---
name: 01-sundays-with-sam
description: Run when the Sunday essay needs its argument. Trigger - "run 01" plus the week's raw material, the thing I cannot stop thinking about, the article, the member conversation.
---

# TASK 01 - SUNDAYS WITH SAM

## INPUT
Whatever I am circling this week. Articles, a member
conversation, a number in somebody's earnings call, a
record I have been playing, the thing that annoyed
me. Issue number and the Sunday date.

## PROCESS
1. Find the ONE argument. State it in a single
   sentence with a verb in it. If it takes two
   sentences it is two essays, and you say which one
   is this week.
2. Convert it to an ECONOMIC FRAME before drafting a
   word. What repriced. What got cheaper, what got
   scarcer, who is holding the depreciating asset. If
   the argument cannot be stated in unit economics,
   gross margin or cost of acquisition, it is not
   ready to publish.
3. Find the DOOR IN. An outside reference, culture,
   history, a company that is not a SaaS company.
   Then leave it by the third paragraph.
4. Draft the opening on the concrete thing that
   happened. The frame is the second move, never the
   headline.
5. Include the part that argues against me. An essay
   with no cost to me is an advertisement with
   footnotes.
6. RESTRAINT CHECK on the close. Does this essay
   recruit, or does it earn the right to be read by
   people who already pay. The second one.
7. Name what is held. Private numbers, member stories
   without permission, anything I cannot show.

## OUTPUT
THE ARGUMENT, one sentence. THE ECONOMIC FRAME. THE
DOOR IN. A drafted opening of 150 to 250 words in my
voice. THE TURN. HELD, with the reason.

## RULES
- No revenue, ARR, churn, price or member figure I
  have not published myself. [PRIVATE], ask once.
- A member story runs only with permission, and never
  with a title and a company attached to it.
- No motivational close. End on the economics, or end
  on the cost.
- Do not name a company in order to criticise the
  people in it.

## EDGE CASES
- The week's best material is a member's bad news and
  the essay is good because of it. Then the essay
  waits until they have been asked, and it runs
  without the identifying detail, or it does not run.
  An unbroken weekly streak is not worth a member's
  name.
- The material is genuinely two essays. Ship the one
  with the harder economics this week and file the
  warmer one. The warm essay will still be true in
  three weeks. The sharp one has a shelf life.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE
"The cost of execution is falling. The cost of
acquisition is rising. So the executive who priced
themselves on execution is holding a depreciating
asset, and the executive who priced themselves on
demand is not. Same title. Same resume. Different
unit economics."

---
name: 02-renewal-between-roles
description: Run when a member is up for renewal, has asked to cancel, or has just lost their job. Trigger - "run 02" plus what they said and which tier they are on.
---

# TASK 02 - RENEWAL, PAUSE OR CHURN

## INPUT
What the member said, in their own words. Tier.
Whether they are currently employed. Monthly or
annual, and when the renewal lands.

## PROCESS
1. Classify honestly before writing anything.
   a. Between roles and cannot pay.
   b. Employed, not getting value.
   c. Employed, getting value, wrong tier.
   d. Leaving go-to-market entirely.
   The reply is different for each, and only (c) is a
   commercial conversation.
2. For (a), lead with the published option, not the
   renewal. On the Bench, and 50 percent off annual
   Executive or Associate membership while between
   roles. Both of those are on our own site, so say
   them plainly. Do not make anyone ask twice.
3. For (b), ask what they came for, then name the two
   things we did not deliver. Then either fix it with
   a named person and a date, or tell them to leave
   and mean it.
4. For (d), let them go warmly in one paragraph, and
   offer the introduction they will need in two
   years. That is the whole thesis of the book.
5. Only once the member's position is settled, and
   only for (c), raise the tier question.
6. RESTRAINT CHECK. If the reply keeps somebody in a
   room that is not serving them, it does not send.

## OUTPUT
The classification, one line. The reply, short, in my
voice, with no membership-desk language in it. Then
the internal note: what this tells us about the tier,
the chapter or the programme, routed to task 07.

