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

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson" featuring Donald Miller | Ep. 349

Release Date: June 6, 2025

In this enlightening episode of "Do This, NOT That," hosted by Jay Schwedelson from GURU Media Hub and sponsored by Marigold, marketing expert Donald Miller, founder and CEO of StoryBrand, shares invaluable insights on crafting clear and compelling brand messages. As a New York Times bestselling author, Miller delves deep into the mechanics of effective marketing communication, emphasizing the significance of simplicity and customer-centric storytelling.

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1. Introduction to Donald Miller and StoryBrand [00:02 - 02:44]

Jay Schwedelson kicks off the episode by introducing Donald Miller, highlighting his profound impact on the marketing world through StoryBrand and Coach Builder. Miller explains his journey from a writer to a marketing strategist who has aided over a million business leaders in clarifying their messaging.

Notable Quote:

"I've got about 35 employees, we have hundreds, about 700 certified StoryBrand coaches out there. I train them in my framework, and they go out and help people figure out what to say."
— Donald Miller [01:15]

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2. The Biggest Mistake Brands Make in Storytelling [02:44 - 06:38]

Miller identifies the primary mistake businesses make: the lack of short, repeatable sound bites. He emphasizes that companies often fail to present their offerings concisely, leading to customer confusion and disengagement.

Key Points:

• Sound Bites: Essential for consistent and clear brand messaging.
• Customer Survival: Messaging should address how the product or service benefits the customer's fundamental needs or desires.

Notable Quotes:

"They should be using short, repeatable sound bites. That's probably the biggest issue."
— Donald Miller [03:08]

"Those sound bites need to be about your customer's survival."
— Donald Miller [03:34]

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3. Emphasizing Clarity Over Sophistication [06:38 - 09:52]

Discussing his personal struggles with articulating his business's value proposition, Miller underscores the importance of clarity. He advocates for straightforward messaging over overly complex or fanciful language, asserting that customers favor clear and direct communication.

Notable Quote:

"We own the corner on clarity."
— Donald Miller [06:38]

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4. Leveraging Social Proof Without Self-Centered Messaging [09:52 - 12:10]

Jay probes into the use of social proof in branding, questioning its alignment with StoryBrand's customer-centric approach. Miller clarifies that showcasing testimonials and client logos isn't self-indulgent but rather demonstrates a company's capability to help customers overcome challenges.

Key Points:

• Hero in a Hole: Each customer is the hero overcoming a problem with the company's help.
• Authority and Competency: Social proof reinforces the company's ability to resolve customer issues.

Notable Quote:

"What it's saying is, I'm good at getting people out of a hole."
— Donald Miller [07:47]

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5. Simplifying Complex Businesses with StoryBrand [12:10 - 15:34]

Addressing the challenge of maintaining simplicity amidst diverse products and services, Miller advises focusing on a singular, overarching message (the plot) with supporting details (subplots). He likens it to the "Lord of the Rings" where a simple plot underpins complex subplots.

Key Points:

• One-Sentence Summary: Distill your brand's mission into a concise statement.
• Subplots: Detail the various ways your business fulfills its core promise without deviating from the main message.

Notable Quote:

"But what you've gotta get right is your plot."
— Donald Miller [10:17]

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6. The Intersection of StoryBrand and Superhero Narratives [15:34 - 19:51]

In a light-hearted exchange, Jay connects StoryBrand's emphasis on making the customer the hero to superhero narratives like those in Marvel and DC. Miller reveals his interest in narrative structures and archetypes, explaining how understanding these can enhance marketing stories.

Key Points:

• Narrative Structures: Utilizing classic plots to resonate with customers.
• Archetypes: Identifying common story patterns that mirror customer journeys.

Notable Quote:

"I'm just starting a book called Living Archetype, which explores the seven different stories that people live within."
— Donald Miller [12:31]

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7. The Role of AI in Enhancing Marketing Strategies [19:51 - 21:18]

Miller shares his perspective on artificial intelligence as a collaborative tool in marketing. Contrary to fears that AI might diminish the quality of content, he views it as a valuable partner that enhances creativity and efficiency without replacing the human touch.

Key Points:

• AI as a Thought Partner: Facilitates brainstorming and refining ideas.
• StoryBrand AI: A tool that adheres to the StoryBrand framework, ensuring customer-centric messaging.

Notable Quotes:

"AI is the best thought partner I've ever worked with."
— Donald Miller [15:52]

"StoryBrand AI will write your nurture emails, your lead generator, it'll wireframe your website..."
— Donald Miller [20:00]

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8. Conclusion and Resources [21:18 - 21:31]

As the episode wraps up, Miller directs listeners to StoryBrand AI for tools and resources to refine their brand messaging. Jay encourages the audience to take advantage of these free resources to enhance their marketing efforts.

