Workflow Card: 5 Stages

How to build a talk that makes people care, in an afternoon. You make every decision. Paste each prompt into any AI chat, replace the brackets with your own facts, and run the check before you move on.

Stage 1Decide

You decide: who it is for and what they believe now, what should change for them, what it is worth to them, what makes you credible, and what you can remove.

Here are my listener, the change I want for them, and what it is worth to them: [paste your answers]. Write eight candidate one-line Big Ideas in plain spoken words, four as "The one thing that ___" and four as "How to ___ without ___". Do not claim any fact I did not give you. I will choose.

Check it: give ten votes across the eight lines. Say the winner to someone. "What do you mean?" means keep it. "That's nice" means rewrite.

Stage 2Shape

You decide: which three doubts the talk answers, and in what order.

Here are my Big Idea and my listener: [paste]. Play a skeptical member of that audience. List every doubt that would stop a yes, including doubts about me and the price. Group them into three claims, ordered by asking "what happens next?" Show which doubts each claim answers. Write "which means ___ for you" under each. I decide the final three.

Check it: each of the three answers a doubt a listener would say out loud. Put the talk in this order: get their interest, name the problem, give the fix, say what it means for them, ask for one thing.

Stage 3Prove

You decide: what proof you have where they doubt you most.

Pick the proof by the doubt: "Is that number big or small?" gets a comparison. "Will it work for someone like me?" gets a story from someone like them. "Does it really work?" gets a short demo. "Why should I trust you?" gets a second voice. "Is there a catch?" gets the objection raised and answered.

Here are my three claims: [paste]. First ask me what proof I have. Then, for each claim, name the kind of proof that would settle the doubt (a comparison, a story from someone like them, a short demo, a second voice, or the objection raised and answered), and ask me five questions that pull out a true story. If I have no proof for a claim, say so and suggest how to get it. Never invent proof, numbers, or quotes.

Check it: each doubt has one proof story, and the story opens with the doubt. Every number sits beside something the listener knows.

Stage 4Make It Felt

You decide: your headline and one moment.

Here is my draft script, or if I have none, my Big Idea, three claims, and proof: [paste]. Write it as I would say it to a smart friend outside my field. Give three headlines in the listener's words, and three moments I could build, each with how it works. Add nothing I have not given you. I pick.

Check it: ask someone to repeat your line to a stranger in one sentence. If it comes back wrong, cut it back. Say the line at the start, the middle, and the end, in the same words.

Stage 5Deliver

You decide: how it opens, where you use chat, and your one ask.

Here are my script, my setting (how many people, how long), and my one ask: [paste]. Mark where I ask a question, where I show something on screen, and where I close with that one ask. If chat suits my setting, end with the room typing my three points back. Write two lines I can say if the screen share fails.

Check it: a question with no wrong answer in the first two minutes. Say what you will show before you share. The close asks for one thing.

The three things

  1. People say yes to what it is worth to them.
  2. A talk is a set of decisions.
  3. AI does the heavy lifting after you decide.

Before you present, do you have

  1. One line a stranger can repeat
  2. Three parts, each answering a doubt
  3. One number with a comparison
  4. One proof story, opening with the doubt
  5. A second voice (a client, a quote, a clip)
  6. Slides with one job each
  7. One planned moment

Your first job this week: run Stage 1 on one idea. Write one line. Say it to one person.