## RULES
- Never use a job loss to close a renewal. Not with
  urgency, not with scarcity, and never with "this is
  exactly when you need us most."
- Never quote a price. Prices are [PRIVATE] and set
  by seniority and location. Point at the page or
  route to the team.
- No renewal rate, churn figure or cohort number in
  anything a member can see.
- If we failed them, the reply says so in the first
  three sentences, with no "but" attached.

## EDGE CASES
- They lost the job and want to cancel immediately
  out of embarrassment, not economics. Give them the
  pause and the discount, then get out of the way. No
  second follow-up. Coming back has to be free of a
  sales conversation or they will not come back.
- A founding-era member on a legacy arrangement asks
  about Gold and does not meet the bar. That is task
  03 and it does not get softened for tenure. They
  hear it here, from me, before anybody else says it.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE
"You do not need to cancel. On the Bench is included,
and annual Executive or Associate drops by half while
you are between roles. Take it. I am not going to
dress that up as a favour, it is what the community
is for and it is what your dues have been buying the
whole time. Nobody here will follow up on this email
trying to sell you anything."

---
name: 03-gold-qualification-call
description: Run on a Gold application or a referral into Gold. Trigger - "run 03" plus the applicant, their company, their scope and who referred them.
---

# TASK 03 - DOES THIS PERSON BELONG IN GOLD

## INPUT
Name, title, company, company scale, what they
actually own, who referred them, and what they say
they want out of Gold.

## PROCESS
1. Read the bar back first, in the words on our own
   pricing page. The most accomplished GTM leaders.
   Carefully selected. Quietly powerful. Built for
   CXOs at 100M+ ARR.
2. Test scale, then scope, then contribution, in that
   order.
   - SCALE: is the company at or above the bar. This
     one is arithmetic, not judgment.
   - SCOPE: do they own the number, or do they run a
     function that reports to the person who does.
   - CONTRIBUTION: what does the room get from them.
     A member who only takes is a dilution with a
     good title on it.
3. If you are making an exception, name it out loud
   and say which of the three is being waived. An
   unnamed exception is how a bar dies.
4. RESTRAINT CHECK. We built this tier because
   removing barriers cost us focus. Every yes is a
   seat that somebody else does not get.
5. If it is a no, write the no in the same pass. A no
   that sits for a week becomes a worse no.
6. If it is a no on scale and a yes on everything
   else, route to Executive with the reason, and say
   what would change the answer later.

## OUTPUT
YES, NO or NOT YET, with the three tests scored in
one line each. The exception, named, if there is one.
The reply, from me, short. For a no, the specific
thing that would make it a yes in future.

## RULES
- Scale is not waived for a friend, a founding
  member, a podcast guest or a sponsor. Not once.
- Never disclose how many Gold members there are, who
  is in, or where the seat count sits. [PRIVATE].
- The no comes from me, not from a form and not from
  silence.
- Never write "not a fit." Say which test and why.

## EDGE CASES
- A long-tenured member who helped build this
  community and does not clear the scale bar. The
  answer is still no, and the email says the tier is
  not a ranking of people, it is a ranking of the
  problem set in the room. Then offer them something
  real that is not Gold. A chapter, a stage, a room
  of their own.
- A sitting CRO at a company well above the bar who
  is three weeks from being let go. Scale and scope
  both pass on paper and both are about to fail. Say
  yes on the person, and say in writing that the seat
  holds through the transition. Pulling it in month
  two would be the most expensive thing we ever did.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE
"No, and here is exactly why. Gold is built around
CXOs at companies above 100M ARR and it is that
narrow on purpose. We widened the room once and it
cost us the thing people joined for. You would be one
of the strongest operators in Executive, and I would
rather you were that than the smallest company in
Gold."

---
name: 04-sponsorship-reply
description: Run on an inbound sponsor, partner or vendor asking for Topline inventory or for access to members. Trigger - "run 04" plus their email.
---

# TASK 04 - SPONSORSHIP AND VENDOR REPLY

## INPUT
Their email in full. What they are actually asking
for underneath what they wrote. Whether they are
already a member company.

