# TeamTalk sales deck: speaker notes For a 30-minute first meeting with an HSEQ lead or operations director at a housebuilder or contract caterer. Fifteen slides, but you are not presenting fifteen slides. Aim for 18 minutes of talking and 12 of them talking back. If they interrupt with a question, stop presenting and answer it: the deck is a fallback, not a script. **Before you start:** have a real phone in your hand with a tenant in their brand colours and two test workers set to Polish and Romanian. If they engage on slide 5, put the deck down and demo. --- ## The six-slide core path In a 30-minute first meeting you present **six slides**: **1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 14**. That is the whole argument. | # | Slide | Why it is core | |---|---|---| | 1 | Title | One sentence on what this is. Thirty seconds. | | 2 | The problem in their words | Their answer here sets the spine of the meeting. | | 4 | The statutory duty | This is the slide the HSEQ lead came for. | | 5 | Three screens | Join, read, prove. The whole product. | | 7 | Proof of receipt | The artefact they are actually buying. | | 14 | The pilot | The ask. Never end without it. | The other nine are the **appendix**. Send them afterwards as the PDF, or bring one up if the meeting asks for it: - **Slide 3 (the numbers)** if they push back on whether this is really a problem in their business. - **Slide 6 (live in one break)** if they say "nobody will install another app". - **Slide 8 (hazard reporting)** only if they do not already run a near-miss system. Marked *optional* on the slide. - **Slide 9 (WhatsApp)** if they raise WhatsApp, which they usually will. - **Slide 10 (comparison)** only if they name a competitor. Marked *optional* on the slide. - **Slide 11 (what it is not)** marked *optional* because it is off the core path, not because it is skippable. If you have a spare two minutes, use them here: it is the slide that makes the rest believable. Always cover it before a pilot signature, on the slide or out loud. - **Slide 12 (security)** thirty seconds for HSEQ, the whole meeting for procurement. - **Slide 13 (pricing)** whenever they ask, and they will ask before you get to 14. - **Slide 15 (next steps)** if you need it on screen. Usually you just ask for the date. The discipline the sales kit teaches applies here: **never demo a feature they did not mention in discovery.** A shorter meeting that ends with a date beats a complete one that ends with "send me something". --- ## 1. Title: Every notice, every language, with a record - "One sentence before we start: TeamTalk gets a notice to every worker on site in the language they read, and proves who confirmed it." - "I'd like to spend most of this asking you questions. I'll show you the product on a phone at the end, but only the parts you tell me matter." - Do not read the sub-headline aloud. It is there for the people who get the PDF afterwards. ## 2. The problem, in their words - "These are the sentences the product was built around. Which of these is true for you, and which is not?" - Then be quiet. This slide's job is to get them talking; whatever they pick becomes the spine of the rest of the meeting. - If they say "none of these", that is a real answer. Ask what they do instead and how they evidence it. If they genuinely have it covered, say so and end early. You will get the referral. ## 3. The numbers (appendix) - **One number, not four.** The slide leads on the ONS Census 2021 figure: 57% of London's construction workforce was born outside the UK, about 196,000 people (a custom cut by industry and country of birth via the ONS Census API; no published table crosses the two, so say "Census 2021, via the ONS API" if asked). Nationally 15.7% including the self-employed, published February 2025, and rising since 2018. That is the hard number, and it is the one to say out loud. The older 2018 ONS article (40% non-UK nationals, London construction of buildings) is the historical series, not the headline. - The Reading finding sits beside it as colour, not as a statistic. If you use it, use the whole caveat: "construction and project managers report an average of 34%, with one answer at 75%, but that is twelve respondents in a practice-journal pilot study, not peer-reviewed research". Saying the weakness yourself is why they will believe the rest. - Do not quote Simpplr or Microsoft numbers. Simpplr sells against us and Microsoft is the vendor we criticise on slide 10; both stats are years old and a buyer who checks will notice. - "The point isn't the percentage. It's that you probably know your own number, and it's the same conversation either way." ## 4. The statutory duty - This is the slide the HSEQ lead came for. Slow down. - "Regulation 10 uses the word comprehensible. That's the word the whole product hangs on. Information in English to someone who doesn't read English is arguably not comprehensible information." - **The s.40 line, said in these words and no others:** "Section 40 puts the burden on the employer to prove it did what was reasonably practicable. A per-person, timestamped, language-stamped confirmation is evidence for that. It is not a defence on its own." Then: "So what's your evidence, and what language was it in?" Let the silence sit. - Do not say "you don't have to be proved to have failed". It is an overstatement of s.40 and a NEBOSH-qualified audience will correct you. Section 40 reverses the burden only on the "so far as is reasonably practicable" limb, once the prosecution has established the duty and the risk. - Never give legal advice. "I'm quoting the regulation; you and your solicitor decide what it means for you." ## 5. What