They asked for it to "sound more like us." You have a draft and they have a feeling. Your assistant wrote a paragraph about brand pillars. Pillars are not lines. Lines are what ships.
Voice approval is freelance client work with a sharper failure: a yes on a vibe that nobody can find in the copy.
Sample, alternative, closed ask
Choose a response shape. Accept these lines as the voice for this work, mark specific words to change, or reject the direction and we book a call. Put a short sample in the briefing — a headline, a lead, a button — not the whole site.
Then the one alternative you ruled out, in a line or two, so they can see the fork. "Warmer and longer" is not an alternative. A second headline is.
Do not attach the style deck. RelayLink does not carry attachments. Describe the rule you are following — we address the reader as you, we do not use the metaphor they banned — so they can contradict a rule, not a mood.
One piece of work. A second campaign is a second briefing.
The note is the part they will quote
They will remember the sentence you put in the note more than the sample. If that sentence is only your assistant's, say so to yourself before you send, and edit it until you will stand behind it. On RelayLink, the verbatim mark is earned when your wording differs from the draft. Approving an unchanged draft is approval, not authorship. For voice work, that distinction is the product.
Mark the premises. You assumed they still want the joke. You assumed the banned metaphor is still banned. You assumed the audience is the one in last quarter's brief. A labelled line gets a correction. "It doesn't pop" is not a correction.
A nickname you use for the brand in your contact list does not belong in the package if it is only your word.
You approve it; they reply from mail
You review the exact package. They do not need an account. They can reply from the email. If they already have an activated account, a new thread needs an accepted pair. If two people own the voice, one briefing still goes to one mailbox. Say who else must see the lines.
A sufficient reply is accept, the marked words, or reject. "Let's find the vibe" is a reject plus a meeting. Write it down as one.
After they choose
Write back the locked lines, or the marked words, and ask them to correct that block. Then write the rest of the job in that voice. Do not reopen the direction in a later "while I was polishing" send. That is how a voice yes becomes an open brief.
They can still hate a later page. This email is the rule you are both allowed to use when they do.