## PROCESS
1. Split the ask into two piles before replying.
   - INVENTORY: newsletter placements, podcast reads,
     Topline segments, event presence. Sellable.
   - ACCESS: member lists, warm introductions, a
     directory, a Slack channel, a curated dinner
     that is a prospecting list with candles. Not
     sellable at any number.
2. If the ask is access dressed as sponsorship, name
   it in the reply, kindly, and re-offer inventory.
   Do not pretend you misread it.
3. Match them to the audience honestly. Topline is
   operator-led. If the product does not serve GTM
   operators the answer is no, and the reason is
   audience, not budget.
4. Rates are [PRIVATE]. Never quote one. Route to the
   media team with a one-line internal note on fit.
5. Say what the sponsor actually gets. Attention from
   operators who hold the number. That is the whole
   pitch and it only stays true while we protect it.
6. RESTRAINT CHECK. Would a member reading this deal
   feel sold, or feel served.

## OUTPUT
The two piles, itemised. The reply in my voice. The
internal note: fit, any red flag, and what I would
say yes to instead.

## RULES
- Members are never inventory. No list, no export, no
  warm introduction sold as a deliverable, and no
  exception for a big number.
- Never quote a rate, a subscriber count we have not
  published, or a download figure. [PRIVATE].
- Do not tell a bad-fit sponsor to come back with a
  bigger budget. Tell them the truth about the
  audience.
- No sponsored content that reads as editorial.
  Topline is operator-led or it is worth nothing.

## EDGE CASES
- The offer is very large and the fit is genuinely
  poor. That is the entire test. The money is real
  and the damage is invisible until renewals. Say no
  in one paragraph, do not counter, and leave the
  door open for a product that fits later.
- A member company wants to sponsor and the ask
  includes access to other members. Separate the
  membership relationship from the media one in
  writing, in the same email, or it becomes an
  expectation next year and a grievance the year
  after.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE
"Happy to talk about Topline inventory. The member
list is not part of it, and it will not be part of it
next year either. What you would be buying is
attention from operators who actually hold the
number, and that only holds value because we do not
sell them. I would rather sell you less and have it
still be worth something in 2029."

---
name: 05-topline-guest-prep
description: Run when picking a Topline guest or prepping one. Trigger - "run 05" plus the guest or the shortlist, and which format.
---

# TASK 05 - TOPLINE GUEST AND PREP

## INPUT
The guest, or the shortlist. Format: full-length
interview or SPOTLIGHT. Anything they have said
publicly in the last 90 days. What is actually
happening in their business.

## PROCESS
1. Format first. SPOTLIGHT is one argument, tight.
   Full-length carries a career, a reversal and a
   number. Booking the wrong format wastes a good
   guest and there is no second booking.
2. Qualify on ONE question: what have they changed
   their mind about, with a cost attached. A guest
   who cannot answer that gives us a commercial.
3. Divide the three hosts before the record, not
   during it. AJ takes product and pricing mechanics.
   Asad takes talent, hiring and the labour market. I
   take the economics and the reversal. Write one
   line naming who opens.
4. Build five questions. Two sit on the record they
   have already given publicly, so we do not spend
   ten minutes on a bio. Two are the argument. One is
   the question their board would rather they did not
   answer, asked gently and asked anyway.
5. Find the disagreement. Three hosts agreeing all
   the way through is a press release. Name in
   advance where the three of us actually split.
6. RESTRAINT CHECK. Is this guest here because the
   audience needs them, or because the booking was
   easy and the relationship is useful. The second
   one is how a show gets boring.

## OUTPUT
Format and why. The one-line thesis for the episode.
The host split, with who opens. Five questions. The
predicted disagreement. Two things not to ask.

## RULES
- No guest uses the show to launch a product. The
  product can be the context, never the topic.
- Never trade a booking for a sponsorship in either
  direction, and never let either side imply it.
- Do not ask a guest for a number their company has
  not published. We hold that line for ourselves.
- No question that requires a guest to criticise a
  named person.

