Hala Taha: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] Yeah, bam. What if the reason your customers aren't buying isn't your product, but actually your story? In today's episode, we're joined by somebody who knows exactly how to fix that. Donald Miller is a bestselling author. He's the CEO of StoryBrand, and he is one of the world's leading voices on brand clarity. His work has helped thousands of businesses from startups and giants like Chick-fil-A and Pantene, cut through the noise and connect with customers through powerful, clear storytelling. Now, Donald has been on Yap several times, three times to be exact. I. If you guys wanna check out my previous episodes with him, they're in the show notes.

 Now in today's conversation, we're gonna be focusing on his classic seven step StoryBrand framework. He recently came out with [00:02:00] StoryBrand 2.0. There's been some changes related to AI and having a controlling idea. We're gonna break down the seven steps. You're gonna learn the difference between a hero and a guide and so much more.

If you want a masterclass in messaging, this episode is not gonna disappoint. So without delay, here's my conversation with Donald Miller. 

Donald, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. 

Donald Miller: Good to see you again. 

Hala Taha: I am so happy that we're reconnecting. I'm really excited to learn more about StoryBrand 2.0, but I first wanna warm up my listeners 'cause some people might not have heard of you before. And so I wanna talk about your career journey because you started off.

With personal storytelling. You wrote some spirituality, personal development books like Blue, like Jazz, and then you went into business strategy and you've created this amazing StoryBrand brand. You have so many awesome podcasts in the business space, and you've really crushed it in the business space, and now you're getting into tech with StoryBrand ai.

Donald Miller: That's right. 

Hala Taha: So [00:03:00] I wanna know what is the through line between all of these endeavors? 

Donald Miller: It's really story. I'm a geek when it comes to studying story and story structure, how to tell stories. I started studying them when I wrote memoirs because I needed to write a better book. I just needed to keep people turning the page.

And so I would study story and story structure in order to write better books. Ended up writing a screenplay that got a national theater release, and I just kind of geeked out on it. And so from there. Story is the most powerful tool to compel a human brain. I mean, people cannot tune out when it comes to stories.

In fact, it's almost an addiction, the amount of interest that you can pay to a story. In fact, most nights my wife and I will get 20 more minutes in to something that we're binge watching before we're about ready to fall asleep. But our daughter, she turns four in about a month. She wakes up in the morning and asks if she can watch Spidey and friends or something.

Of course we say no because we [00:04:00] limit the amount of screen time that she's able to watch. But she wants to sit in front of this moral universe and watch these characters try to accomplish something and overcome challenges. So I got really fascinated with story as an attention getting device. I got fascinated with why the human brain cannot resist a good story.

And I noticed in my own work that if I used story and story structure, if I told stories in my books, my books would sell five and six times as many copies as they would have if it was just a lot of bullet points and ideas and. From there, I accidentally stumbled upon the StoryBrand idea. I thought, you know, if you could create a filtering framework that would help small businesses come up with several sound bites that would allow them to invite customers into a story, those brands might actually get a lot of traction from this.

So I [00:05:00] wrote a book called Building a StoryBrand. That book sold a million copies, and all of a sudden I found myself in a completely new career consulting with brands on how to get attention using soundbites. And I've been doing that for about 10 years, and I'm extremely grateful because I'd written about seven memoirs.

I didn't wanna write an eighth one. Nothing else that actually happened, and so I didn't have anything to write about. I really got lucky when building a StoryBrand took off because for the last 10 years, that's all I've done is help brands clarify their message. And then with the event of artificial intelligence, we began playing with AI to write your soundbites for you.

You know, the first book, you'd read the book and you'd brainstorm and come up with your own soundbites, but I noticed that. AI was doing a pretty darn good job coming up with those soundbites for you. And so I wrote about 110 single space pages of instructions and rules, and we created various [00:06:00] prompts to lay over open ai, and now we've got StoryBrand ai, which we'll write those seven soundbites that you actually need.

It'll give you a tagline, a controlling idea. It'll wireframe your website. It'll create lead generators for you. It will write your emails, but it's all done heavily instructed by me. And then I have a team of about four in the department that gets user feedback and improves Almost every day the platform gets stronger and stronger.

So that's been a really fun new. Venture for me. You know, I never imagined myself as the CEO of any sort of tech. I can't call us a tech company 'cause I don't think that's what we are, but it looks like that from the outside. Yeah. And that's been a blast. And as we all know, ai, it feels like magic. I mean, in the old days you might spend.

Sometimes four and five months trying to come up with your messaging campaign, and that can now be done inside of maybe an hour, hour and a half. Yeah, it's really incredible. 

Hala Taha: AI is incredible. I use it every day. I [00:07:00] can't wait to dig deeper into the AI piece and how we can use it with StoryBrand ai. But first I want to understand your personal transformation story because I know that actually laid the foundation for StoryBrand and I feel like it will help people understand the key concepts of the StoryBrand seven. Peace framework. 

Donald Miller: Yeah. Yeah.

Hala Taha: So talk to us about your personal transformation and what you went through. 

Donald Miller: Well, story has also informed my personal transformation. I live in Nashville, Tennessee now with my wife and our daughter, and we love it here. But when I was writing memoirs, I lived in Portland, Oregon, which is a long way from here, and I was single until I was 42.

So for those of you who are in your thirties and you're single, you got a ways to go before you catch me. But I had the discipline, I had the drive. I should say. I really enjoyed writing. I wanted to write. Writing a book is very, very hard and I was driven to do that, but I didn't have a whole lot of discipline.

I was, I. Guilty of giving into whims and I would literally go to a coffee shop and start [00:08:00] writing. If the words didn't go well, I would leave and go to a different coffee shop thinking the words were somewhere else, which is just now that I think about that this is the dumbest thing in the world. But a guy read a couple of my books.

He called me, he said he is coming to Portland. He got in touch with me and he said, can we get breakfast? And I did. And that guy's name was Scott Harrison. He runs an organization called Charity Water. It is now a hundred million dollars organization that is drilling wells in Sub-Saharan Africa. And I, sat across from Scott.

