How to Fix Your Messaging with StoryBrand So You Get Clients Faster

To help you apply Donald Miller's framework, you can grab a copy of my unique template, the one I use with my clients to help them clarify their StoryBrand-aligned messaging.

Today I want to talk about a framework that I use in my coaching, that I have shared with people as like, this is really good. It's simple and it makes messaging simple.

I've been in programs and paid many thousands of dollars, and their frameworks were okay, but not as good as Donald Miller's StoryBrand framework. I came across his work in reading his book, Building a StoryBrand: How to Clarify Your Message to Customers. Listen, I think I read it like maybe nine years ago or longer, but it's stuck because it's useful, and I've read it over and over again through my iterations as a web designer.

If I'm ever working for a client, I want to remind myself of the principles and help them use it so that you are not talking about yourself. You're talking about what you do, what you can help someone do, how your product helps a person survive or thrive or service. I'm sharing it today because I find myself referencing it so much, and I wanted a resource that I created that I can send to people and be like, go here and use it.

Why Is This Important?

The reason this is important is because you sometimes may come to my website and you're like, okay, this is a beautiful website, or you're on my Instagram bio, you're like, okay, this is nice. What do they actually do? This question is a bit catastrophic because if you cannot tell what someone does, then how are you going to give them your money? A lot of marketing today is more confusing than helpful.

This framework aims to help you clarify and in many ways simplify your message. And simple is not a bad word. You want to be clear, rather than just trying to be clever. Because I work with service providers primarily, I'm going to keep my examples tailored towards them. I'm a business coach for service providers. I help them find and prioritize their money-making priorities, because what are you doing in your business if you're not making money? Rather than overexplaining using cutesy language, trying to be on-brand, this framework has seven parts to it.

The 7-Part StoryBrand Framework

It's the StoryBrand framework by Donald Miller, and it says it's a StoryBrand because our brains respond to story well. When someone says, "Okay, let me tell you what happened," you lean in a little. When somebody says, "Once upon a time," you want to hear how it ends. You want to know if the person won. This is literally how all the movies are built around: someone must have a problem or a challenge. Our brains require that.

So, without further ado, it's a seven-part framework:

1. A Character (Your Client)

The first part is a character, which in your case would be your client. All storytelling begins with a character as the main person, right? Who is this about? What's this about? It's your job to really understand what your customer wants. If you can figure out what they want, you can invite them into a story that they can see themselves in. Your customer is the hero. Keep them as the hero.

How do you discover what your customer wants? Big question. Ask them upfront. You don't have to guess. You don't have to imagine. You don't have to ask ChatGPT. You don't have to think about only your own experience, even if you might be your ideal customer. Ask your people what they want in their own words. Be aware that they might list a lot of things, and you still have to uncover, "Okay, what's the main thing?"

Look at the reviews of your competitors. You want to capture what are people saying about the problem that they had, right? These things are often public. This is a great way to learn what are the desires and problems that your people have.

You can ask questions like:

• "What's your biggest goal or aspiration right now?"

• "What would success look like in the next 30 to 90 days? In the next 3 to 6 months?"

• "What are they already trying to accomplish without you?"

Document whatever you're hearing in the client's actual words. That helps your marketing to resonate. It helps your content on your website to make them be like, "Oh my God, how does she know that?" You really want to get into your client's head and figure out what do they want? You do this by talking to them, by looking at competitors' websites, and by documenting it in their own literal words.

Make sure you don't choose too many things. Ideally, you want to find the central thing that you want. The customer can only want one thing. If there are many things, pare it down to the one thing that is extremely clear and simple that they want. Avoid using jargon, inside-speak, coach-speak, expert-speak. Just make it simple for a third grader to understand. Avoid having your customers burn calories – don't make them work so hard to understand what it is that you're trying to tell them.

2. Has a Problem

The second part is the problem. So the problem is what's getting in the way of what they want. Here there's:

• External Problems: Surface-level things they face daily. What are the things that actually happen? Describe your day to me. What does it actually look like? What's the practical, logistical thing that's frustrating them? (e.g., "I'm not getting up to three hours of sleep.")

• Internal Problems: How does that problem make them feel? What silent frustrations or insecurities does this trigger? (e.g., "It feels like I'm losing my mind because I can't sleep," or "Maybe I'm not a good mom.") What do they say when no one is listening? You want to go so deep that it feels like you read their journal. When you talk to people and you ask good questions, they just pour it out. Your job is to note them down.

• Philosophical Problems: What belief do they hold that makes this problem feel unfair or wrong? What's the deeper reason this shouldn't be happening to them? (e.g., "Taking care of your child shouldn't be so hard," or "I'm good at what I do, why can't clients find me? Why is it so hard? Why does it feel like I'm creating content and nobody's listening?") That injustice side of things, right?

