Finance
How Financial Planning Has Got The Story All Wrong: Insights From StoryBrand’s Donald Miller
“Nobody wants to hear your story, they want to be invited into a story,” Donald Miller told me, in a recent interview about his new book, Building A StoryBrand 2.0.
That’s it. That’s how financial planning—or perhaps more accurately, financial planners—have got the story all wrong. And regardless of the type of business that you’re in, I’m betting that the same holds true.
What’s your story?
We’ve made ourselves, and/or our solutions, the main character in the narrative of our client’s financial planning, rather than ceding that role to the natural actor, our client.
This wise counsel comes from the StoryBrand guy, Donald Miller, and Miller’s story deserves attention because it’s instructive. He’s not the first to talk about how to use narrative theory in branding and marketing, but it is safe to say he’s done the best job of telling us precisely how to use stories to help people better understand our businesses. And it’s not by telling our story, but by helping others to see theirs.
This is likely because Miller isn’t, or wasn’t, a marketing guru, but a practitioner. An author. Before writing StoryBrand, Miller had published seven books that fit into the memoirist category, including one of my all-time favorite titles, Blue Like Jazz. But after finding success in that genre, Miller says, “I ran out of books to write,” so he began, “an exercise in curiosity” to explicate how narrative structures work and how to use that to clarify a business’s message.
And the big takeaway? As businesses, the story isn’t about us; it’s about those we serve.
StoryBrand 1.0
In the original Building a StoryBrand, Miller shares the SB7 framework—the seven plot points in every great story, whether it’s a novel, TV show, commercial, epic movie, or yes, a business or brand. And it doesn’t take more than a second glance to see where we go wrong as business owners or developers.
Where do you find yourself in this plot?
From Star Wars to Hunger Games to Top Gun: Maverick to Apple, Miller shows us how this plotline plays out in every great story and iconic brand. But nobody dreams of winning Best Supporting Actor as a kid, so we naturally default to jumping into the cockpit and calling ourselves Maverick.
And there is the fatal flaw we commit, making it too much about us. Our services, processes, and accolades—all of which matter, but only to the degree they serve the protagonist, the client, and their story.
The good news is that we play a vital role in this story—it’s just not the starring role, and the sooner we accept our rightful supporting role, the sooner we can better serve more clients. And everything becomes crystal clear when we see it that way—especially as financial advisors.
StoryBrand Financial Planning
Our clients are the main character, the hero. Our job is to get to know them well enough to understand their problem or challenge, and then we can settle into our rightful role as the client’s guide.
And there’s no better metaphor for the posture of all truly great financial advisors, by the way, than guide. We teach, but we’re not teachers who have a necessarily condescending stance toward their students. We navigate the technical, but we are not technicians who often get stuck down rabbit holes of specialization. We consult, but we’re not consultants who diagnose, recommend, and then walk away, leaving a hefty bill in their wake. We persuade, but we’re not salespeople who are driven more by transactions than transformations.
Instead, we are guides for whom experience, wisdom, and the skills of teaching, specializing, consulting, and persuading are all prerequisites.
Then comes planning, a process best navigated in collaboration with our clients. Miller also clarifies here that the plan should be delivered “in the form of baby steps,” a truth we’ve learned from the field of behavioral finance. This, too, contrasts with how most of us learned financial planning. Yet while great financial planning must be comprehensive in its scope, great financial plans must be modular, lest they overwhelm and result in inaction.
Here’s where the skills of persuasion come in handy, in calling our clients to action—actions of their own choosing and architecture—and providing the pivotal role of accountability. We grossly underestimate this as part of our role, perhaps because we love the creative planning at the center of our work. But here again, we are reminded that the plan is no more the hero than we are—and the best unimplemented plans in the world are utterly worthless unless clients take action.
Said action can result in success—Yay!—but plans succeed to varying degrees, and circumstances often change. Some plans even fail. Enter the plot twist, when new circumstances or suboptimal implementation allows us to re-engage the perpetual cycle of story all over again, as we address a new problem or challenge and strive for success anew.
And please remember, the best movies have numerous plot twists. If you’ve already run through Plan A to B, C, or even Z, it only makes your story more compelling.
StoryBrand 2.0 – The Controlling Idea
So, StoryBrand 1.0 does an amazing job helping us identify our proper role and re-write the story. I also asked Miller what was new for readers in StoryBrand 2.0, and there’s another gem that could turn our marketing on its head: the controlling idea.