I just thought this is a fascinating human being and in comparison to what he was doing with his life, I was doing nothing, nothing at all. And I thought, I am not a very interesting person. And I, I realized, well, what makes Scott so interesting is he is actually living an interesting story. And by that I mean he has.

A selfless ambition that is extremely difficult to accomplish. He's overcoming challenges left and right in order to accomplish that ambition. And that's the [00:09:00] stuff of a really good story. I. And I thought, well, maybe I need to work on the things that I want and I need to work on my relationship with conflict and my tendency to avoid conflict.

Maybe I need to be more disciplined. Maybe I need to wake up and define a little more closely what I want my life to be about. And that was transformative for me because I realized that anybody who doesn't like life, what they're actually saying is they don't like their story. Life is fine. Life is, stunningly beautiful.

It's got a lot of conflict in it, but it's got enormous amounts of beauty. It's got some pain, but so do good stories. And so I began to see life through the lens of story. And of course, we can't control a lot of life. We can't control when we're born, where we're born, who our parents are. You know, we don't get to control a lot of that stuff.

But we can control what we decide to spend our time on. We can control what we daydream about. We can control whether or not we're ethical people. We can control the decisions that we make. And see. In other words, you [00:10:00] actually can control the story that you live. And there are rules that make a story good, and there are rules that make a story uninteresting.

And if you disobey those rules, your movie will fail at the box office. And so I began to translate some of those rules into rules for my life. That was transformative, and I really mean hala, I mean transformative. When I was playing with these ideas, I weighed more than a hundred pounds more than I do right now.

I had trouble paying bills or being disciplined with money. I. My dating life was a complete, you know, awful. It was just terrible. Like women should just stay away from me and they did, thank God. And I started thinking, well wait. If you were a hero in a story, you would be lazy. You would not be a dreamer who dreams about really important things.

You would probably be perceived as a little bit selfless and nobody would like this movie because it's not about anything. And so I decided to change that, and I began. Creating vision statements for my life. I began [00:11:00] embracing the challenges. I mean, when I say I was heavy, I was 387 pounds, and I'm 180 pounds. Now I'm 200 pounds lighter. 

Hala Taha: You look great, by the way. Like you look younger than ever. 

Donald Miller: Yeah. Well, you know, it happens when you lose weight. You just, you feel like you're aging in reverse. And I met a beautiful woman and we began to date and we started a family and now we have a kid. And I started a company that has made over a hundred million dollars.

And even the idea of StoryBrand was a story that I could step into in terms of a. Story about a guy pivoting his career and it's been really, really wonderful. It doesn't take away some of the existential crisis of the existence of death and the fact that we all have to go and it doesn't make time stop.

And some of the things that we wish that we could do, but a hero and a story embraces those challenges and accepts them. And so I, I just remember the rules of story and how they apply to life. That's been dramatically transformative for me. 

Hala Taha: I feel like something that I always say is you're never too old [00:12:00] to take on your dreams and to learn something new, and I feel like you are the epitome of that.

Basically having this big transformation at 40 plus years old. Now you've got this, you know, you said your, your company made a hundred million dollars. How many employees do you have? 

Donald Miller: We have about 800 in our certified community. So I feel like the company is much bigger than it actually is. And that a hundred million is, by the way, it's over the last seven or eight years.

So we're still a small business, but if you would've told me 20 years ago, you're gonna be the CEO of a company and you're gonna be working with. Giant clients and helping them figure things out. I would've thought you were absolutely mad because I didn't have the skillset to do that. But you know, when you jump into a story that forces you to become a better version of yourself, you become a better version of yourself. You have to. 

Hala Taha: Just for fun, I wanna know if you weren't in this interview right now. So happy, grateful that you took the time for this interview, but as CEO, what would [00:13:00] you be doing right now? Where would you be? What is your role of CEO like now for the company? 

Donald Miller: I would be home. I've made a commitment because I got married older and became a dad actually at 49.

I think I understood a lot more than I would have in my early twenties. In my early twenties, I was, you know, hell bent on defining myself and figuring out my identity, which is, by the way, is a very good thing if you find yourself in that position. But you know, as I've gotten older, I've realized I knew that if I was a workaholic, my daughter would suffer.

And so I made this commitment that I would be home between four and five, and that I would leave my cell phone in a bowl at the front door, and I wouldn't touch it again until she was asleep. And so. Right now, I, I would be home before five because we started this interview early, so that's what I would be doing.

However, I'm up very early in the morning. I do a cold plunge. I work out, I do a sauna. I go to the same coffee shop, sit at the same table, or the same food, and do two and a half hours of riding. [00:14:00] My office is across the street. I'm in meetings most of the day, and then at about two o'clock I start taking outside interviews and outside meetings, and so I'm a Groundhog Day guy.

If I can just live the exact same day over and over and over again, I would do it because that's the secret to incredible productivity, and that's how I would probably be spending my time. 

Hala Taha: I love that. I feel like that gives some really great insight into how your world works. So you've got this new book called StoryBrand 2.0. And you first released StoryBrand, I believe, like eight years ago or so. So what made you release this new version of StoryBrand? 

Donald Miller: Well, it had done well. It had sold a lot of copies and when I wrote the book, I didn't have a lot of case studies. It was theoretical. I had a few, but, uh, I didn't have very many.

And in the eight years, seven, eight years since the book came out and I was able to rewrite it, I basically took the existing book and just rewrote it. From beginning to end, [00:15:00] and by the end of it, it was 10,000 words longer than the original. And what those 10,000 words were were case studies and stories so that people could have way more examples of the soundbites they need and stories about what happened to those companies when they started using those soundbites.

 I think the book is much, much better. And then, of course, storybrand.ai as an an accompanying tool, it was also necessary to add to the new book. So it's a much, much better version of it. It's actually selling more copies now than it's sold in any previous year, so I'm very, very grateful for that.

Hala Taha: Every marketer knows StoryBrand, even like business owner. It's so popular. So it's a seven part framework. Can you walk us through at a high level, high what that SB seven framework is? 

