5 takeaways from Donald Miller’s “Building a StoryBrand” (and how to apply them to your biz)

If you’ve spent any time looking into marketing books, you’ve probably come across Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller.

It gets recommended a lot. And for good reason. The ideas are simple and useful. But where people get stuck is trying to translate them into something that actually works for their business.

But like a lot of marketing frameworks, the value isn’t in following it step by step. It’s in understanding what to take from it and how to apply it in a way that makes sense for your business.

Here are five takeaways that stuck with me and how to apply them to your biz:

1. Your customer is not thinking about you

Open a few websites and you’ll start to notice a pattern.

Most of them begin with the business. “We help…”, “We specialise in…” or “Our approach…”

It makes sense from the inside. But from the outside, it creates a small gap straight away.

The person reading is trying to figure out if this is relevant to them. If they have to read past a few lines before they can answer that, you’ve already made things harder than they need to be.

You can feel the difference when a site starts with the customer instead. Something that mirrors what they’re dealing with. Something that makes them think, yes, that’s exactly it.

How to apply it

Look at your opening lines.

If they’re centred on your business, try rewriting them from the customer’s side.

❌ “We offer bespoke copywriting services for growing brands”
✅ “Struggling to explain what you do in a way that actually makes sense?”

2. If it’s not clear, people won’t wait around

There’s a particular kind of website you’ve probably come across. It looks great. The design is strong. The copy sounds polished. But after a few seconds, you’re still not entirely sure what they do.

So you scroll. Maybe click into another page. Try to piece it together.

Most people don’t bother. They leave and look for something that makes sense faster.

That’s the bit people underestimate. It’s not about whether your message is technically there. It’s about how quickly someone can get it

How to apply it

Read your homepage as if you’ve never seen it before. Not line by line. Just scan it.

• Do you know what the business does straight away?

• Do you know who it’s for?

• Do you know what to do next?

If any of that takes a second pass, there’s friction there.

3. You don’t need to say everything at once

After reading StoryBrand, it’s easy to feel like you need to cover every angle: The problem. The stakes. The solution. The plan. The outcome.

So it all ends up in one place.

You can spot this in sections that feel dense, even if the writing itself is good. There’s just too much happening at once.

From the reader’s side, it becomes a bit of a wall. They don’t know where to focus, so they skim or skip.

How to apply it

Give each section one job. Your homepage doesn’t need to explain your full process. It just needs to make sense of what you do and why it matters. Let the rest of the site do the heavy lifting.

When everything has a clear role, the whole thing becomes easier to move through.

4. Your role is to guide, not to impress

There’s a certain tone that shows up on a lot of websites.

Slightly formal. A bit removed. Full of phrases that sound like marketing: “Leveraging innovative solutions”, “Delivering exceptional results” or “Driving transformation”

You can read it without really taking anything in. Nothing sticks because nothing is being said in a way that feels concrete.

You can see the shift when the same idea is written more plainly. Something you could actually say out loud.

How to apply it

Take a line from your website and read it back.

Would you say it that way to a client?

If not, that’s usually where to start.

❌ “We deliver strategic, results-driven marketing solutions”
✅ “We help you get clearer on your messaging so your marketing actually works”

It doesn’t need to sound impressive. It needs to make sense.

5. The next step shouldn’t require any guesswork

You’ve got someone to the end of a page. They’re interested enough to keep going.

And then they hit: “Get started” or “Learn more”

It’s not confusing per se. But it’s not particularly helpful either.

There’s a small pause while they figure out what that actually means. And sometimes that’s enough to stop them.

Compare that to something more direct like “Book a discovery call” or “See pricing”. There’s no decision to make. It’s obvious.

How to apply it

Look at your buttons and links. Are you making someone think about what happens next, or showing them?

That tiny difference is where a lot of drop-off happens.

Need help applying this to your business?

If this all feels familiar but your messaging still isn’t quite landing, it’s usually not about learning more frameworks.

It’s about applying them properly to your own website, your own offer, your own words.

You can book a CopyKate Hotline session — a focused 1:1 hour where we’ll look at your messaging, spot what’s not quite clicking, and fix it together.