He writes, “Certainly a story can present multiple ideas, and those ideas are sometimes subjective, but very few stories are commercially successful if the plot is up for interpretation.” Hmm. Can you give us an example?
“If our controlling idea involves a lost dog returning home to his family, who realize how much they loved the previously neglected dog,” says Miller, “we should not include too many scenes about a food critic attempting to start their own restaurant.”
The controlling idea, then, is the main plotline in a nutshell, which isn’t any bigger than a run-on sentence and may be much smaller. StoryBrand 2.0 describes the controlling idea of the classic Lion King plot as “A young lion must gain the confidence necessary to confront his evil uncle, who murdered his father, so that he can take his rightful place as king of the jungle and return order and life to his homeland.”
Meanwhile, Miller strategized with a client who owned a gym franchise and was struggling to differentiate from all the other gyms out there. The gym’s unique feature was targeted resistance training—20-minute trainer-led sessions twice per week—for those who didn’t have time to live at the gym. The essence of the controlling idea ended up being distilled all the way down to three words: “twenty minutes, twice.”
Bang. Then, once you’ve got your controlling narrative for your business and brand, the discipline required is to run 100% of your messaging through that singular lens. If it builds on that narrative, great. If it distracts, it’s out.
The question StoryBrand 2.0 leaves us with, then, is, “Have you defined a controlling idea?”
StoryBrand.Ai
And considering the answer for most is some version of “No,” the biggest new addition to the StoryBrand script isn’t even contained in the newly revised edition of the book—it’s a website and tool, StoryBrand.Ai, which I have trialed and must confess left me jaw dropped.
In a matter of minutes, StoryBrand.Ai delivers a brand script, tagline, product service or name, description, packaging copy, website wireframe, lead generator ideas, lead-generating PDF, domain name suggestions, sales emails and talking points, a compelling one-liner, video scripts, social media post ideas and captions, a brand or product story, and nurture emails. Not bad for $39 per month.
The goal of all of it, though, must be remembered, in what I believe is the “controlling idea” of StoryBrand itself, and the quote from Donald Miller that sparked this post: “Nobody wants to hear your story, they want to be invited into a story.”
How can you apply that wisdom in your business or practice?
Before seeking a new referendum MPS needs to rebuild trust in the community through completing state audits, putting in place controls to prevent overspending and routine reports to the public.
For MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius, who just wrapped up her first year leading Milwaukee’s public school system, her tenure has been punctuated by some very big numbers.
The first is $252 million. That is the amount of new spending voters narrowly approved in an April 2024 referendum to support operations in Wisconsin’s largest school district. Just months later, MPS was rocked by revelations the district was months behind in filing key financial reports to the state, which led to former Superintendent Keith Posley’s resignation.
The second is $1 billion. MPS faces a deferred maintenance backlog exceeding $1 billion. The district’s enrollment has declined 30% over the last 30 years, leaving many schools at less than 50% full. That, in part, is driving a plan to close some schools and to improve others to help lower costs.
The final is $46 million, the deficit MPS was running for the 2024-25 school year, an unexpected shortfall which has led to hundreds of staff layoffs.
Getting the district’s accounting, budgeting and financial reporting back on track has dominated Cassellius’s first year at MPS. In an April 15 interview with the Journal Sentinel’s editorial board, she talked in detail about the challenges putting that into order and progress she sees in restoring transparency into its operations.
State funding and aging buildings create budget nightmares
Cassellius says state needs to keep up its share of school funding
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel editorial board, MPS leader Brenda Cassellius says budgets and buildings are her two top worries.
Cassellius said the on-going budget crisis is her top concern. She said the state’s failure to live up to its share of funding is exacerbating MPS’ budget woes. A group of school districts, teachers and parents filed suit against the state Legislature and its Joint Finance Committee claiming the current state funding system is unconstitutional and prevents schools from meeting students’ educational needs.
Funding for special education is especially critical. About 20% of MPS students have disabilities, almost twice the share of the city’s charter schools, and the average of 14% across Wisconsin.
“What’s keeping me up now, you know, is really just the budget crisis we’re in, with not only this year but multiple years going out without additional state aid, we’ve been not getting funding for what our needs are for our students, and particularly our students with special needs,” she said.
Although the state budget increased special education funding to a 42% reimbursement rate, the actual rate has been about 35%. Another component to the budget headache is the age of MPS buildings. The average age is 85 years-old compared to 45 across the nation.