Donald Miller: Before I do that, let me explain why soundbite are so important, because the StoryBrand framework. Will help you generate seven soundbites. And those seven soundbites are [00:16:00] designed to attract customers and invite them into a story in which they use your product to save the day. So everybody's struggling with a problem and we want them to solve that problem using your product. And so there's ways that you have to word things in order to entice customers in that way.

But the reason these soundbites work are because the two things the human brain is always trying to do. The first thing, the human brain. Is trying to do is survive. I mean, the job of your mind, your brain is to keep you alive. And so because of that, you're constantly scanning your environment, scanning information for survival assets.

I call them survival assets, and there's a billion of them. Food is a survival asset for obvious reasons. Water is a survival asset, but so is friendship. Friendship is a survival asset. Status is weirdly a survival asset. Hala. If you're at a store and you see a beautiful purse that you really want, and you know, it's, I can't remember the name of purse companies.

My wife would, uh, Louis Ton told me a million times. Louis Vut, whatever. [00:17:00] Yeah. And you know that, okay, if I use this purse, if I walk around with this purse, people will assume I'm a certain kind of purse, whatever. Sometimes it's inappropriate. Sometimes I wear my Rolex, sometimes I wear my seko Most often, the seko.

But everything that you have ever spent money on is a survival asset in some way. It's building relationships, it's building friendships, it's creating memories. It's getting rest. It's getting rid of your headache, getting rid of your toothache. It's a beauty product. It's making you look better, which we want to do because we're convinced, like it or not, that if we just look better, we'll get more positive attention, whatever it's, and so, because the brain is always looking to survive.

You need to position your product as a survival asset, and you need a soundbite that explains why it's a survival asset. And we've seen companies double, literally double in revenue when they figured that out. When they figured out you're not selling whatever it is that you think you're selling. You're selling survival.

And if you make your customer think. [00:18:00] Too hard about how your product can help 'em survive. They won't do it. So what they'll do is they'll just pass you by, and that's the second thing that the human brain is always trying to do. The second thing the human brain is always trying to do is conserve calories.

You burn four to 600 calories a day, just processing information, and if you process a bump of information you don't need. You will run out of bandwidth to protect yourself. So the brain is always trying to not process information. It ignores almost everything. What will peak its interest is a survival asset.

So it's very important that you have soundbites that break through, that filter, that barrier, that desire that your brain has to not think, your brain wants to ignore everything. Except for survival assets. And so when I have to think about how you can help me survive, because you haven't said it in a soundbite, you're gonna have a very tough time growing a business.

And so the framework gives you seven [00:19:00] soundbites that people will not ignore. 

Hala Taha: I love that you gave us that explanation. I feel like it's so true. People make all their decisions based on status and things that are gonna improve their relationships or how people perceive them. So walk us through this seven step framework.

What are the key soundbites that we need for all of our messaging for our business? 

Donald Miller: The first one is you need to define what your customer wants. Andthis soundbite, needs to be very specific. For instance, if you say, well, my customer wants fulfillment. That's too vague. Your customer wants fulfillment.

I don't know what that's about. I can't get my mind around it. For instance, uh, lemme do a little quiz with you. I have a client and their soundbite was defending our freedom, protecting the future. Who do you think I'm talking about 

Hala Taha: protecting our freedom, defending the future? Maybe like immigrants or freedom of speech or something like this. Like just regular people. 

Donald Miller: Yeah. So the reason that. You're getting it wrong is because it's a terrible sound bite. 

Hala Taha: [00:20:00] It's unclear. Yeah, 

Donald Miller: it's unclear. The agency is national security. Mm. So the National Security Agency, that was their tagline, by the way. they hardly ever shipped it. It was on one brochure.

They never said it. They just got stuck in a drawer somewhere and they forgot about it. Their new tagline, we think that we're gonna ship is intelligence means victory. And that tagline does two things. It says what they offer, which is intelligence. It says what the stakes are. If you don't have it, if you don't use our intelligence, you're gonna lose a war.

People are gonna die, literally, and they will. You need this intelligence. And so that tagline going into Congress is gonna get congressional authorizations passed much quicker. It's gonna get funding happen a lot faster. It's gonna get the Pentagon to cooperate. It's gonna get the military to make sure that the channel that where they're getting their intelligence from is always open.

It's actually something you could take if you worked at the NSA, you could take to your family and your family all of a sudden [00:21:00] says. Dad's more important than I thought he was. Mm, right. Yeah. So it's an extremely effective tagline, and so defining what it is that you offer and what it is that your customer wants, in the case of the NSA, it's intelligence is really important.

So that's one soundbite that you gotta have down. The next soundbite you've gotta have down is arguably even more important, and that is the problem that you solve. We spend money to solve problems. That's it. And again, every dollar you've ever spent was spent to solve some sort of problem. If you paid to go to a movie, you were solving the problem of boredom or something to do that day or needing to check out and relax.

If you bought a beautiful dress, you solve the problem of wanting to look better, and that not having anything in your closet for summer, you know everything that you spend money on is solve a problem. So if you've defined the problem that you solve in a soundbite, you can expect your business to go up if you repeat it.

And again, you cannot be vague. [00:22:00] You have to be very, very specific. It needs to be as specific as a toothache. Or a gluten intolerance, whatever that is. So the problem is the second soundbite. The next soundbite is really fascinating and is the soundbite that positions you as the guide in your customer's story.

You know, as you know Holly, we say never play the hero. Always play the guide. And the guide is the character that helps the hero win. And if you position yourself as the hero, you're positioning yourself as a weak character in need of transformation. Ill equipped, desperate for help and, uh, unwilling to take action.

That's every hero in every story, by the way. So why would you make the story about you? You wanna make the story about the customer because the customer is looking for somebody to help them in their story. They're not looking to hear your interesting story. So when people come to me and they say, Don, we really need help telling our story, I say, you don't.

I mean, I, I can do it. I can put it on a napkin. You can tell your story. What you need to do is you need to invite customers into a story, because if you play the hero, you're gonna lose. [00:23:00] Jeb Bush lost a presidential primary with the tagline. Jeb can fix it. Well, he made himself the hero of the story. And by the way, what's he fixing it?

