Everything you need before, during and after the kickoff call. The whole ask on your time is one thirty-minute call, ten brief approvals, and a reply when we ask a question.
Whatever you have: a document, a page on your intranet, or a list of rules in an email. If you have nothing, say so and we will build one from your published pages.
Five published pages you would be happy to see more of. These teach the engine your voice better than any description of it.
The two whose content you most wish was yours. We crawl them and produce the gap report the briefs come from.
| Minutes | What we cover | What we need from you |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | Your audience | Who reads this, in your words. Their role, their situation, what they already know |
| 5 to 10 | The three queries you most want to own, and the two competitors | The actual phrases people search or ask, not the subject headings |
| 10 to 15 | Voice and style | What is off limits. Words you never use, claims that need review, house style rules |
| 15 to 20 | Approvals | Who approves briefs, and who has final sign-off. One named person for each |
| 20 to 25 | What success looks like in ninety days | Your answer, in your own words. We write it down and hold ourselves to it |
| 25 to 30 | Dates | Agreement on brief delivery, approval and article delivery dates |
| When | What happens | Whose move |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Kickoff call | Both |
| Days 2 to 5 | Competitor gap analysis, then ten briefs sent all at once | Us |
| Days 6 to 8 | You approve, amend or reject each brief | You |
| Days 9 to 26 | Research, drafting, scoring, professional proofread | Us |
| Days 12, 19, 28 | Three delivery batches, so you can react early rather than all at once | Us |
| Day 21 | A short conversation about what happens after the thirty days | Both |
| Day 30 | Final delivery, and publishing to your site if you want it | Us |
The one thing that delays a pilot. Brief approvals. Everything after them is ours, and nothing before them can start. If approvals take more than five working days the whole schedule moves by the same amount, which is in the agreement so that nobody is surprised by it.
Each brief tells you the reader, the query it answers (suggested by Austen where you did not give us one), the argument it makes, the structure and the word budget. Three things are worth your attention and the rest is detail:
Reply with "approved", "approved with changes" and the changes, or "rejected, replace with" and what you would rather have. Three working days is the target.
| The tracked changes | Our editor's proofread of the original draft, with any comments they left, in Austen's track-changes review. You can see exactly what changed. Accept or decline each change. |
| The two scores | One for search, one for AI answer engines. Every draft is revised against both before you see it, and the target is 90, but most articles finish below it, particularly for AI answer engines. You see the scores as they stand. Treat them as a guide, not a promise about rankings. |
| The source links | Researched examples and figures link to their sources in the text. Useful if a claim needs your reviewer's sign-off. |
| The acceptance criteria | Six checks in Schedule A of the agreement. If one is not met, tell us within seven days and we revise at no charge until it is. |
| "Can we change a brief after approving it?" | Yes, and it is welcome. It becomes a new brief rather than a revision, which just means it replaces one of the ten rather than being added to them. |
| "Who writes them?" | Austen drafts against your approved brief and your brand voice. A professional editor at Proofed proofreads the draft and returns tracked changes. You see every change, not only the result. |
| "Do we have to say it was AI-assisted?" | Your call. We will supply a disclosure line if you want one, and we will not object either way. If a platform or client contract requires it, that takes precedence. |
| "Can you improve pages we already have?" | Yes. Austen reads the existing page and we write a refreshed or rewritten version from a brief you approve, exactly like a new one. It takes one of the ten. |
| "Can you publish to our site?" | Yes: WordPress directly, or anything else through a signed webhook. Or take the files and publish them yourself. |
| "What if we are not happy?" | Tell us during the pilot rather than at the end of it. Brief approval and tracked-changes editing exist precisely so nothing arrives as a surprise. |
| "Who owns it?" | You do, on payment: articles, briefs and images, outright, with no attribution requirement. |
| Day to day | [name, email] |
| Anything urgent | [phone] |
| Billing and purchase orders | [email] |
| Your live status page | [pilot status URL, or "a weekly status email" until the status page is live], showing all ten slots and where each has got to |