“We have just kicked this can down the curb or kicked it down the street or whatever you call it for too long. And it’s time that we really take on a serious conversation about the conditions of the learning environments in which we send our children,” she said. “Particularly in Milwaukee Public Schools, we serve the most vulnerable children. Children who have language barriers, children who have disabilities, children in high-concentrated poverty.”
What needs to happen before MPS seeks another referendum
Voters need to be comfortable MPS has made tough budget decisions
In an interview with Journal Sentinel editorial board, Brenda Cassellius said voters will need to see budget improvements before seeking more spending
Cassellius said MPS will definitely need to go back to voters for a new referendum in the future. In addition to the 2024 measure, voters approved an $87 million plan in 2020.
Before doing that, she said the district first needs to rebuild trust in the community through completing required state audits, putting into place controls to prevent overspending and routine reports to the school board and public about finances.
“I don’t think that the voters are going to want us to bring something forward until they feel comfortable that we have done the cleanup that is necessary,” she said. “And we’ve built the trust that we have the sufficient controls in place.”
In the interim, she’s hoping the state will meet its constitutional responsibility to adequately fund public schools.
“What the public expects is you know where the money is, you’re spending it as close as you can to children, you’re getting good on the promise around art, music, and PE, and the things the public said they wanted to fund,” Cassellius said. “And they want their kids to have so that they have a quality education and an excellent education in Milwaukee Public Schools, and that they had the right amount of staff that they actually need. In the school to be safe and to run a good operation.”
Rebuilding finance staff in wake of $46 million in overspending
MPS is rebuilding school finance staff in wake of reporting lapses
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel editorial board April 15, MPS superintendent discusses accountability for district’s financial problems.
The $46 million budget shortfall from the 2024-25 school year started coming into view last fall and was confirmed in mid-January. Cassellius noted that in addition to hiring a new superintendent, MPS also parted ways with its comptroller and CFO.
“We are really rebuilding the personnel and staff of the finance department. That is what’s critical, is having the right people in the right seats doing the work,” she said. “Also critical is making sure that you have the right controls in place. The audit findings found that we did not have proper controls in place and now we have those proper controls in place and when we find things we put new SOPs in place and that is what any business does.”
Identifying that shortfall, though painful, was the result of better accounting.
“Being three years behind in auditing means that you don’t have full sight on your actual revenues and expenditures. And so we have now full sight of our revenues and our expenditures and that’s why we were able to see this new deficit of $46 million,” she said. “And we still continue to work with DPI on those processes to make sure that every month we’re doing monthly to actuals and doing those accounting, reporting that to the board. In a way that is consumable to the public that they can understand.”
Jim Fitzhenry is the Ideas Lab Editor/Director of Community Engagement for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Reach him at jfitzhen@gannett.com or 920-993-7154.
Property markets move in cycles, and with interest rates rising and other pressures like high fuel costs, some markets are clearly slowing down. Many first-home buyers who have only ever seen markets going up are conditioned to think that when purchasing, competition is always intense and decisions need to be made quickly.
In those times, buyers often feel they need to act fast, stretch their budget and secure a property at almost any cost. But things have definitely changed.
In a softer market, the dynamic shifts. Properties take longer to sell, competition thins, and it’s the vendors who begin to feel pressure.
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For buyers who understand how to navigate that change, the balance of power quickly moves in their favour. The opportunity is not simply to buy at a lower price. It is to negotiate from a position of strength.
If that’s you right now, these are the key skills first-home buyers need to take advantage of in softer market conditions.
The most important shift in a soft market is psychological. In a rising market, buyers often feel like they are competing for limited opportunities. In a softer market, the opposite is true. There are more properties available, fewer active buyers and less urgency overall. This gives buyers options.
When buyers understand that they are not competing with multiple parties on every property, their decision-making improves. They are more willing to walk away, compare opportunities and avoid overpaying. Negotiation strength comes from not needing to transact immediately. When that pressure is removed, buyers are able to engage more strategically.
One of the most common mistakes first-home buyers make is continuing to apply strategies that only work in rising markets. Auction urgency is a clear example. In strong markets, auctions often attract multiple bidders and create competitive tension. In softer conditions, properties are more likely to pass in, shifting the process away from a public bidding environment into a private negotiation.
This is where leverage increases.
Private negotiations allow buyers to introduce conditions that protect their position. These may include finance clauses, longer settlement periods or price adjustments based on due diligence. Opportunities that are rarely available in competitive markets become standard in softer ones.
