Building A Story Brand

One of the best books I have ever read on marketing. An easy to follow but powerful formula for building a brand story and executing on it

Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller spends the first 40 pages convincing readers that he is qualified to talk about branding. Considering that readers have (most likely) already purchased his book, I feel like this is a complete waste of time and paper.

The rest of the book is alright, but not great. It basically just tells you what his 7steps to making a good brand are and then expands on each step. But in my opinion, he should have polished up this process and made it clearer.

The way this book is set up, you need to follow a linear trail from one step to the next, when in reality most of the steps depend on each other. If your goals and products are clear, you're probably fine going one step at the time, but if you haven't quite figured yourself out, you start to realize that there is more to these steps then the author is saying. This is especially evident if you are one person trying to develop a personal brand - meaning you aren't an already established brand specializing in e.g. energy bars.

Because of this, I feel like this book is one giant brochure made specifically for brands. A CEO would see this and go “Hey this guy knows what he is doing, let's set up a meeting with his branding company” (which Miller clearly advertises on every second page). But then somehow ‘Building a Story Brand' also became a bestseller? And a bunch of entrepreneurs have read it? And now artists and Instagram pet moms are reading it and his audience is no longer just companies.

Did Miller intend this from the start? Because if so, this really isn't a great book. My recommendation to potential readers is to go online and find a good summary instead of spending money on what is essentially a bloated blog post.