The things people ask before they send anything.

Because agreeing and deciding happen in two different parts of a person, and your material only spoke to the first. Agreeing costs nothing. Deciding costs money, time, and the morning somebody asks them why they signed. The part of them that has to answer never read your deck. Until something new gets to the part of them that decides, the silence is the decision.

Impressing is what everyone learned to do, and it works on the part of the buyer that reads. A buyer who’s impressed has learned what you have. A buyer who decides has learned what happens to them. Those are different sentences, and most decks only contain the first kind.

Rarely, and you can check: did they argue with the price, or did they go quiet after agreeing with it? Arguing is a live decision. Quiet after agreeing means they were never weighing the price. Something earlier in the sequence stalled, and the price is where they parked it.

A follow-up is more information for a person who already believes you and still hasn’t moved. It does no harm and it rarely does anything else. The deal moves when something new gets to the part that decides, which a third “checking in” doesn’t do. The read tells you what would.

In person you read the buyer and adjust, usually without noticing. The deck can’t. It runs the same order for everybody, and that order is the one you’d like to talk in, not the one a buyer decides in. Rebuilding it in the order a buyer decides in is most of the work.

A raise is a sale where the buyer defends the decision to a committee with your numbers. So the numbers and the story have to say the same thing in the same order, or the committee sides with the spreadsheet. Same work, with the spreadsheet open on the table.

A great call means the buyer enjoyed agreeing with you. Agreeing asks nothing of them. Deciding asks for money, time and an answer on the day someone asks why they signed, and nothing on the call gave them that answer. So they go back to work, and your follow-ups go unanswered. The call went well. It spoke to the wrong part of them.

Most of the time they’ve finished thinking. They agree it’s a good idea, and something they haven’t told you makes saying yes feel like a risk: a boss who’ll question it, a budget they’d have to defend, a purchase that went badly last year. They won’t say that out loud, so they ask for time. More information doesn’t help, because information isn’t what they’re missing.

Not with the same proposal and “checking in” on top. A buyer who went quiet after reading it already has every fact in it. Send what the proposal left out: the reason this buyer has for saying yes, and the sentence they can give the person who asks them why. If you don’t know what those are, the follow-up isn’t your problem. The read finds both.

Loving the company costs an investor nothing, and it keeps the door open in case you take off. Committing means defending you to partners who weren’t in the meeting. If your deck doesn’t give them the one line that wins that argument, the partner who liked you stays quiet on Monday, and you hear “keep us posted.” The deck worked on the person across the table and gave them nothing to repeat.

Forwarding means the person who read it liked it enough to protect themselves with it. It doesn’t mean the person who signs has seen it, and when they do, they see a document written for somebody else. A proposal that closes speaks to the signer first and still works after someone forwards it.

Decision Design is the deal work I run with Chase Hughes. You have one pitch, one proposal or one meeting that decides a raise, a contract or a sale. We find where your buyer’s decision stalls and rebuild what you show them so they decide. It starts with the read: thirty minutes on your own material, $197, credited toward any work after.

You send what your buyer will see: the deck, the proposal, the page, the thread, or the recording of the call that went quiet. I read it the way your buyer did and find the point where their decision stalled. Then we spend thirty minutes on a call: where it stalls, why it stalls there, and the first thing I’d change. It’s $197, and the fee comes off any work that follows.

Because it’s how I decide whether to take the work on, and how you decide whether to hire me. A paid half hour gets the actual deck sent and the actual question asked. An unpaid one gets a description and a chat. Since the fee comes off the work, nobody who goes on is out anything.

The line where your buyer stopped deciding and started agreeing, why they stopped there, and the one sentence your buyer needs when they explain this to the people who weren’t in the meeting. That stays with you. Some people fix it themselves from there.

Whatever the buyer saw, in the form they saw it. A deck as the file, a page as the link, a call as the recording. Not a summary. The stall is in the material itself, usually in a line you stopped seeing months ago, and a description of the material doesn’t show it.

I read inside three business days of getting it, and you book the call when you pay. If you have a date on the decision, say so when you send it.

Yes. If the fix is one line and you can make it yourself, that’s what you’ll hear. The willingness to say no on the call is what makes a yes worth anything, to you and to me.

It depends on what the read finds: one pitch, a whole sales process, or two days with Chase Hughes in the room for the largest decisions. Each has a set price on our schedule, and you get the schedule on the call, with the read’s fee already taken off. I quote nothing before I’ve seen the material, because I’d be guessing.

No. You pay for it, so I owe you an answer, and you get one: where your buyer’s decision stalls, why it stalls there, and the first thing to change. If you can fix it yourself, I tell you that. If the work is worth doing together, I tell you what it costs. You decide after you’ve seen what I found in your own material.

