Maya-Beth Finotti

Design the sales-to-CS handoff process after a deal closes - what data transfers, when, in what artifact, and who is accountable - producing a handoff spec with a gated closed-won trigger, a required handoff packet, timing SLAs, a kickoff meeting pattern, and a CS acceptance/rejection step. For RevOps and Sales Ops designing and enforcing the process, not a CSM running one handoff. Use whenever the user mentions sales to CS handoff, post-close transition, closed-won to kickoff, handoff accountability, "the CSM starts from zero", or "customers repeat themselves after signing" - even if they never say "handoff". Covers B2B high-touch through PLG/self-serve and B2C subscription. Do NOT use for account health scoring - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@customer-health-score instead.

Run a periodic, checklist-based hygiene audit over an active pipeline snapshot - stale deals (no stage, close date, or amount change, not logged touches) flagged against segment-specific stage medians, close-date push-count anomalies, and missing forecast-critical fields - producing an exception list with a disposition per flagged deal, a remediation plan, and a pass threshold. Use whenever the user mentions pipeline hygiene, a stale deal audit, pipeline cleanup before a QBR, deals that keep pushing, a close date that keeps slipping, missing fields on deals, or "our pipeline is full of junk" - even if they never say "hygiene". Covers B2B and B2C/high-velocity/PLG. Do NOT use for rewriting stage definitions - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@pipeline-stage-definition-audit instead.

Diagnose why an existing sales forecast is unreliable and recommend fixes - stage inflation and happy ears, sandbagging, deals without verifiable buyer evidence, stale or mass-pushed close dates, wrong forecast-category assignment, zombie and duplicate opportunities, late-created deals, manager roll-up overrides, and comp incentives that reward bias - separating data-quality from behavioral from genuine demand problems. Use whenever the user mentions forecast accuracy, a forecast miss, reps sandbagging, deals that keep slipping, "why did we miss the number", or "our commit is never right" - even if they never say "forecast". Covers B2B deal-based and B2C/high-volume. Do NOT use for pipeline coverage modeling - use mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-pipeline-coverage-modeling instead.

Run a macro, periodic review of the full RevOps/GTM tool stack against the revenue workflows it serves and decide, tool by tool, what to keep, consolidate, replace, or cut - four-channel inventory, function-level overlap map, TIME scoring, a renewal-triggered action calendar, and re-sprawl governance. Use whenever the user mentions stack rationalization, GTM tool consolidation, a revops stack audit, a GTM stack review, SaaS sprawl, too many sales and marketing tools, cutting tooling spend, redundant GTM tools, or platform vs point solutions - even if they never say "rationalization". Covers B2B sales-led and B2C/e-commerce GTM stacks. Portfolio-level and periodic - not a pre-purchase checklist for one candidate tool, and not contract or legal negotiation.

Build a personalised, time-budgeted watch list of RevOps / Sales Ops information sources - revops podcasts, revops newsletters, revops communities, industry events, and revops people to follow - every source verified still active, with a periodic refresh routine that keeps the list fresh. Use whenever the user mentions a revops radar, staying current in revenue operations, which revops newsletters or podcasts to subscribe to, which revops communities or conferences deserve their time, or who to follow in the field - even if they never say "radar". Tool-agnostic; B2B-SaaS-centric with explicit B2C guidance. Do NOT use for sales-specific sources - use mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-radar instead.

Before starting any RevOps or Sales Ops task, and at the start of every session on an ongoing RevOps project, run this first - it routes the task to exactly one skill of the revops-skills collection or says plainly that none fits, and bootstraps or resumes the project's shared, versioned context artifact so the next session starts warm instead of cold, ending in a short-list plus an ordered skill chain. Run it even when the collection's other skills are already used daily - a new project is a new context. Also use whenever the user mentions a revops kickoff, a new RevOps project, a revops project start, revops or crm skill routing, a periodic RevOps check-in, a recurring RevOps review, "which revops skill do I need", or "where do I start with RevOps" - even if they never name a skill, and even if the request looks like it already belongs to one specific skill. Do NOT use for routing quota-carrying sales tasks - use mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-kickoff instead.

Build the complete hiring packet for a RevOps or Sales Ops role - archetype and level decision, outcome scorecard, interview stage map with a competency question bank and anchored rating scales, a work-sample exercise with rubric and debrief, and a 30-60-90 ramp plan branched on seniority and archetype. For the hiring manager or founder recruiting the hire. Use whenever the user mentions hiring a RevOps manager, sales ops interview questions, a RevOps take-home exercise, a scorecard for a first ops hire, or a 30-60-90 for a new ops hire - even if they never say "hiring packet". Does not source candidates or post jobs. Do NOT use for a candidate's own interview prep - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@revops-career instead.

Build and advance a RevOps or Sales Ops career from the candidate's side - place the candidate on the ladder by scope rather than title, close competency gaps, build defensible evidence of structurally invisible work, and prepare the four exercises RevOps interview loops actually run. Produces a career plan with a gap roadmap, an evidence ledger, interview readiness, and a compensation ask. Use whenever the user mentions a RevOps career, a sales ops career path, RevOps interview prep, RevOps certifications, "how do I break into RevOps", "am I ready for a RevOps manager role", or proving impact when nobody notices ops working - even if they never say "career". Candidate side only - for the hiring manager's side, use mbfinotti/revops-skills@revops-hiring instead.

Define the metric set and narrative structure for an executive or board revenue report so it tells one coherent story - a small stable metric spine, locked definitions, an answer-first narrative around plan vs actual vs forecast, presenting a miss without surprising the board, the reconciliation and sign-off chain, and weekly vs monthly vs quarterly cadences. Use whenever the user mentions a board revenue report, exec deck metrics, the QBR revenue section, a monthly revenue review, an investor update, or a board deck that reads as a data dump - even if they never say "reporting". Covers B2B subscription, B2C, transactional, usage-based, and PLG. Do NOT use for designing the org-level KPI hierarchy - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@revenue-kpi-framework instead.

Trace where deals and revenue silently exit one specific funnel and size the loss in recoverable (never gross) dollars - untracked steps, unworked leads, manual handoffs, mid-funnel stalls, paper-process drops, billing and renewal misses - separating real leaks from healthy disqualification and data-capture gaps. Use whenever the user mentions revenue leakage, funnel drop-off, a leaky funnel, deals disappearing, unworked leads, handoff gaps, "where are we losing deals", or "why did pipeline vanish" - even if they never say "leakage". Covers B2B sales-led and B2C/self-serve/PLG, one funnel instance at a time. Takes stage definitions as given - to audit those, use mbfinotti/revops-skills@pipeline-stage-definition-audit instead.

Design the org-wide revenue KPI framework at the macro level - which metrics matter at each org level from board to IC, how they roll up through a reconciling metric tree with explicit math, who owns each branch, which guardrail counter-metrics ride alongside each owned number, and how the set is gated by company stage and business model. Use whenever the user mentions a revenue KPI framework, a metric hierarchy, a KPI tree, a North Star metric, driver metrics, guardrail counter-metrics, NRR, or which revenue metrics each org level should track - even if they never say "framework". Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use for writing the board report itself - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@revenue-reporting instead.

Design a company's revenue funnel model from scratch, at the macro level - the stage set, the unit of analysis (lead, buying group, account), the model purpose (process vs planning vs forecast), the cohort-based conversion assumptions behind the plan, and the ownership handoffs between marketing, sales, and CS. Use whenever the user mentions funnel design, funnel stages, a funnel model, conversion rate assumptions, a bowtie model, a demand waterfall, MQL to SQL to opportunity definitions, or marketing-sales handoff design - even if they never say "funnel". Covers B2B and high-consideration B2C. Do NOT use for auditing an existing pipeline's stage definitions - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@pipeline-stage-definition-audit instead.

