One Day. One Clear Message.
Spend a day with a Certified StoryBrand Guide and leave with one message everybody can say. Your marketing gets easier to write, your sales conversations get shorter, and the customers you actually want start recognizing themselves in what you say.
Ask five people what you do and you get five answers
It is usually not carelessness. Most businesses serve more than one kind of customer, and everybody describes the one they work with every day.
I worked with a financial planner whose clients split two ways:
- Very high earners with a home office and staff running it for them
- Individuals trying to put enough away to retire on
Two different people. Two different stories. Try to tell both at once and you end up with confusion, and a confusing message will not sell to anyone.
So we pick one seat. I will keep bringing you back to the same question all day: who is the person sitting on the other side of your website?
What a StoryBrand Workshop is
A StoryBrand Workshop is a facilitated working session where a company’s leadership team clarifies its message using the StoryBrand framework. You leave with a completed BrandScript, a one-liner, and a team that has agreed on the same answer — so when somebody asks what you do, everyone says the same thing.
Nobody is handed a script and told to use it. The words are yours, and the reason everyone uses them afterwards is that everyone was in the room when you decided on them together.
It is also not a training day and not a lecture. I am not going to teach you a framework and send you home to apply it. We build your message in the room, out of your own words, with the people who actually have to use it sitting at the table.
I run it as a Certified StoryBrand Guide, in four formats. The structure is the same in all of them.
Full day
Nine to five. The message, the sound bites, what you could build with it, and your homepage.
Half day
Four hours. Your BrandScript and your one-liner, decided and agreed on.
In person
Your office, or anywhere your team can shut the door. I come to you.
Online
For teams that genuinely cannot get in one room. Not the cheap option — more on that below.
How it actually works
Mostly it feels like a long conversation about your business. That is on purpose. You already know the answers. My job is to ask the questions that get them out of your heads and onto the wall.
We start with your customer, not your company
One real customer. Someone you served in the last year or two that you would happily clone. Who they are, what they want, and who they are trying to become. Describe your customer too broadly and the description fits nobody.
We build your message one question at a time
What stops that customer getting what they want. How it makes them feel. Why it is plain wrong that they have to put up with it. What you understand that your competitors do not. And your plan — the actual steps somebody takes to work with you.
Then I read it back to you
Your whole business as one story, in your own words, out loud.
The clarity was already there. It usually is. It just has to be found and put in order, and that is what the questions are for. When you hear it read back the room goes quiet, and then somebody says that is it, that is what we do. That is the moment people tell other people about.
We turn it into things you can actually use
Your one-liner. Five sound bites your team can say without a script. A tagline, an elevator pitch and a brand story.
Then we walk through the messaging canvas together and look at what all of this could turn into. I have watched businesses do good work on their message and then never use it, and that is a shame. The canvas is what keeps that from happening. It puts real, specific things in front of you, and you find yourself saying, oh — yes, we do need that.
And we sketch your homepage
How far we get depends on the day and how much the room wants to chew on. But I want you leaving with a rough map of your homepage — what goes where, and why — so you can see what the message looks like once it is actually built.
Whatever is left over, we talk through, and I answer whatever is still open.
What you leave with
Both formats end with a message your team agreed on. The full day is what turns that into something you can use on Monday.
The message, decided
- A completed BrandScript, agreed on in the room
- The read-back — your whole story in your own words
- Your one-liner: problem, solution, result
- Everything else that came up, written down and handed back
The message, and what to do with it
- Everything in the half day
- Five sound bites your team can repeat
- A tagline, an elevator pitch and a brand story
- The messaging canvas, walked through together
- Your homepage, sketched out
Then the write-up. Within two weeks you get clean versions of everything we built — the BrandScript, the sound bites and the canvas — tidied up and ready to hand to whoever is doing the work. Thirty days after the workshop we get back on a call and see what has actually moved.
This is step one, not the finish line
A clear message is where it starts. Then comes the part where you go and use it — the website, the email campaign, the lead generator, the content. That is a separate conversation and we do not have it during the workshop. The day is for getting clear, not for selling you the next thing.
But it is worth knowing what step two can look like, because it goes one of three ways — and all of them have published prices you can look at before we ever talk about them.
You take it and run
Plenty of teams have the people to build it themselves. You will have everything you need, and I would rather you did that than pay me for work you can do.
I build it with you
The website, the copy, the lead generator, the emails. You have the message; my team and I turn it into the pieces that carry it. Everything I do, with prices.
