Signal
Turn a raw moment into a clear content brief.
raw moment is not a post. A SIGNAL brief is a post you haven't written yet.
The SIGNAL brief
SIGNAL forces the six decisions every good post needs before you write it: Sales moment (what happened), Insight (what it teaches), Give value (what the reader can do), Next move (what they should think or do), Audience (which buyer), Layout (the architecture). Fill the brief in two minutes; write the post in ten.
Insight, not opinion
The Insight line is where most posts collapse into 'here's what I think.' A better test: could a reader learn this from your Insight even if they skipped the rest of the post? If yes, you have a signal. If not, keep pulling on the moment.
Audience of one
Write the Audience field as one specific person, not a segment. 'Head of Sales at a 60-person SaaS company who just missed Q3' beats 'sales leaders.' Every downstream choice — the hook, the example, the CTA — gets sharper the moment the audience gets specific.
- SIGNAL brief filled before any drafting starts
- Insight passes the standalone test
- Audience field names a role and a situation, not a segment
- Skipping the brief and 'just writing'
- Insight that restates the moment instead of teaching from it
- Writing to 'sales leaders' or 'founders' as a group