#56: Why Telling Your Story Will Not Grow Your Business (And What to Do Instead)

The StoryBrand Podcast

StoryBrand.com

Marketing, Business

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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Companies love to talk about themselves—how they started, what they value, what makes them different. But your story isn't what sells. In fact, it could be what's holding you back. When your pitch, your website, or your brand story starts with you, your potential customers tune out fast. Why? Because they're not looking for a hero. They're looking for help. And if you don't lead with their problem, they'll find someone else who does. So how do you tell your story in a way that actually connects, converts, and grows your business?

In this episode, Donald Miller unpacks why most businesses fumble their messaging when they lead with their own story, and shows you how to do it right. You'll learn the real purpose of your company's story, exactly when to tell it, and the simple storytelling formula that turns your backstory into a trust-building, revenue-driving asset. If you've ever wondered how to make your origin story matter, this episode shows you exactly how.

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Learn how to make your marketing and messaging work using a proven framework in the updated book, Building a StoryBrand 2.0. Order it now on Amazon or wherever you buy books!

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to The Story Brand podcast based on Donald Miller's best-selling book,
0:06.0	Building a Story Brand.
0:07.6	The Story Brand framework is made up of seven key elements.
0:11.8	All of them anchored in one powerful idea.
0:14.5	Your customer is the hero, and you are their guide.
0:18.1	Each week on the podcast, you'll get exactly what you need to craft clear messaging that connects with more customers and grows your business.
0:25.5	Now let's dive in with your hosts, Donald Miller and Kyle Reed.
0:33.7	A big desire that small business owners have, any business owner has, is to tell the story of their business.
0:39.8	They want to tell their story. And people come to be all the time after a keynote address and say, hey, we'd love to talk to you.
0:46.3	We have got such a great story. We really need help telling it. My subconscious answer, I don't always say it right there to them, is you don't need to tell your story.
0:59.0	There's almost never a reason to tell your story, and telling your story will not grow your business.
1:05.3	Inviting customers into a story will grow your business.
1:08.3	Now, here's what I mean by that, because I want to caveat
1:11.4	this, I am going to teach you to tell your company's story here in a minute. So obviously,
1:15.6	there is a place to tell your story. However, it's not where you want to begin. I just met
1:21.3	with the company yesterday. They clean airplane engines, so they can pull up to an airplane,
1:26.2	they spray foam into the front of the
1:28.5	engine. They run the engine for about an hour, and they catch the foam and the liquid on the
1:33.4	backside of the engine. They put in a tank and they haul it off. This increases efficiencies to the
1:38.7	engine. This decreases the amount of danger that the engine might have. It increases the link that
1:43.9	the engine can stay in the air, increases fuel efficiency. They charge $3,000 per engine, and you probably get somewhere around a $30,000 return on that investment in saved maintenance and fuel costs. They brought me their pitch deck, and the first 10 pages of the pitch deck were all about
2:02.3	their company values and they were wondering why they were having so much trouble closing accounts
	...

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