I stick around
Some teams want a standing check-in each month and a working session each quarter — that is Quarterly Advisory. Others want the whole plan worked out properly first, which is Strategy First. Occasionally that grows into leading the marketing outright. None of it is sold on the day — it happens because we got on.
Who this works for
A day built to end in decisions only works if the people who can make them are sitting in it. That matters far more than how big you are or how long you have been going.
This is for you if
- The decision-maker will be in the room. Not a representative. The person who can say yes without going away to check.
- You have a leadership team of roughly three to twelve, and you can get them together for a day.
- You know who you are trying to reach — or you have a good idea and you are willing to have it tested.
- You want to decide.
This is not for you if
- The decisions have to go back to a committee, or up to somebody who is not attending.
- The goal is to gather input and come back to it next quarter.
- You want the message written for you without your team in the room. That is a different piece of work, and I am happy to talk about it.
You do not need it all worked out first. Newer companies are welcome here, and some of the best moments come from not being sure yet. One owner came in ready to talk about the customers he already had, and left having realized he wanted to go after a completely different kind of customer than his last business did. That did not happen before the workshop. It happened in it.
Rooms I have been in
Since 2020 I have coached business owners through this framework as a StoryBrand Guide and Coach, all over the world — the US, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Nigeria, South Africa, across Asia and South America, Australia, and once a free diver on a small island out past Costa Rica.
I am a Certified StoryBrand Guide and a Duct Tape Marketing Certified Fractional CMO. Both are independently verifiable, and you are working with me, not somebody junior.
From an inventor with a better doorstop, to the developer of a SaaS platform that simplifies enterprise digital transformation.
Coached through their own BrandScript since 2020. The full list is further down this page.
The marketing leadership of a global brand, in Rome, Paris, the US and South America, on the same session.
A leadership team was walking through their plan and we found eighteen steps in it. I turned around and their founder was tearing up. When I asked her what was going on she said she had just realized how hard they had made it — not only on their clients, but on themselves.
— a half-day workshop with a school leadership team“Do you have experience in my industry?”
Almost always, and it is a fair question. My honest answer is that industry knowledge is not what does the work here. The framework is.
If you know who your ideal client is, you know the problem they have, and you can talk me through the solution you provide, then the framework lets me ask the right questions and help you clarify whatever it is you do. You are the expert on your business. I am the expert on getting it said clearly. That is a better division of labor than hiring somebody who already knows your industry and therefore explains it the way everybody else in your industry already explains it.
A doorstop and a genome company. A free diver and a roofing contractor. A Boston Conservatory pianist and a precision metals manufacturer. If the framework holds up across all of that, it will hold up across yours.
See all 102 businesses
- Internal workforce communication platform
- Coaching for women veterans dealing with PTSD
- Hard money lender, borrowers and lenders
- HR training and video curriculum
- Website designer, Bend, Oregon
- Large church, Johnston, Iowa
- Human genome diagnostics, Amsterdam
- Coach for medical clinics
- Business coach
- Bike and ski retailer, New Brunswick
- A free diver off the coast of Costa Rica
- Nonprofit supporting adoptive families
- Roofing contractor, Cincinnati
- Security systems provider, Manhattan
- Data analyst for business decisions
- Forensic engineer who finds the cause of fires
- Small business marketing agency
- StoryBrand guide, Des Moines
- Wearable tracking breathing and stress for pro athletes
- Life coach for business professionals
- Performance coach and consultant
- Studio manager, video production agency
- Real estate fix-and-flip coach, Germany
- Empty-seat marketplace for private jet owners
- StoryBrand certified agency
- Luxury basement designer and remodeler, Utah
- Leadership alignment through major change
- Holistic coach for business professionals
- Business coach, Lincoln, Nebraska
- Simplified Technical English training
- Coach for minority women in business, Atlanta
- Nonprofit sports training for underprivileged kids
- A new guide building their own practice
- Team performance platform, London
- Living assistance for disabled teens and adults, Kansas
- Acclimating mission reps in Africa
- Upscale caterer, Lebanon, Tennessee
- Digital transformation coach and consultant
- Clean water and food nonprofit
- Precision metals manufacturer
- Launch of a medical laser device
- Marketing and website design firm
- Advertising rep for ESPN and Disney
- Bible institute
- The silent doorstop
- Christ-centered orphanage, Mexico
- Sportswear for pro and amateur athletes
- Mindfulness and yoga clinic
- Marketing agency
- Professional headshot photographer, Ohio
- IT provider with offices across Canada
- Children’s toy manufacturer
- Wedding and event planner, Des Moines
