It’s the night before the meeting, and he’s on a call with me, clicking through his deck. He’s proud of it, and it does look good: the company story, a sharp logo, a catchy slogan, then page after page of charts that back up every claim. The two people he’s pitching in the morning have sat through that same deck more times than they can count.
They see pitches all the time, so they’ve learned to sort fast. A deck that opens like all the others goes in the pile with all the others, and that pile is a no. They won’t say so. They’ll say “send it over,” and he’ll never hear from them again. Nothing in his deck is wrong. But every slide is about his company. Not one is about what those two want, or what it costs them if they back him and he fails.
We have one night, so we start over, and we start with them. What do these two care about? What do they have to hear first, and what do they have to hear before they’ll put their names behind him? That goes at the front. His company comes next, told as what it is: something hard that few companies have ever pulled off. We explain every step in plain words, so two people from outside his field think, “I would never have thought to do that.”
We build the new deck to get him a second meeting. He doesn’t need one. Before the first meeting ends, both of them ask to buy. One of them tells him where they want it installed first.
He went in to ask for a second meeting. They offered him Boeing.
Nothing about him or his company changed that night. The deck did. The first one was about him. The second one was about them.
A sales page fails the same way. So does a video, an ad, an estimate, a cold email. It looks like all the others and it talks about the seller, so the buyer files it with the others. So why does everyone keep making that kind?
They buy because not buying started to cost them something. Everything else is bullshit you tell yourself on the drive home.
Your investors agreed with every slide. Nobody wired money.
Agreeing costs them nothing. Wiring money does, and the deck never gave them a reason to do it this month.
People said your video looked great. Not one of them called.
Whoever made it wanted it to look great, and it does. Nobody built it to make your phone ring.
The reason on your website is the reason you’d like them to buy. It’s rarely the reason they do.
Their reason is in your reviews, your lost deals and what your best customer tells people about you.
Whatever your buyer’s reason is, we hunt it down. Then everything you put in front of them says it.
The one who signs, not the one who agrees. We read them before they hear from you.
What they already want, what they’re afraid of, the line they’ll use when someone asks why. We find it. You say it first.
The same person says no in March and yes in June. We find out what’s going on for them this week, and say what they’re ready to hear now.
First we find all three.Who signs, what their reason is, and what’s going on for them right now. We know before we write anything.
Then we build around them.The pitch, the page, the video, the ad or the message, each one written for that person and that reason.
Then we count.Every page, video, ad and message gets its own tally of replies, calls, bookings and sales. You see which ones made you money, and you spend your next dollar there.
Three situations we see every month. What stalled, and the line that fixes it.
A Series B deck. The committee asked for “more on retention.”
Found: the best number in the deck is on slide eleven. The committee stopped reading on slide six. The data is fine. The order buries it.
“Every customer who signed two years ago pays us more today than they did then.”
A roofer after a storm. Fifteen estimates a week, four signed. The ones who call back say price.
Found: four hundred reviews say “no surprises on the bill.” The estimate says “quality you can trust.” One of those sells roofs, and it isn’t on the estimate.
“You’ll know what it costs before we touch a shingle. In writing.”
A sales team. Pipeline up, close rate down, board meeting in two months.
Found: your buyers agree with everything and nobody asks them to decide. The reps can sell. Nobody taught them what to say after the demo.
“Which part of this would you have to defend to your CFO? Let’s do that part now.”
Yours may look like one of these, or like none of them. We find it the same way every time: we go through your material the way your buyer will.
The military teaches three things better than anyone: pick the right target, read the person in front of you, and account for every round afterward. We brought all three into sales and marketing. Accuracy, precision, timing, integrity. That’s where the name comes from.
The first is findings. People have tested what makes a buyer say yes for decades, and longer, and they wrote down what they found. None of it is secret. It’s in books, test results and old campaigns, open to anyone who’ll go find it, gather it and study it. Almost nobody does. We did.
The second comes from one man. Chase Hughes teaches behavior profiling to military, law enforcement and intelligence teams, and the only place to get it is from him. He trained me himself, hands-on, and I’m the only person he has ever recruited to use it in marketing and communications.
So the findings anyone could have and the skills only Chase can give ended up in one company.
I went through Navy SEAL training until a brain injury ended that path. I spent the years after watching what people do in the seconds before they commit: as an EMT, training military medics, and on sales floors with founders and Fortune 500 teams. For the last several years I’ve worked alongside Chase Hughes, and I run his studio in Virginia Beach.
A VP at a tech company has tried everything to stop drinking. He has a reason to quit. Nothing he’s tried has worked, because none of it spoke to that reason. In one hour we find it and show it to him in a way that makes the change his own. He goes home and pours out every bottle in the house. That was years ago. He hasn’t had a drink since.
I speak at their sales kickoff, then train their four sales teams for six months. An eight-figure company when we start. A unicorn when we finish.
A team leader at Apple has twelve people who work as twelve individuals and make numbers that are fine and aren’t the ones he wants. We straighten out how he thinks about the job first, then how the team works together. They go on to open a new territory in a new country.
Also: a stalled international energy agreement, moving again. A raise of $8.5 billion. A smoker of thirty-plus years who quits on stage so the room can watch a decision happen.
The deck, the page, the script, the recording of the call. I read it the way your buyer will. In thirty minutes you’ll know where their decision stalls and the first line to change, and if the fix is one line you can make yourself, that’s what you’ll hear.
You should be skeptical. You’ve paid for impressive work before. That’s why this starts at $197 and not with a sales call: you find out what I see in your own material before either of us decides anything.
A deal starts with that read. A team or a talk starts with twenty minutes on the phone. Video starts with a few lines about your buyer.
Pay for the read, then choose the thirty minutes that suit you on the next screen. I go through what you sent before we talk, so the whole call is about your buyer. The fee comes off any work after.
Pay {{readPrice}} and pick a timeStripe takes the card. A confirmation goes to {{email}}.
Choose a time on the next screen and I’ll call you then. I’ll have read what you sent, so we start with your team and your number.
Pick a timeA confirmation goes to {{email}}.
I’ll read it myself and write back to {{email}} within a day with what I see and the first step. If the decision has a date, tell me when I write back.
Your email app should have opened with the message ready to go. Send it, and I’ll write back within a day. If it didn’t open, write to zach@salesteamsix.com.