Sign inGet started
Skills / Marketing

StoryBrand

If you confuse, you lose.

StoryBrand is Donald Miller's SB7 Framework — a 7-element messaging system built on the narrative structure of the hero's journey. The core insight: most brands talk about themselves when customers only want to know how their problem gets solved. By positioning your customer as the hero and your brand as the guide, the framework produces a BrandScript — a one-page master messaging document from which all marketing copy flows.

By Donald Miller · Free
Specimen 01 · Live diagnosisStoryBrand
Input

“We run a project management software company. Our customers are small business owners who feel like they're constantly drowning — tasks get missed,…”

Diagnosis
Let's build your BrandScript.
Full transcript ↓
Calibrated referenceagent-skills.ai
The gap

Clarify your message so customers stop ignoring your business

The SB7 Framework maps 7 messaging elements onto the narrative arc of the hero's journey to produce a BrandScript — a one-page master document. Element 1 (Character) defines the hero by a single, precise customer desire. Element 2 (Problem) excavates three nested levels: the External obstacle, the Internal frustration it creates, and the Philosophical dimension of why it's wrong — anchored by a named Villain. Element 3 (Guide) positions the brand with two required qualities: Empathy and Authority. Element 4 (Plan) delivers a 3-step process or agreement plan that removes perceived risk. Element 5 (Call to Action) demands explicit Direct CTAs and Transitional CTAs. Elements 6 and 7 define the negative stakes (cost of inaction) and a success resolution drawn from one of three archetypal endings — status, unity, or survival. The completed BrandScript cascades downstream into the One-Liner, homepage wireframe, email sequences, and sales scripts.

The problem

Most businesses fail the 'grunt test': a new website visitor can't determine what you offer, why they need it, and how to get it within five seconds. The root cause is the same mistake almost every brand makes — they position themselves as the hero of their own story, leading with their history, values, and product features. Customers only want to know one thing: 'Can you solve my problem?'

The solution

Build a complete BrandScript that makes every future piece of marketing faster and clearer — because your homepage, email sequence, sales script, and elevator pitch all flow from the same 7 clarified elements.

You bring
  • A description of your business, product, or service
  • Your primary customer segment or target audience
  • The main problem your product or service solves
  • Any existing website copy, tagline, or marketing materials (optional, for critique and gap analysis)
You get
  • A completed 7-element BrandScript document for your business
  • A One-Liner: a 2-sentence problem → solution → transformation statement ready for email signatures, social bios, and sales conversations
  • Named Direct and Transitional CTAs ready to place on your website and campaigns
  • A full homepage wireframe with drafted copy for every section derived from your BrandScript
In action

Watch the methodology work.

Three specimens from a single real session: the same situation, before and after, the full transcript, and the skill answering live in the channel where the work happens.

Fig.01 — The same situation, two ways
Specimens A · B
Specimen ABefore
Without the skill

Your homepage headline reads: 'The All-In-One Project Management Solution for Modern Teams.' The hero image is your product dashboard. The About page leads with your founding story and company values. New visitors arrive, never see their own problem reflected anywhere on the page, and leave in under 10 seconds — without converting, and without knowing why your product was different.

×The situation as it arrives — before the methodology is applied.
Specimen BAfter
With StoryBrand

Your homepage opens with your customer's internal frustration — 'Stop losing clients because tasks fell through the cracks' — followed by a single prominent Direct CTA. Your One-Liner has replaced every generic tagline across your team's email signatures, LinkedIn bios, and sales deck intro slide. Your completed BrandScript means the next landing page, email nurture sequence, and sales script take hours instead of weeks — because every message flows from the same 7 clarified elements.

