PEOPLE WANT YOUR BRAND TO PARTICIPATE IN THEIR TRANSFORMATION
Even though you’ve filled out all seven parts of your StoryBrand BrandScript, you’ve likely noticed there’s one left. The final section serves as the foundation for the overall BrandScript and will help you create a guiding focus for your brand. In fact, we’ve only danced around the greatest single motivation your customer has. This single motivator is the driving force behind nearly every decision we make as human beings. Whether we’re buying lawn furniture or choosing a mate, we can’t escape it.
I’m talking about the human desire to transform.
Everybody wants to change. Everybody wants to be somebody different, somebody better, or, perhaps, somebody who simply becomes more self-accepting.
When you look closely at your BrandScript, you’ll see it. Your brand is helping people become better versions of themselves, which is a beautiful thing. You are helping them become wiser, more equipped, more physically fit, more accepted, and more at peace. Like it or not (and we hope you like it), we are all participating in our customers’ transformation, which is exactly what they want us to do.
Brands that participate in the identity transformation of their customers create passionate brand evangelists.
HEROES ARE DESIGNED TO TRANSFORM
At the beginning of a story, the hero is usually flawed, filled with doubt, and ill-equipped for the task set before them. The guide aids them on their journey, rife with conflict. The conflict begins to change the character, though. Forced into action, the hero develops skills and accrues the experience needed to defeat their foe. Though the hero is still filled with doubt, they summon the courage to engage, and in the climactic scene defeat the villain, proving once and for all they have changed, that they are now competent to face challenges and are better versions of themselves. The story has transformed them.
This same character arc, by the way, is the arc for The Old Man and the Sea, Pride and Prejudice, Pinocchio, Hamlet, Sleeping Beauty, and Tommy Boy. It’s the arc of almost every popular story we can name. Why? Because it’s our story. Feelings of self-doubt are universal, as is the desire to become somebody competent and courageous. And all of this matters when it comes to branding our products and services.
A few important questions we have to ask ourselves when we’re representing our brand are: Who does our customer want to become? What kind of person do they want to be? What is their aspirational identity?
SMART BRANDS DEFINE AN ASPIRIATIONAL IDENTITY
Recently I ran down to Home Depot to get a stud finder so I could install shelving in the garage. Next to the stud finders in the tool section was a selection of Gerber Knives. Gerber is a knife company out of Portland, Oregon, that makes a range of multipurpose pocketknives. Their commercial campaign, however, offers the buyer a lot more than a knife. They sell something intangible. They sell an identity, and by that I mean they sell a kind of person you and I can become. I’d been studying their commercials for a long time, and even though I knew exactly what they were doing to my subconscious, I wanted one anyway. But why? I thought to myself as I stood there staring at the knives. I’m a writer. The only thing I need a knife for is to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Still, the pull was palpable. What if I had to swim under a boat to cut a tangled rope from its propeller? Or cut a pant leg off my bloody blue jeans to make a tourniquet for my injured arm?
Thankfully my executive brain overpowered my primitive brain and I walked away with just the stud finder. But why was it so hard? Why did I want the knife so badly? And then why did I specifically want a Gerber Knife? Certainly they make great knives, but there are many other companies making great knives and I’d never really cared or noticed.
The reason was simple. Gerber defined an aspirational identity for their customers and they associated their product with that identity. The aspirational identity of a Gerber Knife customer is that they are tough, adventurous, fearless, action oriented, and competent to do a hard job. Epitomized in their advertising campaign “Hello Trouble,” Gerber positioned their customer as the kind of person who sails boats into storms, rides bulls, rescues people from floods, and yes, cuts tangled ropes from boat propellers. In their television commercials they present images of these aspirational, heroic figures over anthemic music and a narrator reciting the lines:
Hello, Trouble.
It’s been awhile since we last met.
But I know you’re still out there.
And I have a feeling you’re looking for me.
You wish I’d forget you, don’t you, Trouble?
Perhaps it’s you that has forgotten me.