Set org-wide revenue data governance policy - which system is source of truth per object class (account, contact, opportunity, subscription, usage event, revenue metrics), how cross-team data contracts bind producers to consumers, where revenue metric definitions live, and who arbitrates disputes. Produces a per-object SOR/SOT designation table, an identity-resolution spine, a data-contract register, and a federated ownership model. Use whenever the user mentions source of truth, "two ARR numbers", GTM data contracts, revenue data governance, metric definition ownership, or "finance and sales report different numbers" - even if they never say "governance". Covers B2B, PLG/B2C, hybrid. Do NOT use for CRM field-level rules - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@crm-data-governance instead.

Audit existing sales pipeline stage definitions against buyer-verifiable milestones and flag the ones built on rep activity instead. Core test - does each stage exit criterion name something the buyer did, said, or agreed to, checkable by two managers independently? Adds stage aging, conversion decay, stage-skip rate, and close-date push diagnostics. Use whenever the user mentions stage definitions, stage exit criteria, stage inflation, stages named after rep activity ("demo scheduled", "proposal sent"), "our stages don't mean anything", or "why is everything stuck in one stage" - even if they never say "audit". Covers enterprise and high-velocity pipelines, B2B and B2C. Do NOT use for designing a funnel stage set from scratch - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@revenue-funnel instead.

Design, validate, and recalibrate a lead scoring model - fit and engagement signals, weighting, negative scoring and exclusions, decay, MQL/PQL threshold and tier setting, backtesting against closed-won/closed-lost outcomes, and governance; also diagnoses an existing broken model. Use whenever the user mentions lead scoring, an MQL threshold, fit vs engagement scoring, product-qualified leads, score decay, "score my leads", "our lead scores are wrong", "sales rejects our MQLs", or "too many junk MQLs" - even if they never say "scoring model". Covers B2B sales-led and B2C/PLG, rules-based design and predictive readiness. Do NOT use for assigning scored leads to reps - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@lead-routing instead.

Design the assignment logic that routes inbound leads to sales reps - rule precedence and waterfall ordering, lead-to-account matching, territory assignment rules (geography, segment, industry, named accounts), round-robin variants (straight, weighted, capacity-based, availability-aware), fallback catch-all queues, SLA escalation and reassignment, and safe rollout of routing changes. Use whenever the user mentions lead routing, lead assignment, territory assignment, round-robin, lead distribution, "who gets this lead", a lopsided round-robin, or leads sitting unworked in a CRM queue - even if they never say "routing". Covers B2B account-based and B2C/PLG high-volume routing. Do NOT use for designing the lead score itself - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@lead-scoring instead.

Design the deal desk approval chain and exception-handling process for non-standard B2B SaaS deals - a tiered discount approval matrix and delegation of authority across five concession levers (price, payment terms, services, contract risk, security), margin floor policy, exception intake, two SLA clocks with a sales escalation path, and precedent control. Includes the rules-driven promo/discount-policy equivalent for PLG, self-serve, and B2C. Use whenever the user mentions deal desk, discount approval, quote approval, approval matrix, delegation of authority, non-standard deals, concessions, margin floors, or discount creep - even if they never say "deal desk". Covers deal-level commercial approvals only, not general business-process approval workflows.

Design, validate, and govern a composite customer health score - product usage and engagement signals combined into one weighted, normalized, decayed, banded account score that flags both churn risk and expansion readiness, backtested against real churn outcomes and recalibrated. Use whenever the user mentions a customer health score, health scoring model, account health, signal weighting, score bands, at-risk account flagging, churn risk score, expansion risk, or says "green accounts keep churning" - even if they never say "health score". Covers B2B account-level rollup and B2C/PLG continuous scoring. Do NOT use for discovering which indicators actually predict churn - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@customer-churn-signals instead.

Assemble, define, validate, and rank leading indicators of customer churn from account activity, product usage, and support data into a ranked churn signal register - each signal carrying event, threshold, window, baseline, lift over base rate, lead time, and coverage. Use whenever the user mentions churn signals, churn indicators, leading indicators of churn, an early warning system for at-risk accounts, champion departure, seat utilisation drops, payment failure, or says "our health score misses churn" - even if they never say "signal". Covers B2B and B2C subscription. Do NOT use for combining signals into one composite score, weights, bands, or tiers - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@customer-health-score instead.

Design and operate CRM field-level governance - who owns each CRM field, which system is authoritative for it, how often it must be refreshed, and how the rules are enforced. Produces a field dictionary, per-field ownership, a system-of-record map with write-precedence and conflict rules, freshness SLAs, an enforcement plan, a field lifecycle, and a governance cadence. Use whenever the user mentions field ownership, single source of truth, system of record per field, data dictionary, stale CRM data, custom field sprawl, "which system wins", or "our CRM fields contradict each other" - even if they never say "governance". Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use for org-wide, object-level source-of-truth policy - use mbfinotti/revops-skills@revenue-data-governance-strategy instead.

Builds and maintains a personalized watch list of sales information sources - podcasts, newsletters, communities, benchmark reports, and sales people to follow - matched to the user's role, market, and time budget, shipped as a dated verified-source snapshot with per-source status and a freshness check that catches rebranded or dead sources. Covers B2B SaaS and B2C high-ticket as separate ecosystems. Use whenever the user mentions sales newsletters, sales podcasts, who to follow in sales, sales communities, staying current in sales, or refreshing a reading list, even without the word radar. Do NOT use for career or interview prep (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-career).

Designs how sales quotas are derived for a team or company - top-down vs bottom-up reconciliation, ramp-adjusted capacity modeling (Ramped Rep Equivalents), over-assignment cushion, territory-weighted fair-share allocation, ramp relief policy, and validation against current attainment benchmarks. A macro planning exercise for VP Sales, CRO, and sales ops, covering B2B and B2C. Use whenever the user mentions quotas, targets, attainment, ramping new hires, annual planning, or "how much quota should an AE carry", even without the word quota. Do NOT use for pipeline coverage math (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-pipeline-coverage-modeling) or the comp plan that pays against it (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-comp-design).

Models how much pipeline a team needs relative to quota - coverage ratios derived from win rates (raw multiplier, stage-weighted, conversion-inversion), segment-level coverage targets, in-quarter timing and the point of no return, seasonality indexing, and pipeline-gap math that turns a ratio into new-pipeline-required. A macro modeling exercise for sales leadership and RevOps, covering B2B and high-velocity/B2C motions. Use whenever the user mentions pipeline coverage, 3x pipeline, a pipeline gap, forecast shortfall, or "we missed quota with 4x coverage", even without the word coverage. Do NOT use for deriving the quota itself (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-quota-setting) or inspecting one deal (mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-red-flags).

Turns prospect signals into 2-3 ranked personalization angles for outreach, each pairing a dated, sourced signal with the problem it implies, a one-line hook, the ask it justifies, and a confidence/recency label. Covers B2B and B2C signals and 1:1 vs 1:few vs 1:many effort tiers, and never invents a signal. Use whenever the user mentions personalization, a trigger event, a funding round, a new hire or job change, a product launch, review mining, or "find a reason to reach out", even without the word personalize. Do NOT use for drafting the message - subject lines (mbfinotti/sales-skills@cold-email-subject-line-tester), openers (mbfinotti/sales-skills@cold-call-opener), and cadence (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-outbound-sequence) live elsewhere.

Plans a touch-by-touch outbound cadence - which channel on which day, touch count, spacing, channel mix, multi-threading, exit and stop rules, recycle and re-entry, and the capacity math behind it, with pre-committed metric thresholds. Use whenever the user mentions a sequence, cadence, follow-up timing, Outreach or Salesloft steps, a drip, "how many touches", inbound-lead or event follow-up, closed-lost re-engagement, or B2C lifecycle and SMS flows, even without the word cadence. Do NOT use for message copy, subject lines (mbfinotti/sales-skills@cold-email-subject-line-tester), call scripts (mbfinotti/sales-skills@cold-call-opener), or inbox placement (mbfinotti/sales-skills@cold-email-deliverability).