This helps you to really understand the problem on the three-part level: external, internal, and philosophical.

3. And Meets a Guide (You!)

Now let's talk about you, the guide. As much as we say you're not the hero, you are an important part of this puzzle because it's you that they're trusting to help them. You don't have a tangible product you're selling. You have your trust, your experience, lived experiences, trainings, work you've done with people. You painting yourself as a guide helps them answer the question, "Why should I trust you to help me?" Especially if there are hundreds of plumbers, tens of thousands of business coaches, career coaches, why should I choose you?

Think about your own personal experience. What personal experience or credibility makes you uniquely suited to help them? For me, I led small business marketing at Google Canada. I helped over 50,000 small businesses come online. I have an MBA. I have an undergrad in psychology. I deeply listen to people and I am insanely curious. I pull it out of people what the actual problem is. All these factors together make me a great coach.

How do you show empathy for where they are at? For example, a client who is a wellness coach and does yoga trainings went through something pretty traumatic and particularly focuses on people who are recovering or dealing with PTSD. She has lived experience that allows her to be able to say, "I understand what you're going through."

Beyond your personal experience, you also want proof. What proof? Testimonials, stories, credentials show that you understand and can help. I tell my clients' stories about how they came to me wanting a brand, but they left realizing they didn't have a clear offer to sell. When we fixed that together, they were able to sign seven new clients. One person brought in over $16,800. Another person was able to not throw away the business she was building and actually stick with it and bring in three more $13k months.

I bring proof and testimonials not because I want to brag, but because sometimes I will say something as small as "my client booked a sales call without a website and with only 66 followers," and somebody will be like, "Oh my God, I actually relate to that." These testimonials show that you've worked with people with different kinds of abilities, different kinds of access to resources, and they show that you understand them and can help.

Please, please, please don't be shy to ask for testimonials. When I ask for reviews, I give a few pointers so people don't just say, "Fope was great." I ask: "What was happening in your life before you worked with me? What did I specifically recommend? What changed after all of that?" So you can give me tangible things that I can create stories around.

When we say to show yourself as the guide, it's essentially answering the question, "Why should they trust you to help them specifically?" Tell your story, show your credentials, show the empathy. And if there are parts of your story that relate to your offer, please share. If you don't have any clients yet, I beseech you, this is me going Pauline on you, it's Paul from the Bible, go out and get free clients. If you cannot get people to pay you, you can get them to work with you for free, and it's your job to get them results and then have those testimonials.

4. Who Gives Them a Plan

The plan is what is your clear path to solving their problem? How are you going to help them? I hear, "It depends, it's custom." I hear you, I know you're a genius. You're compressing decades of learning. It feels hard to compress it. But it is your job to highlight the steps you're going to take to help them into like three to four steps, he says maximum five. So maybe three to five steps. Just don't make it a laundry list of steps.

Under the plan, you're really saying:

• "What are the three to four steps someone needs to take to work with me?"

• "What simple process will I guide them through?"

This is part of your marketing. You say: "Step one: book a sales call with me. On that sales call, I will create a customized plan for what the next 12 weeks will look like, tailored to you. How exactly I will help you sign at least five clients. What you'll be doing week to week. This is what it will look like literally on that call. And then I'm going to also walk you through helping you make a decision, what things do you need to consider, what questions you have, and we'll pick a start date. And once you pay, we get started."

I lay it out so that they know. They're not being caught off guard. The better you can answer that question upfront, the easier you make it for people to buy from you. And so the part of the plan is that it also helps you to reduce fear or risk. Giving them a clear path is ethical. And it makes it clear for you. This plan helps the client make a decision, yes, but it also helps you as a business to streamline your process.

5. And Calls Them to Action

This one is huge because you could do all this work. Somebody believes that you can help them. You discover their problem, but they're like, "Okay, okay, nice to know." You have to call them to action. What specific thing should they do next? What is one clear next step that they can take today? That's what you need to answer for yourself. You need to make this very easy for them to find your direct call to action (CTA). Make it simple.

For me, it's book a call. For my new one-off offer, it is join now, it is buy now, book your spot. Immediately you're able to see the link you need to purchase, to put your details on. Sometimes you, because you have so many things, you just say, "learn more." Okay, learn more. And then is there a way to book? Is there a number to call? Make it very simple to have a call to action.

If you think about it, most websites have the button. They have the logo at the first point of the Z, they have the actual call to action on the top right corner. It's for a reason, because most of our brains, they've studied us and they say that we scan things in that Z pattern on the website. So you want to put the call to action on the top right corner, then you want to repeat it again on the bottom left corner.

Your job is to figure out what can you offer that is lower resistance to make them take that step. So if they're not ready to buy, can they download your freebie? Can they see case studies? Can they download a checklist of seven things to know when your child won't sleep through the night? Essentially, if you, the first thing you want to figure out is the main call to action: what is the next step they take that helps them buy from you? Make it very permanent.

