A Guide vs. The Guide | StoryBrand Critique Part 2
Are you ready for round two of my StoryBrand critique?
I didn’t plan on doing this, but as I reviewed the copy of our social media posts for that series, I realized I didn’t properly communicate one aspect. And it’s an important one, so we’re diving into today.
We’re talking about being The Guide vs. A Guide.
The Guide = The Mentor | Brief Overview of the Mentor Archetype
StoryBrand uses the framework of:
A Character (Your customer, The Hero)
With a Problem
Meets a Guide (You, the Business)
Who Provides a Plan
Calling Them to Action
Helping Them Avoid Failure
Ending with Success
In this framework, The Guide = The Mentor archetype.
What do I mean by that?
That’s Gandalf, Morpheus, Haymitch, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda. They are the hero’s mentor.
Because they’ve been in the hero’s shoes before, they have a deep understanding of the hero. They get him. They know what the hero needs to survive or pass a tremendous test. Mentors impart their wisdom and philosophy (often magical in nature) to the hero. As they guide the hero on his journey, they bestow tools and magical trinkets to help him reach the goal. While all these are traits of the mentor, the biggest indicator of being the mentor is this: They catalyze the hero’s radical character transformation.
Within a story, there is a hero who wants something. This driving desire pushes the whole narrative forward. While on that journey, the hero inevitably encounters several characters who come alongside him to offer help. In essence, they will guide the hero through certain parts of the plot. While helpful, these characters are not all The Mentor.
The mentor is different. He isn’t guiding one decision. The mentor archetype holds the power and ability to provide radical character transformation for the hero and catalyze them towards their ultimate dream state.
By comparing all the characters who help the hero, we create a hierarchy of importance (see Figure 1). The Mentor exists at the top of that hierarchy. In a real life context, that’s someone who provides radical life transformation or radical business transformation. I believe these are found within professional services. At the bottom, you have commodities - things like grocery stores, car service stations, or hardware stores. I usually choose a commodity based on convenience, location and price. I’m not evaluating these businesses by the relationship we have or their brand. It’s more: Do they have what I need or not? That’s why I believe it’s a bad investment to build up brand value for a commodity-based company. Trying to build up brand equity will likely cut into profits without returning significant value.
Fig. 1. Hierarchy of Importance: Mentor vs Commodity. Copyright © 2021 McNabb Storytelling LLC.
Between these two extremes - The Mentor and commodities - live those who offer consulting services for a specific point within the customer journey (see Figure 2). Within the story exists multiple opportunities for minor characters and even minor mentors to show up and help. They often remove obstacles so the hero can continue on his journey. But here’s the big distinction between that character (a guide or helper) and The Mentor (The StoryBrand Guide): the removal of that obstacle does not equal the significant life transformation communicated within the StoryBrand SB7 Framework. It could simply mean you’re helping the hero move along towards their ultimate dream state, but not reaching that place. Big difference.
Fig. 1. Hierarchy of Importance: Guide Opportunity. Copyright © 2021 McNabb Storytelling LLC.
Mentor’s Mentor | It’s About the Level of Impact & Transformation
Businesses representing The Mentor archetype exist within the professional services vertical. Clients have given them authority to guide extremely significant decisions. Those could be decisions involving high risk, life and death, or the viability of someone’s business. Whatever happens could result in significant loss or significant gain.
That’s different from a business providing new tires when yours break or helping you select paper products to stock in your offices.
Those businesses help guide lower decisions. They’re removing a minor problem. They’re helpful, but not causing massive transformation. They may help you get closer to your destination, but they can't take responsibility for your arrival. Considering that, only a limited selection of businesses can claim The Mentor archetype as the correct way to position their brand.
Who is The Mentor?
A surgeon. They literally hold your life and death in their hands. They’re competence and decisions will cause significant transformation in your life. That’s a high stakes, high risk decision.
A business consultant. If they’ve provided counsel on significant decisions impacting the future of your business, they’re The Mentor.
A therapist or pastor. You’ve allowed them to shepherd critical parts of your psyche and guide you through challenging life situations.
Think about your own life now. Who has made significant impacts on your development? It’s likely a very limited list.
The irony of this whole thing is Donald Miller and StoryBrand are on that list for me. I remember being at his workshop and thinking: This is going to change my life. I vividly recall those ideas sinking in and knowing everything was going to be different in my career from that point forward. I have mad respect for Donald Miller and StoryBrand.
However, this is where the tables turn. After my business partner and I left the StoryBrand workshop, we were on a high from all our new knowledge. We felt enlightened, initiated. We thought: We ARE The Guide and our customer is this lowly hero who needs us.
