System prompt
The standing instructions a model runs on before any user speaks: its role, rules, tone and knowledge base. In the method's tools, the schema is the system prompt.
Every conversation with a model starts with instructions the user does not see. The system prompt sets the role the model plays, the rules it follows, the tone it writes in and the material it treats as its knowledge base, before the first question arrives. A tool built on a model is mostly its system prompt; the model underneath is shared with everyone else.
The Tri-Skills tool is a worked example. Its system prompt tells the model it is the Value Matters KAM Tri-Skills coach, loads Chapter 11 as its knowledge base and source of tone, names the twelve sub-skills and four rungs, and carries the honesty rule that no competence rung is recorded without evidence. The schema of a living account plan is the same idea at greater length: your methodology, written as standing instructions. If you have ever wondered why two people get such different results from the same model, the system prompt is usually the answer.
Set out in full in: Brooks, The Key Account Manager's Guide to Prompting (Value Matters, 2026); Creating Customer Value Propositions with AI (Kogan Page, 2027), chapter 11.
Related terms
Prompt
The instruction you give an AI model. The single biggest factor in the quality of what comes back. Also, in the book, a structured question you ask yourself.
The schema
The set of rules that turns a generic chatbot into a disciplined maintainer of your account plan. For a KAM, the schema is your sales methodology.
AI tells
The phrases, rhythms and structures that mark text as machine-written. A customer who spots one stops reading the argument and starts reading the author.
See the method run on one real account in three days: the One Page Proposition.