Donald Miller (15)

The analogy between business messaging and storytelling may be helpful in keeping your message concise and focused, but it's also heavily labored and not always on point.

A thesis like this one will live or die by the strength of its examples. In this case, sometimes the author's examples work; other times, they are not examples of what he says they are; still other times, he makes very sweeping pronouncements without offering any evidence at all.

The author claims to derive his authority show more from the time he spent as a Hollywood screenwriter, and he claims to have written a script that was produced and released nationwide. However, I was not able to find such a movie. It isn't even on the author's IMDB page. If he really did make a movie, then he obviously thinks his reputation will be weakened if you find out what it was — yet he still tries to parlay it into authority.

This is dishonest on the author's part; but my larger objection is that the author is a lightweight who doesn't know how to think his points through. If you choose to let this man influence the path of your business, I strongly recommend scrutinizing his claims very closely. show less

One quick thing to get out of the way. This is an updated version of the author’s first book on the subject. I’ve never read the original version (I guess “1.0” would be the proper way to refer to it), so I can’t compare the changes. However, I’ll relate a story regarding 1.0.

During a video conference with a friend, I mentioned I was excited about this book I was reading. (I was about halfway through.) I showed her the 2.0 cover. She became similarly excited and said her and her show more husband had used the first version to help brand his company – apparently a very profitable branding.

I don’t know what was added, but a successful first version has led to a very successful second version.

I come at anything regarding the marketing of operations in a different way than a lot of people. I have worked in/with internal audit for over 40 years, and I believe one thing really holding the profession back is that it does not know how to market itself within the organization. I’ve done a lot of work around this and done training/presentations on the subject.

With that in mind, I approached what I read from two perspectives – as if I were marketing an internal audit department (and I worked in them for almost 30 years, so this was no stretch), and from my own training/consulting operations.

I cannot describe all the insights and new understandings I gained from reading this book. It matched many of the things I understood about how to market, but gave a new framework, approach, and understanding on the subject. In particular, the emphasis on making the customer (client) the hero of the story – remembering that is about that person, not about you – definitely resonated. I have seen too many examples in my profession of people who think the focus is on them. And if they were to make this one pivot it would result in the most important start to changing the perceptions others have of them.

So, to get a better feel for how well this all worked, I then went to the web page often referred to in the book. (See below.) While I didn’t spend as much time as would really be necessary for a department or organization, I still gave the answers some thought. Again, I did this for both an internal audit department and for my own operations.

I must say the results were very good. Any issues I had with the final framework had more to do with my not spending the time really necessary for a successful campaign. But even this quick hit provided insights I would not have thought of

One minor complaint is that this is obviously a gateway to the author’s website and business. There are constant references to setting up an account and putting the information in to help define the marketing for your operations. I will quickly note that, while there are paid versions of everything, the initial analysis is free and, as noted, interesting, thought-providing, and valuable. But a little less emphasis on the web site might be nice.

And one other thing. (And this may be a small quibble.) Miller uses a lot – a lot – of movie references to tell the story of how to tell a story. This makes perfect sense and they do an excellent job of making his points. However, one, there were almost too many of them. And, two (maybe more importantly), it is interesting how many people know so little about movies. I have recently been working with a couple of people who, I would be willing to bet, would not get a single movie reference within these pages.

Again, minor quibbles, because I cannot recommend this book enough. And I don’t care what organization, company, mom-and-pop operation, personal situation you are in. Working through these steps – understanding what they mean to you and those with whom you interact – will make you better. And it will help you better position yourself in the minds of your customers/clients/friends show less

Solid lessons delivered in a cheesy fashion. If you can handle the repeated references to The Bourne Identity and Tommy Boy (?!), there's a lot to learn from this book.

I've been feeling overloaded with competing branding frameworks in the first year of starting a new business. This book has cleared the deck and become the system I'm now using. Donald Miller tells this story as simply as he calls the reader to do. He includes just enough real examples to convey that his method works.