skills/launch-internal-brief/SKILL.mdView on GitHub
This applies the day before the first external mention, including a leak the company cannot stop. It produces three short pieces and a single answer to “what do I say if asked”.
Before you start
This skill works on its own. If the person has their own marketing brain (or any folder of context files about their company), read the files listed under reads in the header first and cite them for every fact. If they do not have one, do not look for one: ask for the two or three facts this play needs and go on. Never invent a fact; a blank is a question for the person.
Tools: this play speaks in verbs (check the CRM, pull the call, schedule the post). TOOLS.md at the root of this repo lists the tools recommended for each verb. The company’s own 1-context/stack.md wins when it exists. No tool is required; a spreadsheet and a mail client cover most of it.
The play
- Read the context (see Before you start) and the output of
release-to-narrative: the narrative, the maturity label, the cleared claims. - Write the management note first: what is going out, where, when, why now, what each function owns in the window, and the open risks (capacity for re-demos, migration load, support volume).
- Write the company note: what is happening today, what customers will see, the one-line answer if a customer asks, and who to route questions to.
- Write the talking points: five lines on what it is, three on what it is not yet (with the label), the “switch when you are ready” line for existing customers, the no-ship-date rule.
- Send management first, then the company, then the external piece. If the external piece is already out (a leak), send both notes within the hour and say so plainly.
- Post the talking points where sales and success look during the day, not in an email they will lose.
What good looks like
- The best operator writes the customer’s question first (“I saw a banner, is my product changing?”) and the one-line answer, then builds the brief around it.
- The mediocre version is a long memo about the launch strategy that nobody reads before the phone rings.
- Good output lets anyone in the company answer a customer in one sentence, and lets success manage re-demo volume instead of being surprised by it.
Rules
- MUST go to management before the company and to the company before the market.
- MUST state the maturity label and the no-ship-date rule in the talking points.
- NEVER let the company learn about a launch from a customer.
- NEVER send the external piece and the internal brief in the same hour in the wrong order.