Using Story and AI to Grow Your Business

A recent StoryBrand Podcast episode with Donald Miller made a point worth sitting with: nobody cares about your story until you've helped them. Lead with your founding story before you've delivered value, and you're asking people to care about you before you've earned it.

The fix isn't to stop telling stories. It's to tell the right one. Not the story of your business, but the story your customer is already living, with your product as the tool that helps them win.

Why "Our Story" Falls Flat

Miller uses his own company as the example. He could tell you about studying narrative theory as a writer in Portland. Interesting to him, irrelevant to you.

The version that actually works is different: he ran a conference business with half-full auditoriums, despite writing bestselling books. The problem wasn't the content. His marketing described the conference instead of inviting people into a story where they were the hero trying to accomplish something. Once he fixed that, the same conference sold out and grew a waitlist. Nothing changed except the copy.

Same with Dave Ramsey. He's not selling his biography. He's handing you a version of your own money troubles, with credit card companies as the villain and his "baby steps" as the way out. You think he's telling his story. He's telling yours.

A Repeatable Prompt Structure

This is where AI comes in. Instead of guessing at "more story-driven" copy, Miller lays out a seven-part structure you can feed into Claude or ChatGPT along with your existing website copy or product description:

1. State the problem your customer has.

2. Agitate it emotionally. What does that problem make them feel?

3. State the need as a thesis, one clear sentence naming what's required.

4. Position your product as the solution, only now that the problem is established.

5. Raise the stakes. What happens if they don't solve this? What's the upside if they do?

6. Give a specific call to action: "If you are struggling with X, purchasing Y is the right decision."

7. Paint the happy ending, the customer's life after the product has done its job.

   
   

Run this structure through an AI prompt alongside your current copy, and the rewrite reorders the whole pitch: problem first, product fourth, instead of a features list nobody asked for.

Why It Works

The brain spends a lot of time daydreaming because most of what crosses our attention has nothing to do with survival. It's built to notice threats and opportunities and tune out the rest. A well-built story signals "this is relevant to you," which is what keeps a reader locked in instead of scrolling past.

Miller points to Stephen King's On Writing, where the opening chapters are loosely connected childhood stories with no direct link to the craft advice that follows, yet they keep you reading anyway. A brain presented with an open story loop can't help but want it closed. That's the same mechanism your landing page or product description should borrow.

The Takeaway

AI won't just write copy faster. It makes it easier to apply this structure consistently, across landing pages, product descriptions, keynotes, anywhere you're asking someone to pay attention. Hand it your existing copy and this framework, and you get a first draft that opens with your customer's problem instead of your product's features.

The story was never about you. Get the order right, and people won't have a choice but to pay attention.