Applying StoryBrand to Your Small Business

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• Free Trial of Our Recommended Website Builder: GoDaddy
• Best LLC Formation Service: Northwest
• The StoryBrand framework was first introduced by Donald Miller in his book, "Building a StoryBrand." To explore his ideas further, we recommend checking it out.

Crafting a Brand Story for Your Business

Building a brand story isn't just about telling people what you do – it's about making them feel, connect, and envision a relationship with your brand. Using our example barbershop business, we’ll put the pieces together step-by-step so you can follow along through the process.

Applying StoryBrand to Your Small Business – Transcript

There's a way to talk about your business and products that will make your audience envision themselves using what you have to sell and desire it. This video is called The StoryBrand framework, and in this video, we're going to apply it to the imaginary barbershop that we've been building throughout the course. Follow along with us so you can understand how to apply it to your business too. 

Hey, everybody Will Scheren here from Small Business Startup Guide by TRUiC. This video is part of a larger course dedicated to helping small business owners cut through the noise and get to the essentials of starting and operating their business. If that sounds like it would be really useful to you, be sure to like and subscribe. 

In the last video in the course, we discuss the StoryBrand framework, and we learn to standardize the way that your business talks about its brand and products. 

In this video, we're going to apply that framework to the imaginary barbershop that we've been building in hopes it helps you to feel more confident and creating a brand story for your business. And we'll write this brand story in a document that will be sure to keep close by whenever we go to write the barbershop pitch deck, website page, social media content, email blast, and any other touch points that customers would have at their brand when we ask them to purchase their products. 

If you would like to follow along and fill in information for your own brand as I create a brand story for the imaginary barbershop, you can do so by using the link below this video to download the template. 

We'll start by answering what our customers, the heroes of the story, want as it relates to the barbershops, products, and services. For this, we stated that our customers want a barbershop experience where they feel confident that they can get a great haircut. And to be provided a barbershop experience that makes them feel like a VIP in Bloomington, Illinois. 

Next will identify who the villain of the story is by personifying the root cause of our customers' problems. Here, we'll write, “Barbershops at the forefront of men's fashion, who also provide a hospitality-driven experience, are generally only found in the world's largest cities.” 

This barbershop has identified that while the hero of the story wants a fashionable haircut and to feel like a VIP, the problem that they're having is that they're located in Bloomington, Illinois, which is not a very large city. The distance they are from what they want is the villain in the story. 

The external problem here, though, is simple enough: the hero needs a haircut. Internally, they're feeling like they're not going to be able to get a haircut that makes them feel like they look good, and they're not confident that the experience that they'll have while getting a haircut will make them feel fantastic, either. Philosophically, just because a person lives in a small town doesn't mean that they shouldn't feel confident in their barber options. 

Now we'll turn the corner on the problem and show the hero how we can help them fix it. As the guide, we can show empathy to the customer by saying that the lead barber was born and raised in this area, so he knows how it feels to walk into a barbershop in a smaller city rather than walking into a fashionable barbershop in a big city like New York or L.A. 

And the barber can position himself as an authority by saying that he knows how it feels to be a barber in a major city. Because, as we learned earlier, our barber studied in Los Angeles and cut hair for celebrities while he lived there. 

Now, as the customer's guide, we're ready to provide them with a plan that feels pretty simple: schedule an appointment on their website or call to schedule an appointment. For the agreement, we can let them know that if for any reason they don't feel great about the way they look or the experience they had when they walk out of the shop, they can head out free of charge, no questions asked. 

Now, the call to action will be dependent upon where the customer is viewing this story. But for this scenario, we'll say that we're creating this brand story for the website. So the direct call to action can be a button that says “Schedule an Appointment Now.” As a transitional call to action on the site, we can offer them a downloadable PDF covering the fashionable hair trends based off of head shape and hair type in exchange for their email address. 

If the hero doesn't book an appointment with this shop, they'll continue to feel insecure about their barbershop options and the way they'll feel while they're getting their haircut. If they do book an appointment, they can feel confident that they're going to get a great haircut and feel fantastic while they get it. 

Ultimately, they're going to transform from someone who does not feel like they're getting a VIP haircut experience to someone who knows they're getting a great haircut and having a great experience while they do it. 

Listen to how concise, clean, and easy to understand the sales pitch is when it's put all together:

“Are you someone who lives in Bloomington and wants an elevated barbershop experience where you can feel confident that you will receive a great haircut in an environment designed to help you relax and feel your best? 

The problem is barbershops who are current with men's fashion and provide hospitality-driven experiences are generally only found in the world's largest cities. This means that when you've looked for a barber in Bloomington, you've historically not felt confident that you've been able to get a haircut that you love and an experience that makes you feel fantastic. 

Just because a person lives in a smaller town does not mean they should not be capable of feeling confident about their barber options. 

As someone who was born in central Bloomington, I understand how you feel. That's why I studied as a barber apprentice in Los Angeles, where I became a master barber and gain the trust of various Hollywood celebrities surrounding their hair and haircut experience. 

I've taken all that I've learned and brought it back to my home in Bloomington. To look and feel fantastic, all you need to do is schedule an appointment on our website or call our shop to schedule a time to come in for a cut and scalp massage or any of our beard maintenance options. 

To learn more about trending hairstyles for your head shape and hair type, enter your email, and we'll send you a PDF for you to explore great haircuts that could work for you. 

So, to avoid feeling like you don't have access to the haircut you deserve, click on the link provided to schedule an appointment today and ensure next time you get a haircut, you walk away looking and feeling amazing.” 

If you're following along with us in the course, go ahead and download the brand story template that we have for you in the link below this video. And you may want to go ahead and write a brand story for your entire brand and for each of your products and services at this point. You'll be relying on these brand stories as we build out content for your business and future videos. So be sure to save them somewhere on your computer where you can get to them easily. 

This video is part of a step-by-step course that provides business owners all of the essential information to start and operate their business. We provided a link for you to get access to all of the free and discounted business tools that we mentioned in the course below this video. 

Be sure to like and subscribe to get more of this content. We'll see you in the next video, and if you have any questions, let us know.