◦The same situation once the methodology holds.
Fig.02 — A real session, unedited
In-app · assistant
StoryBrandClaude
StoryBrand
Let's build your BrandScript. The SB7 framework begins with one question most brands answer wrong: who is the hero of your story? The answer is never your company — it's your customer. To start, tell me: what does your business offer, and what does your ideal customer desperately want that your product or service can give them? Keep the desire specific — not 'they want success' but the precise thing they're trying to get or fix.
We run a project management software company. Our customers are small business owners who feel like they're constantly drowning — tasks get missed, their team doesn't know who owns what, and they keep losing track of deadlines.
Good. Your hero wants to feel in control of their business — not buried under it. Now let's excavate the problem at three levels, because this is where most software companies leave money on the table.
The External problem is clear: tasks fall through the cracks and nobody owns the outcome.
But the Internal problem is the real purchase driver — the private feeling your customer won't say in a sales call. For a small business owner missing deadlines, that internal dimension is probably: 'I'm a bad leader. My team can't trust me to run a tight ship.'
Does that land? Or does it feel more like fear that the business itself is at risk?
The 'bad leader' angle is exactly right. We've heard customers say this in user interviews but it's never appeared anywhere in our marketing.
That's the gap. Now let's name your Villain — the antagonist condition your software defeats. It's not a competitor; it's the force creating the problem. Something like 'organizational chaos' or 'the invisible dropped ball.' A named villain gives your customer something to oppose and makes your product the vanquishing force.
There's a third problem level too: the Philosophical problem — the moral dimension of why this situation is simply wrong. Something like: 'Small business owners shouldn't have to choose between doing great work and keeping track of it. You built something to serve your customers, not to become a full-time project coordinator.'
When you address all three levels, customers feel understood in a way a features page never achieves. Ready to move to the Guide — how your brand shows up for this hero?
Yes — and how do we position ourselves as the guide without sounding arrogant or making it about us?
The guide earns trust through exactly two qualities — and they must appear together. Empathy first: 'We know what it's like to watch good work slip through the cracks because there was no system holding it together.' Empathy alone sounds like sympathy. So you immediately follow with Authority: '10,000 small business teams use [Your Product] to ship projects on time — without adding another status meeting.' That's social proof that shows you've solved this before.
Here's a draft empathy + authority pair:
'We built [Product] because we ran a small team and lost a client due to a missed deadline that nobody owned. Today, over 10,000 teams use our platform to make sure that never happens again.'
From here we'd build your 3-step Plan — the bridge between 'I'm interested' and 'I trust this enough to buy.' Should we tackle the Plan, or draft your One-Liner while the character and problem are still fresh?
Let's do the One-Liner — I need something I can actually use right now.
The One-Liner has three parts: the problem, the product, and the result. Using everything we just built:
'Most small business owners lose clients and confidence because tasks fall through the cracks and no one owns the outcome. [Your Product] is a project management platform that gives every task an owner and every deadline a countdown. Our customers finish projects on time and finally feel like the leader their team deserves.'
Notice it leads with the internal problem — 'lose clients and confidence' — not a feature list. Put this in your email footer, your LinkedIn bio, and the opening paragraph of your homepage. Every person on your team should be able to say it from memory.
Your BrandScript has five more elements to complete — the Plan, CTAs, failure stakes, and success resolution — and from those we'll build your full homepage wireframe. Want to keep going?
Reply to StoryBrand…
What the skill is doing
01BrandScript Builder
02Three-Level Problem Excavator
03Villain Naming Workshop
Fig.03 — The same skill, in the channel you already use
WhatsApp · live
9:41
SStoryBrandtyping…
Messages are end-to-end encrypted. No one outside of this chat can read them.
Today
We run a project management software company. Our customers are small business owners who feel like they're constantly drowning — tasks get missed, th…9:14✓✓
The SB7 framework begins with one question most brands answer wrong: who is the hero of your story?9:14
The answer is never your company — it's your customer.9:15
To start, tell me: what does your business offer, and what does your ideal customer desperately want that your product or service…9:15
Message

The same skill, where the work happens.

No new app to learn. The methodology runs over the WhatsApp Business API, so the answer lands as a reply in the thread you’re already in — same rigour, zero context-switch.

◦Reads the situation, names the pattern, returns one concrete next move.
◦Delivered in seconds, inside a conversation that already exists.
Specimen · WhatsApp Business API · live
Capabilities

What it does, specifically.

Each capability is a distinct move drawn straight from the source methodology — not a generic assistant guessing.

CapabilityC-01

BrandScript Builder

Guides you through all 7 SB7 elements in sequence to produce your completed BrandScript — the one-page master messaging document. Each element is filled with specific, usable language for your business, not placeholder text. The session ends with Direct and Transitional CTAs, failure stakes, and a success resolution statement ready for deployment.