So he broke two rules, already made himself the hero, and he offered something that was elusive and ambiguous. Hillary Clinton lost a presidential election with the tagline. I'm with her, so I'm with her. She's the hero. And by the way. We're with her going where? Doing what? There's no offer there. She didn't define what it is that she's gonna bring to the country.

Now. She did in various speeches and that sort of thing, but not in the one line that she needed people to memorize. And so the stakes of this are very, very high. If you position yourself as the hero of the story, you're gonna lose, I promise you 

 We don't like narcissists. We don't like people who make it all about themselves.

Hala Taha: It's interesting because I feel like I interview a lot of marketers and there's this concept of the hero journey, the epiphany bridge story, right? That everybody always talks about. I use it in some of my materials when I'm trying to sell courses or something like this. This hero story idea. So do you advise we don't [00:24:00] put our hero story within our marketing materials?

Donald Miller: No, I do. I actually advise that you do, even though I just said never do it. There's a place for it. There's actually three levels of messaging. The first is the curiosity soundbites. Next are the enlightenment collateral, and next is commitment collateral. So if you think about the curiosity soundbites, those are the soundbites that invite you into a story.

And then the enlightenment material is where I do my due diligence to find out if you're somebody I wanna work with. Then the commitment soundbites and the commitment material are where I ask for the money, where most companies get it wrong, and most businesses get it wrong. They get the curiosity soundbites wrong, and so I think it's okay to tell your backstory.

It's called the guide Backstory. I. It's okay to tell your guide backstory probably though after somebody has done business with you. Because when you tell your story, it does create a bond, but it's only after you've earned their respect and become their guide, then your story matters. But I would [00:25:00] never, ever standing on a stage in front of an audience that I've never met, I will not tell my story.

Mm-hmm. I just won't do it. 

Hala Taha: Okay. First impressions, it's about them. 

Donald Miller: That's right. 

Hala Taha: Okay. Got it. 

Donald Miller: So the soundbite that you need to position yourself as a guide is twofold. You need to express empathy and competency. And empathy means I feel your pain, I understand your pain, and I know how to get you out. And so for me, I would say something like, I know how hard it is to look at a blank screen and come up with a soundbite that you need.

And so I spent 10 years developing a framework. That comes up with a perfect soundbite that will grow your business, and I can do the same for you. So I expressed empathy toward their problem, and then I described the competency that I've built up to solve that problem. So in that way, it's okay to talk about yourself, but you gotta talk about.

Why you care so much about your customer's problem, and you gotta talk about why you're so qualified to solve it. So those are the two soundbites, or the single soundbite with two parts that [00:26:00] positions you as the guide. The next soundbite is easy. It's a three step plan. Break down the process that it takes to do business with you into three steps.

You almost need it for every product. You wanna say, look, I do a, an intake. I just ask you a bunch of questions. I give you a custom report on what I think you should do, and if you want me to hold your hand and you want to pay me on a retainer basis, I enter into your story and we make this thing better.

The brain loves and understands three steps, and it also creates a bridge from your customer's problem to your solution, and it dramatically increases the number of sales that you make because people don't wanna move into a fog. They're like, gimme baby steps. Gimme baby steps. So those three steps are the baby steps, and then there's the call to action.

This is where you ask for the money. And there's a specific way that I want everybody listening to me to ask for the money from here on out, because you're gonna see an improvement in the number of people who make a purchase. The way I want you to ask for money is this. If you are struggling with this problem, it's the right decision to buy this product.[00:27:00] 

If you are struggling with this problem, the right decision is to buy this product. So if you are struggling with a terrible toothache, it's the right decision to take X medicine. When you actually word it that way, what you're alleviating is the confusion that the customer has, which they can't put words to, but the question that they have, especially if it's an expensive item, is simple.

Is this the right decision? Is this the right decision? Think about the last thing that you purchased. What was it and try to reverse engineer why you purchased it. I bought a pair of boots. I bought a pair of double RL boots. They're nice boots. They're black boots. The only pair of black boots that I had was a pair of hiking boots and they just didn't work very, very well.

And I'd seen some sort of Instagram or something that said, have you ever seen a world leader in brown shoes? I thought, no, never seen a world leader in brown shoes. I've got a pair of black dress shoes, but I don't have a pair of black boots. [00:28:00] This is a hole in my closet, and it took me, by the way, three months to buy these shoes because you know they're not cheap.

And I finally just went, I need a pair of black boots. I'm just gonna do it. I think three months ago, if somebody would've said, if you're looking for a pair of black boots that you can wear with a great suit or blue jeans, and get a lot of use out of the double RL Black Boot is gonna do all of that for you.

It's the right decision. I'd have bought it three months ago because for three months what I'm sitting there doing and it's going, gosh, this is expensive. Should I do that? I mean, is it, you know, is that the right decision? But if somebody else who had some authority would've said to me, no, it is the right decision, I would've gone.

Okay, thanks. I learned that, by the way, when I bought a nice watch, I'd been looking for years for a nice watch, and I'd gone to jewelry stores. I'd seen some that I liked, but I always backed off. And finally somebody just said, Don. Do you have the money for this watch? I said, yes. [00:29:00] They said, do you like the watch?

I said, yes. They said, do you have a good reason to buy it? Because they knew why I was buying it. I was buying it 'cause my company hit a certain revenue point and I was gonna buy a watch. I said, yeah, I got a good reason to buy it. He said, then I think this is the right decision. Do you want me to box it up? And I went, yeah, I do. 

Hala Taha: Thanks for thinking for me. 

Donald Miller: Yeah. So you need a soundbite that affirms that your product is the right decision. Now you can't just say, Hey, this is the right decision. You actually have to say, if you are struggling with this. This is the right decision, so you wanna make sure you get the problem right.

You also wanna make sure that your product actually solves that problem, otherwise you'll get a bad name. Then there's two more soundbites, and that's the success soundbite and the failure soundbite. The success soundbite is the soundbite that says, here's what your life will look like. If you buy this product, and of course that's gonna be good, right?