Notable Quote:

"StoryBrand AI is the best place that you can go."
— Donald Miller [20:00]

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Key Takeaways:

• Clarity is Crucial: Clear, concise messaging ensures customers understand and engage with the brand.
• Customer-Centric Stories: Positioning the customer as the hero makes the brand's role purposeful and impactful.
• Sound Bites Matter: Memorable and repeatable phrases can significantly boost brand recognition and sales.
• Leverage AI Wisely: Utilize AI as a collaborative tool to enhance, not replace, human creativity and insight.
• Consistent Messaging: Ensuring all team members communicate the brand message uniformly strengthens overall marketing efforts.

For marketers aiming to elevate their brand communication, Donald Miller's insights offer a roadmap to crafting messages that resonate, engage, and convert.

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Resources Mentioned:

• StoryBrand AI: https://storybrand.com/ai
• Marigold Relationship Marketing Platform: https://meetmarigold.com/
• GURU Events: https://guruevents.com

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Join Jay Schwedelson and Donald Miller in exploring the art of effective marketing storytelling, and transform your brand's message to captivate and convert your audience.

Transcript

[Jay Schwedelson]

What 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 Story Brand. He's not only the best selling author of a zillion books. Okay. 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 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.

[Donald Miller]

Jay, I'm so glad to be here.

[Jay Schwedelson]

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?

[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 pri. That's primary. I didn't get married till, like, I was 42, became a dad at 49. So I'm just grateful to. To have. 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. And 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, you're probably talking about 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.

[Jay Schwedelson]

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 and what should they be doing instead?

[Donald Miller]

They should be using short, repeatable sound bites. That's probably the biggest issue is that, that, 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. And that's that 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 could 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 sound bites. But what do those sound bites need to be about? And that's part two. And part two is those sound bites 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. And so two things. You need sound bites. And those sound bites 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 sound bite 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. So 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 sound bite. Kids love aquariums. They saw a 99% increase in sales when they put that sound bite 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, kids, your kids being happy and having a pet and learning to, you know, learning some responsibility, that's all survival associated. So when you actually tell, tell me, let me tell you how I'm going to make your life better. Your cat, your 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 kids going to learn how to feed a fish every day. Kids are gonna learn how to clean this thing. They're gonna learn some responsibility. Kids love aquariums, by the way. Every parent wants one thing they want. They want to find something their kids love. You know, so, so that, so I guess, you know, a big. 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. We 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 clearer that you actually are, the better you're gonna do. And that's where we kind of own the corner on that market. We own the corner on clarity.

[Jay Schwedelson]

I have to tell you that in my career, I'm in year 27 of my career and I will say the biggest failure of mine has been my ability to articulate what did I what it is I do for a living. Me too.

[Donald Miller]

I didn't figure it out.

[Jay Schwedelson]

You can't struggle with that.

[Donald Miller]

I didn't figure it out till storybrand. And even then, you know, I always say storybrand's the only company I can't help. I'm just too close to it, you know, and so 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, everything. So, yeah, I mean, you and me both.

[Jay Schwedelson]

It's so frustrating. But, you know, you simplify it and I'm going to go off script here for a second because I'm curious about something. You're talking about always putting the person 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. You 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?

[Donald Miller]

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. What 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, you say, I've gotten 5,000 people out of a hole. I'm like, okay, can you do 5001? Right? So no, there are categories in which you're able to talk like you can talk about yourself all day long. 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 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.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Right.

[Donald Miller]

They care about whether or not you care about them in that hole and whether or not you can get them out.

[Jay Schwedelson]

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. That's me, myself, you know, that's right. Feel good.

[Donald Miller]

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. I said I a lot, but I. Everything I said about I about me was really about you.

[Jay Schwedelson]

So. All right. There's something I always want to know about the storybrand 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 simple? I feel like that's a struggle that I have. How do you do it when you got all sorts of stuff going on you're trying to articulate?

[Donald Miller]

Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you to summarize in one sentence.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Oh, no.

[Donald Miller]

What the Lord of the Rings trilogy is about. One sentence.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Finding the Rings. I don't know.

[Donald Miller]

Well, it's about. Yeah, I mean, you said it. It's about destroying the ring. Right. And saving middle ear. You know, you've, you've were 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 the, you know, where are the. Where's Frodo gonna get lunch and second lunch and how are they gonna get away from these spiders who live in these trees and you know, 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 gotta get right is your plot. Like the story brand plot is. We're gonna 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 our artificial intelligence tools will do that for you. We'll do that through my building A storybrand book. We'll do that through a certified coach. If you wanna hire a coach to help you do it. Well, some of our coaches make websites and they'll write the copy for you. It'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. You know, 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 it. 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 and then make sure all your subplots fit under that plot.

