For consultants finishing the deck
Action Title Generator for Consulting Slides
Paste your slide titles or drop your deck. Get each title rewritten as a two-line conclusion, why it fell short, and the evidence it needs.
Free to start. No card needed.
| Slide | Your title | Action title |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Customer survey results | Two in three customers want next-day delivery |
| 4 | Cost to serve | Freight is 41% of cost to serve, and rising |
| 7 | Warehouse options | One national warehouse saves the most: $2.4M a year |
| 11 | Next steps | Approve the pilot by 15 March, before peak season |
Slide 4 needs freight cost by year since 2023, with its source.
What you'll get
Topic titles rewritten as conclusions, with the evidence each slide needs
- Every slide title rewritten as a full-sentence conclusion of two lines or fewer
- Why each original fell short, and the evidence its slide needs to prove the new title
- A read-across check that the new titles alone tell the story in order
Before and after
Action title examples
Eight before-and-after action title examples from typical consulting decks. The clients and numbers are invented for teaching; the pattern is what to copy.
| Before: a topic | After: an action title | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Customer survey results | Two in three customers would switch to a rival offering next-day delivery | States the finding, with the number |
| Cost to serve analysis | Freight is 41% of cost to serve and has risen fastest since 2023 | Says what the analysis found, not that it happened |
| Q3 sales performance | Q3 sales missed plan by 8%, all of it in the two new regions | Adds the number and where the problem sits |
| Interview findings | Store managers don't trust the forecast: 9 of 12 override it every week | Names the theme and how many people raised it |
| Pricing was reviewed by the team and a number of issues were identified across the regions | Discounts above 15% need no approval, and they cost 3 points of margin | Passive and vague at 16 words; now active, specific and shorter |
| Warehouse options | Of three options, one national warehouse saves the most: $2.4M a year | Says which option wins, and by how much |
| Competitive landscape | Two online-only rivals took 6 points of share in two years | Turns a label into the threat the client faces |
| Next steps | Approve the pilot by 15 March so it runs before the summer peak | Turns a label into the decision the client must take |
All eight are illustrations written for this page. River writes yours from the numbers on your own slides.
Before and after
Your topic titles in. Conclusions out.
Titles from a 12-slide distribution review: Executive summary · Customer survey results · Cost to serve · Warehouse options · Risks · Next steps.
Slide 2 · Customer survey results. Now: Two in three customers would switch for next-day delivery. Why: a topic, not a finding. Slide needs: the survey's base size and the question as asked. Slide 4 · Cost to serve. Now: Freight is 41% of cost to serve and has risen fastest since 2023. Why: no number and no direction. Slide needs: freight cost by year, with its source. Read across: titles 2 to 7 build the case for one national warehouse. Slide 9 still says "Risks" and needs [the biggest risk] from your notes.
Every new title uses only what the slide shows, and names what is missing.
Why it works
What are action titles, and how do you write them?
Action titles are slide titles that state the slide's conclusion as a full sentence, instead of naming its topic. "Q3 sales" is a topic; "Q3 sales missed plan by 8%, all of it in the two new regions" (example) is an action title. River's action title generator rewrites each title you paste, or every title in a deck you drop, as a conclusion of two lines or fewer. For each one, it says why the original fell short and what evidence the slide needs to prove the new title.
The idea has research behind it. Engineering-communication researchers at Penn State call it a sentence headline. In a 2013 study, an audience shown sentence headlines backed by visual evidence understood and remembered the content better than one shown topic phrases with bullet lists. Consulting decks apply the same idea to every slide. The Slideworks action title guide adds a preference for the active voice: "Steering Group determines project structure and timeline" instead of a passive version.
Use it when the analysis is done but the deck still reads like a table of contents. Paste the titles in order, or drop the PowerPoint or PDF. River checks that the new titles alone tell the story in order, and marks any slide that can't yet prove its title. If the argument itself needs work, start with the storyline builder or the pyramid principle template. For a full partner's read, including sources and hard client questions, use the consulting deck review.