TeamTalk does: three screens - "That's the entire product. Join, read, prove. Anything else you see later is a detail on one of those three." - Point at the middle phone: "Published once, in English, by a site manager who types one notice. Every worker gets it in their own language, including the captions on the video." - Point at the reach panel: "And this is the artefact. Per worker, timestamped, printable." - This is the natural place to switch to the live phone if they are leaning in. ## 6. A site goes live in one break (appendix) - "The objection I get most is 'nobody will install another app'. There is nothing to install." - "Print the card, pin it on the cabin door, and a site of seventy is on before the tea break ends. We've timed it at about twenty seconds a worker." - Cover the honest caveat before they find it: on iPhone, push notifications need the worker to add it to the home screen. Say it out loud; it costs you nothing and buys credibility. ## 7. Proof of receipt - "This is the toolbox-talk sign-off sheet, without the clipboard, and in the language the operative actually reads." - Explain the gating: "The confirm button doesn't appear until the whole notice has been on screen. It's not a reflex tap." - Deliver the honesty line yourself, before they raise it: "A confirmation proves an affirmative act, not comprehension. I'm not selling you legal cover. I'm selling you better evidence than you can produce today." - Ask: "Who would ask you for this, and how often?" The answer tells you who else is in the buying group. ## 8. Hazard reporting (optional) - Skip this slide entirely if they told you in discovery that they already run a near-miss system. Say "you've got that covered, so I'll move on" and turn the page. Not demoing something is a selling move. - If it is live for them: "The barrier to reporting a near miss usually isn't willingness. It's having to compose it in English in front of a supervisor." - "It's a switch. On or off, per company." - If anyone asks about location: "No background or continuous location. Hazard reports carry a location the worker types or picks, and nothing else." That is also the wording on slide 12, and the two must never disagree. ## 9. Keep WhatsApp for the banter (appendix) - Never say WhatsApp is dangerous. You will lose the room; every site manager in the building runs a group. - "Keep WhatsApp for the banter. Move anything you'd have to defend." - The three facts underneath are the whole argument: ticks can be switched off and cannot be exported, a broadcast only reaches people who have saved your number, and when the foreman leaves the group leaves with him. - If they say "WhatsApp translates now": it does, since September 2025, but it is a reader action set per chat, WhatsApp's own wording is that "translations occur on your device where WhatsApp cannot see them", and its help page says the feature is not available on the WhatsApp Business App. Concede the feature exists, then make the distinction: reader-side and unverifiable versus sender-side and recorded. - Ask: "When your last site manager moved on, what happened to his group?" Almost everyone has a story. ## 10. Against the alternatives (optional) - Only use this slide if they name a competitor. Otherwise skip it, and send it afterwards. - Be fair about Blink out loud: "Blink is a good product and it does mandatory reads with an export. If you had five thousand staff and an internal comms team, I'd tell you to look at them. Where we differ is translated video captions, QR onboarding, and UK hosting." - On Blink's export, use the hedge and nothing stronger: "reporting and export may be a paid add-on on Blink; confirm it against their current plan." Do not state it as a fact. - On Blink's hosting you can be precise, because they publish it: "AWS Ireland, Sydney and Oregon; no UK region, per their help centre, checked 28 August 2026." - On Teams: "It's built for people with a work email and a laptop. How many of the subcontractors on your sites have either?" The read-receipt facts (capped at 20, excluded from eDiscovery) are the ones that end the argument, so keep them in your pocket for the IT person, not the HSEQ lead. - **The standing rule: never assert that a competitor lacks a feature.** Ask the buyer to make them demonstrate it. We got this wrong once about Workvivo, which does document a Read & Acknowledge feature, and it is the kind of error that costs an account. ## 11. What TeamTalk is not (optional) - Marked optional because it is off the six-slide core path. It is not optional before a signature. - "I'd rather you find these out now than in month three." - The one to say clearly: "We have no customers to name yet. You would be early. That's exactly why the pilot is priced the way it is and why we refund it if it doesn't work." - On push: "Web push is best effort, so every plan includes an SMS allowance for critical notices, two posts per worker per month, at no extra cost. Above that it's 8p a message, and it's the only metered thing on the price list." Answer it on the slide; do not leave it hanging in front of the pricing slide. ## 12. Security and data (appendix) - For the HSEQ lead this is a thirty-second slide: "United Kingdom hosting, AWS London, eu-west-2. We hold a name, a number, a language and what people post, and you get the DPA and the sub-processor list today." - One region, one answer. Never say "UK or Ireland" and never say "UK/EU". It is **United Kingdom (AWS London, eu-west-2)**, everywhere, and it is a contractual commitment in the DPA. - On translation scope, say it in full: "Post text, comment text, direct message text and hazard report text are sent for translation. No names, phone numbers or identifiers accompany the text." - On location: "No background or continuous location. Hazard reports carry a location the worker types or picks, and nothing else." - For procurement it is the whole meeting. Offer to send the supplier pack straight to them and ask for the name. - Confirm the Cyber Essentials status before you present this. Never guess on this slide. ## 13. Pricing (appendix) - Lead with the number that matches them. Site operator: "£180 a month per site, everyone on it, however many languages." Company: "£550 a month covers all your sites and up to 250 workers." - **Give the annual total, because that is the number they will repeat internally: £2,160 a site for the year, everyone on it.