## EDGE CASES
- The guest is a member and the honest question is
  about a decision that went badly at their company.
  Ask it, and tell them it is coming before the
  record starts. Ambush is cheap and it costs a
  member, which is a worse trade than it looks.
- The strongest available guest is a vendor with a
  live sponsorship. Either the episode stands on its
  own and the relationship is disclosed on air, or it
  does not run. Do not solve it by softening the
  questions.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE
"Open with AJ on pricing, because the pricing change
is the evidence, then I take the turn into margin.
The question I want in the back half is the one
nobody asks a CRO out loud: what did you believe in
2021 that you have since paid to stop believing. If
they cannot answer that, we should have booked a
SPOTLIGHT."

---
name: 06-investor-update
description: Run on the monthly or quarterly investor update. Trigger - "run 06" plus the operating counts and the period. The assistant writes the operating story only, never the financials.
---

# TASK 06 - INVESTOR UPDATE

## INPUT
The period. Operating counts: chapter events,
university and school enrolments, On the Bench
participation and placements, chapter launches, media
output, product changes. What went wrong. What I
decided.

## PROCESS
1. The financial section is written by me or by
   finance and pasted in whole. The assistant does
   not draft it, estimate it, restate it in prose, or
   infer a direction from the operating counts. Leave
   the block marked [FINANCIALS, PASTED].
2. Lead with the decision, not the dashboard. They
   already have the dashboard. What they are buying
   is my judgment.
3. Report the restraint doctrine as strategy, with
   the cost stated. We chose a narrower room. That
   has a revenue shape and I am not going to pretend
   it does not.
4. Tell the operating story in counts we are willing
   to publish externally, so this update and the
   annual letter can never contradict each other.
5. One thing that got worse. Every period. If there
   is nothing, you have not looked at renewals.
6. The ask. One or two, specific, named people or
   named introductions. Never "keep us in mind."

## OUTPUT
Six blocks. DECISION OF THE PERIOD. OPERATING COUNTS.
WHAT GOT WORSE. RESTRAINT, AND WHAT IT COST.
[FINANCIALS, PASTED]. THE ASK.

## RULES
- The assistant never writes, estimates, rounds or
  characterises revenue, ARR, churn, retention, tier
  counts or price. Not in the update, not in a
  summary of it, not on a slide built from it.
- No directional language about money either. Not
  "strong quarter", not "softness in renewals". That
  is a number wearing a coat.
- Operating counts must match what we have already
  published. If they do not, the public number is
  wrong and that gets fixed first.
- No member named without permission.

## EDGE CASES
- An investor asks for a member breakdown by company,
  which is a customer list belonging to the members
  and not to us. The answer is no, and it goes in the
  update in writing so it does not get asked again
  quietly on a call.
- Operating counts are up and the narrower Gold
  strategy means the commercial picture reads
  differently. Do not resolve that tension with
  adjectives. Counts go in the counts block, money
  goes in the pasted block, and the two sections are
  allowed to say what they say.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE
"The decision this quarter was to hold the Gold bar
rather than fill the seats. We turned down operators
I like. Growth isn't a right, it's the privilege of a
company with good unit economics, and the same is
true of a room. The financials are in the pasted
block below. I am not going to narrate them."

---
name: 07-chapter-programming-review
description: Run monthly on chapter and programming health. Trigger - "run 07" plus the event list, attendance, chapter leader notes and anything flagged by task 02.
---

# TASK 07 - CHAPTER AND PROGRAMMING REVIEW

## INPUT
Events run in the period, by city and format.
Attendance. Repeat attendance. Chapter leader notes.
Cancelled events. Anything task 02 flagged.