Designs a sales organization's structure for its current stage - role mix (SDR, AE, AM/CS), topology (island, assembly line, pod, hybrid), SDR-to-AE ratio, hunter/farmer split, span of control, and specialization by segment. A macro org-design exercise for a VP Sales, CRO, or founder scaling past founder-led selling, covering B2B and B2C. Use whenever the user mentions restructuring the sales team, pods vs assembly line, reps per manager, splitting SDRs from AEs, or hunters vs farmers, even without the words org structure. Do NOT use for hiring into the seats (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-hiring), choosing the motion (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-motion), or setting quotas (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-quota-setting).

Diagnoses what a sales objection really means and writes rebuttal scripts a rep can say out loud, or calls the deal dead when the objection is a real constraint. Covers price/budget, timing, competitor/incumbent, authority, status-quo, and trust objections for B2B and B2C, with price-specific guidance on value gap vs genuine budget limit and trading instead of discounting. Use whenever the user mentions a price objection, "too expensive", "not interested", "send me some info", "we already use a competitor", stalling, or an objection library, even without the word objection. Do NOT use for discount trade planning (mbfinotti/sales-skills@negotiation-concession-planner) or ROI math (mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-value-calc).

Chooses and designs the company-level sales motion at VP Sales / CRO altitude - product-led growth (PLG), sales-led, hybrid product-led sales, developer-led/open-source, or channel/partner-led - plus the transitions between them (exiting founder-led sales, layering sales onto self-serve, moving upmarket, adding channel), mapped to ACV, time-to-value, buyer-vs-user separation, TAM shape and procurement friction. Covers B2B SaaS and consumer self-serve motions. Use whenever the user mentions PLG vs sales-led, hiring the first salesperson, going upmarket, self-serve vs demo, or adding partners, even without the word motion. Do NOT use for org topology (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-org-structure) or quotas (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-quota-setting).

Turns raw sales call notes into a structured recap email with agreed next steps - every action item carrying an owner, a date, and a deliverable - plus mutual close plan (mutual action plan) items when the deal warrants one. Restates the buyer's pain in their own words and never invents a commitment the notes don't contain. Covers complex B2B committee deals and transactional or B2C motions. Use whenever the user mentions a recap email, follow-up after a sales call, next steps email, post-call summary, or a mutual action plan, even without the word recap. Do NOT use for judging how the call went (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-call-review).

Estimates TAM, SAM, and SOM for a market or sub-segment to ground sales capacity, territory, and quota planning - top-down, bottom-up on named accounts or population math, value theory, triangulation, a capacity-based SOM ceiling, and a per-layer refresh cadence. A macro planning exercise for sales leadership and RevOps, covering B2B and B2C. Use whenever the user mentions TAM, SAM, SOM, market size, addressable market, "how big is this market", or the number behind next year's quota, even without those acronyms. Sizes for planning, not pitching. Do NOT use for defining the ICP (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-icp-definition) or turning SOM into quotas (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-quota-setting).

Before starting any sales project, and before answering a sales request that spans more than one sales topic or names no skill at all, run this router first. It routes the task to exactly one skill in the sales-skills collection, or says plainly that none fits, and bootstraps or resumes the project's shared sales-context.md artifact, producing a short-list plus an ordered skill chain. Fires on the state of the conversation rather than the subject matter, at a sales project start, at a periodic sales check-in or recurring sales review, on a mid-project re-route, or on any broad or ambiguous sales request such as "which sales skill do I need" or "where do I start with sales". Covers both altitudes, CRO-altitude planning (motion, ICP, market sizing, segmentation, tiering, org structure, quota, coverage, comp) and execution (outbound, cold calling, discovery, objections, MEDDPICC, recaps, call review, hiring, career). Run it even when sibling skills are already in daily use elsewhere.

Defines the company's ideal customer profile (ICP) at sales-leadership altitude - the firmographic, technographic, behavioral and intent criteria, a weighted scoring rubric with explicit disqualifiers, and the refresh cadence that targeting keys off. Works from closed-won/lost deal data, or from founder-led discovery when deal data is thin. Covers B2B account ICPs and the equivalent B2C demographic/psychographic profile. Use whenever the user mentions the ideal or target customer, buyer profile, "who should we sell to", or targeting that is too broad, even without the letters ICP. Do NOT use for TAM/SAM/SOM sizing (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-market-sizing) or account fit scoring (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-account-segmentation).

Employer-side hiring workflow for SDR/BDR and AE roles, producing an outcome-based scorecard, a structured interview loop with question bank, a scored mock-call work sample, and a 30-60-90 ramp plan with certification gates. Recommends SDR vs AE vs full-cycle from ACV, cycle length and inbound volume, and rests on selection-validity evidence - structured interviews, independent scoring, no brainteasers. Use whenever the user mentions hiring a rep, sales interview questions, a hiring scorecard, a mock call interview, rep onboarding, or a ramp plan, even without the word hiring. Do NOT use for candidate-side prep (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-career) or comp plan design (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-comp-design).

Builds a sequenced sales discovery question set - pain, root cause, impact, urgency - for a specific deal or persona, sized to the call length, with follow-up ladders, branch triggers, and a do-not-ask list. Covers B2B (SDR qualification through multi-stakeholder AE discovery) and high-ticket B2C consultations. Use whenever the user mentions discovery call prep, qualification questions, SPIN or pain-funnel questions, a first-meeting agenda, or "what should I ask this prospect", even without the word discovery. Do NOT use for rebuttals (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-objection-handling), the cold-call opening (mbfinotti/sales-skills@cold-call-opener), or grading a finished call (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-call-review).

Designs the sales compensation plan structure - pay mix (base/variable split) set by role influence, performance measures under the rule of three, accelerator and decelerator curves, SPIF overlays, draws, and role plans for SDR, AE, manager, overlay, and CSM seats. A macro annual exercise for sales leadership, RevOps, and finance, covering B2B SaaS and commission-heavy B2C. Use whenever the user mentions commission plans, OTE, accelerators, clawbacks, SPIFs, capping commissions, or "how should we pay our reps", even without the words comp design. Do NOT use for deriving the quota the plan pays against (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-quota-setting) or structuring the org (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-org-structure).

Coach one person through landing and growing a sales career - SDR/BDR entry, SDR-to-AE promotion, and beyond - across B2B SaaS and commission-heavy B2C (real estate, insurance, solar, auto). Covers sales interview prep (mock cold call, sell-me-this-pen, candidate-authored 30-60-90 plan), quantified track-record evidence, sales skill-gap roadmaps, employer diligence, and sales offer evaluation from the candidate's seat, anchored to dated benchmarks (Bridge Group, RepVue, NAR). Use for "sales career", "break into tech sales", "sdr interview prep", "sdr to ae path", "evaluate this sales offer". Does not cover the hiring side (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-hiring), job searching or auto-applying, resume file generation, or deal execution tactics.

Scores one sales call transcript against an anchored rubric - opener, discovery, objection handling, close - quoting the transcript for every judgement and naming one focus behaviour. Handles messy ASR transcripts, missing speaker labels, and partial calls, covering B2B deal calls and B2C/inside-sales QA, rep self-review and manager tape review. Use whenever the user mentions a call recording, transcript, Gong or Chorus review, tape review, call scoring, or "how did this call go", even without the word review. Do NOT use for writing the follow-up email (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-meeting-recap) or scoring the deal itself (mbfinotti/sales-skills@meddpicc-scorecard).

Designs the tier layer downstream of an existing account fit score - where the cutoffs sit, tier names, rep-to-account capacity caps, the coverage model per tier (touch cadence, channel mix, QBR frequency, executive involvement), coverage-ratio health metrics, and the recalibration cadence. Covers B2B account tiering and B2C key-account tiering through retail/distribution channels. Use whenever the user mentions tiers, strategic/key/growth/long-tail accounts, accounts-per-rep ratios, 1:1 or 1:few or 1:many ABM coverage, or "everything drifted into Tier 1", even without the word tiering. Takes the fit score as input. Do NOT use for building that score (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-account-segmentation).

