The Named Deck

What this is

A short deck of 6 to 8 real, named companies in your buyer's market, each carrying a dated signal and a written opener.

• Shows you can reach their exact market instead of claiming it
• Gives a stalled thread something new to react to
• Ships with the rules for when to send it and when to leave it alone

The problem

• → A lead replied, then went quiet.
• → Your bump said "just following up". No new information.
• → Your case study proves you helped someone, somewhere else.
• → "Not interested" often means "prove it", and nothing you sent did.

Cost: you already paid to reach that lead once.

How it works

Not a proposal. Not a pitch deck. It never states your price and it never goes out cold.

• The gate stops you burning an afternoon on a lead who was never going to buy.
• The research prompt hunts five signal types, and drops a company rather than invent an event for it.
• Verification is yours, by hand, on the real page. No exceptions.
• The opener prompt turns one verified signal into a message under 64 words.
• The deck is four columns: company, live signal, why it matters, the opener.

What you need first

Get the files

Everything for this build sits in one folder on GitHub. GitHub is just a website that holds files.

Direct folder link: https://github.com/gary-chakraborty/gap-build-vault/tree/main/builds/named-lead-signal-deck

To get them onto your own computer without any software: open the link, click the green Code button near the top right, then click Download ZIP. Unzip it and open the folder builds/named-lead-signal-deck. You can also click any single file on GitHub and read it in the browser.

Build it

Phase 1: Gate the lead and set up the sheet

1. Open when-to-send.md and read the four checks under "When to build one".
2. Answer all four honestly about this specific lead. Any no means stop and send a better plain reply instead.
3. Go to sheets.google.com and click Blank spreadsheet.
4. In row 1, type five headers: Company, Signal, Date, Source, Opener.
5. In a blank note, write one sentence describing the market this lead sells into: who they are, roughly how big, what they sell.

You know this phase worked when: all four gate checks are a yes, your sheet has five headers, and you can state the lead's market in one sentence without editing it.

Phase 2: Find the signals

1. Open claude.ai in a new tab and turn web search on in the chat box before sending anything.
2. Paste the prompt below, filling in the bracketed fields from your Phase 1 sentence:

I am building a list of [NUMBER, 6 to 8] real companies in this market:

Niche or ICP: [describe who you sell to, e.g. "mid-size third-party logistics companies,
100 to 400 staff, US-based"]

What I sell: [one sentence, in plain words]

[Pick one:]
(A) Here is a list of company names I already have: [paste names]. Find a live buying
    signal for each one.
(B) I don't have a list yet. Find [NUMBER] real, currently-operating companies that fit
    the niche above, then find a live buying signal for each.

For each company, find ONE event from this list: a new hire in an operations, finance,
or growth-leadership seat (within the last 12 months); a run of job postings that implies
the pain I solve (within the last 90 days); a funding round, acquisition, or new office
(within the last 90 days); a new service line, market, or product (within the last
90 days); or a deadline/regulatory event that hits their team (within the last
90 days).

Rules, follow these exactly:
1. Every signal must be something you can point to a real, specific source for: a news
   article, a press release, a company's own page, or a job posting. Name the source type
   and the date for every one.
2. If you cannot find a real, dated, sourced signal for a company, say so and drop that
   company. Do not invent one, do not round up a guess into a fact, do not soften an old
   event into a recent one.
3. Do not use the same signal type for more than 2 companies in the list. Mix types.
4. Do not use a fact that is true of the whole industry (like "this market is growing") as
   a signal. It has to be specific to that one company.
5. For each signal, write one plain sentence explaining why it makes this company more
   likely to need what I sell right now than it did six months ago.

Give me the results as a table: Company name | Signal | Date | Source (name the source
type, e.g. "company press release," "job board listing," "local business news") | One
sentence on why it matters.

3. Ask for 12 companies even though the deck holds 6 to 8. Rows die in Phase 3.
4. Paste the table into your sheet.

You know this phase worked when: your sheet holds around 12 rows, at least three different signal types appear, and every row names a source type and a date.

Phase 3: Verify by hand, then write the openers

1. Take row 2. Search the company name plus the event in Google News or on the company's own site.
2. Confirm the event happened, it was that company, and the date sits inside the window (12 months for a new hire, 90 days for everything else).
3. Confirmed within about three minutes: paste the real URL into the Source cell. Not confirmed: delete the row.
4. Repeat until you have 6 to 8 rows that all survived.
5. Write the first opener yourself, by hand, against the rules in opener-writing-prompt.md. It teaches you the shape faster than reading about it.
6. For every remaining row, paste this prompt with that row's details filled in:

Turn this into a cold opener, following the rules exactly.

Company: [name]
Signal: [the dated event]
Why it matters: [your one sentence from the deck]

Rules:
1. Under 64 words total. Count them and tell me the count.
2. Line one states the signal back to them plainly, like you noticed it yourself.
3. Line two is the end result the signal implies for them, in plain words. No pitch.
   No price. No meeting ask. No calendar link.
4. Write at a 7th-grade reading level. Short sentences, no jargon.
5. Do not use any of these words or moves: leverage, seamless, robust, streamline,
   game-changer, revolutionize, synergy, circle back, touch base, no pressure, just
   checking in, honestly, contract, any price, any calendar link, "want to hop on a call."
6. Do not mention my company name or what I sell anywhere in the opener.

Give me the opener as plain text, then the word count on its own line underneath.

7. Count the words yourself on every output. Do not trust the count the tool reports.
8. Paste each finished opener into the Opener column.

You know this phase worked when: every row has a URL you clicked, and every opener is under 64 words by your own count with no banned word in it.

Phase 4: Lay out the deck and send it into the thread

1. Open deck-template.md and read the slot rules for all four columns.
2. In Google Slides or Canva, make one slide per company, in this order: company name with size and industry, the signal with its date and source, one sentence on why it matters, then the opener.
3. Label every opener "Sample opener" underneath it.
4. Read the deck top to bottom. If two slides could swap signals and nobody would notice, replace the weaker signal.
5. Export as PDF.
6. Reply inside the existing thread, never a new one. Say what the deck is in one line, attach it, and offer two real times, such as Thursday 2pm or Friday 11am. No calendar link.

You know this phase worked when: the PDF holds 6 to 8 slides, every slide names a real company and a dated source, and your reply sits inside the original thread with two named times in it.

Run it the first time

Made-up example, invented to show the shape. Harrow Point Logistics is not a real company and none of these figures are results.

One verified row:

Company: Harrow Point Logistics, a regional shipping and warehousing firm, around 184 staff, Reno NV. Signal: opened a new 138,500-square-foot distribution center in Reno, covered in the local business journal, March 2026. Why it matters: a site that size usually outpaces the hiring channels that filled the smaller one.

What the opener prompt gives back:

Saw Harrow Point's new Reno facility went live last month. A site that size usually
means the ops team is filling warehouse lead and shift supervisor roles faster than the
usual channels can keep up with.

Word count: 36

That is one slide. Repeat until you have 6 to 8.

When it breaks

Tell me how it went

I am not asking for your email. There is no list, no sequence, nothing to unsubscribe from.

Two minutes, three things: how you found this, whether it was useful, and what you want me to build next. https://form.jotform.com/262194392563059

The next build comes from those answers.