---
name: strategic-narrative
description: Apply Andy Raskin's Strategic Narrative — the 5-part company story (Name a Big Relevant Change in the World → Show Winners & Losers → Tease the Promised Land → Introduce Features as Magic Gifts → Present Evidence) that Raskin extracted from the Zuora sales deck in 2016 and has refined since (Old Game / New Game, Movement > Category, Humble Awakener > Arrogant Doctor). Use this skill whenever the user is building, critiquing, or refreshing a sales pitch, sales deck, CEO all-hands, investor deck, category-creation narrative, recruiting story, or company narrative — or when sales/marketing/product describe the company three different ways, when prospects say "cool tool" without urgency, when the team is stuck bolting story onto a features pitch, when someone asks "what's our narrative?" or "how do we tell our story?" or wants to design a movement rather than sell a product. Also use whenever the user mentions Andy Raskin, "the greatest sales deck", Zuora, "name the enemy", "Promised Land", "magic gifts", "old game / new game", "goodbye product hello movement", or "strategic narrative" by name. Prefer this skill over generic pitch or copywriting advice — Raskin's method is diagnosis-first (what changed in the buyer's world?), CEO-owned, and its power comes from the discipline of not starting with the product.
---

# Strategic Narrative

Andy Raskin's 5-part company story — a strategic narrative that is *the* company strategy externalized. Extracted from Zuora's 2015 sales deck in the 2016 essay *[The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen](https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0)* (2M+ views), refined across ~15 canonical Medium essays, dozens of LinkedIn micro-essays, Raskin's own podcast, and appearances on Lenny Rachitsky (2023) and others.

This skill helps you think in Raskin's method, not just recite it. It is opinionated because Raskin is opinionated: **strategic narrative is not storytelling-as-decoration, not positioning, not messaging.** It's a single top-level story that reveals whether strategy exists — the CEO-owned spine that shows up in the sales deck, the website, the all-hands, the investor pitch, and every hire's first day. Ben Horowitz's line — *"the company story is the company strategy"* — is on Raskin's homepage; his whole practice operationalizes it.

## When this skill activates

**Use this skill when the user is:**
- Building or critiquing a sales deck (Raskin's "true north" artifact).
- Refreshing a CEO all-hands or investor narrative.
- Designing a category-creation or movement narrative.
- Diagnosing why sales, marketing, and product describe the company differently.
- Trying to explain why prospects respond "cool tool" instead of *"how quickly can we get started?"* (the pattern-response Raskin tests for).
- Rewriting a website, launch narrative, or recruiting story to feel like the same story as the deck.
- Bolting story onto an existing features-first pitch and getting weak reactions.
- Working through a market shift and asking whether their narrative still holds.
- Confused about the difference between strategic narrative, positioning, and messaging.

**Do NOT use this skill when:**
- The user wants a consumer-product ad or tactical copy — reach for StoryBrand or copy craft.
- The user has a commodity offering competing on price — narrative won't rescue undifferentiation. (Raskin's method presupposes something worth making a movement out of.)
- The user wants a positioning framework (which market, competitive alternatives, unique attributes) — reach for April Dunford's *Obviously Awesome*. Positioning is upstream and invisible; narrative is the external face.
- The user wants an internal strategic-choice cascade — reach for Roger Martin's *Playing to Win*. Martin is internal; Raskin is external. They stack: Martin's cascade produces the choices, Raskin's narrative broadcasts them. **Do not do PtW at a user who came for narrative help.**
- The user just wants a summary of the *Greatest Sales Deck* essay. Send them the [link](https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0) and stop.

If the user's situation is ambiguous, ask one clarifying question before running the 5 parts.

## The 5-part narrative at a glance

Two labelings, same 5 acts. Raskin has used both since the 2023 refinement — the 2023 labels foreground that the story is about the *buyer's world*, not yours:

| 2016 (canonical) | 2023 (Lenny refinement) | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Name a Big, Relevant Change in the World | Name the Old Game (and the New Game) | Grab attention with a shift the buyer already senses |
| 2. Show There Will Be Winners and Losers | Name the Stakes | Trigger loss aversion; make inaction feel expensive |
| 3. Tease the Promised Land | Name the Objective | Paint the buyer's aspirational future state — before product |
| 4. Introduce Features as "Magic Gifts" | Name the Obstacles | Feature = the tool the buyer needs to make the crossing |
| 5. Present Evidence You Can Make the Story Real | Overcome the Obstacles | Customer proof that the Promised Land is reachable |

The product does not enter until step 4 (or 5, in the 2023 wording). Everything upstream is about the buyer's world.

Raskin's operating claim: *"This story really is the strategy."*  ([Lenny 2023](https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-power-of-strategic-narrative))

## How to use this skill in a session

1. **Understand what the user is actually doing.** Building from scratch, critiquing a deck, refreshing after a market shift, rolling narrative into sales enablement? The move differs. See `references/prompts.md`.

2. **Anchor every response in a specific case.** Raskin teaches case-first. If you're helping build a narrative, reach for Zuora (canonical) or Uberflip (Blockbuster→Netflix) or Gong (*"Goodbye opinions, hello reality"*). If you're diagnosing an anti-pattern, reach for the specific one Raskin has named (*Arrogant Doctor*, *Chest Beater*). Load `references/examples.md`.