Designs the account segmentation model between ICP and tier structure - which firmographic, technographic, intent and jobs-to-be-done signal layers define account fit, the weighted fit score calibrated from 12 months of closed-won deals, fit and readiness as separate axes, whitespace and expansion mapping, and how the model is encoded, routed and re-scored in the CRM. Covers B2B account segmentation and B2C value-based customer segmentation. Use whenever the user mentions account scoring, fit score, whitespace, book-of-business carve-up, or reps picking accounts on gut feel, even without the word segmentation. Do NOT use for tier cutoffs and coverage (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-account-tiering) or ICP criteria (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-icp-definition).

Builds a pre-negotiation concession plan for a pricing or contract conversation - every tradeable lever priced by cost-to-us vs value-to-them, tiered, each give paired with a required reciprocal get and its approval level, plus a BATNA-based walk-away. Covers B2B (terms, scope, service, risk, price protection) and B2C (bundles, financing, trade allowance). Use whenever the user mentions a discount request, procurement, redlines, give-get trades, walk-away point, or "the buyer wants 20% off", even without the word negotiation. Do NOT use for quantifying the value (mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-value-calc) or scripting price rebuttals (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-objection-handling).

Scores one deal against the eight MEDDPICC elements on an evidence ladder - unknown, assumed, stated, validated - with a scorecard, a verdict band, and the single next action that closes the biggest gap. Full MEDDPICC for complex deals, a lightweight subset for small ones, covering B2B and considered high-ticket B2C. Use whenever the user mentions MEDDPICC, MEDDIC, BANT, deal qualification, "score this opportunity", "is this deal real", or deal-review prep, even without naming a framework. Do NOT use for stakeholder mapping (mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-champion-mapping), note-level risk scanning (mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-red-flags), or transcript grading (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-call-review).

Builds the ROI and business case for one deal - value drivers, full investment, ROI, payback, three cases conservative-first, and a one-page case the champion can forward. The buyer supplies every assumption, each number labeled buyer-supplied, benchmark, or rep-assumed, and none invented. Covers B2B and high-ticket B2C. Use whenever the user mentions ROI, business case, payback period, TCO, cost of doing nothing, "justify the price", or CFO sign-off, even without the word value. Do NOT use for price rebuttals (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-objection-handling) or discount trade planning (mbfinotti/sales-skills@negotiation-concession-planner).

Reviews one deal's free-text notes - call notes, opportunity fields, CRM activity log, email threads - for qualification red flags such as single-threaded deal, no champion, no compelling event, unverified budget, no agreed next step, or fading engagement, each graded on severity and confidence with the quoted note fragment behind it. Covers B2B and B2C. Use whenever the user mentions deal risk, a stalled or slipping deal, ghosting, forecast inspection, or "is this deal real", even without the words red flag. Reviews one deal, not a pipeline export. Do NOT use for structured qualification scoring (mbfinotti/sales-skills@meddpicc-scorecard) or stakeholder mapping (mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-champion-mapping).

Builds an evidence-graded stakeholder map for one active deal from titles, call notes, email and meeting activity, and CRM contact roles, naming the likely champion, economic buyer, and blockers, each with a confidence level tied to observed behaviour rather than title. Covers B2B buying committees and high-consideration B2C households. Use whenever the user mentions a champion, economic buyer, power map, deal org chart, multi-threading, single-threaded risk, or "who actually decides", even without the word stakeholder. Do NOT use for qualification scoring (mbfinotti/sales-skills@meddpicc-scorecard) or scanning notes for general risk (mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-red-flags).

Generates, scores, and split-tests email subject lines, producing angle-distinct variants, a numeric scorecard, and a test plan with sample size and decision metric. Covers B2B cold outbound and B2C lifecycle/promotional email, and flags spam-trigger words inside the subject line only. Use whenever the user mentions a subject line, open rates, email A/B test, preview text, or "nobody opens my emails", even if they don't say "subject line" explicitly. Do NOT use for body copy or inbox-placement audits (mbfinotti/sales-skills@cold-email-deliverability), personalization angles (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-outreach-personalization), or cadence design (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-outbound-sequence).

Reviews a cold email draft and its sending setup for deliverability - SPF/DKIM/DMARC alignment, sender reputation and complaint risk, body mechanics (length, links, images, tracking pixels, HTML vs plain text, opt-out), and legal compliance by region. Covers B2B cold outbound and B2C bulk/lifecycle mail. Use whenever the user mentions the spam folder, blacklisting, domain warmup, inbox placement, bounce rates, DMARC, or "why are my emails not landing", even without the word deliverability. Do NOT use for subject lines (mbfinotti/sales-skills@cold-email-subject-line-tester) or cadence (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-outbound-sequence). Hygiene and compliance only, never spam-filter evasion.

Writes the opening 5-30 seconds of a live outbound cold call - a tailored opener for a named persona and pain point, with 2-3 testable variants, delivery notes, and a measurement plan. Covers B2B and B2C phone outreach, including do-not-call scrubbing. Use whenever the user mentions a cold call opener, cold call script, phone opener, dialer talk track, "what do I say when they pick up", or opening a call for a persona, even if they don't say "opener" explicitly. Do NOT use for rebuttals later in the call (use mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-objection-handling), grading a recorded call (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-call-review), or cadence planning (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-outbound-sequence).

Design the reward structure of a customer refer-a-friend program - who gets rewarded (referrer, friend, or both), reward type (cash, account credit, discount, product value, status), how much to pay against LTV/CAC and gross margin, when the payout fires, and whether to build a tiered reward ladder. Use whenever the user mentions referral incentives, refer-a-friend rewards, referral bonus amounts, give-X-get-Y offers, double-sided referral rewards, or asks how big a referral reward should be, even if they never say incentive. Covers end-customer rewards only. Do NOT use for commission rates paid to professional affiliates - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-commission-structure instead.

Define the operational guardrails that stop end customers from gaming a refer-a-friend program - reward caps, velocity limits and cooldowns, reward-hold windows tied to the refund window, eligibility rules, identity-verification gates, a published enforcement ladder, and abuse-monitoring signals. Produces a guardrail spec for B2C and B2B SaaS referral program managers. Use whenever the user mentions referral abuse, self-referral, fake accounts claiming referral rewards, referral rings, or a referral code leaking to coupon forums, even if they never say abuse. Do NOT use for professional-affiliate traffic fraud - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-fraud-detection instead.

Before starting any partnerships work - and before routing to any other skill in the mbfinotti/partnerships-skills collection - run this router first. It matches the task (channel, alliance, co-sell, marketplace, affiliate, influencer, or referral) to exactly one sibling skill, says plainly when none fits, and bootstraps or resumes the project's shared partnerships-context.md artifact so the next session starts warm instead of cold. Use whenever the user opens a partnerships project, asks which partnerships skill they need, resumes partner work after a gap, runs a periodic partner, affiliate or influencer check-in, or describes a partner, creator or commission problem without naming a skill - even if they never say kickoff, routing or partnerships, and even when they name a downstream task directly. Routing and shared context only - it never does a sibling skill's work itself, and always emits the full owner/repo@skill target it routes to.

Employer-side partnerships hiring across the field's four sub-disciplines - channel/alliance, affiliate, influencer/creator, referral. Calibrates the scorecard to company type (startup generalist, scale-up specialist, enterprise per-hyperscaler headcount, PLG integrations-first), builds the channel-manager loop with its named judgment test and negotiation role-play, sources candidates from the field's job board and communities, and gates compensation on live verification since public benchmarks disagree by 2-3x. States plainly where no documented loop exists for a sub-discipline. Use whenever the user asks how to hire a partner manager, write a partnerships job posting, design an interview loop, or source candidates. Do NOT use for candidate-side prep (mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partnerships-career).

Plans a partnerships career from the candidate side across the field's four sub-disciplines - channel/alliance, affiliate, influencer/creator, referral. Covers the internal-transfer entry tactic, the company-type hiring bar, channel-manager interview-loop prep including the negotiation role-play and the "same deal in December as January" judgment test, job-posting red-flag reads, and offer evaluation gated on live verification since published comp benchmarks disagree by 2-3x. States plainly that no cross-company career ladder is published for this field. Use whenever the user asks how to break into partnerships, prep a partner-manager interview, read a posting, or evaluate an offer. Do NOT use for the hiring/employer side (mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partnerships-hiring).