Perhaps I need to come find you, remind you who I am.1
The commercial is terrific. One day, to my surprise, a StoryBrand alumnus, who happened to have been one of the Army Rangers about whom the movie Black Hawk Down was made, stopped by the house. We caught up for a moment, and then he gave me a little thank-you present, a Gerber Knife. He even had my name engraved on the blade. He knew I liked the commercial and thought it would be a thoughtful gift. To this day I keep that knife clipped to the dashboard of my truck. Occasionally I’ll take it into the kitchen, stare at a jar of peanut butter, and say, “Hello, Trouble.”
I may just be a writer, but I love that knife.
But let me ask you a question. Was that knife a waste of money? I mean, let’s say I did pay forty dollars for the knife and never used it. Did I get ripped off?
I’ve asked that question to hundreds of people who’ve attended the StoryBrand Marketing Workshop, and the answer has always come back the same: no. It was not a waste of money. It was well worth the forty dollars. I can’t help but agree. The truth is I got a knife and something more than a knife. In a way, Gerber helped me become a better person. They defined an aspirational identity and invited me to step into it. They made me feel more tough and adventurous, and they even created a moment between two friends. And that’s worth a great deal more than forty dollars.
HOW DOES YOUR CUSTOMER WANT TO BE DESCRIBED BY OTHERS?
The best way to identify an aspirational identity that our customers may be attracted to is to consider how they want their friends to talk about them. Think about it. When others talk about you, what do you want them to say? How we answer that question reveals who it is we’d like to be.
It’s the same for our customers. As it relates to your brand, how does your customer want to be perceived by their friends? And can you help them become that kind of person? Can you participate in their identity transformation? If you offer executive coaching, your clients may want to be seen as competent, generous, and disciplined. If you sell sports equipment, your customers likely want to be perceived as active, fit, and successful in their athletic pursuits.
Once we know who our customers want to be, we will have language to use in e-mails, blog posts, and all manner of marketing material.
A GUIDE OFFERS MORE THAN A PRODUCT AND A PLAN
Playing the guide is more than a marketing strategy; it’s a position of the heart. When a brand commits itself to their customers’ journey, to helping resolve their external, internal, and philosophical problems, and then inspires them with an aspirational identity, they do more than sell products—they change lives. And leaders who care more about changing lives than they do about selling products tend to do a good bit of both.
Last year StoryBrand consulted with Dave Ramsey and his team at Ramsey Solutions. Ramsey Solutions may be the best example of a narrative-based company I know, and Dave himself is a terrific example of a guide. Over a series of workshops, dinners, and speeches, we introduced the Ramsey team to the SB7 Framework, less as a way of educating them than as a way of giving vocabulary to what they were already doing.
Dave Ramsey hosts one of the largest radio shows in America with more than eight million daily listeners. On the show he offers financial advice and strategies that center around tackling and conquering personal debt. Unlike many advisors, though, Ramsey offers more than wisdom; he offers a narrative map his customers can enter into. Ramsey comes back from every break on his radio show with the same line: “Welcome back to The Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.” There they are, the elements of story, complete with an identity to step into and a new status symbol to go along with it.
Though Dave’s face is prominent on book covers and billboards promoting his show, he never positions himself as the hero. Instead, Ramsey has a near obsession with his listeners’ journeys. Dave’s understanding of his listeners’ external problems (consumer debt and financial illiteracy), internal problems (confusion and a feeling of hopelessness), as well as their philosophical problem (accruing debt for things we don’t need posits moral questions) engages listeners in a living story. Always entertaining, Dave never misses an opportunity to embolden his listeners with an aspirational identity, encourage their improvements, and remind them that tackling their financial challenges is a step to personal strength and there are few of life’s problems that can’t be conquered with a little strategy and commitment.
Dave even offers a climactic scene in his customers’ story. After executing a plan he offers through his Financial Peace University, listeners are invited on his show to perform a “Debt-Free Scream.” People travel from thousands of miles away to be featured on the show, and when they arrive, dozens of the Ramsey team surround the accomplished hero with applause as the hero shouts, “I’m debt-free!”