The Board of Visitors Finance Committee met Thursday and approved a 3.6 percent average increase in tuition, a 4.8 percent average increase in meal plan costs and a 5 percent increase in the cost of double-room housing for the 2026-27 school year. The approval was unanimous amongst Board members, though some expressed resistance to the increases before voting in favor of them.
The Committee heard from Jennifer Wagner Davis, executive vice president and chief operating officer, and Donna Price Henry, chancellor of the College at Wise, about reasons for the raise in tuition and rates. According to Davis and Henry, salary increases for professors and legislation passed by the General Assembly contribute to tuition and rates increases.
The Finance Committee, chaired by Vice Rector Victoria Harker, is responsible for the University’s financial affairs and business operations, and the Committee manages the budget, tuition and student fees.
Changes in tuition vary between schools, with the School of Law seeing at most a 5.1 percent increase, the School of Engineering & Applied Science seeing at most a 3.2 percent increase and the College of Arts and Sciences seeing at most a 3.1 percent increase in tuition for the 2026-27 school year.
For the 2026-27 school year at the College at Wise, the Committee also unanimously approved a 2.5 percent average increase in tuition, a 3.8 percent increase in meal plans and a 2 percent increase in the cost of housing.
Last year, the Committee approved a 3 percent average increase in tuition, a 5.5 percent increase in meal plans and a 5.5 percent increase in the cost of housing for the University.
Davis cited increased costs as the primary reason for the approved increase in tuition. She said that the budget that could be passed by the General Assembly for June 30, 2027 through June 30, 2028 could increase professor salaries — University professors receive raises via this process. Davis said that the Senate and House of Delegates have separate proposals dealing with the pay increases that are currently unresolved, with House Bill 30 raising salaries by 2 percent and Senate Bill 30 raising salaries by 3 percent.
Davis said every percent increase in faculty salaries costs the University $15 million annually, and the Commonwealth will increase funding to the University by $1-2 million to help pay for that increase. According to Davis, the most common way to stabilize the budgetary imbalance caused by raised salaries is through tuition raises.
Beyond the increase in salary, Davis cited the minimum wage increase, inflation and Virginia Military Survivors & Dependents Education Program as increased costs to the University. VMSDEP is a program that gives education benefits to spouses and children of disabled veterans or military service members killed, missing in action or taken prisoner. Davis said that the program is “partially unfunded” and could cost the University somewhere between $3.6 to $6 million, depending on how many students qualify for the program.
Davis spoke on other contributing factors to the increase in tuition, specifically collective bargaining — which allows workers to bargain for better wages and working conditions.
“If we look at other institutions or other states that have collective bargaining, [collective bargaining] does put an upward pressure on tuition,” Davis said.
Prior to Thursday’s meeting, the Committee heard the proposal for tuition increases from Davis and Henry April 6 in a Finance Committee tuition workshop with public comment. During the tuition workshop, tuition increases ranged from 3 to 4.5 percent for the University and 2 to 3 percent for the College at Wise. Both increases approved Thursday are within the ranges originally proposed.
Meal plan costs, on average, will be increasing by 4.8 percent in the upcoming academic year. Davis said that the University has been expanding dining options with the opening of the Gaston House and new locations for the Ivy Corridor student housing that is still in progress. She also said that the University has been taking steps to increase the availability of allergen-friendly food options.
Davis shared that the 5 percent cost increase in housing is due to the expansion of student housing in the Ivy Corridor. Davis also said that there will be 3,000 new units added to the Charlottesville housing market by 2027, of which 780 beds will be for University housing. Davis said that she hopes the Ivy Corridor housing would “free up” the city housing supply by having more students live on Grounds.
Board member Amanda Pillion said she was “concerned” about how tuition increases would harm rural families — she said the constant increases in cost could make a University education out of reach for middle-income Virginians.
“This is the second governor I’ve served under. Both times I’ve heard affordability, affordability, affordability,” Pillion said. “We need to really be conscious of the fact that … there is a large group of people that [are middle-income] that these increases [in tuition and fees] are really tough for.”
The Committee also approved a renovation for The Park — an 18-acre recreational hub in North Grounds — which will cost $10 million. As part of the renovation, The Park will include a maintenance facility, storm water systems and a maintenance access route. Davis said the renovation will address safety and security issues for the 200 people that use The Park daily. According to Davis, the University will use $2 million of institutional funds and issue $8 million of debt to fund the renovation.
The Finance Committee will reconvene during the regularly scheduled June Board meetings.
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