What lands in your doc
What's in your action titles
- Every title rewritten as a full-sentence conclusion that fits in two lines on the slide
- Why each original fell short: a topic instead of a finding, no number, or too long
- The evidence each slide needs to prove its new title, such as a chart, source or sample
- A [bracketed placeholder] wherever your slide doesn't yet hold the number the title needs
- A read-across check: the new titles alone, in order, and where the story jumps or stalls
- Titles that already work kept word for word, so you only change the ones that need it
How it works
From topic titles to action titles
Paste or drop
Paste your slide titles or findings in order, or drop the deck as PowerPoint or PDF.
River reads each slide
It reads every title with the slide beneath it, noting the numbers and sources already there.
Get your titles
A table lands in your doc: old title, new title, why it changed, and the evidence needed.
Check the story
Read the new titles alone in order, then ask River to reorder them or fill the gaps.
How to write action titles by hand
Start from the evidence, not the old title. Look at the chart or table on the slide and ask what one thing it shows. Write that as a sentence with a subject and a verb, and put the number in it: "Freight rose 22% while volumes fell" (example). A useful test is whether someone could disagree. Nobody can argue with "Cost overview", so it tells the reader nothing. If the slide shows nothing you can state as a finding, the slide needs work before the title does.
Then cut it to fit. Two lines at your deck's title size is the limit, which usually means 15 words or fewer. Drop openers such as "Overview of", "Analysis of" and "Update on". Use the active voice and the client's own names for things. Keep one message per title: if you need "and" to join two separate findings, you probably have two slides. Put the finding first and the explanation second, so a reader who skims gets the point from the first few words.
Last, read the titles across. Copy every title into one list and read it top to bottom, the way an executive flicks through a pre-read on the way to the meeting. The answer should be clear within the first few titles, and each title after it should support it or follow from the one before. Look for jumps where a step is missing, often cost, risk or timing, and for two titles that make the same point. Then check that every number in a title matches the chart beneath it.
Questions consultants ask
Common questions
What are action titles?
Action titles are slide titles written as the slide's main conclusion, in a full sentence, rather than a label for its subject. They let a busy reader get the argument from the titles alone. "Customer survey results" is a label. "Two in three customers would switch for next-day delivery" (example) is an action title, and the survey chart beneath it has to prove it.
What makes a good action title?
It states one conclusion, fits in two lines and carries a number when the slide has one. It uses the active voice and plain words, and the slide beneath it proves it. Read in order with the other titles, it moves the story forward. If a colleague couldn't possibly disagree with it, it is still a topic.
What are McKinsey-style slides?
McKinsey-style slides is the common name for the consulting format where each slide makes one point. An action title states the conclusion, and a chart or table below it proves the point, with a source line. Slideworks, founded by a former McKinsey consultant, teaches the format in its action title guide. River applies the title half to your own deck.
How long should an action title be?
Two lines at most on the slide, which is about 15 words at most title sizes. Longer titles usually carry two messages or a pile of qualifiers, so River marks them too long and trims or splits them. Very short titles, under five words, are usually topics rather than findings, so they get rewritten too.
Will it change the numbers on my slides?
No. River only uses numbers already on the slide or in the text you pasted, copied exactly. When a title needs a figure the slide doesn't have, it writes a placeholder such as [growth rate] and adds it to a list to confirm. Your deck file stays as it is; the new titles land in a separate doc.
How is this different from a deck review?
This page does one job: it rewrites your titles and checks that they tell the story. The consulting deck review reads the whole deck the way a partner would, including unsourced numbers, figures that disagree and the hardest client questions. If weak titles are the main problem, fix them here first, then run the full review before the meeting.
Is my deck private?
Yes. Slides you drop or paste are kept in your own River space and aren't shared unless you share them. River's privacy policy commits that uploads are never used to train AI models, and River's AI providers have agreed with River not to train on them either. Some client contracts limit where draft material can go, so check yours.
Your next step
More for your project
Let the titles carry the argument
Paste your slide titles or drop the deck. Every new title comes with the evidence its slide has to show.