhaps, somebody who simply becomes more self - accepting.
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 identity ?
Gerber defined an aspirational identity for their customers and they associated their product with that identity. The aspirational identity of a Gerber Knife customer is that they are tough, adventurous, fearless, action oriented, and competent to do a hard job. Epitomized in their advertising campaign " Hello Trouble, " Gerber positioned their customer as the kind of person who sails boats into storms, rides bulls, rescues people from floods, and yes, cuts tangled ropes from boat propellers. In their television commercials they present images of these aspirational, heroic figures over anthemic music and a narrator reciting the lines :
HOW DOES YOUR CUSTOMER WANT TO BE DESCRIBED BY OTHERS ?
Can you help them become that kind of person?
Can you participate in their identity transformation ?
If you offer executive coaching, your clients may want to be seen as competent, generous, and disciplined.
The audience needs to be told very clearly how far the hero has come, especially since the hero usually struggles with crippling doubt right up until the end and they don't even realize how much they have changed.
Brands that realize their customers are human, filled with emotion, driven to transform, and in need of help truly do more than sell products ; they change people.
When your team realizes that they sell more than products, that they guide people toward a stronger belief in themselves, then their work will have greater meaning.
The easiest thing we can do on our website is state exactly what we do.
In general we need to communicate a sense of health, well - being, and satisfaction with our brand. The easiest way to do this is by displaying happy customers.
A common challenge for many businesses is that they need to communicate simply about what they do, but they've diversified their revenue streams so widely that they're having trouble knowing where to start.
Once we have an umbrella message, we can separate the divisions using different web pages and different BrandScripts.
Why say, " As parents ourselves, we understand what it feels like to want the best for our children. That's why we've created a school where parents work closely with teachers through every step of their child's education journey, " when you could just say, " Weekly Conference Calls with Your Child's Teacher " as a bullet point along with five other great differentiators about your school ?
Cut half the words out of your website. Can you replace some of your text with images? Can you reduce whole paragraphs into three or four bullet points ? Can you summarize sentences into bite - sized soundbites ?
The fewer words you use, the more likely it is that people will read them.
The Narrative Void is a vacant space that occurs inside the organization when there's no story to keep everyone aligned.
Where there's no plot, there's no productivity.
A one - liner is a new and improved way to answer the question " What do you do ? " It's more than a slogan or tagline ; it's a single statement that helps people realize why they need your products or services.