Design or redesign the tier structure inside an existing B2B partner program - qualification criteria, benefit bundles, tier count, promotion and demotion rules, review cadence for registered/silver/gold-style ladders, and migration of the current partner base. Also covers the B2C affiliate, creator and loyalty tier contrast. Use whenever the user mentions partner tiers, tier criteria, tier benefits, tier compression, demotion rules, or reseller, MSP and agency tier design, even if they never say tiering. Do NOT use for standing up a partner program from scratch - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-channel-program instead. Affiliate commission payout tiers are a separate skill.

Measure and review the performance of individual partners in a B2B partner program - the per-partner scorecard (dimensions, weights, targets, red-flag thresholds, data sources), the review cadence and QBR structure, and the underperformance ladder from trigger through corrective action to de-tier or exit. Also covers the B2C affiliate and creator review contrast. Use whenever the user mentions a partner scorecard, partner reviews, a channel partner QBR, a partner health check, or an underperforming channel partner, even if they never say performance. One partner at a time. Do NOT use for designing the tier ladder itself - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-tiering instead.

Decide which third-party marketplaces to list on, how much to invest in each, what ROI to expect, and when to delist - marketplace prioritization for partner teams. Covers cloud marketplace listing strategy, SaaS app store and integration directory prioritization, and retail marketplace selection for ecommerce (1P vs 3P vs hybrid), with a readiness gate, weighted scorecard, and provenance-flagged ROI expectations. Use whenever the user mentions AWS, Azure or GCP marketplaces, an app store listing, an integration directory, or asks whether a marketplace listing is worth it, even if they never say marketplace strategy. Do NOT use for choosing which partner category to launch next - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-ecosystem-expansion instead.

Sequence the training, content, and certification a B2B partner program needs to make partners self-sufficient sellers - the partner enablement roadmap, not the training content itself. Covers the skills-gap needs assessment, enablement tracks split by partner role and type, certification design and refresh cadence, and a pilot cohort, all designed backwards from the partner's first deal. Also covers B2C analogs (franchise, dealer, ambassador education). Use whenever the user mentions partner enablement, partner certification, channel partner training, a partner onboarding curriculum, or ramping partners to a first deal, even if they never say enablement. Do NOT use for affiliate welcome emails - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-onboarding-sequence instead.

Decide which partner categories to add next to a partner ecosystem and in what sequence - a staged partner-category expansion roadmap with readiness gates, capacity limits, and kill criteria. Covers B2B categories (tech/ISV, reseller/VAR, MSP, SI/GSI, agency, referral/affiliate, marketplace) and consumer-side equivalents (retail/wholesale, creator, licensing, co-branding). Use whenever the user mentions partner ecosystem expansion, partner category planning, a partner mix roadmap, or asks which partner type to launch next, even if they never say expansion. Category-level sequencing only. Do NOT use for ranking named candidate companies - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@alliance-prioritization instead.

Map a company's partner and channel ecosystem as a strategy exercise - an inventory of every partner type (resellers, distributors, MSPs, ISVs, SIs, affiliates, marketplaces, plus retail, creator, licensing and co-branding partners for consumer brands), partner account overlap analysis, channel coverage gaps and conflict zones, a weighted partner scorecard, and a prioritization 2x2. Use whenever the user mentions partner ecosystem mapping, a partner landscape, channel coverage, partner type classification, ecosystem whitespace, or which partner categories deserve investment, even if they never say ecosystem. Do NOT use for sequencing which category to launch next - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-ecosystem-expansion instead.

Model the unit economics of one partner relationship - partner P&L, margin modeling, cost-to-serve, referral-fee and lifetime-value split, channel partner ROI, partner CAC vs direct CAC, ramp and payback - to decide whether to sign, scale, renegotiate, or exit that partner. Covers B2B channel and alliance partners plus B2C affiliate and creator economics. Use whenever the user mentions partnership unit economics, a single-partner business case, reseller, VAR, MSP, OEM or marketplace deal economics, revenue-share and margin-stack analysis, or asks whether a partner is worth pursuing, even if they never say economics. Do NOT use for ranking a portfolio of candidates - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@alliance-prioritization instead.

Design the overall structure of a B2B partner or channel program from scratch - a readiness gate that can conclude not yet, partner value proposition, which motions to run (referral, reseller, services, technology), tier count, benefit stack, program-wide economics envelope, governance, and success horizon. Covers B2C analogs (dealer, franchise, ambassador). Use whenever the user mentions building a partner program, channel program design, launching a channel, a partner ecosystem program, or asks whether they are ready for partners, even if they never say program. Do NOT use for reworking tiers inside a program that already exists - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-tiering instead.

Write the channel conflict rules that govern contested deals between direct sales and channel partners or between partners - rules of engagement, account segmentation, named-account carve-outs, deal registration as a claim instrument (protection window, tie-break, rejection grounds), compensation neutrality for direct reps, escalation and adjudication ladders, and governance cadence. Also covers consumer brands (D2C vs retail conflict, MAP policy, channel-exclusive assortment). Use whenever the user mentions channel conflict, partner disputes, deal poaching, or two routes to market claiming the same account, even if they never say conflict. Do NOT use for designing the co-sell operating model - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@co-selling-strategy instead.

Plan one joint go-to-market motion with one already-chosen partner - the joint value proposition, co-marketing campaign shape, launch sequencing, budget and market-development funds, the lead-sharing and attribution agreement, and the closing debrief. Covers B2B vendor-to-vendor co-marketing, consumer co-branding, and creator collaborations. Use whenever the user mentions a joint GTM plan, partner co-marketing, a joint webinar or integration launch, or a better-together story with a named partner, even if they never say GTM. Macro strategy only, no ad copy, email bodies, or asset production. Do NOT use for direct-vs-partner deal policy - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@co-selling-strategy instead.

Draft the personalized first-touch pitch message and follow-up plan used to propose a partnership to one already-vetted influencer or creator - personalization angle, the compensation stated on offer, a message fitted to the channel the creator actually lists (email, DM, or their manager), and a bounded follow-up cadence. Covers B2C brand collabs and B2B creator programs (newsletter writers, podcasters, industry experts). Use whenever the user mentions pitching a creator, DMing an influencer, a collab proposal, or a creator outreach message, even if they never say outreach. Stops at the first positive reply. Do NOT use for list-scale affiliate recruitment - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-recruitment-outreach instead.

Prepare a brand-side partnership manager to negotiate deal terms with an influencer or creator, from the creator's first positive reply to a signed contract - a written playbook of term-by-term opening positions, a concession ladder, red-flag responses, and walk-away thresholds covering rates, usage rights, exclusivity, revision limits, payment terms, and kill fees. Covers B2C brand collabs and B2B creator programs. Use whenever the user mentions creator rates, creator deal terms, usage rights, exclusivity, or negotiating with a creator's talent manager, even if they never say negotiation. Requires the user's own rate benchmarks. Do NOT use for the first-touch pitch - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@influencer-outreach instead.

Design the pre-launch measurement plan for one influencer or creator campaign - KPIs matched to the objective (awareness, engagement, conversion, affiliate-linked, always-on ambassador), an attribution method and data source behind each KPI, reporting cadence per stakeholder, and declared blind spots. Delivered as a measurement plan document before launch, for B2B and B2C alike. Use whenever the user mentions influencer KPIs, creator campaign attribution, campaign reporting, or asks how to measure a creator partnership, even if they never say measurement. Do NOT use for an ongoing affiliate program dashboard - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-performance-dashboard instead.

Define creator sourcing criteria and produce the discovery brief used to shortlist candidate influencers and creators - weighted criteria for audience fit, engagement quality, niche consistency and brand safety, knockout screens, and a ranked shortlist scoring template with evidence per score. Covers B2C brand campaigns and B2B creator and thought-leader programs. Use whenever the user mentions finding creators, vetting influencers, audience fit, creator shortlists, or deciding which creators to approach, even if they never say discovery. Runs before any contact. Do NOT use for writing the pitch message itself - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@influencer-outreach instead.

