pitch unfairly

Arcade · Team and culture

Madam C. J. Walker, 1917. Pitched unfairly, 2026.

Two hundred agents, two scoreboards: sales and service. Same story, same numbers. Rebuilt the way we'd pitch it today.

Template: Sales kickoff deck

  • Philadelphia, August 1917
  • 200+ agents
  • Nearly 20,000 trained
Play the 2026 deck Read the real story Steal the structure
1917 Sales kickoff deck

Madam C. J. Walker

Two hundred agents, two scoreboards: sales and service.

Legend
Original craft
Unfair

The story→11 slides

It's a live deck. Press start, then scroll or use the arrow keys, or play it full screen.

Play the 2026 deck

Madam C. J. Walker's sales kickoff deck, slide by slide

Every slide opens the live deck right where it is.

  1. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 1: Agents, welcome to kickoff. 01Agents, welcome to kickoff.
  2. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 2: 950 agents became nearly 20,000. 02950 agents became nearly 20,000.
  3. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 3: Stand up, Margaret Thompson: $5 a week to $250. 03Stand up, Margaret Thompson: $5 a week to $250.
  4. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 4: We keep two scores: sales and service. 04We keep two scores: sales and service.
  5. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 5: Five steps, and the last one is giving back. 05Five steps, and the last one is giving back.
  6. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 6: Our territory runs from Denver to the Caribbean. 06Our territory runs from Denver to the Caribbean.
  7. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 7: One good day as an agent beats a week of the other work. 07One good day as an agent beats a week of the other work.
  8. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 8: Every agent starts at Lelia College. 08Every agent starts at Lelia College.
  9. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 9: We are here for more than the sale. 09We are here for more than the sale.
  10. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 10: Raise your right hand. Five lines. 10Raise your right hand. Five lines.
  11. Madam C. J. Walker deck, slide 11: Now go promote yourself. 11Now go promote yourself.

Then · 1917

How it really went

Read the real storythe story, via Wikipedia and A'Lelia Bundles' history of the 1917 convention
  1. Sarah Breedlove is born in 1867, the first child in her family born free
  2. Laundress in St. Louis, earning barely more than a dollar a day
  3. Denver, 1906: her own products, her first salon, door to door
  4. Lelia College opens in Pittsburgh in 1908 to train hair culturists
  5. Indianapolis, 1910: headquarters, factory, 950 agents
  6. Sales trip to Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Panama and Costa Rica, 1913
  7. Agents organized into local and state Walker clubs, 1917
  8. August 1917: 200+ agents meet at Union Baptist Church, Philadelphia
  9. $500 in prizes, for top sellers and for clubs that gave most to charity
  10. The delegates wire President Wilson to protest lynching and the violence in East St. Louis

Now · 2026 · 11 slides

What we changed

  • The scoreboard fills upTwo hundred dots, each a hundred women: the 950 agents of 1910 light up first, then the nearly 20,000 trained by 1917.
  • Your name on the boardThe convention paid prizes for sales and for service. Type your name and it lands on both leaderboards.
  • The route playsDelta, St. Louis, Denver, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, the Caribbean, Harlem, Philadelphia: click a year and the territory map draws itself.
  • A day against a weekSlide the days you work and watch a Walker agent's $5 to $15 a day pass a laborer's $11 week on day one.

Steal the structure

Build your sales kickoff deck like Madam C. J. Walker did.

  1. 01 Welcome Name the room, the date and the energy in one line.
  2. 02 Last year's results One scoreboard: where the team started and where it finished.
  3. 03 Recognition Top performers by name, with the number that earned it.
  4. 04 This year's target What gets scored this year and what wins, with the prize on the slide.
  5. 05 The playbook The motion every rep runs, step by step, in order.
  6. 06 Territories and growth Where the team sells now and where it is going, on a map.
  7. 07 Compensation and incentives What a rep actually earns, against the alternative, and the bonuses on top.
  8. 08 Enablement and training How every rep learns the product before selling it.
  9. 09 The mission beyond the number Why the work matters past quota, stated plainly.
  10. 10 The commitment A short pledge the room makes out loud.
  11. 11 Rally close One line to send everyone out the door, and the date you meet again.

Make yours in ChatGPT

Type your site. We'll write the prompt with Madam C. J. Walker's structure and your brand.

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