Let me put this in context. We were making marketing videos. Not a marketing strategy, brand strategy or campaign. We were making single videos. One piece of content. Sure, they were important, but one video wasn’t going to provide radical transformation for our customer.
But we didn’t see it that way. We suddenly thought we were creating this marketing magic bullet that would guide our clients to marketing heaven. It's quite embarrassing thinking back about how we started speaking to clients. Cringe-worthy really.
But I share it to help you avoid the same mistake. It's not good when you start to consider yourself as the cause of someone else's massive transformation when you’re actually not that high within the hierarchy of importance. Your customers are going to start looking at you with a bit of disdain. You may accidentally come off as arrogant. People will wonder: Why aren't you staying in your lane?
Now Pay Attention, 007 | Q and Bond’s Relationship
Let's illustrate this with a story example: James Bond and his relationship with Q. Q never claims ownership of Bond’s success for his missions. Q has never once lorded his gadgets over Bond claiming he’d never have stopped the villain without that special pen he provided. That would be silly. Bond and the audience understand that Bond would figure out a way to complete the mission without Q’s help. In fact, Bond usually loses or breaks the gadgets anyway. We know Q cannot claim Bond’s success as his own. He can’t and he doesn’t. Instead, he just jokes with Bond about not bringing back his stuff in one piece.
Q understands Bond. He knows that he's stubborn and arrogant, self-determined and somewhat of a selfish, self-absorbed type. So, he stays out of his way. He treats him appropriately.
That's what this is about. It's about positioning your company in an appropriate manner and not positioning yourself as The Mentor archetype (unless of course you are).
If you think about stories, you’ll realize there are many different archetypes that your brand might actually be. You could even be a minor mentor, but not The Mentor.
A Mentor Vs “The Mentor” | Cinna vs Haymitch (The Hunger Games)
Let’s look at another story: The Hunger Games. In this story, you encounter both Haymitch and Cinna.
Haymitch embodies The Mentor archetype for Katniss and Peeta. He’s been exactly where these two end up: The Hunger Games. He’s walked in their shoes so he has empathy. He also survived and won so he possesses authority and expertise. As their mentor, he provides wisdom and tools that basically determine whether they live or die.
Cinna is a different kind of mentor. He establishes a very trusting relationship with Katniss. They end up becoming close and she depends on Cinna for some emotional support. She trusts him. But he doesn’t determine whether she lives or dies. He selects clothing for her that make an impression. Yes, that impression shapes the course of her journey in The Hunger Games, but it doesn’t ultimately get her to the final destination. Cinna is an expert at what he does, but he’s not The Mentor. Katniss can trust him to make every decision about her appearance, but not how to survive.
So that’s the big difference. While Haymitch can determine whether they live or die, Cinna only really determines how good they look doing it.
Positioning is Relative | How Does Our Customer Need Us to Show Up?
Let’s take it back to business. I love my barber. I think he does a fantastic job. But if he were to claim responsibility for my personal success because of how he cuts my hair...that would just be offensive. He makes my hair look great, but that feeling isn’t creating transformation in my personal life or business.
It’s insulting if you position yourself as The Mentor when you aren’t providing that transformation. You don’t want to make that mistake.
Instead, you want to appropriately evaluate what journey your customer is on. And then start considering things like:
What story is your customer in?
How do you need to show up for them?
How do they expect you to show up for them?
What do they expect from you?
Let’s do some examples. Back to James Bond. He’s in an “overcoming the monster” journey. He goes out to kick butt, but doesn’t typically experience much character transformation. He’s mostly doing his own thing and has minor assistance along the way.
Let’s contrast that to Batman and his relationship with Alfred. Batman isn’t as open to Alfred as Harry Potter is to Dumbledore. He’s highly closely off emotionally and stubborn. However, he still sees Alfred as a father figure and relies on him for significant insight. Alfred doesn’t behave on the same level as Q because he knows he can actually influence the decisions Bruce makes. He can actually have a significant impact on his development as a person. The guidance Alfred provides helps Batman realize what he needs to become in order to defeat The Joker.
Correct positioning allows you to show up in your customer’s story with the role they require. You’re fulfilling their exact need and using the language your customer is expecting to hear. They want to hear their own story mirrored back to them. You’re talking to them within their own story language.
Conclusion
This may all beg the question: Can you tell us more about story and character archetypes? Don’t worry, we’ll get into all that later. In this article, I want to be very clear that you can be a guide, but everyone can’t be The Guide. Because The Guide is a role set aside for a select few.
It's about the hierarchy of importance and the degree of transformation you create for your customer. If you're not causing that significant degree of transformation and are actually just removing a minor problem, you can't claim the transformation.
You have to communicate in an authentic way. That’s important to protecting your position, your business and the integrity of your brand.