Draft the creative campaign brief a brand hands to an already-signed influencer or creator for one campaign - deliverables with exact specs, key messages with proof points, brand guardrails, disclosure requirements, timeline, and bounded review rounds, split into non-negotiables vs preferences. Covers B2C brand collabs and B2B creator programs. Use whenever the user mentions a creator brief, campaign brief, content brief, creator deliverables, or briefing a creator they just signed, even if they never say brief. Starts after the deal is signed and reflects its terms exactly. Do NOT use for picking or vetting the creator - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@influencer-discovery-brief instead.

Design the operating model for how direct sales and partner sellers collaborate on shared deals - deal registration policy (protection windows, approval SLA, rejection grounds), deal credit and attribution split (partner-sourced vs partner-influenced, comp neutrality), and channel rules of engagement between direct and partner sellers. Covers B2B co-sell motions at the policy level. Use whenever the user mentions co-selling, partner deal registration, deal credit splits, partner attribution policy, or reps and partners working the same account, even if they never say co-sell. Do NOT use for adjudicating a live contested deal - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-channel-conflict instead.

Rank named candidate strategic alliances and technology partnerships by expected value, effort, and risk, to decide where partner-team capacity goes - must-pass screens, a weighted alliance scorecard with sensitivity analysis, co-innovation and platform-dependency risk checks, a ranked shortlist, and a go/no-go recommendation memo. Covers B2B tech alliances and B2C brand and creator partnerships. Use whenever the user mentions alliance prioritization, partnership ranking, partner shortlisting, or asks which of several named partners deserves investment, even if they never say prioritization. Portfolio-level comparison only. Do NOT use for modeling one partner's P&L - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-economics instead.

Draft the outreach copy and sequence plan used to recruit new affiliates into a commission-based affiliate program - prospect qualification and tiering, pitch angle, first-touch recruitment email, follow-up sequence with a breakup touch, channel mix, and outreach tracking. Covers B2B SaaS and B2C ecommerce/DTC programs. Use whenever the user mentions recruiting affiliates, affiliate sourcing, or pitching content and review sites, coupon and cashback partners, newsletter operators, communities, podcasters, or agencies to join a program, even if they never say recruitment. Do NOT use for pitching one individually vetted creator - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@influencer-outreach instead.

Draft the terms and conditions an affiliate accepts when joining a commission-based program - the affiliate program agreement, with the canonical clause set, prohibited-tactics clauses and enforcement ladder, commission validation, clawback and termination mechanics, and jurisdiction overlays (FTC endorsement rules, EU P2B, UK ASA/CAP, GDPR roles). Output is a clause-complete draft flagged for mandatory legal review, for B2B SaaS and B2C ecommerce alike. Use whenever the user mentions affiliate program terms, an affiliate agreement, prohibited tactics, or a brand-bidding policy, even if they only ask what affiliates must agree to. Do NOT use for reviewing a published post's disclosure label - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-disclosure-compliance instead.

Define the metric set and layout for an affiliate performance dashboard, delivered as a dashboard specification document - metric definitions with explicit formulas, views per audience, refresh and review cadence, and alert thresholds for top affiliates, conversion by source, and program ROI. Covers B2B SaaS recurring revenue-share and B2C ecommerce order-level CPA programs. Use whenever the user mentions affiliate program reporting, affiliate KPIs, affiliate ROI, revenue concentration, or what to put on an affiliate dashboard, even if they never say dashboard. Specifies metrics, never builds them in a BI tool. Do NOT use for one creator campaign's measurement plan - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@influencer-measurement-framework instead.

Audit an affiliate or partner commission payout run for accuracy before money is disbursed - per-line rate and tier recomputation, double-counted conversions, clawback and validation windows, period cutoff, currency, rounding, and tax-form status, delivered as an audit report with severities and recommended holds. Covers B2B SaaS recurring revenue-share and B2C ecommerce order-level CPA programs. Use whenever the user mentions an affiliate payout audit, commission accuracy, payout reconciliation, overpaid or underpaid affiliates, or a pre-disbursement review, even if they never say audit. Do NOT use for spotting fraudulent affiliates - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-fraud-detection instead.

Design the onboarding sequence that carries a newly approved affiliate from approval to first tracked conversion - touch plan (timing, channel, one action per touch), asset kit, time-boxed activation nudge, and never-activated follow-up branch. Covers B2B SaaS partner programs and B2C ecommerce affiliate programs. Use whenever the user mentions affiliate onboarding, an affiliate welcome email series, affiliate activation, a new-affiliate ramp, partner activation emails, or approved affiliates who never send a click or a sale, even if they never say onboarding. Starts at approval - to pitch affiliates who have not joined yet use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-recruitment-outreach.

Build the detection rule set an affiliate program manager uses to flag fraudulent affiliate activity, plus the investigation and escalation path behind it - cookie stuffing, fake lead and form-fill fraud, self-referral rings, traffic-quality baselines, commission holds and clawbacks, and separating real fraud from legitimate low-incrementality coupon or cashback partners. Covers B2B SaaS lead-gen and B2C ecommerce programs. Use whenever the user mentions affiliate fraud, suspicious affiliate traffic, invalid clicks or leads, bot traffic, or an affiliate whose numbers look too good, even if they never say fraud. Do NOT use for consumer refer-a-friend gaming - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@referral-abuse-guardrails instead.

Check a specific piece of affiliate or influencer content (caption, video script, transcript, screenshot, or live URL) against disclosure regulations and return a pass/fail compliance review with placement, wording, and per-format fixes. Covers FTC affiliate disclosure (16 CFR 255 and 465), UK CAP/CMA rules, EU UCPD and DSA, and German, French and Italian overlays, pre-publication or already live. Use whenever the user mentions affiliate disclosure, FTC disclosure, paid partnership labeling, sponsored content, ad tags, or a partner post that may be missing or burying its disclosure, even if they never say compliance. Reviews content only - for disclosure clauses inside program terms use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-program-terms.

Turn a product brief and target audience into UGC-style short-form video ad scripts a creator can film - hook, body, CTA - with 3-5 hook variants per concept written as spoken line plus on-screen text plus opening visual, with delivery notes and disclosure lines. Use whenever the user asks for a UGC ad or creator script, a short-form vertical video ad script, a founder-led video, employee-generated content, or a customer testimonial video script - even if they never say 'UGC'. Covers B2C creator scripts and B2B formats. Do NOT use to score existing hooks (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-hook-analyzer), to write static ad copy (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-copy-variants), or to brief a designer (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-brief).

Plan a campaign that promotes an executive's or founder's existing organic posts as paid person-fronted ads - post selection, sequencing, audience and exclusions, permission and governance, budget, and measurement. Use whenever the user mentions thought leader ads, promoting a founder's or CEO's post, sponsoring an employee's or a creator's post, executive content amplification, running ads from a personal profile, or B2B trust ads - even if they never say 'thought leadership'. Covers B2B trust-layer campaigns on professional networks with pipeline-lens measurement, and B2C founder-led brands with direct-response measurement. Plans the campaign only, never the featured person's content: ad copy is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-copy-variants.

Design a multi-stage retargeting sequence from a site's own funnel data - recency windows and behavioural-depth tiers per stage, a message and offer ladder for each stage, mutually exclusive audiences with exclusion logic, and per-stage frequency caps. Use whenever the user mentions retargeting or remarketing, cart or form abandonment, how long a retargeting window should be, frequency caps, a retargeting audience that is too small, or ads still showing to people who already bought - even if they never say 'funnel'. Covers B2B and B2C, and produces a stage-by-stage plan rather than campaigns built inside an ad platform. Do NOT use to design cold prospecting audience tiers - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-audience-targeting instead.

Decide when a proven paid campaign has earned a budget increase, how large each step should be, how the ramp sequences over weeks and months, and how to avoid performance collapse on the way up - including readiness gates, vertical vs horizontal scaling, and rollback triggers. Use whenever the user asks whether to scale a campaign, how fast ad spend can rise, mentions a budget ramp, a scaling ceiling, or says performance collapsed after the budget was raised - even if they never say 'scaling'. Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use to split a fixed total across campaigns (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-spend-allocation) or to track daily spend against a set budget (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-budget-pacing).