Yes. Send the recording of a call that went well and then went quiet. I listen for the minute the buyer stopped deciding and started agreeing, and for what the rep said right before it. That minute is usually the whole problem, and most teams have never listened for it.

A training people love has done its job on the part of them that agrees. By Monday they’re back on calls, and under pressure a person does what they’ve always done, however much they liked Friday. Training holds when the team works it on live deals, with the manager listening, until the new thing is the easy thing.

No. Your process stays. What changes is what your people see in the buyer in front of them and what they say next. Your script works when the rep can read the buyer across from them. Without that, it’s the script you have now.

One Day: the team learns to spot the second a buyer stops deciding, and uses it on live calls that afternoon. Six Weeks: one live session a week, and between sessions the team uses it with real prospects and brings back what happened. Ninety-Three Days: three days on site working live deals, then ninety days of follow-up, because the managers are the ones who make it hold. Twenty minutes on the phone tells us which one.

Yes. Tech startups and Fortune 500 floors are where Sales Team Six started, and the same moment shows up in insurance, home services, clinics, and coaching. The buyer’s brain doesn’t know what industry it’s in.

Twenty minutes on the phone: what you’re hoping to get out of it, and what it’s for. Who has to say yes, by when, how many people, and what the last training changed. You leave with one format and its price, or a date for the proposal.

Often the turnover starts in the job post and the first interview, which decide who shows up on day thirty. That’s the same read applied to hiring, and it can be part of the work. Say it on the call and we’ll look at both.

A person under pressure does what they’ve always done. Your reps learn the new way on a calm Friday and meet a buyer who pushes back on Monday, and the old habit answers first. Training holds when the team practices on their own live deals, with the manager listening, until the new way is the one that answers first.

The founder reads the buyer and changes what they say, usually without noticing they do it. The team has the founder’s words and none of the reading, so they say the right thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. Nobody can copy a skill the founder can’t describe. We turn it into something you can teach, and we work it on live deals until the team does it too.

Your reps get buyers to agree, and they count that as a deal. A buyer who agrees with the demo hasn’t decided anything, so the deal sits in the pipeline looking healthy and never closes. The fix is what your reps say after the demo, when they ask the buyer to decide and help them do it.

Listen to two reps use the same script on two calls. If one closes and one doesn’t, the script isn’t what’s different. The rep who closes hears the second a buyer stops deciding and says something about it. The other rep keeps going down the page.

People arrive, read, agree and leave. Your page tells them what you do and why you’re good at it, and they believe you. Believing you doesn’t make anyone pick up the phone. A page that brings in leads opens on what your buyer already wants, answers the worry that stops them, and gives them one next step.

The order is usually wrong before any of the words are. Most pages go in the order the seller likes to talk: about us, what we do, the proof, the price. A buyer makes up their mind in a different order: is this about me, will it work for someone like me, what could go wrong, what do I do next. When the page answers those four in that order, the same traffic converts.

What your buyer already wants, in the words they’d use. Not your company name, not what you do, not how long you’ve done it. Your best customers have already told you the line, in reviews and on calls. A roofer whose reviews all say “no surprises on the bill” shouldn’t open with “quality you can trust.”

Someone who downloads a guide is curious. Someone who books a call is ready. Most funnels send both of them the same emails, so the curious one feels pushed, the ready one feels lectured, and both stop opening. We work out what your buyer needs to hear at each step, write that, and cut the rest.

Both, if you want both. Every rebuild comes with the copy: the headline, the order, the proof where your buyer asks for it, and the one next step. If you want the page built as well, we build it. We built this site.

No. We run outreach on Precision, our own system. It finds the people worth writing to and helps us read each one, and a person writes and sends every message. Nobody gets a template with their first name pasted in.

Ask one question: which ad brought in which customer, and what did that customer pay you? If nobody can answer, you’re measuring whether people like your ads, in impressions, views and clicks. We run versions against each other and count sales, so you see which ad made you money and how much.

Somebody made them to get likes. An ad made to be liked looks good and never asks the viewer to do anything, so nobody can say it failed. An ad made to sell speaks to one kind of buyer about what they already want and tells them what to do next. That ad can lose, with a number on it, and that’s the only way one can win.

The ad work is for brands already spending $10,000 or more a month. Below that, start with the page or the videos, and put the ad money behind them once they’re selling.

An agency makes a video to look good and win compliments, and it does. We make ours to get one kind of person to take one next step, and we measure it by whether they did. Same cameras. Different job. The first step is the same read we do on a deal: who the buyer is and the reason they already have to say yes, before anyone touches a camera.