Once a listener has completed the journey, Dave lets them know they’ve changed, that they’re different now and there’s nothing they can’t accomplish if they apply themselves.
GREAT BRANDS OBSESS ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATION OF THEIR CUSTOMERS
When we first met with Dave, I was surprised to learn he didn’t know that affirming the hero’s transformation was an oft included scene at the end of many stories. After the climactic scene (the debt-free scream), the guide comes back to affirm the transformation of the hero.
In Star Wars, the ghost of Obi-Wan stands next to Luke Skywalker as he’s rewarded for bravery. In The King’s Speech, Lionel tells King George he will be a great king. Peter Brand sits Billy Beane down in the movie Moneyball and lets him know he’s hit the equivalent of a home run as the manager of the A’s.
The main purpose these scenes serve is to mark the transformation the hero has experienced so the audience has a point of reference that contrasts the hero’s character from the story’s beginning. The audience needs to be told very clearly how far the hero has come, especially since the hero usually struggles with crippling doubt right up until the end and they don’t even realize how much they have changed.
A hero needs somebody else to step into the story to tell them they’re different, they’re better. That somebody is the guide. That somebody is you.
There are hundreds of thousands of financial advisors, and thousands of them have written books. Hundreds of those who’ve written books have podcasts or radio shows, and yet Dave Ramsey enjoys a wider popularity. Why? Well, certainly his advice is good. Nobody is attracted to incompetence. But I’m convinced it is the way he frames the customer’s journey as a narrative and participates in their transformation that sets him apart.
IDENTITY TRANSFORMATION
In the foundational module of your StoryBrand BrandScript, we’ve included a section that will allow you to define an identity transformation your customer may experience as they relate to your brand.
Who does your customer want to become as they relate to your products and services?
At StoryBrand, we want our customers to become marketing experts. When they leave our workshop or after having spent time with one of our StoryBrand Guides, we want them to return to the office and have people wondering what happened to them. How did they get such marketing savvy? How did they become so clear in their thinking? Why are their ideas suddenly so good? Did they suddenly get a PhD in messaging?
Similar to the success module of your BrandScript, the aspirational identity section answers a question about how the story ends, except instead of telling us where the story is going, it tells us who the hero has become.
Brands that realize their customers are human, filled with emotion, driven to transform, and in need of help truly do more than sell products; they change people. Dave Ramsey changes people. Starbucks changes people. Apple changes people. Tom’s Shoes changes people. Gerber Knives changes people. It’s no wonder brands like these have such passionate fans and do so well in the marketplace.
EXAMPLES OF IDENTITY TRANSFORMATION
Thousands of StoryBrand clients have defined an aspirational identity for their customers and begun to participate in their transformation. Because of this, more and more companies are not just improving the world through their products and services; they’re actually improving the way their customers see themselves. Offering an aspirational identity to our clients adds enormous value to everything else that we offer.
Here are some examples of aspirational identities from StoryBrand alumni:
PET FOOD BRAND
From: Passive dog owner
To: Every dog’s hero
FINANCIAL ADVISOR
From: Confused and ill-equipped
To: Competent and smart
SHAMPOO BRAND
From: Anxious and glum
To: Carefree and radiant
Have you thought about who you want your customer to become? Participating in your customer’s transformation can give new life and meaning to your business. When your team realizes that they sell more than products, that they guide people toward a stronger belief in themselves, then their work will have greater meaning.
Spend some time thinking about who you want your customers to become. How can you improve the way they see themselves?
How can your brand participate in your customer’s transformational journey?
Let’s do more than help our heroes win; let’s help them transform.
CLARIFY YOUR MESSAGE SO CUSTOMERS LISTEN
• Go to mystorybrand.com and either create a StoryBrand BrandScript or log in to your existing BrandScript.
• Brainstorm the aspirational identity of your customer. Who do they want to become? How do they want to be perceived by others?
• Use the “to” lines of your BrandScript to define an aspirational identity. Filling out the “from” line is then simple. It’s simply the opposite of whatever you define as their aspirational identity captured in the “to” line.