[Jay Schwedelson]

So this is the most random question you probably ever had on a podcast. But in, in all your stuff, you always talk about 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 you not care at all about that? Just because hero, that word hero is like. To me, hero, storybrand are like, together.

[Donald Miller]

I think endlessly about narrative structures and archetypes. In fact, I'm just starting a book called you'd Living Archetype, which explores the seven different stories that people live within. It's based on Christopher Booker's seven basic plots. Rags to Riches, Comedy, Tragedy, Quest, Rebirth. Those are the names of the plot 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. You 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. It'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, you know, so, yeah, I like to think about that stuff and study that stuff. And, 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, Elsa is living inside of a drama. You know, it's fascinating that you can have a character inside of a story that's having a completely different experience. Yeah. So I. I never stopped geeking out on that stuff.

[Jay Schwedelson]

I. I can't go to a movie with you, though, because I walk out of a movie, hey, did you like that movie? And some of us, I'll say, nah, it wasn't that good. You'll be like, well, the. The arc of the story was really great at this point.

[Donald Miller]

Well, if you don't think the movie's good, I'll tell you why that's the problem.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Right, Right.

[Donald Miller]

I mean, what they could have done different.

[Jay Schwedelson]

All right, so everybody out there that's listening, they're like, okay, I don't know if I could sign up with storybrand. I don't know if I have the budget, this, that, or whatever. But I. I need to figure something out here. And so what if. 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, be like, this is actually confusing visitors like this? There's a simple thing here.

[Donald Miller]

Take your domain. Take your domain, whatever that is. Acme. Acme. Plumber.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.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Wow.

[Donald Miller]

For free.

[Jay Schwedelson]

That's amazing.

[Donald Miller]

I'll just tell you, you're making yourself the hero. You don't have a clear sound bite above the header. I can't figure out 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 sound bite there, and I'll just give you a report on everything that's wrong with it.

[Jay Schwedelson]

All right, we're putting that in the show notes because everyone should go do that. The word free. He said the word free. And that's amazing. And so you also touched on a. I want to know what is Donald Miller when he thinks about AI for your business for businesses that you are training, what does AI mean to Donald Miller?

[Donald Miller]

AI is the best thought partner I've ever worked with. Now I'm a writer, so I'm not a coder. So I'm coming at it from a writing perspective. I don't think AI writes better, 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, I'm, 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. 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 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. StoryBrand AI will write your nurture emails, your lead generator, it'll 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, you know, better and, 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, that's, yeah. You know, and, and I, I don't, I, I, you know, who knows? The event horizon is like three months away. We 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.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Well, I think it's really important for people to hear, you know, here you are, best selling 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 because. Well.

[Donald Miller]

And it's a fact. It's a fact. It's just, It's a fact. If you, you can't bury your head in the sand. It's here. And, you know, I'm a part of a. An AI think tank, and they. It's, it's. It was. I don't know if it still is, but it's one of the. The only think tanks that sort of advises Congress on AI legislation. And the position of the think tank is our education system is. Is not letting kids use AI, and it's 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, absolutely. You can use a calculator. It's going to get us to more advanced math. And I think the same is true with AI.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Yeah, I agree. I just remember back in the early days of the Internet where people were starting to buy online. Like, well, you can't put your credit card on a website.

[Donald Miller]

That's right.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Your life would be over. Whatever. I'm like, we're all going to be doing it. And so I feel like if you don't get on the train, you're missing, like, the future. Easy.

[Donald Miller]

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 Chat 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. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do that. So, you know, I mean, if you're not using it, you're, you know.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Yeah, I don't know what you're missing out. Yeah. All right, so before we wrap up here, tell everybody where do they find all your stuff? What can they do? How do they consume storybrand?

[Donald Miller]

Storybrand ii storybrand AI is the best place that you can go. And when you go there, I'm gonna ask you some questions, and I'm gonna 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, it'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 storybrand and other platforms is the storybrand framework. So we're always, we're never gonna let you be the hero in the story. We're always gonna 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 gonna try to start with the customer's problem. What is their pain point. So our formula works really, really well. And I wrote about 110 pages single spaced instructions for OpenAI to put guardrails around it so that it would use the storybrand methodology rather than just, you know, what's out there. So I would go to storybrand AI. It's the best place to interact with our material.

[Jay Schwedelson]

I love it. So, so powerful. So many companies have benefited from that. I can't thank you enough for being here, Donald and everybody. We're gonna put it all in the show. Notes. Thanks again, Jay.

[Donald Miller]

Thank you so much. You did it.

[Jay Schwedelson]

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. And 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 top marketers like Daymond John, Martha Stewart and me, guruevents.com check it out.