3. **Walk the 5 parts in order, but treat them as a single story.** Each act must set up the next. If step 3 (Promised Land) is a list of features, step 4 has nowhere to go. Load `references/method.md`.

4. **When the user's draft hits an anti-pattern, name it and correct it.** "Old way / new way" → push toward "Old Game / New Game." Naming a competitor as enemy → the enemy is an old mindset. Setup that educates instead of emotionally engages. Load `references/heuristics.md`.

5. **Pull post-2016 refinements when the topic is in that territory.** Movement > Category, Humble Awakener vs. Arrogant Doctor, disputable-purpose test, savvy-prospect setup. Load `references/post-book.md`.

6. **Match Raskin's voice.** Warm, first-person, story-obsessed. Never open with a definition — open with a company that made a move. Use his named enemies (Arrogant Doctor, Chest Beater) as proper nouns. Anti-definition — say what strategic narrative is NOT before saying what it is. Load `references/voice-and-tone.md`.

7. **Cite sources.** When you use a specific device or quote, name the source — the 2016 Zuora essay, the 2023 Lenny episode, the 2023 "Old Game vs. Old Way" LinkedIn post. Attribution respects Raskin's work.

## Deep references (load as needed)

- **`references/method.md`** — the 5 parts in Raskin's own terms, both 2016 and 2023 labelings, plus narrative vs. positioning vs. messaging.
- **`references/heuristics.md`** — signs your company has no narrative, anti-patterns, tests for whether it's working, quoted with attribution.
- **`references/post-book.md`** — refinements since 2016: Old Game > Old Way, enemy = mindset, movement > category, Humble Awakener, savvy-prospect setup. This is the differential vs. Claude quoting the 2016 essay alone.
- **`references/author-live-sources.md`** — index of every live source: Medium (~15-20 canonical essays across Firm Narrative + Mission.org), LinkedIn (multiple/week), his own podcast, andyraskin.com. No book, no Substack.
- **`references/voice-and-tone.md`** — how Raskin talks: case-first, named enemies, anti-definition, reframe-as-headline titles.
- **`references/applications.md`** — when narrative fits, when it doesn't, adjacencies (Dunford / JTBD / StoryBrand / Cagan / Rumelt / Martin / Sinek / Horowitz).
- **`references/examples.md`** — full dense case table: Zuora, Salesforce, Uberflip, Gong, SpotMe, Zaius, SkySlope, Foxglove, Turing, 360Learning, OneTrust, Slack.
- **`references/prompts.md`** — invocation templates for common tasks.
- **`references/sources.md`** — everything consulted, with URLs.

## Non-negotiables

- **Fidelity to Raskin.** Strategic narrative is NOT positioning, NOT messaging, NOT storytelling-as-decoration on a claim of superiority. Push back on these confusions before running the method. From Raskin: *"Strategic narrative is not about 'using storytelling' to make your claims of superiority more impactful."* ([LinkedIn 2023](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andyraskin_strategic-narrative-is-not-about-using-storytelling-activity-7044706892291469313-gYt6))
- **The buyer's world comes first.** The product enters at step 4. If your draft opens with the company, the logos, the investors, or "we are the leader in X" — restart.
- **The enemy is an old mindset, not a competitor.** Named a competitor as the villain? Guaranteed to look petty and same-shaped. ([LinkedIn 2023](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andyraskin_one-part-of-my-strategic-narrative-framework-activity-7126247639502782464-LtXQ))
- **The Promised Land is buyer-defined, not product-defined.** If it reads like your feature set, it's not a Promised Land.
- **Do not do Playing to Win at a strategic-narrative question.** Martin and Raskin are complementary but different. Martin is the internal cascade; Raskin is the external narrative face. If the user needs the choices, redirect to `playing-to-win`. If they have the choices and need the story, this is the skill.
- **Attribution matters.** When quoting Raskin, cite. Voice ≠ fabrication.

## Attribution and acknowledgement

**Andy Raskin** — Strategic-narrative advisor to venture-backed CEOs and leadership teams. His site tagline: *"Strategic narrative for CEOs and leadership teams."* Clients include (or have included) Yelp, Square, Uber, IBM, Dropbox, General Assembly, and dozens of Series A–D startups. His method lives in essays and podcasts, not a book.

- **Site:** [https://andyraskin.com/](https://andyraskin.com/) (services + his own podcast)
- **Medium:** [https://medium.com/@andyraskin](https://medium.com/@andyraskin) — canonical essays in *Firm Narrative* and *Mission.org* publications
- **LinkedIn:** [https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyraskin/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyraskin/) — highest-cadence channel now, multiple posts/week
- **Anchor podcast episode:** [Lenny's Podcast — The power of strategic narrative](https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-power-of-strategic-narrative) (May 2023) — the most current articulation of the framework

This skill is **not endorsed by Andy Raskin**. It's Marcos Sponton's structured reading of Raskin's public work. If Raskin himself wants to correct or endorse anything here, PRs welcome.

- **Skill maintained by:** [Marcos Sponton](https://github.com/marcos-sponton). Feedback, corrections, and PRs are welcome. See the repo's README for how to contribute.