Then, when you have time afterwards, you can then create the smaller step that they can take that helps you capture the information so that later on you email them and remind them to work with you. This is why they keep offering you 10% discounts off, so that they get your emails. This is very, very important because if you do all this work and you don't give them a next step, people simply will not take the next step. They need you to nudge them along. So don't resist this work, okay? Very important.

6. That Helps Them Avoid Failure

Now to part six: avoiding failure. What will happen if they don't take action? What problems will persist if they don't work with you? Think about it. Your child will continue to not sleep through the night. You continue to be tired and cranky. You will not be able to return to your pre-postpartum state. You will continually feel tired and not be able to enjoy this year of motherhood that you really wanted. You may struggle to lose weight because if you're stressed, it's hard to lose weight.

Painting what failure looks like in my case, as a business coach: you will continue to feel stuck and overwhelmed by all the things on your to-do list, you will continue to resist, avoid sales conversations because you don't know what to say. You continue to edit your offer in ChatGPT tweaking it instead of selling. You will not be following up with your clients even though they are almost ready to buy from you because you are afraid of sales, or you will continue to be overwhelmed and just living under your potential.

The point here is to think about what is the real cost of inaction, right? What will happen if they don't take action? What problems will persist if they don't work with you? What is the cost – emotional, financial, time, opportunity? In my case, you also lose money if you don't work with me because you should have been making money in your business.

You really want to highlight this so that it is clear the cost of inaction and what staying stuck looks like. Then you also think about how does failure show up in their life six months from now? Yes, you fail right now, but what is six months from now? In my case, you've still not launched that business. You're still reflecting on how you used to do well during the pandemic but now you're not getting the same client, and you're wondering why. You think you've lost the sauce, you've lost your confidence, and that trickles down into you losing your confidence.

7. And Ends in Success!

There's also the seventh part, which is the final part: achieving success. What does success look like after working with you? Very, very important. You've painted this failure part. And this combination of failure and success is called stakes. You're raising the stakes, the stakes of inaction. But also what is on the other side, right? At the end of them taking action.

What wins or results would they see?

• "You would have signed at least five new clients."

• "You would have had a $10,000 a month."

• "You will stop doubting your skills and see that you're actually able to keep your promises to yourself."

• "You'll be proud of the business you've built."

• "You will have simplified your process of collecting your marketing assets."

• "Your child will be sleeping through the night."

• "You will pass your PBC exam on the first try."

So what wins or results would they see tangibly? Please don't only talk about confidence. Yes, we will get confidence. Yes, we get clarity. What else? Tangible things they can see. Think about the cost of your offer. Is this worth paying $2,500 for this result I'm highlighting? Is this result worth paying $100 for whatever your price is? So highlight the kind of results that is worth paying that for.

How would their day-to-day life be different? You sleep through the night, you actually wake up refreshed, you enjoy your husband again. What transformation can they expect? Help them paint the picture of success. It's your job, and this makes your marketing so much simpler because you just keep on using these elements and repeating them. How would they feel after working with you? So much of buying is emotional, so you cannot only talk about the tactical, you have to also talk about what they can expect to feel in their lives.

The Power of Clarity

My job is to help them understand what success looks like after working with me so that they're excited to do it. This StoryBrand process works because people don't buy the best service. They buy the clearest message. What do they understand? If they are confused, they're going to bounce. They will leave the website. They will close it. They will leave not because they don't want to buy, but because they are spending brain calories solving the problem of what do you do? How do you help me? How is this going to make my life better?

If they see themselves in your story, they will lean in and listen more. They want to be like, "Okay, I think she can help me. Sounds like I've been going to different coaches, they've been giving me templates, they've been giving me homework. But you said you're going to execute with me. You say you're going to help me make the best use of my team if I have one. You say you're going to help me even if I have a 9-to-5 job? Even if I have a kid and it's chaotic, you're going to help me actually make progress towards this goal. You're going to help me sign five new clients. You're going to help me have an offer that I'm proud of and I'm excited about selling. Okay. I want to work with you for that reason."

If they trust you, they trust that you have a plan, then they will buy, right? So lay out that plan for them. And really, let's also be honest, if your message doesn't sell when you are asleep, doesn't sell when it's on your website, if you have to talk to every single person, you are leaving a lot of people out because some people are just going to skim through your website, skim through your Instagram, skim through your bio, your even your physical materials, your flyers, and then decide if they want to work with you or not.

So if you're stuck thinking, "Okay, I've been posting, nobody's buying," look at this. If you evaluate your messages in this framework, where are you? If nobody is reacting to your content, nobody's responding, this is how you gain clarity. This is how you get clear about your message. Don't think about being cute using clever words. The first thing you want to do is to be clear. Clear is greater than clever, right?