Audit a landing page receiving paid traffic against post-click conversion best practice and return a prioritised fix list - message match to the ad, above-the-fold clarity, form friction, trust, speed, mobile, policy risk - with every finding labelled by evidence class and no statistical claims on thin data. Use whenever the user says their ads get clicks but no conversions, asks why a landing page isn't converting, or mentions post-click experience, message match, conversion friction, form friction, or CPA rising after the click - even if they never say 'landing page audit'. Covers B2B and B2C on any platform. Audit only. Do NOT use for pre-click account problems - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-account-diagnostic instead.

Select and size the seed customer list behind a lookalike, similar, or value-based audience - which customers to upload, how many, and whether the matched count (not the row count) clears the platform floor - with RFM and value-based selection, a negative-selection pass, a privacy and consent gate before any customer list upload, and a fallback ladder when the floor cannot be cleared. Use whenever the user mentions a lookalike or similar audience, a seed list, a customer list upload, match rate, an audience that is too small, or says their lookalike isn't working - even if they never say 'seed'. Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use to design the whole targeting tier structure - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-audience-targeting instead.

Adapt ad messaging for conversational and AI-answer ad surfaces - the one-shot, context-aware ad occupying a single response slot inside an AI assistant reply or answer-engine result, where the copy is either rendered verbatim or rewritten by a model from the landing page and feed. Covers recommendation register, self-contained slot copy, situation-description targeting, grounding and disclosure discipline, and reading performance without creative-level reporting. Use whenever the user mentions ads inside ChatGPT or another AI assistant, sponsored answers, in-assistant ads, response-slot ads, or one-shot ad copy - even if they never say 'conversational ads'. Do NOT use for feed or search ad copy - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-copy-variants instead.

Compute a business's CAC and ROAS family metrics from real spend and outcome data, then judge whether the spend is healthy against three references - the business's own break-even, its own trailing history, and provenance-labelled external benchmarks - returning healthy, watch, unhealthy, or insufficient evidence. Use whenever the user asks whether their CAC is too high, whether a ROAS is good, what ROAS to aim for, whether ads are profitable, or mentions MER, blended CAC, payback period, or a spend health check - even if they never say 'benchmark'. Covers B2B/SaaS (cost per SQL, cost per closed-won, cohort lag) and B2C/ecommerce. Do NOT use to set those thresholds as policy - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-spend-guardrails instead.

Build a personalised, time-budgeted watch list of paid-advertising information sources - PPC and paid-social podcasts, newsletters, ad-platform release notes, communities, industry events, and media buyers worth following - with a verification method that keeps it fresh and a disclosure of what each source is selling. Use whenever a media buyer, PPC specialist, or growth marketer asks how to stay current on Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, or Microsoft Ads changes, which PPC newsletters or paid-social podcasts to follow, which communities or conferences deserve their time, or who to follow in performance marketing - even if they never say 'radar'. Do NOT use for career planning - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@advertising-career instead.

Before starting any paid advertising work, before each recurring advertising review, and whenever routing is unclear, route the task to the right skill of the advertising-skills collection - or say plainly that none fits - and bootstrap or resume the project's shared context artifact. Use at every advertising project start, on later sessions of the same project to re-route without re-interviewing, and whenever the user mentions a new ad campaign or paid media project, asks which advertising skill they need, or wants a periodic advertising check-in - even if they name no skill at all. Prefer this whenever several skills could apply, since the collection has three colliding clusters - the hirer-vs-candidate pair, the budget cluster, the creative cluster - and it returns a short-list plus an ordered skill chain rather than a single guess. Do NOT use when the task already maps cleanly to one skill, such as a pure account audit - that is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-account-diagnostic.

Build the complete hiring packet for a paid-advertising role - the rung decision (media buyer vs performance marketer vs growth marketer; creative strategist is its own role), an outcome scorecard, a 2-3 round interview loop with a judgment-first question bank, a time-boxed in-interview work sample, and a 30-60-90 ramp with staged spend authority. For the marketing leader or founder recruiting. Use for "hire a media buyer", "interview questions for a performance marketer", "paid media work sample", "scorecard for our first ad hire", or "30-60-90 for a new paid media hire". Does not source candidates, post jobs, run applicant tracking, or write offers, and does not cover the candidate side - that is the sibling mbfinotti/advertising-skills@advertising-career.

Plan and advance a paid-advertising career from the candidate side - media buyer, performance marketer, PPC specialist, creative strategist, growth marketer - covering the junior to lead ladder, the five real interview formats (live account audit, mental-maths case, metric diagnosis, take-home, behavioural), an NDA-safe results portfolio, platform certifications, in-house vs agency vs freelance, and promotion and pay conversations. Use whenever the user asks how to get into paid media or PPC, preps a media-buyer or growth interview, wants an ad portfolio, or weighs an agency vs in-house move - even if they never say 'career'. Do NOT use for the employer side of hiring - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@advertising-hiring instead.

Build and maintain a competitor swipe file - competitors' currently-running ads collected into a categorised, queryable library classified by format, hook type, offer/angle, awareness stage, and funnel stage, then converted into ranked creative test hypotheses. Accepts pasted ad text, described ads, screenshots, export files, or public ad transparency libraries. Use whenever the user asks what ads competitors are running, wants a competitor ad teardown, creative inspiration, or to know what is working in their category - even if they never say 'swipe file'. Covers B2B and B2C on any paid channel. Stops at ranked hypotheses: briefing is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-brief and test design is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-test-plan.

Set the organisation's top-level paid-media spend guardrails as written policy - maximum allowable CAC, minimum ROAS/MER floor, kill-switch thresholds, counter-metrics, who owns them and who may override them - each derived from contribution margin, payback, and cash runway rather than inherited from a dashboard. Use whenever the user asks what CAC they can afford, mentions a ROAS floor, spend guardrails, a kill switch, when to stop spending, or who approves a budget increase - even if they never say 'guardrails'. Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use to judge whether current CAC/ROAS is actually good (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@cac-roas-benchmark) or to monitor daily pacing (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-budget-pacing).

Split a fixed total paid-media budget across campaigns, platforms, funnel stages, and audiences based on expected marginal return - the monthly or quarterly reallocation decision, for B2B and B2C. Use whenever the user asks how to split an ad budget, which channel or campaign should get more money, how to reallocate spend, how much to put behind prospecting vs retargeting, or mentions a portfolio split, marginal return, or diminishing returns - even if they never say 'allocation'. Do NOT use to raise the total budget on a proven campaign (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@paid-media-scaling), to track daily spend against a set budget (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-budget-pacing), or to pick channels at setup (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-platform-selection).

Decide which paid channel families fit a business's economics, audience, funnel stage, and budget at campaign setup - paid search, paid social, short-form video, connected TV, native/discovery, retail media, programmatic display, podcast/audio, paid review listings, B2B professional networks - including whether each is affordable against allowable CAC and payback. Use whenever the user asks where to spend a new ad budget, which platform to advertise on, how to build a paid channel mix, whether a channel is worth trying, or compares two ad channels - even if they never say 'channel selection'. Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use to split an ongoing budget across existing campaigns - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-spend-allocation instead.

Build and maintain negative keyword lists from search term reports to cut wasted ad spend in paid search - n-gram query mining to surface irrelevant search terms, the right negative match types and exclusion levels (account, shared list, campaign, ad group), and a review cadence that avoids overblocking queries that convert. Use whenever the user mentions a search term or search query report, irrelevant clicks, junk traffic, wasted ad spend, or wants to exclude or block keywords - even if they never say 'negative keywords'. Covers B2B lead gen and B2C/e-commerce; needs the account's query data. Do NOT use for account-wide underperformance with no query-level evidence - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-account-diagnostic instead.