You're gonna have a great pair of black boots that you love putting on look fantastic with a suit. But when you gotta change into jeans, you just use the same boots. The failure soundbite is going to be don, the suit looks okay with a pair of [00:30:00] black dress shoes would look a lot better with black boots, and you're gonna feel like you're not quite dialed in this outfit without these boots.

I'm going, you know, I just sold myself with the boots, right? And so those are the seven categorical soundbites that you need. And at StoryBrand ai, those seven soundbites plus something we call a controlling idea. Which is the idea that dominates your business, that this is what the whole idea is like. My controlling idea is clarify your message so customers will engage.

And also a tagline. I write all of that for you for free at StoryBrand ai, and then if you want, there's a paywall and you can get lead generators and pitch decks and proposals and keynote presentations and. Wireframe websites and all sorts of other really great stuff. 

Hala Taha: I definitely wanna use it to be honest, 'cause I feel like I just wanna revamp all my marketing materials and this is the perfect time and the perfect tool.

Donald Miller: Holly, we [00:31:00] just launched, it's a blog generator, but you can use it for LinkedIn or Instagram post or whatever you want. The great thing about this is you don't have a blank square that you type anything into. Although we have that [email protected]. But it asks you questions, so you're writing a blog entry, and so it says, Hey, what's the main problem that you're trying to solve today?

How are you trying to solve it? How's this problem make people feel? What's some wisdom that you've encountered that helps people solve the problem? Do you happen to have a story of somebody who used this idea to solve a problem? It asks you those questions, it asks you the right questions in order to get the best possible output, and then you can use that for anything you want.

Hala Taha: It sounds awesome. I have a bunch of follow up questions. So you mentioned the controlling idea. I know this is something new that sits on top of the framework. So talk to us about what makes a good controlling idea. How do we come up with one? Is there like a certain framework that we should use? 

Donald Miller: The controlling idea is less of a [00:32:00] framework and more the moral of the story or the point of the story. So that idea, the controlling idea, comes from screenwriting. And when you're writing a screenplay, you want to define the controlling idea before you begin because it creates a filter. So let's say I'm writing a story about a woman who owns a bookstore in New York. Who without knowing it, has an anonymous pen pal who owns a chain of bookstores that are very corporate and is killing all the little mom and pop bookstores.

Of course, we know this movie, right? So the controlling idea is two people who should be enemies fall in love before discovering they should be enemies. Well, now that's a filter for the rest of my story. So it can't be a story about winning a marathon. It can't be a story about adopting a dog. It can't be a story about running for office.

 It tells me what to [00:33:00] leave out and when you actually know the controlling idea of your organization, again, mine is clarify your message so customers will engage once. I know that that's the controlling idea of my book. If I'm writing a book. Everything in that book has to defend the controlling idea, and I can really come up with a great joke or a great whatever, but if that joke doesn't actually defend the controlling idea, I have to leave it out.

It's a wonderful filter. And so for instance, I helped a brand recently come up with the controlling idea that kids love aquariums. They sell aquariums, they sell fish tanks. They sell everything that goes into the fish tank. And that controlling idea also became their tagline. It doesn't have to, but that one became their tagline.

And when they started putting that on fish tanks and fish food and signage on shelves and PetSmart and Petco. They saw a 99% increase in sales. Mm Wow. In the test market where they tested that controlling idea [00:34:00] because finally, customers could walk in the door and know why they should buy it. They should buy it because they have a kid who's gonna love this. That's it. Don't overthink it. And so that's where the power of a controlling idea comes in. It tells everybody what to focus on, and more importantly, it tells you what to leave out. 

Hala Taha: And so tagline is more like external, maybe something that's easy to remember. Fun controlling idea can be something internal that we use as a filter for all of our communications. Is that right? 

Donald Miller: Yeah. And half the time your controlling idea becomes your tagline. Mm-hmm. Half the time it doesn't. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. 

Donald Miller: The difference between a controlling idea and a tagline is, the tagline is memorable. Your tagline needs to be able to be repeated. I like three word taglines. Eat more chicken. Sells about $20 billion worth of Chick-fil-A chicken every year.

Right. So what's the controlling idea of the whole Chick-fil-A effort? It's get people to eat more chicken and we're not gonna do anything else. That's what we do. That's our focus. We're never bringing a burger in here. So, you know, I think the [00:35:00] controlling idea is really important. The difference is, the tagline needs to be something that is very, very easy to remember.

It also, in my opinion, it cannot be unclear. It has to be extremely clear what it is that you offer and why it matters. And it's amazing. You can actually get that done with three words. Kids love aquarium. 

Hala Taha: Can I tell you mine for my podcast? 

Donald Miller: I would love it. Howa, 

Hala Taha: listen, learn, profit. Is that good or no? 

Donald Miller: I think that's actually really good, especially the word profit.

And the reason is you have immediately told me, one, I love a tagline that tells me what to do. Eat more chicken. Right? But then you added something else in just three words. You added a survival asset. So if I'm a small business and I listen. Then I learn and then I make money. You are offering me a chance to survive.

So it wakes my brain up and says, Hey, you should pay attention to this. I think it's very strong. 

Hala Taha: Thank you. You also mentioned [00:36:00] stakes, right? early on in the conversation when you were breaking down the framework. Why is it so important to help people understand what there is to lose?

Donald Miller: because it's more important to let people know what there is to lose than it is what there is to gain. And the reason is loss aversion theory. So loss aversion theory, it has been tested and it's been proven that people are more motivated not to lose something than they are to gain something.

In other words, you are more motivated to not lose a hundred dollars than you are to make a hundred dollars. If somebody offered you the ability to make a hundred dollars, you would be motivated on a scale of 10 at three. A scale of one to 10, maybe three or four. If I said, Hey, let me tell you how not to lose that a hundred bucks that's in your wallet.

You're motivated at level seven or eight. So the reason that you want that soundbite of here's what can happen to you if you don't buy my product, is it drives much more action than a vision of a better future. 

Hala Taha: Got it. So you should really think through not only the benefits of your product, but what's gonna happen if they don't use my product, and then [00:37:00] how can I weave those things into my messaging?