Based on Miller's SB7 Framework template, which maps the hero's journey narrative arc to 7 distinct BrandScript sections that together define a complete, cascading messaging system.
CapabilityC-02

Three-Level Problem Excavator

Breaks your customer's problem into three nested levels: the External obstacle (the tangible surface struggle), the Internal frustration it creates (the self-doubt or negative feeling the customer won't say out loud), and the Philosophical dimension (why this problem is simply wrong or unfair). Most marketing stops at the external level — the other two levels are where emotional resonance lives and purchase decisions are made.

Directly implements Miller's three-level problem framework from Building a StoryBrand, which argues that customers buy based on internal problems but brands speak only to external ones — creating a messaging gap that kills conversions.
CapabilityC-03

Villain Naming Workshop

Names and personalizes the antagonist force standing between your customer and their desire. A well-named villain — not a competitor, but a condition your brand defeats, such as 'organizational chaos' or 'insurance fine print' — makes the problem concrete, creates narrative tension, and positions your brand as the force that vanquishes it.

Applies Miller's Villain concept from the Problem section of the BrandScript, which holds that a named villain gives customers something to oppose and makes the brand's opposition vivid and memorable.
CapabilityC-04

One-Liner Crafter

Produces a 1-2 sentence statement that replaces the typical 'What do you do?' answer with a narrative-structured pitch. The One-Liner follows the formula: the customer's problem → your solution → the transformation they experience. Designed to be memorized by your entire team and placed in email signatures, social bios, sales decks, and anywhere messaging needs to hold in two sentences.

Based on Miller's One-Liner formula from Marketing Made Simple — a downstream BrandScript artifact that distills the full 7-element narrative into the shortest usable form for daily verbal and written communication.
CapabilityC-05

Homepage Wireframe Generator

Translates your completed BrandScript into a structured homepage wireframe with drafted copy for every section: the header with direct CTA, stakes statement, value proposition, guide credentials (empathy + authority), 3-step plan, success imagery, and lead generator. Every section maps to a specific BrandScript element in the SB7 narrative order.

Implements Miller's BrandScript-to-wireframe cascade, which holds that homepage sections should follow the SB7 narrative order so visitors experience the brand as a guide who understands their problem before they ever see a feature list.
Tested

Graded before it shipped.

Every skill is scored against independent scenarios for methodology fidelity before it goes live — not vibes, a rubric.

What it produces
OutputD-01

The BrandScript

Your completed one-page master messaging document with all 7 SB7 elements filled in — character desire, three-level problem, named villain, guide empathy and authority statements, 3-step plan, direct and transitional CTAs, failure stakes, and success resolution. Every future marketing asset derives from this single document.

OutputD-02

The One-Liner

A 1-2 sentence problem → solution → transformation statement for your business, structured to replace every generic tagline and 'what do you do?' answer across your email signature, LinkedIn bio, sales pitch, and homepage header.

OutputD-03

Homepage Wireframe Copy

A complete website homepage wireframe with drafted copy for every section — opening header, stakes, guide credentials, plan steps, CTA placements, and success imagery — all derived directly from your BrandScript elements and sequenced in SB7 narrative order.

The source

Grounded in the original work.

Every answer traces back to a real source and the practitioner who wrote it — not a secondhand summary. Here is the source of record.

Source authorA-01

Donald Miller

Donald Miller is the CEO of StoryBrand and Business Made Simple, and author of Building a StoryBrand (2017), a New York Times bestseller. He developed the SB7 Framework and trains tens of thousands of business owners and marketing professionals through workshops, online courses, and the StoryBrand Certified Guide program. His companion book Marketing Made Simple (2020) extends the framework into a complete 5-step digital marketing funnel.

Status · Inspired by Donald Miller’s work — not yet claimed. Are you Donald Miller?
Primary sourceS-01

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

by Donald Miller

CEO of StoryBrand and Business Made Simple; NYT bestselling author of Building a StoryBrand; creator of the StoryBrand Certified Guide program training marketers worldwide.

Read the original ↗
Citationstorybrand.com
Get started

Put it to work.

agent-skills runs as MCP — connect it once and StoryBrand works in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client. Sign in to see your config and accept the terms.