The Narrative Office · Narrative Counsel for B2B Enterprise · Lianne Stewart
The most expensive document in your marketing budget is the one nobody wants to write
Most marketing organizations have optimized for content production, not for strategic clarity. The cost of that gap runs into the tens of thousands per project. I help organizations see it and fix it.
The pattern
What a broken narrative process actually costs.
- 01
A project gets scoped at two to four weeks for a single narrative deliverable.
- 02
The brief is thin or absent. The writer asks questions. The marketer says to get started anyway.
- 03
The first draft arrives. The marketer responds to sentence and word choice rather than the strategy.
- 04
The marketer raises concerns internally. A second reviewer joins. Then a third. Each adds comments to show they had input. Some feedback contradicts other feedback.
- 05
A VP or director sees the work for the first time and provides a completely different direction. The people who shaped earlier drafts move into react mode and request all of the feedback gets addressed, even if it's conflicting.
- 06
The project scoped at two weeks is now at six. The content that eventually ships is technically correct and internally approved, but it isn't landing as anticipated and gets scrapped after three weeks in market.
The salary cost of that sequence runs between $28,000 and $34,000 on a project scoped at $10,000 of creative output. It appears on no budget line. Which is why it never gets fixed.
This is the Safety Tax. The organizational cost of optimizing a narrative for internal comfort rather than external clarity.
What I actually do
I don't write your content. I fix the conditions that make your content fail.
Most narrative consultants take the brief and start writing. I don't. I go into organisations, find exactly where the strategic thinking exits the content process, and give the team a framework to stop it from happening. The writing gets better because the conditions around it change. Not because you hired a better writer.
The Diagnostic
For content and marketing leaders who know something is broken but can't point to where.
A focused session with your team where I observe your narrative process and show you exactly where the strategic thread breaks and what it costs. You leave with a short report: where strategy exits, what it costs, and what to change. Not recommendations to improve your writing. Structural changes to how the work gets directed.
Typically one to two weeks. Priced for a director to approve without escalation.
The Workshop
For teams ready to fix the process themselves.
A half-day working session where I teach your content and marketing team to see the Safety Tax in their own work. How to brief so the strategy survives. How to give feedback at the strategic layer instead of the sentence layer. How to protect a narrative from the committee dynamics that dilute it. Your team leaves owning the framework.
The Talk
For conferences, offsites, and leadership meetings.
A lively and interactive forty-five minutes where I name the problem to a room full of people who feel it. The conversation after is where the real work begins.
What this looks like inside an organization
A recent diagnostic.
A marketer at a social tech organization came to us two weeks into a project scoped at four. They had already gone through three rounds with their writer to create a product narrative, and felt they were further away from the story with each edit. We started with the briefing process and found the gap immediately: no clear direction on what the narrative needed to accomplish. Without that, each round of feedback drifted. The team was waiting for the right story to appear in a draft. They'd know it when they saw it.
The issue was never the writing. It was the brief.
Experience the methodology
The Narrative Council.
The Narrative Council is the public surface of this diagnostic. Paste a brief and seven independent advisors scrutinize it in ninety seconds. It exists so you can experience the standard before you decide whether to bring it inside your organization.
Reviews live only in your browser. Nothing is saved unless you email yourself a copy.
Read how the Council works.
What this is
A board meeting for your brief. Seven independent advisors each present their case against it. The Chairman tables a verdict. You sit at the head of the table and make the call. The Council offers suggestions. You make the decisions.
Who the advisors are
Seven fixed lenses written for the failure modes B2B briefs ship with. The Executive reads for strategic clarity. The Engineer reads for claim integrity. The Competitor reads for differentiation. The Analyst reads for evidence. The Buyer reads for relevance. The Skeptic reads for soft language. The Legal advisor reads for risk.
Who it's for
B2B marketing leaders, PMMs, comms directors, and founders who own the narrative, and who have to defend it in front of an executive, an engineer, and a lawyer who weren't in the room when it was written.
What it's for
Catching the objections that usually arrive at round three. Strategic ambiguity, soft claims, undefended differentiation, real legal risk. All of it surfaced at round zero, when it costs nothing to fix.
How it works
Three steps. About ninety seconds.
01
Seven lenses, in parallel
The Executive, Engineer, Competitor, Analyst, Buyer, Skeptic, and Legal each read the brief through a fixed lens. Independently. No groupthink.
02
The Chairman synthesizes
A single editorial verdict. Where the council agrees, where it clashes, and the decisions you own.
03
You decide
Nothing is saved on our side. No account required. Email it to yourself, print it, or just close the tab — the verdict is yours to act on.
The premise
The Safety Tax.
The Safety Tax is the organizational cost of optimizing a narrative for internal comfort rather than external truth.
The Narrative Council exists to move that scrutiny to the front of the project, where it costs nothing to act on, and where you still have the conviction to act on it.
When not to use it
A short list of disqualifications.
- You want validation, not scrutiny. The advisors don't soften and don't flatter. If you're looking for a second opinion that agrees with your first, this isn't it.
- You want line edits. The Council reads for strategy, claim integrity, positioning, and risk. Not grammar, voice polish, or word choice.
- You can't act on the verdict. The Chairman ends with a clear set of changes to make. If the brief is locked, already approved, or out of your hands, the Council becomes interesting reading rather than useful work.
Frequently asked
Questions worth answering.
- Is anything saved?
- Briefs and reviews live only in your browser. If you choose to email the verdict to yourself, that one send is logged for delivery and your address is stored only if you opt in to The Chairman's Library waitlist. Otherwise, close the tab and it's gone.
- Is there a usage limit?
- Yes. The Council is rate-limited to a few runs per visitor per day so the lights stay on. If you hit the limit and need more capacity for your team, get in touch via the Work page.
- Who sees what I paste?
- Your brief is sent to a third-party AI gateway to generate the advisor reviews, then discarded. The Narrative Office does not store or read submissions. If your brief is confidential, treat it as you would any external chatbot.
- Do I need an account?
- No. The Council is free and open. After a review you'll see an optional email field if you want to be notified about new advisors and the upcoming pro version. Skip it without consequence.
- How is this different from asking ChatGPT or Claude for feedback?
- Seven fixed lenses, run in parallel, with prompts written by Lianne for the specific failure modes B2B briefs ship with. The Chairman then collapses them into a single editorial verdict. Not a list of suggestions to politely consider.
- Can I customize the advisors?
- Yes. Switch presets to the Executive Advisory Board, toggle individual advisors on or off, or add your own custom advisor with a lens and standing question.
- What about the standing legal warning?
- Every Legal review begins with a reminder that pasting confidential material into an AI tool may implicate your data-sensitivity policies. That bullet is hard-coded. Read it.
- Can I work with Lianne directly?
- Yes. The Council is the public surface; The Narrative Office is the consulting practice behind it. See the Work page for engagement formats.