Donald Miller: The two most important things in your messaging. The two most important messages, if you will, are what is the problem that you solve and what failure am I gonna experience if I don't buy your product? Those are the only two negative messages out of the entire seven, and they're more powerful than the other five combined.

They're that important and the reason is pretty obvious. If you turn on your favorite movie, holla. What's your favorite movie? I'm curious. 

Hala Taha: Favorite movie of all time. The Wedding Singer. 

Donald Miller: Wedding Singer, that says a lot about you, and I absolutely love it. I'm here for that. What makes me wanna go back and watch it again tonight?

It's been a minute. Okay, so if you pause the wedding singer, 18 minutes in, 23 minutes in 40 minutes in 47 minutes in 62 minutes in and 83 minutes in now, I have no idea what's happening in those minutes, but I'll tell you what's actually happening in those minutes. Adam Sandler's up a creek. [00:38:00] Adam Sandler is having a lot of trouble with something. The reason is, if Adam Sandler isn't up against a challenge or experiencing some kind of pain, the story isn't interesting, just not interesting, and a good screenwriter will never, ever, ever let that happen. What you'll notice in a movie is it's negative, hard, hard, hard, hard, hard. Okay? We overcame it, and then there's six seconds.

 maybe six seconds of rest for the hero before something bad happens and he is at it again. And the moral, the lesson, if you will, that we can learn as business owners is if you stop talking about your customer's problems, they're gonna stop paying attention to you. You've gotta keep talking about the fact that interior design shouldn't be so expensive.

You can't stop talking about the fact that your tomatoes. Might not come up this year because it's gonna get really hot unless, right, you can't stop [00:39:00] talking about the fact that your kid is probably gonna be really screwed up unless you look them in the eye and say, I love you, you know, whatever. It's the negativity that drives interest and action.

And then people say, well, no, I don't wanna be a negative brand. That actually won't happen. Nobody will perceive you as a negative brand if 99% of your messages are negative. The reason they won't is because you sell a product that solves the problem. So if you sell a product that solves that much darkness, everybody sees you as light, they don't see you as darkness.

If you didn't have a product to sell that solved the problem, then you're a negative brand. But the more negative the problem is that you solve the brighter and the better the product actually is. And the more hopeful people associate their emotions, their hopeful emotions with your product. 

Hala Taha: Okay, one more follow up about the framework. You talk about a story gap. Why is it important to have a story gap and what is that? 

Donald Miller: A story gap is a question [00:40:00] in the consumer's mind that your product hopefully will answer. So let's actually look at it in this green play. Okay. Let's say that we're riding a rom-com, a romantic comedy, and there's a gentleman, he is sitting in a coffee shop, A young woman comes in, he notices her, and maybe she's beautiful or something like that.

And she spills a little bit of coffee right next to him. So he uses her nap and pick it up, and she sits down and they begin to have a conversation. There's a story gap already. You know what's gonna happen between these two people, but it's not a very good one. So let's actually raise the story gap. I.

Even more. And the story gap is the interest. We have to close this gap. We want these people to be together. She talks for maybe 10 minutes. The chemistry is off the charts. I mean, it's just like these two need to get married like fast and suddenly she says, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be talking to you.

This is inappropriate. And she gathers [00:41:00] her stuff, puts it in her briefcase and jets out the door. He doesn't have her name, doesn't have her phone number. Now we got a story gap. The story gap is. How are these two gonna end up together? It's also called an obligatory scene, or the foreshadowing of an obligatory scene.

The obligatory scene is this. You are obligated to bring those two together by the end of this movie. If you don't do it, you're gonna have an audience that's really, really mad at you. Yeah, because they want them to be together. So that's a story gab. Now let's make it even worse or better from the perspective of the movie going audience.

This guy gets a call from his mother. He's broken hearted. He has found the woman that he loves. He doesn't know nothing about her, doesn't know her name, but my God, he is smitten. His mother calls his little cubicle about an hour later and she says, you should come over for dinner tonight. Your brother is in town and he says, I hate my brother.

You should hate your son. He's a con artist. He's a liar. He's a narcissist. He's the worst human being who has ever walked this planet. I have no desire to [00:42:00] go to dinner. And the mother says he's changed and you need to come. Some things have happened in his life and he is really trying hard. Will you please give him a shot?

So he goes to dinner that night, the brother is there and he says, listen, I know I've been an ass, but it's different now and knock, knock, knock. Somebody knocks at the door. He says, in fact, the reason it's different. Right outside the, opens the door and introduces his fiance. And who do you think it is?

Hala Taha: The girl from the coffee shop. I like that story. 

Donald Miller: Now we've got a story. Now we've got a story, right? Because the story gap is how are they gonna get together? We've got a villain, the brother who's a con artist, and still a jerk to this day. And of course we see that as the movie unfolds, how horrible he is.

We have this wonderful young woman who deserves to be with the other brother, not the con artist, and the audience is going, how's this gonna work out? How are they gonna get to, how is this? That's the story gap. And in screenwriting, you should never, ever, ever, not for a second, [00:43:00] not have an open story gap.

Because as soon as you close that gap, the story's over. It's over. Let's say in that first scene, she would've said, you know what? I'm engaged with this guy. He actually kinda looks like you. But I'm realizing he's a con artist and I wanna marry you. We've ruined the movie because you close the gap too soon.

And so the idea is when you're promoting a product, you wanna talk about the pain and the challenge that the customer is experiencing because it opens a story gap. And when you say, look, when you actually do business with me and buy my product, that's how you close the gap. And then people are motivated to close that gap, so they pay you money to close the gap if the story gap is undefined.

Vague, you'll have a lot harder time selling your product. 

Hala Taha: And then how does the three step plan not close the story gap? 

Donald Miller: The three step plan tells them how to get to the closing of the story gap. 

Hala Taha: That's how you close the gap, but you don't actually tell them how, 'cause it's gonna like scare them away. So it's more high level you mean?

Donald Miller: No, it's the path. You know, let's say that you're an at-home [00:44:00] chef, you'd wanna say to people, Hey, you know how most families don't eat together anymore. When they do, they don't eat healthy. I'm an at-home chef. What did I just do by the way? I started with the problem and positioned myself as the solution to the problem.

