The Story Discovery Plan in Detail

The Story Discovery Plan addresses the central thesis of Story Aligned.

Anyone – including AI – can copy what you say, and how you say it. But no one can copy your stories.

Story is the one layer of brand identity that neither your competitors, nor AI can copy — because story is rooted in lived, specific, organizational truth.

It is the only layer that is, by definition, unique to your business.

With the Story Discovery Plan we find and organize the stories that will inform all future AI-generated content, thereby protecting your unique points of differentiation, and preventing brand drift.

This is a focused engagement that goes deep into who you actually are as a brand. Your origin. Your beliefs. The moments that shaped you. The qualities that make your communication worth paying attention to.

We gather story material from across your organization, apply a rigorous evaluation process, and deliver a final report — along with a structured story Library your team can use from day one.

By placing story at the center of your content creation process, you protect your brand — and avoid brand drift — even when using AI at scale.

The Story Discovery Plan is complete and valuable on its own terms. It is also the foundation on which the Full Alignment Plan is built.

How it works

We begin with an intake process to align on scope, timeline, and who across your organization should be involved.

At the heart of this engagement lies the Story Questionnaire.

Your primary contact distributes the Story Questionnaire to all appropriate people across your organization. Respondents are invited to share what they know and remember — founder stories, origin stories, employee stories, customer stories, culture moments, failures and recoveries, and their vision for where the brand is going.

There are no right or wrong answers. We are looking for raw material, not polished copy. Responses are collected and returned.

Next step — Story Curation

I read every response in full and identify the strongest story candidates across all categories. Each candidate is then evaluated using the SPICE Rubric™, — a proprietary framework developed by Story Aligned for assessing story quality and usefulness across five dimensions:

• How significantly the story impacts the business or its people
• Whether it has a protagonist the audience can relate to
• Whether it reveals genuine insight or an unexpected angle
• Whether it contains real conflict or tension, and
• Whether it evokes a meaningful emotional response.

Stories that score well against the SPICE Rubric™, are organised by category and synthesised into a clean, readable curation document, which is returned to your primary contact for review and confirmation.

Your team reviews the curated material — checking for accuracy, flagging anything sensitive or missing, confirming which stories should form the foundation of the final report, and adding any additional context.

Creating Your Story Library

With confirmed material in hand, I build your Story Library — an organised, structured repository of your best stories, ready for use with AI-assisted content creation going forward.

The Story Library contains stories organised under six potential categories:

• Origin Story, which explains why the brand exists
• Founder Story, which humanises leadership
• Employee Stories, which show culture in action
• Customer Success stories, which demonstrate real-world value
• Failure and Fix stories, which build credibility through transparency
• Vision stories, which paint the direction and ambition of the brand.

The library also includes a set of Story Usage Rules — brief guidelines explaining how this material should inform content going forward, and how it should not. Stories are an internal compass, not a script to be quoted verbatim.

What you leave with

At the end of the Story Discovery Plan your organization has:

The Story Discovery Report — a document that defines your brand story with a clarity most companies never achieve. Something a CMO can share with their board, their agency, and their content team, and that will still be relevant years from now.

The Story Library — an organised, searchable repository of your best stories across every category, ready to inform content creation, AI briefing, and internal alignment from day one.

45-Minute Readout Session — The Story Discovery Report is delivered to your primary contact at least 48 hours before this session, so everyone arrives having already read it. The readout is not a walkthrough — it is a conversation.

I answer your questions, discuss implications for your content team and AI workflows, and help identify the clearest next steps, whether that means implementing the Story Library internally or proceeding to the Full Alignment Plan.

Investment — US$7,500

If you proceed to the Full Alignment Plan following the Story Discovery Plan, the $4,500 is credited in full against the fee.

Next Steps

Reach out to me, and we’ll set up a 30-minute Discovery Call to see is The Story Discovery Plan is a good fit for you, your team, and your goals.

CONTACT ME NOW