Deck grammar

Deck grammar — the house format

The section order and evidence discipline our decks follow. Derived from the account-review, post-POC, and pitch decks the team actually ships.

The invariant

Evidence → meaning → action. Never lead with a conclusion. A reader who disagrees with the conclusion must be able to see the evidence it came from and check it themselves. That's why every evidence row carries a date and an account: it makes the claim falsifiable.

Section order by asset type

Account review deck

1. Title — subject, date, who prepared it
2. Agenda — 3-4 numbered blocks, one line each
3. The problem, in their words — a verbatim quote from a named person with

a date. Not a paraphrase, not our framing of their problem.

1. Where expansion is showing up — evidence table
2. Where churn risk is showing up — evidence table
3. Where engagement has gone quiet — account + last-engagement date +

next action

1. Full account view — the 6-panel per-account breakdown (below)
2. Objection patterns — pattern + accounts + evidence + how to handle
3. ROI / outcomes — only with real numbers; omit the section otherwise
4. Next steps — owner and date per item

Proof-point one-pager

1. Title + internal-draft caption
2. The customer in one line (industry, size, what they use)
3. Before — the problem in their words, quoted and dated
4. After — outcomes, each with a number and a source
5. The quote — one strong verbatim line, named and dated
6. Where it applies — which prospect profiles this proof point fits
7. Open gaps

Battlecard section

1. Competitor name + where they show up (accounts, dates)
2. What customers actually say about them — quoted, dated
3. Their claims we hear repeated — with the account that repeated them
4. How we've positioned successfully — evidence from won deals
5. Objections that recur + how each was handled
6. What we don't know — gaps

Case-study writeup

1. Customer + context
2. The trigger — why they started looking, in their words
3. What they adopted and when
4. Outcomes — numbers only, each sourced
5. Quote
6. Open gaps

Objection talking points

1. The objection, phrased as customers actually phrase it (quoted)
2. Which accounts raised it, with dates
3. What worked — the response that moved it, with the account it worked on
4. What didn't work — if the evidence shows a failed approach, include it
5. Proof points to reach for
6. Gaps

The evidence table

Every evidence table uses this shape. Columns may be renamed for the asset, but the four load-bearing fields never drop out:

Rules:

• Account — never "a customer" or "several accounts". Name it.
• Evidence — what was actually said or observed, close to the original

phrasing. Not our interpretation of it.

• Date — the call date. An undated row does not ship.
• Next action — concrete and assignable. "Monitor" is not an action.

A row missing account, evidence, or date is dropped or moved to Open gaps. It is never shipped with the missing field blank or inferred.

The full account view (6 panels)

Used in account reviews. Each panel is 2-3 sentences with a dated source. Panels with nothing behind them say so rather than being padded.

ROI and numbers

• A number appears only if a tool returned it. No modelled, estimated, or

illustrative figures.

• If the format has an ROI section and no numbers came back, the section reads

"No outcome metrics available from call data — needs input from the account team." That is an honest and useful line.

• Never annualize, extrapolate, or round a returned figure into a rounder one.

Build-vs-buy and pricing sections

Only when the user asks for them, and only from material they provide. These are commercial positions, not call-derived evidence — this skill does not originate pricing, contract terms, or competitive cost claims.

Sourcing footer

Every asset ends with the sources line naming the accounts and date range the evidence came from:

Sources: Zime call recordings — Holcim, Jun 18 and Jun 24 2026.

The caption that always appears

Internal draft. Assembled from Zime call and CRM data on [date].
Not reviewed by marketing or legal.

Calls contain confidential customer language. This caption is not boilerplate — it's the thing that stops an internal draft from being pasted into a customer-facing deck unreviewed.