The ten golden rules · 00 Sales pack guide

Sell Holly with the trust ladder. "Holly does the work. You keep the judgement." Recommend starting at Suggest for most teams and at Observe for regulated firms (law, financial services, accountancy, and any firm that asks), the defaults Alex confirmed (D8). Moving up is the customer's choice, per person, reversible, and we record their choice rather than refuse it. Say "you decide what Holly can do on its own" and "we recommend a person approves every LinkedIn post". Never tell a customer they can switch Auto-publish on until Dom confirms it is live. Never say "nothing ever publishes without approval", never position Holly as replacing people, a marketing team or a job, and never claim its output is undetectable.
Follow the engagement data rule. Say "See who's engaging with your posts, and reply from one place" and "Know who to talk to first". Warmth scores are never described in writing as leads, prospects or candidates, and never demoed as a list of named people; reports, share links and the digest are AMBER until D1 (see Discovery and demo for what a demo may show). Never say "every like becomes a named lead", "by the next morning" or "the name, role and company behind every like". Never offer to export or push engagers to any CRM, or to track who engages with other people's or competitors' posts. Never say "Official APIs only" or "Maktura never scrapes". Never suggest engagement data for recruiting candidates. Asked where the data comes from, use the approved answer in Proof and guardrails word for word.
Never give a date. No launch, go-live, delivery or roadmap date, for anything. For video: "not available today, and planned".
Never name a customer, prospect, partner, beta user or affiliate, or any client of the founders' other businesses. No competitor names in anything written for customers; never repeat what someone said about a competitor. Never discuss ownership, equity, pay, costs, margins, valuation, revenue targets, funding or exit plans.
The price is the price. Every number comes from Commercial answers. "The product is the product. It costs what it costs." No discounts, no codes. Say "the rate you come in at is the rate you keep for as long as you stay subscribed", never "locked" or "for life", and "the software is all in", never "no add-ons". "Founding rates close on 31 December, or when the band fills." Quote seats remaining only from live billing data. Any trial, extended trial, unpaid pilot or proof of concept is for Alex or John only. Until checkout is confirmed, say "When you're ready, we'll set you up and take payment at sign-up", never "you can buy it on the site".
Label every illustration and source every number. "Worked illustration, and I'm labelling it as exactly that, because I'm not going to pretend this is a forecast." Every statistic carries its source; vendor data is called vendor data.
Claim only what is GREEN. AMBER only with its caveat; RED never. Be honest about the launch: "You're getting a better rate because you're using it early and helping shape it. There will be rough edges, and you have a direct line to the team."
One recommendation, not a menu, and always a next step. End every call with "Does it make sense to...?" then "What's a good next step then?"
Sound like Maktura. Sincere, plain British English, short sentences; never the satirical style used in social content. Banned words: agentic, AI powered in any form, voice cloning, leverage as a verb, synergy, thought leadership, robust, seamless, holistic, transformative, paradigm. No fear-of-missing-out lines, and no em dashes or en dashes. Approve and Dismiss are the only decision verbs in product copy you quote to customers; in a demo, describe what the screen shows. Drafts are "Holly, in {name}'s voice".
When unsure, do not improvise. "I'll get you a written answer rather than guess." Only Karl Foster gives written assurances on legal, data or security matters.