Story22

01/06/2026

In a few days, the doors close and the workshop you'll wish you'd done years ago will be full.

Opportunities to learn directly from the world's leading academic on story marketing - Dr JJ Peterson - don't come around very often!

Dr Peterson has helped thousands of businesses around the world clarify their message, attract more customers and grow. Next week, he'll be joining STORY22 in London working with a small group of business owners and leaders to do exactly that.

There are just a handful of places left.

If your marketing feels harder than it should...

If you're tired of people not quite getting what you do...

If you're wondering how to equip your customers with great stories of their experiences with you that they'll share forever...

This is your opportunity.

Watch JJ's video.

Then book your place before your competition takes it.

10th-11th June | London

Final few seats remaining.

https://www.story22.co.uk/storybrand-unreasonable-hospitality-workshop-in-london-2026/

29/05/2026

Customers don't choose the loudest option or the one with the cleverest marketing.

They choose the one that feels clearest and easiest to commit to with confidence.

That confidence comes from alignment between what's promised and what's actually experienced. When those two things match consistently, doubt disappears and choosing becomes obvious.

We've written about how businesses become the obvious choice, and why doing both (clear messaging and thoughtful experience) matters more than doing either one brilliantly in isolation.

Read it here 👉

Customers choose the option that feels clearest and most reliable. Here's how aligning promise and experience removes doubt and drives confident decisions.

27/05/2026

We just recorded a podcast with Bernie from the London Coworking Assembly, where we talked about the gap between what businesses say... and what customers actually experience.

Most businesses are saying the right things:

"We care."
"We're different."
"We go above and beyond."

The problem? It doesn't always feel that way to the customer.

Your marketing sets expectations. Your service is what people actually judge you on. And when those don't match, trust disappears quietly.

We've turned the podcast conversation into a blog post because this felt worth exploring properly.

🎧 Listen to the podcast and read the blog here:
https://buff.ly/AZVzTP0
https://buff.ly/8wo5UVS

It's a good one if you've ever felt like your marketing should be working better than it is.

And if you want to align what you say with what you deliver, we're running a two-day workshop in London this June where you'll do exactly that:

https://buff.ly/SJQFylx

Your marketing sets expectations. Your service proves them. Discover how aligning your message and experience builds trust, improves conversion, and drives growth.

22/05/2026

So many people read Unreasonable Hospitality and think: "We should be doing this."

And they're right.

But implementing it properly takes more than a few extra touches. It takes clarity, structure, and team alignment.

We've broken down how to actually do it in our latest blog - from mapping your customer journey to removing the friction that stops good intentions becoming reality.

Read more 👉 https://buff.ly/jFNjoNR

Or join us in London this June to work through it step by step 👉https://buff.ly/SJQFylx

20/05/2026

Rebrands don’t fail because they look bad.

They fail because they’re asked to solve problems that sit deeper than design or messaging.

If positioning hasn’t been properly decided, a rebrand often creates a more polished version of the same confusion.

In our latest blog, we explain why this happens and what to do differently if you’re planning a rebrand or questioning a recent one.

👉 Read the blog and schedule a free strategy call if you want to talk it through.

https://www.story22.co.uk/rebrands-fail-when-positioning-isnt-clear/

And if you know the issue runs deeper than the brand itself, we’re exploring that wider clarity work at our StoryBrand + Unreasonable Hospitality workshop in London this June.

https://www.story22.co.uk/storybrand-unreasonable-hospitality-workshop-in-london-2026/

19/05/2026

Our co-founders Sonya & Julie joined Dr. J.J. Peterson on his Badass Softie podcast this week for a conversation about something that holds back many businesses from growth:

The company has evolved. The expertise has evolved. The results have evolved.

But the messaging just hasn’t caught up.

And when that happens, businesses often look smaller, less differentiated or less established than they really are - despite delivering exceptional work behind the scenes.

In this episode they explore the relationship between clear messaging and customer experience, including why operational friction is often a communication problem in disguise, how thoughtful customer experience design creates commercial advantage, and why businesses that articulate their value clearly tend to scale with far less resistance.

They also unpack why solving customer frustrations creatively is often far more effective than simply throwing more resource at the problem.

This episode is for founders, marketers and leadership teams trying to stand out in increasingly crowded markets.

🎧 Listen here: https://www.badasssoftie.com/episodes/does-your-business-feel-smaller

And if you’d like to go deeper into both StoryBrand messaging and Unreasonable Hospitality, we’ll be working through both frameworks live with Dr JJ Peterson in London this June.

📍Workshop details: https://www.story22.co.uk/storybrand-unreasonable-hospitality-workshop-in-london-2026/

Does your business feel harder to explain than it should? Dr. J.J. Peterson talks with Julie Firth and Sonya Whittam of Story22 about customer perception, messaging, leadership, hospitality, and why thoughtful businesses stand out.

15/05/2026

People don't recommend businesses because they were satisfied and everything was fine.

They recommend them because they felt:

✅ Genuinely confident in their choice
✅ Properly looked after throughout
✅ Respected beyond just the transaction

That kind of feeling isn't created by marketing campaigns or referral incentives. It's earned after the sale, through what actually happens when expectations meet reality.

We've written about why advocacy is built after the sale, not before it.

Read it here 👇

Customers don’t recommend businesses because they’re asked to. They recommend them because belief is earned after the sale.

13/05/2026

Positioning shows up in behaviour, not statements.

If sales is explaining too much or marketing feels noisy, positioning may be the reason.

Our latest blog explains how to tell if your positioning is actually working.

👉 Read it and schedule a free strategy call.

https://www.story22.co.uk/how-to-tell-if-positioning-working/

And if this has highlighted a wider messaging and customer journey issue, we’re exploring that work in more depth at our StoryBrand + Unreasonable Hospitality workshop in London this June.

https://www.story22.co.uk/storybrand-unreasonable-hospitality-workshop-in-london-2026/

10/05/2026

This Is Not Another Marketing Conference

Your website might not need a redesign.

It might need a clearer message.

In this short video, Dr J.J. Peterson explains what makes our StoryBrand Marketing Workshop different.

This is not a conference where you sit and take notes all day.

It is a practical working session where you work on your own business, clarify your message, test it, ask questions and refine it in real time.

That means you do not just leave inspired.

You leave with something you can actually use to get your customers’ attention.

Start by downloading our free guide, Building a Website That Actually Works, then join us in London on 10 June 2026 to apply the StoryBrand framework properly.

Download the free guide here: https://www.story22.co.uk/building-a-website-that-actually-works/

08/05/2026

As businesses grow, hospitality often gets left to chance and individual judgement.

Not because teams don't care about customers, but because no one has actually defined how care should show up consistently across different situations, different people, and different levels of pressure.

Systemising hospitality isn't about removing humanity or making everything robotic. It's about protecting humanity by giving people clear guidance instead of making them guess what's expected or default to rigid policy.

We've shared more on why this matters and how to approach it properly without losing what makes your customer experience valuable.

Read it here 👇
https://www.story22.co.uk/hospitality-only-scales-when-its-systemised/

And if you're at the point where good intentions aren't enough anymore, we're running a two-day workshop in London this June on building hospitality that actually scales.
https://www.story22.co.uk/storybrand-unreasonable-hospitality-workshop-in-london-2026/