No. You walk in with every word already written and a coach behind the camera, and you talk about what you know. Our studio is in Virginia Beach, and the crew that makes Intelligence Brief every week makes yours. The options and what each one is for are on the Video page.

Most businesses make video to look good, and it does. It doesn’t speak to one kind of buyer and it doesn’t ask them to do anything, so people watch, like it and scroll on. We build every video for one kind of person and one next step: a call, a booking or a purchase. Then we count which videos brought in customers.

One day in the studio fills a month. You walk in with every word written and a coach behind the camera, and you talk about what you know. For a podcast you come in twice a month.

In Virginia Beach, Virginia. It’s Chase Hughes’ studio, where we make Intelligence Brief and Fourth Wall, and the same crew makes your videos.

Yes, when the right people listen. A listener spends an hour a week with you, so by the time one calls, they feel like they already know you. We build the show around who you want listening and what you want them to think of you, and we cut short clips from every episode to bring new people to it.

One idea the audience uses on its next call: a buyer who agrees with you hasn’t decided anything, and what makes one decide. Then a demonstration on stage they’ll be retelling at dinner. Forty-five minutes to an hour, wherever the audience is. It starts with a twenty-minute call, because which demonstration fits depends on who’s in the room.

I speak mostly to people who have to get a yes from someone: sales teams, founders, advisors, leadership groups. The idea is the same for all of them. The examples change.

One decision, one person. You send the situation in writing first, so the hour goes to the problem and not the backstory. It’s for the person at the top whose own people can’t help them decide because they work for them. An hour, or two.

Writing it down does half the work before we meet, and so we don’t spend the hour on context. You’ll find the question gets sharper as you write it. Sometimes the answer arrives in the writing, and you can keep your money.

A veteran-owned company. 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, and that’s where the name comes from. It started as sales training for founders and for sales floors inside large companies. Today we build pitches, pages, videos and ads the same way: the right person, the right reason, the right moment, and a count of what each one sold.

They’re missing one of two things, and usually both. The first is the findings. People have tested what makes a buyer say yes for decades, and longer, and they wrote down what they found. Anyone can go find it, gather it and study it, and almost nobody does. We did. The second is Chase Hughes’s behavior profiling, and the only place to get that is from Chase. He trained me himself, and I’m the only person he has ever recruited to use it in marketing and communications. Nobody else has both.

Chase built the system and trained me in it himself. I’m the only person he has ever recruited to use it in marketing and communications, and I run his studio. His courses teach the system. What we do here is apply it to your deal, your team, your talk or your videos. When the decision is big enough, Chase is at the table too.

The system we run our own outreach on, and the reason you’ll never get a message from us that wasn’t written for you. We read every person before we write them a word, we write every message for that one person and a human sends it, every follow-up has a date, and every claim about what’s working has a number behind it. It’s how we do the job we’re asking you to hire us for.

Yes, for the read, private counsel, and the training formats that suit it. The talk goes wherever the audience is. We make the videos at the studio in Virginia Beach.

Few, because I build every engagement for the person in front of me and there’s no fast way to do that. A few reads a week. If the calendar is full, you’ll hear that before you pay.

Send the deal that went quiet. If it’s a team, a stage or videos you have in mind, say so in the form and you’ll hear back with a time. Either way, I’ll have read what you sent before we talk.

I run Sales Team Six. I went through Navy SEAL training until a brain injury ended that path, and 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.

Chase Hughes teaches behavior profiling to military, law enforcement and intelligence teams. He trained me himself, and I run his studio in Virginia Beach. On Decision Design, the deal work, he’s my partner, and for the largest decisions he’s at the table.

Not the usual kind. An agency starts with what you want to say and makes it look good. We start with your buyer: who signs, what they want, what worries them, and what they’re ready to hear this week. Then we build the pitch, the page, the video or the ad around that, and we count what it sold.

A buyer shows you what they want and what worries them long before they say it: in what they ask, what they skip, what they post, and what they complain about in reviews. Behavior profiling is the skill of reading that. Most marketing guesses at the buyer. We read the buyer first, and we write second.

Founders raising money or chasing one big contract. Sales teams with a number to make. Owners and practices whose customers are each worth real money: med spas, dentists, lawyers, builders, advisers, coaches. Brands spending $10,000 or more a month on ads. Every one of them has a buyer who has to say yes, and a price to pay when that buyer doesn’t.

The read is $197, and the fee comes off any work after. Every engagement after that has a set price on our schedule, and you get the schedule on the call, once I’ve seen what you’re working with. I quote nothing before then, because I’d be guessing.