** £6,600 for the small company plan. - **Do not do per-head arithmetic on this slide or out loud.** The slide's headline is "never per seat" and the moment you say "£2.40 to £3.60 a head" you have invited a comparison with Blink Core at £2.95. If they ask for a per-worker number, answer with the site or band number first and only then, if pressed, the effective rate. Never write a per-user rate on an order form. - "Implementation is zero. Always." - There is no discount on the price sheet and no published annual uplift. If a reference discount is ever offered it is offered by you, in writing, in exchange for a signed reference release, once. It never appears on customer paper. ## 14. The pilot - Say the refund out loud. It converts meetings, but say it exactly: **"The fee is refunded only if both criterion 1 and criterion 2 are missed."** Not "either". The two readings differ by an order of magnitude and the customer will hold you to whichever you said. - Then give the exclusions before they ask, because volunteering them is what makes the promise credible: if more than 10% of the numbers they supply fail validation, criterion 1 is measured against the deliverable list; sites where they have not published two posts a week are excluded; sites where the launch actions on their side are incomplete are excluded; workers added in the final 14 days are excluded. All of it goes in writing before launch day. - "Why paid rather than free? A free pilot has no owner, no budget line and no deadline, so it drifts until someone goes on holiday." - **Never say the price is set to sit under a procurement threshold.** Say: "It's sized so a divisional budget holder can approve it, and structured so your procurement team can run in parallel: the supplier pack goes to them the same day." Telling a plc buyer that your price is engineered around their governance is the fastest way to be blocked permanently. - Agree the four criteria in writing before day one. If they want to change the numbers, let them: their criteria are better than yours. - Bring the mutual action plan to this slide and co-sign it. It is one page, it takes four minutes, and it is the single artefact that most reliably shortens the deal. ## 15. Next steps - Ask for the specific thing: "Thirty minutes with your site manager in the room, on a real phone. Tuesday or Thursday?" - Get a date in the diary before you leave. Never end on "I'll send you some information". - Close on the question, not the pitch: "Which of your sites has the most languages on it right now? Let's start there." --- ## When procurement joins the call uninvited It happens most often on the second call and it is usually a good sign, not a bad one: nobody sends procurement to look at something they have decided against. But the meeting you prepared is now the wrong meeting. - **Re-contract in the first minute.** "Good to have you. Can I ask what you need out of this so I make sure you get it, rather than sitting through a product demo you didn't ask for?" Then do what they say. Procurement almost always wants three things: the paper, the risk and the price basis. - **Hand over the pack, do not describe it.** "The supplier pack goes to you today: DPA, privacy notice, sub-processor list, one-page security summary, insurance certificates and our answers to a standard supplier questionnaire. What's your questionnaire format, and who returns it to?" Being ready is the whole impression. - **Answer the data question in one sentence and stop.** "United Kingdom, AWS London, eu-west-2, and it's a contractual commitment in the DPA." Then let them ask the next one rather than filling the silence. - **Do not negotiate price in this meeting.** "The list is published and I've sent it. The pilot is £2,500 fixed and fully creditable, and there's no discount on the sheet." If they push for a discount before there is a business case, the honest answer is: "There's nothing to discount yet. Let's see whether it works on three sites first." - **Do not let them turn the pilot into a procurement event.** "The pilot is three pages and a DPA. Nothing in it commits you to the annual contract, and the year-one price is printed on it so there's no surprise at the end. If you want to run onboarding in parallel, we'll start today." - **Never say or imply the price is designed to avoid their process.** If procurement hears that once, you are finished in that account. - **Leave with their dates, not yours.** Ask what their supplier onboarding actually takes, in weeks, and write it on the mutual action plan in front of them. Then ask who signs the DPA and who signs the order form; they are rarely the same person. - **The one to watch for:** "we'll need this through our framework". Ask which framework, when the next window opens and whether an incumbent supplier can subcontract. That answer decides whether this is a two-month deal or an eleven-month one, and you would rather know now. ## Handling a gatekeeper A gatekeeper is anyone between you and the person with the problem: a PA, a receptionist, an office manager, a health and safety administrator, or a first-line contact who "handles this sort of thing". They are not an obstacle to get past. They are the fastest route in, if you treat them as a person doing a job. - **Be honest about who you are and what you want.