Phase 1 – Strategic Demand & Customer Blueprint
Timeline: 4 weeks
Objectives
  • Replace guesswork about "who our customer is" with data-backed, StoryBrand-based personas.
  • Expose the gap between internal assumptions and market reality.
  • Redesign the customer journey, processes, and spend around the right customers.
  • Deliver a fully documented operating system your team can use with or without me.
Step 1 – In-house immersion
I start by learning the business from the inside.
Meet with leadership and key team members
Understand:
  • Business model, offers, margins.
  • Current lead sources, funnels, and conversion points.
  • Existing marketing and sales processes and tools.
Capture your team's current mental model
Of:
  • "Who our ideal customer is."
  • "How they find us."
  • "Why they choose us."
This gives me the baseline narrative I will stress-test against real-world data.
Step 2 – Unbiased market research & initial customer profiles
Next, I run external market research to define:
  • Primary customer profile
  • Secondary customer profile
  • Tertiary customer profile
For each profile I build a StoryBrand skeleton:
  • Who is the hero (the customer) in real-life terms.
  • The external, internal, and philosophical problems they experience.
  • What they believe a credible "guide" must look and sound like.
  • What "success" and "failure" look like in their world.
This step grounds the personas in market behavior, not just internal opinion.
Step 3 – Perception vs market reality analysis
Here I compare your team's perception to what the market data shows.
Alignment
Where your internal view of the customer is accurate and aligned.
Misalignment
Where it is overly narrow, outdated, or simply wrong.
Contradiction
Where the current brand story contradicts what the market actually responds to.
You get a clear, written breakdown of alignment and misalignment so decisions are made with eyes open.
Step 4 – My StoryBrand + STEPPS Persona Lab (detailed personas)
Now we build decision-grade personas, not generic "avatars."
For each primary, secondary, and tertiary segment:
1. StoryBrand persona build-out
  • External, internal, and philosophical problems.
  • What they want from a guide (you).
  • The plan they will realistically follow.
  • The calls to action they will actually respond to.
  • The stories of success/failure that feel believable and motivating.
2. Psychological and data-based behavior predictors
  • Buying triggers and urgency signals.
  • Typical objections and perceived risks.
  • Decision style (data-driven, relationship-driven, consensus, etc.).
  • Channels they trust and ignore.
  • Status and identity factors that influence choices.
3. STEPPS mapping (Jonah Berger) for each persona
  • Social Currency – what makes them feel smart, early, or "in the know."
  • Triggers – weekly or daily cues we can attach the brand and offer to.
  • Emotion – specific emotions that actually move them to act.
  • Public – what should be visible so others see they chose you.
  • Practical Value – tangible, immediate value that earns attention.
  • Stories – narratives they would realistically retell to colleagues and peers.
The result is a set of personas that directly drives messaging, hooks, content, and offers, not a pretty PDF that sits unused.
Step 4b – Persona coverage analysis (what we're hitting vs missing)
With real personas defined, I overlay your current marketing and sales activity on top of them.
Review:
  • Website and landing pages.
  • Existing content, emails, and social presence.
  • Sales decks, scripts, and follow-ups.
For each persona factor and STEPPS lever, I mark:
  • Hit – we're addressing this clearly and consistently.
  • Partial – we touch it, but weakly or inconsistently.
  • Miss – we don't address it at all, or we contradict it.
You receive a simple "hit / partial / miss" matrix that shows:
  • Which pains, desires, and objections you currently speak to.
  • Which ones are invisible in your messaging and content.
  • Where you're unintentionally optimized for the wrong customer segment.
Step 5 – Client base ratio analysis (where we stand today)
Here we look at who you're actually serving now.
01
Analyze your current customer base and revenue distribution
02
Determine distribution
What percentage of existing clients match the primary persona we should build around.
What percentage are secondary, tertiary, or outside the target.
03
Set a clear target ratio and timeframe
For example: "We want X% of revenue from primary customers within Y months."
This ties the persona work directly to hard business goals, not theory.
Step 6 – Customer journey & process audit
Now we map the real customer journey across all touchpoints and compare it to the StoryBrand and STEPPS-informed journey we want.
Audit:
  • Website UX and flows.
  • Lead capture and follow-up.
  • Email sequences and nurture.
  • Sales outreach and handoffs.
  • Onboarding and early retention.
Identify:
  • Where the actual journey supports the new personas and narrative.
  • Where it breaks the story we want the customer to live through.
  • Bottlenecks, leaks, and friction points between marketing and sales.
You see, step by step, where the journey helps or hurts revenue and fit.
Step 7 – Operating system design
(SOPs, roadmaps, budget expectations, competitive benchmarks)
Based on everything above, I design a practical operating system your team can run.
SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)
  • Written processes for lead handling, follow-up, qualification, routing, and feedback loops.
  • Clear owners and triggers, so the system does not rely on memory or heroics.
Customer journey roadmaps
  • Persona-specific journey maps aligned with StoryBrand and STEPPS.
  • What we say, show, and offer at each stage for each persona.
Budget and channel expectations
  • Recommended spend ranges and priorities by channel and funnel stage.
  • Realistic expectations for timeline and volume.
  • Competitive spend / effort benchmarks where data is available, so you know if goals are underfunded.
All of this is packaged to live in your tools and your company, not mine. It is built to function with or without ongoing involvement from me.
Step 8 – Executive Readout & Team Training
Phase 1 ends with two sessions:
1. Executive readout
  • Present key findings and insights.
  • Walk through personas, ratios, journey audit, and the new operating system.
  • Align on priorities and what "success" looks like over the next 12 months.
2. Team training
Train the marketing and sales teams on:
  • How to use the personas in daily work.
  • How to implement the SOPs and roadmaps.
  • How to think in StoryBrand and STEPPS terms when creating or adjusting content and campaigns.
Ensure the blueprint is understood and usable, not theoretical.
Deliverables (end of Phase 1)
By the end of the 4 weeks, you have:
A full Strategic Demand & Customer Blueprint
Including:
  • In-depth StoryBrand + STEPPS personas.
  • Perception vs reality analysis.
  • Persona coverage "hit / partial / miss" matrix.
  • Client base ratio report and target mix.
  • Customer journey and process audit.
  • SOPs, roadmaps, budget guidelines, and benchmarks.
A trained team and aligned leadership
Able to execute the blueprint with or without me.
From there, you can either run the system internally or move into the Year 1 implementation contract, where 50% of the Phase 1 fee is credited toward the first month.
Phase 1 Timeline & Investment
Timeline:
  • 5-week engagement
  • Week 1–4: Research, analysis, build
  • Week 5: Executive readout and team training
Investment:
  • Phase 1 fee: $15,000

Credit toward Year 1 implementation
If you move into the 12-month implementation contract, 50% of the Phase 1 fee ($7,500) is credited to the Year 1 agreement.