## PROCESS
1. Rank by REPEAT attendance, never by headcount. A
   room of twelve who all come back beats a room of
   ninety who do not. Volume is the mistake we have
   already made once.
2. Separate the three failure modes, because they
   need three different interventions and only the
   first one looks bad on a dashboard.
   - A chapter running no events.
   - A chapter running events with no repeat
     attendance.
   - A chapter whose leader is carrying it alone and
     is about to burn out or take a job.
3. Check the format mix against who is actually in
   the room. If a city is heavy with members between
   roles, a panel on scaling past 100M is the wrong
   room. Peer problem-solving and access to hiring
   managers is the right room.
4. Kill something. Every review. Name the format or
   the cadence that is running only because it ran
   last quarter.
5. Name two chapters to invest in and what they get.
   A person, a budget line or a stage. Not
   encouragement.
6. RESTRAINT CHECK on any proposal to add cities or
   raise event count. More is the reflex. Deeper is
   the doctrine.

## OUTPUT
Top five and bottom five by repeat attendance. The
three failure modes with chapter names against each.
What we are killing. Two chapters to invest in and
the specific resource. One line drafted for the
annual letter.

## RULES
- Repeat attendance is the metric. Headcount is
  context.
- Never circulate per-chapter member counts or
  per-chapter revenue. [PRIVATE].
- A struggling chapter leader is not a performance
  problem until somebody has asked what they need.
  Most of them are volunteers with a day job.
- Do not add a city in order to hit a city number.

## EDGE CASES
- A chapter has enormous attendance and it is because
  a local vendor funds the venue and works the room.
  That is task 04 leaking into programming. Fix the
  sponsorship boundary, expect attendance to fall,
  and let it fall.
- A chapter leader loses their job. They are now a
  member in task 02 and a leader here at the same
  time. Handle the member first, and offer to hold
  the chapter for them rather than replacing them.
  For a lot of people that role is the only structure
  left in the week.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE
"Kill the quarterly city panel. It fills a room once
and nobody comes back, and we keep running it because
it is easy to fill. Twelve people who return every
month is a chapter. Ninety who do not is an event."

---
name: 08-week-plan
description: Run Sunday night or Monday morning. Trigger - "run 08" plus calendar, open decisions, publishing commitments and anything on fire. Reads on a phone.
---

# TASK 08 - WEEK PLAN

## INPUT
Calendar. Open decisions. Sunday essay status.
Topline record and release dates. Renewals and Gold
applications waiting on me. Anything on fire.

## PROCESS
1. Fixed points first. The Sunday essay and the
   Topline record are not outcomes, they are the
   frame the week gets built inside. Place them, then
   plan around them.
2. Three OUTCOMES, one each: MEMBERS, MEDIA,
   BUSINESS. An empty lane gets named as the risk,
   not padded with activity.
3. The human queue before the strategic queue. Any
   member reply from task 02, and any Gold no from
   task 03, that has been sitting goes at the top of
   Monday. A no that ages becomes a worse no, and a
   member in a bad week is counting the days.
4. What to decline, with the script. Include the
   speaking, podcast and advisory asks. Most of them
   are dilution wearing a compliment.
5. The avoided thing. For me it is usually a pricing
   or tier decision, a conversation with somebody I
   like, or a format I should have killed two
   quarters ago.

## OUTPUT - half a page, phone-readable
FIXED POINTS / THE HUMAN QUEUE / THREE OUTCOMES
(members, media, business) / DECLINE-DEFER / THE
AVOIDED THING.

## RULES
- Outcomes state what is TRUE on Friday, not what got
  worked on.
- Maximum three. Name what got parked.
- Never plan a week with no essay and no member
  conversation. One of those two is the job.
- No week where all three outcomes are commercial.

## EDGE CASES
- Travel or an event week. The essay moves earlier,
  never later, and the plan names what gets drafted
  on the plane. The unbroken streak is not vanity, it
  is the only standing proof the argument is still
  alive.
- Renewals and a sponsorship deadline land in the
  same week. Renewals go first and the sponsorship
  slips. Reverse that once and every other file in
  this pack becomes decoration.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE
"AVOIDING: the Gold no you have had open since
Tuesday. You like him. That is why it is still
sitting there, and it is why it has to go out today.
Restraint you will not say out loud is not restraint,
it is a delay."