Build a sales deck narrative arc: problem, shift, proof, ask
Structures your pitch into a 10-12 slide narrative arc — problem, shift, proof, ask — with full-sentence headlines that carry the argument on their own, evidence notes, and talk-track lines per slide. It replaces the product-tour deck with a story that ends in a decision, plus a 60-second fallback when the meeting gets compressed.
You are a sales narrative consultant who has rebuilt decks for teams selling $20K to $500K deals, and you hold one conviction: a deck is a story with a decision at the end, not a product tour with a logo slide. The arc that works is Problem, Shift, Proof, Ask — establish the cost of the status quo, show that the world changed and the old way now loses, prove your way works, then make one clear request. Build me a slide-by-slide narrative outline, 10-12 slides, where each slide gets: 1. A full-sentence headline that carries the argument (someone reading only headlines should follow the whole story). 2. Two or three bullet notes on what evidence or visual belongs on the slide. 3. One line of talk-track guidance — what the presenter says that isn't on the slide. Structure: slides 1-3 the Problem (cost of status quo, made vivid and quantified), 4-5 the Shift (why now — what changed in the market that makes the old way untenable), 6-9 the Proof (mechanism, customer evidence, differentiation), 10-12 the Ask (plan, pricing frame if wanted, one specific next step). Banned: an agenda slide, a 'who we are' slide before slide 8, mission statements, feature grids, and any headline that's a fragment like 'Our Solution'. If the buyer already sat through discovery, the deck must reference their situation, not restate generic pain. Before you write anything, interview me. Ask me these questions ONE AT A TIME, waiting for my answer each time: 1. What do you sell, what's the deal size, and who sits in the room when this deck gets presented? 2. What does the status quo cost your buyer — in money, time, or risk? Be as concrete as you can. 3. What has changed in your buyer's world recently that makes the old way worse than it used to be? 4. What are your two or three strongest proof points? 5. What is the one decision or next step you want at the end of the meeting? Once you have my answers, write the outline. Then give me the 60-second version — the four headlines I'd use if the meeting got cut short.
How to use it
- 1
Copy the prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM.
- 2
Answer question 2 with real numbers — the whole arc leans on the cost of doing nothing.
- 3
Read the twelve headlines in sequence before building anything; if the story doesn't hold as headlines alone, fix it there.
- 4
Build slides from the outline in your template — the evidence notes tell your designer exactly what each slide needs.
- 5
Keep the 60-second version in your notes for the meeting that starts twenty minutes late.
Best practices
The Shift section is what separates this arc from a pain-pitch — spend real thought on question 3; 'why now' is what creates urgency without discounting.
Full-sentence headlines are non-negotiable: 'Manual list-building costs your team 11 hours a week' beats 'The Problem' forever.
Present the Ask slide as a mutual plan with dates, not 'thoughts?' — the model writes it that way; don't soften it back.
Rerun with a different room composition in question 1 to get an exec-heavy variant with fewer mechanism slides.
Example: what this looks like in practice
A sales leader at a mid-market payroll platform is tired of a 34-slide deck that starts with the company timeline. She answers: $60K ACV, room is CFO plus HR director, status quo costs clients roughly 40 hours a month of manual reconciliation and a compliance fine risk, the shift is multi-state remote hiring making old payroll setups untenable, proof is two named case studies and a 99.4% filing accuracy stat. The model returns twelve headlines that read as a complete argument, an Ask slide framed as a 30-day implementation plan starting on a named date, and a four-headline emergency version. Her team rebuilds the deck in a week; second meetings stop opening with 'so, remind us what you do'.
Best fit
This prompt is one gear in a bigger machine. We orchestrate 20+ tools into outbound systems our clients own — and guarantee the results.
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Problem, Shift, Proof, Ask. Quantify the cost of the status quo, show what changed in the world that makes the old way lose, prove your mechanism works with customer evidence, then make one specific request. Company-first decks (logo, timeline, mission) fail because the buyer doesn't care who you are until they believe the problem is worth solving.
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