CHAPTER 1
THE KEY TO BEING SEEN, HEARD, AND UNDERSTOOD
Most companies waste enormous amounts of money on marketing. We all know how mind-numbing it is to spend precious dollars on a new marketing effort that gets no results. When we see the reports, we wonder what went wrong, or worse, whether our product is really as good as we thought it was.
But what if the problem wasnât the product? What if the problem was the way we talked about the product?
The problem is simple. The graphic artists and designers weâre hiring to build our websites and brochures have degrees in design and know everything about Photoshop, but how many of them have read a single book about writing good sales copy? How many of them know how to clarify your message so customers listen? And worse, these companies are glad to take your money, regardless of whether you see results or not.
The fact is, pretty websites donât sell things. Words sell things. And if we havenât clarified our message, our customers wonât listen.
If we pay a lot of money to a design agency without first clarifying our message, we might as well be holding a bullhorn up to a monkey. The only thing a potential customer will hear is noise.
Still, clarifying our message isnât easy. I had one client say that when he tried to do so, he felt like he was inside the bottle trying to read the label. I understand. Before I started StoryBrand I was a writer and spent thousands of hours staring at a blank computer screen, wondering what to say. That soul-wrenching frustration led me to create a âcommunication frameworkâ based on the proven power of story, and I swear it was like discovering a secret formula. The writing got easier and I sold millions of books. After using the framework to create clear messages in my books, I used it to filter the marketing collateral in my own small company. Once we got clear, we doubled in revenue for four consecutive years. I now teach that framework to more than three thousand businesses each year.
Once they get their message straight, our clients create quality websites, incredible keynotes, e-mails that get opened, and sales letters people respond to. Why? Because nobody will listen to you if your message isnât clear, no matter how expensive your marketing material may be.
At StoryBrand weâve had clients double, triple, and even quadruple their revenue after they got one thing straightâtheir message.
The StoryBrand Framework has been just as effective for billion-dollar brands as it has for mom-and-pop businesses, and just as powerful for American corporations as it has for those in Japan and Africa. Why? Because the human brain, no matter what region of the world it comes from, is drawn toward clarity and away from confusion.
The reality is we arenât just in a race to get our products to market; weâre also in a race to communicate why our customers need those products in their lives. Even if we have the best product in the marketplace, weâll lose to an inferior product if our competitorâs offer is communicated more clearly.
So whatâs your message? Can you say it easily? Is it simple, relevant, and repeatable? Can your entire team repeat your companyâs message in such a way that it is compelling? Have new hires been given talking points they can use to describe what the company offers and why every potential customer should buy it?
How many sales are we missing out on because customers canât figure out what our offer is within five seconds of visiting our website?
WHY SO MANY BUSINESSES FAIL
To find out why so many marketing and branding attempts fail, I called my friend Mike McHargue. Mike, often called âScience Mikeâ because he hosts a successful podcast called Ask Science Mike, spent fifteen years using science-based methodologies to help companies figure out how their customers think, specifically in the tech space. Sadly, he left advertising when a client asked him to create an algorithm predicting the associated buying habits of people with diabetes. Translation: they wanted him to sell junk food to diabetics. Mike refused and left the industry. Heâs a good man. I called, though, because he still has incredible insight as to how marketing, story, and behavior all blend together.
At my request, Mike flew to Nashville to attend one of our workshops. After two days learning the StoryBrand 7-Part Framework (hereafter called the SB7 Framework), we sat on my back porch and I grilled him with questions. Why does this formula work? Whatâs happening in the brains of consumers as they encounter a message filtered through this formula? Whatâs the science behind why brands like Apple and Coke, who intuitively use this formula, dominate the marketplace?
âThereâs a reason most marketing collateral doesnât work,â Mike said, putting his feet up on the coffee table. âTheir marketing is too complicated. The brain doesnât know how to process the information. The more simple and predictable the communication, the easier it is for the brain to digest. Story helps because it is a sense-making mechanism. Essentially, story formulas put everything in order so the brain doesnât have to work to understand whatâs going on.â
Mike went on to explain that among the million things the brain is good at, the overriding function of the brain is to help an individual survive and thrive. Everything the human brain does, all day, involves helping that person, and the people that person cares about, get ahead in life.
Mike asked if I remembered that old pyramid we learned about in high school, Abraham Maslowâs hierarchy of needs. First, he reminded me, the brain is tasked with setting up a system in which we can eat and drink and survive physically. In our modern, first-world economy this means having a job and a dependable income. Then the brain is concerned with safety, which might entail having a roof over our heads and a sense of well-being and power that keeps us from being vulnerable. After food and shelter are taken care of, our brains start thinking about our relationships, which entail everything from reproducing in a sexual relationship, to being nurtured in a romantic relationship, to creating friendships (a tribe) who will stick by us in case there are any social threats. Finally, the brain begins to concern itself with greater psychological, physiological, or even spiritual needs that give us a sense of meaning.
What Mike helped me understand is that, without us knowing it, human beings are constantly scanning their environment (even advertising) for information that is going to help them meet their primitive need to survive. This means that when we ramble on and on about how we have the biggest manufacturing plant on the West Coast, our customers donât care. Why? Because that information isnât helping them eat, drink, find a mate, fall in love, build a tribe, experience a deeper sense of meaning, or stockpile weapons in case barbarians start coming over the hill behind our cul-de-sac.
So what do customers do when we blast a bunch of noise at them? They ignore us.
And so right there on my back porch, Mike defined two critical mistakes brands make when they talk about their products and services.
Mistake Number One
The first mistake brands make is they fail to focus on the aspects of their offer that will help people survive and thrive.
All great stories are about survivalâeither physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual. A story about anything else wonât work to captivate an audience. Nobodyâs interested. This means that if we position our products and services as anything but an aid in helping people survive, thrive, be accepted, find love, achieve an aspirational identity, or bond with a tribe that will defend them physically and socially, good luck selling anything to anybody. These are the only things people care about. We can take that truth to the bank. Or to bankruptcy court, should we choose to ignore it as an undeniable fact.
Mike said our brains are constantly sorting through information and so we discard millions of unnecessary facts every day. If we were to spend an hour in a giant ballroom, our brains would never think to count how many chairs are in the room. Meanwhile, we would always know where the exits are. Why? Because our brains donât need to know how many chairs there are in the room to survive, but knowing where the exits are would be helpful in case there was a fire.
Without knowing it, the subconscious is always categorizing and organizing information, and when we talk publicly about our companyâs random backstory or internal goals, weâre positioning ourselves as the chairs, not the exits.
âBut this poses a problem,â Mike continued. âProcessing information demands that the brain burn calories. And the burning of too many calories acts against the brainâs primary job: to help us survive and thrive.â
Mistake Number Two
The second mistake brands make is they cause their customers to burn too many calories in an effort to understand their offer.
When having to process too much seemingly random information, people begin to ignore the source of that useless information in an effort to conserve calories. In other words, thereâs a survival mechanism within our customersâ brain that is designed to tune us out should we ever start confusing them.
Imagine every time we talk about our products to potential customers, they have to start running on a treadmill. Literally, they have to jog the whole time weâre talking. How long do you think theyâre going to pay attention? Not long. And yet this is precisely whatâs happening. When we start our elevator pitch or keynote address, or when somebody visits our website, theyâre burning calories to process the information weâre sharing. And if we donât say something (and say something quickly) they can use to survive or thrive, they will tune us out.
These two realitiesâthe reality that people are looking for brands that can help them survive and thrive, and the reality that communication must be simpleâexplain why the SB7 Framework has helped so many...