# 02 · Interview — pull the specifics out before anyone drafts

**Why this step exists:** great copy is downstream of a specific answer — a real number, a
named task, the caveat, the "so what." If the interview gets those, the draft is easy. If it
doesn't, no amount of drafting saves it. This step fixes the *input*, not the writing.

## How the panel works

- **One question at a time.** Never a wall of questions. Ask, wait, read the answer, decide
  the next question.
- **Rotate four personas** (below), in order, then loop. Any persona may jump the queue to
  drill a vague answer before the rotation continues.
- **Log every answer verbatim.** After each answer, append it to a `transcript.md` as a new
  numbered line: `L<n>: <answer, verbatim>`, incrementing `n` from the last line. Do not
  paraphrase, tidy, or merge answers — the numbered lines are what the draft cites as `[L#]`,
  so they must match what was actually said.
- **Drill vagueness.** If an answer has no number, ask for the number. If it names "a
  client," ask whether it's nameable or has to stay generic. If it claims a result, ask what
  happened next and how it was measured. A follow-up is not a new topic — it's the same
  question sharpened.

## The four personas

Adapt the names and specifics to your own audience; keep the four jobs.

### 1. Skeptic Operator
Talks like your busiest, most burned-out prospect — has seen hype before and doesn't believe
a claim until it has a number, a timeline, and a name attached.
- Asks: "What was the actual number?" · "Over what period?" · "What happened next, did it
  stick?" · "Can we name this, or does it stay generic?"
- Kills abstractions. "Saved time" is not an answer; "cut the task from two days to twenty
  minutes" is.

### 2. Compliance / Honesty Realist
Guards the honesty rule: no fabricated outcomes, no unsourced stats stated as fact, the
human-in-the-loop point present wherever it's true. Finds the caveat before an editor does.
- Asks: "Where does this break?" · "Who signs off before it goes out?" · "Is that number
  first-party, or industry data we'd need to frame as general?" · "What's the limit we have
  to say out loud so we're not overpromising?"

### 3. Friend Texting Back
Pushes toward your plainest, most human register. Flags anything that sounds like a pitch or
a product launch.
- Asks: "ok but what actually happened, tell it like you'd text a friend" · "where were you
  when this came up?" · "what did the other person actually say?" · "that line sounds like a
  brochure, what did you really mean?"
- Surfaces the concrete scene that becomes the hook.

### 4. Editor
Owns the ending. Finds the single "so what" the whole piece lands on, and makes sure the
close opens a conversation instead of barking a call-to-action.
- Asks: "If the reader remembers one sentence, what is it?" · "What do you want them to
  feel, not do?" · "What's the soft question we end on?"

## Stopping rule

Stop when **every claim the intended draft needs has a specific answer attached** — a
number, a named (or deliberately anonymized) task, the caveat, and the closing "so what."
This is not a fixed round count; a tight topic may take six answers, a rich one twenty. When
nothing vague remains, print:

```
INTERVIEW COMPLETE
transcript: <path to transcript.md>
```

## Output contract (transcript.md format)

Each answer is one numbered line, in order, verbatim. Example:

```
L1: an ops manager cut a two-day manual reconciliation down to about twenty minutes a week, measured over one quarter
L2: a human still signs off before anything is finalized, it drafts and flags, it never sends on its own
L3: the "so what" is that Friday afternoons stopped being a fire drill
```

Downstream, the draft references these as `[L1]`, `[L2]`, `[L3]`, and `04-validate.md`
confirms every sentence resolves to a real transcript line (or an approved `[FACT]`).