Score and force-rank the openings of candidate video ads - from a script, transcript, storyboard, shot list, or a description of a finished cut - to decide which hooks deserve test budget, returning a ranked shortlist within the batch rather than an absolute performance prediction. Use whenever the user mentions a hook, the first 3 seconds, an ad opening, hook rate, thumbstop, attention scoring, or asks which hook to test or whether a hook works - even if they never say 'hook analyzer'. Covers B2B and B2C on any platform. Ends at the ranking: writing the scripts themselves is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ugc-ad-scripts and static copy is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-copy-variants.

Flag ad formats that are a poor fit or commonly misused for a given objective and platform - formats the objective does not even expose, formats built for a different funnel stage, formats the team cannot produce - then, post-launch, separate a format problem from a creative or targeting problem. Use whenever the user asks which ad format to use, mentions carousel, Stories, in-feed vs in-stream video, a funnel-stage mismatch, a pre-launch format check, or says a format 'isn't working' - even if they never say 'format fit'. Covers B2B and B2C, with explicit launch blockers. Do NOT use to choose the channel itself (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-platform-selection) or to brief the creative (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-brief).

Design a pre-launch ad creative test plan - falsifiable hypothesis, isolation level, test cells with per-cell budgets, required sample, spend and duration, and kill/scale rules pre-registered before any money moves. Every cell carries an explicit read standard, so an underpowered screen is never dressed up as an A/B test. Use whenever the user wants to test ads, mentions an A/B or split test on creative, asks how much budget or how long a test needs, or mentions sample size, statistical significance, single-variable vs big-swing testing, or test cell structure - even if they never say 'test plan'. Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use to read results from a test already running - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-fatigue instead.

Decide whether a running ad creative is genuinely wearing out, or whether a confounder - budget change, learning-phase reset, audience saturation, auction CPM inflation, seasonality, tracking breakage - explains the decline, and return a verdict with confidence plus the highest-return remedy per unit of effort. Use whenever the user mentions creative or ad fatigue, wear-out, climbing frequency, dropping CTR, a rising CPA on an older ad, when to refresh creative, or whether to kill an ad - even if they never say 'fatigue'. Covers B2B and B2C across search, social, video, and native. Ends at the verdict: replacement creative belongs to mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-copy-variants and mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ugc-ad-scripts.

Turn a campaign goal and an audience insight into a structured creative brief a designer, video editor, or UGC creator can execute - messaging angle, hook directions, art direction, specs, testing intent, and the handoff and revision loop. Covers B2B and B2C, with variants for static image, short-form video/UGC, and search/responsive text ads. Use whenever the user needs to brief a designer or creator, asks what an ad should say, or mentions messaging pillars, creative direction, or a design handoff - even if they never say 'brief'. Writes direction, never the finished asset: the ad copy itself is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-copy-variants and shot-by-shot creator scripts are mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ugc-ad-scripts.

Turn one core value proposition into genuinely distinct ad copy variants - headline, primary text, description, and CTA combinations - each labelled with angle, awareness stage, formula, and version so test results stay attributable. A real variant is a new angle, never a reworded line. Use whenever the user asks to write ad copy, needs headline or CTA variations, wants copy to A/B test, has ads that all sound the same, or needs a search ad headline set or an ML asset pool - even if they never say 'variants'. Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use for video or creator scripts (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ugc-ad-scripts), a designer brief (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-brief), or test design (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-test-plan).

Verify that conversion events are correctly configured, firing once, and deduplicated before a paid campaign launches, then turn the evidence into a GO / NO-GO decision. Covers tag debugging, test conversion tracing, browser/server event deduplication (including Conversions API setups), value and currency checks, conversion action status, consent handling, and test-data exclusion. Use whenever the user asks if their tracking works, mentions a pixel or tag check, conversions not showing up, duplicate conversions, or a pre-launch checklist - even if they never say 'conversion tracking'. Covers B2B lead gen and B2C ecommerce on any ad platform. Do NOT use to reconcile platform vs CRM numbers after launch - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-attribution-gap instead.

Evaluate a fragmented paid-ads account and recommend which campaigns and ad sets to merge, which splits to preserve, and how to migrate without resetting learning across the account - it plans the consolidation, it never executes it. Use whenever the user mentions too many campaigns or ad sets, merging or restructuring an ad account, ad sets stuck in learning or learning limited, budget spread too thin, account simplification, or campaigns competing with each other - even if they never say 'consolidation'. Covers B2B and B2C on search, paid social, video, and professional-network platforms. Do NOT use to find out why the account underperforms in the first place - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-account-diagnostic instead.

Map the likely buying committee for an offer, deal size, and industry, and give each role a messaging angle plus the ad-targeting proxy - job function and seniority, account list, account-level intent - that actually reaches them, sequenced by buying stage. Use whenever the user mentions a buying committee or buying group, decision makers, influencers or blockers, who signs off, targeting the economic buyer or a champion, per-role ad messaging, or whether one broad message beats per-role targeting - even if they never say 'buying committee'. Covers B2B committees and multi-decider household purchases. Do NOT use to size or build the audiences themselves - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-audience-targeting instead.

Track daily and weekly spend against a single campaign or account budget and flag under-pacing or over-pacing before it hurts results, reporting the pacing ratio, projected period spend, and the corrective daily spend behind every alert. Use whenever the user mentions budget pacing, spend tracking, burn rate, spend vs budget, projected month-end spend, underspending or overspending, or asks whether a campaign is on pace - even if they never say 'pacing'. Covers any ad platform, B2B and B2C, calendar-month or fixed-date flights. It flags and recommends; it never changes budgets or bids. Do NOT use to plan a scale-up (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@paid-media-scaling) or to set CAC/ROAS thresholds (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-spend-guardrails).

Choose the bidding policy per platform and goal - manual vs automated, cost-goal vs value/return-goal, when to switch, and how to set and move the target - written up as a policy with an evaluation window, change discipline, and a rollback trigger. Use whenever the user mentions a bid strategy, target CPA or target ROAS, smart or automated bidding, bid cap vs cost cap, portfolio bid strategies, seasonal bid adjustments, value-based bidding readiness, or delivery collapsing after a target change - even if they never say 'bidding'. Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use to split budgets across campaigns (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-spend-allocation) or to track spend against a budget (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-budget-pacing).

Turn a business's ICP and buying signals into a layered ad audience targeting plan - cold/broad prospecting, interest and in-market behavioural segments, lookalike/similar, first-party lists, and retargeting pools - each sized against platform audience floors, budgeted to the learning threshold, and kept from overlapping by exclusion rules. Use whenever the user mentions ad targeting, who to target with ads, audience tiers or layers, broad vs. layered targeting, audience overlap between campaigns, or mapping an ICP onto ad audiences - even if they never say 'audience'. Covers B2B and B2C. Do NOT use to pick the seed customers behind a lookalike (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@lookalike-audience-seeds) or to sequence retargeting messages (mbfinotti/advertising-skills@retargeting-funnel).

Quantify and explain the discrepancy between ad platform reporting, an analytics tool, and the source of truth (CRM or order system), classifying every unit of the gap as timing, definitional, or unexplained residual. Use whenever the user says the numbers don't match, that the platform reports more conversions or revenue than the CRM or order system, or mentions cross-platform reconciliation, double-counted conversions, an attribution discrepancy, or asks whether a reporting gap is normal - even if they never say 'attribution'. Covers B2B (CRM-anchored) and B2C/ecommerce (order-system-anchored). Do NOT use to fix broken or missing tracking - use mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-conversion-tracking instead.

Diagnose the root cause of an underperforming paid ad account - why the ads stopped working, why CPA went up, why ROAS dropped - instead of defaulting to 'increase the budget'. Weighs tracking, account structure, targeting, creative, bidding and budget, offer, and external forces, and returns a prioritised verdict with evidence and confidence. Covers B2B and B2C on search, paid social, video, and native. Use whenever the user mentions an ad account audit, a campaign structure review, wasted ad spend, rising cost per lead, or says their ads used to work - even if they never say 'diagnostic'. Diagnosis only, and it stops at the click: post-click page problems are mbfinotti/advertising-skills@paid-landing-page-audit and creative decay is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-fatigue.