The Storybrand framework (and why I’m no longer certified)

I was a Storybrand Certified Guide for 5 full years (from February 2021 to February 2026), and a big fan of the book and framework for years before that. So what is this method all about, and why am I no longer certified despite my strong belief in its efficiency?

Let’s start at the beginning:

What is the Storybrand framework?

The method is derived from Donald Miller’s best-selling book, Building a StoryBrand. The original changed how I saw marketing, back when it came out in 2017: it showcases how (at least back then) the majority of brands talked about their product or story from their point of view, and despite building some beautiful stories - they often failed to draw the reader (website visitor, email subscriber, prospective buyer) into their story. While the concept wasn’t new, Building a StoryBrand made a fantastic case for turning company-centric marketing into customer-centric marketing… and presented an easy method to do so, accessible for everyone.

I became an instant fan of the method, and advised most of my clients (and lots of other people) to read just the first chapter of the book. Every single one of them had a major “aha” moment, and most ended up reading up the whole thing. The book alone, to me, was something every business owner out there had to read, to understand how they could make potential buyers interested in their product.

Fast-forward a couple of years, and in the winter of 2020, Donald Miller and Dr. J.J. Peterson started talking about the successor to BASB: a book called Marketing Made Simple. After years of semi-using the Storybrand framework on my client work, one of their webinars made it all click for me: Marketing Made Simple gave professional marketers like myself easy-to-use frameworks to turn a company’s story into great marketing collateral*: a website wireframe, email sequence, elevator pitch, and more.

I was sold, and signed up for the next round of StoryBrand certification that same week - and became certified 2 months later.

*A note on what constitutes “great marketing collateral” to me: it needs to be clear (so people know what they’re getting into), persuasive (so it yields result for the brand), but also honest and ethical (not sleazy). Not saying StoryBrand and MMS can’t be used for evil in the wrong hands, but what made the framework so attractive is that it made it easy to sell without having to bend the truth or present things in a way they’re not. Win-win.

Using the Storybrand Certification

Note: I’ve written a full review for fellow marketers/freelancers here, and another review is due soon.

When I first became certified in 2021, I realised reading the books and watching the webinars hadn’t taught me even a fraction of what I needed to know to correctly apply the framework. And to be honest, neither did the 3-day certification training; it took me several months to start wrapping my head around the power of StoryBrand and Marketing Made Simple (MMS). Most of what I learned in that first year, I learned from my fellow Storybrand Certified Guides: I would show up for round table calls organised by other guides, have 1:1 conversations with others doing similar work to mine, ask for input and feedback on my work as much as I could (they had a dedicated channel for it), and slowly build my confidence working with the concepts.

At the end of the first year, when time came to re-certify (and re-certification wasn’t cheap), I hesitated; I felt I had learned what I needed to be a much better marketer, and with my business going well, I didn’t need the many tools StoryBrand HQ was putting in place to help guides grow their business. Because that one thing became clear: while I was busy learning as much as I could from other guides, support from HQ focused on helping us grow our business - get more visible, get more clients, make more money.

However, that year (and for several years after), I happily renewed my certification for the one thing I knew I could not get anywhere else: the extremely generous, knowledgeable, and diverse community of Storybrand Certified Guides. In my third year, I even became part of the Guide Advisory Board, and took on the challenge of better supporting the community of “international” guides (guides outside the US).

This strong community allowed us not just to learn how to better apply the Storybrand/Marketing Made Simple framework, but also

• Shared systems, processes, templates, and other tips and tricks that allowed us to support our clients more efficiently

• Provided daily feedback and input on work in progress - whenever anyone got stuck, multiple other guides would have experience in that specific industry or with a similar issue to help them move forward

• Allowed us to stay up-to-date on all things marketing; which was crucial as AI and other events meant that we sometimes needed to pivot fast

• The community was also a seemingly bottomless pool of other knowledgeable and experienced freelancers and agencies to refer or outsource any project to

As most of those who worked with me during that period in time can attest (I never kept this “secret weapon” a secret), being part of the Storybrand Guide community made me an all-round better marketer, and much more professional to work with.

Why I’m no longer certified

Starting in 2024, several small changes started to amount to big shifts.

• First, Donald Miller’s book “Coach Builder” came out; some of what the book was selling did not align with my values - or with my experience. I started seeing people invest great amounts of money into things that did not move their business forward, and found myself stuck between my loyalty to the Storybrand framework, and having to tell people that instant success wasn’t guaranteed, even if you bought into this new system.

• StoryBrand’s narrative changed heavily towards the use and promotion of their newly created “Storybrand AI” tool, and against the use of skills many of us had spent years building. This did an effective job at draining the community of a wealth of expertise: many of the skilled copywriters, designers, and tech specialists I had learned so much from left the program.

• The final blow came when the community moved from Slack to Circle. While the team did their best to also move as many resources with it, and the new setup may have been welcomed by new members who found it less intimidating, many of the old-timers either didn’t make the move to Circle, or were less than impressed by many of the other changes that came with it.

As the start of 2025 came with many new promises of change and new opportunities, I renewed for another year - but despite the efforts Storybrand made towards the end of the year to turn back some of the awkward turns made earlier, I couldn’t find enough reasons to spend the money again in 2026.

Despite those last 20 months, Storybrand will always stay a huge part of me and I look back fondly on the middle three years of my certification. It led me to be part of some other great communities I share with many of the people I met in those years, so I’m not losing access to the friendships, the experience, and the support I’ve grown accustomed to.

And maybe above all, StoryBrand led me where I’m now and one can’t un-learn a framework they’ve been applying in their work for so many years. I still believe strongly in the systems and processes I’ve learned to apply through Marketing Made Simple, and I know the framework just works - when applied with nuance and expertise.