Founders struggle to pitch their brand. How do you distill a complex company into a single sentence that will compel customers to buy?

In 2017, Donald Miller published an answer to that: It's a book called Building a StoryBrand, and it's now sold more than a million copies and has cemented him as the king of brand storytelling. In it, he explains that brands must tell stories the same way that movies do: Your story must center on a hero (your customer) who needs a guide (your company), and the guide provides a plan, a call to action, and helps them avoid high-stakes failure. The story must engage emotional and philosophical elements. And it must do so simply and clearly.

Miller recently released an updated version of his book, along with an AI tool called StoryBrand AI, which can craft taglines, marketing plans, and more. In this conversation, he explains the most important part of brand storytelling—being a guide!—and how to communicate your value in a single, powerful sentence.

Your framework begins with this important idea: The customer is always the hero of the story. Why is that?

Many people come to me and say, “We’ve got such a great story.” But the place to tell your story is sort of like the third date in a relationship. What you really want to do on the first date is find out their story. Once the person senses that you’re interested in knowing them, they start to really like you. They have no idea who you are, but they know that you are for them.

So when we take the time to say, “Hey, what is our customer’s problem? How can our product help them solve that problem?” their subconscious realizes that you are their guide. The guide is a very strong and powerful character who helps the hero out of a hole. They exist in almost every story.