The basic gist of this book is that, when you're a company selling a product or service, the best way to do that is to tell a story. Flashy marketing and gimmicks and everything won't connect with a customer the way that telling a story can; story is the most essential way that human beings connect with one another. The book then goes into a whole lot of breakdowns on what story is and how your business can use it. This book was gifted to me by a friend when I joined a nonprofit board, as a way to think about the organization and create a framework for how to talk about it.

On the one hand, it has a lot of really good nuggets of wisdom in there, including breaking down a business' story into what is essentially "The Hero's Journey" from Joseph Conrad. And, most importantly, it correctly points out certain perspectives like the fact that the "hero" in the "hero's journey" is the customer, not the business. Businesses too often see themselves the hero of their own story and that's just not something that customers will connect with the same way that they will if you treat them like the hero of their own story and you offer a product or service that will help them succeed on their own epic quest, whatever that may be... even if it's as simple as buying a car, finding the most cost effective laundry detergent, or whatever it is that your business does.

On the other hand, there are a lot of pieces to the book that I think go a little too far into the "you need our unique product to succeed at this," including all kinds of templates, services, etc. I suppose it's not a surprise that a book about creating a "StoryBrand" for your company is, in fact, an entry point to an entire business selling services that your company needs; but I always tend to find that stuff a little disappointing when it could have been a great reference book and instead becomes an reference book that's bogged down with sales copy for their other products and services.

If you have any experience at all with storytelling, the revelations in this book won't be as impressive as they are to others. Some of the people I've talked to who have read this book and aren't writers marvel at the idea of telling a story with a three act structure, or having a "hero's journey" plotted out for them. As a writer, that stuff has been drilled into me since college and didn't really come across as anything new; although I did appreciate the way the author tied storytelling into business use cases.

Overall, this was an interesting business book and definitely gives people a common language to talk about how to brand their business in terms of telling a good story. How useful it is for you personally will depend on how much you already know about story structure, and how involved you are in making branding and marketing decisions for your employer. That's, generally speaking, a pretty limited audience.

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Created Apr 06, 2024 at 1:01pm • Submit your own review...