- Branded merchandise supplier
- Cleaning company, Perth and Melbourne
- Financial planner, St. Louis
- Marketing firm for financial planners
- Worship resources, Fort Wayne
- Elite travel packages for doctors in Dubai
- StoryBrand certified agency
- SaaS for enterprise digital transformation
- Digital transformation consultancy
- Real estate investor and flip expert, Tampa
- A product built around generational quality time
- Global hair, makeup and skin care brand
- Software licensing platform
- An NBA executive who now coaches executives
- Custom window coverings, Portland
- Business broker, Des Moines
- Cleaning company, Des Moines
- Digital sign and display company
- Commercial construction planroom
- Custom Harley-Davidson builder
- Dave Ramsey coach and consultant
- Nonprofit for families bereaved by overdose
- Stress coach for touring golfers
- Real estate agent, Des Moines
- Custom curtain and drapery workroom
- Marketing company, Des Moines
- SaaS for brokers and real estate teams
- Business Made Simple coach for SaaS companies
- Professional home organizer
- Holistic health coach for women, Columbus
- Upscale interior designer
- Tiny home and ADU builder, Iowa
- Nonprofit training elite young athletes
- Health insurance consultant for elders
- Nonprofit providing rides to work
- Staffing agency, full time and temp
- Real estate agent, Des Moines
- Real estate team, Des Moines
- Business Made Simple coach, South Carolina
- Historic farmstead restoration
- Peer advisory group platform
- Clinical lab testing for products and services
- Christian ministry, Pella, Iowa
- Home inspector, Urbandale, Iowa
- Retailer of sewing machines that cost more than a car
- Marketing agency, Atlanta
- Guide who works with nonprofit fundraising
- Watercolor artist teaching online
- Boston Conservatory pianist teaching online
What it costs
One price, quoted in full before anything is booked. If I am coming to you, my flights and hotel are inside that number, so you will never get an expense invoice afterwards.
| Full day, in person — travel included | Starting at $7,500 |
| Half day, in person — travel included | Starting at $5,000 |
| Full day, online | $6,000 |
| Half day, online | $3,500 |
Why the in-person prices say “starting at.” Getting to Des Moines and getting to a hard-to-reach city on a Sunday night are not the same trip. I work out what travel will actually cost, put it inside the number, and give you one figure before you commit to anything. No surprises in either direction.
About the online version. It is not the cheap option, it is the answer to a different problem. It is the same work and the same day — there is just no plane involved. If you can get your leadership team in one room, do that, and I will tell you so. If your people are spread across three time zones, this works. I have run it that way for a global marketing team in Rome, Paris, the US and South America. A full day online can run straight through or split across two consecutive dates, whichever suits your time zones.
Questions, Answered.
Do we need to have read the book first?
No. Some of the room usually has and some has not, and it makes very little difference. We spend the first half hour on the one idea that matters — that your marketing is the story of your customer, not the story of your company — and everything after that is questions about your business.
Who should be in the room?
The owner or CEO, whoever runs marketing and sales, and one or two people from the front line. Sales or customer service. Those frontline people matter more than you would think, because they know the words your customers actually use, and those words tend to end up in your message.
Three to twelve is the working range. Fewer and you lose the range of perspective. More and it stops being a working session.
We serve several different kinds of customer. Can we cover them all?
We cover one or two properly rather than four badly. In practice most companies find the first one does most of the heavy lifting and the others turn out to be variations rather than separate messages. Anything we do not get to is written down and handed back, and it is usually the first thing we pick up afterwards.
What if we do not agree in the room?
That happens, and it is one of the better reasons to have somebody from outside running the day. Disagreements get settled against the framework instead of by whoever is most senior or most persistent. Does this version hold together as one story, or does it feel disconnected from everything around it? That question sorts out most of them.
Do you build our website afterwards?
I can, and often do, but it is a separate conversation and it is not what the day is for. You leave with a homepage sketched out and a message you could hand to anybody. If you want me to build it, we talk about that after the workshop, not during it.
How far in advance do we need to book?
Usually a few weeks, partly for the calendar and partly so I can do my homework. Before the day I go through your website, whatever messaging you already have and anything you can tell me about your customers, so we are not spending the first hour on things I could have read beforehand.
Will you travel to us?
Yes, anywhere in the US. Travel goes inside the price, which is why the in-person figures start at $7,500 and $5,000 rather than being fixed — I work out the actual cost of getting there and quote you one number. I am based in Waukee, Iowa.
Let’s work out whether a day is what you need
Tell me what is going on and who would be in the room. If a workshop is the wrong answer, I will say so and point you at the right one.