Now, that's gonna make people wanna do business with me. However, they don't know if it's the right move and nobody likes to move into a fog. So what you say is, by the way, I work in three phases. I come to your house and I do an intake session. I find out what your food allergies are, what your favorite restaurants are, what kind of meals you like, when your family likes to eat.

The second step is I cook only one meal, and we see if we like each other. If you like the way it tastes, if you like the leftovers and they're good the next day, if you like the fact that you can sit down and connect with your family and not have to worry about a meal at least one night a week, then we take step three, and step three is I enter into a retainer.

I can work with you twice a month, and that's it because I'm very busy, but I'd love to work with you. Would you like me to come over for that intake session? You can even hear how much [00:45:00] more likely somebody is to take the risk-free step of an intake session and the slightly risk-free step of getting one meal done.

And then it feels like baby steps to close this story gap. Now when I said, do you know how most families don't eat together anymore? And when they do, they don't eat healthy. I opened a story gap in your mind because you went, holy crap, that's us. We don't eat together. We definitely don't eat healthy. We eat on the run we eat with the TV on.

And the kids are going off to college in about seven years, and we're never gonna have that opportunity again. Now there's a story gap, and I'm gonna close that story gap when I come and cook for you. 

Hala Taha: I wanna do some games. Does that sound like a good idea? 

Donald Miller: That sounds terrific. 

Hala Taha: Okay, so I wanna test. Hero versus guide with some really popular companies that I'm sure you know a lot about. You tell me, do you feel like they're positioning themselves as a hero or guide and why or why not? It's working. Okay. 

Donald Miller: Sounds good. 

Hala Taha: [00:46:00] Let's go with Apple. Think differently. 

Donald Miller: Okay. A couple things about Apple. The reason think different works for Apple, but not for you. Let's talk about that. Okay. The reason think different works for Apple.

Not for you is because Apple is the largest company in the world. Everybody knows what an Apple computer is. Everybody knows what an iPhone is. Everybody knows what an Apple watch is on and on and on. We all know those things. And so when people know what a Coca-Cola is and what it tastes like, you don't have to be as specific.

And so a major mistake that small businesses make or people starting their personal brand is they look at Apple and they go think different. Right or have a Coke and a Smile or whatever, and they go, okay, I need one of those. You don't. When your product is a household name, you can start doing what I call branding.

Until then you gotta do marketing. And marketing is explaining what you offer and why it matters. So let's just stop there and say, think different worked because it [00:47:00] launched in a Super Bowl commercial. That's where it launched. If you have the money for a Super Bowl commercial, have fun, that's great. But however.

They are positioning themselves as the guide, and they're telling the hero what to do, think different. That's a plus for them. Another plus is they're actually offering you a differentiation of your identity. Notice that Think different doesn't sell a computer. It sells an opportunity for you to become different than everybody else, which makes you stand out, which is a survival asset.

So two words. Very powerful, won't work if you are an unknown brand. Worked great for Apple. I give it like a C plus. 

Hala Taha: C plus, okay, 

Donald Miller: A plus for them, F minus for you. C plus is in the middle. 

Hala Taha: Nike, 

Donald Miller: just do it identical. Just do. It says that we are a brand for people who don't make excuses. We are a brand for people who have a [00:48:00] bias toward action.

We are a brand for people who are active. Very, very powerful. Unless you know what a Nike shoe is, it's completely ineffective. Hmm. So it works very well for a known brand. Not at all. For you, Tesla, what is Tesla's tagline? 

Hala Taha: I dunno what their tagline is, but everybody just knows Elon Musk. Is that problematic for them?

Donald Miller: No, because Elon is such a character who is incredibly different. Elon Musk has overcome more challenges this afternoon than you and I may overcome in a lifetime. Now, I'm not saying, you know, I admire his politics or any of that, although I. I'm very curious about how Doge is gonna work out because a lot of that stuff is really good.

We've gotta bring manufacturing home and we waste a lot of money as a government, but there's all sorts of shady stuff happening. Let's be honest, I think, um, Tesla, I don't actually know what their tagline is. I know that when they created the Roadster, it stood [00:49:00] out as an electric car, so it's a differentiated brand.

What was really interesting about it, it was an offer right at the height probably of the environmental movement. So it gave people a chance to have a product that would help them do what they wanted to do. It was like Apple in the sense that this is an alternative, which is really, really good. 

Hala Taha: I could read you the tagline if it's helpful.

Donald Miller: Yeah, let's hear it. 

Hala Taha: Accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy. 

Donald Miller: Well, there you go. 

Hala Taha: So clear. I feel like it follow your mind. 

Donald Miller: It's clear, but again, if I said to you that tagline, you would say, it sounds like a solar panel company. It's true. So it only works because we know what a Tesla is. Mm.

That's not a good tagline for anybody listening to my voice. 

Hala Taha: Got it. Another game, I'm calling it the SB seven speed round. 

Donald Miller: 

Hala Taha: I'm gonna give you the name of a product or a service, and then you basically say 

Donald Miller: the key soundbites for them. Okay

Hala Taha: Let's [00:50:00] do a meal kit for busy families. 

Donald Miller: Okay. A meal kit for busy families would be, it shouldn't take an hour to cook an amazing meal. So now we get an amazing meal and we get to save time. We get two things. So whatever the name of the company is, because it shouldn't take an hour to cook an amazing meal.

Now, I've combined some sound bites. One is what the customer wants, which is an amazing meal. The second is the problem, which it takes too long to make an amazing meal, and so the controlling idea of it shouldn't take an hour to cook an amazing meal is a pretty good one. I think that would work. Another one is what you actually need for dinner tonight in one box.

Or something like that could be good. Well, what problem I solving? Well, first of all, I've said what it is. It's everything you need for dinner tonight in one box. And the problem that I'm solving is I don't have to go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of stuff. I could do another one. If you have a family of four, I.

Shouldn't you have nothing left over [00:51:00] when you make dinner tonight? You know, solving the problem of every time I go, I get six of these, eight of these, four of these, 10 of these, and nothing is ever exactly what I need so I could choose to solve that problem. This is a conversation that I would have around a boardroom with that company, and then I would force them to choose.