** "I'm not going to pretend this isn't a sales call. I'm looking for whoever owns how safety notices get to operatives on site, and I don't know their name. Can you point me at the right job title?" People help you when you stop performing. - **Ask for a name and a job title, not a transfer.** A name is worth more than a call you are not ready for. "Who's your HSEQ lead?" is a small ask; "can you put me through" is a large one. - **Give them one sentence they can repeat.** They will paraphrase you, so make it paraphrasable: "We put site safety notices on operatives' phones in their own language and prove who read them." No product name, no adjectives. - **Ask their opinion.** "You'll know better than me: is that even a problem here, or have you got it covered?" Gatekeepers usually know exactly whether the toolbox-talk paperwork is a mess, and they will often tell you. - **Never mislead to get through.** Not "he's expecting my call", not "I'm returning his call", not a fake referral. It works once, it is remembered, and the person you eventually reach will hear about it. - **Ask what works.** "What's the best way to reach him, email or a time of day?" Most will tell you, and a 7:15am call to a site-based director is a different call from a 3pm one. - **Say thank you and mean it, and use their name in the follow-up email.** If they put you through to the right person, tell that person the gatekeeper sent you. It is true, and it costs the gatekeeper nothing to have been helpful. - **If they will not budge:** ask for the email address format, send one short email, and put a diary note for three weeks. Do not ring back the next day; you will burn the only door you have. ## The post-meeting follow-up email Send it the same day, within two hours if you can. Plain text. No attachments beyond the two named below, no deck of fifteen slides, no "great to connect". The job of this email is one thing: get the date confirmed and give the champion something they can forward without editing. **Subject:** Site notices in Polish and Romanian, with the record > Hello [name], > > Thanks for the time this morning. Writing down what I heard so you can correct me if I have it wrong. > > You have [number] sites live, and on [site name] roughly [share] of the gang reads Polish or Romanian. Toolbox talks are delivered in English and signed on a sheet, and the sheets are scanned in at the end of the week. The part that bothers you is not the talk, it is that you could not produce, for one named operative on one named date, what he was told and what language it was in. > > What we do about that: you write the notice once in English, every worker reads it on his own phone in his own language, video captions included, and you get a per-person, timestamped record you can print or export. Workers join by scanning a card on the cabin door: a mobile number and a texted code, no work email and no app store. > > Two things attached, and nothing else: > > 1. A one-page summary you can forward to anyone internally who needs to see it. > 2. The pilot proposal: 60 days, three sites, £2,500 fixed, fully credited if you go ahead, and refunded if both of the first two criteria are missed. The measurement rules are written into it before we start. > > The next step I would like is 30 minutes with [site manager's name] in the room and a real phone on the table. We publish a notice from your world, it lands in Polish, someone confirms it, and we print the record. If it does not convince him, it will not convince the site, and you should not buy it. > > Does [day] at [time] or [day] at [time] work? I will send the invitation as soon as you say. > > One thing I said in the room that is worth repeating in writing: a confirmation proves an affirmative act, not comprehension. Section 40 puts the burden on the employer to prove it did what was reasonably practicable, and a per-person, timestamped, language-stamped confirmation is evidence for that. It is not a defence on its own, and I will not sell it to you as one. > > [Your name] > [phone] · team-comms.com **Rules for this email.** Their words, not yours, in the second paragraph: quote back the sentence they actually said. One ask, and it is a date with two options. Two attachments maximum, and the one-pager for colleagues is one of them. Never attach the deck unless they asked for it; if they did, send the six core slides and say the rest is an appendix. If procurement was in the room, send them the supplier pack separately the same day and say so in a single line. And do not write "just following up" three days later: if the date is not confirmed by then, ring. --- ## Things to fill in before you present this - `[Name]`, `[phone]`, `[email]` on slides 1 and 15. - Cyber Essentials status on slide 12. - Company legal name, company number and registered office in the footers of the one-pager and the price sheet, and the live privacy notice at team-comms.com/privacy. - Optionally swap "Your company" in the mockups for the prospect's own name and colours. It takes two minutes and it is the single highest-return edit in the deck. **The master deck ships with "Your company", fictional site names and initial-plus-surname worker names, and it stays that way.** Never leave a real, unsold company's brand in a deck you show to their competitor.