Donald Miller

Donald Miller is an American author and business consultant whose Building a StoryBrand applies narrative structure to marketing, helping businesses clarify their message around the customer as hero.

Donald Miller first built a following as a Christian memoir writer with Blue Like Jazz before pivoting to business communication and marketing. Building a StoryBrand, published in 2017, applies a framework drawn from classic story structure to the problem of marketing messaging: most businesses, Miller argues, make themselves the hero of their own story when they should be positioning the customer as the hero and themselves as the guide. Using the seven elements of the “StoryBrand Framework” — character, problem, guide, plan, call to action, failure, and success — he shows how companies can clarify their messaging to make it instantly relevant and compelling.

The framework is genuinely useful and the book is readable and well-structured. Miller has a background in narrative, and his ability to translate story theory into practical marketing tools is genuine. The book works well as a practical workshop text, and the StoryBrand framework has been widely adopted by small businesses, non-profits, and independent professionals who find that their existing communications bury the customer’s problem under the company’s own story.

The limitations of Building a StoryBrand are the limitations of all single-framework business books: the model is presented as more universally applicable than any single tool can be, and the examples tend toward the straightforward rather than the complex. For large organizations with multiple audiences and products, the framework requires significant adaptation. As a starting point for anyone whose messaging is unclear or self-centered, however, it is a pragmatic and immediately actionable read.