You're gonna choose a problem that you solve, and then we're gonna corner the market on that problem. Do you wanna solve the problem of not having to go to the grocery store? Do you wanna solve the problem of it takes too long to cook? Do you wanna solve the problem of dinner? Never tastes good when we cook it at home, which by the way, is a pretty good one. And if so, we're gonna come up with a controlling idea and a tagline and brand script talking points based on what you have chosen. 

Hala Taha: So good. 

Donald Miller: And you can't choose two. You can't choose two. You gotta choose one. 

Hala Taha: Love it. Let's do a recruiting firm for startups 

Donald Miller: recruiting firm. Okay. Uh, startup employees are different.

I. Let us help you find the ones that work. So now I'm convincing people that startup employees actually have to be wired a certain way, and you're not gonna find them at any of the recruiter. [00:52:00] But by the way, I, I kind of believe that. But if you've ever been around a startup, right, 

you've gotta be scrappy, you gotta be comfortable with an ambiguous future, and you gotta wear five hats. Not one. That ain't the modern workforce. By the way, I just wrote the copy for their website. Just literally what I just said would do very, very well for them. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, you did do a good job. So for any recruiters out there listening, you're welcome. That's great. Great. Yeah. Donald, this has been such an amazing conversation I and my show with two questions that I ask all of my guests, and you don't have to answer them based on the topic today can just come from your heart. So first of all, what is one actionable thing our young and profits can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

Donald Miller: I almost always answer focus. Focus is the key to everything. When you look back on your life, I want you to answer the question, what should you have left out? And then start leaving that out. And when you find yourself focusing really on what matters, the rewards or compounding, 

Hala Taha: love that advice. And what is your secret [00:53:00] to profiting in life? And this can go beyond business stuff. 

Donald Miller: The secret to profiting in life is to make sure that your life mission is mutually beneficial. And what I mean by that is that you are gonna get a lot outta your mission, but so are other people.

And if you don't take people with you, now, I, I hear people say, no, my life mission is only about others. You're lying. You're lying. We are selfish human beings. We are trying to survive ourself, and you're not telling the truth, but when it's mutually beneficial, when I say I want the most enjoyable relationship any dad has ever had with their daughter, two of us benefit.

And that's a good ambition. And I would actually say, first of all, it motivates me because I get to enjoy a wonderful relationship with my daughter. And she gets to enjoy that. Hopefully I don't [00:54:00] have a whole lot of control over that, but hopefully she does. And so I try to choose ambitions that are mutually beneficial, that I benefit, but so does somebody else.

And there have been plenty of opportunities to make a lot of money, but only I benefit. And I've pretty much have always said no to those things because there always empty. Unless we can actually do something together that really helps each other out, it's probably not gonna be a very meaningful ambition.

Hala Taha: I really like that. Mutually beneficial goals. Really smart. So if somebody wants to get started with StoryBrand, where should they go first? Should they go grab the new book? Should they go to StoryBrand ai? Or where should they go first? 

Donald Miller: storybrand.ai is the place you wanna go and start playing around to get your controlling idea, your tagline. There's a link there if you wanna go buy the book. It's on Amazon. It's called Building a StoryBrand. You can read about it. It's on audible. You can read about it there or listen to it there, but storybrand.ai is where you should go. 

Hala Taha: Awesome. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

Donald Miller: Well, if you wanna know about me and you wanna see pictures [00:55:00] of my daughter and our garden and my beautiful wife, Donald Miller on Instagram is where I get personal. 

Hala Taha: Donald, it's always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast. 

Donald Miller: Oh, wonderful. Wonderful to be with you again. Thank you so much for having me. 

Hala Taha: Fam, what an unforgettable episode with the one and only Donald Miller. Now, this was the fourth time that Donald came on the show, but he brought us into a whole new world with StoryBrand 2.0, and I honestly think a lot of us are walking away with a totally different understanding of how to connect with our audience.

One of the most powerful takeaways from this conversation was Donald's core belief. If you don't like your life, you probably don't like your story. That simple shift in perspective gave him the power to lose over 200 pounds, become a husband and father at nearly 50 years old, and build a business that's made over a hundred million dollars.

It's proof that the rules of storytelling aren't just for marketing. They [00:56:00] apply to our own lives too. We also broke down Donald's seven part story brand framework, which helps entrepreneurs turn confusing messaging into clear sound bites that customers actually care about. And Donald reminded us that if your product isn't positioned as a survival asset, people won't pay attention because the brain is wired to conserve energy and focus on only what it needs to thrive.

I especially loved when Donald said, if you stop talking about your customer's problem, they're going to stop listening. That's the kind of truth that every entrepreneur, marketer, or creator needs to hear. On repeat. You can be repetitive and you've gotta talk about solving your customer's problems all the time.

Donald also gave us the inside scoop of StoryBrand ai, a new AI tool that helps you build your tagline, controlling idea emails, and even your website in just minutes. It's based on the same principles and practices Donald has used to help thousands of businesses grow for over a decade. I. So young and profits, I'm gonna leave you with this.

If you're [00:57:00] tired of confusing messaging or feel stuck in your own life story, remember this, you can change the script. You can start a new chapter one where you're clear, intentional, and in control of your narrative. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting. If you listen, learned and profited from this conversation with the amazing Donald Miller, then please share it with somebody who needs a little push to step into their next chapter.

And if you had a good time and picked up something valuable, then show us some love with a five star review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the show. It's the best way to help us reach more people. And if you'd rather watch this podcast on video, all of our episodes are on my YouTube channel.

The channel's growing so fast, so make sure you subscribe there, drop us a comment, and you'll find all of our episodes on that channel. You can also connect with me on Instagram at Yap, with Hala or LinkedIn by just searching my name. It's Hala Taha. And of course I've gotta thank my incredible YAP production team.

There's so many of you guys that helped put on this show and I couldn't do without you. This is your host, Hala [00:58:00] Taha, AKA, the podcast princess signing off.