Your values ARE your brand

This post is sponsored by a possibly foolish internal argument with Donald Miller.?

Who am I to doubt the king of storybranding, but here I go, plunging into the depths of critical analysis to save as many brands as possible from jumping headfirst into Donald Miller’s well-meaning, but wildly dangerous, advice.?

By his own admission on Episode #666 of Amy Porterfield’s podcast, Why Telling Your Story Will Not Help Your Business , Donald Miller became a marketer by trade after writing 7 books about himself and then realizing he had nothing left to say.?

“I wrote seven of them. I did not want to write an eighth because I had nothing else to say. So I wrote a book about story structure and clarifying a message. That book sold a million copies . . . And all of a sudden, I had a new career.”

Right about now feels like a good time to note that Donald Miller single handedly saved my faith from the rubbish pile.?Fifteen years ago, his book Blue Like Jazz blew the locks off my ideas on what faith felt like it had to be, and it freed my soul to follow God in the way it was wired to find Him.

So to all that, I say, God bless you, Donald Miller. We’ll share beers and bourbons over this in Heaven some day.?

But I also have to say, when you say that brands shouldn’t tell their story, you’re wrong.?

Let me nuance.?

When you move past the brilliant clickbait title of Donald’s podcast episode, what you discover is that he was trying to deconstruct the idea held by some brands (and some brand storytellers) >>That brand story equals autobiography, complete with timelines and historical retellings and all things ripped straight from the pages of a personal diary.?

And that argument is spot on. So much, in fact, that most copywriters and brand storytellers would never raise an eyebrow with a smidge of argument (at least, not the ones worth their salt).?

In branding, by the time a story reaches the public, it often has little to do with the minutiae of a founder’s life. Instead, a brand story represents the embodied essence of a founder – and that essence informs everything a brand believes, says, sells, and reaches.

Viewed through this lens of embodiment and belief, it’s not a stretch to argue that you simply cannot tell an authentic, personalized brand story without first making that story about YOU.?

And this YOU, defined in brand terms, isn’t about when you were born or what trials you overcame, or how lucky you are that your wife chose you – a lowly dude from the mountainside –? to marry.?

YOU means how you see and make sense of the world, how you believe your employees should be treated, how you create and develop your product or service, and you keep your promises to your audience.?

YOU means your values.?

And apart from knowing exactly what these values are (and how, why, and when? they developed in the first place), your brand story becomes nothing more than formulaic hodgepodge.?

In his article How to uncover authentic (brand) values, a practical exercise , Ivan AD pushes us to think about our values in terms of sacrifice. Instead of finding our values by imagining the best version of ourselves, he encourages us to imagine the worst version of ourselves – and to identify our values by the unacceptable terrors we discover in that dark ideation.?

It reminds me of the constant thought I’ve had in my mind since I became a parent.?

The moment I first held my baby daughter in my arms, I knew that without a doubt, I’d stand in front of a moving truck to save her life – because making sense of life without her was now unimaginable. And I felt that same feeling three more times with the births of each of my sons.?

There was no doubt, no second-guessing, no minor pause. I would protect these children at all costs. It was a visceral truth permanently bolted to my soul, and it’s defined every aspect of my parenting for the last 23 years.?

In his advice about brand story, however, Donald Miller zeroes in on the mechanics of story – as though following these basic rules will spin any yarn into a tale of shock and awe.???

• Use drama to pull the audience in.?
• Get comfortable with humor.?
• Spend 75 percent of your message focusing on the problem, the problem, the problem.?

For him, the mechanics ARE the brand story. Good story is all about putting the right structures in place so your audience will take the bait, buy into your version of reality, and finally see themselves as the hero. Do that, he seems to say, and you’ll hit the story jackpot.

But here’s the thing.?

All of that only works if you know why you’re using those mechanics in the first place. Otherwise, you risk showing up with a hammer when you really just need a good, soft push.?

You can’t use dramatic exaggeration if you’ve got a super smart and super suspicious audience.?

You can’t use humor and sarcasm if you’re selling to a horde of Stoics.?

You can’t spend 75 percent of your message focusing on the problem if you’ve got an audience who’s had it up to their eyeballs with problem language and just wants to invest in the solution.?

Mechanics have to be custom-designed for the audience you’re trying to reach, and even more, they’ve got to align with YOU – your voice, your values, and your own tolerance for transactional sales techniques.?

When Donald Miller boldly claims that “telling your story will not help your business,” he’s using drama and exaggeration in a most dangerous way – because getting your brand story right is more than just avoiding a personal overshare or regurgitating all the right mechanics of storytelling and copywriting.

Brand storytelling starts way before any of that – at the values level.

So when we talk about brand story, we cannot omit the fact that authentic, honest stories cannot be told unless you honor your values.??

But you cannot honor your values without pushing pause on the transactional, mechanical side of brand storytelling.?

And you cannot push pause on transaction and mechanics without first elevating the relational side of brand storytelling – the YOU + the ME contract where we invite our audience to play the main character in our story.

Miller reminds us that if we want to invite our audience into our story, then we cannot frontload it with our own egos. Our story isn't about us. It's about the transformation our audience seeks.

I couldn’t agree with this more, but the detail he’s missing is that the only way our audience will feel safe to enter our story is if they see their values reflected in our own.?

Maybe it’s a tug and pull or a minor splitting of hairs, but I think this matters – exponentially – for brands that are storytelling in a world colored by digitized illusion.?

Our pursuit and demand of REAL will force brands to push outside the boundaries of formula and mechanics. Everything is shifting, plunging us into an age of suspicion where we wonder without apology: Are YOU really who you say you are??

More on all of this next post. Until then, it seems fair to end with Miller’s words in Blue Like Jazz, revealing that we’re probably far more aligned on this idea than his 39-minutes on Amy Porterfield’s podcast had time to prove:?

“Dying for something is easy because it is associated with glory. Living for something is the hard thing. Living for something extends beyond fashion, glory, or recognition. We live for what we believe.”

If you’re a brand that isn’t just chasing short-term glory, or trends, or recognition, then you’ve got to tell stories that stir up belief and meaning.?

Sure, that doesn’t mean you should pull out the timelines and the baby pics, but it does mean that you’ve got to know what you believe – and then write a brand story that proves you live it.?

Beers and bourbons in Heaven, Donald – on me.

**************************************************

I'm Lindsay Hotmire, and I partner with small business owners and do-good organizations who feel stuck, confused, and unclear on their brand messaging. Using the strategies inside my Two Story Framework, I help them find the clarity, strategy, and messaging they need so they can live out their mission and authentically share their big story. Learn more at storyhousefifteen.com